Foreign News: The Pursuit of Wisdom

Pascal was indignant. In his 16 years as a waiter at the Café de Flore, in Paris' bohemian Latin Quarter, Pascal had heard more crackpot talk about art, letters and life than a hundred ordinary men hear in a lifetime. For Pascal, most of it went in one ear and out the other. But he remembered that last year there was a haze of glory around the Café de Flore, when Existentialism was in its first febrile flower. Jean-Paul Sartre, the wall-eyed little founder of Existentialism, and his disciples jabbered nightly at the Flore. Admiring sightseers came to watch them, and...

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