Paris would not be Paris without the Seine.
It is the City’s source and identity.
It divides the Rive Droit from the Rive Gauche.
It inspires the painter and the poet.
It gives the lost a bearing from which to be found.
In my family, there is no more reveared passage in literature than the final page of Norman Maclean’s “A River Runs Through It.” My father would often read it aloud to his children and to his grandchildren. My daughter can recite it from heart. Though written to describe the Big Blackfoot in Montana, the words seem as apt to describe the Seine.
“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.”
“I am haunted by waters.”
"Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost" 