An elegant or an academician can be, as we say in French, « tiré à quatre épingles » [« dressed to the nines »]. Germain Nouveau (1851-1920), who was published under the name of Humilis, wrote when he was young a pleasant poem in which he endowed Paul (Verlaine) with a « pin ivory » - smooth as his bald head -, (Ernest) Delahaye, Rimbaud's friend of a « gold-headed » pin and himself a "humble ebony hairpin", black as his hair and his conception of life.
CLIL theme: 4028 -- SCIENCES HUMAINES ET SOCIALES, LETTRES -- Lettres et Sciences du langage -- Lettres -- Etudes de littérature comparée