and had learned a good deal of life during his four years in a
minister's cabinet. Kindly, amiable, and over-modest, with a heart

full of pure and sound feelings, he was averse to putting himself in
the foreground. He loved his country, and wished to serve her, but

notoriety abashed him. To him the place of secretary to a Napoleon was
far more desirable than that of the minister himself. As soon as he

became the friend and secretary of Canalis he did a great amount of
labor for him, but by the end of eighteen months he had learned to

understand the barrenness of a nature that was poetic through literary
expression only. The truth of the old proverb, "The cowl doesn't make

the monk," is eminently shown in literature. It is extremely rare to
find among literary men a nature and a talent that are in perfect

accord. The faculties are not the man himself. This disconnection,
whose phenomena are amazing, proceeds from an unexplored, possibly an

unexplorable mystery. The brain and its products of all kinds (for in
art the hand of man is a continuation of his brain) are a world apart,

which flourishes beneath the cranium in absoluteindependence of
sentiments, feelings, and all that is called virtue, the virtue of

citizens, fathers, and private life. This, however true, is not
absolutely so; nothing is absolutely true of man. It is certain that a

debauched man will dissipate his talent, that a drunkard will waste it
in libations; while, on the other hand, no man can give himself talent

by wholesome living: nevertheless, it is all but proved that Virgil,
the painter of love, never loved a Dido, and that Rousseau, the model

citizen, had enough pride to had furnished forth an aristocracy. On
the other hand Raphael and Michael Angelo do present the glorious

conjunction of genius with the lines of character. Talent in men is
therefore, in all moral points, very much what beauty is in women,--

simply a promise. Let us, therefore, doubly admire the man in whom
both heart and character equal the perfection of his genius.

When Ernest discovered within his poet an ambitious egoist, the worst
species of egoist (for there are some amiable forms of the vice), he

felt a delicacy in leaving him. Honest natures cannot easily break the
ties that bind them, especially if they have tied them voluntarily.

The secretary was therefore still living in domestic relations with
the poet when Modeste's letter arrived,--in such relations, be it

said, as involved a perpetual sacrifice of his feelings. La Briere
admitted the frankness with which Canalis had laid himself bare before

him. Moreover, the defects of the man, who will always be considered a
great poet during his lifetime and flattered as Martmontel was

flattered, were only the wrong side of his brilliant qualities.
Without his vanity and his magniloquence it is possible that he might

never have acquired the sonorous elocution which is so useful and even
necessary an instrument in political life. His cold-bloodedness

touched at certain points on rectitude and loyalty; his ostentation
had a lining of generosity. Results, we must remember, are to the

profit of society; motives concern God.
But after the arrival of Modeste's letter Ernest deceived himself no

longer as to Canalis. The pair had just finished breakfast and were
talking together in the poet's study, which was on the ground-floor of

a house standing back in a court-yard, and looked into a garden.
"There!" exclaimed Canalis, "I was telling Madame de Chaulieu the

other day that I ought to bring out another poem; I knew admiration
was running short, for I have had no anonymous letters for a long

time."
"Is it from an unknown woman?"

"Unknown? yes!--a D'Este, in Havre; evidently a feigned name."
Canalis passed the letter to La Briere. The little poem, with all its

hidden enthusiasms, in short, poor Modeste's heart, was disdainfully
handed over, with the gesture of a spoiled dandy.

"It is a fine thing," said the lawyer, "to have the power to attract
such feelings; to force a poor woman to step out of the habits which

nature, education, and the world dictate to her, to break through
conventions. What privileges genius wins! A letter such as this,

written by a young girl--a genuine young girl--without hidden
meanings, with real enthusiasm--"

"Well, what?" said Canalis.
"Why, a man might suffer as much as Tasso and yet feel recompensed,"

cried La Briere.
"So he might, my dear fellow, by a first letter of that kind, and even

a second; but how about the thirtieth? And suppose you find out that
these young enthusiasts are little jades? Or imagine a poet rushing

along the brilliant path in search of her, and finding at the end of
it an old Englishwoman sitting on a mile-stone and offering you her

hand! Or suppose this post-office angel should really be a rather ugly
girl in quest of a husband? Ah, my boy! the effervescence then goes

down."
"I begin to perceive," said La Briere, smiling, "that there is

something poisonous in glory, as there is in certain dazzling
flowers."

"And then," resumed Canalis, "all these women, even when they are
simple-minded, have ideals, and you can't satisfy them. They never say

to themselves that a poet is a vain man, as I am accused of being;
they can't conceive what it is for an author to be at the mercy of a

feverish excitement, which makes him disagreeable and capricious; they
want him always grand, noble; it never occurs to them that genius is a

disease, or that Nathan lives with Florine; that D'Arthez is too fat,
and Joseph Bridau is too thin; that Beranger limps, and that their own

particular deity may have the snuffles! A Lucien de Rubempre, poet and
cupid, is a phoenix. And why should I go in search of compliments only

to pull the string of a shower-bath of horrid looks from some
disillusioned female?"

"Then the true poet," said La Briere, "ought to remain hidden, like
God, in the centre of his worlds, and be only seen in his own

creations."
"Glory would cost too dear in that case," answered Canalis. "There is

some good in life. As for that letter," he added, taking a cup of tea,
"I assure you that when a noble and beautiful woman loves a poet she

does not hide in the corner boxes, like a duchess in love with an
actor; she feels that her beauty, her fortune, her name are protection

enough, and she dares to say openly, like an epic poem: 'I am the
nymph Calypso, enamored of Telemachus.' Mystery and feigned names are

the resources of little minds. For my part I no longer answer masks--"
"I should love a woman who came to seek me," cried La Briere. "To all

you say I reply, my dear Canalis, that it cannot be an ordinary girl
who aspires to a distinguished man; such a girl has too little trust,

too much vanity; she is too faint-hearted. Only a star, a--"
"--princess!" cried Canalis, bursting into a shout of laughter; "only

a princess can descend to him. My dear fellow, that doesn't happen
once in a hundred years. Such a love is like that flower that blossoms

every century. Princesses, let me tell you, if they are young, rich,
and beautiful, have something else to think of; they are surrounded

like rare plants by a hedge of fools, well-bred idiots as hollow as
elder-bushes! My dream, alas! the crystal of my dream, garlanded from

hence to the Correze with roses--ah! I cannot speak of it--it is in
fragments at my feet, and has long been so. No, no, all anonymous

letters are begging letters; and what sort of begging? Write yourself
to that young woman, if you suppose her young and pretty, and you'll

find out. There is nothing like experience. As for me, I can't
reasonably be expected to love every woman; Apollo, at any rate he of

Belvedere, is a delicate consumptive who must take care of his
health."

"But when a woman writes to you in this way her excuse must certainly
be in her consciousness that she is able to eclipse in tenderness and

beauty every other woman," said Ernest, "and I should think you might
feel some curiosity--"

"Ah," said Canalis, "permit me, my juvenile friend, to abide by the
beautiful duchess who is all my joy."

"You are right, you are right!" cried Ernest. However, the young
secretary read and re-read Modeste's letter, striving to guess the

mind of its hidden writer.
"There is not the least fine-writing here," he said, "she does not

even talk of your genius; she speaks to your heart. In your place I
should feel tempted by this fragrance of modesty,--this proposed

agreement--"
"Then, sign it!" cried Canalis, laughing; "answer the letter and go to

the end of the adventure yourself. You shall tell me the results three
months hence--if the affair lasts so long."

Four days later Modeste received the following letter, written on
extremely fine paper, protected by two envelopes, and sealed with the

arms of Canalis.