your charity, what next? what do you expect? I have neither the
genius nor the splendid position of Lord Byron; above all, I have

not the halo of his fictitious damnation and his false social
woes. But what could you have hoped from him in like

circumstances? His friendship? Well, he who ought to have felt
only pride was eaten up by vanity of every kind,--sickly,

irritable vanity which discouraged friendship. I, a thousand-fold
more insignificant than he, may I not have discordances of

character, and make friendship a burden heavy indeed to bear? In
exchange for your reveries, what will you gain? The

dissatisfaction of a life which will not be wholly yours. The
compact is madness. Let me tell you why. In the first place, your

projected poem is a plagiarism. A young German girl, who was not,
like you, semi-German, but altogether so, adored Goethe with the

rash intoxication of girlhood. She made him her friend, her
religion, her god, knowing at the same time that he was married.

Madame Goethe, a worthy German woman, lent herself to this worship
with a sly good-nature which did not cure Bettina. But what was

the end of it all? The young ecstatic married a man who was
younger and handsomer than Goethe. Now, between ourselves, let us

admit that a young girl who should make herself the handmaid of a
man of genius, his equal through comprehension, and should piously

worship him till death, like one of those divine figures sketched
by the masters on the shutters of their mystic shrines, and who,

when Germany lost him, should have retired to some solitude away
from men, like the friend of Lord Bolingbroke,--let us admit, I

say, that the young girl would have lived forever, inlaid in the
glory of the poet as Mary Magdalene in the cross and triumph of

our Lord. If that is sublime, what say you to the reverse of the
picture? As I am neither Goethe nor Lord Byron, the colossi of

poetry and egotism, but simply the author of a few esteemed
verses, I cannot expect the honors of a cult. Neither am I

disposed to be a martyr. I have ambition, and I have a heart; I am
still young and I have my career to make. See me for what I am.

The bounty of the king and the protection of his ministers give me
sufficient means of living. I have the outwardbearing of a very

ordinary man. I go to the soirees in Paris like any other empty-
headed fop; and if I drive, the wheels of my carriage do not roll

on the solid ground, absolutelyindispensable in these days, of
property invested in the funds. But if I am not rich, neither do I

have the reliefs and consolations of life in a garret, the toil
uncomprehended, the fame in penury, which belong to men who are

worth far more than I,--D'Arthez, for instance.
Ah! what prosaic conclusions will your young enthusiasm find to

these enchanting visions. Let us stop here. If I have had the
happiness of seeming to you a terrestrial paragon, you have been

to me a thing of light and a beacon, like those stars that shine
for a moment and disappear. May nothing ever tarnish this episode

of our lives. Were we to continue it I might love you; I might
conceive one of those mad passions which rend all obstacles, which

light fires in the heart whose violence is greater than their
duration. And suppose I succeeded in pleasing you? we should end

our tale in the common vulgar way,--marriage, a household,
children, Belise and Henriette Chrysale together!--could it be?

Therefore, adieu.
CHAPTER X

THE MARRIAGE OF SOULS
To Monsieur de Canalis:

My Friend,--Your letter gives me as much pain as pleasure. But
perhaps some day we shall find nothing but pleasure in writing to

each other. Understand me thoroughly. The soul speaks to God and
asks him for many things; he is mute. I seek to obtain in you the

answers that God does not make to me. Cannot the friendship of
Mademoiselle de Gournay and Montaigne be revived in us? Do you not

remember the household of Sismonde de Sismondi in Geneva? The most
lovely home ever known, as I have been told; something like that

of the Marquis de Pescaire and his wife,--happy to old age. Ah!
friend, is it impossible that two hearts, two harps, should exist

as in a symphony, answering each other from a distance, vibrating
with deliciousmelody in unison? Man alone of all creation is in

himself the harp, the musician, and the listener. Do you think to
find me uneasy and jealous like ordinary women? I know that you go

into the world and meet the handsomest and the wittiest women in
Paris. May I not suppose that some one of those mermaids has

deigned to clasp you in her cold and scaly arms, and that she has
inspired the answer whose prosaic opinions sadden me? There is

something in life more beautiful than the garlands of Parisian
coquetry; there grows a flower far up those Alpine peaks called

men of genius, the glory of humanity, which they fertilize with
the dews their lofty heads draw from the skies. I seek to

cultivate that flower and make it bloom; for its wild yet gentle
fragrance can never fail,--it is eternal.

Do me the honor to believe that there is nothing low or
commonplace in me. Were I Bettina, for I know to whom you allude,

I should never have become Madame von Arnim; and had I been one of
Lord Byron's many loves, I should be at this moment in a cloister.

You have touched me to the quick. You do not know me, but you
shall know me. I feel within me something that is sublime, of

which I dare speak without vanity. God has put into my soul the
roots of that Alpine flower born on the summits of which I speak,

and I cannot plant it in an earthen pot upon my window-sill and
see it die. No, that glorious flower-cup, single in its beauty,

intoxicating in its fragrance, shall not be dragged through the
vulgarities of life! it is yours--yours, before any eye has

blighted it, yours forever! Yes, my poet, to you belong my
thoughts,--all, those that are secret, those that are gayest; my

heart is yours without reserve and with its infiniteaffection. If
you should personally not please me, I shall never marry. I can

live in the life of the heart, I can exist on your mind, your
sentiments; they please me, and I will always be what I am, your

friend. Yours is a noble moral nature; I have recognized it, I
have appreciated it, and that suffices me. In that is all my

future. Do not laugh at a young and pretty handmaiden who shrinks
not from the thought of being some day the old companion of a

poet,--a sort of mother perhaps, or a housekeeper; the guide of
his judgment and a source of his wealth. This handmaiden--so

devoted, so precious to the lives of such as you--is Friendship,
pure, disinterested friendship, to whom you will tell all, who

listens and sometimes shakes her head; who knits by the light of
the lamp and waits to be present when the poet returns home soaked

with rain, or vexed in mind. Such shall be my destiny if I do not
find that of a happy wife attached forever to her husband; I smile

alike at the thought of either fate. Do you believe France will be
any the worse if Mademoiselle d'Este does not give it two or three

sons, and never becomes a Madame Vilquin-something-or-other? As
for me, I shall never be an old maid. I shall make myself a

mother, by taking care of others and by my secret co-operation in
the existence of a great man, to whom also I shall carry all my

thoughts and all my earthly efforts.
I have the deepest horror of commonplaceness. If I am free, if I

am rich (and I know that I am young and pretty), I will never
belong to any ninny just because he is the son of a peer of

France, nor to a merchant who could ruin himself and me in a day,
nor to a handsome creature who would be a sort of woman in the

household, nor to a man of any kind who would make me blush twenty
times a day for being his. Make yourself easy on that point. My

father adores my wishes; he will never oppose them. If I please my
poet, and he pleases me, the gloriousstructure of our love shall

be built so high as to be inaccessible to any kind of misfortune.
I am an eaglet; and you will see it in my eyes.

I shall not repeat what I have already said, but I will put its
substance in the least possible number of words, and confess to

you that I should be the happiest of women if I were imprisoned by
love as I am now imprisoned by the wish and will of a father. Ah!