And now, listen to me. You have the triumph of forcing me to reflect deeply,--first on you, whom I do not sufficiently know;
next, on myself, of whom I knew too little. You have had the power to stir up many of the evil thoughts which crouched in my heart, as in all hearts; but from them something good and generous has come forth, and I salute you with my most fervent benedictions, just as at sea we salute the lighthouse which shows the rocks on which we were about to perish. Here is my confession, for I would not lose your esteem nor my own for all the treasures of earth.
I wished to know who you are. I have just returned from Havre, where I saw Francoise Cochet, and followed her to Ingouville. You are as beautiful as the woman of a poet's dream; but I do not know if you are Mademoiselle Vilquin concealed under Mademoiselle d'Herouville, or Mademoiselle d'Herouville hidden under Mademoiselle Vilquin. Though all is fair in war, I blushed at such spying and stopped short in my inquiries. You have roused my curiosity; forgive me for being somewhat of a woman; it is, I
believe, the privilege of a poet.
Now that I have laid bare my heart and allowed you to read it, you will believe in the sincerity of what I am about to add. Though the glimpse I had of you was all too rapid, it has sufficed to modify my opinion of your conduct. You are a poet and a poem, even more than you are a woman. Yes, there is in you something more precious than beauty; you are the beautiful Ideal of art, of fancy. The step you took, blamable as it would be in an ordinary young girl, allotted to an every-day destiny, has another aspect if endowed with the nature which I now attribute to you. Among the crowd of beings flung by fate into the social life of this planet to make up a generation there are exceptional souls. If your letter is the outcome of long poetic reveries on the fate which conventions bring to women, if, constrained by the impulse of a lofty and intelligent mind, you have wished to understand the life of a man to whom you attribute the gift of genius, to the end that you may create a friendship withdrawn from the ordinary relations of life, with a soul in communion with your own, disregarding thus the ordinary trammels of your ***,--then, assuredly, you are an exception. The law which rightly limits the actions of the crowd is too limited for you. But in that case, the remark in my first letter returns in greater force,--you have done too much or not enough.
Accept once more my thanks for the service you have rendered me, that of compelling me to sound my heart. You have corrected in me the false idea, only too common in France, that marriage should be a means of fortune. While I struggled with my conscience a sacred voice spoke to me. I swore solemnly to make my fortune myself, and not be led by motives of cupidity in choosing the companion of my life. I have also reproached myself for the blamable curiosity you have excited in me. You have not six millions. There is no concealment possible in Havre for a young lady who possesses such a fortune; you would be discovered at once by the pack of hounds of great families whom I see in Paris on the hunt after heiresses, and who have already sent one, the grand equerry, the young duke, among the Vilquins. Therefore, believe me, the sentiments I have now expressed are fixed in my mind as a rule of life, from which I