eave the theatre. If
he had not been controlled by some remaining glimmer of reason, which
was not wholly extinguished by this first fever of burning passion, he
might perhaps have yielded to the most irresistible desire that came
over him to kill the young man on whom the lady's looks beamed. Was not
this a reversion, in the heart of the Paris world, to the savage passion
that regards women as its prey, an effect of animal instinct combining
with the almost luminous flashes of a soul crushed under the weight
of thought? In short, was it not the prick of the penknife so vividly
imagined by the boy, felt by the man as the thunderbolt of his most
vital craving--for love?

And now, here is the letter that depicts the state of his mind as it
was struck by the spectacle of Parisian civilization. His feelings,
perpetually wounded no doubt in that whirlpool of self-interest, must
always have suffered there; he probably had no friend to comfort him,
no enemy to give tone to this life. Compelled to live in himself alone,
having no one to share his subtle raptures, he may have hoped to solve
the problem of his destiny by a life of ecstasy, adopting an almost
vegetative attitude, like an anchorite of the early Church, and
abdicating the empire of the intellectual world.

This letter seems to hint at such a scheme, which is a temptation to
all lofty souls at periods of social reform. But is not this purpose,
in some cases, the result of a vocation? Do not some of them endeavor to
concentrate their powers by long silence, so as to emerge fully capable
of governing the world by word or by deed? Louis must, assuredly, have
found much bitterness in his intercourse with men, or have striven hard
with Society in terrible irony, without extracting anything from it,
before uttering so strident a cry, and expressing, poor fellow, the
desire which satiety of power and of all earthly things has led even
monarchs to indulge!

And perhaps, too, he went back to solitude to carry out some great work
that was floating inchoate in his brain. We would gladly believe it as
we read this fragment of his thoughts, betraying the struggle of
his soul at the time when youth was ending and the terrible power of
production was coming into being, to which we might have owed the works
of the man.

This letter connects itself with the adventure at the theatre. The
incident and the letter throw light on each other, body and soul were
tuned to the same pitch