s. But I recognize the truth of the various
things, just even to vulgarity, which you have written me about
Society and social life.

For the time being we are, and we can only be, two friends. Why
seek an unseen friend? you ask. Your person may be unknown to me,
but your mind, your heart I _know_; they please me, and I feel an
infinitude of thoughts within my soul which need a man of genius
for their confidant. I do not wish the poem of my heart to be
wasted; I would have it known to you as it is to God. What a
precious thing is a true comrade, one to whom we can tell all! You
will surely not reject the unpublished leaflets of a young girl's
thoughts when they fly to you like the pretty insects fluttering
to the sun? I am sure you have never before met with this good
fortune of the soul,--the honest confidences of an honest girl.
Listen to her prattle; accept the music that she sings to you in
her own heart. Later, if our souls are sisters, if our characters
warrant the attempt, a white-haired old serving-man shall await
you by the wayside and lead you to the cottage, the villa, the
castle, the palace--I don't know yet what sort of bower it will
be, nor what its color, nor whether this conclusion will ever be
possible; but you will admit, will you not? that it is poetic, and
that Mademoiselle d'Este has a complying disposition. Has she not
left you free? Has she gone with jealous feet to watch you in the
salons of Paris? Has she imposed upon you the labors of some high
emprise, such as paladins sought voluntarily in the olden time?
No, she asks a perfectly spiritual and mystic alliance. Come to me
when you are unhappy, wounded, weary. Tell me all, hide nothing; I
have balms for all your ills. I am twenty years of age, dear
friend, but I have the sense of fifty, and unfortunately I have
known through the experience of another all the horrors and the
delights of love. I know what baseness the human heart can
contain, what infamy; yet I myself am an honest girl. No, I have
no illusions; but I have something better, something real,--I have
beliefs and a religion. See! I open the ball of our confidences.

Whoever I marry--provided I choose him for myself--may sleep in
peace or go to the East Indies sure that he will find me on his
return working at the tapestry which I began before he left me;
and in every stitch he shall read a verse of the poem of