e. His original poverty kept him poor. He
could not afford to wait until the seed he had sown had grown and
ripened for the sickle; so he fell into the hands of usurers, who
purchased the crop while it was yet green, and made the harvest yield
them profits of fifty or seventy-five per centum.

His distress during the last years of his life was as great as the
distress of his youth. His published letters tell a sorrowful tale.
They are filled with apprehensions of notes maturing only to be
protested, or complaints of inability to go up to Paris one day because
he has not a shirt to wear, another day because he cannot procure the
seventy-five cents which are the railway-fare from Fontainebleau to
Paris. Here is one of his letters, one of the gayest of them It is
charming, but sad:--

"I send you my little stock. Carry it instantly to Monsieur
Heugel, the music-publisher in the Rue Vivienne, next door to
Michel Levy's. Go the day afterwards to Michel Levy's for the
answer. Read it, and if it shows that Monsieur Heugel buys my
songs, go to him with the blank receipt, herein inclosed, which
you will fill up as he will point out, according to the usual
conditions. It is ten dollars a song; but as there is a poor song
among them, and money I must have, take whatever he gives you; but
you must pretend as if you expected ten dollars for each song.
This money must be used to take up Saccault's note, which is due
the fifteenth. Take the address of the holder, and pay it before
it is protested. You will be allowed till the next day to pay it.
Be active in this matter, and let me hear how things turn out. I
cannot, in reason, in my present situation, take a room at a rent
of a hundred and twenty dollars a year.[E] We have cares enough
for the present; therefore let us not sow that seed of
embarrassment which flowers every three months in the shape of
quarterly rent. Do not give at the outside more than eighty
dollars for the room, even though we be embarrassed by its
smallness. I hope we may have means before long of being more
delicate in our selection; but at present put a leaf to your
patience, for the horizon is black enough to make ink withal.
However, the little dialogue (which has been quite successful) I
have just had with the muses has given me better spirits. I have a
fever of working which is high enough to give me a real