and a
model; their renown is not in their works, it is but in their names.
And, after all, the names of singers and actors last perhaps as long.
Greece retains the name of Polus, Rome of Roscius, England of Garrick,
France of Talma, Italy of Pasta, more lastingly than posterity is likely
to retain mine. You address to me a question, which I have often put
to myself,--"What is the distinction between the writer and the reader,
when the reader says, 'These are my thoughts, these are my feelings;
the writer has stolen them, and clothed them in his own words'?" And
the more the reader says this, the more wide is the audience, the more
genuine the renown, and, paradox though it seems, the more consummate
the originality, of the writer. But no, it is not the mere gift of
expression, it is not the mere craft of the pen, it is not the mere
taste in arrangement of word and cadence, which thus enables the one
to interpret the mind, the heart, the soul of the many. It is a power
breathed into him as he lay in his cradle, and a power that gathered
around itself, as he grew up, all the influences he acquired, whether
from observation of external nature, or from study of men and books, or
from that experience of daily life which varies with every human being.
No education could make two intellects exactly alike, as no culture
can make two leaves exactly alike. How truly you describe the sense of
dissatisfaction which every writer of superior genius communicates
to his admirers! how truly do you feel that the greater is the
dissatisfaction in proportion to the writer's genius, and the admirer's
conception of it! But that is the mystery which makes--let me borrow a
German phrase--the cloud-land between the finite and the infinite.
The greatest philosopher, intent on the secrets of Nature, feels that
dissatisfaction in Nature herself. The finite cannot reduce into logic
and criticism the infinite.

Let us dismiss these matters, which perplex the reason, and approach
that which touches the heart, which in your case, my child, touches
the heart of woman. You speak of love, and deem that the love which
lasts--the household, the conjugal love--should be based upon such
sympathies of pursuit that the artist should wed the artist.

This is one of the questions you do well to address to me; for
whether from my own experience, or from that which I have gained from
observation extended over a wide range of life, and quickened and
intensified b