d, if their God existed, or if he had not
created other things, elsewhere. Always woods, little woods, waves which
resemble waves, plains which resemble plains, everything is sameness and
monotony. And Man? Man? What a horrible animal! wicked, haughty and
repugnant!

* * * * *

It is essential to love, to love perdition, without seeing that which one
loves. For, to see is to comprehend, and to comprehend is to embrace. It
is necessary to love, to become intoxicated by it, just as one gets drunk
with wine, even to the extent that one knows no longer what one is
drinking. And to drink, to drink, to drink, without drawing breath, day
and night!

* * * * *

I have found her, I believe. She has about her something ideal which does
not belong to this world, and which furnishes wings to my dream. Ah! my
dream! How it reveals to me beings different from what they really are!
She is a blonde, a delicate blonde, with hair whose delicate shade is
inexpressible. Her eyes are blue! Only blue eyes can penetrate my soul.
All women, the woman who lives in my heart, reveal themselves to me in
the eye, only in the eyes. Oh! what a mystery, what a mystery is the eye!
The whole universe lives in it, inasmuch as it sees, inasmuch as it
reflects. It contains the universe, both things and beings, forests
and oceans, men and beasts, the settings of the sun, the stars, the
arts--all, all, it sees; it collects and absorbs all; and there is still
more in it; the eye of itself has a soul; it has in it the man who
thinks, the man who loves, the man who laughs, the man who suffers! Oh!
regard the blue eyes of women, those eyes that are as deep as the sea, as
changeful as the sky, so sweet, so soft, soft as the breezes, sweet as
music, luscious as kisses; and transparent, so clear that one sees behind
them, discerns the soul, the blue soul which colors them, which animates
them, which electrifies them. Yes, the soul has the color of the looks.
The blue soul alone contains in itself that which dreams; it bears its
azure to the floods and into space. The eye! Think of it, the eye! It
imbibes the visible life, in order to nourish thought. It drinks in the
world, color, movement, books, pictures, all that is beautiful, all that
is ugly, and weaves ideas out of them. And when it regards us, it gives
us the sensation of a happiness that is not of this earth. It informs us
of that of which we