4
"Paris,... 19—
"I am longing to have you here so that I may watch carefully over the slightest details of your life and put your temperament incessantly to the test. They say that enthusiasm cannot be acquired. But how can they tell that it is not merely sleeping, unless they try to awaken it? Those around us have sometimes, quite unconsciously, an unhappy way of subduing and oppressing us.
"Even the most emotional have often to struggle lest their souls should shrink in the presence of certain people, like the flowers whose petals exposed to the light timidly hide their hearts as soon as day declines. You, whom a placid humour reserves for gentle emotions, must try not to let that very beautiful nature exceed its rights, or cast an unnecessary shadow over your feelings, or ever check your finest bursts of admiration with doubt and misgiving. Circumstances have failed to form your taste; and at first you will pass marvels by and prefer to marvel at some hideous thing. Never mind! I like to think that, after all, the best part of a noble work is the enthusiasm which it arouses and that the greatest dignity of art lies in the flame which it kindles.
"Time was when I wept in front of things that now leave me unmoved; but, in captivating my childish heart, did they not accomplish their task even as those do now which quicken the beating of my woman's heart?...
"Learn to appreciate life and to look upon all that does not enhance it as vain and wearisome. As there is nothing in this world which has not its relation to life, in loving it, my Roseline, you will understand everything and accept everything.
"I want your eyes, when presenting to your mind whatever is best in a great work, to learn the luxury of lingering on it; I want your ears to perceive the wonderful, voluptuous charm of sounds, your hands to rejoice in things soft to the touch; I want you to learn how to breathe with delight and how to eat with pleasure. Don't smile. None of all this is childish; it is made up of tiny joyous movements which the simplest existence can command when it knows how to recognise them. And yet ... and yet I feel a selfish wish to leave you still in your prison, so that your desire to escape from it may keep on growing! I love that desire, I love your actual distress, I love the wretchedness of your past, the wretchedness of your present, I love you to see difficulties in the way of your deliverance....
"Oh, if those obstacles could give you, as they do me, that sort of intoxication for which I cherish them! When at last I see the goal beyond them, my heart leaps for joy. But hardly is the goal attained when I rejoice in it only because it brings me to another, higher and more distant; and my imagination resumes its course, never looking back except to measure the road already traversed.... In this way, never satisfied and yet happy in the mere fact that I am advancing and in the knowledge that no more can be asked of a poor human will, I have the feeling that my life never stops."