TO JULES MICHELET.
Wednesday, 1868.
No, my dear master, I have not received your book, but I have already read it, and am re-reading it. What a mountain is yours! Where will you stop?
I am overwhelmed by this mass of ideas, and amazed at their profundity.
I believe I never have read anything that impressed me more deeply than that part about the baths of Acqui. You bring the Pyrenees and the Alps before our very eyes. But in your company one is always on the heights!
The weighty romance in which you express an interest (weighty for me, while waiting to see what it will be for others!), will not be finished in less than a whole year. I am full of it now, in the history of ’48. My profound conviction is that the clergy has acted amazingly.
The dangers of democratic Catholicism, pointed out by you in the preface to your Revolution, are already here. Ah! we are indeed alone. But you remain to us, you!
I clasp your hand warmly, and beg you to believe me yours, with true affection.