I smiled and bowed, and muttered something civil, and looked as much pleased as I possibly could,—and recollected, too, how large Paris was, and how easy it would be to turn my back upon conviction, if I found that I could not face it agreeably. But, to say truth, there was something in the eye and manner of my new friend that rather alarmed me. She is rather pretty, nevertheless; but her bright eyes are never still for an instant, and she is one of those who aid the power of speech by that of touch, to which she has incessant recourse. Had she been a man, she would have seized all her friends by the button: but as it is, she can only lay her fingers with emphasis upon your arm, or grasp a handful of your sleeve, when she sees reason to fear that your attention wanders.
"You are a legitimatist! ... quel dommage! Ah! you smile. But did you know the incalculable injury done to the intellect by putting chains upon it!... My studies, observe, are confined almost wholly to one subject,—the philosophy of the human mind. Metaphysics have been the great object of my life from a very early age." (I should think she was now about seven or eight-and-twenty.) "Yet sometimes I have the weakness to turn aside from this noble pursuit to look upon the troubled current of human affairs that is rolling past me. I do not pretend to enter deeply into politics—I have no time for it; but I see enough to make me shrink from despotism and legitimacy. Believe me, it cramps the mind; and be assured that a constant succession of political changes keeps the faculties of a nation on the qui vive, and, abstractedly considered as a mental operation, must be incalculably more beneficial than the half-dormant state which takes place after any long continuance in one position, let it be what it may."
She uttered all this with such wonderful rapidity, that it would have been quite impossible for me to have made any observation upon it as she went along, if I had been ever so much inclined to do so. But I soon found that this was not expected of me.
"'Twas hers to speak, and mine to hear;"
and I made up my mind to listen as patiently as I could till I should find a convenient opportunity for changing my place.
At different times, and in different climes, I have heretofore listened to a good deal of nonsense, certainly; but I assure you I never did nor ever can expect again to hear such a profusion of wild absurdity as this lady uttered. Yet I am told that she has in many circles the reputation of being a woman of genius. It would be but a vain attempt did I endeavour to go on remembering and translating all she said; but some of her speeches really deserve recording.
After she had run her tilt against authority, she broke off, exclaiming—
"Mais, après tout,—what does it signify?... When you have once devoted yourself to the study of the soul, all these little distinctions do appear so trifling!... I have given myself wholly to the study of the soul; and my life passes in a series of experiments, which, if I do not wear myself out here," putting her hand to her forehead, "will, I think, eventually lead me to something important."
As she paused for a moment, I thought I ought to say something, and therefore asked her of what nature were the experiments of which she spoke. To which she replied—
"Principally in comparative anatomy. None but an experimentalist could ever imagine what extraordinary results arise from this best and surest mode of investigation. A mouse, for instance.... Ah, madame! would you believe it possible that the formation of a mouse could throw light upon the theory of the noblest feeling that warms the heart of man—even upon valour? It is true, I assure you: such are the triumphs of science. By watching the pulsations of that chétif animal," she continued, eagerly laying hold of my wrist, "we have obtained an immense insight into the most interesting phenomena of the passion of fear."