I have followed your advice, dear master, and I have taken exercise!
Am I not good, eh?
Sunday evening, at eleven o’clock, there was such beautiful moonlight on the river and across the snow, that I was seized with a wild desire to go out and bestir myself; so I walked for two hours and a half, showing the scenery to myself, and imagining I was travelling in Russia or in Norway! When the waves rose and cracked the ice along the edges of the river, it was, without joking, really superb. Then I thought of you, and longed for your companionship.
I do not like to eat alone. I find it necessary to associate the idea of some one to the things that give me pleasure. But the right “someone” is extremely rare. I ask myself why I love you. Is it because you are a great “man” or simply a charming being? I do not know. The one thing I am sure of is that I feel for you a particular sentiment which I cannot define.
A propos of this, do you believe (you, who are a master in psychology) that one ever loves two persons in the same way, or that one ever experiences two identical sensations? I do not believe it, as I maintain that the individual changes every moment of his existence.
You write me such pretty things regarding “disinterested affection.” They are very true, but the contrary also is true. We always imagine God in our own image. At the foundation of all our loves and all our admirations we find—ourselves, or something resembling ourselves. But what matters it?—if we are admirable!
My own ego overwhelms me for a quarter of an hour. How heavily that rascal weighs upon me at times. He writes too slowly, and does not pose the least in the world when he complains about his work. What a task! And what devil possessed him to induce him to seek such a subject? You ought to give me a recipe for writing faster; yet you complain of having to seek fortune! You!
I have had a little note from Sainte-Beuve, reassuring me as to his health, but rather sad in tone. He seems to be very sorry not to be able to haunt the woods of Cyprus. He is right, after all, or at least, it seems right to him, which amounts to the same thing. Perhaps I shall resemble him when I reach his age, but somehow, I believe not. As I had not the same kind of youth, my old age will probably be different.
This reminds me that I have sometimes dreamed of writing a book on Saint Périne. Champfleury has treated this subject very badly. I see nothing whatever in it of a comical nature; I should bring out its painful and lamentable character. I believe that the heart never grows old; there are people in whom it even grows stronger with age. I was drier and harsher at twenty than I am to-day. I have become softened and feminised by wear and tear, while others have hardened and withered, and that almost makes me indignant. I feel that I am becoming a cow! A mere nothing stirs my emotions; everything troubles and agitates me and shakes me as a reed is shaken in the north wind.
One word of yours, which I have just recollected, made me wish to re-read The Fair Maid of Perth. She was something of a coquette, whatever they say of her. That good fellow had some imagination, decidedly.