“You would laugh at the critiques. People are finding out that I have melody; that I can be gay—in fact, really comic; that I am not noisy, which is rather obvious, since the heavy instruments are conspicuous by their absence.
“How much patience I should need were I not so completely indifferent. Dear friend, I suffer a perfect martyrdom daily from four in the morning till four in the afternoon. What is to become of me? I do not tell you this to make you patient under your own afflictions—my woes are no compensation to you.
“I simply cry unto you as one does to those who love and are loved. Adieu! Adieu!”
“26th August 1862.—How I should love to come to you, as Madame Ferrand wishes! But I have much to do here owing to my wife’s death, and Louis has resigned his commission and is stranded. Besides, I am busy enlarging my Beatrice.
“I am trying to cut or untie all the bonds that hold me to Art, that I may be able to say to Death, ‘When thou wilt.’
“I dare not complain when I think of what you bear.
“Are sufferings like ours the inevitable result of our organisation? Must we be punished for having worshipped the Beautiful throughout our lives? Probably.
“We have drunk too deeply of the enchanted cup; we have pursued our ideals too far.
“Still, dear friend, you have a devoted wife to help you to bear your cross. You know nothing of the dread duet beating, night and day, into your brain—the joint voices of world-weariness and isolation!
“God grant you never may! It is saddening music.