Should I get a month to myself at the beginning of the year, you will not be displeased if I bring my New Year's gifts to the pretty little Anna myself, inasmuch as the Custom-house is so malicious? I shall have the pleasure of going five hundred leagues to dine with you. But so much work must be done to attain this result that I only speak of it as one of those impossibilities that spur me to work and redouble my courage; something results from it. The "Recherche de l'Absolu" was only written through a hope of this kind. The compromise with Gosselin took the profits of that arduous labour. Oh! you do not know me. In your letters there are complaints, doubts, and polite accusations that dishearten me.
"Le Père Goriot" is a fine work, but monstrously sad. To make it complete, it was necessary to show the moral sink-hole of Paris; and it has the effect of a disgusting sore.
Wednesday, 26.
I must tell you that yesterday (my letter has been interrupted) I copied out your portrait of Mademoiselle Céleste, and I said to two uncompromising judges: "Here is a sketch I have just flung on paper. I wanted to paint a woman under given circumstances, and launch her into life through such and such an event."
What do you think they said?—"Read that portrait again." After which they said:—
"That is your masterpiece. You have never before had that laisser-aller of a writer which shows the hidden strength."
"Ha, ha!" I answered, striking my head; "that comes from the forehead of an analyst."
I kneel at your feet for this violation; but I left out all that was personal. Beat me, scold me, but I could not refuse myself the enjoyment of this praise; and I tasted the greatest of pleasures,—that of secretly hearing a person praised who is unknown and to whom one bears a deep affection. It is enjoyment twice over.
I am convinced of the immense superiority of your mind, and I am confounded to find in you such feminine graces, together with the force of mind which Madame Dudevant has and Madame de Staël once had; and I say this very loud, that you may not make yourself small behind that tall steeple you have so often boasted of to me. The opinion that I express upon you is a matured opinion. I am here, far from the prestige of your presence. I go over in my mind, impartially, your sayings, your opinions, your studies, and I write you these lines with a sort of joy, because Madame Carraud and Madame de Berny have made other women seem very small to me; and because, in the matter of grace, amenity, and the science hidden under the frivolity of smiles, I am a great connoisseur, having lovingly inhaled those flowers of womanhood, and what I say of you is conscientious and true. Besides, you are too grande dame to be proud of it. What you should be proud of is your kindness, and those qualities which are acquired only by the practice of Christian virtues, at which I never jest now.
Forgive me the disconnectedness of my letters, the incompleteness of my sentences. I write to you at night before I begin to work. My letters are like a prayer made to a good genius.