You are always so good you will let me take you for confessor, tell you all, be confiding, and have in you a soul?

You will find inclosed the dedication of "Séraphita." Have the kindness to answer me by return courier, that I may know if you approve it. In a thing of this kind there must be no point left to object to; dedications cannot be corrected. "Séraphita" will be finished by the first Sunday in April, therefore you have time to throw a "yes" into the post on receiving this letter. Your silence will mean disapproval. The "Revue de Paris" is horribly anxious to get this end; it has received complaints without number.

When the number is out I will send it to you through Sina; but I own that I do not like to risk the manuscript. What shall I do, therefore? You will receive the fourth Part of the "Études de Mœurs," the second edition of "Goriot," "Melmoth réconcilié," the manuscripts of "La Fille aux yeux d'or," and the "Duchesse de Langeais," and, perhaps, that of "Séraphita;" perhaps also the second Part of the "Études Philosophiques."

What shall I tell you about all this? The finishing of "Séraphita" kills me, crushes me. I have fever every day. Never did so grand a conception rise before any man. None but myself can know what I put into it; I put my life into it! When you receive this letter the work will have been cast.

There never was a success equal to that of "Goriot." This stupid Paris, which neglected the "Absolu," has just bought twelve hundred copies of the first edition of "Goriot" [in book form], before its announcement. Two other editions are in press. I will send you the second.

Here I am, with piles of gold, compared to my late situation; for I still have seven thousand ducats to pay [70,000 frs.], but in three months "Goriot" gives one thousand ducats. During the last three months I have regularly paid off four thousand ducats a month with the product of my pen![1]

Besides "Séraphita," I am finishing "L'Enfant Maudit," remaking "Louis Lambert," and completing "La Fille aux yeux d'or." I have finished a rather important work, entitled, "Melmoth réconcilié," and I am preparing a great and beautiful work, called "Le Lys dans la Vallée," the figure of a charming woman, full of heart and having a sulky husband, but virtuous. This will be, under a form purely human, terrestrial perfection, just as "Séraphita" will be celestial perfection. The "Lys dans la Vallée" is the last picture in the "Études de Mœurs," just as "Séraphita" will be the last picture in the "Études Philosophiques." Then, the third dizain.

You will have received the letter in which I tell you of my seclusion. It is deep. No one comes here. No, no more Lormois. Why do you trouble yourself about things I pay no heed to? I have renounced pleasures. No more Opera, no more Bouffons, no more anything; solitude and work. Séraphita! There, will be my great stroke; there, I shall receive the cold mockery of Parisians, but there, too, I shall strike to the heart of all privileged beings. In it is a treatise on prayer, headed "The Path to God," in which are the last words of the angel, which will surely give desire to live by the soul. These mystical ideas have filled me. I am the artist-believer. Pygmalion and his statue are no longer a fable to me. "Goriot" could be done every day; "Séraphita" but once in a lifetime.

So, then, since my last letter I have had no events in my material life, but many in the life of my heart, because my heart is involved in this majestic occupation.