What an outcry has been made against "La Vieille Fille"! When you laugh on reading it, you will ask yourself what the manners and morals of these French journalists are—the most infamous that I know of!
I cannot tell you much that is new about my life; for my life is eighteen hours' daily work in a garret, where there is a bed (I never leave it), and six hours' sleep. My health will require great care, because it is beginning to be much impaired by the toil and the great anxieties to which I have been a prey. What I say is based on serious facts. I must submit to physicians, humbly, or I shall quickly be destroyed.
Without vanity of author, yes, re-read the "Lys;" the work gains by being read a second time. But I am not deceived about the blemishes that are still in it. But they shall disappear; although the angel who is no more declared it without a fault.
You must never forget, dear, that I have all to paint, and that each subject needs different colours. We can't relate Mademoiselle Cormon, the Chevalier de Valois, Suzanne, and du Bousquier in the style of Madame de Mortsauf, especially before a herd of envious beings who will say that I am aging unless I differentiate myself.
You send me wishes for my happiness; pray for me only that God will support me in my strength for work and in my resignation. Solitude with one hope—that is my life; it was that of the Fathers in the wilderness. Work is the staff with which I walk, indifferent to all, except the thought that is placed in the sanctuary. Una fides. Outside of that, there are nought but distractions in which the heart has no share. I mean the lifted heart, which is full of grief, but in which lives a sacred hope. You do not wholly know that vast domain; if you did you would not scold me.
In "Illusions Perdues" there is a young girl named Eve, who, to my eyes, is the most delightful creation that I have ever made.
Adieu; here's a half-day stolen from proofs, business, work. But in writing to you I see you, just as if I were studying the Almanach de Gotha at your house in Geneva; and when I think of that halt made in my sorrows, I fancy that all about me is gold and that I have nothing to do.
I will tell you another time of the visit I paid to Madame de Dino and M. de Talleyrand at Rochecotte in Touraine. M. de Talleyrand is amazing. He had two or three gushes of ideas that were prodigious. He invited me strongly to go and see him at Valençay, and if he lives I shall not fail to do so. I still have Wellington and Pozzo di Borgo to see, so that my collection of antiques may be complete.
Anna's dog is always on my desk. Tell her that her horse commends himself to her memory. A thousand compliments to the inhabitants of your kingdom. Are your affairs doing well? is M. Hanski more at liberty? are his enterprises successful? You cut me off too many details of your proprietary mechanism. When you think of it, trace me a few itineraries of how to go to you. I have my reasons for wishing to know the various routes that lead there.