Cannes, September 23, 1870.[49]
Dear Friend: I am very ill—so ill, that it is a difficult matter to write. There is a slight improvement. I will write to you soon, I hope, more in detail. Send to my house in Paris, for the Lettres de Madame de Sévigné, and a Shakespeare. I should have had them taken to you, but I went away. Good-bye. I embrace you.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] One would suppose that in Saint Clair, a character in The Etruscan Vase, he has drawn himself: “He was naturally tender-hearted and affectionate, but at an age when lasting impressions are too easily formed, his over-transparent sensitiveness subjected him to the derision of his companions.... From that time he made it his business to conceal all appearances of what he regarded as a contemptible weakness.... In society he gained the unfortunate reputation of being unfeeling and indifferent.... He had travelled widely, and read much, yet he spoke of his travels and reading only when it was absolutely necessary.” Darcy, in The Double Mistake, is another character resembling his own.
[2] The following is one of his generous and delicate actions; Béranger, in a similar experience, did the same: “When I went to Spain, I was on the point of falling in love. It was one of the beautiful acts of my life. The woman who was the cause of my voyage never suspected it. Had I remained, I might have committed, possibly, a great blunder—that of offering a woman worthy of enjoying every happiness that one may have on earth, in exchange for the loss of all that was dear to her, an affection which I realized was far inferior to the sacrifice that she would probably have made.”
[3] The Résident in The Spaniards in Denmark, the Count and other gentlemen in The Conspirators, Kermouton and the Butter Merchant in The Two Heirs. But on the other hand, what true analyses are the characters of Clémence, of Sévin, and of Miss Jackson!
[4] Letters to an Unknown, Vol. II, p. 294.
[5] Letters to an Unknown, I, p. 7. “Abandon your optimistic ideas and realise that we are in this world to struggle and contend with our fellows.... Learn, also, that nothing is more common than to do wrong merely for the pleasure of doing it.”
No man knows the gods so well,
That he may be sure of living until to-morrow.