"Lady T. Do you think so?
"Young P. Most certainly. Your character is like a person in a plethora, absolutely dying of too much health.
"Lady T. So then you would have me sin in my own defence, and part with my virtue to preserve my reputation. [Footnote: This sentence seems to have haunted him—I find it written in every direction, and without any material change in its form, over the pages of his different memorandum books.]
"_Young P. Exactly so, upon my credit, ma'am."
* * * * *
It will be observed, from all I have cited, that much of the original material is still preserved throughout; but that, like the ivory melting in the hands of Pygmalion, it has lost all its first rigidity and roughness, and, assuming at every touch some variety of aspect, seems to have gained new grace by every change.
"Mollescit ebur, positoque rigore
Subsidit digitis, ceditque ut Hymettia sole
Cera remollescit, tractataque pollice multas
Flectitur in facies, ipsoque fit utilis usu."
Where'er his fingers move his eye can trace
The once rude ivory softening into grace—
Pliant as wax that, on Hymettus' hill,
Melts in the sunbeam, it obeys his skill;
At every touch some different aspect shows,
And still, the oftener touch'd the lovelier grows.
I need not, I think, apologize for the length of the extracts I have given, as they cannot be otherwise than interesting to all lovers of literary history. To trace even the mechanism of an author's style through the erasures and alterations of his rough copy, is, in itself, no ordinary gratification of curiosity; and the brouillon of Rousseau's Heloise, in the library of the Chamber of Deputies at Paris, affords a study in which more than the mere "auceps syllabarum" might delight. But it is still more interesting to follow thus the course of a writer's thoughts—to watch the kindling of new fancies as he goes—to accompany him in his change of plans, and see the various vistas that open upon him at every step. It is, indeed, like being admitted by some magical power, to witness the mysterious processes of the natural world —to see the crystal forming by degrees round its primitive nucleus, or observe the slow ripening of
"the imperfect ore, And know it will be gold another day!"