It is often said that man is made up of a soul and a body, and this body is accused of doing all sorts of wrong things.  In my opinion, there is no ground for such accusations, for the body is as incapable of feeling as it is of thinking.  The beast is the creature on whom the blame should be laid.  It is a sensible being, perfectly distinct from the soul, a veritable individual, with its separate existence, tastes, inclinations, and will; it is superior to other animals only because it has been better brought up, and endowed with finer organs.  The great art of a man of genius consists in knowing how to train his beast so well that it can run alone, while the soul, delivered from its painful company, rises up into the heavens.  I must make this clear by an example.

One day last summer I was walking along on my way to the court.  I had been painting all the morning, and my soul, delighted with her meditation on painting, left to the beast the care of transporting me to the king’s palace.

“What a sublime art painting is!” thought my soul.  “Happy is the man who has been touched by the spectacle of nature, who is not compelled to paint pictures for a living, and still less just to pass the time away; but who, struck by the majesty of a fine physiognomy and by the admirable play of light that blends in a thousand tints on a human face, tries to approach in his works the sublime effects of nature!”

While my soul was making these reflections, the beast was running its own way.  Instead of going to court, as it had been ordered to, it swerved so much to the left that at the moment when my soul caught it up, it was at the door of Mme. de Hautcastel’s house, half a mile from the palace.

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If it is useful and pleasant to have a soul so disengaged from the material world that one can let her travel all alone when one wishes to, this faculty is not without its inconveniences.  It was through it, for instance, that I burnt my fingers.  I usually leave to my beast the duty of preparing my breakfast.  It toasts my bread and cuts it in slices.  Above all, it makes coffee beautifully, and it drinks it very often without my soul taking part in the matter, except when she amuses herself with watching the beast at work.  This, however, is rare, and a very difficult thing to do.

It is easy, during some mechanical act, to think of something else; but it is extremely difficult to study oneself in action, so to speak; or, to explain myself according to my own system, to employ one’s soul in examining the conduct of one’s beast, to see it work without taking any part.  This is really the most astonishing metaphysical feat that man can execute.

I had laid my tongs on the charcoal to toast my bread, and some time after, while my soul was on her travels, a flaming stump rolled on the grate; my poor beast went to take up the tongs, and I burnt my fingers.