’But in Les Sept Cordes de la Lyre, which I read first, I saw the knowledge of the passions, and of social institutions, with the celestial choice which rose above them.  I loved Helene, who could so well hear the terrene voices, yet keep her eye fixed on the stars.  That would be my wish, also, to know all, then choose; I ever revered her, for I was not sure that I could have resisted the call of the Now, could have left the spirit, and gone to God.  And, at a more ambitious age, I could not have refused the philosopher.  But I hoped from her steadfastness, and I thought I heard the last tones of a purified life:—­Gretchen, in the golden cloud, raised above all past delusions, worthy to redeem and upbear the wise man, who stumbled into the pit of error while searching for truth.

’Still, in Andre, and in Jacques, I traced the same high morality of one who had tried the liberty of circumstance only to learn to appreciate the liberty of law, to know that license is the foe of freedom.  And, though the sophistry of passion in these books disgusted me, flowers of purest hue seemed to grow upon the dank and dirty ground.  I thought she had cast aside the slough of her past life, and began a new existence beneath the sun of a true Ideal.

’But here (in the Lettres d’un Voyageur) what do I see?  An unfortunate bewailing her loneliness, bewailing her mistakes, writing for money!  She has genius, and a manly grasp of mind, but not a manly heart!  Will there never be a being to combine a mail’s mind and woman’s heart, and who yet finds life too rich to weep over?  Never?

’When I read in Leone Lioni the account of the jeweller’s daughter’s life with her mother, passed in dress and in learning to be looked at when dressed, avec un front impassible, it reminded me exceedingly of ——­, and her mother.  What a heroine she would be for Sand!  She has the same fearless softness with Juliet, and a sportive naivete, a mixture of bird and kitten, unknown to the dupe of Lioni.

’If I were a man, and wished a wife, as many do, merely as an ornament, or silken toy, I would take ——­ as soon as any I know.  Her fantastic, impassioned, and mutable nature would yield an inexhaustible amusement.  She is capable of the most romantic actions;—­wild as the falcon, and voluptuous as the tuberose,—­yet she has not in her the elements of romance, like a deeper and less susceptible nature.  My cold and reasoning E., with her one love lying, perhaps, never to be unfolded, beneath such sheaths of pride and reserve, would make a far better heroine.

’Both these characters are natural, while S. and T. are naturally factitious, because so imitative, and her mother differs from Juliet and her mother, by the impulse a single strong