is absolutely true of man.  It is certain that a debauched man will dissipate his talent, that a drunkard will waste it in libations; while, on the other hand, no man can give himself talent by wholesome living:  nevertheless, it is all but proved that Virgil, the painter of love, never loved a Dido, and that Rousseau, the model citizen, had enough pride to had furnished forth an aristocracy.  On the other hand Raphael and Michael Angelo do present the glorious conjunction of genius with the lines of character.  Talent in men is therefore, in all moral points, very much what beauty is in women, —­simply a promise.  Let us, therefore, doubly admire the man in whom both heart and character equal the perfection of his genius.

When Ernest discovered within his poet an ambitious egoist, the worst species of egoist (for there are some amiable forms of the vice), he felt a delicacy in leaving him.  Honest natures cannot easily break the ties that bind them, especially if they have tied them voluntarily.  The secretary was therefore still living in domestic relations with the poet when Modeste’s letter arrived,—­in such relations, be it said, as involved a perpetual sacrifice of his feelings.  La Briere admitted the frankness with which Canalis had laid himself bare before him.  Moreover, the defects of the man, who will always be considered a great poet during his lifetime and flattered as Martmontel was flattered, were only the wrong side of his brilliant qualities.  Without his vanity and his magniloquence it is possible that he might never have acquired the sonorous elocution which is so useful and even necessary an instrument in political life.  His cold-bloodedness touched at certain points on rectitude and loyalty; his ostentation had a lining of generosity.  Results, we must remember, are to the profit of society; motives concern God.

But after the arrival of Modeste’s letter Ernest deceived himself no longer as to Canalis.  The pair had just finished breakfast and were talking together in the poet’s study, which was on the ground-floor of a house standing back in a court-yard, and looked into a garden.

“There!” exclaimed Canalis, “I was telling Madame de Chaulieu the other day that I ought to bring out another poem; I knew admiration was running short, for I have had no anonymous letters for a long time.”

“Is it from an unknown woman?”

“Unknown? yes!—­a D’Este, in Havre; evidently a feigned name.”

Canalis passed the letter to La Briere.  The little poem, with all its hidden enthusiasms, in short, poor Modeste’s heart, was disdainfully handed over, with the gesture of a spoiled dandy.

“It is a fine thing,” said the lawyer, “to have the power to attract such feelings; to force a poor woman to step out of the habits which nature, education, and the world dictate to her, to break through conventions.  What privileges genius wins!  A letter such as this, written by a young girl—­a genuine young girl—­without hidden meanings, with real enthusiasm—­”