If I am free, if I am rich (and I know that I am young and pretty), I will never belong to any ninny just because he is the son of a peer of France, nor to a merchant who could ruin himself and me in a day, nor to a handsome creature who would be a sort of woman in the household, nor to a man of any kind who would make me blush twenty times a day for being his.  Make yourself easy on that point.  My father adores my wishes; he will never oppose them.  If I please my poet, and he pleases me, the glorious structure of our love shall be built so high as to be inaccessible to any kind of misfortune.  I am an eaglet; and you will see it in my eyes.

I shall not repeat what I have already said, but I will put its substance in the least possible number of words, and confess to you that I should be the happiest of women if I were imprisoned by love as I am now imprisoned by the wish and will of a father.  Ah! my friend, may we bring to a real end the romance that has come to us through the first exercise of my will:  listen to its argument:—­

A young girl with a lively imagination, locked up in a tower, is weary with longing to run loose in the park where her eyes only are allowed to rove.  She invents a way to loosen her bars; she jumps from the casement; she scales the park wall; she frolics along the neighbor’s sward—­it is the Everlasting comedy.  Well, that young girl is my soul, the neighbor’s park is your genius.  Is it not all very natural?  Was there ever a neighbor that did not complain that unknown feet broke down his trellises?  I leave it to my poet to answer.

But does the lofty reasoner after the fashion of Moliere want still better reasons?  Well, here they are.  My dear Geronte, marriages are usually made in defiance of common-sense.  Parents make inquiries about a young man.  If the Leander—­who is supplied by some friend, or caught in a ball-room—­is not a thief, and has no visible rent in his reputation, if he has the necessary fortune, if he comes from a college or a law-school and so fulfils the popular ideas of education, and if he wears his clothes with a gentlemanly air, he is allowed to meet the young lady, whose mother has ordered her to guard her tongue, to let no sign of her heart or soul appear on her face, which must wear the smile of a danseuse finishing a pirouette.  These commands are coupled with instructions as to the danger of revealing her real character, and the additional advice of not seeming alarmingly well educated.  If the settlements have all been agreed upon, the parents are good-natured enough to let the pair see each other for a few moments; they are allowed to talk or walk together, but always without the slightest freedom, and knowing that they are bound by rigid rules.  The man is as much dressed up in soul as he is in body, and so is the young girl.  This pitiable comedy, mixed with bouquets, jewels, and theatre-parties is called “paying