The foregoing letters seemed very original to the persons from whom the author of the “Comedy of Human Life” obtained them; but their interest in this duel, this crossing of pens between two minds, may not be shared.  For every hundred readers, eighty might weary of the battle.  The respect due to the majority in every nation under a constitutional government, leads us, therefore, to suppress eleven other letters exchanged between Ernest and Modeste during the month of September.  If, later on, some flattering majority should arise to claim them, let us hope that we can then find means to insert them in their proper place.

Urged by a mind that seemed as aggressive as the heart was lovable, the truly chivalrous feelings of the poor secretary gave themselves free play in these suppressed letters, which seem, perhaps, more beautiful than they really are, because the imagination is charmed by a sense of the communion of two free souls.  Ernest’s whole life was now wrapped up in these sweet scraps of paper; they were to him what banknotes are to a miser; while in Modeste’s soul a deep love took the place of her delight in agitating a glorious life, and being, in spite of distance, its mainspring.  Ernest’s heart was the complement of Canalis’s glory.  Alas! it often takes two men to make a perfect lover, just as in literature we compose a type by collecting the peculiarities of several similar characters.  How many a time a woman has been heard to say in her own salon after close and intimate conversations:—­

“Such a one is my ideal as to soul, and I love the other who is only a dream of the senses.”

The last letter written by Modeste, which here follows, gives us a glimpse of the enchanted isle to which the meanderings of this correspondence had led the two lovers.

To Monsieur de Canalis,—­Be at Havre next Sunday; go to church; after the morning service, walk once or twice round the nave, and go out without speaking to any one; but wear a white rose in your button-hole.  Then return to Paris, where you shall receive an answer.  I warn you that this answer will not be what you wish; for, as I told you, the future is not yet mine.  But should I not indeed be mad and foolish to say yes without having seen you?  When I have seen you I can say no without wounding you; I can make sure that you shall not see me.

This letter had been sent off the evening before the day when the abortive struggle between Dumay and Modeste had taken place.  The happy girl was impatiently awaiting Sunday, when her eyes were to vindicate or condemn her heart and her actions,—­a solemn moment in the life of any woman, and which three months of close communion of souls now rendered as romantic as the most imaginative maiden could have wished.  Every one, except the mother, had taken this torpor of expectation for the calm of innocence.  No matter how firmly family laws and religious precepts may bind, there will always be the Clarissas and the