My eyes, thus hurt by all they meet, fall upon the great man’s house which faces my attic.

The influence of New-Year’s Day is visible there.  The servants have an air of eagerness proportioned to the value of their New-Year’s gifts, received or expected.  I see the master of the house crossing the court with the morose look of a man who is forced to be generous; and the visitors increase, followed by shop porters who carry flowers, bandboxes, or toys.  Suddenly the great gates are opened, and a new carriage, drawn by thoroughbred horses, draws up before the doorsteps.  They are, without doubt, the New-Year’s gift presented to the mistress of the house by her husband; for she comes herself to look at the new equipage.  Very soon she gets into it with a little girl, all streaming with laces, feathers and velvets, and loaded with parcels which she goes to distribute as New-Year’s gifts.  The door is shut, the windows are drawn up, the carriage sets off.

Thus all the world are exchanging good wishes and presents to-day.  I alone have nothing to give or to receive.  Poor Solitary!  I do not even know one chosen being for whom I might offer a prayer.

Then let my wishes for a happy New Year go and seek out all my unknown friends—­lost in the multitude which murmurs like the ocean at my feet!

To you first, hermits in cities, for whom death and poverty have created a solitude in the midst of the crowd! unhappy laborers, who are condemned to toil in melancholy, and eat your daily bread in silence and desertion, and whom God has withdrawn from the intoxicating pangs of love and friendship!

To you, fond dreamers, who pass through life with your eyes turned toward some polar star, while you tread with indifference over the rich harvests of reality!

To you, honest fathers, who lengthen out the evening to maintain your families! to you, poor widows, weeping and working by a cradle! to you, young men, resolutely set to open for yourselves a path in life, large enough to lead through it the wife of your choice! to you, all brave soldiers of work and of self-sacrifice!

To you, lastly, whatever your title and your name, who love good, who pity the suffering; who walk through the world like the symbolical Virgin of Byzantium, with both arms open to the human race!

Here I am suddenly interrupted by loud and increasing chirpings.  I look about me:  my window is surrounded with sparrows picking up the crumbs of bread which in my brown study I had just scattered on the roof.  At this sight a flash of light broke upon my saddened heart.  I deceived myself just now, when I complained that I had nothing to give:  thanks to me, the sparrows of this part of the town will have their New-Year’s gifts!

Twelve o’clock.—­A knock at my door; a poor girl comes in, and greets me by name.  At first I do not recollect her; but she looks at me, and smiles.  Ah! it is Paulette!  But it is almost a year since I have seen her, and Paulette is no longer the same:  the other day she was a child, now she is almost a young woman.