Before concerning yourself with relief funds, and even with agriculture, send to all the villages in France, Robert Houdins to work miracles!  The greatest crime of Isidore is the wretched condition in which he leaves our beautiful country.  Dixi.  I admire Maurice’s occupations and his healthy life.  But I am not capable of imitating him.  Nature, far from fortifying me, drains my strength.  When I lie on the grass I feel as if I am already under the earth and that the roots of green things are beginning to grow in my belly.  Your troubadour is naturally an unhealthy man.  I do not like the country except when travelling, because then the independence of my individuality causes me to rise above the knowledge of my nothingness.

CXXIII.  TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Nohant, 6 August, 1869

Well, dear good friend, here it is August, and you have promised to come.  We don’t forget it, we count on it, we dream of it, and we talk of it every day.  You were to take a trip to the seashore first if I am not mistaken.  You must need to shake up your gloom.  That does not dispel it, but it does force it to live with us and not be too oppressive.  I have thought a great deal about you lately, I would have hastened to see you if I had not thought I should find you surrounded by older and better friends than I am.  I wrote you at the same time that you wrote me, our letters crossed.

Come to see us, my dear old friend, I shall not go to Paris this month, I do not want to miss you.  My children will be happy to spoil you and to try to distract you.  We all love you, and I love you passionately, as you know.

CXXIV.  TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Nohant, 14 August, 1869

Your change of plans distresses us, dear friend, but we do not dare to complain in the face of your anxieties and sorrows.  We ought to wish you to do what would distract you the most, and take the least out of you.  I am in hopes of finding you in Paris, as you are staying there some time and I always have business there.  But it is so hard to see friends in Paris and one is so overwhelmed by so many tedious duties!  Well, it is a real sorrow to me not to have to expect you any more at our house, where each one of us would have tried to love you better than the others and where you would have been at home; sad when you wanted to be, busy if you liked.  I resign myself on condition that you will be better off somewhere else and that you will make it good to us when you can.

Have you at least arranged your affairs with Levy?  Is he paying you for two volumes?  I would like you to have something on which to live independently and as master of your time.  Here there is repose for the mind in the midst of the exuberant activities of Maurice, and of his brave little wife who sets herself to love all he loves and to help him eagerly in all he undertakes.  As for me, I have the appearance