No man
stands higher,--whatever you may think on a rainy day, in your
provincial retreat.
"Aucun homme, dans aucune langue, n'a ete, peut-etre, plus
completement le poete du coeur et le poete des femmes. Les critiques
lui reprochent de n'avoir represente le monde ni tel qu'il est, ni tel
qu'il doit etre; _mais les femmes repondent qu'il l'a represente tel
qu'elles le desirent._"
I should have thought Sismondi [3] had written this for you instead of
Metastasio.
Write to me, and tell me of _yourself_. Do you remember what Rousseau
said to some one--"Have we quarrelled? you have talked to me often, and
never once mentioned yourself."
P.S.--The last sentence is an indirect apology for my egotism,--but I
believe in letters it is allowed. I wish it was _mutual_. I have met
with an odd reflection in Grimm; it shall not--at least the bad part--be
applied to you or me, though _one_ of us has certainly an indifferent
name--but this it is:--"Many people have the reputation of being wicked,
with whom we should be too happy to pass our lives". I need not add it
is a woman's saying--a Mademoiselle de Sommery's [4].
[Footnote 1:
"Among the stories intended to be introduced into 'Lalla Rookh', which
I had begun, but, from various causes, never finished, there was one
which I had made some progress in, at the time of the appearance of
'The Bride', and which, on reading that poem, I found to contain such
singular coincidences with it, not only in locality and costume, but
in plot and characters, that I immediately gave up my story
altogether, and began another on an entirely new subject--the
Fire-worshippers.
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