The sensibility so
charmingly expressed in that delightful correspondence filled her eyes
with tears which, it is said, were lacking in those of the wittiest of
English writers.
Modeste existed for some time on a comprehension, not only of the
works, but of the characters of her favorite authors,--Goldsmith, the
author of Obermann, Charles Nodier, Maturin. The poorest and the most
suffering among them were her deities; she guessed their trials,
initiated herself into a destitution where the thoughts of genius
brooded, and poured upon it the treasures of her heart; she fancied
herself the giver of material comfort to these great men, martyrs to
their own faculty. This noble compassion, this intuition of the
struggles of toilers, this worship of genius, are among the choicest
perceptions that flutter through the souls of women. They are, in the
first place, a secret between the woman and God, for they are hidden;
in them there is nothing striking, nothing that gratifies the vanity,
--that powerful auxiliary to all action among the French.
Out of this third period of the development of her ideas, there came
to Modeste a passionate desire to penetrate to the heart of one of
these abnormal beings; to understand the working of the thoughts and
the hidden griefs of genius,--to know not only what it wanted but what
it was.
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