What privileges genius wins! A letter such as this,
written by a young girl--a genuine young girl--without hidden
meanings, with real enthusiasm--"
"Well, what?" said Canalis.
"Why, a man might suffer as much as Tasso and yet feel recompensed,"
cried La Briere.
"So he might, my dear fellow, by a first letter of that kind, and even
a second; but how about the thirtieth? And suppose you find out that
these young enthusiasts are little jades? Or imagine a poet rushing
along the brilliant path in search of her, and finding at the end of
it an old Englishwoman sitting on a mile-stone and offering you her
hand! Or suppose this post-office angel should really be a rather ugly
girl in quest of a husband? Ah, my boy! the effervescence then goes
down."
"I begin to perceive," said La Briere, smiling, "that there is
something poisonous in glory, as there is in certain dazzling
flowers."
"And then," resumed Canalis, "all these women, even when they are
simple-minded, have ideals, and you can't satisfy them. They never say
to themselves that a poet is a vain man, as I am accused of being;
they can't conceive what it is for an author to be at the mercy of a
feverish excitement, which makes him disagreeable and capricious; they
want him always grand, noble; it never occurs to them that genius is a
disease, or that Nathan lives with Florine; that D'Arthez is too fat,
and Joseph Bridau is too thin; that Beranger limps, and that their own
particular deity may have the snuffles! A Lucien de Rubempre, poet and
cupid, is a phoenix.
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