MY DEAR HARVARD,

I’ve carried out my plan, of which I gave you a hint in my last, and I

only regret I shouldn’t have done it before. It’s human nature, after

all, that’s the most interesting thing in the world, and it only reveals

itself to the truly earnest seeker. There’s a want of earnestness in

that life of hotels and railroad-trains which so many of our countrymen

are content to lead in this strange rich elder world, and I was

distressed to find how far I myself had been led along the dusty beaten

track. I had, however, constantly wanted to turn aside into more

unfrequented ways—to plunge beneath the surface and see what I should

discover. But the opportunity had always been missing; somehow I seem

never to meet those opportunities that we hear about and read about—the

things that happen to people in novels and biographies. And yet I’m

always on the watch to take advantage of any opening that may present

itself; I’m always looking out for experiences, for sensations—I might

almost say for adventures.

The great thing is to _live_, you know—to feel, to be conscious of one’s

possibilities; not to pass through life mechanically and insensibly, even

as a letter through the post-office. There are times, my dear Harvard,

when I feel as if I were really capable of everything—_capable de tout_,

as they say here—of the greatest excesses as well as the greatest

heroism. Oh to be able to say that one has lived—_qu’on a vécu_, as they

say here—that idea exercises an indefinable attraction for me. You’ll

perhaps reply that nothing’s easier than to say it! Only the thing’s to

make people believe you—to make above all one’s self. And then I don’t

want any second-hand spurious sensations; I want the knowledge that

leaves a trace—that leaves strange scars and stains, ineffable reveries

and aftertastes, behind it! But I’m afraid I shock you, perhaps even

frighten you.

If you repeat my remarks to any of the West Cedar Street circle be sure

you tone them down as your discretion will suggest. For yourself you’ll

know that I have always had an intense desire to see something of _real

French life_. You’re acquainted with my great sympathy with the French;

with my natural tendency to enter into their so supremely fine

exploitation of the whole personal consciousness. I sympathise with the

artistic temperament; I remember you used sometimes to hint to me that

you thought my own temperament _too_ artistic. I don’t consider that in

Boston there’s any real sympathy with the artistic temperament; we tend

to make everything a matter of right and wrong. And in Boston one can’t

_live_—_on ne peut pas vivre_, as they say here. I don’t mean one can’t

reside—for a great many people manage that; but one can’t live

esthetically—I almost venture to say one can’t live sensuously. This is

why I’ve always been so much drawn to the French, who are so esthetic, so

sensuous, so _entirely_ living. I’m so sorry dear Théophile Gautier has

passed away; I should have liked so much to go and see him and tell him

all I owe him. He was living when I was here before; but, you know, at

that time I was travelling with the Johnsons, who are not esthetic and

who used to make me feel rather ashamed of my love and my need of beauty.

If I had gone to see the great apostle of that religion I should have had

to go clandestinely—_en cachette_, as they say here; and that’s not my

nature; I like to do everything frankly, freely, _naïvement, au grand

jour_. That’s the great thing—to be free, to be frank, to be naïf.

Doesn’t Matthew Arnold say that somewhere—or is it Swinburne or Pater?

When I was with the Johnsons everything was superficial, and, as regards

life, everything was brought down to the question of right and wrong.

They were eternally didactic; art should never be didactic; and what’s

life but the finest of arts? Pater has said that so well somewhere.

With the Johnsons I’m afraid I lost many opportunities; the whole outlook

or at least the whole medium—of feeling, of appreciation—was grey and

cottony, I might almost say woolly. Now, however, as I tell you, I’ve

determined to take right hold for myself; to look right into European

life and judge it without Johnsonian prejudices. I’ve taken up my

residence in a French family, in a real Parisian house. You see I’ve the

courage of my opinions; I don’t shrink from carrying out my theory that

the great thing is to _live_.

You know I’ve always been intensely interested in Balzac, who never

shrank from the reality and whose almost _lurid_ pictures of Parisian

life have often haunted me in my wanderings through the old

wicked-looking streets on the other side of the river. I’m only sorry

that my new friends—my French family—don’t live in the old city, _au cour

de vieux Paris_, as they say here. They live only on the Boulevard

Haussmann, which is a compromise, but in spite of this they have a great

deal of the Balzac tone. Madame de Maisonrouge belongs to one of the

oldest and proudest families in France, but has had reverses which have

compelled her to open an establishment in which a limited number of

travellers, who are weary of the beaten track, who shun the great

caravanseries, who cherish the tradition of the old French

sociability—she explains it herself, she expresses it so well—in short to

open a “select” boarding-house. I don’t see why I shouldn’t after all

use that expression, for it’s the correlative of the term pension

bourgeoise, employed by Balzac in _Le Père Goriot_. Do you remember the

pension bourgeoise of Madame Vauquer née de Conflans? But this

establishment isn’t at all like that, and indeed isn’t bourgeois at all;

I don’t quite know how the machinery of selection operates, but we

unmistakably feel we’re select. The Pension Vauquer was dark, brown,

sordid, graisseuse; but this is in quite a different tone, with high

clear lightly-draped windows and several rather good Louis Seize

pieces—family heirlooms, Madame de Maisonrouge explains. She recalls to

me Madame Hulot—do you remember “la belle Madame Hulot”?—in _Les Parents

Pauvres_. She has a great charm—though a little artificial, a little

jaded and faded, with a suggestion of hidden things in her life. But

I’ve always been sensitive to the seduction of an ambiguous fatigue.

I’m rather disappointed, I confess, in the society I find here; it isn’t

so richly native, of so indigenous a note, as I could have desired.

Indeed, to tell the truth, it’s not native at all; though on the other

hand it _is_ furiously cosmopolite, and that speaks to me too at my

hours. We’re French _and_ we’re English; we’re American _and_ we’re

German; I believe too there are some Spaniards and some Hungarians

expected. I’m much interested in the study of racial types; in

comparing, contrasting, seizing the strong points, the weak points, in

identifying, however muffled by social hypocrisy, the sharp keynote of

each. It’s interesting to shift one’s point of view, to despoil one’s

self of one’s idiotic prejudices, to enter into strange exotic ways of

looking at life.

The American types don’t, I much regret to say, make a strong or rich

affirmation, and, excepting my own (and what _is_ my own, dear Harvard, I

ask you?), are wholly negative and feminine. We’re _thin_—that I should

have to say it! we’re pale, we’re poor, we’re flat. There’s something

meagre about us; our line is wanting in roundness, our composition in

richness. We lack temperament; we don’t know how to live; _nous ne

savons pas vivre_, as they say here. The American temperament is

represented—putting myself aside, and I often think that my temperament

isn’t at all American—by a young girl and her mother and by another young

girl without her mother, without either parent or any attendant or

appendage whatever. These inevitable creatures are more or less in the

picture; they have a certain interest, they have a certain stamp, but

they’re disappointing too: they don’t go far; they don’t keep all they

promise; they don’t satisfy the imagination. They are cold slim sexless;

the physique’s not generous, not abundant; it’s only the drapery, the

skirts and furbelows—that is, I mean in the young lady who has her

mother—that are abundant. They’re rather different—we _have_ our little

differences, thank God: one of them all elegance, all “paid bills” and

extra-fresh _gants de Suède_, from New York; the other a plain pure

clear-eyed narrow-chested straight-stepping maiden from the heart of New

England. And yet they’re very much alike too—more alike than they would

care to think themselves; for they face each other with scarcely

disguised opposition and disavowal. They’re both specimens of the

practical positive passionless young thing as we let her loose on the

world—and yet with a certain fineness and knowing, as you please, either

too much or too little. With all of which, as I say, they have their

spontaneity and even their oddity; though no more mystery, either of

them, than the printed circular thrust into your hand on the

street-corner.

The little New Yorker’s sometimes very amusing; she asks me if every one

in Boston talks like me—if every one’s as “intellectual” as your poor

correspondent. She’s for ever throwing Boston up at me; I can’t get rid

of poor dear little Boston. The other one rubs it into me too, but in a

different way; she seems to feel about it as a good Mahommedan feels

toward Mecca, and regards it as a focus of light for the whole human

race. Yes, poor little Boston, what nonsense is talked in thy name! But

this New England maiden is in her way a rare white flower; she’s

travelling all over Europe alone—“to see it,” she says, “for herself.”

For herself! What can that strangely serene self of hers do with such

sights, such depths! She looks at everything, goes everywhere, passes

her way with her clear quiet eyes wide open; skirting the edge of obscene

abysses without suspecting them; pushing through brambles without tearing

her robe; exciting, without knowing it, the most injurious suspicions;

and always holding her course—without a stain, without a sense, without a

fear, without a charm!

Then by way of contrast there’s a lovely English girl with eyes as shy as

violets and a voice as sweet!—the difference between the printed, the

distributed, the gratuitous hand-bill and the shy scrap of a

_billet-doux_ dropped where you may pick it up. She has a sweet

Gainsborough head and a great Gainsborough hat with a mighty plume in

front of it that makes a shadow over her quiet English eyes. Then she

has a sage-green robe, “mystic wonderful,” all embroidered with subtle

devices and flowers, with birds and beasts of tender tint; very straight

and tight in front and adorned behind, along the spine, with large

strange iridescent buttons. The revival of taste, of the sense of

beauty, in England, interests me deeply; what is there in a simple row of

spinal buttons to make one dream—to _donner à rêver_, as they say here?

I believe a grand esthetic renascence to be at hand and that a great

light will be kindled in England for all the world to see. There are

spirits there I should like to commune with; I think they’d understand

me.

This gracious English maiden, with her clinging robes, her amulets and

girdles, with something quaint and angular in her step, her carriage,

something medieval and Gothic in the details of her person and dress,

this lovely Evelyn Vane (isn’t it a beautiful name?) exhales association

and implication. She’s so much a woman—_elle est bien femme_, as they

say here; simpler softer rounder richer than the easy products I spoke of

just now. Not much talk—a great sweet silence. Then the violet eye—the

very eye itself seems to blush; the great shadowy hat making the brow so

quiet; the strange clinging clutched pictured raiment! As I say, it’s a

very gracious tender type. She has her brother with her, who’s a

beautiful fair-haired grey-eyed young Englishman. He’s purely objective,

but he too is very plastic.

V

FROM MIRANDA HOPE TO HER MOTHER

_September_ 26.

You mustn’t be frightened at not hearing from me oftener; it isn’t

because I’m in any trouble, but because I’m getting on so well. If I

were in any trouble I don’t think I’d write to you; I’d just keep quiet

and see it through myself. But that’s not the case at present; and if I

don’t write to you it’s because I’m so deeply interested over here that I

don’t seem to find time. It was a real providence that brought me to

this house, where, in spite of all obstacles, I _am_ able to press

onward. I wonder how I find time for all I do, but when I realise I’ve

only got about a year left, all told, I feel as if I wouldn’t sacrifice a

single hour.

The obstacles I refer to are the disadvantages I have in acquiring the

language, there being so many persons round me speaking English, and

that, as you may say, in the very bosom of a regular French family. It

seems as if you heard English everywhere; but I certainly didn’t expect

to find it in a place like this. I’m not discouraged, however, and I

exercise all I can, even with the other English boarders. Then I’ve a

lesson every day from Mademoiselle—the elder daughter of the lady of the

house and the intellectual one; she has a wonderful fearless mind, almost

like my friend at the hotel—and French give-and-take every evening in the

salon, from eight to eleven, with Madame herself and some friends of hers

who often come in. Her cousin, Mr. Verdier, a young French gentleman, is

fortunately staying with her, and I make a point of talking with him as

much as possible. I have _extra-private lessons_ from him, and I often

ramble round with him. Some night soon he’s to accompany me to the comic

opera. We’ve also a most interesting plan of visiting the galleries

successively together and taking the schools in their order—for they mean

by “the schools” here something quite different from what we do. Like

most of the French Mr. Verdier converses with great fluency, and I feel I

may really gain from him. He’s remarkably handsome, in the French style,

and extremely polite—making a great many speeches which I’m afraid it

wouldn’t always do to pin one’s faith on. When I get down in Maine again

I guess I’ll tell you some of the things he has said to me. I think

you’ll consider them extremely curious—very beautiful _in their French

way_.

The conversation in the parlour (from eight to eleven) ranges over many

subjects—I sometimes feel as if it really avoided _none_; and I often

wish you or some of the Bangor folks could be there to enjoy it. Even

though you couldn’t understand it I think you’d like to hear the way they

go on; they seem to express so much. I sometimes think that at Bangor

they don’t express enough—except that it seems as if over there they’ve

less _to_ express. It seems as if at Bangor there were things that folks

never _tried_ to say; but I seem to have learned here from studying

French that you’ve no idea what you _can_ say before you try. At Bangor

they kind of give it up beforehand; they don’t make any effort. (I don’t

say this in the least for William Platt _in particular_.)

I’m sure I don’t know what they’ll think of me when I get back anyway.

It seems as if over here I had learned to come out with everything. I

suppose they’ll think I’m not sincere; but isn’t it more sincere to come

right out with things than just to keep feeling of them in your

mind—without giving any one the benefit? I’ve become very good friends

with every one in the house—that is (you see I _am_ sincere) with

_almost_ every one. It’s the most interesting circle I ever was in.

There’s a girl here, an American, that I don’t like so much as the rest;

but that’s only because she won’t let me. I should like to like her,

ever so much, because she’s most lovely and most attractive; but she

doesn’t seem to want to know me or to take to me. She comes from New

York and she’s remarkably pretty, with beautiful eyes and the most

delicate features; she’s also splendidly stylish—in this respect would

bear comparison with any one I’ve seen over here. But it seems as if she

didn’t want to recognise me or associate with me, as if she wanted to

make a difference between us. It is like people they call “haughty” in

books. I’ve never seen any one like that before—any one that wanted to

make a difference; and at first I was right down interested, she seemed

to me so like a proud young lady in a novel. I kept saying to myself all

day “haughty, haughty,” and I wished she’d keep on so. But she did keep

on—she kept on too long; and then I began to feel it in a different way,

to feel as if it kind of wronged me. I couldn’t think what I’ve done,

and I can’t think yet. It’s as if she had got some idea about me or had

heard some one say something. If some girls should behave like that I

wouldn’t make any account of it; but this one’s so refined, and looks as

if she might be so fascinating if I once got to know her, that I think

about it a good deal. I’m bound to find out what her reason is—for of

course she has got some reason; I’m right down curious to know.

I went up to her to ask her the day before yesterday; I thought that the

best way. I told her I wanted to know her better and would like to come

and see her in her room—they tell me she has got a lovely one—and that if

she had heard anything against me perhaps she’d tell me when I came. But

she was more distant than ever and just turned it off; said she had never

heard me mentioned and that her room was too small to receive visitors.

I suppose she spoke the truth, but I’m sure she has some peculiar ground,

all the same. She has got some idea; which I’ll die if I don’t find out

soon—if I have to ask every one in the house. I never _could_ be happy

under an appearance of wrong. I wonder if she doesn’t think me

refined—or if she had ever heard anything against Bangor? I can’t think

it’s that. Don’t you remember when Clara Barnard went to visit in New

York, three years ago, how much attention she received? And you know

Clara _is_ Bangor, to the soles of her shoes. Ask William Platt—so long

as he isn’t native—if he doesn’t consider Clara Barnard refined.

Apropos, as they say here, of refinement, there’s another American in the

house—a gentleman from Boston—who’s just crammed with it. His name’s Mr.

Louis Leverett (such a beautiful name I think) and he’s about thirty

years old. He’s rather small and he looks pretty sick; he suffers from

some affection of the liver. But his conversation leads you right

on—they _do_ go so far over here: even our people seem to strain ahead in

Europe, and perhaps when I get back it may strike you I’ve learned to

keep up with them. I delight to listen to him anyhow—he has such

beautiful ideas. I feel as if these moments were hardly right, not being

in French; but fortunately he uses a great many French expressions. It’s

in a different style from the dazzle of Mr. Verdier—not so personal, but

much more earnest: he says the only earnestness left in the world now is

French. He’s intensely fond of pictures and has given me a great many

ideas about them that I’d never have gained without him; I shouldn’t have

known how to go to work to strike them. He thinks everything of

pictures; he thinks we don’t make near enough of them. They seem to make

a good deal of them here, but I couldn’t help telling him the other day

that in Bangor I really don’t think we do.

If I had any money to spend I’d buy some and take them back to hang right

up. Mr. Leverett says it would do them good—not the pictures, but the

Bangor folks (though sometimes he seems to want to hang _them_ up too).

He thinks everything of the French, anyhow, and says we don’t make nearly

enough of them. I couldn’t help telling him the other day that they

certainly make enough of _themselves_. But it’s very interesting to hear

him go on about the French, and it’s so much gain to me, since it’s about

the same as what I came for. I talk to him as much as I dare about

Boston, but I do feel as if this were right down wrong—a stolen pleasure.

I can get all the Boston culture I want when I go back, if I carry out my

plan, my heart’s secret, of going there to reside. I ought to direct all

my efforts to European culture now, so as to keep Boston to finish off.

But it seems as if I couldn’t help taking a peep now and then in

advance—with a real Bostonian. I don’t know when I may meet one again;

but if there are many others like Mr. Leverett there I shall be certain

not to lack when I carry out my dream. He’s just as full of culture as

he can live. But it seems strange how many different sorts there are.

There are two of the English who I suppose are very cultivated too; but

it doesn’t seem as if I could enter into theirs so easily, though I try

all I can. I do love their way of speaking, and sometimes I feel almost

as if it would be right to give up going for French and just try to get

the hang of English as these people have got it. It doesn’t come out in

the things they say so much, though these are often rather curious, but

in the sweet way they say them and in their kind of making so much, such

an easy lovely effect, of saying almost anything. It seems as if they

must try a good deal to sound like that; but these English who are here

don’t seem to try at all, either to speak or do anything else. They’re a

young lady and her brother, who belong, I believe, to some noble family.

I’ve had a good deal of intercourse with them, because I’ve felt more

free to talk to them than to the Americans—on account of the language.

They often don’t understand mine, and then it’s as if I had to learn

theirs to explain.

I never supposed when I left Bangor that I was coming to Europe to

improve in _our_ old language—and yet I feel I can. If I do get where I

_may_ in it I guess you’ll scarcely understand me when I get back, and I

don’t think you’ll particularly see the point. I’d be a good deal

criticised if I spoke like that at Bangor. However, I verily believe

Bangor’s the most critical place on earth; I’ve seen nothing like it over

here. Well, tell them I’ll give them about all they can do. But I was

speaking about this English young lady and her brother; I wish I could

put them before you. She’s lovely just to see; she seems so modest and

retiring. In spite of this, however, she dresses in a way that attracts

great attention, as I couldn’t help noticing when one day I went out to

walk with her. She was ever so much more looked at than what I’d have

thought she’d like; but she didn’t seem to care, till at last I couldn’t

help calling attention to it. Mr. Leverett thinks everything of it; he

calls it the “costume of the future.” I’d call it rather the costume of

the past—you know the English have such an attachment to the past. I

said this the other day to Madame de Maisonrouge—that Miss Vane dressed

in the costume of the past. De l’an passé, vous voulez dire? she asked

in her gay French way. (You can get William Platt to translate this; he

used to tell me he knows so much French.)

You know I told you, in writing some time ago, that I had tried to get

some insight into the position of woman in England, and, being here with

Miss Vane, it has seemed to me to be a good opportunity to get a little

more. I’ve asked her a great deal about it, but she doesn’t seem able to

tell me much. The first time I asked her she said the position of a lady

depended on the rank of her father, her eldest brother, her husband—all

on somebody else; and they, as to their position, on something quite else

(than themselves) as well. She told me her own position was very good

because her father was some relation—I forget what—to a lord. She thinks

everything of this; and that proves to me their standing can’t be

_really_ good, because if it were it wouldn’t be involved in that of your

relations, even your nearest. I don’t know much about lords, and it does

try my patience—though she’s just as sweet as she can live—to hear her

talk as if it were a matter of course I should.

I feel as if it were right to ask her as often as I can if she doesn’t

consider every one equal; but she always says she doesn’t, and she

confesses that she doesn’t think _she’s_ equal to Lady

Something-or-Other, who’s the wife of that relation of her father. I try

and persuade her all I can that she _is_; but it seems as if she didn’t

want to be persuaded, and when I ask her if that superior being is of the

same opinion—that Miss Vane isn’t her equal—she looks so soft and pretty

with her eyes and says “How can she not be?” When I tell her that this

is right down bad for the other person it seems as if she wouldn’t

believe me, and the only answer she’ll make is that the other person’s

“awfully nice.” I don’t believe she’s nice at all; if she were nice she

wouldn’t have such ideas as that. I tell Miss Vane that at Bangor we

think such ideas vulgar, but then she looks as though she had never heard

of Bangor. I often want to shake her, though she _is_ so sweet. If she

isn’t angry with the people who make her feel that way at least I’m angry

_for_ her. I’m angry with her brother too, for she’s evidently very much

afraid of him, and this gives me some further insight into the subject.

She thinks everything of her brother; she thinks it natural she should be

afraid of him not only physically—for that is natural, as he’s enormously

tall and strong, and has very big fists—but morally and intellectually.

She seems unable, however, to take in any argument, and she makes me

realise what I’ve often heard—that if you’re timid nothing will reason

you out of it.

Mr. Vane also, the brother, seems to have the same prejudices, and when I

tell him, as I often think it right to do, that his sister’s not his

subordinate, even if she does think so, but his equal, and perhaps in

some respects his superior, and that if my brother in Bangor were to

treat me as he treats this charming but abject creature, who has not

spirit enough to see the question in its true light, there would be an

indignation-meeting of the citizens to protest against such an outrage to

the sanctity of womanhood—when I tell him all this, at breakfast or

dinner, he only bursts out laughing so loud that all the plates clatter

on the table.

But at such a time as this there’s always one person who seems interested

in what I say—a German gentleman, a professor, who sits next to me at

dinner and whom I must tell you more about another time. He’s very

learned, but wants to push further and further all the time; he

appreciates a great many of my remarks, and after dinner, in the salon,

he often comes to me to ask me questions about them. I have to think a

little sometimes to know what I did say or what I do think. He takes you

right up where you left off, and he’s most as fond of discussing things

as William Platt ever was. He’s splendidly educated, in the German

style, and he told me the other day that he was an “intellectual broom.”

Well, if he is he sweeps clean; I told him that. After he has been

talking to me I feel as if I hadn’t got a speck of dust left in my mind

anywhere. It’s a most delightful feeling. He says he’s a remorseless

observer, and though I don’t know about remorse—for a bright mind isn’t a

crime, is it?—I’m sure there’s plenty over here to observe. But I’ve

told you enough for to-day. I don’t know how much longer I shall stay

here; I’m getting on now so fast that it has come to seem sometimes as if

I shouldn’t need all the time I’ve laid out. I suppose your cold weather

has promptly begun, as usual; it sometimes makes me envy you. The fall

weather here is very dull and damp, and I often suffer from the want of

bracing.

VI

FROM MISS EVELYN VANE IN PARIS TO THE LADY AUGUSTA FLEMING AT BRIGHTON

PARIS, _September_ 30.