the Julie of Rousseau; to have La Fontaine and Moliere as friends,
Racine for a master, and Pere-Lachaise to walk to,--oh! if it would
only last always."[*]

[*] "Correspondance," vol. i.

Pere-Lachaise was a favourite resort when he was not working very
hard; and it was from there that he obtained his finest inspirations,
and decided that, of all the feelings of the soul, sorrow is the most
difficult to express, because of its simplicity. Curiously enough, he
abandoned the Jardin des Plantes because he thought it melancholy, and
apparently found his reflections among the tombs more cheerful. He
decided that the only beautiful epitaphs are single names--such as La
Fontaine, Massena, Moliere, "which tell all, and make one dream."

When he returned home to his garret, fresh interests awaited him.
Sometimes, he tells us in the "Peau de Chagrin," he would "study the
mosses, with their colours revived by showers, or transformed by the
sun into a brown velvet that fitfully caught the light. Such things as
these formed my recreations: the passing poetic moods of daylight, the
melancholy mists, sudden gleams of sunlight, the silence and the magic
of night, the mysteries of dawn, the smoke-wreaths from each chimney;
every chance event, in fact, in my curious world became familiar to
me."

Occasionally on Sundays he would go to a friend's house, ostensibly to
play cards--a pastime which he hated. He generally, however, managed
to escape from the eye of his hostess; and comfortably ensconced in a
window behind thick curtains, or hidden behind a high armchair, he
would pour into the ear of a congenial companion some of the thoughts
which surged through his impetuous brain. All his life he needed this
outlet after concentrated mental labour; and sometimes in a friend's
drawing-room, if he knew himself to be surrounded only by intimates,
he would give full vent to his conversational powers. On these
occasions he would carry his hearers away with him, often against
their better judgment, by his eloquence and verve; would send them
into fits of hearty laughter by his sallies; his store of droll
anecdotes, his jollity and gaiety; and would display his consummate
gifts as a dramatic raconteur. Later in life, after he had raised the
enmity of a large section of the writing world, and knew that there
were many watching eagerly to immortalise in print--with gay malice
and wit on the surface, and bitter spite and hatred below--the
hee