ns; while, on the other hand, no man can give
himself talent by wholesome living: nevertheless, it is all but proved
that Virgil, the painter of love, never loved a Dido, and that
Rousseau, the model citizen, had enough pride to had furnished forth an
aristocracy. On the other hand Raphael and Michael Angelo do present the
glorious conjunction of genius with the lines of character. Talent
in men is therefore, in all moral points, very much what beauty is in
women,--simply a promise. Let us, therefore, doubly admire the man in
whom both heart and character equal the perfection of his genius.

When Ernest discovered within his poet an ambitious egoist, the worst
species of egoist (for there are some amiable forms of the vice), he
felt a delicacy in leaving him. Honest natures cannot easily break the
ties that bind them, especially if they have tied them voluntarily. The
secretary was therefore still living in domestic relations with the
poet when Modeste's letter arrived,--in such relations, be it said, as
involved a perpetual sacrifice of his feelings. La Briere admitted the
frankness with which Canalis had laid himself bare before him. Moreover,
the defects of the man, who will always be considered a great poet
during his lifetime and flattered as Martmontel was flattered, were only
the wrong side of his brilliant qualities. Without his vanity and his
magniloquence it is possible that he might never have acquired the
sonorous elocution which is so useful and even necessary an instrument
in political life. His cold-bloodedness touched at certain points on
rectitude and loyalty; his ostentation had a lining of generosity.
Results, we must remember, are to the profit of society; motives concern
God.

But after the arrival of Modeste's letter Ernest deceived himself no
longer as to Canalis. The pair had just finished breakfast and were
talking together in the poet's study, which was on the ground-floor of a
house standing back in a court-yard, and looked into a garden.

"There!" exclaimed Canalis, "I was telling Madame de Chaulieu the
other day that I ought to bring out another poem; I knew admiration was
running short, for I have had no anonymous letters for a long time."

"Is it from an unknown woman?"

"Unknown? yes!--a D'Este, in Havre; evidently a feigned name."

Canalis passed the letter to La Briere. The little poem, with all its
hidden enthusiasms, in short, poor Modeste's heart, was disdainfully
handed over,