ive ideas such definite and clear expressions that
all the world can see and understand--the poet must continually range
through the entire scale of human intellects, so that he can satisfy
the demands of all; he must conceal hard thinking and emotion, two
antagonistic powers, beneath the most vivid color; he must know how to
make one word cover a whole world of thought; he must give the results
of whole systems of philosophy in a few picturesque lines; indeed, his
songs are like seeds that must break into blossom in other hearts
wherever they find the soil prepared by personal experience. How can
you express unless you first have felt? And is not passion suffering.
Poetry is only brought forth after painful wanderings in the vast
regions of thought and life. There are men and women in books, who
seem more really alive to us than men and women who have lived and
died--Richardson's Clarissa, Chenier's Camille, the Delia of Tibullus,
Ariosto's Angelica, Dante's Francesca, Moliere's Alceste,
Beaumarchais' Figaro, Scott's Rebecca the Jewess, the Don Quixote of
Cervantes,--do we not owe these deathless creations to immortal
throes?"

"And what are you going to create for us?" asked Chatelet.

"If I were to announce such conceptions, I should give myself out for
a man of genius, should I not?" answered Lucien. "And besides, such
sublime creations demand a long experience of the world and a study of
human passion and interests which I could not possibly have made; but
I have made a beginning," he added, with bitterness in his tone, as he
took a vengeful glance round the circle; "the time of gestation is
long----"

"Then it will be a case of difficult labor," interrupted M. du Hautoy.

"Your excellent mother might assist you," suggested the Bishop.

The epigram, innocently made by the good prelate, the long-looked-for
revenge, kindled a gleam of delight in all eyes. The smile of
satisfied caste that traveled from mouth to mouth was aggravated by M.
de Bargeton's imbecility; he burst into a laugh, as usual, some
moments later.

"Monseigneur, you are talking a little above our heads; these ladies
do not understand your meaning," said Mme. de Bargeton, and the words
paralyzed the laughter, and drew astonished eyes upon her. "A poet who
looks to the Bible for his inspiration has a mother indeed in the
Church.--M. de Rubempre, will you recite _Saint John in Patmos_ for us,
or _Belshazzar's Feast_, so that his lordship may see