Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/153

134 eral, I think you would do best not to marry in the provinces. That would be a way, of course, to settle your uncertainties, but it would also be a misfortune to deprive yourself of the greatest blessing, which is hope, Mon ami, I cannot con- ceive why you have not strength enough to bear ill-fortune. Paris is the place in the world where one can be poor with the least privations ; none but fools and tiresome people need to be rich. — You see now that it was folly to think you must make the tour of the world in order to write a good work. Begin it now ; and before it is finished you may be rich enough to travel. In short, I want you to regard the lack of fortune as a contrariety, not a misfortune. Mon ami, if I looked down from the moon I should prefer your talent to the wealth of M. Beaujon ; I should better like the love of study than the post of grand-equerry of France. In other words, being condemned to live, and not being able to choose the life of a worthy Normandy farmer, I should ask to have the mind and talent of M. de Gruibert ; but I should wish to be inspired to make more use of them.

What you tell me of the children of your sister is full of interest and feeling ; but, mon ami, here you are again tormenting yourself about the future. They are well at present, those children ; you see what they have lost, and that worries you. The future of the little boy is less embarrassing ; you know better than I that the education of a provincial college is just as good and just as bad as that of a college in Paris ; and then, mon ami, if he enters a regiment at sixteen it is all the same whether he has been brought up in Bordeaux or iu Paris. What false ideas we have on the first interest of life — happiness ! Ah ! good God ! is it in sharpening the mind, is it in widening ideas, that the happiaess of individuals is made ? — though both are useful in general. But why must your nephew be made happy in your way ? — I feel