Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 1.djvu/64

lvi who kept the Princess of China in a bottle, till the bottle broke (compare La Guzla as cited above). Nor is there anything in the Inconnue letters themselves (which are too sincere) quite approaching the delicate and fantastic flirtation of these same letters to the English woman who had golden hair, and whose papier rose d'outremer gentiment orné des mouches was warranted by the faculty to cure the most obstinate neuralgia.

I think myself that there is quant, suff. of seriousness even here. There can be no reasonable doubt of it as to the Inconnue. The mystery about the individual has been pretty well cleared up, though perhaps future generations will know more details about the personality of Mlle. Jenny Dacquin than we do. Such knowledge, intensely interesting it would seem to some people, is less so to others. What the whole course of the affair was and meant, why they did not marry (a thing which has puzzled even Frenchmen, less apt than ourselves to see in marriage the natural goal of love), and other questions I leave to those who like them. But I certainly must protest against the opinion of (I think) a recent Edinburgh Reviewer that the lady must have been rather a nuisance. Nobody perfect in love-lore, or even (for who is that?)