No first love-letter ever was or ever will be, as may readily be
supposed, a brilliant effort of the mind. In all young men not tainted
by corruption such a letter is written with gushings from the heart,
too overflowing, too multifarious not to be the essence, the elixir of
many other letters begun, rejected, and rewritten.
Here is the one that Calyste finally composed and which he read aloud
to his poor, astonished mother. To her the old mansion seemed to have
taken fire; this love of her son flamed up in it like the glare of a
conflagration.
Calyste to Madame la Marquise de Rochefide.
Madame,--I loved you when you were to me but a dream; judge,
therefore, of the force my love acquired when I saw you. The dream
was far surpassed by the reality. It is my grief and my misfortune
to have nothing to say to you that you do not know already of your
beauty and your charms; and yet, perhaps, they have awakened in no
other heart so deep a sentiment as they have in me.
In so many ways you are beautiful; I have studied you so much
while thinking of you day and night that I have penetrated the
mysteries of your being, the secrets of your heart, and your
delicacy, so little appreciated.
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