A Bundle of Letters | Page 9

about--the
things that happen to people in novels and biographies. And yet I am
always on the watch to take advantage of any opening that may present
itself; I am always looking out for experiences, for sensations--I might
almost say for adventures.
The great thing is to LIVE, you know--to feel, to be conscious of one's
possibilities; not to pass through life mechanically and insensibly, like
a letter through the post-office. There are times, my dear Harvard,
when I feel as if I were really capable of everything--capable de tout, as
they say here--of the greatest excesses as well as the greatest heroism.
Oh, to be able to say that one has lived--qu'on a vecu, as they say
here--that idea exercises an indefinable attraction for me. You will,
perhaps, reply, it is easy to say it; but the thing is to make people
believe you! And, then, I don't want any second-hand, spurious
sensations; I want the knowledge that leaves a trace--that leaves strange
scars and stains and reveries behind it! But I am afraid I shock you,
perhaps even frighten you.
If you repeat my remarks to any of the West Cedar Street circle, be sure
you tone them down as your discretion will suggest. For yourself; you
will know that I have always had an intense desire to see something of
REAL FRENCH LIFE. You are acquainted with my great sympathy
with the French; with my natural tendency to enter into the French way
of looking at life. I sympathise with the artistic temperament; I
remember you used sometimes to hint to me that you thought my own
temperament too artistic. I don't think that in Boston there is any real
sympathy with the artistic temperament; we tend to make everything a
matter of right and wrong. And in Boston one can't LIVE--on ne peut

pas vivre, as they say here. I don't mean one can't reside--for a great
many people manage that; but one can't live aesthetically--I may almost
venture to say, sensuously. This is why I have always been so much
drawn to the French, who are so aesthetic, so sensuous. I am so sorry
that Theophile Gautier has passed away; I should have liked so much to
go and see him, and tell him all that I owe him. He was living when I
was here before; but, you know, at that time I was travelling with the
Johnsons, who are not aesthetic, and who used to make me feel rather
ashamed of my artistic temperament. If I had gone to see the great
apostle of beauty, I should have had to go clandestinely--en cachette, as
they say here; and that is not my nature; I like to do everything frankly,
freely, naivement, au grand jour. That is the great thing--to be free, to
be frank, to be naif. Doesn't Matthew Arnold say that somewhere--or is
it Swinburne, or Pater?
When I was with the Johnsons everything was superficial; and, as
regards life, everything was brought down to the question of right and
wrong. They were too didactic; art should never be didactic; and what
is life but an art? Pater has said that so well, somewhere. With the
Johnsons I am afraid I lost many opportunities; the tone was gray and
cottony, I might almost say woolly. But now, as I tell you, I have
determined to take right hold for myself; to look right into European
life, and judge it without Johnsonian prejudices. I have taken up my
residence in a French family, in a real Parisian house. You see I have
the courage of my opinions; I don't shrink from carrying out my theory
that the great thing is to LIVE.
You know I have always been intensely interested in Balzac, who never
shrank from the reality, and whose almost LURID pictures of Parisian
life have often haunted me in my wanderings through the old wicked-
looking streets on the other side of the river. I am only sorry that my
new friends--my French family--do not live in the old city--au coeur du
vieux Paris, as they say here. They live only in the Boulevard
Haussman, which is less picturesque; but in spite of this they have a
great deal of the Balzac tone. Madame de Maisonrouge belongs to one
of the oldest and proudest families in France; but she has had reverses
which have compelled her to open an establishment in which a limited
number of travellers, who are weary of the beaten track, who have the
sense of local colour--she explains it herself; she expresses it so

well--in short, to open a sort of boarding-house. I don't see why I
should not, after all, use that expression, for it is the correlative of the
term pension bourgeoise, employed by Balzac in the