FROM LOUIS LEVERETT,IN PARIS,TO HARVARD TREMONT,IN BOSTON.
September 25th.
My dear Harvard--I have carried out my plan,of which I gave you a hint in my last,and I only regret that I should not have done it before.It is human nature,after all,that is the most interesting thing in the world,and it only reveals itself to the truly earnest seeker.There is a want of earnestness in that life of hotels and railroad trains,which so many of our countrymen are content to lead in this strange Old World,and I was distressed to find how far I,myself;had been led along the dusty,beaten track.I had,however,constantly wanted to turn aside into more unfrequented ways;to plunge beneath the surface and see what I should discover.But the opportunity had always been missing;somehow,I never meet those opportunities that we hear about and read 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.