To live the very poetry of love and not to see the lover--ah, what sweet intoxication! what visionary rapture! a chimera with flowing man and outspread wings! The following is the puerile and even silly event which decided the future life of this young girl.
Modeste happened to see in a bookseller's window a lithographic portrait of one of her favorites, Canalis.

We all know what lies such pictures tell,--being as they are the result of a shameless speculation, which seizes upon the personality of celebrated individuals as if their faces were public property.
In this instance Canalis, sketched in a Byronic pose, was offering to public admiration his dark locks floating in the breeze, a bare throat, and the unfathomable brow which every bard ought to possess.

Victor Hugo's forehead will make more persons shave their heads than the number of incipient marshals ever killed by the glory of Napoleon.
This portrait of Canalis (poetic through mercantile necessity) caught Modeste's eye.

The day on which it caught her eye one of Arthez's best books happened to be published.

We are compelled to admit, though it may be to Modeste's injury, that she hesitated long between the illustrious poet and the illustrious prose-writer.