I do not say this to excite your courage or stimulate your curiosity; I believe I have no need of such incentives to interest you and attach you to me.
I will now reply to the second edition, considerably enlarged, of your first sermon.
Will you have a confession?
I said to myself when I saw you so distrustful, and mistaking me for Corinne (whose improvisations bore me dreadfully), that in all probability dozes of Muses had already led you, rashly curious, into their valleys, and begged you to taste the fruits of their boarding-school Parnassus.

Oh! you are perfectly safe with me, my friend; I may love poetry, but I have no little verses in my pocket-book, and my stockings are, and will remain, immaculately white.

You shall not be pestered with the "Flowers of my Heart" in one or more volumes.

And, finally, should it ever happen that I say to you the word "Come!" you will not find--you know it now--an old maid, no, nor a poor and ugly one.
Ah! my friend, if you only knew how I regret that you came to Havre! You have lowered the charm of what you call my romance.

God alone knew the treasure I was reserving for the man noble enough, and trusting enough, and perspicacious enough to come--having faith in my letters, having penetrated step by step into the depths of my heart--to come to our first meeting with the simplicity of a child: for that was what I dreamed to be the innocence of a man of genius.