For my own part I knew all of them by heart. I felt even
disappointed when he resumed the thread of his narrative. Whenever he
spoke of something whose beauty had until then remained hidden from me, of
pine-forests or of hailstorms, of _Notre-Dame de Paris_, of _Athalie_, or
of _Phedre_, by some piece of imagery he would make their beauty explode
and drench me with its essence. And so, dimly realising that the universe
contained innumerable elements which my feeble senses would be powerless
to discern, did he not bring them within my reach, I wished that I might
have his opinion, some metaphor of his, upon everything in the world, and
especially upon such things as I might have an opportunity, some day, of
seeing for myself; and among such things, more particularly still upon
some of the historic buildings of France, upon certain views of the sea,
because the emphasis with which, in his books, he referred to these shewed
that he regarded them as rich in significance and beauty. But, alas, upon
almost everything in the world his opinion was unknown to me. I had no
doubt that it would differ entirely from my own, since his came down from
an unknown sphere towards which I was striving to raise myself; convinced
that my thoughts would have seemed pure foolishness to that perfected
spirit, I had so completely obliterated them all that, if I happened to
find in one of his books something which had already occurred to my own
mind, my heart would swell with gratitude and pride as though some deity
had, in his infinite bounty, restored it to me, had pronounced it to be
beautiful and right.
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