as, in truth, a being only too much like himself, seen from one side;
reflects his taciturnity, his touchiness, his incredulity except for
self-torment. Agitated, dissatisfied, he is wrestling in her with
himself, his own difficult qualities. He demands from her a freedom,
a frankness, he would have been the last to grant. It is by first
thoughts, of course, that what is forcible and effective in human
nature, the force, therefore, of carnal love, discovers itself; and
for her first thoughts Merimee is always pleading, but always
complaining that he gets only her second thoughts; the thoughts, that
is, of a reserved, self-limiting nature, well under the yoke of
convention, like his own. Strange conjunction! At the beginning of
the correspondence he seems to have been [35] seeking only a fine
intellectual companionship; the lady, perhaps, looking for something
warmer. Towards such companionship that likeness to himself in her
might have been helpful, but was not enough of a complement to his
own nature to be anything but an obstruction in love; and it is to
that, little by little, that his humour turns. He--the
Megalopsychus, as Aristotle defines him--acquires all the lover's
humble habits: himself displays all the tricks of love, its
casuistries, its exigency, its superstitions, aye! even its
vulgarities; involves with the significance of his own genius the
mere hazards and inconsequence of a perhaps average nature; but too
late in the day--the years. After the attractions and repulsions of
half a lifetime, they are but friends, and might forget to be that,
but for his death, clearly presaged in his last weak, touching
letter, just two hours before. There, too, had been the blind and
naked force of nature and circumstance, surprising him in the
uncontrollable movements of his own so carefully guarded heart.

The intimacy, the effusion, the so freely exposed personality of