IDEALA

BY SARAH GRAND

"L'esprit ne nous garantit pas
des sottises de notre humeur."--VAUVENARGUES




PREFACE


You will ask me, perhaps, even you who are all charity, why parts of
this book are what they are. I can only answer with another question:
Why are we what we are? But I warn you that it would not be fair to
take any of Ideala's opinions, here given, as final. Much of what she
thought was the mere effervescence of a strong mind in a state of
fermentation, a mind passing successively through the three stages of
the process; the _vinous_, alcoholic, or excitable stage; the
_acetous_, jaundiced, or embittered stage; and the _putrefactive_,
or unwholesome stage; and also embodying, at different times, the
characteristics of all three. But, even during its worst phase, it was
an earnest mind, seeking the truth diligently, and not to be blamed
for stumbling upon good and bad together by the way. It is, in fact,
not a perfect, but a transitional state which I offer for your
consideration, a state which has its repulsive features, but which, it
may be hoped, would result in a beautiful deposit, when at last the
inevitable effervescence had subsided.