I wish to live in a desert, hearing only my heart, seeing only my dream. I desire to forget men, to question myself and reply. Like a young wife whose bosom quivers with a mother's anxiety, the poet, when he thinks an idea awakening in him, should have an hour of ecstasy and reflection. He runs to shut himself up with his dear burden, fears to believe in his good fortune, interrogates his soul, hopes and doubts in turn. Then, when a sharper pain tells him that God has made his mind fruitful, for long months he shuns the crowd, giving himself entirely to the love of the masterpiece which Heaven has confided to him. Let him hide himself, and enjoy like a miser the anguish of production; to-morrow, in his pride, he will come forth to demand caresses for the fruit of his mind. I am poor; I should live alone. My pride would suffer from commonplace consolations, my hand wishes to press only those of my equals. I am ignorant of the world, but I feel that Want is so cold she must freeze the hearts around her, and that, being the sister of Vice, she is timid and ashamed when she is noble. I carry my head aloft and do not mean to lower it. Poverty and Solitude, be you then my guests. Be my guardian angels, my muses, my companions with harsh but encouraging voices. Make me strong, give me the science of living, tell me the cost of my daily bread. May your vigorous caresses, so sharp that they seem like wounds, force me towards the good and the just. I will relight my lamp during these winter nights, and I will feel you both beside me, icy and silent, bending over my table, dictating to me the hard truth. When, weary of gloom and silence, I put by my pen and curse you, your melancholy smiles will, perhaps, make me doubt my dreams. Then your serene and sad peace will render you so beautiful that I will take you for my sweethearts. Our loves shall be as serene and deep as you; the lovers of sixteen will envy the bitter pleasure of our fruitful kisses. But, nevertheless, brothers, it would be delightful to me to feel the purple upon my shoulders, not to drape myself with it before the crowd, but to live more generously beneath the rich and superb tissue. It would be delightful to me to be king of Asia, to dream night and day upon a bed of roses in one of those fairy-like dwelling-places, harems of flowers and sultanas. The marble baths with perfumed fountains, the galleries of honeysuckles supported by silver trellises, the immense halls with ceilings sown with stars, do not these constitute the palace which the angels should build for each young man of twenty? Youth wishes at its festival all that sings, all that shines. When the first kiss is given, the fiancée should be covered with lace and jewels, and the nuptial couch, borne by four golden and marble fairies, should have a canopy of precious stones and sheets of satin.