Your story is very familiar. “There was once an idol.” Read Daniel; but he was mistaken--the head was not of gold; it was of clay, like the feet. But the idolater held a lamp in his hand, and the reflection from this lamp gilded the idol’s head. If I were the idol (you will observe that I do not on this occasion assume the attractive rôle), I should say: “Is it my fault that you have extinguished your lamp? Is that any excuse for destroying me?” It seems to me that I am becoming somewhat of an Oriental. So be it! If you knew Madame de M. you would love her to distraction. She does not give me white bread, but she gives me something that takes its place. She is not a baker’s wife; she is a baker. I grieve to see that you are becoming more and more affected. I am fully informed about your piety. I thank you for your prayers, if you do not mean them for a figure of speech. As to your blue cashmere, I am rather sceptical of your piety, because piety in 1842 is a fashion, just as blue cashmeres are. You will fail to understand the connection, but it is perfectly clear notwithstanding. I regret very much that you are reading Pope’s translation of Homer. Read the translation of Dugas Montbel, which is the only one worth reading. If you had the courage to brave ridicule, and time to spare, you would get Planche’s Greek Grammar and his Dictionary. For a month the grammar would put you to sleep, but its effect would be seen later. After two months you would enjoy looking up the Greek words, translated usually almost literally by M. Montbel. Two months later still you would be able to guess fairly well, by the awkwardness of his expression, when the translator has failed to reproduce clearly the Greek phrase. By the end of a year you would read Homer as you read a melody with its accompaniment: the melody being the Greek, the accompaniment the translation. It is possible that you might then wish to study Greek seriously, in which case you would have the pleasure of reading many delightful books. But I am supposing that your time is not absorbed in the selection of toilettes, or in displaying them before your friends. Everything in Homer is remarkable. The epithets, which in the French translation seem so strange, are wonderfully correct. I remember that he speaks of the sea as purple. I never understood what he meant until last summer, when I was in a little boat on the Gulf of Lepanto, going to Delphi. It was just at sunset. Immediately afterwards, the sea took on a magnificent deep violet tint, which lasted for ten minutes. To see this effect requires the atmosphere, the sea, and the sun of Greece. I hope that you will never become enough of an artist to recognise with pleasure that Homer was a great painter.