“Ah, my soldier!” he said solemnly, laying his hand on Dumay’s shoulder, and thinking to himself how droll it was to make a soldier of the empire tremble, “this young girl may be all in all to you, but to society at large what is she? nothing. At this moment the greatest mandarin in China may be yielding up the ghost and putting half the universe in mourning, and what is that to you? The English are killing thousands of people in India more worthy than we are; why, at this very moment while I am speaking to you some ravishing woman is being burned alive,--did that make you care less for your cup of coffee this morning at breakfast? Not a day passes in Paris that some mother in rags does not cast her infant on the world to be picked up by whoever finds it; and yet see! here is this delicious tea in a cup that cost five louis, and I write verses which Parisian women rush to buy, exclaiming, ‘Divine! delicious! charming! food for the soul!’ Social nature, like Nature herself, is a great forgetter. You will be quite surprised ten years hence at what you have done to-day. You are here in a city where people die, where they marry, where they adore each other at an assignation, where young girls suffocate themselves, where the man of genius with his cargo of thoughts teeming with humane beneficence goes to the bottom,--all side by side, sometimes under the same roof, and yet ignorant of each other, ignorant and indifferent. And here you come among us and ask us to expire with grief at this commonplace affair.” “You call yourself a poet!” cried Dumay, “but don’t you feel what you write?” “Good heavens! if we endured the joys or the woes we sing we should be as worn out in three months as a pair of old boots,” said the poet, smiling. “But stay, you shall not come from Havre to Paris to see Canalis without carrying something back with you. Warrior!” (Canalis had the form and action of an Homeric hero) “learn this from the poet: Every noble sentiment in man is a poem so exclusively individual that his nearest friend, his other self, cares nothing for it. It is a treasure which is his alone, it is--” “Forgive me for interrupting you,” said Dumay, who was gazing at the poet with horror, “but did you ever come to Havre?” “I was there for a day and a night in the spring of 1824 on my way to London.” “You are a man of honor,” continued Dumay; “will you give me your word that you do not know Mademoiselle Modeste Mignon?” “This is the first time that name ever struck my ear,” replied Canalis. “Ah, monsieur!” said Dumay, “into what dark intrigue am I about to plunge? Can I count upon you to help me in my inquiries?--for I am certain that some one has been using your name. You ought to have had a letter yesterday from Havre.” “I received none. Be sure, monsieur, that I will help you,” said Canalis, “so far as I have the opportunity of doing so.”