I shall often return to, and speak much of Soulié: he was one of the most powerful literary influences of the day, and his personality was one of the most marked I have known. He died young. He died, not only in the full tide of his talent, but even before he had produced the perfect and finished work he would certainly have created, some day or other, had not death hastened its footsteps. Soulié's brain was a little confused and obscure; his thoughts were only lighted up on one side, after the fashion of this planet; the reverse side to the one illuminated by the sun was pitifully dark. Soulié did not know how to begin either a novel or a drama. The opening explanation of his work was done hap-hazard: sometimes in the first act, sometimes in the last, if it were a play; if it were a novel, sometimes in the first, sometimes in the last volume. His introduction, timidly begun, nearly always was laboriously unravelled. It seemed as though, like those night birds which need the darkness to develop all their faculties, Soulié was not at ease save in twilight. I was for ever quarrelling with him on this point. As he was gifted with unrivalled imagination and power, when he was on the warpath, I used to beseech him continually to let in the utmost possible daylight at the beginning of his action. "Be clear to the verge of transparency," I continually said to him. "God's greatness consists in His making of light; without light, we should not have known how to appreciate the sublime grandeur of creation." Soulié was twenty-six when I first knew him. He was a lusty young man, of medium height, but capitally proportioned; he had a prominent forehead; dark hair, eyebrows and beard; a well-shaped nose and full eyes; thick lips and white teeth. He laughed readily, although it was never a fresh young laugh. It sounded ironical and strident, which gave it the quality of age. Being naturally of a bantering disposition, irony was a weapon he could wield admirably. He had tried his hand at most things, and he retained some slight knowledge of everything he had done. After having received an excellent education in the provinces, I believe he studied law at Rheims, to which we owe the admirable description of student's life in his book entitled _Confession générale._ He passed his legal examinations and was called to the Bar; but he did not take kindly to the profession. Rather than follow that very liberal avocation, he preferred a mercantile calling. This aversion led to his developing the notion of a big steam sawmill in 1824 or 1825.