I thank you, my dear friend, for your kind letter. It afforded me great pleasure and comfort during this dreary vacation, which I am spending in the most painful isolation you can possibly conceive. There is not a human being to whom I can open my heart, nor, what is still worse, with whom I can indulge in conversations which, however commonplace, repose the mind and satisfy one's craving for company. One can be much more secluded in Paris than in the midst of the desert, as I am now realizing for myself. Society does not consist in seeing one's fellow-men, but in holding with them some of those communications which remind one that one is not alone in the world. At times, when I happen to be mixed up in the crowds which fill our streets, I fancy that I am surrounded by trees walking. The effect is precisely the same. When I think of the perfect happiness which used to be my lot at this season of the year, a great sadness comes over me, especially when I remember that I have said an everlasting farewell to these blissful days. I don't know whether you are like me, but there is nothing more painful to me than to have to say, even in respect to the most trifling matter, "It is all over, for once and all." What must I suffer, then, when I have to say this of the only pleasures which in my heart I cared for? But what can be done? I do not repent anything, and the suffering induced in the cause of duty brings with it a joy far greater than those which may have been sacrificed to it. I thank God for having given me in you one who understands me so well that I have no need even to lay bare the state of my heart to him. Yes, it is one of my chief sorrows to think that the persons whose approbation would be the most precious to me must blame me and condemn me. Fortunately that will not prevent them from pitying and loving me. I am not one of those who are constantly preaching tolerance to the orthodox; this is the cause of numberless sophisms for the superficial minds in both camps. It is unfair upon Catholicism to dress it up according to our modern ideas, in addition to which this can only be done by verbal concessions which denote bad faith or frivolity. All or nothing, the Neo-Catholics are the most foolish of any.