When he returned from his squalid Italian expedition in search of bread and a new religion, his mind was clouded with the vague desire, the sensual moodiness, which in such natures stains the threshold of manhood. This unrest, with its mysterious torments and black delights, was banished, or at least soothed into a happier humour, by the influence of a person who is one of the most striking types to be found in the gallery of fair women. I. A French writer in the eighteenth century, in a story which deals with a rather repulsive theme of action in a tone that is graceful, simple, and pathetic, painted the portrait of a creature for whom no moralist with a reputation to lose can say a word; and we may, if we choose, fool ourselves by supposing her to be without a counterpart in the better-regulated world of real life, but, in spite of both these objections, she is an interesting and not untouching figure to those who like to know all the many-webbed stuff out of which their brothers and sisters are made. The Manon Lescaut of the unfortunate Abbé Prevost, kindly, bright, playful, tender, but devoid of the very germ of the idea of that virtue which is counted the sovereign recommendation of woman, helps us to understand Madame de Warens. There are differences enough between them, and we need not mistake them for one and the same type. Manon Lescaut is a prettier figure, because romance has fewer limitations than real life; but if we think of her in reading of Rousseau's benefactress, the vision of the imaginary woman tends to soften our judgment of the actual one, as well as to enlighten our conception of a character that eludes the instruments of a commonplace analysis.[39]