“Give me but leave to try! I will be so humble, so restrained; my letters shall be as infrequent as you wish lest they become a burden to you; five lines only from you will suffice me. My visits will be but rare; yet, if our thoughts may meet, I shall feel that--after these long and dreary years during which I have been nothing to you--I may in time become your friend. Friends with such devotion as mine are not too often found. I will encircle you with love so sweet, so tender, with affection so compounded of all that is simplest in a child and all that is best and grandest in a man that, surely, in time you will feel its charm and turn to me one day, saying: “I am in very deed your friend.” “Adieu, madame, once more I read your note of the 23rd with its assurance of your _sentiments affectueux_. Surely this is no mere formality? Tell me truly--truly!--Yours to eternity, HECTOR BERLIOZ.” “_P.S._--I send you three books; perhaps you will glance at them in your leisure moments. Do you see the author’s device to make you take a little interest in him?” MADAME F.’S _Answer_. “LYONS, _29th September 1864_. “MONSIEUR,--I should wrong both you and myself did I not reply at once to your dream of our future friendship; believe me, I speak from my heart. “I am an old woman (remember I am six years your senior), worn and withered by bodily pain and mental anguish, with all my earthly illusions swept away. “Since the fatal day, twenty years ago, that I lost my best friend, I have said good-bye to worldly pleasures, and have found my sole consolation in a few old friends and in my children. “In this absolute calm, alone, can I find rest, and to upset it would be burdensome indeed. “In your letter of the 27th you say you have but one wish--that I may become your friend. Do you believe, monsieur, that this could possibly be? I hardly know you, I have seen you but once in forty-nine years; how can I understand your tastes, your character, your capacities--all those hundred and one points upon which, alone, friendship can be based? “With two people of like affinities, sympathy may be born and grow into friendship, but, far apart as we are, no correspondence could bring about what you desire. “Besides, I must confess that I am most lazy about letters; my mind is as torpid as my fingers. I could not, therefore, promise to write regularly, for the promise would certainly not be kept. Still, if you feel a certain pleasure in writing, I will read your letters, although you must not expect speedy replies. “Neither can I promise to receive you alone. At Geneva, in the house of my son and his wife, it would be impossible for me to arrange matters as you wish.