And you are not, moreover, a mosaic of admirable shapes. There are no admirable shapes, but the shapes that agree, those that summon and presuppose one another according to the irrefutable logic of harmonious necessity, those that borrow life from one another. Yours gather in an indivisible whole, and it is the calm torrent of life that passes over you, that torrent whence you have sprung, naked and one. Collected beauties could never have attained this unity. One detail that harmonized not with all the others, the least variance between the profiles, and the work of art would be destroyed, a useless thing, a senseless construction, renounced by the light, and doomed to all the poverties, to all the discords. This would be fatally the lot of even a clever assemblage, of even perfect pieces, chosen from different marbles. But you, you live, you think, and your thoughts are those of a woman, and not of I know not what superior being, foreign, imaginary, artificial. You are made only of truth; and it is of truth alone that your omnipotence is born. There is nothing strong, there is nothing beautiful outside of the truth. Your truth is within reach of everyone: it is woman, whom each one thinks he knows, the intimate companion of men; yet nobody has seen her, the wise not more than the simple. And the trees, who looks at them? The light has no spectators. Nevertheless, except through confining oneself to the observation of reality, constant, scrupulous, and ever more profound, no one can accomplish anything. There are people who say to you, “The Ideal.” If this word is not void of meaning, it signifies only a stupidity. The Ideal! The Fantasy! But the realities of nature surpass our most ambitious fancies. Our thought is but an imperceptible point in nature. The part does not embrace, does not dominate the whole. Man is incapable of creating, of inventing. He can only approach nature, submissively, lovingly. For the rest, she will not disappear from his sight; he has but to look, she will let him see what by force of patience he has arrived at understanding—that only. And yet the part is beautiful! He is an equal of Prometheus, he, who has known how to ravish from nature the life we adore in the Venus of Melos. Nothing will take the place of persevering study. To it alone the secret of life delivers itself. Give your life patiently, passionately to understanding life. What profit, if you come indeed to understand! You will be in the circle of joy forever. To understand, to see—truly to see! Would one recoil before the necessary effort, before the indispensable apprenticeship, however long and laborious, if he foresaw the happiness of understanding? To understand! It is—not to die!