"MY DEAR EUGÉNIE,--Certainly much time has elapsed since I received any news from you or you from me; I ought to confess that I am very culpable, and that upon me should rest the fault of the silence which ought never to exist between us. It is time at last to break it, and to repair our forgetfulness, or rather mine, by an assiduous correspondence which should place us in that intimate relationship which ought always to exist between a brother and a sister; that is to say, that we come near to each other, notwithstanding the distance which separates us, and make ourselves enjoy a conversation all the more sweet that distance throws a double interest on what we tell to the cherished object.
"My dear Eugénie, the lines which I am going to write will astonish you without doubt; the conduct which I have maintained towards you up to the present presaged nothing like what you are going to read, but be persuaded that I speak to you sincerely; your surprise, I believe, will be agreeable. Up to now I have shown you little confidence; but why, you will say? The reason of it is not in my heart; woe to me that there was ever the least _éloignement_ for you! It is the fickleness of the age, it is this continual distraction, heritage of infancy, which follows us to that age where reflection takes the place of sports, and casts the first clouds on the face where there have shone, up to that time only, the candour of innocence and the expression of happiness. But here I am arrived at an age where childhood is for me only a dream; all the illusions of life have disappeared, and sad realities have taken their place. It is then that one is no longer sufficient for himself; it is then that the man who grows pale with dread, and who feels, so to speak, his knees to sink under him in view of the path of life, of that rough road where 'they climb rather than march'; it is then, say I, that man has need of a support, of a helpful arm which sustains him in the trials that he is about to undergo. This want manifested itself to me as soon as, casting a look upon the future, I saw myself alone ready to face so many dangers. Then my heart immediately fixed upon you; and can one indeed find a better friend than a sister such as you are? Be willing, then, henceforth to be a great deal my confidant, and help me with your advice and your friendship. But you will say, 'Ought you to have any other confidant than a father? Is it not he who ought to be the depository of all your secrets?' You may well believe that I have made this reflection; but papa is so sensitive, he is affected with so little a thing that I would never dare tell him all that passes within me. Then you are the one of all the family whose character is the most conformed to mine, so much I have been able to judge by your pieces of verse, all stamped with a sweet reverie, with a sensitiveness, with a tinge of melancholy in fine which makes, I believe, the foundation of my character.