many different opinions about Madame Firmiani that it would be tedious
to write them down. We have merely sought to show that a man seeking
to understand her, yet unwilling or unable to go to her house, would
(from the answers to his inquiries) have had equal reason to suppose
her a widow or wife, silly or wise, virtuous or the reverse, rich or
pour, soulless or full of feeling, handsome or plain,--in short, there
were as many Madame Firmianis as there are species in society, or
sects in Catholicism. Frightful reflection! we are all like
lithographic blocks, from which an indefinite number of copies can be
drawn by criticism,--the proofs being more or less like us according
to a distribution of shading which is so nearly imperceptible that our
reputation depends (barring the calumnies of friends and the
witticisms of newspapers) on the balance struck by our criticisers
between Truth that limps and Falsehood to which Parisian wit gives
wings.

Madame Firmiani, like other noble and dignified women who make their
hearts a sanctuary and disdain the world, was liable, therefore, to be
totally misjudged by Monsieur de Bourbonne, an old country magnate,
who had reason to think a great deal about her during the winter of
this year. He belonged to the class of provincial Planters, men living
on their estates, accustomed to keep close accounts of everything and
to bargain with the peasantry. Thus employed, a man becomes sagacious
in spite of himself, just as soldiers in the long run acquire courage
from routine. The old gentleman, who had come to Paris from Touraine
to satisfy his curiosity about Madame Firmiani, and found it not at
all assuaged by the Parisian gossip which he heard, was a man of honor
and breeding. His sole heir was a nephew, whom he greatly loved, in
whose interests he planted his poplars. When a man thinks without
annoyance about his heir, and watches the trees grow daily finer for