First Part Chapter 10

Your misty valley, your hills, bare or
clothed with magnificent trees, your meadow, the wonder of Provence,
with its fresh water dispersed in little runlets, the different
effects of the atmosphere, this whole world of infinity which laps you
round, and which God has made so various, will recall to you the
infinite sameness of your soul's life. But at least I shall be there,
my Renee, and in me you will find a heart which no social pettiness
shall ever corrupt, a heart all your own. Monday.

My dear, my Spaniard is quite adorably melancholy; there is something
calm, severe, manly, and mysterious about him which interests me
profoundly. His unvarying solemnity and the silence which envelops him
act like an irritant on the mind. His mute dignity is worthy of a
fallen king. Griffith and I spend our time over him as though he were
a riddle. How odd it is! A language-master captures my fancy as no other man has
done. Yet by this time I have passed in review all the young men of
family, the attaches to embassies, and the ambassadors, generals, and
inferior officers, the peers of France, their sons and nephews, the
court, and the town. The coldness of the man provokes me.

The sandy waste which he tries to
place, and does place, between us is covered by his deeprooted pride;
he wraps himself in mystery. The hanging back is on his side, the
boldness on mine. This odd situation affords me the more amusement
because the whole thing is mere trifling. What is a man, a Spaniard,
and a teacher of languages to me? I make no account of any man
whatever, were he a king. We are worth far more, I am sure, than the
greatest of them. What a slave I would have made of Napoleon! If he
had loved me, shouldn't he have felt the whip!