Who says love says suffering; suffering from separation;
suffering from disagreement. Love in itself is a sublime and pathetic
drama. When happy, it is silent. Now, the cause of the tedium of
Madame d'Arnim's book," he added, "is easily discoverable by a soul
that loves. Goethe did not love Bellina. Put a big stone in Goethe's
place--the Sphinx no power has ever been able to wrest from its desert
sand--and Bellina's letters are understandable. Unlike Pygmalion's
fable, the more Bellina writes, the more petrified Goethe becomes, the
more glacial his letters. True, if Bellina had perceived that her
sheets were falling upon granite, and if she had abandoned herself to
rage or despair, she would have composed a poem. But, as she did not
love Goethe, as Goethe was a pretext for her letters, she went on with
her girl's journal; and we have read some (not intended for print)
much more charming, not in units, but in tens."
In the rest of the criticism, Balzac swirls round his guns and directs
his fire on Goethe's replies to Bellina. The latter's epistles were
accompanied with presents of braces and slippers and flannel
waistcoats, which were much more appreciated by the poet than her
theories on music.
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