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40 THE CONFESSION OF A FOOL
furnishing endless summaries, commentaries and analyses,
to which I added advice and practical illustrations. She
had been only moderately interested, for she doubted her
literary talent from the outset. I told her that every
educated person possessed the ability to write at least
a letter, and was therefore a poet or author in posse.
But it was all in vain ; the passion for the stage had
taken firm hold of her obstinate brain. She insisted that
she was a born elocutionist, and, because her rank pre-
vented her from following her inclination and going on
the stage (an ardently desired contingency), she posed as
a martyr, heedless of the disastrous consequences which
threatened to overtake her home life. Her husband sym-
pathised with my benevolent efforts, undertaken in the
hope of saving the domestic peace of the family from
shipwreck. He was grateful, although he had not the
courage to take an active and personal interest in the
matter. The Baroness’s opposition notwithstanding, I
had continued my efforts and urged her in every letter to
break the fateful spell which held her, and make an effort
to write a poem, a drama, or a novel.
"Your life has been an eventful one," I said to her
in one of my letters; ’’why not make use of your own
experience?" And, quoting from Borne, I added,
"Take paper and pen and be candid, and you are bound
to become an authoress."
"It’s too painful to live an unhappy life all over
again," she had replied. "I want to find forgetfulness
in art ; I want to merge my identity into characters
different from my own."
I had never asked myself what it was that she wanted to
forget. I knew nothing of her past life. Did she shrink
from allowing me to solve the riddle ? Was she afraid
of handing me the key to her character? Was she
anxious to hide her true self behind the personalities of
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