At another time she fears she has used the word love lightly and resolves to no longer invoke God's help, yet in the next line prays Him to let her die as everything is against her, her thoughts are incoherent, she hates herself and everything is contemptible; but she wishes to die peacefully while some one is singing a beautiful air of Verdi. Again she thinks of shaving her head to save the trouble of arranging her hair; is crazed to think that every moment brings her nearer death; to waste a moment of life is infamous, yet she can trust no one; all the freshness of life is gone; few things affect her now; she wonders how in the past she could have acted so foolishly and reasoned so wisely; is proud that no advice in the world could ever keep her from doing anything she wished. She thinks the journal of her former years exaggerated and resolves to be moderate; wants to make others feel as she feels; finds that the only cure for disenchantment with life is devotion to work; fears her face is wearing an anxious look instead of the confident expression which was its chief charm. "Impossible" is a hideous, maddening word; to think of dying like a dog as most people do and leaving nothing behind is a granite wall against which she every instant dashes her head. If she loved a man, every expression of admiration for anything, or anybody else in her presence would be a profanation. Now she thinks the man she loves must never know what it is to be in want of money and must purchase everything he wishes; must weep to see a woman want for anything, and find the door of no palace or club barred to him. Art becomes a great shining light in her life of few pleasures and many griefs, yet she dares hope for nothing.
At eighteen all her caprices are exhausted; she vows and prays in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost for her wishes. She would like to be a millionaire, get back her voice, obtain the _prix de Rome_ under the guise of a man and marry Napoleon IV. On winning a medal for her pictures she does nothing but laugh, cry, and dream of greatness, but the next day is scolded and grows discouraged. She has an immense sense of growth and transformation, so that not a trace of her old nature remains; feels that she has far too much of some things, and far too little of others in her nature; sees defects in her mother's character, whose pertinacity is like a disease; realizes that one of her chief passions is to inspire rather than to feel love; that her temper is profoundly affected by her dress; deplores that her family expect her to achieve greatness rather than give her the stimulus of expecting nothing; declares that she thanks a million thoughts for every word that she writes; is disgusted with and sometimes absolutely hates herself. At one time she coquets with Kant, and wonders if he is right that all things exist only in the imagination; has a passion for such "abracadabrante follies" that seem so learned and logical, but is grieved to feel them to be false; longs to penetrate the intellectual world, to see, learn, and know everything; admires Balzac because he describes so frankly all that he has felt; loves Fleury, who has shown her a wider horizon; still has spells of admiring her dazzling complexion and deploring that she can not go out alone; feels that she is losing her grip on art and also on God, who no longer hears her prayers, and resolves to kill herself if she is not famous at thirty.