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The first letter in the series is addressed to his elder sister, Laure, who afterward became Mme. de Surville, and who, after her illustrious brother's death, published in a small volume some agreeable reminiscences of him. For this lady he had, especially in his early years, a passionate affection.
R'hoone was an anagram of his own name Honore. Lord R'hoone was one of his pseudonyms. And "Lord R'hoone," he told Laure, "will soon be the rage, the most amiable, fertile author; and ladies will regard him as the apple of their eye. Then the little Honore will arrive in a coach with head held up, proud look, and fob well garnished.
"It is very kind of the young countess to call her companion 'Louise, and to let Louise call her 'Laure; but if faces may be trusted, and we can read in one countenance conceit and tyranny; deceit and slyness in another, dear Louise has to suffer some hard raps from dear Laure: and, to judge from her dress, I don't think poor Louise has her salary paid very regularly.
In the edge of the shadows Laure halted and her hand slipped down over Pierce's. "Remember!" she said, meaningly. "Don't or you'll hear from me." Laure had no cause to repeat her admonition, for, in the days that followed, Pierce Phillips maintained toward the women members of the party an admirable attitude of aloofness.
"This Biographic Notice of Louis Lambert," he wrote to Laure, "is a work in which I have tried to rival Goethe and Byron, to out-do Faust and Manfred; and the tilt is not over yet, for the proof sheets are not yet corrected. I do not know whether I shall succeed, but this fourth volume of Philosophic Tales ought to be a final reply to my enemies, and ought to show my incontestable superiority."
"Well, well," began Mère Giraud, becoming lenient in her great happiness, "he is not a bad lad Valentin. He means well" But here she stopped, Laure checked her with a swift, impassioned movement. "He is what we cannot understand," she said in a hushed, strained voice. "He is a saint. He has no thought for himself. His whole life is a sacrifice. It is not I you should adore it is Valentin."
It's-unhealthy, stifling." "What has happened?" Slowly, hesitatingly, Rouletta told of her encounter with Laure. The Countess listened silently. "It was an unpleasant shock," the girl concluded, "for it brought me back to my surroundings. It lifted the curtain and showed me what's really going on.
But then we know that the rich and aristocratic are always somewhat reserved. It is only the peasantry and provincials who are talkative and florid. It is natural that Laure should have gained the manner of the great world." But her happiness, poor soul, did not last long, and yet the blow God sent was a kindly one.
Expressions of affection for her occur constantly in his letters, and in 1837 he writes to Madame Hanska that Laure is ill, and therefore the whole universe seems out of gear, and that he passes whole nights in despair because she is everything to him.
The family, in accordance with the curious European custom, sent around to their friends a circular worded as follows: Cécile and Cornélie Meyerbeer; the Baron and Baroness De Korf, and Son; M. and Madame Georges Beer; M. and Madame Jules Beer and Children; M. and Madame Alexandre Oppenheim; M. and Madame S. de Haber, Madlle. Laure de Haber; and Madlle.
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