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OF THE

UNIVERSITY
Of ILLINOIS
Received by bequest from
Albert H. Lybyer
Professor of History
University of Illinois
.. " 1916-1949

LovE

LO

E.

V

From the French of
M.

J.

MICHELET,

OF THE FACULTY OF LETTERS, CHIEF IN THE HISTORICAL SECTION OF THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES, AUTHOR OF "A HISTORY OF FRANNCE," "HISTORY OF
THE ROMAN REPUBLIC," " MEMOIRS OF LUTHER," "INTRODIOTIOR TCt VNIVERSAL HISTORY, " "L'INSECTE,"
SLOISEAU" ETC., ETCO.

Translated from the Fourth Paris Edition, by

J.
%utborof "

fe

W.

NEW
RUDD

&

CARLETON,

(BROOKS

M.D.

PALMER,

eW anb Effe @b," "Ep

BUILDING,

anb Mohn tie Ertababbi," etc,

YORK:

13p

GRAND

STREET,

CORNER BROADWAY,)

MDCCCLIX.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by
RUDD & CARLETON,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern
District of New York.

R. oRAIGHEAD,
Printer, Stereotyper, and Electrotyper,

Caxton

3uilbing,

81, 83, and 85 Centre Street.

TRANSLATOR'S

PREFACE.

-0---

THIS translation of a remarkable book is presented to the public in
the sincere belief that it will do good-in the hope that it will help
American husbands and wives to perceive, and to feel more deeply,
certain things which, neglected, are often causes of lasting sorrow, in
families that ought to be happy.
The author, eminent as a savant and a historian, by the position he

4 holds

in the world of letters commands beforehand our attention and

?respett; and this volume, in which he gives us the result of the obser"'vations

of a lifetime, deserves our most serious consideration.

The

discoveries that have been made during the last half century, in regard
fto the physiology of woman, he has turned to the purpose of his work
4with stirring earnestness and eloquence.

The book itself is a very

9old one-and its boldness is its beauty, for it is the boldness of ebhastity, of a lofty and a tender morality.

Hence I have thought it

.judicious to render it without expurgation, and as nearly as possible
in Michelet's own forms of expression.

vi

Translator's Preface.

The intense interest which " L'Amour" has excited in Paris and
Londor since its appearance in January last, seemed to have created a
call for its immediate production in this country; and in the necessarily
short time allowed by the publishers, it would have been impossible
for the whole task to be correctly performed by any one person.
Therefore, to my frienids FRANx WOOD and B. ELLIS MARTIN, Esqs., of
this city, by whom the original hurried draft of this translation was
made, I here acknowledge my great indebtedness.
J. W. P.
NEw YORK, May 20, 1859.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.
-0--

I.-THE OBJECT OF THIS BOOK.

The question of Love logically precedes those of the Family, of
Society, of the State.-Moral sense has declined.-The taste
for solitary enjoyments, spirits, and narcotics.-Polygamyof
the East.-Maladies of the Brain and of the Matrix.-Even
animals tend towards a monogamic union.-We have neglected to study the two essential features of Love.-Love is
not a crisis, a drama, but an epopee.-It exercises an influence upon the will and upon art,

.

IL-THE REVELATION OF WOMAN.

Death has revealed woman.-The female suicides of Paris.The founders of the science.-Woman's inevitable and sacred
crisis.-She gives herself up irrevocably to man.-While her
destiny was made manifest in science, her personality burst
upon literature.-She has established her personality by a pretended war.-But she only wishes to be loved,

.

.

.

15

viii

Table of Contents.
III.-THE ORIGIN QF THIS BOOK.

The idea of this book dates from 1836.-It was confirmed in
1844.-The confidence that young people reposed in the
author.-The assistance he derived from the friendship of
illustrious physicians.-Yoluntary fatality, the habits, and the
art of Love.-The form of this book,

..

....

.

23

IV.-THE MUTUAL DELIVERANCE OF THE MAN AND THE WOMAN.

Puget's Andromeda rescued.-Deliverance of the woman by the
man.--Deliverance of the man by the woman.-A wife and
an occupation.-The future spouse will be a guard to the
32

young man, .........

ook first.
CREATION OF THE BELOVED.

I. WoMAN.-How much she differs from man.-The point m
which she is superior,
.
.
.
.
......

43

II. WOMAN AN INVALID.-The poetry of her peculiar crisis.-

She is not capricious but barometric.-How much she needs
attention,
.
.
.
, ......
.

44

III. WOMAN SHOULD WORK BUT. LITTLE.-She is a very poor
worker.-Doing nothing, she does everything,

.

.

.

49

IV. THE MA N SHOULD EARN ENOUGH FOR BOTH.-The Gospel

which woman is to man.-A wife is a fortune in herself,
V.

.

52

WHAT SHALL THE BRIDE BE ?-Rich or poor ?-Of the same

race ?-Of the same class ?

.

...

.

.....

55

Table of Contents.
VI.

SHOULD

YOU

ix

CHOOSE A FRENCHWOMAN ?-The English,

German, Spanish, and Italian women.-The intelligence, brilliancy, and precocity of the French woman.-Marriage makes
her beautiful,
.
. .
.
. .
.
.
.
58
VII. WOMAN

REQUIRES

STABILITY

AND

COMPLETENESS

IN

LovE.-She is, in all history, the element of stability.-For her
the end of marriage is marriage itself (and maternity secondarily).-She invests in it more than the man does; hence every
change is to her disadvantage.-Accidental epidemics of fickleness, desire of dress, &c.-The beloved is susceptible of an infinite
renewing,
.
.........
.

59

VIII. YOU MUST CREATE YOUR WIFE;, SHE HERSELF DESIRES NO-

THING BETTER.-Modern love loves what it finds, less than what
it creates, .
.
.
.
.
. .
....

61

IX. AM I FIT TO CREATE A WOMAN ?-The most blase man

may still love.-Marriage is generally a deliverance for the
girl.-The French mother is so unreasonable as to be more
beautiful than her daughter.-Marriage and happiness will embellish the latter.-The wife (of 19 ?) feels that her husband
(of 28?) is triply her superior in knowledge and experience,
and in his occupation.-Science must be humanized for her:She is old by education, and he is young,
.
.
.
. 69

INITIATION AND COMMUNION.

I.-LovE IN A COTTAGE.-What influence have you Over woman in society? No influence. In solitude ? Every influence.
-It would be otherwise in a better state of society.-The
relative solitude of a tradeswoman, though surrounded by the

Table of Contents.

x

public.-In the beginning, however, Love needs meditation.What the little house should be, .
.
.....
II.

MARRIAGE.-(In

Roman law) Mfarriage is

9

consent.-Is

the new wife sufficiently protected by the Church, the State,
.....
the Family ?-She trusts only in him, .
III. THE WEDDING.-The bridegroom should protect the young
wife against himself.-The modern girl is not full-blooded.-

85

Predominance of the nervous temperament.-Unjust distrust
and scorn.-Agitation often makes her ill.-He should be
scrupulously considerate for her,
IV. THE AWAKENING.

.....

.

91

THE YOUNG MISTRESS OF THE HousE.-

Quiet and solitude should be secured to her.-She inspects the
. 96
house, its appointments, and the garden prepared for her,
V. NARROWING THE HOME CIRCLE.-The closer we are, the

more we love each other.-Our houses are divided too much
into little rooms.-Rembrandt's interiors.-The young wife's
presence does not distract the husband from his work, .
. 102
VI. THE TABLE-DIET.-To arrange and change her diet with
care.-He nourishes her, she nourishes him, and they live
through each other,

.

.

.

.

.

.

108

VII. THEY SHOULD WAIT ON EACH OTHER.-An honest couLtry

girl for a servant is enough.-'The husband as the servant of
the wife.-To him who loves, the realities of nature do not at
all impair the ideal,
...
.
......
. 112
VIII. HYGIENE.-HOW important it is, in the beginning, that he
should take possession of her who is to take such possession of
him.-That he should study, attentively, the details of her
physical life; should be discreet, and conciliate, without
wounding the girlish timidities that still cling to her.. 120
.......
.
Country life, &c., .
IX. ON INTELLECTUAL FECUNDATION.-She longs to belong to

Table of Contents.,

xi

him; still more, to be mentally possessed by him.-The diiculty of teaching a woman.-You must not give her alimen,
stronger than she can digest.-Plant in her the living germs
of thought.-Too much reading wearies her mind.-Let her
preserve " the velvet-down of her soul,"
.
.
. 127
X. ON MORAL INCUBATION.-The woman wishes for no other
aliment than the heart of her beloved, and has none nowadays.-You must, from her restricted love, lead her out to the
great love.-She is incapable of dividing and subtracting,
having as her mission incarnation.--Herlife rhythmical, and
scanned from month to month.-This division of time must be
respected, and its ascending period turned to advantage.-She
should not be fatigued in her time of gloom.-She thinks,
while working with her hands.-Docile, and not servile, she
broods over the germ in silence.--Advantages of a bed in
common, for moral and religious communications, etc.-A
beautiful and noble cause is needed, to melt her young heart, . 1836

THE INOARNATION OF LOVE.

I.CONCEPTION.--The woman is very noble in love.-She risks
her life to bestow happiness on the man.-She is influenced
much less by her physical attractions than by her kindliness,
her need of pleasing, of consoling, and renewing the heart of
man.-Conception should be free and voluntary, .
.
. 149
II. PREGNANCY AND THE STATE or GRAE.-The woman only
meditates a superhuman infant, and it is this that endows her
offspring.-The miracle of a new world that she bears within

Table of Contents.

XI1

her.-She herself has received a second life, and finds hersef
transformed.-The childishness of a pregnant woman.-All
nature is on her side, and so should the law be,
III. THE RESULT OF PREGNANCY:

.

.

. 155

THE RIvAL.-The woman

already belongs to the child.-Her sacrifice to fulfil two duties.
-Submission

and purity,

IV. CONFINEMENT.-The

.

husband's terrors.-The

......

162

woman in

labor prefers the midwife, the husband the doctor.-Danger
has created a new bond between them.-Cruel condition of
the woman.-Atlas of Messrs. Gerbe and Coste,
V. LYING-IN AND CONVALESOENCE.-The

.

. 166

.

husband is the best

nurse.-The happiness of the wife when nursed by him.What the wife's recompense should be.-The husband's recompense,

.

.

..........

172

THE LANGUISHING OF LOVE.

1.

NURSING AND ESTRANGEMENT.-The Wife blends her two loves
as in a dream.-The infant unites and separates them.-He has
taken his father's place,

.

.......

183

II. THE BUTTERFLY.-The wife concentrating herself over the
cradle, the husband disperses himself

abroad.-The

over-

whelming variety of modern society conspires against the
woman and the home.-And yet the man in her alone preserves his divine spark, .

.

.....

. 188

III. THE YOUNG MOTHER SEPARATED FROM HER SoN.--She suffers when he is unhappy at school, and still more when he is
contented there.-Her sadness, her first glimpse of the world,

194

Table of Contents.
IV.

xii

OF THE WORLD-HAS THE HUSBAND DEGENERATED ?-By his

speciality and his occupation he has acquired strength, but he has
lost in brilliancy and elevation.-The modern man, a worker
and a creator, has not the symmetry of the man of ancient times
(the hero).-Society prefers the amateur, and favors him with
the wife against the interests of the husband.-Is it true that
woman is a disappointer of justice ?-Novels.-The strong man
.
. 199
is not afraid of novels.-Granville.-La Victoire,
V. THE SPIDER AND THE FLY.-How women ruin women.-

Stratagem, or semi-violence.-The wife often betrays her husband through affection for him.-Did she really consent ?The endless degrees of which the will is susceptible.-Courts
of justice need the continual presence of a medical jury to
. 211
determine the proportions of freedom and compulsion, .
VI. TEMPTATION. -The

woman

at her meridian of life and

health.-The purest may be troubled, loving him whom her
223
.........
husband loves,
VII. A ROSE FOR A COUNSELLOR.-Let her listen to her consci-

ence and the voice of innocent nature, which will guard her
purity.-Humiliation of her who feels herself weak and yielding.-Recourse to conjugal confession.-Conjugal discipline
besought and refused.-She is treated with gentleness, enlightened, and reconducted to the path of reason.-The error of the
heart often is, that it regards as the faculty and merit of the
.
. 230
individual what belongs to a whole nation or race,
VIII. THE MEDICATION OF THE HEART.-The fearful consequences

of the wife's adultery.-In general she is far from foreseeing
these; she sins through heedlessness, and is often visited by
terrible remorse.-Examples.-The most common causes of her
fall are ennui and idleness.-Do not forsake her, whatever she
may have done.-The woman, having given herself up entirely

xiv

Table of Contents.

in marriage, and being transformed by impregnation, lo.,es
everything by divorce.-Never strike her, no matter how she
has sinned.-A case in which her conscience will prompt
her to expiation.-The best remedy is to remove her from evil
surroundings; 'to purify and renew her, if possible, by travel. . 241
IX. MEDICATION OF THE BODY.-After plethora and passion,
come weakness and illness.-This is the test of love.-Raymond Lulli'and M * * *.-Misery of the woman, who fears
she will be an object of disgust.-The husband alone should
attend her.-She already perceptibly gains, by feeling herself
inclosed in him, and by unburdening herself to him.-No cure
without confession.-To remove her fears of death.-The husband should be her priest, and if possible, her physician.-He
alone knows her perfectly, forhe has in great measure made
her.-Nothing heals such an invalid sooner than the knowledge that she is loved and desired.
.
.
.
.
250

THE REJUVENESCENCE OF LOVE.
I. WOMAN's

SECOND YOUTH.-Her sadness.-She

is already

enfeebled when man is at the acme of his strength.-Even the
successes of the husband separate her from him.-He is so
much the more exposed to the temptations of the world.-She
becomes his zealous assistant, his young partner and comrade
in business or pleasure.-She understands his most subtile
thought, and returns it embellished to him, .
.
.
. 20
II. SHE PRESCRIBES AND REGULATES HIS DIET AND HIS RECRE-

ATIoNs.-The good Circe.-She watches over and sedulously
attends to the repasts of her husband.-She preserves him from

Table of Contents.

XV

exceses.-Man has more desire as he advances in life.-To
the weary and care-worn man, pleasure is a consolation.--A
good wife is the entertainment, the child of the house, and
the Divine Comedy,
.
.
.
.
.
..
277
1[I. SHE REFINES HIS MIND, OR INSPIRES IT.-A calm wife
harmonizes the mind, and imparts perfect clearness to the inventive faculties.-Even the Middle-Ages only accomplished
their three great works through married men. - Planned
abstinences; the morning impulses of Puget.-Contact with
a pure woman purifies a man.-Love postponed, by love,
has affinities with the sublime,

.

.

.....

286

1 V. THERE ARE NO OLD WOMEN.-The great modern artists have

deeply felt the beauty of goodness, and have preferred to paint
the suffering and already mature woman.-The face grows old
long before the body.-Amplitude of form is favorable to the
expression of goodness.-A generation which should only
love young girls, and ;should not be refined by intercourse
with women, would remain for ever gross.-A woman who
loves, and who is good, can, at any age, bestow happiness,
and endow a young man,
.
.
....
. 291
V. AUTUMNAL ASPIRATIONS.-Sadness and fears of the matured
woman.-To be separated by death.-To grow old, and not
justify the cherished illusion of htim who loves.-How she can
make herself beautiful.-Superiority of this acquired beauty,
which is not an accident of race, family, etc.-The graceful
things that were impossible to youth,

.

.

..

. 296

VI. Is UNITY OBTAINED ?-Each accession of years has added

one more bond to the union.-All desire is at first an idea; love
can always renew itself by ideas; hence time is no obstacle to
it.-The only obstacle to an absolute union is in the essence of
love itself; as long as they live they must remain two.-The

xvi

Table of Contents.

woman inclines towards mercy, and with difficulty fbllows
man in the path of justice,
.
......
. 304
VII. DEATH AND AFFLICTION.-Death has followed love in this
book, to strengthen and prolong it.-It is for the man to die,
for the woman to weep, .
.
......
308
VIII. OF LOVE BEYOND THE GRAVE.-Like rejoins like.-In
becoming like the departed, she rejoins him.-The widow is
his retarded soul.-She preserves his memory, keeps together,
and multiplies the number of; his friends, loves him more and
more in the growth of his posthumous renown,
.
.
. 313

Of the three Parts, of which a complete work on Love should
consist, the Author has given in this volume only the second.
-He regrets that he has not been able to develop the chapters on culture, education, and moral discipline.-Of his too "
numerous notes he gives but the fbllowing,
...
. 323
NOTE 1.
A GLANCE AT THE ENV5MBLE OF THIS BOOK.

And especially at the Rejuvenescence of Love,

.

.

. 327

NOTE 2.
IS THE AUTHOR JUSTIFIED IN BELIEVING THAT WE CAN STILL LOVE I

Official statistics on the decline of marriage, etc.-Although
Europe is diseased, it has still reason to hope.-The decline of

Table of Contents.

xvii

the Roman empire was preceded by a grievous obscuring and
enfeebling of the mind; but now intelligence and invention
are on the increase.-Moral progress in the religion of the
dead, and the love of nature,since 1800.-The immense majority
of French and other Europeans who have no knowledge of
fashionable vices.-The young man of the world may not hope
to attain a high position unless he concentrates his life, and
depends upon a home; .
.......
.

8330

NOTE 3.
WOMAN REINSTATED, AND PROCLAIMED INNOCENT BY SCIENCE.

All the Fathers, following the Hebraic tradition, condemn woman,
and declare her to be impure.-Chemistry proves that she is
pure.-Physiology has shown that she is constantly a wounded
person, an invalid.-By that title she has always, in law, her
extenuating circumstances.-The death punishment not to
be inflicted on women.-A pregnant woman cannot be arrested
except at the risk of committing two murders.-The ancient
German laws allowed her a few little pilferings.-A wish
'that every court of assize had the continual assistance of a medical jury.-Justice must become Medicine, and Medicine must
become justice and morality,
.
....
. 334
NOTE 4.
OF THE SOURCES OF THIS BOOK OF LOVE, AND THE SUPPORT THAT
PHYSIOLOGY LENDS TO MORALITY.

Men of letters (Senancour, Balzac, and others) have aided me
but little; but physicians have afforded me infinite sup-

xviii

Table of Contents.

pert.-Under harsh, cynical. and materialistic exteriors, they
have nevertheless founded one of those grand ideas of the soul,
which may be called (when it concerns woman) the Creed of
Mercy.-They have humanized marriage, removed from it the
material barbarism which still clung to it.-They have demonstrated that what was called impurity is the monthly wound
of love, and fruitfulness itself.-They have established, that
from the highest to the.lowest, from the least of created things
up to the greatest, fecundation is not ephemeral, but often prolonged far into the future.-The physical principle which consecrates the stability of marriage.-Love implies a soaring
3.36
towards the infinite, and a flight into eternity,

L ovE.
-0
INTRODUCTION.

I.
THE title which would fully express' the design of
this book, its signification, and its import, would be Moral Enfranchisement, Effected by True Love.
This question of Love is lodged, immense and obscure,
under the depths of human life. It even supports its
bases and its lowermost foundations. The Family rests
upon Love, and Society upon the family. Hence Love
goes before everything.
As the manners are, so is the community. Liberty
would be but a word if we preserved the habits of slaves.
Here we seek the Ideal. The ideal which can be
realized to-day, not that which we must postpone for a
better state of society. It is the reform of Love and of
the Family which must precede all others, for it alone can
render them possible.
One fact is incontestable.

In the midst of all our

8

Introduction.

material and intellectual progress, our Moral Sense has
degenerated. Everything advances and develops, one
thing alone recedes; it is the Soul.
At this truly solemn era, when the net-work of electricity is spread over all the face of the earth, centralizing
universal thought, and permitting the world at last to
know itself-what sort of soul shall we have to give it ?
And what if old Europe, from whom it expects everything, should contribute but an impoverished soul?
Europe is old, but she is also young, in this sense:
that she has, to counterbalance her corruption, the
rejuvenescence of genius. It is her task to reform the
world by reforming herself. She alone knows, sees, and
foresees. Let her but have the will to do it, and all is
yet safe.
We cannot conceal from ourselves that in these latter
times the Inclinations have undergone profound changes.
The causes of this are numerous. I will state two only,
mental and physical at the same time, which, going
straight to the brain and deadening it, tend to paralyse
all our moral faculties.
For a century past, the increasing invasion of spirituous liquors and narcotics has been marching irresistibly,
with results varying according to the population--hero
obscuring the mind, hopelessly depraving it-there,
penetrating deeper into the physical economy, reaching
even the' race itself-but everywhere isolating man,
giving him, eveii in his home, a deplorable preference for
solitary enjoyment.
No need to him of society, of love, of family; in their
stead, the dreary pleasures of a polygamic life, which,

Introduction.

9

imposing no responsibility upon the man, not even pio.
tecting the woman (as the polygamy of the East does),
is therefore more destructive, indefinite, limitless, stimulating and enervating continually.
Marriages are steadily on the decrease (vide the
official reports). And, what is not less serious, the
woman is not married until very late. In Paris, where
she is precocious, and marriageable at an early age, she
does not become a wife before her twenty-fifth year.
Hence, eight or ten years of waiting, most frequently
of misery, sometimes of disease in consequence. Marriage
is not even binding enough to warrant desertion.
An inhuman state of things is that where love is but
a war upon the woman, profiting by her misery, debasing
her; and, when debased, casting her off to starve.
Each century is characterized by its great malady.
The thirteenth was that of leprosy; the fourteenth, of
the plague; the sixteenth, of syphilis; the nineteenth is
stricken at the two extremities of nervous life-the
intellect and the affections-as shown in the man by the
enervated, vacillating, paralytic brain; in the woman by
the painfully ulcerated matrix.
The punishment is this: this suffering woman will
bring forth, from her pain-torn womb, but a sickly infant,
who, if he lives, will always seek, to counteract his
natural enervation, a fatal relief in alcoholic and narcotic
stimulants. Let us accept the painful supposition that
such a man reproduces his kind: he will have from a
more diseased woman a still more enervated child.
Rathei let us have death for the remedy and the radical

cure.!

1*

10

Introduction.

It has been fully felt from the commencement of the
century that this question of love is the essentia. ques.
tion, which is being discussed under the very foundations
of society. Where love is established and powerful,
everything is strong, solid, and fruitful.
The illustrious Utopians who, on so many other subjects (on that of education, for example), have thrown
much and vivid light, have not been so fortunate on the
subject of love. Here they have shown, I will venture
to say, but-little independence of mind. Their theories,
bold in form, are not the less, in substance, subservient
to fact, timidly predicated on the manners of the times.
They found polygamy, and they bowed down before it,
creating polygamic Utopias for the future.
Without any great philosophic research, in order to
find the true law for this matter, they might have consulted History simply, and Natural History.
In History, races of men are powerful in mind and
body, exactly in the ratio of their monogamic life.
In Natural History, the superior animals tend towards
the married state, and attain it, at least for a time.
And it is from this fact, in great measure, that they are
superior.
It is said that the love of animals is inconstant- and
variable, that mobility in pleasure is with them a state
of nature. I see, however, that, from the time there is
any possible stability, or regular means of living, temporary marriages at least are contracted between them;
entered into not merely for the love of generation, but
from actual affection. I have remarked this a hundred
times, but particularly in Switzerland in a couple of
finches. The female having died, the male abandoned

Introduction.

II

himself to despair, and left the young to perish. Evidently it was love, and not paternal love alone, which
had bound the male finch to his nest. When she was
dead, all was over.
Increasing scarcity of food as the season advances
obliges many of the species to dissolve 'their temporary
marriages. Then the pair must needs separate, to extend the radius of their purveying search; and they can
no longer return to the same nest at night.. Thus they
are divorced by hunger, not by mutual tonsent. The
little industrious habits that an established union always
engenders are interrupted, annulled.
But for this they would remain together. It is not
pleasure alone which keeps them so, for the fructifying
female communicates none. It is the true instinct of
society, of life in common; the delight of feeling near
you, all day, one little soul devoted to yourself, which
leans upon you, calls upon you, feels the want of you,
never confounds you (finch or nightingale, as you may
be) with another of the same species, listens to your
song alone, and often replies to it by low and plaintive
cries-in a whisper, so to speak (that she may be heard
by but one), from her heart to yours.
In our day the question of love has been profoundly
considered. Writers of genius, one in immortal romances, another under a theoretical form, eloquent,
acrimonious, and austere, have forcibly agitated it. For
reasons which will be understood, I refrain from examining their books; our points of discussion will appear
plainly enough in my own. I will permit myself to say,
however, despite my admiration and sympathetic re.

12

Introduction.

spect, that on neither side has the gist of the matter
been satisfactorily penetrated.
Its two faces, the one physiological, the other moral,
yet remain veiled.
The discussion continues without any one knowing, or
deigning to remark, that it bears upon more than one
point where the supreme authority, that of facts, has
pronounced its verdict, and settled the matter beyond
all cavil. The object of love, woman, in her essential
mystery long unknown, unrecognised, was revealed by
a series of discoveries, dating from 1827 to 1847. We
now know this sacred being, who, precisely in what the
Middle Ages characterized as impurity, was in reality
the saint of the saints of nature.
The innate fickleness of woman is known; and not
less her constancy, which marks with such fatal durability all union and marriage.
How can we speak of love without saying a word of
this ?
Still another essential thing: love is not, as people
say, or would have you believe, a crisis, a drama in one
act. If it were but this, an accident so transitory would
hardly be worth our attention. It would be only one
of those ephemeral, superficial maladies, of which we
strive to rid ourselves at as little cost as possible.
But, very fortunately, love (and here I mean faithful
love, fixed only upon one object) is a succession, often a
long one, of very different passions, which feed and renew our lives. Leaving those blas"s classes who have
need of tragedies, of abrupt changes of scene, I perceive
that love still continues the same, at times all a life long,

Introduction.

13

with different degrees of intensity, and exterior %ariations which do not alter the substance. Granted, that
the flame only burns on condition of its changing, going
up or down, intensifying, varying in form and in color.
But nature has provided for this. Woman ceaselessly
alters her aspects; one single woman contains a thousand
of them. And the imagination of man changes also its
points of view. On the ground-work, generally solid
and tenacious, of habit, circumstances construct changes
which modify and renew the affection. .Take, not the
exception (the refined, romantic world), but the rule
(the majority, the homes of working men, which form
nearly the whole); you see there that the man, older
than the wife by seven, ten years perhaps, and having
seen besides much more of life, is much superior at first
to his young companion in experience, and loves her
somewhat as his daughter. She overtakes him or passes
him very soon; maternity, the wisdom of economy,
augmenting her importance, she counts for as much as
he does, and she is loved like a sister. But when work
has worn the man down, the sober and serious wife, the
good genius of the house, is loved by him as a mother.
She cares for him, provides for him; he reposes upon
her, ar-d often allows himself to be like a child to her,
feeling that he possesses in her a good nurse and a
visible providence.
See to what is reduced, among littlefolks, that great
and terrible question of the superiority of one sex over
the other, a question so irritating when it comes to concern the upper classes. It is, above all, a question of
age. You will see it solved, the day after the marriage, to the man's profit, when the wife is yet a young

14

Introduction.

girl- solved later to the advantage of the woman.
When, on Saturday night, the man brings home his
week's salary, and she puts aside the necessary portion
to feed and clothe the children, she leaves for her husband enough for his little indulgences; and she forgets
no one but herself.
If love is but a crisis, we can also define the Loire an
inundation.
But you must remember that that river, in its course
of two hundred leagues, in its various and multiplied
offices, as a great thoroughfare, irrigating the earth,
refreshing the air, etc., has thousands and thousands of
means of influence. It is doing it injustice to view it
solely in that violent aspect which you may think most
dramatic. Let us leave then its accidental drama, which
really is but secondary. Let us rather look upon it in
the regular epopee of its great life as a river, in its salutary
and prolific characteristics, which are none the less poetic.
In love, .the .dramatic moment is interesting, without
doubt. But it is that of the fatal violence to which you
can be but a passive looker-on, where you have but very
little influence. It is like the torrent which you observe at its narrowest point, foaming and furious. You
must take it in the totality and continuity of its course.
Higher up it was a peaceful brook, farther down it becomes a mighty river, but a calm one.
Love is a power easily disciplined. It gives, as does
all other natural strength, a 'foothold for the will, for
the art which, say what you will to the contrary, very
easily creates it, and as easily modifies it by its surround.
ings, exterior circumstances, and habits.

Introduction.

s15

How shall the man, older, more experienced and en.
lightened, initiate the young woman ?
How shall the developed woman, arrived at her apogee
of: grace and power, retain, retake the heart of the man,
help him when he is weary, renew his youth, give him
wings to soar above the miseries of life and of labor ?
What influence has man over woman, woman over
man?
This is a science, an art. We give here the clue;
others will go deeper.
To sum up:
Hitherto Love has been regarded only in its least instructive phase.
One of its forms, an inevitable and profound one, that
of its relations to Natural History, has an immense influence upon its moral development. This has been
neglected.
It has likewise a free and voluntary character, where
Moral Philosophy acts upon it, and which also has been
neglected.
This book is a first attempt to fill these two vacuums

II.
So long as the inevitable and invariable side of love
was not turned to the light, we did not know precisely
where its liberty, its own spontaneous and variable
action, commenced. Woman was an enigma. Still wve

16

Introduction,

could prattle about her eternally, give the pro and the
con-nothing more.
One alone stepped forward, among these speech.
makers, and put an end to the discussion: one who understands it thoroughly-the sister of Love: Death.
These two powers, apparently in opposition, cannot
go on without each other. They contend with equal
strength. Love does not kill' Death, Death does not
kill Love. At the bottom of all this, they understand
each other wonderfully. Each of them explains the
other.
Observe, that death was needed (in order to catch
the yet lukewarm life)-death in its sudden and cruel
form, violent death. It is death, after all, which has
taught us the-most. It was the hangman's victims who
revealed to us the mysteries of digestion; and suicidal
women those of physical love and generation.
A place, too, had to be found where violent death
was common, where suicide ever afforded to observation
an immense number of women of all ages, the greater
part of them in their crises of suffering some at that
monthly period when they are exalted by nature; others,
enceintes, hoping to die with their infants; and veritable
virgins, poor, bruised flowers, who despaired of ever
being loved.
I have not the exact figures for Paris. But the place
in Paris where they expose the bodies of those who do
not die in their beds, La Morgue, receives fifty a year.
This makes five hundred in ten years! An enormous
number, when you consider their natural timidity and
their extreme fear of death.
In what month are these violent deaths of women

Introduction.

17

most common ? In the beautiful months, when they
feel their desertion most cruelly; in the blooming
months, when women love most. For it is an essential
fact that love, generation, is most sought by man in
the holidays of winter and in the banquets which follow
them; by woman in the season of flowers, under the
purest influences of reviving nature, of the sunshine, and
of spring. Then can they least support their painful
isolation, their inconsolable misery, and they prefer to
die.
The statistics do not show this. They class the
greater part of those who die thus, in the exaltation of
love, under the head of lunatics.
From the commencement of the century, Science has
been progressing towards the great revelation. Geoffroy
Saint-Hilaire and Jerres created embryogeny. Bar
(1827) commenced ovology, and was followed by Messrs.
N6grier and Coste. In 1842, a master, Pouchet de
Rouen, reduced the whole science to a formula, and by
a book of genius set it up for the future in proportions
of daring grandeur.
We have noted little beyond the inferior mammalia;
woman herself very little. The ingenious and learned
Coste and his able assistant Gerbe (an anatomic artist),
had the glory and the good fortune to discern all the truth.
For nearly ten years (from the creation of the professorship of ovology to the publication of the incomparable
atlas which completes these revelations), they read death
itself, and hundreds of women disclosed to then~ the
supreme mystery of love and of pain.

18

Introduction.

What is the total result of this solemn ir.quest?
What comes of this great and cruel wreck of woman,
of this funereal alluvium deposited each year by isola.
tion, abandonment, betrayal, despair?
What comes of this wreck is a great truth, changing
infinitely the ideas that were entertained of woman.
That which the Middle Ages insulted and degraded,
and called impurity, is precisely her holiest crisis; what
constitutes her an eminently poetic and religious object.
Love had always believed this, and love was right. The
stupid Science of the time was wrong.
But woman labors under a great fatality. Nature
favors man. She gives woman to him, feeble, loving,
depending on the constant need of being loved and protected. She loves in advance him to whom God seems
to lead her. To distrust, resist, stop herself in this
descent, she must have much more strength of mind
than we ever need, and ten times more virtue. What a
duty for us? Nature confides her innocent daughter
to the magnanimity of man.
But there is yet something of greater importance.
Facts, coming froni another source (v. -Lucas,vol. ii.,
p. 60), commence to prove that the union of love,
whither the man betakes himself so lightly, is for the
woman much more profound and definitive than has
ever been believed. She gives herself up, entirely and
irrevocably. The phenomenon observed in the inferior
female animals is found, less regularly indeed, but still
is found, in woman. Fecundation transforms her in a
lasting manner. The widow frequently bears to her
second husband children which resemble her first.

Introduction

19

This is a great and terrible fact. The conclusion is
overwhelming for the heart of man. What! has Nature
done so much for him, favored him to this degree ? He,
too, who makes the laws, has favored himself, armed
himself against a poor, weak creature whom suffering has
delivered up to him! With this double advantage how
gentle he should be towards the woman, how tender in
his protection !
The vital flux and reflux, the profound renewing that
she suffers with so much pain, makes her the gentlest,
the most modifiable of beings. As soon as you love her,
envelop her, isolate her from bad influences. Every folly
of woman is born of the stupidity of man.
With what perfect harmony, with what astonishing
regularity, is composed the great movement of fife and
of ideas! The details come all confused, it seems, and
quite by chance. Stand off, and look at the ensemble;
you are more than surprised, transfixed with admiration,
by the singular appropriateness with which pieces quite
unlike, and apparently disconnected, knowing not each
other, fit together and arrange themselves, to build up
the eternal poem.
During this period of twenty years, when the physical
dependance of the woman was so forcibly demonstrated
by Science, her free personality not less strongly burst
upon Literature. To that law of nature which subjects
her to pain, makes her a suffering creature, she replies:
" No, I too am a soul."
Behold her then revealed, both in her destiny and in
her personality. By as much as on the one hand she
commands our pity, on the other she compels our admi

20

Introduction.

ration and respect. On both sides an unexpected 1,appi
ness is opened to us, that of increased love, an infinite
prospect into depths of love.
Who will deny this new power with which she has
burst forth ? The great prose-writer of the century is a
woman, Madame Sand. Its most impassioned poet is a
woman, Madame Valmore. The greatest success of the
age is that of a woman's book, Mrs. Stowe's novel-the
gospel of liberty for a race, translated into all tongues.
If the first words of the woman seem rebellious, who
can mistake the cries of pain which come from that poor
invalid, in the agitation of her awakening ? Care for
her, and love her. . . Ah ! but the proudest of her
sex would gladly give all the glories of the world for a
moment of true love! The book that woman longs to
write in, the only b6ok, is man's heart-to write there in
letters of fire, never to be effaced.
Literary demonstrations have much exaggerated the
changes that have taken place. All this agitation is on
the surface. Woman is what she was. As recent science
explains her to us, with love's wound bleeding in her
always, softened by suffering, glad to rest upon some one,
such she was, such she remains. Wherever she is alone,
where the world does not spoil her, she is a good and
docile creature, willingly submitting to our habits, which
are often very offensive to her, subduing man's rude
will, civilizing him and ennobling him.
Women and children form an aristocracy of charmingness and grace. The bondage of business debases man,
and often renders him coarse and avaricious. Woman's
bondage is simply that of nature; it is nothing but her

Introduction.

21

weakness, her suffering; and these render her touching
and poetic.
Correggio never tired of painting very young children,
at the period when the lacteal life, the physical and
helpless life, being passed, the first ray of their little
freedom appeared. It is then revealed, with unspeakable
grace, in their pretty motions. The child is pleasing
because he feels himself free and much beloved, because
he knows instinctively that he can do everything that he
pleases, and that he will always be loved the more fbr it.
The mother is not less delightful in this first transport:
"Ah! how active he is! and how strong too! . . he
can beat me already!" These are her exclamations. She
is happy; she adores him in his resistings, in his charming
rebellions. . . . Does he love his mother the less for
that ? She knows too well the contrary. If he sees her
looking at all sorry, he throws himself in her arms again.
Why was not the man to the woman, at the first
outbreak of her individuality, what the mothei is to the
child ?
For a long time she seemed dumb, said nothing.
See, on the Indian stage, the sadness of the lover when
he cannot obtain a word from that beautiful mouth.
How does he know that he is loved ? and is it a person
or a thing that loves him ? " In the name of those you
love, will you never speak to me? .. . . Oh my God!
how shall I know ? . . . " This silence, this eternal
ignorance of the consent accorded, and of the thought
hidden, is, in reality, a true divorce. It is the cause of
that sadness so often described, of that fury of which
Lucretia speaks, of that despair even in the midst of
pleasure.

22

Introduction.

At last she has spoken! . ...
0 joy, it is a living
creature! From the overwhelming darkness her freedom is now rescued. . . . She can hate. . . So much
the better, for then she can also love. I wished her
thus. This first quick, strong outbreak delights me,
does not frighten me. Let us be friends, beautiful
Clorinda. Heaven keep mne from ever crossing swords
with you. I would much prefer being wounded! . . .
But, alas! you are so already. Stern nature wished you
to be always wounded, that we might always have an
opportunity to cure you.
To speak frankly, between us men (but let it-not come
to the ears of the women), we have made ourselves very
ridiculous by getting angry, and scolding. The duel
was all a mock one.
They have not used the warlike words which have
been uttered in their name. Where they have not
obliging female friends to teach them the arts of war,
they are peaceable, gentle, and ask for nothing but to be
loved.
But this is their utmost wish, and for it they spare
nothing. A lady (Madame de Gasparin), in a book
mystically beautiful, eloquent, tender as it is solemn,
declares to us that their happiness is in obeying, and
that they desire the man to be the stronger, that they
love those who command, and do not dislike the rigor
of the command.
This lady, who believes that she follows the Apostle,
but leaves him far behind in the spring of her young
heart, assures us that a passive and patient obedience
does not suffice for woman, that she wishes to obey for

Introduction.

23

love's sake, actively, obey even in advance of the possible
desire, the divined thought, and without ever crying
enough, until she sees the satisfied nod of the beloved
olject.
A true and profound revelation this. It is much more
man's indifference than his tyranny that torments'woman,
much more her not having occasion to obey enough than
performing the simple act of obedience. It is of this
she complains.
No barriers, no external protection are wanted here.
They serve, justly remarks this author, only to make
mischief between husband and wife, and to render the
woman miserable. Nothing remains between him and
her. She goes to him strong in her weakness,*in her
defenceless bosom, in her heart that beats for him alone.
This is woman's warfare. The most valiant would be
conquered. Who now will have the hardihood to discuss whether she is higher or lower than man ? She is
both at once. He is to her as the sky is to the earth;
he is above, beneath, and all about her. We were born
in her. We live by her. We are encompassed by her.
We breathe her into our lungs; she is the atmosphere, the
element of our heart.

On three occasions in twenty-five years the idea of this
book, of the profound social need to which it should
respond, presented itself to me in all its gravity.

24

Introduction.

The first time, in 1836, before a raging literary flood
had swept over us, I desired to write this history. I
was then in the flower of middle-age. But the necessary
treatises were not yet published. I wrote a few venturesome pages on middle-aged women, and there fortunately stopped.
In 1844, the confidence of youth, and I dare say, th6
sympathy of every one, surrounded me, in my professor's
chair of History and Moral Philosophy. I then saw and
knew many things. I became acquainted with the public
morals. I felt the necessity of a serious book on Love.
In 1849, when social tragedies broke the hearts of
men and women, till the very air was chilled with horror,
it seemed as though the blood had all abandoned our
veins. In presence of this phenomenon, which imminently threatened an extinction of every kind of life, I
appealed to what little of animal warmth still remained
to us; I invoked, to the succor of law, the renovation
of morals, a purifying of love and of the family.
The occasion of 1844 deserves to be remembered.
In gathering together my recollections, and looking
over my numerous letters of that time, I see that the
singular confidence the public manifested in me arose
from the feeling that I was a man abiding in solitude, a
stranger to all classes, removed from the quarrels of the
day, shut up in thought.
This isolation, however, was not without its draw
backs. . In the first place my remarks were not pertinent
to the times. Like a near-sighted man, I ran against
walls and posts without number. Though I made many
trials, I invented old things, which had long before

Introduction.

25

been discovered and known. In return, I myself re.
mained young. I was worth more than my writings,
more than my discourses. I brought to this teaching
of philosophy and history a soul as yet entire, a great
freshness of mind-under forms often subtle, a true simplicity of heart-in fact, at the very height of the contest, a certain peaceful spirit.
Whence came this? 'From the fact that, well preserved
for my age, ,knowing man not at all (and books but
little), I hated no one. My battles were those of an
idea against an idea.
This touched the public. They had never met so
ignorant a man; that is to say, one who knew so little
of what was the town-talk.
Knowing nothing of the theories that had been promulgated, nor of the hackneyed solutions which would
have helped me to answer, I was obliged to depend
upon myself, to draw from myself, and, having nothing
else, to share with the public my life.
This was what they wanted, and they came to me.
Many revealed themselves to me, did not fear to show
their hidden wounds, to bring to me their bleeding
hearts. Men, always defiantly closed against the mockery of the world, opened themselves willingly to me; I
never laughed. Ladies, brilliant and worldly, and for
that the more unhappy; others pious, studious, austereay! even nuns-ignored the fictitious barriers of worldly
propriety and opinion, as we do when we are lying ill.
Singular, but very precious correspondences these, which
I have preserved with the care and respect that they
deserve.

26

Introduction.

I had not gone to the world; the world had come
to me. From it I obtained much information. Secrets
of our nature, to which I should never have penetrated,
were revealed to me in an instant. I learned more of
them in a few years than the monotonous spectacle of
society's drawing-rooms would ever have taught me. I
saw to the very bottom of men's hearts. But, to reply
to their appeal, I was obliged also to explore carefully
my own, to seek there resources and strength. I cannot boast of having felt no emotion from the habitual
contact of so many disordered minds. But even that
helped me. The impression I received from them, a
real and profound one, was often of itself a remedy.
More than one felt himself comforted by the sympathy
that he found in me. Failing in other means, I had, in
my own emotions, an art without artifice, a moral
homoeopathy.
I did not blush at being a man.
A country physician, whom I did not know, wrote
me one day, that death had taken from him his betrothed whom he was to marry in a week, and that he
was in despair. He asked nothing, wanted nothing,
except to say to a man whose heart he believed in, " I
am in despair."
What could be said, what replied to this? what
phrases to find, alas! what consolation to offer, for so
terrible a catastrophe? I wished to write to him immediately, however, and I began to do my best. In
the midst of this labor, which I felt was worse than useless, interrupting myself to read his letter once more, I
experienced such a shock of inconsolable sorrow that
the pen dropped fi'om my hand. ... .. For it was not

Introduction.

27

a letter, it was the thing itself, so naf, so bitter. I saw
the whole scene. And my paper was moistened with
tears, my letter effaced. But, such as it was, illegible
as it was, I sealed it up, and sent it to him.
It was my heart, nothing less, that I gave to these
people. In return, what did they give me?
At a still early hour of the day, as I am closeted at
work, an impetuous young man rushes past the servant
at the door, reaches my room, knocks, enters.
C" Sir," said he to me, " excuse my abrupt entrance.
You will not be vexed, I know, for I am the bearer of
news. The proprietors of certain caf6s, disreputable
houses, and ball-gardens, complain of the effect of your
teachings. Their establishments, they say, are losing
terribly. The young men have taken to serious conversation, and forget their former habits. ....
In short,
they make love elsewhere..... . These balls are in
danger of dying out. All who, until now, have earned
their living by providing amusement for students, regard themselves as menaced with a moral revolution,
which will ruin them without fail."
I took his hand, and said to him: " If what you tell
me is true, I declare to you that it will be a victory
and a triumph for me. I desire no other success.
When young men become thoughtful, liberty is saved.
Let such a result follow our teachings, and I will carry
it, Sir, as the crown of my life's efforts, to the grave."
He went away. And, left alone, I said to myself:
" I, in return, shall sooner or later make them a present.
I will write them the book of enfranchisement from
moral servitude, the Book of True Love."

28

Introduction.

I was very far, at this time, from suspecting the
gravity and the difficulty of this grand and profound
subject. I was, above all, ignorant of the unforeseen
and fresh renewals that love undergoes from age to age,
The past weighed me down; the future oppressed me
I was in danger of' remaining what I had been until
then, an erudite artist.
I wished to liberate the age, and it was the age
which was giving liberty to me. These transparent
and confiding young minds, which laid themselves open
to my gaze, revealed to me many things. They have
furnished, without knowing it, a considerable part of
the great array of facts from which, little by little, this
book has grown.
But nothing has been of more service to me than the
friendship of those to whom everything is told-I mean
physicians. I have been intimately acquainted with
several of the most illustrious of this century. I have
been, for ten years, more than the friend, I may say the
brother, of an eminent physiologist, who carried with
him into the natural sciences an exquisite sense of moral
things.
I learned much from him on many subjects, but especially of love.
One thing struck me in this very delicate and gifted
man, the systematic perfection of his domestic life. He
had a wife, comely but graceful, ignorant but charming
(a native of Savoy). He had found means to engage
her in his ideas, his researches, and his discoveries.
He worked with no display of instruments, no laboratory, near her and by his fireside--inventing such a
reduced and convenient apparatus as to carry on in a

Introduction.

29

common room experiments, often complicated, which,
on a large scale, would have taken him away from home
and from his wife, and thus broken up this union and
harmony of minds.
A great trial came upon him. His wife, in consequence of a family malady, became insane, and continued so for a year or two. He kept her with him,
and continued his labors in the midst of this harrowing
distraction.
Her madness was mild enough, but she talked continually. She dreamed wide awake. She was troubled
with vain fears. She interlarded all conversation with
queer speeches, and hardly permitted you to follow the
thread of an idea. Her husband's patience never failed
him. One day I expressed my admiration of his conduct. * He said to me: " In an asylum, where they would
treat her harshly, where they would not put up with her
little whims, she would become entirely mad, and would
never recover. But well treated, not being startled or
frightened, seeing only a friendly face, hearing only con.
nected and sensible words, she will be cured at last, without any other remedy." And so, in fact, it did really
happen.
I do not believe that a more remarkable example of
affection can anywhere be found. Young men in their
first transports for a young and pretty mistress, who has
nothing but roses for them, think themselves very far
advanced in love. " They would give their life for her."
I dare say. Life itself is often easy to give, and to give
it is but the affair of an instant; but the persevering
gentleness of a well-tried patience, which endures for
years the pains of continued interruption, the tranquil

30

Introduction.

endurance which ceaselessly rectifies, reassures, strengtn
ens a poor, wandering, and diseased mind, possessed by
evil dreams, is perhaps a proof of the greatest, of the
highest love.
What surprised me more than all was the obedience
that he obtained from her as to matters she could not
understand. A result of the complete harmony and perfect moral development in which she had lived. With
a body very much impaired, a mind utterly bewildered,
something still remained in her, surviving all the rest-companionship and the necessity of pleasing; in a word, Love.
I felt assured by this fact, and by others analogous to
it, that between the prescribed world of physiologists,
and the world, more or less free, wherein moralists abide,
is a mixed sphere, which I may call that of voluntary
fatality, that is to say, of habits indulged, and free at
first, which, through love, become at last a happy necessity and a second nature.
It is the great work of love to create this.
A very illustrious writer, who has recently treated
these questions, thinks that woman should obey, and
believes that she will obey, by the sole fact of her inferior nature.
The lady, of whom I have previously spoken, in her
beautiful book, does not consider woman inferior, but
still believes in her obeying. Equal ? and obeying ?
How can these words ever go together ? She does not
sufficiently explain. She vaguely refers to Christian sentiments, to the Bible, to the grace of God.
This is a point more difficult of solution than most
people think.

Introduction.

31

The man should have over the young woman, and the
aged woman over the man, a great, a very great ascendancy. But to obtain it, to establish between them the
true unanimity, to insure, above all, the keeping alive,
the crescendo, of this unity of hearts, habit is necessary,
a harmony of ways.
And there is a method which leads to this.
The common framework of life has much to do with
it, as well as all the forms of mental and material communication. I would say, if the phrase had not already
been spoiled in trashy books, that the art of love is
needed.
I understand the art of love thoroughly. The first
steps are far too easy. But, I believe that this art aiding nature, the latter accords to the soul, at every age,
and even until death, what I call (in Book v.) the rejuvenescences of love.
I believe that I have effectually suppressed old women.
They will no longer be met with.
Must I say a word about the arrangement of this
work ?
It is an insignificant matter, in a book so important in
itself, and on a subject, in reality, so new. I have supposed that the reader (interested in the subject, for
every man is) would not care much for the style. And
I have, accordingly, thought nothing of it.
" No literary pretensions here; I have gone on as best
I could, " running, swimming, climbing, flying" (to use
Milton's words). At times I address myself to all, to
the public; often to one alone; often, too, I convey the
precept under a narrative form.

32

Introduction.

For this purpose I have imagined a young couple,
whom I marry, and whose life I constantly follow.
Yet this is not a novel. I have not that kind of talent.
Besides, the romantic form would have presented the
inconvenience of individualizing too much.
My two lovers are anonymous.
Characters with names (like the ZFnile and Sophie of
Rousseau) do the ideas harm. The reader occupies himself with precisely the useless part of the biography, of
the mise en scene; he forgets the useful parts, the groundwork and basis of the book. I have preferred to retain
the liberty to leave at times this couple, either to speak
of the vices of the age, or to state, in my own name, some
grave truth, where I feel the need of strongly expressing
my convictions and asserting my belief.
Is this to say that my young man, who turns up at
all parts of the book, does not exist? Not at all; he
does exist. The strongest proof of this is that I am
going to speak to him.

IV.
If you have been to the museum of the Louvre you
may have seen, among the statues there, The Deliver*
ance of Andromeda.
This group has been very ill used, having stood under
the trees at Versailles for one hundred and fifty years,
where it was several times whitewashed, and, moreover,

Introduction.

3

outrageously defaced by barbarians, who have destroyed
its most delicate beauties. No matter; reconstruct it in
your mind's eye, chaste, glowing, breathing, as it came
from the feverish hands of Puget. This great artist, in
whom dwelt the suffering soul of a depraved age, born'
in Provence, and having constantly before his eyes the
galley-hells of Louis XIV., has, all his life long,sculptured
unfortunate prisoners: such as Milo, taken in a tree
and devoured by a lion; the pitifully broken-down At
lases of Toulon, and the young Andromeda.
Perseus has just killed the monster who was on the
point of devouring her. With unspeakable joy he removes with one finger the heavy iron chains by which
the young girl was suspended. Unconscious and nearly
dead, she does not know where she is. She does not
know who delivers her. She cannot stand, being paralysed by the ride fretting of the chains, and, above all,
by fear. She seems thoroughly exhausted. This state
of extreme weakness and passive self-abandonment is so
much the better for her deliverer. For, after all, she
is not dead; her little heart still beats, and for whom it
is easy to imagine. With closed eyelids she rests her
whole weight upon him. Though closed also, her pretty,
quivering lips seem to say: " Take me in your arms and
let me rest upon you. I am yours, take care of me. I
give myself to you; be my providence, do with me whatsoever you will."
A charmingly impassioned work is this, though absurd
in one feature (an additional sign of passion).
The
artist has been so anxious to excite our pity for Andromeda, that he has made her scarce taller than a child,
though she has the form of a woman. She seems of a

34

Introduction.

dlifferent race from her preserver, wlo is a very tall
young man-tall, but not large-a feeble HeIcules of
the declining days of Rome, easily imagined in the
effeminate reign of Louis -XIV., but one .that would
never have been conceived by the robust mind of
antiquity.
And yet this admirable man has attained his object.
He produces a marvellous effect of love and pity.
Whoever gazes upon this statue cannot refrain from
exclaiming with emotion, "Oh! how lucky is Perseus!
Would I had been there to rescue the-little darling !"
Fortunate is he who rescues a woman, who frees her
from the physical fatalism in which she is
held by nature,
from the weakness imposed upon her by seclusion, from
so much misery, so many drawbacks! Happy he who
instructs her, elevates her, strengthens her, and makes
her his own! For in delivering her, he also delivers
himself.
In this mutual deliverance man must, of course, take
the initiative. He is stronger, in better health (especially in not having to endure the great malady of maternity). He has a solid education. He is favored by the
laws. He has the best occupations to himself, and earns
much more than woman. He is his own master; if not
suited in one place, he can go to another. Poor Andromeda, alas! must die on her rock; if she were clever
enough to free herself and get away from it, we would
say: "She is an adventurer."
But once delivered by you, dear Perseus, from what
will she not rescue you in return ? Let us enumerate:
From the servitude of your base passions: If your

Introduction.

35

home is a happy one, you will not go under the smoky
lamps of a ball-garden in quest of love, nor to the street
for intoxication.
The servitude of weakness : You will not drag your
self feebly along, like your pitiful comrade-that young
old man, so pale, debased and broken-down, whom the
women ridicule. True love will preserve you from this,
and concentrate your strength.
The servitude of melancholy: He who is strong and
does a man's work, he who in going out to his daily toil
leaves at home a beloved creature who loves and thinks
of him alone, is by that very fact inspired with cheerfulness, and he is happy all the day..
The servitude of money: Receive for a truth this
exact mathematical maxim:-Two persons spend less

than one.
I see many bachelors who remain such from sheer
fiight at the expensiveness of matrimony, and yet spend
infinitely more than a married man after all. They live
very dearly at the cafgs and restaurants, and at the theatres. Havana cigars, smoked all day, are to their solitude
an extravagant necessity.
Why do they smoke ? "To forget," they say.
Nothing can be more disastrous.
-We should never
forget. Woe to him who forgets evils, for he never
seeks their antidotes. The man, the citizen who forgets,
ruins not only himself but his country. A blessed thing
is it to have by your hearth-stone a reliable and loving
woman, to whom you can open your heart, with whom
you can suffer. She will prevent you from either dreaming or forgetting. We must all suffer, and love, and
think. In that is the true life of man.

36 .

Introduction.

Some men call themselves bachelors. But are they
really so ? I have long sought, but I have not yet found
that mythical being. I have discovered that everybody
is married; some by temporary marriages only, it is true,
-secret and shameful these, lasting sometimes for months,
sometimes for a week, and often only for an hour. These
marriages of hourly duration, which are the utter degradation of the woman, are not effected' at a less cost to
the man. It is easier to feed a whale than a Dame aux
Camellias.
If the wife has no female friends whose rivalry incites
her to extravagance in dress, she spends almost nothing.
She reduces all your expenses to such a degree that the
formula given above is no longer correct. We must not
say " two persons," but "four persons spend less than
one." She supports the two children besides.
When the marriage is judicious, entered into with
forethought, when the family does not increase too rapidly, the wife, far from being a hindrance to liberty of
action, is, on the contrary, its natural and essential element. Why is it that " the Englishman emigrates so
easily, and to so much advantage for England herself?"
Because his wife follows him. Except in sickly climates
(like India) the Englishwoman, we may say, has sown
the whole earth with solid English colonies. It is the
strength of the Family which with them has made the
power and the grandeur of the nation.
Young man, if you have a good wife and a good trade,
you are free; I mean by that, that you can go abroad
or stay at home, as you please.
If you go, for a time at least (for I cannot conceive

Introduction.

37

of any one leaving France forever), having a wcrld of
love and freedom with you, you will feel great ccnfidence in your own abilities. You will see which way
the wind.blows, and will say, "The whole earth is
mine."
If you stay, freed (by love) from vice and extravagance, you can laugh at the hosts of uneasy millionaires,
and despise the legions who bow themselves to fate.
You will say, " Let them wear out their lives in amassing riches. I love, and in that I have found mine."
With an occupation and a wife comes the first accession of freedom. After that come others.
I say an occupation, not a luxurious art. Have an
art besides, if you will; and if you have, so much the
better. -But first, you want an art which is useful to all.
Whoever loves and wishes to support his wife, does not
indulg6 his personal pride in this matter, nor does he
lose time ih seeking the exact line between Art and
Trade-a line which is, in reality, fictitious. Who does
not see that the majority of trades, if you can analyse
them, are legitimate branches of an art ? Those of the
bootmaker and the tailor, for instance, come very near
that of the sculptor. If I may so express myself: for
one tailor who understands, copies, and improves upon
nature, I would give three classic sculptors.
Think of all this, deaf friend (whether you are a student at college, or a young workman elsewhere, matters
not). Begin now, in your days of rest, to reflect, to
prepare and mark out your future life. Make the most
of this time; and, if by chance this book fall into youi

38

Introduction

hands, read a few pages and think. The book has
among other faults, that of being extremely brief. The
subject will be resumed by others hereafter, and bettehandled. When the one who writes this, down deep
under the sod shall 'rest from his labors, one more able
than he will take from his imperfect sketch a chapter,
and make of it, perhaps, a great, ekhaustive, and immortal book. But as all this is to be done with one
and the same element (the same in you as in me, love
and the heart of man), you can already, even on these
dry data, compose for yourself in advance the book of
life.
Think of it on Sunday evenings, when the noisy troupe
of your thoughtless comrades hammer at your door and
say: "Hallo ! what are you doing ? Are you a bear ?
Come! we are waiting for you. We are going to la
Chartreuse, to la ChaumiBre, to the Lilas. Weare going to take Amanda, Louise, and Jeannette withius."
Answer them thus: "I have something to do now.
By-and-by."
If you say that, I assure you that between the two
sickly flowers which you are training on your windowsill, languishing in the smoke of Paris, a third will appear, a flower, and yet a woman-the slight and misty
image of your future bride.
She is rather young yet. She is perhaps but thirteen
years old; you are twenty.. She must have time to
grow. Still, young as she is, if you devote much of
your thought to her, she will guard you better than
either your father or your mother. For the little one
is very strict; she does not countenance follies of any
sort. If any come into your head, she will manage to

Introduction.

39

say without speaking to you: " No, my love; do not
go; stay and work for me."
I give you this charming vision for a guardian and for
a Mentor, for a preceptor and a governor. When she
is seventeen or eighteen years old, the relations between
you will change. As a wife, she will come into your
house, and think it very proper and very pleasant for
you to become master in your turn.
You will then thank God, whose inventive kindness
has mad6 woman for you-woman, the miracle of divine
contradiction.
This book will explain her to you by facts, not by
hypotheses. She changes, and does not change. She
is inconstant and faithful. She goes on, the lights and
shades of her gracefulness undergoing a ceaseless change.
She whom you loved in the morning is not the same
woman at night. An Alsatian nun, it is said, forgot
herself for three hundred years in listening to the notes
of the nightingale. But whoever could listen to, and
look at, a woman in all her metamorphoses, would be
always astonished, might be pleased or offended, but
never tired. One alone would occupy him two thousand years.
And yet, with all this self-renewing power, such is the
force of love, its happy certainty, that the woman is so
thoroughly impregnated and imbued with the beloved
object, that she becomes herself a part of him.
So that, as they grow in years, she gains in womanly
grace. But her solid foundation is of man.
Then, if this book be reliable, and if following it step
by step, you keep your wife free from exterior influences,

40

Introduction.

and faithful to her nature, I can here boldly prononrce
the phrase which sums up the whole matter: "Do not
fear that you will tire of her, for she will ceaselessly
change. Do not fear to conifide in her, for she will never
change."

BOOK FIRST.
-0E

CREATION OF THE

BELOVED,

I.
WOMAN.
THE cbject of love, woman, is a being who stands
quite alone, and is much more unlike man than would
at first appear; even more than differing from, opposed
to him, but pleasingly opposed, in a playful and harmonic contest, which constitutes the great charm of this
world.
In herself alone, she presents to us another opposition,
a struggle of contrary qualities. Elevated by her beauty,
her natural poetry, her quick intuition, and divining
faculty, she is not the less held'down by nature in the
bonds of weakness and suffering. Every month she
wings her flight upward, our poor dear Sybil, and, every
month, nature admonishes her by pain, and by a painful crisis returns her to the hands of love.
She does nothing as we do. She thinks, speaks, and
acts differently. Her tastes are different from our tastes.
Her blood even does not flow in her veins as ours does;
at times it rushes through them like a foaming mountain
torrent. She does not respire as we do. Making provision for pregnancy and the future ascension of the
lower organs, nature has so constructed her that she
breathes, for the most part, by the four upper ribs. From
this necessity, results woman's greatest beauty, the gently

Woman an Invalid.
undulating bosom, wLich expresses all her sentiments by
a mute eloquence.
She does not eat like us-neither as much, nor of the
same dishes. Why ? Chiefly, because she does not
digest as we do. Her digestion is every moment troubled by one thing: she yearns with her very bowels.
The deep cup of love (which is called the pelvis) is a sea
of varying emotions, hindering the regularity of the
nutritive functions.
These internal peculiarities are translated externally
by one still more striking. Woman has a language
peculiar to herself.
Insects and fish are mute. The bird sings, and would
articulate. Man has a distinct tongue, well-defined and
explicit words, and a clear tone of voice. But woman,
above the man's voice and the bird's song, has a magic language, with which she intermingles this voice or this
song: it is the sigh, the impassioned breath.
This is an incalculable power. Though it may but
just make itself felt, the heart is at once moved. Her
bosom heaves; she cannot speak; and we are won over
in advance to everything she wishes. What manly haran.
gue could produce such effect as a woman's silence ?

II.
WOMAN AN INVALID.
OFE N, seated pensively by the sea-shore, I have

watched the first movement, beginning silently, then

Woman an Invalid.

45

palpably increasing until it became fearful, which surged
the flood back upon the beach. I have been over.
whelmed, absorbed by the potent electricity which
danced on the legion of spark-crested waves.
But with how much more of emotion, with what
religious and tender respect, have I noted the first signs,
light, delicate, and concealed, then violent and painful,
of the nervous impressions which periodically announce
the flux and reflux of that other ocean, woman !
Besides, these signs are so evident that, even to the
eyes of a stranger, they are manifest at the first glance.
With some, who seem strong (but who at this time are
so much the more weak), a visible agitation, like a tempest, or the approach of a severe illness, commences. In
others, who, being more severely attacked, look pale
and embarrassed, you can divine something like the
destructive agencies of an undermining torrent. In the
more common case, the milder influence seems the most
salutary; the woman grows younger and renews herself, but always at the cost of suffering, at the cost of
that mental uneasiness, which singularly affects her
temper, enfeebles her will, and makes quite a new and
different person of her, even to him who for a long time
has known her best.
The most vulgar woman, at this period, is not without
poetry. Long in advance of,and often at the middle of,
the lunar month, she gives touching indications of her
approaching transformation. Already the wave is coming and the tide rising.
She is agitated or pensive. She has no confidence in
herself. By turns, she sheds tears and heaves sighs.
Then treat her tenderly, speak to her with extreme con

46

Woman an Invalid.

sidcration, care for her, treat her with attentions, yf t
abstain from importunity, lest she be made aware of
them. Hers is a very defenceless state. She bears
within her a power greater than herself, and formidable
as a god. She astonishes you with singular speeches,
sometimes eloquent, and scarcely to be expected from
her. But (except when you have the brutality to irritate her) an increase of tenderness, of love even, overpowers all else. The warmth of the blood quickens the
impulses of the heart.
"Is this a physical and fatal love ?" you ask. Yes
and no. Things pass in an inextricable confusion, and
the whole remains an enigma.
She loves, she suffers, and needs the support of a loving arm. This, more than anything else, has strengthened love in the human race--firmly established matrimonial union.
It has often been said, that it was the helplessness of
the child which, prolonging the cares of education, had
created the Family. True, the child does retain the
mother, but the man is kept at his fireside by the
mother herself, by his tenderness for his wife, and the
happiness he experiences in protecting her.
Higher, and yet lower, than man; humiliated by
nature, the weight of whose hand she feels heavily upon
her; but, at the same time, elevated by dreams, presentiments, and superior intuitions, that man could never
have, she has fascinated him, innocently bewitched
him forever. He remains enchanted. And this is
Society.
An imperious power, a charming tyranny, has pre-

Woman an Invalid.

47

vented his stirring from her ,side. This ever-renewing
crisis, this mystery of love and pain, from month to
month, has kept him there. She has deprived him of
the power of motion by a single sentence: "I love you
still the more when I am sick!"
When she has not the care and oversight of an indul.
gent mother to humor and spoil her, she requires a kind
husband, whom she can abuse in her service. She implores him, she calls upon him, right or wrong. She is
excited, timid, cold, has had bad dreams-what not?
There will be a storm this evening or to-night; already
she feels it coming: " .Do give me your hand .....
I do not feel safe."
"But I must go to my work," you answer.
"Return, then, as quickly as you can. I cannot do
without you to-day."
They are called capricious. Nothing could be more
untrue. They are, on the contrary, very regular, and
submissive to the laws of nature. Knowing the state
of the atmosphere, the date of the month, and, finally,
the influence of these two things on a third, of which
I shall speak hereafter, they are able to predict with
more certainty than the ancient augurs. You can tell,
almost to a certainty, what the woman's humor will besad or gay; what turn her thoughts, her desires, her
dreams will take.
Of themselves they are very kind, gentle, and considerate to him upon whom they depend for support. Their
sharpness, and little fits of anger, are nearly always the
results of suffering. That man is a great fool who takes
any notice of these. He should rather, at such times, care
for her, attend to her, and sympathize with her the more,

48

Woman an Invalid.

Presently, they are themselves again; then they regret
these sad moments, excuse themselves often with tears,
throw their arms around your neck, nd say: "You
know it is not my fault."
Is this a transitory state, then ? Not at all. Wherever
woman does.not blot out her sex by excessive labor (like
our hardy peasant women, who, at an early age, make
men of themselves), wherever she remains a woman, she
is generally ailing at least one week out of four.
But the week that precedes that of the crisis is also a
troublesome one. And into the eight or ten days which
follow this week.of pain, is prolonged a languor and a
weakness, which formerly could not be defined, but
which is now known to be the cicatrization of an interior wound, the real cause of all this tragedy. So that,
in reality, 15 or 20 days out of 28 (we may say nearly
always) woman is not only an invalid, but a wounded
one. She ceaselessly suffers from love's eternal wound.
Shakspeare has said: " Pity, under the guise of a little
child."
Women will say the poet has said well. At the word
" child" their whole heart opens, and is moved to pity.
But, we men, who know more of the truth in this
matter, would say that children, so gay and thoughtless,
favored by nature in a hundred ways, powerful in their
youthful growth and increasing age, know but little
pain or sorrow, and do not form the universal symbol
of Pity.
Do you ask who the unhappy, really unhappy person,
and true image of Pity, is? It is woman, who, in winter, at a certain period of the month, suffering, and fear.

Woman Should Work but Little.

49

ful of certain prosaic accidents, which often come at the
same time, is obliged to display an unfelt gaiety at a
ball, in a careless and unsympathizing throng.
Alas! where is her mother then ? or rather her loving
husband, who protects her, works for her, and permits
her to remain at night in her comfortable room, by the
fire ? On such days he should make her retire early, and
still keeping watch, would receive for his reward her
last whispered word ere she fell asleep: " My God, to
you I give my heart, to you and to my husband !"

III.
WOMAN SHOULD WORK BUT LITTLE.
REAL workmen, who know that a good start is always
important, often all-important, also know that a job
which is often interrupted does not amount to much in
the end. Woman, so often interrupted by sickness, is a
very bad worker. Her changeable constitution, the constant renewing which forms the basis of her existence,
does not permit her to apply herself long to any one
thing. To keep her seated in her chair all day would
be in the highest degree cruel.
She is not at all adapted for work, when in full health.
How much less then when she is enceinte, in that great
travail of pain, which man so often thoughtlessly entails
upon her? During the first four months, when the

50

Woman Should Work but Little.

child, still floating about in embryo, agitates her, lie
the rollings of a vessel in a storm-during the five months
of absorption, when he feeds upon his mother and lives
on her blood--fidally in the three months, at least, necessary to heal her poor, torn viscera, what would you have
her do ? After this horrible toil, when she has given
away the best part of herself, her blood, her marrow,
and her very life, are you going to put her to work?
All that the economists and people of that sort have
said about woman's fitness for labor, applies to but one
exceptional country, imperceptible on the map of the
world, forming but a little black spot on that of Europe.
They have left the rest of the world out of consideration!
In all countries, and in all times, woman has been and
is now occupied only with domestic labors, which, among
savages (where the warrior reserves himself for the
greater fatigues of the chase), includes a little agriculture or gardening.
And it is in doing little or nothing that woman pro
duces the two greatest treasures of this world. What
are they? The child, the man, the beauty and the
strength.of race. What else ? The flower of man, the
flower of arts, of gentleness, and of humanity, which
we call Civilization. All this has come, from the begin.
ning, of the delicate, kind, and patient culture that
woman, in her Tunctions as a wife and a mother, has
given us.
Woman is no more idle than we are, though she acts
in a very different manner. I know some who work
twelve hours a day, and yet do not know that they are
working. One of the most industrious of these once

Woman Should Work but Little.

51.

said to me modestly: " I live like a princess. He does
the work and supports me. Women are good fol
nothing."
This "nothing" means a light, slow, interrupted and
voluntary work, always having in view those whom she
loves, her husband or her child. This work, which does
not absorb her mind, is like the woof to the web' of her
thoughts. She weaves upon it the household matters
which the man, engaged in his business, had not thought
about; often, too, serious dreams about the future of her
children; and sometimes a higher and more universal
poetry of humanity and charity.
Some one asked the illustrious and charming Mrs.
Stowe under what circumstances she had written Uncle
Tom's Cabin. "While I was keeping the pot boiling,"
she replied.
Woman's work must always partake of love, for she
is fit for nothing else. What is her natural aim, her
mission ? First, to love; second, to love but one;
third, to love always.
And we may add: to love always to the same degree,
without ever tiring. When the world does not come, to
unsettle her, and change her, woman is more faithful
than man. She loves very equally, in a continued course
which is stopped by nothing, which flows on like a rivulet
or a river--like a certain beautiful and solitary spring in
the Black Forest, of which, passing by there in July
1841, I asked what her name was. She answered:
"I call myself, Forever."

(2

Man Should Earn Enough for Both.

IV.
THE MAN SHOULD EARN ENOUGH FOR
BOTH.
YouR poor little wife is yet asleep. It would be a
great pity to wake her, for you see by the expression of
her face that her dream is a pleasait one. It is of love;
so it must,be of you. It is only five o'clock. Besides,
it is well that she should lie abed, especially at this time
of the month, and sleep a little later in the morning.
Now, if we could only find out the meaning of that smile
upon her lips! What is she thinking about, or what
does she wish ?
"I do not know." Then I will tell you: "I am
wholly thine, and in thee I live."
This is very simple, and yet it has a world of meaning.
A complete revelation, the whole formula of nature, the
marriage creed itself, is contained in those words.
"My love," she says, "I am not strong, nor good for
much else but to love and care for you. I have not
your muscular arms, and, if I devote myself too long to
a complicated piece of work, the blood rushes to my
head, and I have a ringing in my ears. I cannot invent
anything; I cannot take the lead in anything. Why ?
Because I always wait for you, and look entirely through
your eyes.
"In you alone reside the impulse, the energy, and
also the patient and inventive power which leads to
execution. Then you shall be the creator, and make me
a nest with your talents and your strength.

Man Should Earn Enough for Both.

53

"A nest! ay, and more than a nest-a harmonic world;
a world of order, and kindness, and peace; a city of
refuge, where I shall see no more suffering, where I
shall have nothing more to wish for, where the felicity
of all shall crown my own. For of what use, you know,
would this place of refuge be, if I were the only happy
person in it ? If I were an object of pity there, I should
almost hate my happiness."
Now that she has spoken, let us try to formulize her
thought, or rather her law; yes, for it is the law of
Love.
" In the name and on behalf of Woman, ruler over all
the earth, Man is commanded to transform the World,
to make it the abode of justice, peace, and happiness,
and to reproduce Heaven here below."
"And what will she give me in return ?" Herself.
In proportion to your heroism, will her heart be enlarged
to you. Make, you, a paradise for others; she knows
how to make yours.
It is the paradise of marriage that the man shall
work for the woman; that he alone shall support her,
take pleasure in enduring fatigue for her sake, and spare
her the hardships of labor, and rude contact with the
world.
He returns home in the evening, harassed, suffering
from toil, mental or bodily, from the weariness of
worldly things, from the baseness of men. But in his
reception at home there is such an infinite kindness, a
calm so intense, that he hardly believes in the cruel
realities he has gone through all the day. "No," he
says, "that could not have been; it was but an ugly

54

Man Should Earn Enough for Both.

dream. There is but one real thing in the world, aad
that is you !"
This is woman's mission (more important than generation even), to renew the heart of man. Protected
and nourished by the man, she in turn nourishes him
with love.
In Love is her true sphere of labor, the only labor
that it is essential she should perform. It was that she
should reserve herself entirely for this, that nature
made her so incapable of performing the ruder sorts of
earthly toil.
Man's business it is to earn money, her's to spend it:
that is to say, to regulate the household expenditures,
better than man would.
This renders him indifferent to all enjoyment that is
bought, and makes it seem to him insipid. Why
should he go elsewhere in quest of pleasure? What
pleasure is there apart fi-om the woman whom he
loves ?
It is well said in Eastern law, that "the wife is the
household." And better still said the Eastern poet:
" A wife is a fortune."
Our western experience enables us to add: "Espe.
cially when she is poor."
Then, though she has nothing, she brings you every
thing.

Should the Beloved be Rich or Poor ? 5

V.
SHOULD THE BELOVED BE RICH OR POOR ?
SHE should be gentle, trusting, willing to be guided,
and above all, fresh in heart.
All the rest is of trifling consideration.
To commence with that which most affects people
now-a-days, money, I must say that I have never seen
a rich bride who was in any way tractable. It is not
long before she begins to display inordinate pretehsions,
and claim the right of spending her marriage-portion,
and even more. So that the man who thought his fortune made, soon finds himself reduced to poverty, and
obliged to plunge into the quicksands of speculation.
Twelve years ago, I set up this axiom, which every
day acquires additional verification. "If you wish to
ruin yourself, marry a rich wife."
There is even a greater danger than of losing your fortune, it is that of losing your former self, of changing
the habits which have made you what you are, which
have given you all your force and originality. In what
is called a good marriage, you become something like a
hanger-on to a woman, a sort of prince-consort, or
queen's husband, as it were.
A beautiful, a very beautiful widow, all amiability and
goodness, said to some one: " Sir, I have fifty thousand
livres a year, and quiet and unworldly habits. I love

56 Should the Beloved be Rich or Poor ?
you and will obey you. ... You are my old friend; tell
me if I have a fault." "You have but one, madame;
you are rich."
" Is it then a crime to be rich ?"
No. All that is here meant to be conveyed is, that
the woman who marries a man poorer than herself is
rarely willing to be guided by him. She will not
adopt his ideas, his ways of living, and his habits;
she will impose her own upon him. If she do not sueceed in turning the man into a woman, disputes will
arise. The sweet and imperceptible blending of two
lives into one will not take place. The grafting of the
wife up6n the husband will be impossible; there will
be no marriage, in fact. On the contrary, when the
wife is the poorer of the two, she is rich in amiability.
She loves and trusts; and these are not trifles. But are
these all? No; a third something is wanted, and this
she cannot always give. She must understandthe man
whom she loves.
When there is too great a distance between the two,
of position and education, when there are many social
barriers to be surmounted to bring our couple together,
the danger is imminent. In such a case much more
time, tact, and patience will be required than a business
man has always at his disposal. At some time or other
you may see a young country girl, well-born, and a perfect flower of beauty, goodness, and virtue, exquisitely
pure, loving, gentle, and obedient. Make love to her,
marry her, and you are sadly surprised when you realize
the difficulty of making yourself understood by her. She
does her best; she listens to your words and desires to

Should the Beloved be Rich or Poor ? 57
profit by them; she gives herself wholly up to you.
And yet all this does not help the matter. She has not
the power of concentrating her attention. Her excess
of blood troubles her, too; country people, when taken
away from their rude toil, are painfully overcharged
with blood. She feels all this, only too well. She
weeps, and is vexed with herself "for being so stupid."
She is not stupid at all. She is even very intelligent
about things coming within the province of her capabilities. The fault is not hers, but yours-you who believed
that the few initiative steps could be so easily taken.
This young country girl could and should have married a thriving mechanic of the neighboring city. And
the daughter who would have come of this marriage,
already one degree finer, in point of class, than her
mother, and also the recipient of a better education,
might have married a man of letters; she could at once
have followed and understood him in everything without difficulty. It would have been a marriage of minds
also.
Will it always be thus? No; quite the contrary, I
hope. Classes, as well as races, are continually changing.
All old barriers will fall before the omnipotent vindica.
lor, the grand-master of equality, Love.

58

Should You Choose a French Woman ?
VI.

SHOULD YOU CHOOSE A FRENCH WOMAN?
IT is not enough to love, nor even to understand each
other. You must give back something in return for
what is given, sparkle for sparkle, thought for thought
On this account, so far as nationality goes, I should pre
fer the French woman to all others in the world.
The German woman is all love and gentleness, full of
child-like purity, which transports one to Paradise. The
English woman, chaste, exclusive, thoughtful, and absorbed in her home affections, so loyal, so firm, and so
gentle, is the ideal of a wife. The passion of the Spaniard
bites deep into the heart; and the Italian, in her beauty
and softness, her warm imagination, often with her touching frankness, renders resistance impossible, and you are
enraptured, conquered.
However, if you desire a wife whose soul shall respond
to your own by the sympathy of intellect as well as
love-who shall renew your heart by a charming vivacity
and gaiety, a helping wit, womanly words or bird-like
songs-you must choose a Frenchwoman.
One thing to be remembered is, that they are very
precocious. A French girl at fifteen is as well developed,
as to her person and her passions, as an English girl is at
eighteen. This is to be attributed to her Catholic education, and confession, which is so instrumental in the forcing
of young girls. Music, which is cultivated so assiduously

Woman Requires Stability, &c.

59

among us, has also a great influence. The English girl is
likewise instructed in it, but for her it is only a task. The
Italian and the German women love music for its own
sake. But, for the French woman, it is Love in the form
of art. When love comes, music is quite dismissed; the
piano, to which she devoted so much time, is utterly forgotten.
Generally speaking, the young French girl has neither
the dazzling complexion, nor the visible purity, the touching and virginal charm, of the German girl. With us,
both sexes, for a season, are visited with a certain barrenness. Our children are precocious, have ardent,
scorching blood in their veins. We are not born young
in France, but we become so afterwards. The French
woman is wonderfully beautified by marriage, while the
Northern virgin loses by it, and often fades.
You risk very little in marrying a plain woman in
France. She is most frequently so simply for want of
love. When she is loved, she becomes quite another
person; you would scarcely recognise her.

VII.
WOMAN REQUIRES STABILITY AND COMPLETENESS IN LOVE.
WomA1 takes hardly any interest in the vain discussions which are carried on in her name at the present
day. She troubles herself very little about the famous

6o

Woman Requires Stability

inconsistent debate, whether she is superior or inferior
to man. The theory of the case is, with her, quite a
secondary consideration. Wherever she proves herself
thoughtful, clever, and prudent, there she is mistress;
she manages the household, directs the business, keeps
the money, arranges everything.
Will she obey ? At this question you fancy she will
resist. Not at all; she merely laughs and shakes her
head. She knows perfectly, in her own heart, that the
better she obeys the surer she is to govern.
What is it, after all, that woman desires most profoundly? What is her most secret wish-the indistinct
yet instinctive thought which follows her, without her
being able to account for it, into all places and at all
times-the thought which fully explains her apparent
contradictions, her prudence and her folly, her fidelity
and her inconstancy ?
She wishes to be loved, without doubt; but that
answer does not by any means fathom the uttermost
depths of her desires.
She wishes sensual pleasure. Yes, but in a very
small degree. In her capacity of invalid she is prudent
and abstinent, more loving yet purer than we are.
Then she desires most to reign at home, to be the mistress of the house, mistress in her bed, istress by her
fireside, at her table, in all her little world. " This,"
says the ancient Persian, and says Voltaire in his Tales,
"is what pleases woman above every other thing."
That, to be sure, is true; but it may be explained by a
deeper sentiment, to which the three preceding con
siderations are in a great measure related.
The secret, essential, capital, and fundamental idea is,

and Completeness in Love.

61

that every woman feels herself to be a powerful cer tre
of love and attraction, around which everything should
revolve. She wants man to envelop her with an insatiable desire-a never-ending curiosity. She has a confused consciousness that her nature affords an infinity of
discovery; that she possesses the power of fully satisfying the persevering love which would pursue this endless
search-that she would surprise it for ever by a thousand
unexpected visions of grace and passion.
This obstinacy of love, this effort of ardent curiosity,
which seeks the infinite in a single being, implies a
thoroughly pure, exclusive, and monogamic home-circle.
Nothing is less genial than a harem; it is the abode of a
caterpillar-love, which crawls from rose to rose, spoiling
the edges of the petals without ever reaching the cup.
Woman, in all history, is the mortal enemy of polygamy. She wishes for the love of one only; but it
must be real love-an eager, restless passion, which, like
a flame, burns on and must burn on. She never pardons the chosen possessor who examines so little into
the value of his treasure as to stupidly think, the day
after the wedding, that he has no more to discover.
Hence come the deplorable attempts of a creature
naturally very faithful, and who would have always
remained so, to*find elsewhere a soul which desires to
know more of her own, to dive deeper into it and discover a greater happiness. In this she never succeeds.
The lover, like the husband, only skims over the surface
of the deep cup, and neither of them knows that the
treasure lies at the bottom.
Man has desire; woman love. He has invented hun.
dreds of creeds, and founded polygamic institutions.

52

Woman Requires Stability

He wished to gratify his sensuality, and have his name
live longer in the land; so he first sought pleasure, and
then perpetuity by a numerous family. Woman has
wished for nothing but to love, to give herself to one,
and to belong to him for ever.
How great is love in woman! and great, too, her
resistance to the polygamic impurity which men sought
to thrust upon her as a duty! In the Mahabharat of
India, she wishes to love but one; she is punished for it;
she dies. In the Zend-Avesta of the Persians, summoned by the Magi to tell what woman most desires, she
asks for a veil, and covering her face therewith, says:
0'To be loved, to be studied by her husband, and to be
mistress of the house." This beautiful answer displeases
her judges; she is stricken down, and dies. But her
soul, winging its flight to heaven, exclaims: "I am
pure and undefiled."
One very remarkable thing, in these ancient revelations
of woman's heart, is that love always appears, but the
thought of generation never.
In love she sees but love, her lover, her husband; the
child will come by and by. It is man who troubles himself about the perpetuation of his race.
A young and thoughtful lady (Madame de Gasparin)
has had the courage to touch upon this delicate point,
and to reveal woman's secret: " 'The object of marriage
is marriage; the child is but an auxiliary. Conjugal
love requires more self-sacrifice, more virtue, than maternal love; for the child is but a continuation of the mother;
in loving it the mother loves herself."
She has said this simply, innocently, boldly. She did not

and Completeness in Love.

63

ask for a veil like the Persian matron, feeling herself
sufficiently protected by her virtue, and that noble maidenhood which the wife never loses.
A very pure avowal is the above, and one which in
reality pleads for the interests of the child-one also
which the child, could he speak before he is born,
would make himself. What the child has most to wish
for, is the preliminary unity of those from whom he is to
spring. If they are in perfect communion of heart, he
may come; his home is ready, a soft nest is open to
receive him. If, at his advent, he found divorce threatening the marriage of his parents, he would perish
morally, and perhaps physically. So, every question
of family, education, etc., is subordinate to a previous
consideration-that of love, and the mutual identification
of the two who love, and who, little by little, confe to
form but one.
This is woman's thought, divested of all hypocrisy,
and in its sacred gravity put in opposition to the idea,
obtaining in the Middle Ages, that the sole end of marriage was procreation, forgetting that the mother, before
being a mother, is the wife and the companion of man.
This argues profound ignorance. They did not know
that woman, even she who has no child, is prolific in a
hundred different ways. She is so to her husband, into
whose nature even. the simplest woman instils, imperceptibly, sentiments, thoughts, and habits in the end. At all
times, when fatigued, and having exhausted or lost his
mental vigor, man takes in a new supply from woman,
from her soothing presence, her chaste bosom.
She is his daughter, in that he finds in her both youth

64

Woman Requires Stability

and freshness. She is his sister, in that she takes the
lead on the roughest road, and, weak herself, supporti
him. She is his mother, since she ever throws her mantle
about him. In his darker moments, when he is in trouble, and seeks in vain his star in the heavens, he looks
towards woman, and behold! that star is in her eyes!
We must not let the present state of morals, the
public vertigo, and unchecked whirlwind of licence which
we have now before our eyes, deceive us as to the essence
of things; we must not stop at certain women, or classes,
or times. We must look at the eternal woman.
In all history she is the element of stability. Common
sense sufficiently explains the reason of this. It is not
only because she is the mother, the embodiment of the
family and the household, but because she brings into
the co-partnership a disproportionate share, which be.
comes enormous when compared to that of the man.
She enters into it entirely, and without the possibility of
withdrawal. The simplest one among them fully understands that any change is to her disadvantage, that in
changing she rapidly lowers herself; that, in going from
the first man to the second, she loses a hundred per cent.
What is it then when she leaves him for a third ? What
will it be when she reaches the tenth ? Alas! . .
When the parts are transposed, when the woman
grows fickle and calls for change, which is her degradation and her ruin, we must consider it a case of disordered
mind, a hideous symptom of misery and despair. This per.
version of woman's nature condemns her less than it does
him who causes the evil-for the crime is really man's.
The astonishing aspect of restlessness and agitation

and Completeness in Love.
which we now behold in their mania for dress, results
less from real frivolity than from rivalry and vanity;
frequently also from chagrin at their youth and beauty
slipping away, and their consequent desire to renovate
themselves every morning.
These surprising changes of decoration are very frequently the caprices of an ailing heart, which wants to
retain a love, and finds it difficult to do so. Some of the
most faithful among them, in order to retain their lovers,
work incessantly at disguising and varying themselves.
They would do precisely the same in the midst of the
greatest solitude, in a desert, or an Alpine hut, if they
lived there with "him."
Do they employ the right means to attain their end ?
I think not. The impressions received upon the heart
are rather unsettled than strengthened by this continual
change. You are tempted to say to them: " My love,
do not change so rapidly. Why force my faithful
heart into a permanent infidelity ? Yesterday you were
so lovely! I had already begun to be fascinated by that
beautiful woman. And to day where is she? Already
disappeared .... Ah ! how I regret her absence! Give
her back to me. Do not force me to love change so."
Dress is a great symbol. There should be some novelty, but nothing violent; above all, never so complete
a novelty as to cause love to lose its reckoning. A slight
accessory to the costume gracefully varies it, and suffices
for all change. 'A flower more or less, a ribbon, a bit of
lace, a mere nothing, often enchants us, and the whole
portrait becomes transfigured. This changeless change
goes to the heart and silently says: "Always different,
and always the same."

66

Woman Requires Stability, &c.

The follies and passing epidemics of luxury and fashion
do not at all, so far as we are concerned, affect what we
have, in the universality of time and place, set down as
the essential law of woman's heart, and of the depths of
her nature.
What she wants is not love merely, but the fixity,
the passionate perseverance, the unlimited eagerness and
curiosity, the endless intensity of love.
She wants this and she has a right to it; for to such
ardent researches she could reply for ever, with the fresh

and inexhaustible eloquence (improvisation) of unlookedfor happiness.
Two speeches of a comedy, which may have been regarded as trifles, appear to me to merit attention. They
are these.
LADY.-Will your master really love me?
VALBET.-Ah! Madam, he has sworn that as fast as
you renew your attractions he will renew his love.
But the lady mighthave replied: "And why shouldn't
he ?" If he is faithful-not stupidly faithful, with a monotonous constancy, but with an inventive love-insatiably curious to better understand the woman he loves,
the latter, rich as the sea, liberal as the electric machine
is of its sparks, can surpass all his expectations. In her
is the bright rainbow of the graces of attachment, of the
desires which embellish, or the refusals which attract.
What limits are there to her power ? None, but those
of Nature, and she is Nature's self.

You must Create your Wife.

67

VIII.
YOU MUST CREATE YOUR WIFE-SHE HERSELF DESIRES NOTHING BETTER.
THE girl of eighteen will be willingly the daughterthat is to say, the docile spouse-of the man of twentyeight or thirty.
She trusts to him in everything, easily believes that
he knows more than she, and all the world besides-more
than her father and mother (whom she quits with tears,
but without inconsolable sorrow). She believes everything he tells her, and confiding her body and soul to
him, she is Xery far from discussing any differences of
opinion which may in reality separate them; unconsciously, also, she even yields him her faith.
She believes that she is beginning-she wishes to begin
-a totally new life, which shall have nothing in common
with her former life. She desires to be born again, with
him and of him. " Let this day," she says, " be the first
of my days. Your creed is my creed. Your people
shall be my people, and your God my God."
This is an admirable moment for the man, in which he
can exercise a most powerful influence. His be the task
to make that influence an enduring one.
He should do as she wishes, and take her at her word;
he should re-make, re-new, re-model, re-create her.
Deliver her, therefore, from her insignificance, from
all that hinders her fi-om becoming an intellectual being
from all evil precedents, from any faults of education or
association she may have.

68

You must Create your Wife.

It is her interest, moreover, and the interest of ycur
love. Do you know why she wishes to be renewed by
you? Because she intuitively knows that you will love
her the more, and with an ever increasing love, if you
make her yours and a part of yourself.
Take her, then, as she offers herself, to your heart, and
in your arms, like a loving little child.
She feels-she knows by the power of feminine intuition-that love, in these modern times, loves not what it
finds, but what it makes.
We are workmen, creators, manufacturers, the true
sons of Prometheus. We do not want a ready-made
Pandora; we prefer to make one for ourselves.
This is proof that these latter days, which we believe
to be cold and heartless, are like to produce instances
of a force of love, of a revival of ardor and passion, unknown to by-gone ages.
Old-time passion for a monotonous ideal was almost
still-born at the outset; it soon became indifferent to
what was not its own work. But our modern passion
for a progressive being, for a living, loving creation,
which we fashion ourselves, hour by hour, for a beauty
which is truly our own, which increases in proportion to
our own power, is the source of an inexhaustible flame.
So it will be in all cases, whether light or serious, so
always, so everywhere. It will be like the immense
sheets of flame which smoulder beneath the surface of
certain provinces of China; you have but to strike the
ground at any point, dig a little hole, and the flame
bursts forth.

Am I Fit to Create a Woman ?

69

IX.
AM I FIT TO CREATE A WOMAN ?
THIS is the timid objection that more than one viL.
make. Such men, though vain otherwise, here coifess
their weakness. The difficulty, the importance of the
work, overpowers them.
To love her a little, seems to them all very well; to
enjoy her for a single night, very well also; but the
assiduous and persevering culture of her soul intimidates
them; they draw back in dismay.
" I am not prepared for that," they say. "Already
impaired by the life I have led, by a rigorous bringingup, and by the violent reaction in the course of pleasure
which followed it, I do not feel worthy to take this
maiden in hand, to mould this young loving heart,
which calls me to be its creator, its earthly god.
Have I enough intelligence, alas! enough of love even ?
Have I retained the faculty of love ?"
But you must not despise nor distrust yourself thus;
with will and perseverance you can accomplish great
things yet, both in life and in love. This ill-spent past
which haunts you, was not love. You are not yet able
to conceive of the true love. The faculty slumbers in
you, but it still exists; it was reserved for you by God.
Even the prostitute is susceptible of it. The deeper the
abyss, the more ardent Heaven's desire to lift you up
from it.

If you were to live with your young bride, seeking

70

Am I Fit to Create a Woman ?

in her nothing but the gratification of passion, your heart
would soon fail you; ennui would come between you
and her. But with you such a thing is impossible; see
how confidingly she gives herself up to you, in order to
become part of yourself! This work of transformation,
this sweet blending of your natures, will preserve in
your union the ardor of its first day, will even increase
that ardor. How can you help loving her more, when
you feel yourself better and purer in her ? when ceaselessly from her pure heart are reflected the rays of your
primitive nature, of the beautiful young light which
shone over your cradle, which had become overcast in
you, but which she, your guardian angel, reflects upon
you again more beautiful than before ?
Do not then, when she comes to you of her own
accord, do not be so foolish as to hesitate and say (with
cowardly and culpable humility): " I am not worthy."
You have no right to say so. There is no middle-course,
no mediocrity in marriage. He who does not take firm
and powerful possession of his wife, is neither respected
nor beloved by her. He wearies her; and between weariness and hate, with women, there is but a step. She lives
apart from him, her minor self at least; and not only she,
but the children, the whole family, become estranged.
You ask what right you have thus to take possession
of her. I will tell you:
The first and principal title to your claim is the deepfelt happiness which, on contracting marriage' she her.
self feels in being able to say, " I am yours."
She feels free, provided that you are her master.
Freed from what, do you ask ? Freed from her mother

Am I Fit to Create a Woman?

71

who, though loving her all the while, treats hei ap to
twenty years of age, and would treat her up to thirty,
exactly like a little girl. French mothers are terrible.
They adore their daughters, but they wage continual
war against them, eclipsing them by the brilliancy, the
charm, and the force of their own individuality. They
are much more graceful, often prettier even, and always
younger, -much younger, than their daughters. So long
as the daughter is under the control of her mother, she
has the mortification of hearing the inen say every night
among themselves: "The little one is not so bad, but
she does not compare with her mother."
Rich or poor, the mother diets herself and her daughter altogether too much. But the mother, who is all
grace, wit, and sparkle, has no need of bloom. With the
daughter, it is different; low diet keeps her pale, sickly,
and a little thin. The poor young girl too often prolongs
the "ungrateful age,". up to the very day of her wedding. Then at last, happy in you, she assumes a graceful outline; she will owe her beauty to you; if you are
careful of her, if you tenderly but firmly wrap her up in
your love, your young rose will blossom, fresher and
more lovely than in her melancholy youth.
To become beautiful, and through love-what happiness! I dare not attempt to describe to you the excess
of her gratitude. To be beautiful is Heaven; and to
woman, it is everything. If she but know that it is to
you she owes so great an advantage, she will readily yield
on every other point; she will be delighted to feel that
you are the master; she will like you to decide every.
thing, and in general, to save her the trouble of having
a will of her own.

72

Am I Fit to Create a Woman ?

She will cheerfully grant, what is the truth, that you
are her guardian angel; that your ten or twelve additional years, your experience of the world, have taught
you a thousand things from which you can preserve her,
a thousand dangers to which her youth and the semi
captivity of her girlhood would have blinded her, and
into which, most likely, she would have rushed headlong.
Take an example: Though the daughter has often
desired to be freed from her mother's authority, she
nevertheless is grieved at the moment of parting.
" Why not all live together, my dear ?" she asks of her
husband. And the wish often comes from her very heart.
The husband knows, better than she, that nothing could
be more fatal to the happiness of all, that a life of discord and trouble would be the result.
" But," she continues, "if I could only have my
nurse, who loves me so, who is *so clever, my Julia!
There is none who can dress me as well as she!" Here
again, it is the husband who guards her from a danger.
He succeeds in not having her bring to their new home
the cunning and compliant femme de chambre, who
humors the wife, and would be the real rival of the husband, flattering him openly, and secretly influencing the
wife against him, the dangerous confidante of her little
griefs, and gradually becoming the mistress, the true
mistress, of the house. Fortunately the young man foresees all this, and induces his bride to dispense with the
alluring viper.
These are very important points, on which there is
often some little disagreement. Sometimes she even
turns aside to weep, though acknowledging the while

Am I Fit to Create a Woman?

7,3

that, after all, you have more experience, that you are
undoubtedly right.
If you carry your point in these matters, you are sure
of all the rest. In business, where the interests of both
are concerned, in matters of opinion, she readily
acknowledges that you know and see more and better
than she does-above all, that your habits of mind are
very different, stronger, and more serious.
The mere fact of having an occupation, a speciality, is
a great advantage to the man. He must have passed
through a previous course of moral gymnastics, must
have overcome the stiffness of his joints, broken, trained,
and strengthened his active faculties. It is in conquering a trade that we conquer ourselves. Herein we
especially learn that, to succeed, to bring any undertaking to an end, perseverance is required; and not only
that, but conscientiousness, a firm desire to do right,
and an incalculable precision. Women would be capable enough of this precision, yet they seldom possess it,
because their wills are not strong enough.
You must know, too, that, being young, the woman
is easily fatigued, often troubled by an excess of blood.
Those modest and charming roses, so often visible on
her cheeks, are an ornament; but an obstacle, nevertheless. They render her incapable of continued application,
And this beloved woman, if you permitted it, would be
only too willing to throw herself upon you, and say:
"Think fbr both of us;" like a child, who, tired after a dozen
steps, wants his mother to carry him. But you must
not allow this. You must help and sustain the indolent
beauty, without relieving her of the necessity of walking.
4

74

Am I Fit to Create a Woman ?

It is now or never, my friend, that you Wvill have an
opportunity of knowing whether you are a man of good
sense or not. This cherished child-wife unwittingly
propounds to you the most trying problem. How
will you give up the scholastic pursuits in which you
have been educated? How can you bring these rigid
exact sciences, in their pure crystal state, back to life, and
make flowers of the diamonds, to give to your child ?
This is a great and beautiful problem. How difficult !
and yet for you how useful! Without it you would
never have known that you fully comprehended, that you
were master of all this learning deposited in you, but
not assimilated with you, not infused into your being.
But, henceforth, you will know this perfectly, when
science becomes so mingled with the hottest blood in
your veins, and passes, burning its way, through your
heart, and your love.
I have placed myself out of the possibility of all
dispute. My heart is too full of this to allow me to turn
aside and reply, to those who seek, plausibly enough, to
discourage you by saying that modern science, having as
yet but little unity, cannot thus be brought down to a
vital simplicity, in which it can be transmitted to thA
uneducated woman, to a child.
A word here will suffice:
Modern reason has but two component parts:
The science of life, which is that of love, and teaches
us of the universal life-our common parentage, and the
fraternity of man.
The science of justice, which is the highest charity,
and impartial love. This is fraternity also.
Are these two separate things then? No; there iv

Am I Fit to Create a Woman'?

75

but one. These two great churches of God, which we
have been building for the last three hundred, years,
unite at the top; they have a common spire, and blend
in one near heaven.
The more Law has ennobled and humanized itself,
the more have the brotherhood of Justice gone forth to
meet the brotherhood of Nature, and of Medicine, the
science of life, of love and of mercy. (See notes.)
This is modern science, common and uniform to both
sexes. You penetrate to it by justice and truth, order
and harmony. And she, your young pupil, is conscious
of it through mercy and gentleness. Both of you
through love.
Young man, you wish to be loved, do you not?
Well! for that you must be a man. I mean that, above
the necessary devotion to the details of business, you
must preserve a reverence for humanity at large, the
love of all. It is thus that you will be worthy of being
loved yourself-great, noble, and having power over the
woman, who is herself but love and life.
If you are studying law, for example, go on Sunday
evening to the church of Nature; I mean to the Jardin
des Plantes. Let your friend, the young medical student, take you to the dissecting table, and teach you
what death is.
And if you are a physician, pause occasionally in your
career. You are seeing too much pain. Learn the social
causes of it. Inform yourself, in your spare moments,
of the great therapeutics of Equity and Civil Order,
which would empty these hospitals, of that Justice which
would cure by the diffusion of happiness.

76

Am I Fit to Create a Woman '

On this ground, my friend, you are sure to be under
stood, for your wife is all pity, affection, and trust.
And what delight does she take in believing you when
you come to her with your heart full of so many new,
refreshing, and touching truths! What a striking contrast is here offered. Your maiden, your bride of sixteen
summers, your fresh and blooming rose, presents to you
the effects of a Byzantian education-a mind, old and
decayed, wrinkled with the ideas of the Middle Ages.
You, on the contrary, the man of modern times, fresh in
intellect, in learning, in conceptions, go to her new and
strong, in the dazzling heyday of youth. Here is work
for the incredible power of love; and what happiness
will it not procure you!
By an innocent enror, caused by her affection and
gratitude, she ascribes and credits to you all that has
been effected by the increased intelligence of the age.
She loves you for Linnous, and for the mystery of flowers. She loves you for the stars in heaven, as they were
first seen by Galileo. She loves in you even the science of
Death, which has taught us the profound secret of love,
and, in opposition to the barbarous impiety of the Gothic
times, has told us: " Woman is pure."
Be resigned to this, my friend. It is from you that
everything comes. You have the credit of everything.
It is you who have made all living things, all science.
She, indeed, dares not think thus, but her Love thinks it
for her; for, being her creator, you are also the creator
of the world; the world and God are both lost in you.

BOOK SECOND.
-0INITIATION

AND COMMUNION.

I.

LOVE IN A COTTAGE.
L(O, ERS' follies are worthy of attention. Wise Ien
should not despise the sayings of fools. Lunatics at
times have uttered oracles.
Listen to this young man who for the first time, in
May, is walking with his timid and affianced bride in the
country. The parents follow behind, but not too near.
The lover seems to appeal to all nature, to heaven, and
to earth, to share with him his great joy. But heaven,
and earth, and, I must add, even his betrothed, all seem
to disappear in a new transport. What is it that he has
seen ? A rustic cottage.
" Ah !" he exclaims, " that is the desire of my heart!
Small and solitary, it is the very home I have dreamed
of for you and me. Here, why may we not live together,
ramble thus together, escape from society and its impure
associations, and seal this Paradise of ours with mystery,
and forgetfulness of the world !"

Young man, you are not so silly after all. That
common laborer's cottage is undoubtedly too rude a
dwelling-place for your delicate companion; but your
instinct at least reveals to you one thing that many
others do not learn until long afterward, and then to
their bitter cost:

80

Love in a Cottage.
"Do not sow seed by the roadside.
Do notplant trees in the torrent.
Do not love amid the crowded haunts of men."

What influence can you have over a woman in society ?
None. at all.
In solitude ? Every influence.
Besides, it is not she, perhaps, whom you must guard
thus, but yourself. The more solitary she is, the more
you live with her, the more your hearts are blended.
But so soon as she has any society, even the best, that
of her mother, her sister, or a female friend for instance,
you feel less fear in leaving her, and the bond between
you is in danger of being loosened. "Her mother is
with her," you say; "I will go and see my friends. She
is with her sister; I can pay such and such a visit now."
Then you will be sucked again into the vortex of society;
you will undoubtedly love her still, but with continued
diminution. Do you imagine that coming home every
night, fatigued, exhausted, and abstracted, you will find
the same woman, and the same love awaiting you ?
"Then, according to you, marriage should be the life
of a recluse, of a captive ? The woman shut up at home
alone; the man hardly going out at all, and then only
to attend to his business ? This is not life; it is an anticipated death. Let us make our wills before marriage;
the nuptial couch is a sepulchre. No more friends, no
more country. Good-bye to the citizen. Love and the
home-circle are going to exterminate patriotism."

Love in a Cottage.
This is not what I mean. I hope for quite a diffei Ent
society, pure, free, and strong, where the table of manly
companionship shall reserve its place of honor for the
wife, the mother, and the maiden; where, at public festivals, we shall see our charming women seated, crowned
with flowers, on the stand with the magistrates. Woman,
queen over the multitude, the delicate yet strict arbiter
of public morals, will be the most delightful feature of
future communities.
All this is yet far distant perhaps. Let me then, in
the meantime, speak of possible and practical things,
those which alone we need now.
The solitude that I would wish for woman is not immurement in the house of the jealous old Arnolphe, who
keeps continual watch and ward over Agnes, the body
of Agnes at least, while stifling her heart and suffering
her mind to stagnate.
In the first place I would wish Agnes to have a husband, of an age suitable to her own. I have before
given the proportion: twenty-eight years in the man to
eighteen in the woman. To depart from this rule there
will need to be very special affinities between you, very
singular and very rare, too; these may be found, but
seldom are.
I wish Agnes to have complete liberty. If woman is
born feeble, and subservient to suffering, love is her
redemption, marriage her successful enfranchisement,
Herein she becomes equal to the man, often superior in
the end.
"And her height, pry'thee?"
"Just as high as my heart."-SHAKSPEARE.

4*

82

Love in a Cottage.

Solitude, besides, is entirely relative. Love Ls a thing
so mighty that it prevails over all circumstances. It can
live solitary even in the greatest crowd. It is pure and
wholesome even when it rages most fiercely. To it a
palace, a garret, a throne, a shop, are all one. Remem.
ber, however, that it does not wage successful war
against the troubles of this world except when it is aided
by an honest heart, industrious habits, and a succession ol
labors which beneficially occupy every hour of one's life
Who has not seen, in the darkest and dreariest corner
of Paris (Rue des Lombards, if my memory serves me
right), a beautiful woman, born very wealthy, who,
despite her finished education and her great fortune,
passes her life in a counting-house ? There, in a little
glass-panelled office, she writes and keeps accounts, gives
orders to and oversees a score of clerks. This woman
is alone among so many men, not as an employee, but as
mistress. Her young husband is away all day, conducting the outside business of the house. In the evening
they meet again. Madame shuts her books, sends away
her clerks, and goes up-stairs to her husband. No union
is stronger than this, no marriage happier. The husband adores rather than loves his wife. That dismal
shop is the same to them as a rustic cottage.
If, however, you will permit me to form a wish for
you, it is that your young wife, that poetic creature who
has enslaved your heart, shall be less occupied with
invoices and bills payable, and that you, yourself, be not
exiled from her all the day long. The union, in the case
cited, is strong and beautiful; but is it enduring ? Is it
not something like the partnership of two men of busi-

Love in a Cottage

: 83

ness? Is there true blending of hearts between two
persons who are engrossed in business ? Even in bed,
as the chaste and worthy spouse sinks back upon her pillow, she murmurs between two sighs: "Do not forget,
my love, that to-morrow is the thirty-first."
Love is undoubtedly aflame, a desire, a heaven, which
can be found everywhere. But, it is also something
which requires cultivation. Time and meditation are
needed, in order to know and understand each other,
and gradually, day by day, penetrate one step further
into the mysteries of the soul.
When I meditate and devise happiness for others
(which I often do), I wish for those who love, and would
love always, even in the thickest of the crowd, a measure of solitude-solitude which alone initiates one in
the art of love-a few quiet years at least, to permit the
blending of their mutually-strengthened hearts, before
they return again to the world and to the battle of life.
I see in my mind's eye this little solitary house-not
exactly the laborer's cottage that you had set your
heart upon, but not much larger even than that-two
floors only, three rooms on each. No servant, or at the
most an honest country girl, who will be treated by her
mistress as a child, and who will spare her the heaviest
part of the work. I would have this house at some distance from the city, whither you go to your daily business:
so situated that it may receive all the warmth of the
sun, with a large orchard, and a small flower-garden
where your wife may work a little; above all, plenty
of water, and, if possible, springs.

84

Love in a Cottage.

Ycurs be the task to plan, order, and arrange all ti is,
even in its least details. Do not depend upon the women of the family, who will pretend that they understand these arrangements much better than you.
You alone, whom it concerns so deeply, should prepare the comfortable and charming cage to tempt your
little bird, to make her wish to be caught, to live as your
captive in order to become at fast your queen.
Ask counsel of the bee. She tells you: "I put the
same egg in two different cells-the royal cell, and the
working cell. Two very different bees come from these
different cradles."
As the nest is, so is the bird. Our surroundings, circumstances, and habits make us what we are. This nest
of true love is a beautiful subject. But I do not wish to
spoil it by forestalling it here. I do not wish to show the
house while it is yet empty. How different will it be on
the day, the happy day, when some one (I do not say
who) comes to invest it with the charm of her presence,
illuminate it with her beautiful eyes.
But if it has been partly, a very little, planned by
affection, it will be so well constructed, so ingeniously and
artfully disposed, that her young heart will be taken
captive in every part of it ; and the arranging and managing of it will add to her affection the discipline of
order, so powerful in its gentleness, and will deliver her
wholly up to love.

Marriage,

II.
MARRIAGE.
"You are my brother, father, my revered mcther;
You my dear lover, my young husband are."
[Iad.]
THIs speech is spoken not alone by Andromache, but
comes from the mouth of every woman at the time of
her great transition.
First, it is spoken from her heart, by an impulse of
nature, as it were.
She utters it also from a true and just appreciation of
her situation. She well knows that he is now her all in
all, her sole protector; and she pays no attention to the
ceremonies by which the Church and the Law seem to
protect her.
In reality, the force of this serious act is shown in that
she gives herself away without any precautionary
reserve, with no chance of withdrawal. If love is not
there to receive her, if she does not fall into kind hands,
all legal precautions will but aggravate her situation.
All these paper barriers will be in vain; and not only
that--by hardening and irritating him to whom she belongs, they will put her in still greater peril. A foolish
thing this, to institute a preliminary war in marriage,
and to believe that the interference of the law can be
called in at all hours of the night or day, and keep watch
even over the bed. From him who possesses woman

86

Marriage.

by the divine right of cohabitation, and who can Ympose
upon her the pains of labor and the perils of maternity,
there is absolutely no appeal. She has no other security
but his love.
Ceremony, solemnity, and publicity are doubtless excellent in their way. But the foundation of the matter
is in the heart. As the Roman jurisconsult said, " Mar
riage is consent," an act of the will, a freedom which is
voluntarily relinquished-a mutual exchange of hearts;
but also a sacrifice of the weaker party, who, in giving
herself over to the stronger, body and soul, with no stipulation whatever, risks everything for the future.
This is a very unequal contract, and neither the laws
of the Church nor the laws of the State have yet seriously
attempted to modify its nature. Both, in reality, are
very hard upon woman.
The church is openly against her, owing her a grudge
for the sin of Eve. It considers her a temptation incarnate, and closely in league with the devil. It permits
marriage though it prefers celibacy, as the life of purity;
for woman is impure. This doctrine is so thoroughly
that of the Middle Ages, that those who wish to renew
the spirit of the latter, contend (against the teachings
of chemistry) that in her sacred crisis the blood of woman is unclean. So much for physiology and law!
When woman is so far abased as this, what is she fit for
but to be a submissive servant to the purer being, man ?
She is the body; he is the mind.
The civil law is not less harsh. It declares woman
to be a minor all her life long, and pronounces upon her
an eternal interdiction. Man is constituted her guar.

Marriage.

87

dian; when it comes to the crimes that she may commit, the penalties that she may endure, she is treated as
a perfectly responsible person, of the full age, and dealt
with very severely. There exists moreover the same
contradiction in all the old barbarian laws. " She is given
to man as a chattel, punished as a responsible person. ,"
" But the family at least," you say, "is on her side,
and will really protect her."
I don't see that. I have known many theoretical
friends of freedom, who, when it came to this point,
forgot all their previous enthusiasm over this precious
attribute, and married their daughters, in spite of themselves, to rich old men, whom they could not endure.
It is never dreamed that the feeble creature will, in
this matter, attempt a siege against her father, her mother, and her whole family. She will yield to them, and
allow herself to be urged onward to the fatal day, which
she reaches wholly unprepared.
Every mother practises a sort of self-delusion; she
will say, most emphatically, " Oh! how I love my daughter !" And yet what does she do for her? She does
not prepare her for marriage, either mentally or physically.
For one thing are mothers deserving of praise; they
generally keep better watch over the daughter's virtue
than men believe. They wish her to arrive at marriage as a virgin, ignorant of everything, if possible; and
to have the husband delighted at finding her so like a
Yttle girl in simplicity. And, in fact, this does astonish
him (he who has seen only abandoned women) to such
a degree that he thinks she is playing the hypocrite.

88

Marriage.

This ignorance is, however, very natural when the
girl is under the care of a jealous and watchful mother,
and especially if she have no young female friends to
instruct her. But there is danger in this total ignorance, by the mere fact of which the innocent maiden is
exposed to more than one risk. The mother should
enlighten her, and put her on her guard, as soon as she
becomes a woman. At all events, it is her sacred duty
to perfectly initiate her daughter before marriage, so
that she may know well beforehand to what she is
going to consent, what it is that she is to undergo.
No compact can be voluntary or worth anything if
the conditions are not previously known.
Does she know in the morning what she promises for
the evening ? Is she, then, a person whose inclinations
have been consulted ? or a mere thing, silently handed
over to her master ? Does she know, above all, the
exorbitant right that the husband is about to assume, in
constituting himself (on doubtful authority) the judge
of her past morals, of her proper conduct, her purity
and her virtue ?
She is not better prepared physically than mentally.
Too much thought is given to the wedding dress, not
enough to the maiden. Father, mother, friends, and
even her betrothed, all busied with a thousand trifling
preparations, neglect the very person who is the object
of them all.
What is her condition at this moment of agitation, on
the eve of such a trial?
In the first place, she passes a restless night. Fatuity
would have you believe that it is caused by impatience;

Marriage.

89

generally it is for quite the contrary reason. This Imost
desired thing, now that it draws near, inspires her wita
fear and sadness, especially when it comes to the complete putting aside of all her former habits, when she
finds herself on the threshold of such a vast and unknown
future.
It is very natural that she should be restless and agitated, should have at times a little fever, that the circulation of her blood should be irregular or very rapid,
the nutritive function slow, and difficult of accomplishment. This should all be thought of long beforehand;
but every one is thinking of something else. Often,
when the time finally comes, the maiden is very ill from
fright, and in a state of painful plethora, which requires
kind and gentle treatment.
Young man, read this all alone, and not with that
thoughtless comrade whom I see behind you, mocking
over your shoulder. If you read alone, you will read to
some purpose. You will feel the responses of your own
heart. And the holiness of Nature will touch you.
This book treats of religion, of truth, and of purity.
If you find it a subject of amusement and ridicule, I do
not doubt that you would laugh over your mother's coffin.
In marriage jrour happiness is immense, but how serious also! Respect it. Consider the sacred gravity of
the adoption you are about to make, the infinite love
that is expected of you by her who comes to you alone,
and with boundless confidence.
Yes, alone, my friend. For you have seen that the
Church affords her no piotection, neither does the Law.

90

Marriage.

And the family, alas, has not taken much pains to et m
fort her on this painful day. The family does not sus
tain her, but brings her to you, gives her to you-to
the chances of your judgment.
But I trust in you for her sake. And I am sure that,
were all else in the world to fail, you would be to
her that all-country, and priest, and mother; and that
she would find in you the guaranty of this triple pontificate.
This is her whole thought, faith, and hope, when she
tremblingly advances, so beautiful in her pallor, robed
in fresh garments. She knows that she is no longer in
her own house, and not yet in yours. She hovers be.
tween two worlds.
Where is she going, and what is required of her?
She hardly knows. She does not know much of anything, except that she gives herself away in all the
devotedness of her heart.
She has the bliss of thinking that she is henceforward
in your hands. Will this be well or ill for her? and
how will you treat her? are questions which concern
you, not her.
In holding back nothing from you, in coming to you
alone and without protection, in loving you and abandoning herself to your love, lies all her defence and
security.
Said Christopher Columbus, when he drew near to
the unknown world:
"Let heaven and earth pray and weep for me."

The Wedding.

91

III.
THE WEDDING.
THE hour has come. Her mother sheds a few tears,
and leaves her. But I shall not leave her yet. I have
something to tell you which even her mother does not
know.
Do not be impatient and angry with me. Not for
my sake is it, that I ask you to stay a moment. She
has entered without fear, she loves you so! She has
that modest assurance which is the gift of purity. But
still, she is very much agitated; it is human nature.
Her poor little heart beats so violently that you can see
its throbbing. A moment, I pray. you; let us leave her
to recover a little, and breathe.
What I have to say to you is this:
I make and instiute you her protector against yourself.
Yes, against yourself. Do not attempt to deny it; at
this moment, you are her enemy.
A gentle, respectful, and loving enemy, it is true; but
no less an enemy for all that. Let us cut short the
insipid things that a man of the world would say about
what the good breeding of gentlemen prompts them to
do on such occasions. I know that when the greater
part of them reach marriage, their ardor has been spent
in the life they have led, in a great, too great, experience
of pleasure. But even for those who are the most blas,
it is a matter of amourpropre, of vain impatience. This

92

The Wedding.

may have endless consequences. Hence, I believe here
in that quotation from Natural History, which, though
it may sound harsh, is very comprehensive: " Tb. male
animal is very fierce "-a verdict unhappily confirmed
by medicine and surgery, which are too often consulted
as to the consequences; and by those who, when cool,
are indignant at the impious fury which can sully so
sacred a moment.
There is another very serious thing, and one of grave
importance:
Are you aware that, in this moment of agitation, you
are divided between two conflicting thoughts ? You do
not understand either yourself or her. This white
statue on whom you gaze so fondly, who is so touching,
so love-inspiring, who, fearing to appear afraid, forces a
pallid smile to her quivering lips-you flatter yourself
that you understand perfectly; and yet she remains to
you an enigma.
This bride of yours is the modern woman, made up
of a soul and a mind. The antique woman was a body
only. Marriage, in those times, being but a means of
generation, a man chose for his wife a large rosy girl
(red and beautiful are synonymous terms in barbarian
languages). The woman was required to have plenty
of blood, and to be ready to shed it. Great stress was
laid upon this particular. The sacrament of marriage
was a baptism of blood.
In modern marriage, which is in the highest degree
the blending of souls, the soul is the essential thing.
The woman that the modern man imagines for himself
is a delicate and etherial being, altogether different from

The Wedding.

93

that ruddy girl of former times. She is the embodiment
of nervous life. Her blood is all movement and action.
It is shown in her quick imagination, her ever-working
brain; in her sickly and morbid nervous grace; in her
excited, often brilliant speech; above all, in that deep
look of love which sometimes overwhelms and enchants
you, sometimes agitates, but oftenest touches your heart
and makes you weep.
This is what we really love, what we dream about,
what we pursue and desire. And yet, when it comes to
marriage, oddly enough, we forget all that, and expect
to find a woman. of hardy race, a robust country girl,
who, when overfed and indolent, especially in the city,
has an abundant supply of the red fountain of life.
The increase of nervous strength and the decline of
that of the blood, begun a long time ago, is also a fact
of these times. If the illustrious Broussais should return to the earth, where would he find in our generation
(I mean among the cultivated classes) the torrents of
blood that he drew, not without success, from the veins
of the gentlemen of his times ? Since then there has
been a fundamental change; whether for good or evil, I
leave to be decided. But, one thing is certain, and that
is, that man has become refined, and delights more in
mental pleasures. An uninterrupted succession of great
works and discoveries has distinguished these last thirty
years.
Everything has changed-woman with the rest. She
has read these works, and informed herself after a man.
ner of their teachings. She has lived on our thoughts.
The young girl tries to conceal this, but who cannot
read it in her eyes, in her often too expressive face, in

94

The Wedding.

her easily-offended delicacy? Your betrothed feared
nothing more than to possess the vulgar charms to
which to-day you attach so much importance. You
spoke so gloriously of pure love that she would be
transparent if she could. She thought that you desired
here on earth an aerial being, and that in your eyes she
lacked nothing but wings.
Besides, those who have the least cause to fear this
trial, who come to it more than pure, innocent, ignorant
of everything, are often those who disturb and alarm you
the most. So far does man lose his wits on that day,
less through love than distrust and pride, that the touching shame, the nervous excitement, and little fears of
the woman, so natural at this time, are at once interpreted in the most sinister manner. The man is a prey
to various mortifying conjectures.
"Undoubtedly," he says, " she fears this trial. She
puts off as long as she can a confession which she is
afraid to make."
She does not understand this at first; but, if at last
she discovers the burden of his thoughts, her agony and
indignation may be imagined. She is choked by it; her
eyes refuse to shed tears now. She who loved him so,
and who would have told him everything, if there had
indeed been anything to tell, to be thus distrustfully
treated, thus wronged ! It is enough to make her hate
him for ever!
The man should remember that; if he judges the woman
she judges him also,: at this time. She is profoundly sensitive and loving then, but so much the more vulnerable. She
receives in the deepest depths of her heart a shaft which
either kills her love, or assures it an eternal existence.

The Wedding.

95

Oh ! what a strange, astonishing, inh-iman change has
taken place in the man! He who protested his love to
her so vehemently, has now no mercy upon her. IHe
does not see in her face what is often the fact, that she
is really very ill from emotion. From the beginning
she has had much difficulty in breathing. Afterwards,
the nervous flood has mounted higher and higher, and
sometimes bursts forth in a fearful tempest. Sometimes
again, it is worse still; nausea comes on; the most temperate woman is completely disordered. Her situation
is horrible, her agitation excessive.
Have pity on her ! be kind and gentle to her. Appreciate her sitiation, care for her, re-assure her. Let her
know that you are not her enemy; on the contrary, a
most devoted friend, entirely at her service. Be discreet, full of tact, understanding and respecting her
situation. And encourage her to the utmost.
Tell her this:
"I am thine, I am a part of thee. I suffer in thee.
Take me as thy mother and thy nurse. Confide wholly
in me. Thou art my wife and my child also."
This is a very precious time, when he who constitutes
himself a mother and a nurse, repairs the wrongs of the
lover. When the mind is calm, the body soon becomes
calm also, and, the .nervous tempest gradually dying
away, feminine good-nature and docility begin to speak
for you; it pains and alarms her to see you looking sad.
And though she may not yet have entirely recovered
from her timidity, she will grant, through tenderness
or sweet feebleness, such charming favors as would
not otherwise have been vouchsafed to you. Watched

96

The Awakening-

over by you, she will go to sleep in confidence.
awaking you will lose nothing.

On her

IV.
THE AWAKENING.-THE YOUNG MISTRESS
OF THE HOUSE.
ON awaking the next morning, what ecstasy for the
young bridegroom-yesterday alone, to-day doubled, as
he contemplates (scarce believing his eyes the while)
that charming face, that beautiful and defenceless person
reposing there under his care; it is too much for human
nature, and the proudest are touched. No language,
not even tears, can avail him then; sometimes the heart
overflows with gratitude, and thanks the goodness of
N*ature and God. Sometimes, too, pride prompts him
to an animal thought, and he can scarce restrain himself
from exclaiming, "I own her ! I am her master ! It is
really so ; she is mine, mine !"
But this blind impulse of triumph is succeeded by a
nobler sentiment? the deep necessity he feels to give
something in return to the one who has brought him
an infinity of bliss. Heaven and earth, his own life,
seem not enough to offer her. His very heart seems to
leap from his breast to give itself to her. "Take me,"
he says, "accept me; my soul, my whole being, my
thoughts, my will, for ever!"
The ancient laws have here taken advantage of the
occasion, and conjured man to consecrate this hour, and

The Young Mistress of the House.

97

perpetuate it-to ease his heart by insuring his wife's
destiny. This was called the morning gift.
" Though a man should give his life for love, he would
not think he had made a sacrifice."
And I also, young man, shall stop you here; I, your
master, am going to ask a gift of you.
Are you rich? Have you lands, forests, palaces?
Well, keep them. She is above all that. What I ask
for her is your word only, your promise to honor and
respect your wife, never to be to her again what you
were for a moment last night. Let her youth, her weakness, and her gentle obedience, be as sacred to you as
the commands of your aged father. You should blush
at having been harsh and violent, against your own
nature; and to whom ? to her! At having entertained
the unworthy thought that you were strong, and she
weak. Strong against her, who gives herself to you,
trusts in you-strong against love, against God !
Day breaks; and so, fatigued, she has fallen asleep
again upon her pillow. How pale and enfeebled she is !
It is evident that she has suffered severely. That harsh
conflict was too much for her. And what a cruel disappointment to find a hard and imperious master in the
adored lover! He says to himself: "I am angry with
myself. I have been a fool. I have defeated myself.
Before this violence I was sure of her heart and of her
will. Will she forget it ? forgive it? What if she
should cease to love me !"
He knows very little about her if he doubts her. She
awakes, opens her eyes with a half smile, sad and gentle
5

98

The Awakening-

at the same time; looks about her to see where -le
is;
and then, like a timid child, hides her face for a moment.
Is she really very angry ? No; a little ashamed rather.
Ashamed of what ? Of having suffered; and it seems
as if she would ask pardon for the harm.that has been
done her. She has need of quiet and of love, and she
makes peace herself, by putting her little hand in his,
with a sigh and these words: "My love! "
Who could resist that? He does not attempt to:
tears fill his eyes. She sees them, and kisses them away;
then languidly administers this mild reproach, which is in
itself a caress of love: " How impetuous you are! there
is no resisting you. Oh! you are truly my master; and
yet I love you. But I am very unwell. May I get up ?"
She is slow, a little heavy and lazy this morning-she who is usually so light and active. The young matron rises, however, with careful chasteness, but soon
takes possession of an easy chair in which she lies back,
weak and overpowered by lassitude. At her first glance
in the mirror, she exclaims : " Heavens !how ugly I am !"
This you strongly deny, but she still repeats it.
To make her appear at the breakfast-table before a
mixed audience of jocose friends of your own, jealous
lady-firiends of hers, inquisitive sisters and brothers,
would be barbarous. Spare her this exhibition.
How grateful she will be-to you if you prevent this,
and secure her solitude and repose. Her mother even
will be de trop at such a time. Happy as the daughter
might be to see her, she does not care to answer questions; for the secret is henceforth the property of two.
She cannot be a good and confiding daughter without
telling too much about her husband.

The Young Mistress of the House.

99

"No," you say to her, " fear nothing of this; be calm
and rest yourself; nobody shall come to you; eat this
warm and light breakfast that I have had prepared for
you; it will give you strength. Then, I shall have the
pleasure of showing you your house and your garden."
Now, if you have married wealthily, is the time I
pity you. It is so hard to satisfy a rich woman. The
prettiest things you show her barely raise a smile; and
the smile itself often means, "Not so bad, but I have
seen better."
She on the contrary who is only rich in beauty, mind,
and virtue, who with this great marriage-portion modestly thinks that she has brought nothing with her,
who, from a somewhat poor condition of life, passes to
an easier, freer, and more comfortable one, is full of happiness, charming in her artless joy and astonishment, in
the pleasure that she takes in seeing, touching, and
adapting herself to everythi.g, and saying the while:
"And this is really our home !"
And again she adds: "What a nice house! Everything has been thought of. It almost makes one believe
that it was all arranged beforehand, for a woman."
Do you imagine that what charms and touches the
feminine heart must be something costly and luxurious ?
Not at all. What pleases them most is that act of yours
which puts everything in the hands of the mistress of
the house, permits her to arrange, take care of, and
keep things in that order and cleanliness that woman so
.oves. It is then that she feels they are hers, and takes
possession of them. They like large cupboards, deep
drawers, good oaken closets to keep linen in, and lit.
tie out-of-the-way hiding places,-they all like these;

100

The Awakening--

but especially those who have nothing to hide in
them.
Different kinds of furniture, seats of all heights, some
even as low as a child's chair, they want, and should
have. The sedentary woman needs to vary her working
postures; these are but the liberties of the voluntary
captive.
Have good carpets too, as cheap as you please, but
thick, doubled, tripled even, with some soft lining; have
them laid inall parts of the house, even on the stairs;
for they are the delight of a woman's little foot, which
delicately appreciates their gentle resistance, their velvet
charm and soft elasticity. This is a great advantage,
she has less cause to sit near the fire.
Have no stoves, but open fireplaces. Stove and headache are synonymous. Have wood to burn: it is more
cheerful and healthy than coal. The imperceptible dust
that comes from coal does the man, who comes and goes,
but little harm, but is very injurious to the woman, who
goes out much less than he, and whose lungs after a time
become filled with it.
A happy moment isit for her when you put the keys
in her hand. To let her have all the money, and the
power to spend it, is a certain means to make her economical, if she is alone, and left to her natural discretion. From that moment all childish longings are
checked. When anything tempts her, she says, " I can
buy it, but I will wait till to-morrow." And to-morrow
she thinks no more about it.
Let us not forget that the best of young women often
comes to you from an extravagant mother, who has
humored her every caprice; or a despotic mother, who,

The Young Mistress of the House.

loi

forbidding her to meddle in household affairs, has lEft"
her in ignorance of the real value of things, and the
relative worth of money. You must instruct her, teach
her how to defend herself against the tricks of trade, the
dishonesty of servants, etc.
Although you give over to her the minor matters of
the household, she will want you to retain the management of its higher interests, to regulate the more important receipts and expenditures. They do not like men
who abdicate too much. By a charming contradiction
they wish to be the mistresses, but have the man still
master; that is to say, strong, and worthy of them.
They often take pleasure, even in womanly things, in
consulting him, and having him command and decide.
It is a sensuality of love for them to obey, to feel that
they are possessed by some one who wraps round them
his loving strength, and who sometimes gently makes
them feel the spur.
We shall return to the house; let us go now into
the garden.
And to begin: can you not at a little cost, with a few
pillars and a light zinc roof, build her a little open gallery or winter portico between the house and the garden, where she can work, and walk in the sun ? another
for summer, where she can sew, embroider, or read in.
the shade, before a purling fountain ? Such a place of
shelter costs but little, and yet is very necessary in our
changeable climate.
How changed are all things here! How charming
this solitary garden has become through her! With
what a soft sunlight she has illuminated, bewitched it!
Things have cast off their thingly qualities, and are

102

Narrowing the Home Circle.

invested with spirits as it were, expressly to receive and
bless her. Not a wall nor a stone that is not softened at
sight of her. The flowers, with all their corollas opened
wide, admire and contemplate her; and the grass even
grows fresher at having been touched by her foot.
She too is fascinated, delighted with the place. Now
that she is here she wishes to remain for ever. She
would never ask for the end of such a sweet enchantment. Lost in her thought of love, she lets you talk
on without answering, absorbing the gentle moisture
like the turf around the fountain. Her expressive
mouth, though it utters no word, is full of eloquence,
her gently heaving bosom still more eloquent. She
walks, leaning upon your arm, and little by little letting
herself down, until, clasping her hands, she suspends herself to you, and becomes almost heavy. This is doubtless through tenderness, from fatigue also, and from the
heat of the day. The dear child lets herself go thus,
partly carried by you; saying, with a sigh: "Ah i how
happy I am with you !"

V.
NARROWING THE HOME CIRCLE
LovE creates love, and augments it. The secret of
loving each other much, is to occupy ourselves much,
one with the other, to live much together, the closest
and most that we can.

Narrowing the Home Circle

lo3

" And what if they get tired of one another ?" you
exclaim; "it will have the contrary effect; they will hate
instead of love." Granted, if the alternation of solitude
and society; a restless, unprofitable, and constantly varying life, prevents the mind from assuming a proper
balance. But not if a contented life, varied only by
love and labor, excludes all vain attractions, and binds
the pair closer and closer together in that constant communion, where they think, live, and are happy, each
through the other.
In Zurich, in the olden time, when a quarrelsome couple
applied for a divorce, the magistrate never listened to

them. Before deciding upon the case, he locked them
up for three days in the same room, with one bed, one
table, one plate, and one tumbler. Their food was
passed into them by attendants who neither saw nor
spoke to them. When they came out, at the end of the

three days, neither of them wanted to be divorced.
The mere arrangement of our modern apartments is
enough to hinder a real union.

The multitude of little

rooms divides the household, breaks up the family,
isolates the married pair. Furthermore, the putting of
one story upon another,in the great unhealthy barracks
in which we crowd ourselves, brings us continually in
contact with strangers.
The husband will work by himself, and the wife will
suffer from ennui by herself, or occupy herself in useless
talk with women whom she knows too little iabout.
One must have a study, the other a boudoir (significant
word); two bed-chambers, so that they can at all hours

ignore and avoid each other, defend themselves against

104

Narrowing the Home Circle.

each other if need be. The dining-room and the parlor
bring them together momentarily, but their visitors and
guests occupy their attention and divert them from each
other; they are relieved of the necessity of speaking to
each other, almost of seeing each other. I would
advise such spouses to prudently put bolts on the doors
of their respective chambers, for mutual assurance.
Why apply for divorce?
A marriage like that
amounts to the same thing. Those separate apartments
effect it sufficiently.
And when you really love, how can you help envying
my neighbor the carpenter, who has but one room in
all? So that while he is sawing and planing, his wife,
who is a washerwoman, sings at her ironing-table all the
day long. Often have I forgotten myself in listening to
her fine voice, which is strong and vibratory, fresh and
clear. Sometimes she sings a little too loud, and disturbs me at my work; but that does not hinder me from
saying: " Sing on, sing on, you poor little lark !"
"All very well for a carpenter," you say. "But my
labors are of a higher order, have a more important
object. I am a thinker. Every distraction withdraws
me from my profound meditations." Too profound, siroften hollow. Your works, those of these times at least,
are for the most part barren; witty, I grant you-but
with so little life in them, so unfeeling, so rarely humane.
The author, at every moment, loses sight of the worlds
of heart and of good sense.
A really human work, a powerful and living thought,
one with a body to it, is not disturbed so easily. Its
powerful impetus carries it along, and assimilates and

Narrowing the Home Circle.

10S

appropriates to itself all that might otherwise have
diverted it from its course. How much easier is this,
then, if what you call distraction is in reality from the very
bottom of your heart, love and the beloved one! But
both these are one and the same thing. Can. she take
you from work, or work take you from her ? Neither.
On the subject which seems the most remote even, she
exercises an influence, by the warmth of love which she
infuses into it.
I am always pleased with Dutch pictures. I find in
them continually that charming promiscuousness of the
man's study and the woman's housewifery, where the
former is ennobled, the latter inspired with new ardor
and increased in firuitfulness. Everybody has seen at
the Louvre (and also in the exquisite description given

in la Foi Nouvelle) -the Saint Joseph of Rembrandt.
But I am not the less struck with its microscopical philosophy, a picture of study familiarized with the family.
In the faint light of the declining sun, near a window
on which is spread a large open book, is an old man,
who has ceased reading and is engaged in meditation,
brooding over his thoughts. His eyes are shut, it seems;
and yet he sees everything. He sees the servant poking
the fire. He sees his wife (scarcely distinguishable in
the picture) coming down the winding staircase. These
pleasing images, you may be sure, are blended with the
pleasant nature of his thoughts. Behind him is a closet
cellar, containing a little generous wine, with which he
sometimes refreshes himself. Such is the complete pic.
ture of a man who has gone through life, and is now
living on its vintage.
5*

10o6

Narrowing the Home Circle.

If that book is the Bible, I am sure that the good man
will take the best and highest sense of it. His is the
intellect to understand the sayings of Tobias, Ruth,
and the patriarchs. He will not lose himself in vain
and unprofitable analysis, and will not care to inform
himself, as others do, of the sex of the angels. The same
man, in the cell of a convent, would have made commentaries like those of Scotus, and Thomas Aquinas, upon
the Bible; refining, subtilizing, and in fact reducing everything to barrenness. Here, it is quite the contrary. And
why ? Because the. household, the family and affection, bring him ever back to the real. All that touches
the heart in this chronicle of remote times, is re-made
and renewed in him; he sees it again through the medium of his heart.
A charming thing to observe, which I have often remarked with pleasure among my more studious friends,
is the infinite delicacy of the young wife, who in a restricted space comes and goes, and moves round the student, without in the least disturbing him. Any other
person would have put him out; but " she," he says, "is
nobody."
In fact, she is himself, his second and his
better soul.
She holds her breath, and steps on tiptoe. She glides
along the floor. She has such respect for work! In
this you can see what a gentle and quick-sighted creature
woman is; above all things affectionate, and feeling in
constant need of the beloved object. If he allows her,
she will remain in the room sewing or embroidering. If
not, a thousand occasions or a thousand necessities will
occur to her as pretexts to come into the room.-

Narrowing the Home Circle.

107

"What is he doing now? How far has he got? Per
haps he is working too hard? He will make himself
sick."--All this passes through her nind.
There are many studies to which unwittingly she im
parts more than she can take away. Do you think that
the charming electricity she communicates in passing
you, lightly touching you with her dress, goes for nothing with the artist and the author, if with our tiresome and uncongenial work is opportunely mingled that
perfume of the flower of love which revives everything ?
So in old Italian pictures do we see in a death's head a
hundred-leaved rose; and death itself seems to enjoy it.
And how happy he is to feel that she is there. He
pretends not to see her. He remains bent over his work,
as if absorbed in it. But his heart gains the upper hand,
and he exclaims:
"1
My darling, my charming rosebud, do not muffle
your steps. Your movements are harmony, your voice
a melody which enchants my ear. Your presence sheds
its influence upon my work; it will be adorned with
your grace, and glow with the flame of my palpitating
heart.
" Without seeing you, I guessed you were here by
the increased ardor of my work, by the light which
overspread my spirit."
A thousand years firom now they will say: "His is
yet a live book, all warmth and affection." And the
reason of it all-she was beside you when you wrote it.

108

The Table.-Diet.

VII.
THE TABLE-DIET.
IN order that such a great change in life may n at be
harmful to the young woman, everything must be tl.ought
of and arranged beforehand; her girlish diet should be
slightly and slowly changed. Care should be taken not
to let her pass abruptly from the fruit and vegetable
fiasts, which most girls prefer, to the stronger food of
man. She would be ill, if this were neglected. Nothing
is more senseless than the custom we adopt from the
English-that of keeping an indolent and sedentary
woman on a heavy meat diet, scarce necessary to a
hearty workman, or active man of business. The woman
can only stand such irritating diet by adding to it the
greater irritation of spirituous liquors. By this course
she becomes faded, used-up, and red-faced, at a very
early age; it leads to the extermination of all beauty,
and, in the end, a serious decline in the race itself.
You must preserve to your young wife all the habits of
her girlhood, modifying them little by little; and see that,
from the first day, she finds in her new house everything
that she had in her mother's. You have thought of
these, I am sure, for I know your good heart. You
have learned long beforehand from her mother, her
nurse, or perhaps the family physician, all about her
physical constitution, and how it is to be treated. To
prepare her nest properly for her you should know
everything, her habits, her usual state of health, her

The Table.--Diet.

lo9

little indispositions, all her womanly peculiarities. This
should not spring from an empty curiosity, but fiom an
absolute necessity. You should even, without exercising
undue inquisitiveness, go back a little into the history
of her family, into its blood inheritances, and know
something of the diseases to which it is subject. Her
health will depend on your knowing this, as will also
your own diet, for you will surely choose such dishes
as agree with her and preserve her strength.
Many women of the high classes reach marriage
in a state of great debility (their blood being too much
thinned out)-sickly from their birth, or in consequence
of unwholesome diet. He who receives into his house
such a frail flower as this, too often finds that she is not
able to endure the labors of love. Before having a
child from her you must strengthen the poor creature
herself, bring her to woman's full estate. You must be
her mother in order to be her husband.
One' great fault in mothers and nurses is that they
wish the child to eat until he is in danger of making
himself ill. If it goes so far as an indigestion, they are
delighted and say: " He is improving." I have seen the
strange spectacle of doting mothers absolutely begging,
nay, forcing their sons to eat and drink to excess, manifesting at each mouthful the delight and pleasure that
they themselves felt from it. They really made gluttons
and sensualists of themselves, for their sons' sake. Love
has similar effects. Dining one day with a very quiet
friend, I noticed, at dessert, that he had become quite
affected: somewhat as a gastronomer might be if served
with his choice bit. But here there was no cause noi

110

The Table.-Diet.

pretext for anything of the kind. I looked across the
table and saw his young wife eating a favorite fruit.
My friend looked at this fruit, blushed, and became agitated. I understood it all then. He himself made no
secret of it. "I felt her pleasure so sensibly," he said,
" that I could not contain myself. I love her, and everything that she feels, I feel myself, in a greater degree."
But these impulses of your nature are too strong, and
she must not see them. She would be disturbed by
them. Such physical identity of appetite and faculties
would be harmful to the weaker of the two. Her flame
would be lost in yours. Be calm, then, I pray you;
practise moderation and prudence; be gentle with her,
not precipitate.
A very profound communion is this of the table, especially where there are but two in the family, when
domestics interfere but little, or none at all.
Man nourishes woman, brings every day, like the
bird in the fable, the bread to his lone love. And
woman nourishes man. She prepares and cooks his food
according to his needs, to his physical condition, to his
known temperament; part of herself goes with it;
with the food is mingled the perfume of her beloved
hand.
Hence, these two are fed by each other. Each of
them feels with delight that not an atom in their respective beings belongs to one of them alone; but that day
by day, everything is renewed, revived by the beloved
object. Of this law of the stomach, which we consider
low and base, nature has made one of the gentlest
bonds, a high poesy of the heart, wherein union becomes

The Table.-Diet.

111

unity. Who shall say that their natures are not more
blended by this calm and gentle communion than by the
crisis even, and the transport of love ? In mutual alimentation, as in generation, an equal interchange, a
transmutation of substances, is effected.
Behold them then at the table, seated opposite each
other, and eating together for the first time. You are
delighted to be where you can feed your eyes upon her.
She, during your short absence, has thought of you, and
wished to beautify herself for your sake; she has adorned
herself, and yet with how little ? With a flower from the
garden, which she has set in her hair.
This single day has profited her. She is another person now. The smiling girl has become an impressive
woman. Her smile now is that of modest gravity, and
she is 1adam already.
She has not much appetite. A few vegetables, a little
fruit, some milk, is what she likes. Your carnivorous
diet has no attractions for her. She has a horror of
death, a horror of blood-very natural this, since she
herself is the flower of life. It is especially for this that
she needs that country girl of whom I have spoken. She
would gladly prepare your food, but this bloody meat is
too repulsive to her. She is also too delicate for the
heavy work, which is nothing at all to the robust peasant woman, who, in addition, can cultivate the garden.
Cookery is a medicine, the best kind of medicine, a
preventive. Hence, it should be the duty of the wife,
who alone knows just what her husband needs, how hard
he has worked, and his expenditure of vital strength. In
all that is proper, not repugnant to her, all that does not

12

You Should Wait on Each Other.

deface her pretty hand, in all that may be touched by
her hand (and let us add, necessarily mingled with the
emanations of the person), it is desirable and charming
that she should be the only performer. Certain pies,
cakes, and puddings can be made only by one whom we
love and cherish.
Pure as she is, she is not the less possessed of the
sentiment and the power of divining what affords you
pleasure. She knows your gastronomic weakness perfectly, and how well you relish everything that has been
touched by her hand. She has forestalled your thought.
The thing that you like best, that thing she has prepared
for you. This dish which you so affect has been prepared by her hands; she has touched it with her mouth,
consecrated it with her lips. She brings it to you with
a smile:
"Eat this, my dear, for I have tasted it."

VII.
YOU SHOULD WAIT ON EACH OTHER.
I Do not write for the rich, who complicate their lives
at will with a thousand tiresome and dangerous inutilities, who live in the continual presence of their servants
(for "servants" read "enemies"), who eat, sleep, and
love beneath those malevolent and scoffing eyes. They
have no intimacy, no privacy, no home.
And unfortunately I cannot write for those who have

You Should Wait on Each Other.

I13

no time to themselves, no liberty; who are crushed and
overpowered by the fatalities of circumstance, those
whose incessant labor controls and pushes forward the
hours. What advice can we give to people who are not
free to follow it ? I write for those who are at liberty
to regulate their own lives, for the poor but not indigent
man who works at home, and for those who are voluntarily poor-that is to say for people of fortune who are
sensible enough to live plainly, without servants, and to
have something which can really be called a home.
The saying that " a third person spoils company" is
essentially true of the married state.
A quiet country girl, however, for the 1 hired help,"
does not break up the tete-d-tete.
If you are so fortunate as to have a little house by
yourselves, she will have her kitchen and laundry on the
ground floor, and seldom come .up-stairs.
The girl is not entirely alone; her mistress goes dowto see her, especially during your absence, and gives her
good advice, such as she can readily understand. She
will teach her to read, and train her in good habits.
She has also the garden to herself, as well as the cat,
the dog, and the chickens, with which she holds daily
talks, as when she was on her own place.
This honest creature, however honest she may be, is
not the less a woman, and consequently curious. Hence,
in going up to her bed-room, at the top of the house,
she will not fail to put her eye to the key-hole, and listen to what is said. A double door and a little ante-chainber should be between your apartment and the staircase
up which she passes, goes and comes, listens and observes.

114

You Should Wait on Each Other.

" But how," asks my lady, " will this gawky country
girl take the place of my Julie, my femme de chambre,
who is so clever, and knows how to do everything ?"
Clever ? Why, you are as clever as she. Come, my
lazy beauty, you do yourself injustice. In making a
tasteful toilet, I have full confidence in your delicate
hands. Woman, in this particular, has an inexhaustible
fund of dexterity and invention.
And, if you absolutely need a femme de chambre for
other and more delicate attentions, I will present you
one who is fairly dying for the place ; who has a hundred
times more zeal than Mademoiselle Julie, Mademoiselle
Lisette, and all the illustrious disciples of the art; who,
moreover, is not malicious; who will tell nothing to your
disadvantage to your neighbors; who will not make sport
of you to her lover; who will not make faces behind
your back when you speak to her. " But where is this
treasure ?" you ask. " I will engage her at once; she
is just what I want." ccShe is beside you."
Behold your subject, 0 queen ! who beseeches you to
take him into your service; he will regard it as an exaltation if you raise him to the aignity of a titled valet
de chambre, to the feudal position of chamberlain, head
lackey, or master-butler of your house-leech in ordinary (as to hygiene at least), for his zeal knows no
bounds. All these court offices he will fill gratis, and
in addition to his masculine duties will perform those
of woman also, feeling proud and honored, Madame,
if your majesty will accept his very humble service.
"But he has too much other business," you say,
"he has no time for this. I should be ashamed to
employ him, for my own sake, in such an unprtfitable

You Should Wait on Each Other.

115

manner. I must confess, too, that all these little wo.
manly things require to be done idly, slowly, and with
very little expedition. All should progress slowly, and
be diversified with gossip. The man who is really a
man is too impetuous, he wants to hurry everything,
and get to the end of it. We should have accomplished
nothing in the end. All his attentions would be turned
into caresses. My toilet would be more disordered than
improved."
Let us have secret for secret, Madame, confession for
confession. You must know then that the busiest of
men has abundance of time, a superfluity even, so soon
as his real pleasure is concerned. Some Roman, whose
name I have forgotten, either a general, or a magistrate,
or a courtier, or a king of the world, as Roman kings
were in those days, found time enough every morning
to be present when his son was in the hands of his
nurses, noted what was done for his physical education,
saw him washed, dressed, etc., etc. Henri IV. with all
his affairs of state, did not fail for a single day to have
a minute account written, and rendered him, of all the
new-born Dauphin's actions-having it set down hour by
hour, by a skilful physician, how the child had eaten,
slept, digested, etc. The great men of our day, much
more occupied than the emperors and consuls of Rome,
more occupied than Henri IV., find time to exercise
their brisk loquacity four hours a day at the Bourse, the
Palais de Justice, at the cafes, and six hours of the night
at the play (to which they never listen): No, decidedly
it is not time that is wanting.
It is not wanting for. the useless and foolish questions of the day, from which we always come away

16 You Should Wait on Each Other.
yawning, no wiser than before. It is only wanting
when our happiness is concerned.
Now here is a man who says that he will be perfectly
happy if you accord him an hour of which you can
make but one disposition. You are his child, his Dauphin, his play even, his opera, his charming and divine
comedy.
Yes, .Divine. I will not retract that. I judge it so
by the devotion with which he presides at these things
which you think small and futile. You laugh; he does
not. The day that you admit him to your dressingroom, you will find him moved, affected with a true
religious feeling. Never did pious oriental, after a
long pilgrimage, enter his holy pagoda in a more appropriate state of mind. He is inquiring, but above all
tender, full of respectful desire-admiring, adoring.
You need entertain no fear of him. What servant,
however devoted, ever regarded you with such partial
eyes ? Do you think that Julie, whom you regret, so
flattering and favoring, has not (I say it in a whisper)
remarked some little fault on your most beautiful person,
that she has not sometimes laughed in her sleeve ?
HIe, on the contrary, has eyes so predisposed, that
he sees nothing but what is lovely, superlatively beau.
tiful. What looks he casts upon you! how loving,
how caressing! And all this is pure. There is nothing
so pure as true love.
Montaigne says somewhere that the sight of healthy
people communicates health and cures disease. I shall
change this but a little, to say that it is the look of love
which bears happiness with it, and .brings beauty into
blossom. From this results that charming refulgence

You Should Wait on Each Other

117

which a woman so soon assumes. The reason is that she
has been visited with this look.
Sacred object that you are, you need fear nothing.
Youl yourself are his religion, and, if you keep your
heart worthy and pure, will always be. Never in his
eyes of burning love, and yet of respect, can you descend
from your divinity. You will not lose your altar. You
will be adored for ever.
"Alas !" she says to herself, for she would never dare
to whisper it to other ears, " how can I be always
adored ? And is it not the natural result of such a close
intimacy that, never being able for a moment to escape
the attention of the one who loves, of his tender uneasiness, you will at last show him the more vulgar and
inferior aspects of your life. Who can be sure of being
poetic every day? of not being brought down by
relentless nature from his high ideal of love to common
prose ?"
These are but girlish fancies, and spring from her
perfect ignorance of the real state of things. Those who
understand love, know very well that it is not here that
the honeymoon first begins to wane. None of these
simple and harmless things ever affect the man.
If you wish to know how woman really descends from
poetry to prose, I will tell you.
It is not in showing herself a woman, in artlessly confessing what she is, what we all are, mortal, human; but
in showing herself to be cold and vain, in letting his
eyes, so blind to certain things, and so sharpsighted for
others, discover her moral infirmity.
People think it is satiety which so soon kills love; but
they do not appear to know that satiety often comes

i

18 You Should Wait on Each Other.

not from too complete possession, but from too littlk;
from a feeling that the woman's inner self will not be
reached, her soul not attained; that she is empty, vain,
and frivolous; that all quest would discover nothing in
her.
This girl, yesterday so adorned, so coquettishly
dressed to the very hour of her marriage, as seen today, a wife at her toilet, seems totally changed in this
particular. She scarcely takes proper care of herself.
But the wedding guests are invited; there is to be a
great ball this evening. No sooner does she think of
that than, as if to prepare for a second marriage, she
becomes active, pains-taking, and difficult to please.
Love, so fascinated, so blind a moment ago, here takes
another view of the matter. It translates this negligence of every day into, " I am dressed well enough for
my husband." And this adornment for the ball into,
"I long to please other people, above all."
Well, this cools his ardor, and satiety sets in. She is
vulgar, frivolous; the ideal here is torn down, and will
never be set up again.
The impression is just the contrary, if the earnest observer remarks a nice attention to the toilet of
which he is to be the sole spectator, a loving coquetry
of dress for the hours when they shall be alone together.
"'Nothing for others," he says, " and everything for
me." This is what is meant in these matters. Not a
word is spoken, but that which would give rise to the
words is but the more deeply felt. Love here feels
itself upon solid ground, and it will take deep, strong
root. You need fear nothing for Love's ideal; it will
continue to flourish upon both the poetic and the real.

You Should Wait on Each Other.

19

But why distinguish them? When one loves, tLey
are one and the same thing. O frigid generation, timid
and weak woman, ignorant of your true powers, how
little do you know that love is of a robust constitution,
and laughs at such things ! how little it in reality cares
about that which is the subject of such grave darm with
you!
In true married life, everything is poetry, and in the
person who is loved everything is noble.
The proudest of men does with a good pace whatever he can do for the woman he loves. And she,
queen of the house, whatever she may do, does everything royally.
They are servants, one to the other, but with this distinction: she is the servant in all things of love and usefulness, connected with themselves and the household;
he waits upon her herself, in showing her personal
attentions.
These are humble functions, but of great grace and
favor. Do you remember on this point the good old
feudal rule ? The rank of the several dignities was
determined by the opportunities they afforded to approach, and to serve, the royal person, not by affairs of
state then, but by those which concerned the individual,

120

Hygiene.

VIII.
HYGIENE,
YOUTH of a loving and a faithful heart, understand
well from the beginning, that your most sacred duty is
to profit first by the artless faith of your young wife;
by her eighteen years, by the bountiful supply of docility
she brings you; to take entire possession of her, mentally and physically, taking her body and her soul--her
soul to fertilize, to illumine, to enlarge it-her body, to
strengthen, to prepare it for the great trial it soon must
undergo-I mean the sharp pains of maternity.
Your moral responsibility is far greater than you
have ever dreamed of or imagined. The life of the
heart, and the life of the body, are to be so blended in
you, that the lightest matters between you will become
vastly weighty, or delightful, or sad. No detail is to be
scorned, no trifle neglected. Everything is of immense
importance to your future.

Make haste to be her master. For, in a little while,
I predict that she will be your mistress, at least by
habit; and she will hold you firmly on all sides. Yes,
the more gentle, the more docile, ay, the more humble,
the woman is, the more she entwines herself, the more
she clings and holds fast to you. All this by seemingly
slight, invisible, weak bonds, yet possessing an unheard
of strength. At first, it is a thread, light and graceful,
like the " Threads of the VRirgin," which fly in the wind,

Hygiene.

121

and yet are fastened with so much strength. In the
second stage they are like the tendrils of the vine, whose
prehensile, fingers, though of infinite delicacy, already
clasp tightly. In the third stage, rny friend, it will be
the strength of the ivy, which so clings to and twines
around the oak it has once seized upon, that it incorporates itself with it; thatit even pierces it; the pruning
knife cannot separate it; no means of disengaging the
one, except by cutting to the heart of the other.
Well, all this is as nothing to the worth of a woman
who, in solitude, imbued by you, imbues you; who,
cherished by you, cherishes you; who holds you by the
house, by the fireside, by the bed, by the children;
finally, by all your feelings in common; who takes possession of you by her boundless compliance and docility,
who submits to your whims, and who, for the joy of
one moment, returns an eternity of pure love.
" So much the better," say you, " that she should take
possession of me ! This does not frighten me at all. It
is what I desire." That is well; but, thus warned, you
should early make yourself master of this young and
potent influence, which, in a few years, without art, without artifice, by the force of love alone, will conquer and
absorb you.
This absorption will be the greatest misfortune for
both of you, if you have not imbued her with your soul
-- that is the modern soul. For such as you are, young
man, and however corrupted by experience, you are still
a great deal more than she, the repository of truth.
The poor creature, alas, is in utter darkness! She has
learnt, strictly speaking, only those things which she
must unlearn. Her good heart, her maidenly nature,
6

122

Hygiene.

her charmingness, will serve only to rumn yot b: th,
with your child and your future, if from this day you
do not assert the authority of science and of knowledge.
It is not in vain thato for three centuries human genius
has stored up in your hand (your strong masculine
hand), the treasure of certainty. Avail yourself of it today or never, my friend; for it is your salvation. Great
heaven! What will become of you if you see her, ere
long, relapsed into the past, become your innocent
adversary, waging on you a war, not of words, but of
tears and sighs. I pray you do not lose her-hold fast
to her. For your life, and for her life, moral and physical, remain master (she desires it, she prefers it); sub.
due her. Inclose her in yourself, in your constant,
unchanging, clear-sighted thought.
You should not lose sight of the fact that you will
shortly (who knows ? it may be in nine months) have to
undergo the rudest trial to which nature is subjected.
I say you, for at that moment you will suffer as much as
she; the tortures of inaction and of impotence make a
man feel at such times more than the agony of death.
Then, though you should weep tears of blood, you could
do nothing. Your strength, the impulses of your heart,
your vows, your anxiety, your useless terror, will avail
her nothing. You must foresee, you must provide for
it from this moment, in these yet quiet days; and have
present, beforehand, the chances and the perils of that
terrible day.
This should render you attentive to, and careful of
everything. The indifferent attentions of a physician,
who comes at intervals, often thinking of other matters,

*

Hygiene.

123

will not suffice for you. Rather do I put my trust in
your clear-sightedness, in the intuition of love, in its
fixed and powerful look, riveted on the beloved object,
from which nothing can distract it, which it sees through
and through!
But the woman physically is a being all ductile, of a
strange mobility. One is almost dazzled by looking at
her; symptoms so varied are mingled and confused.
Distrust your memory. Nothing will sustain you better than keeping a little journal of her physical life.
If this was done by order of Henry IV., for Louis XIII.,
if the most prosaic incidents of the life of that disagreea.
ble king, were noted day by day, why should you not
do it for your sweet wife, all poetry, all purity, and who
holds your life dependent on her fragile young life ?
You must not worry or" beset her with these details.
It is not necessary for her to see too much of the burning anxiety of your love, ever uneasy, and often without
a cause. That would deprive her of much serenity. Do
this for yourself, to remind you, to guide you; this
fixed foundation of experience and observation will soon
assist you to foresee, almost always correctly, what
she will be to-morrow, or even for days ahead, in
health and disposition-a great, a very great advantage. You will bear much better with her caprices
(which are only sufferings). You will ask for nothing
but at the proper time, at the very moment, perhaps,
that she herself was thinking of it.
Interested to this extent in the details of her physical
life, you should by a gentle, incessant, patient progress,
entirely surround her, take possession of her, little by
little. But no precipitation. Nothing should be more

12
4

Hygiene.

sacred, more skilfuHy managed, than the modesty ot a
young wife. They are complained of too soon, and as
a general thing, wrongfully. There is no coldness, no
affectation in them. But the most loving, the most
devoted, is at times nervous to a point of real suffering.
They are like birds of a superior and delicate organization. A nightingale, which I have lost, loved me very
much, but he could not bear to have me approach him;
he trembled at being touched.
Still an intimate life creates almost inevitable embarrassments. The familiarity refused to the lover, to the
tender friend, to the most kindly observer, is granted to
persons less worthy, less trusty. When Madame de
Gasparin advised the lady not to allow herself to be
seen in what she. called " the sad reality of unadorned
nature," she did not fully feel that the fdvor forbidden to
the husband would be granted to the femme-de-chambre.
"Is this a trifle ?" Not at all: it is the beginning, the
opportunity, of a certain relative intimacy, more dangerous than would be believed, and fatal to your union.
To the pure all things are pure. To treat this delicate point frankly, we must say that it is better that
this familiarity, which will come sooner or later, should
not come through the freedom and unrestraint between
an old married couple, but shortly after marriage,
between lovers. And this all artlessly, all simply. You
risk but little by it. Love, then exalted, accepts everything, adores everything, of the loved object, grateful
for every step towards confidence. This is the right
moment to break through those little barriers which
must be broken down in the end, and at a less favorablc

epoch.

Hygiene.

125

A moi th will not pass without the opportunity. If.
she is ill, must the husband be driven out and the mother
called in? Is it necessary, in so simple a matter, one
which concerns pure hygiene alone, that the latter
should send for a physician, a stranger, to whom the
young wife must painfully confess those little mysteries
which she does not tell even to her husband? Often,
in case of delay, she confides in her silly old nurse, or
some foolish "good wife," who, to relieve her, advises
dangerous stimulants.
Now who should concern himself in this, if not he
who has so much interest in it? This crisis, which is
(a thing proved) only that crisis of love which furthers
fecundation, comes from love itself. Thus, contrary to
the gross and barbarous prejudice which would sequester
the woman at guch a time, no one who loved could ever
conceive that she was then an object of estrangement.
He has always thought her very pure. So interesting.at
this time, so tender and so confiding, her languor significantly says: " I suffer, and it is for you."
She needs an attentive, confident guardian, who knows
everything, who can aid her in everything. For she is
so exposed! If she takes cold, there is an end to all.
If she has a fright, or is aggrieved, if she weeps, there
also is an end of it.. If she digests badly, all is perilled.
What she dare not tell, you must have a presentiment
of,must be able to conjecture. She is so afraid of displeasing! They are unhappily deeply imbued with that
old idea of a so-styled impurity, now contradicted by
science. It is the first duty of love to enlighten them
on this point.

126

Hygiene.

Poor martyrs to modesty! The smallest matters ofter
seem grave to them, and terrify them. A little while
after marriage, the young wife is looking very red, her
head is heavy, her eyes blood-shot. "What is the matter ?" " Nothing." She dare not tell you. This lasts
a week. Then she appears feeble and pale. Another
week. But she is still silent. You know she is not
enceinte. " Call the doctor," says the mother. It is
very easy to understand, without a doctor, that a new
diet, perhaps a little too rich, has troubled her, producing
at first a feeling of fullness, then the contrary effectinflation and weakness. A slight aperient will set all
right again. Let the physician order it, and she modestly
bows h~r head, and is resigned. If it is the husband
who begs and supplicates, she blushes, and becomes indignant. "Good heavens ! she has committed no excess;
she has not been a glutton." You must. be gentle, patient, discreet, and not urgent. Let all be within her
reach; she will timidly, in secret, do what you desire.
Happy in reality not to be compelled to submit to
the interrogations, to the solemn inquest, of the physician.
He who is truly loving, who loves for her, and not for
himself, envelops her in himself, but without weighing
upon her. She does not feel the weight of the air which
she breathes; and why ? Because it is both within and
without. It is the same with love. She who has it in
her heart finds it only very sweet to feel it around her,
to find it in everything, as if it were her inevitable
atmosphere, the element of her respiration. It will become necessary to her; and if this envelopment, which

Of Intellectual Fecundation.

12 j

yo i may think persecution, is withdrawn from her a
single moment, she will be very unhappy.,
As to the rest, in these first months your cares wih
not be very heavy. Almost always the physical life,
benignantly influenced by hope and by happiness, assumes the most charming aspects.
Your drooping
flower raises itself with an unexpected brilliancy and
grace. .That she were a little stronger is all that can
be desired; and even this must not be desired impatiently.
Let her live a country life, work a little, perspire a
little (a very little in the beginning). Let her go to and
fro in the large garden, not remaining seated too long.
Let her bathe herself in the sunned water, otherwise
cold. Let her, too, often, all alone, at her ease, in security, bathe out of doors. It will be an advantage if her
white skin assume a healthy brown tone. Plants kept
in the shade are emaciated and pale. Our clothing unfortunately keeps us in the same condition, by separating
us from the father of life, the sun.

IX.
OF INTELLECTUAL FECUNDATION.
"The child should not come before his cradle has
teen suitably prepared."
Which means that it is not desirable that the union
should be too soon fiuitful, but that the young wife,

128

Of Intellectual Fecundation.

who must herself be the first cradle of the child, shoul
i
previously strengthen herself for the emotions of her
new situation.
She must have a respite between the two dramas of her
life. Marriage, which appeared to you so agreeable an
incident, was to her a trial, and too often a trial lasting
even until now. Leave her alone, that she may breathe.
Let her have an interval of calm, in which, feeling no
longer the thorns of the beginning, and not yet the agitation of pregnancy, this sweet creature of suffering may
enjoy herself also, and taste a moment of tranquillityan interval, moreover, very necessary, infinitely precious,
in which your moral union, scarcely commenced, will be
really formed; in which your wife, intimately associated
in your thought, brooding over it in her imagination,
will prepare, unconsciously, the new being which shall
be, which is, only that thought in the bosom of the dear
dreamer in whom your love will be incarnated.
That union you think you already have. You believe
you possess your wife, and are assimilated with her. Far
from ik!
Possess? It is not for one night (or for several,
often still very painful) that you can have the satisfaction of employing this word-not even for that dazzling
state in which love plunges her, causing her, first of all,
to admit the ideas of her lover, however new they may
be, and thoughtlessly to believe all that he says to
her.
In reality, matters do not progress so fast. Coming
together from two opposite worlds (she is almost
always educated by her mother in retrograde opinions),
you cannot fuse in a moment. The old-fashioned things

Of Intellectual Fecundation.

129

on which she has been nourished, from Nx
hich she
seems emancipated, may re-appear one day to divide
you. Your pride says, no. She, at heart more tender,
loving her love so much, wishing so much to preserve
it, she insists with a happy instinct on entering in, still
more, without reserve, and without retreat.
"I work by your side, and I see you work. But this
is not enough for me. What you are doing is an
enigma to me, and I wish to understand it. I feel that,
during these hours, although present, I must be forgotten, and that I am almost always exiled from your
thoughts . . . . This is very hard.

Ah, that I might

share your toil, that I might aid you! I should be so
happy!
" But I am incapable of it ! Far from comprehending
your ideas, I can scarce unravel my own. When you
urge me to open my heart to you, I cannot express
myself. Then you complain, and call me cold. Ah,
you are wrong! I know not what hindrance, what
shackle, remains to me of the past. Is it because I lack
intelligence, or are my teeth locked together? I cannot speak-speak to me, you who can; free me from
myself, instruct me, put a soul in me."
This is nearly what the intelligent young wife says.
She wishes very earnestly to be associated with him, and
this in two ways, if she can.
His technical, special life, of art, of science, or of busi
ness, will not be repulsive/to her. (One will set herself
to work to dissect! Another to copy, or to calculate
astronomical tables !)
But it is above all the highest life of her husband, his
6*

130

Of Intellectual Fecundation.

more general ideas, which she desires to coniprel end
and appropriate to herself. She asks for his trust and
his faith.
This, then, is your docile pupil. Happy situation I
Charming kindness of nature! Her young mind complains only of not being sufficiently mastered, of not belonging sufficiently to you. She devotes her mind and
heart to any pursuit that you may choose. She aspires
only to give herself to you, to belong to you still more
entirely.
Nothing is more delightful than to teach a woman.
She forms a perfect contrast to the perverseness and
insubordination that a child often offers. Call him to
his lessons, he runs off as fast as he can; she anticipates
the hour, she is attentive, happy, eager for your teachings, believing in, full of deference and respect for the
learning of him whom she loves. So that even when
she is not yours, your loved one, the delight of your
heart and-eyes, by her amiability alone she is a model
pupil.
Mark well, that she is pleased by this thing, at assuming this r61le .of pupil which makes her so young.
She is as much deighted to receive these lessons as your
caresses, as anything else, since all comes from you.
She is sensitive to the gentle encouragement, the praise,
by which you stimulate her; sensitive also to reproaches.
She does not dislike to be scolded; but if you are very
severe, if you call her "Madame,"
she becomes
agitated, and almost weeps. She throws herself in the
arms of the master. That ends the lesson.
" That is enough for to-day. We will read no more."

Of Intellectual Fecundation.

13'

In these charming tasks there is but one thing to be
regretted. Do you wish me to tell you what it is?
It is that often she has not paid attention, she has not
understood at all, or has conceived an entirely different
matter.
Not that she may not be very intelligent, often very
intellectual. But she is infinitely more so for knowledge that she derives intuitively, than for what is
imparted to her.
Strange truly, that a being so receptive by nature,and
made for fecundation, should with difficulty receive the
fecundation of the mind, even when lending herself
entirely to it!
The odd title of a Spanish book of the sixteenth century has often set me a-dreaming: " The Seven Fortifications of the Soul's Castle."
Seven? It is not enough. Those enclosures are infinitely numerous. You force one or two of them, and
believe that all is done, the place is carried. . . .Not at all.
Other ramparts are behind which must be surmounted.
But the peculiarity is, that here is a place wishing
nothing but to surrender itself, to open its gates. The
mind of the woman who loves much, and feels that she
is loved, burns to surrender itself .ithout reserve, and
to become entirely subordinate. It dri'ves no hard bargain for itself. It wishes to yield, and it cannot.
The obstacle is not in the least in her will.
It is in her education;
It is in her woman's nature;
And, above all, in your awkwardness.

132

Of Intellectual Fecundation.

If the education of the boy is severe, that of tLe gnl
has almost always been negative and barren. I do not
speak of the worldly ones, who are spoiled, and fine
ladies at fifteen. But the education of those who are
modestly reared is, by a vexatious. contrariety, almost
like that of a plant cultivated in a cellar. They come
from it sad and awkward, with but little address.
Time is required to give them courage, buoyancy, confidence in themselves. Grace will return to them through
loving and being loved. With grace, too, the intellect
will be quickened. They become susceptible of mental
germination, of being mentally impregnated.
But how shall the seeds be sown ?
It is very seldom that a man knows the course of
instruction precisely suited to a being so delicate and so
different from himself.
Either he sermonizes, makes long speeches, and
fatigues her, not seeing that she in no wise follows his
processes of deduction, and that she tries in vain to listen to him.
Or it may be that, more modest, he keeps himself
back, and thinks to act on her by reading, by books,not knowing that a book truly adapted to a woman has
never yet been written.
There is not one entirely suited to a young woman.
You must choose from the best that which is most fitted
for her. This will vary infinitely, according to character and circumstances.
Reading, too varied and not discreet, has deplorable
effects upon women.

Of Intellectual Fecundation.

133

They are in nowise prepared, either by constitution or
by education, to receive all sorts of indigestible nourishment. Nature, reserving them for things more elevated
and more delicate, has not given them that brutal
strength of digestion, which crushes and overcomes
iron, stones, poison; which takes only the good from
them, and lives, like Mithridates, continually poisoned.
And when I speak of poisons, I do not even think of
immoral things. Her purity will repel them. I speak
of a world of things unwholesome from their very nullity-vulgar things, useless things, which weary the
mind.
The man is condemned to the daily fatigue of pro.
digious inquiry, to exhaust the world of details, to
learn everything, to sound everything, even in the
most muddy stream of experience; but it does not
follow from that, that he should drag into it the sacred
being who guards the very heavens for him.
Oh, for a book worthy of woman! Where shall I
find it ? A holy book, a tender book, but one which
shall not be enervating! A book to strengthen without
hardening, without blunting her, which will not trouble
her with idle dreams! a book which will not lead her
into the sadness and weariness of the Real, into the
thorns of contradiction and discord-a book full of the
peace of God!
Spare me here your elaborate discussions on the
equality of the sexes. Woman is not only our equal,
but in many respects our superior. Sooner or later she
will know everything. The question to decide here, is
whether she should know all in her first season of love?

134

Of Intellectual Fecundation.

Oh! how much she would lose by it ! Youth, freshness,
and poetry. Does she wish, at the first blow, to give up
all these ? Is she in such haste to be old ?
There are things upon things to learn. But at every
age the woman should know something different from the
man. It is less learning that she needs, than the essence
of learning and its living elixir.
We by no means deny that a young woman can read
and inform herself of everything, can go through all the
trials to which the man's mind is subjected, and still
remain pure. We merely maintain that her intellect,
withered by reading, wearied by novels, living habitually on the stimulation of the play-house, on the aquafortis of criminal trials, will not be corrupted perhaps,
but vulgarized, made common-place, like the curb-stone
in the street. This curb-stone is a good stone. You
have only to. break it to see that it is white within. This
does not prevent it from being sadly soiled outside, in
every respect as dirty as the street gutter by which it
is splashed.
Is this, Madame, your idea of her who should be man's
temple, the altar of his heart, whence he daily rekindles
the flame of pure love ?
Oh, let us give all to woman! I withhold but one
thing-one single reservation:
Give her all that will leave her her freshness and her
purity, her charm of young wife-hood, that rathe flower
of youth and of moral virginity. Leave her that, I pray
you, and as long as possible. What shall be given her
in exchange for it? What treasure of human wisdom
shall console her for being no longer a dream of Heaven?

Of Intellectual Fecundation.

135

This will pass away, swiftly enough, and to-morrow it
will be over. She will always be good and beautiful,
virtuous and accomplished; I have no objection. There
s wanting only a certain thing, a breath, which a breath
will carry away. And what is that? The velvet-down
of the soul.
You have, hundreds of times, noticed and admired on
the odorous peach (which makes the very roses jealous),
a fine, delicate down:-Well, it is not that! That is
still too material; that silky down is palpable, may be
touched.
I speak of another thing, which may not be handled,
of a certain glaze (a light rime, like the white glimmer
of the hoar-frost), in which is enfolded the deep violet
hues of a savory fruit. Do not touch it, hold it at a distance; for the softest breath already impairs its bloom.
This is the only thing to which I can compare the internal virginity which the young wife preserves in the
sanctuary of her heart; the velvet down which surrounds
that heart, so pure, so good, so loving!
Is this velvet down a flower, a grace, a charm
of beauty, of imagination, which intoxicates one's
thoughts-? It is much more. It guards and covers
what will be the strongest support of man, a fruit of
tenderness, of infinite bounty, a fruit of youth and of
inexhaustible brightness.
The man shall pass through the misfortunes, the
crosses of existence; he shall pass over the deserts, the
sterility of the world, the stones, the flints, the rocks,
on which his feet often bleed! But every evening he
shall drink life from this delicious fruit, all full of the

130

Moral Incubation.

dew of heaven. Every morning, at day-break, e shall
awake re-youthed.
It is this that we must preserve.

X.
OF MORAL INCUBATION.
I ONCE heard this conversation between a young
couple. They li-ved in the country; he had returned
from the city where he had been arranging his business:
" Oh, how long you have been ! I have been looking so
for you!"-" I've brought you this."-" Thank you;

tell me about yourself."-" Our business is in such a
condition."-" That is good; tell me about yourself."" I was told so and so; I met such a person."-" Yes,
but tell me about yourself."
Such is the artless heart of the young wife, at least in
the beginning. She is pot occupied with the news. The
bustle of the world, the infinity of little events, which
appear important to us, and are forgotten to-morrow,
are matters of indifference to her; and if you speak to
her of them, she cannot listen. She pretends to do it
for a while, out of respect for you; but she cannot keep
it up long. Her mind is elsewhere, and she gazes on
vacancy. She lives out of the present, in the eternity of
her love.
She undoubtedly wishes to acquire a science, a single

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137

one, to know one thing; what ? The heart of her husband.
But this may be immense. A man's heart, strictly
speaking, can contain a world. Since she desires no
other food, be it your task to expand that heart, that all
great and good things may be therein. Thenceforward
she will accept all with avidity.
"The lady of Fayal ate one, and said: 'I find it so
good, that I will eat nothing else.'"
The complete responsibility for the development of
woman rests to-day on him whom she loves. She has
no longer a public culture. No more grand national
fetes, like those of antiquity, about which, for the whole
year, the family thought and talked. As to the religious
celebrations brought down from the middle ages, the
believers themselves deplore the lukewarmness with
which they are attended; they acknowledge their
feebleness. Can the culture of books supply the want ?
Not at all. The diffuseness and parcelling out of the
serial publications which waste the intellect, have disgusted women, and many of them will read no more.
There remains, then, the living book, the personality
of the man, the speech of the beloved. Love is more
than ever called upon to merit its great title of The
World's Mediator.
The whole question is, to evoke by love all that there
is in this young being of love, of grace, of thought. In
her there sleeps an ocean which must be roused to
motion. The most unpretending will respond to the
attempt with an unexpected opulence of nature. He

138

Moral Incubation.

who, witha ut egotism, has thought only of saturatnm h.r
mind with all that he believes to be beautiful and great,
will joyfully find that she yields all to him alone, and
loves him with the growing strength of her augmented
love. She must be taken where she is, on her true
plane, which is to love ever more and more.
You must, in the narrow, concentrated love she has
for you, magnanimously inspire her with a sympathetic
enthusiasm for the great universal love of life and nature,
and in the end, by degrees, with the force of active love,
of religious charity, of social sympathy.
She is young, but from this day she must be made and
formed for the good things of God, prepared to become
what a woman truly is-a power of harmony, of solace,
of medication, and of salvation. She cannot yet, at
eighteen, acquire all these, but she may acquire the sentiments, the ideas of them. Many positive things, which
she can learn to-day, will be useful to her at a later period.
This must be carried on gently, without precipitation.
It is not so much a matter of science, and a course of
study, as to give, at apposite moments, living germs,
which, transplanted, removed from your heart to hers,
shall germinate, shall identify themselves with her, and
become her very self.
It is doubtless difficult to observe this gentle power of
germination, of incubation in the woman.
The power of man is in abstracting, in dividing; but
the power of the woman is in not knowing how to
abstract, in preserving everything, every idea, entire and
living, and so to be able to render it more living, and to
fructify it.

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139

Nature forbids her dividing and separating. The
woman is union itself. She must form a living being,
that is to say, one and entire. She cannot say, two.
"I and my lover are one and the same," she says. And
if he impregnates her, it will not make three. No division in her; no plurality. The three are but one.
Your brain, an arsenal of the finest steel blades, con.
tains scalpels which will cut through everything. Anatomy, war, criticism form the intellect of the man. But
the organ of the woman is another thing. That sweet
organ, which is a second brain to her, dreams only
dreams of love. The peace of heaven, the peace of
God, union, unity itself, these are the treasures of her
heart.
By what means would you have her employ your
methods, how seize that rough instrument of analysis ?
If one of your subtle thoughts should come to her, it is
that she, by her maternal process of incubation, has
brooded on it for your sake, has put it into herself, has
conceived it, and of the idea makes a child.
That which gives an entirely peculiar character of
fecundity to the reveries of the woman, is the manner
in which time divides itself to her, not by the artificial
division of the calendar, but by natural periods. Her
month, of about twenty-eight days, reproduces itself with
precisely the same incidents, the same developments, the
same catastrophes and entr'actes. These conditions, but
little varied, give to the following month a mental state
analogous to that of its corresponding conditions, and
often with the same thoughts. These thoughts, repro.
duced more than once, strengthened from month to

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Moral Incubation.

month, ccme at last to take form, to sway the entice
individual, to fill her to all her capacity of love and
passion.
This is what may be observed in the solitary woman,
in her whom society does not continually draw out from
herself. These returns of the same thought make of
her a faithful being, in whom the culture of the heart is
aided by nature; and even, however little aided, a progressive being, who, once having received the germ,
gives it, at each new epoch, a renewed degree of life,
and of warmth.
All is poetry in the woman, but especially this rhythmic life, harmonized in regular periods, as if scanned by
nature.
On the contrary, time is to man without any real division;
it does not return with new identity. His months are not
months; no rhythm in his life. It is projected always before him, stretched out like free prose, but infinitely mobile,
unceasingly creating germs, for the most part to be lost.
A few men (who unite the two sexes, and are yet the
most powerful of males) have the gift of incubation.
What we have just said about the rhythmical life of
the woman affects her whole education, and makes it
essentially different from that of the man.
Care must be taken to do nothing with her inoppor
tunely, but to follow the suggestions of nature. If you
do this carefully, she will aid you. What an advantage,
for example, to commence every experiment of mental
initiation in the ascending phase of her sanguine life,
when the flood rises, and her sensibility is exalted with
a more abundant flow, and a more generous tone! On

Moral Incubation.

14t

the contrary, during her crisis, or the languor in which
it leaves her, she should not be fatigued with new ideas,
but should be left quietly to recover, to dream, to think
over those she has already received."
This should be attended to by the prudent mother, by
the wise instructress, who commences the education of
the young girl; and by the lover, the husband, whc
continues that of the young wife. The impregnation of
the mind, as well as that of the body, demands that nothing be done but in season, at the most favorable time.
For this there is needed a constant and unrelaxing watch
over, a tender respect for, the beloved. No violence,
no impatience; select her time, her day, her hour.
She will repay you for this care. The young wife
whom society will not claim from her wedding-day, but
who is left by solitude to the contemplation of this
solemn epoch, asks nothing but to believe and desire all
that her husband wishes her to desire and believe. She
is infinitely interesting. The new condition which from
the very first has given delight to the man, has almost
always aspects still painful for her. He is happy; she will
be so. But she is not the less very tender, with disinterested tenderness. You can from this earliest period

open your heart to her, talk to her about all the great objects of life, and seriously begin the mastery of her mind.
You will think what I am about to say very minute;
but nothing can be too much so on this subject.
Not only the period of the month should be observed,
and the condition of mental exaltation preferred to all
others, but the state of the weather is also an important
matter. I would not have you awkwardly choose for a

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Moral Incubation.

(onfession, or a communion of thought, of new ideas, the
moment when she is suffering from the terrors of a
tempest. The electricity of life with which she is
charged, complicated with that of the air, of a storm,
is enough for her to bear; do not annoy her with othei
matters.
The approach (if not too near) of the sanguineous
crisis, when she is in a relaxed condition, is the holy
hour I would have you chooge to open your mind to her
on those grand and weighty questions in which first impressions are of the highest importance: at first a very
little, a word, a germ, the first glimmer of an idea, hinted
in moments of freest familiarity, or while caressing her.
If your heart has touched her heart, if your idea has
truly descended upon her, the approaching crisis of the
month, even though it be painful, will efface nothing.
On the contrary, an idea is stamped on a woman by suffering. Every thorn, whether of love or of nature,
makes it penetrate deeper.
The necessary idleness
which pain sometimes imposes will admirably nourish
the germs which her mind has received.
Though still suffering, she will, in the week of agitation which follows the crisis, and the week of interval
in which she is entirely calm, busy herself; her hands
will work willingly; and so will her mind. Women
can do two things at once.
Spinning, knitting, embroidery, needle-work, are excellent employments for
increasing the activity of their minds. Oh, pleasant
little labors, sweet toils, you shall continue despite all
the interference of machinery ! No intrinsic advan.
tages, no beauty of mechanical workmanship, shall pre.

Moral Insubation.

143

vail over the pretty trifles which charm away the long
hours of a chaste and industrious woman. In them she
sews up her gentleness, weaves her love, her dreams;
and I always feel therein the warmth of the charming
heart which has been blended with them.
The French woman, who is called so frivolous, unsteady, is even more capable than other women of this
double work. Her dream is not'a languishing reverie,
vague and uncertain. It is much more a reflecting. At
times, for the sake of change, she accompanies a favorite
thought, which she pursues within, with little snatches of
song in a low tone, which have no connexion with it. But,
at moments, a louder strain bursts forth, and shows that
under the light carol or the monotonous refrain there is
quite another thing, earnest and passionate.
The French woman has not that servile dependence iin
love which so many women of other countries betray se
willingly. Although she may be captivated at heart,
obedient, all devotion to the thought of her lover, she
still preserves an independence of form and of manner;
sometimes you are deceived by it. -Something you
'uttered yesterday from the bottom of your heart; and
because she seemed not to take notice of it, you believe
it was lost. Undeceive yourself; she has it safe. She
has been busy with it all day. And in the evening,
after supper, drawing up her chair beside yours by
the fire, she repeats it in her own way, in her feminine language, quite different and yet the same. Who
knows? those words may take root, and in the approaching period, fructified by the vital flow, may
thrive and blosso'ln with thoughts, with new ideas, with

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Moral rncubation.

more warmth, more life, I may even say with more love,
than in the month before.
To submit thus, without submitting, to acknowledge without embarrassment the profound ascendency
of love, and her mental conquest, it is requisite that
her gentle pride should be met with favorable occasions, with proper hours, when nature herself is disarmed and yields. Night, or twilight, is much better
for this than day-time. Things that she could not
have said at mid-day, she will utter in the evening,
under a less brilliant light-worids that she cannot say
at a distance, but which she suffers less to whisper
close by-in your ear.
MI. de Senancour, who advises that there should be
no bed in common, forgets (which is surprising in so
thoughtful a mind) that it is the bed which is the
conciliator of souls in all weighty and important communications. It is not alone for repose, not alone for
pleasure; it is the discreet confidant, the propitious agent
for thoughts and words not to be spoken elsewhere. It
is the great communicator, or better still, a communion.
Religious subjects, for example, the most delicate of
all, if discussed in the open day, breed ungentle
thoughts-sometimes even dissensions, between the
new couple.
This is much less apt to be the case
when they are spoken of at night and in the bed.
There all is softened and harmonized. In the day, one
encounters seeming differences, but in. the night these
disappear, or at least are much less prominent. In spite
of these matters of mere form, the pair feel that they aite
fo- ever united in love, and the love of God.

Moral Incubation.

145

The very large bed of former times, occupying halt
the chamber, very low, almost on a level with the floor,
and surrounded on all sides by thick carpets, is infinitely
comfortable. It imposes no constraint. It affords every
facility for being together or apart. The conversations
in the evening and in the morning become easy; so,
too, the intercourse of sweet friendship, as well as of
love; the most intimate words, often the least premeditated, escape one's lips, which, perhaps, would never
have come from the heart if it had been necessary to
throw them from one end of the room to the other.
These indescribable freedoms of repose and of awaking, the facility for words, and for unspoken language,
are a natural temptation to the tender sensibility of a
delicate young soul, which, long after you believe you
possess it, preserves, even against its love, a hesitancy, a
contracting or drawing back-I know not what to call
it. Is it shame ? Is it pride? How shall it be named ?
Whatever it may be, the man is rarely delicate enough
to feel it much. And yet the ice is not entirely broken
between you. She, married months ago, is at heart
still a girl. Some moral cause is necessary, such is
their natural nobility, to compel them to give themselves entirely up. This almost always comes when they
have loved and adopted some good sentiment in the
man, something sincere, glowing, grand, strong, of
which they have caught a glimpse in him. And who
has not had moments like these? The very worst have
such gleams of light.
Thenceforth she is won by him. 'The gentle warmth
of love which has risen to her heart gives her a little
more courage; and in the evening, when he has been

~7

146

Moral Incubation.

asleep, he has the sweet surprise of finding her still
awake. Alert 'and loving, this silent one suddenly
speaks. It is night: she has not dared to speak during
the day; but at this time she is often eloquent. She is
happy; she believes him to be good, worthy, a man after
God's own heart, and in God she loves him. Her heart
melts, and she is his wife. From that hour marriage has
commenced for her. Thenceforth she can bear his
name. We hear no more of the girl of yesterday: today the wife is born.

ROOK THIRD
--- 0O---OF THE INCARNATION OF LOVE.

I.

CONCEPTION.
LOVE in woman is an exalted and a noble thing. She
stakes her life upon it.
Every time she consents, and yields to man's desire, she
testifies her willingness to die for him.
What does he risk ? Nothing, except to labor a little
more, and to support a child. What does she risk ?
Everything. She submits not only to the crisis of a
terrible agony, in which her life is suspended by a
thread, but to the chances of a lingering death, and a
thousand infirmities, so cruel that their very author
might be shocked by them.
Young man, you who regard love as so pleasant and
so trifling a matter, I beg you to obtain and read but a
single one of the numerous books afforded by the terrible
literature of midwifery, and the diseases which follow
child-bed. At the mere enumeration, your arms fall
powerless; at the description, a cold perspiration stands
upon your forehead; and if you persevere to the horribly-ingenious surgical details, to the operations (which
torture but do not cure), the book falls from your
hands. That which is endured by these poor weak creatures, alas! with their bodies, with their flesh, you, a
man, can scarcely endure the thought of.

150

Conception.

Love is the Brother of Death. This has been often
said, and said again. But who has yet discovered to
what extent he is the Brother of Pain?
Let these solemn words be inscribed on the threshold
of the charming world of Reproduction, into which you
imagine you are about to enter as through triumphal
arches of garlands and flowers. Read these words, not
to recoil (for it is the law of nature), but to understand
for once the supreme beauty of woman. She accepts
every peril-death, the depths of suffering-to give to
him she loves an infinity of joy, the life of centuries compressed into an instant, the epitome of eternity.
"Be happy, though I should die! Be happy one
second, though I should for ever suffer !" These are the
words she has in her heart. And yet she has the generosity not to utter them to you; it would sadden you too
much, it would cool your ardor, if that cruel name of
death, which is in the depths of her heart, should come
up to her lips among your kisses.-No, she will keep it
all to herself.-To you the heaven, to you the joy! To
her the dark foreshadowings, and the terrors of the
future.
Unselfish devotion! It is a vain stupidity, too common in man, to suppose that woman yields herself, overcome by physical love. This error may be pardoned in
children and in novices, but it is very absurd in those
who have had any experience. Whoever knows woman
knows very well that, with almost all, there is in this act
only kindness and compliance. In our refined age, the
generating crisis distresses them very little. This cold

Conception.

Ip1

ness results from t wo causes: from their vast expendi,
ture of nervous force in affability and conversation ; and,
on the other hand, too often from the unhealthy waste of
life going on in them, even during the intervals between
the regular crises of nature.
To state the matter frankly, even should the man's
pride suffer by it: they comply almost always wittingly,
in order to fulfil their destiny as woman, to insure the
love of the man, and to create a family; they submit
from the exalted necessity implanted in them, of sacri
ficing themselves.
The great physiologist, Burdach, our illustrious mas
ter, makes this beautiful and just remark: "In the ani
mal races, the nobility of the female appears in this: that
she does not seek a mate except for the purpose of generation." And still another trait: "The male is fierce
before pleasure, in the blindness of his savage desire; but
if the female is fierce it is only after pleasure, and during
her maternity, to protect her young."
The child is the recompense, the precious prize for the
sufferings and the perils which love has brought to the
woman. " It is to her the prize of pleasure," worthily
says Virgil. But, even without this hope, the wife can
devote herself. Fruitful or not, she accepts the sovereign duty of woman-that of renewing, of re-animating
the man. She is the -Fountain life (Genesis), but she
of
is so in two senses. If she does not give it to a child,
she gives it to her husband.
Ah, how little did the shameful and subtle science or
the scholastics, who spoke so senselessly of these things,
seeking in them only libertinism, suspect their holy gra.

152

Conception.

vity! they saw nothing of the earnestness, the danger,
the devotion, which is the foundation of it all, nor the
profound bartering of life which is the true mystery of it.
Our age, the age of labor, understands very well that
the laborer, the producer of all things, who gives his life
and his soul to it, has need of constantly recovering that
life from nature. The wife is in no wise ignorant that
she is nature herself: that is to say, reparation, consolation, happiness, and joy. She is the prize of the day,
the charm of the evening and of repose. In her alone
man finds oblivion: oblivion profound as death, which
daily regenerates him. He revives-through whom, if
not her ? But how shall she renew his life ? By hazarding .her own. She sees him blind in his joy, but she
makes him none the less the arbiter of her fate, gives
him full control over her. The generous security of a
pure heart which is doing its duty puts aside all care;
and she smiles in peace, risking only life. Nor does
she love him any the less for this-ah, what do I say ?
even more, for her sacrifice and her danger; all that he
abstracts in passion, she gives him in redoubled love.
The wise and the foolish will tell you that all this is
instinctive, that in her self-devoting the woman follows
the blind enthusiasm of her nature, etc. Generally it is
exactly the contrary. She has very little ardor, much
serenity and tenderness. It is the man who loves in
gusts; she in perfect calm.
I blush to write this, but it is too true, and must be
acknowledged. Man's love is manifested much too often
at night from the base excitement caused by a luxurious
banquet, especially after winter and autumn feasts, when

Conception.

153

the harvest is in, the granaries full, and the grapes gath
ered. Thence come those numerous conceptions of the
winter months, begotten infamously, without love, upon
the wife submissive, but not consulted.
With her, on the contrary, if at times she feels the
spark divine, it is at dreamy and poetic hours, in gentle
awakings, in the morning, above all in the spring time,
when God wills her to love, and when a breath of that
fruitfulness which is the duty of nature, reanimates both
the woman and the flower.
Woe unto the children of darkness, the sons of drunkenness, who were, nine months before their birth, an
outrage on their mothers!
He who is born of a nocturnal orgie, of the very forgetfulness of love, of a profanation of the beloved one,
will drag out a sad and troubled life.
On the contrary, it is a sublime, a mighty blessing to
be conceived in the light, when a man's love is directed,
not to the sex indiscriminately, not to any woman whatsoever, but to this single woman, to this heart which belongs to him, saying: " She, and no other;" when it is
mirrored in her smile, in her beautiful quiet eyes, which
reflect the dawn on him-in her charming surprise, and
her artless impulse, which say: " Yes, yes, I was dreammg of you."
The profound and perfect harmony of the heart, the
exquisite sense that love, in its most obscured moments
and its hidden light, preserves of the loved object, is
that which produces divine fruit-a son of liberty and of
light. Both are desirous. It is doubtless of the most
elevated vohlntary love that heroes have been born.

7*

154

Conception.

But now the day is becoming brighter ;-he has goine
business has called him away. The young wife rises;
modestly, not without dignity, but a little strange to
.
herself. .... ."1Am I truly myself?" she asks. " Yes,
certainly-Great mystery! I have done my duty, and
yet I am disturbed!
" Ah, wrong, wrong for thee to be so, pure diamond!
which of us can boast of being as pure ?" So say the
last stars, fading .out in the morning-hour. They look
down smilingly on her, the innocent one, as she walks,
agitated, in her little garden.
The exquisitely transparent and limpid waters of the
fountain from which she asks a little to refresh herself,
those waters in which heaven is mirrored, say to her:
"Chaste wife! would to heaven that our waves, in
which you think to purify yourself, were as pure as thy
bosom !"
" But after all,"-she says to herself very low-so
low that she is almost afraid of her own voice-" was
I not too happy ? . . . And in that solemn moment, it
may be of an infinite future, did I lift my soul above?
God willed it, God ordained it. Did I preserve the
thought of God in my mind ?"
" Ah, dear sister," murmur the flowers, as they bend
to the ground to kiss her footsteps, " who would not be
softened by thy tender heart ? . . Oh, that we might
breathe the sweetperfume that emanates from thee ! . ..
Do as we do, oh young flower ! open in peace thy innocent bosom; grudge not that the dew of heaven swells
thy chaste chalice. After, even as before love, we are,
and, we remain, pure."

Pregnancy, and the State of GIace.

155

II.
PREGNANCY, AND THE STATE OF GRACE.
WE have said that woman is, indeed, Fruitful Life.
Whatever she thinks of, is a living thing for her,. and
her idea is a child.
We know now why to certain words she is so indifferent, to others so alive. She is susceptible and sensible
only of an idea which can be incarnated. This she
takes, makes her own, sketches it out like a living dream,
endows it with her desires. Let the breath of love pass
over it, and the dream is embodied, and becomes a
child.
Of whatever you give her, which is abstract, general,
collective, she makes an individual. If you speak to
her of patriotism, of a free and heroic community,
already she has conceived its hero-the hero in action,
in art, or in science-the renovator, the creator, the
strong arm, the fruitful hand, which shall lavish unheard
of benefits on the human race. All this obscurely and
indefinitely. She hardly knows herself what she would
desire, but leaves it all to Providence. God will know
what is best to do. It is enough for the mother to know
-and she is almost sure of it-that the child is a miracle, a saviour, a messiah.
She has never dared to speak of it, not even in her
bed, not even at the encouraging hour when kind Night
hides all, and allows so much to be said. She has not

156

Pregnancy, and the State of Grace.

dared. If he had laughed! what a cruel wound that
would be to her! No; that sublime hope is the only
thing that woman does not tell him whom she loves.
She has a little bashftlness, a secret shame, of her divine
romance.
I will tell you in confidence: it was this of which she
was thinking the other day when her husband, returning
before his usual time, found her serious, agitated, as if
she had been surprised in something which she wished
to conceal. He sought for it, he endeavored to discover
what it was, but she embraced him in silence.
She, so discreet, and so unimpassioned, is herself
astonished at the involuntary flight her imagination has
taken. She does not know that her folly is the highest
wisdom. It was the exaltation of our mothers, their
effort to conceive an infant God, that has made you and
me the little that we are; it is this dream that has given
us the best that is in us. And if any is strong upon
earth, it is because a woman conceived him in heaven.
This, if I may say so, was the solitary conception of
the woman, between her and herself, while she was still
mistress of her thoughts, still free and light, before the
night when the Omnipotent God, the All-powerful
Realizer, surprised her in her ethereal dream, and caught
her in his storm. And now all is changed. She feels a
dull heat, and sudden chills, shiverings, run through her
body; her beautiful neck is swollen; her bosom is agitated and tumid; but this time the wave does not
retire; the billow remains suspended, her breasts be.
come enlarged, and lower down there is delineateda shadow !-an undefined outline, like a new world.

Pregnancy, and the State of Grace.

15;

A painful turgidness weighs her down. Even her
head is a little weakened; that winged soul is for a
moment borne down and oppressed by the body. She
has no longer the free and sure direction of her motions.
She vacillates, hesitates, wavers-what is there surprising
in that ? He himself, the blind author of the miracle,
is almost as much disturbed as she. He is agitated, he
is enraptured, but uneasy too, on seeing her launched
on that great sea whereon he cannot follow her. She is
beyond his power, beyond his protection. What terror
for him who loves! He sees her fatally advancing, day
by day, towards the fulfilment of this mystery. He can
do nothing but make propitiation; pray, and clasp his
hands, like a suppliant at the altar. A boundless devotion for this living temple has seized upon him. Before
that divine globe, which contains the unknown world,
he dreams, he is hushed; if he smiles, the smile is almost
a tear.
Let no one accuse him of weakness.
If ever a
paroxysm of religion deserve respect, it is surely in this
case. We are actually in the presence of the grandest
miracle-an incontestable miracle, with nothing absurd
in it, but which is not the less obscure. Every human
being is a miracle, shut in by an insuperable barrier.
Yet she has broken through it. It is a double prodigy
-the formation of the child, the transformation of the
mother. The impregnated wife becomes man. Invaded
by the male force, when it has once seized upon her,
she will gradually yield to it. The man will gain on
her, will pervade her. She will be himself, more and
more.
One or two years will suffice for a soft and delicate

158

Pregnancy arid the- State of Grace.

silkiness, like ihe blossom of an ear of corn, to bloom on
her lip. Her voice, too, will be changed. She often
loses the high, and gains deeper, tones- (but of such
wondrous sweetness !). And how many other changes!
The involuntary imitation of him she has at the bottom
of her being manifests itself unconsciously to her, in her
manner and her movements. You would not know her;
but only to look at her walk, to hear her speak, to see
her smile (despite a certain softness, and a fragility of
form), you would say: " I recognise him in his wife, and
her in him."
Profound, marvellous union! Especially in these
first months of pregnancy, when the new life, begun
within, does not yet reveal itself to her, except by the
confusing disturbance of a great fluctuation, she tells
everything to him who has injured her, by whom she
suffers, and whom she loves so much the more. Internally she feels that it is he who burns, who circulates in
her. Externally, she takes him as her only support,
leans on him, complains to him, and is as if suspended
to him. She wishes (and he even more than she), that
he shall pity her, spoil her, envelope her with the most
tender cares. In return, she abandons herself entirely
to him, she is thoroughly a good child. She becomes
.his little daughter, and lets him attend her like a child.
If at first she forbids it, if it is a little in spite of her,
what can she do .9? She has no power, no wish to
refuse; she submits, since he demands it; and not with
much trouble, for she finds it very pleasant.
While waiting for the child to come, she can surely
take his place. And, what is rather strange, she, but

Pregnancy and the. State of Grace.

159

now so serious, feels nothing disagreeable in this new
role. The liberties which the woman finds so sweet in
her little innocent, she knows well that he who loves
her thinks delightful in her. She knows that everything in her enraptures him, that he is so delighted with
the unrestrained felicity to which she abandons herself,
that to insure it to her he must shut his eyes. Among
other natural peculiarities a woman has at this time, she
loves now and then to hide herself, to withdraw apart,
in order to .- rove to herself that she is truly indep
pendent, and that the dear tyrant, who so follows her in
heart, does not enwrap her too much. She obeys this,
and retires, at most only smiling. She, on her part, is
not ignorant that in pretending to observe nothing, he
sees it all. No matter, she is pleased with him for
being so considerate and so good. Charming, innocent
game, in which no one is deceived, and no one deceives!
Ridiculous, do you say? Ah, no! Leave them this
child's play of the State of Grace.
To tell you the truth, madame, if this man spoils you,
there is no merit in it, for we are all like him. For
you, all of us (I am not speaking of friends, but of
strangers, men, everybody, all nature) are agreed to
love, to overwhelm you with votive offerings, to bless
you. Our houses are at your service. Take the flowers,
and the fruit; anything you may desire. We shall be
only too happy!
But you shall go no farther; come into my house, I
beg you. Deign to rob me, madame; rob me in preference to the others. I do not know what old custom
it is which allows the pregnant woman to take three

16o Pregnancy and the State of Grace.
.)ears, or three apples; but it is too few. Oblige me
)y taking the whole garden. That is, if you like.
But, clumsy fellow that I am, what have I said?-1
have spoiled all. She enters, and she is now full of
shame, will have nothing more, averts her eyes. Her
charming little mouth plainly says: " You should have
seen nothing."
I cannot forgive myself, I am disconsolate-for she
will listen no more to me; she passes out, and walks
away, blushing, and lowering her eyes.
It was the stealthiness of the thing which tempted
her. For she knows very well that all is for her; that
she can do anything she pleases, and it will always be
right. She brings infinitely more than she can carry
away, for she brings peace, love, a fragrance of felicity.
You cannot see her without smiling, but it is a smile of
beatitude; it is as if you had seen happiness itself; and
after it you are happy all day.
Wherever she deigns to set her foot, law ceases.
And the law entreats her to command. Her caprice is
the law; her whim, wisdom-her folly, reason.
If she, the 'innocent daughter of God, should sin
(a thing impossible !), her fault would come to our
hearts so slight, so softened, rather as another charm!
The only little sin which she perhaps must acknowledge,
is that agitated virtually by an atom, but one so
greedy, she is greedy herself; and if she consulted only
herself, if she dared to do it, she would follow this blind
impulse. You are happy to see her eat much, eat
always, often slily and in secret. Unwisely indulged,

Pregnancy and the State of Grace.

161

this impulse may injure her. Her husband should
beseech her to deny herself a little. He yields too
much to the enjoyment of seeing her enlarged life, her
dazzling beauty, so solemnly splendid. See! it is not
her waist alone that is enlarging. Her beautiful arms,
her white shoulders, her bosom, all expand in voluptuous curves; and her whole person is in flower.
It was on St. John's day, I think, in 1825, that I was
making a visit to an old friend at Saint-Cloud. The wife
of the charming painter, Madame B-,
who was a
neighbor, and like one of the family, entered without
being announced. The door opened quickly, and the
room seemed to me to be suddenly filled with light and
with flowers. I was dazzled. She threw off her straw
hat, and cast down an immense bouquet she had just
gathered in the fields. Although far advanced in pregnancy, she had done all this in a moment, with the viva.
city of a young girl, and a spoiled child, sure of being
approved by all.
She was in person very large, and in the positive
plenitude of life. Her powerful electricity, which overflowed everything, prevented me from hearing what she
said. What I understood best, was the light of life, of
happiness and of goodness, which gushed forth from her
eyes.
I lowered mine, and became sad. Again I raised
them, and looked at her. Then, strengthened in heart,
I took my leave, and sauntered back to Paris.
That oriental hymn, the true chaunt of the infinite,
passed through my mind amidst its whirl of emotion.
. . . . . . . .
"' Oh sun! oh sea! oh rose! . .
"The circle ofexistence is fulfilled and finished in thee !"

162 The Result of Pregnancy.-The Rival.

III.
THE RESULT OF PREGNANCY.-THE

RIVAL

FRIENDS should be true to each other. I ought to
tell you frankly, without subterfuge-you have a rival.
" Great God !"-yes, a preferred rival. She loves you,
and will always love you. But you must resign yourself to this fact: you are no longer her first thought.
Among the peculiarities which we remark in her, the
strongest (not equal in all women) is that, at first, when
she feels herself so invaded by you, so subjugated by
you, she has weak little desires of contradiction, infantile refractorinesses, freaks of resistance. Her instinctive
liberty timidly reclaims her from her full engulfment
.by love.
Love laughs at this, thinking to engross it with all the
rest. He believes so, and he deceives himself. As
everything in her is loving, the timid resistance was
nothing but the new life which bubbled in her breast.
The graceful little rebellion was no other than your
child.

There is another man, another soul, another
will,
which doubles, and troubles too at moments, that dear
heart, which believes it could never wish for another
beside you. He is there, and he demands her. From
the depths of the sea of milk, from the darkness in
which he sleeps, he already influences, already works
upon her. His world, that poor suffering, agitated
world that contains him, he will soon govern; and

The Result of Pregnincy.-The Rival. 163
alheady at the fifth month, he has knocked at the door,
and cried strongly: "I am here !"
"I have felt him!" she cries, placing her trembling
hand on the spot where he has rapped, "He moves; he
is indeed living! . . There he is again; he is restless
Ah! my child, you have done me harm! But, 0 God
what good too !"
From this hour he is her thought. She never escapes
from him. To: dream of him, to follow him, to watch
for him, to note his movements, to wait for him, is all
her life. Nor does he fail her at the rendezvous. He
is her inseparable lover. Still, if she is unfaithful to you,
she does not conceal it; she talks incessantly of him.
How can it be otherwise? This progressive creation
of one being within another is so absorbing, that the
mother has nothing in herself to which she can withdraw,
by which she can defend herself against him. And she
shows no discretion in thinking of him. For, if his sudden movements do make her suffer every moment, she
still enjoys the harmony of so profound a marriage.
The tremblings of this sweet fruit are not always painful.
She fancies easily that he already loves his mother.
Sometimes her countenance lights up; she blushes-he
has passed by.
She tells you all, or almost all. You are the happy
confidant of their innocent amours. You take part in,
and have a third share in them. But in her life, henceforward filled to this point with another being, what a
little place have you! He is now the predominant, exclusive, only interest. What he desires you desire; and
what he fears, you fear. Four months before he is born
he is master of the house.

164 The Result of Pregnancy.-The Rival.
The husband always gives way to, must always give
way to, the father. Every habit, every pleasure, is sacri.
ficed in this crisis. Ah! who would contradict her,
annoy her, give her trouble ? Shall she not rather be
surrounded with objects of joy, be cheered, be made
happy, and smiling ? Gain this at any price.
Still the man is always the man. He does not easily
alter his life from its very foundation. And so there
are little disturbances, I do not say of jealousy in such a
heart as yours, but perhaps of a slight sadness; and
you make some complaints. She does not wish to hear
them. For the first time, she evades you; she would
rather not listen to you; she goes apart. She does not
go very far, she does not flee very swiftly, and has no
fear of being rejoined. And, half-returning, with the
tenderest smile, albeit a little malicious, she says: "Why,
my dear, if he does not wish me to love you, what shall
I do ?" She wishes to try you. Perhaps the proof is
a little harsh. She sees you aggrieved, and she hastens
to console you. Divided between two duties, she submits to the one without neglecting the other. But if
he does not suffer, does not recall her, the little tyrant
will obey in everything; and, far from complaining, will
say: "Ah, how happy I am! In loving him, it is you
alone that I love. And through him I have the happiness of belonging the more to you."
In love all is worthy, all royal. Nothing elevates her
more than her free servitudes, her voluntary humiliations. She was never more a queen than in this abnegation, when submitting to the exigencies of an inexorable love. Restless and uneasy, but unspotted, she
leaves all to God. Her sufferings, the imminence of

The Result of Pregnancy.-The Rival. 16
the approaching peril, bring to her the most solemn
thoughts. In moments of happiness in which you, a
little selfishly, embrace her (the dear slave of devotion
and self-sacrifice), if you could see her face you would
perhaps experience a pang of regret at finding it so
calm and so exalted, so full of the light of heaven.
She is timorous, she is fearful certainly, in these latter days, but it is especially the fear of doing wrong.
She confesses herself the sacred instrument of eternal
creation, and that in transmitting to her child her blood
and her life, she at the same time transmits her soul.
And so we have a constant scruple, a touching heedfulness, to preserve that soul pure and holy.
Would to heaven we could give her a book which
might sustain her, or some sufficing prayer-but not to
ask of God that he will change anything in His laws;
on the contrary, she desires only to harmonize herself
with those laws, with the infinite order, and to do all
as God wills.
Her true strength, in this path in which she is walking alone and trembling, should be you, if you are able
to control passion by love, and not humble her continually to the dust. This is a solemn time. Her day draws
near. You must think much of it, treat her tenderly,
spare her. Ah ! will Death spare her ?
Have pity on us, 0 Death!

100

Confinement.

IV.
CONFINEMENT.
IF you would see an image of fear, look at that man
in this awful moment-frank fear, not concealed, too
strong to be contained, which expresses itself by signs
that would be absurd, if they were not so touching. I
have seen men, and they too the most haughty, tearing
their beards in desperation. Haggard, pale, exhausted,
they could not but excite pity. Even the sick woman,
in the midst of her agony, had to say: " Courage, dear,
courage! Are you such a coward ?"
The woman lives in the child, but the man lives in the
woman. In this truly formidable hour he presses close
to her, he clasps her two hands in his, as if they would
escape him. But her hands hold on by nothing-she is
subject to another power which draws her away, drags her
from his side. At intervals she looks around the world
in which she still remains, at the anxiety of the assistants,
at that distracted man; but it seems to him, already, as
if she were gazing from the other shore.
The crisis continues. The doctor shakes his head,
walks ap and down, is not self-assured ; and the husband
follows him like a dog. Fear has humbled him. His
cowardice-his flatteries, his quick and sudden friendship
for one whom he scarcely knew before, but who holds
her life in his hands, are the most curious things imaginable. The husband, once so jealous, is so no longer
He unhesitatingly unveils to a stranger that dear and

Confinement.

167

honored person. He does not even iniquire f she saffers
from this profanation. He assumes a severe expression,
and scolds her for her modest hesitation. In short, he
is absurd, imbecile, a complete idiot.
She has said the most reasonable things to him in
regard to this matter; but fear will listen to nothing.
She has told him that in the great work of woman,
woman only is a useful auxiliary. That the presence of a
man may on the contrary be the greatest obstacle-an
obstacle absolutely insurmountable by some, even should
they die for it.
Observe, that in the majority of cases all the skill consists in watching, with folded arms. If the child presents
in a bad position, if dexterity be required, a woman's
little hand, her adroitness, her habits of touching minute
objects, all are most certainly better suited to it than a
man's great paws. What hand can be soft enough,
what manipulation delicate enough, to handle (great
heaven!) the most tender object, terribly painful from
such excess of tension, to touch the rents and wounds of
that poor bleeding body!
Woman can nurse woman much the best. Why ?
Because she is at once patient and physician, because
she can easily understand in another the pains she
herself has felt, the trials she herself has undergone.
Doctors are learned in science, but know very little of
patients. There is scarcely one of them who has a clear
understanding of a being so delicate, so full of mystery,
in whom the nervous life is all in all.
Our physicians are a very enlightened class of men,
and, in my opinion, incomparably the first in Europe.

168

Confinement.

No others know so much, nor with such certainty.
None are so well'trained in mind and character. But,
after all, their rude masculine education in schools and
hospitals, their severe surgical initiation, one of the
glories of this country, are all qualities which involve a
grave deficiency in this department. They result in the
extinction, in them, of that refined sensibility which
alone can perceive, foresee, divine the truths of the feminine mystery. The breast of the woman, that sweet
miracle, on which nature has exhausted her tenderness,
who but woman herself can touch it without impiety?
The fault is not in the physicians, who, I think, will
appreciate this. It is owing to the weakness of the man
rather than of the woman, at such times; it is the husband's fault, and nothing can reassure him but the presence of the doctor. I do not gainsay this. Although
so many illustrious midwives, the Boivins, the Lachapelles, and others, might certainly suffice to tranquillize;
although the testimony of Europe, through the whole
extent of which they are preferred, might also calm our
fears, there is nothing to prevent our consulting the
doctor and profiting by his advice, provided that he does
not officiate, and that he is not too near. His direct
intervention is much less calculated to aid than to paralyse
nature.
Women should be listened to. And they say frankly
(when one ventures to press them on so delicate a
matter) that all their strength, in this act of violent exertion, consists in the liberty of the exertion, and that this
liberty is as nothing if a man is in the room. From this
cause, at every moment, hesitation results, and contradictory movements. They desire and they do not desire.

Confinement.

169

They exert and they restrain themselves. You will say
they are in the wrong, that they should be at ease,
should, in such a crisis, forget their superstitions of
shame and fear, the little annoyances which so humiliate them. But, however this may be, such'they are;
as such they must be treated. And he who, to save
them, will put them in such peril, is certainly a fool.
My dissertation grows too long; it is done. An
unnatural cry, which is not of this world, which is not
of our race, it would seem-a sharp, shrill, savage cry,
pierces our ears. A little bleeding mass has fallen
among us.
And this then is man! .....
Welcome, poor shipwrecked soul!-She was exhausted, but she suddenly
opens her eyes, " Oh my child, are you then here !"
And holding out her hand to her half-dead husband,
"I was resigned to it," she says, " I accepted death for
you."

Here is now a solemn compact between them, entered
into on that day-a truly earnest marriage ; the contract
of suffering !
She loves him, and holds him now by a bond that
pleasure never formed; she loves him, branded by him
with an ineffaceable mark; she loves him for the blood
she pours out, and for her lacerated flesh; for her awful
sundering when the very frame of her being seemed
about to dissolve.
And he, he loves her for the anguish, and the agony
of terror, in which he was plunged, with no strength
left him, more shattered than she, and more haggard
0

170

Confinement.

than at the grave. He has been mastered by terror and
by pity to-day. The weak has vanquished the strong.
She has branded him, in her own way, with an ineffaceable mark of fear and agony.
What a bond is this, of dying together-I should say
of having, together, seen and felt death so near.
And it is not yet over. The fear is not yet banished.
Behold her there inher laces, pale and beautiful, with a
touching grace. Ah, if you but knew, in truth, the
terrible reality which that beauty hides!
You must face all, oh man! These impressions are
salutary. It is well that you should know Love, the
great master of Pain.
" No; have pity," you say, "leave us our poetry; the
horrible is not poetical. What would become of her if
the shocking image of her torn entrails was depicted to
her ?"
Let us spare her that sight; but you must endure it,
and it will do you good.
Nothing so strains the feelings as this. Whoever has
not been accustomed, inured to these sad spectacles, is
hardly master of himself when he sees a perfect representation of the matrix after delivery. A shivering
agony seizes him, and freezes the marrow in his bones.
The fearful irritation of the organ, the turbid torrent
which exudes so frightfully from the devastated abyss!
oh! what a horror !-he shrinks back .
This was my experience when this truly terrible
object was shown to me for the first time in the excellent plates of Bourgery's work. A matchless engraving
in the atlas of Coste and Gerbe also represents the same

Confinement.

171

organ under a less terrible form, but which still affcts
one to tears. It is shown at the time when, with its
intricate plexus of red fibres, which appear like silk, or
purple hair, the matrix weeps tears of blood.
These several plates of Gerbe (the majority not
signed), this unique astonishing atlas, is a temple of the
future, which, in a later and a better time, shall fill
every heart with religion. You should throw yourself
on your knees before daring to look upon it.
The great mystery of generation has never before
appeared in art in all its charm, in its true sacredness.
I do not know who is the wonderful artist. It makes
no difference; I thank him. Every man who had a
mother will thank him.
He has given us the form, the color, but better than
all, the softness and delicacy of style, the tragic grace
of these things, and their profound emotion. Is it but
imitation! or has he, too, felt this ? I do not know, but
such is the effect.
Oh, sanctuary of grace, made to purify all our hearts,
how much you reveal to us!
We learn first of all, that Nature, while lavishing so
many beauties on the outside, has bestowed the grandest
within. The most thrilling are concealed, as if swallowed up in the very depths of life itself. And we learn
here too, that love is a visible thing. The tenderness
our mothers lavished on us, their dear caresses, and the
sweetness of their milk, all, all is recognised, is felt, is
divined, and adored, in this unutterable sanctuary of
love and of agony.

172

Lying-in and Convalescence.

V.

LYING-IN AND CONVALESCENCE.
BEFORE and duiing the lying-in, the usual company
the conversation of the sick nurses, of the neighbors
and others, is generally injurious, even dangerous to the
sick woman. They are garrulous, and inconsiderate in
the use of their tongues, and often irritate a spirit so
shattered as this, with disagreeable matters. Sometimes it is gossip, scandal, and a hundred little nonsensical details, which produce useless disturbances. Sometimes it is mischievous accounts of terrible accidents, of
bad signs, of miracles, of absurd recipes, etc. At any
other time she would not listen to them, would compel
them to be silent. But now, enfeebled, passive as she
is, she receives a gloomy impression only too readily,
and keeps it to herself. All this, among the women,
takes place, of course, in the absence of her husband;
let him return, and they are hushed.
Yet the prime condition essential to her recovery
is perfect tranquillity of mind. The presence of a
stranger at this time will be no benefit to her; how
much less that of a thoughtless babbler and fool who,
in her capacity of nurse, deranges the order of the
house, makes everything subservient to her ways, and
gives more trouble than the invalid herself. The familiar servant, the good country girl, simple, kind, obeying
the doctor's orders to the very letter without a quesSilence
tion, would certainly have been preferable.

Lying-in and Convalescence.

r'3

would then have been insured, and nothing would be
altered. But the nurse, with whom I would be best
satisfied, is undoubtedly the husband; he, with the
assistance of this girl, can easily do everything.
I know very well that he is busy, that he has but
little time. He must, he must make time-now, or
never.
You should obtain leave of absence; you should postpone all business not absolutely imperative. The danger
is not yet over, and it may be much more imminent.
She looks beautiful and smiling, as she lies dressed, in
her bed. Death is nevertheless very near. A door or
a window opened inopportunely, food given at the critical
moment of the suppurating fever, a rude shock, may
unsettle, may shatter her. A few hours, and all will be
over.
Even this devoted servant may, from her ignorance,
or perhaps in obedience to a whim of the invalid, strike
the fatal blow in your absence. Truly, I can rely on
no one but you.
First of all, understand that your presence alone is a
sovereign remedy. When you are with her, she is tranquil, perfectly calm; she falls asleep. In your absence,
she is not well; if she sleeps, it is only an uneasy slumber; the strange nurse, who is put there for the express
purpose of watching over her, the sick woman, on the
contrary, feels the necessity of watching. Even the
good servant, a little awkward, puts her out of patience.
And though she were skilful, all that one could desire,
she cannot supply your place. Itis the loved hand, and
none other, that she needs in a hundred little services.
She must have by her side the dear one for whom she

174

Lying-in and Convalescence.

suffers, and make him suffer a little; she must complain
to him, and be pitied by him; in short, even if she
wants for nothing, does not talk, is even sleeping, she
must know you are near her.
" But shall I be competent for this position of nurse ?"
Yes, you will. You do not know your talents and
accomplishments yet. You do not know all you are
capable of. If you are not restrained by the pride of
man's so-called dignity (ridiculous, aye, guilty, in so
delicate a crisis), I assure you you will discover an unexpected skill, an unwonted tact, which will excite
shame and envy in the most experienced nurse.
There is little, very little to do (much more not to do,
to avoid). The doctor has traced out the way for you,
and she, your wife, in case of need, will supply the
deficiency in a few words. It will be a pleasure, a very
great pleasure, for her to direct you, and a source of
amusement to see you at work. The clumsy ways of
another would irritate her, but yours put her in good
humor; your patience will please her, will fill her with
perfect serenity, even hilarity. What matters it? A
man of spirit who really loves is only too happy in such
a case to see impressions made, so favorable' to her
health.
If your vanity suffers from it, so much the better.
You deserve that, and much more. Who has sinned, if
not you ? Since she has suffered so much for you, it is
only just that you should endure in your turn, that you
should do a little penance.
And are you, besides, sick of waiting on a sweet woman,
who, if it were not for this occurrence, would perhaps

Lying-in and Convalescence.

175

never have been willing to resign herself so completely
to you? You should bless your fate! How many men
would envy you for it! Everything that comes from
her is a boon.
Exalt yourself; my friend, to the dignity of your situation. A good heart and a stout courage know how to
make all circumstances honorable. The man naturally
distinguished with a true nobility, dignifies every duty,
and imparts a certain stateliness, a certain pleasing
grace, to that which, in the hands of another, would not
appear susceptible of it.
What happiness for her! and how will she be tranquillized and soothed, in finding you there so zealous, so
nimble at everything! To tell the truth, the poor darling, if she does at times laugh at you, is a little ridiculous herself. Do you know what was her fear in her
greatest danger (the common fear of women, all alike
in this) ? Death ? No. Suffering ? No. Even though
that was awful; another thought possessed her. What
was it ? I shall tell you, for you would never guess it:
The fear of displeasing, or in some way repelling, of
being offensive.
To whom? To all; to the doctor, to the nurse, to
her very maid, who is like her own child, and for
whom she cherishes such hearty regard.
For the first time the young wife feels herself completely bound down in bed, incapable of helping herself.
She is not at her ease with anyone. All embarrass her.
What will become of her without you ?
It is too true that. the best mistress, the most refined,
the most worthy to be beloved, is never assured that oer

176

Lying-in and Convalescence.

tain things will be received by her servant. Even her
perilous and affecting situation does not deter the laster
from being sulky behind her back. The invalid under.
stands this very well, and there is only one bEing to
whom she is quite sure of being always delightful,
always sweet, and charming in all respects.
It is one of the chief delights of the all-powerful master, Love, to transform everything; especially to change,
to pervert, and to transpose the senses. There is no
doubt that whatever is unpleasant to those who do not
love, is agreeable to those who do. Which is wrong ?
I do not know. Are our usually cold, calm, mournful
feelings, which declare this or that object disagreeable,
certain to be in the right when opposed to the superior
senses to which every manifestation of nature is a charm
and a delight ?
An original engraving, by a master of the seventeenth
century, the facetious Abraham Boss, shows this very
naturally. A pretty woman is in bed (recently confined
no doubt), sick, but evidently cheerful. Her old grumbling servant is shuffling around the room, groaning over
a nurse's little annoyances. But there is a pendant to this.
It represents the husband, a young and elegant cavalier,
in the full costume of the time, freshly starched, hatted
and pItumed, equipped with sword and spurs, having a
Spanish countenance, dark, resolute, soldier-like. Armed
not with the sword, however, but with the peaceful
badge of his new calling, he stands in a triumphant attitude, making himself ready for his task; and for the
rest, full of inspiration and of spirit, his hair flying,
handsome as a man leading an assault. It is easy to see
that he hesitates at nothing, that he will carry the affair

Lying-in and Convalescence.

177

successfully, that he has genius for the thing-los e and
dexterity.
To be able to do nothing, to wait for everything, to
live entirely by the beloved hand, to receive food, and
every other necessary from it, is a more perfect identifi
cation of two beings than even that of the child at the
bosom of its mother. For the infant does nothing, but
receives without volition. She does not wish to do anything but to receive, and she does receive, enjoying
this state of infancy with all her heart and all her mind.
He is her complete world; she does not love, she
does not move, except in him. Her lovely, loving,
languishing eyes follow him as he moves about the
chamber, walking lightly on tiptoe. She will not drink
from any hand but his. Soon she will not eat but from
his hand. Even the involuntary organs of animal lifeas for example, the stomach-have become so strongly
habituated, that, without him, they will refuse to act.
"He is not here-I will wait till he comes."
One admirable result of this single life in two persons is this: that the well half exerts a powerful physical influence to the advantage of the sick half. She
loves him with her feebleness and her sickness; he loves
her with his health, his cheerfulness, his hope. It is the
healthy, the confident one, that sways the other; he
draws her on as by the influence of a superior mag.
netism, and leads her back to life.
What a joy it is when she can leave her bed, when
they show her her garden, and the changes they have
made in it for her, when the sun smiles on her, and her
8*

178

' Lying-in and Convalescence.

dumb pets leap with happiness at seeing her again ; when,
at length, for the first time, they draw up her large arm
chair to the table, and her place, so sadly vacant, is
occupied again.
She recovers her spirits, and her harmony, always
through you. Weak as she is, she keeps her eyes fixed
long on yours, drawing from them happiness, health,
strength, renewing that union which forms your lives;
and then she tenderly says: "Through you I am myself again."
What more can be done for her who has suffered so
much ? One thing, one only, will recompense her. We
are still too uncivilized for it; but it will*certainly be a
sacrament in the future. A lady suggested the idea to
me. " The highest happiness for the mother," said she,
"is, after her recovery, forty days, or more, as the
case may be, to take her husband's arm, and in company
with the whole family, and all the kindred and friends,
to carry her child herself to the altar (required, by a law
of '91, to be erected in the commune), to announce its
name to the magistrate, and by this means give it a
place in the community, and introduce it to life."
"I am very sure that at the sight of such a train of
friends, everyone would follow as a friend. There would
not be a passer-by but would take his place in the procession, but would wish to be of it, that he might do honor
to the mother, that he might thank her for being a
mother, and congratulate and bless her."
They return, and her tenderness for her husband expresses itself by an outburst of love and of gratitude.

Lying-in and Convalescence.

179

" Here I am then, still at home! I know well it is you
who have given me life; it is you who have giver. me
my child!"
Seated in the sun, with him at her feet, she-the
white rose-bends over him, and says: "What can I
give you ? you have me, I have kept nothing back.
Still, if I can do anything, here I am! Demand even
impossibilities ; I will perform them." " You wish me
to?

Well, I demand "-"

Oh, anything, everything !"

"Give me, then, a yet deeper place in your heart!"
" How can I do that ? you are myself; we have ceased to
be two."
But he insists: "You have told me of the past-what
and I loved
.....
you did, suffered, desired,
you the more for it. What I ask of you now is your
thoughts of the future. Promise me that you will tell
me your dreams, your cares, if you have any, your caprices (ah! who has them not ?), your griefs, the causes
of complaint you have against me. And if, at length,
fate ordains that the light of love shall pass away from
you, if you are troubled, ill for one moment-take me for
your physician. You will find in me abundant stores of
compassion and indulgence. We will put our strength
together. Still united, we will seek, in that trial, the aid
of God and of reason."
But she laughs: "Is that all, my darling? That is
very easy for her who thinks only of you !"
Then, leaning on him, in a close embrace, she says:
" You have been my lover, my husband; to you I have
given my body, and my life;-aye, even more !-my life
before I saw you; for I have told you all my little
secrets. You have been my physician, my tende'r nurse,

180

Lying-in and Convalescence.

and my indulgent guardian. And so you see me through
and through, as if a ray of the sun had lighted up my
body and my soul. And what do you see there ? Your
self. I feel I am transformed into you. How can you
help seeing whatever is in this heart, in this body,
since they are yours? The faintest germ, the dimmest
dawn of a sentiment, when it is born you shall seize
with me, and even sooner." And, joining hands with
him: "Dearest, be assured you shall know my soul,
even before it has thought."

BOOK FOURTH.
-0-

ON THE LANGUISHING OF LOVE.

1.

NURSING AND ESTRANGEMENT.
THE house is changed; it has become more stirring,
more lively. A new centre exists, the cradle, around
which everything revolves. The milky age, the supreme innocence of the little one, throws its spell over
all. Compassion and tenderness enslave the family to
him. The father serves the mother, and the mother the
child. It is seemingly a world, ordered not like the
outer world, but according to the law of love, and of
God: in it the strong wait on the weak; dominion
belongs to the least.
The house is more open too, and less lonesome. The
infant suffers pain, and cries; what is to be done ? You
call in new aid. The mother nurses him; but she, so
feeble and delicate, cannot suffice for all there is to do.
Another servant is needed, who, with the infant ever in
her arms, is always in the midst of the family, seeing and
hearing. After a while she will edge in her word, and,
through the child, become an important character.
Farewell to solitude ! The old servant lived apart
from you, and was not considered. You were two;
now you are five.
There is ever a complete change. The mother lives

j84

Nursing and Estrangement.

entirely in that cradle; the world is as nothing to her.
This is as it should be, for it is the saving of the babe. So
frail is he, he would perish but for his absorption of the
mother.
The forgotten father may suffer, but he has to adore
her. She is so beautiful and touching, in her state of
exhilaration, of fond solicitude, that even he says to himself: " She is scarcely the same woman ! I have never
known, never understood her, until now !"
When, bending over her son, throbbing with rapture,

she catches sight of a celestial smile in his wandering
eyes, the light shining from her transfigures all around;
no heart can withstand it; all must yield. [Correggio

at Dresden, and Solari at the Louvre.]
Love has surpassed love. He thought to incarnate
himself, to renew himself, to reduplicate himself; and he
has made something mightier than himself. He thought
not of making a God. All that is left for him to do is
to fall on his knees.
But does this mean that the miracle has set at naught
him who, after all, performed it ? No; kind Nature
takes pity on the first love. At the very moment the
woman appears to have no thought for him who loves
her, she belongs to him more than ever. The perfect

impregnation received from him remains in her, is growing, and will grow. The active love with which she
endues her infant has no effect on the passive loveinvoluntary, and by so much the more invincible-which
possesses her. She dreams less of her husband, and
loves him less in her thoughts; but more in her blood,
more in her transformed life. Even in the midst of this
apparent forgetfulness, which seems to separate them,

Nursing and Estrangement.

185

the metamorphosis which blends them more and more,
is being confirmed.
Nor is this all; the flood of life ascends. The emo.
tions, so diverse, of nursing-joy, sadness, at times a
mysterious voluptuousness echoing through her lowest
depths-cause her (by a sixth sense which cannot be
named) to mingle her two loves. Troubled by her
babe, she tremblingly turns to its father. When the
beautiful fount flows freely and smoothly, when the
child lets her go, and drops off, from sheer excess of fullness, she falls back as from a narcotic, in a half dream,
in which between her life and theirs there is no distinction. Her personality flows from her; she is all three
at once, but most of all in the two she loves.
If she should think, in the beatitude of that reverie,
it is to compare you two-you whom she has in her
heart, and you whom she has in the cradle. "Oh, how
he resembles you!" This is her constant exclamation,
and she utters it in good faith. It is a sweet sensuality
of abhiegation for her to say: " I have received him from
thee, and he is all thee. I have scarcely anything in
him. Thy features, thy soul, even thy movements,
thou hast given him.. Part of thyself passed fiom thee
in that fiery flash." To which there are not wanting
friends, neighbors, and servants to applaud, each after
her own fashion observing some new feature. "This
one especially !"-" No, no, that one !"
In this joyful carol, the little creature, by his
unformed features and a thousand changing shadows,
according to the light, or the direction from which they
look at him, invites every extravagance. He recalls or

186

Nursing and Estrangement.

reproduces whatever they desire. Such aid such a
thought of that happy day, such and such an incident of
that night, such and such a physical peculiarity, known
to one alone-all are shown in him artlessly. " Ah! I
recognise that mark on his face very well-that delightful dimple in his cheek I have seen somewhere else. He
frowns; I know why, and I know it isn't his fault."
A little cloud was passing at that moment .
....
Thus the babe, a living history, charms them by telling them their secrets, even the very things they had
forgotten. How can they help loving the delightful
confidant who knows things they never told, who represents with supreme purity the moment of glowing rapture. A confirmed and a faithful image, he has caught
and fixed that lightning flash of the moment which
created his future.
So well does he preserve it, so completely is he himself the light of life, the incarnation of joy, that by his
side the intoxication begins anew. The sight of him
cannot so soften their hearts with impunity. If they did
not love, he would suffice to light the flame. His father
glows at the remembrance. And she too has blushed.
She is agitated-desires and does not desire. But she
is the first to recover her reason at length, and (was she
ever more charming?) she begs for mercy: "Spare us
-have pity on your son !"
He is touched.
Behold them hanging over the
cradle, uniting there their souls, and mingling together
their thoughts of the future.
What a glorious day it will be when the eyes of
the babe, are opened; when his hands are stretched

Nursing and Estrangement.

187

forth, when he shall try his first step! What feelings,
what words will be exchanged between them! What
things then to be told! and how much to be listened
to! The infant is the occasion, the necessity, of a
thousand new relations between them; or, to express it
better, he is the communion of two beings in a living
form, exacting a sweet intercourse, on which the necessity of nursing still imposes a half divorce.
It is not necessary to remonstrate with the husband.
Neither the doctor nor the mother has any need to reason
with him. His love for his wife, his love for his child,
speak forcibly enough to him. He withdraws himself,
but the very least possible, and remains in the chamber.
At first he has his bed apart from them. This is
not enough. Even his wife, out of very love for him,
makes him go farther away. The child will cry; and if
the father is awakened, how shall he arise in the morning in time for business ? She begs, and insists, and he
"But, my dear, suppose -you get
struggles a little.
sick? We have only you to depend upon!" That is
an irresistible argument, for which he has no reply.
The poor fellow resigns himself to his fate. Dispossessed of the dear society in which he had hitherto lived,
every hour of the .whole world of sweet familiarities
which made that life enchanting, Adam is driven from
Paradise.
But in the evening at least, when he returned from
work, he once had the happiness of hearing a woman's
song, the song of that worshipped heart. In this too
the separation is complete. For now the infant is sufficient for her; he is her song, her melody. Bound up,

188

The Butterfly.

day and night, in that thought, she needs no other
" My dear, I have no voice. My confinement has taken
it from me."
The instrument remains there-a thankless though
versatile instrument-the piano, over which she spent
so many years. Oh, now hdw inadequately its dusty
keys seem to her to respond to the sublime harmonies
in her heart, as of a cathedral organ-profound mater
nal love!
If the husband should think of it, if he should beg her
to recall a few notes, she would undoubtedly try; 'her
amiability never fails her. But what can she do ?
After so many months, this piano has suffered very
much; the best string is broken.

II.
THE BUTTERFLY.
THE Book of Love cannot, should not, contam a second book on Maternal Love. Therefore I must, to my
great regret, suppress here what flows from the point
of my pen: which is, the charming educational development that the child bestows upon the woman, as
well as the woman upon the child. That she may influence him, she goes back to his age. She begins again
to lisp; and imitates him, that he may imitate her.
What an admirable comedy, in which she evinces such

The Butterfly.
indomitable patience, and sometimes almost genius I
Without this extraordinary effort, there wouxd be no
initiation into human life; we all start from this point,
and we should, none of us, become men, but for this
patience of the woman, in making herself a child.
We insolently ask why the woman, checked at an
early age in her development, has learned no art. It is
because she has had to concentrate all the efforts of her
best years on a superior art-that of forming the man,
of laying the foundation for those mental superstructures, those powerful faculties, of which you are now so
proud, and so ungrateful.
This wonderful perseverance in breaking down the
barrier between herself and the thing of which she
wishes to make a human being, in conversing with a
mute, in drawing out signs from him, and at length
causing speech and intelligence and feeling to burst forth
from him-this is far beyond the powers of the man.
He may encourage the comedy, and even take part in
it for a moment, perhaps for an hour, but that is a great
deal for him. Let her repeat the same thing twenty or
thirty times in succession, and he thinks it very agreeable, very charming from her mouth; her pretty tricks
to amuse and enliven the little baby sometimes amuse
the big baby. But when the comedy is repeated a
thousand, a million times, repeated day and night, and
for ever, almost always the same-he pretends to listen,
to take part in it, but he cannot; he is thinking of something else.
These four years (eight years, if a second, a third
child succeed) will establish an increasing divergence,
and one that becomes wider and wider, between the

19go

The Butterfly.

most closely united couple. The woman, absorbed ni
her office of nurse ald educator, renovates herself but
little, is even restricted to a narrow circle of ideas.
The man, on the contrary, by the progress of the times
and of his affairs, by the effect of the solitude in which
he is left by his wife, whom the children engross-the
man, I say, enlarges the varied circle of his activity,
and his relations. He yields more and more to the
mighty vortex of life in our age, to its terrible mutability, which takes possession of and destroys the individual, reduces him to dust, plays with him, and throws
him to the winds.
In this you have the invariable error which the best
households present. The woman (the best woman) is
crowded into a very small circle, and the man (the best
man) is infinitely dispersed.
The man must needs have a great, a very strong and
fixed passion, to prevent such a separation, such an immense divergence, from annihilating.the union.
How can this woman, engrossed by her duties, this admirable mother, contend with her competitor, the World,
and its variety ?-the giddy, glittering World of to-day ?
No personality can hold its own against an adversary
which opposes to it a thousand different powers at once.
She is beautiful, engaging; she lends a charm to the
fireside. But the prodigious mobility of modern life,
which carries us in one moment, as it were, from one
continent to the other, on wings of fire, gives to man the
whole world for a home, and dazzles his eyes with the
thousand beauties of humanity and nature by the way,
which at least prevent him from thinking.
Even though she be still spirituelle,entertaining, skil.

The Butterfly.

lo1

ful in freshening herself, that giant with a thousand arm s
the Press, brings every hour to her husband the
world's novelties-the novelty of events, of accidents,
of facts, which render the novelty of ideas in the most
fruitful mind less piquant than they. This brutal training
of the mind by material facts blunts and deadens the
perceptions.
Let her follow, if she can, that ingenious being, that
varying, entertaining kaleidoscope--Fashion ; she is still
in the most uncertain competition with Change itselfwith all the risks of the Unforeseen.
And what resistance can possibly be offered by a delicate personality to violent stimulants, ardent spirits, that
barbarism of civilization, which cares only for bold
strokes, for factitious paroxysms and outbreaks-those
true demons of the mind ?
We have said that two brutal and cruel powers, which
are contending for the world, wage bloody war on
love: 1st. The desire, the mania for variety (La Papillonne-a very good word of Fourier's), which, long
restrained by the monotony of the Middle Ages, has
since burst out, to avenge itself to-day, and is the rage,
in every form working with all the violence of a reaction. 2d. [We have desired. this, welcomed it with
enthusiasm, and now it crushes us.] . Already wearied,
bewildered, palled and disgusted with this hurly-burly,
this Papillonne, which robs him of all his .strength, the
man takes cowardly refuge in a different and more
fatal enervation, in a dull Narcotism, in vague and barren dreams-the fumes of tobacco, the stupefaction of
alcohol.

192

The Butterfly.

How much right has the woman to reclaim him he e !
The man who is, I do not say blinded by passion, but
who on the contrary forbears, and lives according to
reason, will easily understand that the two alternated
intoxications, the two opposed deliriums, which bestow
balance of wisdom, are found, healthful and vivifying, in
the breast of woman, rather than in all this false life.
She constitutes the best narcotic, and the best stimulant.
The cerebral paralysis and torpor which wither the
morrow for you in advance, are dismal means of forgetfulness, compared to those she would afford you-the
paradise of the evening, the sweet repose by her side,
with that gift of renovation which would have endowed
the dawn with a charm for you.
And as to this infinite diffusion of objects which perplexes you, these many new books which are but old ones,
these many railroads stretching to no point, all this(shall I tell you ?)-produces on me the effect of a grand
conspiracy to destroy your mind, to overwhelm it with
a world of indigestible matter, buried under which. it
cannot stir. Thus Herculaneum in one day was overwhelmed with five hundred feet of ashes. Thus a meadow of the Loire that I have seen, having in the famous
inundation received two hundred cart-loads of stones,
was abandoned, and ever since is good for nothing.
Save your soul from such a fate; preserve it from this
inundation. Guard it with love and wisdom. Reply
to the muddy ocean which comes to you and offers you so
many things, that all these are as nothing to the treasures
which the husband and wife keep watch over for each
other: that of the man, a nothing, an infinitesimal, an
atom of fire whiel incites him to love, work, and create-I

The Butterfly.

193

will name it in a word: it is The Spark; and that of the
woman, the sweetness of a pure heart in which you rest,
the fruitful sea of milk, the eternal youthing. All this
under a modest and virginal charm: holy simplicity,
divine infancy!
When in the evening you return to the fireside, and
she comes to meet you, the little one in her arms, dispel,
my friend, dispel the cloud left upon your heart and
your eyes by the things which have harassed you during
the day. Recover your sense of the reality after that
phantasmagoria, that mischievous magic-lantern which
has shown you so many shadows. Let this woman with
her child, let her charming smile, her joy at seeing you
again, her loving kiss, and her mute embrace, purify
you, and restore to you the wholesome light of nature.
Renew, I beg you, your amiable intercourse, which has
been a little disturbed by your business, by maternity, by the nursing which has estranged you ..... Ah,
bear no ill-will towards her! Is it her fault? What
has she not suffered to give her blood and her milk to
this greedy, inexorable child,'who has torn her very
heart-strings ? You love her, I know; you behold her
bewitching in her blooming beauty, bearing her divine
fruit. Oh, the spark for her! You have found each
other the same as ever.
Is it, in truth, the poor little fellow who spoils your
tete-a-t6te? He is, at least, an accommodating rival.
Tolerate, then, both of them; or rather, love yourself in
all three. By-and-by he will grow, he will no longer
engross his mother. A few years more, and he will
escape from her; then, abandoned by him, she will come
to weep in your arms.

194

The Young Mother
III.

THE YOUNG MOTHER SEPARATED FROM
HER SON.
I HAvE tears in my heart, and for more than one thing,
I have not passed (in history) the Styx,,the river of the
dead, so many times with impunity.
I am not insensible to my times, and I feel their mortal
wounds.
Well, all this, which should deaden me to private sorrows, leaves a place in my heart plainly bleeding for
what I have beheld so often, the mother separated suddenly from her child, the mother from whom they take
away her boy.
Ah, how can the man do this barbarous thing ? Because he foresees, you say. If the child is not put to
school, how will he succeed in the trials and examinations required by the State ?
,Why have examinations? asks the mother. What
do you, Madame, you so intelligent, not understand that
it is the only barrier which remains ? Without examinations, all goes by favor; it is an absolute reign of the
king of kings-I mean the commissary.
Eight, ten years have passed away. They have had
children, and lost them; all the dearer, then, the one
that is left. And this only child must be exiled. They
have differences at times on his account. But at lergth,
he growing older, the father insists on it, and he is torn

Separated from her Son.

195

away! Oh, how different the case appears to them i
How unequal the sacrifice! He, busy, occupied with
his affairs, hardly suffers at all. But with her, it is her
life they take. The child had supplied the place of
everything for her-art, reading, all that formerly suf:
ficed for her. He goes-an utter blank. She is alone
in the deserted house. When the father is absent, and
she is free, she weeps in every room. Here he was born,
here he played, here he learned to read. At meals, it is
much worse. She tries to put a pleasant face on the
matter, not to distress her husband, and to pretend she
is resigned. She does not look at that vacant place.
But-I don't know how it happened-her eyes have
fallen on it-she runs out sobbing.
What is left to her ? You. You embrace, and console her ? But that is not enough for a heart so sad.
That heart is out there; it is in that horrid school; it
participates in the sudden, the cruel change of situation.
The confinement, of a being hitherto so free, the thankless, fretting study, the cold and harsh repression! On
whom will all this rebound, if not on the mother, to
whom he writes, to whom he relates all ? I cut short the
story of her sorrows; I have seen her sink into despair.
But this is not enough. The worst is to follow. We
become accustomed to everything. After a year she is
less unhappy; he has found friend's; he plays furiously
in the brief moments of recreation. And, when his
mother, after a week's impatient waiting, in which she
has counted every day, runs, agitated, to embrace him,
she finds him cold and heedless, evidently thinking of
other things. She has interrupted his play, and made
him lose an hour; she speaks, and he hears only the cries

196

The Young Mother

of his compani)ns, who are enjoying themselves without
aimn. Cruel, cruel wound! She feels how little already
she is necessary to him; she has only been in his way,
he sees her leave with pleasure. She goes forth without
weeping, bearing up against her grief. But when she
reaches home she is overcome. "My God, what is the
matter " ' She cannot speak, she can scarcely breathe.
What a blow! She has lost her son, her love of ten
years ......
and her last love here below! Its like
will never return.
She is pure, she is good; she again leans on her husband. No other aid, no consolation but this, occurs to
her. Happy moment for him, if he knows how to seize it!
This scarcely ever happens. There are too many
changes, changes in him. The man has made terrible
strides ahead during those years of half divorce, while
she was thinking only of her children. He has passed
through a thousand trials. He has arrived at an unpoetical age which they callpositive (forty years), as a general thing already cold and barren. Is he even himself?
I wish I could believe it. But even though he be a man
apart, exceptional and peculiar, whose life has not eaten
into his very heart, it has at least attacked the flower of
the heart, that exquisite and refined sensibility, which
would enable him to feel the happiness of so sweet a
return.
And she too is changed. How much for the better!
I appeal to Vandyck. Pleasing at twenty, she is
admirable at twenty-eight. And a curious thing it is:
she has changed her class, so to speak. The first beauty
of youth scarcely ever attains aristocratic distinction.
The rose was a little bourgeoisej but this lily is royal

Separated from her Son.

197

The refinement, the immaculate smoothness, the irre
proachable purity of her complexion, proves that no
base passion has defiled the sanctuary. Her visible
innocence renders her still mo're touching in her melancholy. She suffers, and has done no wrong. "_And
what is the matter with her ?" is asked. " Is it her
husband who makes her unhappy ?" " No; but her son
is at college. That is the cause of her illness." They
smile; and this grief, so little understood, which seems
childish to them, is still doubted. That some other
grief is concealed there, everybody is ready to believe;
and all desire to console her.
This is not easy. For she has a horror of the world,
a distaste for society, and idle amusements. When her
husband drags her into company, she returns sadder
than ever. " Ah, my dear, why alter our habits ? Sad
or cheerful, I am better at home."
How right and sensible she is! . . .. And are you
wise yourself? What is it that her heart needs ? Love;
and nothing else. Is love extinguished in yourself? No,
but cooled, dissipated. She desires just the opposite of
dissipation in love: she desires concentration.
The hearth has been disturbed, and the embers, that
formerly burned, are now scattered. But they must be
brought together. Let them but touch eaph other, and
the spark will revive.
Would you love, love much-that is, be happy ? Then
take by the hand the charming woman who comes and
reclines upon you. Take her, press her to you, live much
with her, and do not leave her. So, many living fibres
will mingle together, will recover their force, will restore
your unity.

198

The Young Mother.

I ought to premise to you, that she is at this moment
richer in beauty and love than ever. Pain and sorrow
have made her a new woman, have created in her
exquisite graces of sensibility, profound joys inconceivable to you, and pleasures yet unknown.
Divine treasure! Fool indeed is he who will invoke
the world to share his affections, when he himself seeks
but a single heart upon which to bestow himself.
The world! the vast world!-As she utters these
words the young wife is subdued, and I too become
gloomy. Th infinite, the unknown, is before us. What
shall we find in it? A thousand presentiments take
possession of us.
This book has been flowing smoothly on, and I could
not check its course. It has made too convenient use
of the blissful hypothesis of a solitary life, of a little
world of harmony. But how can one be isolated from
society ?
That world will not permit it. If you do not go to it,
it will come to you; it will growl at your door, like
the waves of Ocean. And no bars can keep it out.
Who art thou, that knockest so loudly ? Art thou my
Country? my People? Art thou the Great Love to
whom all should yield, to whom heroes offer even more
than their lives, their very hearts ? Ah! if thou art, then
let the door be widely opened! If not, let it be shut,
For we are thine, we belong to
let the walls fall!
thee, body and property, lifb and soul. And she too,
woman as she is (or rather because she is a woman), will
not disgrace us; on the contrary, tender towards indivi.
duals, she has no less than us the love of country.

Of the World.

199

But, 0 World, thou art not that world of granc.eur
and of light. Thou art confusion and chaos.
" It is no matter!
I will enter, and you can do
nothing; I am your fate. You shut the door against
me. But you breathe me; I am in the air. You cannot
escape me. Without, within, everywhere, do you find
me.
"Yes, I am, undoubtedly, confusion and peril. And
therein am I a wholesome trial; there is in me a duty to
confront and to perform. My true name is: The -Battle

of Iife."

SIV.
OF THE WORLD-HAS THE HUSBAND
DEGENERATED ?
THIS house is no longer the little house we had the
happiness to describe. It has become larger in the very
nature of things. Children, relations, business interests,
have in every respect amplified it. Our couple, linked together, and alone with their hearts, have been compelled
to admit this dangerous third party, whom they hoped
to exclude-the stranger, the unknown, the World. It
has also, undoubtedly, become necessary for them to live
in some great centre of business, where the activity of
the husband may find full play. And last, and worst of

200

Of the World-

all, our husband and wife have, perhaps, tecome rich by
that activity, or by the mere progress of time, gifts of
the dead, inheritances, etc.
Observe, that in France one thing is wanting which is
the true foundation of English life, and which in every
sense keeps the family together. What is this? The
lock and key. Neither of them exists in this country.
In England solitude is the rule (a voluntary, cherished
solitude). Here it is the exception, a peculiarity, and a
very rare one. Unintroduced and unrecommended, any
man may introduce himself, by his rights as a man.
The inscription over every English door-an unnecessary inscription-is "I do not know you." Over a
French door you read: "Have the kindness to enter."
From this handsome confidence, which does honor to
the nation, there results one inconvenience: namely, that
those who are not admitted, imagining that they are the
only exceptions, become your enemies. Those who are
admitted with reserve, with a natural caution, are still
more dangerous, in that they have a better opportunity
of injuring you, by'getting into the place. They bring
in the Trojan horse.
The most dangerous and determined enemies are generally relations, who often, without the least congeniality
of ideas and sentiments, aspire, nevertheless, to your intimacy. The woman who is closely bound to her husband, and reserves her confidence for him, is sure to have
all the women of the family against her. Mother, sisters,
cousins, all become her foes, and wage a petty warfare
against her. The friends of her childhood, who have
retained a foothold in the house, entertain much ill-will
towards her, for they cannot pardon her steadfastness in

Has the Husband Degenerated?
the right path.

201

If they do not quarrel with her, it is

because they wish to watch this singular house, this exceptional character; they still hope that, sooner or later,
she will flag, and thenceforward will become so much
the more dependent on them, in proportion to her previous propriety; and having an overwhelming fear of
rumor and of scandal, she will become a slave to the
firiends who have detected her secret.
But even though they find her still innocent, young
in heart (her child having engrossed her), quite inexperienced in spite of her twenty-eight years, still they
do not despair of seeing her reach that moment of weakness. For this they must have tact; but above all, the
patience, the wily patience of the Indian hunter. The
envious are not wanting in this. Years are as nothing
to them, provided they win a little in the end.
It begins in harmless matters. The one whom she
trusts, and consults about dress, may also, at times,
touch on other subjects. On some occasion such a one
may, as if jesting, and in sheer thoughtlessness, throw
out a trifling remark about the husband, and playfully
alluding to some slight fault, shake the woman's faith,
that had hitherto, blind at least by habit, believed him
to be almost perfect.
He seems to confirm this. It cannot be denied that in
middle life (thirty-eight years, we will suppose) the man,
engaged in business, excited in his profession, bound
down to his particular career, cannot but have notably
declined.
Ie has husbanded his resources, concentrated his
mind; he is stronger, but no longer genial. The beauty

9*

202

Of the World-

he possessed at twenty, at twenty-five, when his inind
and his heart took an interest in everything, and elnjoyed
everything-that young budding greatness, which was
the chief attraction to his wife-has he preserved this l
I doubt it. Why was he loved ? Because in him she
saw the infinite. But it is precisely a special strength
which alone has given him success in his profession-his
art, or his science; it is exactly this which has narrowed
him, and robbed him of the infinite, that imposing illusion of love.
This is the admission we owe to woman: It is too
true; the husband has declined.
It is too true. He was a man when she first loved
him; ten, twelve years later, .heis an eminent lawyer, an
excellent physician, a great architect-that is fine. But
to the woman he was finer in being a man; that is to say,
in being everything, in having the range of thought in
all things, hoping all things, and soaring above all things.
Now, let the woman (who is happiness here below),
let her, I say, judge us fairly. What would have become of that man if he had soared for ever, if he had
never descended to seize on the realities of life ?
Let her judge. But a great mind has taken exception
'
to this privilege; he says, " Woman is the destroyer of
justice." She is all love, it is true ; and love, it seems,
is favor and proffered grace. Still, who will maintain
that there is not also in love appreciative generosity,
tenderness, profound pity, for the effort of the will, for
the nobility of labor, from which comes well-earned sucaess ? And what woman is insensible to glory? Even
to relative glory, which is the same in trade as in art.
Itis as plainly visible in the humblest ,circle as ihthe

Has the Husband Degenerated ?

203

imposing sphere of nationality and humanity. Woman
is keenly alive to it. She takes a strong interest in it.
She is impressed by it. She will admit no doubt of the
glory of her husband. And if he is a blacksmith, never
dare to say in her presence that he is not the best blacksmith in the world.
Then, Madame, you wish for glory, for success; you
desire that this man shall make his mark in works, which
alone prove strength. Only you do not always take
into consideration the very difficult conditions, the determined efforts, often violent, extreme, and I may say
desperate, by which success is purchased.
Of these conditions, the hardest for the man is that
of being branded by the effort in that member which he
must employ the most, and so of being no longer symmetrical. He who hammers iron, were he the very
genius of his art, were he even a god, must infallibly
have his right shoulder too high. What can you do
for this? Deprive him of his art at an early period.
And whoever forges in any other line shall also bear
the mark of his trade-some mental or physical deformity. The gravest deformity results from the unemployed faculties becoming atrophied. If the artist does
not take heed, by ever strengthening one faculty, which
shall become colossal, and leaving the Others undeveloped, he will become a monster-a sublime monster,
it is true.
The antique man remained strong and beautiful, and
the progress of years was to him but a progress in beauty.
Ulysses, at fifty, returns from Troy, returns after a long
and terrible voyage, in which he has undergone every

204

Of the World-

hardship; and he is the same Ulysses-so entirely the
same, that he alone can bend the bow which the young
braggarts can hardly lift. His Penelope recognises him
by his strength, by the majesty of his beauty, which
suffering has but increased. How is this ? He has pre
served himself by his energetic use of all the gifts that
belong to him. He remains the symmetrical man who
went to the siege of Troy.
Now take what modern man you will, of the best
blood, and the best endowed, grand in genius and in
will; at twenty he finds before him a great and terrible
test, the gauntlet of the arts and.sciences, which he
must run before he can arrive at distinction. The object of life is changed. Ulysses was born to act; he
acts, and remains beautiful. The other is born to create;
his speciality (the machine by which he creates) marks
him; the work is beautiful, but the man is in danger of
becoming deformed.
Woman, have pity on him then!
Give us credit for this great effort; and if we lose,since the human race gains by it,-look at the work, not
so much at the workman.
You give your beauty liberally to your children; we
give ours to our work, our intellectual child; but almost
always too liberally, alas! and without any reservation.
Now, what would come'of it if we should remain as
we were, beautiful in our aptitude for all things, of a
brilliant facility-if we should stand at the luminous
threshold of science without penetrating its shadows ?
We should be, not the antique man, in the complete

Has the Husband Degenerated ?

205

symmetry of Ulysses, but the agreeable society-man,
who knows everything; one of those held in such admiration and request in the time of Louis XIV., and who
was known as " lhonnete homme." He was a gentle
man, who turned his hand to nothing, but who plumed
himself on a fine, delicate appreciation of everything.
We would in our day call him " the connoisseur." Such
are the heroes of MoliBre, Philinthe, and, if you please,
Clitandre.
He is a monarch in the saloon, a nice judge of many
things, the admiration of the ladies, accepted and appealed to by them. He knows everything in general.
He pleases them because he resembles them. They
always know and do (when they do anything) in general. They remain mere amateurs, having no power to
understand works of conscience, and the master-pieces
of herculean talent, like a Ruysdael, for example,l'Estacade aux eaux rousses--that prodigy of the
Louvre.
We do right in not requiring from woman such terri.
ble works as these, which involve a martyrdom to art.
Her glory lies in living works, far above all art. In her
is the spark by which they are inspired.
As to man, it is a different matter. The age will not
hold him guiltless if he remain Philinthe or Clitandre.
The modern man, that all-powerful male, must incessantly generate.
But if child-birth is at the host of agony to the woman;
if she must suffer nine months, and then scream for
twenty or thirty hours-the grander generations of the
man often require nine, aye twenty years. And what
stifled cries, what suppressed groans! The hah! of thE

206

Of -the World-

carpenter, his heave as he lifts his axe- to drive it well
home, we have uttered all our days.
Women love energy and grand results, the principle
and its goal; but they are ignorant of the long road
which leads to that goal, appreciating neither the time
nor the continuity of effort necessary to success. Believing that everything is gained by strokes of genius, by
happy hits, they are sensible of no. achievement but
that of improvisation. The fortunate lawyer who carries home to them a triumph every evening, the sparkling journalist who dazzles them with his display of
fireworks-these are the beloved men. But even improvisation, in great matters, requires time, and a great
deal of it. That of Michael Angelo, so rapid, took six
or seven years of solitary application to paint one
church.
#
Observe that a too frequent effect of great performances, of grand efforts, is the loss of language. He who
acts or creates, talks little. "Deeds, not words," is
his motto. The brilliant gifts he may have had when
he was yet on the surface of things, are lost to him
when he enters into the thinking, exacting intercourse
of art, where only results are called for. The smallest of
small-talkers may take precedence of, and keep silent,
the greatest of inventors. I have sometimes beheld the
strange spectacle of an insignificant character, in a circle
of laughing ladies, lording it over a poor man of genius,
one of the three or four who will give their names tc
this century, who shall reform its very art, who shall
compel it to study.

Has the Husband Degenerated?

207

It is still worse in business, properly so called. For
a woman there must be no business. She herself wishes
to be the only, the essential business of the man, and
every other is odious to her. She scarcely ever gives
full credit to the mind, the talent, the superior faculties
so often displayed in the management of varied interests. She desires to know nothing of all this. At the
slightest word uttered about his plans, his efforts, what
he does and what he hopes for his family, she yawns or
turns away her head. In short, she desires to be rich,
but to hear nothing about the way of becoming so.
What shall the husband do ? He often works solely
on her account. Some, moderate, and not extravagant
in their desires, can live, like so many others, in that free
and simple style so much liked in France. It is his marriage, his enlarged household, his continually-arriving
children, which have attached him to labor-a thankless labor, of which he cannot even speak to her. She
goes and comes, idle and disdainful, while he wears
himself away, in reality alone, and keeping to himself
the thorns of life.
How is it, if you please, that the novels which, it is
pretended, represent our manners, never touch upon
all this? Why are the men we meet with in themhusbands, lovers, whatever they may be-always idlers
with incomes? Why do messieurs and mesdames, the
authors, usually choose their heroes from the vagabond
class (help me to the popular expression, strong and
graphic), drones, and people fog fatting ? Why is this?
Because the weakness they retain, for all their demo.
cratic speeches, is for the dainty world, for the gentry.

208

Of the World-

I regret to see so much genius wasted in this cen
tury on this dreary style of novel, made to probe our
wounds, to aggravate them. The novel has taaght us to
weep for ourselves; it has extinguished fortitude. It
has made universal evils of the wretchedness, of the
moral deformity, which exists only in certain classes.
Out of thirty-six millions of Frenchmen, thirty-five are
utterly ignorant of all that is depicted by these grana
artists.
Nevertheless, this morbid literature takes no hold on
healthy minds. It brings disease only to those already
diseased. It is not very dangerous to the little household for which we are concerned. The young wife who
has not been forced into premature ripeness in her early
youth, pierced and poisoned by the mystic worm;
tainted and spoiled by religious equivoque, is not ripe for
the novel. First, a healthy love, loyal and strong, and
then maternal love-two powerful purifiers-have
guarded her against contagion. She would not understand Balzac; or if she did, would reject him with disgust.
His book on Marriage,which he himself calls a skeleton,
would seem to her a corpse.
She will not be won over by vileness. The friends
who sound her, and would shake her virtue, will not fail
to lend her secretly something from Madame Sand.
What does she find there ? That the lover is no better
than the husband. The husband is often infamous in
those books, but the lover always contemptible. What
do I say ?-he is base, loathsome! Raymond shutting
his door against poor Iriiana, who has no refuge but in
death, is certainly as powerful a warning as could be
written against adultery.

Has the Husband Degenerated ?

209

No single book, however, should be taken separately
from the painful mission of this great writer. You must
peruse all. The husband illustrates it to his wife, and
gives her the leading idea of it. It is, after all, a
historical monument of the weakness of the times, a
passionate impeachment of the want of character in oum
middle classes. A woman, born for all that is great, and
therefore justly exacting, has sought everywhere for the
strong, and has not found them. She has uttered aloud
what every one thinks. That is, that man has declined
(husbands, lovers, it matters not which), that such men
will not do for the women.
If you have no intention of responding to this appeal,
of renewing your energy, you certainly have reason to
fear these books. They are your positive -condemnation. But the men who daily prove their prowess, who
create new life, or risk their own, have no fear of novels.
They know very well that, even if their wives should
spend the day in perusing the portraits of husbands

which Madame Sand draws so well, they could not
recognise them in the pictures, which are those of
strangers. I write this in the town of the most beautiful
women in France, whom their husbands leave every
night to go fishing. And, what is more, six months
in every year they go in a body to Newfoundland,
where numbers of them perish. Well, in this place there
are no bastards, no adulteries, no amours. If there is
ever any scandal about a woman (and this in a population of eighteen thousand), it is in the upper classes, or
sometimes among the bourgeoisie.
Admirably abstemious, they are yet rich in liberal
development of beauty-with large hands, fit for

210

Of the World, &c.

the employments of men. Many of them are mn busi.
ness. In the night they wash their linen; in the day
they run among the rocks in a fearless nudity which
would be a blessing to a painter. They appear, however, to be ignorant that a gentleman is a man. They
will bathe him, in case of necessity, as if he were a
nurseling. They could fight wonderfully if an enemy
should come, as did their mothers once, when they took
English prisoners with their own hands.
There is not a novel in this place. The poetry of the
ocean is enough and to spare; it furnishes only too many
tragedies. But I declare to you, all the novels in the
world might come here. Husbands might allow their
wives to have them with impunity. For two considerations protect them: Oie is the idea of death, the idea
of the danger which their husbands are braving, far
away, brought ever freshly to their minds by the sight
of so many widows in the streets; that keeps their
hearts lofty. The other is the vigor, the superiority of
the men, daily facing more dangers than a soldier ever
meets. From this comes profound security. The men
know that their brave partners will not be deceived,
that they know well who the true men are.
This original place, with full, fresh healthy breezes,
and heroic inspirations, is that where the English and
the Vendeans fought-Granville-rightly called, since
'93, Victory.

The Spider and the Fly.

211

THE SPIDER AND THE FLY.
W,IIEN I see the singular ardor with which women wage
war on each other, the exquisite enjoyment that intimate
friends feel in losing a friend, I may well fear for the
household I am following in this book. One thing reassures me. It is this: that in despite of the accidents
of position which may have relaxed the bond, they communicate everything, trust everything to one anotherevery act and every thought. The table and bed
in common afford natural opportunities, favorable hours,
even to the busiest man. He tells her of his business,
his ideas, he tells her everything; and she appreciates
the trouble he takes to make her understand even those
matters which seem out of her sphere.
This effort to have her always participate in his life,
is of infinite influence on her. In it she feels his enduring
love, steadfast through so many pre-occupations. In it she
feels his loving consideration for the wife and the mother.
She is elevated by it, honored in her own eyes. So strong
and so earnest a tenderness renders her own no less profound, and independent of the changes (all external) of
humor and caprice. It renders her scrupulous, mindful
to tell everything too. She takes in true earnest the
promise she made (end of Book iii.) to confide to him
all her sentiments, and all the emotions of her heart.
Sometimes it costs her very much to keep her word.
Still young, morally a virgin, it gives her a little pain to
acknowledge this fugitive thought, that dream, that illu.

212

The Spider and the Fly.

sion of nature, which sometimes comes to the wisest.
But then she has promised! A just and right instinct
tells her that her best security is to live in open light,
under her husband's eyes. She has a confused idea of
the snares which surround her. She does not affect to
know everything. Hitherto separated from the world
(by her child), the surest plan for her is not to take a
step without relying on the experience of him who lives
amid the warring of affairs and interests. Women (almost all) ruin themselves by pride. They refuse to acknowledge that the husband, compelled to mingle in so
many intricate matters, living in open battle, is much
more positive than they. He needs must be so in his
affairs, when there is a daily chance of his being ruined,
and bringing starvation upon his dear ones, if he errs from
the right course one line, or even so much as a hair.
Women are very subtile, you say. This is true. But
that penetration which they possess in matters of sentiment, those who have not mingled with the world do not
have at all in matters of real life. They really live from
hand to mouth. In the moments of the greatest danger
they leave much to chance. And if they consult any
one, it is generally the very person of whom they should
most beware.
You often see the best wives ensnared, even through
their husbands. They are vain for him, ambitious for
him, and through this they can be worked upon. If he is
powerful and influential, his wife, willing or not, must
have a court. She takes pleasure in this glitter, for it is
a reflection from her husband. She becomes an object for
intriguers. She has ladies come to her house (not once

The Spider and the Fly.

213

only, but ten times), ladies of good position, esteemed,
often pious, active in good works, whom she has seen in
charitable meetings, who bring with them, and introduce,
a young man; he may be interesting, already capable
of assisting her husband, devoted to his ideas, exactly
in his line. He has lived among solitary studies. He is
wanting in the polish of the world. But then, he is so
gentle and so docile! If he is only received, and advised
and directed a little, he will soon become accomplished.
When the affair is once begun and in good trim, an
astonishing concert is established. No one speaks of
anything but the young man. It seems as if every part
hd been assigned. Some cousin, admitted in the morning, mentions him accidentally; she has seen him, and
thinks he is delightful. And in the evening, another
female friend will say jestingly: "I am in love with
him." The femme-de-chambre, even bolder yet, soon
breaks the ice, and ventures, while she is dressing her
mistress's hair, to say he is dying for love. Yesterday
you had to bribe Lisette; she made you pay for her
tongue. But to-day there is no need of it. She knows
very well that if her lady is once embarked in an adventure, has once given her a handle, and allowed herself
to be surprised with a secret, she will become mistress
of her mistress, can have full sway in the house, and
reign and ransack without control.
How much faster they will all go to work, if her husband, instead of patronizing, has himself need of a patron ;
if he is, for instance, some little functionary waiting for
promotion, some manufacturer in poor circumstances,
who can make no progress without being backed by a
capitalist. In this case, the mode of corruption is iinso-

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The Spider and the Fly.

lent and daring.
They hesitate at nothing, push
bravely on, at the risk of rousing the indignation of the
young wife. The good friend, the female confidant,
already a woman of experience, to whom she has art
lessly told some heart-sorrow, will tell her that after all
she is not surprised that she should grow weary, being
so poorly married; that her husband is a pitiable object,
a person of dispiriting incapacity; that he will keep her
vegetating for ever. She says so much of this, that the
self-respect of the little wife, her good heart, the affec
tion she still preserves in the bottom of it, are sensibly
wounded. She cries out, she flies into a passion. And
the awkward woman must change her tactics: at any
rate, we must aid this poor man who, after all, works
very hard. He should have some one to depend on,
who would take him to his heart, who would be sure to
succeed, who has power and credit; he need only raise
him from the earth; he could then trust to his own
wings; a little help at first will do so much.
There is nothing older than the way of making two
people love each other, who would never have thought
of .it. But it always succeeds. It is only necessary to
tell each that the other is in love. The patron and the
lady, thus prepared, and brought together by a favorable opportunity, which is never wanting, will both act
as is desired; and the young wife rarely fails to justify
what had been said of her, by some trifling piece of
coquetry, which she thinks harmless, or at least allowable, since it is for her husband's interest.
But they know that she loves her husband; they know
she will not go much farther, that it would not be safe
to make any overtures to her. It would be at the risk

The Spider and the Fly.

215

of spoiling all, of having her escape them. Doing is a
surer way than talking. Boldness, a half-violence, will
carry the thing successfully, and force her into it.
You will say this cannot be. You believe that these
odious acts are seldom seen but in the lowest classes,
You are completely deceived. They are very common
affairs. But the matrons are a great deal more discreet
about it than the young girls. They keep the affair to
themselves; they swallow theii grief and their tears.
Sometimes the thing is revealed, in one way or another, long after it happened. A number of facts of this
nature have come to my knowledge, and from true
sources. I have no desire to give the shameful details
of them. The spider has always circumvented the fly,
and dragged her into his web.
There is one essential point to be noticed. It is this:
that in these affairs the weak creature had not the least
intention of being false, that in the act her will counted
for nothing, or almost nothing; but that, on the contrary, the very act itself (a compulsory one, almost entirely) corrupted her will.
Another grave point is, that the female friend, who
betrayed the wife, herself knew the circumstances of life,
of temperament, of health, of menstrual epochs, etc.,
which enabled her fully to understand what she might
dare, and to take the situations, the moments in which
the woman is always most feeble, and most easily agitated
by any emotions whatever-by surprise, or certainly by
fear.
And the third point is, that the more unexpected and
improbable the thing is, the more hatefully absurd, the

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The Spider and the Fly.

easier it becomes. Indignation is very powErful, you
say. Yes, but surprise is more powerful: it is blasting,
paralysing. The will, not warned, not expecting anything to happen, does not act at all, and fatality effects
everything, not allowing the dismayed personality to
assert itself until afterwards, and then perhaps only to
draw from it a moment of physical consent, which is, after
all, not a consent.
She weeps-she wishes to tell all, and yet does nothing
towards it. Her friend shows her the danger of such a
terrible exposure-and that, too, for something which
cannot be helped. What would be her husband's rage,
his transports of fury! Would he believe she had
been forced, or consented ? He would demand satisfaction.
from this man, who, much more skilful, more accustocmed
to arms than he, would kill him for satisfaction. " My
dear, I beg you, for your husband's sake, not to say anything about it. Who knows? It may result in his
death; at least he will certainly die from grief. Your
children will be ruined, your life blasted. ......
This
man has such power to harm you! He is very wicked
when be hates or is enraged. But it cannot be denied
that he is also very zealous in the cause of those whom
he loves. He wishes to atone for his offence, to propitiate you. ....
He will do everything for your family,
for the future of your children."And, in fact, some one will come and tell the young
creature the next day that he is driven to despair because
he has been too happy; that he will kill himself if she
does not forgive him. For it is her heart that he wishes
to win. He has already been at work for her husband

The Spider and the Fly.

217

He burns to be of service to her; and never was there
seen so much good will. " My dear child, what is done
can't be helped. Alas! we women are all obliged to
suffer, and to hide many things. I have had my
share too! . . . . But then, in this vale of tears we
must always be resigned-must always humble ourselves, my child, and forgive. We must always have
the right feelings about these things, and not be implacable towards our enemies. And, really, he is in a most
terrible state! He seems wild-you will have pity on
him ?"
This eloquence leads to a meeting, this time a voluntary one. The interests of the family have begun the
work of corruption. Then comes a violent scene, an
admirably performed play of sorrow and despair. Large
promises, eternal devotion to the husband. And all so
pathetic that even the female friend weeps! Sensibility
wins the day. The young wife is not inexorable. How
far will her forgiveness go ?
Still matters drag. Nothing comes of these grand
promises. She is dying with regret and remorse. They
make her I know not what excuses. At length, every
pretext exhausted, the friend profits by her impatience.
" Why, my dear, I would write; yes, if I were in your
place, I would call upon him to perform his promises; I
would make him blush; I would say that after all he
has done, and all you have pardoned-after so many
new favors, it is horrible for him to forget." This
speech, or something like it, written by the imprudent
woman from the other's dictation, betrays her for ever.
Both friends-the man and the woman-hold her henceforth for their own, and are sure of her. They speak to
10

218

The Spider and the Fly

her in another tone. They begged before; now tney c a
mand. She has a master. At any day, at any hour, here
or there, he bids her come, and she obeys. The fear she
has of scandal, and a sort of magnetism, which I cannot
understand, like that which allures the bird towards the
serpent, draw her on weeping. They find her more
beautiful thus than ever. They laugh at her. As for
the promises, they scarcely remember them.
When he has had enough of her, she is at least free ?
Not at all. Her friend has the papers, and she lures her
on with new hopes, which are improbable and absurd.
No matter, she must go on; she must sell herself again
and again; must submit to another patron, who, she is
told, will do better, but who still does nothing. What
a frightful servitude, which lasts as long as she is
young and beautiful, which sinks her lower and lower,
casts her down, and thoroughly depraves her! Ah!
would that she had had courage rather to risk everything, to go to her husband, and throw herself into his
arms, and to tell him all! Whatever might have been
the rage of the first few moments, she would surely
1hve found more compassion in him!
But this life of shame has shattered the little nerve
and resolution she had. She bows down to it, and is
less capable every day of freeing herself. If at times
her female tyrant, who hardly treats her with decency,
should goad her by some bitter, ironical speech, and
again arouse her, so that she resists for a moment and
says, "I will reveal the whole !" she will answer, "Why,
my dear, everybody will laugh at you; not one will
believe you. And even should they believe you, they
would laugh none the less." "There is the law, ma.

The Spider and the Fly.
dame."

219

" Oh, that's a mistake, my child; juries in
these cases require proofs clearer than sunlight. More
than one would envy the guilty man. Such is i he sentiment in France. People always start with the idea
that she who resists. the most consents in her heart, at
least for a moment. What can you do ? They have
always thought in this way, and therefore they have
always laughed."
This is only too true. The very men who will read
this, they who see the manners of our time, and the
readiness of so many women to seek renewed dishonor,
will, I think, say: " There's no need of such an outcry
about the matter." They do not, or will not, understand what is still true, though it is more concealed.
It is this: that numbers of women take the first step out
of the path of duty in spite of themselves, led on
unknown to themselves, skilfully drawn farther than
they are aware of, and at last surprised and compelled.
I mean that there is a half-violence, strong enough to
master the weakness which has gone too far, and which
finding itself captured, loses its self-possession, and yields.
Thenceforth she believes she has gone too far to recede,
and will submit every day.
" She has consented," you will say. It can be proved
that she has made advances by some slight levity,
coquetry, an imprudent glance. It would be very harsh
to judge her by these facts. Were they a serious encouragement, a pledge to dishonor ? You know very well,
they always want to please. But they are wrong in
believing that man is generous, that he of whom they
expect some worthy favor, something for the family,
will feel repaid by a glance. Is it then nothing to have

220

The Spider and the Fly.

the happiness of obliging a woman, of having her fie
for you that affectionate sentiment which the most inno.
cent grant to gratitude ?
If it be her misfortune to become enceinte, so much
the more harshly will they say that she consented.
This is an old error, the fallacy of which is now known.
Nature has nothing to do with consent. It is the occasion more than anything else which decides it. The
complete opposition of the will, a passionate sorrow or
despair-none of these are of any consequence.
I am angry at Cervantes, who has, in other respects,
such admirable good sense. He has flattered a brutal
prejudice, and courted a vulgar laugh, in the trial
imposed by his King Sancho on the girl who complained
to him. The strength she employed to defend a purse
of gold before the court, and in open day, and that too
with no fear of anything, does not by any means prove
that she would have been able, when surprised and
terrified in the night, to defend her honor as well.
An old German law (of Swabia), which went to the
other extreme, nevertheless understood well that in this
case surprise is everything, that the crime consists
entirely in the boldness of the attack, in the strong hand
fastened on a timid being, mastered in advance by excess
of emotion. It ordains the death of him who has laid
his hand upon a virgin, and rumpled her hair (disca-

pillata).
Those who think that they effectually establish the
fact that woman can defend herself, speak of her as a
cold, lifeless thing, with no emotion, like a piece of marble

The Spider and the Fly.

221

or a block of wood. But every physiologist, every physician, and every one who understands this poor nervous
being, who vibrates and quivers at a breath, whom
nature desires to be feeble, and whom she monthly disarms by suffering-such a one will tell you that nature
also desires that she should be always protected, that
she should walk holy and respected, that every man
should take up her cause as his own, giving serious ear
to her complaints. It is for us to defend her, since she
is unable to do it herself.
We should leave to the scholastics that absurd opinion
which draws a precise line, puts a well-defined severance, an abyss, between consenting and not consenting.
In a matter so blended of the influences of the body
and the soul, so blended of liberty and compulsion, there
are infinite shades, and I know not how many intermediate and mixed states, in which, not consenting, she
yet yields.
I have passed my whole life in upholding the rights
of the mind against the nauseating materialism of
I must, however, make use here of some
my age.
plain words, words of good sense (not materialistic).
The body, remember, acts also; it is concerned in the
motive, and the two actions cross each other, each prevailing in its turn, each succeeding to the other with a
terrible rapidity and confusion.
Our voluntary powers must not be spoken of as you
would speak of a bar of iron, or a bolt, which you
This will by no
draw, and simply open or shut.
means do. They are very much more complex. It
would be juster to compare these powers to a thing
infinitely susceptible of rise and fall, like a thermo.

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The Spider and the Fly.

meter divisible into I know not how many degrees. In
order to measure her true morality and the degree of l in
caused her by the act, we must discover what was her degree of will, what also was the degree of constraint which
is almost always blended with it. Without this careful
appreciation, the best judge may err, and be too mild
or too severe. One whom he would spare, has desired
and ventured; another whom he would crush, has not
consented; not even with a thirtieth part of her will.
" And the twenty-nine remaining parts which have
decided the act, how do you reckon them?"
Put
down twenty of them for the surprise, the terror at
feeling herself under a strong hand (and cruel too, if
need be). Then, if her resistance continue, add, say
eight or nine degrees, for what his fierce impatience
hardly spares her, the rude shock, the sharp pain which
paralyses her. And last, her emotion (for the poor
woman is not made of stone). If to this sudden suspended agony, there succeed a sensation not painful, it is
to her like a reprieve to the criminal on the scaffold.
This is the wretched thirtieth part of will which is not
will, of pretended consent. And is the culprit less
guilty? No, he is more so; this very fact, far from
extenuating his guilt, adds horror to it. He has defiled
the soul.
A wise magistrate has said that in all causes in which
women are concerned, and even in many others, the
tribunals have need of the permanent assistance of a
medical jury for the elucidation of the real degree of
will and of necessity concerned. It is not enough to calh
in some chance expert for the proof of material circum.

Temptation.

223

stance. They should always be present to clear up the
capital and obscure question-that is, the degree of
will.
All the aids of physiological science are needed for
this. And when the doctor shall have told all the phy
sical, material, fatal facts, let the judge conscientiously
commence his work-the blame, the correction and redressing of the soul, the medication of patience and of
amelioration.
In the Middle Ages, when all science was theological,
the magistrate took care to have by his side the clergyman judge, that is the savant, whose duty it was to enlighten his conscience. In our day, I have no doubt,
our tribunals have a continual increasing desire to keep
the light of science before them, which at least will
explain half of every case. I allude to the physician,
the physiologist, who, without pretending to too great
an influence, will nevertheless afford great aid, and often
give the clue to the judge, by means of which he can
himself penetrate into the shadows of the will.

VI.
TEMPTATION.
IF I have spoken of these tragic matters, to which
the little household, which is the only object of this book,
is a stranger, it is solely to warn imprudent flies of the
manceuvres of the spider.' It is to remind those who

224

Temptation.

neglect their wives, and almost forget them, and ai e
then astonished when they hear of their sad fall, that
they themselves are the cause of it, and are very justly
punished by it.
Those, on the contrary, who are but little removed from
each other, who remain together, and daily mingle their
thoughts, have no cause to fear these plots. They see
them beforehand, they talk of them, and laugh at them
in scorn or in pity.
All honor to the woman, for preserving herself free
and pure amid this universal withering, when her relations, her friends in girlhood, almost every one of them,
undergo a bondage to shame. They affect at first to
consider her strange and ridiculous. All this makes but
little impression on her. And then, seeing her remain
unshaken; unassailable, they are compelled to be resigned. The public voice, the suffrage of unconcerned
and disinterested persons, assigns to her her true moral
rank. In her simple dignity, still young, without knowing or desiring it, she assumes authority. She is consulted, and those whom she receives are esteemed. She
is trusty and discreet, while she nevertheless plainly
warns all that she will have no secret which she cannot
tell her husband.
Can she ignore the advantage of such a position, and
not be proud on account of it ? This is a difficult thing,
but it is but little perceived by any one. She presents
only the modest gravity of a young matron, honored
by her husband, queen of his heart as well as of his
house, who rules in her own sphere, and is often con
sulted in her husband's sphere, being conversant with

Temptation.

225

his affairs, and able sometimes to advise usefully. Even
m general idejas and conversation, the woman of thirty,
with a clear and unsullied mind, which has not been
drawn down to low thoughts, often shines with a light
unpossessed by the man of forty, given to his speciality,
and a little enfeebled.
She has reached the summit of her strength. You
feel it in a certain grand and serene expression which
her beauty has taken on. She blooms and thrives with
a charming plenitude. Never was her skin whiter than
now, and it has again become delicately rose-tinted.
Always abstemious, she is yet not indifferent to the table.
She should walk more; but she has so much to do in
the house, that she finds it difficult to leave it; and -her
sedentary life gives her a little too much blood. She
blushes easily, often without cause. The flood rises
suddenly to her head, and then her beautiful eyes glitter
more than they should.
She lives and enjoys life, but with a moderation
which would weary others. IIer only sensuality consists in going alone at times into her garden to gather
herself some fruit-one, then two, then several. Why
should she do it stealthily, when she is mistress of all,
and can rob only herself?
She gives herself holidays; she becomes a sluggard.
Her sleep, sometimes heavy, is not, however, always
peaceful; she has sudden heats, when she blushes
deeply, and tosses about. Her husband, awakened in
the morning, and watching her, is not without a certain
uneasiness. What is it? She is but dreaming; or
rather her young blood, so abundant and generous,
dreams for her. The malicious fairy of dreams makes

10*

226

Temptation.

sport of even the wisest; she causes precisely those to
submit to her follies in the night who have the least to
do with such things in the day. But our wife is so
scrupulous, that almost before she is awakened she
makes an effort to tell everything to him; and confessed,
absolved, embraced, she is happy and blooming, unmindful now of herself.
The physical life of woman is often awakened very
late, at a period which it would seem should bring more
calm, when her health is strengthened, and when she is
free from the maladies of youth, and the first trials of
maternity. All in regular harmony, all going on with
perfect order, her position improved and easier, her
child grown up, and established at school, her motherly
heart calm, the good wife having accepted all that is in
her husband, knowing his strength and his weakness,
and ruling him a little, her whole existence glides on
with the imperceptible motion of a railway train, at moderate speed. ... . But what a trifle would suffice to
throw it off the track!
Our tradeswomen, the most intelligent in France, who
live in public as in a glass house, and are consequently
very easily observed, give rise to this remark: that
there are many among them, otherwise discreet in conduct, who have a weakness for their head clerk. You
say at first that this weakness is at the husband's expense, but this is not always true. If you penetrated
deeper, if you knew the interior of this house perfectly,
you would often find that he is none the less loved, that
the predilections of the lady are for the one whom he
nimself loves and esteems, whom he believes, not with.

Temptation.

227

out reason, to be the most devoted to him. I have
sonmetimes seen this idyl in a shop. An innocent idyl it
seems to be, but notwithstanding dangerous; for the
ground is slippery. The young man, delighted at thus
being adopted and so well liked by both, may be truly
loyal at first; he loves them both, and scarcely discriminates in his affection. But still things work on their
way, and the handsome eyes of his mistress trouble him
more and more, and make his life very unhappy. All
three presently reach the end of the affair-the idyl is
turned into a tragedy, and makes its denouement: separation, downfall, perhaps suicide.
I wish you to notice only one thing in this, which is
remarkable, but which is also very true: that a good wife,
with a true and tender heart, who has the misfortune to
give way a little, does so only on the side towards which
her husband also leans; I mean towards the one whom
her husband prefers, whom he appropriates to himself,
and holds subordinate; of whom in short he makes another self. On the, contrary, far from loving the men
who are superior to her husband, the wife is ill-disposed
towards them; she is envious of the greater renown
they have, hates and fights against it, and is not at all
ensnared by it. I have seen this, not ten, but a hundred times, in our bourgeoise classes.
The worst women, on the contrary, those who are unfaithful, who sin not through weakness, but by express
tesire, do not fail to search after and to attract a man
whose real or apparent superiority will humiliate the husband, will render him ridiculous, will overwhelm him
with shame and irony. Which one do they love in
heart'? Neither of them. Their fall is not an affair of

228

Temptation.

love, but of pure vanity; and it is from pride that they
dishonor themselves. The absence of the heart exilains
everything; so, too, they seldom reform. Where the
heart is wanting, nothing will supply its place.
To return to the young wife, so perfectly balanced
in moral harmony with, and bound to her husband: if
any misfortune should happen to her, it can only be a
surprise of the heart, of which he himself will be a little
guilty. Their position, their virtues, the magnanimity
of that excellent man, may lead in the most honorable
way to an accident, not dangerous, but afflicting to her,
which shall remind her that she is a wife, and make her
poor heart bleed.
A nephew of the husband, suddenly orphaned, has
fallen to them at the age of ten; they are eager for
him to come. He arrives (from Pau or Bayonne) a
graceful child, with no timidity, full of pretty and
roguish ways. Madame, then very young, not over
twenty, receives him like a mother, weeps with him for
his own, even more than he does, and covers him with
caresses. He is sent to school, to return every year
in the vacation, more and more lively, agreeable, charming, and bold, with plenty of confidence in himself. He
becomes twelve, fifteen, and is still received very lovingly,
like an elder brother of her own child. They do not
grudge her her innocent caresses any more than they do
those she bestows on the little one. Only the effect is
different. One day she is romping with him in her husband's presence, and, as you may imagine, caught 1 y
surprise, and captured; he must be paid with a kiss, and
she lets him take it. But it is not the only one: at the

Temptation.

22()

second, she loses her self-possession; returns it, with
more than he gives; she lies a moment in his arms without strength, breathless. He turns very red, then very
pale. He laughingly leads back the trembling dove.
Her husband laughs too; but she not at all; she has a
fever all day.
From this year, it may be believed, she begins to be
a little afraid, and becomes more prudent. He, on his
part, is developed with all the vivacity of Southern
grace, is a good talker, a charming and witty storyteller, perhaps a braggart; but he is always believed.
The damage done the Northern woman is great, and the
contrast strong which he presents to the earnest, busy
man, whose manners are undemonstrative, but who concentrates his fire for action and great results.
The agreeable arrival of the young man is a holiday
in the house, and works a sudden change in everything.
There is more sunlight, it seems, and more noise and
laughter (not much heard where true happiness is). As
for her, she laughs and she is sad. This contrast strikes
even herself, and makes her uneasy. She is not very
well, and the gentlemen go out together, while she
remains; she wishes to collect her thoughts, and commune with herself.
There she is in that little garden-in that same gardon where ten years before, on the holy day she became
enceinte, she walked in the dawn, not less agitated,
though so pure. There she is in the presence of the
same flowers which were moved to pity for her, and
swore to her that she was innocent. " But what would
they say to me to-day ? I have done no wrong, and I
have wished none. If I had, I should have told my

230

A Rose for a Connsellor.

husband. Still I am troubled; I do not feel well. Yet
I have nothing to tell him." " Very much, madame."
" Why, who was it that spoke ? There is no one here
but this rose and I. How brilliant it is, and so red
(at least so it looks to me)-red with fire. Does it speak
by its color, and what does it mean ?"

VII.
A ROSE FOR A COUNSELLOR.
Do not pluck the rose, Madame, or it will become for
ever mute. Removed from Nature's bosom, it would
but wither on yours, after having intoxicated and agitated you with its perfume. Bend over it and listen;
this is what it tells you:
"You go and come at will; you are endowed with
the .pcwer of motion. I remain always on my stalk.
You admire me in my calmness, in my rosy royalty. I
am such because I always remain faithful to my nature.
"I am not a plaything, fit only to be stuck in a
woman's hair. I am an earnest creature, a powerful
and living energy, a work and a worker at the same
time, set here to solve a mystery. My time is short; I
must hasten to accomplish a great end, the perpetuation
of a divine race, the immortality of the rose. And
hence it is, Madame, that I am one of God's Roses.
"I have my stalk, and I cling fast to it. Spare me

A Rose for a Counsellor.

231

the" honor of dying upon your bosom. Let me remain
pure and fruitful; and be so, likewise, yourself."
" Al! you have spoken well," replies the woman;
"how I should like to resemble you, to be also one of
God's roses.
"But, dear Rose, do you really think I ought to
make a confession ? And what shall I confess? It is
all a cloud, a mist with me, in which I can scarce distinguish anything. And if I accuse myself, it will
break his heart."
" But you have promised to tell him everything."
" Oh, Rose, you understand the love of flowers, but
not that of women! The very moment that I confess
this thing, this love for another, it will assume a sudden
strength in my heart, become more ardent than before.
To reveal it, is but to increase it."
"Then you are indeed unfortunate.
You guard
your secret, brood over and caress it as you would your
child. You tremble lest it may be discovered, and be
dragged into the full light of day. And you are right,
Madame, for nothing in nature is more delicate.
From the time that a secret love is acknowledged, it
is compromised. It may still burn on, but it burns
towards total extinguishment. Such profanation brings
it to shame. If you had but to tell it to a female
friend, to a kind and indulgent father, you would not
hesitate a moment. You would delight to talk of this
love, and nourish it, and your tears would be an additional sin. But you must tell it to the victim, to him
who is to suffer from it, and share with him this painful
secret. How his heart will bleed! but yours will bleed
also, and will put an end to this love for another. Your

232

A Rose for a Counsellor.

dream will be stript of its wings, and you will come
down again to the real, to the infinite sorrow in which
his bleeding heart is plunged. You are kind and. affec.
tionate-love will return to you through pity."

She heeds this counsel. She summons all her strength
and courage. At the breakfast-table, from which the
young man is absent, she will tell all. She takes her
seat, weak and haggard, feeling like one condemned to
death. But her heart beats too loudly, her tongue is
tied. At last, with a superhuman effort, she asks her
husband if this life of idleness is good for his nephew.
His studies are finished. Is it not time to put him at
something, to place him in a position which will prepare
and open for him a career ?-The husband regards her
with surprise:
"Why, my dear, he has but just come. We cannot
send him away yet. I noticed, indeed, that you were
very cool to him. Have you taken a dislike to him ?"
" Oh, no !"
" Do you love him, then ?"
" Ah ! If it should have come to that ... "
To have lifted a mountain would have cost her less
effort. She falls back powerless; she is almost fainting.
Both are extremely pale.
But he, though heart.
broken, is strong even in death, is grateful to her for
her heroic loyalty.
With her, one danger alone is to
be feared, that she will die of her anguish and of her virtue.
He convulsively clasps her hand, and they separate
in silence. But, like a fire from which the ashes have

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233

been suddenly removed, her passion breaks forth; her
agitation, her internal distraction cannot be concealed.
Love is so powerful a thing that, though you catch
but a flash of it, by its reflection alone, it sets everything on fire. The coldest heart is warmed thereby; the
boundless pride, the sudden joy, the violent delight of
its discovery,. creates in the least susceptible young
men an immediate blazing forth of passion! How this
passion may have been expressed, favored as it was,
under the guise of a natural and, so to speak, filial
affection, is not known. But the poor wife, almost
beside herself, and too weak to resist these struggles, as
evening and bed-time draw near, throws herself into
her husband's arms, choking with sobs.
He kisses her, tries in vain to quiet and encourage
her. It is only after a long time, after a deluge of tears,
that, keeping him still close to her, and not letting him
go, she succeeds in saying:
" Defend me, have mercy on me, sustain me. I feel
that I am sinking. My will is so feeble that it slips
away from me hour by hour, and soon it will desert me
entirely. No; for it drags me with it; I have only
strength left to drown myself. I did wrong to be so
confident of myself until now; I am punished for it. I
am weaker than our little one was in his cradle. I entreat you to look upon me as a child, to treat me as
one, for I am nothing more. You have been too kind
to me heretofore-be more severe, be my master. Punish me. If my body is humbled and mortified, my soul
will be cured. I must hold you in dread, be a little
afraid of you. Let my will perish from this moment !
I will have nothing more to do with it; I deliver it up

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to you. You are my veritable will,,my better self,
But do not leave me, that I may ask you about everything-whether I may desire it, and whether it be right
for me to desire it."
This profound humiliation of a person who was innocent and irreproachable, fills him who loved her with
pain. Alas ! to see this queen of purity fallen so low !
He conceals his true impressions, and makes an effort to
smile: "My dear," he says, "it is not enough for you
to ask me to act thus; I must also find the will to do
it. Do you not feel that there is nothing about your
beloved person that I do not hold as sacred as my mother's grave ? Where shall I find the resolution to treat
you with such harshness ?"
" But if it does me good," she answers, "if it cures
me ? Fear, said Solomon, is the beginning of wisdom.
I feel a need of fear, of humiliation. I should love you
the more for it. Madam
, whom you know as a
very proud and self-confident woman, said to me the
other day: 'she who has once felt the weight of her
husband's hand, is so much the more attached to him
for the severity of his affection, recollecting and fearing a repetition of it.' "
"No," he answers, " we shall not yet go back to the
barbarity of past ages. Great Heaven! have I married
a soul and a body, to make of them a thing, a nonen.
tity ? I slander them to think of it. But, my love,
whatever your self-abasement may be, remember that
my love's dearest wish, my heart's greatest desire, was
to reach your soul, to enter wholly into its inner
temple. What will become of me if I listen to you, if
I break your will, if I deface you by fear ? I shall have

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235

3st for ever my most cherished hope. Wha' truth or
fidelity can I expect from a servile person, who has
once trembled before me, and who, brought thus low, can
never regain her former position-would not, perhaps,
if she could ? The soul is but too ready to abandon
itself, to take delight in its shame, to seek and to feel in
it a sensuality of love.
" And if I exterminate your will, what will you have
left to love me with? No, I wish you to become more
and more an independent being, a free intelligence, opposed to me if need be.
"I have always wished you to be thus, but not
strongly enough. I have not cultivated and nourished
your heart with sufficient constancy. Hence comes this
fatal accident. Whose fault is it? It is the fault of
the labor, the business, the outside interests and the
cares with which I have been occupied, for tlhe accumulation of your fortune, and that of our children. Improvident man that I was: for the family's sake I forgot
the family! And for an uncertain good I have jeopardized that which heaven placed in my hands-this, my
incomparable treasure! Thanks for this cruel blow; I
am warned against myself. Without it, I had been a
man no longer. Now I return to my former self, I feel
and recognise myself through affliction. You will find
me again what I once was. We shall be inseparable for
the future. And you must needs love me, for I shall be
great and noble again.
" As for this boy, even were he not already related to
me, he should become so. He, upon whom your eye has
once dwelt, who has occupied for a moment your che.
rished thoughts, is a chosen being who should ever after

236

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experience the Lene
its of this great good fortune. I
will adopt him. I will put him forward to the utmost
in his career. Though far distant, he shall be ever present to me, and he shall always find in me a helping friend
I shall be pleased if, in writing to me, he speaks often
of you. May so noble a souvenir keep his heart
worthy and pure, and always in the straight path."
Our invalid was not one of those who do not wish
to get well. She did not let her husband lull himself
into security with this imprudent and magnanimous confidence; she allowed no delays, but prayed and insisted
upon the sending away of the young man. An occasion
presenting itself, the nephew departed the next day. She
felt that in these matters no procrastination, no middle
course, is possible. A partial separation, permitting him
to return frequently, would have been more dangerous
than a permanent stay. More timid than Rousseau's
Julie, she would have feared even the boat of Saint
Preux and the rocks of Meillerie. So she desired and
exacted of him a complete separation, which should cut
off everything, even at the risk of breaking her own heart.
But she was surprised that he who she thought must
suffer the most, resigned himself to the separation with
great composure. The attractions of the unknown, of
travelling, of a new life, of a rapid and brilliant career,
with a friendly providence to help him along, all combined to form a powerful distraction to the sorrows of
parting. The lively imagination of the South is often
found joined to another gift with which it would seem
at first irreconcilable-a lively appreciation of the
actual, and of self-interest.

A Rose for a Counsellor.

237

However virtuous and courageous she may have
been, she was vexed to see herself so calmly oleyed.
Her husband saw that she suffered intensely. Any
other person would have felt exultant. But he, who
loved her so, shared her grief. Nothing could be gained
by the separation, if this sorrowing love was to last, and
perhaps increase. Of what use was it to outwardly
preserve her, if the fatal shaft was still to rankle in her

bosom ?
She would have perished in her mute sorrow, not
daring to confess the affliction of her love that remained to
her, nor the undefined regret, which a weak nature associates with its grand sacrifices. If her husband had
yielded to the ordinary temptation of jealous men, and
removed her from society, shut her up in solitude, he
would have fulfilled her dearest wish. If he had put
her in a tower, built on the summit of a rock, or in the
malarious castle of the Maremma, where Dante's Pia
passes out of life, she would have thanked him for it.
That was what she needed, to keep her ideal ever before
her eyes. Solitary, and a prisoner, she could uninterruptedly have enjoyed the happiness of tears.
He did just the opposite. He wisely judged that if
the illusion remained, it was because the loved object,
so promptly sent away, having become a permanent
vision, still retained all his former charms. Far from
granting her the indulgence of solitary dreams, he took
his patient out into the living, moving world, subject to
the teachings of reality, and convinced that her false and
fantastic creation could not survive such contact.
One of the most frequent causes of a lover's illusions

238

A Rose for a Counsellor.

and exaggerations, is the belief that the beloved c bject is
a marvel, is unique by some quality, which is found to
be commonplace when one learns a little more of the
world.
A young man sees in Paris a beautiful girl, with delicate and regular features. He is enamored. He marries
her, and afterwards is anxious to see the birth-place of
his wife, the city of Arles. There, he finds at every
turn this woman whom he thought unique. The marvel
is to be seen any day, in the streets. He sees a hundred,
a thousand girls as pretty as she. It is the beauty of
an entire people, the Arlesian beauty that he has fallen
in love with. And his ardor is at once cooled.
In like manner, an uninformed Spanish woman, who
has never been out of her own country, and for the first
time beholds, with his tutor, a young Englishman, with
that blooming complexion which is found only at the
North, is completely bewildered.
Shut her up in a
convent, and she would die. The opposite course is the
one to pursue. You must take her to Germany, to
our Normandy, or to England, the entire zone, in fact,
of blonde beauty, of millions of women and children, and
young men even, just as white and red as the one whom
she thought unique. When she has seen this ruddiness
on numberless faces, destitute of all charm, stupid even,
she will conclude that the quality, common to a whole
race, does not suffice to make an angel.
The attraction of Southerners, for us of the North,
is more common still. Such a man at Lille, at Rouen,
at Strasbourg seems irresistible. . Is it through his own
merit ? Not at all; it is only because he hag, in his look
or his speech, the sun of Provence, the grace of the

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239

Bernese, the piquancy of the Gascon. The most ordinary men from these favored districts, if transplanted to
the North, produce an astonishing illusion. At an official dinner, where many of the guests found themselves
together for the first time, I was seated opposite a gentleman from the South of France, whose charming eyes
seemed fairly to sparkle; however much you tried, you
could hardly .support a glance from them. In those
eyes were countless romances, in the style of Ariostoeverything that was brilliant and sparkling; at times
they seemed to contain the divine fire of genius.
I at length asked his name of my neighbor. It was perfectly unknown; he was a deputy from the central departments, who never said a word in the Chamber, but was
extremely loquacious elsewhere. So that, in this human
firework, the race was everything, the man nothing.
It is then to the South that our prudent husband takes
his ailing young wife. He does not allow resignation
and sorrow to close in upon her. He insists upon a
change of air, and of habits. The beautiful horizons
and landscapes of southern France elevate and fortify
the heart. Rousseau has admirably told how, at a time
when he was sinking, the mere sight, the austere"and
grandiose sight, of the Pont du Gard lifted him up.
How much greater the influence of the sublime spectacle of the Pyrenees! Their untrodden glaciers, their
immaculate snows, purify the eyes and the soul.
But while seeing nature, your delicate and intelligent
patient also sees and understands man. She finds everywhere, in this part of the country, the young man whohas
parted from her. At first she is pained by this. They

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all have the same vivacity as he, the same grace, the
same fluent and brilliant speech. In fact, she sees here
every quality which she imagined he alone possessed:
the same quickness, that charming clearness of glance,
at times sparkling, again more profound, retreating into
a semi-tragical sombreness, which has its effect, but
about,which, however, there is naught of seriousness.
That young man talked excellently, and was very amusing. So is every one here, and several have an astonishing fecundity in conversation. A mere clerk, to induce you to buy his wine, will exercise more diplomacy
than the Talleyrands. If you hesitate, his eloquence increases till it resembles a whirlwind, a mailstrom. It is
like a Pyrenean torrent, sweeping its banks along with
it. It even reaches the pathetic, the sublime, carries
everything before it. But how he will laugh when you
leave !
A loquacious, and yet a charming race! They lie
without lying; it is their nature. Do not blame their
fictions. They have a poet's license. It is planted so
deeply in their nature, in their blood, that on every occasion it comes up to them unconsciously, in spite of themselves. I have seen some who for days together would
pour'forth a torrent of assertions which could not deceive any one, false as facts, but true as ideas, which, if
they did not exist in the real world, had a brilliant existence in the domain of creative fancy.
When we see this mirage for the first time, we are
dazzled and amazed. This it was that the Northern
woman felt in seeing it in but one person; but when she
findsit in a crowd, in a whole people, she grows calm,
becomes herself again, and smiles.

The Medication of the Heart.

241

The god falls from his pedestal and becomes man, like
other men. He is'subordinated, classified, returned to
his genus and species. If the celestial being has disappeared, there remains an agreeable young fellow in
stead, a little frivolous and not much to be dependecd
upon, but not without his merits.

yII1.
THE MEDICATION OF THE HEART.
ARE the adultery of the woman and the adultery of
the man equally guilty ? . Yes, as an infidelity, a violation
of vows. No, in a thousand other respects.
The treachery of the woman carries with it fearful
consequences-that of the man does not. The woman
does not simply betray her husband; she yields up his
honor and his life; She makes him gossiped about,
ridiculed, pointed at, hissed; she puts him in peril of
death, of either killing a man or remaining a butt; it is
almost as if she let an assassin into the house by night.
He will suffer a moral assassination all the rest of his
life, never knowing whether her child is his child, obliged
to rear and provide for a doubfful progeny, or to amuse
the public by a trial, which, whether he gains or loses,
makes his name a byword and a jest.
It is folly to say that the woman has no more responsibility than the man. He, by his activity and strength,
supports the family; but she is its heart. She alone
1l

242

The Medication of the Heart.

knows its mysteries. She alone holds the seci et of do.
rmestic happiness, the sole assurance for the future. She
alone can attest a legitimate inheritance. A wife's falsehood may falsify history for a thousand years.
What is the bosom of woman, if not our living temple, our sanctuary, our shrine where burns the light of
God for ever, where we each day are recreated ? If she
deliver this up to the enemy, if she permit this fire,
which is her husband's life, to be stolen, it is more dreadful than to plunge a knife into his heart.
No punishment could be severe enough, if she knew
what she had done.
But she is nearly always very far from even dreaming
of it. Premeditated infidelity, prompted by hate and
malice, is a thing of infinitely rare occurrence. The
first false step, at least, is nearly always accidental, the
result of a negative weakness, less an act than an inability to act, to resist.
Warm, full-blooded woman are dazzled and bewildered, and at certain periods have an actual vertigo.
Those of a lymphatic temperament have an extreme
placidity of will; they are wont to yield; they know
that it becomes them, and hence they never resist. It
costs them too much of an effort to refuse.
Those who are not forgiven often suffer the bitterness
of remorse. I myself have seen two striking examples.
A very beautiful woman, rich and happy, arrived at
her fortieth year without a shadow of reproach, having
a dear husband and grown up children, one morning, as
if tired of a monotonous happiness, yielded to a man
whom she did not love. Her inexperience in evil-doing

The Medication of the Heart.

243

caused her to be discovered. Her chagrin that she had
fallen at that age, her shame in the presence of her children, weighed her down, and she died four months afterwards.
A young woman of twenty-five, elegant, high-spirited,
and full of life, with a face of noble gravity, expressive
of a' pure mind, had, to her misfortune, a beautiful and
impassioned voice, which was continually in requisition
at soires and in the salons of Paris. A duet turned
her head; she succumbed to the transports of her art,
not to passion. Her heart still belonged to her hus.
band, who was young and pleasing, and certainly adored
her. Overwhelmed with her misfortune, she went to
him without delay, told him all, and threatened to kill
herself at 6nce if he did not find means by which to
make her expiate her crime. But he, crushed by the
blow, never found strength to punish her. In this contest with herself she began to sing. She had lost her
wits.
I was young at the time, but the memory of that
occurrence is ever present to me. I saw her in a lunatic
asylum-a pit of madness and misery, to which her physicians had consigned her. Her husband came to see
her every day, and swore to her, with the tears pouring
down his cheeks, that she was forgiven, that she was
thenceforth pure and innocent. But she understood
nothing of all that. Her madness was only cured by
exterminating it: the treatment she received annihilate.d it. It may be said that she came out of the asylum a living corpse, and it was not long before she
died in reality.
It is a pity that this same terrible word, adultery, is

244

The Medication of the Heart.

applied to two very different things, to the perverse infi.
delity of her who mocks her husband, who really wishes
to disgrace him, and the heedless self-ruin of an impru
dent woman who does not even know that she falls until
after she is fallen.
A wife awaits her husband's return from a journey
with lively emotion, a strong physical impatience. His
supper is ready to receive him, but he is not able to
come. He sends a zealous friend to tell the cause of his
detention, and to reassure his wife. Through a violent
storm the friend arrives, wet to the skin. She is
touched with sympathy,has his clothes dried, gives him
supper, and orders a bed to be made ready for him.
She prepares for him a heating wine, which only her
husband drank, and of whose dangerous powers she is
ignorant. In short, they both lose their reason for the
time being.-The friend, truly in despair, seeks out the
husband at the earliest opportunity, confesses all, and
offers to submit to any punishment. What is he to
do? "The real culprit," says the husband, "is the
wine. And I also am guilty. There are times when no
woman should be kept waiting."
A storm like this, which brings together two persons
with strong passions-evening amusements, romping
country games with relations, with boys who are considered children, are but too frequent occasions. A
thoughtless girl, by her. wild hoydenness, provokes a
bold act. She had not dreamed' of it, nor desired it,
but she comes home weeping.
But the case that most frequently induces infidelity
is ennui, the excessive ennui of woman's solitude. The
man's life is busier and more animating.

The Medication of the Heart.

24S

What a sad thing it is to see in our country towns
women, married but two years, yet already forsaken;
to see them go, at vespers, to yawn with five or six old
crones.
How often, too, in travelling, as I entered a German
village, have I seen at a balcony, or in a little glass conservatory, surrounded by flowers and birds, a sweet
womanly face looking through the window at the
passers-by! How languishing she seemed!
" She is
not loved enough," I thought. "Where is her husband?
Spending his days between smoke and beer, while his
house contains for him the most charming of God's gifts."
The most faithless are often those who had the greatest need of love, who loved powerfully, strongly, and
would have been the most faithful. French women, for
the most part, are not at all contented with the cold
conjugal observances which suffice for the women of the
North. The latter, being gentle and resigned, exact
but little; and if marriage is for them only an exteribr
relation, a simple living together, they sigh, but make no
complaint. - To our women you must give everything
or nothing. The French woman is either the worst or
the best of her sex. Union with her must be either null
or complete.
It is very wronglybelieved, and often slhe herself yields
to the belief, that she has constant need of amusements and distractions. In -reality, it is quite the opposite. They do not know themselves. Those who fly
from pleasure to pleasure, shake off their thoughts in
the pursuit; but they own that they soon weary of it.
What they really need is to be very much loved and

very nmuch occupied.

246

The Medication of the Heart.

Eten the woman of business, but partially occupied,
though always kept behind the counter, has not that
excitement of outside affairs which continually draws
her husband away from the shop. I see now, in imagination, a young and pretty saleswoman, in the back part
of a dark, damp booth, in a dingy little street of the city
of Lyons. Her husband loves her, but he devotes his
days tc business and his evenings to his caf6. She languishes in this living tomb. How can you expect her
not to listen to the friend, or the customer, who comes
and goes every hour, amuses and interests her ? If
the husband really loves her, he should take pity on
her, liberate her from her loneliness.
Even without leaving the.city, it will often be found
sufficient to raise her from the bottom to the top of the
house, from darkness into light. The little woman, exposed to the dangers )f the counter, and fickle by the necessity of her situation rather than from any willingness
of her own, can work very well in a room on the fourth
floor, whence she may see the verdure on the hill sides
of Fouvibres, or better still, a glimpse of the Alps, which
shall elevate and purify her heart.
". that all ?" No, that is but a small part yet. The
Is
great point is to love her, to interest yourself in her, not
to turn your back when you see her weary, to sympathize with all her sufferings. Not only go to her frequently, but do not leave her. She will feel grateful
for this, and disclose her thoughts to you, at last; she
will go so far as to say, "I am dying with sadness."
That means, " I want a love."
But do not be offended at that; it is only a love, not
a lover that she wants. Love applies to so many things.

The Medication of the Heart.

247

It is perhaps the love of a child, or the love of ar idea,
of a great work, of an entirely new, busy, exacting life
In a strange country.
No half-way manoeuvre will remedy this; do not
imagine that a slight and transient diversion, a trip to
the theatre, or an excursion into the country, will suffice
for her state of mind. No, she must have some outlet
for affection, or a great change in life.
Whatever may happen, even if she should fall, do not
abandon the wife of your youth. If she has fallen, she
has so much the more need of you. If she is humble
and repenting, you must treat her as an invalid, wait
upon her, and hide her from the world. If bad influences
have perverted her, you must, without losing a moment,
take her away from them, and place her amid better surroundings; act with energy and moderation, correct
her gently.
She is still yours, whatever she may have done. The
share that she has in your name, the profound and complete blending of your physical existences, renders all
separation illusory. She who has once been fruitful,
once impregnated, will bear her husband with her everywhere. This has been amply proven. How long does
the first impregnation last ? Ten years ? Twenty? a
life-time ? It is not known; but one thing is certain,
and that is, that the widow often has by her second husband children resembling her first.
She has surrendered herself entirely to marriage;
what would she have beside it ?
Man has such an advantage over woman, both by
nature and the laws, that it goes against his magnanimity

248

The Medication of the Heart.

ever to ask for divorce. If she demands it, she who
loses everything by it, it is to be regarded as an astounding, senseless act, exdept in cases of cruelty and maltreatment, from which she must be delivered at all costs.
You cannot abandon her. For how dangerous will it
be for her, when the lover who receives her, experiences
the disgust of finding your reflection everywhere in her
person, transformed through you ? In discovering in
her, your voice, your words, your gestures, and traces
even still more profound !
She belbngs to you to that degree that even should
the lover impregnate her, it will probably be your child,
one marked with your features, that she will give him.
He will have the punishment of seeing that he can
have nothing real or profound from her, and that in the
capital point, the generating union, he is unable to
render her faithless.
What would become of the unfortunate woman if forsaken, and driven from her home, by you ? she would
not even have the friendly shelter of his roof who desired
of her but the pleasure of a moment! Do not abandon
a woman whom you have loved, who was and who is
yours, to the chances of such an experiment. Rarely
does she risk it herself; if she be not too badly treated,
it is seldom that she leaves her home, the home of her
habitual associations, and where perhaps she still has a
bond of love. This is singular, but not the less true ; more
than one capricious woman cares more for her husband
than for the object of her passing fancy; and, if she had
to elect between them, would prefer him who knew
her as a maiden, whom she has in her blood, and whose
life is her life.

The Medication of the Heart.

249

"Do not strike a woman, not even with a fl
)wer,
though she has committed a hundred faults."
Our hearts would have promIted this sentiment, if
India had -not said it before us. Strike a woman!
Heavens! a woman, our queen of love, and a queen so
submissive that she gives the man illimitable power
every night, the power to render her enceinte! It is
almost the power of life and death.
To humiliate and break down a weak, gentle creature,
by a servile punishment. Oh, base cowardice!
The women of the Middle Ages (and even now those
of certain races) underwent, and endured patiently, conjugal discipline. With the nervous women of our day,
this would be a dangerous attempt. Some would die at
the least blow. Even when taken in her guilt, the
woman should be spared. In but one case, where the
despair of a great remorse threatens her life or her reason, if she offers herself up to punishment, begs and
implores it, a slight bodily suffering may be granted
her to lessen that of the soul.
The best remedy is in travel. Leave your business;
cut the bonds that confine you to it, and take her away
with you for a season. Do not utter those vile words, too
often used inthese days: " No noise about it . . . I
will keep her here in spite of herself. I will inflict upon
her and her lover the daily torture of my partnership
in their joys. She shall be for me, henceforth, like a
chattel, the passive instrument of my pleasure. And
what matters the rest, after all?"
No, you must go to the root of the matter; suffer
yourself, that she may be purified. Once taken from her
11*

250

Medication of the Body.

associations, and brought into a new society, where a df .
ferent language is spoken, intimate only with you, she
will be quite a different person. With him who works
for her support, who never reminds her of her misfortune, never makes her life bitter to her, treats her as
kindly and gently as on the day after their marriage,
she litei'ally renews herself, and retains no more of her
past than a vague souvenir, as of an unpleasant dream.
In different circumstances, surrounded by a thousand
new necessities, you will both be renewed. In Europe
you have had two children, here you will have a dozen.
At home, your pretty wife, with her self-willed and ardent
spirit, would have ruined you.
Here, on the contrary,
she is the making of you. Be exemplary, courageous,
and industrious; she will assist in making your fortune. She will love you with the old love made new,
for having regenerated her; and in your old age you can
both return to your native country.

IX.
MEDICATION OF THE BODY.
A CELEBRATED surgeon, who had much experience of
women, makes this remark: that, though often a little
cold in their first youth, they have,.on the contrary, at
the middle of life and at the beginning of its wane, a
real need of being loved. Often about their thirty-fifth

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251

3 ear, ten years before the normal cessation, the blood cir.
culates with less regularity, stops at times, and becomes
obstructed. From this come maladies of all sorts, ir
passioned dreams, languors, devouring flames, the desire
of love, regrets.
Her husband deserts her, deceives her in his habits,
and runs after thoughtless girls, who make fun of him,
and are in reality so little worthy of him. His true
province-the profound heart, the intelligent mind, the
poetic soul of his suffering wife-he utterly forgets.
What a prize he might have possessed! How powerful
and delightful! The fruit of all fruits, the peach, is improved by the bite of the wasp, and woman, in like manner, by the sting of pain.
The man who, having eyes, sees with them, appreciates
this period, when the face wears its most touching beauty,
when the creature of Love, under the hand of Nature preparing for herself an age of suffering, already more humble in that, cares least for show and most for happiness.
She especially, who has lived a life of duty and virtue,
who has walked side by side with love and with discretion,
is very touching at that hour when, imagining it taking
to flight, she sighing, says: " What, gone already!"
If you except the malady of northern countries, consumption, an effect of climate, there are but two great
maladies in Europe, both having their origin in our
passions, in our thoughts, our wills.
The man wishes to be strong, and he takes the wrong
course, carrying invigoration to excess. He eats and
drinks a great deal too much. All his maladies proceed
from the digestive organs.

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Medication of the Body.

The woman wishes to be loved. She suffei s in the
organ of love and maternity. Allher ailments, directly
or indirectly, arise from the matrix.
This Proteus takes a thousand shapes. Its actions
are remote. If you retrace, observantly and patiently,
the life of the invalid, you will find at last that the affection of the chest, or the stomach, or what not, that
you thought entirely foreign to any such cause, was prepared ten, fifteen years before, by some deep sorrow of
the heart.
There is nothing low or vulgar in woman. Everything is poetic. Generally she is sick from love, man
from indigestion.
Nothing is more serious than a reply she often
makes, and at which men laugh. " What causes your
head-ache ? your tooth-ache ? your colic ?" "Not being
loved enough."
Having given the key to this mystery, and being now
extricated from the mire of my 8th chapter (on Adultery and Divorce), I can follow the inclinations of my
heart aind return to our ideal, to the woman who has
not fallen, to her who, reclining upon a loving husband,
and concealing nothing from him, .has skimmed over
the wave without foundering in its depths. We have
seeh how she could arouse herself from her dream,
and see the idol of her illusions vanish. But does no
trace of it remain ? Yes, for the most virtuous of them
does not lose this illusion without a pang, does not confess to herself without pain that she has loved without

being loved in return.
doubted.

The love of her husband is not

She has felt the strength and the tenderness

Medication of the Body.

253

of his heart; yet even here she suffers also, feelirg her
former position gone, in having acknowledged to. him
that she was not the heavenly being, the angel of God,
that he had believed her to be-finally obliged to confess
to herself that without him she would have fallen, that
she needed his protection. She is divided between these
two questions: " Have I not sinned at least in thought ?
Or (O shame !) do I not regret having been preserved
from sin ?"
Thus, between two loves, between doubts and scruples, in the ebb and flow of a heart but partially cured,
she gives way, loses her strength, languishes and grows
pale. After the plethora and the storm comes a great
exhaustion. The disease may be already prognosed.
In addition to our own diseases, we of these times
have all to cope with an ancient and mysterious curse
which we get from our ancestors. This latter, which
never appears to us in our strength, lies waiting within
us for the day of our weakness, and oni that day pounces
upon us, conquers us--breaking forth often in the most
astounding forms, to our great terror and mortification.
My book is not an idyl. If the frivolous young
man, the fastidious or disdainful young lady, chance to
read it, they, must have courage. For it will be ever
sincere, and will not recoil from Nature. Besides, this
is not an accessory. It is the heart of the subject, the
strong proof of love.
The love which boys bear for a white and rosy Iris
of fifteen can hardly be called love; it is a surface desire,
a slight arousing of the senses. But he of'whom it can
be said, "His love is as powerful as death," loves in

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Medication of the Body.

quite a different manner. You need have no scruale in
setting him, not before Death, but, what is harder to
bear, in the presence of Disease.
What disease ? That which is often hereditary and
fatal, of which this your poor mortified wife is innocent.
The purest, the most virtuous, has none the less a germ
in her blood which sooner or later will betray her.
This soft flower of love, this dazzling blonde (beautiful
as the N reride of Rubens at the Louvre, if you will),
may soon detect the reappearance of the scrofula that
she had in her childhood. That other beauty, with the
large, lustrous eyes, the dark complexion, whose love
seems to burn its way into your heart-alas ! the very
shaft of love that she directs at you in her heart-rending
smile, is the twinge of the fierce cancer which is devouring her bosom.
The story goes that the brilliant Spaniard, Raymond
Ltqlli, once pursued with his suit a lady who loved him
but yielded him nothing. In the audacity of his desii-e,
he followed her -into a church. There, indignant, and
emboldened by the darkness (Spanish churches are very
ill-lighted), she turned round and displayed to him a
bosom which was the prey of disease. What think yoiu
the lover did ? He ran away from the place; and. the
knight turned doctor, preacher, schoolman.
He did not love her. Had he really loved her, how
such a discovery would have bound him to her! What
a strong tie, what an opportunity fbr devotion, I had
almost said what a tender attraction, this would have
proved! To the honor of our age be it said, that an
eminent thiitker, in a similar case, doubled his former
love. He surrounded the innocent victim with atten-

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255

tions proportioned to her misfortune. Delicate I recautions were taken to veil her from the gaze of others, and
almost from her own. How he must have loved! This
single instance, among many, where the two combined
against fate and nature, will be envied by all those whose
hearts are worthy to contain such a sentiment as theirs.
And may not this indeed be the true temple that Love,
the conqueror of death, has wished to consecrate to himself here below ?
Suffering is the very life of woman. She can suffer
better than man; she is much more resigned to it.
But the intolerable part of it to her is, that disease, that
cruel revelation of our nature, displays her in numberless
low, sad, ungracious aspects. Every woman has had a
period, a moment of divinity, when she was thought to
be, when she almost thought herself, freed from this
earth. The remembrance of that time follows her, arid
ennobles her in her own eyes,. Even the drama of childbirth, which keeps her in bed for a short time, leaves
her very poetic. Disease, alas! has none of these effects. It drags on, heavy and dull, displaying wantonly
what nature most strives to conceal. A triple disgust-of the disease itself, of its phases, and of its remedies !
When the truth can be concealed, the invalid suffers
in silence. But it would seem that disease has the perversity to show itself by unpleasant appearancea, treacherous efflorescences which bring it into relief. There are
certain pimples that come and go upon the face', or an
eruption on the scalp, enough to drive one to despair. I
have seen this last affliction attack a young woman,

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Medication of 'the Body.

of resplendent beauty and freshness, so that she would
gladly have died of it.
From that moment all witnesses are in the way. The
femme-de-chambre is sent off,dismissed. Questicned by
her husband, the patient weeps: "I am ashamed, my
love. That girl will go and blab it about."-" Do not
cry," he answers; "I alone will take care of you, and no
one shall know of it." " But if I should displease you ?
For it is on your account.that I suffer most."
A serious and terrible cause of the maladies of a woman
who has passed her days of youthfulness, is in doubting her own influence. This doubt will cease on the day
when, contrary to her expectations, her husband, in the
height of ambition and success, holding perhaps an important station, forgets and sacrifices all, waits upon and
attends to her with pleasure, proving to her that she is
always his cherished and only thought.
"My love, it is really a pity to see you turned aside
from your career to this extent-leaving great matters to
occupy your mind with my misery. I am ashamed of
myself; I pray you, leave me." She says this, but she
smiles, and is truly happy. Her mind is very tranquil
now.
Disease is discord, and health is harmony. Your first
care should be to establish around the invalid an exterior
harmony. You will never succeed in this if every-day
neighbors, friends and relations, bring their advice to
bear against yours, or call in their own physicians, thwart
you at the very turning point of the disease, and even
inspire the vacillating mind of the invalid herself with
doubts. These doubts are in themselves a grave malady,

Medication of the Body.

257

which will lengthen and aggravate the other. There are
no means of curing them. Solitude and quiet are what
are required.
The organization is about to relax, and in the majority
of maladies this is the true commencement of a cure.
Nearly always it is an exaggerated idea, or a passion,
which has overstrained the nervous system, upset the
general equilibrium. Removed from the causes which
have produced this evil, weaker and more depressed than
before, she enters of her own free will, with body and
soul, into a sort of retrospective meditation. She takes
a clearer view of things, gets rid of her exaggeration.
She blames herself, wishes to make herself bettei-, and to
live in perfect accord with the general harmony and
the will of God. She comprehends that she is not innocent of her illness. She accepts it with resignation; she
no longer accuses Nature, who never lets us off otherwise. One who does not complain of sickness, and is
not impatient to be well, is in reality very nearly cured.
But nothing so inspires the invalid with patience as to
be tended by the hand of him she loves, to feel herself
enveloped by the being who is all the world to her. In
this long tete-a-tfte, which brings back to her the sweet
solitude of the honeymoon, she is resigned to being ill;
she expands her nature, and morally unbosoms herself.
In the deepening twilight, putting her little hands,
now thin, into yours, she unburdens her whole heart
to you. She speaks to you as she would to her own
secret thought. You kiss her hands. She goes on without perceiving it, saying things that cannot be expressed
here, but which, however, a feeble woman -has need of
saying. He dreams, her invalid fancies, her little wo.

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Medication of the Body.

manly fears: "What if I should die, my dear? I can.
not leave you. But God will have mercy on us.' From
this she goes further, confesses this thing and that, a
certain great sin that she has concealed from you. In
fact, she has soon told you everything-had a complete
confession.
"What, so little ! is that all ?" you ask; " And it is a
great deal," she answers; "If I have done anything else,
I do not remember it. .But, my dear, what is the matter,
that you are bathing my hands in your tears ?"
Now night has closed in. The moon is not up; but
the twinkling stars are bright enough for you. She is a
little fatigued. She falls asleep without letting go your
hand; and from that day forth she sleeps much more tranquilly, feeling a great harmony within her.
Marriage is confession. The union, the peace of two
hearts, begins in this, that they tell everything to each
other. And it is through this that they enter into peace
and the good order of the mind, which in turn will
bring back that of the body.
To confide in a third person, a stranger, who after all is
but a man, is not the way to become pure; it is tempting
both, passing from a storm into a tempest. That the
unsettled soul, the sickly body, the whole suffering creature, may find perfect rest again, her other half, the
sharer of her pain, must open to her the infinite of love,
the infinite of confidence, and without exacting anything, lead her on to tell him everything-she being
sure the while that she will be loved none the less for
the confession.
Once relieved by this, you must strengthen the pooi

Medication of the Body.
timid soul.

259

Remem ber, that she is afraid of death.
Let us state the facts fearlessly, without any un eason
able heroics. It is very easy for us, educated in the
religion of the indulgent God of nature, to look our
common destiny in the face. But she, impressed with
the dogma of eternal punishment, though she may have
received other ideas from you, still, in her suffering and
debility, has painful foreshadowings of the future state.
She does not conceal these, and like a helpless child
seeks refuge in your arms. Then deal with her strongly,
though gently. Betray no lack of decision with her;
control, or put off your tears, and let her find in you a
firm resting-place.
Expand her feminine soul, narrowed by pain, confined by fear, to a conception of the
great harmony-having which, we should be as willing
to die as to live, in the just and unalterable law of all
things. Here I know what a great effort it will cost you
to accept, as an agent of God, him of whom the name
even seems now so horrible to you--Death. Yet, believe me, he often spares those who look upon him without
fear. If this your beloved, who rests entirely upon you
and who lives upon your heart, resigns herself to the
idea of dying there, when God requires it, she has so
much the greater chance to live. The hope of immortality does not a little towards prolonging our stay upon
earth.
May we ever retain the strength and authority necessary for these great and solemn moments! May we
ever keep in the right path, and remain, to the one
whom we love, the capable confessor, the natural priest.
Let her who was an altar to the man, who so often
afforded glimpses of the divine, recognise in him, this

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day, her mediator through whom is transmitted to her tl e
pardon of God.
But, even though you were less worthy, even tlough
you had, in passing through a life of trade, carried off
some of its stains upon you, love would renew you still.
Its flame would consume all that. And you would find
in an unexplored corner of your heart, the grandeur of
divine desire to sustain her who depends solely on you,
She is yours, and she has but you with whom to live oi
die. Upon you alone does it depend, whether she shall
live, or ascend to her Maker in your arms.
I have never understood in what respect the priest
and the physician were distinct from each other. All
branches of medicine are null, blind, and unintelligent,
if they do not begin at complete confession, at resignationi to and reconciliation with the general government
of the universe.
Who can do this in the case of a woman ? He who
knows her thoroughly beforehand, and who is herself.
He is the one who was born to be her physician, a physician of the body and of the soul.
These two things, so completely harmonized in themselves, are inseparable. Let the young man think of,
and prepare himself for this. What an immense encouragement it will be to him, in his studies of the mind and
of the body, to anticipate the profound happiness he
will feel in being all in all to the object of his love!
In the coming age, education (relieved of its useless
features) will always comprise a course of medical
study. The present state of things is absurd. Who-

Medication of the Body.

26.1

ever would live must first know what life is, what are its
distempers, and what its cures. These studies, moreover, are such a marvellous discipline to the mind, that
he can hardly be called a man who has not pursued
them.
Even to explain to the physician exactly how we are
ill, to make him clearly and unmistakably understand
that, we must be three-fourths a physician ourselves.
Most people will tell you that you cannot doctor yourself, nor your family-which amounts to saying, that we
are most incapable of treating those whom we know
best. I am, then, guided in this case, rather by what a
physician of the South of France said to me: " Never
shall my son or wife be treated by any one but myself.
Not that some of my compeers may not be more learned
than I, but that here I have an immense advantage over
all of them-that of knowing completely, from top to bottom, the subject to be treated: the child springing.from
my loins is myself, and the woman finally transformed
into me, is also myself."
Individualization is ever progressive. The ignorant
physicking of former times often effected cures; but why ?
because all things went by large classes, both the sick
and the diseases. In those days, if I may so speak, the
people were doctored by wholesale. The class and the
trade, indicating the temperament, afforded all the information that was necessary, and suggested the evil and
its remedy. But now classes are done away with, and so
too is doctoring by classes. Its last glory is he whom I
have already mentioned, the illustrious physician of
the remains of la Grande Arm&e.

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Medication of the Body.

Everything has changed, no one man resembles anothe:r
uverything is special, original, individual, very complicated, and not to be determined beforehand. Much
study is necessary in order to seize this individuality, a
long series of observations, an extreme assiduity. This,
and espeicially the time required, is denied to physicians
in large cities.
This enigma, this individual,is incurable by whoever
does not know him completely, from head to foot, and
through and through, in his present and in his past, to
him who is not as it were inside of his other self, him
who is not another himself.
The more you are one with him, the more able you
will be to cure him.
And so, if you have lived long with this woman, if
your existeioce, identical with hers by habit and love, produces each moment in you phenomena similar to those
which are passing in her, so that your functions are the
revelations of her, you are far advanced in her being,
and may decide almost exactly what is fit and what is
unfit for her, the real malady, and the possibility of
erring.
You are her health, and she is your disease. When
she is cured, she re-enters into her harmony with you.
" What is woman

? Disease."
HIPPOCRATES.

What is woman ? the physician.
The greatest outside doctor you can call, is more than
satisfied after a few questions. He knows nothing of
the disease but its crisis. But that is nothing at all; the
life of the patient must be known. What a stoclk of

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263

tlae, patience, and let me add genius, would be 1equired
to completely confess her ! But could she answer him 6
would she dare? . . . He is often obliged to content himself with very little.
The husband, on the contrary, knows everything.
You smile incredulously; I assert that even'the subtlest dissembler, who manages to conceal certain circumstances from him, cannot, on the whole, prevent him,
from the sole fact of their cohabitation, from knowing
her entirely.. He has noted her, by his finer senses, in all
her exterior manifestations.
He knows her in all her
internal operations, her months, her days, her hours of
steadiness and caprice. He foresees her humors, her
thoughts, and even her smallest desires. Who could
know the terrible details ? he who loves or has loved, aiid
who, eager and insatiable, has felt all, noted all, that she
herself had forgotten. Still more, he has wondrously
acted upon her. By their life in common, by fecundation,
impregnation, and the profound metamorphosis which
accompanies it, he has made this woman! The husband
is as much of the wife, in this sense, as he is of the
child.
He has made her, he can re-make her.
At least if any one can, it is he.
The creator of all things, Love, is also the all-powerful
restorer. If once it languished and grew lukewarm, nov,
in these circumstances, it resumes its old ardor and
intensity. Who could help lovingsthe sick woman, who
would not give all his heart up to her? Even if the
poor suffering creature has been a little thoughtless, how
can you remember it now ? Humiliated under the hands
of Nature, so fearful of displeasing, she is in reality more

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Medication of the Body.

charming than she ever was. She excuses herself, and
asks pardon for everything, even for the most innocent
things. The force of her gratitude inspires her with
delightful and touching remarks. Her heart has become
quite a different one;' great thoughts take possession of
it. And this because illness, that severe natural discipline, draws from the soul a refinement that no human
culture could have effected. Love is even deepened by
its own humility. At this time, the woman has the timidity of a child, is all love and trembling shame. And
how can we help adoring her ?
A touching contest this, between love and shame. The
latter must yield, however, when they come to the remedies which so frighten women-if it is decided, for
instance, that a blister must be applied. She would
rather die than suffer that, if she were left to her own
will; but she fears worse than death to displease or disobey. "And yet," she adds, "must I let him see me
every day in this state? put him to such a trial? Ah
this will be the extinction of all love!"
The poor creature is so humiliated, that, bowed down
each day under the loving hand that tends her, she
does not even suppose that in her he still sees his wife,
and she asks only for compassion. She thinks that desire is done with for ever. And great is her surprise,
extreme her emotion, when she sees the flame still burning on, and the glorious ignorance in which Love remains
of all that it knows, and all that it sees.
She then begins to understand that great and sovereign power of the heart which changes and transfigures
everything, the independence of Love which is thought
,o the slave of Nature, but which is also its king.
be

Medication of the Body.

265

"What !" she exclaims, " have I still the power of
pleasing! What! are my caresses still a happiness to
him! My kiss his recompense !"
And behold! she is up again and reanimated. Her
womanly royalty returns to her. Health will soon follow. *
Everything that appertains to the woman we love is
of precious importance. Everything about her charms
us, and makes us adore her. Love comes from her by
all the senses. Her physical life, taken in its ensemble
and without omitting anything, is a universal enchant
ment. Hence results for her a state of infinite serenity
of profound beatitude, the same state of grace that she
catches a glimpse of in pregnancy, but now under what
more difficult circumstances! To see that all that rendered her afraid and ashamed, all that she would have
wished to conceal, is to him a joy and delight-that she
is waited on by him, not as an effort of patience, but
with desire and transport-is the miracle that saves her.
She will live on, in spite of nature.

BOOK FIFTH.
-0I

THE REJUVENESCENCE OF LOVE.

I.
WOMAN'S SECOND YOUTH.
How severe is Nature upon woman! Man, even
though ten years older, is in his prime, strengthened in
active and productive life, when she is failing. And
even now, though beloved, she is no longer the same.
Suffering has matured her, and made her look pale.
Melancholy hours of reverie come to her in her convalescence. She sighs. For what ?-she so beautiful, so
touching, so accomplished! For Time, the great artist,
the great master in beauty, has given to hers that
supreme touch that disarms and melts all hearts. Yes,
but even this charm owes its origin to her advancing age.
The circulation of life, already less regular, announces
to her (from a distance, it is true) that she will be cured
of love, which constitutes woman, of that divine rhythm
which month by month measured out her time.
Man, on the contrary, who has not suffered from the
vital flux and reflux, man who, of love, has had but the
happiness, who has not loved as she has (to creation
and the point of death), man, relatively speaking, has
lived a prosy life. He has worked much and hard, but
slept and repaired his forces. The perfect equilibrium
of physical receipt and outlay has been maintained in
him. He is equal, or superior to, his former self. If he

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Woman's Second Youth.

has had no excesses up to his fortieth year, beyond that
he will be found much stronger than before. He has
escaped those alternations of health which so try one's
youth; he has hardened himself for life, has taken root in
it. And, as life then most certainly goes on by itself, as
he lives without knowing that he lives (which is the physi.
cal perfection), he often works much more and much better, with a certainty, an infallibility of execution that a
young hand never shows. Even among the most prolific
of men, those who let out their lives in great floods for the
nourishment of the human race, we see that their great
works, those which have left their mark upon the world,
have appeared at this age. Molibre thus gave us the Tartufe ; Rousseau,Emile and the Contrat Social. It was
even later in life that Voltaire published the first great
product of his genius, that which has created Modern
History. So in political life, Sully, Richelieu, Colbert,
did nothing great until they were forty.
To sum up, we may say, that at the age when woman
has finished her principal work, and is about to lose, or
already has lost, her creative faculty, man exercises his
with powerful effect. And this in every sense, in love,
in business, and in the sphere of thought.
Is it all over with the woman then ? Far from it.
The charmfulness of heart and beauty, the grace, the
brilliant mind, the elevation of her views, of her character, which often come at this age, all announce that she
is called to a mysterious duty, more invisible, more
inexplicable, more connected, perhaps, with a touching
and a holy object. What this will be we cannot tell; but
I warrant you beforehand that it will be a work of
love. Seized in the cradle by love, living on and by

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271

t, she will go on till death, always loving nore and
more.
Would you know the real cause of her sadness ? It is
not her bad health, nor her fleeting youth; neithei her
prospectively dreary life, nor even Death, to whom she
has been very near, and who obscures the horizon with
his sombre clouds. What saddens her is the semidivorce which, in spite of him and in spite of her, is
made between them by the mere force of circumstances.
He who formerly sacrificed everything, abandoned every.
thing for her, still loves her. She does not doubt it.
But, after all, now that she is better, he rushes off again
to business, labor, and the struggles of life. He is getting old, and has no time to lose. The more pure and
faithful a man is, the more active he is; ever impatient
to move, to do, and to create. He looks forward to
glory, it matters little for what. The proved ability
in matters of grave import, the fidelity with Which
fortune favors only those of strong will, are the honor
and glory of the man, the pride of the woman. But we
must confess that it is also a cause of uneasiness to
woman in her middle age. He said, "You will love
me, I am sure; for I shall be great." And he has kept
his word. His successes have made him great. He
knows that she has indirectly contributed much towards
this. Never, without the happiness, the peace of heart,
the mutual comforting that he has found in her, could
he have been each day equal to such efforts. She has
prepared his triumphs for him. And the invincible
strength with which, at the decisive time, he carried off
the prize, he took from her in the morning, when,

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Woman's Second Youth.

serene through love, she commanded him to return that
night a conqueror.
By the mercy of God all his undertakings have pre.
vailed. He is now powerful' and influential in matters
of greatest moment. His ship now rides upon the waves,
with both wind and tide in its favor. She, seated on
the shore, admires him, but follows him no longer.
Sometimes her eyes are dazzled, and she can scarcely
keep the reckoning of this great and fortunate voyage.
Fortunate, did I say ? It is far from being so to her
loving and faithful heart, which says, " He is off yon.
der. Oh, that I were with him !"
Mockery of Fate! When she was younger and less
intelligent, in reality even less loving-when she only
suffered herself to be loved, when she was nothing but
one of God's beautiful creatures, a pleasant thing-she
had the unspeakable happiness of being united to him
in an apparent oneness; but now that she is an intellectual being, an individual, now when her expanded
heart contains an ocean of love, fortune and success
hold him apart from her. So far, though so near! One
day of glory for him perhaps, and to-morrow her life
will have passed away.
In regarding his manly countenance, his powerful
frame, all the royal beauty and the vigorous joy that
Nature bestows upon the lusty man from whom she
still expects great things, his wife admires him, dreams
of him, is happy..., and sad. Youth is intact in him; his
powers of loving are unimpaired. When the torrent of
life is stirred into action will he not return to the illusions of his youth? All think so. Every one believes
that the treasure he has at home, that gentle and

Woman's Second Youth.

273

touching beauty, that too complete perfection, will not
hold him back for ever. On all sides the world of de.
praved men and equivocal kvomen, by all the means in
their power, by intrigue, cunning, audacity, ridicule,
irony, everything, work together to disturb the serenity,
to break in upon the privacy of the successful man of the
day. Is the poor little dove in the cote ignorant of
this ? No; from a distance she sees enough of it to
crush her heart down. What can she do about it?
She takes good care not to approach this monster of a
world, which frightens her so. The world, which, on its
side, has come to her and learned that she is too pure
for anything to be hoped from her, turns its back upon
her, and goes after a more easy virtue.
Humbled by solitude, she dares not compare herself
with the reigning beauties of the day. Those haughty
Amazons, whom from afar she sees passing by, she admires sincerely, and not without a little fear. They
must be queens, princesses, or at least great ladies, to be
caracoling on such splendid coursers. She considers
herself defeated beforehand.
"Alas!
what virtue,
what discretion, what heroism of love can resist these
Alcinas, these triumphant Clorindas ? woe to poor Herminia! . . ."
She is completely ignorant of what her husband, nearer
to them, sees: their misery and moral repulsiveness. All
the efforts recently made to deck up that pitiful idol
of the day, the kept woman-a base term of distinction
between la dame galante and the woman of the townhave failed to invest her with beauty. Still ideal, though
painfully inconsistent, in Isidora, she has sustained a
terrible fall to the real in la Dame aux Camellias. The
12*

274

Woman's Second Youth.

skill and talent of the author have not sufficed to conceal
the shocking inharmoniousness of this creation, a refined
consumptive, who, nevertheless, he tells us, " drinks and
swears like a street-porter."
If our husband, going by chance into his friend's
house, sees his shocking mistress, so gross under all her
elegance, he will remain faithful for ever.
Rousseau was right in making a distinction between
a woman and a lady. Is this a matter of rank and fortune ? Not at all. It is a distinction of the heart. I
have seen an old washerwoman who was a lady, and
more than a lady; she would have graced the throne
of the world.
Some day, when the husband returns from visiting the
friend in question, when he has been bored and worn out
with his "little girl," who can talk only after drinking, he
finds his wife surrounded by earnest men who have come
on business. She astonishes them with the extent of
her knowledge and her practical mind. "How is this?"
he asks. "Who has taught her this? . She knows
everything without having learned it."
How interesting is she at this moment! I have often
had the pleasure of observing the excellence of the wife
when she wished to become the auxiliary of her husband,
when she entered into his ideas and his business, took an
absorbing delight in them, and upheld his opinions with
even more vivacity than he could have brought to bear
on them himself. Far from taking sides against her, I
have joined her, nearly always adding a word to her husband's honor, to strengthen their union. I have always
present to me, in this world, the Religion of Love, and
the desire of propagating it.

Woman's Second Youth

273

Picture then to yourself the happy husband at the me
nment of his unexpected return, when he sees her fighting
for him. How sur)rised, how delighted he is! She is
Shakespeare's Desdemona, with a helmet on. He smiles
as he embraces her, saying like Othello: " O, my fair

warrior!"
But these word-combats are nothing to her. How
happy would she be to really aid him. Is she not as a
younger brother to him? She has his movements, his
gestures, his handwriting even. If he has gone to bed
late and sleeps a little longer than usual, he does not
find her beside him in the morning. At his desk sits
some one who has quietly got up at four o'clock, and is
writing his urgent letters. And this is apparently some
one who fully understands his thoughts, knows or divines
everything. A scholar of his perhaps, or a charming
little secretary ? Style her what you will.
She has taken both sexes upon herself, and in her timid
audacity are combined the charms of the young man
and the child. Her thirty-six years are but as fifteen.
But the docile scholar, if he but deserve it, will be
transformed into the loving and obedient woman. In
the morning he wakes up, and not seeing her beside
him, is alarmed and calls to her. The pen is thrown
aside, and M. le Secretaire hastens to his bedside,an humble page.
How he is affected by this! He gently draws her towards him. But in her chasteness she seats herself on
the side of the bed. In a sacred transport, he would
pour orit his heart to her, place it in her hand, disclose
to her, at last, the mysteries of his art, or the secrets of
his business. "Why can I not suppress time for you!"

276

Woman's Second Youth.

he exclaims, " do away with the long succession of efc rts
and thoughts, with which we buy so dearly the results
of life! give you, without fatigue, the world and its
science! infuse it all in a kiss!" But, almost at the first
word, he sees the miracle performed. God accords to
purity a singular gift of intelligence. Her sense of right,
which no lie, no corrupting sophism, has ever warped,
enables her to seize at once the very essence of the abstruse enigma. How surprised is he! how happy is she!
In her childish vivacity she exclaims: "I have understood you then !"

But nothing that she touches can fail to be embellished
thereby. She timidly essays to take up what he has just
said; into what seems dry and tame, she infuses her womanly grace and the freshness of nature. It is as if
the barren sea-shore, gladdened by a brook, should suddenly bloom with flowers.
A delicious discovery it is, to see her for the first time
unfold to a loving eye her infinite mystery of grace,
which, with a certain maiden modesty, she had always
kept back. This virginity, reserved for the present moment, and which could not reveal itself before, she now
gives up, and offers it to love-the unlooked-for flower
of the soul.

She Prescribes and Regulates, &c. 277

II.
SHE PRESCRIBES AND REGULATES HIS DIET
AND HIS RECREATIONS.
SEEING her so obedient, so docile, and so attentive a
pupil, following out her husband's ideas and treasuring
up his words, you imagine that he is master in everything. It is exactly the contrary..
Now that she is himself, imbued and impregnated with
him, now that she is his soul (and his soul reserved pure),
it is greatly to his interest that she should administer,
rule, and reign in the house.
To speak frankly, he is no longer capable of this. The
hurly-burly of life, the increased action, has so hustled him
along from day to day, that his little interior world becomes almost foreign to him. This is an effect of the
progress of the age, of absorption in a special business;
it is even the effect of success: the man, as if in a
vertigo, gets farther and farther away fiom himself.
What would become of him if he should give himself
up entirely to this centrifugal movement ? if the centre
should fail him, if the fixed point to which nature obliges
him to return each day for a new supply of strength,
should become vacillating, and no longer afford him support or rest ? Yet may all this be observed in the house
where the wife, the sure guardian of the man, does not
keep watch over his fireside.
Strange is the inconsistefcy of the times. If the
object be to outshine our fellows, to amass a fortune,

278

She Prescribes and Regulates

every one is what is called positive, that is grossly material. If it be a question of supplying or renewing the
strength and activity by which we shine or make money,
we have all the indifference of a spiritualist, who believes that he owes nothing to the body but everything
to the mind. We are generally fed by our servants,
that is to say, our enemies; or what is still worse, by
those great cooking laboratories which daily supply the
same food to thousands of men, all differing in health,
temperament, and social position, having each different
necessities. What is wholesome food for one is poison

to another.
If you despise the body thus (though it is the indispensable agent of your faculties), respect your mind,
your judgment, which, you must know, are day by day
influenced by your diet. We must drop pride, and
speak of things as they are. Your cook governs you.
The unhealthy and irritating food that she has given
you for dinner will to-night disturb your stomach, and
thence your mind. To-morrow, or later, by its inward
irritation, it will impel you to hasty and violent resolutions, perhaps to some act of libertinism or egregious
folly.
I maintain, Gentlemen "on 'Change," that it is the
influence of food, more than any forethought of your
own, which, holding dominion over your moods, decides
the rise and fall of stocks.
I who have always defended the rights of the mind,
must here be permitted to speak of these matters of
plain common sense, which every one else talks about
but idly, as everything is talked about nowadays, with.
out eveir thought of remedy.

His Diet and His Recreations.

279

To the evil Circe who transforms men into beasts, we
must oppose the good Circe, who will transform beasts
into men. This good Circe is the loving and foreseeing
wife, who day by day expends her solicitude upon your
physical life, who knows no duty so noble, so imperative,
so sacred,as the preservation of the one whom she loves.
She would leave an important letter, an urgent and
serious work in which she had been engaged, to help
you, if a superior task required her presence-the preparation of the dishes which are to refresh you at dinner.
She does not readily trust to that stupid and careless
girl, who will irritate your stomach, or feed you on
mere nothings, tickling your palate instead of renewing
your strength. She will put her own hands to the work,
those hands so royally beautiful, that nature seems to
have made them solely for the homage and the kisses
of kings. Your life is her life; who then has more interest than she in renewing your strength ? She will
slight nothing to this end. For whom then is the first
smile of re-blooming nature, if not for her ? It is for
you to repay her in love.
She has constantly before her eyes, in her memory, and
in her heart, the complete balance and poise of your
life; she sees clearly your material equilibrium, and the
equilibrium of your forces-all your expenditures in labor,
in words; or in exercise, to which she makes your appetites subordinate. We have ample reason, while scolding
a little, to call her economical. Of what is she most
economical ?- money ? No, but of that of which she
speaks the least, of that which concerns herself. She
is your never-resting physician, but one who administers a preventive medicine, who is ever cautious and

280

She Prescribes and Regulates

moderate, and who especially takes care that by spend
ing little, and gaining a great deal, repairing always
largely, you shall remain equal, more than equal, to the
exigencies of your profession. It is love that, at her
expense, makes you admired in society, for the intense
brillian'cy of your glances, your vigorous life, your energetic activity.
In nothing that relates to love is she ignorant. She
knows, as well as any one, not only the nutritive value
of varieties of food, but the time required for their digestion-some rapid in their action, others, on the contrary, slow, but which will exert a powerful influence in
time. She also knows perfectly well' that strong and
exciting food will not act with its full power on the day
that it is required, if it is not prec6ded, a few days before, by a simpler diet which shall restore the organs to
their youthful susceptibility, and augment their powers
of assimilation.
So anxious is she in this matter, that she often watches
her husband eating, instead of eating herself. With
all her respect for him she does not trust him entirely.
The man who comes home, having spent much vital
force during the day, is naturally too anxious to restore
it to take any heed to the means. Devoted to works of
strength, every man has animal inclinations; he wants
tonics-often too much of them. She, who is not f-.
tigued, having much more temperance and judgment,
does her best to check him in this error, to deceive him
a little, if necessary. People admire women without
art; for my part, I like them to have a great deal of it,
all sorts of pious ruses with which love inspires them for

His Diet and His Recreations.

281

our happiness. This woman, so pure and chaste, who
takes such good care of him, would not, however, hesitate to sacrifice herself, if need be, in order to turn his
mind to other matters; she is his nurse after all. And
if the child is not reasoaable, it is better for her, without making any disturbance, to play the dhild a little
herself. This tender hindering, which surprises and
charms him (especially through his vanity), makes him
think that the most sensible woman has sometimes her
weak moments, while in reality it is at this very time
that her loving intelligence performs its well-considered
office, as a mentor and a physician.
Women do not know their power, or else they do
not care to employ it in the interests of the family. For
it is certain, that with a husband of uniform habits, who
is in good health, and neither has, nor wishes for, any
outside attachment, she can at certain times do anything
she pleases. Man's love is impatient and incapable of
waiting; hence it is easily brought to terms. The ge.
nerating crisis, which in woman occurs every twenty
days, solemn and painful,- and much less exacting, returns to man every four days (if we assume the average
given by Haller). And this is not, as is believed, a mere
requirement of pleasure, but an actual necessity of a
mental and physical renewing. If this be not fulfilled,
it leaves the whole organism in a state of heavy dejection and discomposure; the vital fluid deprived of issue,
is like a pestilent stagnation. True life is in action. Woman, who is often sickly, exhausted by confinement and
habitual loss of vitality, seldom understands the very
different constitution of man, whose strength, subject

282

She Presciibes and Regulates

to no exhaustion, remains uncontracted, hence the per
sistence of desire, which he experiences often at a very
late period of life. He soon fatigues and wearies her.
He is frequently put off without pity or consideration,
and sometimes with ridicule.
In short, they so manage things that, not to annoy
an already faded wife, he takes a young mistress.
What has created, and set up against wives, the Damp
aux Camellias? Their own haughty prudishness.
When the husband hazards a word of love in the
evening, you say to him, " How silly you are! You are
jesting !" No, Madame, he is often very much in
earnest; he suffers, and requires forgetfulness.
He
has need of that sweet and maternal consolation
which woman owes to the labors of man. It is
he who braves for you the great battles of this life,
whose repose and pleasures you enjoy. He needs to
forget his business cares, the injustice and tyranny of his
employer, the intrigue and calumny of his rivals. A
kiss from you, a smile from you, a sweet return of affection, a sympathy for his efforts, in short the happiness of
that mental and material union which renews the wornout soul, is what he needs.
"But, my dear, at our age" (they are perhaps forty
years old), ".now that we have grown-up children! It
is ridiculous."
He has seen her all the evening appear youthful and
agreeable for a pretentious fool, on whom she has lavished her sweetest smiles; but now she calls herself old.
He takes her at her word, and goes off elsewhere.
He goes away, not only denied, but mortified. In

His Diet and His Recreations.

283

many cases the divorce may be dated from that evening.
He avoids her, he hates her. The change is often a
rapid one. To-morrow he has a mistress, and launches
forth into another life. Woe to his wife and children !
She will say, perhaps, " Why accuse me? I know
perfectly well to what I am bound by the commandments of God and of the Church, by the marriage vow.
I was to give him children, and I have given them. I
have refused to do no duty that I owed him. I undergo
everything that must be undergone. But I will do
nothing for empty pleasure, for amusement, for caprice."
Do you think that dreary passiveness, which, even in
the embrace, communicates a death-like coldness, is acceptable; that tht cool irony which observes, criticizes,
and even sneers, in this sacred moment, is regarded as
reciprocation ? ....
No: rather is it the solitude
of solitudes, a divorce in complete union, despair! . .
What celibacy is not better than this ? Rather
settle the matter like Orighne, and let the sword end
it.
We know that she is chaste with her husband; but
now how is she with others ? Are we sure that what is
denied to him is not granted to a friend ?
You, Madam, who know how to measure out happi.
ness in such nice proportions, listen to this:
The mother asks the child, in helping him to sweetmeats,
how much he wants ? He answers : " I want too much."
Every time that preserves had been given to him, he
had been told that more than that would be too much.
And it is just this " too much " that he wants.
It is just so with love; enough does not satisfy it at all.

284

She Prescribes and Regulates

"But," you ask, " does this too much mean those ex
traordinary and humiliating things that the ancient
casuist grants so liberally to conjugal exigencies-which
so lower the woman, by giving her over completely to
the senseless caprice of her husband ?"
Have no such fear.
To the clever, amiable, innocently gay and loving woman, this too much, which
fi-ightens you so, is often very little. Often it is such a
trifle that she would scarcely dare to speak of it; it
would appear so silly, the merest child's play.
The more intense, care-laden, planning and combating, that a man's life is out of doors, the more kind
comforting he requires at home. A sensible woman
knows what he needs at these times. She knows that he
does not consider her less thoughtful, less worthy in
reality, for any playfulness she may treat him to; on
the contrary, the more he finds her even so, the more
pleased he is at the contrast. He feels her affection in
this, and he is soothed by it. That this dear partner,
whom he knows to be so zealous for his sake, should sudlenly forget all other affairs, and be alive but to one
alone, that of consoling, entertaining, and amusing him,
affects him powerfully. He laughs, but he is touched
by it. A loving word, an unlooked-for caress, the familiarity of some little action in which the young girl
again appears, will have wonderful effect. No seriousness nor sorrow can withstand them. Never did the
changing sea, in the dark hour when you could see only
clouds overhanging it, present, in the shifting of the
wind, so lovely a clearing-up.
Woman is not formed, as we are, in the uniformity of
an educational mould. It is this which leaves her, at

His Diet and His Recreations.

285

every period of life, beautiful in instincts, in sur rises,
I
in unlooked-for graces. She has wonderful originality.
The simplest has in her often,endless responses to nature,
hidden and secret beauties, a smartness and charmingness of reply, a youthful and pretty movement, that her
husband in ten, twenty years, has never shown. Such a
one, though long married, does not the less retain a certain relative innocence, forgetting (through frivolity, if
you choose) all that would have faded her and made
her old. She remains new, in one sense, and being
pressed by love, replies with singular artlessness, and a
charming ignorance of what she has learned every day
of her life.
This cannot be imitated. The innocence of the wife
is a mystery of the holy of holies, which no one out of
it can imagine. All other women are premeditated, or
are unconstrained only in the ugliness of intoxication.
But she who is yours for life, without any thought for the
future, with no reserve of coquetry, gives herself up
to nature in complete sincerity, and is thereby so much
the more beautiful, more touching and delicious. Hers
is not the cat's play, nor the calculated obscenity, nor
the false and discordant graces of your cold mistresses,
whose hearts are like a violin, without a soul, squeaking
under the bow. The sweet sportiveness of a woman
who laughs, frolics, and says, " I am silly; but what of
that, if it is for you ?" is the Divine Comedy, the secret
Christmas carol of marriage, of which you will find
elsewhere but a dismal counterfeit. This laughing grace,
which we so adore in little children, is in a different way
charming (because unexpected) in the young, wife-so
discreet in the absenice of him she loves, and so grave

286

She Refines his Mind, or Inspires it.

to all chance-comers. Everyone says: "She is not
cheerful; perhaps he renders her unhappy." But when
he returns, she feels herself at ease, and gaily locks the
door.

III.
SHE REFINES HIS MIND, OR INSPIRES IT.
SAVAGES 'are afraid of pleasure. "It hamstrings a
man," they say. Of course, if a warrior were about to start
off fasting on a hunt of two hundred leagues over the
snow, as often happens, or to be chased to the death
by a hostile tribe-in such trying circumstances he
would do wisely to husband his strength.
In the civilized state it is different. If love weakens
the animal force, and that material imagination which,
under the influence of the blood, inspires the mind with
its grosser fancies, in return it refines the nicer faculties
of a man. The contact of a pure and beloved woman,
whose heart throbs responsive to your own, communicates something of the moral excellence of her sweet
serenity. The mind is harmonized thereby; the days
are gloriously clear. The sanguine flood, and its companion, that carnal and animal poetry which belongs to
the temperament, are for the moment suppressed; anid
the fantastic clouds, with which they obscured the mind,
rolling away, disclose to you the Real in an intensity of

She Refines his Mind, or Inspires it.

287

.ight. Logic, and the faculties of observation and of
analysis, that trinity of Invention, have their complete
freedom and fertility.
For whatever requires continuousness, and is to be
attained by pursuing a long train of thought, successive problems of the known and the unknown, a harmonious condition is needed; this is procured only by subduing that plethora of life which would retard all progress.
The feverish mirages which this occasions, make us
absurdly poetic or pitifully fanciful, turn us to the right
or to the left, and cause us constantly to wander from
the right road to the truth. Nothing obscures the mind
more than this rutting, or the sickly and negative condition of complete abstinence-a condition really impotent, for virility then paralyses or devours itself.
There is no doubt that the great drags on life are desire and virility. But, that these may bear fruit, their
ruggedness must be grafted on the softness of the feminine organization. What a miracle does nature here
perform! Genius, arrested yesterday on the road to
invention by one of those problems to which there seems
no solution, having turned it over on every side, at
last gives it up in despair, and sadly sits down by the
fire. She soon observes his sadness: "Why, what is
the matter with you ?" she asks. " I cannot bear to see
you looking so sad. Let your ideas alone; forget all
about it, I pray you, and be happy now." It is precisely
this moment of forgetfulness and happiness which has
changed everything. His insight is renewed, his powers
refreshed, he is newly electrified for performance.
He
has become another man. How is this ? Magnetized
by the woman, by that natural grace and amiable facility

288

She Refines his Mind, or Inspires it.

which she has, and oommunicates to all, he laughs at the
slight obstacle which had impeded him the day before.
Being at Montpellier, I was inspired with religious
feeling on seeing an old and stained sheet of paper, a flyleaf from a book of Puget's, where, among some indistinct
sketches, he had written at the top of the page these
lines of the old poet:
"Casta placent superis. CastA cum mente venito,
Et manibus puris, sumito fontis aquam."

I experienced such emotion as one feels in entering a
great church or a Roman tomb, or the amphitbeatre at
Arles. It is evident that this man, whose mission it was
to express the suffering soul of a century, in beginning
his work makes to God and to his art his voluntary
sacrifice. He feels that he is responsible, and he longs
to be strong and worthy.
Every work of his is a sigh. Was it Milo caught in
the oak? was it the broken down and suffering Atlases
of Toulon, or the poor little Aridromeda, swooning with
pain even in her preservation, that he dreamed over
then? I know not. But I see that then he gathered
himself up, and concentrated his energies, asking strength
of pure love, to create those everlasting works which
will for ever fill all hearts with tenderness and pity.
Human art has no processes of its own, no power but
to imitate divine art. What has the latter done, and
what is it doing ? From the great torrent of life Love
creates generations of men, the whole ascending progress of races. And with a concentrated drop firom this

She Refines his Mind, or Inspires it. 289
torrent it has created, and still creates, the world of
Invention and all the procession of ideas.
At what price is this concentration of vital force,
through abstinence from pleasure, fruitful in works of
thought ? On the supreme condition of its being free.
A sacrifice is only a sacrifice in being truly voluntary.
Liberty alone deserves; liberty alone is fruitful.
Captive love, entrenched in walls, chaste in spite of
itself, is barren. It turns against itself. Its flame but
adds to its torture, and never grows. The boasted age
of celibacy (the Middle Ages) was only productive of
really great results in married men. Abailard was mar
ried; so was Dante. The Free-Masons, who have found
and realized their proper art, lived around the churches in
families, and continued those great works from century
to century by hereditary labor.
Marriage is the only thing which at once supplies Genius
with its two essential powers: harmony by pure happiness, and at times brilliancy by voluntary abstinence, and
a free. postponement of pleasure.
The beauty and efficacy of this sacrifice lie in its freedom, and in that it results from the mutual understanding and perfect unanimity of two persons who love each
other.
Woman is very noble in this instance. She desires
man to be strong, useful, and productive. Individual
love is sacrificed to a greater love, and so shares its
grandeur.
Here the two souls are the same. The gratitude of
posterity must not separate them.
Puget was married, and in his palpitating works one
perceives sensibly how much it must have cost him.
13

290

She Refines his Mind, or Inspires it.

You may trace there the heart, the magnetizing purity,
of a wife who desired him to love in art, to bestow upon
marble the love he would have given to her, the excess
of life's essence. She was not jealous of the charming
Andromeda, but immolated herself to her rival. When
the great artist, burning with the sacred fire, rose to
wri e the lines you have just read, I imagine I hear
the voice of that sainted wife, saying: " My love, remember Andromeda, and let us reserve all our energies for
her. Love her, for she is my child !"
He did well to write: " Purity pleases God." It
helps us to imitate God, and to create like Him.
But purity is not a savage isolation. It is increased, at
times, by contact with what is pure. Who has not passed
one of those troubled nights when an inward storm
rages; when the mind, pitifully oppressed by shameful
desires, flounders in the mire? Fortunately, dawn
comes at last; beside you you see innocence and
serenity. She opens her eyes, smiles-and all evil spirits
take flight. Your dreams you dare not tell; you wish
to forget them. In love's holy chalice you find all your
former self, your soul, your virtue, your intelligence,
with a ray of the dawn, with a pearl of the dew.
The pure woman, in whom her husband has set up his
altar, who is united to him in heart, who thinks and
desires as he does, has in her a strange mystery of spiritual fruitfulness which no one has yet described. What
the fable tells of the Son of the Earth, who, to regain
his strength, had but to touch the maternal bosom, she
realizes to the letter. She is really Nature, loving, kind,
and holy, who, by mere physical contact, by the virtue

There are no Old Women.

291

of love, starts a flood of mental life. If you ha ve a
great thought, tell it to her in the evening, or at night.
Happy in your confidence, happy in the hope of seeing
you attain still greater eminence, she is thrilled, her
heart is full of joy, and she embraces you. This is a
sacred moment; respect it. Your heart is rich in its
fulness; keep it exalted. Arise in the kingliness that
he feels who is loved; arise with the proud sentiment of
preserving your love entire. Only to have touched your
divinity is happiness enough for that day.
The austere joy of sacrifice, the charm of paradise,
both these powers are with you. Now you may
say: "To-day I am in force, I can do whatsoever I
will."
So the Reuss or the Rhone, those swift Alpine
streams, in traversing the beautiful lakes which detain
them momentarily, do not so end their courses. They
gather there immense scope and power. Re-issuing,
nothing is impossible to them. Changed to a brilliant
blue, they roll on, mirroring in their bosoms the
sublime scenery, and the beautiful skies which overhang
them.

IV.
THERE ARE NO :OLD WOMEN.
VASARI made a singular remark about the old master

Giotto, the creator of Italian art. "He was the first to
put goodness into the expression of heads."

292

There are no Old Women.

The lustre of goodness is the soul of modern art. Its
works affect our hearts precisely in the proportion that
they are expressive of goodness.
The noble Madonnas of Raphael are admired as pie
tures; but who was ever in love with them ? On the
other hand, the Magdalen of Titian (a simple head, of
Venice), a fisherman's girl, good, pretty, and strong,
though not very young, is so touching in her tears, that
you at once exclaim, "Who could have the heart to
afflict such a good creature ? Speak, say what you will!
I should so like to console you! "
Titian preferred to paint beautiful women at thirty.
Rubens goes without difficulty as far as forty, and beyond. Van Dyck does not recognise age at all; with him,
art is free. He entertained a sovereign contempt for
time. That powerful magician, Rembrandt, does more:
by a gesture, a look, a smile, he banishes all age. The
life, the goodness, and the intelligence, suffice to charm
us: "What was the model?" Adorable! "And beautiful?" I'do not remember; I have forgotten entirely.
The ignorant art of the Middle Ages held that youth
For the mother of
and beauty were synonymous.
Christ, it gives us stiff and insipid little girls. The
great painters of modern times, being very- intelligent
observers, soon saw that beauty, like everything else,
needs time to become perfect and complete. They were
the first to discover the mystery, unknown to antiquity,
that face and form do not reach the fulness of their
beauty at the same time. The first is faded, when the
second is in full bloom.
The habit we have of judging woman by that which
fades the soonest (the face), is a serious cruelty. But

There are no Old Women.

293

with us, in France especially, where the mobile physiognomy, the quick eye, the graceful, smiling and eloquent
mouth, are in constant agitation, the muscles, quickly
trained to every movement, have a flexibility and suppleness opposed to the fixed and tense firmness of
Northern beauty. A French woman has a thousand
tricks and changes of feature to every ten of the German woman. Then the face soon grows weary. Is that
as much as to say that our flesh is less firm? On
the contrary, a wound for which the German woman
would require surgical aid, in the French woman cures
itself.
It is not a rare thing for the body of the latter to be
twenty-five and her face forty-wrinkles form around
her eyes, and in her cheeks; while on the other hand
her knees and elbows, which were formerly angular,
have now pretty little dimples. The same contrast is
visible in the skin: in the face, where it has been
stretched by the constant play of the muscles, it has
already grown rougher; while everywhe-re else, delicately filled out, it is still young, and combines the lovely
hues of the lily and the rose.
This fullness of form does not produce a sensual effect,
as much as might be believed. It has also its moral influences. It is singularly favorable to the augmentation
and display of that expression of goodness which the
woman often wears when, untroubled by rivalries and
feminine crosses, she follows the kindly instincts of a
sympathetic heart. Her beautiful white arms, her exquisitely rounded and delicate chin, an inexpressible tenderness everywhere visible in her, present the most
charming idea of maternity. Not the exclusive mater.

294

There are no Old Women.

nity of a young wife, wholly concentrated on hei child,
and often indifferent to everything else ; but an extreme
kindliness towards everybody. This is manifested in
her looks and caresses; and, if there be any work of
charity to do, any unfortunate to help, in the moist eye,
and the agitation of a bosom rich with pity and love.
It is a very bad sign of the times when the men do
not appreciate this beauty of goodness-a hateful time,
indeed, in which, having no longer the need of reciprocity, and really seeking only solitary pleasure, they
demand it of the youngest of the young; and, by an
accursed climax, of childhood itself.
These barbarians are punished in more ways than one.
They become more and more barbarous, gross in manners and in language. A generation which does not
spring from women of standing, is a generation of
boors.
Selfish, cruel, and brutal love eats out everything,
like aqua-fortis. Where it has once passed, nothing is
left; that place is barren for ever after.
And after all, to come to what their depraved tastes,
their vile and impotent fancies, look for and require even
at the price of crime, the poor young victim has nothing
m reality to satisfy these fierce exactions. Badly nourished and of meagre form, what, alas! can she give but
pain ?
As for the gay and splendid daughters of luxury and
notoriety, of the theatre and the promenade, who pick
your very bones, are you sure that those beauties, with
their bacchanalian revels, their infernal lives, their sleep.
less nights, could bear comparison in another Judgment
of Paris, with the lady who, discreet and pure, has

There are no Old Women.

295

always led a sober life? If such insolent lionnes were
even twenty years younger, they would still be humih
ated.
Besides, a lady is always a lady. Hcr natural elegance,
the harmony which is in her, suffices to enchain the heart
more powerfully than the "half lady" can ever hope to
do, whose harmony is easily disturbed by any trifling
vexation.
In the Middle Ages, the grand lady, whom the little
page always waited upon on his knees, or whose train he
bore, was infallibly both young and beautiful. For her
were his imagination, his emotions first aroused. It is
the same in all times. The fine lady of to-day, who, at
her morning toilet, among laces and perfumes, thinks it
of little consequence to give an order or a note to her
young attendant, even though she be quite mature and
almost old, often sets his heart throbbing; she is young
for him in that elegance and perfume, from which he departs like one intoxicated.
Who is deceived then-the child or his mistress?
Perhaps it is not he. His instinct tells him that in his
lady, who has lost somewhat of her external 'splendor
and visible charnS there yet resides a great power which
she can still exercise. There are no old women; evefy
one of them, at no matter what age, if she is good and
loving, treats man to a glimpse of the infinite. And not
alone the infinite of the moment-often that of the future. She breathes upon him, and it is a gift. All who
see him afterwards say, without being able to explain it,
"What! is he possessed ? He is a born genius."
There were numberless Rousseaus'before Rousseau, all

296

Autumnal Aspirations.

cunning and eloquent reasoners; and yet not one of theln
attracted the world's attention. A woman breathes
upon this one,with love, maternal love, and Jean Jacques
is the result.

It
V.
AUTUMNAL ASPIRATIONS.
AT the close of September (while I am writing this),
the year is ripe. It reaches its completion not only in
the harvest, but in all its other harmonies, in the perfect
temperature, and the perfect balance of night and day.
The sky and the earth correspond; veiled by the morning mist, the sun rises late, as if it had not much to do;
and every one seems also to have finished his work. It
is as though it were Sunday, or the repose of evening. And what is autumn, after all, but the evening of
the year ?
Beautiful season !-at once pleasant and pensive. A
few flowers yet remain, but they drop off one by one.
The aster resists the season's advance. The cold, splendid dahlia still struggles on, through all October, despite
the morning frost. The swallows sail around and around
in the air, calling to each other. In the north, the Stork,
having on one foot gravely planned his journey, prepares
to desert his favorite haunts.
All this is much more impressive in places by the sea,

Autumnal Aspirations.

297

which is near them, without being seen from them, so
that you cannot behold its sublime scenes, but can
hear its sublime voice. The earth, already in repose and
silence, hearkens to the lamentations and the wrath or
old Ocean, who strikes upon the beach, recoils and strikes
again, in solemn iteration-that deep bass which one
hears, less with the ear than with the breast, which
strikes the shore more lightly than it does the heart of
man. Melancholywarning, with the measured appeal
of the pendulum of Time !
I see yonder a lady (the one whom this book found
in her youth, and has accompanied to her declining
age), walking pensively in a small garden; it is already
stripped of its blossoms, but sheltered, like those we see
behind our cliffs in France, or in the lowlands of Holland.
The exotics have already been placed in the green-house.
The fallen leaves have unveiled the statues near them,
which afford increased pleasure now that the flowers are
gone. These are luxuries of art, which somewhat
contrast with the very simple yet modest and dignified
toilet of the lady-a blond or grey silk, relieved only by
a lilac ribbon.
Though without ornament, she is none the less elegant:
elegant for her husband, and simple to the profit of
the poor.
She reaches the end of the walk and turns round.
We have now an opportunity to observe her. But have
I not seen her already in the museums of Amsterdam
or the Hague ? She recalls to me one of Philip de
Champagne's ladies-one who took possession of my
heart at first sight, so frank yet so chaste, intelligent but
simple-minded, having no subtilty with whth to keep
13*

298

Autumnal Aspirations.

clear of the snares of the world. This woman has ciung
to me for thirty years, persistently returning, making
me concerned for her, and forcing me to ask myself
what was her name ? What became of her ? Was she
happy here in this world ? And how did she get through
life ?
She reminds me of another portrait, a Van Dyck, a
poor pale and sickly lady. The white-satinness of her
incomparably delicate skin adorns a body which is wasting away. In her beautiful eyes is a deep melancholythat of age, of the heart's sorrows, or perhaps of the
climate. Hers is the vague and far-reaching look of a
person who has always had before her eyes the vast
Northern Ocean, the great grayish sea, utterly deserted
save by the sea-gull in his flight.
But let us return to the one here. If I did not fear
to disturb her quiet meditations, I would say: Are you
also melancholy, Madame ? What can be wrong with
you,who are so discreet, so sensible and so resigned ?
"What is it, sir ?" she answers-" That which everything feels at this time, a desire for the great passage,
a need of taking flight. But I have no beautiful
wings-neither the white sails of the swan, nor the false
wings of the swallow. I am held down, held tightly
here. God calls me, and yet I feel myself bound to my
nest. Bound by whom? by God himself. This is the
discrepancy in my nature. These birds are happy; they
emigrate in families. We, almost always, one by one,
make a solitary migration towards the other life. In life
we were together, but we start out alone on the unknown
journey. Age brings fear and sadness to those who

Autumnal Aspirations.

299

love. I hope, believe and trust. I shall die only to live
again. But, alas! if in that second life I should not see
my beloved !
"Do you wish to know more of my melancholy ? I
am sad at being still so imperfect. He calls me his sanctuary, and how little do I deserve the name! I had
wished to retain for him the true purity of childhood,
a virgin treasure of wisdom, a place of repose which
should be the paradise of his heart. I had wished to
pluck a thorn each day from this garden of his, and
add to it a flower. This culture has resulted poorly,
and I am no longer capable of anything."
These are her dilemmas, the questions and the answers that she imagines, while walking up and down;
such the misgivings which at this moment have wrinkled
her beautiful brow-a brow so pure that time respects
it, and dares not touch it yet.
Is this really all ? Is this sadness explained solely by
these thoughts of the future, these high aspirations towards supreme perfection ? I, who know you, Madame,
having seen you when you were yet very young, dare
to say that your heart contains a secret and keeps it.
You seem afraid of saddening your husband ? Or might
We believe that a woman always retains, even late in
life, a little timidity at confessing certain things?
"You will have it then ?" she replies. "Frankly, the
thought that so saddens and weighs me down is that tomorrow I shall be old. . .....
"I am not a fool, to revolt against God's will. What
should I care for growing old, if I were alone? But I
love, and am still loved. Love is a double mystery. It
is not of the mind alone; something else is needed. Is

300

Autumnal Aspirations.

not the happiness conferred upon me by a faithful, loving, and inexhaustibly youthful husband, an embarrassing
thing when I feel the progress of time ? It is for his
sake that I would retain some portion of that which first
pleased him. He has always had in me (he said so himself) a renewing of the heart, a feast of life. His illusion
continues, not mine. I dare not tell him my thoughts,
my uneasiness. If I keep silent, if I continue to receive
the adoration of which I am so little worthy, I shall be
vexed with, and accuse, myself of being vain and false.
His love and admiration humiliate me; it seems to me
that his transports are for another, not for me."
" You may rest assured, Madame, that the touching
humility, the solicitude, the emotional and graceful tenderness which desires to bestow without stint, is a stimulus to love. The older one grows, the more he sees that
the most truly charming woman is she who feels most,
who gives herself up without reservation, and is unhappy
because she has nothing more to give.
" It is this, too, which accounts for that ardent constancy that so astonishes you. Who would not love a
modest, simple woman, who is ignorant of her own goodness, who sees nothing of her own merits, and always
imagines that she is tolerated and excused ? What a
happiness is it for the man to deny this; and who would
not feel the necessity of constantly reassuring her ?
"What do you regret? The beauty of complexion
and feature that you received by the chance of birth,
like a reflection from your mother-the happy accident
of that period through which we all pass ? But the rare
and peculiar beauty that you possess in yourself, your
visible soul, you have created by a pure life, a noble

Autumnal Aspirations.

3c

and unbroken harmony. It is the light of love, like the
soft and faithful lamp, in transparent alabaster, which
watches over us by night."
When will man learn that he is his own sculptor?
It is his task to make himself beautiful. Socrates was
born as ugly as a satyr; but by his deep thought, by
the sculpture of reason, virtue, and self-sacrifice, he so
reconstructed his face, that at last a god saw himself
therein, and the Phaedon shone with him.
I have seen a second instance of this phenomenon in
one of my most illustrious friends, the first linguist of
this century. When a boy, he had all the mean ugliness of a little Norman peasant; but his powerful will,
his immense labor and ingenious research, traced in his
face lines of exquisite delicacy. All Persian refinements
hovered about his lips with the subtle turns of Western
criticism, while the genius of India expanded itself in
the luminous beauty of his grand forehead, capacious
enough to hold the world.
Madame, permit me to tell you frankly that you were
only pretty, you were not beautiful at first, but you are
now. And why? Because you have loved.
'Others allow themselves to be loved; but you have
loved, and always sculptured your love in kindness,
purity, fidelity, and sacrifice. In return, it has made
you beautifWi.
The best of us, both men and women, are born with
a certain fresh and rugged vigor, if I may so express it,
or else with a something of dryness and barrenness.
Children, through ignorance or otherwise, are cruel in
their nature. Young people of both sexes, if they are

302

Autumnal Aspirations.

not cruel, are at least colder-hearted than they tnem
selves believe. Desire to them seems love. The ardor
of the blood and of the temperament they call tenderness. But ever their rude, abrupt, violent deportment,
their frivolous or ironical speeches, their vain or contemptuous expressions of countenance give the lie to all grace,
and say plainly: " The heart is not yet touched."
Time, trials, sorrows bravely endured, and love, faithful love, are required to give grace of heart, and what
is its exact equivalent, grace of speech and ways, in
gesture and in bearing.
This is the true, the charming youth, which, however,
begins late.
You were not young, Madame; but you are going to
become so.
It has been scarcely observed, I think, that a number
of pretty and graceful-hence youthful-things are impossible to youth.
The young girl, a semi-captive, captive to a single
thought, awaiting a change of situation, thinks but of
love and marriage-that is to say, of herself; she has
neither the sentiment nor the grace of charity. As a
young wife, while nursing her children, or at least assiduous in her attentions to them, all her mind is in the
cradle; and if she gives to. the poor, she says: "Pray
for my son."
,
To her whose heart is more free from this concentration, every suffering creature is as her own child. She
is radiant with kindliness and active charity. She curtails all her expenses to be able to dispense free hospitality in her house; and at her simple but abundant table

Autumnal Aspirations.

303

she would like to seat all the kingdom of God. She
goes out in search of the poor, gives them money, and
best of all, comforts them. She weeps with those who
are in affliction. And then how beautiful she is! How
I should like to kiss her hands!
Her husband frequently catches her in the very act of
charity. A convalescent invalid, or a woman recovered
from confinement, enters accidentally and betrays her
secret. She is embarrassed-their mal-a-propos benedictions disclosing her concealed goodness, that bashfulness of charity which dared not confess its weakness. He
smiles and says: " Ah! so I have caught you at it again,
have I !"

Some day he finds her blushing. Why? A young
servant girl has committed a fault, and the wife, fearing
that she will be too severely scolded, tacitly intercedes
for her with asupplicating look.
But the occasion on which every man would be captivated by her, is when, surrounded by a party of young
people of both sexes, she makes such kind and skilful
exertions to set off the young girls to the best advantage. She draws something graceful out of these poor,
dumb things, emancipating them by a sign or an apt
word. She is very far from being jealous. She loves
them, and by her own love evokes love from hearts which
would have been the last to be roused. The one who is
too timid to either move or speak, she draws towards
her, makes a sort of pet dove of her, embraces and kisses
her. Then that young creature appears charming. ...
4nd as for the wife, heaven is in her eyes!

304

Is Unity Secured?

VI.
IS UNITY SECURED ?
WE have brought to light something w,,..h had nc.t
previously been felt:
That the advance of time, the succession of years,
twhich was thought to be fatal to love, is its natural and
necessary development; each additional year strengthens it, and after its manner, confirms and secures the
bond, sustains and strengthens it. It was but a gossamer
before, but in the end it becomes a cable-that will defy
a temp3st.
Love has then won the victory. Time is his servant,
and works for him. We may then close up this book.
No, not yet. The last difficulty is now to be approached. It is that this conqueror of conquerors has
nevertheless an obstacle to encounter-in himself.
An insurmountable obstacle perhaps, since it is in the
very essence of love.
How shall we unite if we are one ? To unite we must
remain two.
As long as life lasts, in the completest union, there will
be necessarily a shade of separation. She will always
be a woman, and she will be loved the more on that account. She will have, however thoughtful she may be,
approaches to childish innocence; and for these she will
be adored.
She would suppress this distinction entirely. I see

Is Unity Secured?

305

her (and it is a touching sight) examining herself, asking herself what more she can do to please him, to agree
still better with him, to form a closer union with him ?
There is but one obstacle to this: she is a woman.
There will always be a difference between them-a
difference which is diminished by age, by the will, and
by increase of love, but has nevertheless not yet disappeared.
Woman is beauty-much tenderness, a little weakness, modesty, timidity, changefulness,.a confiding trust
in the future, innumerable delightful turns (of style and
movement as well as of form) ; in short, she is all beauty
and grace. All this is the very opposite to that right
line of precision and strict justice which is the proper
walk of man.
Woman is always either above or below justice. Of
love, holiness, chivalry, magnanimity, and honor, she
has a marvellous appreciation; but for law, that comes
last of all.
Nevertheless, law and justice are the sovereign principles of modern life; exalted and complete principles
too; for impartial and kind justice (as justice ought to
be, to be justice at all) has the effect of love-that loftier
love which embraces the community.
If woman, in former times, ever rose to an appreciation of this, it was by an extraordinary effort. As her
great mission here below is to bring forth children, to
incarnate individuals, she takes everything individually,
and nothing by masses. Woman's charity consists in
bestowing alms upon whoever asks-in giving bread to
the hungry; and man's charity in those laws which
assure to all the action of all their powers; which make

306

Is Unity Secured?

all men free and strong, capable of providing for theimselvs, and living with dignity.
Let us look into details. Let us see how slowly
woman enters into the spirit of the age.
Whose heart is more tender than that of a woman ?
I-er kindness embraces all nature. Everything that
suffers and is weak, among men or animals, is loved and
protected by her. Her gentleness towards her servants
is extreme; and-what is new, and not of former timesshe never utters a command without giving her reason
for it, an explanation, with a touching consideration
which I may call the modesty of equality. But her
natural equals, whom she does not have to protect, who
never ask more than simple justice, are less agreeable to her. Her delicacy, not aristocratic, but that
which every refined and elegant woman has, suffers from
their rude contact. The great word of this new age,
"Fraternity," she spells, but cannot yet read.
She seems at times above the other virtues of our age:
She is more than just-chivalrous, and profusely gene.
rous. But justice, carried to excess, is no longer justice.
Her husband, who usually tells her everything, has
been very agitated-has passed a sleepless night, and
hesitates to disclose the cause of his uneasiness. There
are, in our struggling lives, many harsh and painful
things of which we are tempted to spare woman the
sad knowledge. She is all love, gentleness, and thankfulness. You can tell her of the love of the good ; but
how of the hatred of the bad ?--the hostile necessities of
justice and honor ? the sacred wrath of justice ? It
would make her heart ache to tell her all that.

Is Unity Secured?

307

This silence never alarms her. She is patieit all
night,, hoping and Waiting. At last, when morning
comes, taking his hand in hers, she cautiously asks if he
is not ill. He speaks out then, and no longer conceals
the struggle he has undergone, the moral duel to
which he is now challenged. He is compelled, this
morning, either to ruin a competitor or succumb himself. He has a deadly weapon in reserve for his adversary-a secret, the revelation of which will effectually
decide the matter between them. He can put this man
down, and it is his duty to do so; for he is a factious
man, an enemy to the public good.
" Yes, but he is your enemy," she answers. " That is
what deterred me," he says. " And yet what can I do ?
If I sacrifice myself, I also disregard law and justice."
" Ah! my love, how I regret that I am no longer
young and beautiful, no longer what I was that morning
when I had the happiness to conceive a child from
you. I love you so much! Alas! why have I not the
same power over you! I swear to you that I would
have clasped you so tightly, guarded you so, closely,
that you would never have been able to go out this
morning."
"What would you have me do? In an hour all
must be decided. By my absence I lose everything. I
condemn myself. I yield the victory to injustice."
"B ityou are sparing your enemy. Be noble and
good, for my sake. Make this beautiful sacrifice for me,
and I will still believe myself young."
He is touched. She is so humble, so charming in her
mode 'ty and generosity ! She who never asked anything
for hE r own sake, is now all self-forgetful and self-sacri.

308

Death and Affliction.

ficing, for the first time asking a favor. It is hard to
refuse, to be unable to prove to "her how much you
sympathize with her feelings, how you respect and love
her. She weeps and seems mortified. This is too
strong a temptation. Yet justice claims him-his country, and the right.
0 Love! Love! you do not yet know what justice
is!

VII.
DEATH AND AFFLICTION.
As age advances, my thought, journeying on, a persevering traveller, through life and history, has at last
reached the summits of two hills, where it gladly rests,
and whence it can see all the world. These hills are
Death and Love.
From these two, the earth seems a very little thing.
Its extent is as nothing; and even the duration and the
difference of ages grow dim. Our ignorance causes us
to exaggerate all diversities. From this elevated seat,
under different costumes I see the eternal man.
This does not deter me from descending to the plain
beneath, and reaping my harvest on the fields of History and Natural History. But I do like the Swiss.
In winter I work below; when my work is done, I
ascend again to those solitary summits which console

Death and Affliction.

309

me, by permitting me to embrace, in a grand simplicity,
all the seeming combats of things, and to recognise the
profound harmony in all that seems discordant.
This book set out from death, to which it now returns
In the first pages we saw it; there death, violent
death, revealed to us woman (and through her love) in
the organic mystery from which everything proceeds.
Death, the invisible yet ever-present companion of
this book, has appeared but twice in it, and both times
without striking a blow. And this has sufficed to
tighten the bond of love, wvith a nervous strength that
it never had before. Death threatened to appear in the
drama of Confinement. It again showed itself on the
dark day of Illness; andl such is its potent charm in
uniting hearts, that, at its second appearance, an everlasting jet of flame burst forth; and this I called the -Rejuvenescence of Love.
But Death is not done yet. It contends that Life,
which is believed to be the sole condition and the means
of being, yet prevents the existence of certain other
things. It asserts that if there still remain a distinction
between the two souls-if the woman remain ever devoted to Grace, and the man to Justice, without the
possibility of blending, it is the fault of Life. Death says
that it alone can remove this last difference, and that
Love, which is unable to do away with it, will obtain
through his sombre sister the effectual union.
Well, Death, if it must be so, I ought not to object,
I cannot defend these two children of my brain against
you, though I have created, nourished, caressed, united,

glo

Death and Affliction.

and coun selled them for the twenty years that I was
meditating this book of Love, and the two years that I
have been writing it; I have loved them, I regret to part
from them. But what can I do, if it'is Life itself which
prevents Love from attaining its consummation ?
It is for the man to die and for the woman to mourn.
So we generally see it. The feeble woman, from grief
to grief, from tears to tears, lives on, and is left a
widow.
It is beautiful in man to die in his strength, to die
young, at least in full vigor. He is so much the more
regretted. *Let us not pity him, but her.
If the man -should survive, being occupied and di
verted by work, he would perhaps feel this great affliction less, or at least not for so long a time. But for heralas! how deep will Death's shaft strike ! We hardly
dare to think of that.
I remember, as if it were yesterday, that, on the day
after my grandfather was buried, it having rained that
night, my grandmother said, in a tone which brings the
tears to my eyes, for all these forty years: "Mon
Dieu! it is raining on him !"
We cannot change that; it is the voice of nature.
That will be said over and over again, by all men and
all women-perhaps whispered, and inwardly stifledbut thought certainly.
When we are cool, and love but little, we are more
exalted and prouder. We have no idea of burying our
heart in the grave. We imagine beautiful wings for it.
But when the anguish of bereavement really holds us in

Death and Affliction.

311

its clutches, takes us by the throat as it were, it be comes
invincible, and we say " It is raining on him!"
Is this a simple vesture, a garment, as it is said to be ?
This body which day by day received the alluvium of
life, which in its indestructible bones bears traces of all
its activity and passion, which for a thousand years will
retain those admired teeth, that living silk of hair which
you have so often caressed-all is so blended with the
creature herself that his heart is to be pardoned for
confounding them, for seeing in them her who is no
longer there, for saying, " It is raining on her."

It is December. A cold sun lights up the frost with
which the fields are whitened.
The house, once
noisy, now silent, shivers in the winter blast. The fireplace, which formerly shed its light upon the complete
family circle, now desolate itself, hardly serves to warm
the widow who crouches over it. In a corner of the
room two chairs wait-and will wait for ever: the armchair which, as he entered, he drew up to her side,
to talk over the events of the day, and his projects for
the morrow-and near it, the little low chair in which
the child slipped between father and mother, and, interrupting them with his prattle, forced them to smile.
Of her what remains ? a shadow. Her beautiful hair,
now :arranged in white bands, covers her thin temples.
She is yet elegant, and looks even grand, with her still
young and slender form, as she walks with downcast
eyes through the deserted rooms. She no longer recalls
the charming face, the eyes which once unsettled hearts,
and were for one faithful heart a destiny; she conceals

312

Death and Affliction.

all that she can conceal of them. But, nevertheless,
two things remain which the young would envy her.
One is the admirable attribute of purity which God
grants as a consolation to the innocent woman who
passes through life without touching it. The complexion
in which no trouble is ever visible, gains in transparency;
it passes from the rosiness of youth to a rosy pearliness,
with delicate shadings.
1"
The other attribute which adorns our widow in spite
of herself, which even lends her perhaps, under her
mourning and her black veil, a mysterious 'clat that
was wanting in her days of triumph, is her gentle yet
penetrating look. The eye.is the true beauty, the lasting
beauty which time itself is forced to respect, age even
to augment. Trials and sufferings may have impaired
the rest ; but the eye, like the heart, is embellished by
suffering.
She leaves the half-extinguished fire, and, approaching
the window, happy to see the close of day, looks out
upon the dreariness of winter, with her hands clasped
over her heart, to whose voice she listens. Soon the
northern sky is studded with bright stars. Death, Old
Age, Winter, which, in these bright nights, sharpens
his piercing shafts-all these combine against the poor
heart and chill its everlasting flame.
"The world, youth, and distinction," she says, "were
but partial slumbers, troubled dreams, from which my
love never derived its clearness. Now, all thine, I
watch !"

Of Love beyond the Grave.

313

VIII.
OF LOVE BEYOND THE GRAVE.
BUT,, dear one, this is watching and weeping too
long. The light of the stars grows dim, and in a
moment it will be morning. Take some repose now.
Your other half, whose absence so afflicts you, and whom
you seek in vain in your empty rooms and in your
widow's couch, will talk to you in your dreams:
" Oh! how much I had to say! and how little, while
alive, did I say! At the first word, God took me away
from you. I had hardly time enough to say: I LOVE.
To pour out my heart to you I require eternity.
"A sweet concert, sanctifying earth, had commenced
between us. Of our double heart the celestial harmonist had just made a divine instrument; he was
playing the prelude. If the string has snapped, if death,
which seems to us such a shrieking -discord, has hushed
this lyre, "do not think, my love, that it is hushed for
ever, nor that God has thrown it aside. No, the hymn
is suspended, to be resumed in a more sonorous sphere,
in sovereign liberty, enfranchised from this lower world.
"You know, not a morsel, not an atom of the body
in which my soul was clothed, is lost. Of the elements
which constituted it, each one will surely find its fellow,
and return to its affinities. How much more then should
the soul itself, the harmonic power which constituted the
unity of this body, survive and last! It does survive,
but as one. Unity is its nature. It remains, and is
14

314

Of Love beyond the Grave.

more and more what it was, a centre of attraction. All
that revolved about it in its first life, by the analogies
of nature, and the assimilation of love, irresistibly returns
to it. I am incomplete, and await you; the need of union
that my soul carried away with it, makes it ever aspire
towards the possession of its dearest half, which your
world still keeps from it.
"It had to be thus. Recall to your mind our torments of love-the effort, always made but never satisfied, to interchange our souls-the impotence of pleasure
even, the trace of melancholy in our happiness. Words,
looks, and the most ardent transports, still left a barrier
between us. What it was we knew not. The heart
always said: " By and by," and " That is not it." In
generationeven, where Nature herself pauses, Love went
on. Its natural regret was that, itself proceeding from
light, being the sole and exclusive love of the beloved
object, it should so soon be blinded and left in utter
darkness, that in this profound obscuring personality
should disappear and be swallowed up; that in her it
no longer knew at that moment, it was she. . . '. Hence
came sadness, and doubt, and the bitterness of saying:
" What is this thing, always incomplete and uncertain,
which only attains its desire by undefining it, by losing
alf idea of it ?-In this impulse of soul to soul, all has
vanished; and I cannot tell whether the union was a
union, or a momentary death, in a flash of pleasure.
" So that with these burning transports an unexpected
third was mingled-the idea of death. Not frightful,
but melancholy, and not without a certain charm. Deatk
said: 'Fear not, but hope. A false death has made you

Of Love beyond the Grave.

315

feel that you will progress but little here below. It is
elsewhere, it is by me and through my deliverance that,
ascending the ladder of luminous worlds, yourselves participating in the freedom of light, you may penetrate
each other, and, without losing for a moment the clear.
ness of love, blend together in one emanation of
light!'
"We will ascend thus. But by what means, and at
what cost ? Seek the simplest means, and it will be that
of God. For, though human art gropes its way by complicated and painful circuits, that of God goes on the
straight road, quickly and easily. Mentally, as physically, like seeks like, and instinctively they come toOtherwise infinite strength would be lost in
gether.
dispersion. This machine of the universe-so visibly
harmonic in palpable things, would be in things invisible
just the opposite-a discordance, far beneath the failures
of the most unskilful of workmen.
"Did we on earth obtain an assimilation and a perfect resemblance? Our essays thereto were vain. The
blindness of my desire, the abandonment of your sacrifice, bringing us always back to the same effort, left beyond our reach a hundred accessible doors of the soul
by which we might have joined each other. You knew
but a single man in me; and yet I contained several.
The quiet of widowhood, and the strength of your
memory, will bring them back to you gradually, and in
the world of a soul which belongs to you, which is
always your property, you will make more than one
happy discovery. Gather up this strength and these
thoughts, which were myself. Taken into your heart

316

Of Love beyond the Grave.

and brooded over by your love, they will be t) you as a
new impregnation, got from the world of spirits.
"I suffer at seeing you suffer. But yet you must not
recover. Such a posthumous assimilation as ours is
only effected by pain, a bleeding wound. This wouild
will swallow up my soul, and, fusion thus effected, you
can no longer remain down there. An irresistible attraction, taking you some morning, there where your
heart is not, will bring you, like an arrow, here where it
is, where I am. It will be no more difficult than it is for
a spring, which has been kept down by a heavy weight,
the weight removed, to rebound and leap up again,
returning to its nature. Now, I am your nature and
your natural life; the obstacle removed, you return to me.
" This obstacle is the difference which is still between
us. Oh! I implore you, become myself, and you will
be mine entirely !
" Sorrow is all your present existence. I would have
you filled with an active sorrow. Do not remain seated
at that cold marble sepulchre. Wear a great affliction,
really worthy of me, with noble tears, which should enlarge all hearts.
" I see those poor creatures, my friends, distracted, not
feeling my spirit among them. I see the lost flock running wildly away, as if I were really in the tomb. Your
work be it not to permit them to despair or forget.
He still lives !'
Yours the duty to say: '
"If you affirm this, they will believe it. My house,
which was their house, will call them back and maintain
their fraternity. In their uncertainties, and painful fluctuations, they will wish to see my hearth again, to warm
themselves by its fire: that fire burns in you.

Of Love beyond the Grave.

317

" TI ere you will preserve my soul, and perhaps extend
lIts dominion. Through you it will vegetate and put
forth new roots. More than one whom I could not
gain over, in the roughness of my masculine manners,
may come to me when he finds me under the touching
figure of a woman, beautiful in her sorrow and her
hope.
"This circle of friendships, which was my glory, has
in you its unity, the flame which will prolong my life to
it. Keep this loved group together; maintain among
them so thoroughly my thought, that, assimilated to
me, I may see you some day all arriving together in my
new sojourn-that I may see you again as formerly,
when young and so charming, as you entered the room
and cut short my work, saying with your dawn-like
smile: ' Be joyful, for here are your friends!"
Such the widow, and such the widowhood. It is the
delayed soul of the husband, who, in his faithful half,
still manifests himself here, and, as memory and presentiment, affects the transition between two worlds.
A great and sacred position this, to have one foot
already in the higher path, ready and eager to ascend
towards the superior life! So, in approaching this woman, we all perceive asacred thing in her, the gentle
influence of the dead, who have no battles here on earth,
and only wish to do here what good they can. I should
like to dwell on this; this priesthood of the widow is a
touching feature in the Religion of the Future. But
enough for the present.
So I do not follow her in those friendships of the past
of which she forms the connecting bond, nor in those

318

Of Love beyond the Grave.

new friendships that she makes with the one who is no
more, in transmitting his soul under that form of mat ernal love which is called instruction.
If the husband has left no works to answer for him,
simply acts which are still discussed, if he had especially
worn out his days in the struggles of public life, then,
then above all, will.he require to have his other and sur.
viving self watch over his memory, to preserve and
defend it from misconstruction, to secure to him the
heart of posterity, a resurrection of glory.
This always comes to whosoever awaits it in the person of a patient watcher. Some morning a light breaks ;
and the widow, long thrust into the shade, as if buried
with him, sees (as saw the Seven Sleepers of the legend)
the banner he had followed, hung out upon the walls of
the temples, bright and clear in the splendor of the dawn.
And she has then, in her old age, the charming surprise of hearing people say, as if HE were still alive:
"This is a just man !"
From all sides, children, whom he did not know, come
to her, all claiming such a father. They regret that
they are young, because they could not see him. They
interrogate curiously her who had the happiness of being
an eye-witness of'his life. Lo! he is already one of the
ancients. She sees him receiving the homage of posterity.
Such is the effect of the legend, his memory, upon all.
How much more, then, upon her who has beheld so near,
loved, touched the lamented object, and who now sees
him through the vistas of tradition, transfigured with
light !
The shrine of the departed just remains for new

O Love beyond the Grave.

319

generations, an object of religion.
No youth approaches it without honoring the widow. He finds a
pleasing woman, who is far from recalling the long ago
from which the legend comes. What preserves this
grace, is the love that fills her heart, her kindness towards all, her gentle resignation, her sympathy with the
young and her wishes for their happiness.
She is still beautiffl in her love, and beautiful in the
broad shade which adorns and enfolds her. More than
one, at twenty, sorry to have been born so late, returns
to her in spite of himself, and leaves her with regret,
cursing time, which delights in separating us thus, and
saying from the bottom of his heart: " O0 woman, whom
I could have loved P"

NOTES AND

EXPLANATIONS.

NOTES AND

EXPLANATIONS.

-0--1. What Love has been in ancient and modern society.
2. What it might be now, in our present condition, taking A as a
means of moral reform, which alone can render social reforms possible.
3. Finally, what it will become, in a world of justice and intelligence,
such as we some day shall have.
Such is the subject in its completeness. At present I deal with the
second part only.
The first and the third are necessarily complicated by an endless
number of religious, social, and political questions, which I must postpone.
The second part, which I give, is love in itself, concentred on what
appears an individual object; love followed in a progress usually
deemed solitary. But nothing in morals is thus isolated.
Here it creates the home, and creates it solidly, because it makes of
it a living, expanding, and progressive thing. The fire dies out if it is
left alone; the tree dies if it does not vegetate.
Proceeding in its true spirit, free from the vain agitation which
enervates and renders it barren, Love will have that natural progress which it so often has had, that powerful radiation from which so
often, in history, societies have sprung.
My peculiar regret, in leaving this book so brief and imperfect, is that
I have not been able this time to develope the chapters which might
rightly be called those on culture and education, or moral discipline;
those being substantially practical chapters, into which I have put

324

Notes and Explanations.

(according to my limited capability) the germs of a new art-new, Iut
how necessary I For the family nowadays, being so little upheld by
the Church and the community, is each day obliged to ask of Love the
aliment of its moral life, to draw continually from its profound
depths.
How can we talk to woman at the sacred.moments which precede
and follow marriage? How can we take her always in those hours
of perfect faith when she listens, and believes everything beforehand?
And how, also, may we call her back when, long after, her heart
wavers, when, weary and sad, it lies at the mercy of caprice? This is
what I should have wished to develope at length.
In the chapters on Fecundation and LMoral Incubation, I should have
wished to give some examples of the true culture of love. I hav
at least marked a very essential point, where the education of
woman is distinguished from our own by the necessity of observing
the rhythm of her life, and the manner in which nature measures out
her time.
In the chapters on Temptation and Medication of the Heart, I would
have multiplied the often very simple recipes by which love is diverted
from its course, evaded or cured. Oftenest the beloved object counts
for but little in the passion; it is the occasion which does everything:
the person who loves has need of loving. She is but slightly smitten,
The love of a child, the love of an
perhaps in love with love itself.
idea, of a new place, of a serious affair, would suffice to calm it.
Often, too, a woman who has seen but little of life becomes prejudiced
in favor of a man of inferior merit of whom she constructs an ideal.
Her good sense would return to her if you should bring her face to
face with true superiority. One who was infatuated with a brilliant
provincial talker needed nothing more, to cure her, than to go and see
B6ranger.
Again: I should have wished to develope those main and important
chapters where the woman, having obtained all her legitimate ascendency, being a tender loving wife, is also like a young mother to the
man, regulating and repairing his expenditure of life; often calming
his blind fury, often restoring him his brilliancy of mind; at one time
imparting pleasure, at another power, but always--always happiness.
(Book V chapters ii. and iii.)
It is here that the agreement of the moral and physiological scier ces

Notes and Explanations.

323

will create the most fertile of all arts, diametrically opposed to the
morbid influence of the old casuistic laws -the art of vivifying by
love.
We have paused on the threshold of this delicate subject, although
we know very well that the hypocritical modesty which has here
drawn the curtain and left all to caprice, has purified nothing, rendered
,nothing more moral than before. In relinquishing the task of informing'us as to the internal affinities of marriage, it has made of it the
obscure sphere of a prosaic physical life, which men have thought they
could safely despise. It has been decided that love is nothing but
enervation, not knowing that in it resides the stimulus to infinite
strength.
Not long ago a brilliant surgeon, the oracle of students, was lectur
ing them, in accordance with the doctrines of a great and harsh
master, on the inferiority of woman and the royalty of man, the vanitj
of love, etc. He thought to emancipate them, and make them despise
pleasure. An illustrious physiologist, a friend of mine, who was present, said to him: " Take care, sir I take care I They will adopt the
brutality of love with only too great facility; but not its gravity, not
the masculine tenderness which it conceals in the heart of the family.
They will not understand this bitter censor, who would strike too hard
to produce an impression. I tell you, as a physician, that this contemptuous talk about women is very dangerous; it does not induce abstinence; on the contrary, it makes the man wander wretchedly about,
and leads him straight into enervation."
To return to the gaps in this book. I should have wished to guide
the woman in the interior culture that she can give herself. Her husband, who upheld her when she was young-later, in the press of
business, and in the cares of life, returns home at night fatigued,
and often disheartened. But it is her task to create in her own heart
that paradise wherein revivifying sources will abound to reanimate
him. She will find this in her love, in the innocent voices of Nature,
which translate to her God's word. " A Rose for a Counsellor" is a
great deal. I should have liked to let that rose speak often, for a long
time, continually. It has much to say to the woman of these days.
And the latter can readily understand it, being herself so delicate in
heart and ear.

326

Notes and Explanations.

That great adept in harmony, Nature, in the name of God, will
advise either the wcman or the flower to harmonize with the strong
stalk which supports her, and notto bloombyherself. And of what use
would it be to shine separately for a few moments in the peril of a
bouquet? This stem must not be disdained. Neither disdain this
man. If he is not the contemplative genius of a past age, if he is not
the handsome warrior, the hero of antiquity, remember, my dear girl,
that to offset this, he has one very superior. aspect-he is the strong
workman, he is the powerful creator of an immense world of science, of
industry, and of riches, which yesterday arose from his energy and
activity. He has changed all things. By the side of Nature, he has
built another nature, of his genius and his strength. You lollers (we
must say it of the richer classes), you beautiful indolence, look on and
enjoy this.
"But how can that be? My husband is a merchant, a tradesman,
a workman." Then he is a creator of riches. "A writer ? a painter ?"
A creator in works of art. And you may go as low as you please; for
all trade is art nowadays.
This universal effort, ideas, works, and productions, piling rapidly
one above the other, all rise up to an enormous height. " Such
Your husmeans are prosaic," you say. But the result is so grand
band, the man of modern times, found nothing done, and has done
everything. If our fathers could return to earth, they would be
frightened, and go down on their knees before their terrible sons. Look
upon this martyr of labor with respect, with love, and with pity also.
Do not be so puerile as to observe a little dust which yo~ar glorious
Prometheus may have on his garments. Look at that pale forehead.
In the aureole which irradiates it you see the sweat stand out, often
a sweat of blood.
He, also, has a duty. It is not to let himself be so carried away
in the fury of work that he shall be swallowed up in it, that he, shall
see but his own narrow road, and nothing but its details. There are
no little things, I know. To succeed, minutia are necessary; without
this, without precision, no result is possible. But the workman must
remain greater than his work; he must prevail over it. It can only
be strongly embraced when he is above it. If he retains the highest
thought of it, he will have in that, day by day, a power over the woman,
a hold upon her which he will never lose. She is faithful and loving

Notes and Explanations.

327

to whosoever is great and strong. Now, in the lowest occulation, he
who feels the life thereof; its affinities with art, reveals himself with
grandeur.
I might have written more in this quiet retreat of Pornic, before
this tranquil sea, which sympathized with this book, and whose deep
rhymes have served it as an accompaniment. But here is a little girlsix or seven years old, I should judge-who unwittingly warns me
that I have done enough. On the beach they were drawing sea
water in buckets for bathing purposes. The child, a fisherman's
daughter, stopped in her play to look on. " What are you thinking
about ?" I asked. "Sir," she answered, "the sea is a very strange
thing. You may keep taking out as much as you please, but it always
stays just as full."
This is just what I was thinking at that very moment, but of another sea.
I have drawn what I could from this subject, bottomless and shoreless; but it is never exhaisted.
My historical materials would make two volumes. My physiological
notes one, or more. I cannot tell how many it would take to give
even the extracts, the letters, the revelations and the actual facts by
which I have profited.
This little sea, drawn from the great ocean of Love, sufficed to
drown me. I was submerged in the multitude of my notes. I shall
put them off now, and content myself with these.

NOTE 1.
A GLANCE

AT THE ENSEMBLE OF THIS

BOOK.

towards the close of this volume we have not completely lost
FJ
sight of the beginning, we should remember one of love's singularities: that at each of its stages it has imagined itself at the end, and
thought itself sure of the infinite. Then every one laughed and said it
was mad.
seemed. Several times has it occupied and
Not so much so as it
mastered the everlastingness of the soul, but, you will understand, of the

328_

Notes and Explanations.

soul as it could oitly be at that time, in the narrow limits in which it
is at first contained.
When love's flower, at twenty, said so impulsively, " I give myself
up to you, take me entirely I" it was not a lie; but what did she give ?
as yet but little. She gave what she had, not vyhat she still lacked.
(Book II.)
When fecundation impregnated her so profoundly and changed her
being; when a blond and silken down, which came to deck her lip,
revealed her transformation; when her voice, gait, and so many involuntary signs seemed to say, " He is all in me," undoubtedly the consummation was attained. Attained, yes, inevitably; not the free consummation of the soul. (Book III.)
But, finally, the cravings of this imperfect liberty, which capriciously
protested, having conquered themselves, the momentary disagreement
of the mental and physical maladies (Book IV.) having given way to
harmony, the two souls found themselves in the most loving unity
they had ever yet obtained. With a more effusive joy, Love triumphed this time, and said to itself; " I possess the infinite."
One thing, which woman only really attains in her second youth,
was wanting: that by an effort of the heart she should leave behind
her the passive state in which she nearly always lived, to take upon
her activity and movement, to make herself him; not by the dull fatality of impregnation, but by active will, by love (Book V.). Until then,
work separated them, and the woman had her own hours; now all hours
of the day and night are hers. In everything he feels that she is useful and charming, he cannot get on without her. She is the cherished
young oompanion in whom he finds seriousness, pleasure, whatsoever
he wills, ever ready to transform itself for him. She is his Viola, his
Rosalind, a loving friend in the morning, a wife in the evening, an
angel at all times.
Though obedient, she has, if need be, the upper hand; she knows
how to plan and to act. And, when the man, either in business or
thought, is weak and hesitates, in the agitated night especially,when his
troubled soul seeks and finds nothing, and seems as though bewildered,
she is there and smiles. The evil enchantment disappearing, he
laughs at himself. A kiss restores to him his wings.
Have we not here obtained what we sought, the absolute interchange
of being? Has not love now attained the infinite? Now that the

Notes and Explanations.

329

feeble weman has recei- ed, so completely taken, the soul of man, that
she can, if necessary, give it back to him, and that in the failure cf his
manly genius she gives him what she has not, the generating sparkdoes not this seem the miracle of unity?
No, this may still be intensified one degree more: when both their
minds meet in a kindly project, when both are softened by the surprise
of finding that they have the same heart to such a degree, when love and
pityblended melt in silent tears; this is the moment of fusion, when
invincible love triumphs, when the soul renews its sense, when,
often more ardently than in youth, returns the incentive to desire.
What a great thing is goodness Everything else is secondary to it;
grace, wit, intelligence, are worth nothing when not accompanied by it.
Even alone, it is all-powerful. It is not a rare thing for a man to desire a woman because she is good, and for no other reason. Profound
harmony of our being I It goes by the senses to the heart; it tends,
by physical union, to attain and possess the moral suavity which is
there. God is felt in it. This is why we wish to be united.
Love is a thing of the brain. All desire was first an idea.
Often a very confused idea-an idea that a state of the body (heat,
intoxication, plethora) has seconded and inflamed, but not preceded.
Of the two extremities of nervous life, the inferior one, that of sex,
has little initiative power. It awaits the sign from above.
Recall your souvenirs. In the pleasure which seemed to you altogether instinctive, and not at all a matter of forethought, you will
find, by thinking it over, that an occasion, an incident, or some new
circumstancehad previously awakened the mind.
If the circumstance was piquant, the idea new and lively, then your
pleasure was great.
The renewing of desire is rendered inexhaustible by the fertility of
the mind, the originality of ideas, the art of seeing and finding new
mental aspects-in short, by the optics of love.
The simple changing of surroundings, climate, habitation, often
suffices to change everything. The man who wearies of his wife
in the lowlands, would love her on the Alps.. Rousseau says that he
was made virtuous by the sight of the Pont du Gard. And such a
man would feel himself in love again at seeing the Lago Maggiore, Coliseum, or Vesuvius. This is no pleasantry. Do better. Transport these
wearied ones to America: put them where a foreign language is spoken,

330

Notes and Explanations.

amid new manners and customs, on the borders of the great for el ts;
they will find it ve:y nice to be together, to be to each other bota native land and universe. The dear wife of his youth will find herself
young again, desired as on the first day, and fruitful; she will be so
without doubt. In the new world, new loves.
How much more vigorously would love be awakened, if to one or
the other of the married pair there should come one of those joys
of the mind which so add to beauty!-a heroic act, a triumph of
opinion, anything for example. One of my friends, whose plays are
very successful, finds at home, at each success, a recompense-he sees
himself very much beloved. He who performs a noble, daring act, who
saves a life, let us suppose, by risking his own, is never an old husband to his wife, but always a young lover. Love, in these circumstances, acquires immense strength, becomes a torrent of poetic life,
which had never been looked for.

NOTE 2.
IS THE AUTHOR EXCUSABLE FOR BELIEVING THAT WE CAN STILL
LovE?

As I have said, the subject of this book has recurred to me on many
occasions: in 1836 through history; in 1844 through my sympathy for
those young people whose life is a suicide; in 1849 Through social
tumults. I felt that here was the evil and the remedy. My discouraged mind brought up the public morals against me, and asked:
"What is the use ?"
Yet the terrible official statistics, of undoubted accuracy, which
came to me at times, seemed to sound in my ears like a funeral knellthat the race even, the physical basis of this people, was compromised.
For instance, the young men unfit for military service, dwarfed, humpbacked, lame, in the seven years, 1831-1837, numbered only 460,000,
and in the following seven years they increased 31,000, etc. Marriages have diminished to a fearful degree, in certain years; in 1851
nine thousand less than in the year preceding; in 1852 seven thousand less
than in 1851 (that is 16 000 less than in 1850), etc. The official statistics

Notes and Explanations.

331

of 1856 show that the population is diminishing or remains stationary.
W idowers marry again, but widows do not. Add the enormous num'
ber of women who have committed suicide, or died miserably. As to
the Morgue, see the Annals of Hygiene and Forensic Medicne, vols.
II., VII., XVII, XLIV., XLV., XLVI., XLVIII., L., and VII. of the
second series.
Neither do I see that the rest of Europe is less diseased than France.
Mark, that the life of Europe, so far, is the life of the world. If it
dies, the world dies. America, flooded from Ireland, and by a hundred
troublous elements, is urged on, by her adopted barbarity, to the conquest of the Catholic and uncivilized world, which threatens to destroy
whatever youth she still retains, and to blast the hope of possible rejuvenescence that she might offer to the rest of the human race.
I know that Europe has already undergone a sort of eclipse in the
fall of the Roman Empire. But the situation was different, and even
opposite in one point. That political event was preceded by an extraordinary enfeeblement of the mind. Now, on the contrary, the
progress of inventive genius, accelerated in the last three centuries
(which have done the work of ten thousandyears), is in a brilliant crescendo. The miracle of miracles is not far from being accomplished; and
truly, the greatest event that has occurred on this planet is that through
the electric wire, becoming conscious of thought, the planet every
moment obtains a sort of identity and personality.
Whence come these miraculous applications ? They are things sent
down to us from the lofty towel reared by all the sciences. Babel?
No, but a marvellous harmony. The short-sighted man calls it Babel,
because when he has one stone under his eye, he does not see the
next one, far less the whole edifice. But the sublime and master
structure may laugh at that, for its base is in Mathematics and its
head in the Milky Way I
An incalculable power is this, not of intelligence only, but of life
and its force. There can be no intellectual truth which does not bear
upon actions.
In this great enlightenment, how can you die-with this, with such
a perfect knowledge of the world and of yourself? When the Roman
empire foundered, it went down in utter darkness. Before death,
came night.
If the moral sense has declined, it is not a failure of the mind. The

332

Notes and Explanations.

oram is not directly attacked, but it floats and fluctuates, thrcug
the enervation of the inferior organs. We have enormous strength,
but it is sadly scattered and wasted.
This whole book has its end in this:
Either concentrate yourself or die.-The concentration of the vital
forces supposes, first of all, the stability of the home.
We must not despise ourselves, and idly fold our arms. If we do,
all is lost.
We are corrupted, it is true; but tainted water may again become
good to drink. Our heroic fathers were not saints. The Idea, when
it came, found them tramping about wofully in a bog. Now they look
towards heaven, and inspired with the eternal beauty, they no longer
know each other; wings have sprung from their shoulders
Are the people of to-day worth less,on the whole, than those of
my childhood? I see it to be the contrary. Of those former times
there remains to me a sense of terrible barrenness. Who would support in these days the mortal dreariness of the Martyrs ? The Abbe
Geoffroy, Messrs. De Jouy, Baour held the reins of the press. No
natural sentiment then. But few birds; not a flower. I saw them
appear one by one:the hyiarangea at forty years of age, the dahlia at
thirty, etc. Nowadays, every hut has a rose-bush at the door,
every seventh-story garret a flower on its window sill. The flag-man
on the railroad, who cannot leave his sentry-box, takes advantage of
the time between two trains to make himself a garden.
In my sixty years of life, I have seen the commencement and
growth of one of the most serious manifestations of the human soulthe religion of the dead, the adornment of the grave. I was twelve
years old in 1810, and my memories of that time are very clear. I distinctly remember that a cemetery then was an Arabian desert, where
hardly any one ever came. Now it is a garden full of monuments and
flowers. The progress of wealth has undoubtedly much to do with
this; but so also has the progress of the heart. The cemetery is visited
now; even the poorest find means to carry to it garlands and souve
nirs. At the easiest season of the year, the wife of the poorest workman
economizes a few pence from the family bread in order to buy flowers
for the dead.
Death is the sister of Love. These two religions are related-irdestructible, eternal. And if Death live on, why may not Love also ?

Notes and Explanations.

333

I did not imagine, in the winter of 1856, that the cold public would
Aear a certain bird-song, an impatient robin-redbreast who flew away
before the snow was fairly melted. But he was listened to. I then
doubted that the noise of an ant-hill would be heard. But that also
was listened to, and," some persons, they say, were much affected
oy it. How could this dark-working world of imperceptible creatures, having not the winged grace of the bird, make an impression?
Because Love, which circulates in all things, was recognised there.
So I hoped on, in spite of everything. The excess even of evils gave
me courage. Must not these follies and squanderings cease some
time, through impotency at least? Ennui is also visible. Do the husband and wife gain anything by the practical divorce which is the
custom nowadays ? The wife, only too thoroughly feels the truth
laid down by George Sand: "' The lover is just as tiresome as the husband." On the other hand the poor husband does not reap complete
enjoyment. There are no longer fills de joie; there are filles de marbre
and women of sadness.
Besides, if society will not reform itselft there are thirty millions of
French, a hundred or two hundred millions of Europeans, who are
not at all in society, know nothing about the BouYse, nor fast balls, nor
kept women. If there still remain two hundred millions of men
to love,
it will suffice.
Love cannot die. It will re-make everything. It will re-make you,
young man of twenty-nine years (this is the marrying age in Paris),
young man though already not old enough, already fatigued. You
think of settling down, but you dare not, in fear of the ruinous course
of life to-day. If you are a practical man, read this book. Whatever
the style may be, you will find in it several very practical things. You
need, in your struggles here on earth, in the quicksands of the world,
an earnest partner. You will not find her ready made, but this book
will teach you how to make her. The mother cannot know beforehand what the sphere of action of her married daughter will be, nor
prepare her for it Everything nowadays has become personal. Marriage varies infinitely, according to the husband. In certain occupations, the wife is a co-laborer with her husband, as, for instance-in trade.
In others, as in the arts, she assists and inspires, associates herself in his
thought. Finally, in the more laborious occupations, the lives of men

334

Notes and Explanations.

of tction and of public affairs, she is the natural confidante, and tl:e
only possible supporter and consoler of the mind. If you do not neglect
her if you keep her conversant with your concerns, if you establish a
complete communion with her, you will see how the person who in
certain professions is considered useless, nevertheless brings thereto
material force. In a world where everything is changing, you must
have a fixed point on which you can rely for support. Now, this point
is a home. The hearth is not a stone, as it is often called, it is a
heart, and the heart of a woman.

NOTE .3.
WOMAN REINSTATED AND PROCLAIMED INNOCENT BY SCIENCE.

SCIENCE is mistress of the world. It reigns without ever needing to
command. The Church and the Law have to inform themselves of'
its
decrees, and reform themselves according to its teachings.
Now, heretofore, the greater part of religious and civil laws in
regard to woman could be summed up in one sentence: " She is considered a thing, and yet punished as a person."
As the
physiology, so the
legislation. The Legislative inconsistencies came originally from the senseless physiology of barbarous ages
They said at the same time: "Woman is an impure thing,-and a
responsibleperson."
A thing so impure, that Moses pronounced death against the man
who approached her at a certain period of the month.
A.person so responsible, that her first fault sufficed to pervert for
ever the will of the human race.
Christianity follows Moses. All the old Fathers condemn her, and
make her the servant of the man, who is the superior being, and relatively pure. Her last and most terrible enemy is the metaphysician,
Saint Thomas, who reduces their thought to a formula; he goes sc
far as to say, that the woman, being an accidentaland defective creature,
ought not to have entered into the primal creation.
What a fearful proposition I God was mistaken, and made his work
defective !

Notes and Explanations.

335

Bt, defective in what? Certainly not in beauty. They can bring
Oorward nothing but the childish ideas of barbarians, about the physique.
She is impure. Pope Innocent IIL expressed it strongly: " Offensive odors and uncleannesses always accompany her."
This doctrine is not yet abandoned. A physician of Lyons, a
stubborn defender of all the errors of the Middle Ages, declares and
prints, in 1858, " that the menstrual blood is impure."
Now, let us state the facts:
1. The woman is as pure as the man. Our first Chemists, Messrs.
Bouchardat, Denis, and others, have analysed this blood and found it to
be the same as elsewhere in the organization.
2. Is the woman responsible? Undoubtedly, she is a person; but
she is a sick person, or, to state it more exactly, a person wounded
every month, who suffers almost constantly from that wound and from
its healing. This has been admirably proved by the ovologists (Bair,
Ndgrier, Pouchet, Coste) between 1827 and 1847.
When an invalid is in question, if the law wishes to be just, it ought
always to take into consideration, in every punishable act, this extenuating circumstance. To impose upon her the same punishment as upon
the well person (I mean the man), is not an impartiality of justice,
but a partiality and an injustice.
The law will modify itself; I have no doubt. But the first modification should take place in jurisprudence and legal practice. The
magistrates will feel, as I have said, that, to decide and punish
what there is free in the acts of woman, they must take into
account the involuntariness which is associated therewith by illness.
The continual presence of a medical jury in our courts of justice is indispensable. I have contended elsewhere that the death-punishment is
wholly inapplicable to women. And there is hardly any article' in
the Code which can be applied to them without modification, especially when they are pregnant. A woman takes something which
does not belong to her. What can you do? She has had an insurmountable desire for it. If you arrest her, you will do her a great
injury. If you put her in prison, you will kill her. " Property is
sacred," you say; I know it, because it is the fruit of labor. But
there is in this case a superior labor which must be respected, and the
fruit that she bears in her womb is the property of the human race.
So that to have yours, which is perhaps worth two pence, back again

336

Notes and Explanations.

you are going to risk two murders! I would much rather have you,
when the thing taken is worth but a trifle, permit yourself to be robbed
with a good grace, and abstain from arresting her. The ancient
German laws expressly permit her to take a little fruit, without being
subject to arrest.
With these thoughts of humanity is connected what I have said
about the union of the two branches of science, the science of
justice, the science of qzaure. What is most wanting in these is the
sense of their analogies. In many points they are one and the same.
Justice must become Medicine, informing itself from the physiological sciences, appreciating the degree of fatality which is connected
with free actions, in short curing, not to punish solely, but to cure.
.Medicine must become. Justice and Morality.
That is to say, that
the physician, an intelligent judge of internal life, should enter
into an examination of the moral causes which produce physical illness, and dare to go to the root of the evil, to reform the habits
from which the malady proceeds. There is no malady which is not
derived from our whole life. All attempts at cure are made in the dark,
if not based upon a perfect knowledge of the patient, and his complete confession.

NOTE 4.

OF THE SOURCES OF THIS

BOOK

OF LOVE, AND OF

THE SUPPORT

THAT PHYSIOLOGY HEREIN LENDS MORALITY.

THE richest source from which I have drawn materials for this book,
is, as I have said, the confidence with which my friends and many
other persons have revealed to me their interior life. They were so
sure of my sympathy that they often made me acquainted with
more than one delicate particular which they concealed even from their
own families. I have profited by everything, of course, without indicating anyone by too precise signs. But here, once for all, I can

Notes and Explanations.

337

assure the reader that the ground upon which he walks is solid, and
based upon realities. Such and such a sentence, which might be taken
as a bit of literary filling in, is, in reality, an anecdote or a fact from
everyday life.
Nevertheless--these rich materials, so precious in the study of
human morality, would have been of but little use to me, if I had not
had for my advantage the sure starting point which physiology has
recently given us. I have drawnlargely upon the works of physicians,
and their infinitely instructive verbal communications.
Not having this,instruction, the literary men who have treated the
same subject before me, have floated about at the mercy of chance,
and said many vague and contradictory things.
It will be readily understood why I do not examine the more recent
works, despite my esteem and respect for the genius of their authors.
As for the more ancient, two works have occupied the public
mind: the serious book of Senancour (the 1st and 2nd editions, not
the 3rd); and the jesting one of Balzac. These books are in
every way opposed to each other. The man of 1800 utters the severest condemnations against adultery. And the man of 1830 begins
and ends his book with the well known phrase, "Adultery is merely
the affair of a sofa." Balzac confesses that he intended to write a
serious work, but could not succeed. Besides, there is absolutely nothing in his book, either serious or comic. That of Senancour, on the
contrary, if we except two or three pages inspired by the times in
which he lived, is very beautiful, very forcible, and full of ideas. His
bitter sadness is very eloquent. "0 woman, whom I could have
loved I" etc. I have stolen this line from him, it is the last one of my
book.
To return to the physicians, we may say that they have done themselves injustice by their exteriors. They cannot surely be accused of
hypocrisy. With an ostentation of brutality that they get from the
lecture-room and the hospital and the handling of the scalpel, they
have none the less laid down truly humane doctrines. Rough and
cynical in appearance, they have nevertheless founded what may be
called the creed of mercy.
They think themselves materialists. They are not so much so as they
would appear to be. Their discoveries in material things have lefit
admirable confirmation to the voice of the heart. Natural History

15

338

Notes and Explanations.

has spoken like Philosophy itself. Nature has uttered the words of
the soul.
Nothing is purer and higher than this revolution. It is the victory
of the Mind.
Hence three capital results :
1. The low and material ideas that were entertained of the periodi.
cal crisis of woman are now elevated, purified, spiritualized.
2. The material and brutal decisions, so often unjust, that were
passed upon the maiden, are reduced to naught, and marriage brought
back to the confidence, the harmony of two hearts.
3. But at the same time it receives a serious consecration from
Nature herself So forcible and decisive is the first marriage, that its
physical effects continue in the second.
In the very brief chapter on the Wedding, I have summed up, under
a simple form, and with a regard for propriety, the numerous facts for
which I am indebted to the confidences of medical men. I have there
set forth, in accordance with their instructions, the insignificance of a
proof which proves nothing-nowadays especially, in the refined and
nervous classes, often sickly and thin-blooded. Ancient barbarism,
continued in a so-called spiritual age, began the union by distrust,
exacted pain, and often visited a poor innocent girl with eternal
Her whom
sorrow and humiliation. Debased and cruel materialism
you esteem sufficiently to confide to her your entire life and future, you
should place confidence in at once for all her past life. How would
it be, if she should dare to ask you about yours ? And when she has had
a misfortune, a weakness even, you are sure that she will love him who
adopts her much more than the cruel ingrate whose love was but an
outrage.
Medicine has here made matter subordinate, laid down the fact that
this bodily accident is entirey secondary. The rights of the soul are
reistablished. Marriage henceforward is but love. Far from exacting
that this day, which is one of bliss to one, should be a day of tears to
the other, the mother and the husband have been advised of the precautions which diminish pain. (Fabre, I., 3, 19; Menville, II., 103;
Raciborski, 133; etc.)
On the grave question of the supposed impurity of woman, her
periodical suffering, we find the same material barbarity among these
pretended spiritualists. On the other hand, physicians, purifying this

Notes and Explanations.

339

phenoinenon, have proved its touching and elevated character. Whai
you call a purgation, you fools, is the sacred wound of love in wl ici
your mothers conceived you.
This ovarium, always torn and always healing, is nothing less than
a continual accouchement. From 1821 to 1826, two Englishmen,
Power and Girwood, it is said, suspected this law. But their works
remained unknown, even in England. It was from wholly new and
personal observations that the German, Bair, in 1827, established
the existence of the ovum in woman, and the Frenchman, Ndgrier, in
1831 and in 1858, showed that each month the ovum matures,
ruptures its envelope, and makes its way from the ovary to the matrix.
Pouchet's great work (Spontaneous Ovulation, 1842, 1847) establishes, on a systematic basis, the law of generation, showing by analogous facts, observed in all races of animals, not only that this law is
such in the human race, but that it could not be otherwise.
The law laid down by Pouchet, and the modifications added by
NBgrier and Iaciborski (in a report approved by the Academy of
Sciences), and the unpublished observations of M. Coste, prove that
conception only takes place when the discharge announces the appearance of the ovum; that is to say, that it occurs during the courses, as
well as a little before or a little after. Hence, there is barrenness
during a part of the month.
These truths, endorsed by the opinion of the Academy of Sciences,
and the teachings of the College of France, have appeared in all their
glory from the labors of Messrs. Coste and Gerbe. In ten years'
observations on women who have committed suicide, they have, by a
practical book of admirable clearness, by an atlas (which will remain
an immortal chef-d'oeuvre), effectually confirmed this law.
The history of human ovology is summed up in a most satisfactory
manner in an excellent Wbrk, full of new and original matter, the
Physiology of Messrs. Robin and Bdraud. Already this anatomist,
our first microscopist (Robin), had shed strong light upon the science
of generation, both by his description of the uterine mucus, and
his Report on the male ovum, which from the female to the male,
from animals to vegetables, discloses the uniformity of nature's pro.
cess.
InK
1847, the same year in which M. Coste published the results of
his numerous dissections, and decided the ovology of woman, Dr.

340

Notes and Explanations.

Lucas published a work on Physical Transmission, two volumes oo
tavo. This is an important and capital work, which in spite of cer
tain cloudy abstractions, called attention to its author, previously
unknown, as a man of superior and excellent mind. The press took
but little notice of it. I do not know what has become of the author.
I have sought for him in vain. If he is still living, I beg that he will
here receive the assurance of my gratitude and admiration.
In Vol. II., Chapter IV., pages 53-65, M. Lucas brings together a
great number of facts, which prove that, from the lowest to the highest in the scale of life, from the least of the insects to birds, to mammalia, and even to the human species, fecundation extends far beyond
its actual moment; that the act of generation does not give a single
result, but that it has many and enduring effects, and often continues
long into the future.
The plant-louse is impregnated at one time for forty successive generations (Bonnet); others reduce this number, but without denying the
fact. The caterpillar is impregnated for three or four generations
(Bernouilli). The bee for a year (R"aumur). The hen for her whole
brood (Harvey).
As to the mammalia, the most accurate observations are derived from
the skilful and persevering English breeders. The pedigree of racehorses, their marriages, their misalliances, recorded for the last two
hundred years in their stud-book, with as much care as any royal genealogy, have put science on the right track. We have learned how to
observe and experiment. It has been found that the Arabian mare,
who has, though only on one occasion, had a caprice for an ass, presents nothing but asses to the illustrious lovers she may afterwards
entertain (Edward Home); or, at best, mixed colts, which sadly
remind you, by their hides or their forms, that their mother has stooped
from her station. Our Poitou breeders understand this perfectly, and
do all they can to guard against it (Magne). But in Africa, where the
mares are but little watched, the colts they have, even from the purest
Arabians, often betray, by their scrawny and awkward appearance, the
inferiority of the first love.
It is the same with the bitch; the first dog impresses her more than
twenty that may follow; he marks their offspring with a resemblance
to himself (Stark, Burdach); a thing very commonly observed by our
peasants in the south of France. The domestic sow, surprised by the

Notes and Explanations.

34'

wild boar, retains his fierceness, and bears to his peaceat e successors;
bristling pigs (Meckel). This law, which plainly devotes the female
to her first love, and protests against those which follow, appears to be
universal among the superior animals.
Is it the same in the human species? Analogous to the other mam
malia in the development of the ovum and the periodical crisis ( Velerinary Journal,1846), are they so also in the enduring character ofthe first
impregnation? Do the first love and the first child determine those of
the future ? And does the father of that child extend his paternity to
those which the woman may have by a lover, or by a second husband ?
There is no doubt that in us, whose mind and will interfere so powerfully in the functions of physical life, the immutability of general
laws has to contend with the reactions of freedom and of individual
"
passion, which cannot be calculated upon.
Nevertheless, the facts seem to attest that nature usually resists
such reactions, and imparts a durable character to the first fecundation
(Lucas, Vol. II.,
60). The old-time physicians, Fienus and Aldovrand,
observed that adulterous women often had, from the lover, children
resembling the husband. In their day, it was an adage that " The son
of adultery pleads for his mother." It was supposed that the woman,
in this stolen act, had thought of him whom she feared, and that this
fear marked her offspring with his features. But this explanation will
not do for the females of the lower animals. It is not fear which makes
them reproduce the likeness of the first male in the young they bear
to the second and his successors.
Besides, we have seen widows, impregnated in their first marriage,
afterwards have, by a second, and a dearly beloved husband, children
who resembled the first husband, long dead, and but little regretted.
Here,neither fear nor love had any influence. It was the physical
result of a modification of the organism. The first fecundation influ.
enced the succeeding for several years in advance-perhaps for life.
If it were always thus; if the first impregnation infallibly modified
the woman for ever, adultery would be impossible (at least in its
results). The possession of the husband being unalterable, the only
one deceived would be the lover.
This transformation of the woman does not appear alone in the process of generation, but virtually in everything. The wife, even when
very young, after a year or two of marriage, wears on her lip a light

342

Notes and Explanations.

down, imperceptible in blondes, but very noticeable in bruncttes. The
voice and gait become less feminine, and proclaim a new condition,
But what is surprising, a thing I have often observed, is, that her
handwriting changes: that of the wife gradually grows more like that
of the husband.
Some ancient physicians, Bartholin, Perrault, Sturm, and, later
Grasmeyer, have thought that, even without fecundation, the marriage
relation suffices, after a time, to masculize woman. My friend, Doctor
Robin, so profouhd an observer of the microscopic world, without
admitting the rasher theory of these authors, for different reasons
believes in this transformation.
The principle of permanent impregnation, prolonged into the future,
saddens one at the first glance like a fate. But, on the other hand, it
lights up to a great moral depth the dark crisis of love, and spiritualizes it. It reveals itself in all creatures; at this moment, most clearly in
man, in a soaring towards the infinite, a flight into eternity.
What goes on then, with the greatest and the smallest, resembles
so little the ordinary phenomena of matter, that we are tempted to say,
in regarding the lowest of all created things, Here nothing is matter;
all is mind.
One phrase resounds, always the same, along the scale of life, whether
you go up or down-a single phrase (Love knows but one)-" I wish
for something beyond myself. I wish for too much-all! always I"
The blind impulse of desire in inferior beings is a gross infinity of
strength, which, creating an infinity of numbers, guarantees an infinity
of succession. The superior longing, in ascending, is for an infinity of
the beautiful, of the good-an infinity of quality. Desire, then, creates concentrated and powerful beings, if not capable of feeling, at
least capable of conceiving of, the infinite.
So Love ascends, and always will ascend, without reaching its summit. It would have nothing that is not absolute, endless, without
margin or limit. In its profound instinct, it desires itself-like Love
Eternal. It penetrates itself with light, feels itself God, but dazzles
itself. .... Darkness closes around it. ...
The Infinite has appeared
-disappeared ....
"Alas I",it says, "I had so many things to say to it I"
THE END.

TRANSLATOR'S APPENDIX.
-0

A Word with M. Michelet.
FROM MADAME HERMANCE LESGUILLON.
THE Memoirs of the Princess H616ne were already written when an
admirable book made its appearance: L'Amour, by the eminent philosopher Michelet.
By an extraordinary sympathy of ideas, it will be observed, Les
Femmes dans Cent Ans,* had responded to almost all the chapters of
this genial book, which, while it does full justice to the heart of
woman, leaves her far short of the new development that her intellect
requires. The spirit of M. Michelet's book is that of the Court of
Love, and seems written for a small circle of the 1lite, where reigns
undisturbed the harmony of all the virtues. There are thirty-five
millions of human beings to whose needs and sorrows he is blind. He
seems to be ignorant of what men think of young girls who are destitute of marriage-portions.
For example, I will repeat to him the bitter words in which a
young husband, otherwise very worthy, replied to the love verses of
his wife: " My dear, we are not rich; therefore we cannot love each
other. I have no time for that; I must earn our living" These cruel
words broke the wife's heart. Still the man was not altogether
wrong; marriage has its practical side, which kills sentiment. Men
do not understand how to unite the two.
While we deplore such words, we must grant that they are true in
respect of marriages as they now are. Nowadays it is not man who
can instruct the heart of woman; it is not the man who has lived ten
* By Madame Lesguillon.

344

Translator's Appendix.

or fifteen years in the Saturnalia of pleasure, or in the difficulties of
keeping up an appearance, who can live such a life. So long as man
does not receive the same moral education as woman, far from teaching her, he will be unable to understand her. Palates accustomed to
spices, spirits, and tobacco, are incapable of enjoying the exquisite
flavor of fine fruit. So long as men live a life of love before marriage,
marriages will be found deficient in love; only one of the wedded
pair will love-the wife; if indeed even she does.
M. Michelet's book comes too late. If it had only been written
thirty years ago I Then, instead of bringing their fragments of prose to
love, the young men of this generation, better instructed, would perhaps have retained some little love for their nuptials.
The Princess Heldne would have said to the author of L'Amour :
"Nature created you a god, but society made a man of you.
" Your book, full of respect and voluptuous tenderness for woman, is,
without your suspecting it, a most painful picture of the sad fate she
endures. Instead of raising her to the level of maternity, which creates
her by right the equal, and the proud companion of man, you hamper her
in a hnumiliating subjection which makes her more a slave than ever.
" You say wisely that 'Disease is discord,' and you apportion her
solely the role of invalid. No! woman is not an invalid. God created
her to be a mother, and it is from the excess of her best and most beautiful blood that she forms man. The woman who is well-formed, and
who obeys the laws of nature, enjoys health. To make her out an
invalid is but a sad means of interesting man in her behalf, for she
whom he prefers to the mother of his children is in robust health.
"Woman is not afraid of active employment, nor even of labor.
When she feels herself useful and beloved, love redoubles her strength
and develops her faculties. Later in life, when Nature has accomplished her last work, the wife often remains stronger than her husband
for manual or intellectual performances; while he, having believed
himself young too long, has yielded to the excesses which shorten
life and entail the miseries of the gout and other diseases. Man or
woman, one invalid is worth as much as another.
"A woman unhappily married becomes ill, because her spirit is
crushed by her subjection to domestic quarrels in which she is as
nothing. On the contrary, she who loves her husband and shares
with her faithful companion the cares of life, continues as young and

Translator's Appendix.

345

as strong as he. Because he has made her his equal she has remained
worthy of his love; the passive, obedient mother is a nobody in the
eyes of her children.
" You ignore such and such women, to talk of the eternal womanthat is to say, of the woman inferior to man; canwe not do the same
by man-exclude those who are inventors, and say that of thirty-six
millions of Frenchmen there are thirty-five millions who invent nothing
at all?
" It is dangerous to talk so well of their rights to men who are
without virtue. The modern man is not devoted to duty, but to caprice
and pleasure; manners change, but the standard remains the same.
Medication of the Heart,' you say, in speaking of adultery :
"In your '
Lthe infidelity of a woman has monstrous consequences which do not
attend that of a man.' I would ask you if the man who abandons
his children when a bachelor can care much for those who are born
to him in wedlock; and if the father who is distracted, or simply outraged, by uncertainty as to the legitimacy of his offspring, takes to
heart the troubles of his neighbor, whose house he visits to debauch
his wife, and swell the number of his children ? It is only the mother
who is always a mother, whether she be a betrayed girl or a wedded wife.
The father is simply a means, often happy in escaping investigation.
"If children bore their mothers' names, and distinguished themselves for her who gave them their first shelter, their first nourishment,
we might erase the odious word, adultery, from the lexicon of law;
infidelity would be the term employed, alike for both sexes, and as words
make things, there are many men who would never think of it again.
"You say further: 'Infidelity on the part of the wife may falsify
history for a thousand years I ' Has it been of greater service to history that the fidelity of a wife produced a Nero, when her infidelity
might have brought forth a Marcus Aurelius? Of more service to
history that Louis XIV. was not the son of Louis XIII. ?
"In low life this attested incident occurred: of the marriage
between a humpback and a well-formed woman, there were born four
little humpbacks, girls and boys; the mother, disgusted, mortified by
this too faithful resemblance, loved a handsome young fellow, and her
fifth child was perfect. What do you think was the result? It was
the first proud day for her husband; he had a perfect child!
"' No punishment would be severe enough if she knew what she

346

Translator's Appendix.

did.' That sentence was written with the iron pen of the Middle'
Ages.
" With your sense of justice, you felt that it was, and you resume:
" 'But she is nearly always very far from even dreaming of it. Premeditated infidelity, prompted by hate and malice, is a thing of infinitely
rare occurrence. The first false step, at least, is nearly always accidental, the result of a negative weakness, less an act than an inability
to act, to resist.
"' Warm, full-blooded women are dazzled and bewildered, and at
certain periods have an actual vertigo. Those of a lymphatic temperament have an extreme placidity of will; they are wont to yield;
they know that it becomes them, and hence they never resist. It costs
them too much of an effort to refuse.'
" Since that which was originally a crime has become an accident of
nature, we should decide for the woman how far she is responsible for
infidelity, and not brand both with everlasting shame.
" I would ask you why men who stake their honor on this question,
relish so excessively the jests that the drama, from the beginning, has
retailed at the expense of betrayed husbands; and how vaudeville
writers, who may themselves be hoodwinked, dare to indite their witticisms.
" Are you aware of this fact, sir: that woman alone suffers from
the ridicule which attaches to marriage, for she alone possesses the
virtues belonging to it, and she alone understands it in its sacred
aspect? Marriage and man's honor would have been done for long
ago, if women had not kept guard over themselves.
"A young husband, worthy of being beloved, endowed with strong
affection for his family, earning their daily bread, faithful to his home,
his wife, his business, would certainly have the right to be indignant
at the infidelity of his wife, above all at her adultery, a term which
may be applied to infidelity only when an illegitimate child has
appeared in the sacred arch of the family.
" This woman would be criminal; but in such a case no influence
could prevail over her, and we may affirm that we never met with a
single adulterous woman.
" That noble martyr of love who was assassinated by her husband
will show how men understand marriage. Had she not the humility
you require, this unhappy mother who besought only the sight of her

Translator's Appendix.

347

children, and her place in the nuptial couch? Was she not devoted
to her duties with sufficient Christianliness to excite the pity of her
husband? Did she soften him? No, her tender persecution enraged
him. Nothing will protect a wife who is no longer beloved but her
own dignity and independence.
"Your gentle kindliness for woman induced you to write that
chapter which should provoke a melancholy smile from you for those
to whom you address it.
" ' Do not strike a woman, though she have committed a hundred
faults, not even with a flower !' ' The women of the Middle Ages submitted; and even now, those of certain races submit patiently to conjugal discipline. With the nervous women of our day this would be
a dangerous attempt. Some would die at the least blow. Even
when taken in her guilt, the woman should be spared. In but one
case, where the despair of a great remorse threatens her life or her
reason, if she offers herself up to punishment, begs and implores it, a
slight bodily suffering may be granted her, to lessen that of the soul.'
"That is a prescription for the making of monarchs-absolute, yet
overflowing with mildness.
"In what age are we, sir, and what progress have human beings
made in the respect due to the personality of each, since you believe
yourself compelled to bestow such advice upon him who makes his
wife a mother, in very heart?
"And you are surprised that therie are women, who, insulted in their
fellow-women, express their opinion of what concerns them. Should
not the contrary astonish you more?
"What would you think if,
becoming a woman, richly constituted
by Nature for reproduction and love, you were forced for the most
beautiful half of your life to remain faithful to a husband who, through
self-interest, or for fear of being betrayed, or through physical impotence, would leave you to drag out miserable, barren days ? What would
you say if,
through a second marriage, revealing to you the falseness of
the first, you should become rich in happiness and in maternity?
" Yes, women are good I You sacredly appreciate their hearts; one
can well see that you have lived nine months in the loins of a mother
who listened to your life-a gloriofis mother, who revealed to you
much of her greatness, but who spared you many griefs, many secrets.
" The obedience, of which you say so mfich, should not be a law of

348

Translator's Appendix.

marriage, when the marriage is not one of love. Obedience and
humility are a mystery of love, whose sublimity God alone fathoms.
" The husband who does not win his wife by the assurance of an
equality which breaks down all barriers, will never entirely possess
her; women appreciate delicacy and goodness as well as you.
"You say: 'They protect each other.' That is a great truth, and
it proves that Nature created them with the same passiofls, the same
temptations, the same weaknesses.
" Why, then, do you hesitate to desire that woman should be
instructed ? Make haste to wish it, or your book will not be better
understood by this sex than by the other. Man's example has transformed women's hearts, and the young girl of to-day is nothing like
her of half a century ago. They have unlearned by heart what man
has made them forget. You are afraid to render them strong and
well-informed, capable of being their own physicians, moral and physical. You dread to have them prefer the beautiful books of Jules
Simon and yourself, to their trifling occupations, which elevate neither
their minds nor their souls. You fear to have companions whom you
may boldly declare you'r equals. What do you gain by this ? Only
that they do not understand you; while many of them-those, too,
who believe themselves virtuous-this day pronounce your book immoral. They are shocked by the truths you display to them, in spite
of the divine purity in which they are clothed. See what progress
they have yet to make in the senhe of the beautiful, in the virtue of love I
"You would wait till they have received the teachings of man through
the tenderness of love. Do you know what the men say about it ? That
women ought not to read your book, because it makes them exacting.
" Do you believe that a book on love can profit this generation ?
Men run after money, and so fatigue themselves in the race that they
have no strength left for love. During these days marriage unties its
sweetest knots. If there remain oily the cares, the pain, the weariness,
the uflhappiness of the wife will have no consolation. Happily there are
two great virtues which humanity cannot ignore: Maternity and Love.
"It is these virtues that woman is called upon to quicken with her
soul, to defend with her spirit and her courage. It is she who* must
renew them, and bring them to life again one day I
"Marriage may yet, perhaps, be saved l"
. THE END.

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