“‘As for life, if the moment has come for you to sleep in the Lord, ah! my child, you lose but little by losing this world! In spite of the solitude in which you have lived, you have known sorrow; what would you have felt, then, if you had witnessed the evils of society?--if, on visiting the shores of Europe, your ear had been stricken by the long cry of suffering heard throughout that old land? The dweller in the cabin, the inhabitant of a palace, both suffer and groan here below: queens have been seen to cry like simple women, and people have been astonished at the quantity of tears shed by kings! “‘Is it your love that you regret? My daughter, you might as well weep over a dream. Do you know the heart of man, and could you reckon upon the inconstancies of his affection? Sacrifices and kindnesses, Atala, are not eternal ties. One day, perhaps, disgust would have come with satiety, the past would have been considered as nothing, and naught would have remained but the inconveniences of a poor and despised union. Doubtless, my dear daughter, the most beautiful loves were those of the man and woman who issued from the hand of the Creator. A paradise had been prepared for them. They were innocent and immortal. Perfect in soul and body, they suited each other in every respect. Eve had been created for Adam, l and Adam for Eve. If they, nevertheless, could not remain in that state of happiness, what couple after them could do so? I will not speak to you of the marriages of the first-born of men, of those ineffable unions between sister and brother, in which love and friendship were confounded in the same heart, and the purity of the one increased the delights of the other. All those unions were troubled; jealousy crept over the altar of turf upon which the goat was sacrificed, it existed beneath the tent of Abraham, and even in the abodes of the patriarchs, where they experienced so much joy that they forgot the death of their mothers. “‘Do you suppose, then, my child, that you are more innocent and more fortunate in your ties than those holy families from which Jesus Christ deigned to descend? Again, woman renews her sufferings each time she becomes a mother, and she weeps on her marriage-day. What grief there is for her in the mere loss of her new-born babe, to whom she gave nourishment, and who dies upon her bosom! The mountain was full of groans: nothing could console Rachel for the loss of her sons. The bitterness attendant upon human affections is so powerful that I have in my country seen grand ladies, the beloved of kings, quit the life of a court to bury themselves in a cloister, and mutilate that rebellious flesh, the pleasures of which are only the precursors of sorrow.