“‘But perhaps you would say that these last examples do not affect you; that all your ambition was limited to the desire of living in an obscure cabin with the man of your choice; that you sought less after the sweets of marriage than after the charms of that folly which youth calls love? Delusion, chimera, vanity--the dream of a diseased imagination! I also, my daughter, have known the troubles of the heart. This head has not been always bald, nor this breast always so calm as it appears to you to-day. Believe in my experience: if man, constant in his affections, could unceasingly respond to a sentiment constantly renewed, solitude and love would doubtless render him the equal of God Himself; for those are the two eternal pleasures of the Great Being. But the soul of man becomes weary, and never loves the same object long and fully. There are always some points upon which two hearts do not agree, and in the end those points suffice to render life insupportable. “‘Finally, my dear child, the great error of men, in their dream of happiness, is that they forget the infirmity of death inseparable from their nature; the end must come. Sooner or later, whatever might have been your felicity, your beautiful visage would have been changed into that uniform face which the sepulchre gives to the family of Adam. Even the eye of Chactas would not have been able to distinguish you from amongst your sisters of the tomb. Love does not extend its empire so far as the worms in the coffin. What have I to say (O vanity of vanities!), what can I say concerning the durability of earthly friendships? Would you, my dear daughter, know its extent? If a man were to return to light some years after his death, I do not believe he would be received with joy even by those who had shed the most tears to his memory; so quickly are new ties contracted, so easily fresh habits are indulged in, so entirely is inconstancy natural to man, and so little is our life even in the hearts of our friends! “‘Thank, therefore, the Divine goodness, my dear daughter, for taking you away thus early from this valley of misery. Already the white robe and the brilliant crown of virgins are being prepared for you in the skies; already I hear the Queen of the Angels crying out to you, “Come, my worthy servant; come, my dove; come and sit down upon the throne of candor, amidst all those maidens who have sacrificed their beauty and their youth in the service of humanity, in the education of children, and in works of penitence.”’