and of a German, if she went _alone_ to see the best young man; but just because the most fanatical _blue laws_, which surely are blue vapor on blue Mondays, become a real moral law for them, therefore am I vexed at this deplorable pusillanimity, and wish to see nothing forbidden but--waltzing and falling!... He has here, perhaps, satire _in petto_; for, to speak seriously of the matter, this sanitary-ordinance, that maidens must with us, as petitions with princes, always present themselves in duplicates, has manifestly the design of accustoming them all to one another, because they must have each other's friendship for visits;--secondly, brothers and sisters must be out of each other's hair, because they do not know whether they shall need each other as collateral securities of their virtue and second exchange-bills of love;--thirdly, these human ordinances give to female virtue by the _minor_ moral-service (because great temptations are too rare) daily exercise in religion, and higher importance, and bear the same relation as the articles of the Talmud do to the Bible, although a right Jew would sooner transgress the Bible than the Talmud;--fourthly, we owe to these symbolic books of propriety the earlier culture of that female acuteness for which we unhappily furnish no other opportunities of attention than the oath they swear on those books affords. Victor at once blamed and followed, like a good girl, the female rules of the order; court life had made him more courageous, but also more refined, and, like the court itself, he was, among women, reconciled to the writing-lines of the ceremonial. Therefore he purposed not until the second day of Whitsuntide to make his regular diplomatic appearance at the Abbess's, since to-day it was too late for anything, and besides that he would not fly into the sweet, holy emotions over yonder like a comet. And then too, his contentment told him, indeed, how little the _neighborhood_ of a loved heart differs from its _presence_, which, besides, is nothing but a nearer neighborhood.