To Manon Phlipon this new friendship was a revelation equal to the vision of nobility aroused by Plutarch; or to that of mystic purity found in the Church. So far in life she had had no opportunity for healthy expression. Her excessive sensibility, the emotions which frightened and stifled her, the aspirations which floated, indefinite and glorious, before her, all that she felt, had been suppressed. She could not tell her mother, her curé, the good sisters. Even if they understood her, she felt vaguely that they would check her, calm her, try to turn her attention to her lessons, to the practice of good deeds, to pious exercises. She did not want this. She wanted to feel, to preserve this tormenting sensibility which was her terror and her joy. To Sophie she could tell everything. Sophie, too, was sensitive, devout, and understood joy and sorrow. The two girls shared the most secret experiences of their souls. There grew up between them a form of Platonic love which is not uncommon between idealistic and sensitive young girls, a relation in which all that is most intimate, most profound, most sincere in the intellectual and spiritual lives of the two is exchanged; under its influence the most obscure and indefinite impressions take form, the most subtile emotions materialize, and vague and indefinite thoughts shape themselves. The effect of this relation on the emotional nature of Manon was generally wholesome. Her affection for Sophie gave a new coloring to the pleasure she found in her work, and it dispelled the melancholy which hitherto had tinged her solitude. More important, it compelled her to define her feelings so that her friend could understand them: to do this she was forced to study her own moods and gradually her intelligence came to be for something in all that she felt.