The old man has, in a manner, no ground for jealousy. Lamartine has very naïvely introduced into his novel a piece of realism, which, while it explains many things, weakens the edifying effect which he aimed at producing. Julie's reply to Raphael's first confession of love decides once and for all the nature of their mutual relations. She says: "I believe only in an invisible God, who has imprinted His image upon nature, His law upon our instincts, and His morality upon our reason. Reason, feeling, and conscience are the only revelations I acknowledge. None of these three oracles of my life would forbid me to belong to you; my whole soul would prostrate itself at your feet, if this could purchase your happiness. But are we not more certain of the spirituality and eternity of our love when it remains on the heights of pure thought, in regions inaccessible to change and death, than when it degrades and profanes itself by descending to the base regions of sensuality?" It is, we observe, the love that despises the senses which Julie somewhat affectedly extols. Now, certain as it is that love can continue to exist even when circumstances forbid its complete gratification, it is equally certain that renunciation for the sake of renunciation and of spirituality is contrary to nature. When the religious reaction set in in Denmark, Ingemann, in his youthful works, preached such renunciation. The question whether Julie really favoured the principle, or whether we are not in reality indebted for it to Lamartine, who admired without practising it, must be left undecided. In his reminiscences of his love affairs, Lamartine is in the habit of describing himself as emancipated from all sensual desire. And we know them all, these love affairs; for the man who, according to his own account, had always such complete control over his passions, had very little control over his pen. We know (from his _Confidences_) how during his meetings with Lucy, the beautiful girl of sixteen, in the cold frosty weather, he was as cold as the winter night. We remember the sentence in _Graziella_: "We slept two steps from each other; my cold indifference protected me." It may be doubtful whether it was really Julie who enounced the principle of renunciation, but there can be no doubt of the genuineness of the next speech attributed to her. She adds, blushing deeply, that the renunciation she demands of him is imperative--on account of her health; she has medical authority for what she says; she would leave his arms like a shadow, like a corpse: "The sacrifice would be the sacrifice not only of my dignity, but of my life." It is impossible to deny that there is an extraordinary inconsistency between this last utterance and those which precede it, and that this exceedingly practical explanation deprives the spiritual friendship of much of its spirituality. We seem to come down from the seventh heaven and feel the solid earth beneath our feet again.