It is true, I have always imagined that they are so brave, only because they do not know the tiresomeness of wounds! As for moral courage, so far superior to the other, the firmness of a woman who resists her love is simply the most admirable thing, which can exist on earth. All other possible marks of courage are as nothing compared to a thing so strongly opposed to nature and so arduous. Perhaps they find a source of strength in the habit of sacrifice, which is bred in them by modesty. Hard on women it is that the proofs of this courage should always remain secret and be almost impossible to divulge. Still harder that it should always be employed against their own happiness: the Princesse de Clèves would have done better to say nothing to her husband and give herself to M. de Nemours. Perhaps women are chiefly supported by their pride in making a fine defence, and imagine that their lover is staking his vanity on having them--a petty and miserable idea. A man of passion, who throws himself with a light heart into so many ridiculous situations, must have a lot of time to be thinking of vanity! It is like the monks who mean to catch the devil and find their reward in the pride of hair-shirts and macerations. I should think that Madame de Clèves would have repented, had she come to old age,--to the period at which one judges life and when the joys of pride appear in all their meanness. She would have wished to have lived like Madame de la Fayette.[2] [Pg 100] I have just re-read a hundred pages of this essay: and a pretty poor idea I have given of true love, of love which occupies the entire soul, fills it with fancies, now the happiest, now heart-breaking--but always sublime--and makes it completely insensible to all the rest of creation. I am at a loss to express what I see so well; I have never felt more painfully the want of talent. How bring into relief the simplicity of action and of character, the high seriousness, the glance that reflects so truly and so ingenuously the passing shade of feeling, and above all, to return to it again, that inexpressible _What care I?_ for all that is not the woman we love? A yes or a no spoken by a man in love has an _unction_ which is not to be found elsewhere, and is not found in that very man at other times. This morning (August 3rd) I passed on horseback about nine o'clock in front of the lovely English garden of Marchese Zampieri, situated on the last crests of those tree-capped hills, on which Bologna rests, and from which so fine a view is enjoyed over Lombardy rich and green--the fairest country in the world. In a copse of laurels, belonging to the Giardino Zampieri, which dominates the path I was taking, leading to the cascade of the Reno at Casa Lecchio, I saw Count Delfante. He was absorbed in thought and scarcely returned my greeting, though we had passed the night together till two o'clock in the morning. I went to the cascade, I crossed the Reno; after which, passing again, at least