There are some cases, however, in which the wrong is not yours, but is theirs who unreasonably and tyrannically oppose your happiness from prejudices of rank, avidity of money, or some caprice or other. If you are a count or marquis and love a girl of good family without a coat of arms, or if you are very rich and wish to marry an educated girl of angelic character, but who is not rich—in these and similar cases seek the help of your mother, who is nearly always more compassionate than your father, or ask counsel and help from some intimate friend, from one of the few who knows your heart like a book, and has never flattered you. In these domestic contests it is very rare for right and reason to be on one side only; there is a little on this side and a little on that; your hands are too unsteady to hold the balance of justice steadily, and weigh with precision the _pro_ and the _con_. Your mother, instead, who loves you as no one else can (not even your lover), and your friend who knows you well, see things from a dispassionate and calm point of view, and will judge justly whether you are right or wrong; and if you are neither mad nor a fool you will end by believing those who love you and desire your good; and, as the case may be, stand firm and you will win. The ancient Greek appealed against Philip, the modern miller appeals against Berlin, and both were right against Philip and against Frederick the Great. Your mother and friend will appeal to you not to fast entirely from love, but to be a little less hungry, and who knows but that they will end in being right against that king of kings Love—stronger than the father of Alexander the Great, greater than Frederick the Great. If they really love you, and are persons of good sense, they will say neither _No!_ nor _Never!_ to you, but will content themselves by saying, Have a little patience; wait. Time is the chief and capable corrector of the proof sheets of the sketches of love, as also the policy of Fabius the temporizer, who knew how to gain so many wars by skirmishes and battles. The stone of comparison enables us to distinguish gold from ignoble metal; time teaches us to separate with certainty true love from the desire of the flesh, from the fussy exactions of self-love and all that is plated. And perhaps, besides your mother and friend, you will listen to the long experience of him who writes, and will hear his voice, which says to you, cries to you, supplicates you: _Let time take its course, ever and always._ CHAPTER IX. HELL. I am sitting in a restaurant in the town of ————, at the seaside. It is the height of the bathing season, the carnival of salt and fresh water, and the whole world is forgetting the labour and unpleasantnesses of city life for a few weeks.