_Proud Love._--This form is a binary combination of one part of love and ten parts of self-love. When proud love is satisfied, when it is in all the pomp of its happiness, it may appear as a pure, great, sublime love; but as soon as self-love suffers a sting it froths and swells like a snail or a basilisk and shows the dual nature of its energy in all its nudity. Even in the few moments when this affection is entirely happy, it never betokens it nor does it abandon itself to an unrestrained confession of beatitude or bliss, for the same reason that the rustic never admits that he admires new and great things. Proud love thinks more of being loved than of loving; it always speaks of rights and often does not know of duties. Rich in exactions and poor in consideration, it swells up with pride if fortunate, and murmurs at the slightest suspicion; it is the most jealous of loves and among the most unhappy, among the poorest in sweet abandonments and ingenuous voluptuousness. Even in the most secret intimacy it never unfolds its thoughts for fear of ridicule or of spoiling a crease of the starched paludament in which it has wrapped itself; it is never the first to concede a caress, but expects it as a right and a duty. It is a love which, to be approached, requires infinite attentions, ceremonies, formalities; which quickly becomes tiresome and often disgusting. It exacts fidelity, not as a dear reciprocation of affection, but as a right of its own dignity, and easily pardons such sins as the world does not become aware of. It is a sterile, barren, sickly love.