It happens more frequently that nascent sympathies proceed unequally, so that the one has already carried a man to the highest summits of desire and passion, while the other hardly begins to stir; the one already throbs, the other only faintly vibrates. Even when two loves are called to high and fortunate destinies, even when they will soon spread their robust wings together in the space of bliss, a task is reserved to woman in the vicissitudes of love, so different from ours that she cannot feel with us the same sudden and violent emotions. Man says everything with a look; unhesitatingly and proudly he acknowledges his defeats. Woman, even under the spell of the most ardent sympathy, lowers her eyelids, refuses the too intense light and protects her heart with all the refrigeratives and sedatives at her command. Man has already said to woman a hundred times with the flash of his eyes: "I love you!" The woman, trembling, hardly dares to say: "Perhaps I will love you!" And away run those two happy beings, fleeing from each other, until the sympathy of the one equals that of the other, until the supreme languor of a long battle is smothered in two notes which vibrate together with the sweetest harmony, while they say to each other, with a sigh, "I love you!" and to nature repeat with another sigh: "Thanks!" The energies of amorous desire, which the longer they last the larger they grow, follow the laws of elementary physics governing the forces. The most instantaneous love is not the most durable, and if an unexpected satisfaction follows a sudden desire, love may sometimes resemble a glorious rape rather than a true and real passion. It is true that love is not a battle but a long war, and when the first victory is followed by a hundred, a thousand victories, the fulmineous sympathy also may take deep roots in our hearts, and rallying after nearly every struggle, may pervade us all and reach the ideal perfection of coupling intensity with extensiveness, of twinkling at the same time with the light of those stars that never set and that of the lightning flash that plows the skies. The most perfect love is a sun that never sets, but does cast forth now and then more scintillant flashes. In ordinary cases, however, loves that rise slowly, slowly die away; and those of the nature of lightning last as long as lightning. In all cases, a healthy love, well constituted and destined for a prolific existence, whether born suddenly or slowly, should begin with a violent shock that measures the depths from which the warm sympathy sprang forth. All other affectionate sentiments arise in a manner different from love, whose nature it is to be born amidst thunder and lightning, as gods or demons should be born. Princes cannot come into the world like the masses; and the Prince of Affections cannot come to light with the assistance of an intelligent and affectionate midwife and the domestic cares of relatives.