Woman is the vestal of modesty, the queen of its most elect forms, and, when a virgin and as pure as crystal, she possesses intact the entire treasure of the most exquisite chastity. Wandering through the garden of love, she loses some of its gems, and she loses more if her companion helps her to disperse the treasure. It very rarely happens, however, that a woman, even in the exciting and wearing races of a thousand loves, loses all the wealth of modesty with which nature has enriched her. Even in the most gay and libertine life, even in the filth of libertinism, we see with infinite wonder some diamonds flash, which the fire of lust was incapable of destroying and the mud of amorous simony could not soil. We remain astonished and moved at such a power of resistance in a sentiment that seems so fragile and delicate. And as long as a corner of sacred earth remains to woman upon which a humble flower of modesty grows, virtue is not all dead and resurrection is still possible. Bow your head before this flower, you, jeering deniers of every feminine virtue! you, insatiable tormentors of lust. Respect that clod of sacred earth; do not pluck that humble and last flower of a garden, which you so brutally have stripped of all leaves and reduced to desolation! Modesty is never excessive when it is sincere; it is never too exacting when it rises spontaneously from the heart of a lofty nature; it is a sentiment that can inspire only noble things and prepare us for sublime joys. Modesty has such power that it can elevate ignorance and simplicity to the highest spheres and encircle with a halo the most common loves as well as the most exalted; it is possessed of such esthetic energies as to smother with flowers the most bestial roar of the most brazen man and hide with an impenetrable veil the most immodest secrets of the animal man. Without any need of cloth or garments, this sublime wizard will cover a nude body with a mantle that will make it invisible and impenetrable to lust. Guardian and priest of love, it follows it at every step and defends it from the mire and from the fire, and, causing it to direct its eyes upward, elevates and sanctifies it. Parsimonious trainer of the forces of love, it preserves them always fresh and always young; and when the first kiss causes the first virgin flower to fall from the brow of a woman, modesty brings forth new and ever virgin flowers before the steps of the two lovers. Texture that conceals, glass that covers, balsam that stops every putrescence, modesty is the most powerful preserver of the affections; and, perhaps, more loves are killed by immodesty than by infidelity.