There is no conquest without possession of the thing conquered, just as there can be no love without voluptuousness. Take the flower from the tree, the fruit from the flower, and you will have a faithful image of all those amorous reticences which hypocritically stop at the threshold of the temple and, incapable alike of chastity and courage, of vice and virtue, drag a wretched existence in the limbo of bastardly affections. Often duty must be stronger than love, and, the principles of honesty forbidding, love must be conquered with a cruel and incredible torture; but it is better to be heroes of duty than brigands acquitted for lack of proofs, often despised, despicable always. If you truly love, if you can love, then love in the name of the most powerful of the gods of Olympus, love in the name of nature, in the name of the most sacred of rights. Leave aside all amorous casuistry, the worst of human hypocrisies; leave aside the hope of winning with your reticences and your compromises with conscience the Goliath of the sentiments. How many have I beheld, after long sentimental tirades on platonic love, and after bitter tears and vows of virtue, sink from hypocrisy into hypocrisy and down to lasciviousness! How many guilty lovers did not wish sin and had vice, did not wish guilt and had prostitution! All or nothing: such is love's command. Break down the tree that you cannot cultivate, be everything to somebody; demand to be everything to your companion; do not try to divide the indivisible; do not attempt to overthrow the omnipotent, to win over the invincible. With love you cannot jest; any compromise is impossible.