When the sources of love are many, while one dries up another swells so that love never lacks a flow of water to quench its insatiable thirst. All passions follow in their movements a parabolic line, and those that have risen the highest descend the most rapidly; hence the weariness so close to strength; the tediousness that follows enthusiasm; the thousand dangers of the death of sentiment. More than any other passion, love presents these phenomena and dangers, and it is impossible for all to make voluptuousness, ecstasy and apotheosis last beyond a very short flash of a few instants. Intermittence is one of the most inexorable laws of the nervous system, and he who would increase enthusiasm and "Only breathe the life of kisses and of sighs," dies consumed by his own fire, and, what is worse, before dying, beholds love dead at his feet. We cannot rebel against the laws of nature, nor can we subjugate them; but it is conceded to us to direct them to our advantage. And thus it is in our case. Between ecstasy and ecstasy we can sow joy and suppress tediousness; between voluptuousness and voluptuousness we can suppress weariness and pick the flowers of sentiment, and from too ardent and sensual contemplations we can repair to the cool temple of thought to meditate and remember together. This is perfect love, this is ideal love, which keeps pure, unaltered, brilliant as a diamond in the tormented sand of a river. A few reach it; many, however, can approach it, and for human happiness and human greatness it is enough to see it even from afar, like the promised land, which, as the poet says, "is always beyond the mountain."