I have spent the night thinking these things over, and seeking a solution that I have not yet found. Perhaps I ought to leave this house and this place at once. Prudence counsels it. This business cannot end well. How often one minute of courage and firmness would spare us a lifetime of regret! I ought at least to be overwhelmed by sadness; I have never had such good reason for melancholy. But I cannot grieve. My brain, distracted and tortured, yet holds a thought which dominates everything, and fills me with more than mortal joy. My soul is as light as a bird of the air. I see—I shall always see—that little cemetery, that distant ocean, that vast horizon, and on that glowing hilltop, that angel of beauty bathed in divine tears! Still, I feel her hand under my lips, her tears in my eyes and in my heart. I love her! Well, to-morrow, if so it must be, I will decide. Till then, for God’s sake, let me have a little rest. I have not been overdone with happiness. I may die of this love, but I will live in peace with it for one day at least. _August 26th_. That day, the single day I asked, has not been granted me. My brief weakness has not had long to wait for its punishment, which will be lasting. How could I have forgotten? Moral laws can no more be broken with impunity than physical, and their invariable action constitutes the permanent intervention of what we call Providence in the affairs of this world. A great, though weak man, writing the gospel of a sage with the hand of a quasi-maniac, said of the passions that were at once his misery, his reproach, and his glory: "All are good while we are their masters; all are bad when we let them enslave us. Nature forbids us to let our attachments exceed our strength; reason forbids us to desire what we cannot obtain; conscience does not forbid us to be tempted, it does forbid us to yield to temptation. It does not rest with us to have or not to have passions, but it does rest with us to control them. All the feelings which we govern are legitimate; all those that govern us are criminal. Attach your heart only to the beauty that does not perish; limit your desires by your conditions; put your duties before your passions; extend the law of necessity to things moral; learn to lose what may be taken from you; learn to give up everything at the command of virtue!" Yes, such is the law. I knew it; I have broken it; I am punished. It is right. I had scarcely set foot on my cloud of folly when I was thrown violently off, and now, after five days, I have barely courage to recount the almost ridiculous details of my downfall.