And so Dolce’s advice was followed; melancholy was banished. But I am not sure that very fine distinctions were drawn between the two kinds of love, or that the young masters possessed the delightful art of developing only the fancy and the softer qualities. In France and elsewhere, to all appearance, they rather treated their fair pupils in masculine fashion, with a fearless handling of ideas; that at least is the impression we get from Erasmus’ dialogues, _The Girl and the Lover_, _The Youth and the Courtesan_. Brantôme taunts them with a certain tendency to make special use of the risky passages in the Bible and their authors for teaching theology and an elegant style. In this way the young girls attained a perfect independence of mind. They cannot even be compared with the American girl of to-day, for the old hardy, somewhat wild French stock had undergone a wonderful grafting with Italian refinement. Many of them, having reached a certain age, pursued their studies with marvellous gusto; Petrarch and Erasmus they thought rather poor stuff, preferring to work at Poggio[92] and Boccaccio. Their style of talk was intrepid! Ah! there was no standing on ceremony with them! Fun was fast and furious. They devoured romances, novels and plays: these fine intrigues, these riotous passions seemed to them to constitute the ideal life. They were _demi-vierges_. “With all these lascivious romances, spotless virginity will be unknown.” To describe the indignation and grief of old-fashioned people at this sight is impossible. “I would rather see a girl deaf or blind,” cries Vivès, “than thus overstimulated to pleasure.” Of course it was pleaded that the artistic instincts were being satisfied! But all these romances bore but little likeness to the subtle analyses of our days, which are sometimes masterpieces of philosophy: they were a tissue of adventures all equally untrue to life. Vivès did not understand how, if only from the point of view of taste, girls of any intelligence could go into raptures over such extravagances: a knight who is left for dead, but comes to life on the next page; a hero who massacres a hundred foes single-handed; nor how they could worship as a demi-god the author of such trash. He begs the mothers for pity’s sake to interfere, to take the trouble to glance through a book before leaving it to their girls; but the mothers are accustomed to live their own life, and besides, a lady of fashion has so many occupations! He beseeches the preachers for help, waxing almost indignant when he hears them pompously stringing together their platitudes on dogma instead of boldly attacking questions of living interest and condemning books that are absurd or of evil tendency. But the preachers go on preaching.