The
senses sometimes harmonize while ideas are at variance; and some
persons live more by their minds than by their bodies. The contrary is
also true; often minds agree and persons displease. These phenomena,
the varying and secret cause of many sorrows, show the wisdom of laws
which give parents supreme power over the marriages of their children;
for a young girl is often duped by one or other of these
hallucinations. Therefore I do not blame you. The sensations you feel,
the rush of sensibility which has come from its hidden source upon
your heart and upon your mind, the happiness with which you think of
Savinien, are all natural. But, my darling child, society demands, as
our good abbe has told us, the sacrifice of many natural inclinations.
The destinies of men and women differ. I was able to choose Ursula
Mirouet for my wife; I could go to her and say that I loved her; but a
young girl is false to herself if she asks the love of the man she
loves. A woman has not the right which men have to seek the
accomplishment of her hopes in open day. Modesty is to her--above all
to you, my Ursula,--the insurmountable barrier which protects the
secrets of her heart.
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