her; "I am bursting with jealousy."

What affects us the most is, that after having made the confession,
this poor creature, so very gentle, and so very good, sacrificed her
own feelings, and became nurse to her who was the object of her
jealousy, and then attacked by a dreadful malady. She accompanied her
to Paris, shut herself up with her, took care of her, and at last loved
her; for the very reason, perhaps, which just before had produced quite
the contrary effect--because she was loved by Bossuet.

Sister Cornuau is evidently mistaken in her jealousy; she herself is
the person preferred; we see it now by comparing the different
correspondence. For her is reserved all his paternal indulgence; for
her alone he seems at times to be affected, as much as his ordinary
gravity permits. This man, so occupied, finds time to write her nearly
two hundred letters; and he is certainly much more firm and austere
with the fine lady of whom she is jealous. He becomes short and almost
harsh towards the latter, when the business is to answer the rather
difficult confidential questions which she perseveres in putting to
him. He postpones his answer to an indefinite period ("to my entire
leisure"); and till that time, he forbids her to write upon such
subjects, otherwise "he will burn her letters without even reading them
(24th November, 1691)." He says, somewhere else, very nobly,
concerning these delicate things which may trouble the imagination,
"that it was necessary, when one was obliged to speak of, and listen to
sufferings of this sort, _to be standing with only the point of the
foot upon the earth_." This perfect honesty, which would never
understand anything in a bad sense, makes him sometimes forget the
existence of evil more than he ought, and renders him rather
incautious. Confident also in his age, then very mature, he
occasionally allows himself outbursts of mystic love, that were
indiscreet before so impassioned a witness as Sister Cornuau. In
presence of this simple, submissive, and in every respect inferior
person, he considers himself to be alone; and giving free course to the
vivacious instinct of poetry that animated him even in his old days, he
does not hesitate to make use of the mysterious language of the Song of
Solomon. Sometimes it is in order to calm his penitent, and strengthen
her chastity, that he employs this ardent language. I dare not copy
the letter (innocent, certainly, but so very imprud