s. How much he is changed! What! is this fierce soldier my
son? He departed a child, and he comes back a man: he seeks to be
married. This is another sacrifice, which is not less serious. He
loves another! And his mother, in whose heart he is, and ever will be
the first, will possess the second place in his affections--alas! a
very small place in the moments of his passion. She seeks for, and
chooses her own rival: she loves her on his account; she adorns her;
she becomes her attendant, and leads her to the altar; and all she asks
for there is, that the mother may not be forgotten in the wife!

CHAPTER IV.

LOVE.--LOVE WISHES TO RAISE, NOT TO ABSORB.--THE FALSE THEORY OF OUR
ADVERSARIES, AND THEIR DANGEROUS PRACTICE.--LOVE WISHES TO FORM FOR
ITSELF AN EQUAL WHO MAY LOVE FREELY.--LOVE IN THE WORLD, AND IN THE
CIVIL WORLD.--LOVE IN FAMILIES.--LITTLE UNDERSTOOD BY THE MIDDLE
AGES.--FAMILY RELIGION.

Will it be said that, in the preceding chapter, being seduced by a
sweeter subject, I have lost sight of the whole subject in dispute
hitherto pursued in my book?

I think I have, on the contrary, thrown much light upon the question.
Maternal love (that miracle of God) and maternal education enable us to
understand what every education, direction, or initiation ought to be.

The singular advantage which the mother has in education is, that,
being more than all others devoted and disinterested, she respects
infantine personality in the fragile little thing which is becoming a
person. She is, for the child, the defender of his original
individuality. She wishes, even at the expense of her own feelings,
that he should act according to his genius, and that he may grow up and
_rise_. What can education and true direction require? What love
desires in its highest and most disinterested idea--that the young
creature may _rise_. Take this word in both its acceptations. She
wishes the child may rise above herself, up to the level of him who
helps her, and even above him, if he can. The stronger party, far from
absorbing the weaker, wishes to make him strong, and put him on an
equal footing. She endeavours to do this by developing in him not only
whatever is similar in their natures, but even whatever is
characteristically distinctive between them, by exciting his free
originality, provoking activity in this being born for action, and by
appealing to the person, and what is most personal in the person, his
wi