ether of the body or the heart, consists in
certain balanced movements. Any excess introduced into the working of
this routine gives rise either to pain or to pleasure, both of which are
a mere fever of the soul, bound to be fugitive because nature is not
so framed as to support it long. But to make of life one long excess is
surely to choose sickness for one's portion. You are sick because you
maintain at the temperature of passion a feeling which marriage ought to
convert into a steadying, purifying influence.

Yes, my sweet, I see it clearly now; the glory of a home consists in
this very calm, this intimacy, this sharing alike of good and evil,
which the vulgar ridicule. How noble was the reply of the Duchesse de
Sully, the wife of the great Sully, to some one who remarked that her
husband, for all his grave exterior, did not scruple to keep a mistress.
"What of that?" she said. "I represent the honor of the house, and
should decline to play the part of a courtesan there."

But you, Louise, who are naturally more passionate than tender, would
be at once the wife and the mistress. With the soul of a Heloise and the
passions of a Saint Theresa, you slip the leash on all your impulses, so
long as they are sanctioned by law; in a word, you degrade the marriage
rite. Surely the tables are turned. The reproaches you once heaped on me
for immorally, as you said, seizing the means of happiness from the
very outset of my wedded life, might be directed against yourself for
grasping at everything which may serve your passion. What! must nature
and society alike be in bondage to your caprice? You are the old Louise;
you have never acquired the qualities which ought to be a woman's;
self-willed and unreasonable as a girl, you introduce withal into your
love the keenest and most mercenary of calculations! Are you sure that,
after all, the price you ask for your toilets is not too high? All these
precautions are to my mind very suggestive of mistrust.

Oh, dear Louise, if only you knew the sweetness of a mother's efforts
to discipline herself in kindness and gentleness to all about her! My
proud, self-sufficing temper gradually dissolved into a soft melancholy,
which in turn has been swallowed up by those delights of motherhood
which have been its reward. If the early hours were toilsome, the
evening will be tranquil and clear. My dread is lest the day of your
life should take the opposite course.

When I had read your letter to