conscientiously chose each other without
waiting for it to confer happiness upon them--it discovers their names,
that never knows the name of any one, and pursues them with its
animosity; it recovers its sight in order to recognise and strike them.
I feel that we are too happy! Death stares us in the face! My soul
shudders with fear! On earth we are not allowed to taste of supreme
delight--pure, unalloyed happiness--to feel at once that ecstasy of soul
and delirium of passion--that pride of love and loftiness of a pure
conscience ... burning joys are only permitted to culpable love. When
two unfortunate beings, bound by detested ties, meet and mutually
recognise the ideals of their dreams, they are allowed to love each
other because they have met too late, because this immense joy, this
finding one's ideal, is poisoned by remorse and shame. Their criminal
happiness can remain undisturbed because it is criminal; it has the
conditions of life, frailty and misery; it bears the impress of sin,
therefore it belongs to a common humanity.... But find ideal bliss in a
legitimate union, find it in time to welcome it without shame and
cherish it without remorse; be happy as a lover and honored as a wife;
to experience the wild ardor of love and preserve the charming freshness
of purity--to delight in obeying the equitable law of the most
harmonious love by being alternately a slave and a queen; to call upon
him who calls upon you; seek him who seeks you; love him who loves
you--in a word, to be the idol of your idol!... it is too much, it
surpasses human happiness, it is stealing fire from heaven--it is, I
tell you, incurring the punishment of death!

In my enthusiasm I already stand upon the boundary of the true world---
I have a glimpse of paradise; earth recedes from my gaze; I understand
and expect death, because life has bid me a last farewell--the
exaltation that I feel belongs to the future of the blessed; it is a
triumphant dying--that final and supremely happy thought that tells me
my soul is about to take its flight.

Oh! merciful God! my brain is on fire! and why do I write you these
incoherent thoughts! Valentine, you see all excessive emotions are
alike; the delirium of joy resembles the frenzy of despair. Having
attained the summit of happiness, what do we see at our feet?... a
yawning abyss!... we have lost the steep path by which we so painfully
reached the top; once there, we have no means of gradually descendin