by itself, these four years furnish nothing to relate which was not as
tender as the soft outlines of eternal cherubs, as insipid, alas! as
manna, and about as amusing as the tale of "Astrea."

In 1833, this edifice of happiness, so carefully erected by Felix
de Vandenesse, began to crumble, weakened at its base without his
knowledge. The heart of a woman of twenty-five is no longer that of a
girl of eighteen, any more than the heart of a woman of forty is that
of a woman of thirty. There are four ages in the life of woman; each
age creates a new woman. Vandenesse knew, no doubt, the law of these
transformations (created by our modern manners and morals), but he
forgot them in his own case,--just as the best grammarian will forget a
rule of grammar in writing a book, or the greatest general in the field
under fire, surprised by some unlooked-for change of base, forgets his
military tactics. The man who can perpetually bring his thought to bear
upon his facts is a man of genius; but the man of the highest genius
does not display genius at all times; if he did, he would be like to
God.

After four years of this life, with never a shock to the soul, nor
a word that produced the slightest discord in this sweet concert of
sentiment, the countess, feeling herself developed like a beautiful
plant in a fertile soil, caressed by the sun of a cloudless sky, awoke
to a sense of a new self. This crisis of her life, the subject of this
Scene, would be incomprehensible without certain explanations, which may
extenuate in the eyes of women the wrong-doing of this young countess, a
happy wife, a happy mother, who seems, at first sight, inexcusable.

Life results from the action of two opposing principles; when one of
them is lacking the being suffers. Vandenesse, by satisfying every need,
had suppressed desire, that king of creation, which fills an enormous
place in the moral forces. Extreme heat, extreme sorrow, complete
happiness, are all despotic principles that reign over spaces devoid of
production; they insist on being solitary; they stifle all that is not
themselves. Vandenesse was not a woman, and none but women know the art
of varying happiness; hence their coquetry, refusals, fears, quarrels,
and the all-wise clever foolery with which they put in doubt the things
that seemed to be without a cloud the night before. Men may weary by
their constancy, but women never. Vandenesse was too thoroughly kind
by nature to worry delibe