Letters of Two Brides quotes

Sweetheart, I too am free! And I am the first too, unless you have written to Blois, at our sweet tryst of letter-writing.

Raise those great black eyes of yours, fixed on my opening sentence, and keep this excitement for the letter which shall tell you of my first love. By the way, why always “first?” Is there, I wonder, a second love?

Raise those great black eyes of yours, fixed on my opening sentence, and keep this excitement for the letter which shall tell you of my first love. By the way, why always “first?”

Is there, I wonder, a second love?

Don’t go running on like this, you will say, but tell me rather how you made your escape from the convent where you were to take your vows.

I have ceased to wonder at the indifference my family have shown to me.

In Paris, my dear, it is a miracle of virtue to love the people who live with you, for you see little enough of them; as for the absent⁠—they do not exist!

Knowing as this may sound, I have not yet set foot in the streets, and am deplorably ignorant.

When I longed for it, I had no idea of the separations it brought about, or its overmastering spell. But, then, I forget, it is Paris which does it all.

It is possible, it seems, for members of one family to live side by side and know absolutely nothing of each other.

A half-fledged nun arrives, and in a couple of weeks has grasped domestic details, of which the master diplomatist at the head of the house is quite ignorant. Or perhaps he does see, and shuts his eyes deliberately, as part of the father’s role.

Each had her band of faithful followers, and they all watched each other askance. A few were radiant in triumphant beauty, and amongst these was my mother.

A girl at a ball is a mere dancing-machine⁠—a thing of no consequence whatever.

The men, with rare exceptions, did not impress me more favorably here than at the Champs-Élysées. They have a used-up look; their features are meaningless, or rather they have all the same meaning.

I returned home tired with a pleasant sort of tiredness, and in all innocence began describing my sensations to my mother, who was with me. She checked me with the warning that I must never say such things to anyone but her.

“My dear child,” she added, “it needs as much tact to know when to be silent as when to speak.”

This advice brought home to me the nature of the sensations which ought to be concealed from everyone, not excepting perhaps even a mother. At a glance I measured the vast field of feminine duplicity.

Othello is in love with glory; he wins battles, he gives orders, he struts about and is all over the place while Desdemona sits at home; and Desdemona, who sees herself neglected for the silly fuss of public life, is quite meek all the time.

Such a sheep deserves to be slaughtered. Let the man whom I deign to love beware how he thinks of anything but loving me!

For my part, I like those long trials of the old-fashioned chivalry. That lout of a young lord, who took offence because his sovereign-lady sent him down among the lions to fetch her glove, was, in my opinion, very impertinent, and a fool too.

I have already seen hundreds of men, young and middle-aged; not one has stirred the least feeling in me. No proof of admiration and devotion on their part, not even a sword drawn in my behalf, would have moved me.

Love, dear, is the product of such rare conditions that it is quite possible to live a lifetime without coming across the being on whom nature has bestowed the power of making one’s happiness.

The thought is enough to make one shudder; for if this being is found too late, what then?

The time during which a woman can look for admiration is short, it will soon be past; and if my life has not been a great one, it will at least have been calm, tranquil, free from shocks.

Nature has favored our sex in giving us a choice between love and motherhood.

I have made mine. My children shall be my gods, and this spot of earth my Eldorado.

This suits me capitally; there would be something ominous in starting an imitation Nouvelle Héloïse. I have just been reading Rousseau’s, and it has left me with a strong distaste for love.

Passion which can argue and moralize seems to me detestable.

Clarissa also is much too pleased with herself and her long, little letter; but Richardson’s work is an admirable picture, my father tells me, of English women. Rousseau’s seems to me a sort of philosophical sermon, cast in the form of letters.

A voice within seemed to utter the same warning. So I took my precautions. Hénarez, my dear, dares to look at me, and his eyes are disquieting. They inspire me with what I can only call an unreasoning dread.

Such a man ought no more to be looked at than a frog; he is ugly and fascinating.

For two days I have been hesitating whether to tell my father point-blank that I want no more Spanish lessons and have Hénarez sent about his business.

It may be that I shall do worse than you without any reasoning or calculations.

Passion is an element in life bound to have a logic not less pitiless than yours.

Yesterday night I placed myself at the window as I was going to bed, to look at the sky, which was wonderfully clear. The stars were like silver nails, holding up a veil of blue.

Yesterday night I placed myself at the window as I was going to bed, to look at the sky, which was wonderfully clear.

The stars were like silver nails, holding up a veil of blue.

In the silence of the night I could hear someone breathing, and by the half-light of the stars I saw my Spaniard, perched like a squirrel on the branches of one of the trees lining the boulevard, and doubtless lost in admiration of my windows.

In their exclusive concern for the family they have imitated Nature, whose one care is to propagate the species.

Formerly I was a person, now I am a chattel.

Not a few tears have I gulped down, alone and far from everyone. How gladly would I have exchanged them for a consoling smile! Why are our destinies so unequal? Your soul expands in the atmosphere of a lawful passion.

In short, I am quite capable of reason. Oh! to feel again the terror of that fascination in which I was held by the schoolmaster, the plebeian, the man I kept at a distance!

The fact is that love is of two kinds⁠—one which commands, and one which obeys.

The two are quite distinct, and the passion to which the one gives rise is not the passion of the other. To get her full of life, perhaps a woman ought to have experience of both. Can the two passions ever coexist?

Is it thus with all our pleasures?

Is suspense always better than enjoyment? Hope than fruition?

Is it the rich who in very truth are the poor? Have we not both perhaps exaggerated feeling by giving to imagination too free a rein? There are times when this thought freezes me. Shall I tell you why?

For know, Prime Minister of all the Spains, that I have reflected much on the defenceless condition of our sex. My innocence has held a torch, and my fingers are not burnt. Let me repeat to you, then, what my youthful experience taught me.

In all other matters, duplicity, faithlessness, and broken pledges are brought to book and punished; but not so with love, which is at once the victim, the accuser, the counsel, judge, and executioner.

The cruelest treachery, the most heartless crimes, are those which remain forever concealed, with two hearts alone for witness. How indeed should the victim proclaim them without injury to herself?

The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and Mme. d’Espard shot glances first at my mother, then at the Baron, brimming over with sly intelligence and repressed curiosity. With their serpent’s cunning they had at last got an inkling of something going on.

Of all mysteries in life, love is the least mysterious! It exhales from women, I believe, like a perfume, and she who can conceal it is a very monster! Our eyes prattle even more than our tongues.

Having enjoyed the delightful sensation of finding Felipe rise to the occasion, as I had wished, it was only in nature I should hunger for more.

When I think what marriage has been to me, it seems to me that I should have died, had it turned out otherwise. And you live! Tell me what your heart feeds on! Never again shall I make fun of you.

Mockery, my sweet, is the child of ignorance; we jest at what we know nothing of.

“Recruits will laugh where the veteran soldier looks grave,” was a remark made to me by the Comte de Chaulieu, that poor cavalry officer whose campaigning so far has consisted in marches from Paris to Fontainebleau and back again.

The sensation which rises from it, and which penetrates to the very core of my life, baffles all description. It seems a sort of centre whence a myriad joy-bearing rays gladden the heart and soul.

To bear a child is nothing; to nourish it is birth renewed every hour.

Oh! Louise, there is no caress of lover with half the power of those little pink hands, as they stray about, seeking whereby to lay hold on life. And the infant glances, now turned upon the breast, now raised to meet our own!

A laugh, a glance, a bite, a cry—four miracles of gladness which go straight to the heart and strike chords that respond to no other touch.

A child is tied to our heartstrings, as the spheres are linked to their creator; we cannot think of God except as a mother’s heart writ large.

It is only in the act of nursing that a woman realizes her motherhood in visible and tangible fashion; it is a joy of every moment. The milk becomes flesh before our eyes; it blossoms into the tips of those delicate flower-like fingers;

in the Chamber he is sure to come to the front, for you can always count on me to promote your interests. The sufferings of his exile have given him that calm and dignified air which goes halfway, in my opinion, to make a politician.

For the whole art of politics, dear, seems to me to consist in looking serious.

At this rate, Macumer, as I told him, ought certainly to have a high position in the state.

The convention is that a man must no more show himself the lover of his wife, however passionately he adores her, than a married woman may play the part of a mistress. This rule you both disregard.

In the first place, my child, from what you have yourself told me, it is clear that the one unpardonable sin in society is to be happy.

If happiness exists, no one must know of it. But this is a small point.

You are too noble and generous, I know, ever to forget the sacrifices which Felipe has made for you; but what further sacrifices will be left for him to make when he has, so to speak, served up himself at the first banquet?

Woe to the man, as to the woman, who has left no desire unsatisfied!

All is over then. To our shame or our glory—the point is too nice for me to decide—it is of love alone that women are insatiable.

Enough of this. You say I rave, so I had better hold my tongue. Only this would I say, from the comparison of our two very different destinies I draw this harsh moral—

Love not if you would be loved.

My dear, when Louis was elected to the provincial Council, he received the cross of the Legion of Honor. That is now nearly three years ago;

My park and castle are cold and desolate to me.

A childless woman is a monstrosity of nature; we exist only to be mothers.

Oh! my sage in woman’s livery, how well you have conned the book of life! Everywhere, too, barrenness is a dismal thing. My life is a little too much like one of Gessner’s or Florian’s sheepfolds, which Rivarol longed to see invaded by a wolf.

Now, can you understand the meaning of my sudden journeys, my mysterious comings and goings? Now, do you know whither those beautiful things, which the world supposes to be sold, have flown? Do you perceive the ultimate motive of my change of investment?

Love, my dear, is a vast business, and they who would succeed in it should have no other.

Henceforth I shall have no more trouble from money matters;

I know neither whence nor from whom it will arise; but one need be no prophet to foretell that the mere weight of a boundless happiness will overpower you.

Excess of joy is harder to bear than any amount of sorrow.

Against him I have not a word to say. You love him, and in all probability I have never seen him; but some idle day I hope you will send me a sketch, however slight, of this rare, fine animal.

Yet home education is not without its drawbacks, to which I am fully alive.

Society, like nature, is a jealous power, and will have not her rights encroached on, or her system set at naught.

Thus, children who are brought up at home are exposed too early to the fire of the world; they see its passions and become at home with its subterfuges.

My eyes met his; deep answered to deep. No, not a trace of the cloud of disloyalty which, rising from the soul, must dim the clearness of the eye. I feigned satisfaction, though really unconvinced.

It is not women only who can lie and dissemble!

The whole of the day we spent together. Ever and again, as I looked at him, I realized how fast my heartstrings were bound to him. How I trembled and fluttered within when, after a moment’s absence, he reappeared.

I hate that mare! Fool that I was to keep horses! But the next thing would have been to lame Gaston or imprison him in the cottage. Wild thoughts like these filled my brain; you see how near I was to madness!

If love be not the cage, what power on earth can hold back the man who wants to be free?

I asked him point-blank, “Do I bore you?”

Once more alone, I fell back into the hell of possibilities, the maelstrom of mistrust. There were moments when I would have welcomed any certainty, even the worst, as a relief from the torture of suspense.

Suspense is a duel carried on in the heart, and we give no quarter to ourselves.

I paced up and down the walks. I returned to the house, only to tear out again, like a mad woman. Gaston, who left at seven o’clock, did not return till eleven.

But it was too late. The fatal mistake, against which my mother had tried to warm me, was made. My jealousy, exposed in all its nakedness, had led to war and all its stratagems between Gaston and myself.

Jealousy, dear, has neither sense nor decency.

I made up my mind now to suffer in silence, but to keep my eyes open, until my doubts were resolved one way or another. Then I would either break with Gaston or bow to my misfortune: