Hortense was a
wife; Valerie a mistress.
Many men desire to have two editions of the same work, though it is in
fact a proof of inferiority when a man cannot make his mistress of his
wife. Variety in this particular is a sign of weakness. Constancy will
always be the real genius of love, the evidence of immense power--the
power that makes the poet! A man ought to find every woman in his
wife, as the squalid poets of the seventeenth century made their
Manons figure as Iris and Chloe.
"Well," said Lisbeth to the Pole, as she beheld him fascinated, "what
do you think of Valerie?"
"She is too charming," replied Wenceslas.
"You would not listen to me," said Betty. "Oh! my little Wenceslas, if
you and I had never parted, you would have been that siren's lover;
you might have married her when she was a widow, and you would have
had her forty thousand francs a year----"
"Really?"
"Certainly," replied Lisbeth. "Now, take care of yourself; I warned
you of the danger; do not singe your wings in the candle!--Come, give
me your arm, dinner is served."
No language could be so thoroughly demoralizing as this; for if you
show a Pole a precipice, he is bound to leap it. As a nation they have
the very spirit of cavalry; they fancy they can ride down every
obstacle and come out victorious.
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