to be feared least may be the woman of gallantry whom you love without exactly knowing why; she will leave you for no motive and go back to you out of vanity.  All these women will injure you, either in the present or the future.  Every young woman who enters society and lives a life of pleasure and of gratified vanity is semi-corrupt and will corrupt you.  Among them you will not find the chaste and tranquil being in whom you may forever reign.  Ah! she who loves you will love solitude; the festivals of her heart will be your glances; she will live upon your words.  May she be all the world to you, for you will be all in all to her.  Love her well; give her neither griefs nor rivals; do not rouse her jealousy.  To be loved, dear, to be comprehended, is the greatest of all joys; I pray that you may taste it!  But run no risk of injuring the flower of your soul; be sure, be very sure of the heart in which you place your affections.  That woman will never be her own self; she will never think of herself, but of you.  She will never oppose you, she will have no interests of her own; for you she will see a danger where you can see none and where she would be oblivious of her own.  If she suffers it will be in silence; she will have no personal vanity, but deep reverence for whatever in her has won your love.  Respond to such a love by surpassing it.  If you are fortunate enough to find that which I, your poor friend, must ever be without, I mean a love mutually inspired, mutually felt, remember that in a valley lives a mother whose heart is so filled with the feelings you have put there that you can never sound its depths.  Yes, I bear you an affection which you will never know to its full extent; before it could show itself for what it is you would have to lose your mind and intellect, and then you would be unable to comprehend the length and breadth of my devotion.

Shall I be misunderstood in bidding you avoid young women (all more or less artful, satirical, vain, frivolous, and extravagant) and attach yourself to influential women, to those imposing dowagers full of excellent good-sense, like my aunt, who will help your career, defend you from attacks, and say for you the things that you cannot say for yourself?  Am I not, on the contrary, generous in bidding you reserve your love for the coming angel with the guileless heart?  If the motto Noblesse oblige sums up the advice I gave you just now, my further advice on your relations to women is based upon that other motto of chivalry, “Serve all, love one!”

Your educational knowledge is immense; your heart, saved by early suffering, is without a stain; all is noble, all is well with you.  Now, Felix, will!  Your future lies in that one word, that word of great men.  My child, you will obey your Henriette, will you not?  You will permit her to tell you from time to time the thoughts that are in her mind of you and of your relations to the world?  I have an eye in my soul which