will be happy in spite of fortune, and good in spite of your passions.  You will find a pleasure that cannot be destroyed, even in the possession of the most fragile things; you will possess them, they will not possess you, and you will realise that the man who loses everything, only enjoys what he knows how to resign.  It is true you will not enjoy the illusions of imaginary pleasures, neither will you feel the sufferings which are their result.  You will profit greatly by this exchange, for the sufferings are real and frequent, the pleasures are rare and empty.  Victor over so many deceitful ideas, you will also vanquish the idea that attaches such an excessive value to life.  You will spend your life in peace, and you will leave it without terror; you will detach yourself from life as from other things.  Let others, horror-struck, believe that when this life is ended they cease to be; conscious of the nothingness of life, you will think that you are but entering upon the true life.  To the wicked, death is the close of life; to the just it is its dawn.”

Emile heard me with attention not unmixed with anxiety.  After such a startling preface he feared some gloomy conclusion.  He foresaw that when I showed him how necessary it is to practise the strength of the soul, I desired to subject him to this stern discipline; he was like a wounded man who shrinks from the surgeon, and fancies he already feels the painful but healing touch which will cure the deadly wound.

Uncertain, anxious, eager to know what I am driving at, he does not answer, he questions me but timidly.  “What must I do?” says he almost trembling, not daring to raise his eyes.  “What must you do?” I reply firmly.  “You must leave Sophy.”  “What are you saying?” he exclaimed angrily.  “Leave Sophy, leave Sophy, deceive her, become a traitor, a villain, a perjurer!” “Why!” I continue, interrupting him; “does Emile suppose I shall teach him to deserve such titles?” “No,” he continued with the same vigour.  “Neither you nor any one else; I am capable of preserving your work; I shall not deserve such reproaches.”

I was prepared for this first outburst; I let it pass unheeded.  If I had not the moderation I preach it would not be much use preaching it!  Emile knows me too well to believe me capable of demanding any wrong action from him, and he knows that it would be wrong to leave Sophy, in the sense he attaches to the phrase.  So he waits for an explanation.  Then I resume my speech.

“My dear Emile, do you think any man whatsoever can be happier than you have been for the last three months?  If you think so, undeceive yourself.  Before tasting the pleasures of life you have plumbed the depths of its happiness.  There is nothing more than you have already experienced.  The joys of sense are soon over; habit invariably destroys them.  You have tasted greater joys through hope than you will ever enjoy in reality.  The imagination which adorns what we long for, deserts its possession.