"Therefore, why this dream of an absolute intimacy, and why this melancholy, so poignant at certain times of not having realized it, when instead, we should rejoice in it?"
"August 10th: Walked with my little Marie Louise in the chestnut woods, on the side of the Charmousse. From her little faun-like feet to the top of her head she is thrilling with life. When she could scarcely speak she had been told to shake hands with people who showed an interest in her and said 'good day.' So when the wind shook the branches, believing that this movement was intended for her, she politely returned it by holding out her arms.
"Just now she was running in front of me. Her curls, already quite long, were keeping time with her movements. She stopped to pick a flower, some grass, even some soil, and raised them all to her face. One might have said that at the age of five she wanted to possess the whole world. When she came back to me she said:
"'Papa, I love the world.'
"'The world?'
"'Yes, I love everybody.'
"'So do I, little girl. I have loved everything through that love of the touch of things which gives to all our sensations their real value. How it interests me to follow your development. My youth is dead and I am thirty-seven. But what does that matter to you? Enjoy yourself.'"
"August 15th: Saint's Day. I went to church with Elizabeth and Marie Louise. To occupy myself during the service, I opened a prayer-book which had been left in my pew. It was so old and dirty that I could have used tongs. My eyes fell on this sentence of the divine service. 'Watch and pray, for the spirit is willing and the flesh is weak'—
"There was a great deal in this upon which to meditate. That is wise counsel for life. Instead of watching, we allow habit to put to sleep, to anæsthetize our feelings, to minimize and degrade them. To reflect is to keep growing in our inner life, which too often atrophies in the little daily occupations. We deaden ourselves by pleasure, instead of keeping ourselves in a constant state of keen sensibility.
"I look about me. All these good women are reading their service or telling their beads. The letter suffices for them. To reflect, to watch, is also to pray.