"Do you think so, mamma?"
"You know well enough, for instance, that if it were the custom to make ragouts of them, Catherine, who runs away the moment she sees one, would, instead of doing so, think only of catching it, and would be no more afraid of it than she is of the eel, which twists about in her hand like a serpent, and which you think it would be impossible for you to touch. In the same way she would think only of the ragout she was going to prepare, and not of her absurd fears."
"But, mamma, one cannot always conjure up an idea which will enable us to overcome fear."
"Nothing is easier. You see that by a simple prohibition, I have given you sufficient means to diminish your fear of the thunder, and of the wind; as to those things which I do not forbid, you have only to forbid them yourself."
"One cannot always find something to forbid oneself."
"Always, my child, when we are disposed to yield to fear, for we are led to do many things which we ought to think of forbidding ourselves, and when we do not yield to them, we soon lose the habit of doing so. Do you remember the habit you had two years ago, of looking, before you went to bed, both under your own bed and mine, and of examining all the closets and doors of the apartment? When I compelled you to go to bed without all these precautions, were you any longer tormented by fear?"
"Oh! dear, no, mamma; the following day I thought no more about it; but I am quite sure, however, that if I had missed of my own accord, I should have fancied that that was the very time when there would be some one concealed."
"Because you were not then convinced that it was unreasonable, and that you ought not to yield to it. The idea of resisting a bad habit, by reasoning against it, would have diverted your mind, as much as my prohibition, from the fear which had induced you to form it."
"In fact, mamma, those who are afraid of nothing, must, I should suppose, be thus fearless, because they never think about fear, otherwise I could not comprehend them."