XXIX
"The greatest reproach we could possibly make against ourselves is, certainly, to have let fade, like the shadowy phantoms produced by sleep, the ideas of honour and justice, which from time to time well up in our hearts." (Letter from Jena, March, 1819.)
XXX
A respectable woman is in the country and passes an hour in the hot-house with her gardener. Certain people, whose views she has upset, accuse her of having found a lover in this gardener. What answer is there?
Speaking absolutely, the thing is possible. She could say: "My character speaks for me, look at my behaviour throughout life"—only all this is equally invisible to the eyes of the ill-natured who won't see, and the fools who can't. (Salviati, Rome, July 23rd, 1819.)
XXXI
I have known a man find out that his rival's love was returned, and yet the rival himself remain blinded to the fact by his passion.
XXXII
The more desperately he is in love, the more violent the pressure a man is forced to put upon himself, in order to risk annoying the woman he loves by taking her hand.