Octave Feuillet

“ I feel some friendship for her, an affection that has something fraternal in it; but between her and me, nothing further is at all likely; the expanse of the heavens divides us. The idea of being her husband makes me burst out laughing, and though a sentiment which you will readily appreciate, the thought of being her lover inspires me with horror. As to her, I believe she may feel the shadow of a caprice, but not even the dawn of a passion. Here I am now upon her etagere with the rest of the figure-heads, and I think, as does Madame de Malouet, that may be enough to satisfy her. ”

“ Young women, I repeat, are generally idealists; their love has no substance. You ask of whom or of what you should be jealous? Be jealous, then, of all those vague and romantic aspirations that torment youthful imaginations; be jealous of the wind, of the tempest, of the barren moors, of the rugged cliffs, of my old manor, of my words and of my ruins—for Julia adores all that. Be jealous, above all, of that ardent worship she has avowed to her father's memory, and which still absorbs her—I have lately had a proof of the fact—the keenest of her passion. ”

“ My love for you is boundless. I love you enough to disdain and trample under foot that which the meanest human being still respects. I love you enough to find in you alone, in your single esteem, and in your sole tenderness, in the pride and madness of being yours, oblivion and consolation for friendship outraged, faith betrayed, and honor lost. But, Madame, this is a sentiment which you will do well not to trifle with. ”

“ For a few moments he leaned over the balustrade of the terrace and looked around. The night, clear and beautiful, enveloped in its shadowy veil the widestretching fields, and a solemn stillness, strange to Parisian ears, reigned around him, broken only at intervals by the distant bay of a hound, rising suddenly, and dying into peace again. His eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness, Camors descended the terrace stairs and passed into the old avenue, which was darker and more solemn than a cathedral-aisle at midnight, and thence into an open road into which it led by chance. ”

“ Yes, Monsieur, let us turn from the past to the present—to France of to-day! A nation of forty millions of people who await each morning from Paris the signal to know whether it is day or night, or whether, indeed, they shall laugh or weep! A great people, once the noblest, the cleverest in the world, repeating the same day, at the same hour, in all the salons, and at all the crossways in the empire, the same imbecile gabble engendered the evening before in the mire of the boulevards. ”

“ His heart had been broken by the violence of the surprise, the grief, and the horror.
One look of Camors told Madame de Campvallon she was a widow. She threw herself on the divan, buried her face in the cushions and sobbed aloud. Camors still stood, his back against the mantelpiece, his eyes fixed, wrapped in his own thoughts. He wished in all sincerity of heart that he could have awakened the dead and restored him to life. He had sworn to deliver himself up to him without defence, if ever the old man demanded it of him for forgotten favors, betrayed friendship, and violated honor. ”

“ We are speaking, let it be understood, of the best of the elite—of those that read, and of those that dream. As to the rest, those who participate in the Parisian life on its lighter side, in its childish whirl, and the trifling follies it entails, who make rendezvous, waste their time, who dress and are busy day and night doing nothing, who dance frantically in the rays of the Parisian sun, without thought, without passion, without virtue, and even without vice—we must own it is impossible to imagine anything more contemptible. ”