I comforted Julie under the
sacrifice that necessity obliged us to make of complete happiness here
below; I pointed out to her the merit of this self-denial of an instant
in the eyes of the Eternal Remunerator of our actions. I blessed the
mournful and sublime purity of such sacrifices, since they would one
day obtain for us a more immaterial and angelic union in the eternal
atmosphere of pure spirits. I went so far as to speak of myself as
happy in my abnegation, and to sing the hymns of the martyrdom of love
to which we were by love, by greater love, condemned. I entreated Julie
not to think of my grief and not to give way to sorrow herself. I
showed a courage and a contempt for terrestrial happiness that I
possessed, alas! very often only in words. I offered up to her, as a
holocaust, all that was human in me. I elevated myself to the
immateriality of angels, so that she might not suspect a suffering or a
desire in my adoration. I besought her to seek in a tender and
sustaining religion, in the shelter of the church, in the mysterious
faith of Christ, the God of tears, in kneeling and in invocation,--the
hopes, the consolations, and the delights that I had tasted in my
childhood.
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