that is to say, to the irrational, to the repose of mind in absolute
ignorance, to the woman who is merely a woman, the instinctive being
who acts solely from the impulse of an obscure conscience. The fierce
school of controversy, in which the mind of Europe has been involved
since the time of Abélard, induces periods of mental drought and
aridity. The brain, parched by reasoning, thirsts for simplicity, like
the desert for spring water. When reflection has brought us up to the
last limit of doubt, the spontaneous affirmation of the good and of
the beautiful which is to be found in the female conscience delights
us and settles the question for us. This is why religion is preserved
to the world by woman alone. A beautiful and a virtuous woman is the
mirage which peoples with lakes and green avenues our great moral
desert. The superiority of modern science consists in the fact
that each step forward it takes is a step further in the order of
abstractions. We make chemistry from chemistry, algebra from algebra;
the very indefatigability with which we fathom nature removes us
further from her. This is as it should be, and let no one fear to
prosecute his researches, for out of this merciless dissection comes
life. But we need not be surprised at the feverish heat which, after
these orgies of dialectics, can only be calmed by the kisses of the
artless creature in whom nature lives and smiles. Woman restores us to
communication with the eternal spring in which God reflects Himself.
The candour of a child, unconscious of its own beauty and seeing God
clear as the daylight, is the great revelation of the ideal, just as
the unconscious coquetry of the flower is a proof that Nature adorns
herself for a husband.

One should never write except upon that which one loves. Oblivion and
silence are the proper punishments to be inflicted upon all that we
meet with in the way of what is ungainly or vulgar in the course of