"You cannot deny, ladies, that in this case the man's love was the
greater of the two; nevertheless, it was so well requited that I would
gladly have all lovers equally rewarded."

"Then," said Hircan, "there would be more manifest fools among men and
women than ever there were."

"Do you call it folly," said Oisille, "to love virtuously in youth and
then to turn this love wholly to God?"

"If melancholy and despair be praiseworthy," answered Hircan, laughing,
"I will acknowledge that Pauline and her lover are well worthy of
praise."

"True it is," said Geburon, "that God has many ways of drawing us to
Himself, and though they seem evil in the beginning, yet in the end they
are good."

"Moreover," said Parlamente, "I believe that no man can ever love God
perfectly that has not perfectly loved one of His creatures in this
world."

"What do you mean by loving perfectly?" asked Saffredent. "Do you
consider that those frigid beings who worship their mistresses in
silence and from afar are perfect lovers?"

"I call perfect lovers," replied Parlamente, "those who seek perfection
of some kind in the objects of their love, whether beauty, or goodness,
or grace, ever tending to virtue, and who have such noble and upright
hearts that they would rather die than do base things, contrary and