its. Neither reasoning, chastisement, nor maternal grief,
is of any avail. They both go, and will go, to the end, following the
road by which people travel but once.

A vulgar proverb (but too true in this case) tells us, "_Whoever has
once drunk, will drink_." We must generalise it, and say, "_Whoever
has acted, will act; whoever has suffered, will suffer_." But this is
still more true with respect to passive than active habits. Accustomed
to let things take their course, to suffer and to enjoy, we become
incapable of resuming our activity. At last we do not even require the
enticement of pleasure; even when it is no more, and pain usurps its
place, inexorable habit pours out still from the same cup: it then no
longer takes the trouble to dissemble; we recognise, when too late, how
ugly and invincible this tyrant is, who says coldly, "You drank the
honey first, now you shall drink the gall, and to the last drop."

If this tyrant, habit, is so strong when it acts blindly, when it is
only a thing such as opium or gin, what does it become when it has
eyes, a will, _an art_, in a word, when it is a man? A man full of
calculation, who knows how to create and cherish habit for his own
advantage, a man who for his first means brings against you your
belief; who begins personal fascination in the authority of a respected
character; who, to exercise it over you and create a habit in you, has
daily occasions, days, months, years, time, irresistible time, the
tamer of all human things, time, that can eat away iron and brass! Is
the heart of woman hard enough to resist it?

A woman? a child! still less, a person _who will be a child_, who
employs all the faculties she has acquired since childhood to fall back
into childishness, who directs her will to wish no longer, and her
thoughts no longer to know anything, and gives herself up as if asleep.

Suppose her to awake (it is a very rare case), to awake for a moment
(surprising the tyrant without his mask, seeing him as he really is),
and then to wish to escape. Do you think she can? To do so, she must
act; but she no longer knows what it is, not having acted for so long a
time; her limbs are stiff; her legs are paralysed and have lost all
motion; her heavy hand rises, falls again, and refuses.

Then you may perceive too well what is habit, and how, once bound in
its thousand imperceptible threads, you remain tied in spite of you to
what you detest. These threads, tho