me that for the love of God I would sacrifice all
things--fame, honor, power, dominion. I feel myself capable of imitating
Christ, and if the tempter should carry me off to the mountain-top, and
should there offer me all the kingdoms of the earth if I consented to
bow the knee before him, yet would I not bend it. But were he to offer
me this woman if I should do so, I feel that I should waver, that I
should not reject his offer. Is this woman, then, worth more in my eyes
than all the kingdoms of the earth? More than fame, honor, power, and
dominion?

Is the virtue of love, I ask myself at times, always the same, even when
applied to diverse objects; or are there two species and qualities of
love? To love God seems to me to be the giving up of self and of selfish
interest. Loving him, I desire to love, and I can love all things
through him, and I am not troubled or jealous because of his love toward
all things. I am not jealous of the saints, or of the martyrs, or of the
blessed, or even of the seraphim. The greater I picture to myself to be
the love of God for his creatures, and the graces and gifts he bestows
upon them, the less am I troubled by jealousy; the more I love him, the
nearer to me do I feel him to be, and the more loving and gracious does
he seem toward me. My brotherhood, my more than brotherhood with all
creatures, stands forth then in a most pleasing light. It seems to me
that I am one with all things, and that all things are bound together in
the bonds of love, through God and in God.

Very different is it when my thoughts dwell upon Pepita, and on the love
with which she inspires me. This love is a love full of hatred, that
separates me from everything but myself. I desire her for myself,
altogether for myself, and myself altogether for her. Even devotion to
her, even sacrifices made for her sake, partake of the nature of
selfishness. To die for her would be to die of despair at not being able
to possess her in any other manner--from the fear of not enjoying her
love completely, except by dying and commingling with her in an eternal
embrace.

By these reflections I endeavor to render the love of Pepita hateful to
me. I invest my love in my imagination with something diabolical and
fatal; but, as if I possessed a double soul, a double understanding, a
double will, and a double imagination, in contradiction to this thought,
other feelings rise up within me in its train, and I then deny what I
have jus