; and unless character is renewed, love must leave it
behind and wander on.

If the wife is still aspiring,--if she lays growing demands on her
hero,--if her thought enlarges and she stands true to it, separate from
him in integrity as he saw her first, following not his, but her own
native estimate,--she will always be his mistress. She will still have
that charm of remoteness which belongs only to those who do not lean and
borrow, to natures centred for themselves in the deep. There is
something incalculable in such independence. It is full of surprise for
the most intimate. In one breast the true wife prepares for her husband
a course of loves. Every day she offers a new heart to be won. Every day
the woman he could reach is gone, and there again before him is the
inaccessible maiden who will not accept to-day the behavior of
yesterday. This withdrawal and advancement from height to height is true
virginity, which never lies down with love but keeps him always on foot
and girded for fresh pursuit. Noble lovers rely on no pledges, point to
no past engagements, but prefer to renew their relation from hour to
hour. The heroic woman will command, and not solicit love. Let him go,
when I cease to be all to him, when I can no longer fill the horizon of
his imagination and satisfy his heart. But if there is less ascension in
a woman, she is no mate for an advancing man. He must leave her; he
walks by her side alone. So we pass many dear companions, outgrowing
alike our loves and our fears.

Once or twice in youth we meet a man of sounding reputation or real
wisdom, whose secret is hid above our discovery. His manners are
formidable while we do not understand them. In his presence our tongues
are tied, our limbs are paralyzed. Thought dies out before him, the will
is unseated and vacillates, we are cowed like Antony beside Caesar. In
solitude we are ashamed of this cowardice and resolve to put it away;
but when the great man returns, our knees knock and we are as weak as
before. It is suicide to fly from such mortification. A brave boy faces
it as well as he can. By-and-by the dazzle abates, he sees some flaw,
some coarseness or softness, in this shining piece of metal; he begins
to fathom the motives and measure the orbit of this tyrannous
benefactor. They are the true friends who daunt and overpower us, to
whom for a little we yield more than their due.

This rule is universal, that no man can admire downward. All enthus