to indulge myself by seeking some little consolations, that I was obliged to go quickly past our Mother's cell, and cling to the banisters of the staircase so that I should not turn back. There would come to mind a number of permissions to ask, a hundred pretexts for deciding in favour of my natural inclinations and gratifying them. How glad I am now of having denied myself from the outset of my life in religion! Already I enjoy the reward promised to those who fight courageously. No longer do I feel the necessity of refusing myself consolations of the heart; for my heart is firmly fixed in God. . . . Because it has loved Him above all, it has gradually enlarged, even so as to love those who are dear to it with a love incomparably deeper than if it were centred in a selfish and fruitless affection.
HIST. D'UNE AME, CH. X
In everything I must find self-denial
and sacrifice; thus I feel that a letter
will not bear fruit unless I write it with a
