But when I think of that scrap of a girl, with her elusive ways, her
pride, her refinement, even her little red hands--! I have a longing--a
passionate longing to hold her always near me--to know that she is
mine--that for the rest of time I should be with her, learning from her
high thoughts, comforted by her strength of character--believing in
her--respecting her--Yes, that is it--respecting her. How few women
one meets with attractions that one really respects.--One respects many
elderly ones, of course, and abstract splendid creatures, but bringing
it down to concrete facts, how few are the women who have drawn one's
admiration or excited one's desire, who at the same time one
reverenced!--Love must mean reverence--that is it.

And what is reverence--?

The soul's acknowledgment of the purity of another--and purity in this
sense means truth and honor, and lofty aims--not the denial of all
passion, or the practice of asceticism.

I utterly reverence Alathea, and yet I am sure with that mouth--if she
loved me she would be anything but cold. How on God's earth can I make
her love me--?

I went back to Versailles after luncheon, having had to see the
specialist about my eye, he thinks the socket is so marvelously healed
lately, that I could have the glass one in now much sooner than
Christmas. I wonder if some self confidence will return when I can feel
people are not revolted when looking at me?--That again is
super-sensitiveness. Of course no one is revolted--they feel pity--and
that is perhaps worse. When I get my leg too, shall I have the nerve to
make love to Alathea and use all the arts which used to be so successful
in the old days?