Sadness,
when caused by the overgrowth of hope, is a disease,--sometimes a
fatal one. It would be no mean object for physiology to search out in
what ways and by what means Thought produces the same internal
disorganization as poison; and how it is that despair affects the
appetite, destroys the pylorus, and changes all the physical
conditions of the strongest life. Such was the case with Modeste. In
three short days she became the image of morbid melancholy; she did
not sing, she could not be made to smile. Charles Mignon, becoming
uneasy at the non-arrival of the two friends, thought of going to
fetch them, when, on the evening of the fifth day, he received news of
their movements through Latournelle.
Canalis, excessively delighted at the idea of a rich marriage, was
determined to neglect nothing that might help him to cut out La
Briere, without, however, giving La Briere a chance to reproach him
for having violated the laws of friendship. The poet felt that nothing
would lower a lover so much in the eyes of a young girl as to exhibit
him in a subordinate position; and he therefore proposed to La Briere,
in the most natural manner, to take a little country-house at
Ingouville for a month, and live there together on pretence of
requiring sea-air.
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