Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/117

Rh run of men are susceptible to the influence of only five or six passions, in the round of which they pass their lives, and to which all their mental agitations may be reduced. Deprive them of love and hate, pleasure and pain, hope and fear, and they virtually cease to feel at all. But persons of finer temperament can be affected in a thousand varying ways; they would seem to be possessed of more than five senses, and to be capable of receiving the impression of ideas and sensations that transcend the limitations of average human nature. And, conscious as they are of this superiority, which lifts them above the vulgar level, there is nothing of which they are so jealously tenacious. Hence it is that they are so impatient of submitting to contempt and ridicule, and that shame is one of their most violent emotions.

This sad advantage was mine at St. Lazare. So excessive did my grief appear to the Superior, that his fear of its possible consequences led him to treat me with the utmost kindness and leniency. He came to see me two or three times a day, often taking me out with him for a walk in the garden; and he poured forth his exhortations and pious admonitions with inexhaustible zeal. I listened to them meekly and even manifested some gratitude towards him; which made him hopeful of my ultimate conversion.