We four, more weaned from those delicate abstractions that constitute your joy, furnished much more resistance when misfortune presented itself." "I have not interrupted you, monsieur, to tell you that I had a friend, and that that friend is M.de Guiche.

_Certes_, he is good and generous, and moreover he loves me.

But I have lived under the guardianship of another friendship, monsieur, as precious and as strong as that of which you speak, since it is yours." "I have not been a friend for you, Raoul," said Athos.
"Eh! monsieur, and in what respect not ?" "Because I have given you reason to think that life has but one face, because, sad and severe, alas! I have always cut off for you, without, God knows, wishing to do so, the joyous buds that spring incessantly from the fair tree of youth; so that at this moment I repent of not having made of you a more expansive, dissipated, animated man." "I know why you say that, monsieur.

No, it is not you who have made me what I am; it was love, which took me at the time when children only have inclinations; it is the constancy natural to my character, which with other creatures is but habit.

I believed that I should always be as I was; I thought God had cast me in a path quite clear, quite straight, bordered with fruits and flowers.