Stubbornness, allied to temerity, ran through my veins with the blood
of the Mauprats. No sooner had I imagined a means of winning her whom
I loved than I embraced it with audacity; and I think it would not have
been otherwise even had her confidences to the abbe in the park shown
me that her love was given to my rival. Such assurance on the part of a
young man who, at the age of seventeen, was taking his first lesson in
French grammar, and who, moreover, had a very exaggerated notion of the
length and difficulty of the studies necessary to put him on a level
with M. de la March, showed, you must allow, a certain moral force.
I do not know if I was happily endowed in the matter of intelligence.
The abbe assured me that I was; but, for my own part, I think that my
rapid progress was due to nothing but my courage. This was such as to
make me presume too much on my physical powers. The abbe had told me
that, with a strong will, any one of my age could master all the rules
of the language within a month. At the end of the month I expressed
myself with facility and wrote correctly. Edmee had a sort of occult
influence over my studies; at her wish I was not taught Latin; for she
declared that I was too old to devote several years to a fancy branch
of learning, and that the essential thing was to shape my heart and
understanding with ideas, rather than to adorn my mind with words.
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