. . and especially to live in the most absolute
chastity. He insisted much on this last recommendation, very rigorous
for a young man of twenty-four or twenty-five years of age. According
to him, real chastity developed the powers of the mind to the highest
degree, and gave to those that practised it unknown faculties. We
timidly objected that the greatest geniuses had indulged in the love
passion, and we quoted illustrious names. Balzac shook his head and
replied: 'They would have done much more but for the women.' The only
concession he would make us, regretfully, was to see the loved one for
half-an-hour a year. Love letters he allowed. They formed a writer's
style."
George Sand speaks much to the same effect in her reminiscences. She
believed in the legend.
"Moderate in every other respect," she says, "he had the purest of
morals, having always dreaded wildness as the enemy of talent; and he
nearly always cherished women solely in his heart and in his head,
even in his youth. He pursued chastity on principle; and his relations
with the fair sex were those merely of curiosity. When he found a
curiosity equal to his own, he exploited this mine with the cynicism
of a father-confessor.
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