Modesty (_pudeur_) is always the sign and safeguard of a mystery. It is
explained by its contrary--profanation. Shyness or modesty is, in truth,
the half-conscious sense of a secret of nature or of the soul too
intimately individual to be given or surrendered. It is _exchanged_. To
surrender what is most profound and mysterious in one's being and
personality at any price less than that of absolute reciprocity is
profanation.
January 6, 1853.--Self-government with tenderness--here you have the
condition of all authority over children. The child must discover in us
no passion, no weakness of which he can make use; he must feel himself
powerless to deceive or to trouble us; then he will recognize in us his
natural superiors, and he will attach a special value to our kindness,
because he will respect it. The child who can rouse in us anger, or
impatience, or excitement, feels himself stronger than we, and a child
only respects strength. The mother should consider herself as her
child's sun, a changeless and ever radiant world, whither the small
restless creature, quick at tears and laughter, light, fickle,
passionate, full of storms, may come for fresh stores of light, warmth,
and electricity, of calm and of courage. The mother represents goodness,
providence, law; that is to say, the divinity, under that form of it
which is accessible to childhood.
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