The Count of Monte Cristo

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reason do you assign?"

"My reason?" replied the young girl. "Well, it is not that the man is
more ugly, more foolish, or more disagreeable than any other; no,
M. Andrea Cavalcanti may appear to those who look at men's faces and
figures as a very good specimen of his kind. It is not, either, that
my heart is less touched by him than any other; that would be a
schoolgirl's reason, which I consider quite beneath me. I actually love
no one, sir; you know it, do you not? I do not then see why, without
real necessity, I should encumber my life with a perpetual companion.
Has not some sage said, 'Nothing too much'? and another, 'I carry all my
effects with me'? I have been taught these two aphorisms in Latin and in
Greek; one is, I believe, from Phaedrus, and the other from Bias.
Well, my dear father, in the shipwreck of life--for life is an eternal
shipwreck of our hopes--I cast into the sea my useless encumbrance, that
is all, and I remain with my own will, disposed to live perfectly alone,
and consequently perfectly free."