I do not wish my servants to understand, for they are quite capable of laughing at me, neither do I wish poor Visitacion to know anything.

I cannot dissimulate.

I cannot feign happiness when I am so irritated! What a hell I suffer! I cannot say that I have been a man, and that I have been weak as the flesh of which I am made, that I have with me the fruit of my faults, and that I will not separate myself from them, though persecuted by calumny.
Every man acts as he is able, and I wish to be good in spite of my faults.

I might have separated from my children, I might have deserted them, as others have done to preserve their reputation as saints, but I am a man, and I am proud of them; I am a man with all his defects and all his virtues, neither greater nor less than the general run of humanity.

The feeling of paternity is so deeply rooted in me that I would sooner lose my mitre than abandon my children.