who adorn themselves with such beautiful sentiments, influenced by reasons entirely the contrary?  Study, penetrate these good souls, and you will see in the heart of this one, instead of a love so disinterested, only desire; in that one, it will be only a scheme to share your fortune, the glory of having obtained a woman of your rank; in a third you will discover motives still more humiliating to you; he will use you to rouse the jealousy of some woman he really loves, and he will cultivate your friendship merely to distinguish himself in her eyes by rejecting you.  I can not tell you how many motives, there are so many.  The human heart is an insolvable enigma.  It is a whimsical combination of all the known contrarieties.  We think we know its workings; we see their effects; we ignore the cause.  If it expresses its sentiments sincerely, even that sincerity is not reassuring.  Perhaps its movements spring from causes entirely contrary to those we imagine we feel to be the real ones.  But, after all, people have adopted the best plan, that is, to explain everything to their advantage, and to compensate themselves in imagination for their real miseries, and accustom themselves, as I think I have already said, to deifying all their sentiments.  Inasmuch as everybody finds in that the summit of his vanity, nobody has ever thought of reforming the custom, or of examining it to see whether it is a mistake.

Adieu; if you desire to come this evening you will find me with those whose gayety will compensate you for this serious discourse.

XVI

How to Be Victorious in Love

Is what you write me possible, Marquis, what, the Countess continues obdurate?  The flippant manner in which she receives your attentions reveals an indifference which grieves you?  I think I have guessed the secret of the riddle.  I know you.  You are gay, playful, conceited even, with women as long as they do not impress you.  But with those who have made an impression upon your heart, I have noticed that you are timid.  This quality might affect a bourgeoise, but you must attack the heart of a woman of the world with other weapons.  The Countess knows the ways of the world.  Believe me, and leave to the Celadons, such things as sublime talk, beautiful sentiments; let them spin out perfection.  I tell you on behalf of women:  there is not one of us who does not prefer a little rough handling to too much consideration.  Men lose through blundering more hearts than virtue saves.

The more timidity a lover shows with us the more it concerns our pride to goad him on; the more respect he has for our resistance, the more respect we demand of him.  We would willingly say to you men:  “Ah, in pity’s name do not suppose us to be so very virtuous; you are forcing us to have too much of it.  Do not put so high a price upon your conquest; do not treat our defeat as if it were something difficult.  Accustom our imagination by degrees to seeing you doubt our indifference.”