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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
shut the temple of Janus, sought to debase these citizens to the
condition of the loyal subjects of a monarchy.
The mistresses of these three great poets were coquettes, faithless
and venal women; in their company the poets only sought physical
pleasure, and never, I should think, caught a glimpse of the sublime
sentiments[2] which, thirteen centuries later, stirred the heart of the
gentle Héloïse.
I borrow the following passage from a distinguished man of letters,
[3] and one who knows the Latin poets much better than I do:—

The brilliant genius of Ovid, the rich imagination of Propertius,

the impressionable heart of Tibullus, doubtless inspired them
with verses of a different flavour, but all, in the same manner,
they loved women of much the same kind. They desire, they
triumph, they have fortunate rivals, they are jealous, they
quarrel and make it up; they are faithless in their turn, they are
forgiven; and they recover their happiness only to be ruffled by
the return of the same mischances.
Corinna is married. The first lessons that Ovid gives her are to
teach her the address with which to deceive her husband: the
signs they are to make each other before him and in society, so
that they can understand each other and be understood only by
themselves. Enjoyment quickly follows; afterwards quarrels,
and, what you wouldn't expect from so gallant a man as Ovid,
insults and blows; then excuses, tears and forgiveness.
Sometimes he addresses himself to subordinates—to the
servants, to his mistress' porter, who is to open to him at night,
to a cursed old beldam who corrupts her and teaches her to sell
herself for gold, to an old eunuch who keeps watch over her, to
a slave-girl who is to convey the tablets in which he begs for a
rendezvous. The rendezvous is refused: he curses his tablets,
that have had such sorry fortune. Fortune shines brighter: he
adjures the dawn not to come to interrupt his happiness.
Soon he accuses himself of numberless infidelities, of his
indiscriminate taste for women. A moment after, Corinna is
herself faithless; he cannot bear the idea that he has given her
lessons from which she reaps the profit with someone else.
Corinna in her turn is jealous; she abuses him like a fury rather
than a gentle woman; she accuses him of loving a slave-girl. He
swears that there is nothing in it and writes to the slave—yet
everything that made Corinna angry was true. But how did she
get to know of it? What clue had led to their betrayal? He asks
the slave-girl for another rendezvous. If she refuse him, he
threatens to confess everything to Corinna. He jokes with a
friend about his two loves and the trouble and pleasure they
give him. Soon after, it is Corinna alone that fills his thoughts.
She is everything to him. He sings his triumph, as if it were his
first victory. After certain incidents, which for more than one
reason we must leave in Ovid, and others, which it would be too
long to recount, he discovers that Corinna's husband has
become too lax. He is no longer jealous; our lover does not like
this, and threatens to leave the wife, if the husband does not
resume his jealousy. The husband obeys him but too well; he
has Corinna watched so closely, that Ovid can no longer come
to her. He complains of this close watch, which he had himself
provoked—but he will find a way to get round it. Unfortunately,
he is not the only one to succeed therein. Corinna's infidelities
begin again and multiply; her intrigues become so public, that
the only boon that Ovid can crave of her, is that she will take
some trouble to deceive him, and show a little less obviously
what she really is. Such were the morals of Ovid and his
mistress, such is the character of their love.
Cynthia is the first love of Propertius, and she will be his last. No
sooner is he happy, but he is jealous. Cynthia is too fond of
dress; he begs her to shun luxury and to love simplicity. He
himself is given up to more than one kind of debauch. Cynthia
expects him; he only comes to her at dawn, leaving a banquet
in his cups. He finds her asleep; it is a long time before she
wakes, in spite of the noise he makes and even of his kisses; at
last she opens her eyes and reproaches him as he deserves. A
friend tries to detach him from Cynthia; he gives his friend a
eulogy of her beauty and talents. He is threatened with losing
her; she goes off with a soldier; she means to follow the army;
she will expose herself to every danger in order to follow her
soldier. Propertius does not storm; he weeps and prays heaven
for her happiness. He will never leave the house she has
deserted; he will look out for strangers who have seen her, and
will never leave off asking them for news of Cynthia. She is
touched by love so great. She deserts the soldier and stays with
the poet. He gives thanks to Apollo and the Muses; he is drunk
with his happiness. This happiness is soon troubled by a new
access of jealousy, interrupted by separation and by absence.
Far from Cynthia, he can only think of her. Her past infidelities
make him fear for news. Death does not frighten him, he only
fears to lose Cynthia; let him be but certain that she will be
faithful and he will go down without regret to the grave.
After more treachery, he fancies he is delivered from his love;
but soon he is again in its bonds. He paints the most ravishing
portrait of his mistress, her beauty, the elegance of her dress,
her talents in singing, poetry and dancing; everything redoubles
and justifies his love. But Cynthia, as perverse as she is
captivating, dishonours herself before the whole town by such
scandalous adventures that Propertius can no longer love her
without shame. He blushes, but he cannot shake her off. He will
be her lover, her husband; he will never love any but Cynthia.
They part and come together again. Cynthia is jealous, he
reassures her. He will never love any other woman. But in fact it
is never one woman he loves—it is all women. He never has
enough of them, he is insatiable of pleasure. To recall him to
himself, Cynthia has to desert him yet again. Then his
complaints are as vigorous as if he had never been faithless
himself. He tries to escape. He seeks distraction in debauch.—Is
he drunk as usual? He pretends that a troupe of loves meets
him and brings him back to Cynthia's feet. Reconciliation is
followed by more storms. Cynthia, at one of their supper
parties, gets heated with wine like himself, upsets the table and
hits him over the head. Propertius thinks this charming. More
perfidy forces him at last to break his chains; he tries to go
away; he means to travel in Greece; he completes all his plans
for the journey, but he renounces the project—and all in order
to see himself once more the butt of new outrages. Cynthia
does not confine herself to betraying him; she makes him the
laughing-stock of his rivals. But illness seizes her and she dies.
She reproaches him with his faithlessness, his caprices and his
desertion of her in her last moments, and swears that she
herself, in spite of appearances, was always faithful.
Such are the morals and adventures of Propertius and his
mistress; such in abstract is the history of their love. Such was
the woman that a soul like Propertius was reduced to loving.
Ovid and Propertius were often faithless, but never inconstant.
Confirmed libertines, they distribute their homage far and wide,
but always return to take up the same chains again. Corinna
and Cynthia have womankind for rivals, but no woman in
particular. The Muse of these two poets is faithful, if their love is
not, and no other names besides those of Corinna and of
Cynthia figure in their verses. Tibullus, a tender lover and
tender poet, less lively and less headlong in his tastes, has not
their constancy. Three beauties are one after the other the
objects of his love and of his verses. Delia is the first, the most
celebrated and also the best beloved. Tibullus has lost his
fortune, but he still has the country and Delia. To enjoy her
amid the peaceful fields; to be able, at his ease, to press Delia's
hand in his; to have her for his only mourner at his funeral—he
makes no other prayers. Delia is kept shut up by a jealous
husband; he will penetrate into her prison, in spite of any Argus
and triple bolts. He will forget all his troubles in her arms. He
falls ill and Delia alone fills his thoughts. He exhorts her to be
always chaste, to despise gold, and to grant none but him the
love she has granted him. But Delia does not follow his advice.
He thought he could put up with her infidelity; but it is too
much for him and he begs Delia and Venus for pity. He seeks in
wine a remedy and does not find it; he can neither soften his
regret nor cure himself of his love. He turns to Delia's husband,
deceived like himself, and reveals to him all the tricks she uses
to attract and see her lovers. If the husband does not know how
to keep watch over her, let her be trusted to himself; he will
manage right enough to ward the lovers off and to keep from
their toils the author of their common wrongs. He is appeased
and returns to her; he remembers Delia's mother who favoured
their love; the memory of this good woman opens his heart
once more to tender thoughts, and all Delia's wrongs are
forgotten. But she is soon guilty of others more serious. She lets
herself be corrupted by gold and presents; she gives herself to
another, to others. At length Tibullus breaks his shameful chains
and says good-bye to her for ever.
He passes under the sway of Nemesis and is no happier; she
loves only gold and cares little for poetry and the gifts of genius.
Nemesis is a greedy woman who sells herself to the highest
bidder; he curses her avarice, but he loves her and cannot live
unless she loves him. He tries to move her with touching
images. She has lost her young sister; he will go and weep on
her tomb and confide his grief to her dumb ashes. The shade of
her sister will take offence at the tears that Nemesis causes to
flow. She must not despise her anger. The sad image of her
sister might come at night to trouble her sleep.... But these sad
memories force tears from Nemesis—and at that price he could
not buy even happiness. Neaera is his third mistress. He has
long enjoyed her love; he only prays the gods that he may live
and die with her; but she leaves him, she is gone; he can only
think of her, she is his only prayer; he has seen in a dream
Apollo, who announces to him that Neaera is unfaithful. He
refuses to believe this dream; he could not survive his
misfortune, and none the less the misfortune is there. Neaera is
 faithless; once more Tibullus is deserted. Such was his character
and fortune, such is the triple and all unhappy story of his loves.
In him particularly there is a sweet, all-pervading melancholy,
that gives even to his pleasures the tone of dreaminess and
sadness which constitutes his charm. If any poet of antiquity
introduced moral sensibility into love, it was Tibullus; but these
fine shades of feeling which he expresses so well, are in
himself; he expects no more than the other two to find them or
engender them in his mistresses. Their grace, their beauty is all
that inflames him; their favours all he desires or regrets; their
perfidy, their venality, their loss, all that torments him. Of all
these women, celebrated in the verses of three great poets,
Cynthia seems the most lovable. The attraction of talent is
joined to all the others; she cultivates singing and poetry; and
yet all these talents, which were found not infrequently in
courtesans of a certain standing, were of no avail—it was none
the less pleasure, gold and wine which ruled her. And
Propertius, who boasts only once or twice of her artistic tastes,
in his passion for her is none the less seduced by a very
different power!

These great poets are apparently to be numbered among the most

tender and refined souls of their century—well! this is how they
loved and whom. We must here put literary considerations on one
side. I only ask of them evidence concerning their century; and in
two thousand years a novel by Ducray-Duminil(59) will be evidence
concerning the annals of ours.
[1] Mark Dido's look in the superb sketch by M. Guerin at the
Luxembourg.
[2] Everything that is beautiful in the world having become a part
of the beauty of the woman you love, you find yourself inclined to
do everything in the world that is beautiful.
[3] Guinguené's Histoire littéraire de l'Italie (Vol. II, p. 490.)
 XCIII(b)

One of my great regrets is not to have been able to see Venice in

1760.[1] A run of happy chances had apparently united, in so small a
space, both the political institutions and the public opinion that are
most favourable to the happiness of mankind. A soft spirit of luxury
gave everyone an easy access to happiness. There were no domestic
struggles and no crimes. Serenity was seen on every face; no one
thought about seeming richer than he was; hypocrisy had no point. I
imagine it must have been the direct contrary to London in 1822.

[1] Travels in Italy of the President de Brosses, Travels of

Eustace, Sharp, Smollett.

XCIV

If in the place of the want of personal security you put the natural
fear of economic want, you will see that the United States of
America bears a considerable resemblance to the ancient world as
regards that passion, on which we are attempting to write a
monograph.
In speaking of the more or less imperfect sketches of passion-love
which the ancients have left us, I see that I have forgotten the Loves
of Medea in the Argonautica(60). Virgil copied them in his picture of
Dido. Compare that with love as seen in a modern novel—Le Doyen
de Killerine, for example.

XCV

The Roman feels the beauties of Nature and Art with amazing
strength, depth and justice; but if he sets out to try and reason on
what he feels so forcibly, it is pitiful.
The reason may be that his feelings come to him from Nature, but
his logic from government.
You can see at once why the fine arts, outside Italy, are only a farce;
men reason better, but the public has no feeling.

XCVI

London, November 20th, 1821.

A very sensible man, who arrived yesterday from Madras, told me in
a two hours' conversation what I reduce to the following few lines:—

This gloom, which from an unknown cause depresses the

English character, penetrates so deeply into their hearts, that at
the end of the world, at Madras, no sooner does an Englishman
get a few days' holiday, than he quickly leaves rich and
flourishing Madras and comes to revive his spirits in the little
French town of Pondicherry, which, without wealth and almost
without commerce, flourishes under the paternal administration
of M. Dupuy. At Madras you drink Burgundy that costs thirty-six
francs a bottle; the poverty of the French in Pondicherry is such
that, in the most distinguished circles, the refreshments consist
of large glasses of water. But in Pondicherry they laugh.

At present there is more liberty in England than in Prussia. The

climate is the same as that of Koenigsberg, Berlin or Warsaw, cities
which are far from being famous for their gloom. The working
classes in these towns have less security and drink quite as little
wine as in England; and they are much worse clothed.
The aristocracies of Venice and Vienna are not gloomy.
I can see only one point of difference: in gay countries the Bible is
little read, and there is gallantry. I am sorry to have to come back so
often to a demonstration with which I am unsatisfied. I suppress a
score of facts pointing in the same direction.

XCVII
I have just seen, in a fine country-house near Paris, a very good-
looking, very clever, and very rich young man of less than twenty; he
has been left there by chance almost alone, for a long time too, with
a most beautiful girl of eighteen, full of talent, of a most
distinguished mind, and also very rich. Who wouldn't have expected
a passionate love-affair? Not a bit of it—such was the affectation of
these two charming creatures that both were occupied solely with
themselves and the effect they were to produce.

XCVIII

I am ready to agree that on the morrow of a great action a savage

pride has made this people fall into all the faults and follies that lay
open to it. But you will see what prevents me from effacing my
previous praises of this representative of the Middle Ages.
The prettiest woman in Narbonne is a young Spaniard, scarcely
twenty years old, who lives there very retired with her husband, a
Spaniard also, and an officer on half-pay. Some time ago there was a
fool whom this officer was obliged to insult. The next day, on the
field of combat, the fool sees the young Spanish woman arrive. He
begins a renewed flow of affected nothings:—
"No, indeed, it's shocking! How could you tell your wife about it? You
see, she has come to prevent us fighting!" "I have come to bury
you," she answered.
Happy the husband who can tell his wife everything! The result did
not belie this woman's haughty words. Her action would have been
considered hardly the thing in England. Thus does false decency
diminish the little happiness that exists here below.

XCIX

The delightful Donézan said yesterday: "In my youth, and well on in

my career—for I was fifty in '89—women wore powder in their hair.
"I own that a woman without powder gives me a feeling of
repugnance; the first impression is always that of a chamber-maid
who hasn't had time to get dressed."
Here we have the one argument against Shakespeare and in favour
of the dramatic unities.
While young men read nothing but La Harpe(61), the taste for great
powdered toupées, such as the late Queen Marie Antoinette used to
wear, can still last some years. I know people too, who despise
Correggio and Michael Angelo, and, to be sure, M. Donézan was
extremely clever.

Cold, brave, calculating, suspicious, contentious, for ever afraid of

being attracted by anyone who might possibly be laughing at them
in secret, absolutely devoid of enthusiasm, and a little jealous of
people who saw great events with Napoleon, such was the youth of
that age, estimable rather than lovable. They forced on the country
that Right-Centre form of government-to-the-lowest-bidder. This
temper in the younger generation was to be found even among the
conscripts, each of whom only longed to finish his time.
All systems of education, whether given expressly or by chance,
form men for a certain period in their life. The education of the age
of Louis XV made twenty-five the finest moment in the lives of its
pupils.[1]
It is at forty that the young men of this period will be at their best;
they will have lost their suspiciousness and pretensions, and have
gained ease and gaiety.
[1] M. de Francueil with too much powder: Memoirs of Madame
d'Épinay.

CI
 Discussion between an Honest Man and an Academic
"In this discussion, the academic always saved himself by fixing on
little dates and other similar errors of small importance; but the
consequences and natural qualifications of things, these he always
denied, or seemed not to understand: for example, that Nero was a
cruel Emperor or Charles II a perjurer. Now, how are you to prove
things of this kind, or, even if you do, manage not to put a stop to
the general discussion or lose the thread of it?
"This, I have always remarked, is the method of discussion between
such folk, one of whom seeks only the truth and advancement
thereto, the other the favour of his master or his party and the glory
of talking well. And I always consider it great folly and waste of time
for an honest man to stop and talk with the said academics."
(Œuvres badines of Guy Allard de Voiron.)

CII

Only a small part of the art of being happy is an exact science, a sort
of ladder up which one can be sure of climbing a rung per century—
and that is the part which depends on government. (Still, this is only
theory. I find the Venetians of 1770 happier than the people of
Philadelphia to-day.)
For the rest, the art of being happy is like poetry; in spite of the
perfecting of all things, Homer, two thousand seven hundred years
ago, had more talent than Lord Byron.
Reading Plutarch with attention, I think I can see that men were
happier in Sicily in the time of Dion than we manage to be to-day,
although they had no printing and no iced punch!
I would rather be an Arab of the fifth century than a Frenchman of
the nineteenth.

CIII
People go to the theatre, never for that kind of illusion which is lost
one minute and found again the next, but for an opportunity of
convincing their neighbour, or at least themselves, that they have
read their La Harpe and are people who know what's good. It is an
old pedant's pleasure that the younger generation indulges in.

CIV

A woman belongs by right to the man who loves her and is dearer to
her than life.

CV

Crystallisation cannot be excited by an understudy, and your most

dangerous rivals are those most unlike you.

CVI

In a very advanced state of society passion-love is as natural as

physical love among savages. (M.)

CVII

But for an infinite number of shades of feeling, to have a woman you

adore would be no happiness and scarcely a possibility. (L., October
7th.)

CVIII

Whence comes the intolerance of Stoic philosophers? From the same

source as that of religious fanatics. They are put out because they
are struggling against nature, because they deny themselves, and
because it hurts them. If they would question themselves honestly
on the hatred they bear towards those who profess a code of morals
less severe, they would have to own that it springs from a secret
jealousy of a bliss which they envy and have renounced, without
believing in the rewards which would make up for this sacrifice.
(Diderot.)

CIX

Women who are always taking offence might well ask themselves
whether they are following a line of conduct, which they think really
and truly is the road to happiness. Is there not a little lack of
courage, mixed with a little mean revenge, at the bottom of a
prude's heart? Consider the ill-humour of Madame de Deshoulières
in her last days. (Note by M. Lemontey.)(62).

CX

Nothing more indulgent than virtue without hypocrisy—because

nothing happier; yet even Mistress Hutchinson might well be more
indulgent.

CXI

Immediately below this kind of happiness comes that of a young,

pretty and easy-going woman, with a conscience that does not
reproach her. At Messina people used to talk scandal about the
Contessina Vicenzella. "Well, well!" she would say, "I'm young, free,
rich and perhaps not ugly. I wish the same to all the ladies of
Messina!" It was this charming woman, who would never be more
than a friend to me, who introduced me to the Abbé Melli's sweet
poems in Sicilian dialect. His poetry is delicious, though still
disfigured by mythology.
(Delfante.)

CXII
The public of Paris has a fixed capacity for attention—three days:
after which, bring to its notice the death of Napoleon or M.
Béranger(63) sent to prison for two months—the news is just as
sensational, and to bring it up on the fourth day just as tactless.
Must every great capital be like this, or has it to do with the good
nature and light heart of the Parisian? Thanks to aristocratic pride
and morbid reserve, London is nothing but a numerous collection of
hermits; it is not a capital. Vienna is nothing but an oligarchy of two
hundred families surrounded by a hundred and fifty thousand
workpeople and servants who wait on them. No more is that a
capital.—Naples and Paris, the only two capitals. (Extract from
Birkbeck's Travels, p. 371.)

CXIII

According to common ideas, or reasonable-ideas, as they are called

by ordinary people, if any period of imprisonment could possibly be
tolerable, it would be after several years' confinement, when at last
the poor prisoner is only separated by a month or two from the
moment of his release. But the ways of crystallisation are otherwise.
The last month is more painful than the last three years. In the gaol
at Melun, M. d'Hotelans has seen several prisoners die of impatience
within a few months of the day of release.

CXIV

I cannot resist the pleasure of copying out a letter written in bad

English by a young German woman. It proves that, after all,
constant love exists, and that not every man of genius is a Mirabeau.
Klopstock, the great poet, passes at Hamburg for having been an
attractive person. Read what his young wife wrote to an intimate
friend:

"After having seen him two hours, I was obliged to pass the
evening in a company, which never had been so wearisome to
me. I could not speak, I could not play; I thought I saw nothing
but Klopstock; I saw him the next day and the following and we
were very seriously friends. But the fourth day he departed. It
was a strong hour the hour of his departure! He wrote soon
after; from that time our correspondence began to be a very
diligent one. I sincerely believed my love to be friendship. I
spoke with my friends of nothing but Klopstock, and showed his
letters. They raillied at me and said I was in love. I raillied then
again, and said that they must have a very friendshipless heart,
if they had no idea of friendship to a man as well as to a
woman. Thus it continued eight months, in which time my
friends found as much love in Klopstock's letters as in me. I
perceived it likewise, but I would not believe it. At the last
Klopstock said plainly that he loved; and I startled as for a
wrong thing; I answered that it was no love, but friendship, as it
was what I felt for him; we had not seen one another enough to
love (as if love must have more time than friendship). This was
sincerely my meaning, and I had this meaning till Klopstock
came again to Hamburg. This he did a year after we had seen
one another the first time. We saw, we were friends, we loved;
and a short time after, I could even tell Klopstock that I loved.
But we were obliged to part again, and wait two years for our
wedding. My mother would not let me marry a stranger. I could
marry then without her consent, as by the death of my father
my fortune depended not on her; but this was a horrible idea
for me; and thank heaven that I have prevailed by prayers! At
this time knowing Klopstock, she loves him as her lifely son, and
thanks God that she has not persisted. We married and I am the
happiest wife in the world. In some few months it will be four
years that I am so happy...." (Correspondence of Richardson,
Vol. III, p. 147.)

CXV
The only unions legitimate for all time are those that answer to a
real passion.

CXVI

To be happy with laxity of morals, one wants the simplicity of

character that is found in Germany and Italy, but never in France.
(The Duchess de C——)

CXVII

It is their pride that makes the Turks deprive their women of

everything that can nourish crystallisation. I have been living for the
last three months in a country where the titled folk will soon be
carried just as far by theirs.
Modesty is the name given here by men to the exactions of
aristocratic pride run mad. Who would risk a lapse of modesty? Here
also, as at Athens, the intellectuals show a marked tendency to take
refuge with courtesans—that is to say, with the women whom a
scandal shelters from the need to affect modesty. (Life of Fox.)

CXVIII

In the case of love blighted by too prompt a victory, I have seen in

very tender characters crystallisation trying to form later. "I don't
love you a bit," she says, but laughing.

CXIX

The present-day education of women—that odd mixture of works of

charity and risky songs ("Di piacer mi balza il cor," in La Gazza
Ladra)(64)—is the one thing in the world best calculated to keep off
happiness. This form of education produces minds completely
inconsequent. Madame de R——, who was afraid of dying, has just
met her death through thinking it funny to throw her medicines out
of the window. Poor little women like her take inconsequence for
gaiety, because, in appearance, gaiety is often inconsequent. 'Tis like
the German, who threw himself out of the window in order to be
sprightly.

CXX

Vulgarity, by stifling imagination, instantly produces in me a deadly

boredom. Charming Countess K——, showing me this evening her
lovers' letters, which to my mind were in bad taste. (Forlì, March
17th, Henri.)
Imagination was not stifled: it was only deranged, and very soon
from mere repugnance ceased to picture the unpleasantness of
these dull lovers.

CXXI

Metaphysical Reverie
Belgirate, 26th October, 1816.
Real passion has only to be crossed for it to produce apparently
more unhappiness than happiness. This thought may not be true in
the case of gentle souls, but it is absolutely proved in the case of the
majority of men, and particularly of cold philosophers, who, as
regards passion, live, one might say, only on curiosity and self-love.
I said all this to the Contessina Fulvia yesterday evening, as we were
walking together near the great pine on the eastern terrace of Isola
Bella. She answered: "Unhappiness makes a much stronger
impression on a man's life than pleasure.
"The prime virtue in anything which claims to give us pleasure, is
that it strikes hard.
"Might we not say that life itself being made up only of sensation,
there is a universal taste in all living beings for the consciousness
that the sensations of their life are the keenest that can be? In the
North people are hardly alive—look at the slowness of their
movements. The Italian's dolce far niente is the pleasure of relishing
one's soul and one's emotions, softly reclining on a divan. Such
pleasure is impossible, if you are racing all day on horseback or in a
drosky, like the Englishman or the Russian. Such people would die of
boredom on a divan. There is no reason to look into their souls.
"Love gives the keenest possible of all sensations—and the proof is
that in these moments of 'inflammation,' as physiologists would say,
the heart is open to those 'complex sensations' which Helvétius,
Buffon and other philosophers think so absurd. The other day, as
you know, Luizina fell into the lake; you see, her eye was following a
laurel leaf that had fallen from a tree on Isola-Madre (one of the
Borromean Islands). The poor woman owned to me that one day her
lover, while talking to her, threw into the lake the leaves of a laurel
branch he was stripping, and said: 'Your cruelty and the calumnies of
your friend are preventing me from turning my life to account and
winning a little glory.'
"It is a peculiar and incomprehensible fact that, when some great
passion has brought upon the soul moments of torture and extreme
unhappiness, the soul comes to despise the happiness of a peaceful
life, where everything seems framed to our desires. A fine country-
house in a picturesque position, substantial means, a good wife,
three pretty children, and friends charming and numerous—this is
but a mere outline of all our host. General C——, possesses. And yet
he said, as you know, he felt tempted to go to Naples and take the
command of a guerilla band. A soul made for passion soon finds this
happy life monotonous, and feels, perhaps, that it only offers him
commonplace ideas. 'I wish,' C. said to you, 'that I had never known
the fever of high passion. I wish I could rest content with the
apparent happiness on which people pay me every day such stupid
compliments, which, to put the finishing touch to, I have to answer
politely.'"
I, a philosopher, rejoin: "Do you want the thousandth proof that we
are not created by a good Being? It is the fact that pleasure does
not make perhaps half as much impression on human life as pain...."
[1] The Contessina interrupted me. "In life there are few mental
pains that are not rendered sweet by the emotion they themselves
excite, and, if there is a spark of magnanimity in the soul, this
pleasure is increased a hundredfold. The man condemned to death
in 1815 and saved by chance (M. de Lavalette(65), for example), if
he was going courageously to his doom, must recall that moment
ten times a month. But the coward, who was going to die crying and
yelling (the exciseman, Morris, thrown into the lake, Rob Roy)—
suppose him also saved by chance—can at most recall that instant
with pleasure because he was saved, not for the treasures of
magnanimity that he discovered with him, and that take away for
the future all his fears."
I: "Love, even unhappy love, gives a gentle soul, for whom a thing
imagined is a thing existent, treasures of this kind of enjoyment. He
weaves sublime visions of happiness and beauty about himself and
his beloved. How often has Salviati heard Léonore, with her
enchanting smile, say, like Mademoiselle Mars in Les Fausses
Confidences: 'Well, yes, I do love you!' No, these are never the
illusions of a prudent mind."
Fulvia (raising her eyes to heaven): "Yes, for you and me, love, even
unhappy love, if only our admiration for the beloved knows no limit,
is the supreme happiness."
(Fulvia is twenty-three,—the most celebrated beauty of ... Her eyes
were heavenly as she talked like this at midnight and raised them
towards the glorious sky above the Borromean Islands. The stars
seemed to answer her. I looked down and could find no more
philosophical arguments to meet her. She continued:)
"And all that the world calls happiness is not worth the trouble. Only
contempt, I think, can cure this passion; not contempt too violent,
for that is torture. For you men it is enough to see the object of your
adoration love some gross, prosaic creature, or sacrifice you in order
to enjoy pleasures of luxurious comfort with a woman friend."
[1] See the analysis of the ascetic principle in Bentham, Principles
of Morals and Legislation.
By giving oneself pain one pleases a good Being.

CXXII

To will means to have the courage to expose oneself to troubles; to

expose oneself is to take risks—to gamble. You find military men
who cannot exist without such gambling—that's what makes them
intolerable in home-life.

CXXIII

General Teulié told me this evening that he had found out why, as
soon as there were affected women in a drawing-room, he became
so horribly dry and floored for ideas. It was because he was sure to
be bitterly ashamed of having exposed his feelings with warmth
before such creatures. General Teulié had to speak from his heart,
though the talk were only of Punch and Judy; otherwise he had
nothing to say. Moreover, I could see he never knew the
conventional phrase about anything nor what was the right thing to
say. That is really where he made himself so monstrously ridiculous
in the eyes of affected women. Heaven had not made him for
elegant society.

CXXIV

Irreligion is bad form at Court, because it is calculated to be contrary

to the interests of princes: irreligion is also bad form in the presence
of girls, for it would prevent their finding husbands. It must be
owned that, if God exists, it must be nice for Him to be honoured
from motives like these.
 CXXV

For the soul of a great painter or a great poet, love is divine in that it
increases a hundredfold the empire and the delight of his art, and
the beauties of art are his soul's daily bread. How many great artists
are unconscious both of their soul and of their genius! Often they
reckon as mediocre their talent for the thing they adore, because
they cannot agree with the eunuchs of the harem, La Harpe and
such-like. For them even unhappy love is happiness.

CXXVI

The picture of first love is taken generally as the most touching.

Why? Because it is the same in all countries and in all characters.
But for this reason first love is not the most passionate.

CXXVII

Reason! Reason! Reason! That is what the world is always shouting

at poor lovers. In 1760, at the most thrilling moment in the Seven
Years' War, Grimm wrote: "... It is indubitable that the King of
Russia, by yielding Silesia, could have prevented the war from ever
breaking out. In so doing he would have done a very wise thing.
How many evils would he have prevented! And what can there be in
common between the possession of a province and the happiness of
a king? Was not the great Elector a very happy and highly respected
prince without possessing Silesia? It is also quite clear that a king
might have taken this course in obedience to the precepts of the
soundest reason, and yet—I know not how—that king would
inevitably have been the object of universal contempt, while
Frederick, sacrificing everything to the necessity of keeping Silesia,
has invested himself with immortal glory.
"Without any doubt the action of Cromwell's son was the wisest a
man could take: he preferred obscurity and repose to the bother and
danger of ruling over a people sombre, fiery and proud. This wise
man won the contempt of his own time and of posterity; while his
father, to this day, has been held a great man by the wisdom of
nations.
"The Fair Penitent is a sublime subject on the Spanish[1] stage, but
spoilt by Otway and Colardeau in England and France. Calista has
been dishonoured by a man she adores; he is odious from the
violence of his inborn pride, but talent, wit and a handsome face—
everything, in fact—combine to make him seductive. Indeed,
Lothario would have been too charming could he have moderated
these criminal outbursts. Moreover, an hereditary and bitter feud
separates his family from that of the woman he loves. These families
are at the head of two factions dividing a Spanish town during the
horrors of the Middle Age. Sciolto, Calista's father, is the chief of the
faction, which at the moment has the upper hand; he knows that
Lothario has had the insolence to try to seduce his daughter. The
weak Calista is weighed down by the torment of shame and passion.
Her father has succeeded in getting his enemy appointed to the
command of a naval armament that is setting out on a distant and
perilous expedition, where Lothario will probably meet his death. In
Colardeau's tragedy, he has just told his daughter this news. At his
words Calista can no longer hide her passion:
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