Dec 2001 The Complete Memoires of Jacques Casanova [JC#31][csnvaxxx.xxx]2981
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v30, Old Age and Death, Casanova [JC#30][jcagdxxx.xxx]2980
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v29, Florence to Trieste, Casanova[JC#29][jcfltxxx.xxx]2979
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v28, Rome, by Jacques Casanova [JC#28][jcromxxx.xxx]2978
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v27, Expelled from Spain, Casanova[JC#27][jcexpxxx.xxx]2977
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v26, Spain, by Jacques Casanova [JC#26][jcspnxxx.xxx]2976
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v25, Russia and Poland, Casanova [JC#25][jcrplxxx.xxx]2975
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v24, London to Berlin, by Casanova[JC#24][jclbrxxx.xxx]2974
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v23, The English, by J. Casanova [JC#23][jcengxxx.xxx]2973
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v22, To London, by J. Casanova [JC#22][jclonxxx.xxx]2972
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v21, South of France, by Casanova [JC#21][jcsfrxxx.xxx]2971
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v20, Milan, by Jacques Casanova [JC#20][jcmilxxx.xxx]2970
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v19, Back Again to Paris, Casanova[JC#19][jcbprxxx.xxx]2969
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v18, Return to Naples, by Casanova[JC#18][jcrnpxxx.xxx]2968
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v17, Return to Italy, by Casanova [JC#17][jcritxxx.xxx]2967
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v16, Depart Switzerland, Casanova [JC#16][jcdswxxx.xxx]2966
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v15, With Voltaire, by J. Casanova[JC#15][jcvltxxx.xxx]2965
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v14, Switzerland, by J. Casanova [JC#14][jcswtxxx.xxx]2964
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v13, Holland and Germany, Casanova[JC#13][jchgrxxx.xxx]2963
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v12, Return to Paris, by Casanova [JC#12][jcrprxxx.xxx]2962
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v11, Paris and Holland, Casanova [JC#11][jcphlxxx.xxx]2961
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v10, Under the Leads, by Casanova [JC#10][jculdxxx.xxx]2960
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v9, The False Nun, by Casanova [JC#9][jcflnxxx.xxx]2959
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v8, Convent Affairs, Casanova [JC#8][jcconxxx.xxx]2958
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v7, Venice, by Casanova [JC#7][jcvenxxx.xxx]2957
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v6, Paris, by Casanova [JC#6][jcparxxx.xxx]2956
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v5, Milan and Mantua, by Casanova [JC#5][jcmmnxxx.xxx]2955
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v4, Return to Venice, Casanova [JC#4][jcrvnxxx.xxx]2954
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v3, Military Career, Casanova [JC#3][jcmcrxxx.xxx]2953
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v2, A Cleric in Naples, Casanova [JC#2][jcclnxxx.xxx]2952
Dec 2001 Memoirs, v1, Childhood, by Casanova [JC#1][jccldxxx.xxx]2951
CHILDHOOD
[JC#1][jccld10.xxx]2951
He ordered me never to open my lips except to answer direct questions,
and particularly enjoined me never to pass an opinion on any subject,
because at my age I could not be allowed to have any opinions.
This worthy lady inspired me with the deepest attachment, and she gave me
the wisest advice. Had I followed it, and profited by it, my life would
not have been exposed to so many storms; it is true that in that case, my
life would not be worth writing.
"The famous precept of the Stoic philosophers," he said to me, "'Sequere
Deum', can be perfectly explained by these words: 'Give yourself up to
whatever fate offers to you, provided you do not feel an invincible
repugnance to accept it.'"
It was ridiculous, of course; but when does man cease to be so?
We get rid of our vices more easily than of our follies.
A CLERIC IN NAPLES
[JC#2][jccln10.xxx]2952
Suffering is inherent in human nature; but we never suffer without
entertaining the hope of recovery, or, at least, very seldom without such
hope, and hope itself is a pleasure. If it happens sometimes that man
suffers without any expectation of a cure, he necessarily finds pleasure
in the complete certainty of the end of his life; for the worst, in all
cases, must be either a sleep arising from extreme dejection, during
which we have the consolation of happy dreams or the loss of all
sensitiveness. But when we are happy, our happiness is never disturbed
by the thought that it will be followed by grief. Therefore pleasure,
during its active period, is always complete, without alloy; grief is
always soothed by hope.
If this and if that, and every other if was conjured up to torment my
restless and wretched brain.
People did not want to know things as they truly were, but only as they
wished them to be.
MILITARY CAREER
[JC#3][jcmcr10.xxx]2953
It is well known that the first result of anger is to deprive the angry
man of the faculty of reason, for anger and reason do not belong to the
same family.
Acting on the political axiom that "neglected right is lost right,"....
If you would relish pleasure you must endure pain, and delights are in
proportion to the privations we have suffered.
In matters of love, as well as in all others, Time is a great teacher.
Love is a sort of madness, I grant that, but a madness over which
philosophy is entirely powerless; it is a disease to which man is exposed
at all times, no matter at what age, and which cannot be cured, if he is
attacked by it in his old age.
RETURN TO VENICE
[JC#4][jcrvn10.xxx]2954
I saw how easy it must have been for the ancient heathen priests to
impose upon ignorant, and therefore credulous mankind. I saw how easy it
will always be for impostors to find dupes, and I realized, even better
than the Roman orator, why two augurs could never look at each other
without laughing; it was because they had both an equal interest in
giving importance to the deceit they perpetrated, and from which they
derived such immense profits.
I excited her pity. I saw clearly that she no longer loved me; pity is a
debasing feeling which cannot find a home in a heart full of love, for
that dreary sentiment is too near a relative of contempt.
When we can feel pity, we love no longer, but a feeling of pity
succeeding love is the characteristic only of a great and generous mind.
MILAN AND MANTUA
[JC#5][jcmmn10.xxx]2955
O you who despise life, tell me whether that contempt of life renders you
worthy of it?
I had to acknowledge to myself that I could not speak Latin as well as
she spoke French, and this was indeed the case. The last thing which we
learn in all languages is wit, and wit never shines so well as in jests.
I was thirty years of age before I began to laugh in reading Terence,
Plautus and Martial.
Philosophy forbids a man to feel repentance for a good deed, but he must
certainly have a right to regret such a deed when it is malevolently
misconstrued, and turned against him as a reproach.
PARIS
[JC#6][jcpar10.xxx]2956
One of the advantages of a great sorrow is that nothing else seems
painful. It is a sort of despair which is not without some sweetness.
He could tell a good story without laughing.
It was impossible for him to have any enemies, for his criticism only
grazed the skin and never wounded deeply.
Like all quacks, he possessed an immense quantity of letters and
testimonials.
"Every day we reach a moment when we long for sleep, although it be the
very likeness of non-existence.
Silliness is the daughter of wit. Therefore it is not a paradox to say
that the French would be wiser if they were less witty.
Had the talent of never appearing to be a learned man when he was in the
company of amiable persons who had no pretension to learning or the
sciences, and he always seemed to endow with intelligence those who
conversed with him.
VENICE
[JC#7][jcven10.xxx]2957
Misery of knowing that he would not be regretted after his death.
Those words did me good, but a man needs so little to console him or to
soothe his grief.
I immediately sat down to write to my dear recluse, intending at first to
write only a few lines, as she had requested me; but my time was too
short to write so little. My letter was a screed of four pages, and very
likely it said less than her note of one short page.
I was in a great measure indebted, two years later, for my imprisonment
under The Leads of Venice; not owing to his slanders, for I do not
believe he was capable of that, Jesuit though he was--and even amongst
such people there is sometimes some honourable feeling--but through the
mystical insinuations which he made in the presence of bigoted persons.
I must give fair notice to my readers that, if they are fond of such
people, they must not read these Memoirs.
Oh! wonderful power of self-delusion!
People want to know everything, and they invent when they cannot guess
the truth.
CONVENT AFFAIRS
[JC#8][jccon10.xxx]2958
"He has remarked," she added, "that perhaps I do not confess anything to
him because I did not examine my conscience sufficiently, and I answered
him that I had nothing to say, but that if he liked I would commit a few
sins for the purpose of having something to tell him in confession."
I spent those two hours in playing at all the banks, winning, losing, and
performing all sorts of antics with complete freedom, being satisfied
that no one could recognize me; enjoying the present, bidding defiance to
the future, and laughing at all those reasonable beings who exercise
their reason to avoid the misfortunes which they fear, destroying at the
same time the pleasure that they might enjoy.
The countess gave me her usual welcome, and, after the thousand nothings
which it is the custom to utter in society before anything worth saying
is spoken.
She was at all events exempt from that fearful venom called jealousy--an
unhappy passion which devours the miserable being who is labouring under
it, and destroys the love that gave it birth.
THE FALSE NUN
[JC#9][jcfln10.xxx]2959
I could only solace my grief by writing, and Tonine now and again made
bold to observe that I was cherishing my grief, and that it would be the
death of me. I knew myself that I was making my anguish more poignant,
and that keeping to my bed, continued writing, and no food, would finally
drive me mad.
That is a very common error, it comes from the mind, because people
imagine that what they feel themselves others must feel likewise.
The fashion of walking in this place shews how the character of a nation
changes. The Venetians of old time who made as great a mystery of love
as of state affairs, have been replaced by the modern Venetians, whose
most prominent characteristic is to make a mystery of nothing.
UNDER THE LEADS
[JC#10][jculd10.xxx]2960
Wherever I went I had to tell the story of my escape from The Leads.
This became a service almost as tiring as the flight itself had been, as
it took me two hours to tell my tale, without the slightest bit of fancy-
work; but I had to be polite to the curious enquirers, and to pretend
that I believed them moved by the most affectionate interest in my
welfare. In general, the best way to please is to take the benevolence
of all with whom one has relation for granted.
Philosophic reader, if you will place yourself for a moment in my
position, if you will share the sufferings which for fifteen months had
been my lot, if you think of my danger on the top of a roof, where the
slightest step in a wrong direction would have cost me my life, if you
consider the few hours at my disposal to overcome difficulties which
might spring up at any moment, the candid confession I am about to make
will not lower me in your esteem; at any rate, if you do not forget that
a man in an anxious and dangerous position is in reality only half
himself.
"I must tell your lordship, then, that, the State Inquisitors shut me up
under the Leads; that after fifteen months and five days of imprisonment
I succeeded in piercing the roof; that after many difficulties I reached
the chancery by a window, and broke open the door; afterwards I got to
St. Mark's Place, whence, taking a gondola which bore me to the mainland,
I arrived at Paris, and have had the honour to pay my duty to your
lordship."
PARIS AND HOLLAND
[JC#11][jcphl10.xxx]2961
Oh, you women! beauty is the only unpardonable offence in your eyes.
Mdlle. Casanova was Esther's friend, and yet she could not bear to hear
her praised.
Desire is only kept alive by being denied: enjoyment kills it, since one
cannot desire what one has got.
If one tells a lie a sufficient number of times, one ends by believing
it.
Nevertheless, the idea of the marriage state, for which I felt I had no
vocation, made me tremble.
All this was clear enough, but strong passion and prejudice cannot
reason.
I had all the necessary qualities to second the efforts of the blind
goddess on my behalf save one--perseverance. My immoderate life of
pleasure annulled the effect of all my other qualities.
RETURN TO PARIS
[JC#12][jcrpr10.xxx]2962
The first motive is always self-interest.
On his death-bed he became a Catholic out of deference to the tears of
his wife; but as his children could not inherit his forty thousand pounds
invested in England, without conforming to the Church of England, the
family returned to London, where the widow complied with all the
obligations of the law of England. What will people not do when their
interests are at stake! though in a case like this there is no need to
blame a person for yielding, to prejudices which had the sanction of the
law.
I never could believe in the morality of snatching from poor mortal man
the delusions which make them happy.
HOLLAND AND GERMANY
[JC#13][jchgr10.xxx]2963
Now, when all these troubles have been long over and I can think over
them calmly, reflecting on the annoyances I experienced at Amsterdam,
where I might have been so happy, I am forced to admit that we ourselves
are the authors of almost all our woes and griefs, of which we so
unreasonably complain. If I could live my life over again, should I be
wiser? Perhaps; but then I should not be myself.
Lucie was only thirty-three, but she was the wreck of a woman, and women
are always as old as they look.
An English lady said, I forget in what connection, that a man of honour
should never risk sitting down to dinner at an hotel unless he felt
inclined, if necessary, to fight. The remark was very true at that time,
when one had to draw the sword for an idle word, and to expose one's self
to the consequences of a duel, or else be pointed at, even by the ladies,
with the finger of scorn.
SWITZERLAND
[JC#14][jcswt10.xxx]2964
He was a man of austere virtue, but he took care to hide the austerity
under a veil of a real and universal kindness. Undoubtedly he thought
little of the ignorant, who talk about everything right or wrong, instead
of remaining silent, and have at bottom only contempt for the learned;
but he only shewed his contempt by saying nothing. He knew that a
despised ignoramus becomes an enemy.
For in the night, you know, all cats are grey.
M. de Voltaire is a man who ought to be known, although, in spite of the
laws of nature, many persons have found him greater at a distance than
close at hand.
"How is it," said I, "that he did not attain mature age?"--"Because there
is no cure for death."
I concluded that a man who wants to be well informed should read first
and then correct his knowledge by travel. To know ill is worse than not
to know at all, and Montaigne says that we ought to know things well.
WITH VOLTAIRE
[JC#15][jcvlt10.xxx]2965
I should have considered that if it had not been for those quips and
cranks which made me hate him on the third day, I should have thought him
wholly sublime. This thought alone should have silenced me, but an angry
man always thinks himself right.
The essence of freedom consists in thinking you have it.
A nation without superstition would be a nation of philosophers, and
philosophers would never obey.
"Reading a history is the easier way."--"Yes, if history did not lie."
Love always makes men selfish, since all the sacrifices they make for the
beloved object are always ultimately referable to their own desires.
DEPART SWITZERLAND
[JC#16][jcdsw10.xxx]2966
Gladness, madam, is the lot of the happy, and sadness the portion of
souls condemned to everlasting pains. Be cheerful, then, and you will do
something to deserve your beauty.
The best plan in this world is to be astonished at nothing.
"What's an evasion?"--"A way of escaping from a difficulty without
satisfying impertinent curiosity."