trouble. One man often manages a great many; he cultivates their
understanding and their memory, settles and determines their religious
feelings, and undertakes even to regulate their very affections. They
neither approve nor disapprove, commend or condemn, till they have
consulted his looks and his countenance. He is the confidant of their
joys and of their sorrows, of their desires, jealousies, hatred, and
love; he makes them break with their gallants, embroils and reconciles
them with their husbands, and is useful during the intervals. He looks
after their business, solicits for them when they have lawsuits, and
goes and sees the judges;[175] he recommends them his physician, his
tradesmen, his workmen; he tries to find them a residence, to furnish
it, and he orders also their carriages. He is seen with them when they
drive about in the streets, and during their walks, as well as in their
pew at church and their box at the theatre; he goes the same round of
visits as they do, and attends on them when they go to the baths, to
watering-places, and on their travels; he has the most comfortable
apartment at their country-seat. He grows old, but his authority does
not decline; a small amount of intelligence and the spending of a good
deal of leisure time suffice to preserve it; the children, the heirs,
the daughter-in-law, the niece, and the servants, are all dependent on
him. He began by making himself esteemed, and ends by making himself
feared. This old and necessary friend dies at last without being
regretted, and about half a score of women he tyrannised over recover
their liberty at his death.
(46.) Some women have endeavoured to conceal their conduct under a
modest exterior; but the most any one of them has obtained by the
closest and most constant dissimulation has been to have it said, “One
would have taken her for a Vestal virgin.”
(47.) It is a proof positive that a woman has an unstained and
established reputation if it is not even sullied by the familiar
intercourse with some ladies who are unlike her, and if, with all the
inclination people have to make slanderous observations, they ascribe a
totally different reason to this intimacy than similarity of morals.
(48.) An actor overdoes his part when on the stage; a poet amplifies
his descriptions; an artist who draws from life heightens and
exaggerates passions, contrasts, and attitudes; and he who copies
him, unless he measures with a pair of compasses the dimensions and
the proportions, will make his figures too big, and all parts of
the composition of his picture by far larger than they were in the
original. Thus an imitation of sagacity becomes pretentious affectation.
There is a pretended modesty which is vanity, a pretended glory which
is levity, a pretended grandeur which is meanness, a pretended virtue
which is hypocrisy, and a pretended wisdom which is affectation.
An affected and pretentious woman is all deportment and words; a
sensible woman shows her sense by her behaviour. This one follows her
inclination and disposition, that one her reason and her affections;
the one is formal and austere, the other is on all occasions exactly
what she ought to be. The first hides her weaknesses underneath
a plausible outside; the second conceals a rich store of virtue
underneath a free and natural air. Affectation and pretension shackle
the mind, yet do not veil age or ugliness, but often imply them;
common-sense, on the contrary, palliates the imperfections of the body,
ennobles the mind, gives fresh charms to youth, and makes beauty more
dangerous.
(49.) Why should men be blamed because women are not learned? What
laws, edicts, or regulations prohibit them from opening their eyes,
from reading and remembering what they have read, and from introducing
this in their conversation and in their writings? Is their ignorance,
on the contrary, not owing to a custom introduced by themselves; or to
the weakness of their constitution, or to the indolence of their mind,
or the care of their beauty, or to a certain flightiness which will
not allow them to prosecute any continuous studies, or to a talent and
aptitude they only have for needlework, or to an inattention caused
by domestic avocations, or to a natural aversion for all serious and
difficult things, or to a curiosity quite distinct from that which
gratifies the mind, or to a wholly different pleasure from that of
exercising the memory? But to whatever cause men may ascribe this
ignorance of women, they may consider themselves happy that women, who
rule them in so many things, are inferior to them in this respect.
We look on a learned woman as we do on a fine piece of armour,
artistically chiselled, admirably polished, and of exquisite
workmanship, which is only fit to be shown to connoisseurs, of no use
whatever, and no more apt to be used for war or hunting than a horse
out of a riding-school is, though it may be trained to perfection.
Whenever I find learning and sagacity united in one and the same
person, I do not care what the sex may be, I admire; and if you tell
me that a sensible woman hardly thinks of becoming learned, or that
a learned woman is hardly ever a sensible woman, you have already
forgotten what you have just read, namely, that women are prevented
from studying science by certain imperfections. Now you can draw your
own conclusions, namely, that those who have the fewest imperfections
are most likely to have the greatest amount of common-sense, and that
thus a sensible woman bids fairest to become learned; and that a
learned woman could never be such without having overcome a great many
imperfections, and this is the very best proof of her sense.[176]
(50.) It is very difficult to remain neutral when two women, who are
both our friends, fall out through some cause or other in which we are
not at all concerned; we must often side with one or lose both.
(51.) There are certain women who love their money better than their
friends, and their lovers better than their money.
(52.) We are amazed to observe in some women stronger and more violent
passions than their love for men, I mean ambition and gambling. Such
women render men chaste, and have nothing of their own sex but the
dress.[177]
(53.) Women run to extremes; they are either better or worse than men.
(54.) Most women have hardly any principles;[178] they are led by their
passions, and form their morals and manners after those whom they love.
(55.) Women exceed the generality of men in love; but men are their
superiors in friendship. Men are the cause that women do not love one
another.
(56.) There is some danger in making fun of people. Lise, who is more
or less in years, in trying to render a young woman ridiculous, has
changed so much as to become frightful. She made so many grimaces and
contortions in imitating her, and now has grown so ugly, that the
person she mimicked cannot have a better foil.
(57.) In the city many male and female nincompoops have the reputation
of being intelligent; at court many men who are very intelligent are
considered dolts; and a beautiful woman who has some intelligence will
hardly escape being called “foolish” by other women.
(58.) A man keeps another personʼs secret better than his own; a woman,
on the contrary, keeps her own secrets better than any other personʼs.
(59.) There is no love, however violent, raging in the heart of a young
woman, but there is still some room left for interest and ambition.
(60.) There comes a time when the wealthiest women ought to marry; they
seldom let slip the first opportunity without repenting it for many a
day; it seems that the reputation of their wealth diminishes in the
same proportion as their beauty does. On the contrary, every thing
is favourable to young girls, even menʼs opinions, for they attribute
to them every accomplishment, to render them still more desirable.
(61.) To how many girls has a great beauty been of no other use but to
make them expect a large fortune!
(62.) Handsome girls are apt to gratify the revenge of the lovers
they have ill-treated, by giving their hand to ugly, old, or unworthy
husbands.
(63.) Most women judge of the merits and good looks of a man by the
impression he makes on them, and very rarely allow either of those
qualities to a person who is indifferent to them.
(64.) A man who is anxious to know whether his appearance is changed,
and if he begins to grow old, needs only to consult the eyes of any
fair one he addresses, and the tone of her voice as she converses with
him, and he will then learn what he dreads to know. But it will be a
severe lesson to him!
(65.) A woman who always stares at one and the same person, or who is
for ever avoiding to look at him, makes us conclude but one and the
same thing of her.
(66.) Women are at little trouble to express what they do not feel; but
men are still at less to express what they do feel.
(67.) It sometimes happens that a woman conceals from a man the love
she feels for him, while he only feigns a passion he does not feel.
(68.) Suppose a man indifferent, but intending to declare to a woman
a passion he does not feel, it may be doubted whether it would not be
easier for him to deceive[179] a woman who loves him than one to whom
he is indifferent.
(69.) A man may deceive a woman by a pretended inclination, but then he
must not have a real one elsewhere.
(70.) A man storms and rails at a woman who no longer cares for him,
but he finds consolation; a woman is not so vociferous when she is
forsaken, but she remains unconsolable for a longer time.
(71.) Sloth in women is cured either by vanity or love; though, in
vivacious women, it is an omen of love.
(72.) It is certain that a woman who writes letters full of passion
is agitated, though it is not so sure that she is in love. A deep and
tender passion is more likely to become dejected and silent; and the
greatest and most stirring interest a woman can feel whose heart is no
longer free, is less to convince her lover of her own affection than to
be assured of his love for her.
(73.) Glycera[180] does not love her own sex; she hates their
conversation and their visits; she gives orders to be denied to them,
and often to her male friends, who are not many, whom she treats very
abruptly, keeps within limits, and whom she never allows to transgress
the bounds of friendship. She is absent-minded when they are present,
answers them in monosyllables, and seems to seek every opportunity of
getting rid of them; she dwells alone, and leads a very retired life
in her own house; her gates are better guarded and her rooms are more
inaccessible than those of Montauron or dʼEsmery.[181]
Only Corinna is expected and admitted at all hours, embraced several
times, caressed, and addressed with bated breath, though they are
alone in a small room; whatever she says is attentively listened
to; complaints are poured into Corinnaʼs ears about another person;
everything is told her, though nothing is new to her, for she possesses
the confidence of that other person as well. Glycera is seen with
another lady and two gentlemen at a ball, in the theatre, in the
public gardens, on the road to Venouse,[182] where people eat fruit
early in the season; sometimes alone in a sedan-chair on the way to
the grand suburb,[183] where she has a splendid fruit-garden, or else
at Canidiaʼs[184] door, who possesses so many rare secrets, promises
second husbands to young wives, and tells them also when and under
what circumstances they will obtain them. Glycera appears commonly in
a low and unpretentious head-dress, in a plain morning gown, without
any stays, and in slippers; she is charming in this dress, and wants
nothing but a little colour. People remark, nevertheless, that she
wears a splendid brooch, which she takes special care to conceal from
her husbandʼs eyes. She cajoles and caresses him, and every day invents
some new pretty names for him; the “dear husband” and his wife have but
one bedroom, and would not sleep in any other room. The morning she
spends at her toilet and in writing some urgent letters; a servant[185]
enters, and speaks to her in private; it is Parmenion, her favourite,
whom she upholds against his masterʼs dislike and his fellow-servantsʼ
jealousy. Who, indeed, delivers a message or brings back an answer
better than Parmenion? who speaks less of what should not be mentioned?
who opens a private door with less noise? who is a more skilful guide
up the back-stairs? or more cleverly leads a person out again the same
way?
(74.) I cannot understand how a husband who gives way to his freaks
and his temper, who, far from concealing his bad qualities, shows, on
the contrary, only his worst, who is covetous, slovenly in his dress,
abrupt in his answers, impolite, dull and taciturn, can expect to
defend successfully the heart of a young wife against the attacks of
a gallant who makes the most of dress, magnificence, complaisance,
politeness, assiduity, presents, and flattery.[186]
(75.) A husband seldom has a rival who is not of his own making, and
whom he has not introduced himself to his wife at one time or other; he
is always praising him before her for his fine teeth and his handsome
countenance; he encourages his civilities and allows him to visit at
his house; and next to the produce of his own estate, he relishes
nothing better than the game and the truffles his friend sends him. He
gives a supper, and says to his guests: “Let me recommend this to you;
it is sent by Leander and costs me nothing but thanks.”
(76.) A certain wife seems to have annihilated or buried her husband,
for he is not so much as mentioned in this world;[187] it is doubted
whether such a man be alive or dead. In his family his only use is
to be a pattern of timid silence and of implicit submission. He has
nothing to do with jointure or settlement; if it were not for that,
and his not lying-in, one would almost take him for the wife and her
for the husband. They are for months in the house together without any
danger of meeting one another; in reality they are only neighbours.
The master of the house pays the cook and his assistants, but the
supper is always served in my ladyʼs apartment. Often they have nothing
in common, neither bed, board, nor even the same name; they live in
the Greek or Roman fashion; she keeps her name, and he has his; and
it is only after some time, and when a man has been initiated in the
tittle-tattle of the town, that at last he comes to know that Mr. B ...
and Madam L ... have been man and wife these twenty years.[188]
(77.) Another wife, who does not give her husband any uneasiness on
account of her disorderly behaviour, repays herself for it by worrying
him about her high birth, her connections, the dowry she has brought
him, her enchanting beauty, her merits, and by what some people call
“her virtue.”
(78.) There are few wives so perfect as not to give their husbands at
least once a day good reason to repent of ever having married, or at
least of envying those who are unmarried.
(79.) Dumb and stupefied grief[189] is out of fashion; women weep, are
garrulous, and so concerned about their husbandsʼ death that they do
not forget to harp on every one of the details.
(80.) Is it impossible for a husband to discover the art of making his
wife love him?
(81.) An insensible woman is one who has not yet met the person whom
she is to love. In Smyrna there lived a very handsome young lady, named
Emira, yet better known throughout the town for her strict conduct
than for her beauty, and above all, for the indifference she showed
for all men, whom, as she said, she beheld without any danger, and
without any greater emotions than when in the company of her female
friends and her brothers. She could not believe a thousandth part of
all the follies ascribed to love at all times; and those which she saw
herself, seemed to her unaccountable. Friendship was the only feeling
she knew, and her first experience of it was through a youthful and
charming maiden, who pleased her so much that she only thought how to
continue it, never imagining that any other inclination could ever
abate that feeling of esteem and confidence in which she now exulted.
All her conversation was about Euphrosyne, for this was the name of
her faithful friend, and the whole town talked about nothing else but
about her and Euphrosyne; their friendship became a proverb. Emira had
two brothers, both young, and so handsome that all the ladies of the
city were in love with them, whilst she herself loved them as a true
sister. One of the priests of Jupiter, who visited at her fatherʼs
house, fell in love with her, and dared to declare his passion, but
was repelled with scorn. A man of a certain age, who, relying on his
noble birth and large estates, had the same assurance, met with the
same repulse. She boasted of this, however; and even when in the
company of her brothers, the priest, and the old noble, declared she
was insensible to love. It seemed that Heaven reserved severer trials
for her; yet these had no other effect but to render her more vain
and to enhance her reputation as a maiden superior to love. Of three
lovers smitten by her charms in succession, and whose affections she
did not dread, the first, in a fit of passion, stabbed himself at her
feet; the second, despairing of ever succeeding in his suit, went to
seek his death in the wars of Crete; and the third ended his days in
languor and passed his nights without sleep. The man who was to avenge
them had not yet made his appearance. The aged noble, who had not been
fortunate in his suit, was cured of his love by reflecting on his age
and on the character of the young lady to whom he paid his addresses;
however, he wished to visit her sometimes, and received her permission
so to do. One day he introduced to her his youthful son, who united
to a charming countenance manners full of dignity. Emira beheld him
with some interest; but as he remained silent in the presence of his
father, she thought he was wanting in intelligence, and could have
wished him more. He saw her afterwards alone, and conversed long enough
and intelligently; but as he did not look at her much, and talked
still less about her and her beauty, she was surprised and somewhat
indignant that such a nice-looking and clever young man should be so
void of gallantry. She spoke of him to her friend, who expressed a
desire to see him. He, then, only looked at Euphrosyne, and praised
her beauty. At this the unfeeling Emira became jealous; she perceived
that Ctesiphon spoke what he really felt, and that he was not only
capable of gallantry, but even of tenderness. From that time she cooled
towards her friend; yet she wished to see the couple together once
more, to make quite sure that her suspicions were well-founded. The
second interview showed her more than she dreaded to see, and changed
her suspicions into certainty. She now avoided Euphrosyne; she no
longer perceived in her that merit which charmed her before; she lost
all pleasure in her conversation; she loved her no longer; and this
alteration made her aware that love had driven friendship from her
heart. Ctesiphon and Euphrosyne saw each other every day, loved one
another, agreed to marry, and, finally, were married. The news spread
through the town, and was talked about the more as it is not often that
two persons who love one another are married. Emira heard of it, and
became desperate; she now felt all the power of love; she again visited
Euphrosyne only for the pleasure of anew beholding Ctesiphon; but that
young husband still remained a lover, and in his new wife found all the
charms of a mistress; he looked on Emira but as a friend of her who was
dear to him. This unfortunate girl could no longer rest, and refused to
take any nourishment; she got weaker and weaker, and at last her mind
became affected; she mistook her brother for Ctesiphon, and spoke to
him as a lover; she recollected herself, and blushed for her error, yet
soon relapsed into greater errors, for which she did not blush, for she
was no longer aware of them. Now she dreads men, but it is too late;
that is the cause of her madness. She has lucid intervals, but these
are the most painful to her. The youth of Smyrna, who saw her formerly
so proud and so void of feeling, now think that the gods have punished
her too severely.[190]
[Illustration]
IV.
OF THE AFFECTIONS.
(1.) Pure friendship is something which men of an inferior intellect
can never taste.
(2.) Friendship can exist between persons of different sexes, without
any coarse or sensual feelings; yet a woman always looks upon a man
as a man, and so a man will look upon a woman as a woman. Such a
connection is neither love nor pure friendship, but something out of
the common.
(3.) Love arises suddenly, without any warning, through a natural
disposition or through weakness; one glance of the fair transfixes us,
determines us. Friendship, on the contrary, is formed gradually, in
time, through familiarity and long acquaintance. How much intelligence,
kindness of heart and affection; how many good offices and civilities
are required among friends to accomplish in several years what a lovely
face or a fine hand does in a minute.
(4.) Time, which strengthens friendship, weakens love.
(5.) As long as love lasts, it feeds on itself, and sometimes by those
very means which seem rather likely to extinguish it, such as caprice,
severity, absence, jealousy. Friendship, on the contrary, needs every
assistance, and dies from want of attention, confidence, and kindness.
(6.) It is not so difficult to meet with excessive love as with perfect
friendship.
(7.) Love and friendship exclude each other.
(8.) A man who is passionately in love neglects friendship, and one
whose whole feelings are for friendship has none to give to love.
(9.) Love begins with love; and the warmest friendship cannot change
even to the coldest love.
(10.) Nothing is more like the most ardent friendship than those
acquaintances which we cultivate for the sake of our love.
(11.) We never love with all our heart and all our soul but once,
and that is the first time we love. Subsequent inclinations are less
instinctive.
(12.) Sudden love takes the longest time to be cured.
(13.) Love, slow and gradual in its growth, is too much like friendship
ever to be a violent passion.
(14.) A man who loves so ardently that he wishes he were able to love
ever so many thousand times more than he does, yields in love to none
but to a man who loves more intensely than he could wish.
(15.) If I were to admit that in the ebullitions of a violent passion
one may love another person better than oneself, whom should I please
most—those who love or those who are beloved?
(16.) Men are not seldom inclined to fall in love, but cannot succeed
in their desire; they seek every opportunity of being conquered, but
fail to meet it, and, if I may say so, are compelled to remain at
liberty.
(17.) Those who love too violently at first, soon contribute
individually to their loving one another less, and, finally, to their
not loving one another any longer. It is not so easy to decide who is
most to blame for this rupture, the man or the woman. Women accuse men
of being inconstant, and men retort that women are fickle.
(18.) However particular we may be in love, we pardon more faults in
love than in friendship.
(19.) It is a sweet revenge to a man who loves passionately to make an
ungrateful mistress appear still more so, by his very actions.
(20.) It is a sorry circumstance to love when we have not a fortune
large enough to render those whom we love so happy that there is
nothing more they can wish for.
(21.) If a woman with whom we have been violently in love, and who
has not returned our passion, afterwards renders us some important
services, she will hardly meet with anything but ingratitude.
(22.) A lively gratitude denotes a great esteem and affection for the
person who lays us under some obligation.
(23.) To be in the company of those whom we love satisfies us; it does
not signify whether we dream of them, speak or not speak to them, think
of them or think of indifferent things, as long as we are near them.
(24.) Hatred is nearer to friendship than antipathy is.
(25.) It seems that antipathy changes oftener into love than into
friendship.
(26.) We confide our secret to a friend, but in love it escapes us.
It is possible to enjoy some peopleʼs confidence, and yet not their
affections; he who possesses these needs no trusting, no confidence;
everything is open to him.
(27.) In friendship we only see those faults which may be prejudicial
to our friends; in those whom we love we discern no faults but those by
which we suffer ourselves.
(28.) The first tiff in love, as the first fault in friendship, is the
only one of which we are able to make good use.