Madame de Rosemonde, _to the_ Presidente de Tourvel.
Why, my lovely dear, will you no longer be my daughter? Why do you seem
to announce that our correspondence is to cease?[1] Is it to punish
me for not guessing at what was improbable; or do you suspect me of
creating you affliction designedly? I know your heart too well, to
imagine you would entertain such an opinion of mine.—The distress your
letter plunges me in is much less on my own account than yours. Oh!
my young friend, with grief I tell you, you are too worthy of being
beloved ever to be happy in love—Where is there a truly delicate and
sensible woman, who has not met unhappiness where she expected bliss?
Do men know how to rate the women they possess?
Not but many of them are virtuous in their addresses and constant
in their affections—but even among those, how few that know how
to put themselves in unison with our hearts. I do not imagine, my
dear child, their affection is like ours—They experience the same
transport often with more violence, but they are strangers to that
uneasy officiousness, that delicate solicitude, that produces in us
those continual tender cares, whose sole aim is the beloved object—Man
enjoys the happiness he feels, woman that she gives.
This difference, so essential, and so seldom observed, influences in a
very sensible manner, the totality of their respective conduct. The
pleasure of the one is to gratify desires; but that of the other is to
create them. To know to please, is in man the means of success; and in
woman it is success itself.
And do not imagine, the exceptions, be they more or less numerous, that
may be quoted, can be successfully opposed to those general truths,
which the voice of the public has guaranteed, with the only distinction
as to men of infidelity from inconstancy; a distinction of which they
avail themselves, and of which they should be ashamed; which never
has been adopted by any of our sex but those of abandoned characters,
who are a scandal to us, and to whom all methods are acceptable which
they think may deliver them from the painful sensation of their own
meanness.
I thought, my lovely dear, those reflections might be of use to you, in
order to oppose the chimerical ideas of perfect happiness, with which
love never fails to amuse our imagination. Deceitful hope! to which we
are still attached, even when we find ourselves under the necessity of
abandoning it—whose loss multiplies and irritates our already too real
sorrows, inseparable from an ardent passion—This task of alleviating
your troubles, or diminishing their number, is the only one I will or
can now fulfil—In disorders which are without remedy, no other advice
can be given, than as to the regimen to be observed—The only thing I
wish you to remember is, that to pity is not to blame a patient. Alas!
who are we, that we dare blame one another? Let us leave the right of
judging to the searcher of hearts; and I will even venture to believe,
that in his paternal sight, a crowd of virtues, may compensate a
single weakness.
But I conjure you above all things, my dear friend, to guard against
violent resolutions, which are less the effects of fortitude than
despondency: do not forget, that although you have made another
possessor of your existence (to use your own expression) you had it not
in your power to deprive your friends of the share they were before
possessed of, and which they will always claim.
Adieu, my dear child! Think sometimes on your tender mother; and be
assured you always will be, above every thing, the dearest object of
her thoughts.
_Castle of_ ——, _Nov._ 4, 17—.
[1] See Letter cxxviii.