nly from the
danger of impairing my health (and yet I could not be so careful but that
I had two light mischances), but moreover upon the account of contempt,
I have seldom given myself up to common and mercenary embraces: I would
heighten the pleasure by the difficulty, by desire, and a certain kind of
glory, and was of Tiberius's mind, who in his amours was as much taken
with modesty and birth as any other quality, and of the courtesan Flora's
humour, who never lent herself to less than a dictator, a consul, or a
censor, and took pleasure in the dignity of her lovers. Doubtless pearls
and gold tissue, titles and train, add something to it.

As to the rest, I had a great esteem for wit, provided the person was not
exceptionable; for, to confess the truth, if the one or the other of
these two attractions must of necessity be wanting, I should rather have
quitted that of the understanding, that has its use in better things;
but in the subject of love, a subject principally relating to the senses
of seeing and touching, something may be done without the graces of the
mind: without the graces of the body, nothing. Beauty is the true
prerogative of women, and so peculiarly their own, that ours, though
naturally requiring another sort of feature, is never in its lustre but
when youthful and beardless, a sort of confused image of theirs. 'Tis
said that such as serve the Grand Signior upon the account of beauty, who
are an infinite number, are, at the latest, dismissed at two-and-twenty
years of age. Reason, prudence, and the offices of friendship are better
found amongst men, and therefore it is that they govern the affairs of
the world.

These two engagements are fortuitous, and depending upon others; the one
is troublesome by its rarity, the other withers with age, so that they
could never have been sufficient for the business of my life. That of
books, which is the third, is much more certain, and much more our own.
It yields all other advantages to the two first, but has the constancy
and facility of its service for its own share. It goes side by side with
me in my whole course, and everywhere is assisting me: it comforts me in
old age and solitude; it eases me of a troublesome weight of idleness,
and delivers me at all hours from company that I dislike: it blunts the
point of griefs, if they are not extreme, and have not got an entire
possession of my soul. To divert myself from a troublesome fancy, 'tis
but to r