ecause your
features are regular, and your hair dark and glossy, but you do not, for
all that, understand woman.

"Nature, having all, desires the reproduction of beings; everywhere,
from the summit of the mountain to the bottom of the sea, life
is opposed to death. God, to conserve the work of His hands, has
established this law-that the greatest pleasure of all sentient beings
shall be to procreate.

"Oh! my friend, when you feel bursting on your lips the vow of
eternal love, do not be afraid to yield, but do not confound wine with
intoxication; do not think of the cup divine because the draught is of
celestial flavor; do not be astonished to find it broken and empty in
the evening. It is but woman, but a fragile vase, made of earth by a
potter.

"Thank God for giving you a glimpse of heaven, but do not imagine
yourself a bird because you can flap your wings. The birds themselves
can not escape the clouds; there is a region where air fails them and
the lark, rising with its song into the morning fog, sometimes falls
back dead in the field.

"Take love as a sober man takes wine; do not become a drunkard. If your
mistress is sincere and faithful, love her for that; but if she is
not, if she is merely young and beautiful, love her for that; if she is
agreeable and spirituelle, love her for that; if she is none of these
things but merely loves you, love her for that. Love does not come to us
every day.

"Do not tear your hair and stab yourself because you have a rival. You
say that your mistress deceives you for another; it is your pride that
suffers; but change the words, say that it is for you that she deceives
him, and behold, you are happy!

"Do not make a rule of conduct, and do not say that you wish to be
loved exclusively, for in saying that, as you are a man and inconstant
yourself, you are forced to add tacitly: 'As far as possible.'

"Take time as it comes, the wind as it blows, woman as she is. The
Spaniards, first among women, love faithfully; their hearts are sincere
and violent, but they wear a dagger just above them. Italian women are
lascivious. The English are exalted and melancholy, cold and unnatural.
The German women are tender and sweet, but colorless and monotonous. The
French are spirituelle, elegant, and voluptuous, but are false at heart.

"Above all, do not accuse women of being what they are; we have made
them thus, undoing the work of nature.

"Nature, who thinks of everything, made