ent left to say
adieu.

IV

The Spice of Love

Do you know, Marquis, that you will end by putting me in a temper?
Heavens, how very stupid you are sometimes! I see it in your letter;
you have not understood me at all. Take heed; I did not say that you
should take for a mistress a despicable object. That is not at all my
idea. But I said that in reality you needed only a love affair, and
that, to make it pleasant, you should not attach yourself exclusively
to substantial qualities. I repeat it; when in love, men need only to
be amused; and I believe on this subject I am an authority. Traces of
temper and caprice, a senseless quarrel, all this has more effect upon
women, and retains their affection more than all the reason
imaginable, more than steadiness of character.

Someone whom you esteem for the justice and strength of his ideas,
said one day at my house, that caprice in women was too closely allied
to beauty to be an antidote. I opposed this opinion with so much
animation, that it could readily be seen that the contrary maxim was
my sentiment, and I am, in truth, well persuaded that caprice is not
close to beauty, except to animate its charms in order to make them
more attractive, to serve as a goad, and to flavor them. There is no
colder sentiment, and none which endures less than admiration. One
easily becomes accustomed to see the same features, however regular
they may be, and when a little malignity does not give them life or
action, their very regularity soon destroys the sentiment they excite.
A cloud of temper, even, can give to a beautiful countenance the
necessary variety, to prevent the weariness of seeing it always in the
same state. In a word, woe to the woman of too monotonous a
temperament; her monotony satiates and disgusts. She is always the
same statue, with her a man is always right. She is so good, so
gentle, that she takes away from people the privilege of quarreling
with her, and this is often such a great pleasure! Put in her place a
vivacious woman, capricious, decided, to a certain limit, however, and
things assume a different aspect. The lover will find in the same
person the pleasure of variety. Temper is the salt, the quality which
prevents it from becoming stale. Restlessness, jealousy, quarrels,
making friends again, spitefulness, all are the food of love.
Enchanting variety! which fills, which occupies a sensitive heart much
more deliciously than the regularity of behavi