anner
that will best accord with the importance of what I am about to say. I
mount the tribune; I feel the presence of the god who inspires me. I
rub my forehead with the air of a person who meditates on profound
truths, and who is going to utter great thoughts. I am going to reason
according to rule.

Men, I know not by what caprice, have attached shame to the indulgence
of that reciprocal inclination which nature has bestowed upon both
sexes. They knew, however, that they could not entirely stifle its
voice, so what did they do to relieve themselves of their
embarrassment? They attempted to substitute the mere shell of an
affection wholly spiritual for the humiliating necessity of appearing
in good faith to satisfy a natural want. Insensibly, they have grown
accustomed to meddle with a thousand little sublime nothings connected
with it, and as if that were not enough, they have at last succeeded
in establishing the belief that all these frivolous accessories, the
work of a heated imagination, constitute the essence of the
inclination. There you are; love erected into a fine virtue; at least
they have given it the appearance of a virtue. But let us break
through this prestige and cite an example.

At the beginning of their intercourse, lovers fancy themselves
inspired by the noblest and most delicate sentiments. They exhaust
their ingenuity, exaggerations, the enthusiasm of the most exquisite
metaphysics; they are intoxicated for a time with the idea that their
love is a superior article. But let us follow them in their liaison:
Nature quickly recovers her rights and re-assumes her sway; soon,
vanity, gorged with the display of an exaggerated purpose, leaves the
heart at liberty to feel and express its sentiments without restraint,
and dissatisfied with the pleasures of love, the day comes when these
people are very much surprised to find themselves, after having
traveled around a long circuit, at the very point where a peasant,
acting according to nature, would have begun. And thereby hangs a
tale.

A certain Honesta, to give her a fictitious name, in whose presence I
was one day upholding the theory I have just been maintaining, became
furious.

"What!" she exclaimed in a transport of indignation, "do you pretend,
Madame, that a virtuous person, one who possesses only honest
intentions, such as marriage, is actuated by such vulgar motives? You
would believe, in that case, that I, for instance, who 'par vertu,'