she has become positively ugly, and
consequently obliged to be more complaisant in retaining a lover. Will
she suffer another woman to keep hers at a less cost? That would be to
recognize too humiliating a superiority, and I can assure you that she
will do the most singular things to bring her amiable widower up to
the point.

If she succeed, how much I fear everything will be changed! To have
been as beautiful as another woman, and to be so no longer, although
she embellishes herself every day, and to suffer her presence every
day, is, I vow, an effort beyond the strength of the most reasonable
woman, greater than the most determined philosophy. Among women
friendship ceases where rivalry begins. By rivalry, I mean that of
beauty only, it would be too much to add that of sentiment.

I foresee this with regret, but it is my duty to forewarn you.
Whatever precautions the Countess may take to control the amour propre
of the Marquise, she will never make anything else out of her than an
ingrate. I do not know by what fatality, everything a beautiful woman
tells one who is no longer beautiful, assumes in the mouth, an
impression of a commiseration which breaks down the most carefully
devised management, and humiliates her whom it is thought to console.
The more a woman strives to efface the superiority she possesses over
an unfortunate sister woman, the more she makes that superiority
apparent, until the latter reaches the opinion that it is only
through generosity that she is permitted to occupy the subordinate
position left her.

You may depend upon it, Marquis, that women are never misled when it
comes to mutual praise; they fully appreciate the eulogies
interchanged among themselves; and as they speak without sincerity, so
they listen with little gratitude. And although she who speaks, in
praising the beauty of another, may do so in good faith, she who
listens to the eulogy, considers less what the other says than her
style of beauty. Is she ugly? We believe and love her, but if she be
as handsome as we, we thank her coldly and disdain her; handsomer, we
hate her more than before she spoke.

You must understand this, Marquis, that as much as two beautiful women
may have something between them to explain, it is impossible for them
to form a solid friendship. Can two merchants who have the same goods
to sell become good neighbors? Men do not penetrate the true cause of
the lack of cordiality among women. Those who a