uitive
possession? Does it not stand in the same relation to visible action,
as those incidents in our mental life, in which we take part in a dream,
stand to the incidents of our actual life? This energetic apprehension
of things, does it not call into being an internal emotion more
powerful than that of the external action? If our gestures are only the
accomplishment of things already enacted by our thought, you may easily
calculate how desire frequently entertained must necessarily consume the
vital fluids. But the passions which are no more than the aggregation
of desires, do they not furrow with the wrinkle of their lightning the
faces of the ambitious, of gamblers, for instance, and do they not wear
out their bodies with marvelous swiftness?

These observations, therefore, necessarily contain the germs of a
mysterious system equally favored by Plato and by Epicurus; we will
leave it for you to meditate upon, enveloped as it is in the veil which
enshrouds Egyptian statues.

But the greatest mistake that a man commits is to believe that love
can belong only to those fugitive moments which, according to the
magnificent expression of Bossuet, are like to the nails scattered over
a wall: to the eye they appear numerous; but when they are collected
they make but a handful.

Love consists almost always in conversation. There are few things
inexhaustible in a lover: goodness, gracefulness and delicacy. To feel
everything, to divine everything, to anticipate everything; to reproach
without bringing affliction upon a tender heart; to make a present
without pride; to double the value of a certain action by the way in
which it is done; to flatter rather by actions than by words; to make
oneself understood rather than to produce a vivid impression; to touch
without striking; to make a look and the sound of the voice produce the
effect of a caress; never to produce embarrassment; to amuse without
offending good taste; always to touch the heart; to speak to the
soul--this is all that women ask. They will abandon all the delights of
all the nights of Messalina, if only they may live with a being who will
yield them those caresses of the soul, for which they are so eager, and
which cost nothing to men if only they have a little consideration.

This outline comprises a great portion of such secrets as belong to the
nuptial couch. There are perhaps some witty people who may take this
long definition of politeness for a descripti