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