every one so plainly. We are not engaged in what may be called "nice"
conversation, we are philosophizing. If my discussions seem to you to
be sometimes too analytical for a woman, remember what I told you in
my last letter. From the time I was first able to reason, I made up my
mind to investigate and ascertain which of the two sexes was the more
favored. I saw that men were not at all stinted in the distribution of
the roles to be played, and I therefore became a man.

If I were you, I would not investigate whether it be a good or a bad
thing to fall in love. I would prefer to have you ask whether it is
good or bad to be thirsty; or, that it be forbidden to give one a
drink because there are men who become intoxicated. Inasmuch as you
are not at liberty to divest yourself of an appetite belonging to the
mechanical part of your nature, as could our ancient romancers, do not
ruin yourself by speculating and meditating on the greater or less
advantages in loving. Take love as I have advised you to take it, only
do not let it be to you a passion, only an amusement.

I understand what you are going to say: you are going to overwhelm me
again with your great principles, and tell me that a man has not
sufficient control over his feelings to stop when he would. Pooh! I
regard those who talk in that fashion in the same light as the man,
who believes he is in honor bound to show great sorrow on the occasion
of a loss or accident, which his friends consider great, but which is
nothing to him. Such a man feels less than any one the need of
consolation, but he finds pleasure in showing his tears. He rejoices
to know that he possesses a heart capable of excessive emotion, and
this softens it still more. He feeds it with sorrow, he makes an idol
of it, and offers it incense so often that he acquires the habit. All
such admirers of great and noble sentiments, spoiled by romances or by