om all constraint, is capable of
infinite expansion, like a liberated gas. To mix positive and
materialist science with etherialised sensualism, such is my object. A
simple passion, we all know what that is; but to adore four women at a
time--while so many honest folk are well content to love one only--this
seems to me a praiseworthy aspiration, fit to inspire the soul of a poet
who prides himself upon his gallantry, no less than the brain of a
philosopher in search of the vital elixir and the sources of sensation.
Such a study would, assuredly, be arduous and severe, and would at any
rate not be without glory, as you will admit, if it should happen to
terminate logically in the triumph of the sublime Christian love over
pagan or Mahometan polygamy.

Again, madam, in reprimanding me for my poor little harem, do you mean
to preach against King David, or the seven hundred wives of Solomon?
Without going back to the biblical legends of these venerable
sovereigns, have you not read the classics? In what respect, may I ask,
is the poem of Don Juan more moral than my subject? And did good old
Lafontaine drop any of his artless probity, when he dipped his pen into
the Boccaccian inkpot? The morality of a given book, madam, depends
entirely upon the morality of its author, who respects himself first by
respecting his public, and who will not lead the latter into bad
company, not wishing to corrupt it with bad sentiments.

It gives me pleasure to draw the picture of those ideal amours which
every warm-blooded youth of twenty has at one time or other cherished in
his thoughts; to substitute virginal charms and graces for vice and
harlotry--and after the manner of those charming heathen poets who have
so often filled our dreams with their fancies, to mingle the anacreontic
with the idyllic. Open any of your moral stories, madam, and I'll wager
my harem you will find that the interest in them is always kept up by
adultery, in thought or in deed, which has been erected into a social
institution! The same Minotaur has served for us since the time of
Menelaus. Adultery, adultery, always adultery! it is as inevitable as it
is monotonous!

Do you prefer the novel of the day, on the lives and habits of
courtesans? revelations of the boudoir, where all is impure, venal, and
degrading? No, madam, I won't proceed any farther, out of respect alike
for you and for my pen.

Possibly your taste inclines you to those moralist's studies of "W