to be maintained. This happiness, then, that
you prize so much, has a thousand drawbacks, or is, more properly
speaking, but a tissue of sufferings through which one hopes to attain
felicity. If by the power of imagination one can even derive pleasure
from these sufferings, hoping that they may lead to a happy end, why,
let me ask, do you deem my conduct senseless, when it is directed by
precisely the same principle? I love Manon: I wade through sorrow and
suffering in order to attain happiness with her. My path is one indeed
of difficulties, but the mere hope of reaching the desired goal makes
it easy and delightful; and I shall think myself but too bountifully
repaid by one moment of her society, for all the troubles I encounter
in my course. There appears therefore no difference between us, or, if
there be any, it is assuredly in my favour; for the bliss I hope for is
near and tangible, yours is far distant, and purely speculative. Mine
is of the same kind as my sufferings, that is to say, evident to my
senses; yours is of an incomprehensible nature, and only discernible
through the dim medium of faith.'

"Tiberge appeared shocked by my remarks. He retired two or three paces
from me, while he said, in the most serious tone, that my argument was
not only a violation of good sense, but that it was the miserable
sophistry of irreligion; 'for the comparison,' he added, 'of the
pitiful reward of your sufferings with that held out to us by the
divine revelation, is the essence of impiety and absurdity combined.'

"'I acknowledge,' said I, 'that the comparison is not a just one, but
my argument does not at all depend upon it. I was about to explain
what you consider a contradiction--the persevering in a painful
pursuit; and I think I have satisfactorily proved, that if there be any
contradiction in that, we shall be both equally obnoxious to the
charge. It was in this light, only, that I could observe no difference
in our cases, and I cannot as yet perceive any.

"'You may probably answer, that the proposed end, the promised reward,
of virtue, is infinitely superior to that of love? No one disputes it,
but that is not the question--we are only discussing the relative aid
they both afford in the endurance of affliction. Judge of that by the
practical effect: are there not multitudes who abandon a life of strict
virtue? how few give up the pursuits of love!

"'Again, you will reply that if there be difficulties