that it is not true that a man who weighs a hundred pounds
will weigh more if you kill him. I wager that if there is any
difference, he will weigh less. I wager that diamond powder has not
sufficient force to kill a man.

Side by side with these fanciful excursions into science, come more
serious ones, as in the note on Algebra, which traces its progress since
the year 1494, before which 'it had only arrived at the solution of
problems of the second degree, inclusive.' A scrap of paper tells us
that Casanova 'did not like regular towns.' 'I like,' he says, 'Venice,
Rome, Florence, Milan, Constantinople, Genoa.' Then he becomes abstract
and inquisitive again, and writes two pages, full of curious,
out-of-the-way learning, on the name of Paradise:

The name of Paradise is a name in Genesis which indicates a place
of pleasure (_lieu voluptueux_): this term is Persian. This place
of pleasure was made by God before he had created man.

It may be remembered that Casanova quarrelled with Voltaire, because
Voltaire had told him frankly that his translation of _L'Ecossaise_ was
a bad translation. It is piquant to read another note written in this
style of righteous indignation:

Voltaire, the hardy Voltaire, whose pen is without bit or bridle;
Voltaire, who devoured the Bible, and ridiculed our dogmas, doubts,
and after having made proselytes to impiety, is not ashamed, being
reduced to the extremity of life, to ask for the sacraments, and to
cover his body with more relics than St. Louis had at Amboise.

Here is an argument more in keeping with the tone of the _Memoirs_:

A girl who is pretty and good, and as virtuous as you please, ought
not to take it ill that a man, carried away by her charms, should
set himself to the task of making their conquest. If this man
cannot please her by any means, even if his passion be criminal,
she ought never to take offence at it, nor treat him unkindly; she
ought to be gentle, and pity him, if she does not love him, and
think it enough to keep invincibly hold upon her own duty.

Occasionally he touches upon aesthetical matters, as in a fragment which
begins with liberal definition of beauty:

Harmony makes beauty, says M. de S. P. (Bernardin de St. Pierre),
but the definition is too short, if he thinks he has said
everything. Here is mine. Remember that the subject