en so far, and whatever I may yet write you on
this subject?

XXVIII

Mere Beauty Is Often of Trifling Importance

You are not mistaken, Marquis, the taste and talent of the Countess
for the clavecin (piano) will tend to increase your love and
happiness. I have always said that women do not fully realize the
advantages they might draw from their talents; indeed, there is not a
moment when they are not of supreme utility; most women always
calculating on the presence of a beloved object as the only thing to
be feared. In such case they have two enemies to combat; their love
and their lover. But when the lover departs, love remains; and
although the progress it makes in solitude is not so rapid, it is no
less dangerous. It is then that the execution of a sonata, the
sketching of a flower, the reading of a good book, will distract the
attention from a too seductive remembrance, and fix the mind on
something useful. All occupations which employ the mind are so many
thefts from love.

Suppose his inclination brings a lover to our knees, what can he
accomplish with a woman who is only tender and pretty? With what can
he employ his time if he does not find in her society something
agreeable, some variety? Love is an active sentiment, it is a
consuming fire always demanding additional fuel, and if it can find
only sensible objects upon which to feed, it will keep to that diet. I
mean to say, that when the mind is not occupied the senses find
something to do.

There are too many gesticulations while talking, sometimes I think we
shall be compelled to use sign language with a person we know to be
unable to understand a more refined language. It is not in resisting
advances, nor in taking offense at too bold a caress that a woman is
enabled to maintain her virtue. When she is attacked in that fashion,
even while defending herself, her senses are excited and the very
agitation which impels her to resist, hastens her defeat. But it is by
distracting the attention of the man to other objects, that the woman
is relieved of the necessity of resisting his advances, or taking
offense at his liberties to which she herself has opened the way, for
there is one thing certain, which is, that a man will never disappoint
a woman who is anxious for him.

You will not find a single woman, unless you can suppose one
absolutely ignorant, who is not able to gauge exactly the degree of
familiarity she ought to permit. Those who compl