versify his pleasures,
procure for him the charm of variety in the same object, and I will
vouch for his perseverance in fidelity.

I confess, however, that hymen, or what you call your "defeat," is, in
an ordinary woman, the grave of love. But then it is less upon the
lover that the blame falls, than upon her who complains of the cooling
of the passion; she casts upon the depravity of the heart what is due
to her own unskillfulness, and her lack of economy. She has expended
in a single day everything that might keep alive the inclination she
had excited. She has nothing more to offer to the curiosity of her
lover, she becomes always the same statue; no variety to be hoped for,
and her lover knows it well.

But in the woman I have in mind, it is the aurora of a lovelier day;
it is the beginning of the most satisfying pleasures. I, understand by
effusions of the heart, those mutual confidences; those ingenuities,
those unexpected avowals, and those transports which excite in us the
certainty of creating an absolute happiness, and meriting all the
esteem of the person we love. That day is, in a word, the epoch when
a man of refinement discovers inexhaustible treasures which have
always been hidden from him; the freedom a woman acquires brings into
play all the sentiments which constraint has held in reserve; her
heart takes a lofty flight, but one well under control. Time, far from
leading to loathing, will furnish new reasons for a greater love.

But, to repeat; I assume sufficient intelligence in her to be able to
control her inclination. For to hold a lover, it is not enough
(perhaps it is too much) to love passionately, she must love with
prudence, with restraint, and modesty is, for that reason, the most
ingenious virtue refined persons have ever imagined. To yield to the
impetuosity of an inclination; to be annihilated, so to speak, in the
object loved, is the method of a woman without discernment. That is
not love, it is a liking for a moment, it is to transform a lover into
a spoiled child. I would have a woman behave with more reserve and
economy. An excess of ardor is not justifiable in my opinion, the
heart being always an impetuous charger which must be steadily curbed.
If you do not use your strength with economy, your vivacity will be
nothing but a passing transport. The same indifference you perceive in
a lover, after those convulsive emotions, you, yourself, will
experience, and soon, both of you will f