That you should be made a fool of by a young woman, why, it is many an honest man’s case.
- The Pirate.
I: Of love
My aim is to comprehend that passion, of which every sincere development has a character of beauty.
There are four kinds of love.
1. Passion-love – that of the Portuguese nun, of Héloïse for Abelard, of Captain de Vésel, of Sergeant de Cento.
2. Gallant love – that which ruled in Paris towards 1760, to be found in the memoirs and novels of the period, in Crébillon, Lauzun, Duclos, Marmontel, Chamfort, Mme. d’Épinay, etc. etc.
‘Tis a picture in which everything, to the very shadows, should be rose-colour, in which may enter nothing disagreeable under any pretext whatsoever, at the cost of a lapse of etiquette, of good taste, of refinement, etc. A man of breeding foresees all the ways of acting, that he is likely to adopt or meet with in the different phases of this love. True love is often less refined; for that in which there is no passion and nothing unforeseen, has always a store of ready wit: the latter is a cold and pretty miniature,
