Friendship of a Woman whom he married in his Old Days If you should know said he to his Friends what is the Condition of a Person of my Age that hath nothing but himself to represent in his Solitude you would not admire that I have sought for a Companion that pleases me be the purchase of what value it will I never discommended him And why discommend a thing that ... hath authorized by his Example In the mean time in spite of his Authority I shall esteem a Person that hath strength enough to preserve the taste of his Liberty to the end of his Days Not that a full independance of Persons so free and so disengaged of all those indifferent and those ungrateful Men is always commendable Let us avoid Subjection in an entire liberty to preserve a sweet and sincere contract as agreeable to our Friends as to our selves If so be they demand of me more than fervency and cares for the Interest of those I love more than my small assistance whilst they are in necessities more than discretion in Commerce and a taste in Confidence let them go and seek for Friendships elsewhere mine can dispense with no more Violent Passions are unequal and make the disorder of a change to be feared In Love they should be abandoned for the Polexander's and the Cyrus's in Romances in Friendship for Orestes and Pilades in Plays These are things to read and to see represented which are not found in the Use of the World And happily they are not practised for they would produce very extravagant Adventures What hath Orestes done that great and illustrious person of Friendship What hath he done that ought not to give Horrour He killed his Mother assassinated Pyrrhus and fell into such strange Furies that it costs the Players their Lives that endeavour to represent him Let us observe with Attention the Nature of those Obligations which are sold so dear and we shall find them composed of a hideous Melancholy that makes up all Man-haters Indeed to dispose ones self to love but one person and to hate all the rest is what is taken for Vertue in particular In the mean time 't is a Vice against all the world He that makes us lose the Acquaintance of Men by a Desertion like his own makes us lose more than he is worth had he a considerable Merit Let us act the disinteressed as long as we please and shut up all our desires in the Monuments of our Passions thinking of nothing that proceeds not from thence yet we shall grow faint in this Noble Friendship if so be we don't draw from Society a part of the Conveniencies and Agreements of Life The love of Two Persons made fast one to another this fine Union hath need of Foreign things to excite the Taste of Pleasure and the sense of Joy with all the Sympathy of the World the Counsel and Intelligence it will be troubled to furnish some Consolation from the Tiresomness it is the Occasion of 'T is in the World and amongst Divertisements and Business that the most agreeable Contracts are formed I esteem the Correspondence of Monsieur d' Estrees and Monsieur de Senectere that lived Fifty Years at Court in an equal Familiarity I esteem the Confidence that Monsieur de Turenne had with Monsieur de Ruvigni Forty Years together more than theâ—e Friendships always extravagant and never rightly used between Women and Men. There is nothing that contributes more to the sweetness of Life than Friendship There is nothing that disturbs its Repose so much as Friends if we have not Judgment enough to chuse them well Importunate Friends desire to be thought indifferent the scrupulous give us more trouble by their Humour than they bring advantage by their Services The imperious ones are Tyrants to us We must hate what they do be it never so agreeable We must love what they love when we find it rigorous and unpleasant we must do Violence to our Nature enslave our Judgment renounce our Parts and under that sweet Name of Complaisance have a general submission for all that they impose Jealous Friends disturb us averse from all Counsel they don't give troubled at the good which happens to us without their Participation and glad of the Misfortunes which come by the Ministry of others There are Friends of Profession that take a pride in following our Party at random and upon all Occasions These sort of Friends serve for nothing else but to incense the World against us by imprudent Contests There are others that justifie us when no Body accuses us who by Indiscretion make us commit Offences in Places where we were not and bring us into what we would avoid Let him that will be contented with these Friendships as for me I am not satisfied with a single good Will I would have it accompanied with Discretion and Prudence The Affection of a Man doth not make amends for what he has spoiled I thank him for his impertinâ—nt Zeal and advise him to display its merit amongst Fools If so be the Lights of the Understanding direct not thâ— Motions of the Heart Friends are more proper to incense us and more capable of injuring than serving us Notwithstanding one speaks of nothing but the Heart in all the Discourses which they are heard to make upon Love and Friendship Poets become troublesome therein Lovers tedious and Friends ridiculous One sees nothing â—lse in our Plays but Kings Daughters that yield the Heart but refuse the Hand or Princesses that give the Hand and cannot agree to yield the Heart Lovers become insipid in asking eternally the Purity of this Heart and Friends raised to esteem would have it as well as the Lovers It is not in knowing the Nature where for a little Heat ill managed for some unequal and uncertain Tenderness it might have one observes otherwise nothing but Fancy Ingratitude Infidelity which one ought to fear Love is called blind very improperly not to displease the Genius of Poets and the Humours of Painters Love is for the most part a Passion of which the Heart often makes an ill Use. The Heart is a blind thing to which are owing all our Errours 't is that which preferrs a Fool before an ingenious Man that loves silly Objects and disdains amiable Persons that yields to the most ugly and most deformed and refuses the most handsom and most genteel 'T is that which confounds the most regular that lifts up the most wise to Vertue and disposeth Saints to Grace as little subjected to Government in Monasteries as disposed to love in Families unfaithful to Husbands less secure to Lovers it troubles the first and puts a Disorder amongst the rest It acts without advice and without Knowledge Weak against Reason that should conduct it it moves secretly by hidden Springs which it doth not discover it gives and withdraws its Affections without Occasion it engages without design breaks without measure and in a word produceth Fantastical
Noises which dishonour those that make them Behold the end of Love and Friendships Upon the Heart by Reasons just and reasonable whose Division the Mind can take there is no Rupture to be apprehended for either it remains the whole Life or it is insensibly disengaged with Discretion and Diligence It is certain that Nature hath put in our Hearts something of Laughter if one may say so some secret Principle of Affection that conceals what 's tender that explains it self and is communicable with Friends But the use of it has not been received and authorized amongst Men but only as much as to render Life more peaceable and more happy That 's the Foundation that Epicurus so much recommended to his Disciples That Cicero exhorts us to it and invites us by his own Example that Seneca as wrinkled and severe as he is becomes sweet and tender so soon as he speaks of Friendship That Montagne excells Seneca by more lively Expressions That Gassendus explains the Advantages of this Vertue and disposes the Reader as much as lies in his power to procure them All reasonable Persons all honest Men unite Philosophers therein upon the Foundation that Friendship ought to contribute more than any other thing to our Happiness Indeed a Man would not break with himself upon no Account whatsoever to unite himself to another if so be he did not find more Sweetness in this Union than in the first Sentiments of Self-love The Friendship of wise Men finds nothing in the World more precious than it self That of others imperious and confused disturbs the Peace of publick Society and the Pleasures of particular Conversations 'T is a savage Friendship which Reason disowns and which we could wish to our Enemies to be revenged of their Hatred But as honest and as regular as Friends may be 't is an inconvenient thing to have too many Our separated Cares don't leave Application enough for those that affect us nor also for what relates to others in the overflowing of a Soul that disperses it self upon all remote Actions and applys it self properly to nothing nor we our selves for few Persons living As for us let us seek the Advantage of Commerce with all the World and the Benefit of our Affairs with those that can A FRAGMENT UPON THE ANCIENTS THere is no Person that has more admiration than I have for the Works of the Ancients I admire the Design the Oeconomy the Elevation of Spirit the Extent of Knowledge but the change of Religion Government Customs and Manners has made so great a one in the World that we must have as it were a New Art to enter well into the Inclination and Genius of the Age we are in And certainly my Opinion ought to be found reasonable by all those that will take the pains to examine it for if one gives Characters quite opposite to ... Take away the Gods of Antiquity you take from him all his Poems The Constiâ—ution of the Fable is in disorder the Oeconomy thereof is turned upside down Without the Prayer of Thetis to Iupiter and the Dream which Iupiter sent to Agamemnon there would be no Iliad without Minerva no Odysseus without the Protection of Iupiter and the Assistance of Venus no Aeneid The Gods assembled in Heaven debated what was to be done upon Earth they formed Resolutions and were no less necessary to execute them than to take them The Immortal Captains of the Party of Men contrived all gave Life to all inspired Force and Courage engaged themselves in fight and except Ajax who asked nothing but Light there was no conâ—iderable Warriour that had not his God upon his Chariot as well as his Squire The God to conduct his Spear the Squire for the management of his Horses Man was a pure Machine whom secret Springs put upon Motion and those Springs were nothing else but the Inspiration of their Goddesses and Gods The Divinity which we serve is more favourable to the Liberty of Men. We are in his Hands as the rest of the Universe by dependance in our own to deliberate and to act I confess that we ought always to implore his Protection Lucretius asks it himself and in the Book where he engages Providence with all the force of his Spirit he Prays he Conjures that which governs us to have the goodness to avert Misfortunes Quod procul à nobis â—lectat natura gubernans In the mean time we must not introduce this Formidable Majesty in all things whose name it is not permitted to make use of unseasonably That false Divinities are mixed in all sorts of Fictions those are Fables themselves the vain effectsâ— of the Imagination of Poets As for Christians they should give nothing but Truth to him who is Truth in Perfection and they should adapt all their Discourses to his Wisdom and to his Goodness This great Principle is followed by that of Manners which by reaâ—on of their being civilized and sweetned at present can't suffer what they had of wildness in those times 'T is this change that makes us find so strange the fierce and brutish injuries which Achilles and Agamemnon boast of 'T is by this Agamemnon appears odious to us when he takes away that Trojan's Life which Menelaus had pardoned Menelaus for whom the War was made pardons him generously Agamemnon the King of Kings who owed Examples of Vertue to all the Princes and to all the People the cowardly Agamemnon kills this miserable Person with his own Hand 'T is then Achilles becomes horrible when he kills the young Lycaon who entreated him so tenderly for his Life 'T is then we hate him even to his Vertues when he ties the Body of Hector to his Chariot and drags him inhumanely to the Camp of the Greeks I had a kindness for him when he was the Friend of Patroclus The cruelty of his Action makes me abhor his Valour and his Friendship 'T is quite otherwise in Hector His good Qualities return into our Minds we pity him we lament him more his Idea is become very dear and draws all the Sentiments of our Affection Let it not be said in favour of Achilles that Hector kill'd his dear Patroclus The resentment of this Death doth not excuse him with us An affliction that permits him to suspend his Revenge and to tarry for his Arms before he goes to the Combat an Affliction so patient ought not to have push'd him to this unusual Barbarity after the Fight 's over But let us disengage our Friendship from our Aversion the sweetest the tenderest of Vertues doth not bring forth effects so contrary to Nature Achilles found them in the bottom of his Nature It is not to the Friend of Patroclus but to the Inhumane and Inexorable Achilles that they belong All the World will easily consent to it However the Vices of the Hero will not fall upon the Poet. Homer's Intention was more to describe the Nature such as he saw it than to make Heroes
our proper love as our true Master and one cannot bring the least alteration withouâ— making us discern this change with Violence Upon the whole one ought not to disfigure them in War to render them more illustrious in their Amours we may give them Mistresses of our own Invention we may mix Passion with their Glory but let us take care of making an Anthony of an Alexander and not ruine Heroes confirmed by so many Ages in favour of a Lover whom we form to our single Fancy To reject the love of our Tragedies as unworthy of Heroes is to take away that which makes us hold to them by a secret relation and I know not what cohaerence which still remains between their Souls and others But to bring them to us by this common Sentiment don't let us make them descend beneath themselves nor destroy what they possess above Men. With this moderation I will affirm that there are no Subjects where a general Passion which Nature hath dispersed throughout can't enter without trouble and violence Moreover as Women are as necessary for the representation as Men it is convenient to make them speak as much as one can of that which is most agreeable to their nature and of which they speak much better than of other things If you take away from some the expression of Amorous Thoughts and from others a converse in Secret into which a confidence which they have of each other makes them enter you reduce them for the most part to very tedious Conversations As if all their motions as their Discourses ought to be the effects of their Passion their Joy their Sorrow their Fears their Desires ought to relish of a little love to be taking If you introduce a Mother who rejoiceth for the Happiness of her Beloved Son or afflicts her self for the misfortune of her poor Daughter her Satisfaction or her Loss will make but little impression upon the Souls of the Spectators To be affected with the Tears and Complaints of this Sex let us see a Mistress that bewails the Death of a Lover and not a Wife that laments for the loss of a Husband The Grief of Mistresses which is tender has much more influence upon us than the affliction of an invegling self-interessed Widow and as sincere as she happens to be sometimes always affords us a Melancholy Idea of Funerals and their dismal Ceremonies Of all the Widows that ever appeared upon the Theatre I love to see none but Cornelia because instead of making me think of Children without a Father and a Wife without a Spouse her Affections all over Roman recall into my mind the Idea of ancient Rome and the Great Pompey Behold all that may reasonably be allowed to Love upon our Theatres but let them be contented with this and so far even their Rules will allow of it and let not its greatest favourers believe that the chief design of Tragedy is to excite a sort of tenderness in our hearts In subjects truly Heroick the Greatness of the Soul ought to be kept up before all things That which would be pleasing and tender in the Mistress of an ordinary Man is often weak and disgraceful in the Mistress of a Heroe She may entertain her self when alone with the inward Combats which she is sensible of in her self she may Sigh in Secret for her misery trust to a beloved and severe Confident her Fears and her Griefs But sustained by her Glory and fortified by her reason she ought always to remain Mistress of her Passions and animate her Lover to great things by her Resolution instead of disheartening him by her weakness Indeed 't is an unworthy Spectacle to see the Courage of a Heroe softned by Tears and Sighs and if so be he fiercely contemns the Griefs of a Beautiful person that loves him he discovers the firmness of his heart less than the hardness of his Soul To avoid this inconvenience Corneille has no less regard to the Character of Illustrious Women than to that of his Heroes Aemilia encourages Cinna to the execution of their design and meditates how to ruine all the motions that oppose the death of Augustus Cleopatra hath a Passion for Caesar and leaves nothing undone to preserve Pompey she would be unworthy of Caesar if she did not oppose the baseness of her Brother and Caesar undeserving of her if he was capable of approving that Infamy Dircè in Oedipus disputes greatness of Courage with Theseus turning upon her self the fatal explication of the Oracle which he would apply to himself for the love of her But one should consider Sophonisba whose Character might be envied by the Romans themselves One should see her Sacrifice the young Massinissa to Old Syphax for the good of her Countrey one should see her hearken as little to the Scruples of Duty in quitting Siphax as she had done the Sentiments of her love in losing Massinissa One should see her who subjects all sorts of Obligations what binds us what unites us the strongest Chains the most tender Passions to her Love for Carthage and her Hatred for Rome In a word one should see her when she 's utterly abandoned not wanting to her self and when those hearts which she had gained to save her Countrey signified nothing to owe to her self the last support to prâ—serve her Glory and her Liberty Corneille makes his Heroes speak with so much decency that he had never given us the Conversation of Caesar with Cleopatra if so be Caesar could have been believed to have had the Business which he had at Alexandria as Beautiful as she was as far as to have rendred the Converse of a Lover to indifferent Persons that should hear it He had certainly let that alone but that the Battel of Pharsalia was fully won Pompey dead and all that took part with him in flight As Caesar then believed himself to be the Master of all they might offer him an acquired Glory and a power in all appearance assured But when he discovered the Conspiracy of Ptolomy when he beholds his affairs in an ill Condition and his own Life in Danger it is no more a Lover that entertains his Mistress with his Passion but the Roman General that speaks to the Queen of the Danger which relates to them and leaves her with hast to provide for their common Security It is ridiculous then to take Porus up with his single Love upon the point of a great Battel which was to make a decision of all things for him it is no less to make Alexander depart when the Enemies began to rally One might have made him enter with impatience to seek Porus not to draw him from thence with precipitation to go and revisit Cleophile he that never had those Amorous Impatiences and who never thought a Victory to be compleat till he had either destroyed or pardoned That which I find more miserable on his account is that he is made to lose much of one side without
none to come to him but some particular Persons he taught the same things he delivered in publick His Morning Thoughts did not resemble those of the Evening So soon as the Gates of the Lycaeum were shut and that he thought himself at Liberty he spoke another Language 'T is there he acknowledged much more clearly than he doth in his Treatise of the Soul that nothing is more impenetrable than its Nature its Original and its Duration Thus when Alexander was angry that he had published some Works that he had composed for him alone Don't afflict your self answered this cunning Tutor I have taken good order to prevent their being comprehended they are not made to instruct the present Age but to exercise Posterity As for what relates to Seneca you will agree that he is a Braggadocio that shakes for fear at the prospect of Death that he collects all his forces to assure his Countenance in the cutting of his Veins and that he speaks as a Man who is not altogether perswaded of what he says Sometimes these Philosophers tell us wonders of the Residence of the Gods and the Ultimate Bliss sometimes they know not where to harbour them and say That all things annihilate in Death as far as Death it self Now they promise themselves Immortality and promise it to others Now they turn it into Ridicule This is so true that Aristotle is expell'd Athens for an Atheist and Seneca laughs at a Divinity in the Deifying of Claudius From whence do you think proceeds this Diversity in their Opinions It is that they are troubled with different Idea's of present Death and future Life their Soul uncâ—rtain upon the knowledge of it self establisheth or overthrows its Opinions according as it is seduced by the different appearances of truth If you hearken to these Talkers they 'll do their utmost to make you believe them Assure your self Sir that the most resolute amongst them are no more than Quacks that swallow down the Poison with a bâ—tter Grace than others to the end of selling off their Drugs with more applause Epicurus makes an open Profession of putting the Sovereign good in the Senses and teaches that all things conclude with them notwithstanding doth he not seem in dying to contradict the Maxims which he made Profession of during his Life He makes his Will with all the Cautions of a Man that 's concerned at what will happen after him Posterity has an influence upon him his Memory becomes dear to him he cannot wean himself from the Delights of his Garden he flatters himself with the Reputation of his Writings and recommends them to his Disciple Hermachus His Mind which was so far engaged in the Opinion of Annihilation is affected with some tenderness for himself and lays up Honours and Pleasures in another State besides that he goes to leave Solomon who was the greatest of all Kings and the wisest of all Men seems to furnish the Impious wherewith to sustain their Errors at a time when he advises the good Men to remain firm in the love of truth When he makes the Libertines speak in Ecclesiastes is it not plain that he appropriates to Wisdom alone the knowledge of our selves He forms all the Doubts wherein for the most part Humane Reason is perplexed he makes a downright Description of his Irresolution his Desires his Distastes his Knowledge his Ignorance and at length concludes that Eternal Wisdom alone can disentangle this Labyrinth that we must adore the Profundity of its Mysteries and that the silence of a Wise Man is of more value than the Arguments of a Philosopher If any one ought to have been exempt from Error Doubt Inconstancy it was Solomon Notwithstanding we see in the inequality of his Conduct that he was weary of his Wisdom that he was weary of his Folly and that his Vertues and his Vices turn by turn gave him new Disgusts Sometimes he enjoy'd his Life as if all things went at random sometimes he brought back all things to Providence and never spoke with a firm tone but when Eternal Wisdom made him speak Let the Philosophers let the Learned study they will oftentimes find an Alteration and now and then an absolute contrariety in their Judgments Unless Faith subjects our Reason we pass our Lives in Belief and Unbelief in endeavouring to perswade our selves and unable to convince us the activity of our Spirit gives us Motion enough but its Lights are too dim to conduct us The one amorous of themselves help their Imagination to flatter themselves they think to have found what they seek for they triumph some time in their Error but are undeceived in the end The others are vexed at their Ignorance every thing stops them nothing satisfies them they debate upon all Questions that are put to them more unhappy in this than the former in as much as they have not the Wit to deceive themselves This is it Sir in my Judgment wherein consists the purest Wisdom provided that one is always deceived provided that one is puzzled with every thing that 's difficult and that one thinks of the future only to reap the more advantage of the present provided at length that one has reduced his Reason to dispute no more upon things that God was not pleased to submit to reasoning is all that one can desire I not only believe with Solomon that the silence of a Wise Man in this case is of more account than the Discourse of a Philosopher but I esteem the Faith of a stupid Peasant more than all the Lessons of Socrates I know very well that Examples might be brought which seem contrary to what I say There are Pagans perswaded of the other Opinion and affected to their own Sentiments A Discourse upon the Immortality of the Soul hath push'd on some even to brave the horrors of Death the better to enjoy those Pleasures of Life which were promised to them But not to displease the Partisans of the Vertue of the Pagans I believe with some great Saints that Vain-glory made more than half of those Heroick Actions which cause our Admiration When one comes to these terms 't is no more reason that conducts us 't is Passion that draws us along 't is no more the Discourse that has an effect upon us 't is a desire to be better 't is a vanity to die with courage which we love more than Life it self 't is a weariness of present Misfortunes 't is a hope of future Rewards a blind Love of Glory in a word a Distemper a Fury that doth violence to natural Instinct and transports us beyond our selves But a peaceable Mind that examines in cold Blood this terrible Alteration is not at all disturbed by the reading of Plato or Seneca They may preach up That Death is not an evil if Grace doth not come to its relief they don't determine it to us It belongs only to the Sovereign Master of Reason to make Martyrs to inspire a courageous Contempt
believe what one says with Authority we ought to believe But without a particular Mercy we are more disturbed than perswaded of a thing that doth not fall under the Evidence of the Senses and which affords no manner of Demonstration to our Minds Behold what is the effect of Religion in respect of ordinary Men now see the advantages of it for the true and perfect Religious Man The true Devout Person breaks with Nature if one may so speak to take pleasure in the abstinence of pleasures and in the Subjection of the Body to the Mind he renders to himself in some measure delightful the use of Mortifications and Pains Philosophy goes no further than to teach us to endure Misfortunes The Christian Religion makes us triumph over them and one may say seriously of it what has been gallantly express'd of Love All other Pleasures are not worth its Pains The true Christian knows how to make his advantages of all things the evils which he suffers are the good Things which God sends to him The good Things which he wants are evils which Providence has secured him from Every thing 's a benefit to him every thing in this World is a Mercy and when he must depart by the necessity of his Mortal Condition he looks upon the end of his Life as a Passage to one more happy which is never to conclude Such is the Felicity of a true Christian whilst uncertainty and trouble make an unhappy Condition to all others Indeed we are almost all unresolved little determined to good and evil There is a continual turn and return from Nature to Religion and from Religion to Nature If so be we abandon the care of happiness to satisfie our Inclinations these very Inclinations rise immediately against their Pleasures and the distaste of Objects which have flattered them the most sends us back to the cares of our happiness If so be we renounce our Pleasures by a Principle of Conscience the same thing happens to us in the Application to happiness where habit and tediousness sends us back to the Objects of our first Inclinations Behold how we are upon Religion in our selves now see the Judgment which the Publick makes of it Should we forsake God for the World we are treated as Impious Persons Should we forsake the World for God we are look'd upon as weak and decayed in our Understanding and we are as little pardoned for Sacrificing Fortune to Religion as Religion to Fortune The Example of Cardinal Retz will suffice singly to justifie what I say When he was made Cardinal by Intrigues Factions and Tumults they cryed out against an Ambitious Man that sacrificed said they the Publick his Conscience and Religion to his Fortune When he left the cares of Earth for those of Heaven when the Perswasion of another Life made him regard the Grandeurs of this as Chimaera's they said that his Head was turned and that he made a scandalous weakness of what is proposed to us in Christianity as the greatest Vertue An ordinary Mind is but little favourable to great Vertues a lofty Wisdom offends a common Reason Mine as common as it is admires a Person truly perswaded and would admire still more that this Person absolutely perswaded could be insensible to any advantage of Fortune I question a little the Perswasion of those Preachers who offering us the Kingdom of Heaven in Publick sollicit in particular a small Benefice with the utmost importunity The sole Idea of eternal profits renders the Possession of all the rest contemptible to a believing Man but because there is but a few that have Faith few Persons defend this Idea against Objects the hope of what is promised to us naturally yielding to the enjoyment of what 's given us In the greatest part of Christians the desire of believing holds the place of belief the will gives them a sort of Faith by desires which the Understanding refuses them by its Lights I have known some Devout Men that in a certain contrariety between the Heart and the Mind loved God perfectly without a strong Faith in him When they abandoned themselves to the Motions of their Heart there was nothing but zeal for Religion all was fervency all love When they turned to the Intelligence of the Mind they were amazed at their incomprehension of what they loved and at their Ignorance how to answer themselves upon the Subject of their love Then they wanted Consolations to speak in Spiritual Terms and they fell into that sad State of Religious Life which is called Aridity and Dryness in Monasteries God alone is able to give us a certain firm and real Faith That which we can do of our selves is to captivate the Understanding in spite of the resistance of the Lights of Nature and to dispose our selves with submission to execute what is ordained for us Humanity easily mingles its errors in what relates to Faith it mistakes a little in the practice of Vertues for it is less in our power to think exactly upon the things of Heaven than to do well One can never be disappointed in the Actions of Justice and Charity Sometimes Heaven ordains and Nature makes an Opposition Sometimes Nature demands what Reason won't consent to Upon Justice and Charity all Rights are concerted and there is as it were a general agreement between Heaven Nature and Reason A Fragment of Friendship without Friendship THE Love of Women had softned the Courage of Men the Vertue of good Men was altered by it The Grandeur of a Magnanimous Soul might be weakned but true Wisdom incurr'd little danger with the Female Sex The Wise Man above their weakness their inequalities and their fancies can govern them at his pleasure or gets rid of them as he thinks convenient As long as he sees others in slavery tormented by some unfortunate Passion he tastes a sweetness that charms the senses and frees him from the sense of Misfortunes which are not to be made insensible by Reason alone Not but that he may fall into an error Humane Nature leaves no certain state to our Souls but it is not long before he finds again his dispersed Lights and re-establishes the Repose he had lost Scarce do we begin to grow Old but we begin to be displeased by some distast which we secretly frame in our selves Then our Soul free from Self-love is easily filled with that which is suggested to us and what would have pleased us heretofore but indifferently charms us at present and enslaves us to our own weakness By this Mistresses dispose of their Old Lovers to their Fancy and Wives of their Old Husbands by this Syphax abandoned himself to the will of Sophonisba and Augustus was managed by Livia And not to draw all my Examples from Antiquity 't was thus Monsieur de la Ferte-Senectere worthy to be named with Kings and Emperours by the single merit of Gentleman 't was thus this Courtier as wise as he was polite let himself go to the