When we have yielded to the transports of a passion without reserve, the tremendous shock to the soul can not fail quickly to leave it in a profound solitude.  The heart finds itself in a void which alarms and chills it.  We vainly seek outside of ourselves, the cause of the calm which follows our fits of passion; we do not perceive that an equal and more enduring happiness would have been the fruit of moderation.  Make an exact analysis of what takes place within you when you desire anything.  You will find that your desires are nothing but curiosity, and this curiosity, which is one of the forces of the heart, satisfied, our desires vanish.  Whoever, therefore, would hold a spouse or a lover, should leave him something to be desired, something new should be expected every day for the morrow.  Diversify 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 who 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 feel the necessity of separating.