I give you a thousand thanks for the tea you sent me, but the lively tone of your letter pleased me as much as your present.

You will again see Madame Sandwich, whom we saw depart with regret.  I could wish that her condition in life might serve to be of some consolation to you.  I am ignorant of English customs, but she was quite French while here.

A thousand adieux, my friend.  If one could think as did Madame de Chevreuse, who believed when dying that she was going to converse with all her friends in the other world!  It would be a sweet thought.

VIII

Saint-Evremond to Ninon de l’Enclos

Love Banishes Old Age

Your life, my well beloved, has been too illustrious not to be lived in the same manner until the end.  Do not permit M. de la Rochefoucauld’s “hell” to frighten you; it was a devised hell he desired to construct into a maxim.  Pronounce the word “love” boldly, and that of “old age” will never pass your lips.

There is so much spirit in your letters, that you do not leave me even to imagine a decline of life in you.  What ingratitude to be ashamed to mention love, to which we owe all our merit, all our pleasures!  For, my lovely keeper of the casket, the reputation of your probity is established particularly upon the fact that you have resisted lovers, who would willingly have made free with the money of their friends.

Confess all your passions to make your virtues of greater worth; however, you do not expose but the one-half of your character; there is nothing better than what regards your friends, nothing more unsatisfactory than what you have bestowed upon your lovers.

In a few verses, I will draw your entire character.  Here they are, giving you the qualities you now have and those you have had: 

  Dans vos amours on vous trouvait legere,
  En amitie toujours sure et sincere;
  Pour vos amants, les humeurs de Venus,
  Pour vos amis les solides vertus: 
  Quand les premiers vous nommaient infidele,
  Et qu’asservis encore a votre loi,
  Ils reprochaient une flamme nouvelle,
Les autres se louaient de votre bonne foi. 
  Tantot c’etait le naturel d’Helene,
  Ses appetits comme tous ses appas;
  Tantot c’etait la probite romaine? 
C’etait d’honneur la regle et le compas. 
  Dans un couvent en soeur depositaire,
  Vous auriez bien menage quelque affaire,
  Et dans le monde a garder les depots,
On vous eut justement preferee aux devots.

  (In your love affairs you were never severe,
  But your friendship was always sure and sincere;
  The humors of Venus for those who desired,
  For your friends, in your heart, solid virtues conspired;
When the first, infidelity laid at your door,
  Though not yet exempt from the law of your will,
  And every new flame never failed to deplore,