When I was young I admired intellect more than anything else, and was less considerate of the interests of the body than I should have been; to-day, I am remedying the error I then held, as much as possible, either by the use I am making of it, or by the esteem and friendship I have for it.

You were of the same opinion.  The body was something in your youth, now you are wholly concerned with the pleasures of the mind.  I do not know whether you are right in placing so high an estimate upon it.  We read little that is worth remembering, and we hear little advice that is worth following.  However degenerate may be the senses of the age at which I am living, the impressions which agreeable objects make upon them appear to me to be so much more acute, that we are wrong to mortify them.  Perhaps it is a jealousy of the mind which deems the part played by the senses better than its own.

M. Bernier, the handsomest philosopher I have ever known (handsome philosopher is seldom used, but his figure, shape, manner, conversation and other traits have made him worthy of the epithet), M. Bernier, I say, in speaking of the senses, said to me one day: 

“I am going to impart a confidence that I would not give Madame de la Sabliere, even to Mademoiselle de l’Enclos, whom I regard as a superior being.  I tell you in confidence, that abstinence from pleasures appears to me to be a great sin.”

I was surprised at the novelty of the idea, and it did not fail to make an impression upon my mind.  Had he extended his idea, he might have made me a convert to his doctrine.

Continue your friendship which has never faltered, and which is something rare in relations that have existed as long as ours.

XV

Ninon de l’Enclos to Saint-Evremond

Let the Heart Speak Its Own Language

I learn with pleasure that my soul is dearer to you than my body and that your common sense is always leading you upward to better things.  The body, in fact, is little worthy of regard, and the soul has always some light which sustains it, and renders it sensible of the memory of a friend whose absence has not effaced his image.

I often tell the old stories in which d’Elbene, de Charleval, and the Chevalier de Riviere cheer up the “moderns.”  You are brought in at the most interesting points, but as you are also a modern, I am on my guard against praising you too highly in the presence of the Academicians, who have declared in favor of the “ancients.”

I have been told of a musical prologue, which I would very much like to hear at the Paris theater.  The “Beauty” who is its subject would strike with envy every woman who should hear it.  All our Helens have no right to find a Homer, and always be goddesses of beauty.  Here I am at the top, how am I to descend?

My very dear friend, would it not be well to permit the heart to speak its own language?  I assure you, I love you always.  Do not change your ideas on that point, they have always been in my favor, and may this mental communication, which some philosophers believe to be supernatural, last forever.