— And, as one always falls on the side to which one inclines, levity becomes deliberate and a matter of elegance.[5] Indifference of the heart is in fashion; one would be ashamed to show any genuine emotion.  One takes pride in playing with love, in treating woman as a mechanical puppet, in touching one inward spring, and then another, to force out, at will, her anger or her pity.  Whatever she may do, there is no deviation from the most insulting politeness; the very exaggeration of false respect which is lavished on her is a mockery by which indifference for her is fully manifested. — But they go still further, and in souls naturally unfeeling, gallantry turns into wickedness.  Through ennui and the demand for excitement, through vanity, and as a proof of dexterity, delight is found in tormenting, in exciting tears, in dishonoring and in killing women by slow torture.  At last, as vanity is a bottomless pit, there is no species of blackness of which these polished executioners are not capable; the personages of Laclos are derived from these originals.[6] — Monsters of this kind are, undoubtedly, rare; but there is no need of reverting to them to ascertain how much egotism is harbored in the gallantry of society.  The women who erected it into an obligation are the first to realize its deceptiveness, and, amidst so much homage without heat, to pine for the communicative warmth of a powerful sentiment. — The character of the century obtains its last trait and “the man of feeling comes on the stage.

II.Return to nature and sentiment.

Final trait of the century, an increased sensitivity in the best circles. — Date of its advent. — Its symptoms in art and in literature. — Its dominion in private. — Its affectations. — Its sincerity. — Its delicacy.

It is not that the groundwork of habits becomes different, for these remain equally worldly and dissipated up the last.  But fashion authorizes a new affectation, consisting of effusions, reveries, and sensibilities as yet unknown.  The point is to return to nature, to admire the country, to delight in the simplicity of rustic manners, to be interested in village people, to be human, to have a heart, to find pleasure in the sweetness and tenderness of natural affections, to be a husband and a father, and still more, to possess a soul, virtues, and religious emotions, to believe in Providence and immortality, to be capable of enthusiasm.  One wants to be all this, or at least show an inclination that way.  In any event, if the desire does exist it is one the implied condition, that one shall not be too much disturbed in his ordinary pursuits, and that the sensations belonging to the new order of life shall in no respect interfere with the enjoyments of the old one.  Accordingly the exaltation which arises is little more than cerebral fermentation, and the idyll is to be almost entirely performed in the drawing-rooms.  Behold, then, literature,