then, that you prize so much, has a thousand drawbacks, or is, more properly speaking, but a tissue of sufferings through which one hopes to attain felicity.  If by the power of imagination one can even derive pleasure from these sufferings, hoping that they may lead to a happy end, why, let me ask, do you deem my conduct senseless, when it is directed by precisely the same principle?  I love Manon:  I wade through sorrow and suffering in order to attain happiness with her.  My path is one indeed of difficulties, but the mere hope of reaching the desired goal makes it easy and delightful; and I shall think myself but too bountifully repaid by one moment of her society, for all the troubles I encounter in my course.  There appears therefore no difference between us, or, if there be any, it is assuredly in my favour; for the bliss I hope for is near and tangible, yours is far distant, and purely speculative.  Mine is of the same kind as my sufferings, that is to say, evident to my senses; yours is of an incomprehensible nature, and only discernible through the dim medium of faith.’

[1] A favourite tenet of the Mystics, advocated by Madame de Guyon, and adopted by the amiable and eloquent Fenelon, was, that the love of the Supreme Being must be pure and disinterested; that is, exempt from all views of interest, and all hope of reward.  See the controversy between Bossuet and Fenelon.

“Tiberge appeared shocked by my remarks.  He retired two or three paces from me, while he said, in the most serious tone, that my argument was not only a violation of good sense, but that it was the miserable sophistry of irreligion; `for the comparison,’ he added, `of the pitiful reward of your sufferings with that held out to us by the divine revelation, is the essence of impiety and absurdity combined.’

“`I acknowledge,’ said I, `that the comparison is not a just one, but my argument does not at all depend upon it.  I was about to explain what you consider a contradiction—­the persevering in a painful pursuit; and I think I have satisfactorily proved, that if there be any contradiction in that, we shall be both equally obnoxious to the charge.  It was in this light, only, that I could observe no difference in our cases, and I cannot as yet perceive any.

“`You may probably answer, that the proposed end, the promised reward, of virtue, is infinitely superior to that of love?  No one disputes it, but that is not the question—­we are only discussing the relative aid they both afford in the endurance of affliction.  Judge of that by the practical effect:  are there not multitudes who abandon a life of strict virtue? how few give up the pursuits of love!

“`Again, you will reply that if there be difficulties in the exercise of virtue, they are by no means universal and sure; that the good man does not necessarily meet tyrants and tortures, and that, on the contrary, a life of virtue is perfectly compatible with repose and enjoyment.  I can say with equal truth, that love is often accompanied by content and happiness; and what makes another distinction of infinite advantage to my argument, I may add that love, though it often deludes, never holds out other than hopes of bliss and joy, whilst religion exacts from her votaries mortification and sorrow.