to teach him, he will learn more than I want.  If I keep him apart from society, what will he have learnt from me?  Everything perhaps, except the one art absolutely necessary to a civilised man, the art of living among his fellow-men.  If I try to attend to this at a distance, it will be of no avail; he is only concerned with the present.  If I am content to supply him with amusement, he will acquire habits of luxury and will learn nothing.

We will have none of this.  My plan provides for everything.  Your heart, I say to the young man, requires a companion; let us go in search of a fitting one; perhaps we shall not easily find such a one, true worth is always rare, but we will be in no hurry, nor will we be easily discouraged.  No doubt there is such a one, and we shall find her at last, or at least we shall find some one like her.  With an end so attractive to himself, I introduce him into society.  What more need I say?  Have I not achieved my purpose?

By describing to him his future mistress, you may imagine whether I shall gain a hearing, whether I shall succeed in making the qualities he ought to love pleasing and dear to him, whether I shall sway his feelings to seek or shun what is good or bad for him.  I shall be the stupidest of men if I fail to make him in love with he knows not whom.  No matter that the person I describe is imaginary, it is enough to disgust him with those who might have attracted him; it is enough if it is continually suggesting comparisons which make him prefer his fancy to the real people he sees; and is not love itself a fancy, a falsehood, an illusion?  We are far more in love with our own fancy than with the object of it.  If we saw the object of our affections as it is, there would be no such thing as love.  When we cease to love, the person we used to love remains unchanged, but we no longer see with the same eyes; the magic veil is drawn aside, and love disappears.  But when I supply the object of imagination, I have control over comparisons, and I am able easily to prevent illusion with regard to realities.

For all that I would not mislead a young man by describing a model of perfection which could never exist; but I would so choose the faults of his mistress that they will suit him, that he will be pleased by them, and they may serve to correct his own.  Neither would I lie to him and affirm that there really is such a person; let him delight in the portrait, he will soon desire to find the original.  From desire to belief the transition is easy; it is a matter of a little skilful description, which under more perceptible features will give to this imaginary object an air of greater reality.  I would go so far as to give her a name; I would say, smiling.  Let us call your future mistress Sophy; Sophy is a name of good omen; if it is not the name of the lady of your choice at least she will be worthy of the name; we may honour her with it meanwhile.  If after all these details,