Stendhal

“ The lover plays a poor rôle in the drawing-room in the evening, because to be a success and a power among women a man must show just as much keenness on winning them as on a game of billiards. As everybody knows that the lover has a great interest in life, he exposes himself, for all his cleverness, to mockery. Only, next morning he wakes, not to be in a bad temper until something piquant or something nasty turns up to revive him, but to dream of her he loves and build castles in the air for love to dwell in. ”

“ He paints the most ravishing portrait of his mistress, her beauty, the elegance of her dress, her talents in singing, poetry and dancing; everything redoubles and justifies his love. But Cynthia, as perverse as she is captivating, dishonours herself before the whole town by such scandalous adventures that Propertius can no longer love her without shame. He blushes, but he cannot shake her off. He will be her lover, her husband; he will never love any but Cynthia. They part and come together again. Cynthia is jealous, he reassures her. He will never love any other woman. ”

“ The following point, which will be disputed, I offer only to those—shall I say unhappy enough?—to have loved with passion during long years, and loved in the face of invincible obstacles:—
The sight of all that is extremely beautiful in nature and in art recalls, with the swiftness of lightning, the memory of that which we love. It is by the process of the jewelled branch in the mines of Salzburg, that everything in the world which is beautiful and lofty contributes to the beauty of that which we love, and that forthwith a sudden glimpse of delight fills the eyes with tears. ”

“ One must have plenty of vanity—and precious petty vanity—to be happy, because people receive you well. I do not blame men for going on like this, in their world, but in the love of Léonore I found a world where everything was heavenly, tender and generous. The most lofty and almost incredible virtue of your world counted, between her and me, only as any ordinary and everyday virtue. Let me at all events dream of the happiness of passing my life close to such a creature. ”

“ Now at twenty-eight a gentle heart knows itself: it knows that, if it is still to find some happiness in life, from love it must be claimed; and this poor, torn heart becomes the seat of a fearful struggle between love and mistrust. Crystallisation proceeds gradually; but the crystallisation, which emerges triumphant from this terrible proof, in which the soul in all its movements never loses sight of the most awful danger, is a thousand times more brilliant and more solid than crystallisation at sixteen, in which everything, by right of age, is gaiety and happiness. ”

“ One embarks upon discourses which have got suddenly to be cut short, because of their absurdity—if one manage to rouse oneself and listen to one's thoughts within. The effort we make is so violent that we seem chilly. Love hides itself in its excess.
Away from her, the imagination was lulled by the most charming dialogues: there were transports the most tender and the most touching. And thus for ten days or so you think you have the courage to speak; but two days before what should have been our day of happiness, the fever begins, and, as the terrible instant draws near, its force redoubles. ”

“ For the soul of a great painter or a great poet, love is divine in that it increases a hundredfold the empire and the delight of his art, and the beauties of art are his soul's daily bread. How many great artists are unconscious both of their soul and of their genius! Often they reckon as mediocre their talent for the thing they adore, because they cannot agree with the eunuchs of the harem, La Harpe and such-like. For them even unhappy love is happiness. ”

“ He is appeased and returns to her; he remembers Delia's mother who favoured their love; the memory of this good woman opens his heart once more to tender thoughts, and all Delia's wrongs are forgotten. But she is soon guilty of others more serious. She lets herself be corrupted by gold and presents; she gives herself to another, to others. At length Tibullus breaks his shameful chains and says good-bye to her for ever.
He passes under the sway of Nemesis and is no happier; she loves only gold and cares little for poetry and the gifts of genius. ”

“ Death and absence remove our early companions, and we are reduced to passing our life with lukewarm partners, measure in hand, for ever calculating ideas of interest and vanity. Little by little all the sensitive and generous region of the soul becomes waste, for want of cultivation, and at less than thirty a man finds his heart steeled to all sweet and gentle sensations. In the midst of this arid desert, love causes a well of feelings to spring up, fresher and more abundant even than that of earliest youth. ”

“ A traveller speaks of the freshness of the orange groves at Genoa, on the sea coast, during the scorching days of summer.—What pleasure to enjoy that freshness with her!
One of your friends breaks his arm in the hunting-field.—How sweet to be nursed by a woman you love! To be always with her, to see every moment her love for you, would make pain almost a blessing: and starting from the broken arm of your friend, you conclude with the absolute conviction of the angelic goodness of your mistress. In a word, it is enough to think of a perfection in order to see it in that which you love. ”

“ In Germany, Italy and Spain, on the contrary, admiration is genuine and happy; there the admirer is proud of his transports and pities the man who turns up his nose. I don't say the mocker, for that's an impossible rôle in countries, where it is not in failing in the imitation of a particular line of conduct, but in failing to strike the road to happiness, that the only ridicule exists. In the South, mistrust and horror at being troubled in the midst of pleasures vividly felt, plants in men an inborn admiration of luxury and pomp. ”

“ Don Juan renounces all the duties which bind him to the rest of men. In the great market of life he is a dishonest merchant, who is always buying and never paying. The idea of equality inspires the same rage in him as water in a man with hydrophobia; it is for this reason that pride of birth goes so well with the character of Don Juan. With the idea of the equality of rights disappears that of justice, or, rather, if Don Juan is sprung from an illustrious family, such common ideas have never come to him. ”

“ There, as elsewhere, solitude and a fine climate have kindled the noblest passion of the human heart—that passion which must give as much happiness as it feels, in order to be happy itself.
In order that love may be seen in all the fullness of its power over the human heart, equality must be established as far as possible between the mistress and her lover. It does not exist, this equality, in our poor West; a woman deserted is unhappy or dishonoured. Under the Arab's tent faith once plighted cannot be broken. ”

“ To make it up with an idol of a mistress, who has been unfaithful, is to set yourself to undo with the point of a dagger a crystallisation incessantly forming afresh. Love has got to die, and your heart will feel the cruel pang of every stage in its agony.
It is one of the saddest dispositions of this passion and of life. You must be strong enough to make it up only as friends. ”

“ There are two misfortunes in the world: passion frustrated and the "dead blank."
In love—I feel that two steps away from me exists a boundless happiness, something beyond all my prayers, which depends upon nothing but a word, nothing but a smile.
Passionless like Schiassetti, on gloomy days I see happiness nowhere, I come to doubt if it exists for me, I fall into depression. One ought to be without strong passions and have only a little curiosity or vanity. ”

“ In happy Lombardy, at Milan, at Venice, the great, or rather only, business of life is pleasure. No attention, there, to the deeds and movements of your neighbour; hardly a troubled thought for what is to happen to you. If a man notice the existence of his neighbour, it does not enter his head to hate him. Take away from the occupations of a French provincial town jealousy—and what is left? The absence, the impossibility of that cruel jealousy forms the surest part of that happiness, which draws all the provincials to Paris. ”

“ That is the first exaggeration of modesty; that one can respect. The second comes from women's pride. The third source of exaggeration is the pride of husbands.
To my idea, this possibility of love presents itself often to the fancy of even the most virtuous woman—and why not? Not to love, when given by Heaven a soul made for love, is to deprive yourself and others of a great blessing. It is like an orange-tree, which would not flower for fear of committing a sin. And beyond doubt a soul made for love can partake fervently of no other bliss. ”

“ Nemesis is a greedy woman who sells herself to the highest bidder; he curses her avarice, but he loves her and cannot live unless she loves him. He tries to move her with touching images. She has lost her young sister; he will go and weep on her tomb and confide his grief to her dumb ashes. The shade of her sister will take offence at the tears that Nemesis causes to flow. She must not despise her anger. The sad image of her sister might come at night to trouble her sleep.... But these sad memories force tears from Nemesis—and at that price he could not buy even happiness. ”

“ Each step the imagination takes is repaid by a moment of sweet delight. No wonder that existence, such as this, takes hold of one.
Directly jealousy comes into existence, this turn of feelings continues in itself the same, though the effect it is to produce is contrary. Each perfection that you add to the crown of your beloved, who now perhaps loves someone else, far from promising you a heavenly contentment, thrusts a dagger into your heart. A voice cries out: "This enchanting pleasure is for my rival to enjoy." ”

“ I have never felt more painfully the want of talent. How bring into relief the simplicity of action and of character, the high seriousness, the glance that reflects so truly and so ingenuously the passing shade of feeling, and above all, to return to it again, that inexpressible What care I? for all that is not the woman we love? A yes or a no spoken by a man in love has an unction which is not to be found elsewhere, and is not found in that very man at other times. ”

“ Every time that she meets her lover, she will enjoy, not what he is in reality, but that image of delight which she has created for herself.
"Later, she is by this lover and by all men disillusioned, experience of the dark reality has lessened in her the power of crystallisation, mistrust has clipped the wings of imagination. At the instance of no man on earth, were he a very prodigy, could she form so irresistible an image: she could love no more with the same fire of her first youth. ”

“ If any poet of antiquity introduced moral sensibility into love, it was Tibullus; but these fine shades of feeling which he expresses so well, are in himself; he expects no more than the other two to find them or engender them in his mistresses. Their grace, their beauty is all that inflames him; their favours all he desires or regrets; their perfidy, their venality, their loss, all that torments him. Of all these women, celebrated in the verses of three great poets, Cynthia seems the most lovable. The attraction of talent is joined to all the others; she cultivates singing and poetry ”

“ A widowhood of two years is prescribed to one lover for the death of the other. Without over-abundant reason no one ought to be deprived of his rights in love. No one can love, unless urged thereto by the persuasion of love (by the hope of being loved) . Love will be driven out by avarice. It is not right to love her whom you would be ashamed to ask in marriage. True love has no desire for caresses except from the beloved. Love once divulged is rarely lasting. Success too easy takes away the charm of love; obstacles give it worth. Everyone who loves turns pale at the sight of the beloved. ”

“ Not that I pretend to deny, that a woman worthy of love may see her fate in that pretty image of the ivy, which "dies if it does not cling"—that is a law of Nature; but to make your lover's happiness is none the less a step that will decide your own. To me it seems that a reasonable woman ought not to give in completely to her lover, until she can hold out no longer, and the slightest doubt thrown on the sincerity of your heart gives her there and then a little strength—enough at least to delay her defeat still another day. ”

“ A soul made for passion soon finds this happy life monotonous, and feels, perhaps, that it only offers him commonplace ideas. 'I wish,' C. said to you, 'that I had never known the fever of high passion. I wish I could rest content with the apparent happiness on which people pay me every day such stupid compliments, which, to put the finishing touch to, I have to answer politely.'"
I, a philosopher, rejoin: "Do you want the thousandth proof that we are not created by a good Being? It is the fact that pleasure does not make perhaps half as much impression on human life as pain...." ”

“ A mania for discussion has got hold of the younger generation and stolen it from love. While they are considering whether Napoleon was of service to France, they let the age of love speed past. Even with those who mean to be young, it is all affectation—a tie, a spur, their martial swagger, their all-absorbing self—and they forget to cast a glance at the girl who passes by so modestly and cannot go out more than once a week through want of means. ”

“ Crystallisation scarcely ceases at all during love. This is its history: so long as all is well between the lover and the loved, there is crystallisation by imaginary solution; it is only imagination which make him sure that such and such perfection exists in the woman he loves. But after intimate intercourse, fears are continually coming to life, to be allayed only by more real solutions. Thus his happiness is only uniform in its source. Each day has a different bloom. ”

“ The soul of a woman, grown tired, without noticing it, of living without loving, convinced in spite of herself by the example of other women—all the fears of life surmounted and the sorry happiness of pride found wanting—ends in creating unconsciously a model, an ideal. One day she meets this model: crystallisation recognises its object by the commotion it inspires and consecrates for ever to the master of its fortunes the fruit of all its previous dreams. [2]
Women, whose hearts are open to this misfortune, have too much grandeur of soul to love otherwise than with passion. ”

“ The brilliant genius of Ovid, the rich imagination of Propertius, the impressionable heart of Tibullus, doubtless inspired them with verses of a different flavour, but all, in the same manner, they loved women of much the same kind. They desire, they triumph, they have fortunate rivals, they are jealous, they quarrel and make it up; they are faithless in their turn, they are forgiven; and they recover their happiness only to be ruffled by the return of the same mischances. ”

“ One of the finest prerogatives of the mind is that it provides old age with consideration. See how the arrival of Voltaire in Paris makes the Royal majesty pale. But poor women! so soon as they have no longer the brilliance of youth, their one sad happiness is to be able to delude themselves on the part they take in society.
The ruins of youthful talents become merely ridiculous, and it were a happiness for our women, such as they actually are, to die at fifty. As for a higher morality—the clearer the mind, the surer the conviction that justice is the only road to happiness. Genius is a power ”

“ Thus the soul is saddened by this odd spectacle: a woman of feeling, supremely refined and an angel of purity, on the advice of a low t——, runs away from the boundless, the only happiness which is left to her, in order to appear in a dress of dazzling white, before a great fat brute of a judge, whom everyone knows has been blind a hundred years, and who bawls out at the top of his voice: "She is dressed in black!" ”

“ Finally, in love, and during a period which, in southern countries, often comprises twelve or fifteen years, and those the fairest of our life, our happiness is entirely in the hands of the woman we love. One moment of untimely pride can make us for ever miserable, and how should a slave raised up to a throne not be tempted to abuse her power? This is the origin of women's false refinement and pride. Of course, there is nothing more useless than these pleas: men are despots and we see what respect other despots show to the wisest counsels. ”