Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/346

Rh salve more than any one;" and when I exclaimed at that, "Listen, mon ami," she said; "I wish, once for all, to explain to you my principles; you may condemn me, but you cannot make me change them." And the next day she wrote me the following letter : —

"Yes, I should have refused that sort of service had Gonsalve offered it, and it is the only one I would not have accepted from him with transport. I know all that can be said against such scruples by philosophy and sentiment, but it is our detestable institutions, it is the corruption of society that forces me to think as I do. Surrounded by other manners and morals, other prejudices than ours, I would have no more scruple in relying on the influence and wealth of Gonsalve than on his courage, his counsels, and all the services he could render me. But in a society and a country where money has become the motive power of all actions, where by its means men can corrupt all hearts and buy all feelings, never shall a vile calculation of self-interest stain my inter- course with those I love. Ah! what would Gonsalve have thought of me had he seen me for one moment resemble in this so many other women? What could then have guaranteed to him the purity of my feeling? Esteem is so delicate a flower that the slightest impairment withers it. Ah! think what sorrow it would have been to me to be lowered in Gonsalve's opinion. I preferred the place I occupied there to the highest throne in the world.

"With regard to my friends, I will own to you that I have always considered equality as the first condition to, render friendship durable. Now, it cannot exist from the moment that one friend becomes the benefactor, the other the obliged and beholden. Remember that I am speaking of one kind of benefit only ; as for the cares, attentions, counsels, feelings of my friends, I receive them because I can