Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/66

1773] along in the path of advancement in every acceptation of those words.

I should pity a sensitive woman to whom you would be the first object ; her life would be consumed by fears and re- grets; but I should congratulate a vain woman, a proud woman : she would pass her life in applauding you, in adorn- ing herself to your taste. Such women love glory, they love the opinion of the world, and lustre. All that is very fine, very noble, but very cold, and very far from the passion which says : —

" Death and Hell appear before me ; Ramire ! joyfully I go there for thee."

But I am distracted — worse than that, I am singular ; I have but one tone, one colour, one manner ; and when they please no longer they chill and weary. You must tell me which of the two effects they have produced. But you must also tell me, if you please, the only news that iuterests me, namely, how you are.

The place of governor of the Ecole Militaire is not yet given.

June 6, 1773.

Ah ! how rare is that which gives pleasure, and how slowly it comes ! time seems infinite since the 24th, and I know not how much longer I shall have to wait for a letter from Dresden. But, at least, will you promise to be inclined to write to me as often as you can ? Let me have, opposed to my pleasure, against my interests, only that which does not depend on you : I mean distance and the delay of couriers. But I fret lest your curiosity, your activity, in a word, your merits and your virtues should be against me. That love of glory, for instance, will make your love, or rather my own, one sorrow the more in my life. Yet you can say to me, as the hermit said to Zadig, " I have some-