other they must have; their hearts are never void of that passion. Direct a poor heart how to employ it.
'Tis true, some of 'em can have esteem, and even tenderness without love; and others there are as capable of secrecy as the most trusty of our friends. I know some that have no less Wit and Discretion, than Charms and Beauty: but those are rarities, that nature wantonly bestows on the world, either by design or caprice; and we can draw no consequences in favour of the generality from things so particular, and from qualities so uncommon. Women so extraordinary seem to have borrow'd the merit of Men; and, perhaps, 'tis a kind of revolt from their sex, to shake off the natural conditions of it for the real advantages of ours.
I confess, I have formerly been more difficult in the choice of the Men with whom I convers'd, than at present I am; and I think my self not so much a loser in point of Delicacy, as a gainer in point of Sense. I then sought for men that could please me in every thing, I now seek every thing that may please me in any man. A man in all respects agreeable, is too great a rarity, and it is no wisdom to hunt for what we are hardly ever like to find. That delicacy of Pleasure, which our Imagination paints to us, is what we seldom enjoy; the sickly nice fancy gives us a disrelish of those things which we might possess, during the whole course of our lives. Not that, to say truth, it is impossible to find such Jewels; but it is very rarely that Nature forms 'em, and that Fortune favours us with 'em. My good stars made me know one of this rank in France, and another of equal merit in a foreign Country, who was the whole delight of my life. Death has robb'd me of this treasure, and I can never think on that cruel day on which my Lord d'Aubigny died, but I may say, with a true and sensible regret,
