So you have taken what I said about love in my last letter as a crime? I have blasphemed love; I have degraded it by calling it a "necessity?" You have such noble thoughts, Marquis. What is passing in your mind is proof of it. You can not realize, or imagine anything less than the pure and delicate sentiments which fill your heart. To see the Countess, hold sweet discourse with her, listen to the sound of her gentle voice, dance attendance upon her, that is the height of your desires, it is your supreme happiness. Far from you are those vulgar sentiments which I unworthily substitute for your sublime metaphysics; sentiments created for worldly souls occupied solely with sensual pleasures. What a mistake I made! Could I imagine that the Countess was a woman to be captured by motives so little worthy of her? To raise the suspicion in her mind that you possessed such views, would it not inevitably expose you to her hate, her scorn, etc.? Are not these the inconveniences which my morality leads you to apprehend? My poor Marquis! you are yourself deceived by your misunderstanding of the real cause of your sentiments. Give me all your attention: I wish to draw you away from error, but in a manner that will best accord with the importance of what I am about to say. I mount the tribune; I feel the presence of the god who inspires me. I rub my forehead with the air of a person who meditates on profound truths, and who is going to utter great thoughts. I am going to reason according to rule. Men, I know not by what caprice, have attached shame to the indulgence of that reciprocal inclination which nature has bestowed upon both sexes. They knew, however, that they could not entirely stifle its voice, so what did they do to relieve themselves of their embarrassment? They attempted to substitute the mere shell of an affection wholly spiritual for the humiliating necessity of appearing in good faith to satisfy a natural want. Insensibly, they have grown accustomed to meddle with a thousand little sublime nothings connected with it, and as if that were not enough, they have at last succeeded in establishing the belief that all these frivolous accessories, the work of a heated imagination, constitute the essence of the inclination. There you are; love erected into a fine virtue; at least they have given it the appearance of a virtue. But let us break through this prestige and cite an example.