Many have contradicted my opinion, which I expressed several years ago in my "Physiology of Pleasure," that woman has received from nature a larger cup to drink at the inexhaustible spring of the voluptuousness of love; and inasmuch as joy cannot be measured or weighed yet, the problem must wait for its solution a long time still. Nobody, however, can deny that, lasciviousness and sensibility being equal in both sexes, Eve can thirst much longer than man, and, without experiencing fatigue, realize the happy dream of a voluptuousness which, changing its form, is eternally renewed. But while for many men voluptuousness is all that is in love, for a woman, be she the most libertine among the sensual women, it is only a sweet episode. And if you do not believe such a bold assertion, send heralds through the whole civilized world and assemble all those, men and women, who can love and invite them to a singular love tournament; ask them whether they would accept an eternal and most faithful love without voluptuousness in exchange for voluptuousness without love. For every hundred women who will vote for love, ten, perhaps five, men will decide for the sublime refusal of the embrace. O you, all of you who have studied the heart of woman in the most abject places and believe that you are making your companion happy because you give her luxuriousness and gold and dresses, remember that woman wants to love above all, to be warmed by the spirit of man, to lean all upon the faithful arm of man, to feel that she is needed by a companion of whom she wants to be proud; she wants to be the first for someone. You may behold a woman unhappy amid the splendors of luxury, caressed by the sweet affection of a husband, satisfied in all her desires; and you may see another happy in poverty, amid the storms of life, oppressed by the brutal whims of a lover. "Mysteries of the heart," you say. "A very natural thing," I say. The first woman does not love her husband; the second loves her lover. This is another essential difference between man's and woman's loves: man wants to be loved; woman wants, above all, to love. The sentiment which burns in her is more active, more expansive than in man. Little she demands of her companion, because she is too rich and her affection is too strong to need the support of self-esteem to fight the battles of life. Certain it is that perfect love is the sum of these two most beautiful things, "I love--I am loved"; but often woman is satisfied when able to exclaim, "I love," while man needs only to expand his chest and say, "I am loved."