A still more turbid source of love is vanity; to hear that a woman is very beautiful and chaste, that she has never permitted herself to be loved, is an immediate stimulus of sudden ambition to the man who knows that he is strong and adores the daughters of Eve. And the daughters of Eve, in turn, very willingly persist in throwing the baited hook to catch the cold, lonely fish who lives in the most dark recesses of solitude and chastity. Hence many challenges sent and taken which lead oftener to a conquest of bodies than to true love. The great woman-lovers, who have long since renounced the virtue of sublime love, are accustomed to conquer all the conquerable solely for vanity's sake, solely to tie with amorous chains to their triumphal chariot a new slave and a new victim. They nearly always like to conquer the most difficult and different characters, and you may find them ardently wishing to give the first lesson in voluptuousness to the innocent as well as to subjugate the most cunning and oldest libertines. Besides vanity, the goad of morbid curiosity has its share in this choice of victims, as curiosity is one of the strongest threads in the psychological web of woman. A tart, wild fruit may stimulate the appetite of a palate too dull, as would the mordant pungency of cheese too old; the frivolous woman is passionately fond of this alternating of sour and burning tastes, of this succession of men inexperienced in love and men only too well versed in it; and lechery may go so far in these natures as to cause them to love through mere curiosity of the unknown, even excluding lust, which is not always necessary in these pathological tastes. At any rate, even when vanity alone has brought a man and a woman together, a posthumous sympathy may awaken a real love with healthy members and a long life. It is, however, always a love that resembles the rich man who was born a peasant and, true upstart that he is, may, in the midst of luxury and pleasure and in the most courteous manner, kick you out of his presence when you least can afford it. To be born well is really the first problem of life in all cases, and democracy itself cannot succeed in overthrowing the ancient aristocracy unless it can boast of a legitimate and noble birth.