Longer, more persistent, more fiery is the battle between desire and conquest, and richer is the trophy of victory. The daughters of Eve never regret the time lost in the first fights of love; not only do long wars prepare the most splendid victories, but the first struggles are of themselves, and for themselves alone, a better part of love's paradise, and a long string of easy conquests is not worth one fierce and bloody battle of enticements. If, however, O daughters of Eve, you have the brilliant but dangerous mission of defending yourselves from a compact phalanx of adorers, you must redouble your arts of strategy and tactics. If you are really powerful, victory cannot fail you, and you will choose the best among the best. Train your impatience and kill the weak with time. The first to withdraw are the pallid loves and the desires of libertinism. True and deep passions ignore impatience and weariness, and, fighting every day, and every day advancing, they leave the disputed field strewn with corpses; and when you, tired in turn, proffer your hand to those who have long waited and long struggled, you may rest assured that you are among the blest. Physiological seduction, or conquest of love by nature's law, is called by the English-speaking people _courtship_, and Darwin, by using this word in a much broader sense and for all animals, has impressed upon it the precious and wholly scientific mark. _Coquetry_ is only a form of this art of seduction and conquest, and belongs already to the field of pathology. Much more frequent in woman, it is also seen in man; and it is so deeply rooted in some natures that it springs up before puberty and disappears only with death. Self-esteem, however, plays in it a part so great that its history belongs rather to the domain of pride than of love. Physiological seduction is a necessity; coquetry is a vice; the need of pleasing is one of the most fundamental elements of love, one of its most useful tools; coquetry has only itself for aim. When the conquest is made, physiological seduction lowers its weapons and withdraws; coquetry, on the contrary, is immortal and every day it grows afresh with new ardor and new yearning. To satisfy it, it is necessary to awaken daily a new desire in those who have already been vanquished, and new passions in those who have not been conquered yet, no matter whether we share the passion or not. Above all, woman wishes to be loved by many; and, in the less reprehensible cases, around true love she wishes to entwine a garland of sympathies. While the heart is given to one alone, she dispenses smiles, sighs--perhaps, also, half-chaste kisses and semi-libertine caresses--to those she does not wish to lose as adorers and whom she deems it opportune to keep in bondage, tying them to herself with the subtle but strong thread of hope. In the gravest cases the heart cannot be given to any one, because it has been promised to all, and the huge task of pleasing many wearies the