One of their number, selected as the detractor of love, conscientiously makes the most of its bitternesses, despairs, tears, revolts, catastrophes. A discussion ensues, so searching, so touching, that at times real tears are shed. The people who are perpetually at a white heat and flaunt a salamander as their emblem come in for some ridicule. But with what warmth the friends of love take up the defence of this divinity, who is represented as nude because he is devoid of reason; as a child, because like Medea he inspires eternal youthfulness; and torch in hand, because in his school there is much burning of fingers! It is towards this little torch that the whole world flits and gravitates like a swarm of moths, while the divine archer speeds his shaft at the heart of his victim. Love, they add, is strength and life. When a man loves, he has no fear of death. One of the company even declares in his excitement that he invites death, and when the rest twit him with being beside himself, he persists, and explains his subtle languor; he invites death, but does not desire that most miserable condition! In spite of the extreme gravity and conviction with which these questions of the heart were always handled in Italy, the company cannot here repress a smile. But the speaker sees nothing and waxes warm; his martyrdom is only too serious; the flame of love can only be extinguished in a “lake of tears.” And another makes answer: “When you see in famous sanctuaries a heap of votive offerings bearing witness to the innumerable perils of the sea, do you go and deny that these perils exist, or resign yourself never to set foot on a boat? You do not, I trow. Well, we must likewise accept love’s crosses with resignation.” And thereupon he glowingly describes its advantages. At the end of three days, a hermit closes the discussion with a short and sedative discourse on the vanity of the world! Naturally conversation, even in Italy, did not always soar to such altitudes. It passed easily from a vast subject to a pin’s point; to make bricks without straw was a mark of talent! It was not everyone who had the wit to frame an original remark about the weather, and follow it up with a brilliant firework display of paradox! What did the idea matter, so long as the shaft flew home? They would just as soon concern themselves about the canvas a picture was painted on! They expatiated at leisure on a large subject; but no one dwelt on trifles; they laughed, wept, sparkled, they were pleasant and gay, elegant, coquettish, artistic;[263] and all that they said was excellently expressed, with a sure, keen, delicate touch. Conversation took a feminine stamp which it had never had in olden times; it was the art of paying honourable court to a lady.