O you who despise life, tell me whether that contempt of life renders you worthy of it? I had to acknowledge to myself that I could not speak Latin as well as she spoke French, and this was indeed the case. The last thing which we learn in all languages is wit, and wit never shines so well as in jests. I was thirty years of age before I began to laugh in reading Terence, Plautus and Martial. Philosophy forbids a man to feel repentance for a good deed, but he must certainly have a right to regret such a deed when it is malevolently misconstrued, and turned against him as a reproach. PARIS [JC#6][jcpar10.xxx]2956 One of the advantages of a great sorrow is that nothing else seems painful. It is a sort of despair which is not without some sweetness. He could tell a good story without laughing. It was impossible for him to have any enemies, for his criticism only grazed the skin and never wounded deeply. Like all quacks, he possessed an immense quantity of letters and testimonials. "Every day we reach a moment when we long for sleep, although it be the very likeness of non-existence. Silliness is the daughter of wit. Therefore it is not a paradox to say that the French would be wiser if they were less witty. Had the talent of never appearing to be a learned man when he was in the company of amiable persons who had no pretension to learning or the sciences, and he always seemed to endow with intelligence those who conversed with him. VENICE [JC#7][jcven10.xxx]2957 Misery of knowing that he would not be regretted after his death. Those words did me good, but a man needs so little to console him or to soothe his grief. I immediately sat down to write to my dear recluse, intending at first to write only a few lines, as she had requested me; but my time was too short to write so little. My letter was a screed of four pages, and very likely it said less than her note of one short page. I was in a great measure indebted, two years later, for my imprisonment under The Leads of Venice; not owing to his slanders, for I do not believe he was capable of that, Jesuit though he was--and even amongst such people there is sometimes some honourable feeling--but through the mystical insinuations which he made in the presence of bigoted persons. I must give fair notice to my readers that, if they are fond of such people, they must not read these Memoirs. Oh! wonderful power of self-delusion! People want to know everything, and they invent when they cannot guess the truth. CONVENT AFFAIRS [JC#8][jccon10.xxx]2958 "He has remarked," she added, "that perhaps I do not confess anything to him because I did not examine my conscience sufficiently, and I answered him that I had nothing to say, but that if he liked I would commit a few sins for the purpose of having something to tell him in confession."