Chapter C: Letter LXXXIX: THE ROCKS, Sunday, Sept. 22, 1680

You are so much of a philosopher, my beloved child, that there is no such thing as giving vent to the transports of the heart with you. You are continually anticipating hopes; and you pass over the joy of possession, to contemplate the hour of separation. Believe me, we ought to manage differently the blessings which Providence has in store for us. After having made you this reproach, it remains with me honestly to confess that I deserve it as much as you do, and that it is impossible for any one to be more alarmed at the cruel rapidity of time, or to have a stronger foretaste of those sorrows which generally follow in the train of pleasures. In short, my child, this life is a perpetual checker-work of good and evil, pleasure and pain. When in possession of what we desire, we are only so much the nearer losing it; and when at a distance from it, we live in the expectation of enjoying it again. It is our business, therefore, to take things as God is pleased to send them. For my part, I am resolved to indulge myself in the delightful hope of seeing you, without any mixture of alloy.

You are very unjust, my love, in the judgment you pass upon yourself; you say, that though people at first think you agreeable, upon a longer acquaintance they cease to love you; it is precisely the reverse; you have a certain air of superiority that makes people afraid of you, and despair of ever being admitted into the number of your friends; but when once they know you, it is impossible not to be attached to you; and if any of your acquaintance seem to shun you, it is only because they love you, and can not bear the thought of not being so much loved in return as they wish. I have heard many persons extol the charms of your friendship to the skies, and afterward reflect on their own want of merit, which prevented them from preserving that happiness; thus each blames himself for a degree of coldness; but where there is no real cause of complaint on either side, it seems only to require a little leisurely conversation to be good friends again.

I have a great desire to read Terence; nothing could give me greater pleasure than to see the originals, of which the copies have afforded me so much pleasure. My son will translate to me satire against foolish amours;[211] he ought to be able to write one himself, or at least to profit by this; if the situation he is in at present does not correct him, I know not what will. We read books of controversy; one has lately been published[212] in answer to the Prejudices, to which I wish M. Arnauld had replied; but I fancy that he has been forbidden; and it is thought more advisable to leave this book unanswered, though it may do injury to religion, than to permit the publication of another that may serve to justify the Jansenists from the errors with which they have been reproached; but more of this another time. I have been promised the coadjutor’s speech, but I have not yet had it; my son and several others speak highly in its praise.

[211] She, no doubt, alludes here to the well-known description
of the extravagance of lovers, which is to be found in Terence’s
Eunuch, Scene I. beginning in these words:

In amore hæc omnia insunt vitia, etc.

[212] Written by the Protestant minister Claude, entitled, “A
Defense of the Reformation against the ‘Well-founded Prejudices’
of M. Nicole.”