Note 1 — Chapter LIX · WERTHER AND DON JUAN

See the first volume of the Nouvelle Héloïse. I should say every volume, if Saint-Preux had happened to have the ghost of a character, but he was a real poet, a babbler without resolution, who had no courage until he had made a peroration—yes, a very dull man. Such men have an immense advantage, in not upsetting feminine pride, and in never giving their mistress a fright. Weigh the word well; it contains perhaps the whole secret of the success of dull men with distinguished women. Nevertheless love is only a passion in so far as it makes one forget one's self-love. Thus they do not completely know love, these women, who, like L., ask of it the pleasures of pride. Unconsciously, they are on the same level as the prosaic man, the object of their contempt, who in love seeks love plus vanity. And they too, they want love and pride; but love goes out with flaming cheeks; he is the proudest of despots; he will be all, or nothing.