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BOOK III, CHAPTER V 49

will! I may be allowed to begin with any one that may please me, for all matters are linked together.

But my wits annoy me because they usually bring forth their most copious and widely floating thoughts,' which best please me, unexpectedly and when I am least seeking them; and they quickly vanish, I not having at the moment any means of retaining them: they come when I am on horse- back, at the table, in bed, but mostly when on horseback, where I have the most abundant converse with myself. When speaking, I am somewhat sensitively demanding at- tention and silence, if I am speaking earnestly; whoever in- terrupts me, stops me. In travelling, the necessary attention to the road cuts into conversation; besides this, I oftenest travel without company suited to continuous talk; where- fore I have leisure enough to talk to myself. It often happens as in my dreams; when dreaming, I entrust them to my memory (for I am apt to dream that I am dreaming); but the next day I well remember of what colour they were, whether merry or sad or strange; but what they were be- sides, the more I labour to recall, the deeper I thrust it into oblivion. In like manner, of the fortuitous conceptions that come into my imagination there remains in my memory only a vague outline — only so much as is needed to make me fret and fume to no purpose in quest of one.

Or done, laissant les livres a part, parlant plus materielle- ment et simplement, je trouve apres tout que l'amour n'est autre chose que la soif de cette jouyssance (c) en un subject desiré, ny Venus autre chose que le plaisir a descharger ses vases, qui devient vicieux ou par immoderation ou indiscre- tion. Pour Socrates l'amour est appetit de generation par l"entremise de la beauté.2 (6) Et, considerant maintesfois la ridicule titillation de ce plaisir, les absurdes mouvemens escervelez et estourdis dequoy il agite Zenon et Cratippus, cette rage indiscrette, ce visage enflammé de fureur et de cruauté au plus doux effect de l'amour, et puis cette morgue grave, severe et ecstatique en une action si folle, (c) et qu'on aye logé pesle-mesle nos delices et nos ordures en- semble, (4) et que la supreme volupté aye du trgnsy et du

! Plus profondes resveries, plus folles. 1 See Plato, Banguet.

Gor gle

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