XVII

Ninon de l'Enclos to Saint-Evremond

"I Should Have Hanged Myself"


Your letter filled with useless yearnings of which I thought myself
incapable. "The days are passing," as said the good man of Yveteaux,
"in ignorance and sloth; these days destroy us and take from us the
things to which we are attached." You are cruelly made to prove this.

You told me long ago that I should die of reflections. I try not to
make any more, and to forget on the morrow the things I live through
today. Everybody tells me that I have less to complain of at one time
than at another. Be that as it may, had I been proposed such a life I
should have hanged myself. We hold on to an ugly body, however, as
something agreeable; we love to feel comfort and ease. Appetite is
something I still enjoy. Would to Heaven I could try my stomach with
yours, and talk of the old friends we have known, the memory of whom
gives me more pleasure than the presence of many people I now meet.
There is something good in all that, but to tell you the truth, there
is no comparison.

M. de Clerambault often asks me if he resembles his father in mental
attainments. "No," I always answer him, but I hope from his