On Sensual Friendships.
When these vain and frivolous friendships arise between persons of different sexes, without any thought of marriage, they deserve not the name either of friendship or of love, on account of their incredible vanity and great imperfections; and they can be called nothing else than sensual, as I said in the preceding chapter: nevertheless, the hearts of those persons are caught up in them, entangled, and as it were bound by vain and foolish affections, founded only upon those frivolous communications and miserable allurements of which I have spoken: and although such loves ordinarily degenerate into the grossest sensual pleasures, yet this was not the first intention; otherwise all that I have just said would be an open and most grievous impurity. It may even happen that several years pass without those persons who are smitten with this folly doing anything formally and directly contrary to chastity, feeding their minds and hearts only on wishes, sighs, assiduities, playful jests, and other such vanities and frivolities, in order to attain the ends each one proposes to himself.
When these vain and frivolous friendships arise between persons of different sexes, without any thought of marriage, they deserve not the name either of friendship or of love, on account of their incredible vanity and great imperfections; and they can be called nothing else than sensual, as I said in the preceding chapter: nevertheless, the hearts of those persons are caught up in them, entangled, and as it were bound by vain and foolish affections, founded only upon those frivolous communications and miserable allurements of which I have spoken: and although such loves ordinarily degenerate into the grossest sensual pleasures, yet this was not the first intention; otherwise all that I have just said would be an open and most grievous impurity. It may even happen that several years pass without those persons who are smitten with this folly doing anything formally and directly contrary to chastity, feeding their minds and hearts only on wishes, sighs, assiduities, playful jests, and other such vanities and frivolities, in order to attain the ends each one proposes to himself.
Some have no other design than to gratify a certain natural inclination they have to give love and to receive it; and these make no choice and exercise no discernment, but follow only their taste and instinct: so that, at the first unforeseen opportunity, they let themselves be taken by an object that seems pleasing to them, without examining its worth; and it is always a snare for them, into which, having blindly fallen, they become so entangled that they can no longer escape. Others give themselves over to this through vanity, persuaded as they are that there is glory in bringing a heart into subjection; and these exercise great discernment in choosing persons, seeking to undertake those whose attachment may bring them the greatest honour. In many, natural inclination and vanity conspire equally in this foolish conduct; for although they have a leaning to love and to wish to be loved, they nevertheless claim to reconcile it with the desire for this vain glory. These friendships, Philothea, are all bad, foolish, and vain; they are bad, because they ordinarily end in the greatest sins of the flesh, and because they steal from God and from a woman, or a husband, a heart and a love that belong to them: they are foolish, because they have neither foundation nor reason: they are vain, because they bring neither profit, nor honour, nor joy; on the contrary, time is lost in them, and one greatly exposes one’s honour, since one’s reputation suffers; and one receives no other pleasure from them than the eagerness of desiring and hoping, without knowing what one desires or what one hopes for. These weak minds are always possessed by the belief that there is I know not what to be desired in this pledge they give one another of reciprocal love, and they cannot say what it is. They are wretched also in this respect, that this desire, far from being extinguished, stirs their hearts with continual mistrust, jealousy, and uneasiness! Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, writing on this subject against those women so given to vanity, speaks most excellently, and here is a little fragment of his discourse, which may be equally useful to both sexes. “It is enough,” he says to a woman, “that your beauty makes you pleasing in your husband’s eyes: if, to win the esteem of strangers, you display its charms before other eyes, as one sets nets for birds to let them be caught therein, what do you think must come of it? Without doubt, he to whom your beauty is pleasing will himself please you: you will return glance for glance, sidelong look for sidelong look; sweet smiles will follow the looks, and they themselves will be followed by those half-spoken words which a rising passion wrests from modesty. After this, you will soon meet freely; freedom will turn into an improper familiarity of indiscreet jests, and then... But be silent here, my tongue, which would say too much, and speak not of what follows. Yet I will still tell one general truth: never is anything in all these foolish indulgences between young men and women, whether in deeds or words, free from the many assaults endured by the senses and the heart; for all that belongs to the commerce of sensual friendships is linked one to another and follows upon the rest by a kind of chain, as a ring of iron drawn by the magnet draws many others after it.”
How well that great bishop speaks of it! For, after all, what do you think you are doing? Giving love only? You are mistaken: no one ever gives it willingly without necessarily taking some in return; in this evil game, whoever takes is always taken. The heart is only too like the herb called aproxis, which catches fire from afar as soon as fire is brought near it. But, someone will say, I am quite willing to take some, provided it be not much. Alas, how you deceive yourself! This fire of love is more active and penetrating than you think. If you believe you will receive no more than a spark, you will be amazed to find your whole heart suddenly ablaze. The Wise Man cries out: _who will pity the enchanter, who has let himself be bitten by a serpent?_ And I cry out after him: O blind and foolish ones, do you then think to enchant love, so as to dispose of it as you please? You wish to amuse yourself with it, as with a serpent; it will make all its poison flow into your heart, through the sharpest wounds it will inflict upon it; then everyone will blame you for having, through rash confidence, wished to receive and nourish in your heart this wicked passion, which will have made you lose your goods, your honour, and your soul.
O God! What blindness, to risk as at play, for such trifling stakes, what our soul holds most dear! Yes, Philothea, for God wants man only for his soul, and He wants the soul only for His love. Alas! we are very far from having as much love as we need: I mean that we are infinitely far from having enough to love God. And yet, wretched as we are, we lavish it with the whole outpouring of our heart upon a thousand foolish, vain, and frivolous things, as though we had it to spare. Ah! this great God, Who had reserved the sole love of our souls for Himself, in acknowledgment of their creation, their preservation, and their redemption, will demand a very strict account of the use and employment we have made of it. And if He must make so exact an inquiry into idle words, what will He do with idle, imprudent, foolish, and pernicious friendships?
O God! What blindness, to risk as at play, for such trifling stakes, what our soul holds most dear! Yes, Philothea, for God wants man only for his soul, and He wants the soul only for His love. Alas! we are very far from having as much love as we need: I mean that we are infinitely far from having enough to love God. And yet, wretched as we are, we lavish it with the whole outpouring of our heart upon a thousand foolish, vain, and frivolous things, as though we had it to spare. Ah! this great God, Who had reserved the sole love of our souls for Himself, in acknowledgment of their creation, their preservation, and their redemption, will demand a very strict account of the use and employment we have made of it. And if He must make so exact an inquiry into idle words, what will He do with idle, imprudent, foolish, and pernicious friendships?
The walnut tree does great harm to fields and vineyards, because, being very thick and very tall, it draws all the sap from the earth; because its exceedingly wide and dense foliage deprives them of air and the warmth of the sun; and because it also attracts passers-by, who, to get its fruit, do great damage there. It is the symbol of sensual friendships: they so possess a soul and so exhaust its strength that none is left for the practice of religion; they entirely obscure reason with so many reflections, imaginings, conversations, and amusements that it has scarcely any attention left, either for its own light or for that of Heaven; they bring so many temptations, anxieties, suspicions, and feelings contrary to its true good that the heart suffers incredible harm. In a word, they banish not only heavenly love, but also the fear of God; they enervate the spirit and tarnish one’s reputation; they are the delight of courts, but the plague of hearts.