esteem and friendship

the person i want to talk to is not currently available. so i am talking to him through what i am reading - "above all what the french call moralistes - writers who delve into human character and behavior" (from the intro to my copy of the letters of madame de sevigne). it's a conversation we've always had - and right now i'll talk to him in any guise i can find him - madame de sevigne reminds me, all the way from 1664. from one of her letters:

"futhermore, if you persist in pitying me for the trouble I am taking to write to you, and in begging me not to go on, I shall think that you are the one who is bored with reading my letters and tired of answering them, but then I shall promise again to shorten my letters if i can; and i release you from the bother of replying, although i enjoy your letters very much indeed. after these declarations i don't think that you can stop the flow of my gazettes. the thought that i give you a little pleasure gives me a great deal. there are so few opportunities of expressing one's esteem and friendship that we must not miss them when they present themselves."

maxims

as i was telling jared yesterday, i'm into these maxims (la rochefoucauld) - i have them in a somber grey book from the berkeley public library that gets weirder the more i look at it - cover illustration is a laughing cherub pointing/mocking at an outraged bust of seneca/cicero/(?) (someone like that).

here are some:

1. What we take for virtues are often only a collection of various actions and interests which fortune or own own industry knows how to arrange; and it is not always through valor and chastity that men are valiant and that women are chaste.

269. There is hardly any man clever enough to know all the evil he does.

19. We all have strength enough to endure the pains of others.

459. There are several remedies which cure love, but none is infallible.

14. Men are not only subject to losing the memory of benefits and injuries, they even hate those who benefited them, and cease to hate those who have committed outrages against them. The diligence of rewarding the good and taking revenge on the bad appears to them as a servitude into which they have difficulty delivering themselves.