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It is a representation of the passions so natural and so delicate
that it excites them and gives birth to them in our hearts, and, above all,
to that of love, principally when it is represented as very chaste and
virtuous. For the more innocent it appears to innocent souls, the more they
are likely to be touched by it. Its violence pleases our self-love, which
immediately forms a desire to produce the same effects which are seen so
well represented; and, at the same time, we make ourselves a conscience
founded on the propriety of the feelings which we see there, by which the
fear of pure souls is removed, since they imagine that it cannot hurt their
purity to love with a love which seems to them so reasonable.
So we depart from the theatre with our heart so filled with all the beauty
and tenderness of love, the soul and the mind so persuaded of its innocence,
that we are quite ready to receive its first impressions, or rather to seek
an opportunity of awakening them in the heart of another, in order that we
may receive the same pleasures and the same sacrifices which we have seen so
well represented in the theatre.
12. Scaramouch, who only thinks of one thing.
The doctor, who
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