To begin with, it seems to me that to his mind a young girl deserves to be treated with far more consideration than a woman, seeing that she has so much more to lose. [...] After all, our first loves appear on the whole to be innocent, and, as they say, more pure; if at any rate they make much slower progress, it is not, as is generally thought, because of delicacy or modesty, but because the heart, surprised by a new feeling, pauses, so to speak, at every step in order to enjoy the delight it feels, and because this delight in an untutored heart is so intense as to preoccupy it to the exclusion of all other pleasures. This is so true that even when a libertine falls in love, if a libertine ever does, he becomes from that moment less anxious to enjoy his mistress.