(38.) To endeavour to forget any one is a certain way of thinking of nothing else. Love has this in common with scruples, that it becomes embittered by the reflections and the thoughts that beset us to free ourselves. If we could do it, the only way to extinguish our passion would be never to think of it.
(39.) We should like those whom we love to receive all their happiness, or, if this were impossible, all their unhappiness from our hands.
(40.) To bewail the loss of a person we love is a happiness compared with the necessity of living with one we hate.
(41.) However disinterested we may be with regard to those we love, we must sometimes constrain ourselves for their sake, and have the generosity to accept gifts.
A man may freely accept a gift if he feels as great a pleasure in receiving it as his friend felt in giving it him.
(42.) To give is to act; we do not suffer any pains by our liberality, nor by yielding to the importunity or necessity of postulants.
(43.) If at any time we have been liberal to those we loved, whatever happens afterwards, there is no occasion to think of what we have given.
(44.) It has been said in Latin[192] that it costs less to hate than to love; or, in other words, that friendship is more expensive than hatred. It is true that we need not be liberal towards our enemies; but does revenge cost nothing? Or, if it be so pleasing and natural to harm those we hate, is it less so to do good to those we love? Would it not be disagreeable and painful for us not to do so?