ABSTRACT
Casanova is a dilettante, and generally, a second-rate one at that, in all the arts God has created: he writes lame verses and dull philosophical disquisitions; he can play the fiddle passably; and the best one can say of his conversation is that it shows an encyclopaedic smattering. By day or by night, in the morning or in the evening, he will commit any folly in the hope of spending an hour with an unknown woman. Where he covets, he grudges no price; where he wishes to conquer, he recks of no resistance. For when his passions run away with him, this pan-erotist has coarse nerves, and his fancy wanders into strange and devious paths. To Casanova, the first and last word of enjoyment, and all enjoyment that lies between, is to see women happy, amazed with delight, rapturous, laughing, carried out of themselves.
