Casanova was a sensualist without psychical complexity
and without tragedy. His sole endeavour was to wring the utmost measure
of enjoyment out of life. He knew the woman of reality and did not waste
his time in running after phantoms. In his old age he revelled in the
after-taste and settled down to write his memoirs. Don Juan, on the
contrary, has such a loathing for all the women he betrays, that he
hardly remembers them, and certainly has the strongest disinclination to
evoke their memory. Casanova was an entirely unmetaphysical and
unproblematical nature. His philosophy is clearly expressed in the
preface to his Memoirs: "I always regarded the enjoyment of sensual
pleasures as my principal object; I never knew a more important one."
Casanova, who, strange to say, enjoys such high erotic honours, was
merely an ordinary, very successful man of the world, and is of no
importance to the subject in hand. But even the greater and wilder
Vicomte de Valmont (the hero of the famous novel of Choderlos de Laclos)
is in spite of all his art and _esprit_ and perverse principles no
seeker of love and no Don Juan, but a fop and a braggart, seducing women
in order to boast of his success.
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