Ingenuousness. Ingenuousness is in the soul, naivety is in the tone. Ingenuousness is the quality of an innocent soul that is shown such as it is, because there is nothing in it that needs to be hidden. Innocence creates ingenuousness , and ingenuousness honesty. One is tempted to suppose all virtues are in ingenuous people. How agreeable is their company! If they have spoken, one feels that they meant what they have said. Their soul is portrayed on their lips, in their eyes, and in their expression. Their heart is revealed even more freely since it is seen entirely. Were they to commit an error, they would admit it in such a way that one would almost regret that they hadn’t committed it. They seem innocent even in their errors; and their false hearts seem guilty even when they are innocent. It is impossible to remain angry for a long time at ingenuous people: they are disarming. Consider Agnes in L’Ecole des femmes . [1] Their truth lends interest and grace to the most unimportant things. The little cat is dead; what does that mean? nothing: but that nothing is charming, and it pleases.

Ingenuousness hasn’t thought much, isn’t well educated; naivety forgets for a moment that it has thought, feeling takes over. Ingenuousness admits, reveals, is lacking in secrecy, prudence; naivety expresses and portrays; it sometimes lacks a sweet tone, consideration; reflections may be naïve, and they are when it is easily noticed that they are out of character. Ingenuousness seems to exclude reflection; it is not usually without a little silliness, naivety without much feeling; one loves ingenuousness in children, because it makes us hope for candor; we excuse it in youth, at a mature age we scorn it. The Agnes of Molière is ingenuous; the Iphigénie of Racine is naïve and ingenuous. All passions may be naïve, even ambition; it is sometime so in the Agrippine of Racine; the passions of the man who thinks are rarely ingenuous.

1. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ls?field1=ocr;q1=L%27Ecole%20des%20femmes;a=srchls;lmt=ft