Ought I to regret the past? Will a life of torment be the price of a single ray of happiness enlightening the highest pinnacle of human felicity? If the wish which I dare not express should ever be accomplished, I will surely be equal to my position; but I will also know how to bear the shipwreck of my dearest hopes.... Great God, how can I write, how dare I confide to paper what I fear to confess to myself! When I think of him, I tremble lest any one should divine my feelings, and yet I write!... If my journal were to fall into any one's hands I should be deemed mad, or at least most foolishly presumptuous; I must shut it up under four locks. CASTLE OF OPOLE, Friday, _April 24th._ We have been here nearly a week; the situation of the castle is very agreeable, but I am no longer gay, and nothing pleases me. The trees should already be green, and they are still bare; it should be warm, and the air freezes me. I desired to embroider, but the indispensable silks were wanting; I tried the piano, but it was not in tune: it will be necessary to send to Lublin for the organist. There is quite a large library here, but I dare not ask the princess for the key. The prince has several new works; he paid in my presence six gold ducats for ten little volumes of M. Voltaire's works: Voltaire is now the most celebrated writer in France. The princess forbids my reading his books, and I am sure I am quite content. But what I cannot endure is, that I am not permitted to read a romance lately come from Paris, entitled _La Nouvelle Heloise_. It is by a certain Rousseau, and has made a great sensation here. I picked up one volume, and read a few pages of the preface, but what did I see? Rousseau himself says: 'A mother will forbid her daughter to read it.' The princess is quite right, and I laid the book aside with a flutter at my heart which still continues. The physicians in Warsaw have ordered the princess to ride on horseback during her sojourn in the country; they say this exercise will be excellent for her health. She laughed at the prescription, and had not the faintest intention of trying it; but the prince palatine will hear of no jesting where physicians are concerned.