not experienced that a tender heart never forgets what first awakened it to feelings it knew not that it was capable of? I have found that all the feelings of such a heart are bound up with the idol it has created for itself--that its first impressions, its first wounds, can neither be healed nor effaced--that all the passions which offer their help and attempt to fill and content it promise it but vainly an emotion which it never feels again--that all the pleasures which it seeks, without any desire of finding them, serve only to convince it that nothing is so dear as the remembrance of its sorrows? Why have you made me feel the imperfection and bitterness of an attachment which cannot endure for ever, and all the evils that result from a violent love, when it is not mutual? Why is it that blind inclination and cruel fate agree as a rule in determining us in favour of those who could only love others? Even if I could hope for some diversion in a new engagement, and could find a man of good faith, I pity myself so much that I should have great scruples in putting the worst man in the world in the condition to which you have brought me; and although I may not be obliged to spare you I could not make up my mind to avenge myself so cruelly, even though it were to depend on me, by a change which I certainly do not foresee. At this very moment I am seeking excuses for you, and I understand that a religious is not as a rule loveable. Methinks, however, if reason guided one’s choice one ought to be more attached to them than to other women. Nothing prevents their thinking constantly of their passion, and they are not turned aside by a thousand things which divert and occupy the mind in the world. Surely it cannot be very pleasing to see those whom one loves ever distracted by a thousand trifles, and one must needs have but little delicacy to suffer them (without being in despair at it) to talk of nothing but assemblies, dress, and promenades. One is constantly exposed to fresh jealousies, for they are tied down to attentions, politenesses, and conversations with all. Who can be assured that they find no pleasure in all these occasions, and that they always endure their husbands with extreme disgust and never of their freewill? Ah, how they ought to distrust a lover who does not make them render an exact account of all, who believes easily and without disquiet what they tell him, who in unruffled trust sees them bound to all these society duties. But I do not seek to prove to you by good reasons that you ought to love me; these are very ill means, and I have made use of much better, without success. Too well do I know my fate to try to rise above it. I shall be miserable all my life. Was I not so even when I saw you daily? I was dying for fear that you would not be faithful. I wished to see you every moment, and I could not. The danger you ran in entering the convent troubled me. I almost died when you were with the army. I