I conjure you, let us for ever put an end to these reciprocal complaints; they are to me intolerable. Good heavens! how can those who love each other, delight in quarreling; and lose, in tormenting each other, those moments in which they stand in need of mutual consolation? No, my friend, what end does it serve to effect a disagreement, which does not subsist? Let us complain of fortune, but not of love. Never did it form a more perfect, a more lasting, union; our souls are too intimately blended ever to be separated; nor can we live a-part from each other, but as two parts of one being. How is it then, that you only feel your own griefs? Why do you not sympathize with those of your friend? Why do you not perceive in your breast the heart-felt sighs of hers? Alas! they are more affecting than your impassioned ravings! If you partook of my sufferings, you would even more severely feel them than your own. You say your situation is deplorable! Think of Eloisa’s, and lament only for her. Consider, in our common misfortune, the different state of your sex and mine, and judge which is most deplorable. Affected by violent passions, to pretend to be insensible; a prey to a thousand griefs, to be obliged to appear chearful and content; to have a serene countenance with an agitated mind; to speak always contrary to one’s thoughts; to disguise all we feel; to be deceitful through obligation, and to speak untruth through modesty; such is the habitual situation of every young woman of my age. Thus we pass the prime of our youth under the tyranny of decorum, which is at length aggravated by that of our parents, in forcing us into an unsuitable marriage. In vain, however, would men lay a restraint on the inclinations; the heart gives law to itself; it eludes the shackles of slavery, and bestows itself at its own pleasure.