What! in the middle of winter to leave Paris all at once, and to go and spend six weeks with an aunt of an husband one no longer loves! What, my dear, is the meaning of this whim? … You wish to conceal your secrets from me, but, notwithstanding your want of confidence, I cannot forbear opening your eyes, and giving your that advice you are at present in want of – you fly to cure yourself! – the medicine is worse than the disease; it is therefore absurd. Besides, custom forms and strengthens friendship, but it destroys love; expect then nothing from absence; it makes one forget a friend, but it renders a lover more dear; because the imagination always represents him more amiable than he really is: so that, by continually feeling the person on whom you have placed your affection, you will in the end love him less: but this your romantic ideas will not suffer you to credit: if you pretend to triumph over your passion, you flatter yourself with a vain conceit; take my advice, reckon more on your virtue, and less on your reason … Do not fear that the love, with which you are possessed, can conquer your principles; but do not hope that you can tear it from your heart. What, indeed, cannot one love passionately without disgracing one's self! I am not ignorant, that in general this sentiment is not believed to exist;* but it does exist, and you cannot doubt it, for it was certainly made for you: – Cease then to be your own tormentor by reproaching yourself for a sensibility less dangerous in you than in any other. – I know exactly what passes in your soul; for you think they are bound by the sacred engagement; this is an error: there has not been even a promise given, and at this very moment they are forsaking the vain projects planned in former times. You must suppose I am well informed on this subject, and you may rely on the truth of what I have told you.