You desire me to explain myself. You see plainly I am discontented. In vain you seek to find out the reason. Since you are neither delicate nor penetrating enough to divine it, I am going to tell it you. You love me, I have no doubt of it: but it is in a manner I do not approve. Incapable of feigning, detesting art and constraint, I have neither been able to disguise nor conceal the sentiments I had for you. Nobody is ignorant of it. You ought at least to justify by your conduct the preference you have obtained from me, but you take a directly contrary method. When we are alone, you speak to me of your passion, of the excess of your love, which forms a conversation with little variety, and which at the end of a twelve-month might weary the most constant woman. Sure of possessing your heart, all these protestations are useless; the repetition tires one; the very idea makes one melancholy. When you talk of your happiness, it is with so serious a tone, that really by your appearance and manner of speaking one would think you was in despair. For Heaven's sake, let me have a little variety, for I cannot bear this any longer. But, on the other hand, when we are in company together, you pursue other methods which are still more insupportable to me. You scarcely seem to look at me; then every thing employs you, every thing pleases you, except me. In your general conversations, love, according to your opinion, is only imagination and folly. You speak of it with a degree of raillery, which would make one suppose, you did not believe there was such a sentiment; and you call this ridiculous affectation, prudence, and discretion: for my part, I cannot bear it. It is known that I love you; and people would be persuaded from your discourse, that I have only yielded to an imaginary passion; so you deprive me of the only excuse I could make, that of a mutual and ardent attachment.