I would certainly take great pleasure, my good papa, in guessing at riddles you had made, and in trying to discover your secrets; but that kind of exercise induces a sort of fatigue that I never feel when I read your letters. Virtue and wisdom display themselves openly there; there I find counsel dictated by a soul whose strength is softened by sensitivity. My good papa, I will try hard to resemble you, but my physical condition, that can be disturbed by so much as a gust of wind, affects my moral condition. Excessively sensitive, I lack strength. I know well how to take enough upon myself so as not to destroy the happiness of those around me, even when it means sacrificing my own tastes and inclinations in order to do so. But I suffer, my friend, often, when I am alone, my eyes fill up with tears… I shall always be a gentle, virtuous woman; try to turn me into a woman of strength, who knows, perhaps you are the one to accomplish that miracle. My friend, I am not unfair, I know that the man to whom fate has bound me is a worthy person; I respect him as I should and as he deserves; perhaps I have always loved him beyond the capabilities of his own heart; a disparity of twenty-four years in our ages, his austere training, my own, it may be, a trifle too much directed toward the amenities of life, have contracted his heart and uplifted mine. In this country, my papa, marriages are made by weight of gold; on one side of the scale you put the fortune of a young man, on the other that of a girl, and when a balance is struck the matter is settled to the satisfaction of the parents. No one would dream of consulting the tastes, the age, the temperaments of the two parties; a young girl, whose heart is filled with the burning desires of youth, finds herself married to a man who has already extinguished them. And then, one demands from this woman perfect propriety. My friend, that is my story, and the story of many other women; I will do my best to keep it from becoming that of my daughters, but alas, shall I be mistress of their fate? Farewell, oh my friend, you whom I revere and love; I am going to read and reread your letter. I will conform to the truths it contains; I will try to become the worthy pupil of a philosopher and a sage. I will try to prove, to the best of papas and the best of friends, that his daughter’s friendship for him consists of more than the pleasure she takes in seeing him, and in giving him evidence of that pleasure; that she is not content to please him by the kind of charms he can meet any day, and to a higher degree, in many other women, but by a combination of all virtues which will make her her good papa’s friend, in the true sense, were she old, were she ugly, were she a man, etc.: in a word, were she far from the condition that leads the senses to play a part in the homage men render women. Until tomorrow; tomorrow is Saturday, my papa, and you did not come on Wednesday.