which she inspired me. I dare affirm, that those who only love, do not
feel the most charming sensations we are capable of: I am acquainted with
another sentiment, less impetuous, but a thousand times more delightful;
sometimes joined with love, but frequently separated from it. This
feeling is not simply friendship; it is more enchanting, more tender; nor
do I imagine it can exist between persons of the same sex; at least I
have been truly a friend, if ever a man was, and yet never experienced it
in that kind. This distinction is not sufficiently clear, but will
become so hereafter: sentiments are only distinguishable by their
effects.

Madam de Warrens inhabited an old house, but large enough to have a
handsome spare apartment, which she made her drawing-room. I now
occupied this chamber, which was in the passage I have before mentioned
as the place of our first meeting. Beyond the brook and gardens was a
prospect of the country, which was by no means uninteresting to the young
inhabitant, being the first time, since my residence at Bossey, that I
had seen anything before my windows but walls, roofs, or the dirty
street. How pleasing then was this novelty! it helped to increase the
tenderness of my disposition, for I looked on this charming landscape as
the gift of my dear patroness, who I could almost fancy had placed it
there on purpose for me. Peaceably seated, my eyes pursued her amidst
the flowers and the verdure; her charms seemed to me confounded with
those of the spring; my heart, till now contracted, here found means to
expand itself, and my sighs exhaled freely in this charming retreat.

The magnificence I had been accustomed to at Turin was not to be found at
Madam de Warrens, but in lieu of it there was neatness, regularity, and a
patriarchal abundance, which is seldom attached to pompous ostentation.
She had very little plate, no china, no game in her kitchen, or foreign