an intimate intercourse without living in intimacy.

The moment I thought I perceived that Theresa sometimes sought for a
pretext to elude the walks I proposed to her, I ceased to invite her to
accompany me, without being displeased with her for not finding in them
so much amusement as I did. Pleasure is not a thing which depends upon
the will. I was sure of her heart, and the possession of this was all I
desired. As long as my pleasures were hers, I tasted of them with her;
when this ceased to be the case I preferred her contentment to my own.

In this manner it was that, half deceived in my expectation, leading a
life after my own heart, in a residence I had chosen with a person who
was dear to me, I at length found myself almost alone. What I still
wanted prevented me from enjoying what I had. With respect to happiness
and enjoyment, everything or nothing, was what was necessary to me. The
reason of these observations will hereafter appear. At present I return
to the thread of my narrative.

I imagined that I possessed treasures in the manuscripts given me by the
Comte de St. Pierre. On examination I found they were a little more
than the collection of the printed works of his uncle, with notes and
corrections by his own hand, and a few other trifling fragments which had
not yet been published. I confirmed myself by these moral writings in
the idea I had conceived from some of his letters, shown me by Madam de
Crequi, that he had more sense and ingenuity than at first I had
imagined; but after a careful examination of his political works,
I discerned nothing but superficial notions, and projects that were
useful but impracticable, in consequence of the idea from which the
author never could depart, that men conducted themselves by their
sagacity rather than by their passions. The high opinion he had of the