Dangerous Liaisons

My dear indulgent mother, what obligations do I not lay under to you! what comfort have I not received from your letter! I have read it over and over; I cannot lay it down; to it I owe the few moments of ease I have had since my departure. Your bounty, your virtue, your prudence can, then, compassionate my weakness. You pity my misfortunes. Ah! could you but be sensible of them -- they are frightful. I imagined I had experienced the pangs of love; but the most excruciating, which must be felt to have any idea of it, is to be separated from the beloved object, forever separated! -- The anguish that sinks me today will again return tomorrow, the next day, all my life! Great God! I am yet but young, what a length of sufferings!

To be the cause of one's own misery; to tear one's heart with their own hands; and during those insupportable torments, to know one can put a period to them with a word, and that word to be criminal! -- Alas, my dear friend! --