It is sometimes said, “the sword wears the scabbard,” this was truly the case with me:  the violence of my passions both kept me alive and hastened my dissolution.  What passions? will be asked:  mere nothings:  the most trivial objects in nature, but which affected me as forcibly as if the acquisition of a Helen, or the throne of the universe were at stake.  My senses, for instance, were at ease with one woman, but my heart never was, and the necessities of love consumed me in the very bosom of happiness.  I had a tender, respected and lovely friend, but I sighed for a mistress; my prolific fancy painted her as such, and gave her a thousand forms, for had I conceived that my endearments had been lavished on Madam de Warrens, they would not have been less tender, though infinitely more tranquil.  But is it possible for man to taste, in their utmost extent, the delights of love?  I cannot tell, but I am persuaded my frail existence would have sunk under the weight of them.

I was, therefore, dying for love without an object, and this state, perhaps, is, of all others, the most dangerous.  I was likewise uneasy, tormented at the bad state of poor Madam de Warrens’ circumstances, and the imprudence of her conduct, which could not fail to bring them, in a short time, to total ruin.  My tortured imagination (which ever paints misfortunes in the extremity) continually beheld this in its utmost excess, and in all the horror of its consequences.  I already saw myself forced by want to quit her—­to whom I had consecrated my future life, and without whom I could not hope for happiness:  thus was my soul continually agitated, and hopes and fears devoured me alternately.

Music was a passion less turbulent, but not less consuming, from the ardor with which I attached myself to it, by the obstinate study of the obscure books of Rameau; by an invincible resolution to charge my memory with rules it could not contain; by continual application, and by long and immense compilations which I frequently passed whole nights in copying:  but why dwell on these particularly, while every folly that took possession of my wandering brain, the most transient ideas of a single day, a journey, a concert, a supper, a walk, a novel to read, a play to see, things in the world the least premeditated in my pleasures or occupation became for me the most violent passions, which by their ridiculous impetuosity conveyed the most serious torments; even the imaginary misfortunes of Cleveland, read with avidity and frequent interruption, have, I am persuaded, disordered me more than my own.