I must say everything; I have never concealed the vices either of my poor mamma or myself; I cannot be more favorable to Theresa, and whatever pleasure I may have in doing honor to a person who is dear to me, I will not disguise the truth, although it may discover in her an error, if an involuntary change of the affections of the heart be one.  I had long perceived hers to grow cooler towards me, and that she was no longer for me what she had been in our younger days.  Of this I was the more sensible, as for her I was what I had always been.  I fell into the same inconvenience as that of which I had felt the effect with mamma, and this effect was the same now I was with Theresa.  Let us not seek for perfection, which nature never produces; it would be the same thing with any other woman.  The manner in which I had disposed of my children, however reasonable it had appeared to me, had not always left my heart at ease.  While writing my ‘Treatise on Education’, I felt I had neglected duties with which it was not possible to dispense.  Remorse at length became so strong that it almost forced from me a public confession of my fault at the beginning of my ‘Emilius’, and the passage is so clear, that it is astonishing any person should, after reading it, have had the courage to reproach me with my error.  My situation was however still the same, or something worse, by the animosity of my enemies, who sought to find me in a fault.  I feared a relapse, and unwilling to run the risk, I preferred abstinence to exposing Theresa to a similar mortification.  I had besides remarked that a connection with women was prejudicial to my health; this double reason made me form resolutions to which I had but sometimes badly kept, but for the last three or four years I had more constantly adhered to them.  It was in this interval I had remarked Theresa’s coolness; she had the same attachment to me from duty, but not the least from love.  Our intercourse naturally became less agreeable, and I imagined that, certain of the continuation of my cares wherever she might be, she would choose to stay at Paris rather than to wander with me.  Yet she had given such signs of grief at our parting, had required of me such positive promises that we should meet again, and, since my departure, had expressed to the Prince de Conti and M. de Luxembourg so strong a desire of it, that, far from having the courage to speak to her of separation, I scarcely had enough to think of it myself; and after having felt in my heart how impossible it was for me to do without her, all I thought of afterwards was to recall her to me as soon as possible.  I wrote to her to this effect, and she came.  It was scarcely two months since I had quitted her; but it was our first separation after a union of so many years.  We had both of us felt it most cruelly.  What emotion in our first embrace!  O how delightful are the tears of tenderness and joy!  How does my heart drink them up!  Why have I not had reason to shed them more frequently?