'I read for the second time a novel that Madame de B. brought for us, "Paul and Virginia", that is charming, but though I was told I would weep many tears in reading it I did not shed a single one. I reread it thinking perhaps to have read it too fast the first time, but although the second time it did not interest me less than the first, it did not make me weep. It is of no use to say this is a sign of insensibility. If they will teach me to cry when I will and then everything will melt me and make me cry, for after all I am a woman as they are'.