Little (she writes) can you imagine the storm of indignation you
aroused in me by your remark that your feelings for me were those
suitable for a fourteen-year-old niece. Merci. Anything less like a
respectable uncle than yourself I cannot well imagine. The role would
never suit you, believe me, so do not try it.

Now in return for your story of the phlegmatic musical animal who
called forth such stormy devotion in a female breast, and who, himself
cold and indifferent, was loved to the extent of a watery grave being
sought by his inamorata as solace for his indifference, let _me_ ask
the question why the women who torment men with their uncertain
tempers, drive them wild with jealousy, laugh contemptuously at their
humble entreaties, and fling their money to the winds, have twice the
hold upon their affections that the patient, long-suffering, domestic,
frugal Griseldas have, whose existences are one long penance of
unsuccessful efforts to please? Answer this comprehensively, and you
will have solved a riddle which has puzzled women since Eve asked
questions in Paradise.

Later on she writes:

Why should all natures be alike? It would make the old saws useless
if they were, and deprive us of one of the truest of them all,
'Variety is the spice of life.' How terribly monotonous it would be
if all the flowers were roses, every woman a queen, and each man a
philosopher. My private opinion is that it takes at least six men
such as one meets every day to make one really valuable one. I like
so many men for one particular quality which they possess, and so few
men for all. Comprenez-vous?

In another place:

Is it not a trifle dangerous, this experiment we are trying of a
friendship in pen and ink and paper? A letter. What thing on earth
more dangerous to confide in? Written at blood heat, it may reach its
destination when the recipient's mental thermometer counts zero, and
the burning words and thrilling sentences may turn to ice and be
congealed as they are read. . . . A letter; the most uncertain thing
in a world of uncertainties, the best or the worst thing devised by
mortals.

Again:

Surely it was for you, mon cher, that the description given of a
friend of mine was originally intended. He is a trifle cynical, this
friend, and decidedly pessimistic, and of him it was reported that he
never believed in anything until he saw it, and then he was convinced
that it was an optical illusion. The accuracy of the description
struck me.

They seem to have loved each other best when they were parted.

I think I cannot bear it much longer, this incessant quarrelling when
we meet, and your unkindness during the short time that you are with
me. Why not let it all end? it would be better for both of us. I do
not love you less when I write these words; if you could know the
sadness which they echo in my heart you would believe this. No, I
think I love you more, but I cannot understand you.