I should never have done, if I were to enter into the details of all the follies which the remembrance of this dear mamma caused me to commit when I was no longer in her presence. How often have I kissed my bed, since she had slept in it; my curtains, all the furniture of my room, since they belonged to her, and her beautiful hand had touched them; even the floor, on which I prostrated myself, since she had walked upon it! Sometimes even in her presence, I was guilty of extravagances, which only the most violent of love seemed capable of inspiring. At table one day, just when she had put a piece of food into her mouth, I exclaimed that I saw a hair in it; she put back the morsel on her plate , and I eagerly seized and swallowed it. In a word, between myself and the most passionate lover there was only one, but than an essential, point of distinction, which makes my condition almost inconceivable to reason... [A little above, we read] I only felt the full strength of my attachment when I no longer saw her.