'the kind of feelings most foreign to love'

Supposing that what I felt for her was really love—which will appear at least doubtful to anyone who follows the story of our relationship—how could that passion have been accompanied from its birth with the kind of feelings most foreign to love, with peace of heart, calmness, serenity, security, confidence? How, on meeting a charming woman for the first time, a polished and attractive woman superior to myself in rank, a woman unlike any I had spoken to before, a woman on whom my fate to some extent hung—for I was dependent on the amount of interest she might feel in me—how was it then, taking all this into account, that I felt as carefree and as much at my ease as if I were perfectly certain to please her? Why did I not have a moment's embarrassment, timidity, or concern? I was bashful by nature, easily put out of countenance, and had never seen the world. How was it then that from the first day, the first instant, I assumed the easy manner, the affectionate language and familiar tone of ten years later, of a time when the greater intimacy had made it natural? Is there such a thing as love, not without desire—for desire I had—but without disquietude and jealousy? Does one not wish at least to learn from the woman one loves whether one is loved in return?

—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Confessions (1781; trans. J.M. Cohen 1953)