I feel myself greatly obliged to you my dear Emma for such a mark of
your affection as I flatter myself was conveyed in the proposal you
made me of our Corresponding; I assure you that it will be a great
releif to me to write to you and as long as my Health and Spirits will
allow me, you will find me a very constant correspondent; I will not
say an entertaining one, for you know my situation suffciently not to
be ignorant that in me Mirth would be improper and I know my own Heart
too well not to be sensible that it would be unnatural. You must not
expect news for we see no one with whom we are in the least acquainted,
or in whose proceedings we have any Interest. You must not expect
scandal for by the same rule we are equally debarred either from
hearing or inventing it.—You must expect from me nothing but the
melancholy effusions of a broken Heart which is ever reverting to the
Happiness it once enjoyed and which ill supports its present
wretchedness. The Possibility of being able to write, to speak, to you
of my lost Henry will be a luxury to me, and your goodness will not I
know refuse to read what it will so much releive my Heart to write. I
once thought that to have what is in general called a Freind (I mean
one of my own sex to whom I might speak with less reserve than to any
other person) independant of my sister would never be an object of my
wishes, but how much was I mistaken! Charlotte is too much engrossed by
two confidential correspondents of that sort, to supply the place of
one to me, and I hope you will not think me girlishly romantic, when I
say that to have some kind and compassionate Freind who might listen to
my sorrows without endeavouring to console me was what I had for some
time wished for, when our acquaintance with you, the intimacy which
followed it and the particular affectionate attention you paid me
almost from the first, caused me to entertain the flattering Idea of
those attentions being improved on a closer acquaintance into a
Freindship which, if you were what my wishes formed you would be the
greatest Happiness I could be capable of enjoying. To find that such
Hopes are realised is a satisfaction indeed, a satisfaction which is
now almost the only one I can ever experience.—I feel myself so languid
that I am sure were you with me you would oblige me to leave off
writing, and I cannot give you a greater proof of my affection for you
than by acting, as I know you would wish me to do, whether Absent or
Present. I am my dear Emmas sincere freind