What is now to become of me!--How shall I support this
disappointment!--No new cause!--On one knee, kneeling with the other, I
write!--My feet benumbed with midnight wanderings through the heaviest
dews that ever fell: my wig and my linen dripping with the hoar frost
dissolving on them!--Day but just breaking--Sun not risen to exhale--May
it never rise again!--Unless it bring healing and comfort to a benighted
soul! In proportion to the joy you had inspired (ever lovely promiser!)
in such proportion is my anguish!
O my beloved creature!--But are not your very excuses confessions of
excuses inexcusable? I know not what I write!--That servant in your
way!* By the great God of Heaven, that servant was not, dared not, could
not, be in your way!--Curse upon the cool caution that is pleased to
deprive me of an expectation so transporting!
* See Letter XIX.
And are things drawing towards a crisis between your friends and
you?--Is not this a reason for me to expect, the rather to expect, the
promised interview?
CAN I write all that is in my mind, say you?--Impossible!--Not the
hundredth part of what is in my mind, and in my apprehension, can I
write!