To Miss Fermor.
Saturday noon.
Come to my dressing-room, my dear; I have a thousand things to say
to you: I want to talk of my Rivers, to tell you all the weakness of my
soul.
No, my dear, I cannot love him more, a passion like mine will not
admit addition; from the first moment I saw him my whole soul was his:
I knew not that I was dear to him; but true genuine love is
self-existent, and does not depend on being beloved: I should have
loved him even had he been attached to another.
This declaration has made me the happiest of my sex; but it has not
increased, it could not increase, my tenderness: with what softness,
what diffidence, what respect, what delicacy, was this declaration
made! my dear friend, he is a god, and my ardent affection for him is
fully justified.