To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland.
Rose-hill, Sept. 17.
Can you in earnest ask such a question? can you suppose I ever felt
the least degree of love for Sir George? No, my Rivers, never did your
Emily feel tenderness till she saw the loveliest, the most amiable of
his sex, till those eyes spoke the sentiments of a soul every idea of
which was similar to her own.
Yes, my Rivers, our souls have the most perfect resemblance: I never
heard you speak without finding the feelings of my own heart developed;
your conversation conveyed your Emily's ideas, but cloathed in the
language of angels.
I thought well of Sir George; I saw him as the man destined to be my
husband; I fancied he loved me, and that gratitude obliged me to a
return; carried away by the ardor of my friends for this marriage, I
rather suffered than approved his addresses; I had not courage to
resist the torrent, I therefore gave way to it; I loved no other, I
fancied my want of affection a native coldness of temper. I felt a
languid esteem, which I endeavored to flatter myself was love; but the
moment I saw you, the delusion vanished.
Your eyes, my Rivers, in one moment convinced me I had a heart; you
staid some weeks with us in the country: with what transport do I
recollect those pleasing moments! how did my heart beat whenever you
approached me! what charms did I find in your conversation! I heard you
talk with a delight of which I was not mistress. I fancied every woman
who saw you felt the same emotions: my tenderness increased
imperceptibly without my perceiving the consequences of my indulging
the dear pleasure of seeing you.
I found I loved, yet was doubtful of your sentiments; my heart,
however, flattered me yours was equally affected; my situation
prevented an explanation; but love has a thousand ways of making
himself understood.
How dear to me were those soft, those delicate attentions, which
told me all you felt for me, without communicating it to others!
Do you remember that day, my Rivers, when, sitting in the little
hawthorn grove, near the borders of the river, the rest of the company,
of which Sir George was one, ran to look at a ship that was passing: I
would have followed; you asked me to stay, by a look which it was
impossible to mistake; nothing could be more imprudent than my stay,
yet I had not resolution to refuse what I saw gave you pleasure: I
stayed; you pressed my hand, you regarded me with a look of unutterable
love.
My Rivers, from that dear moment your Emily vowed never to be
another's: she vowed not to sacrifice all the happiness of her life to
a romantic parade of fidelity to a man whom she had been betrayed into
receiving as a lover; she resolved, if necessary, to own to him the
tenderness with which you had inspired her, to entreat from his esteem,
from his compassion, a release from engagements which made her
wretched.
My heart burns with the love of virtue, I am tremblingly alive to
fame: what bitterness then must have been my portion had I first seen
you when the wife of another!
Such is the powerful sympathy that unites us, that I fear, that
virtue, that strong sense of honor and fame, so powerful in minds most
turned to tenderness, would only have served to make more poignant the
pangs of hopeless, despairing love.
How blest am I, that we met before my situation made it a crime to
love you! I shudder at the idea how wretched I might have been, had I
seen you a few months later.
I am just returned from a visit at a few miles distance. I find a
letter from my dear Bell, that she will be here to-morrow; how do I
long to see her, to talk to her of my Rivers!