_The Count de St. Julian to Matilda della Colonna_
_Naples_
I will thank you a thousand times for the generous permission you gave
me, to write to you from this place. I have waited an age, lovely
Matilda, that I might not intrude upon your hours of solitude and
affliction, and violate the feelings I so greatly respect. You must not
now be harsh and scrupulous. You must not cavil at the honest expression
of those sentiments you inspire. Can dissimulation ever be a virtue?
Can it ever be a duty to conceal those emotions of the soul upon which
honour has set her seal, and studiously to turn our discourse to
subjects uninteresting and distant to the heart?
How happy am I in a passion which received the sanction of him, who
alone could claim a voice in the disposal of you! There are innumerable
lovers, filled with the most ardent passion, aiming at the purest
gratifications, whose happiness is traversed by the cold dictates of
artificial prudence, by the impotent distinctions of rank and family.
Unfeeling parents rise to thwart their wishes. The despotic hand
of authority tears asunder hearts united by the softest ties, and
sacrifices the prospect of felicity to ridiculous and unmeaning
prejudices. Let us, my Matilda, pity those whose fate is thus
unpropitious, but let us not voluntarily subject ourselves to their
misfortune. No voice is raised to forbid our union. Heaven and earth
command us to be happy.
Alas, I am sufficiently unfortunate, that the arbitrary decorums of
society have banished me from your presence. In vain Naples holds out to
me all her pleasures and her luxury. Ill indeed do they pay me for the
exchange. Its court, its theatres, its assemblies, and its magnificence,
have no attractions for me. I had rather dwell in a cottage with her I
love, than be master of the proudest palace this city has to boast.
In compliance with the obliging intreaties of the marquis of Pescara, I
have entered repeatedly into the scene of her entertainments. But I was
distracted and absent. A variety of topics were started of literature,
philosophy, news, and fashion. The man of humour told his pleasant tale,
and the wit flashed with his lively repartee. But I heard them not.
Their subjects were in my eye tedious and uninteresting. They talked
not of the natural progress of the passions. They did not dissect the
characters of the friend and the lover. My heart was at Cosenza.
Fatigued with the crowded assembly and the fluttering parterre, I sought
relief in solitude. Never was solitude so grateful to me. I indulged
in a thousand reveries. Gay hope exhibited all her airy visions to
my fancy. I formed innumerable prospects of felicity, and each more
ravishing than the last. The joys painted by my imagination were surely
too pure, too tranquil to last for ever. Oh how sweet is an untasted
happiness! But ours, Matilda, shall be great, beyond what expectation
can suggest. Ours shall teem with ever fresh delights, refined by
sentiment, sanctified by virtue. Nothing but inevitable fate shall
change it. May that fate be distant as I wish it!
But alas, capricious and unbounded fancy has sometimes exhibited a
different scene. A heart, enamoured, rivetted to its object like mine,
cannot but have intervals of solicitude and anxiety. If it have no real
subject of uncertainty and fear, it will create to itself imaginary
ones. But I have no need of these. I am placed at a distance from the
mistress of my heart, which may seem little to a cold and speculative
apprehension, but which my soul yearns to think of. My fate has not yet
received that public sanction which can alone put the finishing stroke
to my felicity. I cannot suspect, even in my most lawless flights,
the most innocent and artless of her sex of inconstancy. But how
many unexpected accidents may come between me and my happiness? How
comfortless is the thought that I can at no time say, "Now the amiable
Matilda is in health; now she dwells in peace and safety?" I receive an
account of her health, a paquet reaches me from Cosenza. Alas, it is two
tedious days from the date of the information. Into two tedious days how
many frightful events may be crowded by tyrant fancy!