_The Same to the Same_
_Buen Retiro_
I little thought during so distressing a period of absence, to have
written you a letter so gay and careless as my last. I confess indeed
the societies of this place afforded me so much entertainment, that in
the midst of generous friendship and unmerited kindness, I almost forgot
the anguish of a lover, and the pains of banishment.
Alas, how dearly am I destined to pay for the most short-lived
relaxation! Every pleasure is now vanished, and I can scarcely believe
that it ever existed. I enter into the same societies, I frequent the
same scenes, and I wonder what it was that once entertained me. Yes,
Matilda, the enchantment is dissolved. All the gay colours that anon
played upon the objects around me, are fled. Chaos is come again. The
world is become all dreary solitude and impenetrable darkness. I am like
the poor mariner, whose imagination was for a moment caught with the
lofty sound of the thunder, round whom the sheeted lightning gilded the
foaming waves, and who then sinks for ever in the abyss.
It is now four eternal months, and not one line from the hand of Matilda
has blessed these longing eyes, or cooled my burning brain. Opportunity
after opportunity has slipped away, one moment swelled with hope has
succeeded another, but to no purpose. The mail has not been more
constant to its place of destination than myself. But it was all
disappointment. It was in vain that I raged with unmeaning fury, and
demanded that with imprecation which was not to be found. Every calm was
misery to me. Every tempest tore my tortured heart a thousand ways. For
some time every favourable wind was balm to my soul, and nectar to my
burning frame. But it is over now--. How, how is it that I am to account
for this astonishing silence? Has nature changed her eternal laws, and
is Matilda false? Has she forgotten the poor St. Julian, upon whom she
once bestowed her tenderness with unstinted prodigality? Can that angel
form hide the foulest thoughts? Have those untasted lips abjured their
virgin vows? And has that hand been given to another? Hence green-eyed
jealousy, accursed fiend, with all thy train of black suspicions! No,
thou shall not find a moment's harbour in my breast. I will none of
thee. It were treason to the chastest of hearts, it were sacrilege to
the divinest form that ever visited this lower world, but to admit the
possibility of Matilda's infidelity.
And where, ah where, shall I take refuge from these horrid thoughts? To
entertain them were depravity were death. I fly from them, and where is
it that I find myself? Surrounded by a thousand furies. Oh, gracious and
immaculate providence, why hast thou opened so many doors to tremendous
mischief? Innumerable accidents of nature may tear her from me for ever.
All the wanton brutalities that history records, and that the minds of
unworthy men can harbour, start up in dreadful array before me.
Cruel and inflexible Matilda! thou once wert bounteous as the hand of
heaven, wert tender as the new born babe. What is it that has changed
thy disposition to the hard, the wanton, the obdurate? Behold a lover's
tears! Behold how low thou hast sunk him, whom thou once didst dignify
by the sweet and soothing name of _thy friend_! If ever the voice
of anguish found a passage to your heart, if those cheeks were ever
moistened with the drops of sacred pity, oh, hear me now! But I will
address myself to the rocks. I will invoke the knotted oaks and the
savage wolves of the forest. They will not refuse my cry, but Matilda is
deaf as the winds, inexorable as the gaping wave.
In the state of mind in which I am, you will naturally suppose that I
am full of doubt and irresolution. Twice have I resolved to quit the
kingdom of Spain without delay, and to leave the business of friendship
unfinished. But I thank God these thoughts were of no long duration. No,
Matilda, let me be set up as a mark for the finger of scorn, let me be
appointed by heaven as a victim upon which to exhaust all its arrows.
Let me be miserable, but let me never, never deserve to be so.
Affliction, thou mayest beat upon my heart in one eternal storm!
Trouble, thou mayest tear this frame like a whirlwind! But never shall
all thy terrors shake my constant mind, or teach me to swerve for a
moment from the path I have marked out to myself! All other consolation
may be taken from me, but from the bulwark of innocence and integrity I
will never be separated.