exercise, my reason grew feeble, and my imagination morbid.

CHAPTER XXVII

A pacquet of letters, at length, arrived from London—Mrs Harley, with a look that seemed to search the soul, put one into my hands—The superscription bore the well known characters—yes, it was from Augustus, and addressed to Emma—I ran, with it, into my chamber, locked myself in, tore it almost asunder with a tremulous hand, perused its contents with avidity—scarce daring to respire—I reperused it again and again.

CONTENTS

'I had trusted my confessions' (it said) 'to one who had made the human heart his study, who could not be affected by them improperly. It spoke of the illusions of the passions—of the false and flattering medium through which they presented objects to our view. He had answered my letter earlier, had it not involved him in too many thoughts to do it with ease. There was a great part of it to which he knew not how to reply—perhaps, on some subjects, it was not necessary to be explicit. And now, it may be, he had better be silent—he was dissatisfied with what he had written, but, were he to write again, he doubted if he should please himself any better.—He was highly flattered by the favourable opinion I entertained of him, it was a grateful proof, not of his merit, but of the warmth of my friendship, &c. &c.'

This letter appeared to me vague, obscure, enigmatical. Unsatisfied, disappointed, I felt, I had little to hope—and, yet, had no distinct ground of fear. I brooded over it, I tortured its meaning into a hundred forms—I spake of it to my friend, but in general terms, in which she seemed to acquiesce: she appeared to have made a determination, not to enquire after what I was unwilling to disclose; she wholly confided both in my principles, and in those of her son: I was wounded by what, entangled in prejudice, I conceived to be a necessity for this reserve.

Again I addressed the man, whose image, in the absence of all other impressions, I had suffered to gain in my mind this dangerous ascendency.

TO AUGUSTUS HARLEY.

CONTENTS

7

 Prev. P 68/154 next