Letter cviij.
Olivia to Mr L——.
Richmond.
"Say, is not absence death to those that love?"
How just, how beautiful a sentiment! yet cold and callous is that heart which knows not that there is a pang more dreadful than absence—far as the death of lingering torture exceeds, in corporeal sufferance, the soft slumber of expiring nature. Suspense! suspense! compared with thy racking agony, even absence is but the blessed euthanasia of love.
My dearest L——, why this torturing silence? one line, one word, I beseech you, from your own hand; say but I live and love you, my Olivia. Hour after hour, and day after day, have I waited and waited, and hoped, and feared to hear from you. O, this intolerable agonizing suspense! Yet hope clings to my fond heart—hope! sweet treacherous hope!
"Non so si la Speranza Va con l'inganno unita; So che mantiene in vita Qualche infelici almen."
Olivia.