Letter I.
My Tyrant!
I endure too much torment to be silent, and have endured it too long not to make the severest complaint. I love you, I dote on you; desire makes me mad when I am near you, and despair when I am from you. Sure, of all miseries, love is to me the most intolerable: it haunts me in my sleep, perplexes me when waking; every melancholy thought makes my fears more powerful, and every delightful one makes my wishes more unruly. In all other uneasy chances of a man's life, there is an immediate recourse to some kind of succour or another: in wants we apply ourselves to our friends, in sickness to physicians; but love, the sum, the total of all misfortunes, must be endured with silence; no friend so dear to trust with such a secret, nor remedy in art so powerful to remove its anguish. Since the first day I saw you, I have hardly enjoyed one hour of perfect quiet. I loved you early; and no sooner had I beheld that soft bewitching face of yours, but I felt in my heart the very foundation of all my peace give way: but when you became another's I must confess that I did then rebel, had foolish pride enough to promise myself I would in time recover my liberty: in spite of my enslaved nature, I swore, against myself, I would not love you; I affected a resentment, stifled my spirit, and would not let it bend so much as once to upbraid you, each day it was my chance to see or to be near you: with stubborn sufferance I resolved to bear, and brave your power: nay, did it often too, successfully.
Generally with wine or conversation I diverted or appeased the demon that possessed me; but when at night, returning to my unhappy self, to give my heart an account why I had done it so unnatural a violence, it was then I always paid a treble interest for the short moments of ease which I had borrowed; then every treacherous thought rose up, and took your part, nor left me till they had thrown me on my bed, and opened those sluices of tears that were to run till morning. This has been for some years my best condition: nay, time itself, that decays all things else, has but increased and added to my longings. I tell it you, and charge you to believe it, as you are generous (which sure you must be, for everything, except your neglect of me, persuades me that you are so), even at this time, though other arms have held you, and so long trespassed on those dear joys that only were my due, I love you with that tenderness of spirit, that purity of truth, and that sincerity of heart, that I could sacrifice the nearest friends or interests I have on earth, barely but to please you: if I had all the world, it should be yours; for with it I could be but miserable, if you were not mine.
I appeal to yourself for justice, if through the whole actions of my life I have done any one thing that might not let you see how absolute your authority was over me. Your commands have been always sacred to me; your smiles have always transported me, and your frowns awed me. In short, you will quickly become to me the greatest blessing, or the greatest curse, that ever man was doomed to. I cannot so much as look on you without confusion; wishes and fears rise up in war within me, and work a cursed distraction through my soul, that must, I am sure, in time, have wretched consequences: you only can, with that healing cordial, love, assuage and calm my torments. Pity the man then that would be proud to die for you, and cannot live without you; and allow him thus far to boast too, that (take out fortune from the balance) you never were beloved or courted by a creature that had a nobler or juster pretence to your heart than the unfortunate and (even at this time) weeping
OTWAY.