Oh, no! interrupted Miss Glanville, he does not imagine I have told your ladyship he loves you; for indeed he don't know that I am acquainted with his passion.
Then he is less culpable than I thought him, replied Arabella; and if you think I am in no danger of hearing a confession of his fault from his own mouth, I'll comply with your request, and go with you to the parade. But, added she, I must first engage you to promise not to leave me alone a moment, lest he should take advantage of such an opportunity to give some hint of his passion, that would force me to treat him very rigorously.
Miss Glanville answered, laughing, that she would be sure to mind her directions. However, said she, your ladyship need not be apprehensive he will say any fine things to you; for I knew a young lady he was formerly in love with, and the odious creature visited her a twelvemonth before he found courage enough to tell her she was handsome.
Doubtless, replied Arabella, he was much to be commended for his respect. A lover should never have the presumption to declare his passion to his mistress, unless in certain circumstances, which may at the same time in part disarm her anger. For instance, he must struggle with the violence of his passion, till it has cast him into a fever. His physicians must give him over, pronouncing his distemper incurable; since the cause of it being in his mind, all their art is incapable of removing it. Thus he must suffer, rejoicing at the approach of death, which will free him from all his torments, without violating the respect he owes to the divine object of his flame. At length, when he has but a few hours to live, his mistress, with many signs of compassion, conjures him to tell her the cause of his despair. The lover, conscious of his crime, evades all her enquiries; but the lady laying at last a peremptory command upon him to disclose the secret, he dares not disobey her, and acknowledges his passion with the utmost contrition for having offended her; bidding her take the small remainder of his life to expiate his crime; and finishes his discourse by falling into a swoon.
The lady is touched at his condition, commands him to live, and if necessary, permits him to hope.
This is the most common way in which such declarations are, and ought to be, brought about. However, there are others, which are as well calculated for sparing a lady's confusion, and deprecating her wrath.
The lover, for example, like the prince of the Massagetes, after having buried his passion in silence for many years, may chance to be walking with his confidant in a retired place; to whom, with a deluge of tears, he relates the excess of his passion and despair. And while he is thus unbosoming his griefs, not in the least suspecting he is overheard, his princess, who had been listening to him in much trouble and confusion, by some little rustling she makes, unawares discovers herself.
The surprised lover throws himself at her feet, begs pardon for his rashness, observes that he had never presumed to discover his passion to her, and implores her leave to die before her, as a punishment for his undesigned offence.
The method which the great Artamenes took to let the princess of Media know he adored her was not less respectful. This valiant prince, who had long loved her, being to fight a great battle, in which he had some secret presages he should fall, which however deceived him, wrote a long letter to the divine Mandana, wherein he discovered his passion, and the resolution his respect had inspired him with, to consume in silence, and never presume to disclose his love while he lived; acquainted her that he had ordered that letter not to be delivered to her, till it was certainly known that he was dead.
Accordingly he received several wounds in the fight, which brought him to the ground; and his body not being found, they concluded it was in the enemy's possession.