Saturday noon.
Come to my dressing-room, my dear; I have a thousand things to say to you: I want to talk of my Rivers, to tell you all the weakness of my soul.
No, my dear, I cannot love him more, a passion like mine will not admit addition; from the first moment I saw him my whole soul was his: I knew not that I was dear to him; but true genuine love is self-existent, and does not depend on being beloved: I should have loved him even had he been attached to another.
This declaration has made me the happiest of my sex; but it has not increased, it could not increase, my tenderness: with what softness, what diffidence, what respect, what delicacy, was this declaration made! my dear friend, he is a god, and my ardent affection for him is fully justified.
I love him—no words can speak how much I love him.
My passion for him is the first and shall be the last of my life: my bosom never heaved a sigh but for my Rivers.
Will you pardon the folly of a heart which till now was ashamed to own its feelings, and of which you are even now the only confidante?
I find all the world so insipid, nothing amuses me one moment; in short, I have no pleasure but in Rivers’s conversation, nor do I count the hours of his absence in my existence.
I know all this will be called folly, but it is a folly which makes all the happiness of my life.
You love, my dear Bell; and therefore will pardon the weakness of your