Would you allow me to gratify my friendship for you, and shew, at the same time, your perfect esteem for me, by commanding, what our long affection gives you a right to, such a part of my fortune as I could easily spare without the least inconvenience to myself, we might all be happy, and you might make your Emily so: but you have already convinced me, by your refusal of a former request of this kind, that your esteem for me is much less warm than mine for you; and that you do not think I merit the delight of making you happy.
I will therefore say no more on this subject till we meet, than that I have no doubt this letter will bring you immediately to us.
If the tenderness you express for Miss Montague is yet conquerable, it will surely be better for both it should be conquered, as fortune has been so much less kind to each of you than nature; but if your hearts are immoveably fixed on each other, if your love is of the kind which despises every other consideration, return to the bosom of friendship, and depend on our finding some way to make you happy.
If you persist in refusing to share my fortune, you can have no objection to my using all my interest, for a friend and brother so deservedly dear to me, and in whose happiness I shall ever find my own.
Allow me now to speak of myself; I mean of my dearer self, your amiable sister, for whom my tenderness, instead of decreasing, grows every moment stronger.
Yes, my friend, my sweet Lucy is every hour more an angel: her desire of being beloved, renders her a thousand times more lovely; a countenance animated by true tenderness will always charm beyond all the dead uninformed features the hand of nature ever framed; love embellishes the whole form, gives spirit and softness to the eyes, the most vivid bloom to the complexion, dignity to the air, grace to every motion, and throws round beauty almost the rays of divinity.
In one word, my Lucy was always more lovely than any other woman; she is now more lovely than even her former self.
You, my Rivers, will forgive the over-flowings of my fondness, because you know the merit of its object.
Adieu! We die to embrace you!
Your faithful
J. Temple.