LETTER CLXXXIV.188.
To Miss Montague, Rose-hill, Berkshire.
Bellfield, Sept. 20.
No, Emily, you never loved; I have been long hurt by your tranquillity in regard to our marriage; your too scrupulous attention to decorum in leaving my sister’s house might have alarmed me, if love had not placed a bandage before my eyes.
Cruel girl! I repeat it; you never loved; I have your friendship, but you know nothing of that ardent passion, that dear enthusiasm, which makes us indifferent to all but itself: your love is from the imagiginationimagination, not the heart.
The very professions of tenderness in your last, are a proof of your consciousness of indifference; you repeat too often that you love me; you say too much; that anxiety to persuade me of your affection, shews too plainly you are sensible I have reason to doubt it.
You have placed me on the rack; a thousand fears, a thousand doubts, succeed each other in my soul. Has some happier man—
No, my Emily, distracted as I am, I will not be unjust: I do not suspect you of inconstancy; ’tis of your coldness only I complain: you never felt the lively impatience of love; or you would not condemn a man, whom you at least esteem, to suffer longer its unutterable tortures.
If there is a real cause for this delay, why conceal it from me? have I not a right to know what so nearly interests me? but what cause? are you not mistress of yourself?
My Emily, you blush to own to me the insensibility of your heart: you once fancied you loved; you are ashamed to say you were mistaken.