You cannot surely have been influenced by any motive relative to our fortune; no idle tale can have made you retract a promise, which rendered me the happiest of mankind: if I have your heart, I am richer than an oriental monarch.
Short as life is, my dearest girl, is it of consequence what part we play in it? is wealth at all essential to happiness?
The tender affections are the only sources of true pleasure; the highest, the most respectable titles, in the eye of reason, are the tender ones of friend, of husband, and of father: it is from the dear soft ties of social love your Rivers expects his felicity.
You have but one way, my dear Emily, to convince me of your tenderness: I shall set off for Rose-hill in twelve hours; you must give me your hand the moment I arrive, or confess your Rivers was never dear to you.
Write, and send a servant instantly to meet me at my mother’s house in town: I cannot support the torment of suspense.
There is not on earth so wretched a being as I am at this moment; I never knew till now to what excess I loved: you must be mine, my Emily, or I must cease to live.
LETTER CLXXXV.189.
To Captain Fitzgerald, Rose-hill, Berkshire.
Bellfield, Sept. 20.
All I feared has certainly happened; Emily has undoubtedly heard of this proposal, and, from a parade of generosity, a generosity however inconsistent with love, wishes to postpone our marriage till my relation arrives.