"You bid me be easy, and you would see me as often as you could; you had better have said as often as you could get the better of your inclination so much; or, as often as you remembered there was such a person in the world. If you continue to treat me as you do, you will not be made uneasy by me long. 'Tis impossible to describe what I have suffered since I saw you last; I am sure I could have borne the rack much better than those killing, killing words of yours. Sometimes I have resolved to die without seeing you more; but those resolves, to your misfortune, did not last long, for there is something in human nature that prompts us to seek relief in this world. I must give way to it, and beg you would see me, and speak kindly to me; for I am sure you would not condemn any one to suffer what I have done, could you but know it. The reason I write to you is this, because I cannot tell it you, should I see you; for when I begin to complain, then you are angry, and there is something in your look so awful, that it strikes me dumb. Oh! that you may but have so much regard for me left, that this complaint may touch your soul with pity! I say as little as ever I can. Did you but know what I thought, I am sure it would move you. Forgive me, and believe, I cannot help telling you this, and live."—Letters, Vol. xix. page 421.
[119] Mrs. Hemans.
[120] Johnson's Life of Swift.
[121] Johnson, Sheridan. Scott.
[122] Scott's Life of Swift.—Sheridan has recorded another interview between Stella and her destroyer, in which she besought him to acknowledge her before her death, that she might have the satisfaction of dying his wife; and he refused.
Dated Feb. 7, 1728, I find a letter from Swift to Martha Blount, written in a style of gay badinage, and her answer; and in neither is there the slightest allusion to his recent loss.—Roscoe's Pope, vol. viii. p. 460.
[123] It was after the death of Stella, that all Swift's coarsest satires were written. He was in the act of writing the last and most terrible of these, when he was seized with insanity; and it remains unfinished.