"If I required but to see and pardon you, I could not for an instant refuse. Why is it that I do not feel resentment, although the pangs you have caused me are so dreadful? I must still love you, not _to hate_. Religion alone would not disarm me thus. There have been moments when my reason has left me; others, far sweeter, when I hoped to die before the day could end; and some in which I have doubted even virtue: you were to me its image here below: there was no guide for either my thoughts or feelings, when the same blow struck both my admiration and my love. What would have become of me without Heaven's help? Everything in this world was poisoned by your image: one sole asylum was left, and God received me. My strength decays, but not that supporting enthusiasm. I joy to think that the best aim in life is to become worthy of eternity: our bliss, our bane, alike tend to this purpose: and you were chosen to uproot the too strong hold I had on earth. Yet, when I saw your handwriting, learned that you were but on the other side of the river, a fearful tumult rose within me: incessantly was I obliged to tell myself, 'My sister is his wife.' To see you again appeared felicity: I will not deny that my heart, inebriated afresh, preferred these indefinite raptures to an age of calm: but Providence has not abandoned me in this peril. Are you not the husband of another? What then have I to say to you? Is it for me to die in your arms? What would my conscience suffer, if I made no sacrifice? if I permitted myself another hour with you? I can only appear before my God with anything like confidence by renouncing it. This resolution may appease my soul. Such happiness as I felt while you loved me is not in harmony with our mortal state; it agitates us, because we feel its fleetness: but religious meditation, that aims at self-improvement, and refers every cause to duty, is a state of peace; and I know not what ravages the mere sound of your voice would make on the repose I believe I have regained. Why do you tell me that your health is impaired? Alas! I am no longer your nurse; but still, I suffer with you. May God bless and prolong your days, my Lord! Be happy, but be so through piety. A secret communion with Divinity gives us in ourselves the power of confiding to a being who consoles us: it makes two friends of one spirit. Do you still seek for what the world calls happiness? Where will you find more than my tenderness would have bestowed? Know you that in the deserts of the New World I should have blessed my lot had you permitted me to follow you? I could have served you like a slave, have knelt before you as a heavenly being, had you but loved me truly. What have you done with so much faith? You have changed it into an affliction peerless as itself.