Eugene Aram — Volume 04Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
General
Eugene Aram — Volume 04
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
Aram, Eugene, 1704-1759 -- Fiction
"You ask me, Eugene, if I still pursue my botanical researches. Sometimes
I do; but the flower now has no fragrance--and the herb no secret, that I
care for; and astronomy, which you had just begun to teach me, pleases me
more;--the flowers charm me when you are present; but the stars speak to
me of you in absence. Perhaps it would not be so, had I loved a being
less exalted than you. Every one, even my father, even Ellinor, smile
when they observe how incessantly I think of you--how utterly you have
become all in all to me. I could not tell this to you, though I write it:
is it not strange that letters should be more faithful than the tongue?
And even your letter, mournful as it is, seems to me kinder, and dearer,
and more full of yourself, than with all the magic of your language, and
the silver sweetness of your voice, your spoken words are. I walked by
your house yesterday; the windows were closed--there was a strange air of
lifelessness and dejection about it. Do you remember the evening in which
I first entered that house? Do you--or rather is there one hour in which
it is not present to you? For me, I live in the past,--it is the present-
-(which is without you,) in which I have no life. I passed into the
little garden, that with your own hands you have planted for me, and
filled with flowers. Ellinor was with me, and she saw my lips move. She
asked me what I was saying to myself. I would not tell her--I was praying
for you, my kind, my beloved Eugene. I was praying for the happiness of
your future years--praying that I might requite your love. Whenever I
feel the most, I am the most inclined to prayer. Sorrow, joy, tenderness,
all emotion, lift up my heart to God. And what a delicious overflow of
the heart is prayer! When I am with you--and I feel that you love me--my
happiness would be painful, if there were no God whom I might bless for
its excess. Do those, who believe not, love?--have they deep emotions?--
can they feel truly--devotedly? Why, when I talk thus to you--do you
always answer me with that chilling and mournful smile? You would make
religion only the creation of reason--as well might you make love the
same--what is either, unless you let it spring also from the feelings?
"When--when--when will you return? I think I love you now more than ever.
I think I have more courage to tell you so. So many things I have to say-
-so many events to relate. For what is not an event to US? the least
incident that has happened to either--the very fading of a flower, if you
have worn it, is a whole history to me.
"Adieu, God bless you--God reward you--God keep your heart with Him,
dearest, dearest Eugene. And may you every day know better and better how
utterly you are loved by your
"Madeline."
The epistle to which Lester referred as received from Walter, was one
written on the day of his escape from Mr. Pertinax Fillgrave, a short
note, rather than letter, which ran as follows.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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