for those soft minutes thou hast designed for love, and hast dedicated to _Sylvia, Philander_ should dismiss the dull formalities of rigid business, the pressing cares of dangers, and have given a loose to softness. Could my _Philander_ imagine this short and unloving letter sufficient to atone for such an absence? And has _Philander_ then forgotten the pain with which I languished, when but absent from him an hour? How then can he imagine I can live, when distant from him so many leagues, and so many days? While all the scanty comfort I have for life is, that one day we might meet again; but where, or when, or how-thou hast not love enough so much as to divine; but poorly leavest me to be satisfied by _Octavio_, committing the business of thy heart, the once great importance of thy soul, the most necessary devoirs of thy life, to be supplied by another. Oh _Philander_, I have known a blessed time in our reign of love, when thou wouldst have thought even all thy own power of too little force to satisfy the doubting soul of _Sylvia_: tell me, _Philander_, hast thou forgot that time? I dare not think thou hast, and yet (O God) I find an alteration, but heaven divert the omen: yet something whispers to my soul, I am undone! Oh, where art thou, my _Philander_? Where is thy heart? And what has it been doing since it begun my fate? How can it justify thy coldness, and thou this cruel absence, without accounting with me for every parting hour? My charming dear was wont to find me business for all my lonely absent ones; and writ the softest letters--loading the paper with fond vows and wishes, which ere I had read over another would arrive, to keep eternal warmth about my soul; nor wert thou ever wearied more with writing, than I with reading, or with sighing after thee; but now--oh! There is some mystery in it I dare not understand. Be kind at least and satisfy my fears, for it is a wondrous pain to live in doubt; if thou still lovest me, swear it over anew! And curse me if I do not credit thee. But if thou art declining--or shouldst be sent a shameful victim into _France_--oh thou deceiving charmer, yet be just, and let me know my doom: by heaven this last will find a welcome to me, for it will end the torment of my doubts and fears of losing thee another way, and I shall have the joy to die with thee, die beloved, and die Thy SYLVIA.