Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His SisterBehn, Aphra
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Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister
Behn, Aphra
Epistolary fiction, English
Having read over this letter, she feared she had said too much of her
doubts and apprehensions of a change in him; for now she flies to all
the little stratagems and artifices of lovers, she begins to consider
the worst, and to make the best of that; but quite abandoned she could
not believe herself, without flying into all the rage that
disappointed woman could be possessed with. She calls _Brilliard_,
shews him his lord’s letters, and told him, (while he read) her doubts
and fears; he being thus instructed by herself in the way how to
deceive her on, like fortune-tellers, who gather people’s fortune from
themselves, and then return it back for their own divinity; tells her
he saw indeed a change! Glad to improve her fear, and feigns a sorrow
almost equal to hers: ‘It is evident,’ says he, ‘it is evident, that
he is the most ungrateful of his sex! Pardon, madam,’ (continued he,
bowing) ‘if my zeal for the most charming creature on earth, make me
forget my duty to the best of masters and friends.’ ‘Ah, _Brilliard_,’
cried she, with an air of languishment that more enflamed him, ‘have a
care, lest that mistaken zeal for me should make you profane virtue,
which has not, but on this occasion, shewed that it wanted angels for
its guard. Oh, _Brilliard_, if he be false--if the dear man be
perjured, take, take, kind heaven, the life you have preserved but for
a greater proof of your revenge’----and at that word she sunk into his
arms, which he hastily extended as she was falling, both to save her
from harm, and to give himself the pleasure of grasping the loveliest
body in the world to his bosom, on which her fair face declined, cold,
dead, and pale; but so transporting was the pleasure of that dear
burden, that he forgot to call for, or to use any aid to bring her
back to life, but trembling with his love and eager passion, he took a
thousand joys, he kissed a thousand times her lukewarm lips, sucked
her short sighs, and ravished all the sweets, her bosom (which was but
guarded with a loose night-gown) yielded his impatient touches. Oh
heaven, who can express the pleasures he received, because no other
way he ever could arrive to so much daring? It was all beyond his
hope; loose were her robes, insensible the maid, and love had made him
insolent, he roved, he kissed, he gazed, without control, forgetting
all respect of persons, or of place, and quite despairing by fair
means to win her, resolves to take this lucky opportunity; the door he
knew was fast, for the counsel she had to ask him admitted of no
lookers-on, so that at his entrance she had secured the pass for him
herself, and being near her bed, when she fell into his arms, at this
last daring thought he lifts her thither, and lays her gently down,
and while he did so, in one minute ran over all the killing joys he
had been witness to, which she had given _Philander_; on which he
never paus’d, but urged by a _Cupid_ altogether malicious and wicked,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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