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
know your sentiments may best instruct me by what name to call them,
and you _Brilliard_ may do it without fear----You saw I did not
struggle in your arms, nor strove I to defend the kisses which you
gave----’ ‘Oh heavens,’ cried he, transported with what she said, ‘is
it possible that you could know of my presumption, and favour it too?
I will no longer then curse those unlucky stars that sent _Octavio_
just in the blessed minute to snatch me from my heaven, the lovely
victim lay ready for the sacrifice, all prepared to offer; my hands,
my eyes, my lips were tired with pleasure, but yet they were not
satisfied; oh there was joy beyond those ravishments, of which one
kind minute more had made me absolute lord:’ ‘Yes, and the next,’ said
she, ‘had sent this to your heart’----snatching a penknife that lay on
her toilet, where she had been writing, which she offered so near to
his bosom, that he believed himself already pierced, so sensibly
killing her words, her motion, and her look; he started from her, and
she threw away the knife, and walked a turn or two about the chamber,
while he stood immovable, with his eyes fixed on the earth, and his
thoughts on nothing but a wild confusion, which he vowed afterwards he
could give no account of. But as she turned she beheld him with some
compassion, and remembering how he had it in his power to expose her
in a strange country, and own her for a wife, she believed it
necessary to hide her resentments; and cried, ‘_Brilliard_, for the
friendship your lord has for you I forgive you; but have a care you
never raise your thoughts to a presumption of that nature more: do not
hope I will ever fall below _Philander_’. love; go and repent your
crime----and expect all things else from my favour----’ At this he
left her with a bow that had some malice in it, and she returned into
her dressing-room.--After dinner _Octavio_ writes her this letter,
which his page brought.
OCTAVIO _to_ SYLVIA.
_Madam_,
’.is true, that in obedience to your commands, I begged your pardon
for the confession I made you of my passion: but since you could not
but see the contradiction of my tongue in my eyes, and hear it but too
well confirmed by my sighs, why will you confine me to the formalities
of a silent languishment, unless to increase my flame with my pain?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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