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
This billet, though it signified nothing to _Octavio_, it served
_Sylvia_ afterwards to very good use and purpose, as a little time
shall make appear. And _Octavio_ received these two notes from
_Brilliard_ and _Sylvia_ at the same time; the one he flung by
regardless, the other he read with infinite pain, scorn, hate,
indignation, all at once stormed in his heart, he felt every passion
there but that of love, which caused them all; if he thought her false
and ungrateful before, he now thinks her fallen to the lowest degree
of lewdness, to own her crime with such impudence; he fancies now he
is cured of love, and hates her absolutely, thinks her below even his
scorn, and puts himself to bed, believing he shall sleep as well as
before he saw the light, the foolish _Sylvia_: but oh he boasts in
vain, the light, the foolish _Sylvia_ was charming still; still all
the beauty appeared; even in his slumbers the angel dawned about him,
and all the fiend was laid: he sees her lovely face, but the false
heart is hid; he hears her charming wit, but all the cunning is
hushed: he views the motions of her delicate body, without regard to
those of her mind; he thinks of all the tender words she has given
him, in which the jilting part is lost, and all forgotten; or, if by
chance it crossed his happier thought, he rolls and tumbles in his
bed, he raves and calls upon her charming name, till he have quite
forgot it, and takes all the pains he can to deceive his own heart: oh
it is a tender part, and can endure no hurt; he soothes it therefore,
and at the worst resolves, since the vast blessing may be purchased,
to revel in delight, and cure himself that way: these flattering
thoughts kept him all night waking, and in the morning he resolves his
visit; but taking up her letter, which lay on the table, he read it
over again, and, by degrees, wrought himself up to madness at the
thought that _Sylvia_ was possessed: _Philander_ he could bear with
little patience, but that, because before he loved or knew her, he
could allow; but this----this wrecks his very soul; and in his height
of fury, he writes this letter without consideration.
OCTAVIO _to_ SYLVIA.
Since you profess yourself a common mistress, and set up for the
glorious trade of sin, send me your price, and I perhaps may purchase
damnation at your rate. May be you have a method in your dealing, and
I have mistook you all this while, and dealt not your way; instruct my
youth, great mistress of the art, and I shall be obedient; tell me
which way I may be happy too, and put in for an adventurer; I have a
stock of ready youth and money; pray, name your time and sum for
hours, or nights, or months; I will be in at all, or any, as you shall
find leisure to receive the impatient _Octavio_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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