Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His SisterBehn, Aphra
General
Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister
Behn, Aphra
Epistolary fiction, English
all the _Huguenot_ party, who would quickly put him into a condition
of fearing nothing.
’.y counsel, with the same persuasion from all of quality of the
party, who came to see him, was at last approved of by him, and he
began to say a thousand things to assure me of his fidelity to his
friends, and the faction, which he vowed never to forsake, for any
other interest, but to stand or fall in its defence, and that he was
resolved to be a king, or nothing; and that he would put in practice
all the arts and stratagems of cunning, as well as force, to attain to
this glorious end, however crooked and indirect they might appear to
fools. However, he conceived the first necessary step to this, was the
getting his pardon, to gain a little time, to manage things anew to
the best advantage: that at present all things were at a stand without
life or motion, wanting the sight of himself, who was the very life
and soul of motion, the axle-tree that could turn the wheel of fortune
round about again.
’.nd now he had talked himself in to sense again; he cried--“Oh my
_Tomaso_! I long to be in action, my soul is on the wing, and ready to
take its flight through any hazard----” but sighing on a sudden, again
he cried: “But oh, my friend, my wings are impt by love, I cannot
mount the regions of the air, and thence survey the world; but still,
as I would rise to mightier glory, they flag to humble love, and fix
me there. Here I am charmed to lazy, soft repose, here it is I smile
and play, and love away my hours: but I will rouse, I will, my dear
_Tomaso_; nor shall the winged boy hold me enslaved: believe me,
friend, he shall not.” He sent me away pleased with this, and I left
him to his repose.’
Supper being ready to come upon the table; though _Philander_ were
impatient to hear the story out, yet he would not press _Tomaso_, till
after supper; in which time, they discoursed of nothing but of the
miracles of _Cesario_’. love to _Hermione_. He could not but wonder a
prince so young, so amorous, and so gay, should return again, after
almost fifteen years, to an old mistress, and who had never been in
her youth a celebrated beauty: one, whom it was imagined the King, and
several after him at Court, had made a gallantry with----On this he
paused for some time, and reflected on his passion for _Sylvia_; and
this fantastic intrigue of the Prince’s inspired him with a kind of
curiosity to try, whether fleeting love, would carry him back again to
this abandoned maid. In these thoughts, and such discourse, they
passed away the time during supper; which ended, and a fresh bottle
brought to the table, with a new command that none should interrupt
them, the impatient _Philander_ obliged _Tomaso_ to give him a farther
account of the Prince’s proceedings; which he did in this manner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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