The sweets of love were perhaps most convincingly revealed in the amorous billets of which "Love in Excess" and many of Eliza's subsequent pieces of fiction contained a plentiful supply. Letters languishing with various degrees of desire or burning with jealous rage were introduced into the story upon any pretext. Writing them was evidently the author's forte, and perusing them apparently a pleasure to her readers, for they remained a conspicuous part of Mrs. Haywood's sentimental paraphernalia. As in the French romances of the Scudéry type the missives were quoted at length and labeled with such headings as, "The Despairing D'Elmont to his Repenting Charmer," or "To the never enough Admir'd Count D'Elmont," and signed with some such formula as, "Your most passionate and tender, but ('till she receives a favorable Answer) your unknown Adorer." The custom of inserting letters in the course of the story was, as has already been indicated, a heritage from the times of Gomberville, La Calprenède, and the Scudérys when miscellaneous material of all sorts from poetry to prosy conversations was habitually used to diversify the narrative. Mrs. Haywood, however, employed the letter not to ornament but to intensify. Her _billets-doux_ like the lyrics in a play represent moments of supreme emotion. In seeking vividness she too often fell into exaggeration, as in the following specimen of absolute passion. "Torture--Distraction--Hell--what will become of me--I cannot--I will not survive the Knowledge that you are mine no more--Yet this Suspence is worse than all yet ever bore the Name of Horror--Let me not linger in it, if you have Humanity--declare my Doom at once--be kind in Cruelty at least, and let one Death conclude the thousand, thousand Deaths which every Minute of Uncertainty brings with it, to The Miserable, but Still Adoring Melantha. P.S. I have order'd the Messenger to bring an Answer; if he comes without, depend I will murder him, and then myself."[1] Such remnants of the romantic tradition as the verses on "The Unfortunate Camilla's Complaint to the Moon, for the Absence of her dear Henricus Frankville" in "Love in Excess" were soon discarded, but the letters, though they encumbered the progress of the narrative, made it more realistic by giving an opportunity for the display of passion at first hand. Their continued vogue was undoubtedly due in large measure to the popularity of the celebrated "Letters of a Portuguese Nun" (1669), which, with a note of sincerity till then unknown, aided the return to naturalness.[2]