After declarations so explicit, Vanessa naturally wondered that he proceeded no farther; it appears that he sometimes endeavoured to repress her over-flowing tenderness, by treating her with a harshness which drove her almost to frenzy. There is really nothing in the effusions of Heloise or Mdlle. de l'Espinasse, that can exceed, in pathos and burning eloquence, some of her letters to him during this period of their connection.[118] When he had reduced her to the most shocking and pitiable state, so that her life or her reason were threatened, he would endeavour to soothe her in language which again revived her hopes-- Give the reed From storms a shelter,--give the drooping vine Something round which its tendrils may entwine,-- Give the parch'd flower the rain-drop,--and the meed Of Love's kind words to woman![119] It will be said, where was her sex's delicacy, where her woman's pride? Alas!-- La Vergogna ritien debile amore, Ma debil freno e di potente amore. In this agonizing suspense she lived through eight long years; till, unable to endure it longer, and being aware of the existence of Stella, she took the decisive step of writing to her rival, and desired to know whether she was, or was not, married to Swift? Stella answered her immediately in the affirmative; and then, justly indignant that he should have given any other woman such a right in him as was implied by the question, she enclosed Vanessa's letter to Swift; and instantly, with a spirit she had never before exerted, quitted her lodgings, withdrew to the house of Mr. Ford, of Wood Park, and threw herself on the friendship and protection of his family. This lamentable tragedy was now brought to a crisis. Swift, on receiving the letter, was seized with one of those insane paroxysms of rage to which he was subject. He mounted his horse, rode down to Celbridge, and suddenly entered the room in which Vanessa was sitting. His countenance, fitted by nature to express the dark and fierce passions, so terrified her, that she could scarce ask him whether he would sit down? He replied savagely, "No!" and throwing down before her, her own letter to Stella, with a look of inexpressible scorn and anger, flung out of the room, and returned to Dublin.