_SIR_,
When I sat at the Window, and you at the other End of the Room by my
Cousin, I saw you catch me looking at you. Since you have the Secret
at last, which I am sure you should never have known but by
Inadvertency, what my Eyes said was true. But it is too soon to
confirm it with my Hand, therefore shall not subscribe my Name.
_SIR_,
There were other Gentlemen nearer, and I know no Necessity you were
under to take up that flippant Creatures Fan last Night; but you
shall never touch a Stick of mine more, that's pos.
_Phillis_.
To Colonel R----s [3] in Spain.
Before this can reach the best of Husbands and the fondest Lover,
those tender Names will be no more of Concern to me. The Indisposition
in which you, to obey the Dictates of your Honour and Duty, left me,
has increased upon me; and I am acquainted by my Physicians I cannot
live a Week longer. At this time my Spirits fail me; and it is the
ardent Love I have for you that carries me beyond my Strength, and
enables me to tell you, the most painful Thing in the Prospect of
Death, is, that I must part with you. But let it be a Comfort to you,
that I have no Guilt hangs upon me, no unrepented Folly that retards
me; but I pass away my last Hours in Reflection upon the Happiness we
have lived in together, and in Sorrow that it is so soon to have an
End. This is a Frailty which I hope is so far from criminal, that
methinks there is a kind of Piety in being so unwilling to be
separated from a State which is the Institution of Heaven, and in
which we have lived according to its Laws. As we know no more of the
next Life, but that it will be an happy one to the Good, and miserable
to the Wicked, why may we not please ourselves at least, to alleviate
the Difficulty of resigning this Being, in imagining that we shall
have a Sense of what passes below, and may possibly be employed in
guiding the Steps of those with whom we walked with Innocence when
mortal? Why may not I hope to go on in my usual Work, and, tho
unknown to you, be assistant in all the Conflicts of your Mind? Give
me leave to say to you, O best of Men, that I cannot figure to myself
a greater Happiness than in such an Employment: To be present at all
the Adventures to which human Life is exposed, to administer Slumber
to thy Eyelids in the Agonies of a Fever, to cover thy beloved Face in
the Day of Battle, to go with thee a Guardian Angel incapable of Wound
or Pain, where I have longed to attend thee when a weak, a fearful
Woman: These, my Dear, are the Thoughts with which I warm my poor
languid Heart; but indeed I am not capable under my present Weakness
of bearing the strong Agonies of Mind I fall into, when I form to
myself the Grief you will be in upon your first hearing of my
Departure. I will not dwell upon this, because your kind and generous
Heart will be but the more afflicted, the more the Person for whom you
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