In this Visiting-Hour, many People will happen to meet at one and the
same Time together, in a Place: And as you make not Visits to Friends,
to be silent, you ought to enter into Conversation with ‘em; but those
Conversations ought to be general, and of general things: for there
is no necessity of making your Friend the Confident of your Amours.
’.would infinitely displease me, to hear you have reveal’d to them all
that I have repos’d in you; tho’ Secrets never so trivial, yet since
utter’d between Lovers, they deserve to be priz’d at a higher rate: For
what can shew a Heart more indifferent and indiscreet, than to declare
in any fashion, or with Mirth, or Joy, the tender things a Mistress
says to a Lover, and which possibly, related at second hand, bear not
the same Sense, because they have not the same Sound and Air they had
originally, when they came from the soft Heart of her, who sigh’d ‘em
first to her lavish Lover? Perhaps they are told again with Mirth, or
Joy, unbecoming their Character and Business; and then they lose their
Graces: (for Love is the most solemn thing in nature, and the most
unsuiting with Gaiety.) Perhaps the soft Expressions suit not so well
the harsher Voice of the masculine Lover, whose Accents were not form’d
for so much Tenderness; at least, not of that sort: for Words that have
the same Meaning, are alter’d from their Sense by the least tone or
accent of the Voice; and those proper and fitted to my Soul, are not,
possibly, so to yours, though both have the same Efficacy upon us;
yours upon my Heart, as mine upon yours: and both will be misunderstood
by the unjudging World. Beside this, there is a Holiness in Love that’s
true, that ought not to be profan’d: And as the Poet truly says, at the
latter end of an Ode, of which I will recite the whole;
The Invitation.
Aminta, _fear not to confess_
_The charming Secret of thy Tenderness:_
_That which a Lover can’t conceal,_
_That which, to me, thou shouldst reveal;_
_And is but what thy lovely Eyes express._
_Come, whisper to my panting Heart,_
_That heaves and meets thy Voice half-way;_
_That guesses what thou wouldst impart,_
_And languishes for what thou hast to say._
_Confirm my trembling Doubt, and make me know,_
_Whence all these Blessings, and these Sighings flow._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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