My best beloved, my amiable friend,
Oh, should you ever forget me----Alas! I can but die; but you, you,
shall live base and unhappy, and my death will be but too severely
revenged.
Forget not then that Eloisa, who lived for you, and whose heart can
never be another’s. I can say nothing more regarding that dependence
in which Providence hath placed me: but, after having recommended
fidelity to you, it is but just to give you the only pledge of mine
that is in my power. I have consulted, not my duty, my distracted mind
knows that no longer, but I have examined my heart, the last guide of
those who can follow no other; and behold the result of its
examination: I am determined never to be your wife without the consent
of my father, but I will never marry another without your consent; of
this I give you my word, which, whatever happens, I will keep sacred,
nor is there a power on earth can make me break my promise. Be not,
therefore, disquieted at what may befall me in your absence. Go, my
dear friend, pursue, under the auspices of the most tender love, a
destiny worthy to crown your merit: mine is in your hands, as much as
it is in my power to commit it, and never shall it be altered but with
your consent.
Letter LXXVII. To Eloisa.
_O qual fiamma di gloria d’onore,
Scorrer sento per tutte le sene,
Alma grande parlando conto!_
O Eloisa, let me breathe a moment,----you make me shudder, my blood
boils, my heart pants; your letter glows with that sacred love of
virtue that fires your breast, and communicates its celestial flame to
the inmost recesses of mine. But why so many exhortations, where you
should have laid on me your commands? do you think I can so far forget
myself as to want arguments to excite me to act justly? at least, can
I want to have them urged by you, whose injunctions alone I should fly
to obey. Can you be ignorant that I ever will be what you please to
have me? and that I could even act unjustly before I could disobey
you? yes, I could set another capitol in flames if you enjoined me,
for nothing can be so dear to me as you are. But, do you know, my
incomparable Eloisa, why you are thus dear? it is because you can
desire nothing but what is virtuous, and that my admiration of your
virtues exceeds even the love inspired by your charms. I go,
encouraged by the engagement into which you have entered, the latter
part of which, however, you might have omitted; for to promise not to
be another’s without my consent, is it not to promise to be none but
mine? for my own part, I speak more freely, and pledge with you the
faith of a man of honour, ever to remain sacred and inviolable: I am
ignorant to what destiny fortune will lead me in the career I am
going, for your satisfaction, to enter upon; but never shall the ties
of love or marriage unite me to any other than Eloisa D’Etange. I
live, I exist, but for her, and shall either die married to her, or
not married at all. Adieu! I am pressed for time, and am going to