![]() | The history of Lady Julia Mandeville | ![]() |
To Miss Howard.
Wednesday Aug. 11th.
MY Emily, your friend, your unhappy Julia, is undone. He knows the tenderness which I have so long endeavoured to conceal. The trial was too great for the softness of a heart like mine; I had almost conquered my own passion, when I became a victim to his: I could not see his love, his despair, without emotions which discovered all my soul. I ;am not formed for deceit: artless as the village maid, every sentiment of my soul is in my eyes; I have not learnt, I will never learn, to disguise their expressive language. With what pain did I affect a coldness to which I was indeed a stranger! But why do I wrong my own heart? I did not affect it. The native modesty of my sex gave a reserve to my behaviour, on the first
Born with a too tender heart, which never before found an object worthy its attachment, the excess of my affection is unspeakable. Delicate in my choice even of friends, it was not easy to find a lover equal to that idea of perfection my imagination had formed; he alone of all mankind rises up to it; the speaking grace, the easy dignity of his air, are the natural consequences of the superiority of his soul. He looks as if born to command the world. I am interrupted. Adieu.
August 15th.
![]() | The history of Lady Julia Mandeville | ![]() |