March, I822.
--You will be glad to learn I have done my work--a volume in less than a month. This is one reason why I am better than when I came, and another is, I have had two letters from Sarah. I am pleased I have got through this job, as I was afraid I might lose reputation by it (which I can little afford to lose)--and besides, I am more anxious to do well now, as I wish you to hear me well spoken of. I walk out of an afternoon, and hear the birds sing as I told you, and think, if I had you hanging on my arm, and that for life, how happy I should be--happier than I ever hoped to be, or had any conception of till I knew you. "But that can never be"--I hear you answer in a soft, low murmur. Well, let me dream of it sometimes--I am not happy too often, except when that favourite note, the harbinger of spring, recalling the hopes of my youth, whispers thy name and peace together in my ear. I was reading something about Mr. Macready to-day, and this put me in mind of that delicious night, when I went with your mother and you to see Romeo and Juliet. Can I forget it for a moment--your sweet modest looks, your infinite propriety of behaviour, all your sweet winning ways--your hesitating about taking my arm as we came out till your mother did--your laughing about nearly losing your cloak--your stepping into the coach without my being able to make the slightest discovery--and oh! my sitting down beside you there, you whom I had loved so long, so well, and your assuring me I had not lessened your pleasure at the play by being with you, and giving me your dear hand to press in mine! I thought I was in heaven--that slender exquisitely-turned form contained my all of heaven upon earth; and as I folded you--yes, you, my own best Sarah, to my bosom, there was, as you say, A TIE BETWEEN US--you did seem to me, for those few short moments, to be mine in all truth and honour and sacredness--Oh! that we could be always so--Do not mock me, for I am a very child in love. I ought to beg pardon for behaving so ill afterwards, but I hope THE LITTLE IMAGE made it up between us, c.
[To this letter I have received no answer, not a line. The rolling years of eternity will never fill up that blank. Where shall I be? What am I? Or where have I been?]
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