Ah! my dear friend, what a miserable asylum for lovers is a crowded assembly! What inconceivable torment, to see each other under the restraints of what is called good breeding! Surely absence were a thousand times more supportable! Is calmness and composure compatible with such emotions? Can the lover be self-consistent, or with what attention can he consider such a number of objects, when one alone possesses his whole soul? When the heart is fired, can the body be at rest? You cannot conceive the anxiety I felt, when I heard you were coming. Your name seemed a reproach to me, and I could not help imagining that the whole company's attention was fixed upon me alone. I was immediately lost, and blushed so exceedingly, that my cousin, who observed me, was obliged to cover me with her fan, and pretend to whisper me in the ear. This very artifice, simple as it was, increased my apprehensions, and I trembled for fear they should perceive it. In short, every the most minute circumstance was a fresh subject for alarm; never did I so fully experience the truth of that well known axiom, that a guilty conscience needs no accuser.
Clara pretended to observe that you was equally embarrassed, uncertain what to do, not daring either to advance or retire, to take notice of me or not, and looking all around the room to give you a pretence, as she said, to look, at last, on me. As I recovered from my confusion by degrees, I perceived your distress, till, by Mrs. Belon's coming up to you, you was relieved.
I perceive, my dear friend, that this manner of living, which is imbittered with so much constraint, and sweetened with so little pleasure, is not suited to us. Our passion is too noble to bear perpetual chains. These public assemblies are only fit for those who are strangers to love, or who can with ease dispense with ceremony. My anxieties are too disquieting, and your indiscretions too dangerous; I cannot always have a Mrs. Belon to make a convenient diversion. Let us return, let us return to that calm state of life from whence I have so inadvertently drawn you. It was that situation which gave rise and vigour to our passion; perhaps too it may be weakened by this dissipated manner of living. The truest passions are formed and nourished in retirement. In the busy circle of the world there is no time for receiving impressions, and even, when received, they are considerably weakened by the variety of avocations which continually occur. Retirement too best suits my melancholy, which like my love can be supported only by thy dear image. I had rather see you tender and passionate in my heart, than under constraint and dissipation in an assembly. There may perhaps come a time, when I shall be forced to a much closer retreat. O that that time were already come! Common prudence, as well as my own inclinations, require that I should inure myself betimes to habits which necessity may demand. Oh, if the crime itself could produce the cause of its atonement! The pleasing hope of being one day——but I shall inadvertently say more than I am willing on the design I have in view. Forgive me this one secret, my dear friend; my heart shall never conceal any thing that would give you pleasure: yet you must, for a time, be ignorant of this. All I can say of it at present is, that love, which was the occasion of our misfortunes, ought to furnish us with relief. You may reason and comment upon this hint as much as you please; but I positively forbid all questions.
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