Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/821

 LOVE-LETTERS 793 OF LOVB FAMOUS PEOPLE By LADY MARGARET SACKVILLE JULIE DE LESPINA55E Contintttd from pag« 671, Pari VV^HEN her former lover, De Mora, was ^ dying. Julie de Lespinasse wrote : "I did not answer you. If you love me it would have made you anxious, and I should hate to cause you an avoidable pain. I was in a state of anguish which was like torture, preceded by a fit of tears which lasted for hours. No, never, never have I felt such despair. I feel a sort of horror which shakes my reason. I wait for Wednesday, and it seems to me that death itself is not a sufficient remedy for the loss I fear. I feel it only too well, no courage is needed to die, but to live is awful. It is beyond my strength to realise that perhaps one I love, who loved me, will not hear me again, will never more help me. He will have looked on death with horror because of the idea of me." Unrequited Love " My friend, if I had passion, your silence would kill me, and if I had only self-respect I should be wounded, and I should hate you with all my strength — well, I live and I do not hate you. But I will not hide that I saw with grief, although without surprise, that it was through my writing you wrote at all; you were obliged to answer. You no longer know what to say to me, and when you believe that my love for you has ceased you feel no regret, and you find nothing in you which gives you the right to demand again what you have lost. Well, my friend, I am calm enough to be just. I approve your conduct, though I am grieved by it. I esteem you for putting nothing before truth; and, indeed, of what could you com- plain ? I have relieved you. It is horrible to be the object of an emotion one cdnnot share. One suffers, and one makes others suffer. To love and be loved is the happiness of heaven. When one has known and lost this, nothing remains but to die." A Soul in Anguish " Well, then, for God's sake, have your will and go ! I need rest ; you trouble me. I am displeased with you. I hate myself:; I am filled with remorse. Ah ! why did I ever know you ? I shall have only one more misfortune, or, rather, I shall have none. I shall be delivered from a life I loathe, to which I am only held by a feeling which puts my soul to torture. What I have done to-day ? What I have thought, what I have felt ? Alas, I have not seen you ! I have, therefore, known nothing but the regret, the sorrow, the despair of fearing and desiring you. Adieu ! Do not see me. My soul is overwhelmed, and you never calm me. You know neither that tender- ness which comforts and supports, nor that truth and goodness which inspire confi- dence, and which bring repose to a spirit deeply wounded and afflicted. Ah, how you hurt me, how I want never to see you again ! If you will do right, leave to- morrow after dinner. I shall see you in the morning ; it is quite enough." Her Last Letters The following were written a little before her death : "I know you write me charming notes, but you are killing me. I am cold, so cold that my thermomenter is twenty degrees lower than that of Reaumur. This concentrated cold, this state of perpetual torture throw me into a discouragement so deep that I have no longer the strength to desire any- thing better. Indeed, what is there to desire ? What still remains for me to feel is no better than what I now endure. Yes, yes, one must bring one's life to a conclusion. I refuse neither your pity nor your generosity, I should feel I was injuring you by refusing. You must retain the illusion of being able to relieve me ; one would feel such an impulse even towards a defeated enemy. There are people with me. Before four the person I expected arrived." " You are too good, too kind, my friend. You wish to revive, to support a soul which is at last giving way under the long-drawn- out weight of sorrow. I appreciate the worth of what you feel, but I deserve it no longer. There was a time when to have been loved by you would have left me nothing to desire. Alas, that, perhaps, might have extinguished my regrets, or at least have softened their bitterness! I should have wished to live. Now I wish only to die. There is no compensation, no softening of the loss I have endured. I should not have survived it. That, my friend, is the only bitter thought my mind harbours against you. I should love to know your fate. I should like you to be happy. I received your letter at one o'clock. I was in a burning fever. I cannot tell you the time and pain it cost me to read it. I did not wish to put off doing so till to-day, and it made me almost delirious. I expect news of you to-night. Adieu, my friend. Should I live again, I should wish to spend my time in loving you ; but there is no more time." This is the last letter of Julie de Lespinasse. The grey waters of death met over that burn- ing heart, and all the love and longing which it had felt so keenly were extinguished beneath its icy waves, and are now but a pathetic memory. This series of articles will be continued in Every Woman's Encycloi'^edia. 2 fc