Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/167

148 live and I have lost him who loved me. Mon ami, if it does not constrain you too much, write to me by every courier; I need it. Monday, October 3, 1774. Ah! mon ami, my soul is sick, I have no words, I have only cries. I have read, I have re-read, I shall read a hundred times your letter. Ah ! my friend, what blessings and what evils united ! what pleasure mingled with the cruellest bitterness! The reading of that letter increases and redoubles the agitations of my heart; I can no longer calm myself. You have charmed and rent my soul alternately; never did I find you more lovable, more worthy of being loved, and never have I been so penetrated with deep and poignant and bitter sorrow at the memory of M. de Mora. Yes, I fainted under it, my heart was oppressed, I wandered in my thoughts all night; so violent a state must surely annihilate me, or drive me mad. Alas ! I fear neither: if I loved you less, if my regrets were less dear to me, with what delirious joy, with what transport would I deliver myself from the life that is crushing me! Ah! never, never did any creature survive such torture, such despair.

Mon ami, why do we make poison of the only good that is in Nature, the only good that men have not been able to spoil, nor yet corrupt? The whole world is estimated and paid by money ; consideration, happiness, friendship, even virtue, are bought, paid, and rated at their weight in gold ; there is but one thing high above opinion, one thing remaining spotless like the sun, which has its heat, which vivifies the soul, enlightens it, sustains it, makes it stronger, greater. Ah! mon ami, need I name that gift of Nature? But when it does not make the happiness of the soul it fills, we must die — oh, yes ! die ! I needed that, I yielded to it ; but you were cruel ! Ah ! what have you done with the life you saved?