Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/355

330 why, I say, did you not see all that I still was for you, all that I wished to be ? Why did you think these words mere " kindness ; " why did you praise them with that cruel term ? But above all, why did you think that happiness and tran- 'quillity were not for you except in death ?

Alas ! if there still lives something of you, may you enjoy that happiness of which your life let me taste so little and your death makes me lose forever. You have taught me, my dear Julie, that the greatest unhappiness is not to mourn those we love, but to mourn those who have ceased to love us. Alas ! I have lost with you sixteen years of my life ; who will fill and console the few remaining years of it ? you, whoever you may be who could stanch my tears, in whatever region of the earth you are I would seek you with joy. Ah ! hear my sighs, behold my heart, and come to me, or call me to you. Deliver me from the crushing situation in which I am, the dreadful loneliness which makes me say each time that I return to my sad dwelling: "l^o one is waiting for me ; no one will wait for me again." . ..

All things, even our common fate seemed destined to unite us. Both without family, without relatives, having experienced from the moment of our birth neglect, misfor- tune, and iQJustice, — Nature seemed to have put us in the world to seek each other out, like two reeds beaten by the wind which cling together and support each other. Why did you seek for other supports ? Soon, to your sorrow, those supports failed you; you died believing yourself alone in the world, when you had but to stretch out your hand to take what was so near, but which you would not see. Ah ! if your life had been prolonged, perhaps Nature, which had made us for each other, would have brought us together never to part again. Perhaps you would have felt — for your soul, though too ardent, is honest — how necessary I was to you