Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/64

1773] spire in me ; I have seen clearly into my soul. Ah ! the ex- cess of my sorrow justifies me, I am not guilty, and yet, before long, I shall be a victim. I thought to die Friday on receiving a letter by special courier; the trouble into which it threw me took from me even the power to unseal it ; I was more than a quarter of an hour without moving ; my soul had numbed my senses. At last I read it, and I found but a part of what I feared. I need not tremble for the life of him I love.

But sheltered from the greatest of all misfortunes, oh, my God ! how much remains for me to suffer ! how crushed I feel beneath the weight of life ! the duration of ills is more than human strength can bear ; I feel but one courage, often but one need. Ought I not therefore to love you, ought I not to cherish your presence ? You have had the power to divert my mind from an anguish as sharp as it was deep ; I await, I desire your letters. Yes, believe me, none but the unhappy are worthy of friends; if your soul had never suffered never could you have entered mine. I should admire, I should praise your talents, but I should keep aloof, because I have a sort of repugnance to that which fills my mind only : we must be calm to think ; when excited, agitated, we can only feel and suffer. You tell me that you are shaken by regrets, by remorse even ; that your sensibility is all pain. I believe you, and it grieves me ; and yet, I know not why, the impression that I receive from your letter is the contrary of that. There seems to me a calmness, a re- pose and force in all your expressions ; you appear to speak of what you have felt, not of what you are feeling ; in short, if I had rights, if I were sensitive, if friendship were not such a facile thing, I should tell you that Strasburg is far, very far from the rue Tarenne.

President Montesquieu asserts that climate has a great in-