Letter XIV. The Count de St. Julian to Matilda della Colonna, Naples

I will thank you a thousand times for the generous permission you gave me, to write to you from this place. I have waited an age, lovely Matilda, that I might not intrude upon your hours of solitude and affliction, and violate the feelings I so greatly respect. You must not now be harsh and scrupulous. You must not cavil at the honest expression of those sentiments you inspire. Can dissimulation ever be a virtue? Can it ever be a duty to conceal those emotions of the soul upon which honor has set her seal, and studiously to turn our discourse to subjects uninteresting and distant to the heart?

How happy am I in a passion which received the sanction of him, who alone could claim a voice in the disposal of you! There are innumerable lovers, filled with the most ardent passion, aiming at the purest gratifications, whose happiness is traversed by the cold dictates of artificial prudence, by the impotent distinctions of rank and family. Unfeeling parents rise to thwart their wishes. The despotic hand of authority tears asunder hearts united by the softest ties, and sacrifices the prospect of felicity to ridiculous and unmeaning prejudices. Let us, my Matilda, pity those whose fate is thus unpropitious, but let us not voluntarily subject ourselves to their misfortune. No voice is raised to forbid our union. Heaven and earth command us to be happy.

Alas, I am sufficiently unfortunate, that the arbitrary decorums of society have banished me from your presence. In vain Naples holds out to me all her pleasures and her luxury. Ill indeed do they pay me for the exchange. Its court, its theaters, its assemblies, and its magnificence, have no attractions for me. I had rather dwell in a cottage with her I love, than be master of the proudest palace this city has to boast.

In compliance with the obliging intreaties of the marquis of Pescara, I have entered repeatedly into the scene of her entertainments. But I was distracted and absent. A variety of topics were started of literature, philosophy, news, and fashion. The man of humor told his pleasant tale, and the wit flashed with his lively repartee. But I heard them not. Their subjects were in my eye tedious and uninteresting. They talked not of the natural progress of the passions. They did not dissect the characters of the friend and the lover. My heart was at Cosenza.

Fatigued with the crowded assembly and the fluttering parterre, I sought relief in solitude. Never was solitude so grateful to me. I indulged in a thousand reveries. Gay hope exhibited all her airy visions to my fancy. I formed innumerable prospects of felicity, and each more ravishing than the last. The joys painted by my imagination were surely too pure, too tranquil to last for ever. Oh how sweet is an untasted happiness! But ours, Matilda, shall be great, beyond what expectation can suggest. Ours shall teem with ever fresh delights, refined by sentiment, sanctified by virtue. Nothing but inevitable fate shall change it. May that fate be distant as I wish it!

But alas, capricious and unbounded fancy has sometimes exhibited a different scene. A heart, enamored, riveted to its object like mine, cannot but have intervals of solicitude and anxiety. If it have no real subject of uncertainty and fear, it will create to itself imaginary ones. But I have no need of these. I am placed at a distance from the mistress of my heart, which may seem little to a cold and speculative apprehension, but which my soul yearns to think of. My fate has not yet received that public sanction which can alone put the finishing stroke to my felicity. I cannot suspect, even in my most lawless flights, the most innocent and artless of her sex of inconstancy. But how many unexpected accidents may come between me and my happiness? How comfortless is the thought that I can at no time say, “Now the amiable Matilda is in health; now she dwells in peace and safety?” I receive an account of her health, a paquet reaches me from Cosenza. Alas, it is two tedious days from the date of the information. Into two tedious days how many frightful events may be crowded by tyrant fancy!