arly
losing your cloak--your stepping into the coach without my being able to
make the slightest discovery--and oh! my sitting down beside you there,
you whom I had loved so long, so well, and your assuring me I had not
lessened your pleasure at the play by being with you, and giving me your
dear hand to press in mine! I thought I was in heaven--that slender
exquisitely-turned form contained my all of heaven upon earth; and as I
folded you--yes, you, my own best Sarah, to my bosom, there was, as you
say, A TIE BETWEEN US--you did seem to me, for those few short
moments, to be mine in all truth and honour and sacredness--Oh! that we
could be always so--Do not mock me, for I am a very child in love. I
ought to beg pardon for behaving so ill afterwards, but I hope THE
LITTLE IMAGE made it up between us, &c.

[To this letter I have received no answer, not a line. The rolling
years of eternity will never fill up that blank. Where shall I be?
What am I? Or where have I been?]

WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF ENDYMION

I want a hand to guide me, an eye to cheer me, a bosom to repose on; all
which I shall never have, but shall stagger into my grave, old before my
time, unloved and unlovely, unless S. L. keeps her faith with me.

* * * * * * * * * * *

--But by her dove's eyes and serpent-shape, I think she does not hate
me; by her smooth forehead and her crested hair, I own I love her; by
her soft looks and queen-like grace (which men might fall down and
worship) I swear to live and die for her!

A PROPOSAL OF LOVE

(Given to her in our early acquaintance)

"Oh! if I thought it could be in a woman
(As, if it can, I will presume in you)
To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love,
To keep her constancy in plight and youth,
Outliving beauties outward with a mind
That doth renew swifter than blood decays:
Or that persuasion could but thus convince me,
That my integrity and truth to you
Might be confronted with the match and weight
Of such a winnowed purity in love--
How were I then uplifted! But, alas,
I am as true as truth's simplicity,
And simpler than the infancy of truth."

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

PART II

LETTERS TO C. P----, ESQ.

Bees-Inn.

My good friend, Here I am in Scotland (and shall have been here three
weeks, next Monday) as I may say, ON MY PROBATION. This is a lone
inn, but on a great scale, thirty miles