her lips too long--alas! mine do not poison again. I sit
and indulge my grief by the hour together; my weakness grows upon me;
and I have no hope left, unless I could lose my senses quite. Do you
know I think I should like this? To forget, ah! to forget--there would
be something in that--to change to an idiot for some few years, and then
to wake up a poor wretched old man, to recollect my misery as past, and
die! Yet, oh! with her, only a little while ago, I had different hopes,
forfeited for nothing that I know of! * * * * * * If you can give me any
consolation on the subject of my tormentor, pray do. The pain I suffer
wears me out daily. I write this on the supposition that Mrs. ---- may
still come here, and that I may be detained some weeks longer. Direct
to me at the Post-office; and if I return to town directly as I fear, I
will leave word for them to forward the letter to me in London--not at
my old lodgings. I will not go back there: yet how can I breathe away
from her? Her hatred of me must be great, since my love of her could
not overcome it! I have finished the book of my conversations with her,
which I told you of: if I am not mistaken, you will think it very nice
reading.

Yours ever.

Have you read Sardanapalus? How like the little Greek slave, Myrrha, is
to HER!

LETTER IV

(Written in the Winter)

My good Friend, I received your letter this morning, and I kiss the rod
not only with submission, but gratitude. Your reproofs of me and your
defences of her are the only things that save my soul from perdition.
She is my heart's idol; and believe me those words of yours applied to
the dear saint--"To lip a chaste one and suppose her wanton"--were balm
and rapture to me. I have LIPPED HER, God knows how often, and oh! is
it even possible that she is chaste, and that she has bestowed her loved
"endearments" on me (her own sweet word) out of true regard? That
thought, out of the lowest depths of despair, would at any time make me
strike my forehead against the stars. Could I but think the love
"honest," I am proof against all hazards. She by her silence makes my
dark hour; and you by your encouragements dissipate it for twenty-four
hours. Another thing has brought me to life. Mrs. ---- is actually on
her way here about the divorce. Should this unpleasant business (which
has been so long talked of) succeed, and I should become free, do you
think S. L. will agree to change her name t