e a CLENCHER, if he did. How ought I to behave when
I go back? Advise a fool, who had nearly lost a Goddess by his folly.
The thing was, I could not think it possible she would ever like ME.
Her taste is singular, but not the worse for that. I'd rather have her
love, or liking (call it what you will) than empires. I deserve to call
her mine; for nothing else CAN atone for what I've gone through for
her. I hope your next letter will not reverse all, and then I shall be
happy till I see her,--one of the blest when I do see her, if she looks
like my own beautiful love. I may perhaps write a line when I come to
my right wits.--Farewel at present, and thank you a thousand times for
what you have done for your poor friend.

P. S.--I like what M---- said about her sister, much. There are good
people in the world: I begin to see it, and believe it.

LETTER THE LAST

Dear P----, To-morrow is the decisive day that makes me or mars me. I
will let you know the result by a line added to this. Yet what
signifies it, since either way I have little hope there, "whence alone
my hope cometh!" You must know I am strangely in the dumps at this
present writing. My reception with her is doubtful, and my fate is then
certain. The hearing of your happiness has, I own, made me thoughtful.
It is just what I proposed to her to do--to have crossed the Alps with
me, to sail on sunny seas, to bask in Italian skies, to have visited
Vevai and the rocks of Meillerie, and to have repeated to her on the
spot the story of Julia and St. Preux, and to have shewn her all that my
heart had stored up for her--but on my forehead alone is
written--REJECTED! Yet I too could have adored as fervently, and loved
as tenderly as others, had I been permitted. You are going abroad, you
say, happy in making happy. Where shall I be? In the grave, I hope, or
else in her arms. To me, alas! there is no sweetness out of her sight,
and that sweetness has turned to bitterness, I fear; that gentleness to
sullen scorn! Still I hope for the best. If she will but HAVE me,
I'll make her LOVE me: and I think her not giving a positive answer
looks like it, and also shews that there is no one else. Her holding
out to the last also, I think, proves that she was never to have been
gained but with honour. She's a strange, almost an inscrutable girl:
but if I once win her consent, I shall kill her with kindness.--Will you
let me have a sight of SOMEBODY befor