ss you; and now I can write no
more."[1]

He then went off to manoeuvres. But the lovers had by no means given up
hope. They continued their correspondence, and Kosciuszko, at Tekla's
suggestion and subject to her approval, sent her a letter which he had
drawn up for her father with a formal request for her hand.

The father returned an unmitigated refusal, repeating the absurd charge
that Kosciuszko had intended to abduct his daughter. To this Kosciuszko
replied with dignity and respect, ending with the words:

"If I cannot gain for myself your favour, if I do not win for myself the
hope of gaining her I love, if I do not receive the title so honourable
for me of your son and am not to be made happy, at least I look for the
approbation of an honest man."[2]

[Footnote 1: _Letters of Kosciuszko_.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_.]

Zurowski's answer was to remove his family to his Galician estate.
Kosciuszko wrote joint letters to the mother, whom he still fondly terms
his "little mother," and to the daughter, assuring the former that his
reply to her husband had been:

"... most mild because he is your husband and the father of my little
Tekla; but I now see no chance after such a letter [the father's], at
the very memory of which my blood boils. But I thank you for your
kindness to me, which will be held in my undying remembrance. Your
character, your rare attachment to your daughter, will be an example to
all. ... May you live long and happily, and you will find your reward
when you wish to take it. My God! what a horrible idea that I should
have done violence to a law of nature, and in spite of the father have
carried off from his house my beloved! And thou, the life of my heart,
who wert to have been the sweetness of all my life, little Tekla,
forgive me for not finding fitting words at this moment, but, weeping, I
bow my head to kiss thy little feet with affection that shall endure for
ever. Do not exalt me in thy thoughts, but tread down all the proofs of
my friendship and drown in thy memory my love for thee."[1]

"I will always be with you both"--this to Tekla's mother, bidding her
good-bye in language of unshaken affection: "although not present, yet
in heart and thought."[2]

[Footnote 1: _Ibid_.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_.]

Korzon notices that at the moment of Kosciuszko's rebuff at the hands of
his Tekla's father, who was after all nobody more than an ordinary
landowner, the rejected suitor had several thous