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Read Ebook: Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister by Behn Aphra
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Ebook has 106 lines and 181337 words, and 3 pages
Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister
OCTAVIO.
PHILANDER.
OCTAVIO.
PHILANDER.
PHILANDER.
POSTSCRIPT.
OCTAVIO.
SYLVIA.
Thy SYLVIA.
PHILANDER.
BRILLIARD.
POSTSCRIPT.
'Tis true, that in obedience to your commands, I begged your pardon for the confession I made you of my passion: but since you could not but see the contradiction of my tongue in my eyes, and hear it but too well confirmed by my sighs, why will you confine me to the formalities of a silent languishment, unless to increase my flame with my pain?
OCTAVIO.
POSTSCRIPT.
SYLVIA.
OCTAVIO.
OCTAVIO.
All night I languish by his side, And fancy joys I never taste; As men in dreams a feast provide,
Like a fair flower in shades obscurity, Though every sweet adorns my head, Ungather'd, unadmired I lie, And wither on my silent gloomy bed, While no kind aids to my relief appear, And no kind bosom makes me triumph there.
PHILANDER.
POSTSCRIPT.
OCTAVIO.
SYLVIA.
SYLVIA.
OCTAVIO.
This letter to any other less secure of her power than was our fair subject, would have made them impatient and angry; but she found that there was something yet in her power, the dispensation of which could soon recall him from any resolution he was able to make of absenting himself. Her glass stood before her, and every glance that way was an assurance and security to her heart; she could not see that beauty, and doubt its power of persuasion. She therefore took her pen, and writ him this answer, being in a moment furnished with all the art and subtlety that was necessary on this occasion.
SYLVIA.
OCTAVIO.
SYLVIA.
SYLVIA.
After such a parting from a maid so entirely kind to you, she might at least have hoped the favour of a billet from you, to have informed her of your health; unless you think that after we have surrendered all, we are of the humour of most of your sex, who despise the obliger; but I believed you a man above the little crimes and levities of your race; and I am yet so hard to be drawn from that opinion, I am willing to flatter myself, that 'tis yet some other reason that has hindered you from visiting me since, or sending me an account of your recovery, which I am too sensible of to believe was feigned, and which indeed has made me so tender, that I easily forgive all the disappointment I received from it, and beg you will not afflict yourself at any loss you sustained by it, since I am still so much the same I was, to be as sensible as before of all the obligations I have to you; send me word immediately how you do, for on that depends a great part of the happiness of
SYLVIA.
I must confess, oh thou deceiving fair one, I never could pretend to what I wished, and yet methinks, because I know my heart, and the entire devotion, that is paid you, I merited at least not to have been imposed upon; but after so dishonourable an action, as the betraying the secret of my friend, it was but just that I should be betrayed, and you have paid me well, deservedly well, and that shall make me silent, and whatsoever I suffer, however I die, however I languish out my wretched life, I'll bear my sighs where you shall never hear them, nor the reproaches my complaints express: live thou a punishment to vain, fantastic, hoping youth, live, and advance in cunning and deceit, to make the fond believing men more wise, and teach the women new arts of falsehood, till they deceive so long, that man may hate, and set as vast a distance between sex and sex, as I have resolved thou shalt be for ever from OCTAVIO.
I confess my yesterday's rudeness, and beg you will give me a pardon before I leave the world; for I was last night taken violently ill, and am unable to wait on your lordship, to beg what this most earnestly does for your lordship's most devoted servant,
BRILLIARD.
PHILANDER.
POSTSCRIPT.
SYLVIA.
The Amours of Philander and Sylvia
It was thus they passed their time, and nothing was wanting that lavish experience could procure, and every minute he advances to new freedoms, and unspeakable delights, but still such as might hitherto be allowed with honour; he sighs and wishes, he languishes and dies for more, but dares not utter the meaning of one motion of breath; for he loved so very much, that every look from those fair eyes charmed him, awed him to a respect that robbed him of many happy moments, a bolder lover would have turned to his advantage, and he treated her as if she had been an unspotted maid; with caution of offending, he had forgot that general rule, that where the sacred laws of honour are once invaded, love makes the easier conquest.
BRILLIARD.
Go from my window, my adorable friend, and be not afflicted that I do not entertain you as I had the joy to do last night; for both our voices were heard by some one that lodges below; and though your uncle could not tell me any part of our conversation, yet he heard I talked to some body: I have persuaded him the fellow dreamed who gave him this intelligence, and he is almost satisfied he did so; however, hazard not thy dear-self any more so, but let me lose for a while the greatest happiness this earth can afford me, rather than expose what is dearer to me than life or honour: pity the fate I was born to, and expect all things from
He had no sooner read this, but he went to write an answer, which was this.
SYLVIA.
He immediately sat down, and wrote this:
OCTAVIO.
PHILANDER.
This letter raised in her a different sentiment, from that of the story of his misfortune; and that taught her to know, that this he had writ to her was all false, and dissembled; which made her, in concluding the letter, cry out with a vehement scorn and indignation.--'Oh how I hate thee, traitor! who hast the impudence to continue thus to impose upon me, as if I wanted common sense to see thy baseness: for what can be more base and cowardly than lies, that poor plebeian shift, condemned by men of honour or of wit.'
'My counsel, with the same persuasion from all of quality of the party, who came to see him, was at last approved of by him, and he began to say a thousand things to assure me of his fidelity to his friends, and the faction, which he vowed never to forsake, for any other interest, but to stand or fall in its defence, and that he was resolved to be a king, or nothing; and that he would put in practice all the arts and stratagems of cunning, as well as force, to attain to this glorious end, however crooked and indirect they might appear to fools. However, he conceived the first necessary step to this, was the getting his pardon, to gain a little time, to manage things anew to the best advantage: that at present all things were at a stand without life or motion, wanting the sight of himself, who was the very life and soul of motion, the axle-tree that could turn the wheel of fortune round about again.
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