Tales and Novels Volume VIII Part 67

MY DEAR FRIEND,

It is well that I did not answer your letter of Sat.u.r.day before I received that of Monday. My congratulations upon your quarrel with your fair one might have come just as you were kissing hands upon a reconciliation.

I have often found a great convenience in writing a bad hand; my letters are so little like what they are intended for, and have among them such equality of unintelligibility, that each seems either; and with the slightest alteration, each will stand and serve for the other. My _m_, _n_, and _u_, are convertible letters; so are the terms and propositions of your present mode of reasoning, my dear L----, and I perceive that you find your account in it. Upon this I congratulate you; and I congratulate Lady Leonora upon your being detained some weeks longer in England. Those who have a just cause need never pray for victory; they need only ask the G.o.ds for time. Time always brings victory to truth, and shame to falsehood. But you are not worthy of such fine apophthegms.

At present "you are not fit to hear yourself convinced." I will wait for a better opportunity, and have patience with you, if I can.

You seem to plume yourself mightily upon your resolve to do justice to the merits of your wife, and upon the courage you have shown in stuffing cotton into your ears to prevent your listening to the voice of the siren: but pray take the cotton out, and hear all she can say or sing.

Lady Leonora cannot be hurt by any thing Olivia can say, but her own malice may destroy herself.

In the mean time, as you tell me that you are upon velvet again, I am to presume that you are perfectly at ease; and I should be obliged to you, if, as often as you can find leisure, you would send me bulletins of your happiness. I have never yet been in love with one of these high-flown heroines, and I am really curious to know what degree of felicity they can bestow upon a man of common sense. I should be glad to benefit by the experience of a friend.

Yours truly,

J.B.

LETTER LXXIV.

OLIVIA TO MADAME DE P----.

Richmond.

Accept my sincere thanks, inimitable Gabrielle! for having taken off my hands a lover, who really has half-wearied me to death. If you had dealt more frankly with me, I could, however, have saved you much superfluous trouble and artifice. I now perfectly comprehend the cause of poor R----'s strange silence some months ago; he was then under the influence of your charms, and it was your pleasure to deceive me even when there was no necessity for dissimulation. You knew the secret of my growing attachment to L----, and must have foreseen that R---- would be burthensome to me. You needed therefore only to have treated me with candour, and you would have gained a lover without losing a friend: but Madame de P---- is too accomplished a politician to go the simple straight road to her object. I now perfectly comprehend why she took such pains to persuade me that an imperial lover was alone worthy of my charms. She was alarmed by an imaginary danger. Believe me, I am incapable of disputing with any one _les restes d'un coeur_.

Permit me to a.s.sure you, madam, that your incomparable talents for explanation will be utterly thrown away on me in future. I am in possession of the whole truth, from a person whose information I cannot doubt: I know the precise date of the commencement of your connexion with R----, so that you must perceive it will be impracticable to make me believe that you have not betrayed my easy confidence.

I cannot, however, without those pangs of sentiment which your heart will never experience, reflect upon the treachery, the perfidy of one who has been my bosom friend.--Return my letters, Gabrielle.--With this you will receive certain _souvenirs_, at which I could never henceforward look without sighing. I return you that ring I have so long worn with delight, the picture of that treacherous eye,[1] which you know so well how to use.--Adieu, Gabrielle.--The illusion is over.--How many of the illusions of my fond heart have been dispelled by time and treachery!

OLIVIA.

[Footnote 1: Certain ladies at this time carried pictures of the eyes of their favourites.]

LETTER LXXV.

MADAME DE P---- TO MONSIEUR R----.

Paris, ---- 18, ----.

I have just received the most extravagant letter imaginable from your Olivia. Really you may congratulate yourself, my dear friend, upon having recovered your liberty. 'Twere better to be a galley slave at once than to be bound to please a woman for life, who knows not what she would have either in love or friends.h.i.+p. Can you conceive anything so absurd as her upbraiding me with treachery, because I know the value of a heart, of which she tells me she was more than half tired? as if I were to blame for her falling in love with Mr. L----, and as if I did not know the whole progress of her inconstancy. Her letters to me give a new history of the birth and education of Love. Here we see Love born of Envy, nursed by _Ennui_, and dandled in turn by all the Vices.

And this Lady Olivia fancies that she is a perfect French woman! There is nothing we Parisians abhor and ridicule so much as these foreign, and always awkward, caricatures of our manners. With us there are many who, according to a delicate distinction, lose their virtue without losing their taste for virtue; but I flatter myself there are few who resemble Olivia entirely--who have neither the virtues of a man nor of a woman.

One cannot even say that "her head is the dupe of her heart," since she has no heart. But enough of such a tiresome and incomprehensible subject.

How I overvalued that head, when I thought it could ever be fit for politics! 'Tis well we did not commit ourselves. You see how prudent I am, my dear R----, and how much those are mistaken who think that we women are not fit to be trusted with secrets of state. Love and politics make the best mixture in the world. Adieu. Victoire summons me to my toilette.

GABRIELLE DE P----.

LETTER LXXVI.

MADAME DE P---- TO LADY OLIVIA.

Paris,---- 18, ----.

Really, my dear Olivia, this is too childish. What! make a complaint in form against me for taking a lover off your hands when you did not know what to do with him! Do you quarrel in England every time you change partners in a country dance? But I must be serious; for the high-sounding words _treachery_ and _perfidy_ are surely sufficient to make any body grave. Seriously, then, if you are resolved to be tragical, _et de me faire une scene_, I must submit--console myself, and, above all things, take care not to be ridiculous.

Your letters, as you desire it so earnestly, and with so much reason, shall be returned by the first safe conveyance; but excuse me if I forbear to restore your _souvenirs_. With us Parisians, this returning of keepsakes has been out of fas.h.i.+on, since the days of Moliere and _Le depit amoureux_.

Adieu, my charming Olivia! I embrace you tenderly, I was going to say; but I believe, according to your English etiquette, I must now conclude with

I have the honour to be,

Madam,

Your most obedient,

Humble servant,

GABRIELLE DE P----.

LETTER LXXVII.

FROM OLIVIA TO MR. L----.

Tuesday morning.

Come not to Richmond to-day; I am not in spirits to see you, my dearest L----. Allow me to indulge my melancholy retired from every human eye.

OLIVIA.

LETTER LXXVIII.

FROM LADY OLIVIA TO MR. L----.

Tuesday evening.