LETTER LXIV. October 27. I COULD tear open my bosom, I could beat my head against the wall, when I fee how difficult it is to communicate our ideas, our fenfations to others; to make them en*ter intirely into our feelings. I cannot receive from another the love, the joy, the warmth, the pleasure, that I do not naturally poffefs; nor with a heart glowing with the most lively affection, can I make the happiness of one in whom the fame warmth and energy are not inhe rent. LETTER LETTER LXV. October 30. A Hundred times have I been upon the point of catching her in my arms! What torment it is to fee fuch loveliness, fuch charms, paffing and repaffing continually before one, and not dare to touch them! To touch is fo natural: Do not children touch every thing that they fee and I !—— LETTER LETTER LXVI. November 3. OW often when I have lain How down in my bed have I wished never to wake again? and in the morning I open my eyes, I again behold the fun, and I am wretched. Oh! why am I not fanciful and hypochondriacal? Why cannot I attri bute my woes to intemperate feafons,. to disappointed ambition, to the perfecutions of an enemy? for then this infupportable load of difcontent would not reft wholly upon myfelf. But, wretched that I am! I feel it but too fenfibly, I alone am the -cause cause of my unhappiness; this fame bofom which formerly contained a fource of delight, is now the fource of all my torments. Am I not the fame man who formerly felt only agreeable fenfations? who every ftep he took faw paradife before him, and whose heart was expanded, and full of benevolence to the whole world. But this heart is now dead, dead to all fentiment: my eyes are dry, and my fenfes, no longer refreshed by foft tears, wither away, and perish, and confume my brain. My fufferings are great: I have loft the only charm of my life; that active facred power, which created worlds worlds around me; it is no more. From my window I fee the diftant hills the rifing fun breaks through the mists, opens wide the profpect, and illuminates the country. I fee the soft stream gently winding through the willows ftripped of their leaves. Nature displays all her beauties before me, exhibits the most enchanting fcenes, and my heart is unmoved; I remain blind, infenfible, petrified. Often have I implored Heaven for tears, as the labourer prays for dews to moisten the parched corn. But, I feel it, God does not grant fun-fhine or rain to importunate en treaties. |