on any subject we may have in common. Will this satisfy you? Oh let it! suffer me to know you.’
In a postscript she adds, ‘No other cousin or friend of
any style is to see this note.’ So for twenty years it
has lain unseen, but for twenty years did we remain
true to the pledges of that period. And now that noble
heart sleeps beneath the tossing Atlantic, and I feel no
reluctance in showing to the world this expression of
pure youthful ardor, It may, perhaps, lead some wise
worldlings, who doubt the possibility of such a relation,
to reconsider the grounds of their scepticism; or, if not
that, it may encourage some youthful souls, as earnest
and eager as ours, to trust themselves to their hearts’
impulse, and enjoy some such blessing as came to us.
Let me give extracts from other notes and letters, written by Margaret, about the same period.
‘Saturday evening, May 1st, 1830. — The holy
moon and merry-toned wind of this night woo to a
vigil at the open window; a half-satisfied interest
urges me to live, love and perish! in the noble,
wronged heart of Basil;[1] my Journal, which lies before
me, tempts to follow out and interpret the as yet only
half-understood musings of the past week.
Letter-writing, compared with any of these things, takes the
ungracious semblance of a duty. I have, nathless,
after a two hours’ reverie, to which this resolve and its
preliminaries have formed excellent warp, determined
to sacrifice this hallowed time to you.
‘It did not in the least surprise me that you found it impossible at the time to avail yourself of the confiden-
- ↑ The hero of a novel she was reading.
