The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 12/From Esther Vanhomrigh to Jonathan Swift - 3
FROM MISS VANHOMRIGH.
BELIEVE me, it is with the utmost regret that I now complain to you, because I know your good nature such, that you cannot see any human creature miserable without being sensibly touched. Yet what can I do? I must either unload my heart, and tell you all its griefs, or sink under the inexpressible distress I now suffer by your prodigious neglect of me. It is now ten long weeks since I saw you; and in all that time, I have never received but one letter from you, and a little note with an excuse. Oh! have you forgot me? You endeavour by severities to force me from you. Nor can I blame you: for with the utmost distress and confusion, I beheld myself the cause of uneasy reflections to you: yet I cannot comfort you, but here declare, that it is not in the power of art, time, or accident, to lessen the inexpressible passion, which I have for . Put my passion under the utmost restraint; send me as distant from you as the earth will allow, yet you cannot banish those charming ideas which will ever stick by me, while I have the use of memory: nor is the love I bear you only seated in my soul; for there is not a single atom of my frame, that is not blended with it. Therefore, do not flatter yourself that separation will ever change my sentiments: for I find myself unquiet in the midst of silence, and my heart is at once pierced with sorrow and love. For Heaven's sake, tell me, what has caused this prodigious change in you, which I have found of late. If you have the least remains of pity for me left, tell it me tenderly. No — do not tell it so, that it may cause my present death. And do not suffer me to live a life like a languishing death, which is the only life I can lead, if you have lost any of your tenderness for me.