Undoubtedly virtuous love can shed a
charm over pleasures which are thus mingled with bitterness. But Virginia
is no more; yet those persons still live, whom, next to yourself, she held
most dear; her mother, and your own, whom your inconsolable affliction is
bending with sorrow to the grave. Place your happiness, as she did hers, in
affording them succour. And why deplore the fate of Virginia? Virginia
still exists. There is he assured, a region in which virtue receives its
reward. Virginia now is happy. Ah! if, from the abode of angels, she could
tell you, as she did when she bid you farewell. 'O, Paul! life is but a
trial. I was faithful to the laws of nature, love, and virtue. Heaven found
I had fulfilled my duties, and has snatched me for ever from all the
miseries I might have endured myself, and all I might have felt for the
miseries of others. I am placed above the reach of all human evils, and you
pity me! I am become pure and unchangeable as a particle of light, and you
would recall me to the darkness of human life! O, Paul! O, my beloved
friend! recollect those days of happiness, when in the morning we felt the
delightful sensations excited by the unfolding beauties of nature; when we
gazed upon the sun, gilding the peaks of those rocks, and then spreading
his rays over the bosom of the forests.
"'How exquisite were our emotions while we enjoyed the glowing colours of
the opening day, the odours of our shrubs, the concerts of our birds! Now,
at the source of beauty, from which flows all that is delightful upon
earth, my soul intuitively sees, tastes, hears, touches, what before she
could only be made sensible of through the medium of our weak organs.
Pages:
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138