LETTER LXV

_[Copenhagen] September 6 [1795]._

I received just now your letter of the 20th. I had written you a letter last night, into which imperceptibly slipt some of my bitterness of soul. I will copy the part relative to business. I am not sufficiently vain to imagine that I can, for more than a moment, cloud your enjoyment of life--to prevent even that, you had better never hear from me--and repose on the idea that I am happy.

Gracious God! It is impossible for me to stifle something like resentment, when I receive fresh proofs of your indifference. What I have suffered this last year, is not to be forgotten! I have not that happy substitute for wisdom, insensibility--and the lively sympathies which bind me to my fellow-creatures, are all of a painful kind.--They are the agonies of a broken heart--pleasure and I have shaken hands.

I see here nothing but heaps of ruins, and only converse with people immersed in trade and sensuality.

I am weary of travelling--yet seem to have no home--no resting-place to look to.--I am strangely cast off.--How often, passing through the rocks, I have thought, "But for this child, I would lay my head on one of them, and never open my eyes again!" With a heart feelingly alive to all the affections of my nature--I have never met with one, softer than the stone that I would fain take for my last pillow. I once thought I had, but it was all a delusion. I meet with families continually, who are bound together by affection or principle--and, when I am conscious that I have fulfilled the duties of my station, almost to a forgetfulness of myself, I am ready to demand, in a murmuring tone, of Heaven, "Why am I thus abandoned?"

You say now

* * * * *

I do not understand you. It is necessary for you to write more explicitly--and determine on some mode of conduct.--I cannot endure this suspense--Decide--Do you fear to strike another blow? We live together, or eternally part!--I shall not write to you again, till I receive an answer to this. I must compose my tortured soul, before I write on indifferent subjects.

* * * * *

I do not know whether I write intelligibly, for my head is disturbed. But this you ought to pardon--for it is with difficulty frequently that I make out what you mean to say--You write, I suppose, at Mr. ----'s after dinner, when your head is not the clearest--and as for your heart, if you have one, I see nothing like the dictates of affection, unless a glimpse when you mention the child--Adieu!