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ot overcome it with the strength of my resolution nable to find the remedy for this singular woun h was nowhere and yet was everywhere, I resolv to my life.'

Most High, who hearest me, pardon an unhapp vens had almost deprived of reason. I was fu I was reasoning as if impious; my heart love it did not know him; my acts, my words, my feel ts, were one continued contradiction, darkness es man always know what he wants? Is he alway hinks??

I ha

ing at once, friendship, world, retreat. nd they all proved fatal. Repulsed by societ nelie, when solitude failed what remained for m ank on which I had hoped to save myself, and ■g in the abyss!'

s I was to free myself from the load of life, I r ll my senses towards that senseless action. Not I did not fix the moment of departure, in ord draughts the last moments of existence, and ength, after the example of an ancient, that al pass away.'

me I thought of the necessity of making arrang my fortune, and I was obliged to write to Am laints of her forgetfulness escaped me, and

well preserved; but my sister, accustomed to read within the recesses of my soul, divined it easily. She was alarmed by the tone of constraint which reigned throughout my letter, and by my questions on matters of business, to which I had never before given my attention. Instead of answering me, she came suddenly to surprise me.'

'To feel fully what really was in the sequel the bitterness of my grief, and what were my first transports on seeing Amelie again, you must know that she was the only person in the world whom I had loved, that all my memories rushed in confusion to her, with the pleasure of the memories of my childhood. I therefore received Amelie with an apparent delirium of the heart. It had been so long a time since I had found any one who understood me, and before whom I could open my soul !'

'Amelie, casting herself in my arms, said to me: "Ungrateful, thou wishest to die, and thy sister lives! Thou dost suspect her heart! Explain not thyself, excuse not thyself, I know all; I have understood all, as if I had been with thee. Can I be deceived, I, who have seen thy first feelings springing into life? Behold thy unhappy character, thy disgusts, thy unjust conduct. Swear, while I am pressing thee on my heart, swear that this is the last time thou wilt give thyself up to desperation: make oath that thou wilt never attempt thy days."

'Pronouncing these words, Amelie looked on me with compassion and tenderness, and covered my forehead with her kisses; she acted like a mother, with a devotion the most tender. Alas! my heart opened itself again to every joy; like a child, I sought only to be consoled; I yielded to the sway of Amelie: she exacted a solemn oath; I made it without hesitation, not suspecting even that henceforth I could be unhappy.'

'We were more than a month accustoming ourselves to the enchantment of being together. When the morning came, instead of finding myself alone, I was hearing the voice of my sister, I was experiencing a thrill of joy and of happiness. Amelie had received from nature something divine; her soul had the same innocent graces as her body; the sweetness of her sentiments was infinite; she had nothing but what was gentle and delicately thoughtful in her spirit; one might say that her heart, her thought and her voice flowed as in concert; she united the modesty and the love of woman with the purity and the melody of the angel.'

'The time came for me to expiate all my inconsistencies. In my delirium, I have even prayed to experience a misfortune, to have at least a real object of affliction: dreadful wish, which God, in his wrath, has awfully fulfilled.'

'What am I about to reveal to you, O my friends! See ye the tears which flow from my eyes. Can I even

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Many days passed, nothing could draw this secret from me *
Now all is done!'

'Yet, O venerable men, would that this history might forever be enveloped in silence: remember that it has been related to you only under the tree of the desert.'

'Winter was passing away, when I perceived that Amelie lost the repose and the health, which she began to restore to me. She was fading away, her eyes were sinking, her gait was languishing, and her voice failing. One day I surprised her in a flood of tears at the foot of a cross. The world, the solitude, my absence, my presence, the night, the day, everything alarmed her. Involuntary sighs arose and died on her lips; sometimes she took a long walk without exhaustion; at other times she scarcely drew herself along; she took up and laid down her work, opened a book without being able to read, began a sentence and left it unfinished, fell suddenly in tears, and retired to pray.'

'In vain I tried to find out her secret. When I asked for it, pressing her in my arms, she answered me with a smile, that she was like me, that she did not know what she had."

"Three months passed in this wise, and her condition became worse each day. A mysterious correspondence seemed to me to be the cause of her tears; because she appeared, either more tranquil, or more disturbed, according to the letters she received. At last, one morning, the hour at which we took breakfast together being passed, I ascended to her apartment; I rapped: no one answered me; I opened the door: there was no one in the room. I saw by the chimney a packet with my address. I seized it trembling, I opened it, and I read that letter, which I preserve depriving myself in the future of every emotion of joy.*

"TO RENE."

"Heaven bears witness, my brother, that I would give my life thousand times to spare you one moment of pain; but unfortunate that I am, I can do nothing for your happiness. You will therefore pardon me for having stolen myself away from home like

one culpable; I would have been unable to resist your prayers, and moreover I must go * * My God, have pity on me! "You know, René, that I have always had a proneness for religious life; it is time that I take advantage of the warnings of heaven. Why have I waited so long? God punishes me for it. On your account I was remaining in the world *

am deeply afflicted with grief at leaving you.

Pardon, I

"At present, my dear brother, I feel the necessity of those asylums, against which I have often heard you raise your voice. It is on account of misfortunes that we are separated forever from mankind: what then will become of the poor unfortunate? * * * I am persuaded that you, yourself, my brother, would find repose in those retreats of religion:, the world offers nothing that is worthy of you.

"I will not release you of your oath: I know your fidelity to your word. You have sworn you will live, live for me. Is there anything more miserable than the continual thought of quitting life? For a man of your character, it is so easy to die! Think of your sister, it is more difficult to live.

"But, my brother, as soon as possible, leave solitude, it is not good for you; seek some occupation. I know that you will smile bitterly at the necessity in France to take an office. Do not despise so much the experience and the wisdom of your fathers. It is better, my dear René, to be a little more like common men, and to have a little less of misfortune.

"Perhaps you might find in marriage a solace for your ennuis. A wife and children would engage your attention. And who is the woman that would not seek to render you happy! The ardor of your soul, the beauty of your genius, your noble and impassioned air, that proud yet tender look, everything would assure you of her love and her fidelity. Ah! with what delight would she press thee in her arms, and on her heart! As all her thoughts, all her attention would be bound to thee, to prevent thy least anxiety! She would be all love, all innocence before thee; thou wouldst believe that thou hadst again found a sister.

go

"I to the convent of * * * This monastery, built on the brink of the sea, suits the condition of my soul. At night, from the depth of my cell, I will hear the murmur of the waves which bathe the walls of the convent; I will think of those walks I took with you amid the woods, when we thought we heard again the

noise of the sea in the waving top of the pines. Amiable companion of my childhood, is it possible I will see you no more? A little older than you, I used to rock you in your cradle; often have we slept together. Ah! that one and the same tomb might hereafter re-unite us! But no: I ought to sleep alone under the cold marble of that sanctuary, where those nuns who have never loved, rest forever.

"I know not if you can read these lines half blotted out by my tears. However, my friend, sooner or later, must we not part? What care I for entertaining you with the uncertainty and with the slight value of life? You remember the young M * * * who was shipwrecked on the Isle of France. When you received his last letter, some months after his death, even his mortal remains were no more; and when you began to mourn for him in Europe, at that instant, they ceased mourning for him in the Indies. How is it that the memory of a man dies so soon? A part of his friends are already consoled, before the other can hear of his death! What! dear and too dear René, will my memory vanish so soon from thy heart? O my brother! if I part from you on earth, it is to be united with you in eternity.

AMELIE."

"P. S.-Inclosed herewith I leave you a deed of donation of my property; I hope you will not refuse this token of my friendship."

"The lightning which might strike at my feet could not cause me more terror than that letter. What secret was it that Amelie concealed from me? Who could have forced her so suddenly to embrace the religious life? Had she bound me back to earth by the charm of friendship, only to forsake me at once? Ah! why did she come to dissuade me from my design? An emotion of pity had recalled her to me; but, soon wearied with a painful duty, she hastened to leave an unhappy man who had no one but her on the earth. She thought she had done all when she had prevented a man from dying! Such were my complaints. Then, returning to myself: Ungrateful Amelie, said I, if thou hadst been in my place; if, as I, thou hadst been lost in the vacuum of thy days, ah! thou wouldst not have been forsaken by thy brother!

'In the meantime, when I read her letter again, I found there something, I know not what, so sad and so tender, that my whole heart melted. Suddenly an idea sprang in my mind which gave

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