Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister by Aphra Behn

Author:Aphra Behn
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781634210003
Publisher: Duke Classics

Part III - The Amours of Philander and Silvia

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Octavio, the brave, the generous, and the amorous, having left Sylvia absolutely resolved to give herself to that doting fond lover, or rather to sacrifice herself to her revenge, that unconsidering unfortunate, whose passion had exposed him to all the unreasonable effects of it, returned to his own house, wholly transported with his happy success. He thinks on nothing but vast coming joys: nor did one kind thought direct him back to the evil consequences of what he so hastily pursued; he reflects not on her circumstances but her charms, not on the infamy he should espouse with Sylvia, but on those ravishing pleasures she was capable of giving him: he regards not the reproaches of his friends; but wholly abandoned to love and youthful imaginations, gives a loose to young desire and fancy that deludes him with a thousand soft ideas: he reflects not, that his gentle and easy temper was most unfit to join with that of Sylvia, which was the most haughty and humorous in nature; for though she had all the charms of youth and beauty that are conquering in her sex, all the wit and insinuation that even surpasses youth and beauty; yet to render her character impartially, she had also abundance of disagreeing qualities mixed with her perfections. She was imperious and proud even to insolence; vain and conceited even to folly; she knew her virtues and her graces too well, and her vices too little; she was very opinionated and obstinate, hard to be convinced of the falsest argument, but very positive in her fancied judgement: abounding in her own sense, and very critical on that of others: censorious, and too apt to charge others with those crimes to which she was herself addicted, or had been guilty of: amorously inclined, and indiscreet in the management of her amours, and constant rather from pride and shame than inclination; fond of catching at every trifling conquest, and loving the triumph, though she hated the slave. Yet she had virtues too that balanced her vices, among which we must allow her to have loved Philander with a passion, that nothing but his ingratitude could have decayed in her heart, nor was it lessened but by a force that gave her a thousand tortures, racks and pangs, which had almost cost her her less valued life; for being of a temper nice in love, and very fiery, apt to fly into rages at every accident that did but touch that tenderest part, her heart, she suffered a world of violence, and extremity of rage and grief by turns, at this affront and inconstancy of Philander. Nevertheless she was now so discreet, or rather cunning, to dissemble her resentment the best she could to her generous lover, for whom she had more inclination than she yet had leisure to perceive, and which she now attributes wholly to her revenge; and considering Octavio as the most proper instrument for that,

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