"Without repeating particular circumstances, let it suffice to say,
our mutual passion was a perfect copy of that which had subsisted
between me and my dear Lord W--. It was jealous, melting and delicate,
and chequered with little accident, which serve to animate and
maintain the flame, in its first ardency of rapture. When my lover
was sick, I attended and nursed him with indefatigable tenderness
and care; and during an indisposition, which I caught in the
performance of this agreeable office, he discharged the obligation
with all the warmth of sympathy and love.
"It was, however, judged necessary by the physicians, that
I should use the Bath waters for the recovery of my health; and I
set out for that place, glad of a pretence to be absent from Lord
--, with whom I lived on very unhappy terms. He had, about nine
months after our marriage, desired that we might sleep in separate
beds, and gave a very whimsical reason for this proposal. He said,
the immensity of his love deprived him of the power of gratification,
and that some commerce with an object, to which his heart was not
attached, might, by diminishing the transports of his spirits,
recompose his nerves, and enable him to enjoy the fruits of his
good fortune.
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