To the Chevalier Dubois, at Malta.

I sincerely rejoice, my dear Dubois, that I am recalled to Malta. However pleasing the society I am in, would be to a mind at ease, the particular feelings of mine make it, if I may so call it, a very painful enjoyment. You endeavour to persuade me to throw aside this boyish passion, as you term it. The advice, I own, is salutary; but the difficulty is in the execution; a difficulty of which you can be no judge, having never felt what you think so easily cured. Indeed, if you had, you would be convinced it does not at all depend on the will. The heart is no longer master of its desires, but is subject to an idol, without being able to form a wish for liberty.

I could not help expressing my sentiments pretty warmly on this subject, in a little conversation which we were led into in the grove, sacred to friendship and the Muses. Zilia seemed uneasy; for which reason I would have dropped it, but by accident it was continued much longer than I wished. My brother, designedly, as I have since thought, drew me on, without my being sensible whither I was going. I stopped, but he replied in a manner that shewed a desire of still prolonging the discourse. You are in the right, says he, and have given us a very just portrait of a lover. Certainly, added he, smiling, you must have been long learning, so well to delineate him; but surely his state is truly pitiable; and if Ovid, that great adept in the science, had but taught us a cure for hapless love, he would have been an able master indeed. I know not how you understand it, replied Zilia, with some confusion; but to me the thing appears not at all impracticable. It is certainly natural to desire the cure of an evil. Ask any one whose lot in life has condemned him to slavery, if he would not gladly throw off his chains, and he will not hesitate a moment in saying Yes.