One morning Prince Castel-Forte visited her—­he appeared sorrowful—­she asked him the cause of his sorrow.  “This Scotsman,” said he to her, “is about to deprive us of your affections; and who knows even, whether he will not rob us of you entirely?” Corinne was silent for some moments, and then answered, “I assure you he has not even once told me that he loved me.”  “You are, notwithstanding, convinced of it,” answered Prince Castel-Forte; “his conduct is sufficiently eloquent, and even his silence is a powerful means of interesting you.—­What can language express that you have not heard?  What kind of praise is there that has not been offered you?  What species of homage is there that you are not accustomed to receive?  But there is something concealed in the character of Lord Nelville which will never allow you to know him entirely as you know us.  There is no person in the world whose character is more easy than yours to become acquainted with; but it is precisely because you shew yourself without disguise that mystery and reserve have a pleasing ascendancy over you.  That which is unknown, be it what it may, influences you more strongly than all the sentiments which are manifested to you.”  Corinne smiled; “You believe then, my dear Prince,” said she, “that my heart is ungrateful, and my imagination capricious.  Methinks however that Lord Nelville possesses and displays qualities sufficiently remarkable to render it impossible that I can flatter myself with having discovered them.”  “He is, I agree,” answered Prince Castel-Forte, “proud, generous and intelligent; with much sensibility too, and particularly melancholy; but I am very much deceived, or there is not the least sympathy of taste between you.  You do not perceive it while he is under the charm of your presence, but your empire over him would not hold if he were absent from you.  Obstacles would fatigue him; his soul has contracted by the grief which he has experienced, a kind of discouragement, which must destroy the energy of his resolutions; and you know, besides, how much the English in general are enslaved to the manners and habits of their country.”

At these words Corinne was silent and sighed.  Painful reflections on the first events of her life were retraced in her mind; but in the evening she saw Oswald again, more her slave than ever; and all that remained in her mind of the conversation of Prince Castel-Forte was the desire of fixing Lord Nelville in Italy by making him enamoured of the beauties of every kind with which that country abounds.  It was with this intention that she wrote to him the following letter.  The freedom of the life which is led in Rome excused this proceeding, and Corinne in particular, though she might be reproached with too much openness and enthusiasm, knew how to preserve dignity with independence, and modesty with vivacity.

Corinne to Lord Nelville.
Dec. 15th, 1794.

“I do not know, my lord, whether you will think me too confident in myself, or whether you will do justice to the motives which may excuse that confidence.  Yesterday I heard you say that you had not yet seen Rome, that you were neither acquainted with the masterpieces of our fine arts, nor those ancient ruins which teach us history by imagination and sentiment, and I have conceived the idea of presuming to offer myself as your guide in this journey through a course of centuries.