University of Virginia Library

LETTER XXIV.

I do not mean to reason with you. When
I tell you that you are wrong, I am far from
expecting your assent to my assertion. I say
it not in a tone of bitterness or deprecation.
I am calm, in this respect, as yourself. There
is nothing to ruffle my calm. We fluctuate
and are impatient, only when doubtful of the
future. Our fate being sealed, and an end
being put to suspense and to doubt, the passions
are still. Sedateness and tranquillity at
least are ours.

There is nothing, I repeat, to ruffle my
calm. I am not angry with you, for I know

the purity and rectitude of your motives.
Your judgment only is misguided, but that
is no source of impatience or repining to me.
It is beyond my power, or that of time, to
rectify your error.

I do not pity you. You aspire to true happiness,
the gift of self-approbation and of virtuous
forbearance. You have adopted the
means necessary to this end, and the end is
gained. Why then should I pity you? You
would not derive more happiness from a different
decision. Another would, indeed, be
more happy, but you would, perhaps, be less.
At any rate, your enjoyments would not be
greater than they now are; for what gratification
can be compared to that arising from the
sense of doing as we ought?

I believe you in the wrong, and I tell you
so. It is proper that the truth should be known.
It is proper that my opinion, and the grounds
of it should be known to you. Not that after
this disclosure, you will think or act differently.
Of that I have not the least hope.

You are wrong, Clara. You study, it seems,
the good of others. You desire the benefit of
this girl; and since her happiness lies in being

united to me, and in possessing my affections,
you wish to unite us, and to transfer to her my
love.

It cannot be done. Marry her I may, but
I shall not love her. I cannot love her. This
incapacity, you will think argues infirmity and
vice in me, and lessens me in your esteem. It
ought not to produce this effect. It is a proof
of neither wickedness nor folly. I cannot love
her, because my affections are already devoted
to one more attractive and more excellent than
she.

She has my reverence. If wedlock unites
us, my fidelity will never be broken. I will
watch over her safety with unfailing solicitude.
She shall share every feeling and thought. The
ties of the tenderest friendship shall be hers,
but....nothing more.

You will say that more is due to her; that
a just man will add to every office of a friend
the sanction of ineffable passion. I will not
discuss with you the propriety of loving my
wife, when her moral and intellectual excellence
is unquestionable, and when all her love
is bestowed upon me. I will only repeat, that
passion will never be felt.

What then will be the fruit of marriage?
Nothing but woe to her whom you labour, by
uniting us, to make happy. You rely, however,
on the influence of time and intercourse
to beget that passion which is now wanting.
And think you that this girl will wed a man
who loves her not?

She never will. Our union is impracticable,
not from opposition or refusal on my side,
but on hers. As to me, my concurrence shall
be full, cheerful, zealous. Argument and importunity
will not be wanting. If they fail,
you will ascribe their failure to my coldness,
ambiguity or artifice, or to mistaken generosity
in her with regard to you. The last motive,
after due representations, will not exist.
The former cause may possess some influence,
for I shall act with scrupulous sincerity. I
shall counterfeit no passion and no warmth.
The simple and unembellished truth shall be
told to her, and this I know will be an insurmountable
impediment.

But suppose, for a moment, this obstacle
to disappear, and that Mary is happy as the
wife one who esteems her, indeed, but loves
her not. Your end is accomplished. You

proceed to reap the fruits of disinterested virtue,
and contemplate the felicity which is your
own work.

This girl is the only one of God's creatures
worthy of benevolence. No other is entitled
to the sacrifice of your inclination. None
there are in whose happiness you find a recompence
for evils and privations befalling yourself.

As to me, I am an inert and insensible
atom, or I move in so remote a sphere that
my pains or pleasures are independent of any
will or exertion of yours. But no; that is a
dignity of which I must not boast. I am so far
sunk into depravity, that all my desires are the
instigations of guilt, and all my pleasures those
of iniquity. Duty tells you to withstand and
to thwart, not to gratify my wishes.

I love you, and my happiness depends upon
your favour. Without you, or with another,
I can know no joy. But this, in your opinion,
is folly and perverseness. To aspire to your
favour, when it is beyond my reach, is criminal
infatuation. Not to love her who loves me,
and whose happiness depends upon my love,
is, you think, cruel and unjust. Be it so. Great

indeed, is my demerit. Worthless and depraved
am I, but not single in iniquity and
wretchedness; for the rule is fallacious that is
not applicable to all others in the same circumstances.
That conduct which in me is culpable,
is no less culpable in others. Am I cruel
and unjust, in refusing my love to one that
claims it? So are you, whose refusal is no less
obstinate as to me, as mine with respect to
another; and who hearkens not to claims upon
your sympathy, as reasonable as those of Mary
on mine.

And how is it that miss Wilmot's merits
tower so far above mine? By placing her
happiness in gaining affections which are obstinately
withheld; by sacrificing the duty she
owes herself, her fellow-creatures, and her
God, to grief, because the capricious feelings
of another have chosen a different object of
devotion, does she afford no proof of infatuation
and perverseness? Is she not at least
sunk to a level with me?

But Mary Wilmot and I are not the only
persons affected by your decision. There is
another more entitled to the affections of this
woman than I, because he loves her; because,

in spite of coldness, poverty, and personal
defects; in spite of repulse from her, the aversion
of his family, and the inticements of those
to whom his birth, fortune, and exterior accomplishments
have made him desirable, continues
to love her. With regard to this man
is she not exactly in the same relation as I am to
her? Is it not her duty to consult his happiness,
and no longer to oppose his laudable and
generous wishes? For him and for me, your
benevolence sleeps. With regard to us you
have neither consideration nor humanity.
They are all absorbed in the cause of one,
whose merits, whose claim to your sympathy
and aid, if it be not less, is far from being
greater than Sedley's or mine.

My path is, indeed, plain. I mean to visit
miss Wilmot; but before I see her, I shall
transmit to her all the letters that have passed
between you and me on this subject, and particularly
a copy of this. She shall not be deceived.
She shall judge with all the materials of
a right judgment before her. I am prepared
to devote myself to her will; to join my fate
to hers to-morrow. I do not fear any lessening
of my reverence for her virtues, of that tenderness

which will be her due, and which it becomes
him to feel in whose hands is deposited
the weal or woe of a woman truly excellent.
We have wherewith to secure the blessings
of competence. With that we will seek the
shores of the Ohio, and devote ourselves to
rural affairs. You and yours I shall strive to
forget. Justice to my wife and to myself, will
require this at my hand.

Adieu.