LETTER XXVIII.
TO E. HARTLEY.
New-York, May 15.
Hartley! how shall I address you!
In terms of indignation or of kindness? Shall
I entreat you to return, or exhort you to obey
the wild dictates of your caprice? Shall I leave
you to your froward destiny, and seek, in the
prospect of a better world, a relief from the
keen distress, the humiliating sorrows of this
scene of weakness and error?
Shall I link my fate with one who is deaf
to the most pathetic calls of his duty? Who
forgets or spurns the most urgent obligations
of gratitude? Whom the charms of nature,
the attractions of science, the claims of helpless
and fond sisters, who trust for shelter, for
bread, for safety from contempt and servitude
and vice, to his protection, his counsel, his
presence, cannot detain from forests and wilds,
where inevitable death awaits him?
Shall I bestow one drop of tender remembrance
on him who upbraids and contemns
me for sacrificing every selfish regard to his
dignity; for stifling in my bosom, that ignoble
passion, which makes us trample on the claims
of others; which seeks its own gratification
at the price of humanity and justice; which
can smile in the midst of repinings and despair,
of creatures no less worthy, no less susceptible
of good?
You say that I love you not. Till this moment
your assertion was untrue. My heart
was not free, till these proofs of your infatuation
and your folly were set before me. Till
now, I was willing to account you not unworthy.
I hoped that time and my efforts, would
reclaim you to some sense of equity and reason.
But now....must I then deem you utterly
lost? Have you committed this last and irretrievable
act? O no! it was surely but a momentary
madness. The fit will be past before
this letter reaches you. You will have opened
your eyes to the cowardice, the ignominy, the
guilt of this flight. You will hasten to close
those wounds which have rent my heart.
You will return to me with the speed of the
wind, and make me, by the rectitude of your
future conduct, forget that you have ever
erred.
Has it come to this! now, that the impediment
has vanished, that my feelings may be
indulged at the cost of no one's peace; now
that the duty which once so sternly forbad me
to be yours, not only permits, but enjoins me
to link together our fates; that the sweet
voice of an approving conscience is ready to
sanction and applaud every impulse of my
heart, and make the offices of tenderness not
only free from guilt, but coincident with every
duty; that now....
Edward! let me hope that thou hast hesitated,
doubted, lingered in thy fatal career.
Let me foster this hope, that I may retain life.
My fortitude, alas! is unequal to this test. No
disaster should bereave me of serenity and
courage; but to this, while I despise myself
for yielding, I must yield. If this letter do
not reach thee; if it fill not thy heart with remorse,
thy eyes with tenderness; if it cure
thee not of thy phrenzy, and bring thee not
back....
It must....it will.
