LETTER LXXIII.
TO MISS JULIA GRANBY.
Boston.
A melancholy tale have you
unfolded, my dear Julia; and tragic indeed
is the concluding scene!
Is she then gone! gone in this most distressing
manner! Have I lost my once loved
friend; lost her in a way which I could never
have conceived to be possible.
Our days of childhood were spent together
in the same pursuits, in the same amusements.
Our riper years encreased our mutual affection,
and maturer judgment most firmly cemented
our friendship. Can I then calmly resign her to
so severe a fate! Can I bear the idea of her
being lost to honor, to fame, and to life! No;
she shall still live in the heart of her faithful
Lucy; whose experience of her numerous virtues
and engaging qualities, has imprinted her
image too deeply on the memory to be obliterated.
However she may have erred, her
sincere repentance is sufficient to restore her
to charity.
Your letter gave me the first information
of this awful event. I had taken a short excursion
into the country, where I had not seen
the papers; or if I had, paid little or no attention
to them. By your directions I found
the distressing narrative of her exit. The
poignancy of my grief, and the unavailing lamentations
which the intelligence excited,
need no delineation. To scenes of this nature,
you have been habituted in the mansion
of sorrow, where you reside.
How sincerely I sympathize with the bereaved
parent of the dear, deceased Eliza, I
can feel, but have not power to express. Let
it be her consolation, that her child is at rest.
The resolution which carried this deluded
wanderer thus far from her friends, and
supported her through her various trials, is astonishing!
Happy would it have been, had
she exerted an equal degree of fortitude in repelling
the first attacks upon her virtue! But
she is no more; and heaven forbid that I
should accuse or reproach her!
Yet, in what language shall I express my
abhorrence of the monster, whose detestable
arts have blasted one of the fairest flowers in
creation? I leave him to God, and his own
conscience! Already is he exposed in his
true colors! Vengeance already begins to
overtake him! His sordid mind must now
suffer the deprivation of those sensual gratifications,
beyond which he is incapable of enjoyment!
Upon your reflecting and steady mind, my
dear Julia, I need not inculcate the lessons
which may be drawn from this woe-fraught
tale; but for the sake of my sex in general,
I wish it engraved upon every heart, that virtue
alone, independent of the trappings of
wealth, the parade of equipage, and the adulation
of gallantry, can secure lasting felicity.
From the melancholy story of Eliza Wharton,
let the American fair learn to reject with disdain
every insinuation derogatory to their true
dignity and honor. Let them despise, and
for ever banish the man, who can glory in the
seduction of innocence and the ruin of reputation.
To associate, is to approve; to approve,
is to be betrayed!
I am, &c.
