LETTER III.
TO CLARA HOWARD.
Philadelphia, March 24.
I write to you in a mood not very well
suited to the business. I am weary and impatient.
The company which surrounds me is
alien to my temper and my habits. I want to
shut out the tokens of their existence; to
forget where I am, and restore myself to those
rapturous scenes and that blissful period which
preceded my last inauspicious meeting with
Morton.
I write to you, and yet I have nothing to
say that will please you. My heart overflows
with bitterness. I would pour it out upon you,
and yet my equity will only add new keenness
to my compunction, when I come to review
what I have written. I am disposed to complain.
I want an object to whom to impute my
disasters, and to gratify my malice by upbraiding.
There is a kind of satisfaction in revenge
that I want to taste. I want to shift my anxieties
from my own shoulders to those of another,
who deserves the burden more than I.
Your decision has made me unhappy. I
believe your decision absurd, yet I know your
motives are disinterested and heroic. I know
the misery which adherence to your scheme
costs you. It is only less than my own. Why
then should I aggravate that misery? It is the
system of nature that deserves my hatred and
my curses: that system which makes our very
virtues instrumental to our misery.
But chiefly my own folly have I to deplore:
that folly which made me intrust to you the
story of Miss Wilmot, before the bonds had
been formed which no after-repentance could
break. I ought to have forgotten her existence.
I ought to have claimed your love and your
hand. You would have bestowed them upon
me, and my happiness would have been placed
beyond the reach of caprice.
What has wrought this change in my
thoughts? I set out from Hatfield with an
heart glowing with zeal for the poor Mary. I
burnt with impatience to throw myself at her
feet, and tender her my vows. This zeal time
has extinguished. I call to mind the perfections
of another. I compare them with those of the
fugitive. My soul droops at the comparison,
and my tongue would find it impossible to utter
the vows, which my untoward fate may exact
from me.
Yet there is no alternative. I must finish
the course that I have begun. I must conjure
up impetuosity and zeal in this new cause. I
must act and speak with the earnestness of sincerity
and the pathos of hope. Otherwise I
shall betray my cause and violate my duty.
Alas! it is vain to deny it, my powers are not
equal to this task.
I have inquired at the house where Mrs.
Vallentine formerly lived. A new family are
there, and no intelligence of the former tenant
can be gained from them. This lady has friends,
no doubt, in the city; but I know them not. It
is chance alone that can give me their company.
My efforts are languid and my prospects
dim. I shall stay here for as short a time as
possible, and then proceed to Virginia. I will
not rest till I have restored to Mary her own.
This money shall be faithfully delivered. To
add my heart to the gift is impossible. With
less than my affections she will never be satisfied,
and they are no longer mine to bestow.
Having performed this duty, what will remain
for me. My future destiny it will be
your province to prescribe. I shall cease, however,
to reason with you, or to persuade. Decide
agreeably to your own conceptions of
right, and secure to yourself happiness, even
by allotting misery, banishment, or death, to
