LETTER VII.
To Henry Colden.
Thursday Night.
What a little thing subverts my peace;
dissipates my resolutions:—am I not an honest
foolish creature, Hal? I uncover this wayward
heart to thy view as promptly as if the disclosure
had no tendency to impair thy esteem,
and forfeit thy love: that is, to devote me to
death; to ruin me beyond redemption.
And yet, if the unveiling of my follies should
have this effect, I think I should despise thee
for stupidity, and hate thee for ingratitude; for
whence proceed my irresolution, my vicissitudes
of purpose, but from my love, and, that
man's heart must be made of strange stuff that
can abhor or contemn a woman for loving him
too much. Of such stuff the heart of my
friend, thank heaven, is
not made. Though I
love him far—
far too much, he will not trample
on, or scoff at me.
But how my pen rambles.—No wonder! for
my intellects are in a strange confusion. There
is an acute pain just here. Give me your hand
and let me put it on the very spot. Alas! there is
no dear hand within my reach. I remember feeling
just such a pain but once before: then you
chanced to be seated by my side. I put your
hand to the spot, and, strange to tell, a moment
after I looked for the pain and 'twas gone—
utterly vanished! Cannot I imagine so strongly
as to experience that relief which your hand
pressed to my forehead would give? Let me lay
down the pen and try.—
Ah! my friend! when present, thou'rt an excellent
physician, but as thy presence is my cure,
so thy absence is my only, my fatal malady.
My desk is, of late, always open: my paper
spread: my pen moist. I must talk to you, tho'
you give me no answer, though I have nothing
but gloomy forebodings to communicate, or
mournful images to call up. I must talk to you,
even when you cannot hear; when invisible; when
distant many a mile. It is some relief even to
corporeal agonies. Even the pain, which I just
now complained of, is lessened since I took up
the pen—O! Hal! Hal! If you ever prove ungrateful
or a traitor to me, and there be a
state retributive hereafter, terrible will be thy
punishment.
But why do I talk to thee thus wildly? why
deal I in such rueful prognostics? I want to tell
you why, for I have a reason for my present
alarms: They all spring from one source—my
doubts of thy fidelity. Yes, Henry, since your
arrival at Wilmington, you have been a frequent
visitant of Miss Secker, and have kept a profound
silence towards me.
Nothing can be weaker and more silly than
these disquiets. Cannot my friend visit a deserving
woman a few times, but my terrors must
impertinently intrude—Cannot he forget the
pen, and fail to write to me, for half a week
together, but my rash resentments must conjure
up the phantoms of ingratitude and perfidy.
Pity the weakness of a fond heart, Henry, and
let me hear from you, and be your precious and
long withheld letter my relief from every disquiet.
I believe, and do not believe what I have
heard, and what I have heard teems with a
thousand mischiefs, or is fair and innocent
according to my reigning temper.—Adieu; but
let me hear from you immediately.
