University of Virginia Library

LETTER IX.

I am ashamed of myself, Henry. What an
inconsistent creature am I? I have just placed
this dear letter of your's next my heart. The
sensation it affords, at this moment, is delicious:
almost as much so as I once experienced
from a certain somebody's hand, placed on the
same spot. But that somebody's hand was never
(if I recollect aright) so highly honoured
as this paper. Have I not told you that your
letter is deposited next my heart?

And with all these proofs of the pleasure
your letter affords me, could you guess at the
cause of those tears which even now, have not
ceased flowing? Your letter has so little tenderness—is
so very cold—but let me not be ungrateful
for the preference you grant me,
merely because it is not so enthusiastic and unlimited
as my own.

I suppose, if I had not extorted from you
some account of this poor woman, I should never
have heard a syllable of your meeting with
her. It is surely possible for people to be
their own calumniators, to place their own
actions in the worst light; to exaggerate their
faults and conceal their virtues. If the fictions
and artifices of vanity be detestible, the
concealment of our good actions is surely not
without guilt. The conviction of our guilt is
painful to those that love us; wantonly and
needlessly to give this pain is very perverse
and unjustifiable. If a contrary deportment
argue vanity, self detraction seems to be the
offspring of pride.

Thou art the strangest of men, Henry.
Thy whole conduct, with regard to me has
been a tissue of self-upbraidings. You have
disclosed not only a thousand misdeeds (as you
have thought them) which could not possibly
have come to my knowledge by any other
means, but have laboured to ascribe even your
commendable actions to evil or ambiguous motives.
Motives are impenetrable, and a thousand
cases have occurred in which every rational
observer would have supposed you to be influenced
by the best motives, but where if credit
be due to your own representations, your
motives were far from being laudable.

Why is my esteem rather heigtened than depressed
by this deportment. In truth, there is
no crime which remorse will not expiate, and
no more shining virtue in the whole catalogue
than sincerity. Besides, your own account of
yourself, with all the exaggerations of humility,

proved you, on the whole, and with the allowances
necessarily made by every candid person,
to be a very excellent man.

Your deportment to me ought chiefly to govern
my opinion of you, and have you not been
uniformly generous, sincere and upright? not
quite passionate enough, perhaps; no blind and
precipitate enthusiast; Love has not banished discretion,
or blindfolded your sagacity, and as I
should forgive a thousand errors on the score
of love, I cannot fervently applaud that wisdom
which tramples upon love. Thou hast a thousand
excellent qualities, Henry, that is certain,
yet a little more impetuosity and fervour in thy
tenderness would compensate for the want of
the whole thousand. There is a frank confession
for thee! I am confounded at my own temerity
in making it. Will it not injure me,
in thy esteem, and of all evils which it is possible
for me to suffer, the loss of that esteem,
would soonest drive me to desperation.

The world has been liberal of its censure,
but surely a thorough knowledge of my conduct
could not condemn me. When my father and
mother united their entreaties to those of Talbot,
my heart had never known a preference.
The man of their choice was perfectly indifferent
to me, but every individual of his sex was
regarded with no less indifference. I did not
conceal from him the state of my feelings, but
was always perfectly ingenuous and explicit.
Talbot acted like every man in love. He was
eager to secure me on these terms, and fondly
trusted to his tenderness and perseverance, to
gain those affections, which I truly acknowledged

to be free. He would not leave me for
his Eropean voyage till he had extorted a solemn
promise.

During his absence, I met you. The nature
of those throbs, which a glance of your
very shadow was sure to produce, even previous
to the exchange of a single word between
us, was entirely unknown to me. I had no experience
to guide me. The effects of that intercourse
which I took such pains to procure,
could not be foreseen. My heart was too pure
to admit even such a guest as apprehension,
and the only information I possessed respecting
you, impressed me with the notion that your
heart already belonged to another.

I sought nothing but your society and your
esteem. If the fetters of my promise to Talbot,
became irksome after my knowledge of
you, I was unconscious of the true cause. This
promise never for a moment lost its obligation
with me. I deemed myself as much the wife of
Talbot, as if I had stood with him at the altar.

At the prospect of his return, my melancholy
was excruciating, but the cause was unknown
to me. I had nothing to wish, with regard to
you, but to see you occasionally; to hear your
voice, and to be told that you were happy. It
never occurred to me that Talbot's return would
occasion any difference in this respect. Conscious
of nothing but rectitude in my regard
for you; always frank and ingenuous in disclosing
my feelings, I imagined that Talbot
would adopt you as warmly for his friend as I
had done.

I must grant that I erred in this particular,
but my error sprung from ignorance unavoidable.
I judged of others by my own heart and
very sillily imagined that Talbot would continue
to be satisfied with that cold and friendly
regard for which only my vows made me
answerable—Yet my husband's jealousies and
discontents were not unreasonable. He loved
me with passion, and if that sentiment can endure
to be unrequited, it will never tolerate the
preference of another, even if that preference
be less than love.

In compliance with my husband's wishes—
Ah! my friend! why cannot I say that I did
comply with them; what a fatal act is that of
plighting hands, when the heart is estranged.
Never, never let the placable and compassionate
spirit, be seduced into an union, to which
the affections are averse. Let it not confide
in the after birth of love. Such an union is
the direst cruelty even to the object who is intended
to be benefited.

I have not yet thoroughly forgiven you for
deserting me. My heart swells with anguish
at the thought of your setting more lightly by my
resentment than by that of another; of your willingness
to purchase any one's happiness at the
cost of mine. You are too wise; too dispassionate
by far. Don't dispise me for this accusation,
Henry, You know my unbiassed judgment
has always been with you. Repeated
proofs have convinced me that my dignity and
happiness are safer in your keeping than in
my own.

You guess right my friend. Miss Jessup told
me of your visits to this poor sick woman.

There is something mysterious in the character
of this Polly Jessup. She is particularly solicitous
about every thing which relates to you. It
has occurred to me, since reading your letter,
that she is not entirely without design in her
prattle. Something more, methinks, more than
the mere tatling, gossipping, inquisitive propensity,
in the way in which she introduces you into
conversation.

She had not alighted ten minutes before she
ran into my apartment, with a face full of intelligence.
The truth respecting the wash-woman
was very artfully disguised, and yet so managed
as to allow her to elude the imputation of
direct falsehood. She will, no doubt, in this,
as in former cases cover up all under the appearance
of a good natured jest; yet, if she be in
jest, there is more of malice, I suspect, than
of good nature in her merriment.

Make haste back, my dear Hal. I cannot
bear to keep my mother in ignorance of our resolutions,
and I am utterly at a loss in what manner
to communicate them, so as to awaken the
least reluctance. O! what would be wanting to
my felicity if my mother could be won over to
my side. And is so inestimable a good utterly
hopeless. Come, my friend, and dictate such
a letter as may subdue those prejudices, which,
while they continue to exist, will permit me to
chuse only among deplorable evils.