University of Virginia Library

LETTER XV.

Insolent creature that thou art, Jane,
and cunning as insolent! To elude my just determination
by such an artifice! To counterfeit
a strange hand, in the direction of thy letter,
that I might thereby be induced to open it.

Thou wilt not rest, I see, till thou hast torn
from my heart every root; every fibre of my
once cherished tenderness: Till thou hast laid
my head low in the grave. To number the tears
and the pangs which thy depravity has already
cost me—but thy last act is destined to surpass
all former ones.

Thy perseverance in wickedness, thy inflexible
imposture amazes me beyond all utterance.
Thy effrontery in boasting of thy innocence;
in calling this wretch thy friend, thy soul's
friend, the means of securing the favour of a
pure and all-seeing judge, exceeds all that I
supposed possible to human nature. And that
thou, Jane, the darling of my heart, and the object
of all my care and my pride, should be
this profligate, this obdurate creature!

When very young you were ill of a fever.
The physician gave up, for some hours, all
hope of your life. I shall never forget the

grief which his gloomy silence gave me. All
that I held dear in the world, I then thought, I
would cheerfully surrender to save your life.

Poor short-sighted wretch that I was. That
event, which, had it then happened, would,
perhaps have bereaved me of reason, would
have saved me from a portion far more bitter. I
should have never lived to witness the depravity
of one, whom my whole life had been employed
in training to virtue.

Having opened your letter, and somewhat
debated with myself, I consented to read. I
will do more than read: I will answer it minutely.
I will unfold that secret, by which, you
truly think, my aversion to your present scheme
has been chiefly caused.

I have hitherto been silent thro' compassion
to you; through the hope that all might yet
be well; that you might be influenced by my persuasions
to forbear an action, that will insure
forever your ruin. I now perceive the folly of
this compassion and these hopes. I need not be
assiduous to spare you the shame and mortification
of hearing the truth. Shame is as much a
stranger to your heart as remorse. Say what I
will; disclose what I will, your conduct will be
just the same. A show of much reluctance and
humility will, no doubt, be made, and the tongue
will be busy in imploring favour which the heart
disdains.

In the foresight of this, I was going to forbid
your writing, but you care not for my forbidding.
As long as you think it possible to reconcile me
to your views, and make me a partaker in your
infamy, you will harrass me with importunity;

with feigned penitence and preposterous arguments—But
one thing at least is in my power.
I can shun you, and I can throw your unopened
letters into the fire, and that, believe me,
Jane, I shall do.

But I am wasting time. My indignation carries
me away from my purpose. Let me return
to it, and having told you all my mind, let me
dismiss the hateful subject forever.

I knew the motives that induced you to marry
Lewis Talbot. They were good ones.
Your compliance with mine and your father's
wishes in that respect, shewed that force of understanding
which I always ascribed to you.
Your previous reluctance: your scruples, were
indeed unworthy of you, but you conquered
them and that was better; perhaps, it evinced
more magnanimity than never to have had them.

You were happy, I long thought, in your union
with a man of probity and good sense. You
may be sure, I thought of you often, but only
with pleasure. Certain indications, I early saw
in you of a sensibility that required strict government:
an inattention to any thing but feeling:
a proneness to romantic friendship and a
pining after good not consistent with our nature.
I imagined that I had kept at a distance all such
books and companions as tend to produce this
phantastic character, and whence you imbibed
this perverse spirit, at so early an age, is, to
me, inconceivable. It cost me many a gloomy
foreboding.

My disquiets increased as you grew up, and
that age arrived when the heart comes to be entangled
with what is called love. I was anxious
to find for you a man of merit, to whose keeping

your happiness might safely be entrusted.
Talbot was such an one, but the wayward heart
refused to love him. He was not all your fancy
had conceived of excellent and lovely. He was
a mere man, with the taste and habits suitable
and common to his education and age. He was
addicted to industry, was regular and frugal in
his manners and economy. He had nothing of
that specious and glossy texture which captivates
inexperience and youth, and serves as a
substitute for evey other virtue. While others
talked about their duty he was contented with
performing it, and he was satisfied with ignorance
of theories as long as his practice was
faultless.

He was just such an one as I wished for the
darling of my heart, but you thought not so.
You did not object to his age, though almost
double your own: to his person or aspect, tho'
they were by no means worthy of his mind: to
his profession or condition; but your heart sighed
after one who could divide with you your
sympathies. Who saw every thing just as you
saw it. Who could emulate your enthusiasm,
and echo back every exclamation which chance
should dictate to you.

You even pleaded religion as one of your objections.
Talbot, it seems, had nothing that deserved
to be called religion. He had never reasoned
on the subject. He had read no books
and had never looked into his bible since he was
fifteen years old. He seldom went to Church,
but because it was the fashion, and when there,
seldom spared a thought from his own temporal
concerns, to a future state and a governing

deity. All those expansions of soul, produced
by meditation on the power and goodness
of our maker, and those raptures that flow from
accommodating all our actions to his will, and
from consciousness of his approbation and presence,
you discovered to be strangers to his
breast, and, therefore, you scrupled to unite
your fate with his.

It was not enough that this man has never
been seduced into disbelief. That his faith was
steadfast and rational, without producing those
fervours and reveries and rhapsodies, which unfit
us for the mixed scenes of human life, and
breed in us absurd and phantastic notions of
our duty or our happiness: that his religion had
produced all its practical effects, in honest, regular,
sober and consistent conduct.

You wanted a zealot; a sectary: one that
should enter into all the trifling distinctions and
minute subtilties that make one christian the
mortal foe of another, while, in their social conduct,
there is no difference to be found between
them.

I do not repeat these things to upbraid you for
what you then were, but merely to remind you
of the inconsistency of these notions with your
subsequent conduct. You then, at the instance
of your father and at my instance gave them up,
and that compliance, supposing your scruples
to have been undissembled, made you a still
greater interest in our affections.

You never gave me reason to suppose that you
repented of this compliance. I never saw you
after your engagement, but you wore a cheerful
countenance; at least, till your unfortunate connection

with Colden. To that connection must
be traced every misfortune and depravity that
has attended you since.

When I heard from Patty Sinclair, of his frequent
visits to you during your retirement at
Burlington, I thought of it but little. He was,
indeed, a new acquaintance. You were unacquainted
with his character and history, except
so far as you could collect them from his conversation,
and no confidence could of course, be placed
in that. It was therefore, perhaps, somewhat
indiscreet, to permit such very frequent visits;
such very long walks. To neglect the friends
whom you lived with, for the sake of exclusive
conversations and lonely rambles, noon and
night, with a mere stranger. One, not regularly
introduced to you. Whose name you were
obliged to enquire of himself. You too, already
a betrothed woman: your lover absent: yourself
from home, and merely on terms of hospitality!
all this did not look well.

But the mischief, it was evident, was to be
known by the event. Colden might have probity
and circumspection. He might prove an
agreeable friend to your future husband and a
useful companion to yourself. Kept within due
limits, your complacency for this stranger; your
attachment to his company, might occasion no
inconvenience: How little did I then suspect to
what extremes you were capable of going, and
even then had actually gone!

The subject was of sufficient importance to
induce me to write to you. Your answer was
not quite satisfactory; yet on the whole, laid
my apprehensi ns at rest. I was deceived by

the confidence you expressed in your own caution,
and the seeming readiness there was to be
governed by my advice.

Afterwards, I heard, through various channels,
without any efforts on my part, intelligence
of Colden. At first I was not much alarmed.
Colden, it is true, was not a faultless
or steadfast character. No gross or enormous
vices were ascribed to him. His habits, as far
as appearances enabled one to judge, were temperate
and chaste. He was contemplative and
bookish and was vaguely described as being
somewhat visionary and romantic.

In all this there was nothing formidable.
Such a man might surely be an harmless companion.
Those with whom he was said to associate
most intimately were highly estimable.
Their esteem was a test of merit, not to be disposed
or hastily rejected.

Things, however, quickly took a new face.
I was informed that after your return to the city,
Colden continued to be a very constant visitant.
Your husband's voyage left you soon after at liberty,
and your intercourse with this person,
only became more intimate and confidential.

Reflecting closely on this circumstance, I
began to suspect some danger lurking in your
path. I now remembered that impetuosity of
feeling which distinguished your early age:
those notions of kindred among souls: of
friendship and harmony of feelings which, in
your juvenile age, you loved to indulge.

I reflected that the victory over these chimeras,
which you gained by marriage with Talbot,
might be merely temporary: and that in order

to call these dormant feelings into action, it
was only requisite to meet with one, contemplative,
bookish and romantic as yourself.

Such a one, it was greatly to be feared, you
had now found in this young man; just such qualities
he was reported to possess, as would render
him dangerous to you, and you dangerous to him.
A poet, not in theory only, but in practise:
accustomed to intoxicate the women with melodious
flattery; fond of being intimate; avowedly
devoted to the sex: eloqueut in his encomiums
upon female charms; and affecting
to select his friends only from that sex.

What effect might such a character have upon
your peace, even without imputing any ill
attention to him? both of you might work
your own ruin, while you designed nothing but
good, and even supposing that your intercourse
should be harmless, or even beneficial with
respect to yourselves, what was to be feared
for Talbot? An intimacy of this kind could
hardly escape his observation on his return.
It would be criminal, indeed, to conceal it
from him.

These apprehensions were raised to the highest
pitch by more accurate information of Colden's
character which I afterwards received.
I found, on enquiring of those who had the
best means of knowing, that Colden had imbibed
that pernicious philosophy which is now so
much in vogue. One who knew him perfectly;
who had long been in habits of the closest
intimacy with him, who was still a familiar
correspondent of his, gave me this account.

I met this friend of Colden's, Thomson his

name is, of whom I suppose you have heard
something, in this city. His being mentioned
as the intimate companion of Colden, made me
wish to see him, and fortunately I prevailed
upon him to be very communicative.

Thomson is an excellent young man: he
loves Colden much, and describes the progress
of his friend's opinions with every mark of regret.
He even showed me letters that had passed
between them, and in which every horrid
and immoral tenet was defended by one and
denied by the other. These letters showed
Colden as the advocate of suicide; a scoffer at
promises; the despiser of revelation, of providence
and a future state; an opponent of marriage,
and as one who denied (shocking!) that
any thing but mere habit and positive law, stood
in the way of marriage; nay, of intercourse
without marriage, between brother and sister,
parent and child!

You may readily believe that I did not credit
such things on slight evidence. I did not
rely on Thomson's mere words, solemn and
unaffected as these were; nothing but Colden's
hand-writing could in such a case, be credited.

To say truth, I should not be much surprised
had I heard of Colden, as of a youth whose
notions, on moral and religious topics, were,
in some degree, unsettled: that in the fervour
and giddiness incident to his age, he had not
tamed his mind to investigation: had not subdued
his heart to regular and devout thoughts:
that his passions or his indolence had made the
truths of religion somewhat obscure, and shut
them out, not properly from his conviction
but only from his attention.

I expected to find, united with this vague
and dubious state of mind, tokens of the influence
of a pious education: a reverence, at least,
for those sacred precepts on which the happiness
of men rests, and at least, a practical observance
of that which, if not fully admitted by
his understanding, was yet very far from having
been rejected by it.

But widely and deplorably different was Colden's
case. A most facinating book[1] fell at length
into his hands, which changed, in a moment,
the whole course of his ideas. What he had
before regarded with reluctance and terror,
this book taught him to admire and love. The
writer has the art of the grand deceiver; the
fatal art of carrying the worst poison under the
name and appearance of wholesome food; of
disguising all that is impious or blasphemous
or licentious under the guise and sanctions of
virtue.

Colden had lived before this without examination
or enquiry. His heart, his inclination
was, perhaps, on the side of religion and true
virtue, but this book carried all his inclination,
his zeal and his enthusiasm, over to the adversary,
and so strangely had he been perverted,
that he held himself bound, he conceived it to
be his duty, to vindicate, in private and public,
to preach, with vehemence, his new faith. The
rage for making converts seized him, and that
Thomson was not won over to the same cause,
proceeded from no want of industry in Colden.

Such was the man whom you had admitted
to your confidence; whom you had adopted
for your bosom friend. I knew your pretensions

to religion, the stress which you laid upon
piety as the basis of morals. I remembered
your objections to Talbot on this score, not
only as a husband, but as a friend. I could,
therefore, only suppose that Colden had joined
dissimulation to his other errors, and had
gained and kept your good opinion by avowing
sentiments which his heart secretly abhored.

I cannot describe to you, Jane, my alarms
upon this discovery. That your cook had intended
to poison you, the next meat which you
should eat in your own house, would have alarmed
me I assure you, much less. The preservation
of your virtue was unspeakably of
more importance in my eyes than of your life.

I wrote to you, and what was your reply? I
could scarcely believe my senses. Every horrid
foreboding realized! already such an adept
in this accursed sophistry! the very cant of
that detestible sect adopted!

I had plumed myself upon your ignorance.
He had taken advantage of that, I supposed,
and had won your esteem by counterfeiting a
moral and pious strain. To make you put
him forever at a distance, it was needed only
to tear off his mask. This was done, but, alas,
too late for your safety. The paison was already
swallowed.

I had no patience with you, to listen to your
trifling and insidious distinctions; such as,
though you could audaciously urge them to
me, possessed no weight; could possess no
weight in your understanding. What was it to
me whether he was ruffian or madman; whither

in desroying you, he meant to destroy or
to save? Is it proper to expose your breast to a
sword, because the wretch that wields it, supposes
madly that it is a straw, which he holds in
his hand?

But I will not renew the subject. The same
motives that induced me to attempt to reason
with you then, no longer exists. The anguish,
the astonishment which your letters, as they
gradually unfolded your character, produced
in me, I endeavoured to show you at the time.
Now I pass them over to come to a more important
circumstance.

Yet how shall I tell it thee, Jane. I am afraid
to entrust it to paper. Thy fame is still
dear to me. I would not be the means of irretrievably
blasting thy fame. Yet what may
come of relating some incidents on paper?

Faint is my hope, but I am not without some
hope, that thou canst yet be saved: be snatched
from perdition. Thy life I value not in comparison
with something higher. And if, through
an erring sensibility, the sacrafice of Colden
cost thee thy life, I shall yet rejoice. As the
wife of Colden, thou wilt be worse than dead to
me.

What has come to me, I wonder? I began
this letter with a firm and as I thought inflexible
soul. Despair had made me serene, yet
now thy image rises before me, with all those
bewitching graces which adorned thee when
thou wast innocent and a child. All the mother
seizes my heart and my tears suffocate me.

Shall I shock, shall I wound thee, my child,
by lifting the veil from thy mis-conduct, behind

which thou thinkest thou art screened from every
human eye? How little dost thou imagine
that I know so much!

Now will thy expostulations and reasonings
have an end. Surely they will have an end.
Shame at last; Shame at last will overwhelm
thee and make thee dumb.

Yet my heart sorely misgives me. I shudder
at the extremes to which thy accursed seducer
may have urged thee. What thou hast failed
in concealing, thou mayest be so obdurately
wicked as to attempt to justify.

Was it not the unavoiable result of confiding
in a man avowedly irreligious and immoral:
Of exposing thy understanding and thy heart to
such stratagems as his philosophy made laudable
and necessary? But I know not what I would
say. I must lay down the pen, till I can reason
myself into some composure. I will write again
to-morrow.