LETTER XXVII.
To Mrs Talbot.
Baltimore, November 5.
I HIGHLY approve of your letter. It far exceeded
the expectations I had formed of you. You
are, indeed, a surprising creature.
One cannot fail to be astonished at the differences
of human characters; at the opposite
principles by which the judgments of men are
influenced.
Experience, however, is the antidote of wonder.
There was a time when I should have
reflected on the sentiments of your mother,
with a firm belief that no human being could
be practically influenced by them.
She offers, and surely with sincerity, to divide
her large property with you: to give away
half her estate during her own life, and while,
indeed, she is yet in her prime; and to whom
give it? to one who has no natural relation to
her: who is merely an adopted child: who has
acted for several years, in direct repugnance to
her will: in a manner she regards as not only
indiscreet, but flagrantly criminal. Whom one
guilty act has (so it must appear to your mamma)
involved her in a continued series of
falsehoods and frauds.
She offers this immense gift to you, on no condition
but a mere verbal promise to break off
intercourse with the man you love, and with
whom you have been actually criminal.
She seems not aware how easily promises are
made that are not designed to be performed:
how absurd it would be to rely upon your integrity
in this respect, when you have shewn yourself
(so, it must appear to her) grossly defective
in others of infinitely greater moment. How easily
might a heart like yours be persuaded to recall
its promises; or violate this condition, as
soon as the performance of her contract has
made you independent of her and of the world.
You promise;—it is done in half a dozen
syllables—that you will see the hated Colden
no more. All that you promise, you intend.
To-morrow she enriches you with half her fortune.
Next day, the seducer comes, and may
surely expect to prevail on you to forget this
promise, since he has conquered your firmness
in a case of unspeakably greater importance.
This offer of hers surely indicates, not only
love for you, but reverence for your good faith
inconsistent with the horrid imputation she has
urged against you.
As to me, what a portrait does her letter exhibit.
And yet this scoffer at the obligation of
a promise, is offered four or five thousand dollars
on condition that he plights his word to
embark for England, and to give up all his
hopes of you.
Villain as he is; a villain not by habit or by
passion, but by principle; a cool blooded systematic
villain; yet she will give him affluence
and the means of depraving thousands, by his
example and his rhetoric, on condition that
he refuses to marry the woman whom he has
made an adulteress. Who has imbibed, from
the contagion of his discourse, all the practical
and speculative turpitude which he has to impart.
This conduct might be considered only as
proving her aversion to me. So strong is it, as
to impel her to indiscreet and self-destructive
expedients: and so I should likewise reason if
these very expedients did not argue a confidence
in my integrity somewhat inconsistent
with the censure passed on my morals.
After all, is there not reason to question the
sincerity of her hatred? Is not thy mother a
dissembler, Jane? does she really credit the
charge she makes against thee? does she really
suppose me that insane philosopher which her
letter describes?
Yet this is only leaping from a ditch into a
quicksand. It is quite as hard to account for
her dissimulation, as for her sincerity. Why
should she pretend to suspect you of so black a
deed, or me of such abominable tenets?
And yet, an observer might say, it is one
thing to promise and another to perform in her
case as well as in ours. She tells us what she
will do, provided we enter into such engagements,
but, if we should embrace her offers, is
it certain that she would not hesitate, repent,
and retract.
Passion may dictate large and vehement offers
upon paper, which deliberating prudence
would never allow to be literally adhered to.
Besides, may not these magnificent proposals
be dictated by a knowledge of our characters,
which assured her that they would never be accepted.
But, with this belief, why should the
offers be made?
The answer is easy. These offers, by the
kindness and respect for us which they manifest,
engage our esteem and gratitude, and by
their magnitude, shew how deeply she abhors
this connection, and hence dispose us to do that,
for pity's sake, which mere lucre would never
recommend.
And here is a string of guesses to amuse thee
Jane. Their truth or falsehood is of little moment
to us, since these offers ought not to influence
our conduct.
One thing is sure; that is, thy mother's aversion
to me. And yet I ought not to blame her.
That I am an Atheist in morals, the Seducer
of her daughter, she fully believes, and these
are surely sufficient objections to me. Would
she be a discerning friend; or virtuous mother
if she did not with this belief remonstrate against
your alliance with one so wicked.
The fault lies not with her. With whom
then does it lie? Or, what only is important,
where is the remedy? Expostulation and remonstrance
will avail nothing. I cannot be an hypocrite,
I cannot dissemble that I have once
been criminal; and that I am, at present, conscious
of a thousand weaknesses and self distrusts.
There is but one meagre and equivocal
merit that belongs to me. I stick to the truth:
Yet this is a virtue of late growth. It has not
yet acquired firmness to resist the undermining
waves of habit, or to be motionless amidst the
hurricane of passions.
You offer me yourself. I love you. Shall I
not then accept your offer? Shall my high conception
of your merits, and my extreme contempt
and distrust of myself, hinder me from
receiving so precious a boon? Shall I not make
happy by being happy? Since you value me so
much beyond my merits: since my faults though
fully disclosed to you, do not abate your esteem,
do not change your views in my favour, shall I
withhold my hand?
I am not obdurate. I am not ungrateful.
With you I never was an hypocrite. With the
rest of the world I have ceased to be so. If I
look forward without confidence, I look back
with humiliation and remorse. I have always
wished to be good, but till I knew you, I despaired
of ever being so, and even now my hopes
are perpetually drooping.
I sometimes question, especially since your actual
condition is known, whether I should accept
your offered hand: But mistake me not, my beloved
creature. My distrust does not arise from
any doubts of my own constancy. That I shall
grow indifferent or forgetful or ungrateful to
you, can never be.
All my doubts are connected with you. Can
I compensate you for those losses which will
follow your marriage. The loss of your mother's
affection; the exchange of all that splendour
and abundance you have hitherto enjoyed
for obscurity and indigence.
You say I can. The image of myself in my
own mind is a sorry compound of hateful or despicable
qualities. I am even out of humour with
my person, my face. So absurd am I in my
estimates of merit, that my homely features and
my scanty form, had their part in restraining me
from aspiring to one supreme in loveliness, and
in causing the surprise that followed the discovery
of your passion.
In your eyes, however, this mind and this person
are venerable and attractive. My affection,
my company, are chief goods with you. The
possession of all other goods cannot save you from
misery, if this be wanting. The loss of all others
will not bereave you of happiness if this be possessed.
Fain would I believe you. You decide but
reasonably. Fortune's goods ought not to be so
highly prized, as the reason of many prizes them,
and as my habits, in spite of reason's dissent, and
remonstrances compel me to prize them. They
contribute less to your happiness, and that industry
and frugality which supplies their place, you
look upon without disgust; with even some degree
of satisfaction.
Not so I; I cannot labour for bread; I cannot
work to live. In that respect I have no parallel.
The world does not contain my likeness.
My very nature unfits me for any profitable
business. My dependence must ever be on
others or on fortune.
As to the influence of some stronger motive
to industry than has yet occurred: I am without
hope. There can be no stronger ones to a generous
mind, than have long been urgent with
me: being proof against these, none will ever
conquer my reluctance.
I am not indolent, but my activity is vague;
profitless; capricious. No lucrative or noble purpose
impels me. I aim at nothing but selfish
gratification. I have no relish, indeed, for sensual
indulgences. It is the intellectual taste that
calls for such banquets as imagination and science
can furnish; but though less sordid than
the epicure, the voluptuary, or the sportsman,
the principle that governs them and me, is the
same: equally limited to self; equally void of
any basis in morals or religion.
Should you give yourself to me, and rely upon
my labour for shelter and food, deplorable and
compleat would be your disappointment. I know
myself too well to trust myself with such an office.
My love for you would not strengthen
my heart or my hands. No; it would only sink
me, with more speed, into despair. Quickly,
and by some fatal deed, should I abandon you,
my children, and the world.
Possibly, I err. Possibly I underrate my
strength of mind and the influence of habit, which
makes easy to us every path; but I will not trust
to the possible.
Hence it is that, if by marriage you should
become wholly dependant on me, it could never
take place. Some freak of fortune may indeed
place me above want, but my own efforts never
will. Indeed, in this forbearance; in this self-denial,
there is no merit. While admitted to
the privileges of a betrothed man; your company,
your confidence, every warrantable proof
of love mine; I may surely dispense with the
privileges of wedlock. Secretly repine I might:
occasionally I might murmur. But my days
would glide along, with fewer obstacles, at least,
than if I were that infirm and disconsolate wretch
—
your husband.
But this unhappy alternative is not ours.
Thou hast something which thy mother cannot
take away: sufficient for thy maintenance: thy
frugal support. Meaner, and more limited indeed
than thy present and former affluence: such
as I, of my own motion, would never reduce
thee to: such as I can object to only on thy
own account.
How has the night run away! my friend's
sister arrived here yesterday. They joined in
beseeching me to go to a separate chamber and
strive for some refreshment. I have slept a
couple of hours, and that has sufficed. My
mind, on waking, was thronged with so many
images, connected with my Jane, that I started
up, at last, and betook myself to the pen.
Yet how versatile and fleeting is thought! In
this long letter I have not put down one thing
that I intended. I meant not to repeat what
has been so often said before, and especially I
meant not to revolve, if I could help it, any
gloomy ideas.
Thy letters gave me exquisite pleasure. They
displayed all thy charming self to my view. I
pressed every precious line to my lips with
nearly as much rapture as I would have done
the pratler herself, had she been talking to me
all this tenderness instead of writing it.
I took up the pen that I might tell thee my
thanks, yet rambled almost instantly into mournful
repetitions. I have half a mind to burn the
scribble, but I cannot write more just now, and
this will show you, at least, that I am not unmindful
of you. Adieu.
