LETTER XXXVI.
To Henry Colden.
Philadelphia, Nov. 23.
You impose on me a painful task. Persuaded
that reflection was useless, I have endeavored
to forget this fatal letter and all its consequences.
I see you will not allow me to forget
it; but I must own it is weakness to endeavor
to shun the scrutiny.
Some one, my friend, must be in fault; and
what fault can be more atrocious than this. To
defraud, by forgery, your neighbour of a few
dollars, is a crime which nothing but a public
and ignominious death will expiate: Yet how
trivial is that offence, compared with a fraud
like this, which robs an helpless woman of her
reputation; introduces mortal enmity between
her and those whose affection is necessary to
render life tolerable.
Whenever I think of this charge, an exquisite
pain seizes my heart. There must be the
blackest perfidy somewhere. I cannot bear to
think that any human creature is capable of such
a deed. A deed which the purest malice must
have dictated, since there is none surely in the
world, whom I have ever intentionally injured.
I cannot deal in conjectures. The subject, I
find, by my feelings since I began this letter, is
too agonizing—too bewildering. It carries back
my thoughts to a time of misery, to which distance,
instead of smoothing it into apathy, only
adds a new sting.
A spotless reputation was once dear to me,
but have I now torn the passion from my heart.
I am weary of pursuing a phantom. No one
has pursued it with more eagerness and perseverance
than I; and what has been the fruit
of my labor but reiterated mortification and disappointment?
An upright demeanor, a self-acquitting conscience,
are not sufficient for our safety. Calumny
and misapprehension have no bounds to
their rage and their activity.
How little did my thoughtless heart imagine
the horrid images which beset the minds of my
mother and my husband. Happy ignorance!
Would to Heaven it had continued! Since knowledge
puts it not in my power to remove the error,
it ought to be avoided as the greatest evil.
While I know my own motives, and am convinced
of their purity, let me hold in contempt
the opinions of the world respecting me. They
can never have a basis in truth. Be they favorable
or otherwise, they cannot fail to be built
on imperfect knowledge. The praise of others
is therefore as little to be sought or prized as
their censure to be dreaded or shunned.
Heaven knows how much I value the favor
and affection of my mother, but dear as it is, I
must give it up. How can I retain it? I cannot
confute the charge. I must not acknowledge a
guilt that does not belong to me. Added, therefore,
to her belief of my guilt, must be the persuasion
of my being an hardened and obdurate
criminal.
What will she think of my two last letters?
The former tacitly confessing my unworthiness,
and promising compliance with all her wishes:
the next asserting my innocence, and refusing
her generous offers. My first, she will probably
ascribe to an honorable compunction, left to
operate without your controul. In the second
she will trace your influence. Left to myself,
she will imagine me capable of acting as she
wishes; but, guided by you, she will lose all
hopes of me, and resign me to my fate.
Indeed I have given up my mother. There
is no other alternative but that of giving up you;
and in this case I can hesitate, indeed, but I cannot
decide against you.
I am placed in a very painful fituation. I feel
as if every hour spent under this roof was an
encroachment on another's rights. My mother's
bounty is not withheld, merely because
my rebellion against her will is not completed; but
I that feel no doubt, and whom mere consideration
of her pleasure, important as it is, will
never make swerve from my purpose; ought I
to enjoy goods to which I have forfeited all title?
Ought I to wait for an express command to be
gone from her doors? Ought I to lay her under
the necessity of declaring her will?
Yet if I change my lodgings immediately,
without waiting her directions, will she not regard
my conduct as contemptuous? Shall I not
then be a rebel indeed; one that scorns her favor,
and is eager to get rid of all my obligations?
How painful is such a situation: yet there is
no escaping from it that I can see. I must, per
force, remain as I am. But perhaps her next
letter will throw some light upon my destiny.
I suppose my positive affertions will shew her
that a change of purpose cannot be hoped for
from me.
The bell rings. Perhaps it is the post-man,
and the intelligence I wish for has arrived—
Adieu.
