LETTER XLIV.
To Henry Colden.
Philadelphia, Dec 1.
I sand I would not write to you again: I would
encourage, I would allow of no intercourse beween
us. This was my solemn resolution and my
voluntary and no less solemn promise, yet I sit
down to abjure this vow, to break this promise.
What a wretch am I! Feeble and selfish beyond
all example among women; Why, why
was I born, or why received I breath in a
world and at a period, with whose inhabitants I
can have no sympathy, whose notions of rectitude
and decency, find no answering chord in
my heart?
Never was creature so bereft of all dignity;
all steadfastness. The slave of every impulse:
blown about by the predominant gale: a scene of
eternal fluctuation.
Yesterday my mother pleaded. Her tears
dropped fast into my bosom, and I vowed to be
all she wished: not merely to discard you from
my presence, but to banish even your image
from my thoughts. To act agreeably to her
wishes was not sufficient. I must feel as she would have me feel. My actions must flow,
not merely from a sense of duty, but from fervent
inclination.
I promised every thing. My whole soul
was in the promise. I retired to pen a last letter
to you, and to say something to your father.
My heart was firm: My hand steady. My mother
read and approved—“Dearest Jane! Now,
indeed, are you my child. After this I will
not doubt your constancy. Make me happy, by
finding happiness in this resolution.
O, thought I, as I paced my chamber alone,
what an ample recompense for every self denial;
for every sacrifice are thy smiles, my maternal
friend. I will live smilingly for thy sake, while
thou livest. I will live only to close thy eyes,
and then, as every earthly good has been sacrificed
at thy bidding, will I take the pillow
that sustained thee when dead, and quickly
breathe out upon it my last sigh.
My thoughts were all lightsome and serene.
I had laid down methought, no life, no joy but
my own. My mother's peace, and your peace
for the safety of either of whom, I would cheerfully
die, had been purchased by the same act.
How did I delight to view you restored to
your father's house. I was still your friend,
though invisible. I watched over you, in quality
of guardian angel. I etherialized myself
from all corporeal passions. I even set spiritual
ministers to work to find out one. worthy of succeeding
me, in the sacred task of making you
happy. I was determined to raise you to affluence,
by employing, in a way unseen and unsuspected
by you, those superfluities which a blind
and erring destiny had heaped upon me.
And whither have these visions flown? Am I
once more sunk to a level with my former self?
Once I thought that religion was a substance
with me: not a shadow; to flit, to mock and to
vanish when its succour was most needed? yet
now does my heart sink.
O comfort me, my friend! plead against yourself:
against me. Be my mother's advocate.
Fly away from those arms that clasp you, and
escape from me, even if your flight be my
death. Think not of me but of my mother,
and secure to her the consolation of following
my unwedded corse to the grave, by disclaiming,
by hating, by forgetting the unfortunate
