LETTER II.
To Henry Colden.
Tuesday Morning, October 4.
I must write to you, you said, frequently, and
copiously; you did not mean, I suppose that
I should always be scribbling, but I cannot
help it. I can do nothing but converse with
you. When present, my prate is incessant;
when absent, I can prate to you with as little
intermission; for the pen, used as carelessly
and thoughtlessly as I use it, does
but prate.
Besides, I have not forgotten my promise.
'Tis true the story you wished me to give you,
is more easily communicated by the pen, than
by the lips. I admit your claim to be acquainted
with all the incidents of my life, be they momentous
or trivial. I have often told you that
the retrospect is very mournful, but that ought
not to prevent me from making it, when so
useful a purpose as that of thoroughly disclosing
to you the character of one, on whom
your future happiness is to depend, will be effected
by it. I am not surprized that calumny has
been busy wish my life, and am very little
anxious to clear myself from unjust charges,
except to such as you.
At this moment, I may add, my mood is not
unfriendly to the undertaking. I can do nothing
in your absence but write to you. To
write what I have, ten thousand times, spoken,
and which can be perfectly understood only
when accompanied by looks and accents, seems
absurd. Especially while there is a subject, on
which my tongue can never expatiate, but on
which it is necessary that you should know all
that I can tell you.
The prospect of filling up this interval with
the relation of the most affecting parts of
my life, somewhat reconciled me to your necessary
absence, yet I know my heart will droop:
Even this preparation, to look back makes me
shudder already. Some reluctance to recall,
tragical or humiliating scenes, and by thus recalling,
to endure them, in some sense, a second
time, I must expect to feel.
But let me lay down the pen for the present.
Let me take my favourite and lonely path, and
by a deliberate review of the past, refresh my
memory and methodize my recollections. Adieu
till I return.
