University of Virginia Library

LETTER LXX.

And are you then alive? Are you then returned?
Still do you remember, still love the ungrateful
and capricious Jane? Have you indeed
come back to soothe her almost broken heart; to
rescue her from the grave: to cheer her with
the prospect of peaceful and bright days yet to
come?

O my full heart! Sorrow has not hitherto
been able quite to burst this frail tenement. I
almost fear that joy—so strange to me is joy,
and so far, so very far, beyond my notions of possibility
was your return—I almost fear that joy
will do what sorrow was unable to do—

Can it be that Colden—that self-same, dear,
pensive face; those eyes, benignly and sweetly
mild; and that heart dissolving voice, have
escaped so many storms: so many dangers?
Was it love for me that led you from the extremity
of the world, and have you indeed, brought
back with you an heart full of “ineffable tenderness”
for me?

Unspeakably unworthy am I of your love.
Time and grief, dear Hal, have bereft me of
the glossy hues, the laughing graces which
your doating judgment once ascribed to me—
but what will not the joy of your return effect?
I already feel lightsome and buoyant as a bird.
My head is giddy—But, alas! you are not well;
Yet, you assure us, not dangerously sick. Nothing,
did you not say, but time and repose necessary
to heal you? Will not my presence,
my nursing hasten thy restoration? Tuesday
evening—they say it can't possibly be sooner—
I am with you. No supporters shall you have
but my arms: no pillow but my breast. Every
holy rite, shall instantly be called in to make
us one: And when once united, nothing but
death shall ever part us again. What did I say?
Death itself, at least thy death, shall never dissever
that bond:

Your brother will take this. Your sister—she
is the most excellent of women, and worthy to

be your sister—She and I will follow him to
morrow. He will tell you much, which my hurried
spirits will not allow me to tell you in this
letter. He knows every thing. He has been,
since my mother's death—She is dead, Henry.
She died in my arms; And will it not give you
pleasure to know, that her dying lips blessed
me, and expressed the hope that you would
one day return to find, in my authorised love,
some recompense for all the evils to which her antipathies
subjected you? She hoped, indeed, that
observation and experience would detect the falacy
of your former tenets: that you would become
wise, not in speculation only, but in practice,
and be in every respect, deserving of the happiness
and honour which would attend the gift
of her daughter's hand and heart.

My words cannot utter but thy own heart
perhaps can conceive the rapture which thy
confession of a change in thy opinions has afforded
me. All my prayers, Henry have not
been merely for your return. Indeed, whatever
might have been the dictates, however absolute
the dominion of passion, union with you would
have been very far from compleating my felicity,
unless our hopes and opinions, as well as our persons
and hearts were united. Now can I look up
with confidence and exultation to the shade of my
revered and beloved mother. Now can I safely invoke
her presence and her blessing to a union,
which death will have no power to dissolve. O what
sweet peace, what serene transport is there in the
persuasion that the selected soul will continue
forever to commune with my soul, mingle with

mine its adoratian of the same divine parent,
and partake with me in every thought, in every
emotion, both here and hereafter!

Never, my friend, without this persuasion,
never should I have known one moment of true
happiness. Marriage, indeed, instead of losing
its attractions, in consequence of your errors,
drew thence only new recommendations. Since
with a zeal, a tenderness and a faith like mine,
my efforts to restore such an heart and such
a reason as yours, could not fail of success,
but till that restoration were accomplished,
never, I repeat, should I have tasted repose,
even in your arms.

Poor Miss Jessup! She is dead, Henry; Yet
not before she did thee and me, poor justice.
Her death-bed confession removed my mother's
fatal suspicions. This confession, and the perusal
of all thy letters, and thy exile, which I
afterwards discovered was known to her very
early, tho' unsuspected by me till after her decease,
brought her to regard thee with some
compassion and some respect.

I can write no more; but must not conclude
till I have offered thee the tenderest, most fervent
vows of an heart that ever was and always will
be thine own. Witness