University of Virginia Library

LETTER L.
HARRIOT to HARRINGTON.

Must i then forget the endearments
of the lover, and call you by the
name of brother? But does our friendship
remain upon this foundation? Is this all
that unites us? And has there subsisted nothing
more tender—a sentiment more voluntary
in our hearts? My feelings affirm that
there has. At the hour of our first interview
I felt the passion kindle in my breast: Insensible
of my own weakness, I indulged its
increasing violence and delighted in the flame
that fired my reason and my senses. Do you.
remember our walks, our conversations, our
diversions?—The remembrance of these

things fill my mind with inconceivable torture—they
seem to reproach me with unmerited
criminality—I deprecate, I detest all these
scenes of gaity and frivolity—yet I have preserved
my innocence and my virtue—what
then have I to deprecate, what have I to
detest?

ALAS! how have we been forming
schemes of happiness, and mocking our
hearts with unsubstantial joys. Farewel!
farewel! ye gilded scenes of imagination.
How have we been deluded by visionary
prospects, and idly dwelt upon that happiness
which was never to arrive. How fleeting
have been the days that were thus employed!—when
anticipation threw open the
gates of happiness, and we vainly contemplated

the approach of bliss;—when we beheld
in reversion, the pleasures of life, and
fondly promised ourselves, one day to participate
in them;—when we beheld in the
magick mirrour of futurity, the lively group
of loves that sport in the train of joy. We
observed in transports of delight the dear
delusion, and saw them, as it were, in bodily
form pass in review before us; as the fabled
hero views the region of præexistant spirits,
and beholds a race of men yet to be born.

SUCH was our hope, but even this fairy
anticipation was not irrational. We were
happy in idea, nor was the reality far behind.
And why is the vision vanished? O! I sink,
I die, when I reflect—when I find in my
Harrington a brother—I am penetrated with

inexpressible grief—I experience uncommon
sensations—I start with horrour at the idea
of incest—of ruin—of predition.

HOW do I lament this fatal discovery, that
includes the termination of a faithful love!
I think of him to whom I have resolved
to be eternally constant—and ah!
how often have I resolved it in my
heart. I indulge, in idea, the recollection of
his caresses—of his protestations, and of his
truth and sincerity—I become lost in a
wilderness, and still I travel on, and find myself
no nearer an escape. I cherish the dear
idea of a lover—I see the danger and do not
wish to shun it, because, to avoid it, is to forget
it—And can I, at one stroke, erase from

my mind the remembrance of all in which
my heart used to delight? Ah! I have not
the fortitude—I have not the virtue, to “forget
myself to marble.” On the contrary, I
strive no longer to remember our present
connexion. I endeavour to forget—I curse
the idea of a brother—my hand refuses to
trace the word, and yet

AH, whence this sorrow that invests my
soul! This gloom that darkens—this fire
of impassioned grief, that involves all my
thoughts! why do I rave, and why do I
again abandon myself to despair! Come, O
Harrington! be a friend, a protector, a brother—be
him, on whom I could never yet

call by the tender, the endearing title of
parent. I will reverence him in whom all
the charities of life are united—I will be dutiful
and affectionate to you, and you shall
be unto me as a father—I will bend on the
knee of respect and love, and will receive
your blessing.

WHY did you go away so soon? Why
leave me when I was incapable of bidding
you adieu? When you pressed my cheek
with the kiss of love, of fraternal affection,
what meant its conscious glow? What meant
the ebullition of my veins, the disorder of
my nerves, the intoxication of my brain, the
blood that mantled in my heart? My hand
trembled, and every object seemed to swim

before my doubtful view---Amidst the
struggle of passion, how could I pronounce
the word---how could I call you by the title
of brother. True---I attempted to articulate
the found, but it died upon my tongue,
and I fank motionlefs into your arms.

—ALLIED by birth, and in mind, and
fimilar in age---and in thought still more intimately
connected, the fympathy which
bound our fouls together, at first fight, is lefs
extraordinary. Shall we any longer wonder
at its irrefistible impulfe?---Shall we strive to
oppofe the link of nature that draws us to
each other? When I reflect on this, I relapse
into weakness and tenderness, and become a
prey to warring passions. I view you in two

distinct characters: If I indulge the idea of
one, the other becomes annihilated, and I
vainly imagine I have my choice of a
brother or—

I am for a while calm---but alas! how
momentary is that calmness; I dwell with
rupture on what fancy has reprefented; but
is the choice regulated by virtue? Is it
prompted by reafon? I recollect myself, and
endeavour to roufe my prudence and fortitude;
I abhor my conduct, and wish for
obscurity and forgetfulness. Who can bear
the torment of fluctuating passion? How
deplorable is the contest? The head and the
heart are at variance, but when Nature pleads,
how feeble is the voice of Reason? Yet, when
Reason is heard in her turn, how criminal

appears every wish of my heart? What remorse
do I experience? What horrours surround
me? Will my feeble frame, already
wasted by a lingering decline, support these
evils? Will the shattered, frail bark outride
the tempest, and will the waves of affliction
beat in vain? Virtue, whose precepts I have
not forgotten, will assist me---if not to surmount,
at least to suffer with fortitude and
patience.

OH! I fear, I fear my decaying health—
If I must depart, let me beseech you to
forget me—I know the strength of your
passion, and I dread the fatal confequences
my departure may occasion you.

ONCE more let me intreat you, my dear
friend, to arm yourself with every virtue

which is capable of fustaining the heaviest
calamity. Let the impetuofity of the lover's
passion be forgotten in the undisturbed
quietness of the brother's affection, and may
all the bleffings that life can supply be
yours—Seek for content, and you will find
it, even though we should never meet again
in this world.

Adieu!