LETTER XXXV.
SARAH TO FREDERIC.
YOU are returned to your native land, my
dearest brother, and have brought with you
love and peace: Heaven grant they may long,
very long, be the inmates of your dwelling, the
solace of your heart.
Many are the changes that have taken place,
since last we met. Am I happier? you ask—
perhaps I may be thought so—perhaps I am so,
if absence of pain is pleasure; then the torpid
state into which my heart is fallen is happiness.
I have suffered much, my brother, but my sufferings
are ended. I seldom weep now—but then
I as seldom smile; and my heart, which once
would bound and flutter with indescribable sensation,
now in dull and monotonous pulsations,
receives and discharges the vital fluid in slow,
unvaried measure. Frederic, this is not happiness.
My father rests in the house appointed for all
living. Here was a link dissolved in the great
chain of my existence; but, though I felt the
dissolution of so near a connexion awfully impressive,
I could not regret one, whom I had
never (since reason had the power to direct my
judgment,) respected; whom I had long ceased
to love. Oh! that parents would consider the
consequences of setting bad examples to their
children. You, my dear brother, have been as
deeply wounded by the errors of the departed,
as I have; and had you lived at home as much
as I did, I greatly fear your principles would
have been perverted by the scenes which would
unavoidably have passed beneath your observation.
I was saved from so dreadful a misfortune,
by my good aunt; she was austere in her manners,
severe in her temper, and scrupulously
particular in her opinions of female manners, and
religious duty; but yet it is that aunt, unkind as
in early life I used to think her, to whom I owe
all that I ever knew of happiness.
But this is a subject ungrateful to us both; I
will drop it when I have made one remark. You
are now a parent, Frederic, and do not, I conjure
you, forget that you are not only answerable
to your Maker for your own conduct, but for the
example you set your children; for it is more
than probable, that their eternal, as well as temporal
happiness will originate in you. Precept,
my brother, will do nothing, unless backed by
example; and what parent can hope or think a
child will be benefited by correction,given by one
who knows not how to correct himself?
The last time my heart felt acutely, was in
the loss of my valued Anne. I had a friend—
Yes, that is an inexhaustible source; the tears
still gush forth when I remember I have a friend
no longer. You will say, you are my friend. I
know you are, as much as any man can be the
friend of a sister, when he has a wife and children
whom he loves sincerely, ardently, and who
deserve to be so beloved. Connubial love! domestic
felicity! are ye then realities? Alas, to
me, ye have been like fairy tales, credited indeed
in youth, but never experienced in any part
of life.
You inquire concerning our finances; we are
neither rich nor poor; our circumstances are in
unison with my feelings; no luxuries to enjoy,
no pressing wants to lament. What you heard
of the marquis's legacy is true; in addition to
which, Darnley has employment in the warehouse
of a manufacturing company, to receive
orders, and note them in a day book; for this he
receives a stipend of sixty pounds per annum.
We occupy a very small house, more like a cottage
than any thing else, about half a mile from
the town; our whole establishment consists of
one girl to do the drudgery, my little Charles,
Mr. Darnley, and myself. Could you come and
see me, methinks my heart would once more
beat with pleasure, and would fortune permit
me to embrace the wife of your choice, and your
dear children, I should say, I knew what happiness
was.
Editor's note.
[In another letter bearing date eighteen months
after the preceding, we find the following
paragraphs, evidently written after Mr.
Lewis had visited her.]
“You are pleased with our situation, and with
the little society that surrounds us. I am glad
you are; I do not wonder at the approbation you
express of the manners, conversation, and general
character of our good curate, Mr. Hayley.
He is all that man ought to be; and since his
residence among us, it seems as though I felt
awakened to the joys of society. My brother,
let my heart stand open to your view; I feel,
had such a man been presented to my notice,
in early life, I should have experienced a different
sentiment to what I have ever yet known.
Perhaps I do not properly comprehend what
love is; at least such as the visionaries of romance
describe it; I never yet saw the man who could
make me defy the opinion of the world, slight
the moral duties, and forget the respect due to
myself. But methinks for such a man as Hayley,
I could suffer every temporal inconvenience
—bear poverty, contempt, reproach, yes, all
reproaches but those of my own heart; but
thinking him, as I do, the first of human beings,
I could never commit any action that would
sink me in his esteem, or expose him to the
contempt of the world. I ever thought, and
am now more fully convinced, that the woman
who experiences the sentiment which alone is
deserving the name of love in all its purity, can
never be guilty of aught that would call a blush
to her own cheek, or brand the object of her
esteem with infamy.
“I am not hypocrite sufficient to offer an
apology for the candid avowal of my sentiments
in regard to Mr. Hayley. They are not the
impulse of a momentary passion, they are the
result of reason and observation. I feel that his
esteem is necessary to my peace of mind, and
to obtain that esteem is so desirable an object,
that it has aroused the sleeping faculties of my
soul, and called them into action. I have now
some pleasurable object in view; I pursue some
daily amusement; I execute some little work of
taste, or fancy; I practise a new air upon my
guitar, or from my window sketch the outline
of a landscape, or a group of sportive children,
and have the hope of receiving approbation
from one of whose judgment I have the highest
opinion, and who I know, if he cannot praise
with truth, will remain silent. I offer no apology.
No, why should I? You require none.
Acquainted as you are with my strong sense of
moral rectitude, of my full persuasion of a superintending
Deity, and the certain rewards and
punishments that await us in a future state, you
cannot believe me depraved; knowing as you
do the character of the person I esteem, you
will dismiss all fear.
But mistake me not: it is neither affection to
my husband, nor the dread of the world's censure,
binds me to Darnley. No, every moral
tie he has himself voluntarily and repeatedly
broken; but I have never yet infringed my
duty, I am his wife. Love him, alas! I never
did! never can. Though had he taken the
proper means to conciliate tenderness, my heart
would have soon become his own; it was formed
for unbounded tenderness, but its impulses never
expanded; they were repelled by unkindness,
and shrunk again within itself. But if I have
found a source of happiness, which religion and
honor does not disallow, why should I reject it,
for one, who never studied my peace, but made
self gratification his sole object? Ah, my brother,
if I am to be a stranger to pleasure, till my
ideas of it are in unison with his, I shall remain
unacquainted with it forever.”
