 | Randolph |  |
LETTER TO MOLTON.
“Yes, I will, I must, tell you all (that) I suffer. I know
(that) it is not idle curiosity which prompts you to make
the inquiry; and, believe me, the lively interest which you
have manifested, is felt, with warmth and gratitude.—
But I dare not trust myself to tell you, how much I thank
you. The voice of friendship or kindness, is irresistible
to me---always was; but, of late, I have been a stranger
my suffering, and renders my situation still more intolerable.
You must not, therefore, discover any degree of
sympathy for me; but I shall always believe that you
feel it; and even that will be a comfort to me, through
life. You see how I am watched, on all sides---an object
of jealousy and distrust, to those by whom I am surrounded.
Feeling and sensibility are alike strangers to them.
They cannot, therefore, understand the nature of your
sentiments, noble and generous as they are. I cannot
describe to you, the pang that I felt, when I discovered
that he was a slave to that most degrading vice. My
heart died within me; for I well knew that it would be
incurable;—and I knew it to be the source of every misery
in life. Oh, I thought that I could have borne anything
but that---so humiliating!---To be the wife of a
man, and the mother of his children, who will
You have often seen me look troubled. Can you
wonder at it? Indeed, I wonder at myself, that I can ever
look otherwise. But, according to the old adage, the
back is often fitted to the burden—and I believe it; for,
many would have sunk under what I have endured. But
it has undermined my constitution, and brought me to the
brink of the grave. Had it not been for the watchful
care, and kind attention of Harriot, I do not believe that
I should have been alive at this moment.
I have been on the eve of separation from him, half a
dozen times; but my poor deserted child always arose to
my view, and prevented it. For his sake, I have made
every sacrifice. My days have been murdered.
I was formed for domestick happiness; but how little
of it have I known! Since we were married, he has never
spent a single evening at home, unless we had company.
For me, he has not one sentiment of affection, I verily
believe; nay, I cannot persuade myself that he ever had,
or he could not treat me with such continual neglect.
After my return from prayer-meeting, last night, he
abused me most bitterly, and was on the point of turning
me out of doors;---swearing that if ever went again,
I should never enter a house of his. Such is the effect of
a violent temper, which terrifies me to death, whenever
it breaks out.
His estates are neglected; his intellectual powers destroyed;
his constitution impaired; and his reputation
irretrievably injured. All this have I foretold to him,
time after time, until, at length, I have given it up, entirely.
I feel that I have a double duty to discharge, and
a most imperious one. May God, in his infinite mercy,
give me strength equal to the task!
He has treated me better since the passage, than he
ever did before. You were the first that ever taught him
to set any value on my opinion. * * * *
I have now spoken to you, as I would, to a dear brother;
and, as you would guard the honour of a sister, I
entreat you to confine what I have said, to your own bosom.
Never breathe it to mortal, as you value my friendship.
Let me continue to be thought, by the world, a
happy wife. But, O, there is no happiness for me on this
side of the grave. How have the tenderest affections of
my heart been paralysed!---my hopes---how have they
been blighted!---laid prostrate before that sceptre, to
which we must all bow—but enough—Let me once
more beg of you, that you will commit this to the flames,
the moment that you have read it. It abounds with errour,
and, if I trust myself to read it over, I know that I
shall never send it.
May heaven bless you, and gather you into its own
fold, at last, is the sincere prayer of,
| Randolph | |