 | Randolph |  |
SARAH TO FRANK.
There---no man on earth is so well entitled to the enclosed,
as you. I know not whom she has so loved, but
I have a fearful, harrowing conjecture. I am satisfied of
her principle and purity, and am happy. We depart tomorrow
for the north, and shall go first to Niagara. I
shall endeavour to write to her, the dear sufferer, on the
route, and shall direct, to your care. One word more.
We were both deluded by the same appearances. That
she had loved some person, I was sure; and, having no
suspicion of any other than Frank, except in one case,
and for a little time, although I knew all, I supposed, who
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yielded to the belief that it was he. What convinced me
was, that she permitted your intimacy, after. I thought
that she knew your sentiments. This was altogether
so contrary to her general deportment, that I had no
longer any doubt on the matter. But read her letter.
There is her justification. Who can resist it; we have been
mistaken, cruelly, I admit; but whom or what can we
blame for it? Your delicacy, her unsuspicious, kind nature,
or my rash judgment? Had you brought her sooner,
directly to the point, we should all have been spared this
shock; had she been less kind, more suspicious, or more
vain, she would have taught you with her own lips, that
you had nothing to hope, without subjecting you to the
distress, that you experienced, when you were rejected;
and, had she thought it possible that you would suppose
yourself to be beloved by her, she would have poured
out the last drop of blood from her innocent heart
before she would have permitted yours to ache, under the
delusion. But, heaven be thanked, our eyes are open at
last, and we have now, only to tremble for—no, no,
I cannot tell thee that, I am too hasty in my temper: and
must watch it; beside, they tell me. (my enemies to
be sure, but they are the right persons to go to, for the
truth, sometimes) that I am arrogant, dictatorial. I believe
them. I am sorry for it. I will be humbler. I
have been I fear under a delusion.—I have been persuading
myself that I was altogether a New England girl, sensible,
firm and high, like my mother. But I am wrong, I
was too young when we left New England, and the southern
air has changed my original constitution. I do not
resemble my mother. O cousin, it makes me very sad
to think of her, and I really yearn to see the places, and
breathe in the wind that she was familiar with at my age.
Perhaps I may, after a time, deserve the name that you
have sometimes given to me, of the downright yankee girl.
Farewell, once more, dear Frank, farewell; and remember
the words of Juliet, “think of thine accountability.---
Show thy sense of it, in thy life.”
SARAH.
| Randolph | |