University of Virginia Library

JOHN TO SARAH.

I wrote you, merely to say, that, Frank has arrived
at Charleston; and, that, we may expect him in a few
weeks. He has succeeded. Your property is secure;
and all will probably go right. I can tell you something
else that will please you. Molton has some feeling
of humanity. He has never seen Juliet but once,
since Grenville's departure; and that was in my company.
His manner was impressive and mournful; but there
was no tenderness in it, though Juliet's eyes were constantly
full. I have visited him two or three times; and
the result of my observation is, that he ought to be one
of the happiest men in the world. His wife is, without
any exception, the most wonderful woman that I ever
knew—whether for beauty, tenderness or talent. Do
not be jealous, Sarah—I know what I say—She is
the most wonderful—and perhaps the most beautiful—
but not the most holy and dear, nor the most lovely.

There is too much majesty and brightness in her deportment;---too
much insupportable wildness in her lamping
eyes;---too much of passion, voluptuousness, and intoxication,
and delirium about her. She is a good deal
changed of late.—I should think her mind continually
occupied with some profound and awful meditation.—
She is absent---and her long, beautiful lashes are often
wet and drooping with moisture, ere she appears to know
it; and then she lifts up her head—shakes back the abundant
richness of her tresses—and her eyes shoot fire
again. I have set by her, and watched the changes of
her countenance---as she leaned forward, and gazed upon
Molton, holding his hands to her heart, while he slept,

as a mother would watch the troubled sleep of her babe,
trembling and breathless---till I have thought her the
most affectionate and attractive of human beings. And
when I last saw her---there was a sudden movement
of her countenance, which terrified me, as Molton, in
stooping for a book that had fallen---stopped for a moment,
as if a serpent had seized upon his vitals. She
turned deadly pale---and pressed her lips to his hand
with such distracting tenderness, that it startled me. What
did she fear?---What was there, in a slight pain of the side,
to convulse her, from head to foot, as that did? I know
not---but her manner then, and her wild delirious rapture;
(for she stood up like something heavenly, in a trance
of gratitude, when he slowly lifted himself up, and smiled,
and kissed her forehead,) set my heart a throbbing
very strangely. I cannot understand these things---
They are not natural. They are more like the love that
we read of, than that which we see.---See---what love,
what, that ever resembled love? have I ever seen.