“Williamsburg, Tuesday.
“My Dear Tom,
“I send you the contents of your memorandum, as far
as I could procure the articles, and am sorry to hear that
you are indisposed. I trust 't is but trifling. I might beg
your pardon for detaining Dick, and for sending an inferior
quality of hair powder, but I have been too much troubled
to have my right wits about me.
“Instead of trying to think of some news, which 't is certain
this execrable place do n't afford, I will proceed to tell
you the origin of my trouble. I do n't know if it 's a natural
weakness, or springs from the depth of the feeling I experience,
but I think it will relieve me to unburden my trouble
to a true friend like yourself, and perhaps you will be able
to give me some cheering view of the affair.
“I will announce the cause of my trouble at once. I
have just returned from Vanely, and the person that I love
more than the whole world has received me almost with
coldness.
“Can you imagine the possibility of that? Do n't you
think I am out of my senses? You know, as so true a
friend deserved to know, the whole of my position there,
and every thing; and this knowledge will make you doubt
my sanity. When you have heard my narrative, however,
which I write with a heavy heart, you will be forced to believe
me.
“I had been here attending to my affairs for more than a
sen'night, when one morning, having dispatched my estimates—for
the building up yonder, you know—sooner than
I expected, I felt an absolute thirst for her society, and determined
to gallop all the way to Vanely to have a little of
it. Out of her presence I only breathe, I think—I do not
live, or enjoy existence. I had felt indeed for these seven
days during which I was absent, that the world would be but
a poor place for me without her; that I would not care to
live; and away from her now for even this small space, it
seemed to me that the sun did not shine as brightly, and that
even the orioles which flew over the roof tops sang almost
harshly. I'm not ashamed to say I love her with my whole
heart and soul, and I had to go and see her again!
“Well, I went, and although she received me with happy
smiles, I thought I discerned some constraint, and even a
certain coldness in her air. I make you my father confessor
for the nonce, and I pour my story into your friendly ear.
It troubles me, Tom, and I have to speak. I could not have
imagined this thing—making a buggaboo for my private
annoyance—I discerned this coolness plainly, for the eyes
of a man who feels as I do toward her, grow supernaturally
penetrating, his ears nervously sensitive to the most delicate
variations in the tone of voice. It seems to me that
since I have loved this beautiful girl, I have received the
faculty of plunging into her very soul, and often I have
read her very thoughts, and replied in such a way as to
startle her. I can not explain this thing, which I blunder
out without expressing my meaning in the least; but I
mean that every shadow passing over the mirror of her
mind seems to cloud my own; every happy thought in her
bosom seems to be transferred to my own heart. I share
her disquiet, partake of her joy, and down to the least sentiment,
the most minute and varying emotion—what affects
her affects me, even before she has spoken—for I love
her.
“Whether you understand this rhapsodical passage or
not, it contains none the less the very simplest truth, and
the sympathy thus existing between us made me at once
aware that in some way her feeling for me had been modified.
The family did not observe the least change; and the
explanation of that fact was very simple. They might have
attributed a much greater constraint to mere bashfulness
at her position, always an embarrassing one, I am told, to
young girls. Certain it is they saw nothing.
“As I have told you over and over—for my distress makes
me garrulous and disconnected—I saw it distinctly. The
sailor sees and notes with attention and anxiety the cloud
no larger than the hand of a child on the far horizon of the
sea, while the landsman only looks up when the rain begins
to fall, or the thunder mutters and the lightnings flash!
The reason is, that, to the latter, it is but a question of rain
which he may avoid by entering his house, while the remote
speck for the sailor contains storm and tempest which
may plunge his craft beneath the hungry waves, and himself
with it.
“I weary you, Tom, with my poor wandering words, but
I repeat that this troubles me. I saw in her eyes that indefinable
shadow which indicates a change; there was no longer
the same sunny frankness, the same joy and abandonment,
if I may use the word. With a smile, assumed to hide my
disquiet, I asked her if my absence had tried her affection—
my `lengthy sojourn in foreign lands,' I said, making a jest,
you see, or attempting to—and she, with a smile which I
thought as forced as my own, said, `Oh no, how could I say
such a thing?' But the constraint remained, and after a
hundred attempts to fathom the mystery, I gave up in despair.
“I remained from the evening of one day to the morning
of the third day. I think the constraint grew almost to
coldness before I departed, and, as I write, I am greatly distressed.
You see, Tom, this is no trival affair with me. I
have built all my future on the broad foundation of this
woman's love, and I can not love lightly. Where the heart's
given with me, it's given for ever, and this troubles me.
Formerly nothing troubled me; but I am changed now.
I no longer look upon life with that careless and almost disdainful
indifference with which I once regarded it. You
may have heard me say a thousand times that nothing could
annoy me long or deeply, that I was `sufficient for myself,'
that the world and its inhabitants might go their way and
I would go mine, unmoved by their opinion good or bad,
unaffected either by their love or their hatred—at least,
greatly. Well, now, I say that no longer. I wish every-body's
good opinion; for the expression of this good opinion
doubtless gives her pleasure. Can't you understand my
meaning? Can't you see how a man who formerly laughed
at the idea of being moved in the least by a world of women,
now fixes his eyes upon a single one's face, and lives only
when he thinks of her or's with her? I am even proud of
my bondage, for I know that the chain binding me binds
her, that my love is as much to her as her own is to me—at
least it was the other week.
“I write the words with a heavy heart. I tell you, Tom,
there's no doubt about the coldness. The absence of her
former frankness and joy was, and is, proof strong as holy
writ. Something has come between us, I know not what.
Write what you think of it; I am blind, I confess it. Like
that seer of the middle age, who bartered all his lore for
love, and gave up willingly his power over the invisible
denizens of earth and air, to be a simple mortal, and lean on
a woman's bosom, as her equal and love; like him, I have
lost, perhaps, my penetration; I am troubled, it may even
be, by a chimera, for I confess I begin to distrust myself.
If she is untrue, then all things are false, and, with the rest,
my intellect. Friend, help me to extricate myself from
this web, which seems to be even now closing round me,
wrapping me closer and closer in its mysterious folds. I
scarcely know what I write, and I doubt if it is sense; but
there is something, I know not what—I feel it! I breathe
it! There is some evil at work upon my life! I am not
superstitious, but it seems to me that a cloud is rising somewhere,
with which I am to struggle, though I can not grasp
it. Have you never felt this irrational foreboding? If you
have not, you will laugh at me, but your laugh will not affect
me. You must first tell me why here, in the morning, with
the sunlight around me, with my nerves perfectly healthful,
my pulse beating with its wonted regularity; why thus, in
perfect health of mind and body, I feel as if a dark fate were
at work upon my life, travailing to bring forth my misery!
“That you will think me insane after this full and unreserved
expression of what I meant to conceal, even from
you, friend, I fully expect. Whatever you think, I can not
complain. I frankly confess that I have given you but sorry
and foolish grounds for my disquiet.
“What! I hear you say, St. John become superstitious,
trembling at such bugbears of the fancy as are only fit to
frighten nervous women! St. John, the careless fellow with
the stalwart shoulders, the iron nerves, the smiling lips;
who touched his sword hilt, and boasted that he was ready
to meet any foe, and would have laughed in derision at the
very intimation of imaginary disquietude! St. John, now
crouching and shrinking under an invisible lash, wielded by
airy hands! St. John a-trembling, like a baby, at the sight
of a buggaboo, and whining out mysterious influences!—
secret warnings! I hear you say that, and I fancy you
shaking your head, and thinking that from this time forth,
you can never trust in human boastings, or, any man, however
healthy's nerves. Well, friend, be it as you will; I
do not try to convince you—I yield. Say, if you choose,
that I am mastered by a dream, a vision of the night, a very
shadow and chimera. But I am none the more convinced,
none the less mastered by my insanity, if you like the word.
I tell you, friend, earnestly, strongly! with my whole force!
that, even as I write, this influence is growing, increasing,
darkening terribly! More than ever, there is in the full
sunshine a sad splendor, gloomier than midnight! More
than ever, I thrill with a nameless dread! I seem to see descending
on me a huge ebon cloud! A thrill runs through
my veins—my hair stands up! there are forms around me;
one, that of a woman with cold eyes, and a sneer which
chills me! There! before me as I write! Away!
“Well—
“I shall end this letter, my dear friend, with words less
fanciful than those above. Perhaps there is something wrong
with my nerves; I am out of health, it may be; I am sick.
For, after writing those hurried words there, it seemed to
me that an enemy stood beside me, advanced toward me—
a something, I know not what, which matched itself against
me! 'T is gone now, but to prove to you how profoundly
I was moved, look at that blot upon the paper. It was
caused by my pen falling from my trembling fingers, as I
rose to my feet, drawing my sword completely from the
scabbard, and striking madly at the air. Doubtless I am
sick, for even now my breast seems contracting, and I
breathe heavily. There, 't is doubtless the old story of
Marius cutting at his visions when he was dying—the fever
moving him.
“Yet my pulse beats regularly again; I see myself in the
mirror yonder, and my complexion is healthful; I do not
seem sick. I must be, however, for no traces of my delirium
remain—I write calmly. Keep my letter as a striking exhibition
of the power of the imagination.
“I will end with a few words of news. His Excellency
is said to regard the convention of the delegates with side
looks and suspicion, and to threaten. But he will do nothing.
All your friends are well. At Vanely, every one is
well, I think, and there is nothing new. The Italian-looking
woman, the seamstress, is still there, and, I know not
why, I have taken up a prejudice against her. Another of
my irrational whims, you will say—well, but she none the
more pleases me with her dark, wary-looking eyes.
“You will be glad to hear that 't is my decided opinion
that your shaking begins to detach the fruit. From chance
observations, uttered by the young lady, I should say that
another siege would terminate in victory, though I hope the
victor would not demolish. It is rather a sad jest to make,
but I hope to be your brother Harry some day.
“I have writen you what may seem a pure pack of nonsense,
my dear Tom, but 't is you alone who will read it.
We are old comrades, and I'm not afraid to speak my
thoughts.
“Write and dissipate my trouble, if you can. Until then,
and for ever, I am,
“Your friend,
“H. St. John.”
