LETTER XIV.
To Mrs. Fielder.
Philadelphia, October 24.
Impossible! Are you not my mother? more to me than
any mother. Did I not receive your protection and instruction
in my infancy and my childhood? When left an orphan
by my own mother, your bosom was open to receive
me. There was the helpless babe cherished, and there was
it taught all that virtue, which it has since endeavored to preserve
unimpaired in every trial.
You must not cast me off. You must not hate me.
You must not call me ungrateful and a wretch. Not to
have merited these names is all that enables me to endure
your displeasure. As long as that belief consoles me, my
heart will not break.
Yet that, even that, will not much avail me. The distress
that I now feel, that I have felt ever since the receipt
of your letter cannot be increased.
You forbid me to write to you, but I cannot forbear as
long as there is hope of extorting from you the cause of
your aversion to my friend. I solicit not this disclosure
with a view or even in the hope of repelling your objections.
I want, I had almost said, I want to share your antipathies.
I want only to be justified in obeying you. When known,
they will, perhaps, be found sufficient. I conjure you, once
more, tell me your objections to this marriage.
As well as I can, I have examined myself. Passion
may influence me, but I am unconscious of its influence. I
think I act with no exclusive regard to my own pleasure,
but as it flows from and is dependent on the happiness of
others.
If I am mistaken in my notions of duty, God forbid that
I should shut my ears against good counsel. Instead of
loathing or shunning it, I am anxious to hear it. I know
my own short sighted folly; my slight experience. I know
how apt I am to go astray. How often my own heart deceives
me, and hence I always am in search of better
knowledge; hence I listen to admonition, not only with docility
but gratitude. My inclination ought, perhaps to be
absolutely neuter, but if I know myself, it is with reluctance
that I withhold my assent from the expostulator. I am delighted
to receive conviction from the arguments of those
that love me.
In this case, I am prepared to hear and weigh, and be
convinced by any thing you think proper to urge.
I ask not pardon for my faults, nor compassion on my
frailty. That I love Colden I will not deny, but I love his
worth; his merits real or imaginary enrapture my soul.
Ideal his virtues may be, but to me they are real, and the
moment they cease to be so, that the illusion disappears, I
cease to love him, or, at least, I will do all that is in my power
to do. I will forbear all intercourse or correspondence with
him—for his, as well as my own sake.
Tell me then, my mother, what you know of him.
What heinous offence has he committed, that makes him
unworthy of my regard.
You have raised, without knowing it, perhaps, or designing
to effect it in this way, a bar to this detested alliance.
While you declare, that Colden has been guilty of
base actions, it is impossible to grant him my esteem as fully
as a husband should claim. Till I know what the actions
are which you impute to him, I never will bind myself to
him by indissoluble bands.
I have told him this and he joins with me to entreat you
to communicate your charges to me. He believes that you
are misled by some misapprehension; some slander. He
is conscious that many of his actions have been, in some
respects, ambiguous, capable of being mistaken by careless,
or distant, or prejudiced observers. He believes that you
have been betrayed into some fatal error in relation to
action of his life.
If this be so, he wishes only to be told his fault, and will
spare no time and no pains to remove your mistake, if you
should appear to be mistaken.
How easily, my good mamma, may the most discerning
and impartial be misled! The ignorant and envious have
no choice between truth and error. Their tales must want
something to complete it, or must possess more than the
truth demands. Something you have heard of my friend
injurious to his good name, and you condemn him unheard.
Yet this displeases me not. I am not anxious for his
justification, but only to know so much as will authorize me
to conform to your wishes.
You warn me against this marriage for my own sake.
You think it will be disastrous to me.—The reasons of this
apprehension would, you think, appear just in my eyes
should they be disclosed, yet you will not disclose then,
Without disclosure I cannot,—as a rational creature, I cannot
change my resolution. If then I marry and the ed
come that is threatened, whom have I to blame? at whose
door must my misfortunes be laid if not at her's, who had
it in her power to prevent the evil and would not?
Your treatment of me can proceed only from your love,
and yet all the fruits of the direst enmity may grow out of
it. By untimely concealments may my peace be forfeited
forever. Judge then between your obligations to me, and
those of secrecy, into which you seem to have entered with
another.
My happiness, my future conduct are in your hand.
Mould them; govern them as you think proper. I have
pointed out the means, and once more conjure you, by the
love which you once bore; which you still bear to me, to
use them.
