LETTER XXVI.
To Mrs. Fielder.
Philadelphia, November 4.
I tremble thus to approach my honored mother, once
more, since I cannot bring into her presence the heart that
she wishes to find. Instead of acknowledgment of faults,
and penitence suitable to their heinous nature, I must bring
with me a bosom free from self-reproach, and a confidence
which innocence only can give, that I shall be sometime
able to disprove the charge brought against me.
Ah, my mother! could such guilt as this ever stain a
heart, fashioned by your tenderest care! Did it never
occur to you that possibly some mistake might have misled
the witness against me!
The letter which you sent me is partly mine. All that
is honest and laudable is mine, but that which confesses
dishonor has been added by another hand. By whom
my hand-writing was counterfeited, and for what end, I
know not. I cannot name any one who deserves to be
suspected.
I might proceed to explain the circumstances attending
the writing and the loss of this letter, so fatal to me; but I
forbear to attempt to justify myself by means which I know
before hand, will effect nothing; unless it be to aggravate,
in your eyes, my imaginary guilt.
If it were possible for you to suspend your judgment; if
the most open, and earnest, and positive averments of my
innocence could induce you, not to reverse, but merely to
postpone your sentence, you would afford me unspeakable
happiness.
You tell me that the loss of your present bounty will be
the consequence of my marriage. My claims on you are
long ago at an end. Indeed, I never had any claims.
Your treatment of me has flown from your unconstrained
benevolence. For what you have given; for the tenderness
which you continually bestowed on me, you have received
only disappointment and affliction.
For all your favors, I seem to you ungrateful; yet long
after that conduct was known, which, to you, proves my unworthiness,
your protection has continued, and you are so
good as to assure me that it shall not be withdrawn as long
as I have no protector but you.
Dear as my education has made the indulgences of competence
to me, I hope, I shall relinquish them without a sigh.
Had you done nothing more than screen my infancy and
youth from hardship and poverty, than supplied the mere
needs of nature, my debt to you could never be paid.
But how much more than this have you done for me?
you have given me, by your instructions and example, an
understanding and a heart. You have taught me to value
a fair fame beyond every thing but the peace of virtue; you
have made me capable of a generous affection for a benefactor
equal to yourself; capable of acting so as, at once,
to deserve, and to lose your esteem; and enabled me to relinquish
cheerfully those comforts and luxuries which cannot
be retained but at the price of my integrity.
I look forward to poverty without dismay. Perhaps I
make light of its evils, because I have never tried them. I
am indeed a weak and undiscerning creature. Yet nothing
but experience will correct my error, if it be an error.
So sanguine am I that I even cherish the belief that the
privation of much of that ease which I have hitherto enjoyed,
will strengthen my mind, and somewhat qualify me for
enduring those evils which I cannot expect always to
escape.
You know, my mother, that the loss of my present provision,
will not leave me destitute. If it did, I know your
generosity too well, to imagine that you would withdraw from
me all the means of support.
Indeed my own fund, slender as it is, in comparison with
what your bounty supplies me, is adequate to all my personal
wants; I am sure it would prove so on the trial. So
that I part with your gifts with less reluctance, though with
no dimunition of my gratitude.
If I could bring to you, my faith unbroken, and were
allowed to present to you my friend, I would instantly fly to
your presence; but, that is a felicity too great for my hope.
The alternative, however painful, must be adopted by
