LETTER XXVII.
To Mrs. Talbot.
I highly approve of your letter. It far exceeded the
expectations I had formed of you. You are, indeed, a
surprising creature.
One cannot fail to be astonished at the differences of human
characters; at the opposite principles by which the
judgments of men are influenced.
Experience, however, is the antidote of wonder. There
was a time when I should have reflected on the sentiments
of your mother, with a firm belief that no human being
could be practically influenced by them.
She offers, and surely with sincerity, to divide her large
property with you; to give away half her estate during be
own life, and while, indeed, she is yet in her prime; and so
whom give it? To one who has no natural relation to her;
who is merely an adopted child; who has acted for several
years, in direct repugnance to her will; in a manner she regards
as not only indiscreet, but flagrantly criminal. Whom
one guilty act has (so it must appear to your mamma)
involved her in a continued series of falsehoods and
frauds.
She offers this immense gift to you, on no condition but
a mere verbal promise to break off intercourse with the
man you love, and with whom you have been actually
criminal.
She seems not aware how easily promises are made that
are not designed to be performed; how absurd it would be
to rely upon your integrity in this respect, when you have
shewn yourself (so, it must appear to her) grossly defective
in others of infinitely greater moment. How easily might
a heart like yours be persuaded to recall its promises; or
violate this condition, as soon as the performance of her contract
has made you independent of her and of the world.
You promise;—it is done in half a dozen syllables—that
you will see the hated Colden no more. All that you
promise, you intend. Tomorrow she enriches you with
half her fortune. Next day, the seducer comes, and may
surely expect to prevail on you to forget this promise, since
he has conquered your firmness in a case of unspeakably
greater importance.
This offer of hers surely indicates, not only love for you
but reverence, for your good faith inconsistent with the horrid
imputation she has urged against you.
As to me, what a portrait does her letter exhibit. And
yet this scoffer at the obligation of a promise, is offered
four or five thousand dollars on condition that he plights his
word to embark for England, and to give up all his hopes
of you.
Villain as he is; a villain not by habit or by passion, but
by principle; a cool blooded, systematic villain; yet she will
give him affluence and the means of depraving thousands,
by his example and his rhetoric, on condition that he refuses
to marry the woman whom he has made an adulteress.
Who has imbibed, from the contagion of his discourse, all
the practical and speculative turpitude which he has to
impart.
This conduct might be considered only as proving her
aversion to me. So strong is it, as to impel her to indiscreet
and self-destructive expedients; and so I should likewise
reason if these very expedients did not argue a confidence
in my integrity somewhat inconsistent with the censure
passed on my morals.
After all, is there not reason to question the sincerity of
her hatred? Is not thy mother a dissembler, Jane? does
she really credit the charge she makes against thee? does
she really suppose me that insane philosopher which her letter
describes?
Yet this is only leaping from a ditch into a quicksand. It
is quite as hard to account for her dissimulation, as for her
sincerity. Why should she pretend to suspect you of so
black a deed, or me of such abominable tenets?
And yet, an observer might say, it is one thing to promise
and another to perform in her case as well as in ours.
She tells us what she will do, provided we enter into such
engagements, but, if we should embrace her offers, is it
certain that she would not hesitate, repent, and retract?
Passion may dictate large and vehement offers upon paper,
which deliberating prudence would never allow to be
literally adhered to.
Besides, may not these magnificent proposals be dictated
by a knowledge of our characters, which assured her that
they would never be accepted. But, with this belief, why
should the offers be made?
The answer is easy. These offers, by the kindness and
respect for us which they manifest, engage our esteem and
gratitude, and by their magnitude, shew how deeply she
abhors this connexion, and hence dispose us to do that, for
pity's sake, which mere lucre would never recommend.
And here is a string of guesses to amuse thee, Jane.
Their truth or falsehood is of little moment to us, since
these offers ought not to influence our conduct.
One thing is sure; that is, thy mother's aversion to me.
And yet I ought not to blame her. That I am an atheist
in morals, the seducer of her daughter, she fully believes,
and these are surely sufficient objections to me. Would she
be a discerning friend; or virtuous mother if she did not
with this belief remonstrate against your alliance with one
so wicked.
The fault lies not with her. With whom then does it lie?
Or, what only is important, where is the remedy? Expostulation
and remonstrance will avail nothing. I cannot
be a hypocrite, I cannot dissemble that I have once been
criminal; and that I am, at present, conscious of a thousand
weaknesses and self distrusts. There is but one meagre
and equivocal merit that belongs to me. I stick to the
truth; yet this is a virtue of late growth. It has not yet
acquired firmness to resist the undermining waves of habit,
or to be motionless amidst the hurricane of passions.
You offer me yourself. I love you. Shall I not then
accept your offer? Shall my high conception of your
merits, and my extreme contempt and distrust of myself,
hinder me from receiving so precious a boon? Shall I not
make happy by being happy? Since you value me so
much beyond my merits; since my faults though fully disclosed
to you, do not abate your esteem, do not change
your views in my favor, shall I withhold my hand?
I am not obdurate. I am not ungrateful. With you I
never was a hypocrite. With the rest of the world I have
ceased to be so. If I look forward without confidence, I
look back with humiliation and remorse. I have always
wished to be good, but till I knew you, I despaired of ever
being so, and even now my hopes are perpetually drooping.
I sometimes question, especially since your actual condition
is known, whether I should accept your offered hand;
but mistake me not, my beloved creature. My distrust
does not arise from any doubts of my own constancy. That
I shall grow indifferent or forgetful or ungrateful to you, can
never be.
All my doubts are connected with you. Can I compensate
you for those losses which will follow your marriage.
The loss of your mother's affection; the exchange of all
that splendor and abundance you have hitherto enjoyed for
obscurity and indigence.
You say I can. The image of myself in my own mind
is a sorry compound of hateful or despicable qualities. I
am even out of humor with my person, my face. So absurd
am I in my estimates of merit, that my homely features
and my scanty form, had their part in restraining me
from aspiring to one supreme in loveliness, and in causing
the surprise that followed the discovery of your passion.
In your eyes, however, this mind and this person are
venerable and attractive. My affection, my company, are
chief goods with you. The possession of all other goods
cannot save you from misery, if this be wanting. The loss
of all others will not bereave you of happiness if this be possessed.
Fain would I believe you. You decide but reasonably.
Fortune's goods ought not to be so highly prized, as the
reason of many prizes them, and as my habits, in spite of
reason's dissent, and remonstrances compel me to prize
them. They contribute less to your happiness, and that
industry and frugality which supplies their place, you look
upon without disgust; with even some degree of satisfaction.
Not so I; I cannot labor for bread; I cannot work to live.
In that respect I have no parallel. The world does not contain
my likeness. My very nature unfits me for any profitable
business. My dependence must ever be on others or
on fortune.
As to the influence of some stronger motive to industry
than has yet occurred; I am without hope. There can be
no stronger ones to a generous mind, than have long been
urgent with me; being proof against these, none will ever
conquer my reluctance.
I am not indolent, but my activity is vague; profitless;
capricious. No lucrative or noble purpose impels me. I
aim at nothing but selfish gratification. I have no relish,
indeed, for sensual indulgences. It is the intellectual taste
that calls for such banquets as imagination and science can
furnish; but though less sordid than the epicure, the voluptuary,
or the sportsman, the principle that governs them and
me is the same; equally limited to self; equally void of any
basis in morals or religion.
Should you give yourself to me, and rely upon my labor
for shelter and food, deplorable and complete would be
your disappointment. I know myself too well to trust myself
with such an office. My love for you would not
strengthen my heart or my hands. No; it would only
sink me with more speed, into despair. Quickly, and
by some fatal deed, should I abandon you, my children, and
the world.
Possibly, I err. Possibly I underrate my strength of
mind and the influence of habit, which makes easy to us,
every path; but I will not trust to the possible.
Hence it is that, if by marriage you should become
wholly dependent on me, it could never take place. Some
freak of fortune may indeed place me above want, but my
own efforts never will. Indeed, in this forbearance; in this
self denial, there is no merit. While admitted to the privileges
of a betrothed man; your company, your confidence,
every warrantable proof of love mine; I may surely dispense
with the privileges of wedlock. Secretly repine I
might; occasionally I might murmur. But my days would
glide along, with fewer obstacles, at least, than if I were
that infirm and disconsolate wretch—
your husband.
But this unhappy alternative is not ours. Thou hast
something which thy mother cannot take away; sufficient
for thy maintenance; thy frugal support. Meaner, and
more limited indeed than thy present and former affluence;
such as I, of my own motion, would never reduce thee to;
such as I can object to only on thy own account.
How has the night run away! my friend's sister arrived
here yesterday. They joined in beseeching me to go to a
separate chamber and strive for some refreshment. I have
slept a couple of hours, and that has sufficed. My mind,
on waking, was thronged with so many images, connected
with my Jane, that I started up, at last, and betook myself
to the pen.
Yet how versatile and fleeting is thought! In this long
letter I have not put down one thing that I intended. I
meant not to repeat what has been so often said before, and
especially I meant not to revolve, if I could help it, any
gloomy ideas.
Thy letters gave me exquisite pleasure. They displayed
all thy charming self to my view. I pressed every precious
line to my lips with nearly as much rapture as I would have
done the pratler herself, had she been talking to me all
this tenderness instead of writing it.
I took up the pen that I might tell thee my thanks, yet
rambled almost instantly into mournful repetitions. I have
half a mind to burn the scribble, but I cannot write more
just now, and this will show you, at least, that I am not unmindful
of you. Adieu.
