LETTER XXXV.
To Mrs. Talbot.
How truly did my angel say, that she whom I love is my
deity, and her lips my oracle, and that to her pertains not
only the will to make me happy, by giving me steadfastness
and virtue, but the power also!
I have read your letter oftener than a dozen times already,
and at every reading my heart burns more and more. That
weight of humiliation and despondency, which, without your
arm to sustain me, would assuredly sink me to the grave,
becomes light as a feather, and while I crush your testimonies
of love in my hand, I seem to have hold of a stay of
which no storm can bereave me.
One of my faults, thou sayest, is a propensity to reason.
Not satisfied with looking at that side of the post that
chances to be near me, I move round and round it, and
pause and scrutinize till those whose ill fate it is to wait upon
my motions, are out of patience with me.
Every one has ways of his own. A transient glance at
the post, satisfies the mob of passengers. 'Tis my choice
to stand awhile and gaze.
The only post, indeed, which I closely examine, is myself,
because my station is most convenient for inspecting
that. Yet though I have a fuller view of myself than any
other can have of me, my imperfect sight, that is, my erring
judgment, is continually blundering.
If all my knowledge relate to my own character, and
that knowledge is egregiously defective, how profound must
be my ignorance of others, and especially of her, whom I
presume to call mine?
No paradox ever puzzled me so much as your conduct.
On my first interview with you I loved you, yet what kind
of passion was that, which knew only your features and the
sound of your voice. Every successive interview has produced,
not only something new or unexpected, but something
in seeming contradiction to my previous knowledge.
She will act, said I, in such and such circumstances, as
those of her delicate and indulgent education must always
act. That wit, that eloquence, that knowledge, must only
make her despise such a witless, unendowed, unaccomplished,
wavering, and feeble wretch as I am.
To be called your friend; to be your occasional companion;
to be a tolerated visiter was more than I expected.
When I found all this anxiously sought and eagerly accepted,
I was lost in astonishment. At times, may I
venture to confess, that your regard for me brought your
judgment into question! It failed to inspire me with more
respect for myself, and not to look at me with my own eyes,
degraded you in my opinion.
How have you labored to bestow on me that inestimable
gift, self-confidence! And some success has attended your
efforts. My deliverance from my chains is less desperate
than once it was. I may judge of the future, perhaps, by
the past. Since I have already made such progress in exchanging
distant veneration for familiar tenderness, and in
persuading myself that he must possess some merit, whom
a soul like thine idolizes, I may venture to anticipate the
time when all my humiliation may vanish, and I shall
come to be thought worthy of thy love, not only by thee,
but by myself.
What a picture is this thou drawest? Yet such is my
weakness, Jane, that I must shudder at the prospect. To
tear thee from thy present dwelling and its comforts; to
make thee a tenant of thy good widow, and a seamstress
for me!
Yet what, (thou sayest,) is a fine house, and a train of
servants, music and pictures? What silly prejudice, to
connect dignity and happiness with high ceilings and damask
canopies, and golden superfluity.
Yet so silly am I, when reason deserts the helm, and
habit assumes it. The change thou hast painted, deceives
me for a moment, or rather is rightly judged of, while I
look at nothing but thy coloring, but when I withdraw my
eye from that, and the scene rises before me in the hues it
is accustomed to derive from my own fancy, my soul droops,
and I pray heaven to avert such a destiny.
I tell thee all my follies, Jane. Art thou not my sweet
physician, and how canst thou cure the malady, when thou
knowest not all its symptoms?
I love to regard myself in this light. As one owing his
virtue, his existence, his happiness, his every thing to thee,
and as proposing no end to himself, but thy happiness
in turn; but the discharge of an endless debt of gratitude.
On my account, Jane, I cannot bear you should lose any
thing. It must not be. Yet what remedy? How is thy
mother's aversion to be subdued—how can she be made to
reason on my actions as you reason? yet not so, neither.
None but she that loves me, can make such constructions
and allowances as you do.
Why may she not be induced to give up the hope of disuniting
us, and while she hates me, continue her affection
for thee. Why rob thee of those bounties hitherto dispensed
to thee, merely because I must share in them. My
partaking with thee contributes indispensably to thy happiness.
Not for my own sake, then, but merely for thine,
ought competence to be secured to thee.
But is there no method of excluding me from all participation.
She may withhold from me all power of a landlord,
but she cannot prevent me from subsisting on thy
bounty.
Yet why does she now allow you to possess what you
do? Can she imagine that my happiness is not as dear to
you now, as it will be in consequence of any change? If I
share nothing with you now, it is not from any want of benevolent
importunity in you.
There is a strange inconsistency and contradiction in thy
mother's conduct.
But something may surely be done to lighten her antipathies.
I may surely confute a false charge. I may convince
her of my innocence in one respect.
Yet see, my friend, the evils of which one error is the
parent. My conduct towards the poor Jessy appears to
your mother a more enormous wickedness than this imputed
injustice to Talbot. The frantic indiscretion of my correspondence
with Thompson, has ruined me, for he that will
commit the greater crime, will not be thought to scruple
the less.
And then there is such an irresistible crowd of evidence
in favor of the accusation! When I first read
Mrs. Fielder's letter, the consciousness of my innocence
gave me courage, but the longer I reflect upon the subject,
the more deeply I despond. My own errors will always
be powerful pleaders against me, at the bar of this austere
judge.
Would to heaven I had not yielded to your urgency.
The indecorum of compliance stared me in the face at the
time. Too easily I yielded to the enchantments of those
eyes, and the pleadings of that melting voice.
The charms of your conversation; the midnight hour
whose security was heightened by the storm that raged
without; so perfectly screened from every interruption;
and the subject we had been talking on so affecting and
attractive to me, and so far from being exhausted; and you
so pathetically earnest in entreaty, so absolutely forbidding
my departure.
And was I such a shortsighted fool as not to insist on
your retiring at the usual hour! The only thing that could
make the expedient suggested by me effectual, was that.
Your Molly lying with you, could avail you nothing, unless
you actually passed the night in your chamber.
As it was, no contrivance could be more unfortunate,
since it merely enabled her the more distinctly to remark
the hour when you came up. Was it three or four when
you left the parlor?
The unbosoming of souls which that night witnessed, so
sweetly as it dwelt upon my memory, I now regard with
horror, since it has involved you in such evil.
But the letter—that was a most disastrous accident. I
had read very frequently this fatal billet. Who is it that
could imitate your hand so exactly? The same fashion in
the letters, the same color in the ink, the same style, and
the sentiments expressed, so fully and accurately coalescing
with the preceding and genuine passages—no wonder that
your mother, being so well acquainted with your pen, should
have no doubt as to your guilt, after such testimony.
There must be a perpetrator of this iniquity. Talbot it
could not be; for where lay the letter in the interval between
its disappearance and his return; and what motive
could influence him to commit or to countenance such a
forgery?
Without doubt there was some deceiver.—Some one
stole the letter, and by his hand was this vile conclusion
added, and by him was it communicated to Talbot. But
hast thou such an enemy in the world? Whom have you
offended, capable of harboring such deadly vengeance?
Pray, my friend, sit down to the recollection of your past
life, and inquire who it was that possessed your husband's
confidence; who were his intimate companions, endeavor
to discover; tell me the names and characters of all those
who were accustomed to visit your house, either on your
account or his. Strange, if among all these, there is no
foundation for some conjecture, however shadowy.
Thompson is no better, yet grows worse, hardly perceptibly.
Adieu.
