LETTER XXXVI.
To Henry Colden.
You impose on me a painful task. Persuaded that reflection
was useless, I have endeavored to forget this fatal
letter and all its consequences. I see you will not allow
me to forget it; but I must own it is weakness to endeavor
to shun the scrutiny.
Some one, my friend, must be in fault; and what fault
can be more atrocious than this. To defraud, by forgery,
your neighbor of a few dollars, is a crime which nothing
but a public and ignominious death will expiate; yet how
trivial is that offence, compared with a fraud like this, which
robs a helpless woman of her reputation; introduces mortal
enmity between her and those whose affection is necessary
to render life tolerable.
Whenever I think of this charge, an exquisite pain seizes
my heart. There must be the blackest perfidy somewhere.
I cannot bear to think that any human creature is capable
of such a deed. A deed which the purest malice must
have dictated, since there is none surely in the world, whom
I have ever intentionally injured.
I cannot deal in conjectures. The subject, I find, by my
feelings since I began this letter, is too agonizing—too bewildering.
It carries back my thoughts to a time of misery,
to which distance, instead of smoothing it into apathy, only
adds a new sting.
A spotless reputation was once dear to me, but have I
now torn the passion from my heart. I am weary of pursuing
a phantom. No one has pursued it with more eagerness
and perseverance than I; and what has been the fruit
of my labor but reiterated mortification and disappointment?
An upright demeanor, a self-acquitting conscience, are not
sufficient for our safety. Calumny and misapprehension
have no bounds to their rage and their activity.
How little did my thoughtless heart imagine the horrid
images which beset the minds of my mother and my husband.
Happy ignorance! Would to Heaven it had continued!
Since knowledge puts it not in my power to
remove the error, it ought to be avoided as the greatest
evil.
While I know my own motives, and am convinced of
their purity, let me hold in contempt the opinions of the
world respecting me. They can never have a basis in
truth. Be they favorable or otherwise, they cannot fail to
be built on imperfect knowledge. The praise of others
is therefore as little to be sought or prized as their censure
to be dreaded or shunned.
Heaven knows how much I value the favor and affection
of my mother, but dear as it is, I must give it up. How
can I retain it? I cannot confute the charge. I must not
acknowledge a guilt that does not belong to me. Added,
therefore, to her belief of my guilt, must be the persuasion
of my being a hardened and obdurate criminal.
What will she think of my two last letters? The former
tacitly confessing my unworthiness, and promising compliance
with all her wishes; the next asserting my innocence,
and refusing her generous offers. My first, she will probably
ascribe to an honorable compunction, left to operate
without your control. In the second she will trace your
influence. Left to myself, she will imagine me capable of
acting as she wishes; but guided by you, she will lose all
hopes of me, and resign me to my fate.
Indeed I have given up my mother. There is no other
alternative but that of giving up you; and in this case I can
hesitate, indeed, but I cannot decide against you.
I am placed in a very painful situation. I feel as if every
hour spent under this roof was an encroachment on another's
rights. My mother's bounty is not withheld, merely because
my rebellion against her will is not completed; but I that
feel no doubt, and whom mere consideration of her pleasure,
important as it is, will never make swerve from my purpose;
ought I to enjoy goods to which I have forfeited all title?
Ought I to wait for an express command to be gone from
her doors? Ought I to lay her under the necessity of declaring
her will?
Yet if I change my lodgings immediately, without waiting
her directions, will she not regard my conduct as contemptuous?
Shall I not then be a rebel indeed; one that scorns
her favor, and is eager to get rid of all my obligations?
How painful is such a situation; yet there is no escaping
from it that I can see. I must, per force, remain as I am.
But perhaps her next letter will throw some light upon my
destiny. I suppose my positive assertions will shew her that
a change of purpose cannot be hoped for from me.
The bell rings. Perhaps it is the postman, and the intelligence
I wish for has arrived—Adieu.
