LETTER LXIV.
To Mrs. Talbot.
I cannot leave this shore without thanking the mistress
of my destiny for all her goodness. Yet I should not have
ventured thus to address you, had I not seen a letter—
Dearest creature! blame not your friend, for betraying you.
Think it not a rash or injurious confession that you have
made.
And is it possible that you have not totally forgotten the
sweet scenes of our childhood; that absence has not degraded
me in your opinion; and that my devotion, if it continue
as fervent as now, may look, in a few years, for its
reward.
Could you prevail on yourself to hide these generous
emotions from me? To suffer me to leave my country in
the dreary belief that all former incidents were held in contempt,
and that so far from being high in your esteem, my
presence was troublesome, my existence was irksome to you?
But your motive was beneficent and generous. You were
content to be thought unfeeling and ungrateful for the sake
of my happiness. I rejoice inexpressibly in that event,
which has removed the veil from your true sentiments.
Nothing but pure felicity to me can flow from it. Nothing
but gratitude and honor can redound from it to yourself.
I go; but not with anguish and despondency for my companions.
I am buoyed up by the light wings of hope. The
prospect of gaining your love is not the only source of my
present happiness. If it were, I should be a criminal and
selfish being. No. My chief delight is, that happiness is
yet in store for you; that should heaven have denied you
your first hope, there still lives one whose claim to make
you happy will not be rejected.
