LETTER II.
To Henry Colden.
Tuesday Morning, October 4.
I must write to you, you said, frequently, and copiously;
you did not mean, I suppose that I should always be scribbling,
but I cannot help it. I can do nothing but converse with
you. When present, my prate is incessant; when absent,
I can prate to you with as little intermission; for the pen, used
as carelessly and thoughtlessly as I use it, does but prate.
Besides, I have not forgotten my promise. 'Tis true the
story you wished me to give you, is more easily communicated
by the pen, than by the lips. I admit your claim to
be acquainted with all the incidents of my life, be they momentous
or trivial. I have often told you that the retrospect
is very mournful, but that ought not to prevent me from
making it, when so useful a purpose as that of thoroughly
disclosing to you the character of one, on whom your future
happiness is to depend, will be effected by it. I am not
surprised that calumny has been busy with my life, and am
very little anxious to clear myself from unjust charges,
except to such as you.
At this moment, I may add, my mood is not unfriendly
to the undertaking. I can do nothing in your absence but
write to you. To write what I have, ten thousand times,
spoken, and which can be perfectly understood only when
accompanied by looks and accents, seems absurd. Especially
while there is a subject, on which my tongue can never
expatiate, but on which it is necessary that you should know
all that I can tell you.
The prospect of filling up this interval with the relation of
the most affecting parts of my life, somewhat reconciled me
to your necessary absence, yet I know my heart will droop.
Even this preparation, to look back, makes me shudder
already. Some reluctance to recall tragical or humiliating
scenes, and by thus recalling, to endure them, in some sense,
a second time, I must expect to feel.
But let me lay down the pen for the present. Let me
take my favorite and lonely path, and by a deliberate review
of the past, refresh my memory and methodize my recollections.
Adieu till I return.
