LETTER LXX.
To Henry Colden.
And are you then alive? Are you then returned? Still
do you remember, still love the ungrateful and capricious
Jane? Have you indeed come back to sooth her almost
broken heart; to rescue her from the grave; to cheer her
with the prospect of peaceful and bright days yet to come?
O my full heart! Sorrow has not hitherto been able quite
to burst this frail tenement. I almost fear that joy,—so
strange to me is joy, and so far, so very far, beyond my notions
of possibility was your return—I almost fear that joy
will do what sorrow was unable to do.
Can it be that Colden—that self-same, dear, pensive face;
those eyes, benignly and sweetly mild; and that heart-dissolving
voice, have escaped so many storms; so many dangers?
Was it love for me that led you from the extremity
of the world, and have you, indeed, brought back with you
a heart full of "ineffable tenderness" for me?
Unspeakably unworthy am I of your love. Time and
grief, dear Hal, have bereft me of the glossy hues, the
laughing graces which your doating judgment once ascribed
to me. But what will not the joy of your return
effect? I already feel lightsome and buoyant as a bird. My
head is giddy; but, alas, you are not well. Yet, you
assure us, not dangerously sick. Nothing, did you not say,
but time and repose necessary to heal you? Will not my
presence, my nursing, hasten thy restoration? Tuesday evening—they
say it can't possibly be sooner—I am with you.
No supporters shall you have but my arms; no pillow but
my breast. Every holy rite shall instantly be called in
to make us one. And when once united, nothing but death
shall ever part us again. What did I say? Death itself, at
least
thy death, shall never dissever that bond.
Your brother will take this. Your sister—she is the most
excellent of women, and worthy to be your sister—She and
I will follow him tomorrow. He will tell you much, which
my hurried spirits will not allow me to tell you in this letter.
He knows every thing. He has been a brother, since my
mother's death—She is dead, Henry. She died in my arms;
and will it not give you pleasure to know, that her dying
lips blessed me, and expressed the hope that you would
one day return to find, in my authorized love, some recompense
for all the evils, to which her antipathies subjected
you? She hoped, indeed, that observation and experience
would detect the fallacy of your former tenets; that you
would become wise, not in speculation only, but in practice,
and be, in every respect, deserving of the happiness and
honor which would attend the gift of her daughter's hand
and heart.
My words cannot utter, but thy own heart perhaps can
conceive the rapture, which thy confession of a change in
thy opinions has afforded me. All my prayers, Henry, have
not been merely for your return. Indeed, whatever might
have been the dictates, however absolute the dominion of
passion, union with you would have been very far from completing
my felicity, unless our hopes and opinions, as well
as our persons and hearts were united. Now can I look
up with confidence and exultation to the shade of my
revered and beloved mother. Now can I safely invoke her
presence and her blessing on a union, which death will
have no power to dissolve. O, what sweet peace, what
serene transport is there in the persuasion, that the selected
soul will continue forever to commune with my soul, mingle
with mine in its adoration of the same divine parent, and partake
with me in every thought, in every emotion, both
here
and
hereafter!
Never, my friend, without this persuasion, never should I
have known one moment of true happiness. Marriage, indeed,
instead of losing its attractions, in consequence of
your errors, drew thence only new recommendations. Since,
with a zeal, a tenderness, and a faith like mine, my efforts
to restore such a heart and such a reason as yours, could
not fail of success, but till that restoration were accomplished,
never, I repeat, should I have tasted repose even in
your arms.
Poor Miss Jessup! She is dead, Henry; yet not before
she did thee and me poor justice. Her death-bed confession
removed my mother's fatal suspicions. This confession,
and the perusal of all thy letters, and thy exile, which I
afterwards discovered was known to her very early, though
unsuspected by me till after her decease, brought her to regard
thee with some compassion and some respect.
I can write no more; but must not conclude till I have
offered thee the tenderest, most fervent vows of a heart that
ever was and always will be thine own. Witness,
