I am to send your letter, after reading, to my mother, I suppose. I have read it, Hal, more than once. And for my sake thou declinest her offers! When you thus refuse no sacrifice on my account, shall I hesitate when it becomes my turn? Shall I ever want gratitude, thinkest thou? Shall I ever imagine that I have done enough to evince my gratitude?

But how do I forget thy present situation! Thy dying friend has scarcely occurred to me. Thy afflictions, thy fatigues, are absorbed in my own selfish cares.

I am very often on the brink of hating myself. So much thoughtlessness of others; such callousness to sorrows not my own: my hard heart has often reproached thee for sparing a sigh or a wish from me; that every gloom has not been dispelled by my presence, was treason, forsooth, against my majesty, and the murmurs that delighted love should breathe, to welcome thy return, were changed into half-vindictive reluctance,—not quite a frown,—and upbraidings, in which tenderness was almost turned out of door by anger.

In the present case, for instance, I have scarcely thought of thy dying friend once. How much thy disquiets would be augmented by the letters which I sent thee, never entered my thoughts. To hide our sorrows from those who love us seems to be no more than generous. Yet I never hid any thing from thee. All was uttered that was felt. I considered not attending circumstances. The bird, as soon as it was scared, flew into the bosom that was nearest, and, merely occupied with dangers of its own, was satisfied to find a refuge there.

And yet—See now, Vanity, the cunning advocate, entering with his And yet. Would I listen to him, what a world of palliations and apologies would he furnish! How would he remind me of cases in which my sympathy was always awakened with attention! How often—But I will not listen to the flatterer.

And, now I think of it, Hal, you differ from me very much in that respect. Every mournful secret must be wrung from you. You hoard up all your evil thoughts, and brood over them alone. Nothing but earnest importunity ever got from you any of your griefs.

Now, this is cruel to yourself and unjust to me. It is denying my claim to confidence. It is holding back from me a part of yourself. It is setting light by my sympathy.

And yet—the prater Vanity once more, you see: but I will let him speak out this time. Here his apology is yours, and myself am only flattered indirectly.

And yet, when I have extorted from you any secret sorrow, you have afterwards acknowledged that the disclosure was of use:—that my sympathizing love was grateful to you, and my counsel of some value; that you drew from my conduct on those occasions new proofs of my strength of mind, and of my right—a right which my affection for you gave me—to share with you all your thoughts.

Yet, on the next occasion that offers, you are sure to relapse into your habitual taciturnity, and my labours to subdue it are again to be repeated. I have sometimes been tempted to retaliate, and convince you, by the effects of my concealments upon you, of the error of your own scheme.

But I never could persist in silence for five minutes together. Shut up as the temple of my heart is to the rest of mankind, all its doors fly open of their own accord when you approach.

Now am I got into my usual strain; in which I could persevere forever.— No wonder it charms me so much, since, while thus pursuing it, I lose all my cares in a sweet oblivion; but I must stop at last, and recall my thoughts to a less welcome subject.

Painful as it is, I must write to my mother. I will do it now, and send you my letter. I will endeavour, hereafter, to keep alive a salutary distrust of myself, and do nothing without your approbation and direction. Such submission becomes thy

JANE.



Letter XXVI

To Mrs. Fielder

Philadelphia, November 4.

I tremble thus to approach my honoured mother once more, since I cannot bring into her presence the heart that she wishes to find. Instead of acknowledgment of faults, and penitence suitable to their heinous nature, I must bring with me a bosom free from self-reproach, and a confidence, which innocence only can give, that I shall be some time able to disprove the charge brought against me.

Ah, my mother! could such guilt as this ever stain a heart fashioned by your tenderest care? Did it never occur to you that possibly some mistake might have misled the witness against me?

The letter which you sent me is partly mine. All that is honest and laudable is mine, but that which confesses dishonour has been added by another hand. By whom my handwriting was counterfeited, and for what end, I know not. I cannot name any one who deserves to be suspected.

I might proceed to explain the circumstances attending the writing and the loss of this letter, so fatal to me; but I forbear to attempt to justify myself by means which, I know beforehand, will effect nothing, unless it be to aggravate, in your eyes, my imaginary guilt.

If it were possible for you to suspend your judgment; if the most open, and earnest, and positive averments of my innocence could induce you, not to reverse, but merely to postpone, your sentence, you would afford me unspeakable happiness.

You tell me that the loss of your present bounty will be the consequence of my marriage. My claims on you are long ago at an end. Indeed, I never had any claims. Your treatment of me has flown from your unconstrained benevolence. For what you have given, for the tenderness which you continually bestowed on me, you have received only disappointment and affliction.

For all your favours I seem to you ungrateful; yet long after that conduct was known which, to you, proves my unworthiness, your protection has continued, and you are so good as to assure me that it shall not be withdrawn as long as I have no protector but you.

Dear as my education has made the indulgences of competence to me, I hope I shall relinquish them without a sigh. Had you done nothing more than screen my infancy and youth from hardship and poverty, than supply the mere needs of nature, my debt to you could never be paid.

But how much more than this have you done for me! You have given me, by your instructions and example, an understanding and a heart. You have taught me to value a fair fame beyond every thing but the peace of virtue; you have made me capable of a generous affection for a benefactor equal to yourself; capable of acting so as at once to deserve and to lose your esteem; and enabled me to relinquish cheerfully those comforts and luxuries which cannot be retained but at the price of my integrity.

I look forward to poverty without dismay. Perhaps I make light of its evils because I have never tried them. I am indeed a weak and undiscerning creature. Yet nothing but experience will correct my error, if it be an error.

So sanguine am I that I even cherish the belief that the privation of much of that ease which I have hitherto enjoyed will strengthen my mind, and somewhat qualify me for enduring those evils which I cannot expect always to escape.

You know, my mother, that the loss of my present provision will not leave me destitute. If it did, I know your generosity too well to imagine that you would withdraw from me all the means of support.

Indeed, my own fund, slender as it is in comparison with what your bounty supplies me, is adequate to all my personal wants: I am sure it would prove so on the trial. So that I part with your gifts with less reluctance, though with no diminution of my gratitude.

If I could bring to you my faith unbroken, and were allowed to present to you my friend, I would instantly fly to your presence; but that is a felicity too great for my hope. The alternative, however painful, must be adopted by

Your ever-grateful

JANE.



Letter XXVII

To Mrs. Talbot

Baltimore, November 5.

I highly approve of your letter. It far exceeded the expectations I had formed of you. You are indeed a surprising creature.

One cannot fail to be astonished at the differences of human characters; at the opposite principles by which the judgments of men are influenced.

Experience, however, is the antidote of wonder. There was a time when I should have reflected on the sentiments of your mother with a firm belief that no human being could be practically influenced by them.

She offers, and surely with sincerity, to divide her large property with you; to give away half her estate during her own life, and while, indeed, she is yet in her prime: and to whom give it? To one who has no natural relation to her; who is merely an adopted child; who has acted for several years in direct repugnance to her will, in a manner she regards as not only indiscreet, but flagrantly criminal. Whom one guilty act has (so it must appear to your mamma) involved in a continued series of falsehoods and frauds.

She offers this immense gift to you, on no condition but a mere verbal promise to break off intercourse with the man you love? and with whom you have been actually criminal.

She seems not aware how easily promises are made that are not designed to be performed; how absurd it would be to rely upon your integrity in this respect, when you have shown yourself (so it must appear to her) grossly defective in others of infinitely greater moment. How easily might a heart like yours be persuaded to recall its promises, or violate this condition, as soon as the performance of her contract has made you independent of her and of the world!

You promise—it is done in half a dozen syllables—that you will see the hated Colden no more. All that you promise, you intend. To-morrow she enriches you with half her fortune. Next day the seducer comes, and may surely expect to prevail on you to forget this promise, since he has conquered your firmness in a case of unspeakably greater importance.

This offer of hers surely indicates not only love for you, but reverence for your good faith inconsistent with the horrid imputation she has urged against you.

As to me, what a portrait does her letter exhibit! And yet this scoffer at the obligation of a promise is offered four or five thousand dollars on condition that he plights his word to embark for England and to give up all his hopes of you.

Villain as he is; a villain not by habit or by passion, but by principle; a cool-blooded, systematic villain; yet she will give him affluence and the means of depraving thousands by his example and his rhetoric, on condition that he refuses to marry the woman whom he has made an adulteress; who has imbibed, from the contagion of his discourse, all the practical and speculative turpitude which he has to impart.

This conduct might be considered only as proving her aversion to me. So strong is it as to impel her to indiscreet and self-destructive expedients; and so I should likewise reason if these very expedients did not argue a confidence in my integrity somewhat inconsistent with the censure passed on my morals.

After all, is there not reason to question the sincerity of her hatred? Is not thy mother a dissembler, Jane? Does she really credit the charge she makes against thee? Does she really suppose me that insane philosopher which her letter describes?

Yet this is only leaping from a ditch into a quicksand. It is quite as hard to account for her dissimulation as for her sincerity. Why should she pretend to suspect you of so black a deed, or me of such abominable tenets?

And yet, an observer might say, it is one thing to promise and another to perform, in her case as well as in ours. She tells us what she will do, provided we enter into such engagements; but, if we should embrace her offers, is it certain that she would not hesitate, repent, and retract?

Passion may dictate large and vehement offers upon paper, which deliberating prudence would never allow to be literally adhered to.

Besides, may not these magnificent proposals be dictated by a knowledge of our characters, which assured her that they would never be accepted? But, with this belief, why should the offers be made?

The answer is easy. These offers, by the kindness and respect for us which they manifest, engage our esteem and gratitude, and, by their magnitude, show how deeply she abhors this connection, and hence dispose us to do that, for pity's sake, which mere lucre would never recommend.

And here is a string of guesses to amuse thee, Jane. Their truth or falsehood is of little moment to us, since these offers ought not to influence our conduct.

One thing is sure; that is, thy mother's aversion to me. And yet I ought not to blame her. That I am an atheist in morals, the seducer of her daughter, she fully believes; and these are surely sufficient objections to me. Would she be a discerning friend or virtuous mother if she did not, with this belief, remonstrate against your alliance with one so wicked?

The fault lies not with her. With whom, then, does it lie? Or, what only is important, where is the remedy? Expostulation and remonstrance will avail nothing. I cannot be a hypocrite: I cannot dissemble that I have once been criminal, and that I am, at present, conscious of a thousand weaknesses and self-distrusts. There is but one meagre and equivocal merit that belongs to me. I stick to the truth; yet this is a virtue of late growth. It has not yet acquired firmness to resist the undermining waves of habit, or to be motionless amidst the hurricane of passions.

You offer me yourself. I love you. Shall I not then accept your offer? Shall my high conception of your merits, and my extreme contempt and distrust of myself, hinder me from receiving so precious a boon? Shall I not make happy by being happy? Since you value me so much beyond my merits; since my faults, though fully disclosed to you, do not abate your esteem, do not change your views in my favour, shall I withhold my hand?

I am not obdurate. I am not ungrateful. With you I never was a hypocrite. With the rest of the world I have ceased to be so. If I look forward without confidence, I look back with humiliation and remorse. I have always wished to be good, but, till I knew you, I despaired of ever being so, and even now my hopes are perpetually drooping.

I sometimes question, especially since your actual condition is known, whether I should accept your offered hand; but mistake me not, my beloved creature. My distrust does not arise from any doubts of my own constancy. That I shall grow indifferent or forgetful or ungrateful to you, can never be.

All my doubts are connected with you. Can I compensate you for those losses which will follow your marriage?—the loss of your mother's affection,—the exchange of all that splendour and abundance you have hitherto enjoyed for obscurity and indigence?

You say I can. The image of myself in my own mind is a sorry compound of hateful or despicable qualities. I am even out of humour with my person, my face. So absurd am I in my estimates of merit, that my homely features and my scanty form had their part in restraining me from aspiring to one supreme in loveliness, and in causing the surprise that followed the discovery of your passion.

In your eyes, however, this mind and this person are venerable and attractive. My affection, my company, are chief goods with you. The possession of all other goods cannot save you from misery, if this be wanting. The loss of all others will not bereave you of happiness if this be possessed.

Fain would I believe you. You decide but reasonably. Fortune's goods ought not to be so highly prized as the reason of many prizes them, and as my habits, in spite of reason's dissent and remonstrances, compel me to prize them. They contribute less to your happiness, and that industry and frugality which supplies their place, you look upon without disgust; with even some degree of satisfaction.

Not so I: I cannot labour for bread; I cannot work to live. In that respect I have no parallel. The world does not contain my likeness. My very nature unfits me for any profitable business. My dependence must ever be on others or on fortune.

As to the influence of some stronger motive to industry than has yet occurred, I am without hope. There can be no stronger ones to a generous mind, than have long been urgent with me: being proof against these, none will ever conquer my reluctance.

I am not indolent, but my activity is vague, profitless, capricious. No lucrative or noble purpose impels me. I aim at nothing but selfish gratification. I have no relish, indeed, for sensual indulgences. It is the intellectual taste that calls for such banquets as imagination and science can furnish; but, though less sordid than the epicure, the voluptuary, or the sportsman, the principle that governs them and me is the same; equally limited to self; equally void of any basis in morals or religion.

Should you give yourself to me, and rely upon my labour for shelter and food, deplorable and complete would be your disappointment. I know myself too well to trust myself with such an office. My love for you would not strengthen my heart or my hands. No; it would only sink me with more speed into despair. Quickly, and by some fatal deed, should I abandon you, my children and the world.

Possibly I err. Possibly I underrate my strength of mind and the influence of habit, which makes easy to us every path; but I will not trust to the possible.

Hence it is that, if by marriage you should become wholly dependent on me, it could never take place. Some freak of fortune may indeed place me above want, but my own efforts never will. Indeed, in this forbearance, in this self-denial, there is no merit. While admitted to the privileges of a betrothed man, your company, your confidence, every warrantable proof of love mine, I may surely dispense with the privileges of wedlock. Secretly repine I might; occasionally I might murmur. But my days would glide along with fewer obstacles, at least, than if I were that infirm and disconsolate wretch, your husband.

But this unhappy alternative is not ours. Thou hast something which thy mother cannot take away; sufficient for thy maintenance, thy frugal support. Meaner and more limited indeed than thy present and former affluence; such as I, of my own motion, would never reduce thee to; such as I can object to only on thy own account.

How has the night run away! My friend's sister arrived here yesterday. They joined in beseeching me to go to a separate chamber and strive for some refreshment. I have slept a couple of hours, and that has sufficed. My mind, on waking, was thronged with so many images connected with my Jane, that I started up at last and betook myself to the pen.

Yet how versatile and fleeting is thought! In this long letter I have not put down one thing that I intended. I meant not to repeat what has been so often said before, and especially I meant not to revolve, if I could help it, any gloomy ideas.

Thy letters gave me exquisite pleasure. They displayed all thy charming self to my view. I pressed every precious line to my lips with nearly as much rapture as I would have done the prattler herself, had she been talking to me all this tenderness instead of writing it.

I took up the pen that I might tell thee my thanks, yet rambled almost instantly into mournful repetitions. I have half a mind to burn the scribble, but I cannot write more just now, and this will show you, at least, that I am not unmindful of you. Adieu.

COLDEN.



Letter XXVIII

To Mrs. Talbot

Baltimore, November 6.

Let me see! this is the beginning of November. Yes; it was just a twelvemonth ago that I was sitting, at this silent hour, at a country-fire just like this. My elbow then as now was leaning on a table, supplied with books and writing-tools.

"What shall I do," thought I, "then, to pass away the time till ten? Can't think of going to bed till that hour, and if I sit here, idly basking in the beams of this cheerful blaze, I shall fall into a listless, uneasy cloze, that, without refreshing me, as sleep would do, will unfit me for sleep.

"Shall I read? Nothing here that is new. Enough that is of value, if I could but make myself inquisitive; treasures which, in a curious mood, I would eagerly rifle; but now the tedious page only adds new weight to my eyelids.

"Shall I write? What? to whom? there are Sam and Tom, and brother Dick, and sister Sue: they all have epistolary claims upon me still unsatisfied. Twenty letters that I ought to answer. Come, let me briskly set about the task——

"Not now; some other time. To-morrow. What can I write about? Haven't two ideas that hang together intelligibly. 'Twill be commonplace trite stuff. Besides, writing always plants a thorn in my breast.

"Let me try my hand at a reverie; a meditation,—on that hearth-brush. Hair—what sort of hair? of a hog; and the wooden handle—of poplar or cedar or white oak. At one time a troop of swine munching mast in a grove of oaks, transformed by those magicians, carpenters and butchers, into hearth-brushes. A whimsical metamorphosis, upon my faith!

"Pish! what stupid musing! I see I must betake myself to bed at last, and throw away upon oblivion one more hour than is common."

So it once was. But how is it now? no wavering and deliberating what I shall do,—to lash the drowsy moments into speed. In my haste to set the table and its gear in order for scribble, I overturn the inkhorn, spill the ink, and stain the floor.

The damage is easily repaired, and I sit down, with unspeakable alacrity, to a business that tires my muscles, sets a gnawer at work upon my lungs, fatigues my brain, and leaves me listless and spiritless.

How you have made yourself so absolute a mistress of the goose-quill, I can't imagine; how you can maintain the writing posture and pursue the writing movement for ten hours together, without benumbed brain or aching fingers, is beyond my comprehension.

But you see what zeal will do for me. It has enabled me to keep drowsiness, fatigue, and languor at bay during a long night. Converse with thee, heavenly maid, is an antidote even to sleep, the most general and inveterate of all maladies.

By-and-by I shall have as voluble a pen as thy own. And yet to that, my crazy constitution says, Nay. 'Twill never be to me other than an irksome, ache-producing implement. It need give pleasure to others, not a little, to compensate for the pain it gives myself.

But this, thou'lt say, is beside the purpose. It is; and I will lay aside the quill a moment to consider. I left off my last letter, with a head full of affecting images, which I have waited impatiently for the present opportunity of putting upon paper. Adieu, then, for a moment, says thy

COLDEN.



Letter XXIX

To the Same

10 o'clock at night.

Now let us take a view of what is to come. Too often I endeavour to escape from foresight when it presents to me nothing but evils, but now I must, for thy sake, be less a coward.

In six weeks Jane becomes mine. Till then, thy mother will not cast thee out of her protection. And will she then? will she not allow of thy continuance in thy present dwelling? and, though so much displeased as to refuse thee her countenance and correspondence, will she indeed turn thee out of doors? She threatens it, we see; but I suspect it will never be more than a threat, employed, perhaps, only to intimidate and deter; not designed to be enforced. Or, if made in earnest, yet, when the irrevocable deed is done, will she not hesitate to inflict the penalty? Will not her ancient affection; thy humility, thy sorrow, thy merits,—such as, in spite of this instance of contumacy, she cannot deny thee,—will not these effectually plead for thee?

More than ever will she see that thou needest her bounty; and, since she cannot recall what is past, will she not relent and be willing to lessen the irremediable evil all she can?

There is one difficulty that I know not how to surmount. Giving to the wife will be only giving to the husband. Shall one whom she so much abhors be luxuriously supplied from her bounty?

The wedded pair must live together, she will think; and shall this hated encroacher find refuge from beggary and vileness under her roof,—be lodged and banqueted at her expense? That her indignant heart will never suffer.

Would to Heaven she would think of me with less abhorrence! I wish for treatment conformable to her assumed relation to thee, for all our sakes. As to me, I have no pride; no punctilio, that will stand in the way of reconciliation. At least there is no deliberate and steadfast sentiment of that kind. When I reason the matter with myself, I perceive a sort of claim to arise from my poverty and relation to thee on the one hand, and, on the other, from thy merit, thy affinity to her, and her capacity to benefit. Yet I will never supplicate—not meanly supplicate—for an alms. I will not live, nor must thou, when thou art mine, in her house. Whatever she will give thee, money, or furniture, or clothes, receive it promptly and with gratitude; but let thy home be thy own. For lodging and food be thou the payer.

And where shall be thy home? You love the comforts, the ease, the independence of a household. Your own pittance will not suffice for this. All these you must relinquish for my sake. You must go into a family of strangers. You must hire a chamber, and a plate of such food as is going. You must learn to bear the humours and accommodate yourself to the habits of your inmates.

Some frugal family and humble dwelling must content thee. A low roof, a narrow chamber, and an obscure avenue, the reverse of all the specious, glossy, and abundant that surround thee now, will be thy portion,—all that thou must look for as my wife. And how will this do, Jane? Is not the price too great?

And my company will not solace thee under these inconveniences. I must not live with thee; only an occasional visitor; one among a half-dozen at a common fire; with witnesses of all we say. Thy pittance will do no more than support thyself. I must house myself and feed elsewhere. Where, I know not. That will depend upon the species of employment I shall be obliged to pursue for my subsistence. Scanty and irksome it will be, at best.

Once a day I may see thee. Most of my evenings may possibly be devoted to thy company. A soul harassed by unwelcome toil, eyes dim with straining at tiresome or painful objects, shall I bring to thee. If now and then we are alone, how can I contribute to thy entertainment? The day's task will furnish me with nothing new. Instead of alleviating, by my cheerful talk, thy vexations and discomforts, I shall demand consolation from thee.

And yet imperious necessity may bereave us even of that joy. I may be obliged to encounter the perils of the seas once more. Three-fourths of the year, the ocean may divide us, thou in solitude, the while, pondering on the dangers to which I may be exposed, and I, a prey to discontent, and tempted in some evil hour to forget thee, myself, and the world.

How my heart sinks at this prospect! Does not thine, Jane? Dost thou not fear to take such a wretched chance with me? I that know myself, my own imbecility,—I ought surely to rescue thee from such a fate, by giving thee up.

I can write no more just now. I wonder how I fell into this doleful strain. It was silly in me to indulge it. These images are not my customary inmates. Yet, now that they occur to me, they seem but rational and just. I want, methinks, to know how they appear to thee.

Adieu.

HENRY COLDEN.



Letter XXX

To the same

Wilmington, November 7.

I have purposely avoided dwelling on the incidents that are passing here. They engross my thoughts at all times but those devoted to the pen, and to write to thee is one expedient for loosening their hold.

An expedient not always successful. My mind wanders, in spite of me, from my own concerns and from thine, to the sick-bed of my friend. A reverie, painful and confused, invades me now and then; my pen stops, and I am obliged to exert myself anew to shake off the spell.

Till now, I knew not how much I loved this young man. Strange beings we are! Separated as we have been for many a year, estranged as much by difference of sentiments as local distance, his image visiting my memory not once a month, and then a transitory, momentary visit; had he died a year ago, and I not known it, the stream of my thoughts would not have been ruffled by a single impediment. Yet, now that I stand over him and witness his decay——

Many affecting conversations we have had. I cannot repeat them now. After he is gone, I will put them all upon paper and muse upon them often.

His closing hour is serene. His piety now stands him in some stead. In calling me hither, he tells me that he designed not his own gratification, but my good. He wished to urge upon me the truths of religion, at a time when his own conduct might visibly attest their value. By their influence in making that gloomy path which leads to the grave joyous and lightsome, he wishes me to judge of their excellence.

His pains are incessant and sharp. He can seldom articulate without an effort that increases his pangs; yet he talks much in cogent terms, and with accurate conceptions, and, in all he says, evinces a pathetic earnestness for my conviction.

I listen to him with a heart as unbiassed as I can prevail on it to be; as free, I mean, from its customary bias; for I strive to call up feelings and ideas similar to his. I know how pure to him would be the satisfaction of leaving the world with the belief of a thorough change in me.

I argue not with him. I say nothing but to persuade him that I am far from being that contumacious enemy to his faith which he is prone to imagine me to be.

Thy mother's letter has called up more vividly than usual our ancient correspondence, and the effects of that disclosure. Yet I have not mentioned the subject to him. I never mentioned it. I could not trust myself to mention it. There was no need. The letters were written by me. I did not charge him to secrecy, and, if I had, he would not have been bound to compliance. It was his duty to make that use of them which tended to prevent mischief,—which appeared to him to have that tendency; and this he has done. His design, I have no doubt, was benevolent and just.

He saw not all the consequences that have followed, 'tis true; but that ignorance would justify him, even if these consequences were unpleasing to him; but they would not have displeased, had they been foreseen. They would only have made his efforts more vigorous, his disclosures more explicit.

His conduct, indeed, on that occasion, as far as we know it, seems irregular and injudicious. To lay before a stranger private letters from his friend, in which opinions were avowed and defended that he knew would render the writer detestable to her that read.

He imagined himself justified in imputing to me atrocious and infamous errors. He was grieved for my debasement, and endeavoured, by his utmost zeal and eloquence, to rectify these errors. This was generous and just: but needed he to proclaim these errors and blazon this infamy?

Yet ought I to wish to pass upon the world for other than I am? Can I value that respect which is founded in ignorance? Can I be satisfied with caresses from those who, if they knew me fully, would execrate and avoid me?

For past faults and rectified errors, are not remorse and amendment adequate atonements? If any one despise me for what I was, let me not shrink from the penalty. Let me not find pleasure in the praise of those whose approbation is founded on ignorance of what I am. It is unjust to demand, it is sordid to retain, praise that is not merited either by our present conduct or our past. Why have I declined such praise? Because I value it not.

Thus have I endeavoured to think in relation to Thomson. My endeavour has succeeded. My heart entirely acquits him. It even applauds him for his noble sincerity.

Yet I could never write to him or talk to him on this subject. My tongue, my pen, will be sure to falter. I know that he will boldly justify his conduct, and I feel that he ought to justify; yet the attempt to justify would awaken—indignation, selfishness. In spite of the suggestions of my better reason, I know we should quarrel.

We should not quarrel now, if the topic were mentioned. Of indignation against him, even for a real fault, much less for an imaginary one, I am, at this time, not capable; but it would be useless to mention it. There is nothing to explain; no misapprehensions to remove, no doubts to clear up. All that he did, I, in the same case, ought to have done.

But I told you I wished not to fill my letters with the melancholy scene before me. This is a respite, a solace to me; and thus, and in reading thy letters, I employ all my spare moments.

Write to me, my love. Daily, hourly, and cheerfully, if possible. Borrow not; be not thy letters tinged with the melancholy hue of this.

Write speedily and much, if thou lovest thy

COLDEN.



Letter XXXI

To Henry Colden

Philadelphia, Nov. 9.

What do you mean, Hal, by such a strain as this? I wanted no additional causes of disquiet. Yet you tell me to write cheerfully. I would have written cheerfully, if these letters, so full of dark forebodings and rueful prognostics, had not come to damp my spirits.

And is the destiny that awaits us so very mournful? Is thy wife necessarily to lose so many comforts and incur so many mortifications? Are my funds so small, that they will not secure to me the privilege of a separate apartment, in which I may pass my time with whom and in what manner I please?

Must I huddle, with a dozen squalling children and their notably-noisy or sluttishly-indolent dam, round a dirty hearth and meagre winter's fire? Must sooty rafters, a sorry truckle-bed, and a mud-encumbered alley, be my nuptial lot?

Out upon thee, thou egregious painter! Well for thee thou art not within my arm's length. I should certainly bestow upon thee a hearty— kiss or two. My blundering pen! I recall the word. I meant cuff; but my saucy pen, pretending to know more of my mind than I did myself, turned (as its mistress, mayhap, would have done, hadst thou been near me, indeed) her cuff into a kiss.

What possessed thee, my beloved, to predict so ruefully? A very good beginning too! more vivacity than common! But I hardly had time to greet the sunny radiance—tis a long time since my cell was gilded by so sweet a beam—when a black usurping mist stole it away, and all was dreary as it is wont to be.

Perhaps thy being in a house of mourning may account for it. Fitful and versatile I know thee to be; changeable with scene and circumstance. Thy views are just what any eloquent companion pleases to make them. She thou lovest is thy deity; her lips thy oracle. And hence my cheerful omens of the future; the confidence I have in the wholesome efficacy of my government. I, that have the will to make thee happy, have the power too. I know I have; and hence my promptitude to give away all for thy sake; to give myself a wife's title to thy company, a conjugal share in thy concerns, and claim to reign over thee.

Make haste, and atone, by the future brightness of thy epistolary emanations, for the pitchy cloud that overspreads these sick man's dreams.

How must thou have rummaged the cupboard of thy fancy for musty scraps and flinty crusts to feed thy spleen withal,—inattentive to the dainties which a blue-eyed Hebe had culled in the garden of Hope, and had poured from out her basket into thy ungrateful lap.

While thou wast mumbling these refractory and unsavoury bits, I was banqueting on the rosy and delicious products of that Eden which love, when not scared away by evil omens, is always sure (the poet says) to plant around us. I have tasted nectarines of her raising, and I find her, let me tell thee, an admirable horticulturist.

Thou art so far off, there is no sending thee a basketful, or I would do it. They would wilt and wither ere they reached thee; the atmosphere thou breathest would strike a deadly worm into their hearts before thou couldst get them to thy lips.

But to drop the basket and the bough, and take up a plain meaning:—I will tell thee how I was employed when thy letter came; but first I must go back a little.

In the autumn of ninety-seven, and when death had spent his shafts in my own family, I went to see how a family fared, the father and husband of which kept a shop in Front Street, where every thing a lady wanted was sold, and where I had always been served with great despatch and affability.

Being one day (I am going to tell you how our acquaintance began)— being one day detained in the shop by a shower, I was requested to walk into the parlour. I chatted ten minutes with the good woman of the house, and found in her so much gentleness and good sense, that afterwards my shopping visits were always, in part, social ones. My business being finished at the counter, I usually went back, and found on every interview new cause for esteeming the family. The treatment I met with was always cordial and frank; and, though our meetings were thus merely casual, we seemed, in a short time, to have grown into a perfect knowledge of each other.

This was in the summer you left us, and, the malady breaking out a few months after, and all shopping being at an end, and alarm and grief taking early possession of my heart, I thought but seldom of the Hennings. A few weeks after death had bereaved me of my friend, I called these, and others whose welfare was dear to me, to my remembrance, and determined to pay them a visit and discover how it fared with them. I hoped they had left the city; yet Mrs. Henning had told me that her husband, who was a devout man, held it criminal to fly on such occasions, and that she, having passed safely through the pestilence of former years, had no apprehensions from staying.

Their house was inhabited, but I found the good woman in great affliction. Her husband had lately died, after a tedious illness, and her distress was augmented by the solitude in which the flight of all her neighbours and acquaintances had left her. A friendly visit could at no time have been so acceptable to her, and my sympathy was not more needed to console her than my counsel to assist her in the new state of her affairs.

Laying aside ceremony, I inquired freely into her condition, and offered her my poor services. She made me fully acquainted with her circumstances, and I was highly pleased at finding them so good. Her husband had always been industrious and thrifty, and his death left her enough to support her and her Sally in the way they wished.

Inquiring into their views and wishes, I found them limited to the privacy of a small but neat house in some cleanly and retired corner of the city. Their stock in trade I advised them to convert into money, and, placing it in some public fund, live upon its produce. Mrs. Henning knew nothing of the world. Though an excellent manager within-doors, any thing that might be called business was strange and arduous to her, and without my direct assistance she could do nothing.

Happily, at this time, just such a cheap and humble, but neat, new, and airy dwelling as my friend required, belonging to Mrs. Fielder, was vacant. You know the house. 'Tis that where the Frenchman Catineau lived. Is it not a charming abode?—at a distance from noise, with a green field opposite and a garden behind; of two stories; a couple of good rooms on each floor; with unspoiled water, and a kitchen, below the ground indeed, but light, wholesome, and warm.

Most fortunately, too, that incorrigible Creole had deserted it. He was scared away by the fever, and no other had put in a claim. I made haste to write to my mother, who, though angry with me on my own account, could not reject my application in favour of my good widow.

I even prevailed on her to set the rent forty dollars lower than she might have gotten from another, and to give a lease of it at that rate for five years. You can't imagine my satisfaction in completing this affair, and in seeing my good woman quietly settled in her new abode, with her daughter Sally and her servant Alice, who had come with her from Europe, and had lived with her the dear knows how long.

Mrs. Henning is no common woman, I assure you. Her temper is the sweetest in the world. Not cultivated or enlightened is her understanding, but naturally correct. Her life has always been spent under her own roof; and never saw I a scene of more quiet and order than her little homestead exhibits. Though humbly born, and perhaps meanly brought up, her parlour and chamber add to the purest cleanliness somewhat that approaches to elegance.

The mistress and the maid are nearly of the same age, and, though equally innocent and good-humoured, the former has more sedateness and reserve than the latter. She is devout in her way, which is Methodism, and acquires from this source nothing but new motives of charity to her neighbours and thankfulness to God.

Much—indeed, all—of these comforts she ascribes to me; yet her gratitude is not loquacious. It shows itself less in words than in the pleasure she manifests on my visits; the confidence with which she treats me; laying before me all her plans and arrangements, and entreating my advice in every thing. Yet she has brought with her, from her native country, notions of her inferiority to the better-born and the better- educated but too soothing to my pride. Hence she is always diffident, and never makes advances to intimacy but when expressly invited and encouraged.

It was a good while before all her new arrangements were completed. When they were, I told her I would spend the day with her, for which she was extremely grateful. She sent me word as soon as she was ready to receive me, and I went.

Artless and unceremonious was the good woman in the midst of all her anxiety to please. Affectionate yet discreet in her behaviour to her Sally and her Alice, and of me as tenderly observant as possible.

She showred me all her rooms, from cellar to garret, and every thing I saw delighted me. Two neat beds in the front-room above belong to her and Sally. The back-room is decked in a more fanciful and costly manner.

"Why, this, my good friend," said I, on entering it, "is quite superb. Here is carpet and coverlet and curtains that might satisfy a prince: you are quite prodigal. And for whose accommodation is all this?"

"Oh, any lady that will favour me with a visit. It is a spare room, and the only one I have, and I thought I would launch out a little for once. One wishes to set the best they have before a guest,—though, indeed, I don't expect many to visit me; but it is some comfort to think one has it in one's power to lodge a friend, when it happens so, in a manner that may not discredit one's intentions. I have no relations in this country, and the only friend I have in the world, besides God, is you, madam. But still, it may sometimes happen, you know, that one may have occasion to entertain somebody. God be thanked, I have enough, and what little I have to spare I have no right to hoard up."

"But might you not accommodate a good quiet kind of body in this room, at so much a year or week?"

"Why, ma'am, if you think that's best; but I thought one might indulge one's self in living one's own way. I have never been used to strangers, and always have had a small family. It would be a very new thing to me to have an inmate. I am afraid I should not please such a one. And then, ma'am, if this room's occupied, I have no decent place to put any accidental person in. It would go hard with me to be obliged to turn a good body away, that might be here on a visit, and might be caught by a rain or a snow storm."

"Very true; I did not think of that. And yet it seems a pity that so good a room should be unemployed, perhaps for a year together."

"So it does, ma'am; and I can't but say, if a proper person should offer, who wanted to be snug and quiet, I should have no great objection. One that could put up with our humble ways, and be satisfied with what I could do to make them comfortable. I think I should like such a one well enough."

"One," said I, "who would accept such accommodation as a favour. A single person, for example. A woman; a young woman. A stranger in the country, and friendless like yourself."

"Oh, very true, madam," said the good woman, with sparkling benignity; "I should have no objection in the world to such a one. I should like it of all things. And I should not mind to be hard with such a one. I should not stickle about terms. Pray, ma'am, do you know any such? If you do, and will advise me to take her, I would be very glad to do it."

Now, Hal, what thinkest thou? Cannot I light on such a young, single, slenderly-provided woman as this? One whose heart pants for just such a snug retreat as Mrs. Henning's roof would afford her?

This little chamber, set out with perfect neatness; looking out on a very pretty piece of verdure and a cleanly court-yard; with such a good couple to provide for her; with her privacy unapproachable but at her own pleasure; her quiet undisturbed by a prater, a scolder, a bustler, or a whiner; no dirty children to offend the eye, or squalling ones to wound the ear; with admitted claims to the gratitude, confidence, and affection of her hostess: might not these suffice to make a lowly, unambitious maiden happy?

One who, like Mrs. Henning, had only one friend upon earth. Whom her former associates refused to commune with or look upon. Whose loneliness was uncheered, except by her own thoughts and her books,— perhaps now and then, at times when oceans did not sever her from him, by that one earthly friend.

Might she not afford him as many hours of her society as his engagements would allow him to claim? Might she not, as an extraordinary favour, admit him to partake with her the comforts of her own little fire, if winter it be, or, in summer-time, to join her at her chamber-window and pass away the starlight hour in the unwitnessed community of fond hearts?

Suppose, to obviate unwelcome surmises and too scrupulous objections, the girl makes herself a wife, but, because their poverty will not enable them to live together, the girl merely admits the chosen youth on the footing of a visitor?

Suppose her hours are not embittered by the feelings of dependence? She pays an ample compensation for her entertainment, and by her occasional company, her superior strength of mind and knowledge of the world's ways, she materially contributes to the happiness and safety of her hostess.

Suppose, having only one visitor, and he sometimes wanting in zeal and punctuality, much of her time is spent alone? Happily she is exempt from the humiliating necessity of working to live, and is not obliged to demand a share of the earnings of her husband. Her task, therefore, will be to find amusement. Can she want the means, thinkest thou?

The sweet quiet of her chamber, the wholesome airs from abroad, or the cheerful blaze of her hearth, will invite her to mental exercise. Perhaps she has a taste for books, and, besides that pure delight which knowledge on its own account affords her, it possesses tenfold attractions in her eyes, by its tendency to heighten the esteem of him whom she lives to please.

Perhaps, rich as she is in books, she is an economist of pleasure, and tears herself away from them, to enjoy the vernal breezes, or the landscape of autumn, in a twilight ramble. Here she communes with bounteous nature, or lifts her soul in devotion to her God, to whose benignity she resigns herself as she used to do to the fond arms of that parent she has lost.

If these do not suffice to fill up her time, she may chance to reflect on the many ways in which she may be useful to herself. She may find delight in supplying her own wants; by maintaining cleanliness and order all about her; by making up her own dresses,—especially as she disdains to be outdone in taste and expertness at the needle by any female in the land.

By limiting in this way, and in every other which her judgment may recommend, her own expenses, she will be able to contribute somewhat to relieve the toils of her beloved. The pleasure will be hers of reflecting, not only that her love adds nothing to his fatigues and cares; not only that her tender solicitudes and seasonable counsel cherish his hopes and strengthen his courage, but that the employment of her hands makes his own separate subsistence an easier task. To work for herself will be no trivial gratification to her honest pride, but to work for her beloved will, indeed, be a cause of exultation.

Twenty things she may do for him which others must be paid for doing, not in caresses, but in money; and this service, though not small, is not perhaps the greatest she is able to perform. She is active and intelligent, perhaps, and may even aspire to the profits of some trade. What is it that makes one calling more lucrative than another? Not superior strength of shoulders or sleight of hand; not the greater quantity of brute matter that is reduced into form or set into motion. No. The difference lies in the mental powers of the artist, and the direction accidentally given to these powers.

What should hinder a girl like this from growing rich by her diligence and ingenuity? She has, perhaps, acquired many arts with no view but her own amusement. Not a little did her mother pay to those who taught her to draw and to sing. May she not levy the same tributes upon others that were levied on her, and make a business of her sports?

There is, indeed, a calling that may divert her from the thoughts of mere lucre. She may talk and sing for another, and dedicate her best hours to a tutelage for which there is a more precious requital than money can give.

Dost not see her, Hal? I do,—as well as this gushing sensibility will let me,—rocking in her arms and half stifling with her kisses, or delighting with her lullaby, a precious little creature——

Why, my friend, do I hesitate? Do I not write for thy eye, and thine only? and what is there but pure and sacred in the anticipated transports of a mother?

The conscious heart might stifle its throbs in thy presence; but why not indulge them in thy absence, and tell thee its inmost breathings, not without a shame-confessing glow, yet not without drops of the truest delight that were ever shed?

Why, how now, Jane? whence all this interest in the scene thou portrayest? One would fancy that this happy outcast, this self-dependent wife, was no other than thyself.

A shrewd conjecture, truly. I suppose, Hal, thou wilt be fond enough to guess so, too. By what penalty shall I deter thee from so rash a thing? yet thou art not here—I say it to my sorrow-to suffer the penalty which I might choose to inflict.

I will not say what it is, lest the fear of it should keep thee away.

And, now that I have finished the history of Mrs. Henning and her boarder, I will bid thee—good-night.

Good——good-night, my love.

JANE TALBOT.



Letter XXXI

[Editorial note: The observant reader will have noticed this is the second letter bearing the number XXXI. The original text contained two Letters XXXI, and we have chosen to let the letters retain their original numbers, rather than renumber them.]

To Henry Colden

Philadelphia, November 11.

How shall I tell you the strange—strange incident? Every fibre of my frame still trembles. I have endeavoured, during the last hour, to gain tranquillity enough for writing, but without success. Yet I can forbear no longer: I must begin.

I had just closed my last to you, when somebody knocked. I heard footsteps below, as the girl ushered in the visitant, which were not quite unknown to me. The girl came up:—"A gentleman is waiting."

"A gentleman!" thought I. "An odd hour this" (it was past ten) "for any man but one to visit me. His business must be very urgent." So, indeed, he told the girl it was, for she knew me averse to company at any time, and I had withdrawn to my chamber for the night; but he would not be eluded. He must see me, he said, this night.

A tall and noble figure, in a foreign uniform, arose from the sofa at my entrance. The half-extinct lamp on the mantel could not conceal from me—my brother!

My surprise almost overpowered me. I should have sunk upon the floor, had he not stepped to me and sustained me in his arms.

"I see you are surprised, Jane," said he, in a tone not without affection in it. "You did not expect, I suppose, ever to see me again. It was a mere chance brought me to America. I shall stay here a moment, and then hie me back again. I could not pass through the city without a 'How d'ye' to the little girl for whom I have still some regard."

The violence of my emotions found relief in a flood of tears. He was not unmoved, but, embracing me with tenderness, he seated me by him on the sofa.

When I had leisure to survey his features, I found that time had rather improved his looks. They were less austere, less contemptuous, than they used to be: perhaps, indeed, it was only a momentary remission of his customary feelings.

To my rapid and half-coherent questions, he replied, "I landed—you need not know where. My commission requires secrecy, and you know I have personal reasons for wishing to pass through this city without notice. My business did not bring me farther southward than New London; but I heard your mother resided in New York, and could not leave the country without seeing you. I called on her yesterday; but she looked so grave and talked so obscurely about you, that I could not do less than come hither. She told me you were here. How have been affairs since I left you?"

I answered this question vaguely.

"Pray," (with much earnestness,) "are you married yet?"

The confusion with which I returned an answer to this did not escape him.

"I asked Mrs. Fielder the same question, and she talked as if it were a doubtful point. She could not tell, she said, with a rueful physiognomy. Very probable it might be so. I could not bring her to be more explicit. As I proposed to see you, she said, you were the fittest person to explain your own situation. This made me the more anxious to see you. Pray, Jane, how do matters stand between you and Mrs. Fielder? are you not on as good terms as formerly?"

I answered, that some difference had unhappily occurred between us, that I loved and revered her as much as ever, and hoped that we should soon be mother and daughter again.

"But the cause?—the cause, Jane? Is a lover the bone of contention between you? That's the rock on which family harmony is sure to be wrecked. But tell me: what have you quarrelled about?"

How could I explain on such a subject, thus abruptly introduced to him? I told him it was equally painful and useless to dwell on my contentions with my mother, or on my own affairs. "Rather let me hear," said I, "how it fares with you; what fortunes you have met with in this long absence."

"Pretty well; pretty well. Many a jade's trick did Fortune play me before I left this spot, but ever since, it has been all smooth and bright with me. But this marriage—Art thou a wife or not? I heard, I think, some talk about a Talbot. What's become of him? They said you were engaged to him."

"It is long since the common destiny has ended all Talbot's engagements."

"Dead, is he? Well, a new aspirer, I suppose, has succeeded, and he is the bone of contention. Who's he?"

I could not bear that a subject of such deep concern to me should be discussed thus lightly, and therefore begged him to change the subject.

"Change the subject? With all my heart, if we can find any more important; but that's impossible. So we must even stick to this a little longer. Come; what's his parentage; fortune; age; character; profession? 'Tis not likely I shall find fault where Mrs. Fielder does. Young men and old women seldom hit upon the same choice in a husband; and, for my part, I am easily pleased."

"This is a subject, brother, on which it is impossible that we should think alike; nor is it necessary. Let us then talk of something in which we have a common concern; something that has a claim to interest you."

"What subject, girl, can have a stronger claim on my attention than the marriage of my sister? I am not so giddy and unprincipled as to be unconcerned on that head, So make no more ado, but tell your brother candidly what are your prospects."

After some hesitation,—"My real brother—one who had the tenderness becoming that relation—would certainly deserve my confidence. But——"

"But what? Come; never mince the matter, I scarcely been half a brother hitherto, I grant you of an enemy, perhaps, than friend; but no reason why I should continue hostile or indifferent. So tell me who the lad is, and what are his pretensions."

I endeavoured to draw him off to some other subject, but he would not be diverted from this. By dint of interrogatories, he at last extorted from me a few hints respecting you. Finding that you were without fortune or profession, and that my regard for you had forfeited all favour with my mother, the inquiry was obvious, how we meant to live. It was impossible to answer this question in any manner satisfactory to him. He has no notion of existence unconnected with luxury and splendour.

"Have you made any acquisitions," continued he, "since I saw you? Has any good old aunt left you another legacy?"—This was said with the utmost vivacity and self-possession. A strange being is my brother. Could he have forgotten by whom I was robbed of my former legacy?

"Come, come; I know thou art a romantic being,—one accustomed to feed on thoughts instead of pudding. Contentment and a cottage are roast beef and a palace to thee; but, take my word for it, this inamorata of thine will need a more substantial diet. By marrying him you will only saddle him with misery. So drop all thoughts of so silly a scheme; write him a 'good-by;' make up your little matters, and come along with me. I will take you to my country, introduce you to a new world, and bring to your feet hundreds of generous souls, the least of whom is richer, wiser, handsomer, than this tame-spirited, droning animal—what's his name? But no matter. I suppose I know nothing of him."

I was rash enough to tell him your name and abode, but I treated his proposal as a jest. I quickly found that he was serious. He soon became extremely urgent; recounted the advantages of his condition; the charming qualities of his wife; the security and splendour of his new rank. He endeavoured to seduce my vanity by the prospect of the conquest I should make in that army of colonels, philosophers, and commissioners that formed the circle of his friends. "Any man but a brother," said he, "must own that you are a charming creature. So you need only come and see, in order to conquer." His importunities increased as my reluctance became more evident. Thoughtless as I supposed him to be, he said, the wish to find me out, carry me to France, and put me in Fortune's way, was no inconsiderable inducement with him to accept the commission which brought him to America. He insinuated that brothership and eldership gave him something like a title to paternal authority, and insisted on obedience.

The contest became painful. Impatience and reproach on his side awakened the like sentiments in me, and it cost me many efforts to restrain my feelings. Alternately he commanded and persuaded; was willing to be governed by my mother's advice; would carry me forthwith to New York; would lay before her his proposal, and be governed by her decision. The public vessel that brought him lay at Newport, waiting his return. Every possible accommodation and convenience was possessed by the ship. It was nothing but a sailing palace, in which the other passengers were merely his guests, selected by himself.

I was a fool for refusing his offer. A simpleton. The child of caprice, whom no time could render steadfast except in folly; into whom no counsel or example could instil an atom of common sense. He supposed my man was equally obstinate and stupid; but he would soon see of what stuff he was made. He would hurry to Baltimore, and take the boy to task for his presumption and insolence in aspiring to Jane Talbot without her brother's consent.

He snatched up his hat; but this intimation alarmed me. "Pray, stay one moment, brother. Be more considerate. What right can you possibly have to interfere with Mr. Colden's concerns? Talk to me as much and in what style you please; but, I beseech you, insult not a man who never offended you."

Perceiving my uneasiness on this head, he took advantage of it to renew his solicitations for my company to France,—swore solemnly that no man should have his sister without his consent, and that he would force the boy to give me up.

This distressing altercation ended by his going away, declaring, in spite of my entreaties, that he would see you, and teach your insolence a lesson not easily forgotten.

To sleep after this interview was impossible. I could hardly still my throbbing heart sufficiently to move the pen. You cannot hear from me in time to avoid this madman, or to fortify yourself against an interview. I cannot confute the false or cunning glosses he may make upon my conduct. He may represent me to you as willing to accompany him; as detained only by my obligation to you, from which it is in your power to absolve me.

Till I hear from you I shall have no peace. Would to Heaven there was some speedier conveyance!

JANE TALBOT.



Letter XXXII

To Jane Talbot

Baltimore, November 14.

Let me overlook your last letter [Footnote A: Letter XXX.] for the present, while I mention to you a most unexpected and surprising circumstance. It has just happened. I have parted with my visitant but this moment.

I had strolled to the bank of the river, and was leaning idly on a branch of an apple-tree that hung pretty low, when I noticed some one coming hastily towards me: there was something striking and noble in the air and figure of the man.

When he came up, he stopped. I was surprised to find myself the object of which he was in search. I found afterwards that he had inquired for me at my lodgings, and had been directed to look for me in this path. A distinct view of his features saved him the trouble of telling me that he was your brother. However, that was information that he thought proper immediately to communicate. He was your brother, he said; I was Colden; I had pretensions to you, which your brother was entitled to know, to discuss, and to pronounce upon. Such, in about as many words, was his introduction to me, and he waited for my answer with much impatience.

I was greatly confused by these sudden and unceremonious intimations. At last I told him that all that he had said respecting my connection with his sister was true. It was a fact that all the world was welcome to know. Of course I had no objection to her brother's knowing it.

But what were my claims? what my merits, my profession, my fortune? On all these heads a brother would naturally require to be thoroughly informed.

"As to my character, sir, you will hardly expect any satisfactory information from my own mouth. However, it may save you the trouble of applying to others, when I tell you that my character has as many slurs and blots in it as any you ever met with. A more versatile, inconsistent, prejudiced, and faulty person than myself, I do not believe the earth to contain. Profession I have none, and am not acquiring any, nor expect ever to acquire. Of fortune I am wholly destitute: not a farthing have I, either in possession or reversion."

"Then, pray, sir, on what are built your pretensions to my sister?"

"Really, sir, they are built on nothing. I am, in every respect, immeasurably her inferior. I possess not a single merit that entitles me to grace from her."

"I have surely not been misinformed. She tacitly admitted that she was engaged to be your wife."

"'Tis very true. She is so."

"But what, then, is the basis of this engagement?"

"Mutual affection, I believe, is the only basis. Nobody who knows Jane Talbot will need to ask why she is beloved. Why she requites that passion in the present case, is a question which she only can answer."

"Her passion, sir," (contemptuously,) "is the freak of a child; of folly and caprice. By your own confession you are beggarly and worthless, and therefore it becomes you to relinquish your claim."

"I have no claim to relinquish. I have urged no claims. On the contrary, I have fully disclosed to her every folly and vice that cleaves to my character."

"You know, sir, what I mean."

"I am afraid not perfectly. If you mean that I should profess myself unworthy of your sister's favour, 'tis done. It has been done a hundred times."

"My meaning, sir, is simply this: that you, from this moment, give up every expectation of being the husband of Mrs. Talbot. That you return to her every letter and paper that has passed between you; that you drop all intercourse and correspondence."

I was obliged to stifle a laugh which this whimsical proposal excited. I continued, through this whole dialogue, to regard my companion with a steadfast and cheerful gravity.

"These are injunctions," said I, "that will hardly meet with compliance, unless, indeed, they were imposed by the lady herself. I shall always have a supreme regard for her happiness; and whatever path she points out to me, I will walk in it."

"But this is the path in which her true interest requires you to walk."

"I have not yet discovered that to be her opinion; the moment I do, I will walk in it accordingly."

"No matter what her opinion is. She is froward and obstinate. It is my opinion that her true happiness requires all connection between you to cease from this moment."

"After all, sir, though, where judgments differ, one only can be right, yet each person must be permitted to follow his own. You would hardly, I imagine, allow your sister to prescribe to you in your marriage choice, and I fear she will lay claim to the same independence for herself. If you can convert her to your way of thinking, it is well. I solemnly engage to do whatever she directs."

"This is insolence. You trifle with me. You pretend to misconstrue my meaning."

"When you charge me with insolence, I think you afford pretty strong proof that you mistake my meaning. I have not the least intention to offend you."

"Let me be explicit with you. Do you instantly and absolutely resign all pretensions to my sister?"

"I will endeavour to be explicit in my turn. Your sister, notwithstanding my defects and disadvantages, offers me her love, vows to be mine. I accept her love; she is mine; nor need we to discuss the matter any further."

This, however, by no means put an end to altercation. I told him I was willing to hear all that he had to say upon the subject. If truth were on his side, it was possible he might reason me into a concurrence with him. In compliance with this concession, he dwelt on the benefits which his sister would receive from accompanying him to France, and the mutual sorrow, debasement, and perplexity likely to flow from a union between us, unsanctioned by the approbation of our common friends.

"The purpose of all this is to prove," said I, "that affluence and dignity without me will be more conducive to your sister's happiness than obscurity and indigence with me."

It was.

"Happiness is mere matter of opinion; perhaps Jane thinks already as you do."

He allowed that he had talked with you ineffectually on that subject.

"I think myself bound to believe her in a case where she is the proper judge, and shall eagerly consent to make her happy in her own way. That, sir, is my decision."

I will not repeat the rest of our conversation. Your letters have given me some knowledge of your brother, and I endeavoured by the mildness, sedateness, and firmness of my carriage to elude those extremes to which his domineering passions were likely to carry him. I carefully avoided every thing that tended in the least to exasperate. He was prone enough to rage, but I quietly submitted to all that he could say. I was sincerely rejoiced when the conference came to an end.

Whence came your brother thus abruptly? Have you seen him? Yet he told me that you had. Alas! what must you have suffered from his impetuosity!

I look with impatience for your next letter, in which you will tell what has happened.



Letter XXXIII

To Henry Colden

Philadelphia, November 17.

I have just sent you a letter, but my restless spirit can find no relief but in writing.

I torment myself without end in imagining what took place at your meeting with my brother. I rely upon your equanimity; yet to what an insupportable test will my brother's passions subject you! In how many ways have I been the cause of pain and humiliation to you! Heaven, I hope, will some time grant me the power to compensate yon for all that I have culpably or innocently made you suffer.

What's this? A letter from my brother! The superscription is his.

* * * * *

Let me hasten, my friend, to give you a copy of this strange epistle. It has neither date nor signature.

"I have talked with the man whom you have chosen to play the fool with. I find him worthy of his mistress; a tame, coward-hearted, infatuated blockhead.

"It was silly to imagine that any arguments would have weight with you or with him. I have got my journey for my pains. Fain would I have believed that you were worthy of a different situation; but I dismiss that belief, and shall henceforth leave you to pursue your own dirty road, without interruption.

"Had you opened your eyes to your true interest, I think I could have made something of you. My wealth and my influence should not have been spared in placing you in a station worthy of my sister. Every one, however, must take his own way,—though it lead him into a slough or a ditch.

"I intended to have virtually divided my fortune with you; to have raised you to princely grandeur. But no; you are enamoured of the dirt, and may cling to it as closely as you please.

"It is but justice, however, to pay what I owe you. I remember I borrowed several sums of you; the whole amounted to fifteen hundred dollars. There they are, and much good may they do you. That sum and the remnant which I left you may perhaps set the good man up in a village shop,—may purchase an assortment of tapes, porringers, and twelve-to-the-pound candles. The gleanings of the year may find you in skimmed milk and hasty pudding three times a day, and you may enjoy between whiles the delectable amusements of mending your husband's stockings at one time, and serving a neighbour with a pennyworth of snuff at another.

"Fare thee well, Jane. Farewell forever; for it must be a stronger inducement than can possibly happen, that shall ever bring me back to this land. I would see you ere I go, but we shall only scold; so, once more, farewell, simpleton."

What think you of this letter? The enclosed bills were most unexpected and acceptable presents. I am now twice as rich as I was. This visit of my brother I was disposed to regret, but on the whole I ought, I think, to regard it with satisfaction. By thus completely repairing the breach made in my little patrimony, it has placed me in as good a situation as I ever hoped to enjoy; besides, it has removed from my brother's character some of the stains which used to discolour it. Ought I not to believe him sincere in his wishes to do me service? We cannot agree exactly in our notion of duty or happiness, but that difference takes not away from him the merit of a generous intention. He would have done me good in his way.

Methinks I am sorry he is gone. I would fain have parted with him as a sister ought. A few tears and a few blessings were not unworthy such an occasion. Most fervently should I have poured my blessings upon him. I wish he had indulged me with another visit; especially as we were to part, it seems, forever. One more visit and a kind embrace from my only brother would have been kept in melancholy, sweet remembrance.

Perhaps we shall meet again. Perhaps, some day, thou and I shall go to France. We will visit him together, and witness, with our own eyes, his good fortune. Time may make him gentle, kind, considerate, brotherly. Time has effected greater wonders than that; for I will always maintain that my brother has a noble nature: stifled and obscured it may be, but not extinguished.



Letter XXXIV

To Henry Colden

Philadelphia, November 18.

How little is the equanimity or patience that nature has allotted me! Thy entrance now would find me quite peevish. Yet I do not fear thy entrance. Always anxious as I am to be amiable in your eyes, I am at no pains to conceal from you that impatience which now vexes my soul, because it is your absence that occasions it.

I sat alone on the sofa below, for a whole hour. Not once was the bell rung; not once did my fluttering heart answer to footsteps in the passage. I had no need to start up at the opening of the parlour-door, and to greet, as distinctly as the joyous tumult of my bosom would suffer me, the much-loved, long-expected visitant.

Yet, deceived by my fond heart into momentary forgetfulness of the interval of a hundred miles that lies between us, more than once I cast a glance behind me, and started, as if the hoped-for peal had actually been rung.

Tired, at length, of my solitude, where I had enjoyed your company so often, I covered up the coals and withdrew to my chamber. "And here," said I, "though I cannot talk to him, yet I can write."

But first, I read over again this cruel letter of my mother. I weighed all the contents, and especially those heavy charges against you.

How does it fall out that the same object is viewed by two observers with such opposite sensations? That what one hates, the other should dote upon?—two of the same sex; one cherished from infancy, reared, modelled, taught to think, feel, and even to speak, by the other: acting till now, and even now acting in all respects but one, in inviolable harmony; that two such should jar and thwart each other, in a point, too, in respect to which the whole tendency and scope of the daughter's education was to produce a fellow-feeling with the mother. How hard to be accounted for! how deeply to be rued!

I sometimes catch myself trembling with solicitude lest I should have erred. Am I not betrayed by passion? can I claim the respect due to that discernment which I once boasted?

I cannot blame my mother. She acts and determines, as I sometimes believe, without the benefits of my knowledge. Did she know as much as I know, surely she would think as I do.

In general, this conclusion seems to be just; but there are moments when doubts insinuate themselves. I cannot help remembering the time when I reasoned like my mother; when the belief of a Christian seemed essential to every human excellence. All qualities, without that belief, were not to be despised as useless, but to be abhorred as pernicious. There would be no virtue, no merit, divorced from religion. In proportion to the speciousness of his qualities was he to be dreaded. The fruit, whatever form it should assume, was nothing within but bane, and was to be detested and shunned in proportion as the form was fair and its promises delicious.

I seldom trusted myself to inquire how it was my duty to act towards one whom I loved, but who was destitute of this grace; for of such moment was the question to me, that I imagined the decision would necessarily precede all others. I could not love till I had investigated this point, and no force could oblige me to hold communion with a soul whom this defect despoiled of all beauty and devoted to perdition.

But what now is the change that time and passion have wrought! I have found a man without religion. What I supposed impossible has happened. I love the man. I cannot give him up. The mist that is before my eyes does not change what was once vice into virtue. I do not cease to regard unbelief as the blackest stain, as the most deplorable calamity that can befall a human creature; but still I love the man, and that fills me with unconquerable zeal to rescue him from this calamity.

But my mother interferes. She reminds me of the horror which I once entertained for men of your tenets. She enjoins me to hate you, or to abhor myself for loving one worthy of nothing but hatred.

I cannot do either. My heart is still yours, and it is a voluntary captive. I would not free it from its thraldom, if I could. Neither do I think its captivity dishonours it. Time, therefore, has wrought some change. I can now discover some merit, something to revere and to love, even in a man without religion. I find my whole soul penetrated with zeal for his welfare. There is no scheme which I muse upon with half the constancy or pleasure, as that of curing his errors; and I am confident of curing them.

"Ah, Jane," says my mother; "rash and presumptuous girl, what a signal punishment hangs over thee! Thou wilt trust thyself within the toils of the grand deceiver. Thou wilt enter the list with his subtleties. Vain and arrogant, thou fearest not thy own weakness. Thou wilt stake thy eternal lot upon thy triumph in argument against one who, in spite of all his candour and humility, has his pride and his passions engaged on the side of his opinions.

"Subtle wretch!" does she exclaim; "accomplished villain! How nicely does he select, how adroitly manage, his tools! He will oppose, only to yield more gracefully. He will argue, only that the rash simpleton may the more congratulate herself upon her seeming victory! How easy is the verbal assent,—the equivocating accent,—the hesitating air! These he will assume whenever it is convenient to lull your fears and gratify your vanity; and nothing but the uniformity of his conduct, his continuance in the same ignominious and criminal path, will open your eyes, and show you that only grace from above can reach his obdurate heart, or dart a ray into his benighted faculties."

Will you be surprised that I shudder when my mother urges me in this strain, with her customary energy? Always wont to be obsequious to the very turn of her eye, and to make her will not only the regulator of my actions, but the criterion of my understanding, it is impossible not to hesitate, to review all that has passed between us, and reconsider anew the motives that have made me act as I have acted.

Yet the review always confirms me in my first opinion. You err, but are not obstinate in error. If your opinions be adverse to religion, your affections are not wholly estranged from it. Your understanding dissents, but your heart is not yet persuaded to refuse. You have powers, irresistible in whatever direction they are bent; capable of giving the highest degree of misery or happiness to yourself and to others. At present they are misdirected or inactive; they are either pernicious or useless.

How can I, who have had ample opportunities of knowing you, stand by with indifference while such is your state? I love you, it is true. All your felicity and all your woe become mine. I have a selfish interest in your welfare. I cannot bear the thought of passing through this world, or of entering any future world, without you. My heart has tried in vain to create a separate interest, to draw consolation from a different source. Hence indifference to your welfare is impossible. But would not indifference, even if no extraordinary tie subsisted between us, be criminal? What becomes of our obligation to do good to others, if we do not exert ourselves, when all the means are in our power, to confer the most valuable of all benefits, to remove the greatest of all ills?

Of what stuff must that heart be made which can behold, unmoved, genius and worth, destitute of the joys and energies of religion; wandering in a maze of passions and doubts; devoured by fantastic repinings and vague regrets; drearily conscious of wanting a foundation whereon to repose, a guide in whom to trust? What heart can gaze at such a spectacle without unspeakable compassion?

Not to have our pity and our zeal awakened seems to me to argue the utmost depravity of heart. No stronger proof can be given that we ourselves are destitute of true religion. The faith or the practice must be totally wanting. We may talk devoutly; we may hie, in due season, to the house of prayer; while there, we may put on solemn visages and mutter holy names. We may abstain from profane amusements or unauthorized words; we may shun, as infections, the company of unbelievers. We may study homilies and creeds; but all this, without rational activity for others' good, is not religion. I see, in all this, nothing that I am accustomed to call by that name.

I see nothing but a narrow selfishness; sentiments of fear degrading to the Deity; a bigotry that contracts the view, that freezes the heart, that shuts up the avenues to benevolent and generous feeling. This buckram stiffness does not suit me. Out upon such monastic parade! I will have none of it.

But then, it seems, there is danger to ourselves from such attempts. In trying to save another from drowning, may we not sometimes be drawn in ourselves? Are we not taught to deprecate, not only evil, but temptation to evil?

What madness, to trust our convictions, in a point of such immense importance, to the contest of argument with one of superior subtlety and knowledge! Is there not presumption in such a trust?

Excellent advice is this to the mass of women; to those to whom habit or childish fear or parental authority has given their faith; who never doubted or inquired or reasoned for themselves. How easily is such a fabric to be overturned! It can only stand by being never blown upon. The least breath disperses it in air; the first tide washes it away.

Now, I entertain no reverence for such a bubble. In some sense, the religion of the timorous and uninquisitive is true. In another sense it is false. Considering the proofs on which it reposes, it is false, since it merely originates in deference to the opinions of others, wrought into belief by means of habit. It is on a level, as to the proof which supports it, with the wildest dreams of savage superstition, or the fumes of a dervise's fanaticism.

As to me, I was once just such a pretty fool in this respect as the rest of my sex. I was easily taught to regard religion not only as the safeguard of every virtue, but even as the test of a good understanding. The name of infidel was never mentioned but with abhorrence or contempt. None but a profligate, a sensualist, a ruffian, could disbelieve. Unbelief was a mere suggestion of the grand deceiver, to palliate or reconcile us to the unlimited indulgence of our appetites and the breach of every moral duty. Hence it was never steadfast or sincere. An adverse fortune or a death-bed usually put an end to the illusion.

Thus I grew up, never beset by any doubts, never venturing on inquiry. My knowledge of you put an end to this state of superstitious ignorance. In you I found, not one that disbelieved, but one that doubted. In all your demeanour there was simplicity and frankness. You concealed not your sentiments; you obtruded them not upon my hearing. When called upon to state the history of your opinions, it was candidly detailed; with no view of gaining my concurrence, but merely to gratify my curiosity.

From my remonstrances you never averted your ear. Every proof of an unprejudiced attention, and even of a bias favourable to my opinions, was manifest. Your own experience had half converted you already. Your good sense was for a time the sport of a specious theory. You became the ardent and bold champion of what you deemed truth. But a closer and longer view insensibly detected flaws and discords where all had formerly been glossy smoothness and ravishing harmony. Diffidence and caution, worthy of your youth and inexperience, had resumed their place; and those errors of which your own experience of their consequences had furnished the antidote, which your own reflections had partly divested of illusion, had only been propitious to your advancement in true wisdom.

What had I to fear from such an adversary? What might I not hope from perseverance? What expect but new clearness to my own convictions, new and more accurate views of my powers and habits?

In order to benefit you, I was obliged to scrutinize the foundation of my own principles. I found nothing but a void. I was astonished and alarmed; and instantly set myself to the business of inquiry. How could I hope to work on your convictions without a suitable foundation for my own?

And see now, my friend, the blindness of our judgments. I, who am imagined to incur such formidable perils from intercourse with you, am, in truth, indebted to you alone for all my piety,—all of it that is permanent and rational. Without those apprehensions which your example inspired, without that zeal for your conversion which my attachment to you has produced, what would now have been my claims to religious knowledge?

Had I never extorted from you your doubts, and the occasion of these doubts; had I never known the most powerful objections to religion from your lips, I should have been no less ignorant of the topics and arguments favourable to it.

And I think I may venture to ascribe to myself no less a progress in candour than in knowledge. My belief is stronger than it ever was, but I no longer hold in scorn or abhorrence those who differ from me. I perceive the speciousness of those fallacies by which they are deluded. I find it possible for men to disbelieve and yet retain their claims to our reverence, our affection, and especially our good offices.

Those whom I once thought were only to be hated and shunned, I now find worthy of compassionate efforts for their good. Those whom I once imagined sunk beneath the reach of all succour, and to merit scarcely the tribute of a sigh for their lost estate, now appear to be easily raised to tranquillity and virtue, and to have irresistible claims to our help.

In no respect has your company made me a worse—in every respect it has made me a better—woman. Not only my piety has become more rational and fervent, but a new spring has been imparted to my languishing curiosity. To find a soul to whom my improvement will give delight; eager to direct and assist my inquiries; delicately liberal no less of censure when merited than of praise where praise is due; entering, almost without the help of language from me, into my inmost thoughts; assisting me, if I may so speak, to comprehend myself; and raising to a steadfast and bright flame the spark that my wayward fancy, left to itself, would have instantaneously emitted and lost.—

But why do I again attempt this impossible theme? While reflecting on my debt to thee, my heart becomes too big for its mansion. My hand falters, and the characters it traces run into an illegible scrawl.

My tongue only is fitted for such an office; and Heaven grant that you may speedily return to me, and put an end to a solitude which every hour makes more irksome!

Adieu.



Letter XXXV

To Mrs. Talbot

Baltimore, November 20.

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 a while 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 visitor, 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?—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 laboured 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 colouring; 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, either. 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 Thomson 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 favour 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 short-sighted 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 parlour?

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 colour 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 harbouring 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, endeavour 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.

Thomson is no better, yet grows worse hardly perceptibly. Adieu.

HENRY COLDEN.



Letter XXXVI

To Henry Colden

Philadelphia, November 23.

You impose on me a painful task. Persuaded that reflection was useless, I have endeavoured 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 endeavour 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 neighbour 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!