July 3.
There was a gloominess diffused through your last letter, the impression
of which still rests on my mind—though, recollecting how quickly you
throw off the forcible feelings of the moment, I flatter myself it has
long since given place to your usual cheerfulness.
Believe me (and my eyes fill with tears of tenderness as I assure you)
there is nothing I would not endure in the way of privation, rather than
disturb your tranquillity.—If I am fated to be unhappy, I will labour to
hide my sorrows in my bosom; and you shall always find me a faithful,
affectionate friend.
I grow more and more attached to my little girl—and I cherish this
affection without fear, because it must be a long time before it can
become bitterness of soul.—She is an interesting creature. On
ship-board, how often as I gazed at the sea, have I longed to bury my
troubled bosom in the less troubled deep; asserting with Brutus, “that
the virtue I had followed too far, was merely an empty name!” and
nothing but the sight of her—her playful smiles, which seemed to cling
and twine round my heart—could have stopped me.
What peculiar misery has fallen to my share! To act up to my principles,
I have laid the strictest restraint on my very thoughts—yes; not to
sully the delicacy of my feelings, I have reined in my imagination; and
started with affright from every sensation, (I allude to ——) that
stealing with balmy sweetness into my soul, led me to scent from afar
the fragrance of reviving nature.
My friend, I have dearly paid for one conviction.—Love in some minds, is
an affair of sentiment, arising from the same delicacy of perception (or
taste) as renders them alive to the beauties of nature, poetry, &c.
alive to the charms of those evanescent graces that are, as it were,
impalpable—they must be felt, they cannot be described.
Love is a want of my heart. I have examined myself lately with more care
than formerly, and find, that to deaden is not to calm the mind—Aiming
at tranquillity, I have almost destroyed all the energy of my
soul—almost rooted out what renders it estimable—Yes, I have damped the
enthusiasm of character, which converts the grossest materials into a
fuel that imperceptibly feeds hopes, which aspire above common
enjoyment. Despair, since the birth of my child, has rendered me
stupid—soul and body seemed to be fading away before the withering touch
of disappointment.
I am now endeavouring to recover myself—and such is the elasticity of my
constitution, and the purity of the atmosphere here, that health
unsought for, begins to reanimate my countenance.
I have the sincerest esteem and affection for you—but the desire of
regaining peace, (do you understand me?) has made me forget the respect
due to my own emotions—sacred emotions, that are the sure harbingers of
the delights I was formed to enjoy—and shall enjoy, for nothing can
extinguish the heavenly spark.
Still, when we meet again, I will not torment you, I promise you. I
blush when I recollect my former conduct—and will not in future confound
myself with the beings whom I feel to be my inferiors. I will listen to
delicacy, or pride.