Louisville, June.
It is impossible for me to see Caroline in the present state of my
mind, and therefore I hope you will not look upon it in the least
disrespectful, my friend, if I should happen to be absent when you
arrive; for to be candid with you, I shall make a journey purposely to
Lexington.
Your obliging favour from Pittsburg, which you meant should give me
spirits, has had quite a contrary effect.
By attempting to soothe my mind, I discover that secret poison,
flattery, ever contains, and which I consider the principal cause of
my present wretchedness.
The image you have given of Caroline makes her appear to me more
lovely than ever; and when you say that enchantment seems to spring up
where e'er she treads, I feel the full force of all her charms, and
conceive that I behold her in this season of fragrance and beauty,
decorating those gardens which you passed through on your return from
the fatal view upon the Allegany,
While the blushing rose, drooping hides its head,
As Caroline's sweets more odorous prove,
And op'ning lilies look faint, sick, and dead,--
For things inanimate, feel the force of love.
She is irresistible--and it is only by absence that I shall ever be
enabled to forget my misfortunes, and therefore, my dear friend, I
must request that in your future letters, when you mention that divine
woman, you will not appreciate that beauty which has ten thousand
charms to fascinate and fetter the soul.
She has not only all the symmetry of form, the softness of love, and
the enchantment of a goddess; but she can assume an animation and that
surprising activity of motion, that while you are suspended in the
transports of astonishment, you are lost in admiration at the
gracefulness with which she moves--I have seen her bound over a rock,
and pluck a wild honey-suckle, that grew upon the side of a precipice,
and while I stood gazing at her in amazement, she has brought it as a
trophy of her exertions.
Believe, my friend, that if ever nature formed one woman to excel
another in personal charms, it must be Caroline.
* * * * *
I leave this enclosed in a packet for General W----. I am this moment
informed there are boats making round Diamond Island. Who knows but one
of them contains the lovely Caroline? Ah! my friend, I feel every
emotion of love and shame so powerfully, that I must instantly fly to
avoid exposing myself--curse that mandate which banished me from the
lovely tyrant of my heart--curse the vanity which exposed my
weakness;--for damnable is that fate which compels a man to avoid the
object of all others, which to him is the most interesting--I must this
instant be off. O Caroline!--Caroline! while my soul deadens at the
thought, I abandon the spot which will be converted into elysium the
moment you arrive. Forgive me, my friend, this effusion of nature--this
weakness, for it prepares us for those delicious raptures, that flow
from the source of sympathy, and while it softens us to that tender
texture, which is congenial to feminine charms, it invigorates our
actions, and fosters every generous and noble sentiment.
The streamers of your vessels, for it must be you, are playing in the
wind, as if enraptured with the treasure over which they impend, seem
eradiated with the charms of Caroline; while the gentle Ohio, as if
conscious of its charge, proudly swells, and appears to vie with the
more elevated earth, in order to secure to its divinity, upon which to
tread at her disembarkation, the flowery carpet of its banks.
Adieu. I am off. J. A.