_[Paris] December 30 [1794]._
Should you receive three or four of the letters at once which I have
written lately, do not think of Sir John Brute, for I do not mean to wife
you. I only take advantage of every occasion, that one out of three of my
epistles may reach your hands, and inform you that I am not of ----'s
opinion, who talks till he makes me angry, of the necessity of your
staying two or three months longer. I do not like this life of continual
inquietude--and, _entre nous_, I am determined to try to earn some money
here myself, in order to convince you that, if you chuse to run about the
world to get a fortune, it is for yourself--for the little girl and I will
live without your assistance, unless you are with us. I may be termed
proud--Be it so--but I will never abandon certain principles of action.
The common run of men have such an ignoble way of thinking, that, if they
debauch their hearts, and prostitute their persons, following perhaps a
gust of inebriation, they suppose the wife, slave rather, whom they
maintain, has no right to complain, and ought to receive the sultan,
whenever he deigns to return, with open arms, though his have been
polluted by half an hundred promiscuous amours during his absence.
I consider fidelity and constancy as two distinct things; yet the former
is necessary, to give life to the other--and such a degree of respect do I
think due to myself, that, if only probity, which is a good thing in its
place, brings you back, never return!--for, if a wandering of the heart,
or even a caprice of the imagination detains you--there is an end of all
my hopes of happiness--I could not forgive it, if I would.
I have gotten into a melancholy mood, you perceive. You know my opinion of
men in general; you know that I think them systematic tyrants, and that it
is the rarest thing in the world, to meet with a man with sufficient
delicacy of feeling to govern desire. When I am thus sad, I lament that my
little darling, fondly as I doat on her, is a girl.--I am sorry to have a
tie to a world that for me is ever sown with thorns.
You will call this an ill-humoured letter, when, in fact, it is the
strongest proof of affection I can give, to dread to lose you. ---- has
taken such pains to convince me that you must and ought to stay, that it
has inconceivably depressed my spirits--You have always known my
opinion--I have ever declared, that two people, who mean to live together,
ought not to be long separated.--If certain things are more necessary to
you than me--search for them--Say but one word, and you shall never hear
of me more.--If not--for God's sake, let us struggle with poverty--with
any evil, but these continual inquietudes of business, which I have been
told were to last but a few months, though every day the end appears more
distant! This is the first letter in this strain that I have determined to
forward to you; the rest lie by, because I was unwilling to give you pain,
and I should not now write, if I did not think that there would be no
conclusion to the schemes, which demand, as I am told, your presence.