_[Sweden] July 3 [1795]._
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 own 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 that 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.