_To Jane Talbot_
New York, October 27.
Insolent creature that thou art, Jane, and cunning as insolent! To
elude my just determination by such an artifice! To counterfeit a strange
hand in the direction of thy letter, that I might thereby be induced to
open it!
Thou wilt not rest, I see, till thou hast torn from my heart every
root, every fibre of my once-cherished tenderness; till thou hast laid my
head low in the grave. To number the tears and the pangs which thy
depravity has already cost me----but thy last act is destined to surpass
all former ones.
Thy perseverance in wickedness, thy inflexible imposture, amazes me
beyond all utterance. Thy effrontery in boasting of thy innocence, in
calling this wretch thy _friend_, thy _soul's_ friend, the means
of securing the favour of a pure and all-seeing Judge, exceeds all that I
supposed possible in human nature. And that thou, Jane, the darling of my
heart, and the object of all my care and my pride, should be this
profligate, this obdurate creature!
When very young, you were ill of a fever. The physician gave up, for
some hours, all hope of your life. I shall never forget the grief which
his gloomy silence gave me. All that I held dear in the world, I then
thought, I would cheerfully surrender to save your life.
Poor, short-sighted wretch that I was! That event which, had it then
happened, would perhaps have bereaved me of reason, would have saved me
from a portion far more bitter. I should have never lived to witness the
depravity of one whom my whole life had been employed in training to
virtue.
Having opened your letter, and somewhat debated with myself, I
consented to read. I will do more than read; I will answer it minutely. I
will unfold that secret by which, you truly think, my aversion to your
present scheme has been chiefly caused.
I have hitherto been silent through compassion to you; through the hope
that all might yet be well; that you might be influenced by my persuasions
to forbear an action that will insure forever your ruin. I now perceive
the folly of this compassion and these hopes. I need not be assiduous to
spare you the shame and mortification of hearing the truth. Shame is as
much a stranger to your heart as remorse. Say what I will, disclose what I
will, your conduct will be just the same. A show of much reluctance and
humility will, no doubt, be made, and the tongue will be busy in imploring
favour which the heart disdains.
In the foresight of this, I was going to forbid your writing; but you
care not for my forbidding. As long as you think it possible to reconcile
me to your views and make me a partaker in your infamy, you will harass me
with importunity, with feigned penitence and preposterous arguments. But
one thing at least is in my power. I can shun you, and I can throw your
unopened letters into the fire; and that, believe me, Jane, I shall
do.
But I am wasting time. My indignation carries me away from my purpose.
Let me return to it, and, having told you all my mind, let me dismiss the
hateful subject forever.
I knew the motives that induced you to marry Lewis Talbot. They were
good ones. Your compliance with mine and your father's wishes in that
respect showed that force of understanding which I always ascribed to you.
Your previous reluctance, your scruples, were indeed unworthy of you, but
you conquered them, and that was better; perhaps it evinced more
magnanimity than never to have had them.
You were happy, I long thought, in your union with a man of probity and
good sense. You may be sure I thought of you often, but only with
pleasure. Certain indications I early saw in you of a sensibility that
required strict government; an inattention to any thing but feeling; a
proneness to romantic friendship, and a pining after good not consistent
with our nature. I imagined that I had kept at a distance all such books
and companions as tend to produce this fantastic character; and whence you
imbibed this perverse spirit, at so early an age, is, to me,
inconceivable. It cost me many a gloomy foreboding.
My disquiets increased as you grew up, and that age arrived when the
heart comes to be entangled with what is called love. I was anxious to
find for you a man of merit, to whose keeping your happiness might safely
be intrusted. Talbot was such a one, but the wayward heart refused to love
him. He was not all your fancy had conceived of excellent and lovely. He
was a mere man, with the tastes and habits suitable and common to his
education and age. He was addicted to industry, was regular and frugal in
his manner and economy. He had nothing of that specious and glossy texture
which captivates inexperience and youth, and serves as a substitute for
every other virtue. While others talked about their duty, he was contented
with performing it; and he was satisfied with ignorance of theories as
long as his practice was faultless.
He was just such a one as I wished for the darling of my heart; but you
thought not so. You did not object to his age, though almost double your
own; to his person or aspect, though they were by no means worthy of his
mind; to his profession or condition; but your heart sighed after one who
could divide with you your sympathies; who saw every thing just as you saw
it; who could emulate your enthusiasm, and echo back every exclamation
which chance should dictate to you.
You even pleaded religion as one of your objections. Talbot, it seems,
had nothing that deserved to be called religion. He had never reasoned on
the subject. He had read no books and had never looked into his Bible
since he was fifteen years old. He seldom went to church but because it
was the fashion, and, when there, seldom spared a thought from his own
temporal concerns, to a future state and a governing Deity. All those
expansions of soul produced by meditation on the power and goodness of our
Maker, and those raptures that flow from accommodating all our actions to
his will, and from consciousness of his approbation and presence, you
discovered to be strangers to his breast, and therefore you scrupled to
unite your fate with his.
It was not enough that this man had never been seduced into disbelief;
that his faith was steadfast and rational without producing those
fervours, and reveries, and rhapsodies, which unfit us for the mixed
scenes of human life, and breed in us absurd and fantastic notions of our
duty or our happiness; that his religion had produced all its practical
effects, in honest, regular, sober, and consistent conduct.
You wanted a zealot; a sectary; one that should enter into all the
trifling distinctions and minute subtleties that make one Christian the
mortal foe of another, while, in their social conduct, there is no
difference to be found between them.
I do not repeat these things to upbraid you for what you then were, but
merely to remind you of the inconsistency of these notions with your
subsequent conduct. You then, at the instance of your father and at my
instance, gave them up; and that compliance, supposing your scruples to
have been undissembled, gave you a still greater interest in our
affections.
You never gave me reason to suppose that you repented of this
compliance. I never saw you after your engagement, but you wore a cheerful
countenance; at least till your unfortunate connection with Colden. To
that connection must be traced every misfortune and depravity that has
attended you since.
When I heard, from Patty Sinclair, of his frequent visits to you during
your retirement at Burlington, I thought of it but little. He was, indeed,
a new acquaintance. You were unacquainted with his character and history,
except so far as you could collect them from his conversation; and no
confidence could, of course, be placed in that. It was therefore, perhaps,
somewhat indiscreet to permit such _very_ frequent visits, such
_very_ long walks. To neglect the friends whom you lived with, for
the sake of exclusive conversations and lonely rambles, noon and night,
with a mere stranger,--one not regularly introduced to you,--whose name
you were obliged to inquire of himself,--you, too, already a betrothed
woman; your lover absent; yourself from home, and merely on terms of
hospitality! all this did not look well.
But the mischief, it was evident, was to be known by the event. Colden
might have probity and circumspection. He might prove an agreeable friend
to your future husband and a useful companion to yourself. Kept within due
limits, your complacency for this stranger, your attachment to his
company, might occasion no inconvenience. How little did I then suspect to
what extremes you were capable of going, and even then had actually
gone!
The subject was of sufficient importance to induce me to write to you.
Your answer was not quite satisfactory, yet, on the whole, laid my
apprehensions at rest. I was deceived by the confidence you expressed in
your own caution, and the seeming readiness there was to be governed by my
advice.
Afterwards, I heard, through various channels, without any efforts on
my part, intelligence of Colden. At first I was not much alarmed. Colden,
it is true, was not a faultless or steadfast character. No gross or
enormous vices were ascribed to him. His habits, as far as appearances
enabled one to judge, were temperate and chaste. He was contemplative and
bookish, and was vaguely described as being somewhat visionary and
romantic.
In all this there was nothing formidable. Such a man might surely be a
harmless companion. Those with whom he was said to associate most
intimately were highly estimable. Their esteem was a test of merit not to
be disposed or hastily rejected.
Things, however, quickly took a new face. I was informed that, after
your return to the city, Colden continued to be a very constant visitant.
Your husband's voyage left you soon after at liberty, and your intercourse
with this person only became more intimate and confidential.
Reflecting closely on this circumstance, I began to suspect some danger
lurking in your path. I now remembered that impetuosity of feeling which
distinguished your early age; those notions of kindred among souls, of
friendship and harmony of feelings which, in your juvenile age, you loved
to indulge.
I reflected that the victory over these chimeras, which you gained by
marriage with Talbot, might be merely temporary; and that, in order to
call these dormant feelings into action, it was only requisite to meet
with one contemplative, bookish, and romantic as yourself.
Such a one, it was greatly to be feared, you had now found in this
young man; just such qualities he was reported to possess, as would render
him dangerous to you and you dangerous to him. A poet, not in theory only,
but in practice; accustomed to intoxicate the women with melodious
flattery; fond of being _intimate_; avowedly devoted to the sex;
eloquent in his encomiums upon female charms; and affecting to select his
_friends_ only from that sex.
What effect might such a character have upon your peace, even without
imputing any ill intention to him? Both of you might work your own ruin,
while you designed nothing but good; and even supposing that your
intercourse should be harmless, or even beneficial with respect to
yourselves, what was to be feared for Talbot? An intimacy of this kind
could hardly escape his observation on his return. It would be criminal,
indeed, to conceal it from him.
These apprehensions were raised to the highest pitch by more accurate
information of Colden's character, which I afterwards received. I found,
on inquiring of those who had the best means of knowing, that Colden had
imbibed that pernicious philosophy which is now so much in vogue. One who
knew him perfectly, who had long been in habits of the closest intimacy
with him, who was still a familiar correspondent of his, gave me this
account.
I met this friend of Colden's (Thomson his name is, of whom I suppose
you have heard something) in this city. His being mentioned as the
intimate companion of Colden made me wish to see him, and fortunately, I
prevailed upon him to be very communicative.
Thomson is an excellent young man: he loves Colden much, and describes
the progress of his friend's opinions with every mark of regret. He even
showed me letters that had passed between them, and in which every horrid
and immoral tenet was defended by one and denied by the other. These
letters showed Colden as the advocate of suicide; a scoffer at promises;
the despiser of revelation, of Providence and a future state; an opponent
of marriage, and as one who denied (shocking!) that any thing but mere
habit and positive law stood in the way of marriage, nay, of intercourse
without marriage, between brother and sister, parent and child!
You may readily believe that I did not credit such things on slight
evidence. I did not rely on Thomson's mere words, solemn and unaffected as
these were; nothing but Colden's handwriting could in such a case, be
credited.
To say truth, I should not be much surprised had I heard of Colden, as
of a youth whose notions on moral and religious topics were, in some
degree, unsettled; that, in the fervour and giddiness incident to his age,
he had not tamed his mind to investigation; had not subdued his heart to
regular and devout thoughts; that his passions or his indolence had made
the truths of religion somewhat obscure, and shut them out, not properly
from his conviction, but only from his attention.
I expected to find, united with this vague and dubious state of mind,
tokens of the influence of a pious education; a reverence,--at least, for
those sacred precepts on which the happiness of men rests, and at least a
practical observance of that which, if not fully admitted by his
understanding, was yet very far from having been rejected by it.
But widely and deplorably different was Colden's case. A most
fascinating book [Footnote: Godwin's Political Justice.] fell at length
into his hands, which changed, in a moment, the whole course of his ideas.
What he had before regarded with reluctance and terror, this book taught
him to admire and love. The writer has the art of the grand deceiver; the
fatal art of carrying the worst poison under the name and appearance of
wholesome food; of disguising all that is impious, or blasphemous, or
licentious, under the guise and sanctions of virtue.
Colden had lived before this without examination or inquiry. His heart,
his inclination, was perhaps on the side of religion and true virtue; but
this book carried all his inclination, his zeal, and his enthusiasm, over
to the adversary; and so strangely had he been perverted, that he held
himself bound, he conceived it to be his duty, to vindicate in private and
public, to preach with vehemence, his new faith. The rage for making
converts seized him; and that Thomson was not won over to the same cause
proceeded from no want of industry in Colden.
Such was the man whom you had admitted to your confidence; whom you had
adopted for your bosom friend. I knew your pretensions to religion, the
stress which you laid upon piety as the basis of morals. I remembered your
objections to Talbot on this score, not only as a husband, but as a
friend. I could, therefore, only suppose that Colden had joined
dissimulation to his other errors, and had gained and kept your good
opinion by avowing sentiments which his heart secretly abhorred.
I cannot describe to you, Jane, my alarms upon this discovery. That
your cook had intended to poison you, the next meat which you should eat
in your own house, would have alarmed me, I assure you, much less. The
preservation of your virtue was unspeakably of more importance in my eyes
than of your life.
I wrote to you: and what was your reply? I could scarcely believe my
senses. Every horrid foreboding realized! already such an adept in this
accursed sophistry! the very cant of that detestable sect adopted!
I had plumed myself upon your ignorance. He had taken advantage of
that, I supposed, and had won your esteem by counterfeiting a moral and
pious strain. To make you put him forever at a distance, it was needed
only to tear off his mask. This was done, but, alas, too late for your
safety. The poison was already swallowed.
I had no patience with you, to listen to your trifling and insidious
distinctions,--such as, though you could audaciously urge them to me,
possessed no weight, _could_ possess no weight, in your
understanding. What was it to me whether he was ruffian or madman?
whether, in destroying you, he meant to destroy or to save? Is it proper
to expose your breast to a sword, because the wretch that wields it
supposes madly that it is a straw which he holds in his hand?
But I will not renew the subject. The same motives that induced me to
attempt to reason with you then no longer exist. The anguish, the
astonishment, which your letters, as they gradually unfolded your
character, produced in me, I endeavoured to show you at the time. Now I
pass them over to come to a more important circumstance.
Yet how shall I tell it thee, Jane? I am afraid to intrust it to paper.
Thy fame is still dear to me. I would not be the means of irretrievably
blasting thy fame. Yet what may come of relating some incidents on
paper?
Faint is my hope, but I am not without some hope, that thou canst yet
be saved, be snatched from perdition. Thy life I value not, in comparison
with something higher. And if, through an erring sensibility, the
sacrifice of Colden cost thee thy life, I shall yet rejoice. As the wife
of Colden thou wilt be worse than dead to me.
What has come to me, I wonder? I began this letter with a firm, and, as
I thought, inflexible, soul. Despair had made me serene; yet now thy image
rises before me with all those bewitching graces which adorned thee when
thou wast innocent and a child. All the mother seizes my heart, and my
tears suffocate me.
Shall I shock, shall I wound thee, my child, by lifting the veil from
thy misconduct, behind which thou thinkest thou art screened from every
human eye? How little dost thou imagine that I know _so much_!
Now will thy expostulations and reasonings have an end. Surely they
_will_ have an end. Shame at last, shame at last, will overwhelm thee
and make thee dumb.
Yet my heart sorely misgives me. I shudder at the extremes to which thy
accursed seducer may have urged thee. What thou hast failed in concealing
thou mayest be so obdurately wicked as to attempt to justify.
Was it not the unavoidable result of confiding in a man avowedly
irreligious and immoral; of exposing thy understanding and thy heart to
such stratagems as his philosophy made laudable and necessary? But I know
not what I would say. I must lay down the pen till I can reason myself
into some composure. I will write again to-morrow.