_To Jane Talbot_
Baltimore, October 31.
You had reason to fear my reproaches; yet you have strangely erred in
imagining the cause for which I should blame you. You are never tired, my
good friend, of humbling me by injurious suppositions.
I do, indeed, reproach you for conduct that is rash; unjust; hurtful to
yourself, to your mother, to me, to the memory of him who, whatever were
his faults, has done nothing to forfeit your reverence.
You are charged with the blackest guilt that can be imputed to woman.
To know you guilty produces more anguish in the mind of your accuser than
any other evil could produce, and to be convinced of your innocence would
be to remove the chief cause of her sorrow; yet you are contented to admit
the charge; to countenance her error by your silence. By stating the
simple truth, circumstantially and fully; by adding earnest and pathetic
assurances of your innocence; by showing all the letters that have passed
between us, the contents of which will show that such guilt was
impossible; by making your girl bear witness to the precaution you used on
that night to preclude misconstructions, surely you may hope to disarm her
suspicions.
But this proceeding has not occurred to you. You have mistrusted the
power of truth, and even are willing to perpetuate the error. And why?
Because you will not blast the memory of the dead. The loss of your own
reputation, the misery of your mother, whom your imaginary guilt makes
miserable, are of less moment in your eyes than--what? Let not him, my
girl, who knows thee best, have most reason to blush for thee.
Talbot, you imagine, forged this calumny. It was a wrong thing, and
much unhappiness has flowed from it. This calumny you have it, at length,
in your power to refute. Its past effects cannot be recalled; but here the
evil may end, the mistake may be cleared up, and be hindered from
destroying the future peace of your mother.
Yet you forbear from tenderness to _his_ memory, who, if you are
consistent with yourself, you must believe to look back on that
transaction with remorse, to lament every evil which it has hitherto
occasioned, and to rejoice in the means of stopping the disastrous
series.
My happiness is just of as little value. Your mother's wishes, though
allowed to be irrational and groundless, are to be gratified by the
disappointment of mine, which appear to be just and reasonable; and, since
one must be sacrificed, that affection with which you have inspired me and
those benefits you confess to owe to me, those sufferings believed by you
to have been incurred by me for your sake, do not, it seems, entitle me to
preference.
On this score, however, my good girl, set your heart at ease. I never
assumed the merits you attributed to me. I never urged the claims you were
once so eager to admit. I desire not the preference. If, by abjuring me,
your happiness could be secured; if it were possible for you to be that
cheerful companion of your mother which you seem so greatly to wish; if,
in her society, you could stifle every regret, and prevent your
tranquillity from being invaded by self-reproach, most gladly would I
persuade you to go to her and dismiss me from your thoughts forever.
But I know, Jane, that this cannot be. You never will enjoy peace under
your mother's roof. The sighing heart and the saddened features will
forever upbraid her, and bickering and repining will mar every domestic
scene. Your mother's aversion to me is far from irreconcilable, but that
which will hasten reconcilement will be _marriage_. You cannot
forfeit her love as long as you preserve your integrity; and those
scruples which no argument will dissipate will yield to reflection on an
evil (as she will regard it) that cannot be remedied.
Admitting me, in this respect, to be mistaken, your mother's resentment
will ever give you disquiet. True; but will your union with me console you
nothing? in pressing the hoped-for fruit of that union to your breast, in
that tenderness which you will hourly receive from me, will there be
nothing to compensate you for sorrows in which there is no remorse, and
which, indeed, will owe their poignancy to the generosity of your
spirit?
You cannot unite yourself to me but with some view to my happiness.
Will your contributing to that happiness be nothing?
Yet I cannot separate my felicity from yours. I can enjoy nothing at
the cost of your peace. In whatever way you decide, may the fruit be
content!
I ask you not for proofs of love, for the sacrifice of others to me. My
happiness demands it not. It only requires you to seek your own good.
Nothing but ceaseless repinings can follow your compliance with your
mother's wishes; but there is something in your power to do. You can hide
these repinings from her, by living at a distance from her. She may know
you only through the medium of your letters, and these may exhibit the
brightest side of things. She wants nothing but your divorce from me, and
that may take place without living under her roof.
You need not stay here. The world is wide, and she will eagerly consent
to the breaking of your shackles by change of residence. Much and the best
part of your country you have never seen. Variety of objects will amuse
you, and new faces and new minds erase the deep impressions of the past.
Colden and his merits may sink into forgetfulness, or be thought of with
no other emotion than regret that a being so worthless was ever beloved.
But I wander from the true point. I meant not to introduce myself into
this letter,--self!--that vile debaser whom I detest as my worst enemy,
and who assumes a thousand shapes and practises a thousand wiles to entice
me from the right path.
Ah, Jane, could thy sagacity discover no other cause of thy mother's
error than Talbot's fraud? Could thy heart so readily impute to him so
black a treachery? Such a prompt and undoubting conclusion it grieves me
to find thee capable of.
How much more likely that Talbot was himself deceived! For it was not
by him that thy unfinished letter was purloined. At that moment he was
probably some thousands of miles distant. It was five weeks before his
return from his Hamburg voyage, when that mysterious incident
happened.
Be of good cheer, my sweet girl. I doubt not all will be well. We shall
find the means of detecting and defeating this conspiracy, and of
re-establishing thee in thy mother's good opinion. At present, I own, I
do not see the means; but, to say truth, my mind is clouded by anxieties,
enfeebled by watching and fatigue.
You know why I came hither. I found my friend in a very bad way, and
have no hope but that his pangs, which must end within a few days, may,
for his sake, terminate very soon. He will not part with me, and I have
seldom left his chamber since I came.
Your letter has disturbed me much, and I seize this interval, when the
sick man has gained a respite from his pain, to tell you my thoughts upon
it. I fear I have not reasoned very clearly. Some peevishness, I doubt
not, has crept into my style. I rely upon your wonted goodness to excuse
it.
I have much to say upon this affecting subject, but must take a future
opportunity.
I also have received a letter from Mrs. Fielder, of which I will say no
more, since I send you enclosed _that_, and my answer. I wish it had
come at a time when my mind was more at ease, as an immediate reply seemed
to be necessary. Adieu.