_To Mrs. Fielder_
Philadelphia, November 4.
I tremble thus to approach my honoured mother once more, since I cannot
bring into her presence the heart that she wishes to find. Instead of
acknowledgment of faults, and penitence suitable to their heinous nature,
I must bring with me a bosom free from self-reproach, and a confidence,
which innocence only can give, that I shall be some time able to disprove
the charge brought against me.
Ah, my mother! could such guilt as this ever stain a heart fashioned by
your tenderest care? Did it never occur to you that possibly some mistake
might have misled the witness against me?
The letter which you sent me is partly mine. All that is honest and
laudable is mine, but that which confesses dishonour has been added by
another hand. By whom my handwriting was counterfeited, and for what end,
I know not. I cannot name any one who deserves to be suspected.
I might proceed to explain the circumstances attending the writing and
the loss of this letter, so fatal to me; but I forbear to attempt to
justify myself by means which, I know beforehand, will effect nothing,
unless it be to aggravate, in your eyes, my imaginary guilt.
If it were possible for you to suspend your judgment; if the most open,
and earnest, and positive averments of my innocence could induce you, not
to reverse, but merely to postpone, your sentence, you would afford me
unspeakable happiness.
You tell me that the loss of your present bounty will be the
consequence of my marriage. My claims on you are long ago at an end.
Indeed, I never had any claims. Your treatment of me has flown from your
unconstrained benevolence. For what you have given, for the tenderness
which you continually bestowed on me, you have received only
disappointment and affliction.
For all your favours I seem to you ungrateful; yet long after that
conduct was known which, to you, proves my unworthiness, your protection
has continued, and you are so good as to assure me that it shall not be
withdrawn as long as I have no protector but you.
Dear as my education has made the indulgences of competence to me, I
hope I shall relinquish them without a sigh. Had you done nothing more
than screen my infancy and youth from hardship and poverty, than supply
the mere needs of nature, my debt to you could never be paid.
But how much more than this have you done for me! You have given me, by
your instructions and example, an understanding and a heart. You have
taught me to value a fair fame beyond every thing but the peace of virtue;
you have made me capable of a generous affection for a benefactor equal to
yourself; capable of acting so as at once to _deserve_ and to
_lose_ your esteem; and enabled me to relinquish cheerfully those
comforts and luxuries which cannot be retained but at the price of my
integrity.
I look forward to poverty without dismay. Perhaps I make light of its
evils because I have never tried them. I am indeed a weak and undiscerning
creature. Yet nothing but experience will correct my error, if it be an
error.
So sanguine am I that I even cherish the belief that the privation of
much of that ease which I have hitherto enjoyed will strengthen my mind,
and somewhat qualify me for enduring those evils which I cannot expect
always to escape.
You know, my mother, that the loss of my present provision will not
leave me destitute. If it did, I know your generosity too well to imagine
that you would withdraw from me all the means of support.
Indeed, my own fund, slender as it is in comparison with what your
bounty supplies me, is adequate to all my personal wants: I am sure it
would prove so on the trial. So that I part with your gifts with less
reluctance, though with no diminution of my gratitude.
If I could bring to you my faith unbroken, and were allowed to present
to you my friend, I would instantly fly to your presence; but that is a
felicity too great for my hope. The alternative, however painful, must be
adopted by