_To Jane Talbot_
Baltimore, November 14.
Let me overlook your last letter [Footnote A: Letter XXX.] for the
present, while I mention to you a most unexpected and surprising
circumstance. It has just happened. I have parted with my visitant but
this moment.
I had strolled to the bank of the river, and was leaning idly on a
branch of an apple-tree that hung pretty low, when I noticed some one
coming hastily towards me: there was something striking and noble in the
air and figure of the man.
When he came up, he stopped. I was surprised to find myself the object
of which he was in search. I found afterwards that he had inquired for me
at my lodgings, and had been directed to look for me in this path. A
distinct view of his features saved him the trouble of telling me that he
was your brother. However, that was information that he thought proper
immediately to communicate. He was your brother, he said; I was Colden; I
had pretensions to you, which your brother was entitled to know, to
discuss, and to pronounce upon. Such, in about as many words, was his
introduction to me, and he waited for my answer with much impatience.
I was greatly confused by these sudden and unceremonious intimations.
At last I told him that all that he had said respecting my connection with
his sister was true. It was a fact that all the world was welcome to know.
Of course I had no objection to her brother's knowing it.
But what were my claims? what my merits, my profession, my fortune? On
all these heads a brother would naturally require to be thoroughly
informed.
"As to my character, sir, you will hardly expect any satisfactory
information from _my_ own mouth. However, it may save you the trouble
of applying to others, when I tell you that my character has as many slurs
and blots in it as any you ever met with. A more versatile, inconsistent,
prejudiced, and faulty person than myself, I do not believe the earth to
contain. Profession I have none, and am not acquiring any, nor expect ever
to acquire. Of fortune I am wholly destitute: not a farthing have I,
either in possession or reversion."
"Then, pray, sir, on what are built your pretensions to my sister?"
"Really, sir, they are built on _nothing_. I am, in every respect,
immeasurably her inferior. I possess not a single merit that entitles me
to grace from her."
"I have surely not been misinformed. She tacitly admitted that she was
engaged to be your wife."
"'Tis very true. She is so."
"But what, then, is the basis of this engagement?"
"Mutual affection, I believe, is the only basis. Nobody who knows Jane
Talbot will need to ask why she is beloved. Why she requites that passion
in the present case, is a question which she only can answer."
"Her passion, sir," (contemptuously,) "is the freak of a child; of
folly and caprice. By your own confession you are beggarly and worthless,
and therefore it becomes you to relinquish your claim."
"I have no claim to relinquish. I have urged no claims. On the
contrary, I have fully disclosed to her every folly and vice that cleaves
to my character."
"You know, sir, what I mean."
"I am afraid not perfectly. If you mean that I should profess myself
unworthy of your sister's favour, 'tis done. It has been done a hundred
times."
"My meaning, sir, is simply this: that you, from this moment, give up
every expectation of being the husband of Mrs. Talbot. That you return to
her every letter and paper that has passed between you; that you drop all
intercourse and correspondence."
I was obliged to stifle a laugh which this whimsical proposal excited.
I continued, through this whole dialogue, to regard my companion with a
steadfast and cheerful gravity.
"These are injunctions," said I, "that will hardly meet with
compliance, unless, indeed, they were imposed by the lady herself. I shall
always have a supreme regard for her happiness; and whatever path she
points out to me, I will walk in it."
"But _this_ is the path in which her true interest requires you to
walk."
"I have not yet discovered that to be _her_ opinion; the moment I
do, I will walk in it accordingly."
"No matter what _her_ opinion is. She is froward and obstinate. It
is my opinion that her true happiness requires all connection between you
to cease from this moment."
"After all, sir, though, where judgments differ, one only can be right,
yet each person must be permitted to follow his own. You would hardly, I
imagine, allow your sister to prescribe to you in your marriage choice,
and I fear she will lay claim to the same independence for herself. If you
can convert her to your way of thinking, it is well. I solemnly engage to
do whatever she directs."
"This is insolence. You trifle with me. You pretend to misconstrue my
meaning."
"When you charge me with insolence, I think you afford pretty strong
proof that you mistake _my_ meaning. I have not the least intention
to offend you."
"Let me be explicit with you. Do you instantly and absolutely resign
all pretensions to my sister?"
"I will endeavour to be explicit in my turn. Your sister,
notwithstanding my defects and disadvantages, offers me her love, vows to
be mine. I accept her love; she is mine; nor need we to discuss the matter
any further."
This, however, by no means put an end to altercation. I told him I was
willing to hear all that he had to say upon the subject. If truth were on
his side, it was possible he might reason me into a concurrence with him.
In compliance with this concession, he dwelt on the benefits which his
sister would receive from accompanying him to France, and the mutual
sorrow, debasement, and perplexity likely to flow from a union between us,
unsanctioned by the approbation of our common friends.
"The purpose of all this is to prove," said I, "that affluence and
dignity without me will be more conducive to your sister's happiness than
obscurity and indigence _with_ me."
It was.
"Happiness is mere matter of opinion; perhaps Jane thinks already as
you do."
He allowed that he had talked with you ineffectually on that
subject.
"I think myself bound to believe her in a case where she is the proper
judge, and shall eagerly consent to make her happy in her own way.
_That_, sir, is my decision."
I will not repeat the rest of our conversation. Your letters have given
me some knowledge of your brother, and I endeavoured by the mildness,
sedateness, and firmness of my carriage to elude those extremes to which
his domineering passions were likely to carry him. I carefully avoided
every thing that tended in the least to exasperate. He was prone enough to
rage, but I quietly submitted to all that he could say. I was sincerely
rejoiced when the conference came to an end.
Whence came your brother thus abruptly? Have you seen him? Yet he told
me that you had. Alas! what must you have suffered from his
impetuosity!
I look with impatience for your next letter, in which you will tell
what has happened.