_To Mrs. Talbot_
Baltimore, November 20.
How truly did my angel say, that she whom I love is my deity, and her
lips my oracle, and that to her pertains not only the will to make me
happy, by giving me steadfastness and virtue, but the power also!
I have read your letter oftener than a dozen times already, and at
every reading my heart burns more and more. That weight of humiliation and
despondency which, without your arm to sustain me, would assuredly sink me
to the grave, becomes light as a feather; and, while I crush your
testimonies of love in my hand, I seem to have hold of a stay of which no
storm can bereave me.
One of my faults, thou sayest, is a propensity to reason. Not satisfied
with looking at that side of the post that chances to be near me, I move
round and round it, and pause and scrutinize till those whose ill fate it
is to wait upon my motions are out of patience with me.
Every one has ways of his own. A transient glance at the post satisfies
the mob of passengers. 'Tis my choice to stand a while and gaze.
The only post, indeed, which I closely examine, is myself, because my
station is most convenient for inspecting _that_. Yet, though I have
a fuller view of myself than any other can have of me, my imperfect
_sight_--that is, my erring judgment--is continually blundering.
If all my knowledge relate to my own character, and that knowledge is
egregiously defective, how profound must be my ignorance of others, and
especially of her whom I presume to call mine!
No paradox ever puzzled me so much as your conduct. On my first
interview with you I loved you; yet what kind of passion was that which
knew only your features and the sound of your voice? Every successive
interview has produced, not only something new or unexpected, but
something in seeming contradiction to my previous knowledge.
"She will act," said I, "in such and such circumstances, as those of
her delicate and indulgent education must always act. That wit, that
eloquence, that knowledge, must only make her despise such a witless,
unendowed, unaccomplished, wavering, and feeble wretch as I am."
To be called your friend; to be your occasional companion; to be a
tolerated visitor, was more than I expected. When I found all this
anxiously sought and eagerly accepted, I was lost in astonishment. At
times--may I venture to confess?--your regard for me brought your judgment
into question! It failed to inspire me with more respect for myself; and
not to look at me with my own eyes degraded you in my opinion.
How have you laboured to bestow on me that inestimable
gift,--self-confidence! And some success has attended your efforts. My
deliverance from my chains is less desperate than once it was. I may
judge of the future, perhaps, by the past. Since I have already made such
progress in exchanging distant veneration for familiar tenderness, and
in persuading myself that he must possess some merit whom a soul like
thine idolizes, I may venture to anticipate the time when all my
humiliation may vanish, and I shall come to be thought worthy of thy
love, not only by thee, but by myself.
What a picture is this thou drawest! Yet such is my weakness, Jane,
that I must shudder at the prospect. To tear thee from thy present
dwelling and its comforts, to make thee a tenant of thy good widow, and a
seamstress for me!
"Yet what" (thou sayest) "is a fine house, and a train of servants,
music, and pictures? What silly prejudice, to connect dignity and
happiness with high ceilings and damask canopies and golden
superfluity!"
Yet so silly am I, when reason deserts the helm and habit assumes it.
The change thou hast painted deceives me for a moment, or rather is
rightly judged of while I look at nothing but thy colouring; but when I
withdraw my eye from that, and the scene rises before me in the hues it is
accustomed to derive from my own fancy, my soul droops, and I pray Heaven
to avert such a destiny.
I tell thee all my follies, Jane. Art thou not my sweet physician? and
how canst thou cure the malady when thou knowest not all its symptoms?
I love to regard myself in this light:--as one owing his virtue, his
existence, his happiness, his every thing, to thee, and as proposing no
end to himself but thy happiness in turn, but the discharge of an endless
debt of gratitude.
On my account, Jane, I cannot bear you should lose any thing. It must
not be. Yet what remedy? How is thy mother's aversion to be subdued? how
can she be made to reason on my actions as you reason? Yet not so, either.
None but she that loves me can make such constructions and allowances as
you do.
Why may she not be induced to give up the hope of disuniting us, and,
while she hates me, continue her affection for thee? Why rob thee of those
bounties hitherto dispensed to thee, merely because _I_ must share in
them? My partaking with thee contributes indispensably to thy happiness.
Not for my own sake, then, but merely for thine, ought competence to be
secured to thee.
But is there no method of excluding me from all participation? She may
withhold from me all power of a landlord, but she cannot prevent me from
subsisting on thy bounty.
Yet why does she now allow you to possess what you do? Can she imagine
that my happiness is not as dear to you now as it will be in consequence
of any change? If I share nothing with you now, it is not from any want of
benevolent importunity in you.
There is a strange inconsistency and contradiction in thy mother's
conduct.
But something may surely be done to lighten her antipathies. I may
surely confute a false charge. I may convince her of my innocence in one
respect.
Yet see, my friend, the evils of which one error is the parent. My
conduct towards the poor Jessy appears to your mother a more enormous
wickedness than this imputed injustice to Talbot. The frantic indiscretion
of my correspondence with Thomson has ruined me; for he that will commit
the greater crime will not be thought to scruple the less.
And then there is such an irresistible crowd of evidence in favour of
the accusation! When I first read Mrs. Fielder's letter, the consciousness
of my innocence gave me courage; but the longer I reflect upon the
subject, the more deeply I despond. My own errors will always be powerful
pleaders against me at the bar of this austere judge.
Would to Heaven I had not yielded to your urgency! The indecorum of
compliance stared me in the face at the time. Too easily I yielded to the
enchantments of those eyes, and the pleadings of that melting voice.
The charms of your conversation; the midnight hour whose security was
heightened by the storm that raged without; so perfectly screened from
every interruption; and the subject we had been talking on, so affecting
and attractive to me, and so far from being exhausted, and you so
pathetically earnest in entreaty, so absolutely forbidding my
departure.
And was I such a short-sighted fool as not to insist on your retiring
at the usual hour? The only thing that could make the expedient suggested
by me effectual was that. Your Molly lying with you could avail you
nothing, unless you actually passed the night in your chamber.
As it was, no contrivance could be more unfortunate, since it merely
enabled her the more distinctly to remark the hour when you came up. Was
it _three_, or _four_, when you left the parlour?
The unbosoming of souls which that night witnessed, so sweetly as it
dwelt upon my memory, I now regard with horror, since it has involved you
in such evil.
But the letter,--that was a most disastrous accident. I had read very
frequently this fatal billet. Who is it that could imitate your hand so
exactly? The same fashion in the letters, the same colour in the ink, the
same style, and the sentiments expressed so fully and accurately
coalescing with the preceding and genuine passages!--no wonder that your
mother, being so well acquainted with your pen, should have no doubt as to
your guilt, after such testimony.
There must be a perpetrator of this iniquity. Talbot it could not be;
for where lay the letter in the interval between its disappearance and his
return? and what motive could influence him to commit or to countenance
such a forgery?
Without doubt there was some deceiver. Some one stole the letter, and
by his hand was this vile conclusion added, and by him was it communicated
to Talbot. But hast thou such an enemy in the world? Whom have you
offended, capable of harbouring such deadly vengeance?
Pray, my friend, sit down to the recollection of your past life, and
inquire who it was that possessed your husband's confidence; who were his
intimate companions, endeavour to discover; tell me the names and
characters of all those who were accustomed to visit your house, either on
your account or his. Strange, if among all these there is no foundation
for some conjecture, however shadowy.
Thomson is no better, yet grows worse hardly perceptibly. Adieu.