_To Mrs. Talbot_
New York, December 12.
I cannot leave this shore without thanking the mistress of my destiny
for all her goodness. Yet I should not have ventured thus to address you,
had I not seen a letter--Dearest creature, blame not your friend for
betraying you. Think it not a rash or injurious confession that you have
made.
And is it possible that you have not totally forgotten the sweet scenes
of our childhood,--that absence has not degraded me in your opinion,--and
that my devotion, if it continue as fervent as now, may look, in a few
years, for its reward?
Could you prevail on yourself to hide these generous emotions from me?
To suffer me to leave my country in the dreary belief that all former
incidents were held in contempt, and that, so far from being high in your
esteem, my presence was troublesome, my existence was irksome, to you?
But your motive was beneficent and generous. You were content to be
thought unfeeling and ungrateful for the sake of my happiness. I rejoice
inexpressibly in that event which has removed the veil from your true
sentiments. Nothing but pure felicity to me can flow from it. Nothing but
gratitude and honour can redound from it to yourself.
I go; but not with anguish and despondency for my companions. I am
buoyed up by the light wings of hope. The prospect of gaining your love is
not the only source of my present happiness. If it were, I should be a
criminal and selfish being. No. My chief delight is, that happiness is yet
in store for you; that, should Heaven have denied you your first hope,
there still lives one whose claim to make you happy will not be
rejected.