P. S. I wrote this letter last night intending to keep it by me to send
whenever I please; all the family were absent, left me reading,—I read
your letter, the house was silent, and I was entirely alone. I knew I
should not have another opportunity as convenient for giving you my
sentiments—no fear of intrusion—and I therefore took my pen and
scribbled what I now send you, but I believe I must adopt your plan and
send it immediately to the office,—but I repent and burn it, and I find
on reading it that I have said not half I meant to; but I will send it
away immediately. I am almost ashamed to answer yours so soon, ’tis so
unlike the example you set me that I suppose you will say ’tis a tacit
disapprobation of your conduct.
Scarborough, April 9th.
Mr. Moses Porter, Biddeford.
Sunday, Scarborough, May —, 1801.
When one commences an action with a full conviction they shall not
acquit themselves with honor, they are sure not to succeed; imprest with
this idea I write you. I positively declare I have felt a great
reluctance ever since we concluded on the plan. I am aware of the
construction you may put on this, but call it _affectation_ or what you
will, I assure you it proceeds from different motives. When I first
proposed this correspondence, I thought only of the amusement and
instruction it would afford _me_. I almost forgot that I should have any
part to perform. Since, however, I have reflected on the scheme as it
was about to be carried into execution, I have felt a degree of
diffidence which has almost induced me to hope you would _forget_ the
engagement. Fully convinced of my inability to afford pleasure or
instruction to an enlarged mind, I rely wholly on your candor and
generosity to pardon the errors which will cloud my best efforts. When I
reflect on the severity of your criticisms in general, I shrink at the
idea of exposing to you what will never stand the test. Yet did I not
imagine you would throw aside the _critic_ and assume the _friend_, I
should never dare, with all my vanity (and I am not deficient), give you
so fine an opportunity to exercise your favorite propensity. I know you
will laugh at all this, and I must confess it appears rather a folly,
first to request your correspondence and then with so much diffidence
and false delicacy, apparently to extort a compliment, talk about my
inability and the like. You will not think I intend a compliment when I
say I have ever felt a disagreeable restraint when conversing before
you. Often, when with all the confidence I possess I have brought
forward an opinion, said all my imagination could suggest in support of
it, and viewed with pleasure the little fabric, which I imagined to be
founded on truth and justice, with one word you would crush to the
ground that which had cost me so many to erect. These things I think in
time will humble my vanity, I wish sincerely that they may.
Yet I believe I possess decent talents and should have been quite
another being had they been properly cultivated. But as it is, I can
never get over some little prejudices which I have imbibed long since,
and which warp all the faculties of my mind. I was pushed on to the
stage of action without one principle to guide my actions,—the impulse
of the moment was the only incitement. I have never committed any
grossly imprudent action, yet I have been folly’s darling child. I trust
they were rather errors of the head than the heart, for we have all a
kind of inherent power to distinguish between right and wrong, and if
before the heart becomes contaminated by the maxims of society it is
left to act from impulse though it have no fixt principle, yet it will
not materially err. Possessing a gay lively disposition, I pursued
pleasure with ardor. I wished for admiration, and took the means which
would be most likely to obtain it. I found the mind of a female, if such
a thing existed, was thought not worth cultivating. I disliked the
trouble of thinking for myself and therefore adopted the sentiments of
others—fully convinced to adorn my person and acquire a few little
accomplishments was sufficient to secure me the admiration of the
society I frequented. I cared but little about the mind. I learned to
flutter about with a thoughtless gaiety—a mere feather which every
breath had power to move. I left school with a head full of something,
tumbled in without order or connection. I returned home with a
determination to put it in more order; I set about the great work of
culling the best part to make a few sentiments out of—to serve as a
little ready change in my commerce with the world. But I soon lost all
patience (a virtue I do not possess in an eminent degree), for the
greater part of my ideas I was obliged to throw away without knowing
where I got them or what I should do with them; what remained I pieced
as ingeniously as I could into a few patchwork opinions,—they are now
almost worn threadbare, and as I am about quilting a few more, I beg you
will send me any spare ideas you may chance to have that will answer my
turn. By this time I suppose you have found out what you have a right to
expect from this correspondence, and probably at this moment lay down
the letter with a long sage-like face to ponder on my egotism.—’Tis a
delightful employment, I will leave you to enjoy it while I eat my
dinner: And what is the result, Cousin? I suppose a few exclamations on
the girl’s vanity to think no subject could interest me but where
herself was concerned, or the barrenness of her head that could write on
no other subject. But she is a _female_, say you, with a _manly
contempt_. Oh you Lords of the world, what are you that your unhallowed
lips should dare profane the fairest part of creation! But honestly I
wish to say something by way of apology, but don’t seem to know what,—it
is true I have a kind of natural affection for myself, I find no one
more ready to pardon my faults or find excuses for my failings—it is
natural to love our friends.
I have positively not said one single thing which I intended when I sat
down; my motive was to answer your letter, and I have not mentioned my
not having received it?—Your opinion of Story’s Poems I think very
unjust; as to the _man_, I cannot say, for I know nothing of him, but I
think you are too severe upon him; a man who had not a “fibre of
refinement in his composition” could never have written some passages in
that poem. What is refinement? I thought it was a delicacy of taste
which might be acquired, if not any thing in our nature,—true, there are
some so organized that they are incapable of receiving a delicate
impression, but we won’t say any thing of such beings. I just begin to
feel in a mood for answering your letter. What you say of Miss Rice—I
hardly know how to refuse the challenge; she possesses no quality above
mediocrity, and yet is just what a female ought to be. Now what I would
give for a little _Logic_, or for a little skill to support an argument.
But I give it up, for tho’ you might not convince me, you would
_confound_ me with so many _learned_ observations that my vanity would
oblige me to say I was convinced to prevent the mortification of saying
I did not understand you. How did you like Mr. Coffin? Write soon and
tell me. We expect you to go to the fishing party with us on Tuesday.
Mr. Coffin told us you would all come. You must be here by 9 o’clock
(not before) (in the morning). My love to the girls, and tell them—no!
I’ll tell them myself.