I WILL imagine, my friend, that you have read the letter [Footnote: The preceding one.] which I have hastily transcribed. I will not stop to tell you my reflections upon it, but shall hasten with this letter to Mrs. Fielder. I might send it; but I have grown desperate.

A final effort must be made for my own happiness and that of Jane. From their own lips will I know my destiny. I have conversed too long at a distance with this austere lady. I will mark with my own eyes the effect of this discovery. Perhaps the moment may prove a yielding one. Finding me innocent in one respect, in which her persuasion of my guilt was most strong, may she not remit or soften her sentence on inferior faults? And what may be the influence of Jane's deportment, when she touches my hand in a last adieu?

I have complied with Miss Jessup's wish in one particular. I have sent her the letter which I got from Hannah, unopened; unread; accompanied with a few words, to this effect:–

"If you ever injured Mr. Talbot, your motives for doing so entitle you to nothing but compassion, while your present conduct lays claim, not only to forgiveness, but to gratitude. The letter you intrust to me shall be applied to no purpose but that which you proposed by writing it. Enclosed is the paper you request, the seal unbroken and its contents unread. In this, as in all cases, I have no stronger wish than to act as

"YOUR TRUE FRIEND."

And now, my friend, lay I down the pen for a few hours,–hours the most important, perhaps, in my eventful life. Surely this interview with Mrs. Fielder will decide my destiny. After it, I shall have nothing to hope.

I prepare for it with awe and trembling. The more nearly it approaches, the more my heart falters. I summon up in vain a tranquil and steadfast spirit; but perhaps a walk in the clear air will be more conducive to this end than a day's ruminations in my chamber.

I will take a walk.

And am I then–but I will not anticipate. Let me lead you to the present state of things without confusion.

With what different emotions did I use to approach this house! "It still contains," thought I, as my wavering steps brought me in sight of it, "all that I love; but I enter not unceremoniously now. I find her not on the accustomed sofa, eager to welcome my coming with smiling affability and arms outstretched. No longer is it home to me, nor she assiduous to please, familiarly tender and anxiously fond, already assuming the conjugal privilege of studying my domestic ease."

I knocked, somewhat timorously, at the door,–a ceremony which I had long been in the habit of omitting: but times are changed. I was afraid the melancholy which was fast overshadowing me would still more unfit me for what was coming; but, instead of dispelling it, this very apprehension deepened my gloom.

Molly came to the door. She silently led me into a parlour. The poor girl was in tears. My questions as to the cause of her distress drew from her a very indistinct and sobbing confession that Mrs. Fielder had been made uneasy by Molly's going out so early in the morning; had taken her daughter to task; and, by employing entreaties and remonstrances in turn, had drawn from her the contents of her letter to me and of my answer.

A strange, affecting scene had followed: indignation and grief on the mother's part; obstinacy, irresolution, sorrowful, reluctant penitence and acquiescence on the side of the daughter; a determination, tacitly concurred in by Jane, of leaving the city immediately. Orders were already issued for that purpose.

"Is Mrs. Fielder at home?"

"Yes."

"Tell her a gentleman would see her."

"She will ask, perhaps–Shall I tell her who?"

"No–Yes. Tell her I wish to see her."

The poor girl looked very mournfully:–"She has seen your answer which talks of your intention to visit her. She vows she will not see you if you come."

"Go, then, to Jane, and tell her I would see her for five minutes. Tell her openly; before her mother."

This message, as I expected, brought down Mrs. Fielder alone. I never saw this lady before. There was a struggle in her countenance between anger and patience; an awful and severe solemnity; a slight and tacit notice of me as she entered. We both took chairs without speaking. After a moment's pause,–

"Mr. Colden, I presume."

"Yes, madam."

"You wish to see my daughter?"

"I was anxious, madam, to see you. My business here chiefly lies with you,–not her."

"With me, sir? And pray, what have you to propose to me?'7

"I have nothing to solicit, madam, but your patient attention." (I saw the rising vehemence could scarcely be restrained.) "I dare not hope for your favourable ear: all I ask is an audience from you of a few minutes."

"This preface, sir," (her motions less and less controllable,) "is needless. I have very few minutes to spare at present. This roof is hateful to me while you are under it. Say what you will, sir, and briefly as possible."

"No, madam; thus received, I have not fortitude enough to say what I came to say. I merely entreat you to peruse this letter."

"'Tis well, sir," (taking it, with some reluctance, and, after eyeing the direction, putting it aside.) "And this is all your business?"

"Let me entreat you, madam, to read it in my presence. Its contents nearly concern your happiness, and will not leave mine unaffected."

She did not seem, at first, disposed to compliance, but at length opened and read. What noble features has this lady! I watched them, as she read, with great solicitude, but discovered in them nothing that could cherish my hope. All was stern and inflexible. No wonder at the ascendency this spirit possesses over the tender and flexible Jane!

She read with visible eagerness. The varying emotion played with augmented rapidity over her face. Its expression became less severe, and some degree of softness, I thought, mixed itself with those glances which reflection sometimes diverted from the letter. These tokens somewhat revived my languishing courage.

After having gone through it, she returned; read again and pondered over particular passages. At length, after some pause, she spoke; but her indignant eye scarcely condescended to point the address to me:–

"As a mother and a woman I cannot but rejoice at this discovery. To find my daughter less guilty than appearances led me to believe, cannot but console me under the conviction of her numerous errors. Would to Heaven she would stop here in her career of folly and imprudence!

"I cannot but regard you, sir, as the author of much misery. Still, it is in your power to act as this deluded woman, Miss Jessup, has acted. You may desist from any future persecution. Your letter to me gave me no reason to expect the honour of this visit, and contained something like a promise to shun any further intercourse with Mrs. Talbot."

"I hope, madam, the contents of this letter will justify me in bringing it to you?"

"Perhaps it has; but that commission is performed. That, I hope, is all you proposed by coming hither; and you will pardon me if I plead an engagement for not detaining you longer in this house."

I had no apology for prolonging my stay, yet I was irresolute. She seemed impatient at my lingering; again urged her engagements. I rose; took my hat; moved a few steps towards the door; hesitated.

At length I stammered out, "Since it is the last–the last interview–if I were allowed-but one moment."

"No, no, no! what but needless torment to herself and to you can follow? What do you expect from an interview?"

"I would see, for a moment, the face of one whom, whatever be my faults, and whatever be hers, I love."

"Yes; you would profit, no doubt, by your power over this infatuated girl. I know what a rash proposal she has made you, and you seek her presence to insure her adherence to it."

Her vehemence tended more to bereave me of courage than of temper, but I could not forbear (mildly, however) reminding her that if I had sought to take advantage of her daughter's offer, the easiest and most obvious method was different from that which I had taken.

"True," said she, her eyes flashing fire; "a secret marriage would have given you the destitute and portionless girl; but your views are far more solid and substantial. You know your power over her, and aim at extorting from compassion for my child what–But why do I exchange a word with you? Mrs. Talbot knows not that you are here. She has just given me the strongest proof of compunction for every past folly, and especially the last. She has bound herself to go along with me. If your professions of regard for her be sincere, you will not increase her difficulties. I command you, I implore you, to leave the house."

I should not have resisted these entreaties on my own account. Yet to desert her–to be thought by her to have coldly and inhumanly rejected her offers!

"In your presence, madam–I ask not privacy–let her own lips confirm the sentence; be renunciation her own act. For the sake of her peace of mind–"

"God give me patience!" said the exasperated lady. "How securely do you build on her infatuation! But you shall not see her. If she consents to see you, I never will forgive her. If she once more relapses, she is undone. She shall write her mind to you: let that serve. I will permit her–I will urge her–to write to you: let that serve."

I went to this house with a confused perception that this visit would terminate my suspense. "One more interview with Jane," thought I, "and no more fluctuations or uncertainty." Yet I was now as far as ever from certainty. Expostulation was vain. She would not hear me. All my courage, even my words were overwhelmed by her vehemence.

After much hesitation, and several efforts to gain even a hearing of my pleas, I yielded to the tide. With a drooping heart, I consented to withdraw with my dearest hope unaccomplished.

My steps involuntarily brought me back to my lodgings. Here am I again at my pen. Never were my spirits lower, my prospects more obscure, my hopes nearer to extinction.

I am afraid to allow you too near a view of my heart at this moment of despondency. My present feelings are new even to myself. They terrify me. I must not trust myself longer alone. I must shake off, or try to shake off, this excruciating, this direful melancholy. Heavy, heavy is my soul; comfortless and friendless my condition. Nothing is sweet but the prospect of oblivion.

But, again I say, these thoughts must not lead me. Dreadful and downward is the course to which they point. I must relinquish the pen. I must sally forth into the fields. Naked and bleak is the face of nature at this inclement season; but what of that? Dark and desolate will ever be my world–but I will not write another word.

So, my friend, I have returned from my walk with a mind more a stranger to tranquillity than when I sallied forth. On my table lay the letter, which, ere I seal this, I will enclose to you. Read it here.

Letter L

To Mr. Colden

December 11.

Hereafter I shall be astonished at nothing but that credulity which could give even momentary credit to your assertions.

Most fortunately, my belief lasted only till you left the house. Then my scruples, which slept for a moment, revived, and I determined to clear up my doubts by immediately calling on Miss Jessup.

If any thing can exceed your depravity, sir, it is your folly. But I will not debase myself: my indignation at being made the subject, and, for some minutes, the dupe, of so gross and so profligate an artifice, carries me beyond all bounds. What, sir!–But I will restrain myself.

I would not leave the city without apprizing you of this detection of your schemes. If Miss Jessup were wise, she would seek a just revenge for so atrocious a slander.

I need not tell you that I have seen her; laid the letter before her which you delivered to me; nor do I need to tell you what her anger and amazement were on finding her name thus abused.

I pity you, sir; I grieve for you: you have talents of a certain kind, but your habits, wretchedly and flagitiously perverse, have made you act on most occasions like an idiot. Their iniquity was not sufficient to deter you from impostures which–but I scorn to chide you.

My daughter is a monument of the success of your schemes. But their success shall never be complete. While I live, she shall never join her interests with yours. That is a vow which, I thank God, I am able to accomplish; and shall.

H. FIELDER.

Letter LI

To James Montford

December 13.

Is not this strange, my friend? Miss Jessup, it seems, has denied her own letter. Surely there was no mistake,–no mystery. Let me look again at the words in the cover.

Let me awake! Let me disabuse my senses! Yes. It is plain. Miss Jessup repented her of her confession. Something in that unopened letter–believing the contents of that known, there were inducements to sincerity which the recovery of that letter, and the finding it unopened, perhaps annihilated. Pride resumed its power. Before so partial a judge as Mrs. Fielder, and concerning a wretch so worthy of discredit as I, how easy, how obvious to deny, and to impute to me the imposture charged on herself!

Well, and what is now to be done? I will once more return to Miss Jessup. I will force myself into her presence, and then–But I have not a moment to lose.

And this was the night, this was the hour, that was to see my Jane's hand wedded to mine! That event Providence, or fate, or fortune, stepped in to forbid. And must it then pass away like any vulgar hour?

It deserves to be signalized, to be made memorable. What forbids but sordid, despicable cowardice? Not virtue; not the love of universal happiness; not piety; not sense of duty to my God or my fellow-creatures. These sentiments, alas! burn feebly or not at all within my bosom.

It is not hope that restrains my hand. For what is my hope? Independence, dignity, a life of activity and usefulness, are not within my reach. And why not? What obstacles arise in the way?

Have I not youth, health, knowledge, talents? Twenty professional roads are open before me, and solicit me to enter them; but no. I shall never enter any of them. Be all earthly powers combined to force me into the right path,–the path of duty, honour, and interest: they strive in vain.

And whence this incurable folly?–this rooted incapacity of acting as every motive, generous and selfish, combine to recommend? Constitution; habit; insanity; the dominion of some evil spirit, who insinuates his baneful power between the will and the act.

And this more congenial good; this feminine excellence; this secondary and more valuable self; this woman who has appropriated to herself every desire, every emotion of my soul: what hope remains with regard to her? Shall I live for her sake?

No. Her happiness requires me to be blotted out of existence. Let me unfold myself to myself; let me ask my soul, Canst thou wish to be rejected, renounced, and forgotten by Jane? Does it please thee that her happiness should be placed upon a basis absolutely independent of thy lot? Canst thou, with a true and fervent zeal, resign her to her mother?

I can. I do.

I wish I had words, my friend: yet why do I wish for them? Why sit I here, endeavouring to give form, substance, and duration to images to which it is guilty and opprobrious to allow momentary place in my mind? Why do I thus lay up, for the few that love me, causes of affliction?

Yet perhaps I accuse myself too soon. The persuasion that I have one friend is sweet. I fancy myself talking to one who is interested in my happiness; but this shall satisfy me. If fate impel me to any rash and irretrievable act, I will take care that no legacy of sorrow shall be left to my survivors. My fate shall be buried in oblivion. No busy curiosity, no affectionate zeal, shall trace the way that I have gone. No mourning footsteps shall haunt my grave,

I am, indeed, my friend–never, never before, spiritless and even hopeless as I have sometimes been, have my thoughts been thus gloomy. Never felt I so enamoured of that which seems to be the cure-all.

Often have I wished to slide obscurely and quietly into the grave; but this wish, while it saddened my bosom, never raised my hand against my life. It made me willingly expose my safety to the blasts of pestilence; it made me court disease; but it never set my imagination in search after more certain and speedy means.

Yet I am wonderfully calm. I can still reason on the folly of despair. I know that a few days, perhaps a few hours, will bring me some degree of comfort and courage; will make life, with all its disappointments and vexations, endurable at least.

Would to Heaven I were not quite alone! Left thus to my greatest enemy, myself, I feel that I am capable of deeds which I fear to name.

A few minutes ago I was anxious to find Miss Jessup; to gain another interview with Mrs. Fielder. Both the one and the other have left the city. Jane's dwelling is deserted. Shortly after I left it, they set out upon their journey, and Miss Jessup–no doubt, to avoid another interview with me–has precipitately withdrawn into the country.

I shall not pursue their steps. Let things take their course. No doubt, a lasting and effectual remorse will, some time or other, reach the heart of Miss Jessup, and this fatal error will be rectified. I need not live, I need not exert myself, to hasten the discovery. I can do nothing.

Letter LII

To Mrs. Fielder

Philadelphia, December 16.

It is not improbable that, as soon as you recognise the hand that wrote this letter, you will throw it unread into the fire; yet it comes not to soothe resentment, or to supplicate for mercy. It seeks not a favourable audience. It wishes not–because the wish would be chimerical–to have its assertions believed. It expects not even to be read. All I hope is, that, though neglected, despised, and discredited for the present, it may not be precipitately destroyed or utterly forgotten. The time will come when it will be read with a different spirit.

You inform me that Miss Jessup has denied her letter, and imputes to me the wickedness of forging her name to a false confession. You are justly astonished at the iniquity and folly of what you deem my artifice. This astonishment, when you look back upon my past misconduct, is turned from me to yourself; from my folly to your own credulity, that was, for a moment, made the dupe of my contrivances.

I can say nothing that will or that ought--that is my peculiar misery,–that ought, considering the measure of my real guilt, to screen me from this charge. There is but one event that can shake your opinion. An event that is barely possible; that may not happen, if it happen at all, till the lapse of years; and from which, even if I were alive, I could not hope to derive advantage. Miss Jessup's conscience may awaken time enough to enable her to undeceive you, and to repent of her second as well as her first fraud.

If that event ever takes place, perhaps this letter may still exist to bear testimony to my rectitude. Thrown aside and long forgotten, or never read, chance may put it in your way once more. Time, that soother of resentment as well as lessener of love, and the perseverance of your daughter in the way you prescribe, may soften your asperities even towards me. A generous heart like yours will feel an emotion of joy that I have not been quite as guilty as you had reason to believe.

Give me leave, madam, to anticipate that moment. The number of my consolations are few. Your enmity I rank among my chief misfortunes, and the more so because I deserve much, though not all your enmity. The persuasion that the time will come when you will acquit me of this charge, is, even now, a comforter. This is more desirable to me, since it will relieve your daughter from one among the many evils in which she has been involved by the vices and infirmities of

H. COLDEN.

Letter LIII

To James Montford

Philadelphia, December 17.

I sought relief a second time to my drooping heart, by a walk in the fields. Returning, I met Harriet Thomson in the street. The meeting was somewhat unexpected. Since we parted at Baltimore, I imagined she had returned to her old habitation in Jersey. I knew she was pretty much a stranger in this city. Night had already come on, and she was alone. She greeted me with visible satisfaction; and, though I was very little fit for society, especially of those who loved me not, I thought common civility required me to attend her home.

I never saw this woman till I met her lately at her brother's bedside. Her opinions of me were all derived from unfavourable sources, and I knew, from good authority, that she regarded me as a dangerous and hateful character. I had even, accidentally, heard her opinion of the affair between Jane and me. Jane was severely censured for credulity and indiscretion, but some excuse was allowed to her on the score of the greater guilt that was placed to my account.

Her behaviour, when we first met, was somewhat conformable to these impressions. A good deal of coldness and reserve in her deportment, which I was sometimes sorry for, as she seems an estimable creature; meek, affectionate, tender, passionately loving her brother; convinced, from the hour of her first arrival, that his disease was a hopeless one, yet exerting a surprising command over her feelings, and performing every office of a nurse with skill and firmness.

Insensibly the distance between us grew less. A participation in the same calamity, and the counsel and aid which her situation demanded, forced her to lay aside some of her reserve. Still, however, it seemed but a submission to necessity; and all advances were made with an ill grace.

She was often present when her brother turned the discourse upon religious subjects. I have long since abjured the vanity of disputation. There is no road to truth but by meditation,-severe, intense, candid, and dispassionate. What others say on doubtful subjects, I shall henceforth lay up as materials for meditation.

I listened to my dying friend's arguments and admonitions, I think I may venture to say, with a suitable spirit. The arrogant or disputatious passions could not possibly find place in a scene like this. Even if I thought him in the wrong, what but brutal depravity could lead me to endeavour to shake his belief at a time when sickness had made his judgment infirm, and when his opinion supplied his sinking heart with confidence and joy?

But, in truth, I was far from thinking him in the wrong. At any time I should have allowed infinite, plausibility and subtlety to his reasonings, and at this time I confessed them to be weighty. Whether they were most weighty in the scale could be only known by a more ample and deliberate view and comparison than it was possible, with the spectacle of a dying friend before me, and with so many solicitudes and suspenses about me respecting Jane, to bestow on them. Meanwhile, I treasured them up, and determined, as I told him, that his generous efforts for my good should not be thrown away.

At first, his sister was very uneasy when her brother entered on the theme nearest to his friendly heart. She seemed apprehensive of dispute and contradiction. This apprehension was quickly removed, and she thenceforth encouraged the discourse. She listened with delight and eagerness, and her eye, frequently, when my friend's eloquence was most affecting, appealed to me. It sometimes conveyed a meaning far more powerful than her brother's lips, and expressed at once the strongest conviction of the truth of his words, and the most fervent desire that they might convince me. Her natural modesty, joined, no doubt, to her disesteem of my character, prevented her from mixing in discourse.

She greeted me at this meeting with a frankness which I did not expect. A disposition to converse, and attentiveness to the few words that I had occasion to say, were very evident. I was just then in the most dejected and forlorn state imaginable. My heart panted for some friendly bosom, into which I might pour my cares. I had reason to esteem the purity, sweetness, and amiable qualities of this good girl. Her aversion to me naturally flowed from these qualities, while an abatement of that aversion was flattering to me, as the triumph of feeling over judgment.

I should have left her at the door of her lodgings, but she besought me to go in so earnestly, that my facility, rather than my inclination, complied. She saw that I was absent and disturbed. I never read compassion and (shall I say?) good-will in any eye more distinctly than in hers.

The conversation for a time was vague and trite. Insensibly, the scenes lately witnessed were recalled, not without many a half-stifled sigh and ill-disguised tear on her part. Some arrangements as to the letters and papers of her brother were suggested. I expressed a wish to have my letters restored to me; I alluded to those letters, written in the sanguine insolence of youth and with the dogmatic rage upon me, that have done me so much mischief with Mrs. Fielder. I had not thought of them before; but now it occurred to me that they might as well be destroyed.

This insensibly led the conversation into more interesting topics. I could not suppress my regret that I had ever written some things in those letters, and informed her that my view in taking them back was to doom them to that oblivion from which it would have been happy for me if they never had been called.

After many tacit intimations, much reluctance and timidity to inquire and communicate, I was greatly surprised to discover that these letters had been seen by her; that Mrs. Fielder's character was not unknown to her; that she was no stranger to her brother's disclosures to that lady.

Without directly expressing her thoughts, it was easy to perceive that her mind was full of ideas produced by these letters, by her brother's discourse, and by curiosity as to my present opinions. Her modesty laid restraint on her lips. She was fearful, I supposed, of being thought forward and impertinent.

I endeavoured to dissipate these apprehensions. All about this girl was, on this occasion, remarkably attractive. I loved her brother, and his features still survive in her. The only relation she has left is a distant one, on whose regard and protection she has therefore but slender claims. Her mind is rich in all the graces of ingenuousness and modesty. The curiosity she felt respecting me made me grateful as for a token of regard. I was therefore not backward to unfold the true state of my mind.

Now and then she made seasonable and judicious comments on what I said. Was there any subject of inquiry more momentous than the truth of religion? If my doubts and heresies had involved me in difficulties, was not the remedy obvious and easy?. Why not enter on regular discussions, and, having candidly and deliberately formed my creed, adhere to it frankly, firmly, and consistently? A state of doubt and indecision was, in every view, hurtful, criminal, and ignominious. Conviction, if it were in favour of religion, would insure me every kind of happiness. It would forward even those schemes of temporal advantage on which I might be intent. It would reconcile those whose aversion arose from difference of opinion; and in cases where it failed to benefit my worldly views, it would console me for my disappointment.

If my inquiries should establish an irreligious conviction, still, any form of certainty was better than doubt. The love of truth and the consciousness of that certainty would raise me above hatred and slander. I should then have some kind of principle by which to regulate my conduct; I should then know on what foundation to build. To fluctuate, to waver, to postpone inquiry, was more criminal than any kind of opinion candidly investigated and firmly adopted, and would more effectually debar me from happiness. At my age, with my talents and inducements, it was sordid, it was ignoble, it was culpable, to allow indifference or indolence to slacken my zeal.

These sentiments were conveyed in various broken hints and modest interrogatories. While they mortified, they charmed me; they enlightened me while they perplexed. I came away with my soul roused by a new impulse. I have emerged from a dreary torpor, not indeed to tranquillity or happiness, but to something less fatal, less dreadful.

Would you think that a ray of hope has broken in upon me? Am I not still, in some degree, the maker of my fortune? Why mournfully ruminate on the past, instead of looking to the future? How wretched, how criminal, how infamous, are my doubts!

Alas! and is this the first time that I have been visited by such thoughts? How often has this transient hope, this momentary zeal, started into being, hovered in my fancy, and vanished! Thus will it ever be.

Need I mention–but I will not look back. To what end? Shall I grieve or rejoice at that power of now and then escaping from the past? Could it operate to my amendment, memory should be ever busy; but I fear that it would only drive me to desperation or madness.

H. C.