Part 22 (1/2)
Letter x.x.xV
_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 a.s.suredly 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 pa.s.sengers. '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 pa.s.sion 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 antic.i.p.ate 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 a.s.sumes 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 grat.i.tude.
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. .h.i.therto 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 partic.i.p.ation? 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.