COLONEL FAIRLY AND SECOND ATTACHMENTS.
I am persuaded there is no manner of truth in the report relative to Mr. Fairly and Miss Fuzilier, for he led me into a long conversation with him one evening when the party was large, and all were otherwise engaged, upon subjects of this nature, in the course of which he asked me if I thought any second attachment could either be as strong or as happy as a first.
I was extremely surprised by the question, and quite unprepared how to answer it, as I knew not with what feelings or intentions I might war by any unwary opinions. I did little, therefore, but evade and listen, though he kept up the discourse in a very animated manner, till the party all broke up.
Had I spoken without any consideration but what was general and genuine, I should have told him that my idea was simply this, that where a first blessing was withdrawn by providence, not lost by misconduct, it seemed to me most consonant to reason, nature, and mortal life, to accept what could come second, in this as in all other deprivations. Is it not a species of submission to the divine will to make ourselves as happy as we can in what is left us to obtain, where bereft of what we had sought? My own conflict for content in a life totally adverse to my own inclinations, is all built on this principle, and when it succeeds, to this owes its success.
I presumed not, however, to talk in this way to Mr. Fairly, for I am wholly ignorant in what manner or to what degree his first attachment may have rivetted his affections; but by the whole of what passed it seemed to me very evident that he was not merely entirely without any engagement, but entirely at this time without any plan or scheme of forming any; and probably he never may.