LETTER XXI.
Harriot to Myra.
Rhodeisland.
WE arrived here in safety, but our journey is not without incident—an incident which exhibits a melancholy picture of the wickedness and depravity of the human heart.
WHEN we came to the house of Mrs. Martin, who I suppose you know is cousin to Mrs. Francis, we were not a little astonished at the evident traces of distress in her countenance; all her actions were accompanied with an air of solemnity, and her former gaiety of heart was exchanged for sad, serious thoughtfulness: She, however, put on a face of vivacity upon our being introduced, but her cheerfulness was foreign to the feelings of her heart.
MR. Martin was equally agitated: he endeavoured to dispossess himself of an uncommon weight of remorse, but in vain—all his dissimulation could not conceal his emotion, nor his art abate the continual upbraidings of conscious guilt.
MRS. Francis was anxious to enquire the cause of this extraordinary change, but wisely forebore adding to the distress of her friend, by desiring her to explain it, in a manner too precipitate. She was in a short time made acquainted with the particulars of the story—which is not more melancholy than uncommon.
SOMETIME after the marriage of Martin, the beautiful Ophelia, sister to Mrs. Martin, returned from a European visit to her friends in Rhodeisland. Upon her arrival, she received a polite offer from her brother-in-law of an elegant apartment of his house in town, which was cheerfully accepted—Fatal acceptation! He had conceived a passion for Ophelia and was plotting to gratify it. By a series of the most artful attentions, suggested by a diabolical appetite, he insinuated himself into her affection—he prevailed upon the heart of the unsuspicious Ophelia, and triumphed over her innocence and virtue.
THIS incestuous connection has secretly subsisted until the present time—it was interrupted by a symptom which rendered it necessary for Ophelia to retire into the country, where she was delivered of a child, at once the son and nephew of Martin.
THIS event was a severe mortification to the proud spirit of Shepherd, the father of Ophelia. His resentment to his daughter was implacable, and his revenge of the injury from Martin not to be satiated. The blaze of family dispute raged with unquenchable fury—and poor Ophelia received other punishment from the hand of a vindictive father than base recrimination.
THE affection of Martin now became changed to the vilest hatred.
THUS doomed to suffer the blackest ingratitude from her seducer on the one hand, and to experience the severity of paternal vengeance on the other—and before her the gloomy prospect of a blasted reputation—what must be the situation of the hapless Ophelia! Hope, the last resort of the wretched, was forever shut out. There was no one whom she durst implore by the tender name of father, and he, who had seduced her from her duty and her virtue, was the first to brand her with the disgraceful epithets of undutiful and unchaste.
PERHAPS it was only at this time, that she became fully sensible of her danger; the flattery and dissimulation of Martin might have banished the idea of detection, and glossed over that of criminality; but now she awoke from her dream of insensibility, she was like one who had been deluded by an ignis fatuus to the brink of a precipice, and there abandoned to his reflection to contemplate the horrours of the sea beneath him, into which he was about to plunge.
WHETHER from the promises of Martin, or the flattery of her own fancy, is unknown, but it is said she expected to become his wife, and made use of many expedients to obtain a divorcement of Martin from her sister: But this is the breath of rumour: Allowing it to be truth, it appears to be the last attempt of despair; for such unnatural exertions, with the compunction attending them, represent a gloomy picture of the struggle between sisterly affection and declining honour. They however proved inavailable, and her efforts to that end, may with propriety be deemed a wretched subterfuge.
IN the mean while the rage of Shepherd was augmenting. Time, instead of allaying, kindled the flame of revenge in the breast of the old man. A sense of the wounded honour of his family, became every day more exquisite; he resolved to call a meeting of the parties, in which the whole mystery should be developed—that Ophelia should confront her seducer, and a thorough enquiry and explication be brought about.
OPHELIA exercised all her powers to prevent it; she intreated her father to consent to her desire, but her tears and entreaties were vain. To this earnest desire of his daughter, Shepherd opposed the honour of his family. She replied that a procedure would publish its disgrace and be subversive of his intention: That she hoped to live retired from the world, and it was in his power to accept her happy repentance: In extenuating, she wished not to vindicate her errours, but declared herself to be penetrated with a melancholy sense of her misconduct, and hoped her penitence might expiate her guilt: She now beheld the sin in the most glaring colours, the dangers to which she had been exposed, and acknowledged the effects of her temerity had impressed her mind with sincere contrition: “All persons,” continued she, “are not blest with the like happiness of resisting temptation:” she intreated her father, therefore, to believe her misfortunes proceeded from credulity and not from an abandoned principle—that they arose more from situation than a depraved heart: In asking to be restored to the favour and protection of a parent, she protested she was not influenced by any other motive, than a wish to demonstrate the sincerity of her repentance, and to establish the peace and harmony of the family.
OPHELIA now became melancholy, and her intentions visibly bent on the manner of her death. As the time drew nigh, her sensibility became more and more exquisite: What was before distress, she now averred to be horrour: Her conduct bordered on insanity.
THE day was appointed to bring to a settlement this unhappy business—the time of hearing arrived—the parties met—the presence of Ophelia was necessary—she was missing—the unfortunate Ophelia died by her own hand.
MRS. Shepherd entered the apartment of her daughter—she beheld her pale and trembling—she saw the vial, and the cup with the remains of the poison—she embraced her lost—“My Ophelia! my daughter! return—return to life.”
AT this crisis entered the father—he was mute—he beheld his daughter struggling with the pangs of dissolution—he was dumb with grief and astonishment.
THE dying Ophelia was conscious of the distress of her parents, and of her own situation—she clasped her mother’s hand, and raising her eye to heaven, was only heard to articulate “LET MY CRIME BE FORGOTTEN WITH MY NAME.—O FATAL! FATAL POISON!”
ADIEU! my dear Myra—this unhappy affair has worked me to a fit of melancholy. I can write no more. I will give you a few particulars in my next. It is impossible to behold the effect of this horrid catastrophe and not be impressed with feelings of sympathetick sorrow: