CHAPTER XXV
We left Adeline preparing to address Mrs Mowbray and recommend her child to her protection:—but being deeply impressed with the importance of the task which she was about to undertake, she timidly put it off from day to day; and having convinced herself that it was her duty to endeavour to excite her husband to repentance, and make him acknowledge Editha as his legitimate child, she determined to write to him before she addressed her mother, and also to bid a last farewell to Colonel Mordaunt, whose respectful attachment had soothed some of the pangs which consciousness of her past follies had inflicted, and whose active friendship deserved her warmest acknowledgment. Little did she think the fatal effect which one instance of his friendly zeal in her cause had had on Berrendale; unconscious was she that the husband, whose neglect she believed to be intentional, great as were his crimes against her, was not guilty of the additional crime of suffering her to pine in poverty without making a single inquiry concerning her, but was convinced that both she and her child were no longer in existence.
In her letter to him, she conjured him by the love which he always bore Glenmurray, by the love he once bore her, and by the remorse which he would sooner or later feel for his conduct towards her and her child, to acknowledge Editha to be his lawful heir, but to suffer her to remain under that protection to which she meant to bequeath her; and on these conditions she left him her blessing and her pardon.
The letter to Colonel Mordaunt was long, and perhaps diffuse: but Adeline was jealous of his esteem, though regardless of his love; and as he had known her while acting under the influence of a fatal error of opinion, she wished to show him that on conviction she had abandoned her former way of thinking, and was candid enough to own that she had been wrong.
'You, no doubt,' she said, 'are well acquainted with the arguments urged by different writers in favour of marriage. I shall therefore only mention the argument which carried at length full conviction to my mind, and conquered even my deep and heartfelt reverence for the opinions of one who long was, and ever will be, the dearest object of my love and regret. But he, had he lived, would I am sure have altered his sentiments; and had he been a parent, the argument I allude to, as it is founded on a consideration of the interest of children, would have found its way to his reason, through his affections.
'It is evident that on the education given to children must depend the welfare of the community; and, consequently, that whatever is likely to induce parents to neglect the education of their children must be hurtful to the welfare of the community. It is also certain, that though the agency of the passions be necessary to the existence of all society, it is on the cultivation and influence of the affections that the happiness and improvement of social life depend.
'Hence it follows that marriage must be more beneficial to society in its consequences, than connexions capable of being dissolved at pleasure; because it has a tendency to call forth and exercise the affections, and control the passions. It has been said, that, were we free to dissolve at will a connexion formed by love, we should not wish to do it, as constancy is natural to us, and there is in all of us a tendency to form an exclusive attachment. But though I believe, from my own experience, that the few are capable of unforced constancy, and could love for life one dear and honoured object, still I believe that the many are given to the love of change;—that, in men especially, a new object can excite new passion; and, judging from the increasing depravity of both sexes, in spite of existing laws, and in defiance of shame,—I am convinced, that if the ties of marriage were dissolved, or it were no longer to be judged infamous to act in contempt of them, unbridled licentiousness would soon be in general practice. What, then, in such a state of society, would be the fate of the children born in it?—What would their education be? Parents continually engrossed in the enervating but delightful egotism of a new and happy love, lost in selfish indulgence, the passions awake, but the affections slumbering, and the sacred ties of parental feeling not having time nor opportunity to fasten on the heart,—their offspring would either die the victims of neglect, and the very existence of the human race be threatened; or, without morals or instruction, they would grow up to scourge the world by their vices, till the whole fabric of civilized society was gradually destroyed.
'On this ground, therefore, this strong ground, I venture to build my present opinion, that marriage is a wise and ought to be a sacred institution; and I bitterly regret the hour when, with the hasty and immature judgment of eighteen, and with a degree of presumption scarcely pardonable at any time of life, I dared to think and act contrary to this opinion and the reverend experience of ages, and became in the eyes of the world an example of vice, when I believed myself the champion of virtue.'
She then went on to express the following sentiments. 'You will think, perhaps, that I ought to struggle against the weakness which is hurrying me to the grave, and live for the sake of my child.—Alas! it is for her sake that I most wish to die.