Reflecting closely on this circumstance, I began to suspect some danger lurking in your path. I now remembered that impetuosity of feeling which distinguished your early age; those notions of kindred among souls, of friendship and harmony of feelings which, in your juvenile age, you loved to indulge.
I reflected that the victory over these chimeras, which you gained by marriage with Talbot, might be merely temporary; and that, in order to call these dormant feelings into action, it was only requisite to meet with one contemplative, bookish, and romantic as yourself.
Such a one, it was greatly to be feared, you had now found in this young man; just such qualities he was reported to possess, as would render him dangerous to you and you dangerous to him. A poet, not in theory only, but in practice; accustomed to intoxicate the women with melodious flattery; fond of being intimate; avowedly devoted to the sex; eloquent in his encomiums upon female charms; and affecting to select his friends only from that sex.
What effect might such a character have upon your peace, even without imputing any ill intention to him? Both of you might work your own ruin, while you designed nothing but good; and even supposing that your intercourse should be harmless, or even beneficial with respect to yourselves, what was to be feared for Talbot? An intimacy of this kind could hardly escape his observation on his return. It would be criminal, indeed, to conceal it from him.
These apprehensions were raised to the highest pitch by more accurate information of Colden's character, which I afterwards received. I found, on inquiring of those who had the best means of knowing, that Colden had imbibed that pernicious philosophy which is now so much in vogue. One who knew him perfectly, who had long been in habits of the closest intimacy with him, who was still a familiar correspondent of his, gave me this account.
I met this friend of Colden's (Thomson his name is, of whom I suppose you have heard something) in this city. His being mentioned as the intimate companion of Colden made me wish to see him, and fortunately, I prevailed upon him to be very communicative.
Thomson is an excellent young man: he loves Colden much, and describes the progress of his friend's opinions with every mark of regret. He even showed me letters that had passed between them, and in which every horrid and immoral tenet was defended by one and denied by the other. These letters showed Colden as the advocate of suicide; a scoffer at promises; the despiser of revelation, of Providence and a future state; an opponent of marriage, and as one who denied (shocking!) that any thing but mere habit and positive law stood in the way of marriage, nay, of intercourse without marriage, between brother and sister, parent and child!
You may readily believe that I did not credit such things on slight evidence. I did not rely on Thomson's mere words, solemn and unaffected as these were; nothing but Colden's handwriting could in such a case, be credited.
To say truth, I should not be much surprised had I heard of Colden, as of a youth whose notions on moral and religious topics were, in some degree, unsettled; that, in the fervour and giddiness incident to his age, he had not tamed his mind to investigation; had not subdued his heart to regular and devout thoughts; that his passions or his indolence had made the truths of religion somewhat obscure, and shut them out, not properly from his conviction, but only from his attention.
I expected to find, united with this vague and dubious state of mind, tokens of the influence of a pious education; a reverence,--at least, for those sacred precepts on which the happiness of men rests, and at least a practical observance of that which, if not fully admitted by his understanding, was yet very far from having been rejected by it.