I can scarcely picture to myself a life more negative, less energetic, notwithstanding your fervor, than that you would have led with Sibella had fortune placed you in the situation Clement stood with her. Do not let your burning brain consume you at the supposition; for, highly gifted as you both are, mind cannot always feel in that extreme:—the tight drawn wire must either snap or slacken.—Too happy, banished in rapture, age would have come upon you without preparation for its arrival, without proper nourishment for its abode. In vain you then turn to each other for consolation.—The spell that guarded you from every intruding care is broken: and you have lessons, wearisome tasks to learn, which would only have been pleasant relaxations intermixed with the abounding delights of youth.
You are both at present the victims of erroneous educations, but your artificial refinements being so admirably checked in their growth, now I know not two people upon earth so calculated, so fitted for each other as Murden and Sibella.—My resolution envigorates with the prospect!—Be ye but what ye may, and the first vaunted pair of paradise were not more happy! I perceive not only the value of the work I undertake, but the labour also; nor am I deterred by the firmness wherewith you hold your resolutions, not by the tedious scarcely perceptible degrees with which I must sap the foundation of Sibella's error.—Ah, Murden, I suspect, had she possessed equal advantages with yourself, she would have soared far beyond what you are as yet!
By her last letter, I find she discovers a deficiency in Clement's conduct which she struggles to hide from her own penetration.—He is my best auxiliary. I once thought him only a negative character, drawn this way or that by a thread. Now, I see he has an incessant restlessness after pomp and pleasure which nothing can subdue, and to which every thing must yield: Sibella in her turn—indeed, half her hold at least is gone already.—If he speaks of her now to me, she is not as before—his adored—an angel—superior to every thing in heaven or on earth—but one lady has an eye almost as intelligent as Sibella's—another, a bloom of complexion scarcely less exquisite—and a third, in form in graces moves a counterpart goddess!——As you say, there is a vehemency and energy in his expressions, that, in the general apprehension, cloathe him with attributes which never did and never can belong to him. It is but very rarely that I partake of his effusions, for I am not to his taste. My mother is his confidante; and she is quite fascinated with the descriptions of his love. When he was first introduced to us, I thought it necessary, for a reason you perhaps divine, to mention the mutual attachment subsisting between Clement and Sibella.—Mrs. Ashburn declared she would take his constancy under her protection: yes, she would guard him from folly and temptation.
Alas, Murden, I am sick of the scenes that surround me! formerly, we were moderate and retired to what we are now. Our house is the palace of luxury. Every varying effort of novelty is exerted to fill the vacant mind with pleasure. Useless are my remonstrances. Eastern magnificence and eastern voluptuousness here hold their court, and my mother, borrowing from her splendor every other pretension to charm, plunges deeper and deeper in the vortex of vanity. Fain would I leave it all, but I dare not proscribe my little power of doing good.——Come then, my friends, you who have already taken your station in my heart!—Murden and Sibella—live for each other—live that I may sometimes quit the drudgery of dissipation to participate of happiness with you!
If it really was Mr. Valmont's design (which I very much doubt) to give Clement up to a profession, nothing could be more unfortunate than his introduction here—where, with his natural inclination to do the same, he sees wealth lavished without check or restraint. So highly does he stand in my mother's opinion for taste, and so animated are his bursts of applause, that no overstrained variety is received or rejected without his sanction.—To be the confidante of a heart is a novelty with Mrs. Ashburn, who has had little concern in affairs of the heart; and perhaps to preserve him from sacrificing in her presence to the vanity of others may be her motive for encouraging him to speak of his passion for Sibella.—I have watched him narrowly; and, if he has any lurking wishes here, I am persuaded they fix on Mademoiselle Laundy.
I believe you never saw this companion of Mrs. Ashburn. She, or I greatly mistake, has of all persons I know most command over herself.
I had almost forgotten to tell you that Clement read me a few concluding lines of your last letter to him. What a decided melancholy have you displayed therein!—No, my dear friend, you must not, shall not die.—Clement was considerably affected by the representation of your feelings; yet he said you had used him ill in the foregoing part, and he believed he should never write to you again.—I find he has no suspicions of you; and I leave you to tell him at your own time, and in your own way.
Still I say nothing of Sibella's present distress, you cry. I have had no information of it, except from yourself. I have written again to Sibella, and look for an answer daily with respect to her fortune, I think it probable that she should be her father's heir; but of that we can judge better when we hear what her uncle says to the charge. Alas, I know Mr. Valmont is vindictive, proud, and impatient of contradiction.—She resolute, daring to do aught she dare approve.—He might strike her.—As to suicide, I know her better: it would be as remote from her thoughts, under any suffering, as light from darkness. Oh, Murden, she is indeed a glorious girl! Mr. Valmont promised me an unrestrained correspondence with Sibella; and, while he is satisfied in the exercise of his own power over her person, he will as usual suffer her to communicate to me the crowd of welcome and unwelcome strangers passing to and fro in her mind.
I need scarcely assure you that, whatever intelligence I receive, you shall share the communication.—Remain at Barlowe Hall; for, though your uncle is very desirous that you should come to London, I am certain, in your present frame of mind, you would find yourself still more removed from ease in the society which Sir Thomas would provide for you than in solitude.—I should be sorry to depend for my happiness on that heart which could invite pleasure and gaiety to quell those griefs it could not banish by reason and reflection. Nor have I, Murden, so supreme an idea of your prudence, as not to foresee the birth of a new folly, should Montgomery and you meet each other.
Farewel! and may the blessing you bestowed on me rest also with yourself.