She was the only child of your brother, Sir, and one among the fairest among the daughters of men.
You complain, Sir, that my opinions pay too little deference to the obedience due from children to parents, and in answer to that I must observe, I know not of any opposing duties, and wherever the commands of parents are contrary to the justice due from being to being, I hold obedience to be vice. The perpetual hue and cry after obedience and obedience has almost driven virtue out of the world, for be it unlimited unexamined obedience to a sovereign, to a parent, or husband, the mind, yielding itself to implicit unexamined obedience, loses its individual dignity, and you can expect no more of a man than of a brute. What is to become of the child who is taught never to think or act for himself? Can a creature thus formed ever arrive at the maturity of wisdom? How is he who has never reasoned to be enabled in his turn to train his offspring otherwise than he himself was trained. Proud of sway and dominion, he gratifies every impulse of caprice, blindly commands while they blindly obey; and thus from one generation to another the world is peopled with slaves, and the human mind degraded from the station which God had given to it.
You sent Clement into the world and you commanded him to hate it, but you never told him why it merited this abhorrence, only he was to hate because it pleased you that he should hate the world. Clement Montgomery saw every thing new, every thing fascinating; and the more he remembered he was to hate, the more he loved the world. Then you bid him make himself independent, and you had not given him one lesson of independence of mind, without which he must ever be a tool and dependent. Indeed, Sir, you have no right to withhold from him your forgiveness, for you taught him by your own example to say one thing and intend another; in your own mistakes, you may trace the foundation of his vices.
Mr. Montgomery has, indeed, heaped upon himself an infinite load of mischiefs; and you, Sir, in the bitterness of your resentment, could not wish him a severer punishment than, I believe, he at present endures. My beloved and sacrificed friend was unhappily led into his presence on the first moment of her arrival. She claimed him as her own; and, he must have been marble itself, had not that interview and its sad consequences to the deceived injured Sibella stung him with remorse. Yet his repentance has more of frenzy than feeling. Several times he attempted to force his way into Sibella's chamber; and, finding me immoveable resolved that he should not see her, he gave way to the most violent bursts of indignation and invective, whose chief object was my mother. At length he quitted the house; and it is said that, in grief and distraction, he also quitted the kingdom. But I understand his feeble and wavering character; his sorrow will abate; he will be again reconciled to himself, and live abounding in all things but esteem.
In consequence of Mr. Montgomery's departure, my mother has vowed an everlasting enmity to me. She has chosen another abode, and forbidden me her presence. It is, Sir, no uncommon case for persons who would fly from the consciousness of their follies to shelter themselves under resentment, and accuse others of malignantly creating those misfortunes for them which were the unavoidable consequences of their own errors. How vain and futile are such endeavours; and how strongly do they help to prove the value of rectitude, which brings its own consolation under every afflicting circumstance of life.
To press you further on the subject of your coming to London, or to relate the particulars which have befallen Sibella, would be only to give you unnecessary pain. Suffer me, however, to remind you once more that the moment approaches rapidly upon us when resentment cannot agitate nor forgiveness soothe her.
I remain, Sir, your sincere well wisher,
CAROLINE ASHBURN