FROM SIBELLA VALMONT
TO
CAROLINE ASHBURN
Why in that moment should I turn coward, and rush from my purposes? Why did imagination cast an unusual gloom around me? Why did I sigh and tremble? Such alone ought to be the emotions of a guilty mind, and surely I am blameless.
I am about to do nothing rash, I obey no impulse of passion, I have not separated duty and pleasure. I have examined the value of the object I would obtain with calmness; and whatever view I take of the means, still duty points to the part I have chosen.
Oh, Caroline, could I once have imagined that I should require hours to deliberate whether I ought to become the bride of Clement!
No longer the animated noble Clement, whose love, the very essence of his existence, soared beyond murmurs, jealousies, and fears, whose eye ever spoke the fulness of content, he is now wan, desponding, as ardent, yet less chaste, misled by the wild creations of his distempered fancy, ashamed of poverty, brooding over imaginary evils; over doubts, fears, jealousies!
What a dark and fatal cloud must have overspread the mind of Clement, ere he could fear Sibella, for her love is not a mutable passion, it is incorporate with her nature. My love and reason have become one, my fancy only subservient to its predominant command. Clement still loves, and I know he would view the fairest beauty, the brightest grace, with an unmoved look, with an unpalpitating heart, for who that loved could be faithless!
But 'tis this cold, this cruel uncle has done it all. He heaps secret on secret, uncertainty on uncertainty, till the poor youth, bewildered, surrounded, overwhelmed, sinks the victim of conjecture.
He is no longer Mr. Valmont's heir, and he shudders at the prospect of earning his future subsistence. Mr. Valmont tells him we shall not be united, and forgetting that we are not the puppets of his power, even this useless threat, Clement loads with terror. Another separation too is about to take place, and he has not once looked forward to the hour, when we shall wash away the remembrance in tears of joy at our re-union.
And shall I be content merely to deplore my former Clement, giving nothing, to restore him? Oh, no!—I had written to him, I had even ascended the stairs to his apartment, when a sudden terror seized upon me. I hastily hid the billet from my view, and with the restlessness of an anxious mind, first sought the wood, and then my chamber.
The billet lies before me, I have examined its purport. It calls on Clement to become my husband. For ought I to withhold myself from giving him the fullest proof of my affection, from renovating him by this proof, because Mr. Valmont cruelly commands it? Surely I ought not. Mr. Valmont's presence and benediction might adorn with one more smile the nuptial hour, but 'tis our hearts alone that can bind the vow. If Clement's is not in unison with mine, if he feels the necessity of other ties, he will refuse the offer, and point out to me that I have erred.