LETTER XVII
FROM ARTHUR MURDEN
TO
CLEMENT MONTGOMERY
Montgomery
Call me mad, possessed. Curse me, reproach me, do anything, only that when you have had your revenge, forget such a letter as I wrote you last ever had existence.
Say it was strange, I say so too. Call it insolent, I will confess it; unaccountable, I still join with you. It was one of the sudden whirls of this vertigo brain of mine, almost as incomprehensible to myself as to you.
I have no excuses to offer, for the fit may come again upon me. Promise has no power with me, I am the creature of impulse. Alas! Alas! that reason and consistency should thus become the shuttlecocks of fancy!
Now taking it for granted, that I gain your pardon, next have I a long account to settle with myself. I would not partake of happiness of a common mould; lay it before me, and I disdained the petty prize, stalked proudly over it, and stalked on, prying, and watching, to seize hold on some hidden blessing, that reserved itself to be the reward of a deserving venturous hero like myself—Oh! I have embraced a cloud, and the tormenting wheel rolls round with a rapid motion!
I know I am talking algebra to you, and if you take me for a companion, you must even be content to travel on in the dark. It is so, but why it is, I think your best discernment will not aid you to discover. Enquiry is useless, expostulation, a farce. Be patient, and forgive me this, and other transgressions, for I tell you, Montgomery, you have a potent revenge.
There is little probability that you and I should meet each other, as London will be the scene of your action, while I condemn myself to wander north and south, in search of a few grains of that content I so wantonly gave the winds to scatter. I must have room to vent my suffocating thoughts. I cannot be pinioned in the crowd; and I would rather seek converse with myself in a charnel house, than enter the brightest circles of fashion. I hate to be the wonder of fools. Already is my reputation raised, and I have now just sense enough in madness to play my antics alone.
Driven by winds and storms, I may seek an occasional shelter at Barlowe Hall. Whither, if you are so disposed, you may direct to