Virtue’s noblest fruits be ours.
To Miss CAROLINE LITTLETON.
Boston.
You have left—you have forsaken me, Caroline! But I will haunt you with my letters; obtrude myself upon your remembrance; and extort from you the continuance of your friendship!
What do I say? Obtrude and extort! Can these harsh words be used when I am addressing the generous and faithful Caroline?
But you have often encouraged my eccentricities by your smile, and must therefore still indulge them.
Nature has furnished me with a gay disposition; and happy is it for me, that a lax education has not strengthened the folly too commonly arising from it.
Mrs. Williams’ instructions were very seasonably interposed to impress my mind with a sense of virtue and propriety. I trust they have had the desired effect; and that they will prove the guardian of my youth, and the directory of maturer age. How often has the dear, good woman taken me into her chamber, and reminded me of indecorums of which I was unconscious at the time; but thankful afterwards that they had not escaped her judicious eye; as her observations tended to rectify my errors, and render me more cautious and circumspect in future. How salutary is advice like her’s; conveyed, not with the dogmatic air of supercilious wisdom, but with the condescending ease and soothing kindness of an affectionate parent, anxiously concerned for the best good of those under her care!
I was very happy at Harmony-Grove; and the result of that happiness, I hope, will accompany me through life.
Yet I find the gaiety of the town adapted to my taste; nor does even Mrs. Williams condemn the enjoyment of its pleasures.