“Was it the splendours of beauty which enraptured you? Sickness may, and age must destroy the symmetry of the most finished form—the brilliancy of the finest features. Was it the graces of the mind? I tell you, that by familiarity, these allurements are lost, and the mind, left vacant, turns to some other source to supply the vacuum.
“Stripped of all but their intrinsic value, how poor, how vain, and how worthless, are those things we name pleasures, and enjoyments.
“Besides, the attainment of your wishes might have been the death of your hopes. If my reasoning is correct, the ardency of your passion might have closed with the pursuit. An every day suit, however rich and costly the texture, is soon worn threadbare. On your part, indifference would consequently succeed: on the part of your partner, disappointment, jealousy, and disgust. What might follow is needless for me to name;—your soul must shudder at the idea of conjugal infidelity!
“But admitting the most favourable consequences; turn the brightest side of the picture; admitting as much happiness as the connubial state will allow: how might your bosom have been wounded by the sickness and death of your children, or their disorderly and disobedient conduct! You must know also, that the warmth of youthful passion must soon cease, and it is merely a hazardous chance whether friendship will supply the absence of affection.
“After all, my young friend, it will be well for you to consider, whether the all-wise dispensing hand of Providence, has not directed this matter which you esteem so great an affliction, for your greatest good, and most essential advantage. And suffer me to tell you, that in all my observations on life, I have always found that those connections which were formed from inordinate passion, or what some would call pure affection, have been ever the most unhappy. Examine the varied circles of society, you will there see this axiom demonstrated; you will there see how few among the sentimentally refined are even apparently at ease; while those, insusceptible of what you name tender attachments, or who receive them only as things of course, plod on through life, without even experiencing the least inconvenience from a want of the pleasures they are supposed to bestow, or the pains they are sure to create. Beware, then, my son, beware of yielding the heart to the effeminacies of passion. Exquisite sensibilities are ever subject to exquisite inquietudes. Counsel with correct reason, place entire dependence on the Supreme, and the triumph of fortitude and resignation will be yours.”
Franklin paused. His reasonings, however they convinced the understanding, could not heal the wounds of Alonzo’s bosom.—In Melissa he looked for as much happiness as earth could afford, nor could he see any prospect in life which could repair the loss he had sustained.
“You have, resumed the philosopher, deserted an indulgent father, a fond and tender mother, who must want your aid; now, perhaps, unable to toil for bread; now, possibly laid upon the bed of sickness, calling, in anguish or delirium, for the filial hand of their only son to administer relief.”——All the parental feelings of Alonzo were now called into poignant action.——“You have left a country, bleeding at every pore, desolated by the ravages of war, wrecked by the thunders of battle, her heroes slain, her children captured. This country asks—she demands—you owe her your services: God and nature call upon you to defend her, while here you bury yourself in inglorious inactivity, pining for a hapless object, which, by all your lamentations, you can never bring back to the regions of mortality.”
This aroused the patriotic flame in the bosom of Alonzo; and he voluntarily exclaimed, “I will go to the relief of my parents—I will fly to the defence of my country!”
“In former days, continued Franklin, I was well acquainted with your father. As soon as you informed me of his failure, I wrote to my correspondent in England, and found, as I expected, that he had been overreached by swindlers and sharpers.——The pretended failure of the merchants with whom he was in company, was all a sham, as, also the reported loss of the ships in their employ. The merchants fled to England: I have had them arrested, and they have given up their effects to much more than the amount of their debts. I have therefore procured a reversion of your father’s losses, which, with costs, damages, and interests, when legally stated, he will receive of my agent in Philadelphia, to whom I shall transmit sufficient documents by you, and I shall advance you a sum equal to the expenses of your voyage, which will be liquidated by the said agent.
A ship sails in a few days from Havre, for Savannah in Georgia: