I have gone over calmly, deliberately gone over every circumstance connected with the recent dream of my life. It is evident that the object of my heart’s first election is that of her father’s choice. Her passion for me, for I swear most solemnly she loved me: Oh, in that I could not be deceived; every look, every word betrayed it; her passion for me was a paroxysm. Her tender, her impassioned nature required some object to receive the glowing ebullitions of its affectionate feelings; and in the absence of another, in that unrestrained intimacy by which we were so closely associated; in that sympathy of pursuit which existed between us, they were lavished on me. I was the substituted toy of the moment. And shall I then sink beneath a woman’s whim, a woman’s infidelity, unfaithful to another as to me? I who, from my early days, have suffered by her arts and my own credulity? But what were all my sufferings to this? A drop of water to “the multitudinous ocean.” Yet in the moment of a last farewell she wept so bitterly! tears of pity! Pitied and deceived!
I am resolved I will offer myself an expiatory sacrifice on the altar of parental wrongs. The father whom I have deceived and injured shall be retributed. This moment I have received a letter from him, the most affectionate and tender; he is arrived in Dublin, and with him Mr. D———, and his daughter! It is well! If he requires it the moment of our meeting shall be that of my immolation. Some act of desperation would be now most consonant to my soul!
Adieu.
H. M.
LETTER XXX.
TO J. D. ESQ., M. P.
Dublin.
I am writing to you from the back-room of a noisy hotel in the centre of a great and bustling city: my only prospect the gloomy walls of the surrounding houses. What a contrast! Where now are those refreshing scenes on which my rapt gaze so lately dwelt—those wild sublimities of nature—the stupendous mountain, the Alpine cliff, the boundless ocean, and the smiling vale Where are those original and simple characters, those habits, those manners, to me at least so striking and so new?— All vanished like a dream!—
“The baseless fabric of a vision!”