I cannot write. I thought I could quickly have refuted all your ingenious arguments; but my head is confused.—Right or wrong, I am miserable!
It seems to me, that my conduct has always been governed by the strictest principles of justice and truth.—Yet, how wretched have social feelings, and delicacy of sentiment rendered me!—I have loved with my whole soul, only to discover that I had no chance of a return—and that existence is a burthen without it.
I do not perfectly understand you.—If, by the offer of your friendship, you still only mean pecuniary support—I must again reject it.—Trifling are the ills of poverty in the scale of misfortune.—God bless you!
* * * *
I have been treated ungenerously—if I understand what is generosity.—You seem to me only to have been anxious to shake me off—regardless whether you dashed me to atoms by the fall. In truth I have been rudely handled. Do you judge coolly, and I trust you will not continue to call those capricious feelings “the most refined,” which would undermine not only the most sacred principles, but the affections which unite mankind.——You would render mothers unnatural—and there would be no such thing as a father!—If your theory of morals is the most “exalted,” it is certainly the most easy.—It does not require much magnanimity, to determine to please ourselves for the moment, let others suffer what they will!
Excuse me for again tormenting you, my heart thirsts for justice from you—and whilst I recollect that you approved Miss ——’s conduct. I am convinced you will not always justify your own.
Beware of the deceptions of passion! It will not always banish from your mind, that you have acted ignobly—and condescended to subterfuge to gloss over the conduct you could not excuse.—Do truth and principle require such sacrifices?
LETTER LXXV.
London, December 8.
Having just been informed that —— is to return immediately to Paris, I would not miss a sure opportunity of writing, because I am not certain that my last, by Dover, has reached you.