LETTER XXXVI
Feb. 10.
You talk of "permanent views and future comfort"—not for me, for I am dead to hope. The inquietudes of the laſt winter have finiſhed the buſineſs, and my heart is not only broken, but my conſtitution deſtroyed. I conceive myſelf in a galloping conſumption, and the continual anxiety I feel at the thought of leaving my child, feeds the fever that nightly devours me. It is on her account that I again write to you, to conjure you, by all that you hold ſacred, to leave her here with the German lady you may have heard me mention! She has a child of the ſame age, and they may be brought up together, as I wiſh her to be brought up. I ſhall write more fully on the ſubject. To facilitate this, I ſhall give up my preſent lodgings, and go into the ſame houſe. I can live much cheaper there, which is now become an object. I have had 3000 livres from ——, and I ſhall take one more, to pay my ſervant's wages, &c. and then I ſhall endeavour to procure what I want by my own exertions. I ſhall entirely give up the acquaintance of the Americans.
—— and I have not been on good terms a long time. Yeſterday he very unmanlily exulted over me, on account of your determination to ſtay. I had provoked it, it is true, by ſome aſperities againſt commerce, which have dropped from me, when we have argued about the propriety of your remaining where you are; and it is no matter, I have drunk too deep of the bitter cup to care about trifles.
When you firſt entered into theſe plans, you bounded your views to the gaining of a thouſand pounds. It was ſufficient to have procured a farm in America, which would have been an independence. You find now that you did not know yourſelf, and that a certain ſituation in life is more neceſſary to you than you imagined—more neceſſary than an uncorrupted heart—For a year or two, you may procure yourſelf what you call pleaſure; eating, drinking, and women; but, in the ſolitude of declining life, I ſhall be remembered with regret—I was going to ſay with remorſe, but checked my pen.
As I have never concealed the nature of my connection with you, your reputation will not ſuffer. I ſhall never have a confident: I am content with the approbation of my own mind; and, if there be a ſearcher of hearts, mine will not be deſpiſed. Reading what you have written relative to the deſertion of women, I have often wondered how theory and practice could be ſo different, till I recollected, that the ſentiments of paſſion, and the reſolves of reaſon, are very diſtinct. As to my ſiſters, as you are ſo continually hurried with buſineſs, you need not write to them—I ſhall, when my mind is calmer. God bleſs you! Adieu!
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This has been ſuch a period of barbarity and miſery, I ought not to complain of having my ſhare. I wiſh one moment that I had never heard of the cruelties that have been practiſed here, and the next envy the mothers who have been killed with their children. Surely I had ſuffered enough in life, not to be curſed with a fondneſs, that burns up the vital ſtream I am imparting. You will think me mad: I would I were ſo, that I could forget my miſery—ſo that my head or heart would be ſtill.——
