You know best whether I am still preserving the remembrance of an imaginary being.—I once thought that I knew you thoroughly—but now I am obliged to leave some doubts that involuntarily press on me, to be cleared up by time.
You may render me unhappy; but cannot make me contemptible in my own eyes.—I shall still be able to support my child, though I am disappointed in some other plans of usefulness, which I once believed would have afforded you equal pleasure.
Whilst I was with you, I restrained my natural generosity, because I thought your property in jeopardy.—When I went to ————, I requested you, if you could conveniently, not to forget my father, sisters, and some other people, whom I was interested about.—Money was lavished away, yet not only my requests were neglected, but some trifling debts were not discharged, that now come on me.—Was this friendship—or generosity? Will you not grant you have forgotten yourself? Still I have an affection for you.—God bless you.
* * * *
LETTER LXXVII
As the parting from you for ever is the most serious event of my life, I will once expostulate with you, and call not the language of truth and feeling ingenuity!
I know the soundness of your understanding—and know that it is impossible for you always to confound the caprices of every wayward inclination with the manly dictates of principle.
You tell me "that I torment you."—Why do I?——Because you cannot estrange your heart entirely from me—and you feel that justice is on my side. You urge, "that your conduct was unequivocal."—It was not.—When your coolness has hurt me, with what tenderness have you endeavoured to remove the impression!—and even before I returned to England, you took great pains to convince me, that all my uneasiness was occasioned by the effect of a worn-out constitution—and you concluded your letter with these words, "Business alone has kept me from you.—Come to any port, and I will fly down to my two dear girls with a heart all their own."
With these assurances, is it extraordinary that I should believe what I wished? I might—and did think that you had a struggle with old propensities; but I still thought that I and virtue should at last prevail. I still thought that you had a magnanimity of character, which would enable you to conquer yourself.
