C. CLIFTON
LETTER LXXXIV
Frank Henley to Oliver Trenchard
London, Grosvenor Street
My mind, Oliver, is harassed by a variety of doubts. I believe I shall soon be down at Wenbourne Hill, and of course shall then not fail to meet thee and visit thy most worthy father.
The reason of my journey originates in the doubts I mentioned. I am angry with myself for feeling alarms at one moment which appear impossibilities the next. If my fears have any foundation, this Clifton is the deepest, the most hardened fiend-like hypocrite imagination can paint!—But it cannot be!—Surely it cannot!—I am guilty, heinously guilty for enduring such a thought!—So much folly and vice, combined with understanding and I may say genius so uncommon, is a supposition too extravagant, too injurious!
And yet it is strange, Oliver!—A conduct so suddenly altered, so totally opposite to old and inveterate habits, is scarcely reconcileable to the human character. But if dissimulation can be productive of this, is truth less powerful? No!—Truth is omnipotent. Yet who ever saw it hasty in its progress? My only hope in this case is that the superiority of his mind has rendered him an exception to general rules.
But what could he propose by his hypocrisy?—I cannot tell—His passions are violent and ungovernable; and are or very lately have been in full vigour—Again and again 'tis strange!
But what of this?—Why these fears? Can she be spotted, tinged by the stain of unsanctified desire?—Never!—The pure chastity of her soul is superior to attaint!—Yet—Who can say?—Wilfully her mind can never err: but who can affirm that even she may not be deceived, and may not act erroneously from the most holy motives?
Perhaps, Oliver, it is my own situation, my own desires, but half subdued, in which these doubts take birth. If so they are highly culpable.