"Unable to answer, my heart torn with unutterable anguish, Isnatched the lovely babe to my bosom, I kissed him, I bathed him withmy tears.

  "She understood me, a gleam of pleasure brightened her dying eyes,the child was still pressed to my heart, she gazed on us both with alook of wild affection; then, clasping her hands together, andbreathing a fervent prayer to heaven, sunk down, and expired without agroan--

  "To you, Madam, I need not say the rest.

  "The eloquence of angels could not paint my distress; I saw thefriend of my soul, the best and most gentle of her sex, a breathlesscorse before me; her heart broke by the ingratitude of the man sheloved, her honor the sport of fools, her guiltless child a sharer inher shame.

  "And all this ruin brought on by a sensibility of which the bestminds alone are susceptible, by that noble integrity of soul which madeit impossible for her to suspect another.

  "Distracted with grief, I kissed my Sophia's pale lips, talked toher lifeless form; I promised to protect the sweet babe, who smiled onme, and with his little hand pressed mine, as if sensible of what Isaid.

  "As soon as my grief was enough calmed to render me capable of anything, I wrote an account of Sophia's death to her father, who had theinhumanity to refuse to see her child.

  "I disdained an application to her murderer; and retiring to thisplace, where I was, and resolved to continue, unknown, determined todevote my life to the sweet infant, and to support him by an industrywhich I did not doubt heaven would prosper.

  "The faithful girl who had attended Sophia, begged to continue withme; we work for the milleners in the neighbouring towns, and, with thelittle pittance I have, keep above want.

  "I know the consequence of what I have undertaken; I know I give upthe world and all hopes of happiness to myself: yet will I not desertthis friendless little innocent, nor betray the confidence of myexpiring friend, whose last moments were soothed with the hope of hisfinding a parent's care in me.

  "You have had the goodness to wish to serve me. Sir Charles Vervilleis dead: a fever, the consequence of his ungoverned intemperance,carried him off suddenly: his brother Sir William has a worthycharacter; if Colonel Rivers, by his general acquaintance with thegreat world, can represent this story to him, it possibly may procuremy little Charles happier prospects than my poverty can give him.

  "Your goodness, Madam, makes it unnecessary to be more explicit: tobe unhappy, and not to have merited it, is a sufficient claim to yourprotection.

  "You are above the low prejudices of common minds; you will pity thewretched victim of her own unsuspecting heart, you will abhor thememory of her savage undoer, you will approve my complying with herdying request, though in contradiction to the selfish maxims of theworld: you will, if in your power, endeavor to serve my littleprattler.

  "'Till I had explained my situation, I could not think of acceptingthe honor you allowed me to hope for, of enquiring after your health atBellfield; if the step I have taken meets with your approbation, Ishall be most happy to thank you and Colonel Rivers for your attentionto one, whom you would before have been justified in supposingunworthy of it.

  "I am, Madam, with the most perfect respect and gratitude,

  "Your obliged and obedient servant, F. Williams."

  Your own heart, my dear Fitzgerald, will tell you what were ourreflections on reading the inclosed: Emily, whose gentle heart feelsfor the weaknesses as well as misfortunes of others, will to-morrowfetch this heroic girl and her little ward, to spend a week atBellfield; and we will then consider what is to be done for them.

  You know Sir William Verville; go to him from me with the inclosedletter, he is a man of honor, and will, I am certain, provide for thepoor babe, who, had not his father been a monster of unfeelinginhumanity, would have inherited the estate and title Sir William nowenjoys.

  Is not the midnight murderer, my dear friend, white as snow to thisvile seducer? this betrayer of unsuspecting, trusting, innocence? whattransport is it to me to reflect, that not one bosom ever heaved a sighof remorse of which I was the cause!

  I grieve for the poor victim of a tenderness, amiable in itself,though productive of such dreadful consequences when not under theguidance of reason.

  It ought to be a double tie on the honor of men, that the woman whotruely loves gives up her will without reserve to the object of heraffection.

  Virtuous less from reasoning and fixed principle, than fromelegance, and a lovely delicacy of mind; naturally tender, even toexcess; carried away by a romance of sentiment; the helpless sex aretoo easily seduced, by engaging their confidence, and piquing theirgenerosity.

  I cannot write; my heart is softened to a degree which makes meincapable of any thing.

  Do not neglect one moment going to Sir William Verville.

  Adieu! Your affectionate Ed. Rivers.

  LETTER 208.

  To Colonel Rivers.

  Oct. 28.

  The story you have told me has equally shocked and astonished me: mysweet Bell has dropped a pitying tear on poor Sophia's grave.

  Thank heaven! we meet with few minds like that of Sir CharlesVerville; such a degree of savage insensibility is unnatural.

  The human heart is created weak, not wicked: avid of pleasure and ofgain; but with a mixture of benevolence which prevents our seekingeither to the destruction of others.

  Nothing can be more false than that we are naturally inclined toevil: we are indeed naturally inclined to gratify the selfish passionsof every kind; but those passions are not evil in themselves, they onlybecome so from excess.

  The malevolent passions are not inherent in our nature. They areonly to be acquired by degrees, and generally are born from chagrin anddisappointment; a wicked character is a depraved one.

  What must this unhappy girl have suffered! no misery can equal thestruggles of a virtuous mind wishing to act in a manner becoming itsown dignity, yet carried by passions to do otherwise.

  One o'clock.

  I have been at Sir William Verville's, who is at Bath; I will write,and inclose the letter to him this evening; you shall have his answerthe moment I receive it.

  We are going to dine at Richmond with Lord H----.

  Adieu! my dear Rivers; Bell complains you have never answered herletter: I own, I thought you a man of more gallantry than to neglect alady.

  Adieu! Your faithful J. Fitzgerald.

  LETTER 209.

  To Captain Fitzgerald.

  Bellfield, Oct. 30.

  I am very impatient, my dear friend, till you hear from Sir William,though I have no doubt of his acting as he ought: our cottagers shallnot leave us till their fate is determined; I have not told MissWilliams the step I have taken.

  Emily is more and more pleased with this amiable girl: I wishextremely to be able to keep her here; as an agreable companion of herown age and sex, whose ideas are similar, and who, from being in thesame season of life, sees things in the same point of view, is all thatis wanting to Emily's happiness.

  'Tis impossible to mention similarity of ideas, without observinghow exactly ours coincide; in all my acquaintance with mankind, Inever yet met a mind so nearly resembling my own; a tie of affectionmuch stronger than all your merit would be without that similarity.

  I agree with you, that mankind are born virtuous, and that it iseducation and example which make them otherwise.

  The believing other men knaves is not only the way to make them so,but is also an infallible method of becoming such ourselves.

  A false and ill-judged method of instruction, by which we imbibeprejudices instead of truths, makes us regard the human race as beastsof prey; not as brothers, united by one common bond, and promoting thegeneral interest by pursuing our own particular one.

  There is nothing of which I am more convinced than that,

  "True self-love and social are the same:"

  That those passions which make the happiness of individuals tenddirectly to the general good of th
e species.

  The beneficent Author of nature has made public and privatehappiness the same; man has in vain endeavored to divide them; but inthe endeavor he has almost destroyed both.

  'Tis with pain I say, that the business of legislation in mostcountries seems to have been to counter-work this wise order ofprovidence, which has ordained, that we shall make others happy inbeing so ourselves.

  This is in nothing so glaring as in the point on which not only thehappiness, but the virtue of almost the whole human race is concerned:I mean marriage; the restraints on which, in almost every country, notonly tend to encourage celibacy, and a destructive libertinism theconsequence of it, to give fresh strength to domestic tyranny, andsubject the generous affections of uncorrupted youth to the guidance ofthose in whom every motive to action but avarice is dead; to condemnthe blameless victims of duty to a life of indifference, of disgust,and possibly of guilt; but, by opposing the very spirit of ourconstitution, throwing property into a few hands, and favoring thatexcessive inequality, which renders one part of the species wretched,without adding to the happiness of the other; to destroy at once thedomestic felicity of individuals, contradict the will of the SupremeBeing, as clearly wrote in the book of nature, and sap the veryfoundations of the most perfect form of government on earth.

  A pretty long-winded period this: Bell would call it trueCiceronian, and quote

  "--Rivers for a period of a mile."

  But to proceed. The only equality to which parents in generalattend, is that of fortune; whereas a resemblance in age, in temper, inpersonal attractions, in birth, in education, understanding, andsentiment, are the only foundations of that lively taste, that tenderfriendship, without which no union deserves the sacred name ofmarriage.

  Timid, compliant youth may be forced into the arms of age anddisease; a lord may invite a citizen's daughter he despises to his bed,to repair a shattered fortune; and she may accept him, allured by therays of a coronet: but such conjunctions are only a more shamefulspecies of prostitution.

  Men who marry from interested motives are inexcusable; but the verymodesty of women makes against their happiness in this point, by givingthem a kind of bashful fear of objecting to such persons as theirparents recommend as proper objects of their tenderness.

  I am prevented by company from saying all I intended.

  Adieu! Your faithful Ed. Rivers.

  LETTER 210.

  To Colonel Rivers.

  Temple-house, Nov. 1.

  You wrong me excessively, my dear Rivers, in accusing me of anatural levity in love and friendship.

  As to the latter, my frequent changes, which I freely acknowledge,have not been owing to any inconstancy, but to precipitation and wantof caution in contracting them.

  My general fault has been the folly of chusing my friends for somestriking and agreable accomplishment, instead of giving to solid meritthe preference which most certainly is its due.

  My inconstancy in love has been meerly from vanity.

  There is something so flattering in the general favor of women, thatit requires great firmness of mind to resist that kind of gallantrywhich indulges it, though absolutely destructive to real happiness.

  I blush to say, that when I first married I have more than once beenin danger, from the mere boyish desire of conquest, notwithstanding myadoration for your lovely sister: such is the force of habit, for Imust have been infinitely a loser by changing.

  I am now perfectly safe; my vanity has taken another turn: I piquemyself on keeping the heart of the loveliest woman that ever existed,as a nobler conquest than attracting the notice of a hundred coquets,who would be equally flattered by the attention of any other man, atleast any other man who had the good fortune to be as fashionable.

  Every thing conspires to keep me in the road of domestic happiness:the manner of life I am engaged in, your friendship, your example, andsociety; and the very fear I am in of losing your esteem.

  That I have the seeds of constancy in my nature, I call on you andyour lovely sister to witness; I have been _your_ friend fromalmost infancy, and am every hour more _her_ lover.

  She is my friend, my companion, as well as mistress; her wit, hersprightliness, her pleasing kind of knowledge, fill with delight thosehours which are so tedious with a fool, however lovely.

  With my Lucy, possession can never cure the wounded heart.

  Her modesty, her angel purity of mind and person, render herliterally,

  "My ever-new delight."

  She has convinced me, that if beauty is the mother, delicacy is thenurse of love.

  Venus has lent her her cestus, and shares with her the attendance ofthe Graces.

  My vagrant passions, like the rays of the sun collected in a burningglass, are now united in one point.

  Lucy is here. Adieu! I must not let her know her power.

  You spend to-morrow with us; we have a little ball, and are to havea masquerade next week.

  Lucy wants to consult Emily on her dress; you and I are not to be inthe secret: we have wrote to ask the Fitzgeralds to the masquerade; Iwill send Lucy's post coach for them the day before, or perhaps fetchthem myself.

  Adieu! Your affectionate J. Temple.

  LETTER 211.

  To Captain Fitzgerald.

  Bellfield, Nov. 1.

  I have this moment a letter from Temple which has set my heart atrest: he writes like a lover, yet owns his past danger, with afrankness which speaks more strongly than any professions could do, thereal present state of his heart.

  My anxiety for my sister has a little broke in on my own happiness;in England, where the married women are in general the most virtuous inthe world, it is of infinite consequence they should love theirhusbands, and be beloved by them; in countries where gallantry is morepermitted, it is less necessary.

  Temple will make her happy whilst she preserves his heart; but, ifshe loses it, every thing is to be feared from the vivacity of hisnature, which can never support one moment a life of indifference.

  He has that warmth of temper which is the natural soil of thevirtues; but which is unhappily, at the same time, most apt to produceindiscretions.

  Tame, cold, dispassionate minds resemble barren lands; warm,animated ones, rich ground, which, if properly cultivated, yields thenoblest fruit; but, if neglected, from its luxuriance is mostproductive of weeds.

  His misfortune has been losing both his parents when almost aninfant; and having been master of himself and a noble fortune, at anage when the passions hurry us beyond the bounds of reason.

  I am the only person on earth by whom he would ever bear to becontrolled in any thing; happily for Lucy, I preserve the influenceover him which friendship first gave me.

  That influence, and her extreme attention to study his taste inevery thing; with those uncommon graces both of mind and person she hasreceived from nature, will, I hope, effectually fix this wanderingstar.

  She tells me, she has asked you to a masquerade at Temple-house, towhich you will extremely oblige us all by coming.

  You do not tell us, whether the affair of your majority is settled:if obliged to return immediately, Temple will send you back.

  Adieu! Your faithful Ed. Rivers.

  I have this moment your last letter: you are right, we Americantravellers are under great disadvantages; our imaginations arerestrained; we have not the pomp of the orient to describe, but thesimple and unadorned charms of nature.

  LETTER 212.

  To Colonel Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland.

  Nov. 4.

  Sir William Verville is come back to town; I was with him thismorning; he desires to see the child; he tells me, his brother, in hislast moments, mentioned this story in all the agony of remorse, andbegged him to provide for the little innocent, if to be found; that hehad made many enquiries, but hitherto in vain; and that he thoughthimself happy in the discovery.

  He talks of settling three thousand pounds on the child, and takingthe ca
re of educating him into his own hands.

  I hinted at some little provision for the amiable girl who had savedhim from perishing, and had the pleasure to find Sir William listen tome with attention.

  I am sorry it is not possible for me to be at your masquerade; butmy affair is just at the crisis: Bell expects a particular account ofit from Mrs. Rivers, and desires to be immediately in the secret of theladies dresses, though you are not: she begs you will send your faircottager and little charge to us, and we will take care to introducethem properly to Sir William.

  I am too much hurried to say more.

  Adieu! my dear Rivers! Your affectionate J. Fitzgerald.

  LETTER 213.

  To Mrs. Fitzgerald.

  Nov. 8.

  Yes, my dear Bell, politeness is undoubtedly a moral virtue.

  As we are beings formed for, and not capable of being happy without,society, it is the duty of every one to endeavor to make it as easy andagreable as they can; which is only to be done by such an attention toothers as is consistent with what we owe to ourselves; all we give themin civility will be re-paid us in respect: insolence and ill-breedingare detestable to all mankind.

  I long to see you, my dear Bell; the delight I have had in yoursociety has spoiled my relish for that of meer acquaintance, howeveragreable.

  'Tis dangerous to indulge in the pleasures of friendship; theyweaken one's taste too much for common conversation.

 
Frances Brooke's Novels