_ Letter II - To Henry Colden
To Henry Colden Tuesday Morning, October 4.
I must write to you, you said, frequently and copiously: you did not mean, I suppose, that I should always be scribbling, but I cannot help it. I can do nothing but converse with you. When present, my prate is incessant; when absent, I can prate to you with as little intermission; for the pen, used so carelessly and thoughtlessly as I use it, does _but_ prate.
Besides, I have not forgotten my promise. 'Tis true the story you wished me to give you is more easily communicated by the pen than by the lips. I admit your claim to be acquainted with all the incidents of my life, be they momentous or trivial. I have often told you that the retrospect is very mournful; but that ought not to prevent me from making it, when so useful a purpose as that of thoroughly disclosing to you the character of one, on whom your future happiness is to depend, will be affected by it. I am not surprised that calumny has been busy with my life, and am very little anxious to clear myself from unjust charges, except to such as you.
At this moment, I may add, my mood is not unfriendly to the undertaking. I can do nothing in your absence but write to you. To write what I have ten thousand times spoken, and which can be perfectly understood only when accompanied by looks and accents, seems absurd. Especially while there is a subject on which my _tongue_ can never expatiate, but on which it is necessary that you should know all that I can tell you.
The prospect of filling up this interval with the relation of the most affecting parts of my life somewhat reconciled me to your necessary absence, yet I know my heart will droop. Even this preparation to look back makes me shudder already. Some reluctance to recall tragical or humiliating scenes, and, by thus recalling to endure them, in some sense, a second time, I must expect to feel.
But let me lay down the pen for the present. Let me take my favourite and lonely path, and, by a deliberate review of the past, refresh my memory and methodize my recollections. Adieu till I return. J. T. _