_ Letter XXIII - To Mrs. Fielder
To Mrs. Fielder Baltimore, November 2.
MADAM:--
It would indeed be needless to apologize for your behaviour to me. I not only acquit you of any enmity to me, but beg leave to return you my warmest thanks for the generous offers which you have made me in this letter.
I should be grossly wanting in that love for Mrs. Talbot which you believe me to possess, if I did not partake in that gratitude and reverence which she feels for one who has performed for her every parental duty. The esteem of the good is only of less value in my eyes than the approbation of my own conscience. There is no price which I would not pay for your good opinion, consistent with a just regard to that of others and to my own.
I cannot be pleased with the information which you give me. For the sake of my friend, I am grieved that you are determined to make her marriage with me the forfeiture of that provision which your bounty has hitherto supplied her.
Forgive me if I say that, in exacting this forfeiture, you will not be consistent with yourself. On her marriage with me, she will stand in much more need of your bounty than at present, and her merits, however slender you may deem them, will then be, at least, _not less_ than they now are.
If there were any methods by which I might be prevented from sharing in gifts bestowed upon my wife, I would eagerly concur in them.
I fully believe that your motive in giving me this timely warning was a generous one. Yet, in justice to myself and your daughter, I must observe that the warning was superfluous, since Jane never concealed from me the true state of her affairs, and since I never imagined you would honour with your gifts a marriage contracted against your will.
Well do I know the influence of early indulgences. Your daughter is a strong example of that influence; nor will her union with me, if by that union she forfeit your favour, be any thing more than a choice among evils all of which are heavy.
My own education and experience sufficiently testify the importance of riches, and I should be the last to despise or depreciate their value. Still, much as habit has endeared to me the goods of fortune, I am far from setting them above all other goods.
You offer me madam, a large alms. Valuable to me as that sum is, and eagerly as I would accept it in any other circumstances, yet at present I must, however reluctantly, decline it. A voyage to Europe and such a sum, if your daughter's happiness were not in question, would be the utmost bound of my wishes.
Shall I be able to compensate her? you ask.
No, indeed, madam; I am far from deeming myself qualified to compensate her for the loss of property, reputation, and friends. I aspire to nothing but to console her under that loss, and to husband as frugally as I can those few meagre remnants of happiness which shall be left to us.
I have seen your late letter to her. I should be less than man if I were not greatly grieved at the contents; yet, madam, I am not cast down below the hope of convincing you that the charge made against your daughter is false. You could not do otherwise than believe it. It is for us to show you by what means you, and probably Talbot himself, have been deceived.
To suffer your charge to pass for a moment uncontradicted would be unjust not more to ourselves than to you. The mere denial will not and ought not to change your opinion. It may even tend to raise higher the acrimony of your aversion to me. It must ever be irksome to a generous spirit to deny, without the power of disproving; but a tacit admission of the charge would be unworthy of those who know themselves innocent.
Beseeching your favourable thoughts, and grateful for the good which, but for the interference of higher duties, your heart would prompt you to give and mine would not scruple to accept, I am, &c.
HENRY COLDEN. _