_ Letter LXIV - To Mrs. Talbot
To Mrs. Talbot New York, December 12.
I cannot leave this shore without thanking the mistress of my destiny for all her goodness. Yet I should not have ventured thus to address you, had I not seen a letter--Dearest creature, blame not your friend for betraying you. Think it not a rash or injurious confession that you have made.
And is it possible that you have not totally forgotten the sweet scenes of our childhood,--that absence has not degraded me in your opinion,--and that my devotion, if it continue as fervent as now, may look, in a few years, for its reward?
Could you prevail on yourself to hide these generous emotions from me? To suffer me to leave my country in the dreary belief that all former incidents were held in contempt, and that, so far from being high in your esteem, my presence was troublesome, my existence was irksome, to you?
But your motive was beneficent and generous. You were content to be thought unfeeling and ungrateful for the sake of my happiness. I rejoice inexpressibly in that event which has removed the veil from your true sentiments. Nothing but pure felicity to me can flow from it. Nothing but gratitude and honour can redound from it to yourself.
I go; but not with anguish and despondency for my companions. I am buoyed up by the light wings of hope. The prospect of gaining your love is not the only source of my present happiness. If it were, I should be a criminal and selfish being. No. My chief delight is, that happiness is yet in store for you; that, should Heaven have denied you your first hope, there still lives one whose claim to make you happy will not be rejected.
G. CARTWRIGHT. _