Posthumous Works of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Part 27

I ought to beg your pardon for having sometimes written peevishly; but you will impute it to affection, if you understand any thing of the heart of

Yours truly

LETTER LXIII.

August 9.

FIVE of your letters have been sent after me from ----. One, dated the 14th of July, was written in a style which I may have merited, but did not expect from you. However this is not a time to reply to it, except to a.s.sure you that you shall not be tormented with any more complaints. I am disgusted with myself for having so long importuned you with my affection.----

My child is very well. We shall soon meet, to part no more, I hope--I mean, I and my girl.--I shall wait with some degree of anxiety till I am informed how your affairs terminate.

Yours sincerely

LETTER LXIV.

August 26.

I ARRIVED here last night, and with the most exquisite delight, once more pressed my babe to my heart. We shall part no more. You perhaps cannot conceive the pleasure it gave me, to see her run about, and play alone.

Her increasing intelligence attaches me more and more to her. I have promised her that I will fulfil my duty to her; and nothing in future shall make me forget it. I will also exert myself to obtain an independence for her; but I will not be too anxious on this head.

I have already told you, that I have recovered my health. Vigour, and even vivacity of mind, have returned with a renovated const.i.tution. As for peace, we will not talk of it. I was not made, perhaps, to enjoy the calm contentment so termed.-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

You tell me that my letters torture you; I will not describe the effect yours have on me. I received three this morning, the last dated the 7th of this month. I mean not to give vent to the emotions they produced.--Certainly you are right; our minds are not congenial. I have lived in an ideal world, and fostered sentiments that you do not comprehend--or you would not treat me thus. I am not, I will not be, merely an object of compa.s.sion--a clog, however light, to teize you.

Forget that I exist: I will never remind you. Something emphatical whispers me to put an end to these struggles. Be free--I will not torment, when I cannot please. I can take care of my child; you need not continually tell me that our fortune is inseparable, _that you will try to cherish tenderness_ for me. Do no violence to yourself! When we are separated, our interest, since you give so much weight to pecuniary considerations, will be entirely divided. I want not protection without affection; and support I need not, whilst my faculties are undisturbed.

I had a dislike to living in England; but painful feelings must give way to superior considerations. I may not be able to acquire the sum necessary to maintain my child and self elsewhere. It is too late to go to Switzerland. I shall not remain at ----, living expensively. But be not alarmed! I shall not force myself on you any more.

Adieu! I am agitated--my whole frame is convulsed--my lips tremble, as if shook by cold, though fire seems to be circulating in my veins.

G.o.d bless you.

LETTER LXV.

September 6.

I RECEIVED just now your letter of the 20th. I had written you a letter last night, into which imperceptibly slipt some of my bitterness of soul.

I will copy the part relative to business. I am not sufficiently vain to imagine that I can, for more than a moment, cloud your enjoyment of life--to prevent even that, you had better never hear from me--and repose on the idea that I am happy.

Gracious G.o.d! It is impossible for me to stifle something like resentment, when I receive fresh proofs of your indifference. What I have suffered this last year, is not to be forgotten! I have not that happy subst.i.tute for wisdom, insensibility--and the lively sympathies which bind me to my fellow-creatures, are all of a painful kind.--They are the agonies of a broken heart--pleasure and I have shaken hands.

I see here nothing but heaps of ruins, and only converse with people immersed in trade and sensuality.

I am weary of travelling--yet seem to have no home--no resting place to look to.--I am strangely cast off.--How often, pa.s.sing through the rocks, I have thought, "But for this child, I would lay my head on one of them, and never open my eyes again!" With a heart feelingly alive to all the affections of my nature--I have never met with one, softer than the stone that I would fain take for my last pillow. I once thought I had, but it was all a delusion. I meet with families continually, who are bound together by affection or principle--and, when I am conscious that I have fulfilled the duties of my station, almost to a forgetfulness of myself, I am ready to demand, in a murmuring tone, of Heaven, "Why am I thus abandoned?"

You say now -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

I do not understand you. It is necessary for you to write more explicitly--and determine on some mode of conduct.--I cannot endure this suspense--Decide--Do you fear to strike another blow? We live together, or eternally part!--I shall not write to you again, till I receive an answer to this. I must compose my tortured soul, before I write on indifferent subjects. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

I do not know whether I write intelligibly, for my head is disturbed.--But this you ought to pardon--for it is with difficulty frequently that I make out what you mean to say--You write, I suppose, at Mr. ----'s after dinner, when your head is not the clearest--and as for your heart, if you have one, I see nothing like the dictates of affection, unless a glimpse when you mention, the child.--Adieu!

LETTER LXVI.

September 25.

I HAVE just finished a letter, to be given in charge to captain ------.

In that I complained of your silence, and expressed my surprise that three mails should have arrived without bringing a line for me. Since I closed it, I hear of another, and still no letter.--I am labouring to write calmly--this silence is a refinement on cruelty. Had captain ------ remained a few days longer, I would have returned with him to England.

What have I to do here? I have repeatedly written to you fully. Do you do the same--and quickly. Do not leave me in suspense. I have not deserved this of you. I cannot write, my mind is so distressed. Adieu!

END VOL. III.

FOOTNOTES:

[4-A] The child is in a subsequent letter called the "barrier girl,"

probably from a supposition that she owed her existence to this interview.

EDITOR.

[7-A] This and the thirteen following letters appear to have been written during a separation of several months; the date, Paris.

[27-A] Some further letters, written during the remainder of the week, in a similar strain to the preceding, appear to have been destroyed by the person to whom they were addressed.

[47-A] The child spoken of in some preceding letters, had now been born a considerable time.

[50-A] She means, "the latter more than the former."

EDITOR.

[58-A] This is the first of a series of letters written during a separation of many months, to which no cordial meeting ever succeeded.

They were sent from Paris, and bear the address of London.

[91-A] The person to whom the letters are addressed, was about this time at Ramsgate, on his return, as he professed, to Paris, when he was recalled, as it should seem, to London, by the further pressure of business now acc.u.mulated upon him.

[100-A] This probably alludes to some expression of the person to whom the letters are addressed, in which he treated as common evils, things upon which the letter writer was disposed to bestow a different appellation.