Charles Brockden Brown

“ I love to regard myself in this light:--as one owing his virtue, his existence, his happiness, his every thing, to thee, and as proposing no end to himself but thy happiness in turn, but the discharge of an endless debt of gratitude.
On my account, Jane, I cannot bear you should lose any thing. It must not be. Yet what remedy? How is thy mother's aversion to be subdued? how can she be made to reason on my actions as you reason? Yet not so, either. None but she that loves me can make such constructions and allowances as you do. ”

“ Ah, cruel friend! You ascribe my resolution to a disinterested regard to your good. You wish me to find happiness in that persuasion. Yet you leave me not that phantom for a comforter. You convict me, in every line of your letter, of selfishness and folly. The only consideration that has irresistible weight with me--the restoration of your father's kindness--you prove to be a mere delusion, and destroy it without mercy!
Can you forgive me, Henry? Best of men! Will you be soothed by my penitence for one more rash and inconsiderate act? But, alas! my penitence is rapid and sincere ”

“ You have taught me to value a fair fame beyond every thing but the peace of virtue; you have made me capable of a generous affection for a benefactor equal to yourself; capable of acting so as at once to deserve and to lose your esteem; and enabled me to relinquish cheerfully those comforts and luxuries which cannot be retained but at the price of my integrity.
I look forward to poverty without dismay. Perhaps I make light of its evils because I have never tried them. I am indeed a weak and undiscerning creature. Yet nothing but experience will correct my error, if it be an error. ”

“ Should I not be the most fragrant of villains if I deserted one that loved me? My own happiness is not a question. I cannot be a selfish being and a true lover. Happiness, without her, is indeed a chimerical thought; but my exile would be far from miserable, while assured of her tranquillity, and possession would confer no peace, if she whom I possessed were not happier than a different destiny would make her.
Why have all these thoughts been suspended for the last two days? I had wrought myself up to a firm persuasion that marriage was the only remedy for all evils ”

“ Fielder? and shall I find that misery compensated by the happiness of her daughter? What pure and unmingled joy will the daughter taste, while conscious of having destroyed the peace, and perhaps hastened the end, of one who, with regard to her, has always deserved and always possessed a gratitude and veneration without bounds? And for whom is the tranquillity and affection of the mother to be sacrificed? For me,--a poor, unworthy wretch; deservedly despised by every strenuous and upright mind; a fickle, inconsiderate, frail mortal, whose perverse habits no magic can dissolve. ”

“ What obstacles arise in the way?
Have I not youth, health, knowledge, talents? Twenty professional roads are open before me, and solicit me to enter them; but no. I shall never enter any of them. Be all earthly powers combined to force me into the right path,--the path of duty, honour, and interest: they strive in vain.
And whence this incurable folly?--this rooted incapacity of acting as every motive, generous and selfish, combine to recommend? Constitution; habit; insanity; the dominion of some evil spirit, who insinuates his baneful power between the will and the act. ”

“ Why you should endeavour to defraud the wife of her husband's esteem, is a question which your own heart only can answer. Why you should watch Mrs. Talbot's conduct, and communicate your discoveries, in anonymous letters and a hand disguised, to her mother, I pretend not to say. I came not to inveigh against the folly or malignity of such conduct. I came not even to censure it. I am not entitled to sit in judgment over you. My regard for mother and daughter makes me anxious to rectify an error fatal to their peace. ”

“ Conscience tells me it is folly, it is guilt, to wrap up my existence in one frail mortal; to employ all my thoughts, to lavish all my affections, upon one object; to dote upon a human being, who, as such, must be the heir of many frailties, and whom I know to be not without his faults; to enjoy no peace but in his presence, to be grateful for his permission to sacrifice fortune, ease, life itself, for his sake.
From the humiliation produced by these charges, vanity endeavours to relieve me by insinuating that all happiness springs from affection ”

“ 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. ”

“ She reminds me of the horror which I once entertained for men of your tenets. She enjoins me to hate you, or to abhor myself for loving one worthy of nothing but hatred.
I cannot do either. My heart is still yours, and it is a voluntary captive. I would not free it from its thraldom, if I could. Neither do I think its captivity dishonours it. Time, therefore, has wrought some change. I can now discover some merit, something to revere and to love, even in a man without religion. I find my whole soul penetrated with zeal for his welfare. ”

“ You are the only person to whom I have thought myself bound to tell the whole truth. I do not think my reluctance to draw the follies of my brother from oblivion a culpable one. I am willing to rely, for my justification from malicious charges, on the general tenor of my actions, and am scarcely averse to buy my brother's reputation at the cost of my own. The censure of the undistinguishing and undistinguished multitude gives me little uneasiness. Indeed, the disapprobation of those who have no particular connection with us is a very faint, dubious, and momentary feeling. ”

“ But I tell you, Henry, I am resolved. I have nothing but evil to choose. There is but one calamity greater than my mother's anger. I cannot mangle my own vitals. I cannot put an impious and violent end to my own life. Will it be mercy to make her witness my death? and can I live without you? If I must be an ingrate, be her and not you the victim. If I must requite benevolence with malice and tenderness with hatred, be it her benevolence and tenderness, and not yours, that are thus requited. ”

“ I was in hopes of meeting Frank there some time in the day, or of being visited by him at Mrs. Fielder's.
My soul was in a tumult that unfitted me for conversation. I felt hourly-increasing remorse at having concealed my proceedings from my mother. I imagined that, had I treated her from the first with the confidence due to her, I should have avoided all my present difficulties. Now the obstacles to confidence appeared insurmountable, and my only consolation was, that by inflexible resolution I might shun any new cause for humiliation and regret. ”

“ Such a union is the direst cruelty even to the object who is intended to be benefited.
I have not yet thoroughly forgiven you for deserting me. My heart swells with anguish at the thought of your setting more lightly by my resentment than by that of another; of your willingness to purchase any one's happiness at the cost of mine. You are too wise, too dispassionate, by far. Don't despise me for this accusation, Henry; you know my unbiassed judgment has always been with you. Repeated proofs have convinced me that my dignity and happiness are safer in your keeping than in my own. ”

“ I do, indeed, reproach you for conduct that is rash; unjust; hurtful to yourself, to your mother, to me, to the memory of him who, whatever were his faults, has done nothing to forfeit your reverence.
You are charged with the blackest guilt that can be imputed to woman. To know you guilty produces more anguish in the mind of your accuser than any other evil could produce, and to be convinced of your innocence would be to remove the chief cause of her sorrow; yet you are contented to admit the charge; to countenance her error by your silence. ”

“ I am afraid to allow you too near a view of my heart at this moment of despondency. My present feelings are new even to myself. They terrify me. I must not trust myself longer alone. I must shake off, or try to shake off, this excruciating, this direful melancholy. Heavy, heavy is my soul; comfortless and friendless my condition. Nothing is sweet but the prospect of oblivion.
But, again I say, these thoughts must not lead me. Dreadful and downward is the course to which they point. I must relinquish the pen. I must sally forth into the fields. ”

“ What interest have you in our concerns? What proofs of affection or esteem have you received from us, that should make you zealous in our behalf? Or what relation has your interest in any respect to our weal or woe? Why should you be called upon as a counsellor or umpire in the little family dissensions of Mrs. Talbot and her mother?
"And do indeed these questions rise in your heart, Miss Jessup? Does not memory enable you to account for conduct which, to the distant and casual observer, to those who know not what you know, would appear strange and absurd? ”

“ But I can truly aver that my motives are disinterested. Does not my character make a plentiful and independent provision, of more value to me, more necessary to my happiness than to that of most other men? Can I place my hand upon my heart, and affirm that her fortune has no part in the zeal with which I have cultivated Jane's affections? There are few tenants of this globe to whom wealth is wholly undesirable, and very few whose actual poverty, whose indolent habits, and whose relish for expensive pleasure, make it more desirable than to me. ”

“ Some frugal family and humble dwelling must content thee. A low roof, a narrow chamber, and an obscure avenue, the reverse of all the specious, glossy, and abundant that surround thee now, will be thy portion,--all that thou must look for as my wife. And how will this do, Jane? Is not the price too great?
And my company will not solace thee under these inconveniences. I must not live with thee; only an occasional visitor; one among a half-dozen at a common fire; with witnesses of all we say. Thy pittance will do no more than support thyself. I must house myself and feed elsewhere. ”

“ Montford, take some measures for drawing our dear Jane from this place. There is no remedy but absence from this spot, cheerful company and amusing engagements, for the sullen grief which has seized her. Ever since the arrival of your letter, giving us the fatal tidings of your brother's misfortune, she has been--in a strange way--I am almost afraid to tell you. I know how much you love her; but, indeed, indeed, unless somebody with more spirit and skill than I possess will undertake to console and divert her, I am fearful we shall lose her forever. ”

“ And this more congenial good; this feminine excellence; this secondary and more valuable self; this woman who has appropriated to herself every desire, every emotion of my soul: what hope remains with regard to her? Shall I live for her sake?
No. Her happiness requires me to be blotted out of existence. Let me unfold myself to myself; let me ask my soul, Canst thou wish to be rejected, renounced, and forgotten by Jane? Does it please thee that her happiness should be placed upon a basis absolutely independent of thy lot? Canst thou, with a true and fervent zeal, resign her to her mother? ”

“ To number the tears and the pangs which thy depravity has already cost me----but thy last act is destined to surpass all former ones.
Thy perseverance in wickedness, thy inflexible imposture, amazes me beyond all utterance. Thy effrontery in boasting of thy innocence, in calling this wretch thy friend, thy soul's friend, the means of securing the favour of a pure and all-seeing Judge, exceeds all that I supposed possible in human nature. And that thou, Jane, the darling of my heart, and the object of all my care and my pride, should be this profligate, this obdurate creature! ”

“ Will not my presence, my nursing, hasten thy restoration? Tuesday evening--they say it can't possibly be sooner--I am with you. No supporters shall you have but my arms; no pillow but my breast. Every holy rite shall instantly be called in to make us one. And when once united, nothing but death shall ever part us again. What did I say? Death itself--at least thy death--shall never dissever that bond.
Your brother will take this. Your sister--she is the most excellent of women, and worthy to be your sister--she and I will follow him to-morrow. ”

“ I was easily taught to regard religion not only as the safeguard of every virtue, but even as the test of a good understanding. The name of infidel was never mentioned but with abhorrence or contempt. None but a profligate, a sensualist, a ruffian, could disbelieve. Unbelief was a mere suggestion of the grand deceiver, to palliate or reconcile us to the unlimited indulgence of our appetites and the breach of every moral duty. Hence it was never steadfast or sincere. An adverse fortune or a death-bed usually put an end to the illusion. ”

“ I would encourage, I would allow of, no intercourse between us. This was my solemn resolution and my voluntary and no less solemn promise; yet I sit down to abjure this vow, to break this promise.
What a wretch am I! Feeble and selfish beyond all example among women! Why, why was I born, or why received I breath in a world and at a period, with whose inhabitants I can have no sympathy, whose notions of rectitude and decency find no answering chord in my heart?
Never was a creature so bereft of all dignity, all steadfastness. The slave of every impulse ”

“ Observing my silent and perplexed air, "Why, Jane," said he, "surely you cannot hesitate? What is your objection? Perhaps you are one of those provident animals who look before they leap, and, having gained a monopoly of wisdom, will take no scheme upon trust. You must examine with your own eyes. I will explain the affair to you, if you choose, and convince you beyond controversy that your money may be trebled in a twelvemonth."
"You know, brother, I can be no judge of any scheme that is at all intricate." ”

“ There is no scheme which I muse upon with half the constancy or pleasure, as that of curing his errors; and I am confident of curing them.
"Ah, Jane," says my mother; "rash and presumptuous girl, what a signal punishment hangs over thee! Thou wilt trust thyself within the toils of the grand deceiver. Thou wilt enter the list with his subtleties. Vain and arrogant, thou fearest not thy own weakness. Thou wilt stake thy eternal lot upon thy triumph in argument against one who, in spite of all his candour and humility, has his pride and his passions engaged on the side of his opinions. ”

“ While this aversion endures, marriage, instead of enriching me, will merely reduce my wife to my own destitute condition. How are impartial observers, how is Mrs. Fielder, to construe my endeavours to subdue this aversion, and my declining marriage till this obstacle is overcome? Will they ascribe it merely to reluctance to bereave the object of my love of that affluence and those comforts without which, in my opinion, she would not be happy? Yet this is true. My own experience has taught me in what degree a luxurious education endears to us the means of an easy and elegant subsistence. ”

“ Some one, my friend, must be in fault; and what fault can be more atrocious than this? To defraud, by forgery, your neighbour of a few dollars, is a crime which nothing but a public and ignominious death will expiate; yet how trivial is that offence, compared with a fraud like this, which robs a helpless woman of her reputation,--introduces mortal enmity between her and those whose affection is necessary to render life tolerable!
Whenever I think of this charge, an exquisite pain seizes my heart. There must be the blackest perfidy somewhere. ”

“ My relation to Risberg was peculiarly delicate. His more lively imagination had deceived him already into a belief that he was in love. At least, in all his letters, he seemed fond of recognising that engagement which my father had established between us, and exaggerated the importance, to his happiness, of my regard. Experience had already taught me to set their just value on such professions. I knew that men are sanguine and confident, and that the imaginary gracefulness of passion naturally prompts them to make their words outstrip their feelings. ”

“ If the fictions and artifices of vanity be detestable, the concealment of our good actions is surely not without guilt. The conviction of our guilt is painful to those that love us: wantonly and needlessly to give this pain is very perverse and unjustifiable. If a contrary deportment argue vanity, self-detraction seems to be the offspring of pride.
Thou art the strangest of men, Henry. Thy whole conduct with regard to me has been a tissue of self-upbraidings. ”

“ Your mother could not cease to love you. I could not by any accident be wholly bereaved of my father's affection. No conduct of theirs had robbed them of my esteem. Why then did I persist in thwarting their wishes? Why encourage you in your opposition? Because I imagined that, in thwarting their present views, which were founded in error, I consulted their lasting happiness, and made myself a title to their future gratitude by challenging their present rebukes. ”

“ She is dead, Henry. She died in my arms; and will it not give you pleasure to know that her dying lips blessed me, and expressed the hope that you would one day return to find, in my authorized love, some recompense for all the evils to which her antipathies subjected you? She hoped, indeed, that observation and experience would detect the fallacy of your former tenets; that you would become wise, not in speculation only, but in practice, and be, in every respect, deserving of the happiness and honour which would attend the gift of her daughter's hand and heart. ”

“ Young, generous, disdaining obligation, never knowing the want of money, how must he have felt on being left quite destitute, penniless, running in arrear for absolute necessaries; in debt to a good woman who lived by letting lodgings, and who dunned him, after so long a delay, in so indirect and delicate a manner!--What must he have suffered, accustomed to regard you as a father, and knowing you had no personal calls for your large revenue, and being so solemnly enjoined by you not to stir himself in any rational pleasure! ”