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"Consolation" didst thou say? Ah! It is a much higher
gratification: It ^{‸ is} the felicity after which I languish: It constitutes
the only happiness of which I can be sencible

Is it possible? "He left me to conceal his emotions." How
distressful and yet how delightful is this intelligence? My
Friend, thou hast now accomplished thy benevolent design, Thou
hast performed all that thou art able: Thou hast gone as far as
thy power extends. Thou hast made me as happy as it is possible
for me to be, or at least as it is ‸ in thy power to make me; No one
could more effectually have contributed to the alleviation of my sorrows
and the restoration of tranquillity

How is this? Let me pause a moment and consider—What
have I written in my former letter? It was the production of a
direful moment. I wrote at the stillness and solemnity of midnight
When Imagination was awakened by the recollection of the past
and furnished by officious Memory, (Tratoress! I thought she
had been powerless and dead) with a pencil, with which
she employed herself in decorating with hideous attributes; with
the monstrous graces of deformity, of haggard Ugliness, the fright=
ful Image of the present. What a Night was that? How fertile
of despair and rapture! How was my mind alternately plunged
into agonizing dreams and delicious resveries! Surely such
opposite emotions were occasioned by the ajency of Spirits,
counterworking each other, and alternately obtaining the superiority.
That Night was dreadful and delightful. I never closed my
eyes till the Sun had risen; My soul was never more alive. More
active. To sleep was impossible. After closing the epistle which you


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recieved, I spent the rapid hours from three to Six, in traversing
my chamber, muttering as wildly as a Maniac, or in writing
a second letter to you, and pouring all my soul upon the
paper. At Six friendly and propitious slumbers hovered over
me: I threw myself upon the bed, and enjoyed the benefits of
sleep till eleven. I then arose, healthful and serene in mind and
body till With all my stormy passions hushed—

I dare not send you the second letter. It is rendered
illegible by hurry. It is full of the incoherencies of moonstruck
Fancy and ungoverned passion. It would appear too much like
the ravings of a Lunatic. It would afflict your sensibility with
mortal pangs. I myself shudder on the perusal of it. I have
already too much distressed you. But why, my friend, should I
afflict you?

Your happiness is founded on the stable and immutable
basis of conscious virtue and pure devotion. Thou looked down
from the heaven to which thou art already raised, with the
pity of an Angel. Thou compassionatest the frailties of thy friend
and holdest out thy hand to lift him from the gulph in which
his cruel destiny has plunged him—— What a shameful weak=
=ness is this! I am no longer master of myself—I weep involuntarily
I am again conflicting with a sea of sorrows. Strech out thy hand, [gap]
again, my guardian Angel! Lest the proud waves overbear me and I
perish!—I can no more—I must relinquish my pen and fly from
myself. This letter shall quickly be succeeded by another in which I
will make thee the physician of my soul, and will explain with all
possible minuteness and fidelity the nature of my disease. I see the
sculptured Monument ascend. Let us draw near and read the
Inscripsion. Read it, my friend, if thy tears permit thee. I can not

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"Here lies, who was born to prove the extremes of joy and woe."
May health on golden pinions visit thee, and body harmonize with
peaceful mind! So wishes, so devoutly wishes

C.B.B.