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Tuesd. Aft.

I must subdue this disposition to repine, for what but
evil can it produce. ‘Twill not render my hold on your
affections less precarious than it is, now. It will not
cure my own imperfections. It will not enable me so to
clothe my feelings that my love will have no longer to
doubt my sincerity.

How inexpressibly mortifying was the lesson which you
read to me last night. Yet there ought to be nothing new
in it. Have you not before been incredulous.

My heart, dear friend, droops very much. Would to Heaven
you were with me; but that would not chear me much.
You would call me a dissembler, & instead of healing
the wound already made, would only make it deeper.

I suppose your inferences are such as you cannot avoid
making. My inmost soul is not to be heard or seen. Into
that you cannot enter. You must rely for your knowledge
of my sentiments, on my words & looks. You have no
interest in misapprehending these. If they mislead you
who but I am to be blamed; or rather to be pitied: for
my happiness requires that you know me for what I am.

I have tried to make you mistress of all my feelings,
but still you are a stranger to them. My feelings &
words appear to you repugnant to each other. All my
fervour is dissembled: All my love counterfiet

I blame you not: for as I have just said, what
interest have you in supposing me heartless & dissembling.
That opinion, indeed, is more fatal to my happiness than to
yours, but still, if it give you no actual pain, it must
deprive you of some pleasure; but, indeed, it must be
painful to your generous heart, to harbour a belief that


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I can be so depraved as to utter so many falsehoods—the
word is harsh, but 'tis the true name for such insincerity
as you impute to me. You must desire, for my own virtue’s
sake, to believe me.. Your ^{‸ dis=}belief must be irksome to yourself

My vehemence; my fervour, when with you, may sometimes
sway you; but what happen’s as soon as I am gone. You
look back, & seem instantly ^{‸ to} relapse into the old belief of
my imposture; my duplicity.

Fond fancy would persuade me that multiplied & repeated
proofs of my devotion, might, in time, establish me, immoveably
in your good opinion, but are you not going away. And what
will ^then be my hold upon your confidence & love, when now,
that I converse with you so often, it is so fluctuating &
precarious.

You have not even allowed me to hope that you will
write to me at all, & when you write, what can I expect
but that, instead of soothing me with the sweet notes
of confiding & unswerving tenderness, you will wound &
repulse me by avowals of indifference, or by imputations
of fickleness & duplicity; which distance & absence will
afford me no opportunity to confute or deprecate.

Do not think that I say this reproachfully. If there
is reproach, it rests upon myself, who am cursed with
this incapacity to transmit my feelings by looks or words

I am much deceived, but there is nothing wanting to fill
your heart with tenderness, & to remove all bars to the effusions
of your heart, but a perfect conviction that, by the boundless
ness of my love, I deserve yours.

Alas! The means to make the purity, the fervency of my
passion are denied me known to you, are denied to me.

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Would to Heaven that words were not necessary for this
end. Then should I not be thus mistaken by you.

If you really love me; if you have loved me for a consi
=derable time past; your deportment will have afforded
me large room for moralizing. Yet I don’t expect to win
you over ^{‸ to} my creed. I don't expect to inspire you with
the least regret, by setting before you the days & nights
of anguish & despondency. Which your disclaimings of
affections; your doubts of my sincerity have given me
Why? Not because you want tenderness of heart to sym=
=pathize with real distress, but because you will never
admit the reality of such distress.

My heart droops very much, Eliza. Balm for every care
would I seek in your society, & I shall try to see you
to night, but a balm for this care I must not expect
from you. You will rather, by questioning my tenderness, &,
by that pe [gap] tryfying word “don’t,” render it more keen.

Would to heaven your attachment to my society would
create some secret biass to remaining where you are; at
least, induce you to postpone, to the utmost limit, your
return to that home which you so greatly prefer

Forgive this melancholy strain. I think myself bound
to disburthen my heart of all my feelings to you, be
you an indifferent or affectionate auditor. My destiny,
as to earthly happiness or misery, I feel to be now
ascertained. I feel that the bonds which hold me to you
are indissoluble, & that, by giving or with holding, the
province is yours to render my life a blessing or a
burthen.~