Letter XIV

To Mrs. Fielder

Philadelphia, October 24.

Impossible! Are you not my mother?--more to me than any mother? Did I not receive your protection and instruction in my infancy and my childhood? When left an orphan by my own mother, your bosom was open to receive me. There was the helpless babe cherished, and there was it taught all that virtue which it has since endeavoured to preserve unimpaired in every trial.

You must not cast me off. You must not hate me. You must not call me ungrateful and a wretch. Not to have merited these names is all that enables me to endure your displeasure. As long as that belief consoles me, my heart will not break.

Yet that, even that, will not much avail me. The distress that I now feel, that I have felt ever since the receipt of your letter, cannot be increased.

You forbid me to write to you; but I cannot forbear as long as there is hope of extorting from you the cause of your aversion to my friend. I solicit not this disclosure with a view or even in the hope of repelling your objections. I want, I had almost said, I want to share your antipathies. I want only to be justified in obeying you. When known, they will, perhaps, be found sufficient. I conjure you once more, tell me your objections to this marriage.

As well as I can, I have examined myself. Passion may influence me, but I am unconscious of its influence. I think I act with no exclusive regard to my own pleasure, but as it flows from and is dependent on the happiness of others.