Jane Talbot | Page 9

addicted to gaming, sensuality,
and the lowest vices. How much grief this intelligence has given to all
who love you, you will easily imagine. To find you innocent of these
charges would free my heart from the keenest solicitude it has hitherto
felt. I leave to you the proper means of doing this, if you can do it
without violation of truth.
"I am very imperfectly acquainted with your present views. You
originally designed, after having completed your academical and legal
education, to return to America. If this should still be your intention,
the enclosed will obviate some of your pecuniary embarrassments, and
my mother enjoins me to tell you that, as you may need a few months
longer to make the necessary preparations for returning, you may draw
on her for an additional sum of five hundred dollars. Adieu."

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. Though eager in their present course, it is easy to
divert them from it; and most men of an ardent temper can be dying of
love for half a dozen different women in the course of a year.
Women feel deeply, but boast not. The supposed indecency of
forwardness makes their words generally fall short of their sentiments,
and passion, when once thoroughly imbibed, is as hard to be escaped
from as it was difficultly acquired. I felt no passion, and endeavoured
not to feel any, for Risberg, till circumstances should make it proper
and discreet. My attachment was to his interest, his happiness, and not
to his person, and to convince him of this was extremely difficult. To
persuade him that his freedom was absolute and entire, that no tie of
honour or compassion bound him to me, but that, on the contrary, to
dispose of his affections elsewhere would probably be most conducive
to the interests of both.
These cautious proceedings were extremely unpleasing to my cousin,
who pretended to be deeply mortified at any thing betokening
indifference, and terribly alarmed at the possibility of losing me. On the
whole, I confess to you, that I thought my cousin and I were destined
for each other, and felt myself, if I may so speak, not in love with him,
but prepared, at the bidding of discretion, to love him.
My brother's report, therefore, greatly distressed me. Should my cousin
prove a reprobate, no power on earth should compel me to be his. If his
character should prove blameless, and my heart raise no obstacles, at a
proper time I should act with absolute independence of my brother's
inclinations. The menace that while he had voice or arm he would
hinder my choice of Risberg made the less impression as it related to an

event necessarily distant, and which probably might never happen.
The next letter from Risberg put an end to all further intercourse
between us. It informed us of his being on the eve of marriage into an
opulent family. It expressed much indignation at the calumny which
had prevailed with my father to withdraw his protection; declared that
he deemed himself by no means equitably or respectfully treated by
him; expressed gratitude to my mother for the supply she had remitted,
which had arrived very seasonably and prevented him from stooping to
humiliations which might have injured his present happy prospects; and
promised to repay the sum as soon as possible. This promise was
punctually performed, and Risberg assured me that he was as happy as
a lovely and rich wife could make him.
I was satisfied with this result, and bestowed no further thought on that
subject. From morn to midnight have I written, and have got but little
way in my story. Adieu.

Letter IV
To Henry Colden
Wednesday Morning, October 5.
I continued my visits to my father as usual. Affairs proceeded nearly in
their old channel. Frank and I never met but by accident, and our
interviews began and ended merely with a good-morrow. I never
mentioned Risberg's name to my father, and observed that he as
studiously avoided lighting on the same topic.
One day a friend chanced to mention the greatness of my fortune, and
congratulated me on my title to two such large patrimonies as those of
Mrs. Fielder and my father. I was far from viewing my condition