17931793
People :
Author : Mary Wollstonecraft
Text :
[London, Dec. 1795.]
As the parting from you for ever is the most serious event of my life, I will once expostulate with you, and call not the language of truth and feeling ingenuity!
I know the soundness of your understanding—and know that it is impossible for you always to confound the caprices of every wayward inclination with the manly dictates of principle.
You tell me “that I torment you.”—Why do I?——Because you cannot estrange your heart entirely from me—and you feel that justice is on my side. You urge, “that your conduct was unequivocal.”—It was not.—When your coolness has hurt me, with what tenderness have you endeavored to remove the impression!—and even before I returned to England, you took great pains to convince me, that all my uneasiness was occasioned by the effect of a worn-out constitution—and you concluded your letter with these words, “Business alone has kept me from you.—Come to any port, and I will fly down to my two dear girls with a heart all their own.”
With these assurances, is it extraordinary that I should believe what I wished? I might—and did think that you had a struggle with old propensities; but I still thought that I and virtue should at last prevail. I still thought that you had a magnanimity of character, which would enable you to conquer yourself.
Imlay, believe me, it is not romance, you have acknowledged to me feelings of this kind.—You could restore me to life and hope, and the satisfaction you would feel, would amply repay you.
In tearing myself from you, it is my own heart I pierce—and the time will come, when you will lament that you have thrown away a heart, that, even in the moment of passion, you cannot despise.—I would owe every thing to your generosity—but, for God’s sake, keep me no longer in suspense!—Let me see you once more!—
From : Gutenberg.org.
Chronology :
November 30, 1792 : Letter 76 -- Publication.
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