Let me see; they tell me this is Monday night. Only
three days yet to come! If thus restless to day; if my heart
thus bounds till its mansion scarcely can hold it, what must
be my state tomorrow! What next day! What as the hour
hastens on; as the sun descends; as my hand touches her
in sign of wedded unity, of love without interval; of concord
without end.

I must quell these tumults. They will disable me else.
They will wear out all my strength. They will drain away
life itself. But who could have thought! So soon! Not
three months since I first set eyes upon her. Not three
weeks since our plighted love, and only three days to terminate
suspense and give me all.

I must compel myself to quiet; to sleep. I must find some
refuge from anticipations so excruciating. All extremes
are agonies. A joy like this is too big for this narrow tenement.
I must thrust it forth; I must bar and bolt it out for
a time, or these frail walls will burst asunder. The pen is a
pacifyer. It checks the mind's career; it circumscribes
her wanderings. It traces out, and compels us to adhere to
one path. It ever was my friend. Often it has blunted my
vexations; hushed my stormy passions; turned my peevishness
to soothing; my fierce revenge to heart dissolving
pity.

Perhaps it will befriend me now. It may temper my
impetuous wishes; lull my intoxication; and render my
happiness supportable; and, indeed, it has produced partly
this effect already. My blood, within the few minutes thus
employed, flows with less destructive rapidity. My thoughts
range themselves in less disorder. And now that the conquest
is effected, what shall I say? I must continue at the
pen, or shall immediately relapse.

What shall I say? Let me look back upon the steps that
led me hither. Let me recount the preliminaries. I cannot
do better.

And first as to Achsa Fielding—to describe this woman.

To recount, in brief, so much of her history as has come
to my knowledge, will best account for that zeal, almost to
idolatry, with which she has, ever since I thoroughly knew
her, been regarded by me.

[figure description] Page 178.[end figure description]

Never saw I one to whom the term lovely more truly belonged.
And yet, in stature she is too low; in complexion,
dark and almost sallow; and her eyes, though black and of
piercing lustre, have a cast, which I cannot well explain. It
lessens without destroying their lustre and their force to
charm; but all personal defects are outweighed by her heart
and her intellect. There is the secret of her power to entrance
the soul of the listener and beholder. It is not only
when she sings that her utterance is musical. It is not only
when the occasion is urgent and the topic momentous
that her eloquence is rich and flowing. They are always so.

I had vowed to love her and serve her, and been her frequent
visitant, long before I was acquainted with her past
life. I had casually picked up some intelligence, from
others, or from her own remarks. I knew very soon that
she was English by birth, and had been only a year and a
half in America; that she had scarcely passed her twenty
fifth year, and was still embellished with all the graces of
youth; that she had been a wife; but was uninformed
whether the knot had been untied by death or divorce;
that she possessed considerable, and even splendid fortune;
but the exact amount, and all besides these particulars, were
unknown to me till some time after our acquaintance was
begun.

One evening, she had been talking very earnestly on the
influence annexed, in Great Britain, to birth, and had given
me some examples of this influence. Meanwhile, my eyes
were fixed steadfastly on hers. The peculiarity in their expression
never before affected me so strongly. A vague
resemblance to something seen elsewhere, on the same day,
occurred, and occasioned me to exclaim, suddenly, in a
pause of her discourse—

As I live, my good mamma, those eyes of yours have told
me a secret. I almost think they spoke to me; and I am
not less amazed at the strangeness than at the distinctness of
their story.

And pry'thee what have they said?

Perhaps I was mistaken. I might have been deceived
by a fancied voice, or have confounded one word with another
near akin to it; but let me die, if I did not think they
said that you were—a Jew.

[figure description] Page 179.[end figure description]

At this sound, her features were instantly veiled with the
deepest sorrow and confusion. She put her hand to her
eyes, the tears started and she sobbed. My surprise at this
effect of my words, was equal to my contrition. I besought
her to pardon me, for having thus unknowingly alarmed and
grieved her.

After she had regained some composure, she said, you
have not offended, Arthur. Your surmise was just and
natural, and could not always have escaped you. Connected
with that word are many sources of anguish, which time
has not, and never will, dry up; and the less I think of past
events, the less will my peace be disturbed. I was desirous
that you should know nothing of me, but what you see;
nothing but the present and the future, merely that no
allusions might occur in our conversation, which will call up
sorrows and regrets that will avail nothing.

I now perceive the folly of endeavoring to keep you in
ignorance, and shall therefore, once for all, inform you of
what has befallen me, that your inquiries and suggestions
may be made, and fully satisfied at once, and your curiosity
have no motive for calling back my thoughts to what I
ardently desire to bury in oblivion.

My father was indeed a Jew, and one of the most opulent
of his nation in London. A Portuguese by birth, but came
to London when a boy. He had few of the moral or external
qualities of Jews. For I suppose there is some justice in
the obloquy that follows them so closely. He was frugal
without meanness, and cautious in his dealings, without extortion.
I need not fear to say this, for it was the general
voice.

Me, an only child, and of course, the darling of my parents,
they trained up in the most liberal manner. My
education was purely English. I learned the same things
and of the same masters with my neighbors. Except frequenting
their church and repeating their creed, and partaking
of the same food, I saw no difference between them
and me. Hence I grew more indifferent, perhaps, than
was proper, to the distinctions of religion. They were
never enforced upon me. No pains were taken to fill me
with scruples and antipathies. They never stood, as I

[figure description] Page 180.[end figure description]

may say, upon the threshold. They were often thought
upon, but were vague and easily eluded or forgotten.

Hence it was that my heart too readily admitted impressions,
that more zeal and more parental caution would have
saved me from. They could scarcely be avoided, as my
society was wholly English; and my youth, my education,
and my father's wealth made me an object of much attention.
And the same causes that lulled to sleep my own
watchfulness, had the same effect upon that of others. To
regret or to praise this remissness, is now too late. Certain
it is, that my destiny, and not a happy destiny, was fixed
by it.

The fruit of this remissness was a passion for one, who
fully returned it. Almost as young I, who was only sixteen;
he knew as little as myself, what obstacles the difference of
our births was likely to raise between us. His father, Sir
Ralph Fielding, a man nobly born, high in office, splendidly
allied, could not be expected to consent to the marriage of
his eldest son, in such green youth, to the daughter of an
alien, a Portuguese, a Jew; but these impediments were
not seen by my ignorance, and were overlooked by the
youth's passion.

But strange to tell, what common prudence would have
so confidently predicted, did not happen. Sir Ralph had
a numerous family, likely to be still more so; had but slender
patrimony; the income of his offices nearly made up
his all. The young man was headstrong, impetuous, and
would probably disregard the inclinations of his family.
Yet the father would not consent but on one condition, that
of my admission to the English church.

No very strenuous opposition to these terms could be expected
from me. At so thoughtless an age, with an education
so unfavorable to religious impressions; swayed likewise,
by the strongest of human passions; made somewhat
impatient by the company I kept, of the disrepute and
scorn to which the Jewish nation are every where condemned,
I could not be expected to be very averse to the
scheme.

My fears, as to what my father's decision would be, were
soon at an end. He loved his child too well to thwart
her wishes in so essential a point. Finding in me no

[figure description] Page 181.[end figure description]

scruples, no unwillingness, he thought it absurd to be scrupulous
for me. My own heart having abjured my religion, it was
absurd to make any difficulty about a formal renunciation.
These were his avowed reasons for concurrence, but time
shewed that he had probably other reasons, founded, indeed,
a his regard for my happiness, but such, as, if they had
been known, would probably have strengthened into invincible,
the reluctance of my lover's family.

No marriage was ever attended with happier presages.
The numerous relations of my husband admitted me with
the utmost cordiality among them. My father's tenderness
was unabated by this change, and those humiliations to
which I had before been exposed, were now no more; and
every tie was strengthened, at the end of a year, by the
feelings of a mother. I had need, indeed, to know a season
of happiness, that I might be fitted to endure the sad reverses
that succeeded. One after the other my disasters came,
each one more heavy than the last, and in such swift succession,
that they hardly left me time to breathe.

I had scarcely left my chamber, I had scarcely recovered
my usual health, and was able to press with true fervor,
the new and precious gift to my bosom, when melancholy
tidings came—I was in the country, at the seat of my
father in law, when the messenger arrived.

A shocking tale it was! and told abruptly, with every
unpitying aggravation. I hinted to you once, my father's
death. The kind of death—O! my friend! It was horrible.
He was then a placid, venerable old man; though
many symptoms of disquiet had long before been discovered
by my mother's watchful tenderness. Yet none could
suspect him capable of such a deed; for none, so carefully
had he conducted his affairs, suspected the havoc that
mischance had made of his property.

I, that had so much reason to love my father—I will
leave you to imagine how I was affected by a catastrophe
so dreadful, so unlooked for. Much less could I suspect
the cause of his despair; yet he had foreseen his ruin before
my marriage; had resolved to defer it for his daughter's
and his wife's sake, as long as possible, but had still determined
not to survive the day that should reduce him to

[figure description] Page 182.[end figure description]

indigence. The desperate act was thus preconcerted—thus
deliberate.

The true state of his affairs was laid open by his death.
The failure of great mercantile houses at Frankfort and
Liege was the cause of his disasters.

Thus were my prospects shut in. That wealth, which, no
doubt, furnished the chief inducement with my husband's
family to concur in his choice, was now suddenly exchanged
for poverty.

Bred up, as I had been, in pomp and luxury; conscious
that my wealth was my chief security from the contempt of
the proud and bigoted, and my chief title to the station to
which I had been raised, and which I the more delighted in
because it enabled me to confer so great obligations on my
husband. What reverse could be harder than this, and how
much bitterness was added by it to the grief, occasioned by
the violent end of my father!

Yet, loss of fortune, though it mortified my pride, did not
prove my worst calamity. Perhaps it was scarcely to be
ranked with evils, since it furnished a touchstone by which
my husband's affections were to be tried; especially as the
issue of the trial was auspicious; for my misfortune seemed
only to heighten the interest which my character had made
for me in the hearts of all that knew me. The paternal regards
of Sir Ralph had always been tender, but that tenderness
seemed now to be redoubled.

New events made this consolation still more necessary.
My unhappy mother!—She was nearer to the dreadful
scene when it happened; had no surviving object to beguile
her sorrow; was rendered, by long habit, more dependent
upon fortune than her child.

A melancholy, always mute, was the first effect upon my
mother. Nothing could charm her eye, or her ear. Sweet
sounds that she once loved, and especially when her darling
child was the warbler, were heard no longer. How, with
streaming eyes, have I sat and watched the dear lady, and
endeavored to catch her eye, to rouse her attention!—But
I must not think of these things.

But even this distress was little in comparison with what
was to come. A frenzy thus mute, motionless and vacant,

[figure description] Page 183.[end figure description]

was succeeded by fits, talkative, outrageous, requiring incessant
superintendence, restraint, and even violence.

Why led you me thus back to my sad remembrances?
Excuse me for the present. I will tell you the rest some
other time; tomorrow.

Tomorrow, accordingly, my friend resumed her story.

Let me now make an end, said she, of my mournful
narrative, and never, I charge you, do any thing to revive
it again.

Deep as was my despondency, occasioned by these calamities,
I was not destitute of some joy. My husband and
my child were lovely and affectionate. In their caresses,
in their welfare, I found peace; and might still have found
it, had there not been—But why should I open afresh,
wounds which time has imperfectly closed? But the story
must some time be told to you, and the sooner it is told
and dismissed to forgetfulness, the better.

My ill fate led me into company with a woman too well
known in the idle and dissipated circles. Her character
was not unknown to me. There was nothing in her features
or air to obviate disadvantageous prepossessions. I sought
not her intercourse; I rather shunned it, as unpleasing and
discreditable, but she would not be repulsed. Self-invited,
she made herself my frequent guest; took unsolicited part
in my concerns; did me many kind offices; and, at length,
in spite of my counter inclination, won upon my sympathy
and gratitude.

No one in the world, did I fondly think, had I less reason
to fear than Mrs. Waring. Her character excited not
the slightest apprehension for my own safety. She was upwards
of forty, nowise remarkable for grace or beauty;
tawdry in her dress; accustomed to render more conspicuous
the traces of age by her attempts to hide them; the
mother of a numerous family, with a mind but slenderly
cultivated; always careful to save appearances; studiously
preserving distance with my husband, and he, like myself,
enduring, rather than wishing her society. What could I fear
from the arts of such a one?

But alas! the woman had consummate address. Patience
too, that nothing could tire. Watchfulness that none could
detect. Insinuation the wiliest and most subtle. Thus

[figure description] Page 184.[end figure description]

wound she herself into my affections, by an unexampled
perseverance in seeming kindness; by tender confidence;
by artful glosses of past misconduct; by self-rebukes and
feigned contritions.

Never were stratagems so intricate, dissimulation so profound!
But still, that such a one should seduce my husband;
young, generous, ambitious, impatient of contumely
and reproach, and surely not indifferent; before this fatal intercourse,
not indifferent to his wife and child!—Yet, so it was!

I saw his discontents; his struggles; I heard him curse
this woman, and the more deeply for my attempts, unconscious
as I was of her machinations, to reconcile them to
each other, to do away what seemed a causeless indignation,
or antipathy against her. How little I suspected the nature
of the conflict in his heart, between a new passion and the
claims of pride; of conscience and of humanity; the claims
of a child and a wife; a wife already in affliction, and placing
all that yet remained of happiness, in the firmness of his
virtue; in the continuance of his love; a wife, at the very
hour of his meditated flight, full of terrors at the near approach
of an event, whose agonies demand a double share
of a husband's supporting; encouraging love—

Good Heaven! For what evils are some of thy creatures
reserved! Resignation to thy decree, in the last, and most
cruel distress, was, indeed, a hard task.

He was gone. Some unavoidable engagement calling
him to Hamburgh was pleaded. Yet to leave me at such
an hour! I dare not upbraid, nor object. The tale was so
specious! The fortunes of a friend depended on his punctual
journey. The falsehood of his story too soon made
itself known. He was gone, in company with his detested
paramour!

Yet, though my vigilance was easily deceived, it was not
so with others. A creditor, who had his bond for three
thousand pounds, pursued, and arrested him at Harwich.
He was thrown into prison, but his companion, let me, at
least, say that in her praise, would not desert him. She
took lodging near the place of his confinement, and saw him
daily. That, had she not done it, and had my personal
condition allowed, should have been my province.

Indignation and grief hastened the painful crisis with me.

[figure description] Page 185.[end figure description]

I did not weep that the second fruit of this unhappy union
saw not the light. I wept only that this hour of agony, was
not, to its unfortunate mother, the last.

I felt not anger; I had nothing but compassion for Fielding.
Gladly would I have recalled him to my arms and to
virtue; I wrote, adjuring him by all our past joys, to return;
vowing only gratitude for his new affection, and claiming
only the recompense of seeing him restored to his family;
to liberty; to reputation.

But alas! Fielding had a good, but a proud heart. He
looked upon his error with remorse; with self-detestation,
and with the fatal belief that it could not be retrieved; shame
made him withstand all my reasonings and persuasions, and
in the hurry of his feelings, he made solemn vows that he
would, in the moment of restored liberty, abjure his country
and his family forever. He bore indignantly the yoke of
his new attachment, but he strove in vain to shake it off.
Her behavior, always yielding, doating, supplicative, preserved
him in her fetters. Though upbraided, spurned and
banished from his presence, she would not leave him, but
by new efforts and new artifices, soothed, appeased, and
won again, and kept his tenderness.

What my entreaties were unable to effect, his father
could not hope to accomplish. He offered to take him
from prison; the creditor offered to cancel the bond, if he
would return to me; but this condition he refused. All his
kindred, and one who had been his bosom friend from
childhood, joined in beseeching his compliance with these
conditions; but his pride, his dread of my merited reproaches;
the merits and dissuasions of his new companion,
whose sacrifices for his sake had not been small, were obstacles
which nothing could subdue.

Far, indeed, was I from imposing these conditions. I
waited only till, by certain arrangements, I could gather
enough to pay his debts, to enable him to execute his vow;
empty would have been my claims to his affection, if I
could have suffered, with the means of his deliverance in
my hands, my husband to remain a moment in prison.

The remains of my father's vast fortune was a jointure
of a thousand pounds a year, settled on my mother, and
after her death, on me. My mother's helpless condition

[figure description] Page 186.[end figure description]

put this revenue into my disposal. By this means was I
enabled, without the knowledge of my father-in-law, or
my husband, to purchase the debt, and dismiss him from
prison. He set out instantly, in company with his paramour,
to France.

When somewhat recovered from the shock of this calamity,
I took up my abode with my mother. What she had
was enough, as you, perhaps, will think, for plentiful subsistence,
but to us, with habits of a different kind, it was
little better than poverty. That reflection, my father's memory,
my mother's deplorable state, which every year grew
worse, and the late misfortune, were the chief companions
of my thoughts.

The dear child, whose smiles were uninterrupted by his
mother's afflictions, was some consolation in my solitude.
To his instruction and to my mother's wants, all my hours
were devoted. I was sometimes not without the hope of
better days. Full as my mind was of Fielding's merits,
convinced by former proofs of his ardent and generous
spirit, I trusted that time and reflection would destroy that
spell by which he was now bound.

For some time, the progress of these reflections was not
known. In leaving England, Fielding dropped all correspondence
and connexion with his native country. He
parted with the woman at Rouen, leaving no trace behind
him by which she might follow him, as she wished to do.
She never returned to England, but died a twelvemonth
afterwards in Switzerland.

As to me, I had only to muse day and night upon the
possible destiny of this beloved fugitive. His incensed
father cared not for him. He had cast him out of his paternal
affections, ceased to make inquiries respecting him,
and even wished never to hear of him again. My boy succeeded
to my husband's place in his grandfather's affections,
and in the hopes and views of the family; and his mother
wanted nothing which their compassionate and respectful
love could bestow.

Three long and tedious years passed away, and no tidings
were received. Whether he were living or dead, nobody
could tell. At length, an English traveller, going out of
the customary road from Italy, met with Fielding, in a town

[figure description] Page 187.[end figure description]

in the Venaissin. His manners, habits and language, had
become French. He seemed unwilling to be recognised by
an old acquaintance, but not being able to avoid this, and
becoming gradually familiar, he informed the traveller of
many particulars in his present situation. It appeared that
he had made himself useful to a neighboring Seigneur, in
whose chateau he had long lived on the footing of a brother.
France he had resolved to make his future country, and
among other changes for that end, he had laid aside his
English name, and taken that of his patron, which was
Perrin. He had endeavored to compensate himself for all
other privations, by devoting himself to rural amusements
and to study.

He carefully shunned all inquiries respecting me, but
when my name was mentioned by his friend, who knew
well all that had happened, and my general welfare, together
with that of his son, asserted, he shewed deep sensibility,
and even consented that I should be made acquainted
with his situation.

I cannot describe the effect of this intelligence on me.
My hopes of bringing him back to me, were suddenly revived.
I wrote him a letter, in which I poured forth my
whole heart; but his answer contained avowals of all his
former resolutions, to which time had only made his adherence
more easy. A second and third letter were written,
and an offer made to follow him to his retreat, and
share his exile; but all my efforts availed nothing. He
solemnly and repeatedly renounced all the claims of a husband
over me, and absolved me from every obligation as a
wife.

His part in this correspondence, was performed without
harshness or contempt. A strange mixture there was of
pathos and indifference; of tenderness and resolution.
Hence I continually derived hope, which time, however,
brought no nearer to certainty.

At the opening of the revolution, the name of Perrin appeared
among the deputies to the constituent assembly, for
the district in which he resided. He had thus succeeded
in gaining all the rights of a French citizen; and the hopes
of his return became almost extinct; but that, and every
other hope, respecting him, has since been totally

[figure description] Page 188.[end figure description]

extinguished by his marriage with Marguerite D'Almont, a
young lady of great merit and fortune, and a native of
Avignon.

A long period of suspense was now at an end, and left
me in a state almost as full of anguish as that which our
first separation produced. My sorrows were increased by
my mother's death, and this incident freeing me from those
restraints upon my motions which before existed, I determined
to come to America.

My son was now eight years old, and his grandfather
claiming the province of his instruction, I was persuaded to
part with him, that he might be sent to a distant school.
Thus was another tie removed, and in spite of the well
meant importunities of my friends, I persisted in my scheme
of crossing the ocean.

I could not help, at this part of her narration, expressing
my surprise that any motives were strong enough to recommend
this scheme.

It was certainly a freak of despair. A few months would,
perhaps, have allayed the fresh grief, and reconciled me to
my situation; but I would not pause or deliberate. My
scheme was opposed by my friends, with great earnestness.
During my voyage, affrighted by the dangers which surrounded
me, and to which I was wholly unused, I heartily
repented of my resolution; but now, methinks, I have reason
to rejoice at my perseverance. I have come into a
scene and society so new, I have had so many claims made
upon my ingenuity and fortitude, that my mind has been
diverted in some degree from former sorrows. There are
even times when I wholly forget them, and catch myself indulging
in cheerful reveries.

I have often reflected with surprise on the nature of my
own mind. It is eight years since my father's violent death.
How few of my hours since that period, have been blessed
with serenity! How many nights and days, in hateful and
lingering succession, have been bathed in tears and tormented
with regrets! That I am still alive with so many
causes of death, and with such a slow consuming malady,
is surely to be wondered at.

I believe the worst foes of man, at least of men in grief,
are solitude and idleness. The same eternally occurring

[figure description] Page 189.[end figure description]

round of objects, feeds his disease, and the effects of mere
vacancy and uniformity is sometimes mistaken for those
of grief. Yes, I am glad I came to America. My relations
are importunate for my return, and, till lately, I had some
thoughts of it; but I think now, I shall stay where I am,
for the rest of my days.

Since I arrived, I am become more of a student than I
used to be. I always loved literature, but never, till of late,
had a mind enough at ease, to read with advantage. I
now find pleasure in the occupation which I never expected
to find.

You see in what manner I live. The letters which I
brought secured me a flattering reception from the best
people in your country; but scenes of gay resort had
nothing to attract me, and I quickly withdrew to that seclusion
in which you now find me. Here, always at leisure,
and mistress of every laudable means of gratification, I am
not without the belief of serene days yet to come.

I now ventured to inquire what were her latest tidings of
her husband.

At the opening of the revolution, I told you, he became
a champion of the people. By his zeal and his efforts he
acquired such importance as to be deputed to the National
Assembly. In this post he was the adherent of violent
measures, till the subversion of monarchy; and then, when
too late for his safety, he checked his career.

And what has since become of him?

She sighed deeply. You were yesterday reading a list
of the proscribed under Robespierre. I checked you. I
had good reason. But this subject grows too painful; let
us change it.

Some time after, I ventured to renew this topic; and
discovered that Fielding, under his new name of Perrin
d'Almont, was among the outlawed deputies of last year,*
and had been slain in resisting the officers sent to arrest him.
My friend had been informed that his wife, Philippine d'Almont,
whom she had reason to believe a woman of great
merit, had eluded persecution, and taken refuge in some

[figure description] Page 190.[end figure description]

part of America. She had made various attempts, but in
vain, to find out her retreat. Ah! said I, you must commission
me to find her. I will hunt her through the continent
from Penobscot to Savannah. I will not leave a nook
unsearched.

* 1793.