The novels of Charles Brockden Brown, consisting of Wieland;or, The transformation. Arthur Mervyn; or, Memoirs of the year 1793. Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a sleep-walker. Jane Talbot. Ormond; or, The secret witness. Clara Howard; or, The enthusiasm of love. With a memoir of the author.

18

CLARA HOWARD; OR,

You know what it is that reason prescribes to you with
regard to Miss Wilmot. If you cannot ardently and sincerely seek her presence, and find, in the happiness which
she will derive from a union with you, sufficient motives to
make you zealously solicit that union, you are unworthy
not merely of my love, but of my esteem. Henceforth I
will know you not.
Let me not have reason to charge you with hypocrisy,
or to consider your love for me as the mere child of sensuality and selfishness. You have often told me that you
desire my happiness above all things; that you love me for
my own sake. Your sincerity and rectitude are now put to
the test. Do not belie your professions by a blind and
unjust decision. Allow me to judge in what it is that my
happiness consists, and prove your attachment to me by
promoting my happiness.
Misguided friend! What is it you want? To gain your
end by exciting my pity? Suppose the end should be thus
accomplished; suppose I should become your wife,merely to
save your life, to prevent hazards and temptations to which
my rejection might expose you. Mournful, indeed, full of
anguish and of tears, would be the day which should make
me your bride. My act would be a mere submission to
humiliating and painful necessity. I should look to reap,
from such an alliance, nothing but repinings and sorrow.
By soliciting my hand, by consenting to ratify a contract
made on such principles, you would irretrievably forfeit my
esteem. My condition would be the most disastrous that
can betide a human being. I should be bound, beyond the
power of loosening my bonds, to one whom I despised.
I am, indeed, in no danger of acting upon these principles. I shall never so little consult my own dignity and
yours as to accept your hand through compassion. I am
not unacquainted with the schemes which your foolish despondency has suggested to you. I know very well what
alternatives you have sometimes resolved to offer me,-of
compliance with your wishes, or of banishing you to thie
desert, and dissolving that connection between my father
and you which is so advantageous to yourself and your
sisters. Fie upon you! Even to have entertained such
thoughts fixes a stain upon your character not easily