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.

THE ENTHUSIASM OF LOVE.

67

I long to see you, my friend. I hope to be of some
service to you. You will see, by this long detail, that
fortune has been kind to me. Indeed, when I take a
view of the events of the last year, I cannot find language
for my wonder, my blessings are so numerous and exorbitant, my merits so slender.
I wish thee patience to carry thee to the end of this
long letter. Adieu. PHILIP STANLEY.
LETTER XIV.
To Philip Stanley.
New York, April 28.
WHY don't you come home, my love? Are you not
quite well? Tell me when; the day, the hour, when I
may expect you. I will put new elegance into my garb;
new health into my cheeks; new light, new love, new joy,
into my eyes, against that happy hour.
Would to Heaven I were with you! I represented to
my father what an excellent nurse I should prove; but he
would not suffer me to accompany him. I have a good
mind to steal away to you, even now; but are you not
already quite well? Yes, you are; or very soon will be.
Time and care are all that are required to make you so.
But, poor Mary-Does not your heart, my Philip, bleed
for poor Mary? Can I rob her of so precious a good,
bereave her of the gem of which she has so long been in
secure possession? Can I riot in bliss, and deck myself
in bridal ornaments, while she lives pining in dreary solitude, carrying to the grave a heart broken by the contumelies of the world, the horrors of indigence and neglect, and chiefly by the desertion of him on whom she
doted?
Do I not know what it is to love? Cannot I easily
imagine what it is to bear about an unrequited passion?
Have I not known, from infancy, the pleasures of affluence and homage? Cannot I conceive the mortifications,
to one thus bred up, of poverty and labour? Indeed, my
friend, I conceive them so justly, that till Mary is dis29