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.

110 JANE TAL3BOT.
to me; and thus, and in reading thy letters, I employ all
my spare moments.
Write to me, my love. Daily, hourly, and cheerfully,
if possible. Borrow not; be not thy letters tinged with
the melancholy hue of this.
Write speedily and much, if thou lovest thy
COLDEN.
LETTER XXXI.
To Henry Colcden.
Philadelphia, Nov. 9.
WHAT do you mean, Hal, by such a strain as this? I
wanted no additional causes of disquiet. Yet you tell
me to write cheerfully. I would have written cheerfully,
if these letters, so full of dark forebodings and rueful
prognostics, had not come to damp my spirits.
And is the destiny that awaits us so very mournful?
Is thy, wife necessarily to lose so many comforts and
incur so many mortifications? Are my funds so small,
that they will not secure to me the privilege of a separate apartment, in which I may pass my time with whom
and in what manner I please?
Must I huddle, with a dozen squalling children and their
notably-noisy or sluttishly-indolent dam, round a dirty
hearth and meagre winter's fire'? Mlust sooty rafters, a
sorry truckle-bed, and a mud-encumbered alley, be my
nuptial lot?
Out upon thee, thou egregious painter! Well for thee
thou art not within my arm's length. I should certainly
bestow upon thee a hearty-kciss or two. My blundering pen! I recall the word. I meant cuff; but my saucy
pen, pretending to know more of my mind than I did
myself, turned (as its mistress, mayhap, would have done,
hadst thou been near me, indeed) her cuff into a kiss.
What possessed thee, my beloved, to predict so ruefully? A very good beginning too! more vivacity than
common! But I hardly had time to greet the sunny
radiance-tis a long time since my cell was gilded by so