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.

72 JANE TALBOT.
only to tear off his mask. This was done, but, alas, too
late for your safety. The poison was already swallowed.
I had no patience with you, to listen to your trifling
and insidious distinctionss,-such as, though you could
audaciously urge them to me, possessed no weight, could
possess no weight, in your understanding. What was it
to me whether he was ruffian or madman? whether, in
destroying you, he meant to destroy or to save? Is it
proper to expose your breast to a sword, because the
wretch that wields it supposes madly that it is a straw
which he holds in his hand?
But I will not renew the subject. The same motives
that induced me to attempt to reason with you then no
longer exist. The anguish, the astonishment, which your
letters, as they gradually unfolded your character, produced in me, I endeavoured to show you at the time. Now
I pass them over to come to a more important circumstance.
Yet how shall I tell it thee, Jane? I am afraid to intrust it to paper. Thy fame is still dear to me. I would
not be the means of irretrievably blasting thy fame. Yet
what may come of relating some incidents on paper?
Faint is my hope, but I am not without some hope,
that thou canst yet be saved, be snatched from perdition.
Thy life I value not, in comparison with something higher.
And if, through an erring sensibility, the sacrifice of
Colden cost thee thy life, I shall yet rejoice. As the
wife of Colden thou wilt be worse than dead to me.
What has come to me, I wonder? I began this letter
with a firm, and, as I thought, inflexible, soul. Despair
had made me serene; yet now thy image rises before me
with all those bewitching graces which adorned thee when
thou wast innocent and a child. All the mother seizes
my heart, and my tears suffocate me.
Shall I shock, shall I wound thee, my child, by lifting
the veil from thy misconduct, behind which thou thinkest
thou art screened from every human eye? How little
dost thou imagine that I know so emuch!
Now will thy expostulations and reasonings have an
end. Surely they will have an end. Shame at last,
shame at last, will overwhelm thee and make thee dumb.