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.

119

Possibly he has not told you his designs. He cannot
inform you of the truth with respect to me. My present
situation should be known to you, to enable you to act
with propriety. I shall not prescribe to you; I am not
mistress of your thoughts and motives: may Heaven direct you right!
A friend will go to Baltimore on Tuesday, time enough
for you to receive this and to write to Philip. If sent
to me, I will intrust it to my friend. I have not time to
add a word more.
Accept the reverence and love of MARY WILMOT.
LETTER XXIX.
To Philip Stanley.
New York, May 15.
STANLEY, how shall I address iou? In terms of indignation or of kindness? Shall I entreat you to return,
or exhort you to obey the wild dictates of caprice?
Shall I leave you to your froward destiny, and seek, in
the prospect of a better world, a relief from the keen
distress, the humiliating sorrows, of this scene of weakness and error?
Shall I link my fate with one who is deaf to the most
pathetic calls of his duty? who forgets or spurns the
most urgent obligations of gratitude? whom the charms
of nature, the attractions of science, the claims of helpless
and fond sisters, who trust for shelter, for bread, for
safety from contempt and servitude and vice, to his protection, his counsel, his presence, cannot detain from
forests and wilds, where inevitable death awaits him?
Shall I bestow one drop of tender remembrance on
him who upbraids and contemns me for sacrificing every
selfish regard to his dignity; for stifling in my bosom that
ignoble passion which makes us trample on the claims of
others, which seeks its own gratification at the price of
humanity and justice, which can smile in the midst of
repinings and despair, of creatures no less worthy, no
less susceptible of good?
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