Jane Talbot by Charles Brockden Brown

Author:Charles Brockden Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ManyBooks.net

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Letter XXXII

To Jane Talbot

Baltimore, November 14.

Let me overlook your last letter [Footnote A: Letter XXX.] for the present, while I mention to you a most unexpected and surprising circumstance. It has just happened. I have parted with my visitant but this moment.

I had strolled to the bank of the river, and was leaning idly on a branch of an apple-tree that hung pretty low, when I noticed some one coming hastily towards me: there was something striking and noble in the air and figure of the man.

When he came up, he stopped. I was surprised to find myself the object of which he was in search. I found afterwards that he had inquired for me at my lodgings, and had been directed to look for me in this path. A distinct view of his features saved him the trouble of telling me that he was your brother. However, that was information that he thought proper immediately to communicate. He was your brother, he said; I was Colden; I had pretensions to you, which your brother was entitled to know, to discuss, and to pronounce upon. Such, in about as many words, was his introduction to me, and he waited for my answer with much impatience.

I was greatly confused by these sudden and unceremonious intimations. At last I told him that all that he had said respecting my connection with his sister was true. It was a fact that all the world was welcome to know. Of course I had no objection to her brother's knowing it.

But what were my claims? what my merits, my profession, my fortune? On all these heads a brother would naturally require to be thoroughly informed.

"As to my character, sir, you will hardly expect any satisfactory information from my own mouth. However, it may save you the trouble of applying to others, when I tell you that my character has as many slurs and blots in it as any you ever met with. A more versatile, inconsistent, prejudiced, and faulty person than myself, I do not believe the earth to contain. Profession I have none, and am not acquiring any, nor expect ever to acquire. Of fortune I am wholly destitute: not a farthing have I, either in possession or reversion."

"Then, pray, sir, on what are built your pretensions to my sister?"

"Really, sir, they are built on nothing. I am, in every respect, immeasurably her inferior. I possess not a single merit that entitles me to grace from her."

"I have surely not been misinformed. She tacitly admitted that she was engaged to be your wife."

"'Tis very true. She is so."

"But what, then, is the basis of this engagement?"

"Mutual affection, I believe, is the only basis. Nobody who knows Jane Talbot will need to ask why she is beloved. Why she requites that passion in the present case, is a question which she only can answer."

"Her passion, sir," (contemptuously,) "is the freak of a child; of folly and caprice. By your own confession you are beggarly and worthless, and therefore it becomes you to relinquish your claim.

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