LETTER XLVI.
Harrington to Worthy.
I HAVE seen her—I prest her to my heart—I called her my Love—my Sister. The tenderness and sorrow were in her eyes—How am I guilty, my friend—How is this transport a crime? My love is the most pure, the most holy—Harriot beheld me with tears of the most tender affection—“Why,” said she, “why, my friend, my dear Harrington, have I loved! but in what manner have I been culpable? How was I to know you were my Brother?—Yes! I might have known it—how else could you have been so kind—so tender—so affectionate!”—Here was all the horrour of conflicting passions, expressed by gloomy silence—by stifled cries—by convulsions—by sudden floods of tears—The scene was too much for my heart to bear—I bade her adieu—my heart was breaking—I tore myself from her and retired.
WHAT is human happiness? The prize for which all strive, and so few obtain; the more eagerly we pursue it, the farther we stray from the object; Wherefore I have determined within myself that we increase in misery as we increase in age—and if there are any happy days they are those of thoughtless childhood.
I THEN viewed the world at a distance in perspective. I thought mankind appeared happy in the midst of pleasures that flowed round them. I who find it a deception, and am tempted sometimes to wish myself a child again. Happy are the dreams of infancy, and happy their harmless pursuits! I saw the ignis fatuus, and have been running after it, and now I return from the search. I return and bring back disappointment. As I reflect on these scenes of infantine ignorance, I feel my heart interested, and become sensibly affected—and however futile these feelings may appear as I communicate them to you—they are feelings, I venture to assert, which every one must have experienced who is possessed of a heart of sensibility.