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The power of sympathy: or, The triumph of nature. Founded in truth. cover

The power of sympathy: or, The triumph of nature. Founded in truth.

Chapter 55: LETTER LI.
By William Hill Brown
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About This Book

An epistolary novel recounts a series of letters that expose a courtship and a concealed seduction whose revelation brings shame, illness, and familial ruin, used to dramatize the moral dangers of reckless passion. Through careful narration and moral commentary, the correspondence traces how social conventions, personal weakness, and misplaced sympathy produce personal and domestic catastrophe while urging prudence, female self-respect, and the restorative force of nature and truth. Written in a sentimental, didactic mode, the work blends realistic social observation with moral exhortation and is structured to instruct readers about the consequences of seduction and the virtues of restraint.

LETTER LI.

Myra to Mrs. Holmes.

Boston.

THE curtain is dropped, and the scene of life is forever closed—The Lovely Harriot is no More.

SHE is fit to appear in Heaven, for her life was a scene of purity and innocence—If there is any consolation to be felt by a survivour, it is in the reflection of the amiable qualities of the deceased. My heart shall not cease to cherish her idea, for she was beautiful without artifice, and virtuous without affectation.

See! there all pale and dead she lies;
Forever flow my streaming eyes—
There dwelt the fairest—loveliest mind,
Faith, sweetness, wit together join’d.
Dwelt faith and wit and sweetness there?
O, view the change, and drop a tear.

MY brother is exceedingly agitated—He will never support this disastrous stroke—Nothing can attract his attention—nothing allay his grief—but it is the affliction of reason and not of weakness—God grant that it prove not fatal to him.

Adieu!—Adieu!