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

Chapter 7: LETTER IV.

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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 IV.

Miss Harriot Fawcet

to Miss Myra Harrington.

Boston.

I HAVE somehow bewitched a new lover, my dear Myra—a smart, clever fellow too—and the youth expresses such fondness and passion that I begin to feel afraid even to pity him—for love will certainly follow. I own to you I esteem him very much, but must I go any farther? He is extremely generous—polite—gay—and I believe if you were to see him, your partiality in his favor would exceed mine.

I NEVER saw my poor swain so seemingly disconcerted and abashed as he was a few days ago—he appeared to have something very particular to communicate, but his tongue faultered—ought not one to help out a modest youth in such cases?

Yours &c.