“Happy the babe, who, privileged by fate
  To shorter labors and a lighter weight,
  Received but yesterday the gift of breath,
  Ordered to-morrow to return to death.”

Our domestic affairs are much as when you left us.  Nothing remarkable has occurred in the neighborhood worth communicating.  The company and amusements of the town are as usual, I suppose.  I frequent neither of them.  Having incurred so much censure by the indulgence of a gay disposition, I am now trying what a recluse and solitary mode of life will, produce.  You will call me splenetic.  I own it.  I am pleased with nobody; still less with myself.  I look around for happiness, and find it not.  The world is to me a desert.  If I indulge myself in temporary enjoyment, the consciousness or apprehension of doing amiss destroys my peace of mind.  And when I have recourse to books, if I read those of serious descriptions, they remind me of an awful futurity, for which I am unprepared; if history, it discloses facts in which I have no interest; if novels, they exhibit scenes of pleasure which I have no prospect of realizing.

My mamma is solicitously attentive to my happiness; and though she fails of promoting it, yet I endeavor to save her the pangs of disappointment by appearing what she wishes.

I anticipate, and yet I dread, your return; a paradox this, which time alone can solve.

Continue writing to me, and entreat Mrs. Sumner, in my name, to do likewise.  Your benevolence must be your reward.

ELIZA WHARTON.

LETTER LXIII.

TO MISS ELIZA WHARTON.

BOSTON.

A paradox, indeed, is the greater part of your letter to us, my dear Eliza.  We had fondly flattered ourselves that the melancholy of your mind was exterminated.  I hope no new cause has revived it.  Little did I intend, when I left you, to have been absent so long; but Mrs. Summer’s disappointment, in her plan of spending the summer at Hartford, induced me, in compliance with her request, to prolong my residence here.  But for your sake, she now consents to my leaving her, in hopes I may be so happy as to contribute to your amusement.

I am both pleased and instructed by the conduct of this amiable woman.  As I always endeavored to imitate her discreet, and modest behavior in a single state, so likewise shall I take her for a pattern should I ever enter a married life.  She is most happily united.  Mr. Sumner, to all the graces and accomplishments of the gentleman, adds the still more important and essential properties of virtue, integrity, and honor.  I was once present when a person was recommended to her for a husband.  She objected that he was a rake.  “True,” said the other, “he has been, but he has reformed.”  “That will never do for me,” rejoined she; “I wish my future companion to need no reformation”—­a sentiment worthy the attention of our whole sex; the general adoption of which, I am persuaded, would have a happy influence upon the manners of the other.