Mary Wollstonecraft's Love Letters to Gilbert Imlay 76 – Wollstonecraft · Verses Across
Literature · Romance
Mary Wollstonecraft's Love Letters to Gilbert Imlay 76Letter 76
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Literature · Romance
Mary Wollstonecraft's Love Letters to Gilbert Imlay 76
Letter 76
WollstonecraftEnglish
[London, Dec. 1795.]
As the parting from you for ever is the most serious event of my life, I will once expostulate with you, and call not the language of truth and feeling ingenuity!
I know the soundness of your understanding--and know that it is impossible for you always to confound the caprices of every wayward inclination with the manly dictates of principle.
You tell me "that I torment you."--Why do I?----Because you cannot estrange your heart entirely from me--and you feel that justice is on my side. You urge, "that your conduct was unequivocal."--It was not.--When your coolness has hurt me, with what tenderness have you endeavoured to remove the impression!--and even before I returned to England, you took great pains to convince me, that all my uneasiness was occasioned by the effect of a worn-out constitution--and you concluded your letter with these words, "Business alone has kept me from you.--Come to any port, and I will fly down to my two dear girls with a heart all their own."
With these assurances, is it extraordinary that I should believe what I wished? I might--and did think that you had a struggle with old propensities; but I still thought that I and virtue should at last prevail. I still thought that you had a magnanimity of character, which would enable you to conquer yourself.
Imlay, believe me, it is not romance, you have acknowledged to me feelings of this kind.--You could restore me to life and hope, and the satisfaction you would feel, would amply repay you.
In tearing myself from you, it is my own heart I pierce--and the time will come, when you will lament that you have thrown away a heart, that, even in the moment of passion, you cannot despise.--I would owe every thing to your generosity--but, for God's sake, keep me no longer in suspense!--Let me see you once more!--
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Literature · Romance
Mary Wollstonecraft's Love Letters to Gilbert Imlay 77
