retrospect is very mournful; but that ought not to prevent me from making
it, when so useful a purpose as that of thoroughly disclosing to you the
character of one, on whom your future happiness is to depend, will be
affected by it. I am not surprised that calumny has been busy with my
life, and am very little anxious to clear myself from unjust charges,
except to such as you.

At this moment, I may add, my mood is not unfriendly to the
undertaking. I can do nothing in your absence but write to you. To write
what I have ten thousand times spoken, and which can be perfectly
understood only when accompanied by looks and accents, seems absurd.
Especially while there is a subject on which my _tongue_ can never
expatiate, but on which it is necessary that you should know all that I
can tell you.

The prospect of filling up this interval with the relation of the most
affecting parts of my life somewhat reconciled me to your necessary
absence, yet I know my heart will droop. Even this preparation to look
back makes me shudder already. Some reluctance to recall tragical or
humiliating scenes, and, by thus recalling to endure them, in some sense,
a second time, I must expect to feel.

But let me lay down the pen for the present. Let me take my favourite
and lonely path, and, by a deliberate review of the past, refresh my
memory and methodize my recollections. Adieu till I return. J. T.




Letter III