| dc.description.transcription | Am now at Grove’s. I dont know where I am, where I will be.—Future present past is all a mist, it seems as if I had begun existence anew under auspices so unfavorable.—Yet no. that is stupid.—My poor little friend has been ill, her sister sent for me the other night. I found her on a couch pale;--Her father is civil to me, very strangely, the sister is too civil by half.—she began talking about l’amour; I philosophized, & the youngest said she had such a headache that she could not bear conversation.—Her sister then went away, & I staid till ½ past 12. Her father had a large party below, he invited me.. I refused. Yes! The fiend the wretch shall fall. Harriet will do for one of the crushers, & the eldest (Emily) with some taming will do too. They are both very clever, & the youngest (my friend) is amiable. Yesterday she was better, to day her father compelled her to go to Clapham, whither I have conducted her, & am now returned . . . Why is it that the moment we are separated, I can scarcely set bounds to my hatred of Xtianity—is it feeling? [p.2] is it passion? I would willingly persuade myself that it is neither, willingly would I persuade myself that all that is amiable, all that is good falls by its prevalence & that I ought unceasingly to attempt its destruction.—Yet you say that millions of bad, are necessary to the existence of a few preeminent in excellence, Is not this a despotism of virtue which is inconsistent with it’s nature. . Is it not the Asiatic tyrant who renders his territory wretched to fill his seraglio, the shark who must glut his maw with millions of fish, in order that he may exist? I have often said that I doubted your divinities & if this inference follows the established hypothesis of their existence, I do not merely doubt, but hope that my doubts are founded on truth; I think then that the term “superior” is bad, as it involves this horrible consequence, let the word “perfect” then be offered as a substitute; to which each [p. 3] who aspires may indulge an hope of arriving, or rather every one (speaking of men) may hope to contribute to women’s arrival, which in fact is themselves advancing; although like the shadow which precedes the figure, or the piral it always may advance & never touch.—My Sister does not come to Town, nor will she ever at least I can see no chance of it. I will not deceive you, she is lost, lost to every thing, Xtianity has tainted her, she talks of God & Xt. . . I would not venture thus to prophesy without being most perfectly convinced in my own mind of the truth of what I say; It may not be irretrievable; but yes! It is . . A young female, who only once, only for a short space asserted her claim to an unfettered use of reason, bred up with Xtians, having before her eyes examples of the consequences of Atheism, or even scepticism, which she must now see to lead directly to the former; a mother, who is mild and tolerant yet a [p. 4] Xtian, how I ask is she to be rescued from it’s influence. I tell to you, my dear friend, openly the feelings of my mind, the state of its conviction on every subject, this then is one, and I do not expect that you will say: “it is so painful to my feelings that I know you will never again mention it,” I do not expect you to say “I had rather be under a pleasing error, nor is it a friendly act to dissipate the mists which hide a frightful prospect.” On other subjects you have soared above prejudice, you have investigated them, terrible they may have appeared, & resolved to abide by the result of that investigation. . and you have abided by it. . . Why then should there yet remain a subject on which you profess yourself fearful to enquire, I will not allow you to say incompetent;--Error cannot in any of it’s shapes be good I cannot conceive the possibility. You talk of the cullibility of mankind, it’s proneness to superstition, that it ever has been a slave to the vilest of errors . . . Is your inference [p. 5] necessary or direct that it ever will continue so.—You say that “I have no idea how society wd. be if freed from false ideas on almost any subject—” No . . nor would the first man in the world supposing that there ever was one, at the moment of his coming to his estate, have any conception how a fertile piece of land wd. look without weeds; he stares at it, & thinks it is least of all fitted for his convenience when a stricter scrutiny into it’s nature wd convince him that it was calculated to contribute to them with the same [both words deleted] a less proportion of labour, than the barren land which appeared clean . .
Dares the lama most fleet of the sons of the wind/
The Lion to rouse from his scull covered lair/
When the tyger awakes can the fast fleeting hind/
Repose trust in his footsteps of air/
No!—abandoned he sinks in a trance of despair/
The monster transfixes his prey/
On the sand flows hi life blook away/
Whilst India’s rocks to his death-yells reply/
Protracting the horrible harmony/
Yet the fowl of the desert when danger encroaches/
Dares fearless to perish defending her brood/
Tho the fiercest of [word deleted] cloud-piercing tyrants approaches/
Thirsting—aye, thirsting for blood/
And demands like mankind his brother for food/
Yet more lenient more gentle than they/
For hunger, not glory the prey/
Must perish . . Revenge does not howl in the dead/
Nor ambition with fame crown the murderer’s head/
Tho weak as the Lama that bounds on the mountains/
And endued not with fast fleeting footsteps of air/
Yet yet will I draw from the purest of fountains/
Tho’ a fiercer than ty[ger] is there/
[p. 6] Tho more dreadful than Death, it scatters despair/
Tho it’s shadow eclipses the day/
And the darkness of deepest dismay/
Spreads the influence of soul-chilling terror around /
And lowers on the corpses that rot on the ground/
They came to the fountain to draw from its stream/
Waves too pure too celestial for mortals to see/
They bathed for a while in its silvery beam/
Then perished, & perished like me/
For in vain from the grasp of religion I flee/
The most tenderly loved of my soul/
Are slaves to its hated control/
It pursues me, it blasts me! oh where shall I fly/
What remains but to curse it, to curse it & die/
There it is. . . a mad effusion of this morning . . I had resolved not to mortgage before you left London, I told you that I shd. Divide it with my sisters & leave everything else to fate.
Yr. affectionate friend,
P.B.S. | |
