But I more particularly am bound
to be so, by an obligation which I can never discharge, but by my
daily prayers for you, and the blessings I continually implore upon
you and yours.
"I can write my whole mind _to_ you, though I cannot, from the most
deplorable infelicity, receive _from_ you the wished-for favour of a
few lines in return, written with the same unreservedness: so unhappy
am I, from the effects of an inconsideration and weakness on one hand,
and temptation on the other, which you, at a tender age, most nobly,
for your own honour, and that of your sex, have escaped: whilst I--but
let my tears in these blots speak the rest--as my heart bleeds, and
has constantly bled ever since, at the grievous remembrance--but
believe, however, dear Madam, that 'tis shame and sorrow, and not
pride and impenitence, that make me both to speak out, to so much
purity of life and manners, my own odious weakness.
"Nevertheless, I ought, and I _will_ accuse myself by name. Imagine
then, illustrious lady, truly illustrious for virtues, infinitely
superior to all the advantages of birth and fortune!--Imagine, I
say, that in this letter, you see before you the _once_ guilty,
and therefore, I doubt, _always_ guilty, but _ever penitent_, Sarah
Godfrey; the unhappy, though fond and tender mother of the poor
infant, to whom your generous goodness has, I hear, extended itself,
so as to make you desirous of taking her under your worthy protection:
God for ever bless you for it! prays an indulgent mother, who admires
at an awful distance, that virtue in you, which she could not practise
herself.
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