"Husband, my soul revolts at this charge! I have disobeyed it and
you; and I must justify myself in this my disobedience. I must at
length declare the truth. I have striven to do so in the preceding
narrative. This narrative I began when you brought this false friend
into our dwelling. He must leave it. You must command his departure.
Do not think me moved by any unhappy or unbecoming prejudices against
him. My antipathies have arisen solely from his presumption and
misconduct. I esteemed him--nay, I even liked him--before. I liked
his taste for the arts, his amiable manners, his love of music and
poetry, and all those graces of the superior mind and education,
which dignify humanity, and indicate its probable destinies. But when
he showed me how false he was to a friendship so free and confiding
as was yours--when he abused my eyes and ears with expressions
unbecoming in him, and insulting and ungenerous to me--I loathed
and spurned him. While he is in your house I will strive and treat
him civilly, but do not tax me further. For your sake I have borne
much; for the sake of peace, and to avoid strife and crime, I have
been silent--perhaps too long. The strange, improper letters of
my mother, which I enclose, almost make me tremble to think that
I have paid but too much defference to her opinion. But, in the
expulsion of this miserable man from your dwelling, there needs
no violence, there needs no crime! A word will overwhelm him with
shame. Remember, dear husband, that he is feeble and sick; it is
probable he has not long to live. Perform your painful duty privily,
and with all the forbearance which is consistent with a proper
firmness. In truth, he has done us no real harm. Let us remember
THAT! If anything, he has only made me love you the more, by showing
so strongly how generous is the nature which he has so infamously
abused. Once more, dear husband, do no violence. Let not our future
days be embittered by any recollections of the present. Command,
compel his departure, and come home to me, and keep with me always.
"Your own true wife, "Julia Clifford."
"Postscript.--I had closed this letter yesterday, thinking to send
it to your office in the afternoon. I had hoped that there would
be nothing more;--but last night, this madman--for such I must
believe him to be--committed another outrage upon my person! He has
a second time seized me in his arms and endeavored to grasp me in
his embrace. O husband!--why, why do you thus expose me? Do you
indeed love me? I sometimes tremble with a fear lest you do not.
But I dare not think so. Yet, if you do, why am I thus exposed--thus
deserted--thus left to a companionship which is equally loathsome
to me and dishonoring to you? I implore you to open your eyes--to
believe me, and discard this false friend from your dwelling and
your confidence. But, oh, be merciful, dear husband! Strike no
sudden blow! Send him forth with scorn but remember his feebleness,
his family, and spare his life. I send this by Emma. Let no one
see the letters of my mother but burn them instantly.