of human relations, with her to
pass my future days in serenity and peace.

Your letter, therefore, came too late, were there no other obstacle to
the renewal of our connection. I hope at the close of life, when we take
a retrospect of the past, that neither of us shall have reason to regret
our separation.

Permit me to add, that for your own sake, and for the sake of your
ever-valued friends, I sincerely rejoice that your mind has regained its
native strength and beauty; that you have emerged from the shade of
fanciful vanity. For although, to adopt your own phrase, I cease to
style myself your lover, among the number of your friends I am happy to
be reckoned. As such, let me conjure you, by all that is dear and
desirable, both in this life and another, to adhere with undeviating
exactness to the paths of rectitude and innocence, and to improve the
noble talents which Heaven has liberally bestowed upon you in rendering
yourself amiable and, useful to your friends. Thus will you secure your
own, while you promote the happiness of all around you.

I shall ever cherish sentiments of kindness towards you, and with
gratitude remember your condescension in the testimony of regard which
you have given me in your last letter.

I hope soon to hear that your heart and hand are bestowed on some worthy
man, who deserves the happiness you are formed to communicate. Whatever
we may have called errors will, on my part, be forever buried in
oblivion; and for your own peace of mind I entreat you to forget that
any idea of a connection between us ever existed.

I shall always rejoice at the news of your welfare, and my ardent
prayers will daily arise for your temporal and eternal felicity.

J. BOYER.

LETTER XLVIII.

TO MRS. LUCY SUMNER.

HARTFORD.

Health, placid serenity, and every domestic pleasure are the lot of my
friend; while I, who once possessed the means of each, and the capacity
of tasting them, have been tossed upon the waves of folly, till I am
shipwrecked on the shoals of despair.

O my friend, I am undone. I am slighted, rejected, by the man who once
sought my hand, by the man who still retains my heart. And what adds an
insupportable poignancy to the reflection is self-condemnation. From
this inward torture where shall I flee? Where shall I seek that
happiness which I have madly trifled away?

The enclosed letters[A] will show you whence this tumult of soul arises.
But I blame not Mr. Boyer. He has ac