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The young Gentleman's Answer
MY DEAR GIRL: Is there any medium between pleasure and pain? Can mourning and mirth be reconciled? Will you, believe, my dear, that whilst I was reading your letter with the greatest pleasure, I was shedding tears for an affectionate parent! Thus Divine Providence thinks proper to mix some gall with our portion in life. It is impossible for me to describe the variety of passions now struggling in my breast. Ten thousand blessings to my charmer on the one hand, and as many tears to a beloved parent on the other. I conceived a notion of two impossibilities-one of which I am obliged to struggle with, the other, thanks to you, is over.
I thought I could not live without my dear and honored mother, nor enjoy one moment's comfort unless I could call you mine; but I am now obliged to submit to the one, whilst I have the pleasing prospect of being in possession of the other. Will my dear sympathise with me, or will she bear with human passions? And although all my hope of temporal happiness is centered in you, yet I doubt not you will excuse my shedding a tear over the remains of a dear parent, whom I am now going to commit to the tomb. My dear creature, were it possible for me to describe the many vir tues of that worthy woman who is now no more, you would draw a veil over the partiality of filial duty. Her last words were these: "My dear child, I am now going to pay that debt imposed on the whole human race, in consequence of the disobedience of our first parents. You know what instructions I have given you from time to time, and let me beg of you to adhere to them so far as they are consistent with the will of God, revealed in his word. May you be happy in the possession of that young lady on whom you have placed your affections; but may both you and she remember, that real happiness is not to be found in this world; and you must consider your life in this world as merely a state of probation. To the Almighty God I commend you."
She was going on, when the thread of life was broken, and she was no more. Such was the last end of my dear mother, whose remains are to be interred this evening; and as soon as I can settle her affairs, with her executors, I will, as it were, fly to meet you. God grant that our happiness in this life may be conducive towards promoting our everlasting felicity hereafter. I am, as before, Yours while life remains.