success of

PETER SANFORD.


LETTER XXIX.

TO MISS ELIZA WHARTON.

HARTFORD.

You desire me to write to you, my friend; but if you had not, I should
by no means have refrained. I tremble at the precipice on which you
stand, and must echo and reëcho the seasonable admonition of the
excellent Mrs. Richman, "Beware of the delusions of fancy." You are
strangely infatuated by them! Let not the magic arts of that worthless
Sanford lead you, like an _ignis fatuus_, from the path of rectitude and
virtue.

I do not find, in all your conversations with him, that one word about
marriage drops from his lips. This is mysterious. No, it is
characteristic of the man. Suppose, however, that his views are
honorable; yet what can you expect, what can you promise yourself, from
such a connection? "A reformed rake," you say, "makes the best
husband"--a trite, but a very erroneous maxim, as the fatal experience
of thousands of our sex can testify. In the first place, I believe that
rakes very seldom _do_ reform while their fortunes and constitutions
enable them to pursue their licentious pleasures. But even allowing this
to happen; can a woman of refinement and delicacy enjoy the society of a
man whose mind has been corrupted, whose taste has been vitiated, and