Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
“But let no one reproach her memory.
Her life has paid the forfeit of her folly.
Let that suce.”
I am told that Major Sanford is quite frantic. Sure I am that he has reason to
be. If the mischiefs he has brought upon others return upon his own head, dreadful
indeed must be his portion. His wife has left him, and returned to her parents.
His estate, which has been long mortgaged, is taken from him, and poverty and
disgrace await him. Heaven seldom leaves injured innocence unavenged. Wretch
that he is, he ought forever to be banished from human society! I shall continue
with Mrs. Wharton till the lenient hand of time has assuaged her sorrows, and then
make my promised visit to you. I will bring Eliza’s posthumous papers with me
when I come to Boston, as I have not time to copy them now.
I foresee, my dear Mrs. Sumner, that this disastrous aair will suspend your
enjoyments, as it has mine. But what are our feelings, compared with the pangs
which rend a parent’s heart? This parent I here behold inhumanly stripped of the
best solace of her declining years by the insnaring machinations of a proigate
debauchee. Not only the life, but, what was still dearer, the reputation and virtue?
of the unfortunate Eliza have fallen victims at the shrine of libertinism. Detested
be the epithet. Let it henceforth bear its true signature, and candor itself shall
call it lust and brutality. Execrable is the man, however arrayed in magnicence,
crowned with wealth, or decorated with the external graces and accomplishments
of fashionable life, who shall presume to display them at the expense of virtue
and innocence. Sacred name attended with real blessings—blessings too useful and
important to be tried away. My resentment at the base arts which must have been
employed to complete the seduction of Eliza I cannot suppress. I wish them to be
exposed, and stamped with universal ignominy. Nor do I doubt but you will join
with me in execrating the measures by which we have been robbed of so valuable a
friend, and society of so ornamental a member. I am, &c.,
JULIA GRANBY.
Letter LXXII
TO MR. CHARLES DEIGHTON.
HARTFORD.
Confusion, horror, and despair are the portion of your wretched, unhappy
friend. O Deighton, I am undone. Misery irremediable is my future lot. She is gone;
yes, she is gone forever. The darling of my soul, the centre of all my wishes and
enjoyments, is no more. Cruel fate has snatched her from me, and she is irretrievably
lost. I rave, and then reect; I reect, and then rave. I have no patience to bear this
calamity, nor power to remedy it. Where shall I y from the upbraidings of my
mind, which accuse me as the murderer of my Eliza? I would y to death, and seek
a refuge in the grave; but the forebodings of a retribution to come I cannot away
with. O that I had seen her! that I had once more asked her forgiveness! But even
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