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

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
dictates of your own understanding, and relinquish your post; but while you live,
the obligation to be silent will perpetually attend you.
We seek not the misery or death of any one, but we are swayed by an immutable
calculation. Death is to be abhorred, but the life of the betrayer is productive
of more evil than his death: his death, therefore, we chuse, and our means are
instantaneous and unerring.
I love you. The rst impulse of my love is to dissuade you from seeking to know
more. Your mind will be full of ideas; your hands will be perpetually busy to a
purpose into which no human creature, beyond the verge of your brotherhood,
must pry. Believe me, who have made the experiment, that compared with this
task, the task of inviolable secrecy, all others are easy. To be dumb will not suce;
never to know any remission in your zeal or your watchfulness will not suce.
If the sagacity of others detect your occupations, however strenuously you may
labour for concealment, your doom is ratied, as well as that of the wretch whose
evil destiny led him to pursue you.
Yet if your delity fail not, great will be your recompence. For all your toils
and self-devotion, ample will be the retribution. Hitherto you have been wrapt in
darkness and storm; then will you be exalted to a pure and unrued element. It is
only for a time that temptation will environ you, and your path will be toilsome. In
a few years you will be permitted to withdraw to a land of sages, and the remainder
of your life will glide away in the enjoyments of benecence and wisdom.
Think deeply on what I have said. Investigate your own motives and opinions,
and prepare to submit them to the test of numerous hazards and experiments.
Here my friend passed to a new topic. I was desirous of reverting to this subject,
and obtaining further information concerning it, but he assiduously repelled all my
attempts, and insisted on my bestowing deep and impartial attention on what had
already been disclosed. I was not slow to comply with his directions. My mind
refused to admit any other theme of contemplation than this.
As yet I had no glimpse of the nature of this fraternity. I was permitted to form
conjectures, and previous incidents bestowed but one form upon my thoughts. In
reviewing the sentiments and deportment of Ludloe, my belief continually acquired
new strength. I even recollected hints and ambiguous allusions in his discourse,
which were easily solved, on the supposition of the existence of a new model of
society, in some unsuspected corner of the world.
I did not fully perceive the necessity of secrecy; but this necessity perhaps
would be rendered apparent, when I should come to know the connection that
subsisted between Europe and this imaginary colony. But what was to be done? I
was willing to abide by these conditions. My understanding might not approve of
all the ends proposed by this fraternity, and I had liberty to withdraw from it, or to
refuse to ally myself with them. That the obligation of secrecy should still remain,
was unquestionably reasonable.
It appeared to be the plan of Ludloe rather to damp than to stimulate my zeal.
He discouraged all attempts to renew the subject in conversation. He dwelt upon
Page | 698