I did not mention your former letter only because any allusion to that subject must be as painful to me as to you, unless I could with sincerity express a change of opinion on the material point. In respect to the effects
1 By Lady Byron. |
| 221 |
| ASTARTE |
Do not pain me by recurring to obligations. If I could think you owed me any, it would be only for the endurance of trials of which I endeavoured to keep you ignorant—though you were their cause——I was not the less anxious to spare your feelings—to hope and trust for the future even when I could not but have the strongest doubts of the past. Yet I rejected suspicion and threw myself on your generosity. You need not regret the want of other testimonies to the personal kindness & attention by which, notwithstanding the unhappy impression on my mind, you have alleviated my other misery—For this I am still grateful—and shall always express myself so.
You express a desire to see me——If I might think only of myself I would go to you this moment—but I may not sacrifice others—& it is due to the future welfare of my child, perhaps eventually to your own, that I should at present act on principles contrary to my inclinations. From these considerations our personal intercourse must be suspended—though I will never appear to avoid you—In time circumstances, & above all, your own conduct, may lessen or encrease the objections which now appear—and it will indeed be a moment of comfort to me, that you ever have real comfort in meeting me as your friend & sister.
| 222 |
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| LADY BYRON AND MRS. LEIGH (I) |
You will remember that when I made you a promise respecting Georgiana,1 I told you that no future estrangement between us would make any difference in its fulfilment—for I then instinctively felt much of what has since been brought more fully to my conviction—I will now only assure you that Georgiana could never learn from me anything but affection for her Mother, if you would still trust her with me—
