Rowson, Susanna (1762-1828)

Charlotte: A Tale of Truth [Charlotte Temple]

London

Printed for William Lane, at the Minerva

1791, 1794

"I would endure it all chearfully, could I but once more see my dear, blessed mother, hear her pronounce my pardon, and bless me before I died; but alas! I shall never see her more; she has blotted the ungrateful Charlotte from her remembrance, and I shall sink to the grave loaded with her's and my father's curse."

"Would I!" said Charlotte, clasping her hands; "would not the poor sailor, tost on a tempestuous ocean, threatened every moment with death, gladly return to the shore he had left to trust to its deceitful calmness? Oh, my dear Madam, I would return, though to do it I were obliged to walk barefoot over a burning desart, and beg a scanty pittance of each traveller to support my existence. I would endure it all chearfully, could I but once more see my dear, blessed mother, hear her pronounce my pardon, and bless me before I died; but alas! I shall never see her more; she has blotted the ungrateful Charlotte from her remembrance, and I shall sink to the grave loaded with her's and my father's curse." (II.xxi, pp. 32-3; p. 82 in Penguin edition)

Writing::Blotting

Reading

Susanna Rowson, Charlotte: A Tale of Truth (London: Minerva Press, 1791). Republished in America: Charlotte: A Tale of Truth (Philadelphia: M. Carey, 1794). <Link to UVA Special Collections> <Link to UVA E-Text Center>

Text from U.Va. edition. Reading in Charlotte Temple and Lucy Temple, ed. Ann Douglas (New York: Penguin, 1991).

05/29/2013