LETTER XVIII
MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.KING'S ARMS, PALL-MALL, THURSDAY, TWO O'CLOCK.
Several billets passed between us before I went out, by theinternuncioship of Dorcas: for which reason mine are superscribed by hermarried name.--She would not open her door to receive them; lest I shouldbe near it, I suppose: so Dorcas was forced to put them under the door(after copying them for thee); and thence to take the answers. Readthem, if thou wilt, at this place.
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TO MRS. LOVELACE
Indeed, my dearest life, you carry this matter too far. What will thepeople below, who suppose us one as to the ceremony, think of so great aniceness? Liberties so innocent! the occasion so accidental!--You willexpose yourself as well as me.--Hitherto they know nothing of what haspassed. And what indeed has passed to occasion all this resentment?--Iam sure you will not, by a breach of your word of honour, give me reasonto conclude that, had I not obeyed you, I could have fared no worse.
Most sincerely do I repent the offence given to your delicacy--But mustI, for so accidental an occurrence, be branded by such shocking names?--Vilest of men, and most detestable of plotters, are hard words!--From thepen of such a lady too.
If you step up another pair of stairs, you will be convinced, that,however detestable I may be to you, I am no plotter in this affair.
I must insist upon seeing you, in order to take your directions upon someof the subjects we talked of yesterday in the evening.
All that is more than necessary is too much. I claim your promisedpardon, and wish to plead it on my knees.
I beg your presence in the dining-room for one quarter of an hour, and Iwill then leave you for the day, I am,
My dearest life,Your ever adoring and truly penitentLOVELACE.
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TO MR. LOVELACE
I will not see you. I cannot see you. I have no directions to give you.Let Providence decide for me as it pleases.
The more I reflect upon your vileness, your ungrateful, your barbarousvileness, the more I am exasperated against you.
You are the last person whose judgment I will take upon what is or is notcarried too far in matters of decency.
'Tis grievous to me to write, or even to think of you at present. Urgeme no more then. Once more, I will not see you. Nor care I, now youhave made me vile to myself, what other people think of me.
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TO MRS. LOVELACE
Again, Madam, I remind you of your promise: and beg leave to say, Iinsist upon the performance of it.
Remember, dearest creature, that the fault of a blameable person cannotwarrant a fault in one more perfect. Overniceness may be underniceness!
I cannot reproach myself with any thing that deserves this highresentment.
I own that the violence of my passion for you might have carried mebeyond fit bounds--but that your commands and adjurations had power overme at such a moment, I humbly presume to say, deserves someconsideration.
You enjoin me not to see you for a week. If I have not your pardonbefore Captain Tomlinson comes to town, what shall I say to him?
I beg once more your presence in the dining-room. By my soul, Madam, Imust see you.
I want to consult you about the license, and other particulars of greatimportance. The people below think us married; and I cannot talk to youupon such subjects with the door between us.
For Heaven's sake, favour me with your presence for a few minutes: and Iwill leave you for the day.
If I am to be forgiven, according to your promise, the earlierforgiveness will be most obliging, and will save great pain to yourself,as well as to
Your truly contrite and afflictedLOVELACE.
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TO MR. LOVELACE
The more you tease me, the worse it will be for you.
Time is wanted to consider whether I ever should think of you at all.
At present, it is my sincere wish, that I may never more see your face.
All that can afford you the least shadow of favour from me, arises fromthe hoped-for reconciliation with my real friends, not my Judasprotector.
I am careless at present of consequences. I hate myself: And who is it Ihave reason to value?--Not the man who could form a plot to disgrace hisown hopes, as well as a poor friendless creature, (made friendless byhimself,) by insults not to be thought of with patience.
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TO MRS. LOVELACE
MADAM,I will go to the Commons, and proceed in every particular as if I had notthe misfortune to be under your displeasure.
I must insist upon it, that however faulty my passion, on so unexpectedan incident, made me appear to a lady of your delicacy, yet my compliancewith your entreaties at such a moment [as it gave you an instance of yourpower over me, which few men could have shown] ought, duly considered, toentitle me to the effects of that solemn promise which was the conditionof my obedience.
I hope to find you in a kinder, and, I will say, juster disposition on myreturn. Whether I get the license, or not, let me beg of you to make thesoon you have been pleased to bid me hope for, to-morrow morning. Thiswill reconcile every thing, and make me the happiest of men.
The settlements are ready to sign, or will be by night.
For Heaven's sake, Madam, do not carry your resentment into a displeasureso disproportionate to the offence. For that would be to expose us bothto the people below; and, what is of infinite more consequence to us, toCaptain Tomlinson. Let us be able, I beseech you, Madam, to assure him,on his next visit, that we are one.
As I have no hope to be permitted to dine with you, I shall not returntill evening: and then, I presume to say, I expect [your promiseauthorizes me to use the word] to find you disposed to bless, by yourconsent for to-morrow,
Your adoringLOVELACE.
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What pleasure did I propose to take, how to enjoy the sweet confusion inwhich I expected to find her, while all was so recent!--But she must, sheshall, see me on my return. It were better to herself, as well as forme, that she had not made so much ado about nothing. I must keep my angeralive, lest it sink into compassion. Love and compassion, be theprovocation ever so great, are hard to be separated: while anger convertswhat would be pity, without it, into resentment. Nothing can be lovelyin a man's eye with which he is thoroughly displeased.
I ordered Dorcas, on putting the last billet under the door, and findingit taken up, to tell her, that I hoped an answer to it before I went out.
Her reply was verbal, tell him that I care not whither he goes, nor whathe does.--And this, re-urged by Dorcas, was all she had to say to me.
I looked through the key-hole at my going by her door, and saw her on herknees, at her bed's feet, her head and bosom on the bed, her armsextended; [sweet creature how I adore her!] and in an agony she seemed tobe, sobbing, as I heard at that distance, as if her heart would break.--By my soul, Jack, I am a pityful fellow! Recollection is my enemy!--Divine excellence!--Happy with her for so many days together! Now sounhappy!--And for what?--But she is purity herself. And why, after all,should I thus torment--but I must not trust myself with myself, in thehumour I am in.
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Waiting here for Mowbray and Mallory, by whose aid I am to get thelicense, I took papers out of my pocket, to divert myself; and thy lastpopt officiously the first into my hand. I gave it the honour of are-perusal; and this revived the subject with me, with which I hadresolved not to trust myself.
I remember, that the dear creature, in her torn answer to my proposals,says, condescension is not meanness. She better knows how to make thisout, than any mortal breathing. Condescension indeed implies dignity:and dignity ever was there in her condescension. Yet such a dignity asgave grace to the condescension; for there was no pride, no insult, noapparent superiority, indicated by it.--This, Miss Howe confirms to be apart of her general character.*
* See Vol. IV. Letter XXIII.
I can tell her, how she might behave, to make me her own for ever.
Sheknows she cannot fly me. She knows she must see me sooner or later; thesooner the more gracious.--I would allow her to resent [not because theliberties I took with her require resentment, were she not a CLARISSA;but as it becomes her particular niceness to resent]: but would she showmore love than abhorrence of me in her resentment; would she seem, if itwere but to seem, to believe the fire no device, and all that followedmerely accidental; and descend, upon it, to tender expostulation, andupbraiding for the advantage I would have taken of her surprise; andwould she, at last, be satisfied (as well she may) that it was attendedwith no further consequence; and place some generous confidence in myhonour, [power loves to be trusted, Jack;] I think I would put an end toall her trials, and pay her my vows at the altar.
Yet, to have taken such bold steps, as with Tomlinson and her uncle--tohave made such a progress--O Belford, Belford, how I have puzzled myself,as well as her!--This cursed aversion to wedlock how it has entangledme!--What contradictions has it made me guilty of!
How pleasing to myself, to look back upon the happy days I gave her;though mine would doubtless have been unmixedly so, could I havedetermined to lay aside my contrivances, and to be as sincere all thetime, as she deserved that I should be!
If I find this humour hold but till to-morrow morning, [and it has nowlasted two full hours, and I seem, methinks, to have pleasure inencouraging it,] I will make thee a visit, I think, or get thee to cometo me; and then will I--consult thee upon it.
But she will not trust me. She will not confide in my honour. Doubt, inthis case, is defiance. She loves me not well enough to forgive megenerously. She is so greatly above me! How can I forgive her for amerit so mortifying to my pride! She thinks, she knows, she has told me,that she is above me. These words are still in my ears, 'Be gone,Lovelace!--My soul is above thee, man!--Thou hast a proud heart tocontend with!--My soul is above thee, man!'* Miss Howe thinks her aboveme too. Thou, even thou, my friend, my intimate friend and companion,art of the same opinion. Then I fear her as much as I love her.--Howshall my pride bear these reflections? My wife (as I have often said,because it so often recurs to my thoughts) to be so much my superior!--Myself to be considered but as the second person in my own family!--Canstthou teach me to bear such a reflection as this!--To tell me of myacquisition in her, and that she, with all her excellencies, will be minein full property, is a mistake--it cannot be so--for shall I not beher's; and not my own?--Will not every act of her duty (as I cannotdeserve it) be a condescension, and a triumph over me?--And must I oweit merely to her goodness that she does not despise me?--To have hercondescend to bear with my follies!--To wound me with an eye of pity!--Adaughter of the Harlowes thus to excel the last, and as I have heretoforesaid, not the meanest of the Lovelaces**--forbid it!
* See Vol. IV. Letter XLVII.** See Vol. III. Letter XVIII.
Yet forbid it not--for do I not now--do I not every moment--see herbefore me all over charms, and elegance and purity, as in the strugglesof the past midnight? And in these struggles, heart, voice, eyes, hand,and sentiments, so greatly, so gloriously consistent with the charactershe has sustained from her cradle to the present hour?
But what advantages do I give thee?
Yet have I not always done her justice? Why then thy teasingimpertinence?
However, I forgive thee, Jack--since (so much generous love am I capableof!) I had rather all the world should condemn me, than that hercharacter should suffer the least impeachment.
The dear creature herself once told me, that there was a strange mixturein my mind.* I have been called Devil and Beelzebub, between the twoproud beauties: I must indeed be a Beelzebub, if I had not some tolerablequalities.
* See Vol. III. Letter XXXIII.
But as Miss Howe says, the suffering time of this excellent creature isher shining time.* Hitherto she has done nothing but shine.
* See Vol. IV. Letter XXIII.
She called me villain, Belford, within these few hours. And what is thesum of the present argument; but that had I not been a villain in hersense of the word, she had not been such an angel?
O Jack, Jack! This midnight attempt has made me mad; has utterly undoneme! How can the dear creature say, I have made her vile in her own eyes,when her behaviour under such a surprise, and her resentment under suchcircumstances, have so greatly exalted her in mine?
Whence, however, this strange rhapsody?--Is it owing to my being here?That I am not at Sinclair's? But if there be infection in that house,how has my beloved escaped it?
But no more in this strain!--I will see what her behaviour will be on myreturn--yet already do I begin to apprehend some little sinkings, somelittle retrogradations: for I have just now a doubt arisen, whether, forher own sake, I should wish her to forgive me lightly, or withdifficulty?
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I am in a way to come at the wished-for license.
I have now given every thing between my beloved and me a fullconsideration; and my puzzle is over. What has brought me to a speedierdetermination is, that I think I have found out what she means by theweek's distance at which she intends to hold me. It is, that she mayhave time to write to Miss Howe, to put in motion that cursed scheme ofher's, and to take measures upon it which shall enable her to abandon andrenounce me for ever. Now, Jack, if I obtain not admission to herpresence on my return; but am refused with haughtiness; if her week beinsisted upon (such prospects before her); I shall be confirmed in myconjecture; and it will be plain to me, that weak at best was that love,which could give place to punctilio, at a time when that all-reconcilingceremony, as she must think, waits her command:--then will I recollectall her perversenesses; then will I re-peruse Miss Howe's letters, andthe transcripts from others of them; give way to my aversion to the lifeof shackles: and then shall she be mine in my own way.
But, after all, I am in hopes that she will have better considered ofevery thing by the evening; that her threat of a week's distance wasthrown out in the heat of passion; and that she will allow, that I haveas much cause to quarrel with her for breach of her word, as she has withme for breach of the peace.
These lines of Rowe have got into my head; and I shall repeat them verydevoutly all the way the chairman shall poppet me towards her by-and-by.
Teach me, some power, the happy art of speech, To dress my purpose up in gracious words; Such as may softly steal upon her soul, And never waken the tempestuous passions.