LETTER XXVI
MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.[IN ANSWER TO LETTER XXIII. OF THIS VOLUME.]THURDAY, JULY 20.
I read that part of your conclusion to poor Belton, where you inquireafter him, and mention how merrily you and the reset pass your time atM. Hall. He fetched a deep sigh: You are all very happy! were his words.--I am sorry they were his words; for, poor fellow, he is going veryfast. Change of air, he hopes, will mend him, joined to the cheerfulcompany I have left him in. But nothing, I dare say, will.
A consuming malady, and a consuming mistress, to an indulgent keeper, aredreadful things to struggle with both together: violence must be used toget rid of the latter; and yet he has not spirit enough left him to exerthimself. His house is Thomasine's house; not his. He has not beenwithin his doors for a fortnight past. Vagabonding about from inn toinn; entering each for a bait only; and staying two or three days withoutpower to remove; and hardly knowing which to go to next. His malady iswithin him; and he cannot run away from it.
Her boys (once he thought them his) are sturdy enough to shoulder him inhis own house as they pass by him. Siding with the mother, they in amanner expel him; and, in his absence, riot away on the remnant of hisbroken fortunes. As to their mother, (who was once so tender, sosubmissive, so studious to oblige, that we all pronounced him happy, andhis course of life the eligible,) she is now so termagant, so insolent,that he cannot contend with her, without doing infinite prejudice to hishealth. A broken-spirited defensive, hardly a defensive, therefore,reduced to: and this to a heart, for so many years waging offensive war,(not valuing whom the opponent,) what a reduction! now comparing himselfto the superannuated lion in the fable, kicked in the jaws, and laidsprawling, by the spurning heel of an ignoble ass!
I have undertaken his cause. He has given me leave, yet not withoutreluctance, to put him into possession of his own house; and to place init for him his unhappy sister, whom he has hitherto slighted, becauseunhappy. It is hard, he told me, (and wept, poor fellow, when he saidit,) that he cannot be permitted to die quietly in his own house!--Thefruits of blessed keeping these!----
Though but lately apprized of her infidelity, it now comes out to havebeen of so long continuance, that he has no room to believe the boys tobe his: yet how fond did he use to be of them!
To what, Lovelace, shall we attribute the tenderness which a reputedfather frequently shows to the children of another man?--What is that, Ipray thee, which we call nature, and natural affection? And what has manto boast of as to sagacity and penetration, when he is as easily broughtto cover and rear, and even to love, and often to prefer, the product ofanother's guilt with his wife or mistress, as a hen or a goose the eggs,and even young, of others of their kind?
Nay, let me ask, if instinct, as it is called, in the animal creation,does not enable them to distinguish their own, much more easily than we,with our boasted reason and sagacity, in this nice particular, can do?
If some men, who have wives but of doubtful virtue, considered thismatter duly, I believe their inordinate ardour after gain would be a gooddeal cooled, when they could not be certain (though their mates could)for whose children they were elbowing, bustling, griping, and perhapscheating, those with whom they have concerns, whether friends,neighbours, or more certain next-of-kin, by the mother's side however.
But I will not push this notion so far as it might be carried; because,if propagated, it might be of unsocial or unnatural consequence; sincewomen of virtue would perhaps be more liable to suffer by the mistrustsand caprices or bad-hearted and foolish-headed husbands, than those whocan screen themselves from detection by arts and hypocrisy, to which awoman of virtue cannot have recourse. And yet, were this notion duly andgenerally considered, it might be attended with no bad effects; as goodeducation, good inclinations, and established virtue, would be theprincipally-sought-after qualities; and not money, when a man (notbiased by mere personal attractions) was looking round him for a partnerin his fortunes, and for a mother of his future children, which are to bethe heirs of his possessions, and to enjoy the fruits of his industry.
But to return to poor Belton.
If I have occasion for your assistance, and that of our compeers, inre-instating the poor fellow, I will give you notice. Mean time, I havejust now been told that Thomasine declares she will not stir; for, itseems, she suspects that measures will be fallen upon to make her quit.She is Mrs. Belton, she says, and will prove her marriage.
If she would give herself these airs in his life-time, what would sheattempt to do after his death?
Her boy threatens any body who shall presume to insult their mother.Their father (as they call poor Belton) they speak of as an unnaturalone. And their probably true father is for ever there, hostilely there,passing for her cousin, as usual: now her protecting cousin.
Hardly ever, I dare say, was there a keeper that did not makekeeperess; who lavished away on her kept-fellow what she obtained fromthe extravagant folly of him who kept her.
I will do without you, if I can. The case will be only, as I conceive,that like of the ancient Sarmatians, their wives then in possession oftheir slaves. So that they had to contend not only with those wives,conscious of their infidelity, and with their slaves, but with thechildren of those slaves, grown up to manhood, resolute to defend theirmothers and their long-manumitted fathers. But the noble Sarmatians,scorning to attack their slaves with equal weapons, only providedthemselves with the same sort of whips with which they used formerly tochastise them. And attacking them with them, the miscreants fled beforethem.--In memory of which, to this day, the device on the coin inNovogrod, in Russia, a city of the antient Sarmatia, is a man onhorseback, with a whip in his hand.
The poor fellow takes it ill, that you did not press him more than youdid to be of your party at M. Hall. It is owing to Mowbray, he is sure,that he had so very slight an invitation from one whose invitations usedto be so warm.
Mowbray's speech to him, he says, he never will forgive: 'Why, Tom,' saidthe brutal fellow, with a curse, 'thou droopest like a pip orroup-cloaking chicken. Thou shouldst grow perter, or submit to asolitary quarantine, if thou wouldst not infect the whole brood.'
For my own part, only that this poor fellow is in distress, as well inhis affairs as in his mind, or I should be sick of you all. Such is therelish I have of the conversation, and such my admiration of thedeportment and sentiments of this divine lady, that I would forego amonth, even of thy company, to be admitted into her's but for one hour:and I am highly in conceit with myself, greatly as I used to value thine,for being able, spontaneously as I may say, to make this preference.
It is, after all, a devilish life we have lived. And to consider how itall ends in a very few years--to see to what a state of ill health thispoor fellow is so soon reduced--and then to observe how every one of yerun away from the unhappy being, as rats from a falling house, is finecomfort to help a man to look back upon companions ill-chosen, and a lifemis-spent!
It will be your turns by-and-by, every man of ye, if the justice of yourcountry interpose not.
Thou art the only rake we have herded with, if thou wilt not exceptthyself, who hast preserved entire thy health and thy fortunes.
Mowbray indeed is indebted to a robust constitution that he has not yetsuffered in his health; but his estate is dwindled away year by year.
Three-fourths of Tourville's very considerable fortunes are alreadydissipated; and the remaining fourth will probably soon go after theother three.
Poor Belton! we see how it is with him!--His own felicity is, that hewill hardly live to want.
Thou art too proud, and too prudent, ever to be destitute; and, to dothee justice, hath a spirit to assist such of thy friends as may bereduced; and wilt, if thou shouldest then be living. But I think thoumust, much sooner than thou imaginest, be called to thy account--knockedon the head perhaps by the friends of those whom thou hast injured; forif thou escapest this fate from the Harlowe family, thou wilt go ontempting da
nger and vengeance, till thou meetest with vengeance; andthis, whether thou marriest, or not: for the nuptial life will not, Idoubt, till age join with it, cure thee of that spirit for intrigue whichis continually running away with thee, in spite of thy better sense, andtransitory resolutions.
Well, then, I will suppose thee laid down quietly among thy worthierancestors.
And now let me look forward to the ends of Tourville and Mowbray, [Beltonwill be crumbled into dust before thee, perhaps,] supposing thy earlyexit has saved thee from gallows intervention.
Reduced, probably, by riotous waste to consequential want, behold themrefuged in some obscene hole or garret; obliged to the careless care ofsome dirty old woman, whom nothing but her poverty prevails upon toattend to perform the last offices for men, who have made such shockingravage among the young ones.
Then how miserably will they whine through squeaking organs; their bigvoices turned into puling pity-begging lamentations! their now-offensivepaws, how helpless then!--their now-erect necks then denying support totheir aching heads; those globes of mischief dropping upon their quakingshoulders. Then what wry faces will they make! their hearts, and theirheads, reproaching each other!--distended their parched mouths!--sunktheir unmuscled cheeks!--dropt their under jaws!--each grunting like theswine he had resembled in his life! Oh! what a vile wretch have I been!Oh! that I had my life to come over again!--Confessing to the poor oldwoman, who cannot shrive them! Imaginary ghosts of deflowered virgins,and polluted matrons, flitting before their glassy eyes! And old Satan,to their apprehensions, grinning behind a looking-glass held up beforethem, to frighten them with the horror visible in their own countenances!
For my own part, if I can get some good family to credit me with a sisteror daughter, as I have now an increased fortune, which will enable me topropose handsome settlements, I will desert ye all; marry, and live alife of reason, rather than a life of a brute, for the time to come.