LETTER XXI
MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.WEDNESDAY, THREE O'CLOCK.
I will proceed where I left off in my last.
As soon as I had seen Mowbray mounted, I went to attend upon poor Belton;whom I found in dreadful agonies, in which he awoke, after he generallydoes.
The doctor came in presently after, and I was concerned at the scene thatpassed between them.
It opened with the dying man's asking him, with melancholy earnestness,if nothing--if nothing at all could be done for him?
The doctor shook his head, and told him, he doubted not.
I cannot die, said the poor man--I cannot think of dying. I am verydesirous of living a little longer, if I could but be free from thesehorrible pains in my stomach and head. Can you give me nothing to makeme pass one week--but one week, in tolerable ease, that I may die like aman, if I must die!
But, Doctor, I am yet a young man; in the prime of my years--youth is agood subject for a physician to work upon--Can you do nothing--nothing atall for me, Doctor?
Alas! Sir, replied his physician, you have been long in a bad way. Ifear, I fear, nothing in physic can help you!
He was then out of all patience: What, then, is your art, Sir?--I havebeen a passive machine for a whole twelvemonth, to be wrought upon at thepleasure of you people of the faculty.--I verily believe, had I not takensuch doses of nasty stuff, I had been now a well man--But who the plaguewould regard physicians, whose art is to cheat us with hopes while theyhelp to destroy us?--And who, not one of you, know any thing but byguess?
Sir, continued he, fiercely, (and with more strength of voice andcoherence, than he had shown for several hours before,) if you give meover, I give you over.--The only honest and certain part of the art ofhealing is surgery. A good surgeon is worth a thousand of you. I havebeen in surgeons' hands often, and have always found reason to dependupon their skill; but your art, Sir, what is it?--but to daub, daub,daub; load, load, load; plaster, plaster, plaster; till ye utterlydestroy the appetite first, and the constitution afterwards, which youare called in to help. I had a companion once, my dear Belford, thouknewest honest Blomer, as pretty a physician he would have made as anyin England, had he kept himself from excess in wine and women; and healways used to say, there was nothing at all but the pick-pocket paradein the physician's art; and that the best guesser was the best physician.And I used to believe him too--and yet, fond of life, and fearful ofdeath, what do we do, when we are taken ill, but call ye in? And whatdo ye do, when called in, but nurse our distempers, till from pigmies youmake giants of them? and then ye come creeping with solemn faces, when yeare ashamed to prescribe, or when the stomach won't bear its naturalfood, by reason of your poisonous potions,--Alas, I am afraid physic cando no more for him!--Nor need it, when it has brought to the brink of thegrave the poor wretch who placed all his reliance in your cursed slops,and the flattering hopes you gave him.
The doctor was out of countenance; but said, if we could make mortal menimmortal, and would not, all this might be just.
I blamed the poor man; yet excused him to the physician. To die, dearDoctor, when, like my poor friend, we are so desirous of life, is amelancholy thing. We are apt to hope too much, not considering that theseeds of death are sown in us when we begin to live, and grow up, till,like rampant weeds, they choke the tender flower of life; which declinesin us as those weeds flourish. We ought, therefore, to begin early tostudy what our constitutions will bear, in order to root out, bytemperance, the weeds which the soil is most apt to produce; or, atleast, to keep them down as they rise; and not, when the flower or plantis withered at the root, and the weed in its full vigour, expect, thatthe medical art will restore the one, or destroy the other; when thatother, as I hinted, has been rooting itself in the habit from the time ofour birth.
This speech, Bob., thou wilt call a prettiness; but the allegory is just;and thou hast not quite cured me of the metaphorical.
Very true, said the doctor; you have brought a good metaphor toillustrate the thing. I am sorry I can do nothing for the gentleman; andcan only recommend patience, and a better frame of mind.
Well, Sir, said the poor angry man, vexed at the doctor, but more atdeath, you will perhaps recommend the next succession to the physician,when he can do no more; and, I suppose, will send your brother to pray byme for those virtues which you wish me.
It seems the physician's brother is a clergyman in the neighbourhood.
I was greatly concerned to see the gentleman thus treated; and so I toldpoor Belton when he was gone; but he continued impatient, and would notbe denied, he said, the liberty of talking to a man, who had taken somany guineas of him for doing nothing, or worse than nothing, and neverdeclined one, though he know all the time he could do him no good.
It seems the gentleman, though rich, is noted for being greedy afterfees! and poor Belton went on raving at the extravagant fees of Englishphysicians, compared with those of the most eminent foreign ones. But,poor man! he, like the Turks, who judge of a general by his success, (outof patience to think he must die,) would have worshipped the doctor, andnot grudged thee times the sum, could he have given him hopes ofrecovery.
But, nevertheless, I must needs say, that gentlemen of the faculty shouldbe more moderate in their fees, or take more pains to deserve them; for,generally, they only come into a room, feel the sick man's pulse, ask thenurse a few questions, inspect the patient's tongue, and, perhaps, hiswater; then sit down, look plaguy wise, and write. The golden fee findsthe ready hand, and they hurry away, as if the sick man's room wereinfectious. So to the next they troll, and to the next, if men of greatpractice; valuing themselves upon the number of visits they make in amorning, and the little time they make them in. They go to dinner andunload their pockets; and sally out again to refill them. And thus, in alittle time, they raise vast estates; for, as Ratcliffe said, when firsttold of a great loss which befell him, It was only going up and down onehundred pairs of stairs to fetch it up.
Mrs. Sambre (Belton's sister) had several times proposed to him aminister to pray by him, but the poor man could not, he said, bear thethoughts of one; for that he should certainly die in an hour or twoafter; and he was willing to hope still, against all probability, that hemight recover; and was often asking his sister if she had not seen peopleas bad as he was, who, almost to a miracle, when every body gave themover, had got up again?
She, shaking her head, told him she had; but, once saying, that theirdisorders were of an acute kind, and such as had a crisis in them, hecalled her Small-hopes, and Job's comforter; and bid her say nothing, ifshe could not say more to the purpose, and what was fitter for a sick manto hear. And yet, poor fellow, he has no hopes himself, as is plain byhis desponding terrors; one of which he fell into, and a very dreadfulone, soon after the doctor went.
***
WEDNESDAY, NINE O'CLOCK AT NIGHT.
The poor man had been in convulsions, terrible convulsions! for an hourpast. O Lord! Lovelace, death is a shocking thing! by my faith it is!--I wish thou wert present on this occasion. It is not merely the concerna man has for his friend; but, as death is the common lot, we see, in hisagonies, how it will be one day with ourselves. I am all over as if coldwater were poured down my back, or as if I had a strong ague-fit upon me.I was obliged to come away. And I write, hardly knowing what.--I wishthou wert here.
***
Though I left him, because I could stay no longer, I can't be easy bymyself, but must go to him again.
ELEVEN O'CLOCK.
Poor Belton!--Drawing on apace! Yet was he sensible when I went in--toosensible, poor man! He has something upon his mind to reveal, he tellsme, that is the worst action of his life; worse than ever you or I knewof him, he says. It must then be very bad!
He ordered every body out; but was seized with another convulsion-fit,before he could reveal it; and in it he lies struggling between life anddeath--but I'll go in again.
ONE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING.
r /> All now must soon be over with him: Poor, poor fellow! He has given mesome hints of what he wanted to say; but all incoherent, interrupted bydying hiccoughs and convulsions.
Bad enough it must be, Heaven knows, by what I can gather!--Alas!Lovelace, I fear, I fear, he came too soon into his uncle's estate.
If a man were to live always, he might have some temptation to do basethings, in order to procure to himself, as it would then be, everlastingease, plenty, or affluence; but, for the sake of ten, twenty, thirtyyears of poor life to be a villain--Can that be worth while? with aconscience stinging him all the time too! And when he comes to wind upall, such agonizing reflections upon his past guilt! All then appearingas nothing! What he most valued, most disgustful! and not one thing tothink of, as the poor fellow says twenty and twenty times over, but whatis attended with anguish and reproach!--
To hear the poor man wish he had never been born!--To hear him pray to benothing after death! Good God! how shocking!
By his incoherent hints, I am afraid 'tis very bad with him. No pardon,no mercy, he repeats, can lie for him!
I hope I shall make a proper use of this lesson. Laugh at me if thouwilt; but never, never more, will I take the liberties I have taken; butwhenever I am tempted, will think of Belton's dying agonies, and what myown may be.
***
THURSDAY, THREE IN THE MORNING.
He is now at the last gasp--rattles in the throat--has a new convulsionevery minute almost! What horror is he in! His eyes look likebreath-stained glass! They roll ghastly no more; are quite set; his facedistorted, and drawn out, by his sinking jaws, and erected staringeyebrows, with his lengthened furrowed forehead, to double its usuallength, as it seems. It is not, it cannot be the face of Belton, thyBelton, and my Belton, whom we have beheld with so much delight over thesocial bottle, comparing notes, that one day may be brought against us,and make us groan, as they very lately did him--that is to say, while hehad strength to groan; for now his voice is not to be heard; all inward,lost; not so much as speaking by his eyes; yet, strange! how can it be?the bed rocking under him like a cradle.
FOUR O'CLOCK.
Alas: he's gone! that groan, that dreadful groan, Was the last farewell of the parting mind! The struggling soul has bid a long adieu To its late mansion--Fled! Ah! whither fled?
Now is all indeed over!--Poor, poor Belton! by this time thou knowest ifthy crimes were above the size of God's mercies! Now are every one'scares and attendance at an end! now do we, thy friends,--poor Belton!--know the worst of thee, as to this life! Thou art released frominsufferable tortures both of body and mind! may those tortures, and thyrepentance, expiate for thy offences, and mayest thou be happy to alleternity!
We are told, that God desires not the death, the spiritual death of asinner: And 'tis certain, that thou didst deeply repent! I hope,therefore, as thou wert not cut off in the midst of thy sins by the swordof injured friendship, which more than once thou hadst braved, [thedreadfullest of all deaths, next to suicide, because it gives noopportunity for repentance] that this is a merciful earnest that thypenitence is accepted; and that thy long illness, and dreadful agonies inthe last stages of it, were thy only punishment.
I wish indeed, I heartily wish, we could have seen one ray of comfortdarting in upon his benighted mind, before he departed. But all, alas!to the very last gasp, was horror and confusion. And my only fear arisesfrom this, that, till within the four last days of his life, he could notbe brought to think he should die, though in a visible decline formonths; and, in that presumption, was too little inclined to set about aserious preparation for a journey, which he hoped he should not beobliged to take; and when he began to apprehend that he could not put itoff, his impatience, and terror, and apprehension, showed too little ofthat reliance and resignation, which afford the most comfortablereflections to the friends of the dying, as well as to the dyingthemselves.
But we must leave poor Belton to that mercy, of which we have all so muchneed; and, for my own part (do you, Lovelace, and the rest of thefraternity, as ye will) I am resolved, I will endeavour to begin torepent of my follies while my health is sound, my intellects untouched,and while it is in my power to make some atonement, as near torestitution or reparation, as is possible, to those I have wronged ormisled. And do ye outwardly, and from a point of false bravery, make aslight as ye will of my resolution, as ye are none of ye of the class ofabandoned and stupid sots who endeavour to disbelieve the futureexistence of which ye are afraid, I am sure you will justify me in yourhearts, if not by your practices; and one day you will wish you hadjoined with me in the same resolution, and will confess there is moregood sense in it, than now perhaps you will own.
SEVEN O'CLOCK, THURSDAY MORNING.
You are very earnest, by your last letter, (just given me) to hear againfrom me, before you set out for Berks. I will therefore close with a fewwords upon the only subject in your letter which I can at present touchupon: and this is the letter of which you give me a copy from the lady.
Want of rest, and the sad scene I have before my eyes, have rendered mealtogether incapable of accounting for the contents of it in any shape.You are in ecstacies upon it. You have reason to be so, if it be as youthink. Nor would I rob you of your joy: but I must say I am amazed atit.
Surely, Lovelace, this surprising letter cannot be a forgery of thy own,in order to carry on some view, and to impose upon me. Yet, by the styleof it, it cannot though thou art a perfect Proteus too.
I will not, however, add another word, after I have desired the return ofthis, and have told you that I am
Your true friend, and well-wisher,J. BELFORD.