LETTER XLII
MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
But what a pretty scheme of life hast thou drawn out for thyself and thyold widow! By my soul, Jack, I was mightily taken with it. There is butone thing wanting in it; and that will come of course: only to be in thecommission, and one of the quorum. Thou art already provided with aclerk, as good as thou'lt want, in the widow Lovick; for thouunderstandest law, and she conscience: a good Lord Chancellor between ye!--I should take prodigious pleasure to hear thee decide in a bastardcase, upon thy new notions and old remembrances.
But raillery apart. [All gloom at heart, by Jupiter! although the penand the countenance assume airs of levity!] If, after all, thou canst soeasily repent and reform, as thou thinkest thou canst: if thou canst thusshake off thy old sins, and thy old habits: and if thy old master will soreadily dismiss so tried and so faithful a servant, and permit thee thuscalmly to enjoy thy new system; no room for scandal; all temptationceasing: and if at last (thy reformation warranted and approved by time)thou marriest, and livest honest:--why, Belford, I cannot but say, thatif all these IF's come to pass, thou standest a good chance to be a happyman!
All I think, as I told thee in my last, is, that the devil knows his owninterest too well, to let thee off so easily. Thou thyself tallest me,that we cannot repent when we will. And indeed I found it so: for, in mylucid intervals, I made good resolutions: but as health turned its blitheside to me, and opened my prospects of recovery, all my old inclinationsand appetites returned; and this letter, perhaps, will be a thoroughconviction to thee, that I am as wild a fellow as ever, or in the way tobe so.
Thou askest me, very seriously, if, upon the faint sketch thou hastdrawn, thy new scheme be not infinitely preferable to any of those whichwe have so long pursued?--Why, Jack--Let me reflect--Why, Belford--Ican't say--I can't say--but it is. To speak out--It is really, as Biddyin the play says, a good comfortable scheme.
But when thou tallest me, that it was thy misfortune to love me, becausethy value for me made thee a wickeder man than otherwise thou wouldsthave been; I desire thee to revolve this assertion: and I am persuadedthat thou wilt not find thyself in so right a train as thou imaginest.
No false colourings, no glosses, does a true penitent aim at.Debasement, diffidence, mortification, contrition, are all near of a kin,Jack, and inseparable from a repentant spirit. If thou knowest not this,thou art not got three steps (out of threescore) towards repentance andamendment. And let me remind thee, before the grand accuser come to doit, that thou wert ever above being a passive follower in iniquity.Though thou hadst not so good an invention as he to whom thou writest,thou hadst as active an heart for mischief, as ever I met with in man.
Then for improving an hint, thou wert always a true Englishman. I neverstarted a roguery, that did not come out of thy forge in a manner readyanvilled and hammered for execution, when I have sometimes been at a lossto make any thing of it myself.
What indeed made me appear to be more wicked than thou was, that I beinga handsome fellow, and thou an ugly one, when we had started a game, andhunted it down, the poor frighted puss generally threw herself into mypaws, rather than into thine: and then, disappointed, hast thou wiped thyblubber-lips, and marched off to start a new game, calling me a wickedfellow all the while.
In short, Belford, thou wert an excellent starter and setter. The oldwomen were not afraid for their daughters, when they saw such a face asthine. But, when I came, whip was the key turned upon the girls. Andyet all signified nothing; for love, upon occasion, will draw an elephantthrough a key-hole. But for thy HEART, Belford, who ever doubted thewickedness of that?
Nor even in this affair, that sticks most upon me, which my consciencemakes such a handle of against me, art thou so innocent as thou fanciestthyself. Thou wilt stare at this: but it is true; and I will convincethee of it in an instant.
Thou sayest, thou wouldst have saved the lady from the ruin she met with.Thou art a pretty fellow for this: For how wouldst thou have saved her?What methods didst thou take to save her?
Thou knewest my designs all along. Hadst thou a mind to make thyself agood title to the merit to which thou now pretendest to lay claim, thoushouldest, like a true knight-errant, have sought to set the lady freefrom the enchanted castle. Thou shouldst have apprized her of herdanger; have stolen in, when the giant was out of the way; or, hadst thouhad the true spirit of chivalry upon thee, and nothing else would havedone, have killed the giant; and then something wouldst thou have had tobrag of.
'Oh! but the giant was my friend: he reposed a confidence in me: and Ishould have betrayed my friend, and his confidence!' This thou wouldsthave pleaded, no doubt. But try this plea upon thy present principles,and thou wilt see what a caitiff thou wert to let it have weight withthee, upon an occasion where a breach of confidence is more excusablethan to keep the secret. Did not the lady herself once putt his verypoint home upon me? And didst thou not, on that occasion, heavily blamethyself?*
* See Vol. VII. Letter XXI.
Thou canst not pretend, and I know thou wilt not, that thou wert afraidof thy life by taking such a measure: for a braver fellow lives not, nora more fearless, than Jack Belford. I remember several instances, andthou canst not forget them, where thou hast ventured thy bones, thy neck,thy life, against numbers, in a cause of roguery; and hadst thou had aspark of that virtue, which now thou art willing to flatter thyself thouhast, thou wouldst surely have run a risk to save an innocence, and avirtue, that it became every man to protect and espouse. This is thetruth of the case, greatly as it makes against myself. But I hate ahypocrite from my soul.
I believe I should have killed thee at the time, if I could, hadst thoubetrayed me thus. But I am sure now, that I would have thanked thee forit, with all my heart; and thought thee more a father, and a friend, thanmy real father, and my best friend--and it was natural for thee to think,with so exalted a merit as this lady had, that this would have been thecase, when consideration took place of passion; or, rather, when thed----d fondness for intrigue ceased, which never was my pride so much, asit is now, upon reflection, my curse.
Set about defending myself, and I will probe thee still deeper, andconvince thee still more effectually, that thou hast more guilt thanmerit even in this affair. And as to all the others, in which we wereaccustomed to hunt in couples, thou wert always the forwardest whelp, andmore ready, by far, to run away with me, than I with thee. Yet canstthou now compose thy horse-muscles, and cry out, How much more hadstthou, Lovelace, to answer for than I have!--Saying nothing, neither, whenthou sayest this, were it true: for thou wilt not be tried, when the timecomes, by comparison. In short, thou mayest, at this rate, so miserablydeceive thyself, that, notwithstanding all thy self-denial andmortification, when thou closest thy eyes, thou mayst perhaps open themin a place where thou thoughtest least to be.
However, consult thy old woman on this subject. I shall be thought to beout of character, if I go on in this strain. But really, as to a titleto merit in this affair, I do assure thee, Jack, that thou less deservestpraise than a horsepond; and I wish I had the sousing of thee.
***
I am actually now employed in taking leave of my friends in the country.I had once thought of taking Tomlinson, as I called him, with me: but hisdestiny has frustrated that intention.
Next Monday I think to see you in town; and then you, and I, and Mowbray,and Tourville, will laugh off that evening together. They will bothaccompany me (as I expect you will) to Dover, if not cross the water. Imust leave you and them good friends. They take extremely amiss thetreatment you have given them in your last letters. They say, you strikeat their understandings. I laugh at them; and tell them, that thosepeople who have least, are the most apt to be angry when it is calledinto question.
Make up all the papers and narratives you can spare me against the time.The will, particularly, I expect to take with me. Who knows but thatthose things, which will help to secure you in the way you ar
e got into,may convert me?
Thou talkest of a wife, Jack: What thinkest you of our Charlotte? Herfamily and fortune, I doubt, according to thy scheme, are a little toohigh. Will those be an objection? Charlotte is a smart girl. For piety(thy present turn) I cannot say much: yet she is as serious as most ofher sex at her time of life--Would flaunt it a little, I believe, too,like the rest of them, were her reputation under covert.
But it won't do neither, now I think of it:--Thou art so homely, and soawkward a creature! Hast such a boatswain-like air!--People would thinkshe had picked thee up in Wapping, or Rotherhithe; or in going to seesome new ship launched, or to view the docks at Chatham, or Portsmouth.So gaudy and so clumsy! Thy tawdriness won't do with Charlotte!--So sitthee down contented, Belford: although I think, in a whimsical way, asnow, I mentioned Charlotte to thee once before.* Yet would I fain securethy morals too, if matrimony will do it.--Let me see!--Now I have it.----Has not the widow Lovick a daughter, or a niece? It is not every girl offortune and family that will go to prayers with thee once or twice a day.But since thou art for taking a wife to mortify with, what if thoumarriest the widow herself?--She will then have a double concern in thyconversation. You and she may, tete a tete, pass many a comfortablewinter's evening together, comparing experiences, as the good folks callthem.
* See the Postscript to Letter XL. of Vol. VIII.
I am serious, Jack, faith I am. And I would have thee take it into thywise consideration.
R.L.
Mr. Belford returns a very serious answer to the preceding letter; which appears not.
In it, he most heartily wishes that he had withstood Mr. Lovelace, whatever had been the consequence, in designs so elaborately base and ungrateful, and so long and steadily pursued, against a lady whose merit and innocence entitled her to the protection of every man who had the least pretences to the title of a gentleman; and who deserved to be even the public care.
He most severely censures himself for his false notions of honour to his friend, on this head; and recollects what the divine lady, as he calls her, said to him on this very subject, as related by himself in his letter to Lovelace No. XXI. Vol. VII., to which Lovelace also (both instigator and accuser) refers, and to his own regret and shame on the occasion. He distinguishes, however, between an irreparable injury intended to a CLARISSA, and one designed to such of the sex, as contribute by their weakness and indiscretion to their own fall, and thereby entitle themselves to a large share of the guilt which accompanies the crime.
He offers not, he says, to palliate or extenuate the crimes he himself has been guilty of: but laments, for Mr. Lovelace's own sake, that he gives him, with so ludicrous and unconcerned an air, such solemn and useful lessons and warnings. Nevertheless, he resolves to make it his whole endeavour, he tells him, to render them efficacious to himself: and should think himself but too happy, if he shall be enabled to set him such an example as may be a mean to bring about the reformation of a man so dear to him as he has always been, from the first of their acquaintance; and who is capable of thinking so rightly and deeply; though at present to such little purpose, as make his very knowledge add to his condemnation.