It is as suitable to my case, as to the lady"s, as thou"lt observe, if thou readest it again.* At the pa.s.sage where it is said, That when a man is chastened for sin, his beauty consumes away, I stept to the gla.s.s: A poor figure, by Jupiter, cried I!--And they all praised and admired me; lifted up their hands and their eyes; and the doctor said, he always thought it impossible, that a man of my sense could be so wild as the world said I was. My Lord chuckled for joy; congratulated me; and, thank my dear Miss Harlowe, I got high reputation among good, bad, and indifferent. In short, I have established myself for ever with all here.
--But, O Belford, even this will not do--I must leave off again.
* See Vol. VII. Letter Lx.x.xI.
A visit from the Montague sisters, led in by the hobbling Peer, to congratulate my amendment and reformation both in one. What a lucky event this illness with this meditation in my pocket; for we were all to pieces before! Thus, when a boy, have I joined with a crowd coming out of church, and have been thought to have been there myself.
I am incensed at the insolence of the young Levite. Thou wilt highly oblige me, if thou"lt find him out, and send me his ears in the next letter.
My beloved mistakes me, if she thinks I proposed her writing to me as an alternative that should dispense with my attendance upon her. That it shall not do, nor did I intend it should, unless she pleased me better in the contents of her letter than she has done. Bid her read again. I gave no such hopes. I would have been with her in spite of you both, by to-morrow, at farthest, had I not been laid by the heels thus, like a helpless miscreant.
But I grow better and better every hour, I say: the doctor says not: but I am sure I know best: and I will soon be in London, depend on"t. But say nothing of this to my dear, cruel, and implacable Miss Harlowe.
A--dieu--u, Ja--aack--What a gaping puppy (yaw--n! yaw--n! yaw--n!)
Thy LOVELACE.
LETTER VIII
MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
MONDAY, AUG. 15.
I am extremely concerned for thy illness. I should be very sorry to lose thee. Yet, if thou diest so soon, I could wish, from my soul, it had been before the beginning of last April: and this as well for thy sake, as for the sake of the most excellent woman in the world: for then thou wouldst not have had the most crying sin of thy life to answer for.
I was told on Sat.u.r.day that thou wert very much out of order; and this made me forbear writing till I heard farther. Harry, on his return from thee, confirmed the bad way thou art in. But I hope Lord M. in his unmerited tenderness for thee, thinks the worst of thee. What can it be, Bob.? A violent fever, they say; but attended with odd and severe symptoms.
I will not trouble thee in the way thou art in, with what pa.s.ses here with Miss Harlowe. I wish thy repentance as swift as thy illness; and as efficacious, if thou diest; for it is else to be feared, that she and you will never meet in one place.
I told her how ill you are. Poor man! said she. Dangerously ill, say you?
Dangerously indeed, Madam!--So Lord M. sends me word!
G.o.d be merciful to him, if he die!--said the admirable creature.--Then, after a pause, Poor wretch!--may he meet with the mercy he has not shown!
I send this by a special messenger: for I am impatient to hear how it goes with thee.--If I have received thy last letter, what melancholy reflections will that last, so full of shocking levity, give to
Thy true friend, JOHN BELFORD.
LETTER IX
MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
TUESDAY, AUG. 15.*
* Text error: should be Aug. 16.
Thank thee, Jack; most heartily I thank thee, for the sober conclusion of thy last!--I have a good mind, for the sake of it, to forgive thy till now absolutely unpardonable extracts.
But dost think I will lose such an angel, such a forgiving angel, as this?--By my soul, I will not!--To pray for mercy for such an ungrateful miscreant!--how she wounds me, how she cuts me to the soul, by her exalted generosity!--But SHE must have mercy upon me first!--then will she teach me a reliance for the sake of which her prayer for me will be answered.
But hasten, hasten to me particulars of her health, of her employments, of her conversation.
I am sick only of love! Oh! that I could have called her mine!--it would then have been worth while to be sick!--to have sent for her down to me from town; and to have had her, with healing in her dove-like wings, flying to my comfort; her duty and her choice to pray for me, and to bid me live for her sake!--O Jack! what an angel have I--
But I have not lost her!--I will not lose her! I am almost well; should be quite well but for these prescribing rascals, who, to do credit to their skill, will make the disease of importance.--And I will make her mine!--and be sick again, to ent.i.tle myself to her dutiful tenderness, and pious as well as personal concern!
G.o.d for ever bless her!--Hasten, hasten particulars of her!--I am sick of love!--such generous goodness!--By all that"s great and good, I will not lose her!--so tell her!--She says, that she could not pity me, if she thought of being mine! This, according to Miss Howe"s transcriptions to Charlotte.--But bid her hate me, and have me: and my behaviour to her shall soon turn that hate to love! for, body and mind, I will be wholly her"s.
LETTER X
MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
THURSDAY, AUG. 17.
I am sincerely rejoiced to hear that thou art already so much amended, as thy servant tells me thou art. Thy letter looks as if thy morals were mending with thy health. This was a letter I could show, as I did, to the lady.
She is very ill: (cursed letters received from her implacable family!) so I could not have much conversation with her, in thy favour, upon it.--But what pa.s.sed will make thee more and more adore her.
She was very attentive to me, as I read it; and, when I had done, Poor man! said she; what a letter is this! He had timely instances that my temper was not ungenerous, if generosity could have obliged him! But his remorse, and that for his own sake, is all the punishment I wish him.-- Yet I must be more reserved, if you write to him every thing I say!
I extolled her unbounded goodness--how could I help it, though to her face!
No goodness in it! she said--it was a frame of mind she had endeavoured after for her own sake. She suffered too much in want of mercy, not to wish it to a penitent heart. He seems to be penitent, said she; and it is not for me to judge beyond appearances.--If he be not, he deceives himself more than any body else.
She was so ill that this was all that pa.s.sed on the occasion.
What a fine subject for tragedy, would the injuries of this lady, and her behaviour under them, both with regard to her implacable friends, and to her persecutor, make! With a grand objection as to the moral, nevertheless;* for here virtue is punished! Except indeed we look forward to the rewards of HEREAFTER, which, morally, she must be sure of, or who can? Yet, after all, I know not, so sad a fellow art thou, and so vile an husband mightest thou have made, whether her virtue is not rewarded in missing thee: for things the most grievous to human nature, when they happen, as this charming creature once observed, are often the happiest for us in the event.
* Mr. Belford"s objections, That virtue ought not to suffer in a tragedy, is not well considered: Monimia in the Orphean, Belvidera in Venice Preserved, Athenais in Theodosius, Cordelia in Shakespeare"s King Lear, Desdemona in Oth.e.l.lo, Hamlet, (to name no more,) are instances that a tragedy could hardly be justly called a tragedy, if virtue did not temporarily suffer, and vice for a while triumph. But he recovers himself in the same paragraph; and leads us to look up to the FUTURE for the reward of virtue, and for the punishment of guilt: and observes not amiss, when he says, He knows not but that the virtue of such a woman as Clarissa is rewarded in missing such a man as Lovelace.
I have frequently thought, in my attendance on this lady, that if Belton"s admired author, Nic. Rowe, had had such a character before him, he would have drawn another sort of penitent than he has done, or given his play, which he calls The Fair Penitent, a fitter t.i.tle. Miss Harlowe is a penitent indeed! I think, if I am not guilty of a contradiction in terms; a penitent without a fault; her parents" conduct towards her from the first considered.
The whole story of the other is a pack of d----d stuff. Lothario, "tis true, seems such another wicked ungenerous varlet as thou knowest who: the author knew how to draw a rake; but not to paint a penitent. Calista is a desiring luscious wench, and her penitence is nothing else but rage, insolence, and scorn. Her pa.s.sions are all storm and tumult; nothing of the finer pa.s.sions of the s.e.x, which, if naturally drawn, will distinguish themselves from the masculine pa.s.sions, by a softness that will even shine through rage and despair. Her character is made up of deceit and disguise. She has no virtue; is all pride; and her devil is as much within her, as without her.