MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
FRIDAY, JUNE 2.
Notwithstanding my studied-for politeness and complaisance for some days
past; and though I have wanted courage to throw the mask quite aside; yet
I have made the dear creature more than once look about her, by the warm,
though decent expression of my passion. I have brought her to own, that
I am more than indifferent with her: but as to LOVE, which I pressed her
to acknowledge, what need of acknowledgments of that sort, when a woman
consents to marrying?--And once repulsing me with displeasure, the proof
of true love I was vowing for her, was RESPECT, not FREEDOM. And
offering to defend myself, she told me, that all the conception she had
been able to form of a faulty passion, was, that it must demonstrate
itself as mine sought to do.
I endeavoured to justify my passion, by laying over-delicacy at her door.
Over-delicacy, she said, was not my fault, if it were her's. She must
plainly tell me, that I appeared to her incapable of distinguishing what
were the requisites of a pure mind. Perhaps, had the libertine
presumption to imagine, that there was no difference in heart, nor any
but what proceeded from difference of education and custom, between the
pure and impure--and yet custom alone, as she observed, if I did so
think, would make a second nature, as well in good as in bad habits.
***
I have just now been called to account for some innocent liberties which
I thought myself entitled to take before the women; as they suppose us to
be married, and now within view of consummation.
I took the lecture very hardly; and with impatience wished for the happy
day and hour when I might call her all my own, and meet with no check
from a niceness that had no example.
She looked at me with a bashful kind of contempt. I thought it contempt,
and required the reason for it; not being conscious of offence, as I told
her.
This is not the first time, Mr. Lovelace, said she, that I have had cause
to be displeased with you, when you, perhaps, have not thought yourself
exceptionable.--But, Sir, let me tell you, that the married state, in my
eye, is a state of purity, and [I think she told me] not of
licentiousness; so, at least, I understood her.
Marriage-purity, Jack!--Very comical, 'faith--yet, sweet dears, half the
female world ready to run away with a rake, because he is a rake; and for
no other reason; nay, every other reason against their choice of such a
one.
But have not you and I, Belford, seen young wives, who would be thought
modest! and, when maids, were fantastically shy; permit freedoms in
public from their uxorious husbands, which have shown, that both of them
have forgotten what belongs either to prudence or decency? while every
modest eye has sunk under the shameless effrontery, and every modest face
been covered with blushes for those who could not blush.
I once, upon such an occasion, proposed to a circle of a dozen, thus
scandalized, to withdraw; since they must needs see that as well the
lady, as the gentleman, wanted to be in private. This motion had its
effect upon the amorous pair; and I was applauded for the check given to
their licentiousness.
But, upon another occasion of this sort, I acted a little more in
character. For I ventured to make an attempt upon a bride, which I
should not have had the courage to make, had not the unblushing
passiveness with which she received her fond husband's public toyings
(looking round her with triumph rather than with shame, upon every lady
present) incited my curiosity to know if the same complacency might not
be shown to a private friend. 'Tis true, I was in honour obliged to keep
the secret. But I never saw the turtles bill afterwards, but I thought
of number two to the same female; and in my heart thanked the fond
husband for the lesson he had taught his wife.
From what I have said, thou wilt see, that I approve of my beloved's
exception to public loves. That, I hope, is all the charming icicle
means by marriage-purity, but to return.
From the whole of what I have mentioned to have passed between my beloved
and me, thou wilt gather, that I have not been a mere dangler, a Hickman,
in the passed days, though not absolutely active, and a Lovelace.
The dear creature now considers herself as my wife-elect. The unsaddened
heart, no longer prudish, will not now, I hope, give the sable turn to
every address of the man she dislikes not. And yet she must keep up so
much reserve, as will justify past inflexibilities. 'Many and many a
pretty soul would yield, were she not afraid that the man she favoured
would think the worse of her for it.' That is also a part of the rake's
creed. But should she resent ever so strongly, she cannot now break with
me; since, if she does, there will be an end of the family
reconciliation; and that in a way highly discreditable to herself.