MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
THURSDAY MORNING, FIVE O'CLOCK, (JUNE 8.)
Now is my reformation secure; for I never shall love any other woman! Oh!
she is all variety! She must ever be new to me! Imagination cannot
form; much less can the pencil paint; nor can the soul of painting,
poetry, describe an angel so exquisitely, so elegantly lovely!--But I
will not by anticipation pacify thy impatience. Although the subject is
too hallowed for profane contemplation, yet shalt thou have the whole
before thee as it passed: and this not from a spirit wantoning in
description upon so rich a subject; but with a design to put a bound to
thy roving thoughts. It will be iniquity, greater than a Lovelace was
ever guilty of, to carry them farther than I shall acknowledge.
Thus then, connecting my last with the present, I lead to it.
Didst thou not, by the conclusion of my former, perceive the
consternation I was in, just as I was about to reperuse thy letter, in
order to prevail upon myself to recede from my purpose of awaking in
terrors my slumbering charmer? And what dost think was the matter?