MADAM,
I will go to the Commons, and proceed in every particular as if I had not
the misfortune to be under your displeasure.
I must insist upon it, that however faulty my passion, on so unexpected
an incident, made me appear to a lady of your delicacy, yet my compliance
with your entreaties at such a moment [as it gave you an instance of your
power over me, which few men could have shown] ought, duly considered, to
entitle me to the effects of that solemn promise which was the condition
of my obedience.
I hope to find you in a kinder, and, I will say, juster disposition on my
return. Whether I get the license, or not, let me beg of you to make the
soon you have been pleased to bid me hope for, to-morrow morning. This
will reconcile every thing, and make me the happiest of men.
The settlements are ready to sign, or will be by night.
For Heaven's sake, Madam, do not carry your resentment into a displeasure
so disproportionate to the offence. For that would be to expose us both
to the people below; and, what is of infinite more consequence to us, to
Captain Tomlinson. Let us be able, I beseech you, Madam, to assure him,
on his next visit, that we are one.
As I have no hope to be permitted to dine with you, I shall not return
till evening: and then, I presume to say, I expect [your promise
authorizes me to use the word] to find you disposed to bless, by your
consent for to-morrow,
Your adoring
LOVELACE.
***
What pleasure did I propose to take, how to enjoy the sweet confusion in
which I expected to find her, while all was so recent!--But she must, she
shall, see me on my return. It were better to herself, as well as for
me, that she had not made so much ado about nothing. I must keep my anger
alive, lest it sink into compassion. Love and compassion, be the
provocation ever so great, are hard to be separated: while anger converts
what would be pity, without it, into resentment. Nothing can be lovely
in a man's eye with which he is thoroughly displeased.
I ordered Dorcas, on putting the last billet under the door, and finding
it taken up, to tell her, that I hoped an answer to it before I went out.
Her reply was verbal, tell him that I care not whither he goes, nor what
he does.--And this, re-urged by Dorcas, was all she had to say to me.
I looked through the key-hole at my going by her door, and saw her on her
knees, at her bed's feet, her head and bosom on the bed, her arms
extended; [sweet creature how I adore her!] and in an agony she seemed to
be, sobbing, as I heard at that distance, as if her heart would break.--
By my soul, Jack, I am a pityful fellow! Recollection is my enemy!--
Divine excellence!--Happy with her for so many days together! Now so
unhappy!--And for what?--But she is purity herself. And why, after all,
should I thus torment--but I must not trust myself with myself, in the
humour I am in.
***
Waiting here for Mowbray and Mallory, by whose aid I am to get the
license, I took papers out of my pocket, to divert myself; and thy last
popt officiously the first into my hand. I gave it the honour of a
re-perusal; and this revived the subject with me, with which I had
resolved not to trust myself.
I remember, that the dear creature, in her torn answer to my proposals,
says, condescension is not meanness. She better knows how to make this
out, than any mortal breathing. Condescension indeed implies dignity:
and dignity ever was there in her condescension. Yet such a dignity as
gave grace to the condescension; for there was no pride, no insult, no
apparent superiority, indicated by it.--This, Miss Howe confirms to be a
part of her general character.*
* See Vol. IV. Letter XXIII.
I can tell her, how she might behave, to make me her own for ever. She
knows she cannot fly me. She knows she must see me sooner or later; the
sooner the more gracious.--I would allow her to resent [not because the
liberties I took with her require resentment, were she not a CLARISSA;
but as it becomes her particular niceness to resent]: but would she show
more love than abhorrence of me in her resentment; would she seem, if it
were but to seem, to believe the fire no device, and all that followed
merely accidental; and descend, upon it, to tender expostulation, and
upbraiding for the advantage I would have taken of her surprise; and
would she, at last, be satisfied (as well she may) that it was attended
with no further consequence; and place some generous confidence in my
honour, [power loves to be trusted, Jack;] I think I would put an end to
all her trials, and pay her my vows at the altar.
Yet, to have taken such bold steps, as with Tomlinson and her uncle--to
have made such a progress--O Belford, Belford, how I have puzzled myself,
as well as her!--This cursed aversion to wedlock how it has entangled
me!--What contradictions has it made me guilty of!
How pleasing to myself, to look back upon the happy days I gave her;
though mine would doubtless have been unmixedly so, could I have
determined to lay aside my contrivances, and to be as sincere all the
time, as she deserved that I should be!
If I find this humour hold but till to-morrow morning, [and it has now
lasted two full hours, and I seem, methinks, to have pleasure in
encouraging it,] I will make thee a visit, I think, or get thee to come
to me; and then will I--consult thee upon it.
But she will not trust me. She will not confide in my honour. Doubt, in
this case, is defiance. She loves me not well enough to forgive me
generously. She is so greatly above me! How can I forgive her for a
merit so mortifying to my pride! She thinks, she knows, she has told me,
that she is above me. These words are still in my ears, 'Be gone,
Lovelace!--My soul is above thee, man!--Thou hast a proud heart to
contend with!--My soul is above thee, man!'* Miss Howe thinks her above
me too. Thou, even thou, my friend, my intimate friend and companion,
art of the same opinion. Then I fear her as much as I love her.--How
shall my pride bear these reflections? My wife (as I have often said,
because it so often recurs to my thoughts) to be so much my superior!--
Myself to be considered but as the second person in my own family!--Canst
thou teach me to bear such a reflection as this!--To tell me of my
acquisition in her, and that she, with all her excellencies, will be mine
in full property, is a mistake--it cannot be so--for shall I not be
her's; and not my own?--Will not every act of her duty (as I cannot
deserve it) be a condescension, and a triumph over me?--And must I owe
it merely to her goodness that she does not despise me?--To have her
condescend to bear with my follies!--To wound me with an eye of pity!--A
daughter of the Harlowes thus to excel the last, and as I have heretofore
said, not the meanest of the Lovelaces**--forbid it!
* See Vol. IV. Letter XLVII.
** See Vol. III. Letter XVIII.
Yet forbid it not--for do I not now--do I not every moment--see her
before me all over charms, and elegance and purity, as in the struggles
of the past midnight? And in these struggles, heart, voice, eyes, hand,
and sentiments, so greatly, so gloriously consistent with the character
she has sustained from her cradle to the present hour?
But what advantages do I give thee?
Yet have I not always done her justice? Why then thy teasing
impertinence?
However, I forgive thee, Jack--since (so much generous love am I capable
of!) I had rather all the world should condemn me, than that her
character should suffer the least impeachment.
The dear creature herself once told me, that there was a strange mixture
in my mind.* I have been called Devil and Beelzebub, between the two
proud beauties: I must indeed be a Beelzebub, if I had not some tolerable
qualities.
* See Vol. III. Letter XXXIII.
But as Miss Howe says, the suffering time of this excellent creature is
her shining time.* Hitherto she has done nothing but shine.
* See Vol. IV. Letter XXIII.
She called me villain, Belford, within these few hours. And what is the
sum of the present argument; but that had I not been a villain in her
sense of the word, she had not been such an angel?
O Jack, Jack! This midnight attempt has made me mad; has utterly undone
me! How can the dear creature say, I have made her vile in her own eyes,
when her behaviour under such a surprise, and her resentment under such
circumstances, have so greatly exalted her in mine?
Whence, however, this strange rhapsody?--Is it owing to my being here?
That I am not at Sinclair's? But if there be infection in that house,
how has my beloved escaped it?
But no more in this strain!--I will see what her behaviour will be on my
return--yet already do I begin to apprehend some little sinkings, some
little retrogradations: for I have just now a doubt arisen, whether, for
her own sake, I should wish her to forgive me lightly, or with
difficulty?
***