MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
FROM MY APARTMENTS AT MRS. MOORE'S.
Miss Rawlins at her brothers; Mrs. Moore engaged in household matters;
widow Bevis dressing; I have nothing to do but write. This cursed
Tomlinson not yet arrived!--Nothing to be done without him.
I think he shall complain in pretty high language of the treatment he met
with yesterday. 'What are our affairs to him? He can have no view but
to serve us. Cruel to send back to town, un-audienced, unseen, a man of
his business and importance. He never stirs a-foot, but something of
consequence depends upon his movements. A confounded thing to trifle
thus humoursomely with such a gentleman's moments!--These women think,
that all the business of the world must stand still for their figaries
[a good female word, Jack!] the greatest triflers in the creation, to
fancy themselves the most important beings in it--marry come up! as I
have heard goody Sorlings say to her servants, when she has rated at them
with mingled anger and disdain.'
After all, methinks I want those tostications [thou seest how women, and
women's words, fill my mind] to be over, happily over, that I may sit
down quietly, and reflect upon the dangers I have passed through, and the
troubles I have undergone. I have a reflecting mind, as thou knowest;
but the very word reflecting implies all got over.
What briars and thorns does the wretch rush into (a scratched face and
tattered garments the unavoidable consequence) who will needs be for
striking out a new path through overgrown underwood; quitting that beaten
out for him by those who have travelled the same road before him!
***
A visit from the widow Bevis, in my own apartment. She tells me, that my
spouse had thoughts last night, after I was gone to my lodgings, of
removing from Mrs. Moore's.