Say! Say! Mr. Hickman!--Who can account for the workings and ways of a
passionate and offended woman? Endless would be the histories I could
give you, within my own knowledge, of the dreadful effects of woman's
passionate resentments, and what that sex will do when disappointed.
There was Miss DORRINGTON, [perhaps you know her not,] who run away with
her father's groom, because he would not let her have a half-pay officer,
with whom (her passions all up) she fell in love at first sight, as he
accidentally passed under her window.
There was MISS SAVAGE; she married her mother's coachman, because her
mother refused her a journey to Wales; in apprehension that miss intended
to league herself with a remote cousin of unequal fortunes, of whom she
was not a little fond when he was a visiting-guest at their house for a
week.
There was the young widow SANDERSON, who believing herself slighted by a
younger brother of a noble family, (Sarah Stout like,) took it into her
head to drown herself.
Miss SALLY ANDERSON, [You have heard of her, no doubt?] being checked by
her uncle for encouraging an address beneath her, in spite, threw herself
into the arms of an ugly dog, a shoe-maker's apprentice, running away
with him in a pair of shoes he had just fitted to her feet, though she
never saw the fellow before, and hated him ever after: and, at last, took
laudanum to make her forget for ever her own folly.
But can there be a stronger instance in point than what the unaccountable
resentments of such a lady as Miss Clarissa Harlowe afford us? Who at
this instant, ill as she is, not only encourages, but, in a manner, makes
court to one of the most odious dogs that ever was seen? I think Miss
Howe should not be told this--and yet she ought too, in order to dissuade
her from such a preposterous rashness.
O fie! O strange! Miss Howe knows nothing of this! To be sure she
won't look upon her, if this be true!
'Tis true, very true, Mr. Hickman! True as I am here to tell you so!--
And he is an ugly fellow too; uglier to look at than me.
Than you, Sir! Why, to be sure, you are one of the handsomest men in
England.
Well, but the wretch she so spitefully prefers to me is a mis-shapen,
meagre varlet; more like a skeleton than a man! Then he dresses--you
never saw a devil so bedizened! Hardly a coat to his back, nor a shoe
to his foot. A bald-pated villain, yet grudges to buy a peruke to his
baldness: for he is as covetous as hell, never satisfied, yet plaguy
rich.
Why, Sir, there is some joke in this, surely. A man of common parts
knows not how to take such gentleman as you. But, Sir, if there be any
truth in the story, what is he? Some Jew or miserly citizen, I suppose,
that may have presumed on the lady's distressful circumstances; and your
lively wit points him out as it pleases.
Why, the rascal has estates in every county in England, and out of
England too.
Some East India governor, I suppose, if there be any thing in it. The
lady once had thoughts of going abroad. But I fancy all this time you
are in jest, Sir. If not, we must surely have heard of him----
Heard of him! Aye, Sir, we have all heard of him--But none of us care to
be intimate with him--except this lady--and that, as I told you, in spite
of me--his name, in short, is DEATH!--DEATH! Sir, stamping, and speaking
loud, and full in his ears; which made him jump half a yard high.
(Thou never beheldest any man so disconcerted. He looked as if the
frightful skeleton was before him, and he had not his accounts ready.
When a little recovered, he fribbled with his waistcoat buttons, as if he
had been telling his beads.)
This, Sir, proceeded I, is her wooer!--Nay, she is so forward a girl,
that she wooes him: but I hope it never will be a match.
He had before behaved, and now looked with more spirit than I expected
from him.
I came, Sir, said he, as a mediator of differences.--It behoves me to
keep my temper. But, Sir, and turned short upon me, as much as I love
peace, and to promote it, I will not be ill-used.
As I had played so much upon him, it would have been wrong to take him at
his more than half-menace: yet I think I owe him a grudge, for his
presuming to address Miss Howe.
You mean no defiance, I presume, Mr. Hickman, any more than I do offence.
On that presumption, I ask your excuse. But this is my way. I mean no
harm. I cannot let sorrow touch my heart. I cannot be grave six minutes
together, for the blood of me. I am a descendant of old Chancellor
Moore, I believe; and should not forbear to cut a joke, were I upon the
scaffold. But you may gather, from what I have said, that I prefer Miss
Harlowe, and that upon the justest grounds, to all the women in the
world: and I wonder that there should be any difficulty to believe, from
what I have signed, and from what I have promised to my relations, and
enabled them to promise for me, that I should be glad to marry that
excellent creature upon her own terms. I acknowledge to you, Mr.
Hickman, that I have basely injured her. If she will honour me with her
hand, I declare that is my intention to make her the best of husbands.--
But, nevertheless, I must say that if she goes on appealing her case, and
exposing us both, as she does, it is impossible to think the knot can be
knit with reputation to either. And although, Mr. Hickman, I have
delivered my apprehensions under so ludicrous a figure, I am afraid that
she will ruin her constitution: and, by seeking Death when she may shun
him, will not be able to avoid him when she would be glad to do so.
This cool and honest speech let down his stiffened muscles into
complacence. He was my very obedient and faithful humble servant several
times over, as I waited on him to his chariot: and I was his almost as
often.
And so exit Hickman.