MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
[IN ANSWER TO LETTERS XXIX. XXXII. OF THIS VOLUME.]
EDGWARE, MONDAY, JULY 24.
What pains thou takest to persuade thyself, that the lady's ill health
is owing to the vile arrest, and to the implacableness of her friends.
Both primarily (if they were) to be laid at thy door. What poor excuses
will good hearts make for the evils they are put upon by bad hearts!--But
'tis no wonder that he who can sit down premeditatedly to do a bad
action, will content himself with a bad excuse: and yet what fools must
he suppose the rest of the world to be, if he imagines them as easy to be
imposed upon as he can impose upon himself?
In vain dost thou impute to pride or wilfulness the necessity to which
thou hast reduced this lady of parting with her clothes; For can she do
otherwise, and be the noble-minded creature she is?
Her implacable friends have refused her the current cash she left behind
her; and wished, as her sister wrote to her, to see her reduced to want:
probably therefore they will not be sorry that she is reduced to such
straights; and will take it for a justification from Heaven of their
wicked hard heartedness. Thou canst not suppose she would take supplies
from thee: to take them from me would, in her opinion, be taking them
from thee. Miss Howe's mother is an avaricious woman; and, perhaps, the
daughter can do nothing of that sort unknown to her; and, if she could,
is too noble a girl to deny it, if charged. And then Miss Harlowe is
firmly of opinion, that she shall never want nor wear the thing she
disposes of.
Having heard nothing from town that obliges me to go thither, I shall
gratify poor Belton with my company till to-morrow, or perhaps till
Wednesday. For the unhappy man is more and more loth to part with me.
I shall soon set out for Epsom, to endeavour to serve him there, and
re-instate him in his own house. Poor fellow! he is most horribly low
spirited; mopes about; and nothing diverts him. I pity him at my heart;
but can do him no good.--What consolation can I give him, either from his
past life, or from his future prospects?
Our friendships and intimacies, Lovelace, are only calculated for strong
life and health. When sickness comes, we look round us, and upon one
another, like frighted birds, at the sight of a kite ready to souse upon
them. Then, with all our bravery, what miserable wretches are we!
Thou tellest me that thou seest reformation is coming swiftly upon me. I
hope it is. I see so much difference in the behaviour of this admirable
woman in her illness, and that of poor Belton in his, that it is plain to
me the sinner is the real coward, and the saint the true hero; and,
sooner or later, we shall all find it to be so, if we are not cut off
suddenly.
The lady shut herself up at six o'clock yesterday afternoon; and intends
not to see company till seven or eight this; not even her nurse--imposing
upon herself a severe fast. And why? It is her BIRTH-DAY!--Every
birth-day till this, no doubt, happy!--What must be her reflections!--
What ought to be thine!
What sport dost thou make with my aspirations, and my prostrations, as
thou callest them; and with my dropping of the banknote behind her chair!
I had too much awe of her at the time, to make it with the grace that
would better have become my intention. But the action, if awkward, was
modest. Indeed, the fitter subject for ridicule with thee; who canst no
more taste the beauty and delicacy of modest obligingness than of modest
love. For the same may be said of inviolable respect, that the poet says
of unfeigned affection,
I speak! I know not what!--
Speak ever so: and if I answer you
I know not what, it shows the more of love.
Love is a child that talks in broken language;
Yet then it speaks most plain.
The like may be pleaded in behalf of that modest respect which made the
humble offerer afraid to invade the awful eye, or the revered hand; but
awkwardly to drop its incense behind the altar it should have been laid
upon. But how should that soul, which could treat delicacy itself
brutally, know any thing of this!
But I am still more amazed at thy courage, to think of throwing thyself
in the way of Miss Howe, and Miss Arabella Harlowe!--Thou wilt not dare,
surely, to carry this thought into execution!
As to my dress, and thy dress, I have only to say, that the sum total of
thy observation is this: that my outside is the worst of me; and thine
the best of thee: and what gettest thou by the comparison? Do thou
reform the one, I'll try to mend the other. I challenge thee to begin.
Mrs. Lovick gave me, at my request, the copy of a meditation she showed
me, which was extracted by the lady from the scriptures, while under
arrest at Rowland's, as appears by the date. The lady is not to know
that I have taken a copy.
You and I always admired the noble simplicity, and natural ease and
dignity of style, which are the distinguishing characteristics of these
books, whenever any passages from them, by way of quotation in the works
of other authors, popt upon us. And once I remember you, even you,
observed, that those passages always appeared to you like a rich vein of
golden ore, which runs through baser metals; embellishing the work they
were brought to authenticate.
Try, Lovelace, if thou canst relish a Divine beauty. I think it must
strike transient (if not permanent) remorse into thy heart. Thou
boastest of thy ingenuousness: let this be the test of it; and whether
thou canst be serious on a subject too deep, the occasion of it resulting
from thyself.
MEDITATION
Saturday, July 15.
O that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the
balance together!
For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea: therefore my words
are swallowed up!
For the arrows of the Almighty are within me; the poison whereof drinketh
up my spirit. The terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.
When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise? When will the night be gone?
And I am full of tossings to and fro, unto the dawning of the day.
My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope--
mine eye shall no more see good.
Wherefore is light given to her that is in misery; and life unto the
bitter in soul?
Who longeth for death; but it cometh not; and diggeth for it more than
for hid treasures?
Why is light given to one whose way is hid; and whom God hath hedged in?
For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me!
I was not in safety; neither had I rest; neither was I quiet; yet trouble
came.
But behold God is mighty, and despiseth not any.
He giveth right to the poor--and if they be found in fetters, and holden
in cords of affliction, then he showeth them their works and their
transgressions.
I have a little leisure, and am in a scribbing vein: indulge me,
Lovelace, a few reflections on these sacred books.
We are taught to read the Bible, when children, as a rudiment only; and,
as far as I know, this may be the reason why we think ourselves above it
when at a maturer age. For you know that our parents, as well as we,
wisely rate our proficiency by the books we are advanced to, and not by
our understanding of those we have passed through. But, in my uncle's
illness, I had the curiosity, in some of my dull hours, (lighting upon
one in his closet,) to dip into it: and then I found, wherever I turned,
that there were admirable things in it. I have borrowed one, on
receiving from Mrs. Lovick the above meditation; for I had a mind to
compare the passages contained in it by the book, hardly believing they
could be so exceedingly apposite as I find they are. And one time or
another, it is very likely, that I shall make a resolution to give the
whole Bible a perusal, by way of course, as I may say.
This, meantime, I will venture to repeat, is certain, that the style is
that truly easy, simple, and natural one, which we should admire in each
other authors excessively. Then all the world join in an opinion of the
antiquity, and authenticity too, of the book; and the learned are fond of
strengthening their different arguments by its sanctions. Indeed, I was
so much taken with it at my uncle's, that I was half ashamed that it
appeared so new to me. And yet, I cannot but say, that I have some of
the Old Testament history, as it is called, in my head: but, perhaps, am
more obliged for it to Josephus than to the Bible itself.
Odd enough, with all our pride of learning, that we choose to derive the
little we know from the under currents, perhaps muddy ones too, when the
clear, the pellucid fountain-head, is much nearer at hand, and easier to
be come at--slighted the more, possibly, for that very reason!
But man is a pragmatical, foolish creature; and the more we look into
him, the more we must despise him--Lords of the creation!--Who can
forbear indignant laughter! When we see not one of the individuals of
that creation (his perpetually-eccentric self excepted) but acts within
its own natural and original appointment: is of fancied and
self-dependent excellence, he is obliged not only for the ornaments, but
for the necessaries of life, (that is to say, for food as well as
raiment,) to all the other creatures; strutting with their blood and
spirits in his veins, and with their plumage on his back: for what has he
of his own, but a very mischievous, monkey-like, bad nature! Yet thinks
himself at liberty to kick, and cuff, and elbow out every worthier
creature: and when he has none of the animal creation to hunt down and
abuse, will make use of his power, his strength, or his wealth, to
oppress the less powerful and weaker of his own species!
When you and I meet next, let us enter more largely into this subject:
and, I dare say, we shall take it by turns, in imitation of the two sages
of antiquity, to laugh and to weep at the thoughts of what miserable, yet
conceited beings, men in general, but we libertines in particular, are.
I fell upon a piece at Dorrell's, this very evening, intituled, The
Sacred Classics, written by one Blackwell.
I took it home with me, and had not read a dozen pages, when I was
convinced that I ought to be ashamed of myself to think how greatly I
have admired less noble and less natural beauties in Pagan authors; while
I have known nothing of this all-exciting collection of beauties, the
Bible! By my faith, Lovelace, I shall for the future have a better
opinion of the good sense and taste of half a score of parsons, whom I
have fallen in with in my time, and despised for magnifying, as I thought
they did, the language and the sentiments to be found in it, in
preference to all the ancient poets and philosophers. And this is now a
convincing proof to me, and shames as much an infidel's presumption as
his ignorance, that those who know least are the greatest scoffers. A
pretty pack of would-be wits of us, who censure without knowledge, laugh
without reason, and are most noisy and loud against things we know least
of!