Sat. Midnight.
No rest, says a text that I once heard preached upon, to the wicked—and
I cannot close my eyes (yet only wanted to compound for half an hour in
an elbow-chair)—so must scribble on.
I parted with the Captain after another strong debate with him in
relation to what is to be the fate of this lady. As the fellow has an
excellent head, and would have made an eminent figure in any station of
life, had not his early days been tainted with a deep crime, and he
detected in it; and as he had the right side of the argument; I had a
good deal of difficulty with him; and at last brought myself to
promise, that if I could prevail upon her generously to forgive me, and
to reinstate me in her favour, I would make it my whole endeavour to
get off of my contrivances, as happily as I could; (only that Lady
Betty and Charlotte must come;) and then substituting him for her
uncle’s proxy, take shame to myself, and marry.
But if I should, Jack, (with the strongest antipathy to the state that
ever man had,) what a figure shall I make in rakish annals? And can I
have taken all this pains for nothing? Or for a wife only, that,
however excellent, [and any woman, do I think I could make good,
because I could make any woman fear as well as love me,] might have
been obtained without the plague I have been at, and much more
reputably than with it? And hast thou not seen, that this haughty woman
[forgive me that I call her haughty! and a woman! Yet is she not
haughty?] knows not how to forgive with graciousness? Indeed has not at
all forgiven me? But holds my soul in a suspense which has been so
grievous to her own.
At this silent moment, I think, that if I were to pursue my former
scheme, and resolve to try whether I cannot make a greater fault serve
as a sponge to wipe out the less; and then be forgiven for that; I can
justify myself to myself; and that, as the fair invincible would say,
is all in all.
As it is my intention, in all my reflections, to avoid repeating, at
least dwelling upon, what I have before written to thee, though the
state of the case may not have varied; so I would have thee to
re-consider the old reasonings (particularly those contained in my
answer to thy last* expostulatory nonsense); and add the new as they
fall from my pen; and then I shall think myself invincible;—at least,
as arguing rake to rake.
* See Vol. V. Letter XIV.
I take the gaining of this lady to be essential to my happiness: and is
it not natural for all men to aim at obtaining whatever they think will
make them happy, be the object more or less considerable in the eyes of
others?
As to the manner of endeavouring to obtain her, by falsification of
oaths, vows, and the like—do not the poets of two thousand years and
upwards tell us, that Jupiter laughs at the perjuries of lovers? And
let me add, to what I have heretofore mentioned on that head, a
question or two.
Do not the mothers, the aunts, the grandmothers, the governesses of the
pretty innocents, always, from their very cradles to riper years,
preach to them the deceitfulness of men?—That they are not to regard
their oaths, vows, promises?—What a parcel of fibbers would all these
reverend matrons be, if there were not now and then a pretty credulous
rogue taken in for a justification of their preachments, and to serve
as a beacon lighted up for the benefit of the rest?
Do we not then see, that an honest prowling fellow is a necessary evil
on many accounts? Do we not see that it is highly requisite that a
sweet girl should be now-and-then drawn aside by him?—And the more
eminent the girl, in the graces of person, mind, and fortune, is not
the example likely to be the more efficacious?
If these postulata be granted me, who, I pray, can equal my charmer in
all these? Who therefore so fit for an example to the rest of her
sex?—At worst, I am entirely within my worthy friend Mandeville’s
assertion, that private vices are public benefits.
Well, then, if this sweet creature must fall, as it is called, for the
benefit of all the pretty fools of the sex, she must; and there’s an
end of the matter. And what would there have been in it of uncommon or
rare, had I not been so long about it?—And so I dismiss all further
argumentation and debate upon the question: and I impose upon thee,
when thou writest to me, an eternal silence on this head.
Wafer’d on, as an after-written introduction to the paragraphs which
follow, marked with turned commas, [thus, “]:
Lord, Jack, what shall I do now! How one evil brings on another!
Dreadful news to tell thee! While I was meditating a simple robbery,
here have I (in my own defence indeed) been guilty of murder!—A bl—y
murder! So I believe it will prove. At her last gasp!—Poor impertinent
opposer!—Eternally resisting!—Eternally contradicting! There she lies
weltering in her blood! her death’s wound have I given her!—But she was
a thief, an impostor, as well as a tormentor. She had stolen my pen.
While I was sullenly meditating, doubting, as to my future measures,
she stole it; and thus she wrote with it in a hand exactly like my own;
and would have faced me down, that it was really my own hand-writing.
“But let me reflect before it is too late. On the manifold perfections
of this ever-amiable creature let me reflect. The hand yet is only held
up. The blow is not struck. Miss Howe’s next letter may blow thee up.
In policy thou shouldest be now at least honest. Thou canst not live
without her. Thou wouldest rather marry her than lose her absolutely.
Thou mayest undoubtedly prevail upon her, inflexible as she seems to
be, for marriage. But if now she finds thee a villain, thou mayest
never more engage her attention, and she perhaps will refuse and abhor
thee.
“Yet already have I not gone too far? Like a repentant thief, afraid of
his gang, and obliged to go on, in fear of hanging till he comes to be
hanged, I am afraid of the gang of my cursed contrivances.
“As I hope to live, I am sorry, (at the present writing,) that I have
been such a foolish plotter, as to put it, as I fear I have done, out
of my own power to be honest. I hate compulsion in all forms; and
cannot bear, even to be compelled to be the wretch my choice has made
me! So now, Belford, as thou hast said, I am a machine at last, and no
free agent.
“Upon my soul, Jack, it is a very foolish thing for a man of spirit to
have brought himself to such a height of iniquity, that he must
proceed, and cannot help himself, and yet to be next to certain, that
this very victory will undo him.
“Why was such a woman as this thrown into my way, whose very fall will
be her glory, and, perhaps, not only my shame but my destruction?
“What a happiness must that man know, who moves regularly to some
laudable end, and has nothing to reproach himself with in his progress
to do it! When, by honest means, he attains his end, how great and
unmixed must be his enjoyments! What a happy man, in this particular
case, had I been, had it been given me to be only what I wished to
appear to be!”
Thus far had my conscience written with my pen; and see what a recreant
she had made of me!—I seized her by the throat—There!—There, said I,
thou vile impertinent!—take that, and that!—How often have I gave thee
warning!—and now, I hope, thou intruding varletess, have I done thy
business!
Puling and low-voiced, rearing up thy detested head, in vain implorest
thou my mercy, who, in thy day hast showed me so little!—Take that, for
a rising blow!—And now will thy pain, and my pain for thee, soon be
over. Lie there!—Welter on!—Had I not given thee thy death’s wound,
thou wouldest have robbed me of all my joys. Thou couldest not have
mended me, ’tis plain. Thou couldest only have thrown me into despair.
Didst thou not see, that I had gone too far to recede?—Welter on, once
more I bid thee!—Gasp on!—That thy last gasp, surely!—How hard diest
thou!
ADIEU!—Unhappy man! ADIEU!
’Tis kind in thee, however, to bid me, Adieu!
Adieu, Adieu, Adieu, to thee, O thou inflexible, and, till now,
unconquerable bosom intruder!—Adieu to thee for ever!