I have just now had a specimen of what the resentment of this dear
creature will be when quite recovered: an affecting one!—For entering
her apartment after Dorcas; and endeavouring to soothe and pacify her
disordered mind; in the midst of my blandishments, she held up to
Heaven, in a speechless agony, the innocent license (which she has in
her own power); as the poor distressed Catalans held up their English
treaty, on an occasion that keeps the worst of my actions in
countenance.
She seemed about to call down vengeance upon me; when, happily the
leaden god, in pity to her trembling Lovelace, waved over her
half-drowned eyes his somniferous wand, and laid asleep the fair
exclaimer, before she could go half through with her intended
imprecation.
Thou wilt guess, by what I have written, that some little art has been
made use of: but it was with a generous design (if thou’lt allow me the
word on such an occasion) in order to lessen the too-quick sense she
was likely to have of what she was to suffer. A contrivance I never had
occasion for before, and had not thought of now, if Mrs. Sinclair had
not proposed it to me: to whom I left the management of it: and I have
done nothing but curse her ever since, lest the quantity should have
for ever dampened her charming intellects.
Hence my concern—for I think the poor lady ought not to have been so
treated. Poor lady, did I say?—What have I to do with thy creeping
style?—But have not I the worst of it; since her insensibility has made
me but a thief to my own joys?
I did not intend to tell thee of this little innocent trick; for such I
designed it to be; but that I hate disingenuousness: to thee,
especially: and as I cannot help writing in a more serious vein than
usual, thou wouldst perhaps, had I not hinted the true cause, have
imagined that I was sorry for the fact itself: and this would have
given thee a good deal of trouble in scribbling dull persuasives to
repair by matrimony; and me in reading thy cruel nonsense. Besides, one
day or other, thou mightest, had I not confessed it, have heard of it
in an aggravated manner; and I know thou hast such an high opinion of
this lady’s virtue, that thou wouldst be disappointed, if thou hadst
reason to think that she was subdued by her own consent, or any the
least yielding in her will. And so is she beholden to me in some
measure, that, at the expense of my honour, she may so justly form a
plea, which will entirely salve her’s.
And now is the whole secret out.
Thou wilt say I am a horrid fellow!—As the lady does, that I am the
unchained Beelzebub, and a plotting villain: and as this is what you
both said beforehand, and nothing worse can be said, I desire, if thou
wouldst not have me quite serious with thee, and that I should think
thou meanest more by thy tilting hint than I am willing to believe thou
dost, that thou wilt forbear thy invectives: For is not the thing
done?—Can it be helped?—And must I not now try to make the best of
it?—And the rather do I enjoin to make thee this, and inviolable
secrecy; because I begin to think that my punishment will be greater
than the fault, were it to be only from my own reflection.