MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
I have been under such concern for the poor man, whose exit I almost
hourly expect, and at the shocking scenes his illness and his agonies
exhibit, that I have been only able to make memoranda of the melancholy
passages, from which to draw up a more perfect account, for the
instruction of us all, when the writing appetite shall return.
***
It is returned! Indignation has revived it, on receipt of thy letters of
Sunday and yesterday; by which I have reason to reproach thee in very
serious terms, that thou hast not kept thy honour with me: and if thy
breach of it be attended with such effects as I fear it will be, I shall
let thee know more of my mind on this head.
If thou wouldst be thought in earnest in thy wishes to move the poor lady
in thy favour, thy ludicrous behaviour at Smith's, when it comes to be
represented to her, will have a very consistent appearance; will it
not?--I will, indeed, confirm in her opinion, that the grave is more to
be wished-for, by one of her serious and pious turn, than a husband
incapable either of reflection or remorse; just recovered, as thou art,
from a dangerous, at least a sharp turn.
I am extremely concerned for the poor unprotected lady. She was so
excessively low and weak on Saturday, that I could not be admitted to her
speech: and to be driven out of her lodgings, when it was fitter for her
to be in bed, is such a piece of cruelty, as he only could be guilty of
who could act as thou hast done by such an angel.
Canst thou thyself say, on reflection, that it has not the look of a
wicked and hardened sportiveness, in thee, for the sake of a wanton
humour only, (since it can answer no end that thou proposest to thyself,
but the direct contrary,) to hunt from place to place a poor lady, who,
like a harmless deer, that has already a barbed shaft in her breast,
seeks only a refuge from thee in the shades of death.
But I will leave this matter upon thy own conscience, to paint thee such
a scene from my memoranda, as thou perhaps wilt be moved by more
effectually than by any other: because it is such a one as thou thyself
must one day be a principal actor in, and, as I thought, hadst very
lately in apprehension: and is the last scene of one of thy more intimate
friends, who has been for the four past days labouring in the agonies of
death. For, Lovelace, let this truth, this undoubted truth, be engraved
on thy memory, in all thy gaieties, That the life we are so fond of is
hardly life; a mere breathing space only; and that, at the end of its
longest date,
Thou must die, as well as Belton.
Thou knowest, by Tourville, what we had done as to the poor man's worldly
affairs; and that we had got his unhappy sister to come and live with him
(little did we think him so very near to his end): and so I will proceed
to tell thee, that when I arrived at his house on Saturday night, I found
him excessively ill: but just raised, and in his elbow-chair, held up by
his nurse and Mowbray (the roughest and most untouched creature that ever
entered a sick man's chamber); while the maid-servants were trying to
make that bed easier for him which he was to return to; his mind ten
times uneasier than that could be, and the true cause that the down was
no softer to him.
He had so much longed to see me, as I was told by his sister, (whom I
sent for down to inquire how he was,) that they all rejoiced when I
entered: Here, said Mowbray, here, Tommy, is honest Jack Belford!
Where, where? said the poor man.