_Coke Clifton to Guy Fairfax_
_Chateau de Villebrun_
Your last, Fairfax, pleased me. You say truly, and I like your remark,
'Such fellows ought not to claim a moment's attention from me. I should
brush them away, like flies from my forehead, when they presume to
tease or settle themselves upon me.' I have taken your advice, and
fly-slapped the wasp that was more willing than able to sting.
I have lately grown dissatisfied with myself; I know not how, or why. I
suspect this youth, in part, has made me so, with his visionary
morality. I hate such sermonizing. Who has a right to control me? Whose
slave am I? I was born to rule, not to be ruled. My appetites are keen,
my desires vast, and I would enjoy. Why else am I here? Delay to me is
insufferable; suspense distracts me; and the possibility that another
should be preferred to myself drives me mad! I too heartily despise the
tame creatures, that crawl upon the earth, to suffer opposition from
them. Who would be braved by bats and beetles, buzzing in his ears?
I never before saw a woman whom any temptation could have induced me to
marry; and now I have found one I am troubled with doubts, infested
with fears, and subjected to the intolerable penance of
procrastination. Impeded in my course; and by what? Why, I am told to
scrutinize myself, and to discover whether I am quite as perfect as it
is necessary I should be! 'Tis unjust! 'Tis unkind! I did not doubt of
her perfections; and both love and pride, equally jealous of their
honour, demand that mine should have been taken for granted.
The time has been when this would have been revenged. But I seem to be
half subdued. My fierce spirit, before so untameable, declines
contending with her. Not but I frequently feel it struggling with
suffocation, kindling, and again ready to burst into a more furious
blaze.
Yet let me do her justice. Mild, gentle, and affectionate, she conquers
my impetuosity with prayers, and soothing, and with kindness
irresistible. Still she conquers.
Then she suffers these animals to torment me. I am angry to think that,
in so short a space, I should have so entirely lost all power over
myself!
But where is the mortal that can look and not love? Were I myself not
an actor in the play, how should I enjoy the perplexity of these French
_amoureux_! There are I know not how many of them; each more busy than
the other. 'Tis laughable to see with what industry they labour to make
love according to her liking; for they find that their own trifling
manner is inefficient, and can never succeed with her. One of them,
that said crazy Provençal Count, is very earnest indeed, in his
endeavours; but she keeps him in due awe. And it is well perhaps for
him that she does, or I would. Still however he is damned troublesome
and impertinent; and I could wish she were more peremptory. Yet it is
unjust to blame her, for the animal is so full of antics, that it is
impossible to be angry.
After all, I am far from satisfied respecting myself and this youth,
whom I condescended to chastise. It was beneath me. It gave him a sort
of right to demand satisfaction: but he affects forbearance, because,
as he pretends, he despises duelling. And I hear he has actually given
proofs of the most undaunted courage. He wrote a short note of only
three or four sentences on the subject, after I had struck him, which
produced a very uncommon effect upon me, and made me half repent, and
accuse myself of haughtiness, rashness, and insult.
But these things torture me. I am out of patience with them. What right
has any pedant, because he thinks proper to vex and entangle his own
brain with doubts, to force his gloomy dogmas upon me? Let those who
love sack-cloth wear it. Must I be made miserable, because an
over-curious booby bewilders himself in inquiry, and galls his
conscience, till, like the wrung withers of a battered post-horse, it
shrinks and shivers at the touch of a fly's foot? What, shall I not
enjoy the free air, the glorious sun, the flowers, the fruits, the
viands, the whole stores of nature? Who shall impede, who shall dare
disturb the banquet? Were it even a dream, the meddling fool that waked
me should dearly repent his rashness. Let speculative blockheads brew
metaphysical nectar, make a hash of axioms, problems, corollaries and
demonstrations, and feed on ideas and fatten. Be theirs the feast of
reason and the flow of soul. But let me banquet with old Homer's jolly
gods and heroes, revel with the Mahometan houris, or gain admission
into the savoury sanctorum of the gormandizing priesthood, snuff the
fumes from their altars, and gorge on the fat of lambs. Let cynic Catos
truss up each his slovenly toga, rail at Heliogabalus, and fast; but
let me receive his card, with--'Sir, your company is requested to dine
and sup.'
I cannot forget this gardener's son. I am sometimes angry that I should
for a single instant trouble myself with a fellow so much beneath me;
and at others equally angry, for not shewing him the respect which he
claims. There are moments in which I have even feared him as a rival;
for when she speaks to him, which she is very ready to do, the usual
mildness and benevolence of her voice and features are evidently
increased. She must, she shall be more circumspect. Indeed I have made
her so within these few days.
Prithee forgive all this. My mind is not at ease; but I know not why I
should infect you with its malady. Write, relate something pleasant;
tell me what has happened to you last, and relieve the dissatisfaction
I feel by your unaffected flow of gaiety. Adieu.