_Coke Clifton to Guy Fairfax_
_Paris, Hotel de l'Université_
Laugh at me if you will, Fairfax. Hoot! Hiss me off the stage! I am no
longer worthy of the confraternity of honest, bold, free and successful
fellows. I am dwindling into a whining, submissive, crouching, very
humble, yes if you please, no thank you Madam, dangler! I have been to
school! Have had my task set me! Must learn my lesson by rote, or there
is a rod in pickle for me! Yes! I! That identical Clifton; that bold,
gay, spirited fellow, who has so often vaunted of and been admired for
his daring! You may meet me with my satchel at my back; not with a
shining, but a whindling, lackadaisy, green-sickness face; blubbering a
month's sorrow, after having been flogged by my master, beaten by my
chum, and dropped my plum cake in the kennel.
'Tis very true, and I cut a damned ridiculous figure! But I'll remember
it. The time will come, or say my name is not Clifton.
Yet what am I to do? I am in for it, flounder how I will. Yes, yes! She
has hooked me! She dangles me at the end of her line, up the stream and
down the stream, fair water and foul, at her good pleasure! So be it.
But I will not forget.
Then she has such a way of affronting, that curse me if she does not
look as if she were doing me a favour: nay and, while she is present, I
myself actually think she is; and, if vexation did not come to my
relief, I believe I should so continue to think. She is the most
extraordinary of all heaven's creatures: and, in despite of my railing,
I cannot help declaring a most heavenly creature she is! Every body
declares the same. I wish you could but see her; for a single moment,
Fairfax; and, having gazed, could you but listen!--Her very soul is
music. Form, features, voice, all are harmony. Then were you to hear
her sing, and play--
But why the devil does she treat me thus? It is something to which I am
unaccustomed, and it does not sit easily upon me. If I tamely submit to
it may I--! I lie, in my teeth! Submit I must, bounce how I will. I
have no remedy--
She gives me the preference, 'tis true. But what sort of a preference?
Why a cold, scrutinizing, very considerative, all wisdom and no
passion preference. I do not think there is, upon the face of the whole
earth, so nauseous a thing as an over dose of wisdom; mixed up,
according to the modern practice, with a quantum sufficit of virture,
and a large double handful of the good of the whole. Yet this is the
very dose she prescribes for me! Ay, and I must be obliged to swallow
it too, let me make what wry faces I please, or my very prudent lady is
not so deeply in love but she can recede! And shall I not note down
this in my tablets?--
I was sufficiently piqued at the first delay. Why delay, when I offer?
Would you have thought, Fairfax, I should have been so very ready with
a tender of this my pleasant person, and my dear freedom? And could
you moreover have thought it would have been so haughtily
rejected?--No--Curse it! Let me do her justice, too. It is not
haughtily. She puts as many smiles, and as much sweetness, and
plausibility, into her refusal as heart could desire. But refusal it
is, nevertheless.
I must be further just to her: I must own that I have acted like a
lunatic--I am mad at the recollection!--
I told you of the young fellow--Frank Henley--Whom I talked of
chastising. Curse on my petulance! He has doubly chastised me since! He
has had his full revenge! And in such a generous, noble manner--I am
ashamed of myself--He has saved my life, and damn me if I do not feel
as if I could never forgive him. There was an end of me and my
passions. What business had he to interfere?--He did it too in such an
extraordinary style! He appears to have risked more, laboured more,
performed more for me than man almost ever did for his dearest and
sworn friend.
Mine was an act of such ridiculous phrensy that I am half ashamed
to tell what it was. I jumped headlong down a declivity, because I
knew I was a good swimmer, into a lake; but, like a blockhead, never
perceived that I should get stunned by the shelving of the rock, and
consequently drowned. And for what, truly? Why to prove to a vapouring,
crack-brained French Count, that he was a coward; because perhaps he
had not learned to swim! When I look back I have absolutely no patience
with myself!--
And then this generous Frank Henley!--After a still more seemingly
desperate leap than mine, and bringing me out of the water, dead as a
door nail, two hours did he incessantly labour to restore me to life!
I, who a few hours before had struck him! And here do I live to relate
all this!
I think I could have forgiven him any thing sooner than this triumph
over me. Yet he claims and forces my admiration. I must own he is a
dauntless fellow--Yes, he has a heart--! Damn him! I could kiss him one
minute and kill him the next!
He has been the hero of the women ever since. But they are safe enough,
for him. He has principles! He is a man of virtue, forsooth! He is not
the naughty cat that steals the cream! Let him be virtuous. Let him
lave in his own imaginary waters of purity; but do not let him offend
others, every moment, by jumping out and calling--'Here! Look at me!
How white and spotless I am!'
As I tell you, the women are bewitched to him; are all in love with
him! My sister, Louisa, does not scruple to tell him so, in her letter!
But she is one of these high-flyers. Nor can I for the soul of me
persuade myself that, family pride excepted, she--ay, she herself, my
she, would not prefer him to me. But these gentry are all so
intolerably prudent that, talk to them of passions, and they answer
they must not have any. Oh, no! They are above such mundane weakness!
As for him, he sits in as much stern state as the Old Red Lion of
Brentford. Yes, he is my Lord Chief Justice Nevergrin! He cannot
qualify, he! He is prime tinker to Madam Virtue, and carries no
softening epithets in his budget. Folly is folly, and vice vice in his
Good Friday vocabulary--Titles too are gilt gingerbread, dutch dolls,
punch's puppet show. A duke or a scavenger with him are exactly the
same--Saving and excepting the aforesaid exceptions, of wisdom, virtue,
and the good of the whole!
Did you never observe, Fairfax, how these fellows of obscure birth
labour to pull down rank, and reduce all to their own level?
Not but it is cursed provoking to be obliged to own that a title is no
sufficient passport for so much as common sense. I sincerely think
there is not so foolish a fellow in the three kingdoms, as the noble
blockhead to whom I have the honour to be related, Lord Evelyn: and,
while I have tickled my fancy with the recollection of my own high
descent, curse me if I have not blushed to acknowledge him, who is the
head and representative of the race, as my kinsman! I own however he
has been of some service to me in the present affair; for by his medium
I have been introduced to the uncle of my deity, Lord Fitz-Allen, who
has considerable influence in the family, and the very essence of whose
character is pride. He is proud of himself, proud of his family, proud
of his titles, proud of his gout, proud of his cat, proud of whatever
can be called _his_; by which appellation in his opinion his very
coach-horses are dignified. I happen to please him, not by any
qualities of mind or person, of which he is tolerably insensible, but
because there is a possibility that I may one day be a peer of the
realm, if my booby relations will but be so indulgent as to die fast
enough.
Once more to these catechumenical inspectors of morality, these
self-appointed overseers of the conscience.
I do not deny that there is some nay much truth in the doctrines they
preach to me. But I hate preaching! I have not time to be wisdom
crammed. What concern is it of mine? What have I to do with the world,
be it wrong or right, wise or foolish? Let it laugh or cry, kiss or
curse, as it pleases! Like the Irishman in the sinking ship, "Tis
nothing to me, I am but a passenger."
But, notwithstanding these airs, I have my lesson set me. Ay and I must
con it too; must say it off by rote; no parrot better!
There is no resisting one's destiny; and to be her slave is preferable
to reigning over worlds! You have, for you can have, no conception of
her and her omnipotence! She is so unlike every other woman on earth! I
wonder while I hear her, am attentive, nay am convinced! What is most
strange, though the divinest creature that ever the hand of Heaven
fashioned, the moment she begins to speak you forget that she is
beautiful!
But she should not hesitate, when I offer. No--She should beware of
that! At least to any other woman the world contains, it would have
been dangerous; and I am not sure that even she is safe.
However, I must learn to parse my lesson, for the present, and be
quiet. Yes, yes; she shall find me very complaisant. I must be so, for
live without her I cannot. She must she shall be mine. It is a prize
which I am born to bear away from all competitors. This is what
flatters and consoles me.
You, Fairfax, think yourself more in luck. You continue to range at
large. You scorn to wear the chain to-day which you cannot shake off
laughingly to-morrow. Well I envy you not--When you see her, if you do
not envy me may I be impaled and left to roast in the sun, a banquet
for the crows.
Good night.