_Coke Clifton to Guy Fairfax_
_London, Dover Street_
War! Fairfax, war!--It is declared!--Open war!--My wrathful spirits are
in a blaze, and I am determined. Hear and blame me if you can. But do I
not know you? Does not the temper of your letters tell me you will
applaud my just anger, and fixed revenge?
Yes, Fairfax, longer to palliate, or wilfully be blind to the partial
edicts and haughty ordonnances of this proud beauty, were idiotism!
She has presumed too far; I am not quite so tame a creature as she
supposes. She shall find I am not the clay, but the potter. I will
mould, not be moulded. Poltron as I was, to think of sinking into the
docile, domesticated, timid animal called husband! But the lion's paws
are not yet pared; beware then, my princess!
The lady would carry it with a high hand, Fairfax. But let her!
If I not note her freaks, if I forget her imperious caprice, if
my embittered mind slumber in its intents, say not I am the
proud-spirited Clifton you once knew; that prompt, bold, and
inflexible fellow, whom arrogance could rouse, and injury inflame,
but a suffering, patient ass; a meek pitiful thing, such as they
would make me!
Wonder not that I now am angry, but that I have so long been torpid. A
little phrensy has restored the palsied soul to life, and again has put
its powers in motion. I'll play no more at questions and commands--Or,
if I do, it shall only be to make sure of my game. I have been
reproved, silenced, tongue-tied, brow-beaten; have made myself an ape,
been placed behind the door, and have shewed tricks for her diversion.
But I am not muzzled yet: they shall find me one of the _ferae
naturae._
A most excellent project, forsooth! When I am sufficiently familiarized
to contradiction, rebuke, fillips on the forehead, and raps on the
knuckles, she will then hear me my prayers, pack me off peaceably to
bed for tonight, and graciously bestow a pat and a promise upon me for
tomorrow! There is danger in the whim, lady; beauteous though you are,
and invincible as you may think yourself. Model me!--No!--I am of a
metal which not even your files can touch. You cannot knead,
dough-bake, and temper me to your leaven.
Fairfax, she had fascinated me! I own it! There is such incantation, in
the small circle of her eye, as mortal man scarcely can resist! I
adored her; nay still adore! But she knows me not. I have a soul of
fire. She has driven me beyond the limits of patience.
Her wisdom degenerates into rhodomontade. She will prescribe the hour
and minute when she shall begin to love. She does not pretend to love
me yet; and, if she did, her looks, her manner would betray the
falsehood of her heart.
Yet let me not wrong her, vexed though I am. Double dealing is not her
error: she is sufficiently sincere.
Why would I hide it from myself? Her partialities all lead another way:
ay and her passions too, if passions she have. But this most
incomprehensible, this tormenting, incoherent romance of determining
not to have any, I believe from my soul, in part produces the effect
she intends, and almost enables her to keep her determination!
Still and eternally, this fellow! This Frank! Oh that I were an
Italian, and that my conscience would permit me to deal him the
stilletto!--Let him beware!--He is employed, preferred, praised! It is
eulogium everlasting! Had Fame as many trumpets as she has tongues and
lies, they would all be insufficient. And not only she but the whole
family, father, brother, aunts, the devil knows who, each grateful soul
is oozing out the froth of its obligations!
Had they less cause, perhaps I should be less irritated: but he has
rescued the poor being of a brother, Edward St. Ives, who had neither
courage nor capacity to rescue himself, from the gripe of a gambler.
This Edward, who is one of the king's captains, God bless him, and who
has spent his fortune in learning the trade, not of a man of war, but
of a man of fashion, having lost what ready money he had, staked his
honour against a cogger of dice, and was presently tricked out of three
thousand guineas; which he was too poor in pocket to pay, and, if I
guess right, too poor in spirit afterward to face the ruffian whom he
had made his companion.
So Mr. Henley, and it please, you, was chosen, by father and daughter.
Though she owns she proposed it first; for she does not scruple to own
all which she does not scruple to act. The holy mission was his, to
dole out salutary documents of reproof, and apothegms of Epictetus; and
to try whether he could not release the bird-limed owl. I was
overlooked! I am unfit for the office! I am but little wiser than the
booby brother! Whereas Solomon himself, and the seven sages to boot,
are but so many men of Gotham, when he is present. The quintessence of
all the knowledge, wit, wisdom, and genius that ever saw the sun, from
the infantine days of A B C and king Cadmus, to these miraculous times
of intuition and metaphysical legerdemain, is bottled up in, his brain;
from which it foams and whizzes in our ears, every time discretion can
be induced to draw the cork of silence.--Once again, let him beware!
I then am selected for no other purpose but for her morality to make
experiments upon.--She is called wife, and wife she may be; nay wife
she is, or at least all other women, she being present, are intolerably
foolish. But, by heaven, this is no proof of her wisdom! I am the
scape-goat!--I!--Be it so!--Should she be caught in her own springe,
who can say I am to blame?
She has seen my anger, for I could not hide it; but she has seen it
only in part. A hypocrite she wants, and a hypocrite she shall I have.
I will act the farce which she is composing; let her look to the
catastrophe.
I begin to think that marriage and I shall never meet; for, if I
withstand her, woman cannot tempt me. And her I shall withstand. At
least I never will have her till I have humbled her; and then perhaps I
shall not be in the humour. And yet my heart tells me that I shall. For
in spite of all its anger, in spite of her injustice and glaring
indifference, the remembrance of which puts me in a fever, it would be
misery to know her, recollect her, and live without her.
But, patience! Her pride shall first be lowered. I must command, not be
commanded: and, when my clemency is implored, I will then take time to
consider.
My brain is in a ferment, and its various engines are already in
commotion. She herself, her hated favourite, her father, her brother,
her aunt, her uncle, her maid, every creature that surrounds her must
each and all contribute to my purposes and plots. Parts fit for the
actors must be assigned. The how and what I know not yet precisely, for
I have scarcely sketched the canvas; but I have conceived some bold and
masterly strokes, and I foresee the execution must be daring and
impassioned. I am in haste to begin, and my hot oscillatory spirits can
with difficulty be tamed to the still pause of prudence and
premeditation: they are eager for the fight, and think caution a tardy
general, if not a coward.
I know not how it is, but when I am angry, very angry, I feel as if I
were in my element. My blood delights to boil, and my passions to
bubble. I hate still water. An agitated sea! An evening when the fiery
sun forebodes a stormy morning, and the black-based clouds rise, like
mountains with hoary tops, to tell me tempests are brewing! These give
emotion and delight supreme! Oh for a mistress such as I could imagine,
and such as Anna St. Ives moulded by me could make! One that could vary
her person, her pleasures, and her passions, purposely to give mine
variety! Whose daily and nightly study all should centre in me, and my
gratifications! Whose eyes should flash lightning to rouse the chilled
sensations, and shed appeasing dews to quench the fire of rage. These
are the objects in which I could delight; these the devotions I
require. Change for me. A true English day; in which winter and summer,
hail, rain, and sunshine meet and mingle.
I had almost forgotten one chief cause of my resentment; though the
most fortunate one I could have wished for to promote my purpose. This
Sir Arthur dallies with me. I find, from various items which the
candour of her mind has suffered to escape, that the motive is poverty.
I am glad of it. I will urge and hurry her into a promise to be mine.
The generosity of her temper will aid me. I will plead the injury done
me by hesitation. I feel it, and therefore my pleadings will be
natural. It is her pride to repair the wrongs which others commit. This
pride and this heroism of soul, which I must acknowledge in her are
unaffected, shall be the main engines with which I will work. Without
these perhaps I might despair; but with them hold myself secure of
victory.
Yes, lady of the high sciences, you must descend, and let my star mount
the horizon! The gathering clouds must eclipse your effulgence, while I
shine chief of the constellation!
As for the rest of the family, more or less, they are all fools;
therefore are neither to be feared nor pitied. On her perhaps I may
have compassion, when I have taught her contrition, and when she knows
me for her superior.
I have written a volume, yet have not half disburthened my labouring
mind. Oh that I could present the picture to you complete! That I could
paint her as she is; all beauty, all excellence, all kindness, all
frost! That I could shew the sweet enthusiast in the heyday insolence
of her power; pretending to guide, reform, humble, and subjugate me;
while love and vengeance swell my heart, hypocrisy smooths my face, and
plots innumerable busy my brain! It is a fruitful, rich, resplendent
scene; of which, Fairfax, you have no conception. Me you have known,
intimately, and are honest enough to own you have admired: but of her
all ideal tracings are contemptible!
Nor should this knight of the magic lanthorn be forgotten; this Nestor
junior; this tormenting rival--Oh how I could curse! He who stands, as
ready as if Satan had sent him, to feed the spreading flames with oil!
He fills his place on the canvas. And who knows but I may teach him,
yet, to do his office as he ought? How would it delight me! There is an
intemperance of superiority which no human patience can support, nor
any acts of kindness compensate. A triumph over her will indeed be a
triumph over him, and therefore doubly delicious!
I grant he forbears to prate of the life he gave me. But am I not
reminded of the oppressive gift every time he dares to contradict me?
Would I endure his interference as I do; would I be shouldered and
butted at, by him; would I permit his opinion to be asked, or his
dogmas to silence me, were I not burthened with this unasked benefit?
Infatuated lunatic, as I was! But I am in the school of prudence, at
present; and suppose I shall learn a little some time; though I do not
know when; since, I am told, it is not easy to learn a trade one hates.
Mean while I pay my court assiduously to the two peers, Evelyn and Fitz
Allen, who at present are both in town. Nothing must be neglected,
nothing left unprepared. Vigilance, foresight, and cunning must do
their office, and will soon be in full employment: of what kind I
cannot yet determine; or whether it must be open war or covert, or
both; but my augury predicts the scene will soon be all life, all
agitation, all enjoyment. Commotion is my element, battle my delight,
and conquest my heaven!
This is my hour of appointment: she is expecting me, yet my crowding
thoughts will with difficulty allow me to lay down the pen: they rise
in armies, and I could write world without end, and never come to an
amen. But I must begone. Adieu.
I imagine that by this time you are at Paris; or will be before the
arrival of this letter; which, according to your directions, I shall
superscribe _Poste restante._