_Coke Clifton to Guy Fairfax_
_London, Dover Street_
Yes, yes, Fairfax! She takes the sure and resolute road to ruin, and
travels it with unwearied ardour!--What think you she has done now?--An
earthquake would have been more within my calculation!--She labours
hard after the marvellous!--She has been angling again in the muddy
pool of paradox, and has hooked up a new dogma!--And what is it?--Why
nothing less than an asseveration that the promise she made me is not
binding!--Promises are non-entities: they mean nothing, stand for
nothing, and nothing can claim.
So be it--It is a maxim, divine apostate, that will at least serve my
turn as effectually as yours. To own the truth, I never thought
promises made to capricious ladies stood for much; nor were my scruples
at present likely to have been increased. If she, a woman, be simple
enough to have faith in the word of man, 'tis her fault. Let her look
to it!
This is not all: the doctrine is not of her own invention! Mr. Henley,
the eternal Mr. Henley again appears upon the scene, from which he is
scarcely ever a moment absent!--Were it possible I could relent, she is
determined I shall not. But they are both down in my tablets, in large
and indelible characters; on the black list; and there for a time at
least they shall remain.
My plan, Fairfax, is formed; and I believe completely. When I was first
acquainted with her, as you know, my meaning was honest and my heart
sincere. I was a fool at least for a fortnight; for that was the
shortest period before I began at all to waver. I was indeed deeply
smitten! Nor is desire cooled: delay, opposition, and neglect have only
changed its purpose. She soon indeed taught me to treat her in some
manner like the rest of her sex, and to begin to plot. 'Tis well for me
that I have a fertile brain: and it had been well for her could she
have been contented with the conquest she had made, and have treated me
with generosity equal to my deserts. But a hypocrite she has made me,
and a hypocrite she shall find me; ay and a deep one.
She has herself given me my clue: she has laid open her whole heart.
She has the fatuity to mimic the perfect heroine! Tell her but it is a
duty, and with the Bramin wives she would lie down, calmly and
resolutely, on the burning pile!
Well then! I will tell her of a duty of which she little dreams! Yes,
she shall grant every thing I wish as an act of duty! I will convince
her it is one! I! The pretty immaculate lamb must submit in this point
to become my pupil; and it shall go hard or I will prove as subtle a
logician as herself.
What say you, Fairfax? Is not the project an excellent one? Is it not
worthy of the sapient Doctor Clifton? Shall I lose reputation, think
you, by carrying it into effect?
I am already become a new man. My whole system is changed. She begins
to praise me most unmercifully; and, while my very heart is tickled
with my success, the lengthened visage of inspired quaker when the
spirit moved was never more demure! I am too pleased, too proud of my
own talents, not to persist.
Already I am a convert to one of _her truths_. Do laugh, Fairfax! I
have acknowledged that you and your footman are equal! Is it not
ridiculous? However I am convinced! Ay and convinced I will remain,
till time shall be. She shall teach me a truth a day!--Yet, no--I must
not learn too fast; it may be suspicious: though I would be as speedy
as I conveniently can in my progress.
The zeal of disputation burns within her; and, as I tell you, I am
already one of her very good boys, because the pursuit of my own
project makes me now as willing to listen and hunt after deductions,
such as I want, as she is to teach and to supply me with those
deductions. She starts at no proposition, however extravagant, if it do
but appear to result from any one of her favourite systems, of which
she has a good round number. Rather than relinquish the least of them,
she would suppose the glorious sun a coal-pit; and his dazzling rays no
better than volumes of black smoke, polished and grown bright on their
travels by attrition. She professes it to be the purpose of her life to
free herself from all prejudices. But here she has the modesty to add
the saving clause--'If it be practicable.'
Could she, Fairfax, have a more convenient hypothesis? Do you not
perceive its fecundity? And, the task being so very difficult, will it
not be benevolent in me to lend her my assistance? What think you? Is
it not possible to prove that marriage is a mere prejudice?
She shall find me willing to learn many or perhaps all of her
doctrines; and in return I desire to teach her no more than one of
mine. Can any thing be more reasonable, more generous? Nay, I will go
further! I will not teach it her; she shall have all the honour of
teaching it to me! Can man do more?
The most knotty and perplexed part of my plan was to find a contrivance
to make the gardener's son an actor in the plot. The thing is
difficult, but not impossible. I have various stratagems and schemes,
in the choice of which I must be guided by circumstances. That which
pleases me most is to invite him to sit in state, the umpire of our
disquisitions.
I think I can depend upon myself, otherwise there would be danger in
the project. But if I act my part perfectly, if I have but the
resolution to listen coolly to their quiddities, sometimes to oppose,
sometimes to recede, and always to own myself conquered on the points
which suit me best, I believe both the gentleman and the lady will be
sufficiently simple to suppose that in all this there will be nothing
apocryphal. They will imagine the gilt statue to be pure gold. I shall
be numbered among their elect! I shall rise from the alembic a saint of
their own subliming! Shall be assayed and stamped current at their
mint!
Yet I must be cautious. I would put my hand in the fire ere undertake
so apparently mad a scheme, with any other couple in Christendom.
Considering how very warm--Curses bite and tingle on my tongue at the
recollection!--Considering I say how very warm I know their
inclinations toward each other to be, nothing but the proofs I have had
could prompt me to commence an enterprize so improbable. But the
uncommonness of it is a main part of its merit; and I think I know the
ground I have to travel so well that I do not much fear I should lose
my road.
I am aware that the enemy I have most to guard against is myself. To
pretend a belief in opinions I despise, to sit with saturnine gravity
and nod approbation when my sides are convulsed with laughter, to ape
admiration at what reason contemns and spurns, and to smooth my
features into suavity while my heart is bursting with gall at the
intercourse they continually hold, of becks and smiles and approving
kind epithets, to do all this is almost too much for mortal man! But I
have already made several essays on myself, and I find that the
obstinate resolution which an insatiable thirst of ample retribution
inspires is not to be shaken, and renders me equal even to this task.
I am well aware however what dangerous quicksands the passions are; and
that a good pilot is never sparing of soundings. I will therefore not
only keep a rigorous watch upon myself, but take such measures as shall
enable me to exclude or retain the grub-monger, as I shall think fit,
during our conversations.
Thus you are likely soon to hear more of our metaphysics; nay, if you
be but industrious, enough to enable you to set up for yourself, and
become the apostle of Paris. I know no place where, if you have but a
morsel of the marvellous to detail, you will find hearers better
disposed to gape and swallow.