_Coke Clifton to Guy Fairfax_
_London, Dover Street_
Once more, Fairfax, here am I.
Well! And how--?
Not so fast, good sir. All things in their turn. The story shall be
told just as it happened, and your galloping curiosity must be pleased
to wait.
I knew my time, the hour when she would retire to her own apartment,
and the minute when I might find admission; for she is very methodical,
as all your very wise people more or less are. I had given Laura her
lesson; that is, had told her that I had something very serious to say
to her mistress that morning, and desired her to take care to be out of
the way, that she might be sure not to interrupt us. The sly jade
looked with that arch significance which her own experience had taught
her, and left me with--'Oh! Mr. Clifton!'
And here I could make a remark, but that would be anticipating my
story.
You may think, Fairfax, that, marshalled as my hopes and fears were in
battle array, something of inward agitation would be apparent. In
reality not only some but much was visible. It caught her attention,
and luckily caught. I attempted to speak, and stammered. A false step
as it would have been most fatal so was it more probable at the moment
of onset than afterward, when the heated imagination should have
collected, arranged, and begun to pour forth its stores.
The philosophy of the passions was the theme I first chose, though at
the very moment when my spirits were all fluttering with wild disorder.
But my faultering voice, which had I wished I could not have commanded,
aided me; for the tremulous state of my frame threw hers into most
admirable confusion!
'What was it that disturbed me? What had I to communicate? She never
saw me thus before! It was quite alarming!'
Madam--[Observe, Fairfax, I am now the speaker: but I shall remind you
of such trifles no more. If you cannot distinguish the interlocutors,
you deserve not to be present at such a dialogue.] Madam, I own my mind
is oppressed by thoughts which, however just in their purpose, however
worthy in their intent, inspire all that hesitation, that timidity,
that something like terror, which I scarcely know how to overcome. Yet
what should I fear? Am I not armed by principle and truth? Why shun a
declaration of thoughts that are founded in right; or tremble like a
coward that doubted of his cause? I am your scholar, and have learned
to subdue sensations of which the judgment disapproves. From you
likewise have I learned to avow tenets that are demonstrable; and not
to shrink from them because I may be in danger of being misconstrued,
or even suspected. Pardon me! I do you wrong. Your mind is superior to
suspicion. It is a mean an odious vice, and never could I esteem the
heart in which it found place. I forget myself, and talk to you as I
would to a being of an infinitely lower order.