_Coke Clifton to Guy Fairfax_
_London, Dover-Street_
It is not to be endured! They drive me mad! I will not have life thus
palmed upon me! There is neither kindness nor justice in it. I will
hear no more of duty, and philanthropy, and general good! I am all
fiend!--Hell-born!--The boon companion of the foulest miscreants the
womb of sin ever vomited on earth!--The arm in arm familiar of
them!--In the face of the world!--This it is to be honourable!--I
am a man of honour, a despiser of peasants, an assertor of rank!--
Day after day, hour after hour, here I lie, rolling, ruminating on
ideas which none but demons could suggest; haunted by visions which
devils only could conjure up! And wish me to live? Where is the charity
of that? Angels though they be, they have made me miserable! I know I
have injured them; I don't deny it. Say what they will, they cannot
forgive me--Shall I ask it?--No!--Hell should not make me! I will have
no more favours; I am loaded too much already.
For it cannot be true!--Their hearts can feel no kindness for
me!--Oh!--
I have lost her!--For ever lost her!--Yet even this deep damnation I
could bear, I think I could, had I not made myself so very foul and
detestable a villain!--It is intolerable!--The rage of cannibals to
mine is patience! I could feed on human hearts; my own the first and
sweetest morsel!
Well, well!--Her I have lost; him I have injured!--Injured?--Arrogance,
outrage, contempt, blows, imprisonment, and murder!--These are the
damning injuries I have done him!--took greatness upon me; I mimicked
tyranny, and pretended to inflict large vengeance for petty
affronts!--I trusted in wiles, and imagined mind might be caught in a
net!
Lo how the adder egg of vanity can brood in its own dunghill, and hatch
itself to persecution, rape, and murder!--Lo how Guilt and Folly
couple, and engender darkness to hide their own deformity!--The picture
is mine!--Black, midnight rape, and blood red murder! A horrid but
indubitable likeness.
There are but two ways, either to live and pursue revenge, or to die
and forget it--Of the pursuit I am weary. I have had a full meal of
villany, and am glutted: its foulness is insufferable, and I turn from
it loathing. Then welcome death! Again it would have sought me, but for
their eternal officiousness. It is in vain. There are swords, pistols,
and poison still. Life has a thousand outlets: and to live, knowing
what I know and never can forget, would be rank and hateful cowardice!
I am determined. I will listen to their glosses no more. Persuasion is
vain, and soothing mockery.
Yet one act of justice I will perform before I die. Send me my
letters, Fairfax. They shall see me in my native colours!--Send them
directly!--There is consolation in the thought--They have dared to shew
letters that exposed them to persecution and malice--I will shew what
shall expose me to contempt and hatred!--Let them equal me if they
can--I am Clifton!--Inimitable in absurdity, in vice damnable!--
Take copies if you will. Proclaim me to the world! Read them in
coffee-houses, nail them up at the market cross! Let boys hoot at me,
and trulls and drabs pluck me by the beard!--What can they?--It is I,
myself, who hold the scorpion whip!--'Tis memory!--What! Envy, rage,
revenge, hatred, rape and murder, all possessing one man?--Poor
creature! Poor creature!--Pity him, Fairfax!--Pity?--Ask pity?--Despise
him! Trample on him! Spit in his face!