Indeed you would not be in love with him for the world!--Your servant,
my dear. Nor would I have you. For, I think, with all the advantages of
person, fortune, and family, he is not by any means worthy of you. And
this opinion I give as well from the reasons you mention (which I cannot
but confirm) as from what I have heard of him but a few hours ago
from Mrs. Fortescue, a favourite of Lady Betty Lawrance, who knows him
well--but let me congratulate you, however, on your being the first of
our sex that ever I heard of, who has been able to turn that lion, Love,
at her own pleasure, into a lap-dog.
Well but, if you have not the throbs and the glows, you have not: and
are not in love; good reason why--because you would not be in love; and
there's no more to be said.--Only, my dear, I shall keep a good look-out
upon you; and so I hope you will be upon yourself; for it is no manner
of argument that because you would not be in love, you therefore are
not.--But before I part entirely with this subject, a word in your ear,
my charming friend--'tis only by way of caution, and in pursuance of the
general observation, that a stander-by is often a better judge of the
game than those that play.--May it not be, that you have had, and
have, such cross creatures and such odd heads to deal with, as have not
allowed you to attend to the throbs?--Or, if you had them a little now
and then, whether, having had two accounts to place them to, you have
not by mistake put them to the wrong one?
But whether you have a value for Lovelace or not, I know you will be
impatient to hear what Mrs. Fortescue has said of him. Nor will I keep
you longer in suspense.
An hundred wild stories she tells of him from childhood to manhood:
for, as she observed, having never been subject to contradiction, he
was always as mischievous as a monkey. But I shall pass over these whole
hundred of his puerile rogueries (although indicative ones, as I may
say) to take notice as well of some things you are not quite ignorant
of, as of others you know not, and to make a few observations upon him
and his ways.
Mrs. Fortescue owns, what every body knows, 'that he is notoriously,
nay, avowedly, a man of pleasure; yet says, that in any thing he sets
his heart upon or undertakes, he is the most industrious and persevering
mortal under the sun. He rests it seems not above six hours in the
twenty-four--any more than you. He delights in writing. Whether at Lord
M.'s, or at Lady Betty's, or Lady Sarah's, he has always a pen in his
fingers when he retires. One of his companions (confirming his love of
writing) has told her, that his thoughts flow rapidly to his pen:' And
you and I, my dear, have observed, on more occasions than one, that
though he writes even a fine hand, he is one of the readiest and
quickest of writers. He must indeed have had early a very docile genius;
since a person of his pleasurable turn and active spirit, could
never have submitted to take long or great pains in attaining the
qualifications he is master of; qualifications so seldom attained by
youth of quality and fortune; by such especially of those of either,
who, like him, have never known what it was to be controuled.
'He had once it seems the vanity, upon being complimented on these
talents (and on his surprising diligence, for a man of pleasure) to
compare himself to Julius Caesar; who performed great actions by day,
and wrote them down at night; and valued himself, that he only wanted
Caesar's out-setting, to make a figure among his contemporaries.
'He spoke of this indeed, she says, with an air of pleasantry: for
she observed, and so have we, that he has the art of acknowledging his
vanity with so much humour, that it sets him above the contempt which
is due to vanity and self-opinion; and at the same time half persuades
those who hear him, that he really deserves the exultation he gives
himself.'
But supposing it to be true that all his vacant nightly hours are
employed in writing, what can be his subjects? If, like Caesar, his own
actions, he must undoubtedly be a very enterprising and very wicked man;
since nobody suspects him to have a serious turn; and, decent as he is
in his conversation with us, his writings are not probably such as would
redound either to his own honour, or to the benefit of others, were they
to be read. He must be conscious of this, since Mrs. Fortescue says,
'that in the great correspondence by letters which he holds, he is
as secret and as careful as if it were of a treasonable nature;--yet
troubles not his head with politics, though nobody knows the interests
of princes and courts better than he is said to do.'
That you and I, my dear, should love to write, is no wonder. We have
always, from the time each could hold a pen, delighted in epistolary
correspondencies. Our employments are domestic and sedentary; and we can
scribble upon twenty innocent subjects, and take delight in them because
they are innocent; though were they to be seen, they might not much
profit or please others. But that such a gay, lively young fellow as
this, who rides, hunts, travels, frequents the public entertainments,
and has means to pursue his pleasures, should be able to set himself
down to write for hours together, as you and I have heard him say he
frequently does, that is the strange thing.
Mrs. Fortescue says, 'that he is a complete master of short-hand
writing.' By the way, what inducements could a swift writer as he have
to learn short-hand!
She says (and we know it as well as she) 'that he has a surprising
memory, and a very lively imagination.'
Whatever his other vices are, all the world, as well as Mrs. Fortescue,
says, 'he is a sober man. And among all his bad qualities, gaming, that
great waster of time as well as fortune, is not his vice:' So that he
must have his head as cool, and his reason as clear, as the prime of
youth and his natural gaiety will permit; and by his early morning
hours, a great portion of time upon his hands to employ in writing, or
worse.
Mrs. Fortescue says, 'he has one gentleman who is more his intimate and
correspondent than any of the rest.' You remember what his dismissed
bailiff said of him and of his associates.* I don't find but that Mrs.
Fortescue confirms this part of it, 'that all his relations are afraid
of him; and that his pride sets him above owing obligations to them.
She believes he is clear of the world; and that he will continue so;'
No doubt from the same motive that makes him avoid being obliged to his
relations.
* Letter IV.
A person willing to think favourably of him would hope, that a brave, a
learned, and a diligent, man, cannot be naturally a bad man.--But if he
be better than his enemies say he is (and if worse he is bad indeed) he
is guilty of an inexcusable fault in being so careless as he is of his
reputation. I think a man can be so but from one of these two reasons:
either that he is conscious he deserves the ill spoken of him; or, that
he takes a pride in being thought worse than he is. Both very bad and
threatening indications; since the first must shew him to be utterly
abandoned; and it is but natural to conclude from the other, that what
a man is not ashamed to have imputed to him, he will not scruple to be
guilty of whenever he has an opportunity.
Upon the whole, and upon all I could gather from Mrs. Fortescue, Mr.
Lovelace is a very faulty man. You and I have thought him too gay, too
inconsiderate, too rash, too little an hypocrite, to be deep. You see
he never would disguise his natural temper (haughty as it certainly
is) with respect to your brother's behaviour to him. Where he thinks
a contempt due, he pays it to the uttermost. Nor has he complaisance
enough to spare your uncles.
But were he deep, and ever so deep, you would soon penetrate him, if
they would leave you to yourself. His vanity would be your clue. Never
man had more: Yet, as Mrs. Fortescue observed, 'never did man carry
it off so happily.' There is a strange mixture in it of humourous
vivacity:--Since but for one half of what he says of himself, when he is
in the vein, any other man would be insufferable.
***
Talk of the devil, is an old saying. The lively wretch has made me a
visit, and is but just gone away. He is all impatience and resentment
at the treatment you meet with, and full of apprehensions too, that they
will carry their point with you.
I told him my opinion, that you will never be brought to think of such a
man as Solmes; but that it will probably end in a composition, never to
have either.
No man, he said, whose fortunes and alliances are so considerable, ever
had so little favour from a woman for whose sake he had borne so much.
I told him my mind as freely as I used to do. But whoever was in fault,
self being judge? He complained of spies set upon his conduct, and to
pry into his life and morals, and this by your brother and uncles.
I told him, that this was very hard upon him; and the more so, as
neither his life nor morals perhaps would stand a fair inquiry.
He smiled, and called himself my servant.--The occasion was too fair,
he said, for Miss Howe, who never spared him, to let it pass.--But, Lord
help the shallow souls of the Harlowes! Would I believe it! they were
for turning plotters upon him. They had best take care he did not pay
them in their own coin. Their hearts were better turned for such works
than their heads.
I asked him, If he valued himself upon having a head better turned than
theirs for such works, as he called them?
He drew off: and then ran into the highest professions of reverence and
affection for you.
The object so meritorious, who can doubt the reality of his professions?
Adieu, my dearest, my noble friend!--I love and admire you for the
generous conclusion of your last more than I can express. Though I began
this letter with impertinent raillery, knowing that you always loved to
indulge my mad vein; yet never was there a heart that more glowed with
friendly love, than that of
Your own ANNA HOWE.