Though pretty much pressed in time, and oppressed by my mother's
watchfulness, I will write a few lines upon the new light that has
broken in upon your gentleman; and send it by a particular hand.
I know not what to think of him upon it. He talks well; but judge him
by Rowe's lines, he is certainly a dissembler, odious as the sin of
hypocrisy, and, as he says, that other of ingratitude, are to him.
And, pray, my dear, let me ask, could he have triumphed, as it is said
he has done, over so many of our sex, had he not been egregiously guilty
of both sins?
His ingenuousness is the thing that staggers me: yet is he cunning
enough to know, that whoever accuses him first, blunts the edge of an
adversary's accusation.
He is certainly a man of sense: there is more hope of such a one than a
fool: and there must be a beginning to a reformation. These I will allow
in his favour.
But this, that follows, I think, is the only way to judge of his
specious confessions and self-accusations--Does he confess any thing
that you knew not before, or that you are not likely to find out from
others?--If nothing else, what does he confess to his own disadvantage?
You have heard of his duels: you have heard of his seductions.--All
the world has. He owns, therefore, what it would be to no purpose to
conceal; and his ingenuousness is a salvo--'Why, this, Madam, is no more
than Mr. Lovelace himself acknowledges.'
Well, but what is now to be done?--You must make the best of your
situation: and as you say, so he has proposed to you of Windsor, and his
canon's house. His readiness to leave you, and go himself in quest of
a lodging, likewise looks well. And I think there is nothing can be so
properly done, as (whether you get to a canon's house or not) that the
canon should join you together in wedlock as soon as possible.
I much approve, however, of all your cautions, of all your vigilance,
and of every thing you have done, but of your meeting him. Yet, in my
disapprobation of that, I judge by that event only: for who would have
divined it would have been concluded as it did? But he is the devil by
his own account: and had he run away with the wretched Solmes, and your
more wretched brother, and himself been transported for life, he should
have had my free consent for all three.
What use does he make of that Joseph Leman!--His ingenuousness, I must
more than once say, confounds me; but if, my dear, you can forgive
your brother for the part he put that fellow upon acting, I don't know
whether you ought to be angry at Lovelace. Yet I have wished fifty
times, since Lovelace got you away, that you were rid of him, whether it
were by a burning fever, by hanging, by drowning, or by a broken
neck; provided it were before he laid you under a necessity to go into
mourning for him.
I repeat my hitherto rejected offer. May I send it safely by your old
man? I have reasons for not sending it by Hickman's servant; unless I
had a bank note. Inquiring for such may cause distrust. My mother is so
busy, so inquisitive--I don't love suspicious tempers.
And here she is continually in and out--I must break off.
*****
Mr. Hickman begs his most respectful compliments to you, with offer of
his services. I told him I would oblige him, because minds in trouble
take kindly any body's civilities: but that he was not to imagine that
he particularly obliged me by this; since I should think the man or
woman either blind or stupid who admired not a person of your exalted
merit for your own sake, and wished not to serve you without view to
other reward than the honour of serving you.
To be sure, that was his principal motive, with great daintiness he said
it: but with a kiss of his hand, and a bow to my feet, he hoped, that a
fine lady's being my friend did not lessen the merit of the reverence he
really had for her.
Believe me ever, what you, my dear, shall ever find me,
Your faithful and affectionate, ANNA HOWE.