He gives, in several letters, the substance of what is
contained in the last seven of the Lady's.
He tells his friend, that calling at The Lawn, in his way to
M. Hall, (for he owns that he went not to Windsor,) he
found the letters from Lady Betty Lawrance, and his cousin
Montague, which Mrs. Greme was about sending to him by a
special messenger.
He gives the particulars, from Mrs. Greme's report, of what
passed between the Lady and her, as in Letter VI. and
makes such declarations to Mrs. Greme of his honour and
affection to the Lady, as put her upon writing the letter to
her sister Sorlings, the contents of which are in Letter
XXVIII.
He then accounts, as follows, for the serious humour he
found her in on his return:
Upon such good terms when we parted, I was surprised to find so solemn a
brow upon my return, and her charming eyes red with weeping. But when I
had understood she had received letters from Miss Howe, it was natural
to imagine that that little devil had put her out of humour with me.
It is easy for me to perceive, that my charmer is more sullen when
she receives, and has perused, a letter from that vixen, than at other
times. But as the sweet maid shews, even then, more of passive grief,
than of active spirit, I hope she is rather lamenting than plotting.
And, indeed, for what now should she plot? when I am become a reformed
man, and am hourly improving in my morals?--Nevertheless, I must
contrive some way or other to get at their correspondence--only to see
the turn of it; that's all.
But no attempt of this kind must be made yet. A detected invasion, in an
article so sacred, would ruin me beyond retrieve. Nevertheless, it vexes
me to the heart to think that she is hourly writing her whole mind on
all that passes between her and me, I under the same roof with her,
yet kept at such awful distance, that I dare not break into a
correspondence, that may perhaps be a mean to defeat all my devices.
Would it be very wicked, Jack, to knock her messenger on the head, as
he is carrying my beloved's letters, or returning from Miss Howe's?--To
attempt to bribe him, and not succeed, would utterly ruin me. And the
man seems to be one used to poverty, one who can sit down satisfied with
it, and enjoy it; contented with hand-to-mouth conveniencies, and not
aiming to live better to-morrow, than he does to-day, and than he did
yesterday. Such a one is above temptation, unless it could come clothed
in the guise of truth and trust. What likelihood of corrupting a man who
has no hope, no ambition?
Yet the rascal has but half life, and groans under that. Should I be
answerable in his case for a whole life?--But hang the fellow! Let him
live. Were I king, or a minister of state, an Antonio Perez,* it were
another thing. And yet, on second thoughts, am I not a rake, as it is
called? And who ever knew a rake stick at any thing? But thou knowest,
Jack, that the greatest half of my wickedness is vapour, to shew my
invention; and to prove that I could be mischievous if I would.
* Antonio Perez was first minister of Philip II. king of Spain, by whose
command he caused Don Juan de Escovedo to be assassinated: which brought
on his own ruin, through the perfidy of his viler master.--Gedde's
Tracts.
When he comes to that part where the Lady says (Letter
XXIX.) in a sarcastic way, waving her hand, and bowing,
'Excuse me, good Mr. Lovelace, that I am willing to think
the best of my father,' he gives a description of her air
and manner, greatly to her advantage; and says,
I could hardly forbear taking her into my arms upon it, in spite of an
expected tempest. So much wit, so much beauty, such a lively manner,
and such exceeding quickness and penetration! O Belford! she must be
nobody's but mine. I can now account for and justify Herod's command to
destroy his Mariamne, if he returned not alive from his interview with
Caesar: for were I to know that it were but probable that any other
man were to have this charming creature, even after my death, the very
thought would be enough to provoke me to cut that man's throat, were he
a prince.
I may be deemed by this lady a rapid, a boisterous lover--and she may
like me the less for it: but all the ladies I have met with, till now,
loved to raise a tempest, and to enjoy it: nor did they ever raise it,
but I enjoyed it too!--Lord send us once happily to London!
Mr. Lovelace gives the following account of his rude
rapture, when he seized her hand, and put her, by his WILD
manner, as she expresses it, Letter XXXIX. into such terror.
Darkness and light, I swore, were convertible at her pleasure: she could
make any subject plausible. I was all error: she all perfection. And I
snatched her hand; and, more than kissed it, I was ready to devour it.
There was, I believe, a kind of phrensy in my manner, which threw her
into a panic, like that of Semele perhaps, when the Thunderer, in all
his majesty, surrounded with ten thousand celestial burning-glasses, was
about to scorch her into a cinder.
*****
Had not my heart misgiven me, and had I not, just in time, recollected
that she was not so much in my power, but that she might abandon me at
her pleasure, having more friends in that house than I had, I should at
that moment have made offers, that would have decided all, one way
or other.--But, apprehending that I had shewn too much meaning in my
passion, I gave it another turn.--But little did the charmer think that
an escape either she or I had (as the event might have proved) from
that sudden gust of passion, which had like to have blown me into
her arms.--She was born, I told her, to make me happy and to save a
soul.----
He gives the rest of his vehement speech pretty nearly in
the same words as the Lady gives them: and then proceeds:
I saw she was frighted: and she would have had reason had the scene been
London, and that place in London, which I have in view to carry her to.
She confirmed me in my apprehension, that I had alarmed her too much:
she told me, that she saw what my boasted regard to her injunctions was;
and she would take proper measures upon it, as I should find: that she
was shocked at my violent airs; and if I hoped any favour from her, I
must that instant withdraw, and leave her to her recollection.
She pronounced this in such a manner as shewed she was set upon it; and,
having stepped out of the gentle, and polite part I had so newly engaged
to act, I thought ready obedience was the best atonement. And indeed I
was sensible, from her anger and repulses, that I wanted time myself
for recollection. And so I withdrew, with the same veneration as a
petitioning subject would withdraw from the presence of his sovereign.
But, O Belford! had she had but the least patience with me--had she but
made me think she would forgive this initiatory ardour--surely she will
not be always thus guarded.--
I had not been a moment by myself, but I was sensible that I had half
forfeited my newly-assumed character. It is exceedingly difficult, thou
seest, for an honest man to act in disguises: as the poet says, Thrust
Nature back with a pitchfork, it will return. I recollected, that what
she had insisted upon was really a part of that declared will before she
left her father's house, to which in another case (to humble her) I had
pretended to have an inviolable regard. And when I had remembered her
words of taking her measures accordingly, I was resolved to sacrifice
a leg or an arm to make all up again, before she had time to determine
upon any new measures.
How seasonably to this purpose have come in my aunt's and cousin's
letters!
*****
I have sent in again and again to implore her to admit me to her
presence. But she will conclude a letter she is writing to Miss Howe,
before she will see me.--I suppose to give her an account of what has
just passed.
*****
Curse upon her perverse tyranny! How she makes me wait for an humble
audience, though she has done writing for some time! A prince begging
for her upon his knees should not prevail upon me to spare her, if I can
but get her to London--Oons! Jack, I believe I have bit my lip through
for vexation!--But one day her's shall smart for it.
Mr. Lovelace, beginning a new date, gives an account of his
admittance, and of the conversation that followed: which
differing only in style from that of the Lady gives in the
next letter is omitted.
He collects the lady's expressions, which his pride cannot
bear: such as, That he is a stranger to the decorums which
she thought inseparable from a man of birth and education;
and that he is not the accomplished man he imagines himself
to be; and threatens to remember them against her.
He values himself upon his proposals and speeches, which he
gives to his friend pretty much to the same purpose that
the Lady does in her four last letters.
After mentioning his proposal to her that she would borrow a
servant from Miss Howe, till Hannah could come, he writes
as follows:
Thou seest, Belford, that my charmer has no notion that Miss Howe
herself is but a puppet danced upon my wires at second or third hand. To
outwit, and impel, as I please, two such girls as these, who think they
know every thing; and, by taking advantage of the pride and ill-nature
of the old ones of both families, to play them off likewise at the very
time they think they are doing me spiteful displeasure; what charming
revenge!--Then the sweet creature, when I wished that her brother was
not at the bottom of Mrs. Howe's resentment, to tell me, that she was
afraid he was, or her uncle would not have appeared against her to that
lady!--Pretty dear! how innocent!
But don't think me the cause neither of her family's malice and
resentment. It is all in their hearts. I work but with their materials.
They, if left to their own wicked direction, would perhaps express their
revenge by fire and faggot; that is to say, by the private dagger, or
by Lord Chief Justices' warrants, by law, and so forth: I only point
the lightning, and teach it where to dart, without the thunder. In other
words, I only guide the effects: the cause is in their malignant hearts:
and while I am doing a little mischief, I prevent a great deal.
Thus he exalts on her mentioning London:
I wanted her to propose London herself. This made me again mention
Windsor. If you would have a woman do one thing, you must always propose
another, and that the very contrary: the sex! the very sex! as I hope
to be saved!--Why, Jack, they lay a man under a necessity to deal doubly
with them! And, when they find themselves outwitted, they cry out upon
an honest fellow, who has been too hard for them at their own weapons.
I could hardly contain myself. My heart was at my throat.--Down, down,
said I to myself, exuberant exultation! A sudden cough befriended me;
I again turned to her, all as indifferenced over as a girl at the first
long-expected question, who waits for two more. I heard out the rest of
her speech: and when she had done, instead of saying any thing to her
for London, I advised her to send for Mrs. Norton.
As I knew she would be afraid of lying under obligation, I could have
proposed to do so much for the good woman and her son, as would have
made her resolve that I should do nothing: this, however, not merely to
avoid expense. But there was no such thing as allowing of the presence
of Mrs. Norton. I might as well have had her mother or her aunt Hervey
with her. Hannah, had she been able to come, and had she actually come,
I could have done well enough with. What do I keep fellows idling in the
country for, but to fall in love, and even to marry those whom I would
have them marry? Nor, upon second thoughts, would the presence of her
Norton, or of her aunt, or even of her mother, have saved the dear
creature, had I decreed her fall.
How unequal is a modest woman to the adventure, when she throws herself
into the power of a rake! Punctilio will, at any time, stand for reason
with such an one. She cannot break through a well-tested modesty. None
but the impudent little rogues, who can name the parson and the church
before you think of either, and undress and go to bed before you the
next hour, should think of running away with a man.
*****
I am in the right train now. Every hour, I doubt not, will give me an
increasing interest in the affections of this proud beauty. I have just
carried unpoliteness far enough to make her afraid of me; and to shew
her, that I am no whiner. Every instance of politeness, now, will give
me double credit with her. My next point will be to make her acknowledge
a lambent flame, a preference of me to all other men, at least: and
then my happy hour is not far off. An acknowledged reciprocality in love
sanctifies every little freedom: and little freedoms beget greater.
And if she call me ungenerous, I can call her cruel. The sex love to be
called cruel. Many a time have I complained of cruelty, even in the act
of yielding, because I knew it gratified the fair one's pride.
Mentioning that he had only hinted at Mr. Belford's lodgings as an instance to confirm what he had told her, that he knew of none in
London fit for her, he says,
I had a mind to alarm her with something furthest from my purpose; for
(as much as she disliked my motion) I intend nothing by it: Mrs. Osgood
is too pious a woman; and would have been more her friend than mine.
I had a view, moreover, to give her an high opinion of her own sagacity.
I love, when I dig a put, to have my prey tumble in with secure feet,
and open eyes: then a man can look down upon her, with an O-ho, charmer,
how came you there?