All hands at work in preparation for London.--What makes my heart beat
so strong? Why rises it to my throat in such half-choking flutters, when
I think of what this removal may do for me? I am hitherto resolved to
be honest, and that increases my wonder at these involuntary commotions.
'Tis a plotting villain of a heart: it ever was--and ever will be, I
doubt. Such a joy when any roguery is going forward!--I so little its
master!--A head, likewise, so well turned to answer the triangular
varlet's impulses!--No matter--I will have one struggle with thee, old
friend; and if I cannot overcome thee now, I never will again attempt to
conquer thee.
The dear creature continues extremely low and dejected. Tender blossom!
how unfit to contend with the rude and ruffling winds of passion, and
haughty and insolent control!--Never till now from under the wing (it is
not enough to say of indulging, but) of admiring parents; the mother's
bosom only fit to receive this charming flower!
This was the reflection, that, with mingled compassion, and augmented
love, arose to my mind, when I beheld the charmer reposing her lovely
face upon the bosom of the widow Sorlings, from a recovered fit, as I
entered soon after she had received her execrable sister's letter. How
lovely in her tears!--And as I entered, her uplifted face significantly
bespeaking my protection, as I thought. And can I be a villain to such
an angel!--I hope not--But why, Belford, why, once more, puttest thou
me in mind, that she may be overcome? And why is her own reliance on my
honour so late and so reluctantly shown?
But, after all, so low, so dejected, continues she to be, that I am
terribly afraid I shall have a vapourish wife, if I do marry. I should
then be doubly undone. Not that I shall be much at home with her,
perhaps, after the first fortnight, or so. But when a man has been
ranging, like the painful bee, from flower to flower, perhaps for a
month together, and the thoughts of home and a wife begin to have their
charms with him, to be received by a Niobe, who, like a wounded vine,
weeps her vitals away, while she but involuntary curls about him; how
shall I be able to bear that?
May Heaven restore my charmer to health and spirits, I hourly pray--that
a man may see whether she can love any body but her father and mother!
In their power, I am confident, it will be, at any time, to make her
husband joyless; and that, as I hate them so heartily, is a shocking
thing to reflect upon.--Something more than woman, an angel, in some
things; but a baby in others: so father-sick! so family-fond!--What a
poor chance stands a husband with such a wife! unless, forsooth, they
vouchsafe to be reconciled to her, and continue reconciled!
It is infinitely better for her and for me that we should not marry.
What a delightful manner of life [O that I could persuade her to
it!] would the life of honour be with such a woman! The fears, the
inquietudes, the uneasy days, the restless nights; all arising from
doubts of having disobliged me! Every absence dreaded to be an
absence for ever! And then how amply rewarded, and rewarding, by the
rapture-causing return! Such a passion as this keeps love in a continual
fervour--makes it all alive. The happy pair, instead of sitting dozing
and nodding at each other, in opposite chimney-corners, in a winter
evening, and over a wintry love, always new to each other, and having
always something to say.
Thou knowest, in my verses to my Stella, my mind on this occasion.
I will lay those verses in her way, as if undesignedly, when we are
together at the widow's; that is to say, if we do not soon go to church
by consent. She will thence see what my notions are of wedlock. If she
receives them with any sort of temper, that will be a foundation--and
let me alone to build upon it.
Many a girl has been carried, who never would have been attempted, had
she showed a proper resentment, when her ears, or her eyes were first
invaded. I have tried a young creature by a bad book, a light quotation,
or an indecent picture; and if she has borne that, or only blushed, and
not been angry; and more especially if she has leered and smiled; that
girl have I, and old Satan, put down for our own. O how I could warn
these little rogues, if I would! Perhaps envy, more than virtue, will
put me upon setting up beacons for them, when I grow old and joyless.