Then I rise, and fold to my almost-talking heart the throbbing-bosom'd
charmer.
And now shall thy humble pride confess its obligation to me!
To-morrow's sun--and then I disengage myself from the bashful passive,
and stalk about the room--to-morrow's sun shall gild the altar at which
my vows shall be paid thee!
Then, Jack, the rapture! then the darted sun-beams from her gladdened
eye, drinking up, at one sip, the precious distillation from the pearl-
dropt cheek! Then hands ardently folded, eyes seeming to pronounce, God
bless my Lovelace! to supply the joy-locked tongue: her transports too
strong, and expression too weak, to give utterance to her grateful
meanings!--All--all the studies--all the studies of her future life vowed
and devoted (when she can speak) to acknowledge and return the perpetual
obligation!
If I could bring my charmer to this, would it not be the eligible of
eligibles?--Is it not worth trying for?--As I said, I can marry her when
I will. She can be nobody's but mine, neither for shame, nor by choice,
nor yet by address: for who, that knows my character, believes that the
worst she dreads is now to be dreaded?
I have the highest opinion that man can have (thou knowest I have) of the
merit and perfections of this admirable woman; of her virtue and honour
too, although thou, in a former, art of opinion that she may be
overcome.* Am I not therefore obliged to go further, in order to
contradict thee, and, as I have often urged, to be sure that she is what
I really think her to be, and, if I am ever to marry her, hope to find
her?
* See Vol. III. Letter LI. Paragr. 9.
Then this lady is a mistress of our passions: no one ever had to so much
perfection the art of moving. This all her family know, and have equally
feared and revered her for it. This I know too; and doubt not more and
more to experience. How charmingly must this divine creature warble
forth (if a proper occasion be given) her melodious elegiacs!--Infinite
beauties are there in a weeping eye. I first taught the two nymphs below
to distinguish the several accents of the lamentable in a new subject,
and how admirably some, more than others, become their distresses.
But to return to thy objections--Thou wilt perhaps tell me, in the names
of thy brethren, as well as in thy own name, that, among all the objects
of your respective attempts, there was not one of the rank and merit of
my charming Miss Harlowe.
But let me ask, Has it not been a constant maxim with us, that the
greater the merit on the woman's side, the nobler the victory on the
man's? And as to rank, sense of honour, sense of shame, pride of family,
may make rifled rank get up, and shake itself to rights: and if any thing
come of it, such a one may suffer only in her pride, by being obliged to
take up with a second-rate match instead of a first; and, as it may fall
out, be the happier, as well as the more useful, for the misadventure;
since (taken off of her public gaddings, and domesticated by her
disgrace) she will have reason to think herself obliged to the man who
has saved her from further reproach; while her fortune and alliance will
lay an obligation upon him; and her past fall, if she have prudence and
consciousness, will be his present and future security.
But a poor girl [such a one as my Rosebud for instance] having no recalls
from education; being driven out of every family that pretends to
reputation; persecuted most perhaps by such as have only kept their
secret better; and having no refuge to fly to--the common, the stews, the
street, is the fate of such a poor wretch; penury, want, and disease, her
sure attendants; and an untimely end perhaps closes the miserable scene.
And will you not now all join to say, that it is more manly to attach a
lion than a sheep?--Thou knowest, that I always illustrated my eagleship,
by aiming at the noblest quarries; and by disdaining to make a stoop at
wrens, phyl-tits,* and wag-tails.
* Phyl-tits, q. d. Phyllis-tits, in opposition to Tom-tits. It needs not
now be observed, that Mr. Lovelace, in this wanton gaiety of his heart,
often takes liberties of coining words and phrases in his letters to this
his familiar friend. See his ludicrous reason for it in Vol. III. Letter
XXV. Paragr. antepenult.
The worst respecting myself, in the case before me, is that my triumph,
when completed, will be so glorious a one, that I shall never be able to
keep up to it. All my future attempts must be poor to this. I shall be
as unhappy, after a while, from my reflections upon this conquest, as Don
Juan of Austria was in his, on the renowned victory of Lepanto, when he
found that none of future achievements could keep pace with his early
glory.
I am sensible that my pleas and my reasoning may be easily answered, and
perhaps justly censured; But by whom censured? Not by any of the
confraternity, whose constant course of life, even long before I became
your general, to this hour, has justified what ye now in a fit of
squeamishness, and through envy, condemn. Having, therefore, vindicated
myself and my intentions to YOU, that is all I am at present concerned
for.
Be convinced, then, that I (according to our principles) am right, thou
wrong; or, at least, be silent. But I command thee to be convinced. And
in thy next be sure to tell me that thou art.