MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
SATURDAY, MAY 20.
Not one word will I reply to such an abandoned wretch, as thou hast shewn
thyself to be in thine of last night. I will leave the lady to the
protection of that Power who only can work miracles; and to her own
merits. Still I have hopes that these will save her.
I will proceed, as thou desirest, to poor Belton's case; and the rather,
as it has thrown me into such a train of thinking upon our past lives,
our present courses, and our future views, as may be of service to us
both, if I can give due weight to the reflections that arise from it.
The poor man made me a visit on Thursday, in this my melancholy
attendance. He began with complaints of his ill health and spirits, his
hectic cough, and his increased malady of spitting blood; and then led to
his story.
A confounded one it is; and which highly aggravates his other maladies:
for it has come out, that his Thomasine, (who, truly, would be new
christened, you know, that her name might be nearer in sound to the
christian name of the man whom she pretended to doat upon) has for many
years carried on an intrigue with a fellow who had been hostler to her
father (an innkeeper at Darking); of whom, at the expense of poor Belton,
she has made a gentleman; and managed it so, that having the art to make
herself his cashier, she has been unable to account for large sums, which
he thought forthcoming at demand, and had trusted to her custody, in
order to pay off a mortgage upon his parental estate in Kent, which his
heart has run upon leaving clear, but which now cannot be done, and will
soon be foreclosed. And yet she has so long passed for his wife, that he
knows not what to resolve upon about her; nor about the two boys he was
so fond of, supposing them to be his; whereas now he begins to doubt his
share in them.
So KEEPING don't do, Lovelace. 'Tis not the eligible wife. 'A man must
keep a woman, said the poor fellow to me, but not his estate!--Two
interests!--Then, my tottering fabric!' pointing to his emaciated
carcass.
We do well to value ourselves upon our liberty, or to speak more
properly, upon the liberties we take. We had need to run down matrimony
as we do, and to make that state the subject of our frothy jests; when we
frequently render ourselves (for this of Tom's is not a singular case)
the dupes and tools of women who generally govern us (by arts our wise
heads penetrate not) more absolutely than a wife would attempt to do.
Let us consider this point a little; and that upon our own principles, as
libertines, setting aside what is exacted from us by the laws of our
country, and its customs; which, nevertheless, we cannot get over, till
we have got over almost all moral obligations, as members of society.
In the first place, let us consider (we, who are in possession of estates
by legal descent) how we should have liked to have been such naked
destitute varlets, as we must have been, had our fathers been as wise as
ourselves; and despised matrimony as we do--and then let us ask
ourselves, If we ought not to have the same regard for our posterity, as
we are glad our fathers had for theirs?
But this, perhaps, is too moral a consideration.--To proceed therefore to
those considerations which will be more striking to us: How can we
reasonably expect economy or frugality (or anything indeed but riot and
waste) from creatures who have an interest, and must therefore have
views, different from our own?
They know the uncertain tenure (our fickle humours) by which they hold:
And is it to be wondered at, supposing them to be provident harlots, that
they should endeavour, if they have the power, to lay up against a rainy
day? or, if they have not the power, that they should squander all they
can come at, when they are sure of nothing but the present hour; and when
the life they live, and the sacrifices they have made, put conscience and
honour out of the question?
Whereas a wife, having the same family-interest with her husband, lies
not under either the same apprehensions or temptations; and has not
broken through (of necessity, at least, has not) those restraints which
education has fastened upon her: and if she makes a private purse, which
we are told by anti-matrimonialists, all wives love to do, and has
children, it goes all into the same family at the long-run.
Then as to the great article of fidelity to your bed--Are not women of
family, who are well-educated, under greater restraints, than creatures,
who, if they ever had reputation, sacrifice it to sordid interest, or to
more sordid appetite, the moment they give it up to you? Does not the
example you furnish, of having succeeded with her, give encouragement
for others to attempt her likewise? For with all her blandishments, can
any man be so credulous, or so vain, as to believe, that the woman he
could persuade, another may not prevail upon?
Adultery is so capital a guilt, that even rakes and libertines, if not
wholly abandoned, and as I may say, invited by a woman's levity, disavow
and condemn it: but here, in a state of KEEPING, a woman is in no danger
of incurring (legally, at least) that guilt; and you yourself have broken
through and overthrown in her all the fences and boundaries of moral
honesty, and the modesty and reserves of her sex: And what tie shall hold
her against inclination, or interest? And what shall deter an attempter?
While a husband has this security from legal sanctions, that if his wife
be detected in a criminal conversation with a man of fortune, (the most
likely by bribes to seduce her,) he may recover very great damages, and
procure a divorce besides: which, to say nothing of the ignominy, is a
consideration that must have some force upon both parties. And a wife
must be vicious indeed, and a reflection upon a man's own choice, who,
for the sake of change, and where there are no qualities to seduce, nor
affluence to corrupt, will run so many hazards to injure her husband in
the tenderest of all points.
But there are difficulties in procuring a divorce--[and so there ought]--
and none, says the rake, in parting with a mistress whenever you suspect
her; or whenever you are weary of her, and have a mind to change her for
another.
But must not the man be a brute indeed, who can cast off a woman whom he
has seduced, [if he take her from the town, that's another thing,]
without some flagrant reason; something that will better justify him to
himself, as well as to her, and to the world, than mere power and
novelty?
But I don't see, if we judge by fact, and by the practice of all we have
been acquainted with of the keeping-class, that we know how to part with
them when we have them.
That we know we can if we will, is all we have for it: and this leads us
to bear many things from a mistress, which we would not from a wife.
But, if we are good-natured and humane: if the woman has art: [and what
woman wants it, who has fallen by art? and to whose precarious situation
art is so necessary?] if you have given her the credit of being called by
your name: if you have a settled place of abode, and have received and
paid visits in her company, as your wife: if she has brought you children
--you will allow that these are strong obligations upon you in the
world's eye, as well as to your own heart, against tearing yourself from
such close connections. She will stick to you as your skin: and it will
be next to flaying yourself to cast her off.
Even if there be cause for it, by infidelity, she will have managed ill,
if she have not her defenders. Nor did I ever know a cause or a person
so bad, as to want advocates, either from ill-will to the one, or pity to
the other: and you will then be thought a hard-hearted miscreant: and
even were she to go off without credit to herself, she will leave you as
little; especially with all those whose good opinion a man would wish to
cultivate.
Well, then, shall this poor privilege, that we may part with a woman if
we will, be deemed a balance for the other inconveniencies? Shall it be
thought by us, who are men of family and fortune, an equivalent for
giving up equality of degree; and taking for the partner of our bed, and
very probably more than the partner in our estates, (to the breach of all
family-rule and order,) a low-born, a low-educated creature, who has not
brought any thing into the common stock; and can possibly make no returns
for the solid benefits she receives, but those libidinous ones, which a
man cannot boast of, but to his disgrace, nor think of, but to the shame
of both?
Moreover, as the man advances in years, the fury of his libertinism will
go off. He will have different aims and pursuits, which will diminish
his appetite to ranging, and make such a regular life as the matrimonial
and family life, palatable to him, and every day more palatable.
If he has children, and has reason to think them his, and if his lewd
courses have left him any estate, he will have cause to regret the
restraint his boasted liberty has laid him under, and the valuable
privilege it has deprived him of; when he finds that it must descend to
some relation, for whom, whether near or distant, he cares not one
farthing; and who perhaps (if a man of virtue) has held him in the
utmost contempt for his dissolute life.
And were we to suppose his estate in his power to bequeath as he pleases;
why should a man resolve, for the gratifying of his foolish humour only,
to bastardize his race? Why should he wish to expose his children to the
scorn and insults of the rest of the world? Why should he, whether they
are sons or daughters, lay them under the necessity of complying with
proposals of marriage, either inferior as to fortune, or unequal as to
age? Why should he deprive the children he loves, who themselves may be
guilty of no fault, of the respect they would wish to have, and to
deserve; and of the opportunity of associating themselves with proper,
that is to say, with reputable company? and why should he make them think
themselves under obligation to every person of character, who will
vouchsafe to visit them? What little reason, in a word, would such
children have to bless their father's obstinate defiance of the laws and
customs of his country; and for giving them a mother, of whom they could
not think with honour; to whose crime it was that they owed their very
beings, and whose example it was their duty to shun?
If the education and morals of these children are left to chance, as too
generally they are, (for the man who has humanity and a feeling heart,
and who is capable of fondness for his offspring, I take it for granted
will marry,) the case is still worse; his crime is perpetuated, as I may
say, by his children: and the sea, the army, perhaps the highway, for the
boys; the common for the girls; too often point out the way to a worse
catastrophe.
What therefore, upon the whole, do we get by treading in these crooked
paths, but danger, disgrace, and a too-late repentance?
And after all, do we not frequently become the cullies of our own
libertinism; sliding into the very state with those half-worn-out doxies,
which perhaps we might have entered into with their ladies; at least with
their superiors both in degree and fortune? and all the time lived
handsomely like ourselves; not sneaking into holes and corners; and, when
we crept abroad with our women, looking about us, and at ever one that
passed us, as if we were confessedly accountable to the censures of all
honest people.
My cousin Tony Jenyns, thou knewest. He had not the actively mischievous
spirit, that thou, Belton, Mowbray, Tourville, and myself, have: but he
imbibed the same notions we do, and carried them into practice.
How did he prate against wedlock! how did he strut about as a wit and a
smart! and what a wit and a smart did all the boys and girls of our
family (myself among the rest, then an urchin) think him, for the airs he
gave himself?--Marry! No, not for the world; what man of sense would
bear the insolences, the petulances, the expensiveness of a wife! He
could not for the heart of him think it tolerable, that a woman of equal
rank and fortune, and, as it might happen, superior talents to his own,
should look upon herself to have a right to share the benefit of that
fortune which she brought him.
So, after he had fluttered about the town for two or three years, in all
which time he had a better opinion of himself than any body else had,
what does he do, but enter upon an affair with his fencing-master's
daughter?
He succeeds; takes private lodgings for her at Hackney; visits her by
stealth; both of them tender of reputations that were extremely tender,
but which neither had quite given up; for rakes of either sex are always
the last to condemn or cry down themselves: visited by nobody, nor
visiting: the life of a thief, or of a man bested by creditors, afraid to
look out of his own house, or to be seen abroad with her. And thus went
on for twelve years, and, though he had a good estate, hardly making both
ends meet; for though no glare, there was no economy; and, beside, he had
ever year a child, and very fond of his children was he. But none of
them lived above three years. And being now, on the death of the
dozenth, grown as dully sober, as if he had been a real husband, his good
Mrs. Thomas (for he had not permitted her to take his own name) prevailed
upon him to think the loss of their children a judgment upon the parents
for their wicked way of life; [a time will come, Lovelace, if we live to
advanced years, in which reflection will take hold of the enfeebled
mind;] and then it was not difficult for his woman to induce him, by way
of compounding with Heaven, to marry her. When this was done, he had
leisure to sit down, and contemplate; an to recollect the many offers of
persons of family and fortune to which he had declined in the prime of
life: his expenses equal at least: his reputation not only less, but
lost: his enjoyments stolen: his partnership unequal, and such as he had
always been ashamed of. But the woman said, that after twelve or
thirteen years' cohabitation, Tony did an honest thing by her. And that
was all my poor cousin got by making his old mistress his new wife--not a
drum, not a trumpet, not a fife, not a tabret, nor the expectation of a
new joy, to animate him on!
What Belton will do with his Thomasine I know not! nor care I to advise
him: for I see the poor fellow does not like that any body should curse
her but himself. This he does very heartily. And so low is he reduced,
that he blubbers over the reflection upon his past fondness for her cubs,
and upon his present doubts of their being his: 'What a damn'd thing is
it, Belford, if Tom and Hal should be the hostler dog's puppies and not
mine!'
Very true! and I think the strong health of the chubby-faced muscular
whelps confirms the too great probability.
But I say not so to him.
You, he says, are such a gay, lively mortal, that this sad tale would
make no impression upon you: especially now, that your whole heart is
engaged as it is. Mowbray would be too violent upon it: he has not, he
says, a feeling heart. Tourville has no discretion: and, a pretty jest!
although he and his Thomasine lived without reputation in the world,
(people guessing that they were not married, notwithstanding she went by
his name,) yet 'he would not too much discredit the cursed ingrate
neither!'
Could a man act a weaker part, had he been really married; and were he
sure he was going to separate from the mother of his own children?
I leave this as a lesson upon thy heart, without making any application:
only with this remark, 'That after we libertines have indulged our
licentious appetites, reflecting, (in the conceit of our vain hearts,)
both with our lips and by our lives, upon our ancestors and the good old
ways, we find out, when we come to years of discretion, if we live till
then (what all who knew us found out before, that is to say, we found
out), our own despicable folly; that those good old ways would have been
best for us, as well as for the rest of the world; and that in every step
we have deviated from them we have only exposed our vanity and our
ignorance at the same time.'