She retracts what she said against me in her last.--My behaviour to my
Rosebud; Miss Harlowe to take possession of Mrs. Fretchville's house; I
to stay at Mrs. Sinclair's; the stake I have in my country; my
reversions; my economy; my person; my address; [something like in all
this!] are brought in my favour, to induce her now not to leave me. How
do I love to puzzle these long-sighted girls!
Yet 'my teasing ways,' it seems, 'are intolerable.'--Are women only to
tease, I trow? The sex may thank themselves for teaching me to out-tease
them. So the headstrong Charles XII. of Sweden taught the Czar Peter to
beat him, by continuing a war with the Muscovites against the ancient
maxims of his kingdom.
'May eternal vengeance PURSUE the villain, [thank heaven, she does not
say overtake,] if he give room to doubt his honour!'--Women can't swear,
Jack--sweet souls! they can only curse.
I am said, to doubt her love--Have I not reason? And she, to doubt my
ardour--Ardour, Jack!--why, 'tis very right--women, as Miss Howe says,
and as every rake knows, love ardours!
She apprizes her, of the 'ill success of the application made to her
uncle.'--By Hickman no doubt!--I must have this fellow's ears in my
pocket, very quickly I believe.
She says, 'she is equally shocked and enraged against all her family:
Mrs. Norton's weight has been tried upon Mrs. Harlowe, as well as Mr.
Hickman's upon the uncle: but never were there,' says the vixen, 'such
determined brutes in the world. Her uncle concludes her ruined already.'
Is not that a call upon me, as well as a reproach?--'They all expected
applications from her when in distress--but were resolved not to stir an
inch to save her life.' Miss Howe 'is concerned,' she tells her, 'for
the revenge my pride may put me upon taking for the distance she has kept
me at'--and well she may.--It is now evident to her, that she must be
mine (for her cousin Morden, it seems, is set against her too)--an act of
necessity, of convenience!--thy friend, Jack, to be already made a
woman's convenience! Is this to be borne by a Lovelace?
I shall make great use of this letter. From Miss Howe's hints of what
passed between her uncle Harlowe and Hickman, [it must be Hickman,] I can
give room for my invention to play; for she tells her, that 'she will not
reveal all.' I must endeavour to come at this letter myself. I must
have the very words: extracts will not do. This letter, when I have it,
must be my compass to steer by.
The fire of friendship then blazes and crackles. I never before imagined
that so fervent a friendship could subsist between two sister-beauties,
both toasts. But even here it may be inflamed by opposition, and by that
contradiction which gives vigour to female spirits of a warm and romantic
turn.
She raves about 'coming up, if by doing so she could prevent so noble a
creature from stooping too low, or save her from ruin.'--One reed to
support another! I think I will contrive to bring her up.
How comes it to pass, that I cannot help being pleased with this virago's
spirit, though I suffer by it? Had I her but here, I'd engage, in a
week's time, to teach her submission without reserve. What pleasure
should I have in breaking such a spirit! I should wish for her but for
one month, I think. She would be too tame and spiritless for me after
that. How sweetly pretty to see the two lovely friends, when humbled and
tame, both sitting in the darkest corner of a room, arm in arm, weeping
and sobbing for each other!--and I their emperor, their then acknowledged
emperor, reclined at my ease in the same room, uncertain to which I
should first, grand signor like, throw out my handkerchief!
Again mind the girl: 'She is enraged at the Harlowes;' she is 'angry at
her own mother;' she is exasperated against her foolish and low-vanity'd
Lovelace.' FOOLISH, a little toad! [God forgive me for calling such a
virtuous girl a toad!]--'Let us stoop to lift the wretch out of his dirt,
though we soil our fingers in doing it! He has not been guilty of direct
indecency to you.' It seems extraordinary to Miss Howe that I have not.
--'Nor dare he!' She should be sure of that. If women have such things
in their heads, why should not I in my heart? Not so much of a devil as
that comes to neither. Such villainous intentions would have shown
themselves before now if I had them.--Lord help them!--
She then puts her friend upon urging for settlements, license, and so
forth.--'No room for delicacy now,' she says; and tells her what she
shall say, 'to bring all forward from me.' Is it not as clear to thee,
Jack, as it is to me, that I should have carried my point long ago, but
for this vixen?--She reproaches her for having MODESTY'D away, as she
calls it, more than one opportunity, that she ought not to have slipt.--
Thus thou seest, that the noblest of the sex mean nothing in the world
by their shyness and distance, but to pound the poor fellow they dislike
not, when he comes into their purlieus.
Though 'tricked into this man's power,' she tells her, she is 'not meanly
subjugated to it.' There are hopes of my reformation, it seems, 'from my
reverence for her; since before her I never had any reverence for what
was good!' I am 'a great, a specious deceiver.' I thank her for this,
however. A good moral use, she says, may be made of my 'having prevailed
upon her to swerve.' I am glad that any good may flow from my actions.
Annexed to this letter is a paper the most saucy that ever was written of
a mother by a daughter. There are in it such free reflections upon
widows and bachelors, that I cannot but wonder how Miss Howe came by her
learning. Sir George Colmar, I can tell thee, was a greater fool than
thy friend, if she had it all for nothing.
The contents of this paper acquaint Miss Harlowe, that her uncle Antony
has been making proposals of marriage to her mother.
The old fellow's heart ought to be a tough one, if he succeed; or she who
broke that of a much worthier man, the late Mr. Howe, will soon get rid
of him.
But be this as it may, the stupid family is made more irreconcilable than
ever to their goddess-daughter for old Antony's thoughts of marrying: so
I am more secure of her than ever. And yet I believe at last, that my
tender heart will be moved in her favour. For I did not wish that she
should have nothing but persecution and distress.--But why loves she the
brutes, as Miss Howe justly calls them, so much; me so little?