And all I know, Sir, is, that if I do give my father the power of a negative, and he will be contented with that, it will be but my duty to give it him; and if I preserve one to myself, I shall break through no obligation to you.
Your duty to your capricious brother, not to your father, you mean, Madam.
If the dispute lay between my brother and me at first, surely, Sir, a father may choose which party he will take.
He may, Madam—but that exempts him not from blame for all that, if he take the wrong—
Different people will judge differently, Mr. Lovelace, of the right and the wrong. You judge as you please. Shall not others as they please? And who has a right to control a father’s judgment in his own family, and in relation to his own child?
I know, Madam, there is no arguing with you. But, nevertheless, I had hoped to have made myself some little merit with you, so as that I might not have been the preliminary sacrifice to a reconciliation.
Your hope, Sir, had been better grounded if you had had my consent to my abandoning of my father’s house—
Always, Madam, and forever, to be reminded of the choice you would have made of that damn’d Solmes—rather than—
Not so hasty! not so rash, Mr. Lovelace! I am convinced that there was no intention to marry me to that Solmes on Wednesday.
So I am told they now give out, in order to justify themselves at your expense. Everybody living, Madam, is obliged to you for your kind thoughts but I.
Excuse me, good Mr. Lovelace (waving my hand, and bowing), that I am willing to think the best of my father.
Charming creature! said he, with what a bewitching air is that said!—And with a vehemence in his manner would have snatched my hand. But I withdrew it, being much offended with him.
I think, Madam, my sufferings for your sake might have entitled me to some favour.
My sufferings, Sir, for your impetuous temper, set against your sufferings for my sake, I humbly conceive, leave me very little your debtor.
Lord! Madam, (assuming a drawling air) What have you suffered?—Nothing but what you can easily forgive. You have been only made a prisoner in your father’s house, by way of doing credit to your judgment!—You have only had an innocent and faithful servant turned out of your service, because you loved her!—You have only had your sister’s confident servant set over you, with leave to tease and affront you—!
Very well, Sir!
You have only had an insolent brother take upon him to treat you like a slave, and as insolent a sister to undermine you in everybody’s favour, on pretence to keep you out of hands, which, if as vile as they vilely report, are not, however, half so vile and cruel as their own.
Go on, Sir, if you please!
You have only been persecuted, in order to oblige you to have a sordid fellow, whom you have professed to hate, and whom everybody despises! The license has been only got! The parson has only been had in readiness! The day, a near, a very near day, had been only fixed! And you were only to be searched for your correspondencies, and still closer confined till the day came, in order to deprive you of all means of escaping the snare laid for you!—But all this you can forgive! You can wish you had stood all this; inevitable as the compulsion must have been!—And the man who, at the hazard of his life, had delivered you from all these mortifications, is the only person you cannot forgive!
Can’t you go on, Sir? You see I have patience to hear you. Can’t you go on, Sir?
I can, Madam, with my sufferings: which I confess ought not to be mentioned, were I at last to be rewarded in the manner I hoped.
Your sufferings then, if you please, Sir?
Affrontingly forbidden your father’s house, after encouragement given, without any reasons they knew not before to justify the prohibition: forced upon a rencounter I wished to avoid: the first I ever, so provoked, wished to avoid. And that, because the wretch was your brother!
Wretch, Sir!—And my brother!—This could be from no man breathing, but from him before me!
Pardon me, Madam!—But oh! how unworthy to be your brother!—The quarrel grafted upon an old one, when at college; he universally known to be the aggressor; and revived for views equally sordid and injurious both to yourself and me—giving life to him, who would have taken away mine!
Your generosity this, Sir; not your sufferings: a little more of your sufferings, if you please!—I hope you do not repent, that you did not murder my brother!
My private life hunted into! My morals decried! Some of the accusers not unfaulty!
That’s an aspersion, Sir!
Spies set upon my conduct! One hired to bribe my own servant’s fidelity; perhaps to have poisoned me at last, if the honest fellow had not—
Facts, Mr. Lovelace!—Do you want facts in the display of your sufferings?—None of your perhaps’s
, I beseech you!
Menaces every day, and defiances, put into everyone’s mouth against me! Forced to creep about in disguises—and to watch all hours—
And in all weathers
, I suppose, Sir—That, I remember, was once your grievance! In all weathers
, Sir!93 and all these hardships arising from yourself, not imposed by me.
Like a thief, or an eavesdropper, proceeded he: and yet neither by birth nor alliances unworthy of their relation, whatever I may be and am of their admirable daughter: of whom they, every one of them, are at least as unworthy!—These, Madam, I call sufferings: justly call so; if at last I am to be sacrificed to an imperfect reconciliation—imperfect, I say: for, can you expect to live so much as tolerably under the same roof, after all that has passed, with that brother and sister?
O Sir, Sir! What sufferings have yours been! And all
