Tuesday Afternoon.
If you are in London when I get thither, you will see me soon. My charmer is a little better than she was: her eyes show it; and her harmonious voice, hardly audible last time I saw her, now begins to cheer my heart once more. But yet she has no love—no sensibility! There is no addressing her with those meaning, yet innocent freedoms (innocent, at first setting out, they may be called) which soften others of her sex. The more strange this, as she now acknowledges preferable favour for me; and is highly susceptible of grief. Grief mollifies, and enervates. The grieved mind looks round it, silently implores consolation, and loves the soother. Grief is ever an inmate with joy. Though they won’t show themselves at the same window at one time; yet they have the whole house in common between them.
Letter 154
Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq.
Wedn.
At last my lucky star has directed us into the desired port, and we are safely landed.—Well says Rowe:—
The wise and active conquer difficulties,
By daring to attempt them. Sloth and folly
Shiver and shrink at sight of toil and hazard,
And make th’ impossibility they fear.But in the midst of my exultation, something, I know not what to call it, checks my joys, and glooms over my brighter prospects: if it be not conscience, it is wondrously like what I thought so, many, many years ago.
Surely, Lovelace, methinks thou sayest, thy good motions are not gone off already! Surely thou wilt not now at last be a villain to this lady!
I can’t tell what to say to it. Why would not the dear creature accept of me, when I so sincerely offered myself to her acceptance? Things already appear with a very different face now I have got her here. Already have our mother and her daughters been about me:—“Charming lady! What a complexion! What eyes! What majesty in her person!—O Mr. Lovelace, you are a happy man! You owe us such a lady!”—Then they remind me of my revenge, and of my hatred to her whole family.
Sally was so struck with her, at first sight, that she broke out to me in these lines of Dryden:—
—Fairer to be seen
Than the fair lily on the flow’ry green!
More fresh than May herself in blossoms new!I sent to thy lodgings within half an hour after our arrival, to receive thy congratulation upon it, but thou wert at Edgeware, it seems.
My beloved, who is charmingly amended, is retired to her constant employment, writing. I must content myself with the same amusement, till she shall be pleased to admit me to her presence: for already have I given to everyone her cue.
And, among the rest, who dost thou think is to be her maidservant?—Deb. Butler.
Ah, Lovelace!
And Ah, Belford!—It can’t be otherwise. But what dost think Deb’s name is to be? Why, Dorcas, Dorcas Wykes. And won’t it be admirable, if, either through fear, fright, or good liking, we can get my beloved to accept of Dorcas Wykes for a bedfellow?
In so many ways will it be now in my power to have the dear creature, that I shall not know which of them to choose!
But here comes the widow with Dorcas Wykes in her hand, and I am to introduce them both to my fair-one?
So, the honest girl is accepted—of good parentage—but, through a neglected education, plaguey illiterate: she can neither write, nor read writing. A kinswoman of Mrs. Sinclair—could not therefore well be refused, the widow in person recommending her; and the wench only taken till her Hannah can come. What an advantage has an imposing or forward nature over a courteous one! So here may something arise to lead into correspondencies, and so forth. To be sure a person need not be so wary, so cautious of what she writes, or what she leaves upon her table, or toilette, when her attendant cannot read.
It would be a miracle, as thou sayest, if this lady can save herself—And having gone so far, how can I recede? Then my revenge upon the Harlowes!—To have run away with a daughter of theirs, to make her a Lovelace—to make her one of a family so superior to her own—what a triumph, as I have heretofore observed,121 to them! But to run away with her, and to bring her to my lure in the other light, what a mortification of their pride! What a gratification of my own!
Then these women are continually at me. These women, who, before my whole soul and faculties were absorbed in the love of this single charmer, used always to oblige me with the flower and first fruits of their garden! Indeed, indeed, my goddess should not have chosen this London widow’s! But I dare say, if I had, she would not. People who will be dealing in contradiction ought to pay for it. And to be punished by the consequences of our own choice—what a moral lies there!—What a deal of good may I not be the occasion of from a little evil!
Dorcas is a neat creature, both in person and dress; her continuance not vulgar. And I am in hopes, as I hinted above, that her lady will accept of her for her bedfellow, in a strange house, for a week or so. But I saw she had a dislike to her at her very first appearance; yet I thought the girl behaved very modestly—overdid it a little perhaps. Her ladyship shrunk back, and looked shy upon her. The doctrine of sympathies
