LETTER XXI MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. TUESDAY NIGHT, JULY 18.
Something like this I observed to her; and would fain have excused myself from showing it: but she was so earnest, that I undertook to read some parts of it, resolving to omit the most exceptionable.
I know thou'lt curse me for that; but I thought it better to oblige her than to be suspected myself; and so not have it in my power to serve thee with her, when so good a foundation was laid for it; and when she knows as bad of thee as I can tell her.
Thou rememberest the contents, I suppose, of thy furious letter.* Her remarks upon the different parts of it, which I read to her, were to the following effect:
* See Letter XII. of this volume.
Upon the last two lines, All undone! undone, by Jupiter! Zounds, Jack, what shall I do now? a curse upon all my plots and contrivances! thus she expressed herself:
'O how light, how unaffected with the sense of its own crimes, is the heart that could dictate to the pen this libertine froth?'
The paragraph which mentions the vile arrest affected her a good deal.
In the next I omitted thy curse upon thy relations, whom thou wert gallanting: and read on the seven subsequent paragraphs down to thy execrable wish; which was too shocking to read to her. What I read produced the following reflections from her:
'The plots and contrivances which he curses, and the exultings of the wicked wretches on finding me out, show me that all his guilt was premeditated: nor doubt I that his dreadful perjuries, and inhuman arts, as he went along, were to pass for fine stratagems; for witty sport; and to demonstrate a superiority of inventive talents!--O my cruel, cruel brother! had it not been for thee, I had not been thrown upon so pernicious and so despicable a plotter!--But proceed, Sir; pray proceed.'
At that part, Canst thou, O fatal prognosticator! tell me where my punishment will end?--she sighed. And when I came to that sentence, praying for my reformation, perhaps--Is that there? said she, sighing again. Wretched man!--and shed a tear for thee.--By my faith, Lovelace, I believe she hates thee not! she has at least a concern, a generous concern for thy future happiness--What a noble creature hast thou injured!
She made a very severe reflection upon me, on reading the words--On your knees, for me, beg her pardon--'You had all your lessons, Sir, said she, when you came to redeem me--You was so condescending as to kneel: I thought it was the effect of your own humanity, and good-natured earnestness to serve me--excuse me, Sir, I knew not that it was in consequence of a prescribed lesson.'
This concerned me not a little; I could not bear to be thought such a wretched puppet, such a Joseph Leman, such a Tomlinson. I endeavoured, therefore, with some warmth, to clear myself of this reflection; and she again asked my excuse: 'I was avowedly, she said, the friend of a man, whose friendship, she had reason to be sorry to say, was no credit to any body.'--And desired me to proceed.
I did; but fared not much better afterwards: for on that passage where you say, I had always been her friend and advocate, this was her unanswerable remark: 'I find, Sir, by this expression, that he had always designs against me; and that you all along knew that he had. Would to Heaven, you had had the goodness to have contrived some way, that might not have endangered your own safety, to give me notice of his baseness, since you approved not of it! But you gentlemen, I suppose, had rather see an innocent fellow-creature ruined, than be thought capable of an action, which, however generous, might be likely to loosen the bands of a wicked friendship!'