LETTER XCVIII.
Mr. Belford, To Robert Lovelace, Esq;
Thursday, July 27.
I went this morning, according to the Lady's invitation, to breakfast, and found Mr. Hickman with her.
A good deal of heaviness and concern hung upon his countenance; but he received me with more respect than he did yesterday; which, I presume, was owing to the Lady's favourable character of me.
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He spoke very little; for I suppose they had all their talk out yesterday and before I came this morning.
By the hints that dropt, I perceived that Miss Howe's Letter gave an account of your interview with her at Col. Ambrose's---of your professions to Miss Howe; and Miss Howe's opinion, that marrying you was the only way now left to repair her wrongs.
Mr. Hickman, as I also gathered, had pressed her, in Miss Howe's name, to let her, on her return from the Isle of Wight, find her at a neighbouring farmhouse, where neat apartments would be made ready to receive her. She asked, How long it would be before they returned? And he told her, It was proposed to be no more than a fortnight out and in. Upon which, she said, She should then perhaps have time to consider of that kind proposal.
He had tendered her money from Miss Howe; but could not induce her to take any. No wonder I was refused! She only said, That, if she had occasion, she would be obliged to nobody but Miss Howe.
Mr. Goddard her Apothecary came in before breakfast was over. At her desire he sat down with us. Mr. Hickman asked him, If he could give him any consolation in relation to Miss Harlowe's recovery, to carry down to a friend who loved her as she loved her own life?
The Lady, said he, will do very well, if she will resolve upon it herself. Indeed you will, Madam. The Doctor is entirely of this opinion; and has ordered nothing for you, but weak jellies, and innocent cordials, lest you should starve yourself. And let me tell you, Madam, that so much watching, so little nourishment, and so much grief, as you seem to indulge, is enough to impair the most vigorous health, and to wear out the strongest constitution.
What, Sir, said she, can I do? I have no appetite. Nothing you call nourishing will stay on my stomach. I do what I can: And have such kind directors
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in Dr. H. and you, that I should be inexcuseable if I did not.
I'll give you a Regimen, Madam, replied he; which, I am sure, the Doctor will approve of, and will make physic unnecessary in your case. And that is, 'Go to rest at Ten at night. Rise not till Seven in the morning. Let your breakfast be water-gruel, or milk-pottage, or weak broths: Your dinner anything you like, so you will but eat: A dish of tea, with milk, in the afternoon; and sagoe for your supper: And, my life for yours, this diet, and a month's country-air, will set you up.'
We were much pleased with the worthy gentleman's disinterested Regimen: And she said, referring to her Nurse (who vouched for her) Pray, Mr. Hickman, let Miss Howe know the good hands I am in: And as to the kind charge of the gentleman, assure her, that all I promised to her, in the longest of my two last Letters, on the subject of my health, I do and will, to the utmost of my power, observe. I have engaged, Sir [to Mr. Goddard] I have engaged, Sir [to me] to Miss Howe, to avoid all wilful neglects. It would be an unpardonable fault, and very ill become the character I would be glad to deserve, or the temper of mind I wish my friends hereafter to think me mistress of, if I did not.
Mr. Hickman and I went afterwards to a neighbouring Coffee-house; and he gave me some account of your behaviour at the Ball on Monday night, and of your treatment of him in the conference he had with you before that; which he represented in a more favourable light than you had done yourself: And yet he gave his sentiments of you with great freedom, but with the politeness of a gentleman.
He told me how very determined the Lady was against marrying you; that she had, early this morning, set herself to write a Letter to Miss Howe, in answer to one he brought her, which he was to call
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for at twelve, it being almost finished before he saw her at breakfast; and that at three he proposed to set out on his return.
He told me, that Miss Howe and her Mother, and himself, were to begin their little journey for the Isle of Wight on Monday next: But that he must make the most favourable representation of Miss Harlowe's bad health, or they should have a very uneasy absence. He expressed the pleasure he had in finding the Lady in such good Hands. He proposed to call on Dr. H. to take his opinion whether it were likely she would recover; and hoped he should find it favourable.
As he was resolved to make the best of the matter, and as the Lady had refused to accept of money offered by Mr. Hickman, I said nothing of her parting with her cloaths. I thought it would serve no other end to mention it, but to shock Miss Howe: For it has such a sound with it, that a woman of her rank and fortune should be so reduced, that I cannot myself think of it with patience; nor know I but one man in the world who can.
This gentleman is a little finical and formal. Modest or diffident men wear not soon off those little Precisenesses, which the confident, if ever they had them, presently get above. And why? Because they are too confident to doubt any-thing. But I think Mr. Hickman is an agreeable sensible man, and not at all deserving of the treatment or the character you give him.
But you are really a strange mortal: Because you have advantages in your person, in your air, and intellect, above all the men I know, and a face that would deceive the devil, you can't think any man else tolerable.
It is upon this modest principle that thou deridest some of us, who, not having thy confidence in their outside appearance, seek to hide their defects by the
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Taylor's and Peruke-maker's assistance [Mistakenly enough, if it be really done so absurdly as to expose them more]; and sayst, That we do but hang out a Sign, in our dress, of what we have in the Shop of our Minds. This, no doubt, thou thinkest, is smartly observed: But pr'ythee, Lovelace, tell me, if thou canst, What sort of a Sign must thou hang out, wert thou obliged to give us a clear idea by it of the furniture of thy mind?
Mr. Hickman tells me, He should have been happy with Miss Howe some weeks ago (for all the settlements have been some time engrossed); but that she will not marry, she declares, while her dear friend is so unhappy.
This is truly a charming instance of the force of female friendship; which you and I, and our brother Rakes, have constantly ridiculed as a chimerical thing in women of equal age, rank, and perfections.
But really, Lovelace, I see more and more, that there are not in the world, with all our conceited pride, narrower-souled wretches than we Rakes and Libertines are. And I'll tell thee how it comes about.
Our early Love of Roguery makes us generally run away from instruction; and so we become mere Smatterers in the Sciences we are put to learn; and, because we will know no more, think there is no more to be known.
With an infinite deal of vanity, un-reined imaginations, and no judgments at all, we next commence half-wits, and then think we have the whole field of knowlege in possession, and despise every one who takes more pains, and is more serious, than ourselves, as phlegmatic stupid fellows, who have no taste for the most poignant pleasures of life.
This makes us insufferable to men of modesty and merit, and obliges us to herd with those of our own cast; and by this means we have no opportunities of seeing or conversing with any-body who could or
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would shew us what we are; and so we conclude, that we are the cleverest fellows in the world, and the only men of spirit in it; and, looking down with supercilious eyes on all who give not themselves the liberties we take, imagine the world made for us, and for us only.
Thus, as to useful knowlege, while others go to the bottom, we only skim the surface; are despised by people of solid sense, of true honour, and superior talents; and, shutting our eyes, move round and round (like so many blind mill-horses) in one narrow circle, while we imagine we have all the world to range in.
I threw myself in Mr. Hickman's way, on his return from the Lady.
He was excessively moved at taking leave of her; being afraid, as he said to me (tho' he would not tell her so) that he should never see her again. She charged him to represent every-thing to Miss Howe in the most favourable light that the truth would bear.
He told me of a tender passage at parting; which was, that having saluted her at her closet-door, he could not help once more taking the same liberty, in a more fervent manner, at the stairs-head, whither she accompanied him; and this in the thought, that it was the last time he should ever have that honour; and offering to apologize for his freedom (for he had pressed her to his heart with a vehemence, that he could neither account for or resist)---"Excuse you, Mr. Hickman! that I will: You are my Brother and my Friend: And to shew you, that the good man, who is to be happy with my beloved Miss Howe, is very dear to me, you shall carry to her this token of my Love"---[offering her sweet face to his salute, and pressing his hand between hers]: "And perhaps her Love of me will make it more agreeable to her, than her punctilio would otherwise
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allow it to be: And tell her, said she, dropping on one knee, with clasped hands, and uplifted eyes, that in this posture you see me, in the last moment of our parting, begging a blessing upon you both, and that you may be the delight and comfort of each other, for many, very many, happy years!"
Tears, said he, fell from my eyes: I even sobbed with mingled joy and sorrow; and she retreating as soon as I raised her, I went down stairs, highly dissatisfied with myself for going; yet unable to stay; my eyes fixed the contrary way to my feet, as long as I could behold the skirts of her raiment.
I went into the back-shop, continued the worthy man, and recommended the angelic Lady to the best care of Mrs. Smith; and, when I was in the street, cast my eye up at her window: There, for the last time, I doubt, said he, that I shall ever behold her, I saw her; and she waved her charming hand to me, and with such a look of smiling goodness, and mingled concern, as I cannot describe.
Pr'ythee tell me, thou vile Lovelace, if thou hast not a notion even from these jejune descriptions of mine, that there must be a more exalted pleasure in intellectual friendship, than ever thou couldst taste in the gross fumes of sensuality? And whether it may not be possible for thee, in time, to give that preference to the infinitely preferable, which I hope, now, that I shall always give?
I will leave thee to make the most of this reflection, from
Thy true Friend,
J. Belford.