LETTER XXXII.
Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq;
Wedn. Sept. 20.
I write to demand back again my last Letter. I own it was my mind at the different times I wrote it; and, whatever ailed me, I could not help writing it. Such a gloomy impulse came upon me, and increased as I wrote, that, for my soul, I could not forbear running into the Miserable.
'Tis strange, very strange, that a man's conscience should be able to force his fingers to write whether he will or not; and to run him into a subject he more than once, at the very time, resolved not to think of.'
Nor is it less strange, that (no new reason occurring) he should, in a day or two more, so totally change his mind; have his mind, I should rather say, so wholly illuminated by gay hopes, and rising prospects, as to be ashamed of what he had written.
For, on reperusal of a copy of my Letter, which fell into my hands by accident, in the hand-writing of my
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Cousin Charlotte, who, unknown to me, had transcribed it, I find it to be such a Letter as an enemy would rejoice to see.
This I know, that were I to have continued but one week more in the way I was in when I wrote the latter part of it, I should have been confined, and in straw, the next: For I now recollect, that all my distemper was returning upon me with irresistible violence---and that in spite of water-gruel and soupe-maigre.
I own, that I am still excessively grieved at the disappointment this admirable woman made it so much her whimsical choice to give me. But, since it has thus fallen out; since she was determined to leave the world; and since she actually ceases to be; ought I, who have such a share of life and health in hand, to indulge gloomy reflections upon an event that is passed; and being passed, cannot be recalled? ---Have I not had a specimen of what will be my case, if I do?
For, Belford ('tis a folly to deny it) I have been, to use an old word, quite bestraught.
Why, why, did my Mother bring me up to bear no controul? Why was I so educated, as that to my very tutors it was a request, that I should not know what contradiction or disappointment was? ---Ought she not to have known what cruelty there was in her kindness?
What a punishment, to have my first very great disappointment touch my intellect! ---And intellects once touched---But that I cannot bear to think of---Only thus far; The very repentance and amendment wished me so heartily by my kind and cross dear, have been invalidated and postponed, who knows for how long? the amendment at least: ---Can a madman be capable of either?
Once touch'd therefore, I must endeavour to banish those gloomy reflections, which might otherwise have brought on the right turn of mind; and this, to express myself in Lord M's style, that my wits may not be sent a wool-gathering.
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For, let me moreover own to thee, that Dr. Hale, who was my good Astolfo [You read Ariosto, Jack] and has brought me back my wit-jar, had much ado, by starving diet, by profuse phlebotomy, by flaying blisters, eylet-hole-cupping, a dark room, a midnight solitude in a mid-day sun, to effect my recovery. And now, for my comfort, he tells me, that I may still have returns upon full moons---Horrible! most horrible!--- and must be as careful of myself at both Equinoctials, as Cæsar was warned to be of the ides of March.
How my heart sickens at looking back upon what I was! Denied the Sun, and all comfort: All my visitors, low-born, tiptoe attendants: Even those tiptoe slaves never approaching me but periodically, armed with gallipots, bolus's, and cephalic draughts; delivering their orders to me in hated whispers; and answering other curtain-holding impertinents, enquiring how I was, and how I took their execrable potions, whisperingly too! What a cursed Still-life was this! ---Nothing active in me, or about me, but the worm that never dies.
Again I hasten from the recollection of scenes, which will, at times, obtrude themselves upon me.
Adieu, Belford!
But return me my last Letter---and build nothing upon its contents. I must, I will, I have already, overcome these fruitless gloominesses. Every hour my constitution rises stronger and stronger to befriend me; and, except a tributary sigh now-and-then to the memory of my heart's beloved, it gives me hope, that I shall quickly be what I was---Life, spirit, gaiety, and once more the plague of a Sex, that has been my plague, and will be every man's plague, at one time or other of his life.
I repeat my desire, however, that you will write to me as usual. I hope you have good store of particulars by you to communicate, when I can better bear to hear of the dispositions that were made for all that was mortal of my beloved Clarissa.
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But it will be the joy of my heart to be told, that her implacable friends are plagued with remorse. Such things as those you may now send me: For company in misery is some relief; especially when a man can think those he hates as miserable as himself.
Once more adieu, Jack!