'Tis true, I went predetermined to be convinced, and to take all they should tell me for gospel. I had a conclusion of my own to draw, and if I could but lead to that, I cared not how much I granted.

I know not whether this predisposition in me was of any advantage to their argument, though I think it was not; for, so ready was the solution to every difficulty, I boldly ventured to state objections which I meant to have kept out of sight, lest I should myself overturn a system that suited my purpose. I perceived their eagerness, saw there was no danger that they should stop at trifles even if I should happen to throw them a bone to pick, and the readiness of each reply raised my curiosity. I fearlessly drew out my heavy artillery, which they with ease and safety as fearlessly dismounted. With a breath my strong holds were all puffed down, like so many houses of cards.

By this however my main business was done more effectually. We came to it by fair deduction. It was not abruptly introduced; it was major, minor, and consequent--All individual property is an evil--Marriage makes woman individual property--Therefore marriage is an evil--Could there be better logic?

As for his saving clause, that marriage in these times of prejudice and vice [I have the whole cant by rote, Fairfax.] is a necessary evil, leave me to do that away. What! Is she not a heroine? And can I not convince her that to act according to a bad system, when there is a better, were to descend to the ways of the vulgar? Can I not teach her how superior she is to the pretty misses who conform to such mistaken laws? Shall she want the courage and the generosity to set the first good example? How often have I seen her eyes sparkle, her bosom heave, and her zeal break forth in virtuous resolutions to encounter any peril to obtain a worthy purpose! And can there be a more worthy?

Curse upon these qualms of conscience! Never before did I feel any thing so teazing, so tormenting! And, knowing what I know, remembering what I never can forget, the slights, injuries, and insults I have received, how I came to feel them now is to me wholly inconceivable.

She is acting it is true with what she calls the best and purest of intentions toward me; she believes them to be such; she sometimes almost obliges me to believe them such myself. She tortures me, by half constraining me to revere the virtues in favour of which she harangues so divinely. But shall I like a poor uxorious lackadaisy driveller sit down satisfied with a divided heart?--I! she not with her own lips, under her own hand, avowed and signed her contumelious guilt, her audacious preference of a rival?--A mean, a base, a vulgar rival!--And after this shall my projects suffer impediment from cheesecurd compa.s.sion?--Shall the querulous voice of conscience arrest my avenging arm?--No, Fairfax!--It cannot be! Though my heart in its anger could not accuse her of a single crime beside, that alone, that d.a.m.ning preference would be all-sufficient!--The furies have no stings that equal this recollection!

I have been throwing up my sashes, striding across my room, and construing ten lines of Seneca, and my pulse again begins to beat more temperately.

Let us argue the point with this pert, unruly, marplot conscience of mine.

It was not at first without considerable reluctance and even pain that I began to plot. I almost abhorred reducing her to the level of the s.e.x, not one of whom was ever yet her equal. But she used me ill, Fairfax. Yes, she used me ill; and you well know that want of resentment is want of courage. None but pitiful, contemptible, no-souled fellows forget insults, till ample vengeance have been taken.

And shall conscience insolently pretend to contradict the decree?

Beside I could not but remember our old maxims, the Cyprian battles our jovial corps had fought, and the myrtle wreaths each wight had won.

Should I, the leader the captain of the band, be the first to fly my colours? Was it not our favourite axiom that he who could declare, upon his honour, he had found a generous woman, who never had attempted once to deceive, trifle with, or play him trick, should still be acknowledged a companion of our order, even though he were to marry: but that all coquetry, all tergiversation, all wrongs, however slight, were unpardonable, and only one way to be redressed? What answer can conscience give to that?

Your letters too are another stimulative. You detail the full, true and particular account of your amorous malefactions, and vaunt of petty obstacles, petty arts, and petty triumphs over Signoras and Madames who advance, challenge you to the field, and give battle purposely to be overcome. Their whole resistance is but to make you feel how great an Alexander you are, and that having vanquished them you are invincible!

As you will certainly never meet with an Anna St. Ives, 'tis possible you may die in that opinion. But, I tell you, Fairfax, if you compare these practised Amazons to my heroine, you are in a most heterodox and d.a.m.nable error, of which if you do not timely repent your soul will never find admission into the lover's Elysium.

Bear witness, however, to my honesty; of women I allow her to be the most excellent, but still a woman, and not as I foolishly for a while supposed an absolute G.o.ddess. No, no. Madam can curvet and play her pranks, though of totally a different kind; and, being almost mortal at present, mere mortal must become in despite of conscience and its green sickness physiognomy.

At first I knew her not; and, unwilling to encounter logic in a gauze cap, I ceased to oppose her arguments, and thought to conciliate her by resolving to be of her creed. What could be more generous? But no, forsooth! The veil was too thin! To pretend conviction when it was not felt, and to be satisfied with arguments before I had heard them, were all insufficient for her! The prize could be gained only by him who could answer the enigmas of the Sphinx! I must enter the lists of cavil, and run a tilt at wrangling, ere the lady would bestow the meed of conquest! Can conscience pretend to palliate conduct like this?

I then turned my thoughts to a new project, and endeavoured to overpower her by pa.s.sion, by excess of ardour, by tenderness and importunity. They had a temporary effect, but I found them equally inefficacious. Nor was the art by which I had oftenest been successful forgotten; though I confess that with her, from the beginning, it afforded me but little hope. I tried to familiarize her to freedoms. I began with her hands; but she soon taught me that even her hands were sacred; they were not to be treated with familiarity, nor to be kissed and pressed like other hands! Let conscience if it can tell me why.

In fine, while to this insolent pedagogue she has been all honeysuckle, sweet marjoram and heart's ease, to me she has been rue, wormwood and h.e.l.lebore: him praising, me reproving: confiding in him, suspecting me: and, as the very summit and crown of injury, proclaiming him the possessor the master of her admiration, or in plain English of her heart.

And now, if after this impartial, this cool, this stoic examination Mr.

Conscience should ever again be impertinent enough to open his lips, I am determined without the least ceremony to kick him out of doors.

When this famous conference of which I told you some half an hour ago was ended, and our president, our monarch of morals and mulberries had quitted his chair and withdrawn, I played an aftergame of no small moment. After p.r.o.nouncing a panegyric on the gentleman, as a legislator fit for truth and me, I read the lady a modest lecture on confidence, informed her of almost the exact quant.i.ty which I expected she would repose in me, and declaimed with eloquence and effect against those suspicious beauties who always regard us honest fellows as so many naughty goblins; who, like the Ethiopian monster, voraciously devour every Virgin-Andromeda they meet. But as I tell you, I did it modestly. I kept on my guard, watched the moment to press forward or to retreat; and wielded my weapons with dexterity and success.

Poor girl! Is it not a pity that the very shield in which she confides, her perfect honesty and sincerity, should be destined to fall upon and overwhelm her?--Thus says counsellor Sentiment: and counseller Sentiment is a great orator!--But what say I? Why I say so have the Fates decreed, and therefore let the Fates look to it; 'tis no concern of mine; I am but their willing instrument.

These however are but the preliminaries, the preparations for the combat. Ere long I shall be armed at all points, and what is better by her own fair hands. Nor do I know how soon I may begin the attack. I have been casting about to send this superintendant of the cardinal virtues, this captain of casuists and caterpillars out of the way; and I think I have hit upon a tolerably bold and ingenious stratagem. I say bold because I perceive it is not without danger; but I doubt I cannot devise a better. Without naming or appearing to mean myself, I have suggested to him, by inventing a tale of two friends of mine, what a n.o.ble and disinterested thing it would be for him to go down into the country and prevail on his father to remove all obstacles to our marriage--

How! Say you. Is marriage your plan? And if not is not that the way to ruin all?

There is the danger I talked of; but I do not think it great. The scoundrel gardener, I mean the father; who is heartily despised by every body, is desirous that his son should marry Anna. I know not whether I ever before mentioned this sublime effort of impudence. The cunning rascal has so long been the keeper of Sir Arthur's purse, that it is supposed two thirds of the contents have glided into his own pocket. This is the reason of the delay on Sir Arthur's part, which at present I do not wish to shorten. That this son of a grub catcher, a Demosthenes though he be, should prevail on such a father, if he were to go down as I hope he will, is but little probable. However, should the least prognostic of such a miracle appear, I have my remedy prepared. I will generously have a letter written to the senior overseer of the gravel walks, which if the character I have heard of him be not wholly false, shall revive all his hopes, and put an end to compliance.

In Italy, where amorous plotting is the national profession, I was not easily circ.u.mvented; and here, where another gunpowder treason would as soon be suspected as such gins and snares, at least by these very honest and sublime simpletons, I laugh at the supposition of being unearthed.

One word more. I think I observe in this knight of Gotham, this Sir Arthur, a more cordial kind of yearning toward our young prince of Babel land than formerly; a sort of desire to be more intimate with him, of which by the by the youth is not very prompt to admit, and an effort to treat him with more respect himself, by way as it were of setting a good example to others. If my conjectures are right, the threats of the old muckworm father have shaken the crazy nerves of the baronet; and I half suspect there is something more of meaning at the bottom of this. Were it so, were he to attempt to discard me, it would indeed add another spur to the fury of revenge! An affront so deep given by this poor being, this essence of insignificance, would make revenge itself, hot unsatiable revenge grow more hot, madden more, and thirst even after blood!--Patience foams at the supposition!

Thank heaven I hear the noisy postman with his warning bell, which obliges me in good time to conclude and cool these fermenting juices of mine!

C. CLIFTON

LETTER Lx.x.xIV

_Frank Henley to Oliver Trenchard_

_London, Grosvenor Street_

My mind, Oliver, is hara.s.sed by a variety of doubts. I believe I shall soon be down at Wenbourne Hill, and of course shall then not fail to meet thee and visit thy most worthy father.

The reason of my journey originates in the doubts I mentioned. I am angry with myself for feeling alarms at one moment which appear impossibilities the next. If my fears have any foundation, this Clifton is the deepest, the most hardened fiend-like hypocrite imagination can paint!--But it cannot be!--Surely it cannot!--I am guilty, heinously guilty for enduring such a thought!--So much folly and vice, combined with understanding and I may say genius so uncommon, is a supposition too extravagant, too injurious!

And yet it is strange, Oliver!--A conduct so suddenly altered, so totally opposite to old and inveterate habits, is scarcely reconcileable to the human character. But if dissimulation can be productive of this, is truth less powerful? No!--Truth is omnipotent.

Yet who ever saw it hasty in its progress? My only hope in this case is that the superiority of his mind has rendered him an exception to general rules.

But what could he propose by his hypocrisy?--I cannot tell--His pa.s.sions are violent and ungovernable; and are or very lately have been in full vigour--Again and again 'tis strange!

But what of this?--Why these fears? Can she be spotted, tinged by the stain of unsanctified desire?--Never!--The pure chast.i.ty of her soul is superior to attaint!--Yet--Who can say?--Wilfully her mind can never err: but who can affirm that even she may not be deceived, and may not act erroneously from the most holy motives?

Perhaps, Oliver, it is my own situation, my own desires, but half subdued, in which these doubts take birth. If so they are highly culpable.

Be it as it may, there is a duty visibly chalked out for me by circ.u.mstances. Her present situation is surely a state of danger. To see them married would now give me delight. It would indeed be the delight of despair, of gloom almost approaching horror. But of that I must not think. My father is the cause of the present delay. I fear I cannot remove this impediment, but it becomes me to try.

Though I had before conceived the design, this conduct has even been suggested to me by Clifton; and in a mode that proves he can be artful if he please. Yet does it not likewise prove him to be in earnest?

We have lately had several conversations, one in particular which, even while it seemed to place him in an amiable, sincere, and generous light, excited some of the very doubts and terrors of which I speak--If he be a hypocrite, he guards himself with a tenfold mask!--It cannot--No--It cannot be!--

I mean to speak to Sir Arthur concerning my journey, but not to inform him of its purport: it would have the face of insult to tell him I was going to be his advocate with his servant. Not to mention that he has lately treated me with increasing and indeed unusual kindness. If I do make an effort, however, it shall be a strenuous one; though my hopes that it should be effectual are very few. My decision is not yet final, but in my next thou wilt probably learn the result. Farewell.

F. HENLEY

P.S. My brain is so busied by its fears that I forgot to caution thee against a mistake into which it is probable this letter may lead. I mentioned, in one of my last, the project I had conceived of leaving England. Do not imagine I have abandoned a design on which the more I reflect the more I am intent. The great end of life is to benefit community. My mind in its present situation is too deeply affected freely and without inc.u.mbrance to exert itself--This is weakness!--But not the less true, Oliver. We are at present so imbued in prejudice, have drunken so deeply of the cup of error, that, after having received taints so numerous and ingrained, to wish for perfect consistency in virtue I doubt were vain. Here or at the antipodes alike I should remember her: but I should not alike be so often tempted and deluded by false hopes: the current of thought would not so often meet with impediments, to arrest, divide, and turn it aside.

I have studied to divine in what land or among what people, whether savage or such as we call polished, the energies of mind might be most productive of good. But this is a discovery which I have yet to make.

The reasons are so numerous on each side that I have formed a plan for a kind of double effort. I think of sailing for America, where I may aid the struggles of liberty, may freely publish all which the efforts of reason can teach me, and at the same time may form a society of savages, who seem in consequence of their very ignorance to have a less quant.i.ty of error, and therefore to be less liable to repel truth than those whose information is more multifarious. A merchant, with whom by accident I became acquainted, and who is a man of no mean understanding, approves and has engaged to promote my plan. But of this if I come to Wenbourne Hill we will talk further. Once more, Oliver, adieu.

LETTER Lx.x.xV

_c.o.ke Clifton to Guy Fairfax_

_London, Dover-street_