I am most apprehensive about Miss Howe. She
has a confounded deal of wit, and wants only a subject,
to shew as much roguery: and should I be outwitted
with all my sententious boasting of conceit of my own
nostrum-mongership—[I love to plague thee,
who art a pretender to accuracy, and a surface-skimmer
in learning, with out-of-the-way words and phrases]
I should certainly hang, drown, or shoot myself.
Poor Hickman! I pity him for the prospect he
has with such a virago! But the fellow’s
a fool, God wot! And now I think of it, it is
absolutely necessary for complete happiness in the
married state, that one should be a fool [an argument
I once held with this very Miss Howe.] But then the
fool should know the other’s superiority; otherwise
the obstinate one will disappoint the wise one.
But my agent Joseph has helped me to secure this quarter,
as I have hinted to thee more than once.
Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford,
ESQ.
[In continuation.]
But is it not a confounded thing that I cannot fasten
an obligation upon this proud beauty? I have
two motives in endeavouring to prevail upon her to
accept of money and raiment from me: one; the
real pleasure I should have in the accommodating of
the haughty maid; and to think there was something
near her, and upon her, that I could call mine:
the other, in order to abate her severity and humble
her a little.
Nothing more effectually brings down a proud spirit,
than a sense of lying under pecuniary obligations.
This has always made me solicitous to avoid laying
myself under any such: yet, sometimes, formerly,
have I been put to it, and cursed the tardy resolution
of the quarterly periods. And yet I ever made
shift to avoid anticipation: I never would eat
the calf in the cow’s belly, as Lord M.’s
phrase is: for what is that, but to hold our
lands upon tenant-courtesy, the vilest of all tenures?
To be denied a fox-chace, for breaking down a fence
upon my own grounds? To be clamoured at for
repairs studied for, rather than really wanted?
To be prated to by a bumpkin with his hat on, and
his arms folded, as if he defied your expectations
of that sort; his foot firmly fixed, as if upon his
own ground, and you forced to take his arch leers,
and stupid gybes; he intimating, by the whole of his
conduct, that he had had it in his power to oblige
you, and, if you behave civilly, may oblige you again?
I, who think I have a right to break every man’s
head I pass by, if I like not his looks, to bear this!—No
more could I do it, then I could borrow of an insolent
uncle, or inquisitive aunt, who would thence think
themselves entitled to have an account of all my life
and actions laid before them for their review and
censure.
