A blessing on thy honest heart, Lovelace! thou’lt
say; for thou art for providing for every body!
He gives an account of the serious part of their conversation,
with no
great variation from the Lady’s
account of it: and when he comes to
that part of it, where he bids her
remember, that reformation cannot
be a sudden thing, he asks his friend:
Is not this fair play? Is it not dealing ingenuously?
Then the observation, I will be bold to say, is founded
in truth and nature. But there was a little
touch of policy in it besides; that the lady, if I
should fly out again, should not think me too gross
an hypocrite: for, as I plainly told her, I was
afraid, that my fits of reformation were but fits
and sallies; but I hoped her example would fix them
into habits. But it is so discouraging a thing
to have my monitress so very good!—I protest
I know not how to look up at her! Now, as I am
thinking, if I could pull her down a little nearer
to my own level; that is to say, could prevail upon
her to do something that would argue imperfection,
something to repent of; we should jog on much more
equally, and be better able to comprehend one another:
and so the comfort would be mutual, and the remorse
not all on one side.
He acknowledges that he was greatly affected and pleased
with the Lady’s
serious arguments at the time:
but even then was apprehensive that his
temper would not hold. Thus
he writes:
This lady says serious things in so agreeable a manner
(and then her voice is all harmony when she touches
a subject she is pleased with) that I could have listened
to her for half a day together. But yet I am
afraid, if she falls, as they call it, she will lose
a good deal of that pathos, of that noble self-confidence,
which gives a good person, as I now see, a visible
superiority over one not so good.
But, after all, Belford, I would fain know why people
call such free-livers as you and me hypocrites.—That’s
a word I hate; and should take it very ill to be called
by it. For myself, I have as good motions, and,
perhaps, have them as frequently as any body:
all the business is, they don’t hold; or, to
speak more in character, I don’t take the care
some do to conceal my lapses.
Miss Howe, to Mis Clarissa
Harlowe
Saturday, April 15.
Though pretty much pressed in time, and oppressed
by my mother’s watchfulness, I will write a
few lines upon the new light that has broken in upon
your gentleman; and send it by a particular hand.
I know not what to think of him upon it. He
talks well; but judge him by Rowe’s lines, he
is certainly a dissembler, odious as the sin of hypocrisy,
and, as he says, that other of ingratitude, are to
him.
And, pray, my dear, let me ask, could he have triumphed,
as it is said he has done, over so many of our sex,
had he not been egregiously guilty of both sins?
