Volume IX Part 10 (2/2)
How unlike my honest English friend Tomkins, a plain serious, intelligent man, whose art lies deeper than in words; who always avoids parade and jargon; and endeavours to make every one as much a judge of what he is about as himself!
All the time that the surgeons ran on with their anatomical process, the wretched woman most frightfully roared and bellowed; which the gentlemen (who showed themselves to be of the cla.s.s of those who are not affected with the evils they do not feel,) took no other notice of, than by raising their voices to be heard, as she raised her's--being evidently more solicitous to increase their acquaintance, and to propagate the notion of their skill, than to attend to the clamours of the poor wretch whom they were called in to relieve; though by this very means, like the dog and the shadow in the fable, they lost both aims with me; for I never was deceived in one rule, which I made early; to wit, that the stillest water is the deepest, while the bubbling stream only betrays shallowness; and that stones and pebbles lie there so near the surface, to point out the best place to ford a river dry shod.
As n.o.body cared to tell the unhappy wretch what every one apprehended must follow, and what the surgeons convinced me soon would, I undertook to be the denouncer of her doom. Accordingly, the operators being withdrawn, I sat down by the bed-side, and said, Come, Mrs. Sinclair, let me advise you to forbear these ravings at the carelessness of those, who, I find, at the time, could take no care of themselves; and since the accident has happened, and cannot be remedied, to resolve to make the best of the matter: for all this violence but enrages the malady, and you will probably fall into a delirium, if you give way to it, which will deprive you of that reason which you ought to make the best of for the time it may be lent you.
She turned her head towards me, and hearing me speak with a determined voice, and seeing me a.s.sume as determined an air, became more calm and attentive.
I went on, telling her, that I was glad, from the hints she had given, to find her concerned for her past misspent life, and particularly for the part she had had in the ruin of the most excellent woman on earth: that if she would compose herself, and patiently submit to the consequences of an evil she had brought upon herself, it might possibly be happy for her yet. Meantime, continued I, tell me, with temper and calmness, why was you so desirous to see me?
She seemed to be in great confusion of thought, and turned her head this way and that; and at last, after much hesitation, said, Alad for me! I hardly know what I wanted with you. When I awoke from my intemperate trance, and found what a cursed way I was in, my conscience smote me, and I was for catching like a drowning wretch, at every straw. I wanted to see every body and any body but those I did see; every body who I thought could give me comfort. Yet could I expect none from you neither; for you had declared yourself my enemy, although I had never done you harm; for what, Jackey, in her old tone, whining through her nose, was Miss Harlowe to you?--But she is happy!--But oh! what will become of me?--Yet tell me, (for the surgeons have told you the truth, no doubt,) tell me, shall I do well again? May I recover? If I may, I will begin a new course of life: as I hope to be saved, I will. I'll renounce you all--every one of you, [looking round her,] and sc.r.a.pe all I can together, and live a life of penitence; and when I die, leave it all to charitable uses--I will, by my soul--every doit of it to charity--but this once, lifting up her rolling eyes, and folded hands, (with a wry-mouthed earnestness, in which every muscle and feature of her face bore its part,) this one time--good G.o.d of Heaven and earth, but this once! this once! repeating those words five or six times, spare thy poor creature, and every hour of my life shall be pa.s.sed in penitence and atonement: upon my soul it shall!
Less vehement! a little less vehement! said I--it is not for me, who have led so free a life, as you but too well know, to talk to you in a reproaching strain, and to set before you the iniquity you have lived in, and the many souls you have helped to destroy. But as you are in so penitent a way, if I might advise, you should send for a good clergyman, the purity of whose life and manners may make all these things come from him with a better grace than they can from me.
How, Sir! What, Sir! interrupting me: send for a parson!--Then you indeed think I shall die! Then you think there is no room for hope!----A parson, Sir!----Who sends for a parson, while there is any hope left?-- The sight of a parson would be death immediate to me!--I cannot, cannot die!--Never tell me of it!--What! die!--What! cut off in the midst of my sins!
And then she began again to rave.
I cannot bear, said I, rising from my seat with a stern air, to see a reasonable creature behave so outrageously!--Will this vehemence, think you, mend the matter? Will it avail you any thing? Will it not rather shorten the life you are so desirous to have lengthened, and deprive you of the only opportunity you can ever have to settle your affairs for both worlds?--Death is but the common lot: and if it be your's soon, looking at her, it will be also your's, and your's, and your's, speaking with a raised voice, and turning to every trembling devil round her, [for they all shook at my forcible application,] and mine too. And you have reason to be thankful, turning again to her, that you did not perish in that act of intemperance which brought you to this: for it might have been your neck, as well as your leg; and then you had not had the opportunity you now have for repentance--and, the Lord have mercy upon you! into what a state might you have awoke!
Then did the poor wretch set up an inarticulate frightful howl, such a one as I never before heard of her; and seeing every one half-frighted, and me motioning to withdraw, O pity me, pity me, Mr. Belford, cried she, her words interrupted by groans--I find you think I shall die!--And what may I be, and where, in a very few hours--who can tell?
I told her it was vain to flatter her: it was my opinion she would not recover.
I was going to re-advise her to calm her spirits, and endeavour to resign herself, and to make the beset of the opportunity yet left her; but this declaration set her into a most outrageous raving. She would have torn her hair, and beaten her breast, had not some of the wretches held her hands by force, while others kept her as steady as they could, lest she should again put out her new-set leg; so that, seeing her thus incapable of advice, and in a perfect phrensy, I told Sally Martin, that there was no bearing the room; and that their best way was to send for a minister to pray by her, and to reason with her, as soon as she should be capable of it. And so I left them; and never was so sensible of the benefit of fresh air, as I was the moment I entered the street.
Nor is it to be wondered at, when it is considered that, to the various ill smells that will always be found in a close sick bed-room, (for generally, when the physician comes, the air is shut out,) this of Mrs.
Sinclair was the more particularly offensive, as, to the scent of plasters, salves, and ointments, were added the stenches of spirituous liquors, burnt and unburnt, of all denominations; for one or other of the creatures, under pretence of colics, gripes, or qualms, were continually calling for supplies of these, all the time I was there.
And yet this is thought to be a genteel house of the sort; and all the prost.i.tutes in it are prost.i.tutes of price, and their visiters people of note.
O, Lovelace! what lives do most of us rakes and libertines lead! what company do we keep! And, for such company, what society renounce, or endeavour to make like these!
What woman, nice in her person, and of purity in her mind and manners, did she know what miry wallowers the generality of men of our cla.s.s are in themselves, and constantly trough and sty with, but would detest the thoughts of a.s.sociating with such filthy sensualists, whose favourite taste carries them to mingle with the dregs of stews, brothels, and common sewers?
Yet, to such a choice are many worthy women betrayed, by that false and inconsiderate notion, raised and propagated, no doubt, by the author of all delusion, that a reformed rake makes the best husband. We rakes, indeed, are bold enough to suppose, that women in general are as much rakes in their hearts, as the libertines some of them suffer themselves to be take with are in their practice. A supposition, therefore, which it behoves persons of true honour of that s.e.x to discountenance, by rejecting the address of every man, whose character will not stand the test of that virtue which is the glory of a woman: and indeed, I may say, of a man too: why should it not?
How, indeed, can it be, if this point be duly weighed, that a man who thinks alike of all the s.e.x, and knows it to be in the power of a wife to do him the greatest dishonour man can receive, and doubts not her will to do it, if opportunity offer, and importunity be not wanting: that such a one, from principle, should be a good husband to any woman? And, indeed, little do innocents think, what a total revolution of manners, what a change of fixed habits, nay, what a conquest of a bad nature, and what a portion of Divine GRACE, is required, to make a man a good husband, a worthy father, and true friend, from principle; especially when it is considered, that it is not in a man's own power to reform when he will. This, (to say nothing of my own experience,) thou, Lovelace, hast found in the progress of thy attempts upon the divine Miss Harlowe.
For whose remorses could be deeper, or more frequent, yet more transient than thine!
Now, Lovelace, let me know if the word grace can be read from my pen without a sneer from thee and thy a.s.sociates? I own that once it sounded oddly in my ears. But I shall never forget what a grave man once said on this very word--that with him it was a rake's sibboleth.* He had always hopes of one who could bear the mention of it without ridiculing it; and ever gave him up for an abandoned man, who made a jest of it, or of him who used it.
* See Judges xii. 6.
Don't be disgusted, that I mingle such grave reflections as these with my narratives. It becomes me, in my present way of thinking, to do so, when I see, in Miss Harlowe, how all human excellence, and in poor Belton, how all inhuman libertinism, and am near seeing in this abandoned woman, how all diabolical profligacy, end. And glad should I be for your own sake, for your splendid family's sake, and for the sake of all your intimates and acquaintance, that you were labouring under the same impressions, that so we who have been companions in (and promoters of one another's) wickedness, might join in a general atonement to the utmost of our power.
I came home reflecting upon all these things, more edifying to me than any sermon I could have heard preached: and I shall conclude this long letter with observing, that although I left the wretched howler in a high phrensy-fit, which was excessively shocking to the by-standers; yet her phrensy must be the happiest part of her dreadful condition: for when she is herself, as it is called, what must be her reflections upon her past profligate life, throughout which it has been her constant delight and business, devil-like, to make others as wicked as herself! What must her terrors be (a h.e.l.l already begun in her mind!) on looking forward to the dreadful state she is now upon the verge of!--But I drop my trembling pen.
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