To Colonel Bellville.
Thursday Morning.
I Have reconciled the friends: the scene
was amazingly pathetic and pretty:
I am only sorry I am too lazy to describe it.
He kissed her hand, without her shewing
the least symptom of anger; she blushed indeed;
but, if I understand blushes–in short,
times are prodigiously changed.
The strange misses were of infinite use,
as they broke the continuity of the tender
scene (if I may be allowed the expression)
which, however entertaining to Les Amies,
would have been something sickly to my Ladyship,
if it had lasted.
And now, having united, it must be my
next work to divide them; for seriously I
am apt to believe, the dear creatures are
in immense danger of a kind of partiality
for each other, which would not be quite
so convenient.
I have some thoughts, being naturally
sentimental and generous, of taking Harry
myself, merely from compassion to Lady
Julia. Widows, you know, are in some
degree the property of handsome young
fellows, who have more merit than fortune;
and there would be something very heroic
in devoting myself to save my friend. I
always told you, Bellville, I was more
an antique Roman than a Briton. But I
must leave you: I hear Lady Julia coming
to fetch me: we breakfast à Trio in a
bower of roses.
Oh! heavens! the plot begins to thicken–
Lucretia's dagger–Rosamonda's bowl–
Harry has had a letter from his charmer–
vows she can't live without him–determined
to die unless the barbarous man relents.
–This cruel Harry will be the death
of us all.
Did I tell you we were going to a ball
to-night, six or seven miles off? She has
heard it, and intends to be there: tells
him, she shall there expect the sentence of
life or death from his lovely eyes: the
signal is appointed: if his savage heart
is melted, and he pities her sufferings, he
is to dance with her, and be master of her
divine person and eighty thousand pounds,
to-morrow; if not–but she expires at the
idea–she entreats him to soften the
cruel stroke, and not give a mortal wound
to the tenderest of hearts by dancing with
another.
You would die to see Harry's distress–
so anxious for the tender creature's life, so
incensed at his own wicked attractions, so
perplext how to pronounce the fatal sentence
–for my part, I have had the utmost
difficulty to keep my countenance.–Lady
Julia, who was to have been his partner,
sighing with him over the letter, intreating
him not to dance, pitying the unhappy
love-sick maid, her fine eyes glistening with
a tear of tender sympathy.
The whole scene is too ridiculous to be
conceived, and too foolish even to laugh
at: I could stand it no longer, so retired,
and left them to their soft sorrows.
You may talk of women, but you men
are as much the dupes of your own vanity
as the weakest amongst us can be.
Heaven and earth! that, with Harry's
understanding and knowledge of the world,
he can be seriously alarmed at such a letter.
I thought him more learned in the
arts "of wilful woman labouring for her
purpose." Nor is she the kind of woman;
I think I know more of the nature of love,
than to imagine her capable of it. If there
was no other lover to be had indeed,–but
he is led astray by the dear self-complacency
of contemplating the surprizing effects of
his own charms.
I see he is shocked at my insensibility,
and fancies I have a most unfeeling heart;
but I may live to have my revenge. Adio!
I am going to my toilet. "Now awful
beauty puts on all its charms."
Five o'Clock.
The coach is at the door: Harry is drest
for execution; always elegant, he is to-day
studiously so; a certain proof, to be sure,
that his vanity is weaker than his compassion:
he is however right; if she must die,
he is to be commended for looking as well
as he can, to justify a passion which is to
have such fatal effects: he sees I observe
his dress, and has the grace to blush a little.
Adio! Caro! Votre
A. Wilmot.
