To Lady Anne Wilmot.
Saturday, Grosvenor-street.
CAN the most refined of her sex, at
the very moment when she owns herself
shocked at Mrs. H — 's malicious
insinuation, refuse to silence her by making
me happy? Can she submit to one of
the keenest evils a sensible and delicate
mind can feel, only to inflict torment on
the man whose whole happiness depends on
her, and to whose tenderness she has owned
herself not insensible?
Seeing your averseness to marriage, I
have never pressed you on a subject which
seemed displeasing to you, but left it to
time and my unwearied love, to dissipate
those unjust and groundless prejudices,
which stood in the way of all my hopes:
but does not this respect, this submission,
demand that you should strictly examine
those prejudices, and be convinced, before
you make it, that they deserve such a sacrifice?
Why will you, my dearest Lady Anne,
urge your past unhappiness as a reason
against entering into a state of which you
cannot be a judge? You were never married;
the soft consent of hearts, the tender
sympathy of yielding minds, was wanting:
forced by the will of a tyrannic father to
take on you an insupportable yoke; too
young to assert the rights of humanity;
the freedom of your will destroyed; the
name of marriage is profaned by giving it
to so detestable an union.
You have often spoke with pleasure of
those sweet hours we past at Sudley-Farm.
Can you then refuse to perpetuate such happiness?
Are there no charms in the unreserved
converse of the man who adores
you? Or can you prefer the unmeaning
flattery of fools you despise, to the animated
language of faithful love?
If you are still insensible to my happiness,
will not my interest prevail on you to
relent? My uncle, who has just lost his only
son, offers to settle his whole estate on me,
on condition I immediately marry; a condition
it depends on you alone whether I
shall comply with. If you refuse, he gives
it on the same terms to a distant relation,
whose mistress has a less cruel heart. Have
you so little generosity as to condemn me
at once to be poor and miserable; to lose
the gifts both of love and fortune?
I have wrote to Lady Belmont to intercede
for me, and trust infinitely more to her
eloquence than my own.
The only rational objection to my happiness,
my uncle's estate removes; you will
bring me his fortune, and your own will
make Bell Hastings happy: if you now
refuse, you have the heart of a tigress, and
delight in the misery of others.
Interrupted: my uncle: May all good
angels guard the most amiable and lovely
of women, and give her to her passionate
Bellville!
