MihaElla > Recent Status Updates

I have just now been surprised with a letter from one whom I long ago gave up all thoughts of hearing from.—From Mr Wyerley. You'll be surprised at it as much as I was. This seems to be a man whom I might have reclaimed. But I could not love him. Yet I hope I never treated him with arrogance. Indeed,my dear, if I am not too partial to myself,I think I refused him with more gentleness, than you retain somebody else

Once more I resume my pen. I thought I had taken my last farewell of you. I never was so very oddly affected; something that seemed totally to overwhelm my faculties—I don't know how to describe it—I believe I do amiss in writing so much, and taking too much upon me; but an active mind, though clouded by bodily illness, cannot be idle…

I have always observed, that prejudices in disfavour of a person at his first appearance, fix deeper, and are much more difficult to be removed when fixed, than prejudices in favour; whether owing to envy, or to that malignant principle so eminently visible in little minds, which makes them wish to bring down the more worthy characters to their own low level, I pretend not to determine.

The man whom once I could have loved, I have been enabled to despise. And shall not charity complete my triumph? and shall I not enjoy it?—And where would be my triumph if he deserved my forgiveness?—Poor man! he has had a loss in losing me! I have the pride to think so, because I think I know my own heart. I have had none in losing him.

But why these unavailing retrospections now?—I was to be unhappy—in order to be happy; that is my hope!—Resigning, therefore, to that hope, I will, without any further preamble, write a few lines, (if writing to you, I can write but a few,) in answer to the subject of your kind letter.

I will only add that the misfortunes which have befallen you, had they been the lot of a child of my own, could not have affected me more than yours have done. My own child I love; but I both love and honour you; since to love you, is to love virtue, good tense, prudence, and everything that is good and noble in woman.

To die, dear doctor, when, like my poor friend, we are so desirous of life, is a melancholy thing. We are apt to hope too much, not considering that the seeds of death are sown in us when we begin to live, and grow up, till, like rampant weeds, they choke the tender flower of life; which declines in us as those weeds flourish…

Could she have prevailed upon herself, I know that the sight of her would have been as affecting to you, as your visit could have been to her, when you had seen to what a lovely skeleton (for she is really lovely still, nor can she, with such a form and features, be otherwise) you have, in a few weeks, reduced one of the most charming women in this world, and that in the full bloom of her youth and beauty.

Mowbray, after this, amusing himself in our friend's library, which is, as thou knowest, chiefly classical and dramatical, found out a passage in Lee's Oedipus, which he would needs have to be extremely apt; and in he came full fraught with the notion of the courage it would give the dying man, and read it to him. 'Tis poetical and pretty. This is it:

This put me strongly in mind of what the divine Miss HARLOWE once said to me, talking of friendship, and what my friendship to you required of me: "Depend upon it, Mr Belford," said she, "that one day you will be convinced, that what you call friendship, is chaff and stubble; and that nothing is worthy of that sacred name,
"THAT HAS NOT VIRTUE FOR ITS BASE.

The gin, the snare, the net, mean matrimony, I suppose—But is it a crime in me to wish to marry her? Would any other woman think it so? and choose to become a pelican in the wilderness, or a lonely sparrow on the house-top, rather than to have a mate that would chirp about her all day and all night?

I am sick only of love! Oh! that I could have called her mine!—it would then have been worth while to be sick!—to have sent for her down to me from town; and to have had her, with healing in her dove-like wings, flying to my comfort; her duty and her choice to pray for me, and to bid me live for her sake!—O Jack! what an angel have I—
But I have not lost her!—I will not lose her;

I don't know what a devil ails me; but I never was so much indisposed in my life. At first, I thought some of my blessed relations here had got a dose administered to me, in order to get the whole house to themselves. But, as I am the hopes of the family, I believe they would not be so wicked.
I must lay down my pen. I cannot write with any spirit at all. What a plague can be the matter with me!

O my dear, the world we live in is a sad, a very sad world!—While under our parents’ protecting wings, we know nothing at all of it.
Book-learned and a scribbler, and looking at people as I saw them as visitors or visiting, I thought I knew a great deal of it.
Pitiable ignorance!—Alas! I knew nothing at all!

Naughty, naughty girl! You see the fruits of preferring a rake and libertine to a man of sobriety and morals, against full warning, against better knowledge. And such a modest creature, too, as you were! How could you think of such an unworthy preference?

by my soul, I can neither eat, drink, nor sleep, nor, what is still worse, love any woman in the world but her. Nor care I to look upon a woman now: on the contrary, I turn my head from every one I meet: except by chance an eye, an air, a feature, strikes me, resembling hers in some glancing-by face; and then I cannot forbear looking again: though the second look recovers me; for there can be nobody like her.

You say her heart is half broken: Is it to be wondered at? Was not her sin committed equally against warning and the light of her own knowledge?

The lady is well read in Shakespeare, our English pride and glory; and must sometimes reason with herself in his words, so greatly expressed, that the subject, affecting as it is, cannot produce anything greater.

In love, as in points that required a manly resentment, it has always been my maxim, to act, rather than talk; and I do assure thee, as to the first, the women themselves will excuse the one sooner than the other.

Face to face have I known many a quarrel made up, which distance would have kept alive, and widened. Thou wilt be a madder Jack than he in the Tale of a Tub, if thou givest an active opposition to this interview.

Time, in the words of Congreve, thou sayest, will give increase to her afflictions. But why so? Knowest thou not that those words (so contrary to common experience) were applied to the case of a person, while passion was in its full vigour?—At such a time, every one in a heavy grief thinks the same: but as enthusiasts do by Scripture, so dost thou by the poets thou hast read:

Then, as to the worst part of my treatment of this lady—How many men are there, who, as well as I, have sought, by intoxicating liquors, first to inebriate, then to subdue?—What signifies what the potations were, when the same end was in view?

But, for a more modern instance in my favour—Have I used Miss Harlowe, as our famous Maiden Queen, as she was called, used one of her own blood, a sister-queen, who threw herself into her protection from her rebel subjects, and whom she detained prisoner eighteen years, and at last cut off her head? Yet do not honest Protestants pronounce her pious too? and call her particularly their Queen?

The gentlemen were as ready as I to wish he had broken his neck, rather than been present, I believe; for nobody was regarded but he. So little of the fop, yet so elegant and rich in his dress; his person so specious; his air so intrepid; so much meaning and penetration in his face; so much gaiety, yet so little of the monkey; though a travelled gentleman, yet no affectation; no mere toupet-man, but all manly;

I was going out of the assembly in great disorder. He was at the door as soon as I.
How kind this is! said the wretch, and, ready to follow me, opened the door for me.
I turned back upon this, and not knowing what I did, snapped my fan just in his face, as he turned short upon me, and the powder flew from his hair.
Everybody seemed as much pleased as I was vexed.

She said she neither despaired nor hoped. Then stepping to the glass with great composure, My countenance, said she, is indeed an honest picture of my heart. But the mind will run away with the body at any time.

“I speak—I know not what!
Speak ever so: and if I answer you
I know not what, it shows the more of love.
Love is a child that talks in broken language;
yet then it speaks most plain.”

The lady shut herself up at six o'clock yesterday afternoon; and intends not to see company till seven or eight this; not even her nurse—imposing upon herself a severe fast. And why? It is her BIRTH-DAY!—Blooming—yet declining in her very blossom!—Every birthday till this, no doubt, happy!—What must be her reflections!—What ought to be thine!

You give me hope of a visit from Mr Hickman; let him expect to see me greatly altered. I know he loves me; for he loves every one whom you love. A painful interview, I doubt! But I shall be glad to see a man whom you will one day, and that on an early day, I hope, make happy; and whose gentle manners, and unbounded love for you, will make you so, if it be not your own fault.

She once! What—O Belford! why didst thou not urge her to explain what she once hoped?

What once a woman hopes, in love matters, she always hopes, while there is room for hope. And are we not both single? Can she be any man's but mine? Will I be any woman's but hers?