I will soon follow this with another. I will employ a person directly to find out how Lovelace behaves himself at his inn. Such a busy spirit must be traceable.
But, perhaps, my dear, you are indifferent now about him, or his employments; for this request was made before he mortally offended you. Nevertheless, I will have inquiry made. The result, it is very probable, will be of use to confirm you in your present unforgiving temper.—And yet, if the poor man [shall I pity him for you, my dear?] should be deprived of the greatest blessing any man on earth can receive, and to which he has the presumption, with so little merit, to aspire; he will have run great risks; caught great colds; hazarded fevers; sustained the highest indignities; braved the inclemencies of skies, and all for—nothing!—Will not this move your generosity (if nothing else) in his favour!—Poor Mr. Lovelace—!
I would occasion no throb; nor half-throb; no flash of sensibility, like lightning darting in, and as soon suppressed by a discretion that no one of the sex ever before could give such an example of—I would not, I say; and yet, for such a trial of you to yourself, rather than as an impertinent overflow of raillery in your friend, as money-takers try a suspected guinea by the sound, let me on such a supposition, sound you, by repeating, poor Mr. Lovelace!
And now, my dear, how is it with you? How do you now, as my mother says to Mr. Hickman, when her pert daughter has made him look sorrowful?
LETTER XXII
MR. HICKMAN, TO MRS. HOWE WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29.
MADAM,
It is with infinite regret that I think myself obliged, by pen and ink, to repeat my apprehension, that it is impossible for me ever to obtain a share in the affections of your beloved daughter. O that it were not too evident to every one, as well as to myself, even to our very servants, that my love for her, and my assiduities, expose me rather to her scorn [forgive me, Madam, the hard word!] than to the treatment due to a man whose proposals have met with your approbation, and who loves her above all the women in the world!
Well might the merit of my passion be doubted, if, like Mr. Solmes to the truly-admirably Miss Clarissa Harlowe, I could continue my addresses to Miss Howe's distaste. Yet what will not the discontinuance cost me!