Yes, Fairfax, longer to palliate, or wilfully be blind to the partial edicts and haughty ordonnances of this proud beauty, were idiotism! She has presumed too far; I am not quite so tame a creature as she supposes. She shall find I am not the clay, but the potter. I will mould, not be moulded. Poltron as I was, to think of sinking into the docile, domesticated, timid animal called husband! But the lion's paws are not yet pared; beware then, my princess!
The lady would carry it with a high hand, Fairfax. But let her! If I not note her freaks, if I forget her imperious caprice, if my embittered mind slumber in its intents, say not I am the proud-spirited Clifton you once knew; that prompt, bold, and inflexible fellow, whom arrogance could rouse, and injury inflame, but a suffering, patient ass; a meek pitiful thing, such as they would make me!
Wonder not that I now am angry, but that I have so long been torpid. A little phrensy has restored the palsied soul to life, and again has put its powers in motion. I'll play no more at questions and commands—Or, if I do, it shall only be to make sure of my game. I have been reproved, silenced, tongue-tied, brow-beaten; have made myself an ape, been placed behind the door, and have shewed tricks for her diversion. But I am not muzzled yet: they shall find me one of the ferae naturae.
A most excellent project, forsooth! When I am sufficiently familiarized to contradiction, rebuke, fillips on the forehead, and raps on the knuckles, she will then hear me my prayers, pack me off peaceably to bed for tonight, and graciously bestow a pat and a promise upon me for tomorrow! There is danger in the whim, lady; beauteous though you are, and invincible as you may think yourself. Model me!—No!—I am of a metal which not even your files can touch. You cannot knead, dough-bake, and temper me to your leaven.
Fairfax, she had fascinated me! I own it! There is such incantation, in the small circle of her eye, as mortal man scarcely can resist! I adored her; nay still adore! But she knows me not. I have a soul of fire. She has driven me beyond the limits of patience.
Her wisdom degenerates into rhodomontade. She will prescribe the hour and minute when she shall begin to love. She does not pretend to love me yet; and, if she did, her looks, her manner would betray the falsehood of her heart.
Yet let me not wrong her, vexed though I am. Double dealing is not her error: she is sufficiently sincere.
Why would I hide it from myself? Her partialities all lead another way: ay and her passions too, if passions she have. But this most incomprehensible, this tormenting, incoherent romance of determining not to have any, I believe from my soul, in part produces the effect she intends, and almost enables her to keep her determination!
Still and eternally, this fellow! This Frank! Oh that I were an Italian, and that my conscience would permit me to deal him the stilletto!—Let him beware!—He is employed, preferred, praised! It is eulogium everlasting! Had Fame as many trumpets as she has tongues and lies, they would all be insufficient. And not only she but the whole family, father, brother, aunts, the devil knows who, each grateful soul is oozing out the froth of its obligations!
Had they less cause, perhaps I should be less irritated: but he has rescued the poor being of a brother, Edward St. Ives, who had neither courage nor capacity to rescue himself, from the gripe of a gambler. This Edward, who is one of the king's captains, God bless him, and who has spent his fortune in learning the trade, not of a man of war, but of a man of fashion, having lost what ready money he had, staked his honour against a cogger of dice, and was presently tricked out of three thousand guineas; which he was too poor in pocket to pay, and, if I guess right, too poor in spirit afterward to face the ruffian whom he had made his companion.