’As I hope to live, I am sorry, (at the present writing,) that I have been such a foolish plotter, as to put it, as I fear I have done, out of my own power to be honest.  I hate compulsion in all forms; and cannot bear, even to be compelled to be the wretch my choice has made me!  So now, Belford, as thou hast said, I am a machine at last, and no free agent.

’Upon my soul, Jack, it is a very foolish thing for a man of spirit to have brought himself to such a height of iniquity, that he must proceed, and cannot help himself, and yet to be next to certain, that this very victory will undo him.

’Why was such a woman as this thrown into my way, whose very fall will be her glory, and, perhaps, not only my shame but my destruction?

’What a happiness must that man know, who moves regularly to some laudable end, and has nothing to reproach himself with in his progress to do it!  When, by honest means, he attains his end, how great and unmixed must be his enjoyments!  What a happy man, in this particular case, had I been, had it been given me to be only what I wished to appear to be!’

Thus far had my conscience written with my pen; and see what a recreant she had made of me!—­I seized her by the throat—­There!—­There, said I, thou vile impertinent!—­take that, and that!—­How often have I gave thee warning!—­and now, I hope, thou intruding varletess, have I done thy business!

Puling and low-voiced, rearing up thy detested head, in vain implorest thou my mercy, who, in thy day hast showed me so little!—­Take that, for a rising blow!—­And now will thy pain, and my pain for thee, soon be over.  Lie there!—­Welter on!—­Had I not given thee thy death’s wound, thou wouldest have robbed me of all my joys.  Thou couldest not have mended me, ’tis plain.  Thou couldest only have thrown me into despair.  Didst thou not see, that I had gone too far to recede?—­Welter on, once more I bid thee!—­Gasp on!—­That thy last gasp, surely!—­How hard diest thou!

Adieu!—­Unhappy man!  Adieu!

’Tis kind in thee, however, to bid me, Adieu!

Adieu, Adieu, Adieu, to thee, O thou inflexible, and, till now, unconquerable bosom intruder!—­Adieu to thee for ever!

LETTER II

Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, ESQ. 
Sunday Morn. (June 11).  Four o’clock.

A few words to the verbal information thou sentest me last night concerning thy poor old man; and then I rise from my seat, shake myself, refresh, new-dress, and so to my charmer, whom, notwithstanding her reserves, I hope to prevail upon to walk out with me on the Heath this warm and fine morning.

The birds must have awakened her before now.  They are in full song.  She always gloried in accustoming herself to behold the sun rise—­one of God’s natural wonders, as once she called it.