Coke Clifton to Guy Fairfax
London, Dover Street
Thank you, Fairfax, for your speed and precautions, which I must request you not to slacken. Do not let the lad escape you: his appearance here would be ruin. Let but my grand scheme be completed, and then I care not though the legions of hell were to rise, and mow and run a tilt at me. I would face their whole fury. The scene would delight me. Let them come all! I burn to turn upon and rend them! The more desperate the more grateful.
I told you, Fairfax, she hated me! I have it now from her own mouth! She feels I am become her foe! My hand is already upon her! My deepest darkest thoughts of vengeance do not exceed her imagination.
And yet she fears me not! He; words, her looks, her gestures are all cool, firm defiance! She is a miracle, Fairfax! A miracle! But I will overmatch her. A heroine! She would have unhorsed Orlando himself had she lived in the times of the knights Paladin.
I am an insufferable booby, an eternal lunatic, for having first thought of quarrelling with her. But it is too late! I might have foreseen the advantages I give a woman like her. She openly, magnanimously tells me what my intents are, and then spurns at them. She keeps her anger under indeed, but does not repress its energy; a proof of the subjection in which she holds her passions. She once endeavoured to teach me this art, would I but have listened. But that is past!
I could not have thought it was in woman! The poor, wailing, watery-eyed beings I had before encountered would not suffer me to suppose a female could possess the high courage of the daring, noble mind. Never but one short moment did I overtop her: nor are there any means but those I then used. Inspire her with the dread of offending what she thinks principle, and she becomes a coward!
But I will rouse! I will soar above her, will subdue her, will have her prostrate in humble submission, or perish! In the presence of witnesses I feel I cannot succeed; but singly, face to face, passion to passion, and being to being, distinct and eminent as she stands above all woman-kind, I will yet prove to her she is not the equal of the man Clifton.
She herself has even thrown the gauntlet. I have had such a scene with her! A public exhibition! I cannot relate the manner of it. I dare not trust my brain with the full reminiscence.
Why did I quarrel with her? She meant me well—Tortures!—I am a lunatic to tease myself with such recollections. This is a damned, wrong headed, ignorant, blundering, vile world; and I cannot see my way in it. I should have had no suspicion that it is all this but for her.
That Henley shall never have her! I'll murder him first! Though the bottomless pit were to gape and swallow me, he shall not have her! The contemptible buzzard, Sir Arthur, is now completely veered about. But in vain! It shall not be! By hell it shall not!
This fellow, this Henley must some how or other be disposed of. The contempt of the arrogant peer, her uncle, will harm him but little; for the lord, with all his dignity, is no match for the plebeian!
Neither will his lordship hastily seek another combat with his niece. The only advantage I have, in so insignificant an ally, is that of hereafter making suspicion alight on Henley, and not on me; for I mean to carry them both off, Henley and Anna. I know not where or how I shall yet dispose of them, but there is no other mode of accomplishing vengeance. They must be confined too. I care not how desperate the means! I will not retract! They shall be taught the danger of raising up an enemy like me! I will have them at my feet! Will separate them! Will glut my revenge, and do the deed that shall prevent their ever meeting more, except perhaps to reproach each other with the madness of having injured, aggravated, and defied a Clifton!
My whole days are dedicated to this single object. I have been riding round the skirts of this shapeless monster of a city, on all sides, in search of lonely tenantless houses; some two of which I mean to provide with inhabitants. I have met with more than one that are not ill situated.
But I want agents! Desperados! Hungry and old traders in violence! I care not where I go for them; have them I will, though I seek them in the purlieus of infamy and detestation. To succeed by any other means is impossible. She will not admit me in the same apartment with herself, nor I believe in the same world, had she the power to exclude me.
I met her indeed at Lord Fitz-Allen's, where the scene abovementioned passed; but it was a plan concerted with his lordship, which she easily detected, and publicly reproached him with his duplicity. I gloried to hear her; for she had not injured him. A poor compound of pride and selfishness! Incapable of understanding the worth of such a niece! But she made him feel his own insignificance.
Henley and she are now never asunder. I have mentioned the maid Laura to you. She tells me they have long conversations in the morning, long walks in the afternoon, and at night they have neither of them the power to rise and separate. But I will come upon them! My spirit at present is haunting them, never leaves them, girds at and terrifies them at every instant, during their amorous dalliance! I know it does! They cannot get quit of me! I am with them, weighing them down, convulsing them! They feel they are in my gripe!—Hah! The thought is heart's ease.
When there is no company, and when Sir Arthur is not sitting with them, this maid, Laura, has that honour. Whence it appears that even these immaculate souls have some dread of scandal.
And who is it inspires that dread? It is I! They seem to have discovered that all circumstances, all incidents wear a double face and that I am the malignant genius who can make which he pleases the true one—Yes! I am with them! I send the Incubus that hag-rides them in their dreams! They gasp and would awake, but cannot!
Why could she not have bestowed all this affection upon me? Why could she not? I once thought a woman might have loved me!—But it seems I was mistaken—The things that go by the general name of woman might; but when I came to woman herself, she could not, though she tried.
Would I were any where but in this infernal gloom! It is a detestable country! This town is one everlasting fog, and its inhabitants are as cloudy as its skies! Every man broods over some solitary scheme of his own, avoids human intercourse, and hates to communicate the murk of his mind. I am in a wilderness. I fly the herd, and the herd flies me. We pass and scowl enmity at each other, for I begin to look with abhorrence on the face of man. There is not a single gleam of cheerfulness around me. The sun has not once shone since the day of my disappointment, which was itself thick darkness.
Would I could get rid of myself!—I am going to take a ride, and make a second examination of a large lonely house beyond Knightsbridge. It lies to the left, and is at a sufficient distance from the road. I think it will suit my purpose. I must not have far to convey them; and Laura informs me their walks are most frequently directed through Hyde-Park, and among the fields at the back of Brompton.
I must be as quiet and appear as little myself as possible; for which reason I ride without a servant. And though I have been industrious in reading advertisements, and getting intelligence of empty houses, I have not ventured to enquire personally. Laura attends them in their walks; but she is secure.
They must both be seized at the same time, and in a manner that shall frustrate all research. It will then be concluded they have gone off together. He is a powerful fellow, a dangerous fellow, and I must be well provided. He shall never have her, Fairfax! I would die upon the wheel, hang like a negro, and parch alive in the sun ere he should have her!
P.S. All society is become odious to me, but chiefly that society which I am obliged to frequent. This uncle Fitz-Allen, aunt Wenbourne, and brother Edward are three such poor beings, and the censures they pass on a woman who is of an order so much above them are so vapid, so selfish, or so absurd, that it is nauseating to sit and listen to them. Yet these are the animals I am obliged to court! Hypocrisy is a damned trade, Fairfax; and I will have full vengeance for having been forced upon such a practice. The only present relief I have is to make the arrogant peer foam with the idea of his relationship to a gardener's son. This would be an exquisite pleasure, but that it is millions of times more maddening to me than to him!
Anna Wenbourne St. Ives to Louisa Clifton
London, Grosvenor Street
Abimelech is come up to town. I am obliged very respectfully to call him Mr. Henley when Sir Arthur hears me, in compliance to his feelings: and he has hinted that hereafter, when his name is written, it must be tagged with an esquire.
The old miser [Well, Louisa, let it be the old gentleman] is so eager in pursuit of his project that he can take no rest, and is unwilling Sir Arthur should take any. He has a prodigious quantity of cunning! Whatever he may know of the theory of the passions as a general subject, no person certainly knows better how to work upon the passions of Sir Arthur: at least no person who will condescend to take such an advantage. His discourse is such a continued mixture of Wenbourne-Hill, his money, mortgages, grottos, groves, the wherewithals, and the young gentleman his son, that laughter scarcely can hold to hear him. Were the thing practicable, he would render Frank Henley himself ridiculous.
It is pleasant to remark what a check the presence of this favourite son is upon his loquacity. He never suspects the possibility of there being a mortal superior to himself at other times; whereas he has then a latent consciousness of his own ridicule. The effect which the absence of Frank has produced, with the favour he is in with me, and the resolute manner in which he conquered his father when he last went down to Wenbourne-Hill, have made a total change in the old man's behaviour to this formerly neglected but now half adored son. Were habits so inveterate capable of being eradicated, Frank would yet teach him virtue; but the task is too difficult.
He is certainly in a most delicious trance. His son to be married to the daughter of his master! That master a baronet! And the estates of that baronet to be his own, as he supposes, to all eternity. For the avaricious dreams of selfishness are satisfied with nothing less. These are joys that swell and enlarge even his narrow heart, into something that endeavours to mimic urbanity.
Whenever Sir Arthur mentions Lord Fitz-Allen, or the family consent, honest Aby in a moment conjures up Wenbourne-Hill, a hermitage, and a wilderness; and for the first day, if he found that dose not strong enough to produce its effect, foreclosures were added to the mixture. Your own heart, Louisa, will tell you what Frank's feelings were at such a mean menace; and, though to stop his garrulity entirely was not in the power of man, he determined to silence him on that subject. But the cunning Abimelech turned even this incident to advantage, by taking care to inform Sir Arthur of Frank's generosity.
Thus, Louisa, things are at present in a train which some months ago I should indeed very little have expected. But such are the energies of virtue! How changed at present do all surrounding objects seem! To me they were never dark; but they were not always pleasant. They are now all cheerfulness and perspicacity. We have the most charming walks and the most delightful conversations, Louisa; and on subjects so expansive, so sublime—! Often do I say—'Why is my friend not with us? Why does she not come and bear her part in discussion? She whose mind is so penetrating and whose thoughts are so grand?' But we shall meet! Days and years of happiness are before us! The prospect is rapture! Yes, Louisa, we shall meet, and I hope quickly!
Coke Clifton to Guy Fairfax
London, Dover Street
Join chorus and rejoice with me, Fairfax, for I feel something like a transient hilarity of heart. I think I am half in a temper to tell my tale as it ought to be told. Time was when it would have been pregnant with humour.
The very master-devil that I wanted has appeared to me, and we have signed and consigned ourselves over to the great work of mutual vengeance! Be patient and you shall hear the manner of it. Two nights ago I was at the theatre. The king was there; Garrick played; the crowd was great, and no places were to be procured. During the first act I and two more stood elbowing each other at the door of one of the front boxes, the seats of which were all full. The person who was next me was hard-favoured, had a look of audacious impudence, with that mixture of dress which forms the vulgar genteel, and spoke the brogue.
The act being over the audience rose, and my gentleman, with the nonchalance assurance of his character, a total disregard of the feelings and convenience of others, and an entire complaisance for his own, stepped forward into the second seat from the door, on which there were previously four people, its full compliment. But he had noticed they were not all so athletic as himself, and was determined to make them sit close.
The persons next him, observing his redoubtable look, hesitated for a moment, but at length began to remonstrate. They addressed him two or three times without his deigning to appear to hear them; till, either encouraged by his silence or warmed by vexation, they spoke loud enough to call the attention of the people around them.
The Hibernian then sat himself down, threw his arm over the railing of the box, and his body in a careless posture, and very coolly answered—'Pray now be asy, and don't disturb the good company.'
A squabble ensued, and the Irishman continued to answer them with the utmost contempt. In a short time two of them gained courage enough to threaten to turn him out; to which he replied—'Oh! By the sweet Jasus but I should be glad to see the pretty boy that would dare to lay a little finger upon me!'
After another wrangle, and treating their reasonings and half menaces with the most contemptuous disregard, a gentleman from the next box interfered, and observed it certainly was very improper behaviour. The Irishman turned round, surveyed him from head to foot, and answered—'I find you have all got your quarrelling tackle on board to night; and so as I must fight somebody, and as you, mister, appear to be the most of a gintleman, why I will talk to you when the play is over. For which raison sit down, and make all yourselves asy.'
The beginning of the second act and the impatience of the house to hear their favourite soon imposed silence, and the Irishman kept his seat.
I was so much diverted by the complete impudence of the fellow, that though one of the box-keepers had found me a place, I determined to return, and see how this petty brawl was to end. Accordingly I took care to be round in time, before the curtain dropped; till which the hero of it had kept quiet possession of his usurped seat.
The moment the audience rose he turned about, and with a look which I imagine no man but himself could assume, first on this side of him and next on that, addressed his opponents with—'Now if any of you are still disordered in the body, and want to lose a little blood, why follow me.'
The two persons that sat next to him were both Jews, and one of them who appeared to have the most spirit had a knotted crab-stick in his hand, and insisted that the Irishman should not leave the company, till he had first given satisfaction for the insult he had committed on them all. The Hibernian replied—'All? Is it all together you mane, or one after another? Perhaps you don't understand the tools of a gintleman, and want to box me! Faith and I should have no great objection to that either, with any half dozen of you, one down and t'other come on. But you must use no unlawful weapons, my sweet fillow.'
So saying, he wrested the Jew's crab-stick from him, laid hold of it at each end, and snapped it in two across the railing of the box; adding with infinite composure of countenance—'This is an improper plaything for you, master Jackey, and you might do yourself a damage with it. Here is half a crown for you. Take it, man, and buy yoursilf a genteel bit of rattan, to beat the little pug dogs away, when they bark after you in the street.'
Insolent as the fellow was, there was no resisting his humour, and the laugh was general. The vexed Israelite endeavoured to persist, and the Irishman drew a dirty letter out of his pocket, from the back of which he tore the direction, and giving it to the angry Jew, said—'If you have any stomach for a good breakfast tomorrow morning, I shall be at home; and the hot rolls and butter will be ready at ten.'
He then strode over the seats and went into the lobby, where he was followed by the crowd.
My curiosity was highly excited, and I requested the Jew to let me read his address.
Imagine, Fairfax, my surprise at seeing the name of Mac Fane! That is, of the gambler and bully who some time ago had been attempting to plunder brother Edward; and who had been so successfully opposed by the family knight-errant, Henley! Among the busy conjectures of my fermenting brain concerning the instruments I might happen to want, should things as they have done come to an extremity, the supposed qualifications of this hero had more than once passed in review. The behaviour to which I had this evening been a witness perfectly confirmed all my former conjectures, which I instantly recollected; I therefore determined not to lose sight of him.
Before I knew who he was I had been glad to see the squabble continued, because it drew out the strong traits of this very eccentric genius; but I grew impatient to put an end to it the moment I had made the discovery.
The thing was not difficult. His character was too desperate and determined not to inspire fear; and the humour of his phraseology and brogue made the laugh always on his side. The passions of his opponents counteracting each other died away. The farce was going to begin, and he advised them to 'go, and not lose full eighteen pennyworth out of their five shillings.'
Finding the morsel was too hard for their digestion, they took his advice and returned quietly to their seats: while he several times traversed the lobby, and looked first into one box and then into another, to let them see that there he was.
My resolution was formed, and I soon found an opportunity of falling into conversation with him; and as I took care that my tone should answer the intended purpose, he presently invited me to adjourn, and take what he called a bottle and a bird at the Shakespeare.
The proposal exactly suited me, and away we went.
He called for a private room, which I should have done if he had not, though with a very different view. My appearance made him hope he had caught a gudgeon. He presently began to turn the discourse upon various kinds of gaming. Billiards, tennis, hazard, and pass-dice, were each of them mentioned; and, to encourage him, I gave him to understand I knew them all. He then talked of cards, and asked if I had any objection to take a hand at picquet; 'just to pass away an hour before supper.' I answered none.
Accordingly the waiter was rung for, and the cards were presently upon the table.
He proposed playing for a trifle; from one guinea to five; not more; 'becase as why, he was tied up from deep play. He had lost five thousand pounds within six weeks, and they had had a pretty pigeon of him!—[Had you but seen the form and features of this pigeon, Fairfax!] For which raison he must take care and not be plucked any more. It was the misfortune of his timper not to know when to stop; and there was not so unlucky a fillow in the three kingdoms. He was always the bubble, play at what he would, and every snap-jack knew him to be his mark.'
Such was the lesson which this fellow had got by rote, and had been retailing to all comers for years. But I have observed of gamblers that they cannot forbear rehearsing their own cant even in the company of each other, and when they are convinced every soul that hears them knows they are lying.
I however had my purpose to serve, and we sat down to our game. The stakes were five guineas a side. According to custom, I won the three or four first games; and he pretended to curse, and fret, and again ran over his bead-roll of being pigeoned, plucked bare, bubbled, done up, and the whole catalogue of like genteel phrases.
The first game he won he proposed, as luck was perhaps taking a turn in his favour, to double the stakes, and I indulged him. He suffered me to win the following game. I say suffered, cheating being taken into the account; for I am certain that at the fair game I am his master. But that is no matter.
The three following games were all his own, and he then began to repeat the remainder of his part. 'By the blissed Jasus he would not believe his own eyes! Three games together!' The fellow swore, with one of the deepest oaths his memory could furnish, such a thing had never happened to him before in his whole life! 'But now that he was in luck, he would as soon play for a hundred guineas as for a thirteener.'
He endeavoured to provoke me to increase the stake; and, by the supper not coming up, I am convinced the waiter and he understood each other, and that the signal had been given. I refused to play for a greater sum, and we continued till he had won fifty guineas, he incessantly swearing—'By the blissed crook! By the hind leg of the holy lamb! By Saint Peter's pretty beard!' and by all manner of oaths, some of them of the most whimsical and others of the most horrible kind, that he had never been a winner so much before in all his life. From the first ten guineas that he won to the last it was still the same tune.
I then rang the bell and ordered supper, thinking the sum sacrificed quite sufficient; though not more than enough to serve my purpose.
While we were eating, he endeavoured by all the arts he knew to excite the passion of gaming in me; and he is a tolerable adept. But my mind was too intent upon another subject. I watched the moment when he was at the height of his hopes, which I had purposely encouraged to produce my intended effect, and then asked him if he did not know Captain St. Ives?
Impudent as the fellow is, his countenance for a moment was fixed, his mouth open, and his eye struggling to get rid of alarm, that it might begin its enquiries. I followed up my blow by adding—
You won three thousand guineas of him I think, Mr. Mac Fane, which I am told were never paid—
The fellow put his hand into a side-pocket, which he had in the body of his coat. I instantly suspected he had a small pair of pistols there, and my suspicions were afterward confirmed. He drew it back, having satisfied himself that they were actually forth-coming, and then recovered himself so far as to ask—
Pray, sir, are you acquainted with Captain St. Ives?—
I am, sir, answered I—I likewise know Mr. Henley.
You do, sir? said the astonished Mac Fane.
I do, sir. I am intimate with Sir Arthur St. Ives, and he is the son of his gardener: a low fellow that acts as the baronet's man of all work; his steward, his overseer, and his cash-keeper.
This contempt thrown on the character of Henley gave the Irishman some relief. By the holy poker, said Mac Fane, but I always thought he was a spalpeen, and no gintleman!
I think you have no great cause to like him much, sir, continued I, from the account that I have heard.
His choler began to rise, and his eyes assumed an uncommon ferocity. Like him! Sweet Jasus snatch me out of the world if I don't pay off an old score with him yet, before I die.
I thought as much, sir, answered I.
Sir! Replied he, again staring with reviving alarm and suspicion—
I continued.—To tell you the truth, Mr. Mac Fane, that is the very subject which brought you and I into company this evening. I suspected your hate of Henley, and to be sincere I hate him too.
Had you seen the fellow's face brighten, Fairfax, and after brightening begin to flame, you would not have readily forgotten the picture.
But I am rather surprised to meet you in public, sir, added I.
What do you mane by that, sir?
I thought you deemed it prudent to keep out of the way, on account of that affair?
I felt some gratification in playing thus upon his fears—He now once more put his hand into his side-pocket, and pulling out his pistols laid them before him. By Jasus, sir, I don't very well know what you would be at! But when I understand the full tote of your questions, I shall know how to give an answer.
I could not very well digest this oblique menace; but to have quarrelled with such a rascal would in every sense have been madness. You have a well-mounted pair of pistols there, said I, Mr. Mac Fane. I'll bet you the fifty guineas, double or quit, I break this china plate at the first shot, ten paces distant.
By the great grumbler, answered he, but I'll bet you don't! immediately delivering me one pistol, and taking up and unlocking the other himself. Accordingly I placed the plate against the wall, fired, and was not far from the centre. Upon my honour and soul, sir, said Mac Fane, but I find you are a good shot, and I shall be glad to be better acquainted with you.
Having convinced him that I could hit a mark as well as himself, I returned to the subject of Henley; and though I could not bring him to be explicit, I learned from him that he was acquainted with Henley's aversion to prosecute, but does not know on what that aversion is founded. Beside which he confides in a want of witnesses, as I could perceive: except that he has some fear of his accomplice, Webb; a man in whose company this very Mac Fane once attempted to rob Sir Arthur, and whom I suspect he would impeach, but that it would ruin all his gambling views. For he has found means of associating with that whole class of young fools of fortune, whose perverted education leads them to take pleasure in the impudence and humour of such a fellow, as well as in seeing each other stripped and ruined by turns; but who would never admit him as a companion, did they know he had been guilty of an act so desperate as that of going on the highway. Scarcely any thing short of this can expel such a fellow from such society.
But though he thinks himself secure in consequence of the lenity of Henley, he hates him as sincerely as if he were pursuing him to the gallows. The loss of the three thousand guineas is one great motive; and another is that he felt he was out-braved by Henley, whom he could not terrify, but who on the contrary terrified him.
I found he had even formed a scheme of petty vengeance, which was to waylay Henley with some bruising fellows of his acquaintance, for he is acquainted with daring villains of all descriptions, one of whom was to insult, provoke him to fight, and beat him, while Mac Fane himself should keep at some distance, disguised.
It was with some difficulty I could persuade him to desist from this plan, and join in projects of my own. But at last however he was convinced that to rob him of his mistress, and awaken him from all his dreams of imaginary bliss to the torture I am preparing, would be more effectual revenge than a paltry beating. Not to mention that I firmly believe, instead of being beaten, he would conquer the best prize-fighter they could bring; for he is really a powerful and extraordinary fellow.
But you will perceive, Fairfax, I was obliged to inform him of a part of my own views; and that I might fix him I determined to bid high. I told him I had Henley and another person to secure; and that if he would aid me himself and provide other assistants to act under his directions, without seeing or being informed of me, I would give him a thousand guineas as soon as all this should be perfectly accomplished. And, as an earnest of my generosity, I put down the fifty guineas; saying that the wager I had made with him was not a fair one, for that it was fifty guineas to a straw in my favour: he had no chance of winning.
He was quite satisfied with my offer, strengthened as it was by the gratification of his own passions. I told him what a puissant hero Henley is, and of the necessity of coming upon him by surprise. I told him I had seen a house, as before described, beyond Knightsbridge, which pleased me; but that I could not find another near enough, in which to secure Henley.
The geography of the place I mentioned seemed to start an idea in his mind, and he told me, if I would meet him in two days at the same tavern, he would in the mean time not only make preparations and procure assistants, but perhaps bring me further intelligence. As the fellow's brain seemed busy, I did not wish to rob him of the self-satisfaction of invention, and we accordingly parted, making the appointment he proposed.
Of all existing beings, he perhaps was the only one who could in a country like this become the proper instrument of my revenge. And yet, Fairfax, he is a hateful fellow! His language, his looks, his manners, his passions, are all hateful! Courage excepted, there is not a single trait in him but what is abominable! He delights in talking of hocking men, chalking them, and cutting them down! Every time his anger rises against any one, these are its attendant ideas. Such a fellow must come to some tragical end. He can never die of old age, and scarcely of disease. Nothing but the lead and steel in which he delights can end him.
So it is, and I have no remedy. But he shall be to me no more than an implement, with which I will carve the coming banquet.
How minute are the chances and events on which we depend! A few slight alterations of incident, and how different would have been the train of my thoughts! She might have been happy with me, for I loved her, Fairfax. I loved her. I feel it more and more; and were but circumstances a little more favourable, I believe I should turn about and take a contrary path.
But it cannot be! The barrier is insurmountable! An adamantine wall, reaching to the skies! I remember what she said, at her proud uncle's table—'I have an abhorrence, Mr. Clifton, of the errors in which you are now indulging.'—Abhorrence was the word, Fairfax!—It has been at my tongue's end ever since—And when she talked of my errors she meant me.—'I ultimately and determinedly renounce all thought of him!'—This was her language! I knew before which way her heart went; and can I suppose, now she has got a fair excuse, that she will not profit by it? Oh no! I am not so ill read as that in the passions. But I have said the word—They shall never come together!—They never never shall!
Coke Clifton to Guy Fairfax
London, Dover Street
I have received your dissuasive epistle, Fairfax. It found me moody and did not contribute to make me merry. To own the truth, no ghost need rise to tell me the methods I use are inclined to the violent. Can you find me better? Nay can you find any other? I care not for consequences; I brave them all.
Time was that I could have been happy with her! Ay and should, but for this fiend Henley. He sleeps securely! Let him sleep on! I will soon awaken him!
I thought I should have been tortured but by one chief passion, and that the love of vengeance would have enveloped me wholly: but they are all devouring me by turns. I certainly hate her, and him I abhor. Yet pictures of imaginary happiness, that might have been, are continually rising, and vanishing in gloomy regret. He too, at the very moment that I could murder him, I am obliged to admire!
Still he shall not have her! Though death overtake him, her and me, he shall not have her! But what is death? A thing to covet, not to dread. 'Tis existence only that is hateful!—Would that my bones were now mouldering!—Why have I brains and nerves and sensibilities?—Oh that I were in the poisonous desert, where I might gulp mephitic winds and drop dead; or in a moment be buried in tornados of burning sand! Would that my scull were grinning there, and blanching; rather than as it is consciously parching, scorched by fires itself has kindled!
I spent all yesterday with that Irish scoundrel. Malignity is his element, and mischief his delight! I suspect by his assiduity that he is poor just at present; for a more industrious demon black Cocytus does not yield. He is already provided with associates, and has found another principal agent for the great work. It is a strange expedient! But these are strange fellows! And yet it is a lucky one; superior to any that I had projected.
When I mentioned the Knightsbridge road at our first interview, Mac Fane recollected that an intimate of his had just set up what was to him a new trade, in the neighbourhood; that of being the keeper of a madhouse. He determined to go and propose the business to him; and as the fellow was preparing to advertise for lunatics, but had not yet got a single patient, there was a complete opening for such a plan.
He proposed taking me to see this intended guardian of maniacs, and his house; and I ordered a post-chaise for that purpose, that I might hide myself in one corner of it, and not let a living soul detect me with such a companion.
As we were going, I enquired if this keeper were an Irishman? He took offence, and retorted—'What did I mane by an Irishman? Becase he is a rogue you think he is an Irishman! By the holy carpenter you need not come to Ireland for that kind of ware! You have a viry pritty breed of rogues of your own! But he is not Irish. He is one of your own sulky English bugs.'
The description was not inapplicable, for I think I never beheld a more lowering, black-browed, evil-eyed fellow, since the hour I first saw light. He had all the gloom of the most irrascible bulldog, but without his generous courage. He seemed more proper to make men mad than cure them of madness. But he had two excellent qualities for my purpose; poverty and a disposition to all ill.
I am got into excellent company! But I care not! I will on! All this seems as if it were but the prologue to the tragedy. But be it that, or be it what it will—I care nothing for myself; and I have little cause to care more for them. She never had any mercy on me; and least this last interview, when I was pleading before her pompous uncle.
I have been obliged to hold consultations with these Satanic rascals, to concert ways and means. The most secure we have been able to devise, relative to Henley, is to have a straight waistcoat, to come upon him suddenly, and to encrust him in it before he shall know what we are about. This with a gag will make him safe. But there must not be less than four fellows, and those stout ones. Nothing must be left to chance.
Three more must be provided for the lady, of whom Mac Fane himself proposes to be one. But he means to keep out of sight of Henley, till he is in custody.
I have various preparations yet to make. Mac Fane is to go and hire me the empty house tomorrow. It is furnished; but it must be aired, for I would not have her die a paltry catch-cold death. I would treat her like a gentlewoman in every respect but one; and in that I will have as little compassion on her as she has had on me.
It might have been otherwise! I came to her a generous lover! I saw her and was amazed at her beauties, captivated by her enchanting manners, soothed by her unvaried sweetness! But this sweetness she has turned to gall! I adored her, and was prepared eternally to adore! But injury followed injury in such quick succession that apathy itself called aloud for vengeance!
I own it is true what she said at her uncle's, that I had made a resolution not to marry her. But what were my resolutions? She herself could not but feel she had the power to break them all. But she had not the will, Fairfax! It rankles there! She hates me, and what is more damnable she loves another!
I must turn my thoughts again to this detested mad-house man, and the scenery around it. All the avenues must be examined, and all the bye-paths and open roads that lead toward both houses inspected, that Mac Fane and his emissaries may make no blunder. I will if possible keep out of the action, but I will be near at hand.
I have a secret wish, the moment all is over, to fly the odious scene; for horribly odious it will be: but it would have the appearance of cowardice. It must end tragically! Not even the poor creatures who stand in the place of her natural guardians, tame as they are, can suffer such an insult. Yet which of them dare look me in the face, and call himself my enemy? And, after injuring her, shall I hesitate at trampling upon them?
I must steel my heart, Fairfax, when I go to the encounter; must recapitulate all my wrongs. I have them noted down severally as they occurred! I need but read to rage! What do I talk?—Read?—Can I forget them? No; night nor day! They are my familiars. They wake with me, sleep with me, walk with me, ride with me, glower with me, curse with me—but never smile with me. They are become my dearest intimates. I cherish and hug them to my heart! Their biting is my only pleasure!
I cannot forget this keeper. He is a foul-faced fellow! Has a wry look; a dogged, dungeon hue; of the deepest dusk and progeny of Beelzebub! I wonder by whom, where, and why such fellows are begotten!
There are horrid villains in the world! Villains by trade; that never felt the strong impulse of high-minded passion; that could breakfast in an hospital, dine in a slaughter-house, and sup in the sanguinary field of battle, listening to the groans of the mangled; or toss them on the point of forks, to smelt in a heap! I have heard her talk something of these depraved natures, and of the times when they are all to be humanised. Can you conjecture when, Fairfax? Yet she said they should be, and I was half inclined to believe her.
P.S. I meant to notice that passage in your letter in which you mention Beaunoir; but I forgot it till this moment. So you are at last inclined to think Anna St. Ives must be something more than you every day meet, from the rapturous description of that rodomontade Count? After all I have written, your faith wanted the seal of such a lunatic? Had you forgotten that the time was when I would have married her? And did that say nothing?
The Count is preparing for England? Let him come! I remember one of his crazy phrases and claims was that he would be her champion, should ever base knight attempt to do her harm. Nor have I forgotten his intended visit, received by Henley. May the winds set fair and blow him quickly over! Should he have any such frolics in his brain, we shall not be long in coming to terms.
This Mac Fane is incessantly importuning me to play, and what is strange has several times excited the desire in me. I took up the dice box, after we had been to the mad-house, and threw half a dozen casts at hazard; but I soon found it was in vain, and checked myself. I know I have the command of my own temper in that respect.
I have been reading over this tedious homily, and find it most ineffably dull. But what is to be done? My gaiety is gone. My high spirits are converted into black bile. My thoughts are hellebore and deadly night-shade, and hilarity is for ever poisoned.
Anna Wenbourne St. Ives to Louisa Clifton
London, Grosvenor-Street
Have I been unjust to the brother of my friend? Or had my words the power over him to turn him from a guilty purpose?—Well; rather, ay infinitely rather let me be a false accuser than he culpable! He seeks me no more, offers not to molest me, and I hope has forgotten me; at least has seen the error of endeavouring to accomplish a purpose so criminal by means so base. I expected storms, but a sweet calm has succeeded that seems to portend tranquillity and happiness.
With respect to me and Frank, our union appears to be hastening to a conclusion. Sir Arthur, impelled forward by his hopes and fears, proceeds though reluctantly to act contrary to the wishes of my arrogant uncle. Mrs. Wenbourne is dissatisfied; but her opposition is feeble, for Edward is reconciled to the match; having no other motive but the acquisition of a sum of money for his consent to dock the entail; and of the manner in which this sum will be squandered we have already had sufficient proof.
I understand Lord Fitz-Allen affects to credit a report of a very ridiculous, though as some would think it of a very injurious nature; which is that there was a collusion between Frank Henley and Mac Fane respecting my brother's gambling affair. The circumstances necessary to render this probable are so violent as immediately to expose its absurdity, and to make it matter of amazement how such an assertion could be invented, or circulated.
What could be Frank's motive?—My wise uncle has his answer ready—'That of imposing upon the family in order to marry me.'
And what Mac Fane's? 'A bribe' is a short phrase, and soon said.
I imagine it to be some dream of my uncle's, who has an aptitude for this kind of invention; and who having once put a few incidents together that seem to agree, persuades himself with great facility that the fable he has created is fact. Petty calumny like this is wholly incapable of moving Frank Henley.
The restless crafty Abimelech has prevailed on Sir Arthur to go down with him to Wenbourne-Hill. He well knows how much his own power will be increased by the old habits of Sir Arthur, and the ease with which they can be revived by this his interested abettor. Not but I am well convinced, when once every thing shall be settled, and he have no longer any thing to fear from the opposition of Sir Arthur, he will be as little a friend to improving as any of us. Various hints which have dropped from him would have proved this to Sir Arthur, had he not been blind enough to suppose that, he being a baronet, honest Aby is bound ever to remain his most obedient slave and steward; forgetting the proofs he has received that Abimelech at present is more inclined to command than to obey; and that when he parts with money he must have what he calls the whys and the wherefores.
His confidence in Frank however is now so entire that he has entrusted the transaction of certain money business to him, necessary on the present occasion, which he came up purposely to negotiate himself, but which he is now convinced can be done full as prudently and safely by his son. But a few months ago, Frank tells me, he petitioned this father in vain for thirty pounds, who now commits thousands to his keeping.
Not but it is from a conviction that there is no propensity in Frank to waste one of those guineas of which he is so enamoured. Without the least love of money, Frank is a rigid economist. The father indulges no false wants because it would be expensive; the son has none to indulge. Habits which in the one are the fruits of avarice, in the other are the offspring of wisdom.
Abimelech has some confused suspicion that Frank acts from higher motives than himself, and such as he does not understand; but still he hopes they are all founded on his own favourite basis, the love of hoarding. Nor can he very well persuade himself that this love is not the grand mover with all men of sense, among whom he now ranks his son high.
But ah, Louisa, how different are the views of this worthy, this heavenly-gifted son! He is anxiously studious to discover how he may apply the wealth that may revert to him most to benefit that society from which it first sprang. The best application of riches is one of our frequent themes; because it will be one of our first duties. The diffusion of knowledge, or more properly of truth, is the one great good to which wealth, genius, and existence ought all to be applied. This noble purpose gives birth to felicity which is in itself grand, inexhaustible, and eternal.
How ineffable is the bliss of having discovered a friend like Frank Henley, who will not only pursue this best of purposes himself, but will through life conduct me in the same path, will aid my efforts to promote the great work, and, by a combination of those powers we happen to possess, will add energy to effort, and perhaps render it fifty fold more pervading and effective!
Husband and wife, parent and child are ties which at present claim, or rather extort a part of our attention. But oh how poor how insignificant are they, when compared to the claims of eternal justice; which bind man to man in equal and impartial benevolence over the face of the whole earth, and render the wandering Arab, who is in need of aid or instruction from me, as truly my brother as the one my mother gave me.
I seem now but beginning the journey of life; and to have found a companion, guide, and consoler like Frank Henley is surely no common felicity! May the fates grant my Louisa just such another!
P.S. You do not think, Louisa, no I am sure you cannot think that all the ardour I felt for the recovery of a mind like Mr. Clifton's is lost. Far, far otherwise! I still hope to see him even more than my fondest reveries have imagined! But I am not the agent; or at least this is not the moment; or which is still more probable no agent now is wanted. His mind has been obliged to enquire, and though passion may for a time suppress truth, its struggles will be incessant; must be so in a mind of such activity, and must at last be victorious. The grand enemy of truth is the torpid state of error; for the beginning of doubt is always the beginning of discovery. Let us then continue to love this man of wonderful genius; not for what he is, but what he shall be.
Frank Henley to Oliver Trenchard
London, Grosvenor-Street
Oh, Oliver, how fair is the prospect before me! How fruitful of felicity, how abundant in bliss! Yes, my friend, jointly will we labour, your most worthy father, you, I, Anna, her friend, and all the converts we can make to truth, to promote the great end we seek! We will form a little band which will daily increase, will swell to a multitude, ay till it embrace the whole human species!
Surely, Oliver, to be furnished with so many of the means of promulgating universal happiness is no small blessing. My feelings are all rapture! And yet if I know my heart, it is not because I have gained a selfish solitary good; but because I live in an age when light begins to appear even in regions that have hitherto been thick darkness; and that I myself am so highly fortunate as to be able to contribute to the great the universal cause; the progress of truth, the extirpation of error, and the general perfection of mind! I and those dear friends I have named; who are indeed dear because of their ardent and uniform love of virtue!
Neither, Oliver, are all our hopes of Clifton lost. Anna thinks, and so do I, that he has heard too much ever to forget it all: or rather that he has a mind so penetrating, and so eternally busy, that, having been once led to enquire, it is scarcely in the power of accident wholly to impede the progress of enquiry. And should accident be favourable, that progress would indeed be rapid! By his intercourse with Anna his mind is become impregnated with the seeds of truth; and surely the soil is too rich for these seeds not to spring, bud, and bear a plenteous harvest. Ay, Oliver, fear not. It is not the beauty of the picture that seduces, but the laws of necessity, which declare the result for which we hope to be inevitable.
My present state of happiness meets some slight check from incidental circumstances, not in my power to guide. My father and Sir Arthur are doing what I believe to be a right thing, but from wrong motives. The prodigal Edward, from a very different avarice of enjoyment, is eager to dock the entail. The sum he is to receive will soon be squandered, and he will then be as eager to imagine himself treated with injustice; and will conceive himself left half to perish with want, if his accustomed dissipation be not supplied. But that it must not be. If we can teach him better we will; if not he must be left to repine and accuse, and we must patiently suffer the error which we cannot cure.
Lord Fitz-Allen indulges himself in thinking as much ill of me as he can, and in speaking all he thinks. But this is indeed a trifle. I know that the mistakes of his mind, situated as he is, are incurable; and to grieve or feel pain for what cannot be avoided is neither the act of wisdom nor of virtue.
Frank Henley to Oliver Trenchard
London, Grosvenor Street
I did not intend to have written again so soon, but an incident has occurred which perplexes all reasoning upon it, and again engenders doubt. It relates to Clifton.
I last night attended Anna to Covent-Garden playhouse, where about eight o'clock I was obliged to leave her, having an appointment with some gentlemen in the city relative to my father's money affairs at that hour; which having settled it was agreed I should return in the carriage for Anna, before the play was ended, to conduct her home. Accordingly having met my men of business, whom on Friday next I am to meet again to receive eight thousand pounds, I drove back to Covent Garden.
It was then about ten o'clock. The coachman stopped at the Piazza. I alighted; but, as I was stepping out of the carriage, whom should I see but the gambler and highwayman, Mac Fane, linked arm in arm with Mr. Clifton! I was struck with amazement, as well I might be. A thousand confused doubts succeeded to each other, which I had neither time nor indeed power to unravel.
However it seemed to me almost impossible that Mr. Clifton should know the man, and suffer himself to be seen in public with such a character. For certainly a want of self-respect is not one of the habitual mistakes of Mr. Clifton. I stopped some little time in this state of perplexity, but at last concluded it would be highly culpable in me to leave Mr. Clifton ignorant of the character of his acquaintance. They had gone toward King-Street, and I hastened after them.
I soon came up with them, and addressing myself to Mr. Clifton, said—'Sir, it is incumbent on me to inform you of a particular of which I imagine you are ignorant. The name of the man you are in company with is Mac Fane. You have heard his history. He is the gambler who endeavoured to defraud Captain St. Ives of three thousand pounds.'
I have before acquainted thee, Oliver, of the ferocious character of this Mac Fane; of which I have now had further proofs. I had scarcely finished my phrase before he replied, with one of his accustomary oaths—'You're a scoundrel and a liar'—and immediately made a blow at me.
Being previously on my guard and watchful of his motions, I stepped quickly back, and he missed me and reeled. This was in King-Street, where I overtook them.
I turned back, intending not to notice his insult; but he was too much enraged to suffer me to escape, unless I had thought proper to run. He is a very muscular fellow, and confident of his own strength. No man could be more determined than I was to avoid so absurd a contest, had it been possible; but it was not. He made several blows at me, two or three of which took effect, before I returned one of them. But finding that I must be obliged to beat him in order to get rid of him, and that there was absolutely no other mode, I began my task with all necessary determination.
The mob collected apace, and we were presently surrounded by passengers, waiters, chairmen, footmen, hackney-coachmen and link-boys. It was a strange disgusting situation; but it did not admit of a remedy. This fellow, Mac Fane, has studied the whole school of assault, and is a practised pugilist. When I was a boy thou knowest, Oliver, and before thy worthy father had taught me better, I was myself vain of my skill and prowess. I was not therefore the novice which he expected to have found. Not to mention, Oliver, that energy of mind, if it be real and true energy, is itself, without any such contemptible knowledge, sufficient to overcome the strongest efforts of tyranny.
Of this I presently made Mr. Mac Fane sensible. After the very first onset, he felt himself cowed; which increased his rage so much that he endeavoured to have recourse to the most malignant and cruel expedients, to obtain victory. This obliged me to give him several hard and very dangerous blows, which I should otherwise have been cautious of doing, and the effects of which he will for some time continue to feel.
He fought however with great obstinacy, and in a manner which proved how much his ambition was wounded by being conquered. The mob, as in all such cases, chose different sides; but much the greatest part was for me. They several times saw the malicious and evil intentions of Mac Fane; and he once received a blow for them, from one of the assistants, which made him more guarded.
It is delightful to the philosopher to perceive how, even in error, justice struggles to shew itself. Those rules which are the laws of honour to the mob originate in this noble principle: and never is the infraction of justice more dangerous than at such moments, when the mind is awakened to full exertion.
Still it was a painful and degrading situation! Wert thou ever at the mercy of a mob? Didst thou ever feel the littleness of thy own faculties, when exerted to make a confused multitude act rationally, at the very time that thou thyself wert apparently acting like a fool, or a madman? If so, Oliver, thou canst conceive something of the contempt which I felt for myself, during this scene. Can a general, thinkest thou, if he be really a fit person to be a general, feel otherwise in the heat of battle? For I am mistaken if armies of the best disciplined men, brought into action, do not more or less become a mob. And added to this sense of imbecility, what must the general's feelings be the next morning, when he goes to view the wretched scene of his own making? Does he go to view it, thinkest thou, or does he shun the fight? If he go he is a fiend; and if he stay away he is worse!
The battle being ended and the rage of Mr. Mac Fane, though perhaps increased, obliged to restrain itself, there stood I, surrounded by my applauding admirers, suffering a thousand ridiculous interrogatories, and confined to the spot for the want of clothes! My hat and coat I had committed to one person, and my watch and purse to another; taking it for granted the latter would have been stolen from me if I had not, as was actually the fact, for my breeches pockets were turned inside out. I had rightly concluded that the chances were more favourable in trusting to a person I should select, than to the honesty of a mob in the confines of Covent-Garden.
I was fortunate: the whole of my moveables again made their appearance; and it gave me great pleasure, because I had trusted my purse and watch to a poor fellow. The consciousness of his own honesty was a greater pleasure to him than the recompense he received from me; though I thought it my duty to reward him liberally. Beside he had seen me ill treated, and had conceived an affection for me, or more properly for the justice of my cause, and he rejoiced exultingly in my victory.
I escaped from the shouts and congratulations of my greasy well-meaning companions as fast as I could; and after a further delay of stepping into a coffee-house, to wash and adjust my appearance as well as circumstances would permit, I joined Anna, who began to be alarmed, the play being over and the house almost empty.
I saw no more of Clifton. But that affords me no clue. If he were before unacquainted with Mac Fane, he would hasten from such a companion with vexation and contempt: and if the contrary, his chagrin at being seen by me would equally induce him to shun us. Mind, as I have always remarked, Oliver, and as I have before reasoned with thee relative to him, is slow in ridding itself of the habits of prejudice, even when prejudice itself seems to have ceased.
'Tis true that conjectures disadvantageous to Clifton have, when Anna and I were considering this incident, intruded themselves forcibly upon us: but they were only conjectures, and I hope ill founded. Indeed they are improbable; for Clifton could not knowingly league himself with a man like Mac Fane, except for purposes too black or too desperate for even passions so violent as his to entertain.
I know mind to be capable of astonishing mistakes; nor can I pretend, when I recollect the proofs on record, to say what are the boundaries of error; nor indeed what are the boundaries of probability. But I think Clifton could not make himself the associate of Mac Fane!
I should pronounce more boldly still, but that I cannot conceive how it was possible for a character so legible and gross, as that of this gambler, to impose for a moment on Coke Clifton; acquainted as he is with the world, and accustomed to detect and satirize what he understands to be absurdity! I can only say, if he be proceeding fin error so flagrant and deep as this, he is a man much to be feared, but more to be pitied.
Coke Clifton to Guy Fairfax
London, Dover Street
Again and again, Fairfax, this is an infernal world! A vile, disgusting, despicable, besotted ass of a world! Existence in it is not worth accepting; and the sooner we spurn it from us the better we shall assert our claim to the dignity and wisdom of which it is destitute.
How do I despise the blundering insolent scoundrel with whom I am linked! How despicable am I to myself!
I last night met the fellow again at the Shakespeare. Of all his dirty qualities, not one of them is so tormenting as his familiar impudence! There is no repressing it except by cutting his throat; a business at which he is always alert. Nothing delights him so much as to talk of extinguishing men, treading out their souls, feeding upon their life-time, and other strange revolting phrases, all of the same sanguinary sort.
Having consulted with him concerning the seizure of Anna and Frank, and concluded that the affair should be ended as speedily as possible, I wished to have shaken him off and retired: but the thing was impracticable. I do not choose that my own carriage should attend me on these expeditions; and as it was a rainy night, I knew the difficulty of getting a coach. I therefore staid an hour till the entertainment should be begun, and the Piazza probably more clear.
As there is no sitting in his company without some species of gaming, for his whole conversation, that subject excepted, consists of oaths, duels, and the impudent scoundrels he has put out of the world, I took a few throws at hazard with him; and, as I was very careful to call for fresh dice and to watch his motions, I was a winner; hazard perhaps being the fairest of all games, if the dice be not foul. He ran over his usual litany of being pigeoned, and about ten o'clock I left play, and determined to sally forth; being apprehensive of engaging too deeply at the game, if I staid longer.
The moment we had descended the stairs he impudently laid hold of my arm. My blood boiled, Fairfax! Yet I was obliged to submit.
This was not all! The precautions I had taken were but a kind of presentiment of the vexation that was preparing for me. Just as we quitted the door of the tavern, who should bolt upon us but the hated Henley! I shook with the broad shame! My teeth gnashed curses! How willingly could I have pistoled him, Mac Fane, every being that eyed me, and still more willingly myself!
But there was nothing for it but to walk on, and seem not to see him. He however would not suffer me to depart without a double dose of damnation! The same infernal officiousness, with which from the first moment he saw me to the last he has been seized, came upon him; and though I hurried through the Piazza to escape, like a perjurer from the pillory, he pursued us purposely to inform me I was in company with a rascal, and to warn me of my danger.
I never can recollect my own situation, without an impulse to snatch up the first implement that would deprive me of a consciousness so detestable!
The irascible fury of the bully rid me of my tormentor; he immediately assaulted Henley, and I hastened away from two beings so almost equally abhorrent, but from causes so opposite.
On the following evening, having another appointment with the gambling rascal, I took care to have a coach waiting, and to go muffled up and disguised as much as possible. But for once my caution was superfluous. No Mac Fane appeared.
Not knowing what had happened, and it being night, and I thus properly equipped, I resolved to drive to his lodgings. Being there I sent up my name, and was admitted to the bed-chamber of this doughty exterminator of men. If the temper of my mind were not obnoxious to all cheerfulness, I could almost have laughed, the bully was so excellently beaten, mortified, and enraged! His head was bound up, his eyes were plaistered, his thumb sprained, his body of all colours, and his mind as hotly fevered as Alexander's itself could have been, had Alexander been vanquished at the battle of Issus!
His impatience to have Henley in his power is now almost phrensy; and it will be phrensy itself when he comes to find, as find he will, that though he can tie the hands of Henley his conquest must end there, and that the prisoner will still defy and contemn his jailor. So would I have him. Henley, though I hate, I cannot but respect and admire. The other is a creature I detest myself for ever having known!
Yet who but he could have gratified the unabating burning passion of my heart? I feel, Fairfax, as if I had taken my leave of hope, joy, and human intercourse! I have a quarrel with the whole race for having been forced into existence and into misery! I have suffered an accumulation of disgrace, for which I can never pardon myself! And shall I permit the authors of it to live undisturbed in their insult and triumph over me? No, by hell, come of me what will! Lower I cannot be in my own esteem than I already am: tremble those who made me so!
Beating has but rendered this rascal more impatient and active. Every thing is prepared. The house is hired, aired, and provided with a proper guardian. The madman keeper has all his implements ready. We have now only to watch and catch them at a proper distance from all succour, to which in their amorous walks they have frequently strayed.
Though even you, Fairfax, seem to disapprove my conduct, I care not. Not to give yourself further trouble with what you call such positive prudes might be a very good maxim for you, who love your ease too much ever to be sensible of the boiling emotions of a soul like mine! You are Guy Fairfax; I am Coke Clifton. Not but I should have imagined the swelling volumes of injuries I have communicated would have lighted up a sympathetic flame of retributive vengeance even in you, which not all your phlegm could have quenched. But no matter—Though heaven, earth, and hell were to face me frowning, I would on! My purpose is fixed: let it but be accomplished, and consequences to myself will be the least of all my cares.