Lovelace

“ And Lovelace strikes, by fits, a note divine.
Th' unequal gleams like midnight-lightnings play,
And deepen'd gloom succeeds, in place of day.
But human bliss still meets some envious storm;
He droops to view his Paynters' mangled form:
Presumptuous grief, while pensive Taste repines
O'er the frail relics of her Attic Shrines!
O for that power, for which Magicians vye.
To look through earth, and secret hoards descry! ”

“ Your native generosity and greatness of mind endanger you: all your friends, by fighting against him with impolitic violence, fight for him. And Lovelace, my life for yours, notwithstanding all his veneration and assiduities, has seen further than that veneration and those assiduities (so well calculated to your meridian) will let him own he has seen—has seen, in short, that his work is doing for him more effectually than he could do it for himself. And have you not before now said, that nothing is so penetrating as the eye of a lover who has vanity? And who says Lovelace wants vanity? ”

“ I am still well pleased with Mr. Lovelace's behaviour. We have had a good deal of serious discourse together. The man has really just and good notions. He confesses how much he is pleased with this day, and hopes for many such. ”

“ Let us indulge the hope that the friends who occupied so many of the introductory pages of Lovelace’s Lucasta occasionally enlivened the solitude and relieved the distress of the poet whose praises they had once sung with so much vigour. As Marvell was undoubtedly a friendly man, and one who loved to be alone with his friends, and had never any house of his own to keep up, living for the most part in hired lodgings, it would be unkind to doubt that he at least did not forget Lovelace in his poverty and depression of spirit. ”

“ Lovelace's hand?—I will assure you, that I have no fears of that sort—but I know this is an ungrateful subject to you. Mr. Lovelace is your friend; and I will allow, that a good man may have a friendship for a bad one, so far as to wish him well, without countenancing him in his evil.
I will assure you, added he, that I have not yet made any resolutions either way. I have told you what force my cousin's repeated requests have with me. ”

“ No man of honour, my Lord, will be easy to have his veracity called into question, though but by implication.
Col. Had you heard me out, Mr. Lovelace, you would have found, that my if was rather an if of inference, than of doubt. But 'tis, really a strange liberty gentlemen of free principles take; who at the same time that they would resent unto death the imputation of being capable of telling an untruth to a man, will not scruple to break through the most solemn oaths and promises to a woman. I must assure you, Mr. Lovelace, that I always made a conscience of my vows and promises. ”

“ Lovelace, who loved freedom, seems to be enclosed in so narrow a book; yet it is but a ‘hermitage.’ To shake out the light and spirit of its leaves is to give a glimpse of liberty not to him, but to the world.
In To Lucasta I have been bold to alter, at the close, ‘you’ to ‘thou.’ Lovelace sent his verses out unrevised, and the inconsistency of pronouns is common with him, but nowhere else so distressing as in this brief and otherwise perfect poem. ”

“ When Atropos the lovely Lovelace hit!
How th' active fire, which cloath'd thy gen'rous mind,
Consum'd the water, and the earth calcin'd
Untill a stronger heat by death was given,
Which sublimated thy poor soul to heaven.
Thou knew'st right well to guide the warlike steed,
And yet could'st court the Muses with full speed
And such success, that the inspiring Nine
Have fill'd their Thespian fountain so with brine.
Henceforth we can expect no lyrick lay,
But biting satyres through the world must stray. ”

“ Yes, she would be very good, but so must he! And now she was going shopping, and she would require at least twenty guineas.
In spite of her promise to "be good," she made no attempt to discourage Lovelace's attentions, always smiling charmingly upon him and beckoning him to her side.
It was the morning of the Duchess of Devonshire's rout that Carstares again broached the subject. My lady was in bed, her fair hair unpowdered and streaming all about her shoulders, her chocolate on a small table at her side and countless billets doux from admirers scattered on the sheet. ”

“ You wrong'd in her the Houses priviledge;
Some that you under sequestration are,
Because you write when going to the Warre;
And one the book prohibits, because Kent
Their first Petition by the Authour sent.
But when the beauteous ladies came to know,
That their deare Lovelace was endanger'd so:
Lovelace, that thaw'd the most congealed brest,
He who lov'd best, and them defended best,
Whose hand so rudely grasps the steely brand,
Whose hand so gently melts the ladies hand,
They all in mutiny, though yet undrest,
Sally'd, and would in his defence contest. ”

“ The Lord bless me, my dear, I myself, at times, can hardly believe it is I, that have been led to take so strange a step.
I have not the better opinion of Mr. Lovelace for his extravagant volubility. He is too full of professions. He says too many fine things of me, and to me. True respect, true value, I think, lies not in words: words cannot express it: the silent awe, the humble, the doubting eye, and even the hesitating voice, better shew it by much, than, as our beloved Shakespeare says,
——The rattling tongue Of saucy and audacious eloquence. ”

“ And then folding me to her maternal bosom, I leave you, my dearest Miss, said she—I leave you, because I must!—But let me beseech you to do nothing rashly; nothing unbecoming your character. If all be true that is said, Mr. Lovelace cannot deserve you. If you can comply, remember it is your duty to comply. They take not, I own, the right method with so generous a spirit. But remember, that there would not be any merit in your compliance, if it were not to be against your own liking. ”

“ Indeed, my dear, said my aunt, you too much justify all your apprehension. Surprising! that a young creature of virtue and honour should thus esteem a man of a quite opposite character!
Dear Madam, do not conclude against me too hastily. I believe Mr. Lovelace is far from being so good as he ought to be: but if every man's private life was searched into by prejudiced people, set on for that purpose, I know not whose reputation would be safe. I love a virtuous character, as much in man as in woman. ”

“ Mr. Lovelace said, that he must let the ladies into my story, and then they would know how to allow for my ways. But, my dear, as you love me, said the confident wretch, give as little way to melancholy as possible. Nothing but the sweetness of your temper, and your high notions of a duty that never can be deserved where you place it, can make you so uneasy as you are.—Be not angry, my dear love, for saying so, [seeing me frown, I suppose:] and snatched my hand and kissed it.—I left him with them; and retired to my closet and my pen. ”

“ I love a brave man, Mr. Lovelace, as well as ever I did in my life. But let me tell you, Sir, that when you come to my time of life, you will be of opinion, that there is not so much true bravery in youthful choler, as you may now think there is.
A clever fellow again, Belford!—Ear and heart, both at once, he took in my charmer!—'Tis well, she says, there are some men who have wisdom in their anger. ”

“ Its late painters, whose human figures had no lack of weight upon the comfortable ground, yet kept a sense of buoyancy for this hovering childhood, and kept the angels and the loves aloft, as though they shook a tree to make a flock of birds flutter up.
Fine is the fantastic and infrequent landscape in Lovelace’s poetry:
‘This is the palace of the wood,
And court o’ the royal oak, where stood
The whole nobility.’
In more than one place Lucasta’s, or Amarantha’s, or Laura’s hair is sprinkled with dew or rain almost as freshly and wildly as in Wordsworth’s line. ”

“ I seem still to stand high in their favour. But, methinks, I should be glad to have this confirmed to me, as from themselves, by the lips of an indifferent person; and the rather, because of their fortunes and family; and take it amiss (as they have reason) to be included by ours in the contempt thrown upon their kinsman.
Curiosity at present is all my motive: nor will there ever, I hope, be a stronger, notwithstanding your questionable throbs—even were the merits of Mr. Lovelace much greater than they are. ”

“ Play the man for once and stop her!"
"She loves Lovelace, I tell you!"
"What of it? She will recover from that."
"No—I cannot ask her to stay with me—'twould be damnably selfish."
His Grace appeared exasperated.
"'Fore Gad, you are a fool! Ask her! Ask her! Force her! Kick Lovelace from your house and abandon the heroic pose, I beg of you!"
"Do you suppose I want to lose her?" cried Carstares. "'Tis because I love her so much that I will not stand in the way of her happiness!"
The Duke flung round and picked up his hat.
"I am sorry I cannot join with you in your heroics. ”

“ And this (although they seem too well aware of it) is all my hope: for, as to Lovelace, were I to be sure of his tenderness, and even of his reformation, must not the thought of embracing the offered protection of his family, be the same thing, in the world's eye, as accepting of his own?—Could I avoid receiving his visits at his own relations'? Must I not be his, whatever, (on seeing him in a nearer light,) I should find him out to be? For you know, it has always been my observation, that very few people in courtship see each other as they are. Oh! my dear! how wise have I endeavoured to be! ”

“ That is spoken as I wish the man to speak whom I should be pleased to call my friend, if all his actions were of a piece; and as I would have the man speak whom I would think it worth my while to call my foe. I love a man of spirit, as I love my soul. But, Mr. Lovelace, as my Lord thinks we aim at one mark, let me say, that were we permitted to be alone for six minutes, I dare say, we should soon understand one another perfectly well.—And he moved to the door. ”

“ Lovelace, had he been a moral man. I should have very little to say against a man, of whose actions I am not to set up myself as a judge, did he not address my cousin. But, on this occasion, let me tell you, my dear Clarissa, that Mr. Lovelace cannot possibly deserve you. He may reform, you'll say: but he may not. Habit is not soon or easily shaken off. Libertines, who are libertines in defiance of talents, of superior lights, of conviction, hardly ever reform but by miracle, or by incapacity. Well do I know mine own sex. ”

“ Sir Percival Lovelace had contemplated his rival's sudden rise to fame with interest, not unmixed with cynical amusement, his humorous sensibilities being rarely tickled at his own discomfiture, for this pleasant gentleman was philosopher enough to extract cause for merriment from his own disappointments and miscalculations. ”

“ For pride, as I believe I have heretofore said, is an infallible sign of weakness; of something wrong in the head or in both. He that exalts himself insults his neighbour; who is provoked to question in him even that merit, which, were he modest, would perhaps be allowed to be his due.
You will say that I am very grave: and so I am. Mr. Lovelace is extremely sunk in my opinion since Monday night: nor see I before me any thing that can afford me a pleasing hope. For what, with a mind so unequal as his, can be my best hope? ”

“ Yes, love and marriage; and if we don't look very sharp after our Alice she will be carried off by somebody or other, to a dead certainty. Over and above half a dozen indiscriminate lovers, she has a shadow, a tall, bronzed, dark-faced, handsome shadow, that every young woman in St. Swithins has vainly tried to make her own. Captain Lovelace, however, has his own ideas about female beauty, and until his eyes lit on our sister's fresh, saucy, charming face he has never felt inclined to lose his own identity ”

“ The divine grace, or favour, Mr. Lovelace, must do all, and confirm all. You know not how much you please me, that I can talk to you in this dialect.
And I then thought of his generosity to his pretty rustic; and of his kindness to his tenants.
Yet, Madam, be pleased to remember one thing; reformation cannot be a sudden work. I have infinite vivacity: it is that which runs away with me. Judge, dearest Madam, by what I am going to confess, that I have a prodigious way to journey on, before a good person will think me tolerable ”

“ Wright, ma'am," said Mrs. Lovelace, dexterously flinging her cloth over the table. "But I've been a bit busy, you see, what with one thing and another, and me time's been occupied."
"What on earth are you spreading that cloth for?" here broke in Bunny, in irritable astonishment. "We never have that for tea."
Mrs. Lovelace looked at him with dignity and hitched one shoulder. "We always has a good spread when Mrs. Wright comes to see the master," she said, in a tone that conveyed a distinct reproof for ill-timed interference. ”

“ I tried to adjust my countenance, before I went down, to an easier air than I had a heart, and was received with the highest tokens of respect by the widow and her two nieces: agreeable young women enough in their persons; but they seemed to put on an air of reserve; while Mr. Lovelace was easy and free to all, as if he were of long acquaintance with them: gracefully enough, I cannot but say; an advantage which travelled gentlemen have over other people. ”