Letter 417: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. 

Thursday, Aug. 22 

I MUST write on to divert myself: for I can get no rest; no refreshing rest. I awaked just now in a cursed fright. How a man may be affected by dreams! 

'Methought I had an interview with my beloved. I found her all goodness, condescension, and forgiveness. She suffered herself to be overcome in my favour by the joint intercessions of Lord M., Lady Sarah, Lady Betty, and my two cousins Montague, who waited upon her in deep mourning; the ladies in long trains sweeping after them; Lord M. in a long black mantle trailing after him. They told her they came in these robes to express their sorrow for my sins against her, and to implore her to forgive me. 

'I myself, I thought, was upon my knees and with a sword in my hand, offering either to put it up in the scabbard, or to thrust it into my heart, as she should command the one or the other. 

'At that moment her cousin Morden, I thought, all of a sudden flashed in through a window, with his drawn sword--Die, Lovelace, said he! this instant die, and be damned, if in earnest thou repairest not by marriage my cousin's wrongs! 

'I was rising to resent this insult, I thought, when Lord M. run between us with his great black mantle, and threw it over my face: and instantly, my charmer, with that sweet voice which has so often played upon my ravished ears, wrapped her arms round me, muffled as I was in my Lord M.'s mantle: Oh spare, spare my Lovelace! And spare, Oh Lovelace, my beloved cousin Morden! Let me not have my distresses augmented by the fall of either or both of those who are so dear to me. 

'At this, charmed with her sweet mediation, I thought I would have clasped her in my arms: when immediately the most angelic form I had ever beheld, vested all in transparent white, descended from a ceiling, which, opening, discovered a ceiling above that, stuck round with golden cherubs and glittering seraphs, all exulting: Welcome, welcome, welcome! and, encircling my charmer, ascended with her to the region of seraphims; and instantly, the opening ceiling closing, I lost sight of her, and of the bright form together, and found wrapped in my arms her azure robe (all stuck thick with stars of embossed silver), which I had caught hold of in hopes of detaining her; but was all that was left me of my beloved Miss Harlowe. And then (horrid to relate!) the floor sinking under me, as the ceiling had opened for her, I dropped into a hole more frightful than that of Elden' and tumbling over and over down it, without view of a bottom, I awaked in a panic; and was as effectually disordered for half an hour, as if my dream had been a reality.' 

Wilt thou forgive me troubling thee with such visionary stuff? Thou wilt see by it only that, sleeping or waking, my Clarissa is always present with me. 

But here this moment is Will come running hither to tell me that his lady actually returned to her lodgings last night between eleven and twelve, and is now there, though very ill. 

I hasten to her. But that I may not add to her indisposition by any rough or boisterous behaviour, I will be as soft and gentle as the dove herself in my addresses to her. 

That I do love her, oh all ye host of heaven, 
Be witness!--That she is dear to me! 
Dearer than day to one whom sight must leave; 
Dearer than life, to one who fears to die? 

The chair is come. I fly to my beloved.

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