FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87  
88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   >>   >|  
he same manner. We neither of us are such fools as to disbelieve a futurity, or to think, whatever be our practice, that we came hither by chance, and for no end but to do all the mischief we have it in our power to do. Nor am I ashamed to own, that in the prayers which my poor uncle makes me read to him, in the absence of a very good clergyman who regularly attends him, I do not forget to put in a word or two for myself. If, Lovelace, thou laughest at me, thy ridicule will be more conformable to thy actions than to thy belief.--Devils believe and tremble. Canst thou be more abandoned than they? And here let me add, with regard to my poor old man, that I often wish thee present but for one half hour in a day, to see the dregs of a gay life running off in the most excruciating tortures that the cholic, the stone, and the surgeon's knife can unitedly inflict, and to hear him bewail the dissoluteness of his past life, in the bitterest anguish of a spirit every hour expecting to be called to its last account.--Yet, by all his confessions, he has not to accuse himself, in sixty-seven years of life, of half the very vile enormities which you and I have committed in the last seven only. I conclude with recommending to your serious consideration all I have written, as proceeding from the heart and soul of Your assured friend, JOHN BELFORD LETTER XIV MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. TUESDAY AFTERNOON, JUNE 6. Difficulties still to be got over in procuring this plaguy license. I ever hated, and ever shall hate, these spiritual lawyers, and their court. And now, Jack, if I have not secured victory, I have a retreat. But hold--thy servant with a letter-- *** A confounded long one, though not a narrative one--Once more in behalf of this lady?--Lie thee down, oddity! What canst thou write that can have force upon me at this crisis?--And have I not, as I went along, made thee to say all that was necessary for thee to say? *** Yet once more I will take thee up. Trite, stale, poor, (sayest thou,) are some of my contrivances; that of the widow particularly!--I have no patience with thee. Had not that contrivance its effect at that time, for a procrastination? and had I not then reason to fear, that the lady would find enough to make her dislike this house? and was it not right (intending what I intended) to lead her on from time to time with a notion that a house of her own would
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87  
88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

BELFORD

 

license

 
contrivance
 

plaguy

 

intending

 

procuring

 

lawyers

 

dislike

 

spiritual

 
Difficulties

patience

 
notion
 
LETTER
 
friend
 
assured
 

LOVELACE

 

intended

 

AFTERNOON

 

TUESDAY

 

secured


proceeding

 

reason

 

crisis

 

sayest

 

procrastination

 

oddity

 

letter

 

servant

 
retreat
 

confounded


effect

 

contrivances

 

behalf

 

narrative

 
victory
 
spirit
 

forget

 
attends
 
clergyman
 

regularly


Lovelace
 
laughest
 

tremble

 

abandoned

 

Devils

 

ridicule

 

conformable

 

actions

 

belief

 

absence