long letters, for so
many weeks together, have made thee groan under, I will endeavour to
restrain myself in the desires I have, (importunate as they are,) of
going to town, to throw myself at the feet of my soul's beloved. Policy
and honesty, both join to strengthen the restraint my own promise and thy
engagement have laid me under on this head. I would not afresh provoke:
on the contrary, would give time for her resentments to subside, that so
all that follows may be her own act and deed.

***

Hickman, [I have a mortal aversion to that fellow!] has, by a line which
I have just now received, requested an interview with me on Friday at Mr.
Dormer's, as at a common friend's. Does the business he wants to meet me
upon require that it should be at a common friend's?--A challenge
implied: Is it not, Belford?--I shall not be civil to him, I doubt. He
has been an intermeddler?--Then I envy him on Miss Howe's account: for if
I have a right notion of this Hickman, it is impossible that that virago
can ever love him.

Every one knows that the mother, (saucy as the daughter sometimes is,)
crams him down her throat. Her mother is one of the most
violent-spirited women in England. Her late husband could not stand in
the matrimonial contention of Who should? but tipt off the perch in it,
neither knowing how to yield, nor knowing how to conquer.

A charming encouragement for a man of intrigue, when he has reason to
believe that the woman he has a view upon has no love for her husband!
What good principles must that wife have, who is kept in against
temptation by a sense of her duty, and plighted faith, where affection
has no hold of her!

Pr'ythee let's know, very particularly, how it fares with poor Belton.
'Tis an honest fellow. Something more than his Thomasine seems to stick
with him.

Thou hast not been preaching to him conscience and reformation, hast
thou?--Thou shouldest not take liberties with him of this sort, unless
thou thoughtest him absolutely irrecoverable. A man in ill health, and
crop-sick, cannot play with these solemn things as thou canst, and be
neither better nor worse for them.--Repentance, Jack, I have a notion,
should be set about while a man is in health and spirits. What's a man
fit for, [not to begin a new work, surely!] when he is not himself, nor
master of his faculties?--Hence, as I apprehend, it is that a death-bed
repentance is supposed to be such a precarious and ineffectual thing