Besides,
said he, I remember how much I had exclaimed against and censured an
action of this kind, that had been attributed to one of the first men of
the law, and of the kingdom, as he afterwards became; and that it was but
treading in a path that another had marked out for me; and, as I was
assured, with no great satisfaction to himself, when he came to reflect;
my foolish pride was a little piqued with this, because I loved to be, if
I went out of the way, my own original, as I may call it. On all these
considerations it was, that I rejected this project, and sent word to the
person, that I had better considered of the matter, and would not have
him come, till he heard further from me: And, in this suspense I suppose,
some of your confederates, Pamela, (for we have been a couple of
plotters, though your virtue and merit have procured you faithful friends
and partisans, which my money and promises could hardly do,) one way or
other got knowledge of it, and gave you this notice; but, perhaps, it
would have come too late, had not your white angel got the better of my
black one, and inspired me with resolutions to abandon the project, just
as it was to have been put into execution. But yet I own, that, from
these appearances, you were but too well justified in your fears, on this
odd way of coming at this intelligence; and I have only one thing to
blame you for, that though I was resolved not to hear you in your own
defence, yet, as you have so ready a talent at your pen, you might have
cleared your part of this matter up to me by a line or two; and when I
had known what seeming good grounds you had for pouring cold water on a
young flame, that was just then rising to an honourable expansion, should
not have imputed it, as I was apt to do, to unseasonable insult for my
tenderness to you, on one hand; to perverse nicety, on the other; or to
(what I was most alarmed by, and concerned for) prepossession for some
other person: And this would have saved us both much fatigue, I of mind,
you of body.
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