- A Small Time May, Perhaps,
Afford Me An Opportunity:
- Yet did you
know how dear this self-denial costs me, you
would confess it the greatest proof of affection
ever man gave:
- Permit me therefore to gratify
an ambition which has no other aim than a
justification of the favours I receive: - continue
to look with a favourable eye on my endeavours,
and they cannot then fail of such success,
as may give me a claim to the glorious.
title of my most adored and loved Charlotta's.
Everlasting Slave,
HORATIO."
To her father he wrote in the following manner:
To the baron DE PALFOY,
My Lord;
"The favours your goodness confers upon
me are such as can be equalled by but one
thing in the world, and that is my just and
grateful sense of them. - Charming would be
the toils of war, did all employed in them meet
a recompence like mine! - Is there a man, so
mean, so poor in spirit, that praises such as I receive
might not animate to actions worthy of
them! - What acknowledgments can I make
the count suitable to the immense obligations I
owe him, for inspiring your lordship with sentiments,
which, tho' the supreme wish of my
aspiring soul, I never durst allow myself to
hope; and which afford a prospect of future
accumulated blessings, such as I could scarce
flatter myself with being real, were not the transporting
idea in some measure confirmed to me,
by your having given a sanction to a correspondence
I so lately despaired of ever obtaining! - Blessed
change! - Extatic condescensions! - Fortune
has done all she can for me, and anticipated
all the good that, after a long train of
services and approved fidelity, I scarce should
have presumed to hope! - Oh my lord! I have
no words to thank you as I ought! It is deeds
alone, and rendering myself worthy of your
indulgence, that must preserve your good opinion,
and keep you from repenting having overwhelmed
me with this profusion of happiness! - Yet
how joyfully could I now pursue the
rout to Paris, and content myself with owing
every thing merely to your goodness, were I
not with-held by all the considerations that
ought to have weight with a man of honour! - My
royal general is inflexible to the persuasions
of almost all the courts in Christendom,
and hurried by his thirst of fame, or some other
more latent motive, has given orders to prepare
for a march, where, or against whom, is yet a
secret to the army; but by the preparations for
it, we believe they are not short journeys we
are to take. - Should I now quit a service
where I have been promoted so much beyond
my merit, what, my lord, but cowardice or ingratitude
could be imputed to me as the motive!
- Not all my reasons, powerful as they are,
would have any weight with a prince, who is
deaf to every thing but the calls of glory; and
I must return loaden with his displeasure, and
the reproaches of all I leave behind! - Now
to return is certain infamy! - To go, is in pursuit
of honour! - Your lordship will not therefore
be surprized I make choice of the latter,
since no hazard can be equal to that of forfeiting
the little reputation I have acquired, and
which alone can render me worthy any part of
the favours I have received.
I am,
With the extremest respect and submission,
Your lordship's
Eternally devoted servant,
HORATIO."
The last and most difficult task he had to go thro', was the refusal he
must give to Dorilaus, who had laid his commands on him in such express
terms; and it was not without a good deal of blotting, altering, and
realtering, he at length formed an epistle to him in these terms:
To my more than father, my only patron,
protector and benefactor, the most worthy
DORILAUS.
Most dear and ever honoured Sir,
"To hear you are living, and still remember
me with kindness, affords too great a
transport to suffer me to throw away any thought
either on the motives of your long silence,
or that happiness, which you tell me, I may
expect has been the produce of it: - it is
sufficient for me to know I am still blessed in
the favor of the most excellent person that
ever lived, and am not in the least anxious for
an explanation of any farther good.
To tell you with how much ardency I long
to throw myself at your feet, to relate to you
all the various accidents that have befallen me
since first you condescended to put me in the
paths of glory, and to pour out my soul before
you with thanksgiving, would be as impossible
as it is for me at present to enjoy that blessing! - The
king's affairs, it is true, would suffer
nothing by my absence; but, sir, what would
the world say of me, if, after a whole year of
inactivity and idleness, I flew, on the first appearance
of danger, and forsook a prince, by
whom I have been so highly favoured? - Instead
of the character I have always been ambitious
of attaining, should I not be branded with
everlasting infamy! - Put not therefore, I beseech
you, to so severe a test that love and duty,
to which you cannot have a greater claim than
I a readiness to pay? - Did you command my
life, it is yours: - I owe it to you, and with it
all that can render it agreeable; but, sir, my
honour, my reputation, must survive when I am
no more; it was the first, and will be the last
bent of my desires. No perils can come in any
degree of competition with those of being deprived
of that, nor any indulgencies of fortune
compensate for the loss of it: - pardon then
this enforced disobedience, and believe it is the
only thing in which I could be guilty of it.
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