that pride to be punished? If, as in the eastern emperors, it be art as
well as pride, art is what she of all women need not use. If shame, what
a shame to be ashamed to communicate to her adorer's sight the most
admirable of her personal graces?

Let me perish, Belford, if I would not forego the brightest diadem in the
world, for the pleasure of seeing a twin Lovelace at each charming
breast, drawing from it his first sustenance; the pious task, for
physical reasons,* continued for one month and no more!


* In Pamela, Vol. III. Letter XXXII. these reasons are given, and are
worthy of every parent's consideration, as is the whole Letter, which
contains the debate between Mr. B. and his Pamela, on the important
subject of mothers being nurses to their own children.


I now, methinks, behold this most charming of women in this sweet office:
her conscious eye now dropt on one, now on the other, with a sigh of
maternal tenderness, and then raised up to my delighted eye, full of
wishes, for the sake of the pretty varlets, and for her own sake, that I
would deign to legitimate; that I would condescend to put on the nuptial
fetters.



LETTER XII

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
MONDAY AFTERNOON.