Clarissa Harlowe, Samuel Richardson [black authors fiction .txt] 📗

of her. He places her at the upper end of his table. He sets her a-prattling. He keeps his friends at a distance from her. She prates away. He admires for nature all she says. Once was heard to call her charming little creature! An hundred has he called so no doubt. He puts her upon singing. He praises her wild note⁠—O my dear, the girl’s undone!⁠—must be undone!⁠—The man, you know, is Lovelace.

Let ’em bring Wyerley to you, if they will have you married⁠—anybody but Solmes and Lovelace be yours!⁠—So advises

Your

Anna Howe.

My dearest friend, consider this alehouse as his garrison: him as an enemy: his brother-rakes as his assistants and abettors. Would not your brother, would not your uncles, tremble, if they knew how near them he is, as they pass to and fro?⁠—I am told, he is resolved you shall not be carried to your uncle Antony’s.⁠—What can you do, with or without such an enterprising ⸻ Fill up the blank I leave.⁠—I cannot find a word bad enough.

Letter 71 Miss Clarissa Harlowe, to Miss Howe

Friday, Three o’clock

You incense, alarm, and terrify me, at the same time.⁠—Hasten, my dearest friend, hasten to me what further intelligence you can gather about this vilest of men.

But never talk of innocence, of simplicity, and this unhappy girl, together! Must she not know, that such a man as that, dignified in his very aspect; and no disguise able to conceal his being of condition; must mean too much, when he places her at the upper end of his table, and calls her by such tender names? Would a girl, modest as simple, above seventeen, be set a-singing at the pleasure of such a man as that? a stranger, and professedly in disguise!⁠—Would her father and grandmother, if honest people, and careful of their simple girl, permit such freedoms?

Keep his friend at a distance from her!⁠—To be sure his designs are villainous, if they have not been already effected.

Warn, my dear, if not too late, the unthinking father, of his child’s danger. There cannot be a father in the world, who would sell his child’s virtue. Nor mother!⁠—The poor thing!

I long to hear the result of your intelligence. You shall see the simple creature, you tell me.⁠—Let me know what sort of a girl she is.⁠—A sweet pretty girl! you say. A sweet pretty girl, my dear!⁠—They are sweet pretty words from your pen. But are they yours or his of her?⁠—If she be so simple, if she have ease and nature in her manner, in her speech, and warbles prettily her wild notes, why, such a girl as that must engage such a profligate wretch, (as now indeed I doubt this man is), accustomed, perhaps, to town women, and their confident ways.⁠—Must deeply and for a long season engage him: since perhaps when her innocence is departed, she will endeavour by art to supply the loss of the natural charms which now engage him.

Fine hopes of such a wretch’s reformation! I would not, my dear, for the world, have anything to say⁠—but I need not make resolutions. I have not opened, nor will I open, his letter.⁠—A sycophant creature!⁠—With his hoarsenesses⁠—got perhaps by a midnight revel, singing to his wild note singer, and only increased in the coppice!

To be already on a footing!⁠—In his esteem, I mean: for myself, I despise him. I hate myself almost for writing so much about him, and of such a simpleton as this sweet pretty girl as you call her: but no one can be either sweet or pretty, that is not modest, that is not virtuous.

And now, my dear, I will tell you how I came to put you upon this inquiry.

This vile Joseph Leman had given a hint to Betty, and she to me, as if Lovelace would be found out to be a very bad man, at a place where he had been lately seen in disguise. But he would see further, he said, before he told her more; and she promised secrecy, in hope to get at further intelligence. I thought it could be no harm, to get you to inform yourself, and me, of what could be gathered.40 And now I see, his enemies are but too well warranted in their reports of him: and, if the ruin of this poor young creature be his aim, and if he had not known her but for his visits to Harlowe-place, I shall have reason to be doubly concerned for her; and doubly incensed against so vile a man.

I think I hate him worse than I do Solmes himself.

But I will not add one more word about him; and after I have told you, that I wish to know, as soon as possible what further occurs from your inquiry. I have a letter from him; but shall not open it till I do: and then, if it come out as I dare say it will, I will directly put the letter unopened into the place I took it from, and never trouble myself more about him. Adieu, my dearest friend.

Cl. Harlowe.

Letter 72 Miss Howe, to Miss Clarissa Harlowe

Friday Noon, March 31

Justice obliges me to forward this after my last on the wings of the wind, as I may say. I really believe the man is innocent. Of this one accusation, I think he must be acquitted; and I am sorry I was so forward in dispatching away my intelligence by halves.

I have seen the girl. She is really a very pretty, a very neat, and, what is still a greater beauty, a very innocent young creature. He who could have ruined such an undersigned home-bred, must have been indeed infernally wicked. Her father is an honest simple man; entirely satisfied with his child, and with her new acquaintance.

I am almost afraid for your heart, when I tell you,