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

When thou knowest this, wilt thou not think that my black angel plays me booty, and has taken it into his head to urge me on to the indissoluble tie, that he might be more sure of me (from the complex transgressions to which he will certainly stimulate me, when wedded) than perhaps he thought he could be from the simple sins, in which I have so long allowed myself, that they seem to have the plea of habit?

Thou wilt be still the more surprised, when I tell thee, that there seems to be a coalition going forward between the black angels and the white ones; for here has hers induced her, in one hour, and by one retrograde accident, to acknowledge what the charming creature never before acknowledged, a preferable favour for me. She even avows an intention to be mine.⁠—Mine! without reformation-conditions!⁠—She permits me to talk of love to her!⁠—of the irrevocable ceremony!⁠—Yet, another extraordinary! postpones that ceremony; chooses to set out for London; and even to go to the widow’s in town.

Well, but how comes all this about? methinks thou askest.⁠—Thou, Lovelace, dealest in wonders, yet aimest not at the marvellous!⁠—How did all this come about?

I will tell thee⁠—I was in danger of losing my charmer forever! She was soaring upward to her native skies! She was got above earth, by means too, of the earthborn! And something extraordinary was to be done to keep her with us sublunaries. And what so effectually as the soothing voice of Love, and the attracting offer of matrimony from a man not hated, can fix the attention of the maiden heart, aching with uncertainty, and before impatient of the questionable question?

This, in short, was the case: while she was refusing all manner of obligation to me, keeping me at haughty distance, in hopes that her cousin Morden’s arrival would soon fix her in a full and absolute independence of me⁠—disgusted, likewise, at her adorer, for holding himself the reins of his own passions, instead of giving them up to her control⁠—she writes a letter, urging an answer to a letter before sent, for her apparel, her jewels, and some gold, which she had left behind her; all which was to save her pride from obligation, and to promote the independence her heart was set upon. And what followed but a shocking answer, made still more shocking by the communication of a father’s curse, upon a daughter deserving only blessings?⁠—A curse upon the curser’s heart, and a double one upon the transmitter’s, the spiteful the envious Arabella!

Absent when it came⁠—on my return I found her recovering from fits, again to fall into stronger fits; and nobody expecting her life; half a dozen messengers dispatched to find me out. Nor wonder at her being so affected; she, whose filial piety gave her dreadful faith in a father’s curses; and the curse of this gloomy tyrant extending (to use her own words, when she could speak) to both worlds⁠—O that it had turned, in the moment of its utterance, to a mortal quinsy, and, sticking in his gullet, had choked the old execrator, as a warning to all such unnatural fathers!

What a miscreant had I been, not to have endeavoured to bring her back, by all the endearments, by all the vows, by all the offers, that I could make her!

I did bring her back. More than a father to her: for I have given her a life her unnatural father had well-nigh taken away: Shall I not cherish the fruits of my own benefaction? I was earnest in my vows to marry, and my ardour to urge the present time was a real ardour. But extreme dejection, with a mingled delicacy, that in her dying moments I doubt not she will preserve, have caused her to refuse me the time, though not the solemnity; for she has told me, that now she must be wholly in my protection (being destitute of every other!) More indebted, still, thy friend, as thou seest, to her cruel relations, than to herself, for her favour!

She has written to Miss Howe an account of their barbarity! but has not acquainted her how very ill she was.

Low, very low, she remains; yet, dreading her stupid brother’s enterprise, she wants to be in London, where, but for this accident, and (wouldst thou have believed it?) for my persuasions, seeing her so very ill, she would have been this night; and we shall actually set out on Wednesday morning, if she be not worse.

And now for a few words with thee, on the heavy preachment of Saturday last.

Thou art apprehensive, that the lady is now truly in danger; and it is a miracle, thou tellest me, if she withstand such an attempter!⁠—“Knowing what we know of the sex, thou sayest, thou shouldst dread, wert thou me, to make further trial, lest thou shouldst succeed.” And, in another place, tellest me, “That thou pleadest not for the state for any favour thou hast for it.”

What an advocate art thou for matrimony⁠—!

Thou wert ever an unhappy fellow at argument. Does the trite stuff with which the rest of thy letter abounds, in favour of wedlock, strike with the force that this which I have transcribed does against it?

Thou takest great pains to convince me, and that from the distresses the lady is reduced to (chiefly by her friend’s persecutions and implacableness, I hope thou wilt own, and not from me, as yet) that the proposed trial will not be a fair trial. But let me ask thee, Is not calamity the test of virtue? And wouldst thou not have me value this charming creature upon proof of her merits?⁠—Do I not intend to reward her by marriage, if she stand that proof?

But why repeat I what I have said before?⁠—Turn back, thou egregious arguer, turn back to my long letter of the 13th,120 and thou wilt there find every syllable of what thou