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

good moral use, she says, may be made of my “having prevailed upon her to swerve.” I am glad that any good may flow from my actions.

Annexed to this letter is a paper the most saucy that ever was written of a mother by a daughter. There are in it such free reflections upon widows and bachelors, that I cannot but wonder how Miss Howe came by her learning. Sir George Colmar, I can tell thee, was a greater fool than thy friend, if she had it all for nothing.

The contents of this paper acquaint Miss Harlowe, that her uncle Antony has been making proposals of marriage to her mother.

The old fellow’s heart ought to be a tough one, if he succeed; or she who broke that of a much worthier man, the late Mr. Howe, will soon get rid of him.

But be this as it may, the stupid family is made more irreconcilable than ever to their goddess-daughter for old Antony’s thoughts of marrying: so I am more secure of her than ever. And yet I believe at last, that my tender heart will be moved in her favour. For I did not wish that she should have nothing but persecution and distress.⁠—But why loves she the brutes, as Miss Howe justly calls them, so much; me so little?

I have still more unpardonable transcripts from other letters.

Letter 199 Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq.

The next letter is of such a nature, that, I dare say, these proud rouges would not have had it fall into my hands for the world.153

I see by it to what her displeasure with me, in relation to my proposals, was owing. They were not summed up, it seems, with the warmth, with the ardour, which she had expected.

This whole letter was transcribed by Dorcas, to whose lot it fell. Thou shalt have copies of them all at full length shortly.

“Men of our cast,” this little devil says, “she fancies, cannot have the ardours that honest men have.” Miss Howe has very pretty fancies, Jack. Charming girl! Would to Heaven I knew whether my fair-one answers her as freely as she writes! ’Twould vex a man’s heart, that this virago should have come honestly by her fancies.

Who knows but I may have half a dozen creatures to get off my hands, before I engage for life?⁠—Yet, lest this should mean me a compliment, as if I would reform, she adds her belief, that she “must not expect me to be honest on this side my grand climacteric.” She has an high opinion of her sex, to think they can charm so long a man so well acquainted with their identicalness.

“He to suggest delays,” she says, “from a compliment to be made to Lord M.!”⁠—Yes, I, my dear.⁠—Because a man has not been accustomed to be dutiful, must he never be dutiful?⁠—In so important a case as this too! the hearts of his whole family are engaged in it!⁠—“You did, indeed,” says she, “want an interposing friend⁠—but were I to have been in your situation, I would have torn his eyes out, and left it to his heart to furnish the reason for it.” See! See! What sayest thou to this, Jack?

“Villain⁠—fellow that he is!” follow. And for what? Only for wishing that the next day were to be my happy one; and for being dutiful to my nearest relation.

“It is the cruelest of fates,” she says, “for a woman to be forced to have a man whom her heart despises.”⁠—That is what I wanted to be sure of.⁠—I was afraid, that my beloved was too conscious of her talents; of her superiority! I was afraid that she indeed despises me.⁠—And I cannot bear to think that she does. But, Belford, I do not intend that this lady shall be bound down to so cruel a fate. Let me perish if I marry a woman who has given her most intimate friend reason to say, she despises me!⁠—A Lovelace to be despised, Jack!

“His clenched fist to his forehead on your leaving him in just displeasure”⁠—that is, when she was not satisfied with my ardours, if it please ye!⁠—I remember the motion: but her back was towards me at the time.154 Are these watchful ladies all eye?⁠—But observe what follows; “I wish it had been a poll-axe, and in the hands of his worst enemy.”⁠—

I will have patience, Jack; I will have patience! My day is at hand.⁠—Then will I steel my heart with these remembrances.

But here is a scheme to be thought of, in order to “get my fair prize out of my hands, in case I give her reason to suspect me.”

This indeed alarms me. Now the contention becomes arduous. Now wilt thou not wonder, if I let loose my plotting genius upon them both. I will not be out-Norris’d, Belford.

But once more, “She has no notion,” she says, “that I can or dare to mean her dishonour. But then the man is a fool⁠—that’s all.”⁠—I should indeed be a fool, to proceed as I do, and mean matrimony!⁠—“However, since you are thrown upon a fool,” says she, “marry the fool at the first opportunity; and though I doubt that this man will be the most unmanageable of fools, as all witty and vain fools are, take him as a punishment, since you cannot as a reward.”⁠—Is there any bearing this, Belford?

But, “such men as myself, are the men that women do not naturally hate.”⁠—True as the gospel, Jack!⁠—The truth is out at last. Have I not always told thee so? Sweet creatures and true Christians these young girls! They love their enemies. But rakes in their hearts all of them! Like turns to like; that’s the thing. Were I not well assured of the truth of this observation of the vixen, I should have thought it worth while, if not to be a good man, to be more of an hypocrite, than I