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

My dearest life,

Your ever adoring and truly penitent

Lovelace.

To Mr. Lovelace

I will not see you. I cannot see you. I have no directions to give you. Let Providence decide for me as it pleases.

The more I reflect upon your vileness, your ungrateful, your barbarous vileness, the more I am exasperated against you.

You are the last person whose judgment I will take upon what is or is not carried too far in matters of decency.

’Tis grievous to me to write, or even to think of you at present. Urge me no more then. Once more, I will not see you. Nor care I, now you have made me vile to myself, what other people think of me.

To Mrs. Lovelace

Again, Madam, I remind you of your promise: and beg leave to say, I insist upon the performance of it.

Remember, dearest creature, that the fault of a blameable person cannot warrant a fault in one more perfect. Overniceness may be underniceness!

I cannot reproach myself with anything that deserves this high resentment.

I own that the violence of my passion for you might have carried me beyond fit bounds⁠—but that your commands and adjurations had power over me at such a moment, I humbly presume to say, deserves some consideration.

You enjoin me not to see you for a week. If I have not your pardon before Captain Tomlinson comes to town, what shall I say to him?

I beg once more your presence in the dining-room. By my soul, Madam, I must see you.

I want to consult you about the license, and other particulars of great importance. The people below think us married; and I cannot talk to you upon such subjects with the door between us.

For Heaven’s sake, favour me with your presence for a few minutes: and I will leave you for the day.

If I am to be forgiven, according to your promise, the earlier forgiveness will be most obliging, and will save great pain to yourself, as well as to

Your truly contrite and afflicted

Lovelace.

To Mr. Lovelace

The more you tease me, the worse it will be for you.

Time is wanted to consider whether I ever should think of you at all.

At present, it is my sincere wish, that I may never more see your face.

All that can afford you the least shadow of favour from me, arises from the hoped-for reconciliation with my real friends, not my Judas protector.

I am careless at present of consequences. I hate myself: And who is it I have reason to value?⁠—Not the man who could form a plot to disgrace his own hopes, as well as a poor friendless creature, (made friendless by himself), by insults not to be thought of with patience.

To Mrs. Lovelace

Madam, I will go to the Commons, and proceed in every particular as if I had not the misfortune to be under your displeasure.

I must insist upon it, that however faulty my passion, on so unexpected an incident, made me appear to a lady of your delicacy, yet my compliance with your entreaties at such a moment (as it gave you an instance of your power over me, which few men could have shown) ought, duly considered, to entitle me to the effects of that solemn promise which was the condition of my obedience.

I hope to find you in a kinder, and, I will say, juster disposition on my return. Whether I get the license, or not, let me beg of you to make the soon you have been pleased to bid me hope for, tomorrow morning. This will reconcile everything, and make me the happiest of men.

The settlements are ready to sign, or will be by night.

For Heaven’s sake, Madam, do not carry your resentment into a displeasure so disproportionate to the offence. For that would be to expose us both to the people below; and, what is of infinite more consequence to us, to Captain Tomlinson. Let us be able, I beseech you, Madam, to assure him, on his next visit, that we are one.

As I have no hope to be permitted to dine with you, I shall not return till evening: and then, I presume to say, I expect (your promise authorizes me to use the word) to find you disposed to bless, by your consent for tomorrow,

Your adoring

Lovelace.

What pleasure did I propose to take, how to enjoy the sweet confusion in which I expected to find her, while all was so recent!⁠—But she must, she shall, see me on my return. It were better to herself, as well as for me, that she had not made so much ado about nothing. I must keep my anger alive, lest it sink into compassion. Love and compassion, be the provocation ever so great, are hard to be separated: while anger converts what would be pity, without it, into resentment. Nothing can be lovely in a man’s eye with which he is thoroughly displeased.

I ordered Dorcas, on putting the last billet under the door, and finding it taken up, to tell her, that I hoped an answer to it before I went out.

Her reply was verbal, tell him that I care not whither he goes, nor what he does.⁠—And this, re-urged by Dorcas, was all she had to say to me.

I looked through the keyhole at my going by her door, and saw her on her knees, at her bed’s feet, her head and bosom on the bed, her arms extended; (sweet creature how I adore her!) and in an agony she seemed to be, sobbing, as I heard at that distance, as if her heart would break.⁠—By my soul, Jack, I am a pityful fellow! Recollection is my enemy!⁠—Divine excellence!⁠—Happy with her for so many days together! Now so unhappy!⁠—And for what?⁠—But she is purity herself. And why, after all, should I thus torment⁠—but I must not trust myself with myself, in the humour I am in.

Waiting here for Mowbray and Mallory, by