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

But no more in this strain!⁠—I will see what her behaviour will be on my return⁠—yet already do I begin to apprehend some little sinkings, some little retrogradations: for I have just now a doubt arisen, whether, for her own sake, I should wish her to forgive me lightly, or with difficulty?

I am in a way to come at the wished-for license.

I have now given everything between my beloved and me a full consideration; and my puzzle is over. What has brought me to a speedier determination is, that I think I have found out what she means by the week’s distance at which she intends to hold me. It is, that she may have time to write to Miss Howe, to put in motion that cursed scheme of hers, and to take measures upon it which shall enable her to abandon and renounce me forever. Now, Jack, if I obtain not admission to her presence on my return; but am refused with haughtiness; if her week be insisted upon (such prospects before her); I shall be confirmed in my conjecture; and it will be plain to me, that weak at best was that love, which could give place to punctilio, at a time when that all-reconciling ceremony, as she must think, waits her command:⁠—then will I recollect all her perversenesses; then will I re-peruse Miss Howe’s letters, and the transcripts from others of them; give way to my aversion to the life of shackles: and then shall she be mine in my own way.

But, after all, I am in hopes that she will have better considered of everything by the evening; that her threat of a week’s distance was thrown out in the heat of passion; and that she will allow, that I have as much cause to quarrel with her for breach of her word, as she has with me for breach of the peace.

These lines of Rowe have got into my head; and I shall repeat them very devoutly all the way the chairman shall poppet me towards her by-and-by.

Teach me, some power, the happy art of speech,
To dress my purpose up in gracious words;
Such as may softly steal upon her soul,
And never waken the tempestuous passions.

Thursday Evening, June 8

O for a curse to kill with!⁠—Ruined! Undone! Outwitted! Tricked!⁠—Zounds, man, the lady has gone off!⁠—Absolutely gone off! Escaped!⁠—

Thou knowest not, nor canst conceive, the pangs that wring my heart!⁠—What can I do!⁠—O Lord, O Lord, O Lord!

And thou, too, who hast endeavoured to weaken my hands, wilt but clap thy dragon’s wings at the tidings!

Yet I must write, or I shall go distracted! Little less have I been these two hours; dispatching messengers to every stage, to every inn, to every wagon or coach, whether flying or creeping, and to every house with a bill up, for five miles around.

The little hypocrite, who knows not a soul in this town, (I thought I was sure of her at any time), such an unexperienced traitress⁠—giving me hope too, in her first billet, that her expectation of the family-reconciliation would withhold her from taking such a step as this⁠—curse upon her contrivances!⁠—I thought, that it was owing to her bashfulness, to her modesty, that, after a few innocent freedoms, she could not look me in the face; when, all the while, she was impudently (yes, I say, impudently, though she be Clarissa Harlowe) contriving to rob me of the dearest property I had ever purchased⁠—purchased by a painful servitude of many months; fighting through the wild-beasts of her family for her, and combating with a windmill virtue, which hath cost me millions of perjuries only to attempt; and which now, with its damn’d air-fans, has tossed me a mile and a half beyond hope!⁠—And this, just as I had arrived within view of the consummation of all my wishes!

O Devil of Love! God of Love no more⁠—how have I deserved this of thee!⁠—Never before the friend of frozen virtue?⁠—Powerless demon, for powerless thou must be, if thou meanedest not to frustrate my hopes; who shall henceforth kneel at thy altars!⁠—May every enterprising heart abhor, despise, execrate, renounce thee, as I do!⁠—But, O Belford, Belford, what signifies cursing now!

How she could effect this her wicked escape is my astonishment; the whole sisterhood having charge of her;⁠—for, as yet, I have not had patience enough to inquire into the particulars, nor to let a soul of them approach me.

Of this I am sure, or I had not brought her hither, there is not a creature belonging to this house, that could be corrupted either by virtue or remorse: the highest joy every infernal nymph, of this worse than infernal habitation, could have known, would have been to reduce this proud beauty to her own level.⁠—And as to my villain, who also had charge of her, he is such a seasoned varlet, that he delights in mischief for the sake of it: no bribe could seduce him to betray his trust, were there but wickedness in it!⁠—’Tis well, however, he was out of my way when the cursed news was imparted to me!⁠—Gone, the villain! in quest of her: not to return, nor to see my face (so it seems he declared) till he has heard some tidings of her; and all the out-of-place varlets of his numerous acquaintance are summoned and employed in the same business.

To what purpose brought I this angel (angel I must yet call her) to this hellish house?⁠—And was I not meditating to do her deserved honour? By my soul, Belford, I was resolved⁠—but thou knowest what I had conditionally resolved⁠—And now, who can tell into what hands she may have fallen!

I am mad, stark mad, by Jupiter, at the thoughts of this!⁠—Unprovided, destitute, unacquainted⁠—some villain, worse than myself, who adores her not as I adore her, may have seized her, and taken advantage of her distress!⁠—Let me perish, Belford,