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

sex, as by the impulses of a violent passion, was ever so decent. Yet what mercy does she show me?

Now, Jack, this pitiful dog was such another unfortunate one as thyself⁠—his arguments serving to confirm me in the very purpose he brought them to prevail upon me to give up. Had he left me to myself, to the tenderness of my own nature, moved as I was when the lady withdrew, and had he set down, and made odious faces, and said nothing⁠—it is very possible that I should have taken the chair over against him, which she had quitted, and have cried and blubbered with him for half an hour together. But the varlet to argue with me!⁠—to pretend to convince a man, who knows in his heart that he is doing a wrong thing!⁠—He must needs think that this would put me upon trying what I could say for myself; and when the extended compunction can be carried from the heart to the lips it must evaporate in words.

Thou, perhaps, in this place, wouldst have urged the same pleas that he urged. What I answered to him therefore may do for thee, and spare thee the trouble of writing, and me of reading, a good deal of nonsense.

Capt. You were pleased to tell me, Sir, that you only proposed to try her virtue; and that you believed you should actually marry her.

Lovel. So I shall, and cannot help it. I have no doubt but I shall. And as to trying her, is she not now in the height of her trial? Have I not reason to think that she is coming about? Is she not now yielding up her resentment for an attempt which she thinks she ought not to forgive? And if she do, may she not forgive the last attempt?⁠—Can she, in a word, resent that more than she does this? Women often, for their own sakes, will keep the last secret; but will ostentatiously din the ears of gods and men with their clamours upon a successless offer. It was my folly, my weakness, that I gave her not more cause for this her unsparing violence!

Capt. O Sir, you will never be able to subdue this lady without force.

Lovel. Well, then, puppy, must I not endeavour to find a proper time and place⁠—

Capt. Forgive me, Sir! but can you think of force to such a fine creature?

Lovel. Force, indeed, I abhor the thought of; and for what, thinkest thou, have I taken all the pains I have taken, and engaged so many persons in my cause, but to avoid the necessity of violent compulsion? But yet, imaginest thou that I expect direct consent from such a lover of forms as this lady is known to be! Let me tell thee, McDonald, that thy master, Belford, has urged on thy side of the question all that thou canst urge. Must I have every sorry fellow’s conscience to pacify, as well as my own?⁠—By my soul, Patrick, she has a friend here, (clapping my hand on my breast), that pleads for her with greater and more irresistible eloquence than all the men in the world can plead for her. And had she not escaped me⁠—And yet how have I answered my first design of trying her,227 and in her the virtue of the most virtuous of the sex?⁠—Perseverance, man!⁠—Perseverance!⁠—What! wouldst thou have me decline a trial that they make for the honour of a sex we all so dearly love?

Then, Sir, you have no thoughts⁠—no thoughts⁠—(looking still more sorrowfully), of marrying this wonderful lady?

Yes, yes, Patrick, but I have. But let me, first, to gratify my pride, bring down hers. Let me see, that she loves me well enough to forgive me for my own sake. Has she not heretofore lamented that she stayed not in her father’s house, though the consequence must have been, if she had, that she would have been the wife of the odious Solmes? If now she be brought to consent to be mine, seest thou not that the reconciliation with her detested relations is the inducement, as it always was, and not love of me?⁠—Neither her virtue nor her love can be established but upon full trial; the last trial⁠—but if her resistance and resentment be such as hitherto I have reason to expect they will be, and if I find in that resentment less of hatred of me than of the fact, then shall she be mine in her own way. Then, hateful as is the life of shackles to me, will I marry her.

Well, Sir, I can only say, that I am dough in your hands, to be moulded into what shape you please. But if, as I said before⁠—

None of thy Said-before’s, Patrick. I remember all thou saidst⁠—and I know all thou canst farther say⁠—thou art only, Pontius Pilate like, washing thine own hands, (don’t I know thee?) that thou mayest have something to silence thy conscience with by loading me. But we have gone too far to recede. Are not all our engines in readiness? Dry up thy sorrowful eyes. Let unconcern and heart’s ease once more take possession of thy solemn features. Thou hast hitherto performed extremely well.⁠—Shame not thy past by thy future behaviour; and a rich reward awaits thee. If thou art dough be dough; and I slapt him on the shoulder⁠—Resume but thy former shape, and I’ll be answerable for the event.

He bowed assent and compliance; went to the glass; and began to untwist and unsadden his features; pulled his wig right, as if that, as well as his head and heart had been discomposed by his compunction, and once more became old Lucifer’s and mine.

But didst thou think, Jack, that there was so much⁠—What-shall-I-call-it?⁠—in this Tomlinson? Didst thou imagine that such a fellow as that had bowels? That nature, so long dead and buried in him, as to all humane effects, should thus