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

What a poor piece of barbarity! in order to obtain by terror, what thou dispairedst to gain by love, though supported by stratagems the most insidious!

O Lovelace! Lovelace! had I doubted it before, I should now be convinced, that there must be a world after this, to do justice to injured merit, and to punish barbarous perfidy! Could the divine Socrates, and the divine Clarissa, otherwise have suffered?

But let me, if possible, for one moment, try to forget this villanous outrage on the most excellent of women.

I have business here which will hold me yet a few days; and then perhaps I shall quit this house forever.

I have had a solemn and tedious time of it. I should never have known that I had half the respect I really find I had for the old gentleman, had I not so closely, at his earnest desire, attended him, and been a witness of the tortures he underwent.

This melancholy occasion may possibly have contributed to humanize me: but surely I never could have been so remorseless a caitiff as thou hast been, to a woman of half this lady’s excellence.

But pr’ythee, dear Lovelace, if thou’rt a man, and not a devil, resolve, out of hand, to repair thy sin of ingratitude, by conferring upon thyself the highest honour thou canst receive, in making her lawfully thine.

But if thou canst not prevail upon thyself to do her this justice, I think I should not scruple a tilt with thee, (an everlasting rupture at least must follow) if thou sacrificest her to the accursed women.

Thou art desirous to know what advantage I reap by my uncle’s demise. I do not certainly know; for I have not been so greedily solicitous on this subject as some of the kindred have been, who ought to have shown more decency, as I have told them, and suffered the corpse to have been cold before they had begun their hungry inquiries. But, by what I gathered from the poor man’s talk to me, who oftener than I wished touched upon the subject, I deem it will be upwards of £5,000 in cash, and in the funds, after all legacies paid, besides the real estate, which is a clear £1,000 a-year.

I wish, from my heart, thou wert a money-lover! Were the estate to be of double the value, thou shouldst have it every shilling; only upon one condition (for my circumstances before were as easy as I wish them to be while I am single)⁠—that thou wouldst permit me the honour of being this fatherless lady’s father, as it is called, at the altar.

Think of this! my dear Lovelace! be honest: and let me present thee with the brightest jewel that man ever possessed; and then, body and soul, wilt thou bind to thee forever thy

Belford.

Letter 259 Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq.

Thursday, June 15

Let me alone, you great dog, you!⁠—let me alone!⁠—have I heard a lesser boy, his coward arms held over his head and face, say to a bigger, who was pommeling him, for having run away with his apple, his orange, or his gingerbread.

So say I to thee, on occasion of thy severity to thy poor friend, who, as thou ownest, has furnished thee (ungenerous as thou art!) with the weapons thou brandishest so fearfully against him.⁠—And to what purpose, when the mischief is done? when, of consequence, the affair is irretrievable? and when a Clarissa could not move me?

Well, but, after all, I must own, that there is something very singular in this lady’s case: and, at times, I cannot help regretting that ever I attempted her; since not one power either of body or soul could be moved in my favour; and since, to use the expression of the philosopher, on a much graver occasion, there is no difference to be found between the skull of King Philip and that of another man.

But people’s extravagant notions of things alter not facts, Belford: and, when all’s done, Miss Clarissa Harlowe has but run the fate of a thousand others of her sex⁠—only that they did not set such a romantic value upon what they call their honour; that’s all.

And yet I will allow thee this⁠—that if a person sets a high value upon anything, be it ever such a trifle in itself, or in the eye of others, the robbing of that person of it is not a trifle to him. Take the matter in this light, I own I have done wrong, great wrong, to this admirable creature.

But have I not known twenty and twenty of the sex, who have seemed to carry their notions of virtue high; yet, when brought to the test, have abated of their severity? And how should we be convinced that any of them are proof till they are tried?

A thousand times have I said, that I never yet met with such a woman as this. If I had, I hardly ever should have attempted Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Hitherto she is all angel: and was not that the point which at setting out I proposed to try?246 And was not cohabitation ever my darling view? And am I not now, at last, in the high road to it?⁠—It is true, that I have nothing to boast of as to her will. The very contrary. But now are we come to the test, whether she cannot be brought to make the best of an irreparable evil. If she exclaim, (she has reason to exclaim, and I will sit down with patience by the hour together to hear her exclamations, till she is tired of them), she will then descend to expostulation perhaps: expostulation will give me hope: expostulation will show that she hates me not. And, if she hate me not, she will forgive: and, if she now forgive, then will all be over; and she will be mine upon my own terms: and it shall then be