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

honour, rather than to what I thought to be your humours, Madam. Would to Heaven that I had known before that you were not married!⁠—Such a lady! such a fortune! to be so sadly betrayed;⁠—

Ah, Dorcas! I was basely drawn in! My youth⁠—my ignorance of the world⁠—and I have some things to reproach myself with when I look back.

Lord, Madam, what deceitful creatures are these men!⁠—Neither oaths, nor vows⁠—I am sure! I am sure! (and then with her apron she gave her eyes half a dozen hearty rubs) I may curse the time that I came into this house!

Here was accounting for her bold eyes! And was it not better for Dorcas to give up a house which her lady could not think worse of than she did, in order to gain the reputation of sincerity, than by offering to vindicate it, to make her proffered services suspected.

Poor Dorcas!⁠—Bless me! how little do we, who have lived all our time in the country, know of this wicked town!

Had I been able to write, cried the veteran wench, I should certainly have given some other near relations I have in Wales a little inkling of matters; and they would have saved me from⁠—from⁠—from⁠—

Her sobs were enough. The apprehensions of women on such subjects are ever aforehand with speech.

And then, sobbing on, she lifted her apron to her face again. She showed me how.

Poor Dorcas!⁠—Again wiping her own charming eyes.

All love, all compassion, is this dear creature to everyone in affliction but me.

And would not an aunt protect her kinswoman?⁠—Abominable wretch!

I can’t⁠—I can’t⁠—I can’t⁠—say, my aunt was privy to it. She gave me good advice. She knew not for a great while that I was⁠—that I was⁠—that I was⁠—ugh!⁠—ugh!⁠—ugh!⁠—

No more, no more, good Dorcas⁠—What a world do we live in!⁠—What a house am I in!⁠—But come, don’t weep, (though she herself could not forbear): my being betrayed into it, though to my own ruin, may be a happy event for thee: and, if I live, it shall.

I thank you, my good lady, blubbering. I am sorry, very sorry, you have had so hard a lot. But it may be the saving of my soul, if I can get to your ladyship’s house. Had I but known that your ladyship was not married, I would have eat my own flesh, before⁠—before⁠—before⁠—

Dorcas sobbed and wept. The lady sighed and wept also.

But now, Jack, for a serious reflection upon the premises.

How will the good folks account for it, that Satan has such faithful instruments, and that the bond of wickedness is a stronger bond than the ties of virtue; as if it were the nature of the human mind to be villanous? For here, had Dorcas been good, and been tempted as she was tempted to anything evil, I make no doubt but she would have yielded to the temptation.

And cannot our fraternity in an hundred instances give proof of the like predominance of vice over virtue? And that we have risked more to serve and promote the interests of the former, than ever a good man did to serve a good man or a good cause? For have we not been prodigal of life and fortune? have we not defied the civil magistrate upon occasion? and have we not attempted rescues, and dared all things, only to extricate a pounded profligate?

Whence, Jack, can this be?

O! I have it, I believe. The vicious are as bad as they can be; and do the Devil’s work without looking after; while he is continually spreading snares for the others; and, like a skilful angler, suiting his baits to the fish he angles for.

Nor let even honest people, so called, blame poor Dorcas for her fidelity in a bad cause. For does not the general, who implicitly serves an ambitious prince in his unjust designs upon his neighbours, or upon his own oppressed subjects; and even the lawyer, who, for the sake of a paltry fee, undertakes to whiten a black cause, and to defend it against one he knows to be good, do the very same thing as Dorcas? And are they not both every whit as culpable? Yet the one shall be dubbed a hero, the other called an admirable fellow, and be contended for by every client, and his double-tongued abilities shall carry him through all the high preferments of the law with reputation and applause.

Well, but what shall be done, since the lady is so much determined on removing!⁠—Is there no way to oblige her, and yet to make the very act subservient to my other views? I fancy such a way may be found out.

I will study for it⁠—

Suppose I suffer her to make an escape? Her heart is in it. If she effect it, the triumph she will have over me upon it will be a counterbalance for all she has suffered.

I will oblige her if I can.

Letter 271 Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq.

Tired with a succession of fatiguing days and sleepless nights, and with contemplating the precarious situation I stand in with my beloved, I fell into a profound reverie; which brought on sleep; and that produced a dream; a fortunate dream; which, as I imagine, will afford my working mind the means to effect the obliging double purpose my heart is now once more set upon.

What, as I have often contemplated, is the enjoyment of the finest woman in the world, to the contrivance, the bustle, the surprises, and at last the happy conclusion of a well-laid plot!⁠—The charming roundabouts, to come to the nearest way home;⁠—the doubts; the apprehensions; the heart-achings; the meditated triumphs⁠—these are the joys that make the blessing dear.⁠—For all the rest, what is it?⁠—What but to find an angel in imagination dwindled down to a woman in fact?⁠—But to my dream⁠—

Methought it was about nine on Wednesday morning that a chariot, with a dowager’s arms upon the doors, and in it a grave matronly lady (not unlike mother