Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady Volume IV Part 39

Dorcas found this paper in one of the drawers of her lady's dressing- table. She was reperusing it, as she supposes, when the honest wench carried my message to desire her to favour me at the tea-table; for she saw her pop a paper into the drawer as she came in; and there, on her mistress's going to meet me in the dining-room, she found it; and to be this.

But I had better not to have had a copy of it, as far as I know: for, determined as I was before upon my operations, it instantly turned all my resolutions in her favour. Yet I would give something to be convinced that she did not pop it into her drawer before the wench, in order for me to see it; and perhaps (if I were to take notice of it) to discover whether Dorcas, according to Miss Howe's advice, were most my friend, or her's.

The very suspicion of this will do her no good: for I cannot bear to be artfully dealt with. People love to enjoy their own peculiar talents in monopoly, as arguments against me in her behalf. But I know every t.i.ttle thou canst say upon it. Spare therefore thy wambling nonsense, I desire thee; and leave this sweet excellence and me to our fate: that will determine for us, as it shall please itself: for as Cowley says,

An unseen hand makes all our moves: And some are great, and some are small; Some climb to good, some from great fortunes fall: Some wise men, and some fools we call: Figures, alas! of speech!--For destiny plays us all.

But, after all, I am sorry, almost sorry (for how shall I do to be quite sorry, when it is not given to me to be so?) that I cannot, until I have made further trials, resolve upon wedlock.

I have just read over again this intended answer to my proposals: and how I adore her for it!

But yet; another yet!--She has not given it or sent it to me.--It is not therefore her answer. It is not written for me, though to me.

Nay, she has not intended to send it to me: she has even torn it, perhaps with indignation, as thinking it too good for me. By this action she absolutely retracts it. Why then does my foolish fondness seek to establish for her the same merit in my heart, as if she avowed it?

Pr'ythee, dear Belford, once more, leave us to our fate; and do not thou interpose with thy nonsense, to weaken a spirit already too squeamish, and strengthen a conscience that has declared itself of her party.

Then again, remember thy recent discoveries, Lovelace! Remember her indifference, attended with all the appearance of contempt and hatred.

View her, even now, wrapt up in reserve and mystery; meditating plots, as far as thou knowest, against the sovereignty thou hast, by right of conquest, obtained over her. Remember, in short, all thou hast threatened to remember against this insolent beauty, who is a rebel to the power she has listed under.

But yet, how dost thou propose to subdue thy sweet enemy!--Abhorred be force, be the necessity of force, if that can be avoided! There is no triumph in force--no conquest over the will--no prevailing by gentle degrees over the gentle pa.s.sions!--force is the devil!

My cursed character, as I have often said, was against me at setting out --Yet is she not a woman? Cannot I find one yielding or but half- yielding moment, if she do not absolutely hate me?

But with what can I tempt her?--RICHES she was born to, and despises, knowing what they are. JEWELS and ornaments, to a mind so much a jewel, and so richly set, her worthy consciousness will not let her value. LOVE --if she be susceptible of love, it seems to be so much under the direction of prudence, that one unguarded moment, I fear, cannot be reasonably hoped for: and so much VIGILANCE, so much apprehensiveness, that her fears are ever aforehand with her dangers. Then her LOVE or VIRTUE seems to be principle, native principle, or, if not native, so deeply rooted, that its fibres have struck into her heart, and, as she grew up, so blended and twisted themselves with the strings of life, that I doubt there is no separating of the one without cutting the others asunder.

What then can be done to make such a matchless creature get over the first tests, in order to put her to the grand proof, whether once overcome, she will not be always overcome?

Our mother and her nymphs say, I am a perfect Craven, and no Lovelace: and so I think. But this is no simpering, smiling charmer, as I have found others to be, when I have touched upon affecting subjects at a distance; as once or twice I have tried to her, the mother introducing them (to make s.e.x palliate the freedom to s.e.x) when only we three together. She is above the affectation of not seeming to understand you.

She shows by her displeasure, and a fierceness not natural to her eye, that she judges of an impure heart by an impure mouth, and darts dead at once even the embryo hopes of an encroaching lover, however distantly insinuated, before the meaning hint can dawn into double entendre.

By my faith, Jack, as I sit gazing upon her, my whole soul in my eyes, contemplating her perfections, and thinking, when I have seen her easy and serene, what would be her thoughts, did she know my heart as well as I know it; when I behold her disturbed and jealous, and think of the justness of her apprehensions, and that she cannot fear so much as there is room for her to fear; my heart often misgives me.

And must, think I, O creature so divinely excellent, and so beloved of my soul, those arms, those encircling arms, that would make a monarch happy, be used to repel brutal force; all their strength, unavailingly perhaps, exerted to repel it, and to defend a person so delicately framed? Can violence enter into the heart of a wretch, who might ent.i.tle himself to all her willing yet virtuous love, and make the blessings he aspireth after, her duty to confer?--Begone, villain-purposes! Sink ye all to the h.e.l.l that could only inspire ye! And I am then ready to throw myself at her feet, to confess my villainous designs, to avow my repentance, and put it out of my power to act unworthily by such an excellence.

How then comes it, that all these compa.s.sionate, and, as some would call them, honest sensibilities go off!--Why, Miss Howe will tell thee: she says, I am the devil.--By my conscience, I think he has at present a great share in me.

There's ingenuousness!--How I lay myself open to thee!--But seest thou not, that the more I say against myself, the less room there is for thee to take me to task?--O Belford, Belford! I cannot, cannot (at least at present) I cannot marry.

Then her family, my bitter enemies--to supple to them, or if I do not, to make her as unhappy as she can be from my attempts----

Then does she not love them too much, me too little?

She now seems to despise me: Miss Howe declares, that she really does despise me. To be despised by a WIFE--What a thought is that!--To be excelled by a WIFE too, in every part of praise-worthy knowledge!--To take lessons, to take instructions, from a WIFE!--More than despise me, she herself has taken time to consider whether she does not hate me:-- I hate you, Lovelace, with my whole heart, said she to me but yesterday!

My soul is above thee, man!--Urge me not to tell thee how sincerely I think my soul above thee!--How poor indeed was I then, even in my own heart!--So visible a superiority, to so proud a spirit as mine!--And here from below, from BELOW indeed! from these women! I am so goaded on----

Yet 'tis poor too, to think myself a machine in the hands of such wretches.--I am no machine.--Lovelace, thou art base to thyself, but to suppose thyself a machine.

But having gone thus far, I should be unhappy, if after marriage, in the petulance of ill humour, I had it to reproach myself, that I did not try her to the utmost. And yet I don't know how it is, but this lady, the moment I come into her presence, half-a.s.similates me to her own virtue.-- Once or twice (to say nothing of her triumph over me on Sunday night) I was prevailed upon to fl.u.s.ter myself, with an intention to make some advances, which, if obliged to recede, I might lay upon raised spirits: but the instant I beheld her, I was soberized into awe and reverence: and the majesty of her even visible purity first damped, and then extinguished, my double flame.

What a surprisingly powerful effect, so much and so long in my power she!

so instigated by some of her own s.e.x, and so stimulated by pa.s.sion I!-- How can this be accounted for in a Lovelace!

But what a heap of stuff have I written!--How have I been run away with!

--By what?--Canst thou say by what?--O thou lurking varletess CONSCIENCE!

--Is it thou that hast thus made me of party against myself?--How camest thou in?--In what disguise, thou egregious haunter of my more agreeable hours?--Stand thou, with fate, but neuter in this controversy; and, if I cannot do credit to human nature, and to the female s.e.x, by bringing down such an angel as this to cla.s.s with and adorn it, (for adorn it she does in her very foibles,) then I am all your's, and never will resist you more.

Here I arose. I shook myself. The window was open. Always the troublesome bosom-visiter, the intruder, is flown.--I see it yet!--And now it lessens to my aching eye!--And now the cleft air is closed after it, and it is out of sight!--and once more I am

ROBERT LOVELACE.

LETTER XLIX

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

TUESDAY, MAY 23.

Well did I, and but just in time to conclude to have done with Mrs.

Fretchville and the house: for here Mennell has declared, that he cannot in conscience and honour go any farther.--He would not for the world be accessory to the deceiving of such a lady!--I was a fool to let either you or him see her; for ever since ye have both had scruples, which neither would have had, were a woman to have been in the question.

Well, I can't help it!

Mennell has, however, though with some reluctance, consented to write me a letter, provided I will allow it to be the last step he shall take in this affair.

I presumed, I told him, that if I could cause Mrs. Fretchville's woman to supply his place, he would have no objection to that.

None, he says--But is it not pity--

A pitiful fellow! Such a ridiculous kind of pity his, as those silly souls have, who would not kill an innocent chicken for the world; but when killed to their hands, are always the most greedy devourers of it.

Now this letter gives the servant the small-pox: and she has given it to her unhappy vapourish lady. Vapourish people are perpetual subjects for diseases to work upon. Name but the malady, and it is theirs in a moment. Ever fitted for inoculation.--The physical tribe's milch-cows.

--A vapourish or splenetic patient is a fiddle for the doctors; and they are eternally playing upon it. Sweet music does it make them. All their difficulty, except a case extraordinary happens, (as poor Mrs.

Fretchville's, who has realized her apprehensions,) is but to hold their countenance, while their patient is drawing up a bill of indictment against himself;--and when they have heard it, proceed to punish--the right word for prescribe. Why should they not, when the criminal has confessed his guilt?--And punish they generally do with a vengeance.

Yet, silly toads too, now I think of it. For why, when they know they cannot do good, may they not as well endeavour to gratify, as to nauseate, the patient's palate?

Were I a physician, I'd get all the trade to myself: for Malmsey, and Cyprus, and the generous product of the Cape, a little disguised, should be my princ.i.p.al doses: as these would create new spirits, how would the revived patient covet the physic, and adore the doctor!

Give all the paraders of the faculty whom thou knowest this hint.--There could but one inconvenience arise from it. The APOTHECARIES would find their medicines cost them something: but the demand for quant.i.ties would answer that: since the honest NURSE would be the patient's taster; perpetually requiring repet.i.tions of the last cordial julap.

Well, but to the letter--Yet what need of further explanation after the hints in my former? The widow can't be removed; and that's enough: and Mennell's work is over; and his conscience left to plague him for his own sins, and not another man's: and, very possibly, plague enough will give him for those.

This letter is directed, To Robert Lovelace, Esq. or, in his absence, to his Lady. She has refused dining with me, or seeing me: and I was out when it came. She opened it: so is my lady by her own consent, proud and saucy as she is.

I am glad at my heart that it came before we entirely make up. She would else perhaps have concluded it to be contrived for a delay: and now, moreover, we can accommodate our old and new quarrels together; and that's contrivance, you know. But how is her dear haughty heart humbled to what it was when I knew her first, that she can apprehend any delays from me; and have nothing to do but to vex at them!

I came in to dinner. She sent me down the letter, desiring my excuse for opening it.--Did it before she was aware. Lady-pride, Belford!

recollection, then retrogradation!