Clarissa Harlowe Samuel Richardson (most important books to read TXT) 📖

At his going away⁠—How can I leave you here by yourself, my dear? you, whose company used to enliven us all. You are not expected down indeed: but I protest I had a good mind to surprise your father and mother!⁠—If I thought nothing would arise that would be disagreeable⁠—My dear! my love! (O the dear artful gentleman! how could my uncle Harlowe so dissemble?) What say you? Will you give me your hands? Will you see your father? Can you stand his displeasure, on first seeing the dear creature who has given him and all of us so much disturbance? Can you promise future⁠—

He saw me rising in my temper⁠—Nay, my dear, interrupting himself, if you cannot be all resignation, I would not have you think of it.

My heart, struggling between duty and warmth of temper, was full. You know, my dear, I never could bear to be dealt meanly with!⁠—How⁠—how can you, Sir! you my Papa-uncle⁠—How can you, Sir!⁠—The poor girl!⁠—for I could not speak with connection.

Nay, my dear, if you cannot be all duty, all resignation⁠—better stay where you are.⁠—But after the instance you have given⁠—

Instance I have given!⁠—What instance, Sir?

Well, well, Child, better stay where you are, if your past confinement hangs so heavy upon you⁠—but now there will be a sudden end to it⁠—Adieu, my dear!⁠—Three words only⁠—Let your compliance be sincere!⁠—and love me, as you used to love me⁠—your Grandfather did not do so much for you, as I will do for you.

Without suffering me to reply, he hurried away, as I thought, like one who has been employed to act a part against his will, and was glad it was over.

Don’t you see, my dear Miss Howe, how they are all determined?⁠—Have I not reason to dread next Tuesday?

Up presently after came my sister:⁠—to observe, I suppose, the way I was in.

She found me in tears.

Have you not a Thomas a Kempis, Sister? with a stiff air.

I have, Madam.

Madam!⁠—How long are we to be at this distance, Clary?

No longer, my dear Bella, if you allow me to call you sister. And I took her hand.

No fawning neither, Girl!

I withdrew my hand as hastily, as you may believe I should have done, had I, in feeling for one of your parcels under the wood, been bitten by a viper.

I beg pardon, said I⁠—Too-too ready to make advances, I am always subjecting myself to contempts.

People who know not how to keep a middle behaviour, said she, must ever do so.

I will fetch you the Kempis, Sister. I did. Here it is. You will find excellent things, Bella, in that little book.

I wish, retorted she, you had profited by them.

I wish you may, said I. Example from a sister older than one’s self is a fine thing.

Older! saucy little fool!⁠—And away she flung.

What a captious old woman will my sister make, if she lives to be one!⁠—demanding the reverence, perhaps, yet not aiming at the merit; and ashamed of the years that can only entitle her to the reverence.

It is plain, from what I have related, that they think they have got me at some advantage by obtaining my consent to the interview: but if it were not, Betty’s impertinence just now would make it evident. She has been complimenting me upon it; and upon the visit of my uncle Harlowe. She says, the difficulty now is more than half over with me. She is sure I would not see Mr. Solmes, but to have him. Now shall she be soon better employed than of late she has been. All hands will be at work. She loves dearly to have weddings go forward!⁠—Who knows, whose turn will be next?

I found in the afternoon a reply to my answer to Mr. Lovelace’s letter. It is full of promises, full of vows of gratitude, of eternal gratitude, is his word, among others still more hyperbolic. Yet Mr. Lovelace, the least of any man whose letters I have seen, runs into those elevated absurdities. I should be apt to despise him for it, if he did. Such language looks always to me, as if the flatterer thought to find a woman a fool, or hoped to make her one.

“He regrets my indifference to him; which puts all the hope he has in my favour upon the shocking usage I receive from my friends.

“As to my charge upon him of unpoliteness and uncontrollableness⁠—What (he asks) can he say? since being unable absolutely to vindicate himself, he has too much ingenuousness to attempt to do so: yet is struck dumb by my harsh construction, that his acknowledging temper is owing more to his carelessness to defend himself, than to his inclination to amend. He had never before met with the objections against his morals which I had raised, justly raised: and he was resolved to obviate them. What is it, he asks, that he has promised, but reformation by my example? And what occasion for the promise, if he had not faults, and those very great ones, to reform? He hopes acknowledgement of an error is no bad sign; although my severe virtue has interpreted it into one.

“He believes I may be right (severely right, he calls it) in my judgment against making reprisals in the case of the intelligence he receives from my family: he cannot charge himself to be of a temper that leads him to be inquisitive into anybody’s private affairs; but hopes, that the circumstances of the case, and the strange conduct of my friends, will excuse him; especially when so much depends upon his knowing the movements of a family so violently bent, by measures right or wrong, to carry their point against me, in malice to him. People, he says, who act like angels, ought to have angels to deal with. For his part, he has not yet learned the difficult lesson of returning good for evil: and shall think himself the less encouraged to learn it by the treatment I have