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

and to get them answered; and to be always aiming at scrawling with a pen, lest inky fingers should give suspicion. I have moreover given the wench an ivory-leafed pocketbook, with a silver pencil, that she may make memoranda on occasion.

And, let me tell thee, that the lady has already (at Mrs. Sinclair’s motion) removed her clothes out of the trunks they came in, into an ample mahogany repository, where they will lie at full length, and which has drawers in it for linen. A repository, that used to hold the richest suits which some of the nymphs put on, when they are to be dressed out, to captivate, or to ape quality. For many a countess, thou knowest, has our mother equipped; nay, two or three duchesses, who live upon quality-terms with their lords. But this to such as will come up to her price, and can make an appearance like quality themselves on the occasion: for the reputation of persons of birth must not lie at the mercy of every under-degreed sinner.

A master-key, which will open every lock in this chest, is put into Dorcas’s hands; and she is to take care, when she searches for papers, before she removes anything, to observe how it lies, that she may replace all to a hair. Sally and Polly can occasionally help to transcribe. Slow and sure with such an Argus-eyed charmer must be all my movements.

It is impossible that one so young and so inexperienced as she is can have all her caution from herself; the behaviour of the women so unexceptionable; no revellings, no company ever admitted into this inner-house; all genteel, quiet, and easy in it; the nymphs well-bred, and well-read; her first disgusts to the old one got over.⁠—It must be Miss Howe, therefore, (who once was in danger of being taken in by one of our class, by honest Sir George Colmar, as thou hast heard), that makes my progress difficult.

Thou seest, Belford, by the above precautionaries, that I forget nothing. As the song says, it is not to be imagined

On what slight strings
Depend these things
On which men build their glory!

So far, so good. I shall never rest till I have discovered in the first place, where the dear creature puts her letters; and in the next till I have got her to a play, to a concert, or to take an airing with me out of town for a day or two.

I gave thee just now some of my contrivances. Dorcas, who is ever attentive to all her lady’s motions, has given me some instances of her mistress’s precautions. She wafers her letters, it seems, in two places; pricks the wafers; and then seals upon them. No doubt but the same care is taken with regard to those brought to her, for she always examines the seals of the latter before she opens them.

I must, I must come at them. This difficulty augments my curiosity. Strange, so much as she writes, and at all hours, that not one sleepy or forgetful moment has offered in our favour!

A fair contention, thou seest: nor plead thou in her favour her youth, her beauty, her family, her fortune, credulity, she has none; and with regard to her tender years, Am I not a young fellow myself? As to beauty; pr’ythee, Jack, do thou, to spare my modesty, make a comparison between my Clarissa for a woman, and thy Lovelace for a man. For her family; that was not known to its country a century ago: and I hate them all but her. Have I not cause?⁠—For her fortune; fortune, thou knowest, was ever a stimulus with me; and this for reasons not ignoble. Do not girls of fortune adorn themselves on purpose to engage our attention? Seek they not to draw us into their snares? Depend they not, generally, upon their fortunes, in the views they have upon us, more than on their merits? Shall we deprive them of the benefit of their principal dependence?⁠—Can I, in particular, marry every girl who wishes to obtain my notice? If, therefore, in support of the libertine principles for which none of the sweet rogues hate us, a woman of fortune is brought to yield homage to her emperor, and any consequences attend the subjugation, is not such a one shielded by her fortune, as well from insult and contempt, as from indigence⁠—all, then, that admits of debate between my beloved and me is only this⁠—which of the two has more wit, more circumspection⁠—and that remains to be tried.

A sad life, however, this life of doubt and suspense, for the poor lady to live, as well as for me; that is to say, if she be not naturally jealous⁠—if she be, her uneasiness is constitutional, and she cannot help it; nor will it, in that case, hurt her. For a suspicious temper will make occasion for doubt, if none were to offer to its hand. My fair one therefore, if naturally suspicious, is obliged to me for saving her the trouble of studying for these occasions⁠—but, after all, the plainest paths in our journeys through life are the safest and best I believe, although it is not given me to choose them; I am not, however, singular in the pursuit of the more intricate paths; since there are thousands, and ten thousands, who had rather fish in troubled waters than in smooth.

Letter 175 Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq.

Tuesday, May 9

I am a very unhappy man. This lady is said to be one of the sweetest-tempered creatures in the world: and so I thought her. But to me she is one of the most perverse. I never was supposed to be an ill-natured mortal neither. How can it be? I imagined, for a long while, that we were born to make each other happy: but quite the contrary; we really seem to be sent to plague each other.

I will write a