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

young a creature! How do I hate the Harlowes for producing such an angel!⁠—O why, why, did she refuse my sincere address to tie the knot before we came to this house!

But yet, what mortifies my pride is, that this exalted creature, if I were to marry her, would not be governed in her behaviour to me by love, but by generosity merely, or by blind duty; and had rather live single, than be mine.

I cannot bear this. I would have the woman whom I honour with my name, if ever I confer this honour upon any, forego even her superior duties for me. I would have her look after me when I go out as far as she can see me, as my Rosebud after her Johnny; and meet me at my return with rapture. I would be the subject of her dreams, as well as of her waking thoughts. I would have her think every moment lost that is not passed with me: sing to me, read to me, play to me when I pleased: no joy so great as in obeying me. When I should be inclined to love, overwhelm me with it; when to be serious or solitary, if apprehensive of intrusion, retiring at a nod; approaching me only if I smiled encouragement: steal into my presence with silence; out of it, if not noticed, on tiptoe. Be a lady easy to all my pleasures, and valuing those most who most contributed to them; only sighing in private, that it was not herself at the time. Thus of old did the contending wives of the honest patriarchs; each recommending her handmaid to her lord, as she thought it would oblige him, and looking upon the genial product as her own.

The gentle Waller says, women are born to be controlled. Gentle as he was, he knew that. A tyrant husband makes a dutiful wife. And why do the sex love rakes, but because they know how to direct their uncertain wills, and manage them?

Another agreeable conversation. The day of days the subject. As to fixing a particular one, that need not be done, my charmer says, till the settlements are completed. As to marrying at my Lord’s chapel, the Ladies of my family present, that would be making a public affair of it; and the dear creature observed, with regret, that it seemed to be my Lord’s intention to make it so.

It could not be imagined, I said, but that his Lordship’s setting out in a litter, and coming to town, as well as his taste for glare, and the joy he would take to see me married at last, and to her dear self, would give it as much the air of a public marriage as if the ceremony were performed at his own chapel, all the Ladies present.

I cannot, said she, endure the thoughts of a public day. It will carry with it an air of insult upon my whole family. And for my part, if my Lord will not take it amiss, (and perhaps he will not, as the motion came not from himself, but from you, Mr. Lovelace), I will very willingly dispense with his Lordship’s presence; the rather, as dress and appearance will then be unnecessary; for I cannot bear to think of decking my person while my parents are in tears.

How excellent this! Yet do not her parents richly deserve to be in tears?

See, Belford, with so charming a niceness, we might have been a long time ago upon the verge of the state, and yet found a great deal to do before we entered into it.

All obedience, all resignation⁠—no will but hers. I withdrew, and wrote directly to my Lord; and she not disapproving of it, I sent it away. The purport as follows; for I took no copy.

“That I was much obliged to his Lordship for his intended goodness to me on an occasion the most solemn of my life. That the admirable Lady, whom he so justly praised, thought his Lordship’s proposals in her favour too high. That she chose not to make a public appearance, if, without disobliging my friends, she could avoid it, till a reconciliation with her own could be effected. That although she expressed a grateful sense of his Lordship’s consent to give her to me with his own hand; yet, presuming that the motive to this kind intention was rather to do her honour, than it otherwise would have been his own choice, (especially as travelling would be at this time so inconvenient to him), she thought it advisable to save his Lordship trouble on this occasion; and hoped he would take as meant her declining the favour.

“That The Lawn will be most acceptable to us both to retire to; and the rather, as it is so to his Lordship.

“But, if he pleases, the jointure may be made from my own estate; leaving to his Lordship’s goodness the alternative.”

I conclude with telling him, “that I had offered to present the Lady his Lordship’s bill; but on her declining to accept of it (having myself no present occasion for it) I return it enclosed, with my thanks, etc.”

And is not this going a plaguey length? What a figure should I make in rakish annals, if at last I should be caught in my own gin?

The sex may say what they will, but a poor innocent fellow had need to take great care of himself, when he dances upon the edge of the matrimonial precipice. Many a fainthearted man, when he began to jest, or only designed to ape gallantry, has been forced into earnest, by being over-prompt, and taken at his word, not knowing how to own that he meant less than the lady supposed he meant. I am the better enabled to judge that this must have been the case of many a sneaking varlet; because I, who know the female world as well as any man in it of my standing, am