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

it mayn’t be proper, if the lady loves to be private. Don’t let me intrude upon the lady⁠—

No intrusion, Sir, I dare say: the lady is good-humoured. She will be so kind as to step down into the parlour, I dare say. As she stays so little a while, I am sure she will not wish to stand in my way.

No, Madam, that’s true, if she be good-humoured, as you say⁠—Has she been with you long, Madam?

She came but yesterday, Sir⁠—

I believe I just now saw the glimpse of her. She seems to be an elderly lady.

No, Sir! you’re mistaken. She’s a young lady; and one of the handsomest I ever saw.

Cot so, I beg her pardon! Not but that I should have liked her the better, were she to stay longer, if she had been elderly. I have a strange taste, Madam, you’ll say; but I really, for my wife’s sake, love every elderly woman. Indeed I ever thought age was to be reverenced, which made me (taking the fortune into the scale too, that I own) make my addresses to my present dear.

Very good of you, Sir, to respect age: we all hope to live to be old.

Right, Madam.⁠—But you say the lady is beautiful. Now you must know, that though I choose to converse with the elderly, yet I love to see a beautiful young woman, just as I love to see fine flowers in a garden. There’s no casting an eye upon her, is there, without her notice? For in this dress, and thus muffled up about my jaws, I should not care to be seen any more than she, let her love privacy as much as she will.

I will go and ask if I may show a gentleman the apartment, Sir; and, as you are a married gentleman, and not over young, she’ll perhaps make the less scruple.

Then, like me, she loves elderly folks best perhaps. But it may be she has suffered by young ones.

I fancy she has, Sir, or is afraid she shall. She desired to be very private; and if by description inquired after, to be denied.

Thou art a true woman, goody Moore, thought I.

Good lack⁠—good lack!⁠—What may be her story then, I pray?

She is pretty reserved in her story: but, to tell you my thoughts, I believe love is in the case: she is always in tears, and does not much care for company.

Nay, Madam, it becomes not me to dive into ladies’ secrets; I want not to pry into other people’s affairs. But, pray, how does she employ herself?⁠—Yet she came but yesterday; so you can’t tell.

Writing continually, Sir.

These women, Jack, when you ask them questions by way of information, don’t care to be ignorant of anything.

Nay, excuse me, Madam, I am very far from being an inquisitive man. But if her case be difficult, and not merely love, as she is a friend of yours, I would give her my advice.

Then you are a lawyer, Sir⁠—

Why, indeed, Madam, I was some time at the bar; but I have long left practice; yet am much consulted by my friends in difficult points. In a pauper case I frequently give money; but never take any from the richest.

You are a very good gentleman, then, Sir.

Ay, Madam, we cannot live always here; and we ought to do what good we can⁠—but I hate to appear officious. If the lady stay any time, and think fit, upon better acquaintance, to let me into her case, it may be a happy day for her, if I find it a just one; for, you must know, that when I was at the bar, I never was such a sad fellow as to undertake, for the sake of a paltry fee, to make white black, and black white: For what would that have been, but to endeavour to establish iniquity by quirks, while I robbed the innocent?

You are an excellent gentleman, Sir: I wish (and then she sighed) I had had the happiness to know there was such a lawyer in the world; and to have been acquainted with him.

Come, come, Mrs. Moore, I think your name is, it may not be too late⁠—when you and I are better acquainted, I may help you perhaps.⁠—But mention nothing of this to the lady: for, as I said, I hate to appear officious.

This prohibition, I knew, if goody Moore answered the specimen she had given of her womanhood, would make her take the first opportunity to tell, were it to be necessary to my purpose that she should.

I appeared, upon the whole, so indifferent about seeing the room, or the lady, that the good woman was the more eager I should see both. And the rather, as I, to stimulate her, declared, that there was more required in my eye to merit the character of a handsome woman, than most people thought necessary; and that I had never seen six truly lovely women in my life.

To be brief, she went in; and after a little while came out again. The lady, Sir, is retired to her closet. So you may go in and look at the room.

Then how my heart began again to play its pug’s tricks!

I hobbled in, and stumped about, and liked it very much; and was sure my wife would. I begged excuse for sitting down, and asked, who was the minister of the place? If he were a good preacher? Who preached at the Chapel? And if he were a good preacher, and a good liver too, Madam⁠—I must inquire after that: for I love, but I must needs say, that the clergy should practise what they preach.

Very right, Sir; but that is not so often the case as were to be wished.

More’s the pity, Madam. But I have a great veneration for the clergy in general. It is more a satire upon human nature than upon the cloth, if we suppose those who have the best opportunities to do good, less perfect than other