Must not, Sir!--But I must--you can curse your maid in my absence, as
well as if I were present----Except--except--you intend for me, what you
direct to her.
Dearest creature, you must not go--you must not leave me--Such determined
scorn! such contempts!--Questions asked your servant of no meaning but to
break in upon me--I cannot bear it!
Detain me not [struggling.] I will not be withheld. I like you not, nor
your ways. You sought to quarrel with me yesterday, for no reason in the
world that I can think of, but because I was too obliging. You are an
ungrateful man; and I hate you with my whole heart, Mr. Lovelace!
Do not make me desperate, Madam. Permit me to say, that you shall not
leave me in this humour. Wherever you go, I will attend you. Had Miss
Howe been my friend, I had not been thus treated. It is but too plain to
whom my difficulties are owing. I have long observed, that every letter
you received from her, makes an alteration in your behaviour to me. She
would have you treat me, as she treats Mr. Hickman, I suppose: but
neither does that treatment become your admirable temper to offer, nor me
to receive.
This startled her. She did not care to have me think hardly of Miss
Howe.
But recollecting herself, Miss Howe, said she, is a friend to virtue, and
to good men. If she like not you, it is because you are not one of
those.
Yes, Madam; and therefore to speak of Mr. Hickman and myself, as you
both, I suppose, think of each, she treats him as she would not treat a
Lovelace.--I challenge you, Madam, to shew me but one of the many letters
you have received from her, where I am mentioned.
Miss Howe is just; Miss Howe is good, replied she. She writes, she
speaks, of every body as they deserve. If you point me out but any one
occasion, upon which you have reason to build a merit to yourself, as
either just or good, or even generous, I will look out for her letter on
that occasion [if such an occasion there be, I have certainly acquainted
her with it]; and will engage it shall be in your favour.
Devilish severe! And as indelicate as severe, to put a modish man upon
hunting backward after his own merits.
She would have flung from me: I will not be detained, Mr. Lovelace. I
will go out.
Indeed you must not, Madam, in this humour. And I placed myself between
her and the door.----And then, fanning, she threw herself into a chair,
her sweet face all crimsoned over with passion.
I cast myself at her feet.--Begone, Mr. Lovelace, said she, with a
rejecting motion, her fan in her hand; for your own sake leave me!--My
soul is above thee, man! with both her hands pushing me from her!--Urge
me not to tell thee, how sincerely I think my soul above thee!--Thou
hast, in mine, a proud, a too proud heart to contend with!--Leave me, and
leave me for ever!--Thou has a proud heart to contend with!
Her air, her manner, her voice, were bewitchingly noble, though her words
were so severe.
Let me worship an angel, said I, no woman. Forgive me, dearest creature!
--creature if you be, forgive me!--forgive my inadvertencies!--forgive my
inequalities!--pity my infirmities!--Who is equal to my Clarissa?
I trembled between admiration and love; and wrapt my arms about her
knees, as she sat. She tried to rise at the moment; but my clasping
round her thus ardently, drew her down again; and never was woman more
affrighted. But free as my clasping emotion might appear to her
apprehensive heart, I had not, at the instant, any thought but what
reverence inspired. And till she had actually withdrawn [which I
permitted under promise of a speedy return, and on her consent to dismiss
the chair] all the motions of my heart were as pure as her own.
She kept not her word. An hour I waited before I sent to claim her
promise. She could not possibly see me yet, was her answer. As soon as
she could, she would.
Dorcas says, she still excessively trembled; and ordered her to give her
hartshorn and water.
A strange apprehensive creature! Her terror is too great for the
occasion. Evils are often greater in apprehension than in reality. Hast
thou never observed, that the terrors of a bird caught, and actually in
the hand, bear no comparison to what we might have supposed those terrors
would be, were we to have formed a judgment of the same bird by its
shyness before it was taken?
Dear creature!--Did she never romp? Did she never, from girlhood to now,
hoyden? The innocent kinds of freedom taken and allowed on these
occasions, would have familiarized her to greater. Sacrilege but to
touch the hem of her garment!--Excess of delicacy!--O the consecrated
beauty! How can she think to be a wife?
But how do I know till I try, whether she may not by a less alarming
treatment be prevailed upon, or whether [day, I have done with thee!] she
may not yield to nightly surprises? This is still the burden of my song,
I can marry her when I will. And if I do, after prevailing (whether by
surprise, or by reluctant consent) whom but myself shall I have injured?
***
It is now eleven o'clock. She will see me as soon as she can, she tells
Polly Horton, who made her a tender visit, and to whom she is less
reserved than to any body else. Her emotion, she assures her, was not
owing to perverseness, to nicety, to ill humour; but to weakness of
heart. She has not strength of mind sufficient, she says, to enable her
to support her condition.
Yet what a contradiction!--Weakness of heart, says she, with such a
strength of will!--O Belford! she is a lion-hearted lady, in every case
where her honour, her punctilio rather, calls for spirit. But I have had
reason more than once in her case, to conclude, that the passions of the
gentle, slower to be moved than those of the quick, are the most flaming,
the most irresistible, when raised.--Yet her charming body is not equally
organized. The unequal partners pull two ways; and the divinity within
her tears her silken frame. But had the same soul informed a masculine
body, never would there have been a truer hero.