Upon these principles, what had I to do but to construe
her silence into contemptuous displeasure? And
I begged her pardon for making a motion which I had
so much reason to fear would offend her: for the
future I would pay a sacred regard to her previous
injunctions, and prove to her by all my conduct the
truth of that observation, That true love is always
fearful of offending.
And what could the lady say to this? methinks thou
askest.
Say!—Why she looked vexed, disconcerted,
teased; was at a loss, as I thought, whether to be
more angry with herself, or with me. She turned
about, however, as if to hide a starting tear; and
drew a sigh into two or three but just audible quavers,
trying to suppress it, and withdrew— leaving
me master of the field.
Tell me not of politeness; tell me not of generosity;
tell me not of compassion—Is she not a
match for me? More than a match? Does she
not outdo me at every fair weapon? Has she not
made me doubt her love? Has she not taken officious
pains to declare that she was not averse to Solmes
for any respect she had to me? and her sorrow for putting
herself out of his reach, that is to say, for meeting
me?
Then, what a triumph would it be to the Harlowe pride,
were I now to marry this lady? A family beneath
my own! No one in it worthy of an alliance with
but her! My own estate not contemptible!
Living within the bounds of it, to avoid dependence
upon their betters, and obliged to no man living!
My expectations still so much more considerable!
My person, my talents—not to be despised,
surely—yet rejected by them with scorn.
Obliged to carry on an underhand address to their
daughter, when two of the most considerable families
in the kingdom have made overtures, which I have declined,
partly for her sake, and partly because I never will
marry; if she be not the person. To be forced
to steal her away, not only from them, but from herself!
And must I be brought to implore forgiveness and
reconciliation from the Harlowes?—Beg to
be acknowledged as the son of a gloomy tyrant, whose
only boast is his riches? As a brother to a
wretch, who has conceived immortal hatred to me; and
to a sister who was beneath my attempts, or I would
have had her in my own way, and that with a tenth
part of the trouble and pains that her sister has
cost me; and, finally, as a nephew to uncles, who value
themselves upon their acquired fortunes, would insult
me as creeping to them on that account?—Forbid
it in the blood of the Lovelaces, that your last, and,
let me say, not the meanest of your stock, should thus
creep, thus fawn, thus lick the dust, for a wife!—
Proceed anon.
Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford,
ESQ.
[In continuation.]
But is it not the divine Clarissa [Harlowe let
me not say; my soul spurns them all but her] whom
I am thus by application threatening?—If
virtue be the true nobility, how is she ennobled,
and how shall an alliance with her ennoble, were not
contempt due to the family from whom she sprang and
prefers to me!
