Tag Archives: Lovelace’s feelings for Clarissa

Clarissa’s big escape and Lovelace’s big loss (L228)

O for a curse to kill with!—Ruined! Undone! Outwitted, tricked!—Zounds, man, the lady has gone off!—Absolutely gone off! Escaped!—
Thou knowest not, nor canst conceive, the pangs that wring my heart!— What can I do!—Oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord!
And thou, too, who hast endeavoured to weaken my hands, wilt but clap thy dragon’s wings at the tidings!
Yet I must write, or I shall go distracted! […] Continue reading →

Lovelace plans (and struggles with himself) a night-time visit to Clarissa (L224)

Faith, Jack, thou hadst half undone me with thy nonsense, though I would not own it on my yesterday’s letter: my conscience of thy party before.— But I think I am my own man again.
So near to execution my plot; so near springing my mine; all agreed upon between the women and me; or I believe thou hadst overthrown me.I have time for a few lines preparative to what is to happen in an hour or two; and I love to write to the moment. We have been extremely happy. How many agreeable days have we known together!—What may the next two hours produce.When I parted with my charmer, (which I did, with infinite reluctance, half an hour ago,) it was upon her promise that she would not sit up to write or read. For so engaging was the conversation to me, (and indeed my behaviour throughout the whole of it was confessedly agreeable to her,) that I insisted, if she did not directly retire to rest, that she should add another happy hour to the former.
To have sat up writing or reading half the night, as she sometimes does, would have frustrated my view, as thou wilt observe, when my little plot unravels. […]
What—What—What now!—Bounding villain! wouldst thou choke me?— 
I was speaking to my heart, Jack!—It was then at my throat.—And what is all this for?—These shy women, how, when a man thinks himself near the mark, do they tempest him! […] Continue reading →

Belford criticizes Lovelace (again) (L222)

Unsuccessful as hitherto my application to you has been, I cannot for the heart of me forbear writing once more in behalf of this admirable woman: and yet am unable to account for the zeal which impels me to take her part with an earnestness so sincere.
But all her merit thou acknowledgest; all thy own vileness thou confessest, and even gloriest in it: What hope then of moving so hardened a man?—Yet, as it is not too late, and thou art nevertheless upon the crisis, I am resolved to try what another letter will do. It is but my writing in vain, if it do no good; and if thou wilt let me prevail, I know thou wilt hereafter think me richly entitled to thy thanks.
To argue with thee would be folly. The case cannot require it. I will only entreat thee, therefore, that thou wilt not let such an excellence lose the reward of her vigilant virtue.
I believe there never were libertines so vile, but purposed, at some future period of their lives, to set about reforming: and let me beg of thee, that thou wilt, in this great article, make thy future repentance as easy, as some time hence thou wilt wish thou hadst made it. If thou proceedest, I have no doubt that this affair will end tragically, one way or another. It must. Such a woman must interest both gods and men in her cause. But what I most apprehend is, that with her own hand, in resentment of the perpetrated outrage, she (like another Lucretia) will assert the purity of her heart: or, if her piety preserve her from this violence, that wasting grief will soon put a period to her days. And, in either case, will not the remembrance of thy ever-duringguilt, and transitory triumph, be a torment of torments to thee?
‘Tis a seriously sad thing, after all, that so fine a creature should have fallen into such vile and remorseless hands: for, from thy cradle, as I have heard thee own, thou ever delightedst to sport with and torment the animal, whether bird or beast, that thou lovedst, and hadst a power over.
How different is the case of this fine woman from that of any other whom thou hast seduced!—I need not mention to thee, nor insist upon the striking difference: justice, gratitude, thy interest, thy vows, all engaging thee; and thou certainly loving her, as far as thou art capable of love, above all her sex. She not to be drawn aside by art, or to be made to suffer from credulity, nor for want of wit and discernment, (that will be another cutting reflection to so fine a mind as her’s): the contention between you only unequal, as it is between naked innocence and armed guilt. In every thing else, as thou ownest, her talents greatly superior to thine!—What a fate will her’s be, if thou art not at last overcome by thy reiterated remorses! […]
One instance only of this shall I remind thee of. Continue reading →

Lovelace thinks of marrying and begetting children on the body of Clarissa Harlowe (L218)

I have a letter from Lord M. Such a one as I would wish for, if I intended matrimony. But as matters are circumstanced, I cannot think of showing it to my beloved.
My Lord regrets, ‘that he is not to be the Lady’s nuptial father. He seems apprehensive that I have still, specious as my reasons are, some mischief in my head.’
He graciously consents, ‘that I may marry when I please; and offers one or both of my cousins to assist my bride, and to support her spirits on the occasion; since, as he understands, she is so much afraid to venture with me.
‘Pritchard, he tells me, has his final orders to draw up deeds for assigning over to me, in perpetuity, £1000 per annum: which he will execute the same hour that the lady in person owns her marriage.’
He consents, ‘that the jointure be made from my own estate.’
He wishes, ‘that the Lady would have accepted of his draught; and commends me for tendering it to her. But reproaches me for my pride in not keeping it myself. What the right side gives up, the left, he says, may be the better for.‘
The girls, he means.
With all my heart. If I can have Miss Clarissa Harlowe, the devil take every thing else. Continue reading →

Lovelace makes himself sick (L211)

This ipecacuanha is a most disagreeable medicine. That these cursed physical folks can find out nothing to do us good, but what would poison the devil! In the other world, were they only to take physic, it would be punishable enough of itself for a mis-spent life. A doctor at one elbow, and an apothecary at the other, and the poor soul labouring under their prescribed operations, he need no worse tormentors.
But now this was to take down my countenance. It has done it: for, with violent retchings, having taken enough to make me sick, and not enough water to carry it off, I presently looked as if I had kept my bed a fortnight. Ill jesting, as I thought in the midst of the exercise, with edge tools, and worse with physical ones.
Two hours it held me. I had forbid Dorcas to let her lady know any thing of the matter; out of tenderness to her; being willing, when she knew my prohibition, to let her see that I expected her to be concerned for me.—
Well, but Dorcas was nevertheless a woman, and she can whisper to her lady the secret she is enjoined to keep!
Come hither, toad, [sick as the devil at the instant]; let me see what a mixture of grief and surprise may be beat up together in thy pudden-face.
That won’t do. That dropped jaw, and mouth distended into the long oval, is more upon the horrible than the grievous.
Nor that pinking and winking with thy odious eyes, as my charmer once called them.
A little better that; yet not quite right: but keep your mouth closer. You have a muscle or two which you have no command of, between your cheek-bone and your lips, that should carry one corner of your mouth up towards your crow’s-foot, and that down to meet it.
There! Begone! Be in a plaguy hurry running up stair and down, to fetch from the dining-room what you carry up on purpose to fetch, till motion extraordinary put you out of breath, and give you the sigh natural.
What’s the matter, Dorcas?
Nothing, Madam.
My beloved wonders she has not seen me this morning, no doubt; but is too shy to say she wonders. Repeated What’s the matter, however, as Dorcas runs up and down stairs by her door, bring on, O Madam! my master! my poor master! Continue reading →

Lovelace feigns illness (L209)

And now, Belford, what dost think? 
That thou art a cursed fellow, if— 
If—no if’s—but I shall be very sick to-morrow. I shall, ‘faith.
Sick!—Why sick? What a-devil shouldst thou be sick for?
For more good reasons than one, Jack.
I should be glad to hear but one.—Sick, quotha! Of all thy roguish inventions I should not have thought of this.
Perhaps thou thinkest my view to be, to draw the lady to my bedside. That’s a trick of three or four thousand years old; and I should find it much more to my purpose, if I could get to her’s. However, I’ll condescend to make thee as wise as myself.
I am excessively disturbed about this smuggling scheme of Miss Howe. I have no doubt, that my fair-one, were I to make an attempt, and miscarry, will fly from me, if she can. I once believed she loved me: but now I doubt whether she does or not: at least, that it is with such an ardour, as Miss Howe calls it, as will make her overlook a premeditated fault, should I be guilty of one.

Lovelace reading anew (L207)

She then told me, that she had put into writing her opinion of my general proposals; and there had expressed her mind as to clothes and jewels: but on my strange behaviour to her (for no cause that she knew of) on Sunday night, she had torn the paper in two.
I earnestly pressed her to let me be favoured with a sight of this paper, torn as it was. And, after some hesitation, she withdrew, and sent it to me by Dorcas.
I perused it again. It was in a manner new to me, though I had read it so lately: and, by my soul, I could hardly stand it. An hundred admirable creatures I called her to myself. But I charge thee, write not a word to me in her favour, if thou meanest her well; for, if I spare her, it must be all ex mero motu.

Lovelace steals Clarissa’s unsent letter (L202)

The original of this charming paper, as Dorcas tells me, was torn almost in two. In one of her pets, I suppose! What business have the sex, whose principal glory is meekness, and patience, and resignation, to be in a passion, I trow?—Will not she who allows herself such liberties as a maiden take greater when married?
And a wife to be in a passion!—Let me tell the ladies, it is an impudent thing, begging their pardon, and as imprudent as impudent, for a wife to be in a passion, if she mean not eternal separation, or wicked defiance, by it: For is it not rejecting at once all that expostulatory meekness, and gentle reasoning, mingled with sighs as gentle, and graced with bent knees, supplicating hands, and eyes lifted up to your imperial countenance, just running over, that you should make a reconciliation speedy, and as lasting as speedy? Even suppose the husband is in the wrong, will not this being so give the greater force to her expostulation?
Now I think of it, a man should be in the wrong now-and-then, to make his wife shine. Miss Howe tells my charmer, that adversity is her shining- time. ‘Tis a generous thing in a man to make his wife shine at his own expense: to give her leave to triumph over him by patient reasoning: for were he to be too imperial to acknowledge his fault on the spot, she will find the benefit of her duty and submission in future, and in the high opinion he will conceive of her prudence and obligingness—and so, by degrees, she will become her master’s master.

Lovelace and power–questioning the “test” for Clarissa (L201)

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?
***
O Mr. Lovelace, we have been long enough together to be tired of each other’s humours and ways; ways and humours so different, that perhaps you ought to dislike me, as much as I do you.—I think, I think, that I cannot make an answerable return to the value you profess for me. My temper is utterly ruined. You have given me an ill opinion of all mankind; of yourself in particular: and withal so bad a one of myself, that I shall never be able to look up, having utterly and for ever lost all that self-complacency, and conscious pride, which are so necessary to carry a woman through this life with tolerable satisfaction to herself.

Lovelace is ashamed (L199) 

[As the Lady could not know what Mr. Lovelace's designs were, nor the
   cause of his ill humour, it will not be improper to pursue the subject
   from his letter.

Having described his angry manner of demanding, in person, her company at
   supper, he proceeds as follows:]

***

‘She struggled to disengage herself.—Pray, Mr. Lovelace, let me withdraw. I know not why this is. I know not what I have done to offend you. I see you are come with a design to quarrel with me. If you would not terrify me by the ill humour you are in, permit me to withdraw. I will hear all you have to say another time—to-morrow morning, as I sent you word.—But indeed you frighten me—I beseech you, if you have any value for me, permit me to withdraw.
‘Night, mid-night, is necessary, Belford. Surprise, terror, must be necessary to the ultimate trial of this charming creature, say the women below what they will. I could not hold my purposes. This was not the first time that I had intended to try if she could forgive.