LETTER XXIV - MR VILLARS TO EVELINA Berry Hill, April 22.
HOW much do I rejoice that I can again address my letters to Howard
Grove! My Evelina would have grieved had she known the anxiety of my
mind during her residence in the great world. My apprehensions have
been inexpressibly alarming; and your journal, at once exciting and
relieving my fears, has almost wholly occupied me since the time of
your dating it from London.
Sir Clement Willoughby must be an artful designing man: I am extremely
irritated at his conduct. The passion he pretends for you has neither
sincerity nor honour; the manner and the opportunities he has chosen
to declare it, are bordering upon insult.
His unworthy behaviour after the opera, convinces me, that, had
not your
vehemence frightened him, Queen Ann Street would have been the last
place whither he would have ordered his chariot. O, my child, how
thankful am I for your escape! I need not now, I am sure, enlarge
upon your indiscretion and want of thought, in so hastily trusting
yourself with a man so little known to you, and whose gaiety and
flightiness should have put you on your guard.
The nobleman you met at the Pantheon, bold and forward as you describe
him to
be, gives me no apprehension; a man who appears so openly licentious,
and who makes his attack with so little regard to decorum, is one who,
to a mind such as my Evelina’s, can never be seen but with the disgust
which his manners ought to excite.
But Sir Clement, though he seeks occasion to give real offence,
contrives to
avoid all appearance of intentional evil. He is far more dangerous,
because more artful: but I am happy to observe, that he seems to
have made no impression upon your heart; and therefore a very little
care and prudence may secure you from those designs which I fear he
has formed.
Lord Orville appears to be of a better order of beings. His spirited
conduct
to the meanly impertinent Lovel, and his anxiety for you after the
opera, prove him to be a man of sense and feeling. Doubtless he thought
there was much reason to tremble for your safety while exposed to
the power of Sir Clement; and he acted with a regard to real honour,
that will always incline me to think well of him, in so immediately
acquainting the Mirvan family with your situation. Many men of this
age, from a false and pretended delicacy to a friend, would have
quietly pursued their own affairs, and thought it more honourable
to leave an unsuspecting young creature to the mercy of a libertine,
than to risk his displeasure by taking measures for her security.
Your evident concern at leaving London is very natural, and yet
it afflicts
me. I ever dreaded your being too much pleased with a life of
dissipation, which youth and vivacity render but too alluring; and
I almost regret the consent for your journey, which I had not the
resolution to withhold.
Alas, my child, the artfulness of your nature, and the simplicity
of your
education, alike unfit you for the thorny paths of the great and
busy world. The supposed obscurity of your birth and situation,
makes you liable to a thousand disagreeable adventures. Not only
my views, but my hopes for your future life, have ever centered in
the country. Shall I own to you, that, however I may differ from
Captain Mirvan in other respects, yet my opinion of the town, its
manners, inhabitants, and diversions, is much upon upon a level with
his own? Indeed it is the general harbour of fraud and of folly, of
duplicity and of impertinence; and I wish few things more fervently,
than that you may have taken a lasting leave of it.
Remember, however, that I only speak in regard to a public and
dissipated
life; in private families we may doubtless find as much goodness,
honesty, and virtue, in London as in the country.
If contented with a retired station, I still hope I shall live to
see my
Evelina the ornament of her neighbourhood, and the pride and delight
of her family; and giving and receiving joy from such society as may
best deserve her affection, and employing herself in such useful and
innocent occupations as may secure and merit the tenderest love of her
friends, and the worthiest satisfaction of her own heart. Such are my
hopes, and such have been my expectations. Disappointment them not,
my beloved child; but cheer me with a few lines, that may assure me,
this one short fortnight spent in town has not undone the work of
seventeen years spent in the country. ARTHUR VILLARS.