Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 4

by Samuel Richardson

Then I rise, and fold to my almost-talking heart the throbbing-bosom'd charmer.

And now shall thy humble pride confess its obligation to me!

To-morrow's sun—and then I disengage myself from the bashful passive, and stalk about the room—to-morrow's sun shall gild the altar at which my vows shall be paid thee!

Then, Jack, the rapture! then the darted sun-beams from her gladdened eye, drinking up, at one sip, the precious distillation from the pearl- dropt cheek! Then hands ardently folded, eyes seeming to pronounce, God bless my Lovelace! to supply the joy-locked tongue: her transports too strong, and expression too weak, to give utterance to her grateful meanings!—All—all the studies—all the studies of her future life vowed and devoted (when she can speak) to acknowledge and return the perpetual obligation!

If I could bring my charmer to this, would it not be the eligible of eligibles?—Is it not worth trying for?—As I said, I can marry her when I will. She can be nobody's but mine, neither for shame, nor by choice, nor yet by address: for who, that knows my character, believes that the worst she dreads is now to be dreaded?

I have the highest opinion that man can have (thou knowest I have) of the merit and perfections of this admirable woman; of her virtue and honour too, although thou, in a former, art of opinion that she may be overcome.* Am I not therefore obliged to go further, in order to contradict thee, and, as I have often urged, to be sure that she is what I really think her to be, and, if I am ever to marry her, hope to find her?

* See Vol. III. Letter LI. Paragr. 9.

Then this lady is a mistress of our passions: no one ever had to so much perfection the art of moving. This all her family know, and have equally feared and revered her for it. This I know too; and doubt not more and more to experience. How charmingly must this divine creature warble forth (if a proper occasion be given) her melodious elegiacs!—Infinite beauties are there in a weeping eye. I first taught the two nymphs below to distinguish the several accents of the lamentable in a new subject, and how admirably some, more than others, become their distresses.

But to return to thy objections—Thou wilt perhaps tell me, in the names of thy brethren, as well as in thy own name, that, among all the objects of your respective attempts, there was not one of the rank and merit of my charming Miss Harlowe.

But let me ask, Has it not been a constant maxim with us, that the greater the merit on the woman's side, the nobler the victory on the man's? And as to rank, sense of honour, sense of shame, pride of family, may make rifled rank get up, and shake itself to rights: and if any thing come of it, such a one may suffer only in her pride, by being obliged to take up with a second-rate match instead of a first; and, as it may fall out, be the happier, as well as the more useful, for the misadventure; since (taken off of her public gaddings, and domesticated by her disgrace) she will have reason to think herself obliged to the man who has saved her from further reproach; while her fortune and alliance will lay an obligation upon him; and her past fall, if she have prudence and consciousness, will be his present and future security.