Volume V Part 15 (1/2)
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!
Is all ready, Dorcas? Has my beloved kept her word with me?--Whether are these billowy heavings owing more to love or to fear? I cannot tell, for the soul of me, of which I have most. If I can but take her before her apprehension, before her eloquence, is awake--
Limbs, why thus convulsed?--Knees, till now so firmly knit, why thus relaxed? why beat you thus together? Will not these trembling fingers, which twice have refused to direct the pen, fail me in the arduous moment?
Once again, why and for what all these convulsions? This project is not to end in matrimony, surely!
But the consequences must be greater than I had thought of till this moment--my beloved's destiny or my own may depend upon the issue of the two next hours!
I will recede, I think!--
Soft, O virgin saint, and safe as soft, be thy slumbers!
I will now once more turn to my friend Belford's letter. Thou shalt have fair play, my charmer. I will reperuse what thy advocate has to say for thee. Weak arguments will do, in the frame I am in!--
But, what, what's the matter!--What a double--But the uproar abates!--What a double coward am I!--Or is it that I am taken in a cowardly minute? for heroes have their fits of fear; cowards their brave moments; and virtuous women, all but my Clarissa, their moment critical--
But thus coolly enjoying the reflection in a hurricane!--Again the confusion is renewed--
What! Where!--How came it!
Is my beloved safe--
O wake not too roughly, my beloved!
LETTER XVI
MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
THURSDAY MORNING, FIVE O'CLOCK, (JUNE 8.)
Now is my reformation secure; for I never shall love any other woman! Oh!
she is all variety! She must ever be new to me! Imagination cannot form; much less can the pencil paint; nor can the soul of painting, poetry, describe an angel so exquisitely, so elegantly lovely!--But I will not by antic.i.p.ation pacify thy impatience. Although the subject is too hallowed for profane contemplation, yet shalt thou have the whole before thee as it pa.s.sed: and this not from a spirit wantoning in description upon so rich a subject; but with a design to put a bound to thy roving thoughts. It will be iniquity, greater than a Lovelace was ever guilty of, to carry them farther than I shall acknowledge.
Thus then, connecting my last with the present, I lead to it.