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by letter, I will overcome the creeping folly that has found its way to my heart, or I will tear it out in her presence, and throw it at hers, that she may see how much more tender than her own that organ is, which she, and you, and every one else, have taken the liberty to call callous.

Give notice to the people who live back and edge, and on either hand, of the cursed mother, to remove their best effects, if I am rejected: for the first vengeance I shall take, will be to set fire to that den of serpents. Nor will there be any fear of taking them when they are in any act that has the relish of salvation in it, as Shakespeare says so that my revenge, if they perish in the flames I shall light up, will be complete as to them.

MR. LOVELACE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE.

Monday, August 7.

ITTLE as I have reason to expect either your patient ear, or forgiving heart, yet cannot I

forbear to write to you once more (as a more pardonable intrusion, perhaps, than a visit would be) to beg of you to put it in my power to atone, as far as it is possible to atone, for the injuries I have done you.

Your angelic purity, and my awakened conscience, are standing records of your exalted merit, and of my detestable baseness: but your forgiveness will lay me under an eternal obligation to you-forgive me then, my dearest life, my earthly good, the visible anchor of my future hope!-As you (who believe you have something to be forgiven for) hope for pardon yourself, forgive me, and consent to meet me, upon your own conditions, and in whose company you please, at the holy altar, and to give yourself a title to the most repentant and affectionate heart that ever beat in a human bosom.

But, perhaps, a time of probation may be required. It

may be impossible for you, as well from indisposition as doubt, so soon to receive me to absolute favour as my heart wishes to be received. In this case, I will submit to your pleasure; and there shall be no penance which you can impose, that I will not cheerfully undergo, if you will be pleased to give me hope, that, after an expiation, suppose of months, wherein the regularity of my future life and actions shall convince you of my reformation, you will at last be mine.

Let me beg the favour then of a few lines, encouraging me in this conditional hope, if it must not be a still nearer hope, and a more generous encouragement.

If you refuse me this, you will make me desperate. But even then I must, at all events, throw myself at your feet, that I may not charge myself with the omission of any earnest, any humble effort, to move you in my favour: for in you, madam, in your forgiveness, are centred my hopes as to both worlds: since to be reprobated finally by you, will leave me without expectation of mercy from above!—for I am now awakened enough to think, that to be forgiven by injured innocents is necessary to the divine pardon; the Almighty putting into the power of such (as is reasonable to believe) the wretch who causelessly and capitally offends them. And who can be

entitled to this power, if you are not?

I do most solemnly assure you, that no temporal or worldly views induce me to this earnest address. I deserve not forgiveness from you. Nor do my Lord M. and his sisters from me. I despise them from my heart for presuming to imagine, that I will be controlled by the prospect of any benefits in their power to confer. There is not a person breathing, but yourself, who shall prescribe Your whole conduct, madam, has been so nobly principled, and your resentments are so admirably just, that you appear to me even in a divine light; and in an infinitely more amiable one at the same time, than you

to me.

could have appeared in, had you not suffered the barbarous wrongs, that now fill my mind with anguish and horror at my own recollected villany to the most excellent of

women.

I repeat, that all I beg for the present, is a few lines, to guide my doubtful steps; and (if possible for you so far to condescend) to encourage me to hope, that, if I can justify my present vows by my future conduct, I may be permitted the honour to style myself

Eternally yours,

R. LOVELACE.

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO LORD M. AND TO THE LADIES OF HIS HOUSE.

Tuesday, August 8.

XCUSE me, my good lord, and my everhonoured ladies, from accepting of your

noble quarterly bounty, and allow me to return, with all grateful acknowledgment, and true humility, the inclosed earnest of your goodness to me. Indeed I have no need of the one, and cannot possibly want the other: but, nevertheless, have such a sense of your generous favour, that, to my last hour, I shall have pleasure in contemplating upon it, and be proud of the place I hold in the esteem of such venerable persons, to whom I once had the ambition to hope to be related.

But give me leave to express my concern, that you have banished your kinsman from your presence and favour: since now, perhaps, he will be under less restraint than ever; and since I in particular, who had hoped by your influences to remain unmolested for the remainder of my days, may be again subjected to his persecutions.

He has not, my good lord, and my dear ladies, offended against you, as he has against me; and yet you could all very generously intercede for him with me: and shall I be

very improper, if I desire, for my own peace' sake; for the sake of other poor creatures, who may be still injured by him, if he be made quite desperate; and for the sake of all your worthy family; that you will extend to him that forgiveness which you hoped for from me? and this the rather, as I presume to think, that his daring and impetuous spirit will not be subdued by violent methods; since I have no doubt, that the gratifying of a present passion will be always more prevalent with him, than any future prospects, however unwarrantable the one, or beneficial the other.

Your resentments on my account are extremely generous, as your goodness to me is truly noble: but I am not without hope, that he will be properly affected by the evils he has made me suffer; and that, when I am laid low and forgotten, your whole honourable family will be enabled to rejoice in his reformation; and see many of those happy years together, which, my good lord, and my dear ladies, you so kindly wish to

Your ever grateful and obliged

CLARISSA HARLOWE.

MR. BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Thursday, August 10.

BEGIN to pity thee heartily, now I see thee in earnest, in the fruitless love thou expressest to

this angel of a woman; and the rather, as, say what thou wilt, it is impossible she should get over her illness, and her friends' implacableness, of which she has had fresh instances.

I hope thou art not indeed displeased with the extracts I have made from thy letters for her. The letting her know the justice thou hast done to her virtue in them, is so much in favour of thy ingenuousness (a quality, let me repeat, that gives thee a superiority over common liber

tines) that I think in my heart I was right; though to any other woman, and to one who had not known the worst of thee that she could know, it might have been wrong.

If the end will justify the means, it is plain, that I have done well with regard to ye both; since I have made her easier, and thee appear in a better light to her, than otherwise thou wouldst have done.

But if, nevertheless, thou art dissatisfied with my having obliged her in a point, which I acknowledge to be delicate, let us canvass this matter at our first meeting: and then I will show thee what the extracts were, and what connexions I gave them in thy favour.

But surely thou dost not pretend to say what I shall, or shall not do, as to the executorship.

I am my own man, I hope. I think thou shouldst be glad to have the justification of her memory left to one, who, at the same time, thou mayst be assured, will treat thee, and thy actions, with all the lenity the case will admit.

I will now briefly proceed to relate what had passed since my last, as to the excellent lady. By the account I shall give thee, thou wilt see, that she has troubles enough upon her, all springing originally from thyself, without needing to add more to them by new vexations.

My last was dated on Saturday.

She had received several letters in my absence, as Mrs. Lovick acquainted me, besides yours. Yours, it seems, much distressed her; but she ordered the messenger, who pressed for an answer, to be told, that it did not require an immediate one.

On Wednesday she received a letter from her uncle Harlowe, in answer to one she had written to her mother on Saturday on her knees. It must be a very cruel one, Mrs. Lovick says, by the effects it had upon her for, when she received it, she was intending to take an after

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