Clarissa Harlowe - Samuel Richardson (reading cloud ebooks txt) 📗

You hesitate⁠—You answer me not⁠—You cannot answer me.⁠—(Rising)⁠—Never more will I look upon you with an eye of favour⁠—

O Madam, Madam! Kill me not with your displeasure⁠—I would not, I need not, hesitate one moment, did I not dread the inference, if I answer you as you wish.⁠—Yet be that inference what it will, your threatened displeasure will make me speak. And I declare to you, that I know not my own heart, if it not be absolutely free. And pray, let me ask my dearest Mamma, in what has my conduct been faulty, that, like a giddy creature, I must be forced to marry, to save me from⁠—From what? Let me beseech you, Madam, to be the guardian of my reputation! Let not your Clarissa be precipitated into a state she wishes not to enter into with any man! And this upon a supposition that otherwise she shall marry herself, and disgrace her whole family.

Well then, Clary (passing over the force of my plea) if your heart be free⁠—

O my beloved Mamma, let the usual generosity of your dear heart operate in my favour. Urge not upon me the inference that made me hesitate.

I won’t be interrupted, Clary⁠—You have seen in my behaviour to you, on this occasion, a truly maternal tenderness; you have observed that I have undertaken the task with some reluctance, because the man is not everything; and because I know you carry your notions of perfection in a man too high⁠—

Dearest Madam, this one time excuse me!⁠—Is there then any danger that I should be guilty of an imprudent thing for the man’s sake you hint at?

Again interrupted!⁠—Am I to be questioned, and argued with? You know this won’t do somewhere else. You know it won’t. What reason then, ungenerous girl, can you have for arguing with me thus, but because you think from my indulgence to you, you may?

What can I say? What can I do? What must that cause be that will not bear being argued upon?

Again! Clary Harlowe!

Dearest Madam, forgive me: it was always my pride and my pleasure to obey you. But look upon that man⁠—see but the disagreeableness of his person⁠—

Now, Clary, do I see whose person you have in your eye!⁠—Now is Mr. Solmes, I see, but comparatively disagreeable; disagreeable only as another man has a much more specious person.

But, Madam, are not his manners equally so?⁠—Is not his person the true representative of his mind?⁠—That other man is not, shall not be, anything to me, release me but from this one man, whom my heart, unbidden, resists.

Condition thus with your father. Will he bear, do you think, to be thus dialogued with? Have I not conjured you, as you value my peace⁠—What is it that I do not give up?⁠—This very task, because I apprehended you would not be easily persuaded, is a task indeed upon me. And will you give up nothing? Have you not refused as many as have been offered to you? If you would not have us guess for whom, comply; for comply you must, or be looked upon as in a state of defiance with your whole family.

And saying this, she arose and went from me. But at the chamber-door stopped; and turned back: I will not say below in what a disposition I leave you. Consider of everything. The matter is resolved upon. As you value your father’s blessing and mine, and the satisfaction of all the family, resolve to comply. I will leave you for a few moments. I will come up to you again. See that I find you as I wish to find you; and since your heart is free, let your duty govern it.

In about half an hour, my mother returned. She found me in tears. She took my hand: It is my part evermore, said she, to be of the acknowledging side. I believe I have needlessly exposed myself to your opposition, by the method I have taken with you. I first began as if I expected a denial, and by my indulgence brought it upon myself.

Do not, my dearest Mamma! do not say so!

Were the occasion for this debate, proceeded she, to have risen from myself; were it in my power to dispense with your compliance; you too well know what you can do with me.

Would anybody, my dear Miss Howe, wish to marry, who sees a wife of such a temper, and blessed with such an understanding as my mother is noted for, not only deprived of all power, but obliged to be even active in bringing to bear a point of high importance, which she thinks ought not to be insisted upon?

When I came to you a second time, proceeded she, knowing that your opposition would avail you nothing, I refused to hear your reasons: and in this I was wrong too, because a young creature who loves to reason, and used to love to be convinced by reason, ought to have all her objections heard: I now therefore, this third time, see you; and am come resolved to hear all you have to say: and let me, my dear, by my patience engage your gratitude; your generosity, I will call it, because it is to you I speak, who used to have a mind wholly generous.⁠—Let me, if your heart be really free, let me see what it will induce you to do to oblige me: and so as you permit your usual discretion to govern you, I will hear all you have to say; but with this intimation, that say what you will, it will be of no avail elsewhere.

What a dreadful saying is that! But could I engage your pity, Madam, it would be somewhat.

You have as much of my pity as of my love. But what is person, Clary, with one of your prudence, and your heart disengaged?

Should the eye be disgusted, when the heart is to be engaged?⁠—O Madam, who can think of marrying when the heart is shocked at