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 matte!--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 anticipation pacify thy impatience. Although the subject is
too hallowed for profane contemplation, yet shalt thou have the whole
before thee as it passed: 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.

Didst thou not, by the conclusion of my former, perceive the
consternation I wa