cts of
reconciliation; the reconciliation with a worthless family, on which she
has set her whole heart?--Yet she does--she acquits me of all obligation
to her, and herself of all expectations from me--And for what?--O that
indeed I had given her real cause! Damn'd confounded niceness, prudery,
affectation, or pretty ignorance, if not affectation!--By my soul,
Belford, I told thee all--I was more indebted to her struggles, than to
my own forwardness. I cannot support my own reflections upon a decency
so ill-requited.--She could not, she would not have been so much a
Harlowe in her resentment. All she feared had then been over; and her
own good sense, and even modesty, would have taught her to make the best
of it.

But if ever again I get her into my hands, art, and more art, and
compulsion too, if she make it necessary, [and 'tis plain that nothing
else will do,] shall she experience from the man whose fear of her has
been above even his passion for her; and whose gentleness and forbearance
she has thus perfidiously triumphed over. Well, says the Poet,

'Tis nobler like a lion to invade
When appetite directs, and seize my prey,
Than to wait tamely, like a begging dog,
Till dull consent throws out the scraps of love.

Thou knowest what I have so lately vowed--and yet, at times [cruel
creature, and ungrateful as cruel!] I can subscribe with too much truth
to those lines of another Poet:

She reigns more fully in my soul than ever;
She garrisons my breast, and mans against me
Ev'n my own rebel thoughts, with thousand graces,
Ten thousand charms, and new-discovered beauties!

LETTER XX

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

A letter is put into my hands by Wilson himself.--Such a letter!

A letter from Miss Howe to her cruel friend!--

I made no scruple to open it.

It is a miracle that I fell not into fits at the reading of it; and at
the thought of what might have been the consequence, had it come into the
hands of this Clarissa Harlowe. Let my justly-excited rage excuse my
irreverence.

Collins, though not his day, brought it this afternoon to Wilson's, with
a particular desire that it might be sent with all speed to Miss
Beaumont's lodgings, and given, if possible, into her own hands. He had
before been here (at Mrs. Sinclair's with intent to deliver it to the
lady with his own hand; but was told [too truly told!] that she was
abroad; but that t