frighted to heed it!

Never was mortal man in such terror and agitation as I; for I instantly
concluded, that she had stabbed herself with some concealed instrument.

I ran to her in a wild agony--for Dorcas was frighted out of all her mock
interposition----

What have you done!--O what have you done!--Look up to me, my dearest
life!--Sweet injured innocence, look up to me! What have you done!--Long
will I not survive you!--And I was upon the point of drawing my sword to
dispatch myself, when I discovered--[What an unmanly blockhead does this
charming creature make me at her pleasure!] that all I apprehended was
but a bloody nose, which, as far as I know (for it could not be stopped
in a quarter of an hour) may have saved her head and her intellects.

But I see by this scene, that the sweet creature is but a pretty coward
at bottom; and that I can terrify her out of her virulence against me,
whenever I put on sternness and anger. But then, as a qualifier to the
advantage this gives me over her, I find myself to be a coward too, which
I had not before suspected, since I was capable of being so easily
terrified by the apprehensions of her offering violence to herself.

LETTER XXIII

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

But with all this dear creature's resentment against me, I cannot, for my
heart, think but she will get all over, and consent to enter the pale
with me. Were she even to die to-morrow, and to know she should, would
not a woman of her sense, of her punctilio, and in her situation, and of
so proud a family, rather die married, than otherwise?--No doubt but she
would; although she were to hate the man ever so heartily. If so, there
is now but one man in the world whom she can have--and that is me.

Now I talk [familiar writing is but talking, Jack] thus glibly of
entering the pale, thou wilt be ready to question me, I know, as to my
intentions on this head.

As much of my heart, as I know of it myself, will I tell thee.--When I am
from her, I cannot still help hesitating about marriage; and I even
frequently resolve against it, and determine to press my favourite scheme
for cohabitation. But when I am with her, I am ready to say, to swear,
and to do, whatever I think will be the most acceptable to her, and were
a parson at hand, I should plunge at once, no doubt of it, into the
state.

I have frequently thought, in common cases, that it is happy for many
giddy fellows [there are giddy fe