Read Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 3 Page 24

  LETTER XXII

  MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE

  My plain-dealing with Mr. Lovelace, on seeing him again, and the freedislike I expressed to his ways, his manners, and his contrivances, aswell as to his speeches, have obliged him to recollect himself a little.He will have it, that the menaces which he threw out just now against mybrother and Mr. Solmes, are only the effect of an unmeaning pleasantry.He has too great a stake in his country, he says, to be guilty of suchenterprises as should lay him under a necessity of quitting it for ever.Twenty things, particularly, he says, he has suffered Joseph Leman totell him of, that were not, and could not be true, in order to makehimself formidable in some people's eyes, and this purely with a viewto prevent mischief. He is unhappy, as far as he knows, in a quickinvention; in hitting readily upon expedients; and many things arereported of him which he never said, and many which he never did, andothers which he has only talked of, (as just now,) and which he hasforgot as soon as the words have passed his lips.

  This may be so, in part, my dear. No one man so young could be sowicked as he has been reported to be. But such a man at the head ofsuch wretches as he is said to have at his beck, all men of fortune andfearlessness, and capable of such enterprises as I have unhappily foundhim capable of, what is not to be apprehended from him!

  His carelessness about his character is one of his excuses: a verybad one. What hope can a woman have of a man who values not his ownreputation?--These gay wretches may, in mixed conversation, divert foran hour, or so: but the man of probity, the man of virtue, is the manthat is to be the partner for life. What woman, who could help it, wouldsubmit it to the courtesy of a wretch, who avows a disregard to allmoral sanctions, whether he will perform his part of the matrimonialobligation, and treat her with tolerable politeness?

  With these notions, and with these reflections, to be thrown upon such aman myself!--Would to Heaven--But what avail wishes now?--To whom can Ifly, if I would fly from him?