LETTER XIX MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE 8.
O for a curse to kill with!--Ruined! Undone! Outwitted! Tricked!--Zounds, man, the lady has gone off!--Absolutely gone off! Escaped!--
Thou knowest not, nor canst conceive, the pangs that wring my heart!-- What can I do!--O Lord, O Lord, O Lord!
And thou, too, who hast endeavoured to weaken my hands, wilt but clap thy dragon's wings at the tidings!
Yet I must write, or I shall go distracted! Little less have I been these two hours; dispatching messengers to every stage, to every inn, to every waggon or coach, whether flying or creeping, and to every house with a bill up, for five miles around.
The little hypocrite, who knows not a soul in this town, [I thought I was sure of her at any time,] such an unexperienced traitress--giving me hope too, in her first billet, that her expectation of the family- reconciliation would withhold her from taking such a step as this--curse upon her contrivances!--I thought, that it was owing to her bashfulness, to her modesty, that, after a few innocent freedoms, she could not look me in the face; when, all the while, she was impudently [yes, I say, impudently, though she be Clarissa Harlowe] contriving to rob me of the dearest property I had ever purchased--purchased by a painful servitude of many months; fighting through the wild-beasts of her family for her, and combating with a wind-mill virtue, which hath cost me millions of perjuries only to attempt; and which now, with its damn'd air-fans, has tost me a mile and a half beyond hope!--And this, just as I had arrived within view of the consummation of all my wishes!
O Devil of Love! God of Love no more--how have I deserved this of thee!--Never before the friend of frozen virtue?--Powerless demon, for powerless thou must be, if thou meanedest not to frustrate my hopes; who shall henceforth kneel at thy altars!--May every enterprising heart abhor, despise, execrate, renounce thee, as I do!--But, O Belford, Belford, what signifies cursing now!
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How she could effect this her wicked escape is my astonishment; the whole sisterhood having charge of her;--for, as yet, I have not had patience enough to inquire into the particulars, nor to let a soul of them approach me.
Of this I am sure, or I had not brought her hither, there is not a creature belonging to this house, that could be corrupted either by virtue or remorse: the highest joy every infernal nymph, of this worse than infernal habitation, could have known, would have been to reduce this proud beauty to her own level.--And as to my villain, who also had charge of her, he is such a seasoned varlet, that he delights in mischief for the sake of it: no bribe could seduce him to betray his trust, were there but wickedness in it!--'Tis well, however, he was out of my way when the cursed news was imparted to me!--Gone, the villain! in quest of her: not to return, nor to see my face [so it seems he declared] till he has heard some tidings of her; and all the out-of-place varlets of his numerous acquaintance are summoned and employed in the same business.
To what purpose brought I this angel (angel I must yet call her) to this hellish house?--And was I not meditating to do her deserved honour? By my soul, Belford, I was resolved--but thou knowest what I had conditionally resolved--And now, who can tell into what hands she may have fallen!