See Letter 185. ↩
See Letter 248. ↩
See Letter 230. ↩
Ecclesiasticus 26: The whoredom of a woman may be known in her haughty looks and eyelids. Watch over an impudent eye, and marvel not if it trespass against thee. ↩
See Letter 110. ↩
Her cousin Morden’s words to her in his letter from Florence. See Letter 173. ↩
See Letter 254. ↩
See Letter 230. ↩
She tried to do this; but was prevented by the fellow’s pretending to put his ankle out, by a slip downstairs—A trick, says his contriving master, in his omitted relation, I had taught him, on a like occasion, at Amiens. ↩
See Letter 229. ↩
See Letter 251. ↩
The Lady, in her minutes, says, “I fear Dorcas is a false one. May I not be able to prevail upon him to leave me at my liberty? Better to try than to trust to her. If I cannot prevail, but must meet him and my uncle, I hope I shall have fortitude enough to renounce him then. But I would fain avoid qualifying with the wretch, or to give him an expectation which I intend not to answer. If I am mistress of my own resolutions, my uncle himself shall not prevail with me to bind my soul in covenant with so vile a man.” ↩
The Lady, in her minutes, owns the difficulty she lay under to keep her temper in this conference. “But when I found,” says she, “that all my entreaties were ineffectual, and that he was resolved to detain me, I could no longer withhold my impatience.” ↩
The Lady mentions, in her memorandum-book, that she had no other way, as is apprehended, to save herself from instant dishonour, but by making this concession. Her only hope, now, she says, if she cannot escape by Dorcas’s connivance, (whom, nevertheless she suspects), is to find a way to engage the protection of her uncle, and even of the civil magistrate, on Thursday next, if necessary. “He shall see,” says she, “tame and timid as he thought me, what I dare to do, to avoid so hated a compulsion, and a man capable of a baseness so premeditatedly vile and inhuman.” ↩
See Letter 263. ↩
The lady had made an attempt to send away a letter. ↩
See the preceding Letter. ↩
See the next Letter. ↩
See Letter 175. ↩
See Letter 261. ↩
See Letter 171. ↩
Mrs. Norton, having only the family representation and invectives to form her judgment upon, knew not that Clarissa had determined against going off with Mr. Lovelace; nor how solicitous she had been to procure for herself any other protection than his, when she apprehended that, if she stayed, she had no way to avoid being married to Mr. Solmes. ↩
See the next letter. ↩
See Letter 229. ↩
See Letter 252. ↩
See Letter 275. ↩
The letter she encloses was Mr. Lovelace’s forged one. See Letter 239. ↩
See Letter 238. ↩
See Letter 240. ↩
His forged letter. See Letter 239. ↩
It is proper to observe, that there was a more natural reason than this that the Lady gives for Mr. Lovelace’s blushing. It was a blush of indignation, as he owned afterwards to his friend Belford, in conversation; for the pretended Lady Betty had mistaken her cue, in condemning the house; and he had much ado to recover the blunder; being obliged to follow her lead, and vary from his first design; which was to have the people of the house spoken well of, in order to induce her to return to it, were it but on pretence to direct her clothes to be carried to Hampstead. ↩
The attentive reader need not be referred back for what the Lady nevertheless could not account for, as she knew not that Mr. Lovelace had come at Miss Howe’s letters; particularly that in Letter 183 which he comments upon in Letter 183. ↩
See Letter 239. ↩
See Letter 229. ↩
See Letter 251. ↩
Dr. Lewen, in Letter 427 presses her to this public prosecution, by arguments worthy of his character; which she answers in a manner worthy of hers. See Letter 428. ↩
See the note in Letter 315. ↩
The seven-o’clock prayers at St. Dunstan’s have been since discontinued. ↩
See Letter 320. ↩
See Letter 330. ↩
See Letter 252. ↩
See Letter 339. ↩
See Letter 336. ↩
This was printed as June in the published work but is clearly an error. —Editor ↩
See Mr. Lovelace’s billet to Miss Howe, Letter 332. ↩
See Letter 344. ↩
The 24th of July, Miss Clarissa Harlowe’s birthday. ↩
See the preceding Letter. ↩
See Letter 327. ↩
