ll. The very contrary. But
now are we come to the test, whether she cannot be brought to make the
best of an irreparable evil. If she exclaim, [she has reason to exclaim,
and I will sit down with patience by the hour together to hear her
exclamations, till she is tired of them,] she will then descend to
expostulation perhaps: expostulation will give me hope: expostulation
will show that she hates me not. And, if she hate me not, she will
forgive: and, if she now forgive, then will all be over; and she will be
mine upon my own terms: and it shall then be the whole study of my future
life to make her happy.

* See Vol. III. Letter XVIII.

So, Belford, thou seest that I have journeyed on to this stage [indeed,
through infinite mazes, and as infinite remorses] with one determined
point in view from the first. To thy urgent supplication then, that I
will do her grateful justice by marriage, let me answer in Matt. Prior's
two lines on his hoped-for auditorship; as put into the mouths of his St.
John and Harley;

---Let that be done, which Matt. doth say.
YEA, quoth the Earl--BUT NOT TO-DAY.

Thou seest, Jack, that I make no resolutions, however, against doing her,
one time or other, the wished-for justice, even were I to succeed in my
principal view, cohabitation. And of this I do assure thee, that, if I
ever marry, it must, it shall be Miss Clarissa Harlowe.--Nor is her
honour at all impaired with me, by what she has so far suffered: but the
contrary. She must only take care that, if she be at last brought to
forgive me, she show me that her Lovelace is the only man on earth whom
she could have forgiven on the like occasion.

But ah, Jack! what, in the mean time, shall I do with this admirable
creature? At present--[I am loth to say it--but, at present] she is
quite stupified.

I had rather, methinks, she should have retained all her active powers,
though I had suffered by her nails and her teeth, than that she should be
sunk into such a state of absolute--insensibility (shall I call it?) as
she has been in every since Tuesday morning. Yet, as she begins a little
to revive, and now-and-then to call names, and to exclaim, I dread almost
to engage with the anguish of a spirit that owes its extraordinary
agitations to a niceness that has no example either in ancient or modern
story. For, after all, what is there in her case that should stupify
such a glowing, such a blooming charmer?--Excess of