rms with an ardor--that displeased me not on
reflection. But at the time startled me. He then thanked me again
on one knee. I held out the hand he had not in his, with intent to
raise him; for I could not speak. He received it as a token of
favor; kissed it with ardor; arose; _again_ pressed my cheeks with
his lips. I was too much surprised to repulse him with anger; but
was he not too free? Am I a prude, my dear?

Restrain, check me, madam, whenever I seem to trespass on your
goodness. Yet how shall I forbear to wish you to hasten the day
that shall make you wholly mine? You will the rather allow me to
wish it, as you will then be more than ever your own mistress;
though you have always been generously left to a discretion that
never was more deservedly trusted to. Your will, madam, will ever
comprehend mine.

The verisimilitude of Richardson's novels, which is made so striking by
his feminine attention to detail, may seem destroyed to modern readers
by the apparent improbability of the narrative itself. It appears
strange that young girls like Pamela or Clarissa should be so entirely
in the power of their seducers, that incidents should be repeated with
impunity which the existence of a police force would seem to make
impossible. But the reader whose sense of probability is shocked by the
unpunished and uninterrupted villanies of Mr. B. and of Lovelace, can
find evidence of the security with which such crimes could be committed
by the rich and influential in the Newgate calendar. The forcible
detention in his own house, by Lord Baltimore, of a young girl, his
atrocious treatment of her, and his escape from punishment, are
incidents in real life not more remarkable than the fictions of the
novelist.

Sir Walter Scott lamented, early in the present century, the neglect
into which the works of Richardson had fallen. That neglect has not
since been diminished, for obvious reasons. "Surely, sir," said Erskine
to Johnson, "Richardson is very tedious." "Why, sir," was the
lexicographer's reply, "if you were to read Richardson for the story,
your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself,
but you must read him for the sentiment, and consider the story as only
giving occasion to the sentiment." But the reader of today will agree
with Erskine in thinking that Richardson is tedious. We have so many
good novels which do not require the attention and lab