MihaElla > Recent Status Updates

[what age is she, Jack? the devil never trumped up a friendship between a man and a woman, of anything like years, which did not end in matrimony, or in the ruin of their morals!]

Sickness palls every appetite,and makes us hate what we loved; but renewed health changes the scene; disposes us to be pleased with ourselves;and then we are in a way to be pleased with every one else. Every hope, then, rises upon us; every hour presents itself to us on dancing feet; and what Mr Addison says of liberty, may, with still greater propriety, be said of health, for what is liberty itself without health?

But this is my way. I mean no harm. I cannot let sorrow touch my heart. I cannot be grave six minutes together, for the blood of me. I am a descendant of old Chancellor Moore, I believe; and should not forbear to cut a joke, were I upon the scaffold. But you may gather, from what I have said, that I prefer Miss Harlowe, and that upon the justest grounds, to all the women in the world;

You will think very meanly of your Clarissa, if you do not believe, that the greatest pleasure she can receive in this life is in your prosperity and welfare. Think not of me, my only friend, but as we were in times past: and suppose me gone a great, great way off!—A long journey!—How often are the dearest of friends, at their country's call, thus parted—with a certainty for years—with a probability for ever

This is one advantage, as I believe I have elsewhere observed, that we male-delinquents in love-matters have of the other sex:—for, while they, poor things! sit sighing in holes and corners, or run to woods and groves to bemoan themselves on their baffled hopes, we can rant and roar, hunt and hawk; and, by new loves, banish from our hearts all remembrance of the old ones.

As to myself, I hope I have a great deal of time before me; since I intend one day to be a reformed man. I have very serious reflections now and then. Yet am I half afraid of the truth of what my charmer once told me, that a man cannot repent when he will.—Not to hold it, I suppose she meant! By fits and starts I have repented a thousand times.

She looked at me very earnestly. What she thought, I cannot say; but, in general, I never saw so much soul in a woman's eyes as in hers.

A line! a line! a kingdom for a line! with tolerable news, the first moment thou canst write!—This fellow waits to bring it.

But, after all, it would be very whimsical, would it not, if all my plots and contrivances should end in wedlock? What a punishment should this come out to be, upon myself too, that all this while I have been plundering my own treasury?

Love, (like some self-propagating plants, or roots, which have taken strong hold in the earth) when once got deep into the heart, is hardly ever totally extirpated, except by matrimony indeed, which is the grave of love, because it allows of the end of love.

Lord M. [Interrupting me.] Words are wind, but deeds are mind: What signifies your cursed quibbling, Bob?—Say plainly, if she will have you, will you have her? Answer me, yes or no; and lead us not a wild-goose chase after your meaning.

“were it not for hope, the heart would break.”

Help me to my CLARISSA;& thou shalt have a letter from me,or writing at least part of a letter,every hour.All that the charmer of my heart shall say,that will I put down.Every motion,every air of her beloved person,every look,will I try to describe;& when she is silent,I will endeavour to tell thee her thoughts,either what they are,or what I would have them to be—so that, having her,I shall never want a subject

And they live in good understanding with each other; a proof with me that their hearts are right; for where a married couple live together upon ill terms, it is a sign, I think, that each knows something amiss of the other, either with regard to temper or morals, which if the world knew as well as themselves, it would, perhaps, as little like them as such people like each other.

it is my opinion, that it would be very right for the law to oblige an injured woman to prosecute, and to make seduction on the man's part capital, where his studied baseness, and no fault in her will, appeared.
To this purpose the custom in the Isle of Man is a very good one—

[…] and yet, my dear Mrs Norton, I will own to you, that once I could have loved him.—Ungrateful man! —had he permitted me to love him, I once could have loved him. Yet he never deserved my love. And was not this a fault?

But my injuries being recent, and my distresses having been exceeding great, self would crowd into my letter. When distressed, the human mind is apt to turn itself to every one, in whom it imagined or wished an interest, for pity or consolation.—Or, to express myself better, and more concisely, in your own words, misfortune makes people plaintive: And to whom, if not to a friend, can the afflicted complain?

[…] But for the lady, by my soul, I love her. I admire her more than ever! I must have her. I will have her still—with honour or without, as I have often vowed…

I tried by gentleness and love to soften—What?—Marble. A heart incapable either of love or gentleness. Her past injuries for ever in her head.

She was ready dressed. And charmingly she looked, with all the disadvantages of a three-hours violent stomach-ache—no rest, and eyes red and swelled with weeping. Strange to me that those charming fountains have not been long ago exhausted! But she is a woman. And, I believe, anatomists allow, that women have more watery heads than men.

O Jack! had I an imperial diadem, I swear to thee, that I would give it up, even to my enemy, to have one charming boy by this lady. And should she escape me, and no such effect follow, my revenge on her family, and, in such a case, on herself, would be incomplete, and I should reproach myself as long as I lived.

What force [allow me a serious reflection, Jack: it will be put down! What force] have evil habits upon the human mind! When we enter upon a devious course, we think we shall have it in our power when we will to return to the right path. But it is not so, I plainly see

I am confoundedly out of conceit with myself. If I give up my contrivances, my joy in stratagem, and plot, and invention, I shall be but a common man; such another dull heavy creature as thyself. Yet what does even my success in my machinations bring me but regret, disgrace, repentance? But I am overmatched, egregiously overmatched, by this woman. What to do with her, or without her, I know not.

Now, indeed, do I from my heart wish that I had never known this lady. But who would have thought there had been such a woman in the world? Of all the sex I have hitherto known, or heard, or read of, it was once subdued, and always subdued. The first struggle was generally the last; or, at least, the subsequent struggles were so much fainter and fainter, that a man would rather have them than be without them.

Never blame me for giving way to have art used with this admirable creature. All the princes of the air, or beneath it, joining with me, could never have subdued her while she had her senses.

“—If you love me—but that you don't—”

O Lovelace, you are Satan himself; or he helps you out in everything; and that's as bad!

But have you really and truly sold yourself to him? And for how long? What duration is your reign to have?

Poor man! The contract will be out; and then what will be your fate?

You knew me better than I knew myself.
But forgive now those vain triumphs of my heart.
I was too secure in the knowledge I thought I had of my own heart.
My supposed advantages became a snare to me.
And what now is the end of all?—

A Lady took a great fancy to a young lion, or a bear, I forget which—but a bear, or a tiger, I believe it was. It was made her a present of when a whelp. She fed it with her own hand; she nursed up the wicked cub with great tenderness; and would play with it without fear or apprehension of danger; and it was obedient to all her commands; and its tameness, as she used to boast, increased with its growth;

Last night, for the first time since Monday last, she got to her pen and ink; but she pursues her writing with such eagerness and hurry, as show too evidently her discomposure.
I hope, however, that this employment will help to calm her spirits…