Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 9 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 358 pages of information about Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 9.

Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 9 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 358 pages of information about Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 9.

He found it not difficult to induce her to proceed in the guilty commerce, till the effects of it became to apparent to be hid.  Her parents then (in the first fury of their disappointment, and vexation for being deprived of all hopes of such a son-in-law) turned her out of doors.

Her disgrace thus published, she became hardened; and, protected by her seducer, whose favourite mistress she then was, she was so incensed against her parents for an indignity so little suiting with her pride, and the head they had always given her, that she refused to return to them, when, repenting of their passionate treatment of her, they would have been reconciled to her:  and, becoming the favourite daughter of her mother Sinclair, at the persuasions of that abandoned woman she practised to bring on an abortion, which she effected, though she was so far gone that it had like to have cost her her life.

Thus, unchastity her first crime, murder her next, her conscience became seared; and, young as she was, and fond of her deceiver, soon grew indelicate enough, having so thorough-paced a school-mistress, to do all she could to promote the pleasures of the man who had ruined her; scrupling not, with a spirit truly diabolical, to endeavour to draw in others to follow her example.  And it is hardly to be believed what mischiefs of this sort she was the means of effecting; woman confiding in and daring woman; and she a creature of specious appearance, and great art.

A still viler wickedness, if possible, remains to be said of Sally Martin.

Her father dying, her mother, in hopes to reclaim her, as she called it, proposed her to quit the house of the infamous Sinclair, and to retire with her into the country, where her disgrace, and her then wicked way of life, would not be known; and there so to live as to save appearances; the only virtue she had ever taught her; besides that of endeavouring rather to delude than be deluded.

To this Sally consented; but with no other intention, as she often owned, (and gloried in it,) than to cheat her mother of the greatest part of her substance, in revenge for consenting to her being turned out of doors long before, and by way of reprisal for having persuaded her father, as she would have it, to cut her off, in his last will, from any share in his fortune.

This unnatural wickedness, in half a year’s time, she brought about; and then the serpent retired to her obscene den with her spoils, laughing at what she had done; even after it had broken her mother’s heart, as it did in a few months’ time:  a severe, but just punishment for the unprincipled education she had given her.

It ought to be added, that this was an iniquity of which neither Mr. Lovelace, nor any of his friends, could bear to hear her boast; and always checked her for it whenever she did; condemning it with one voice.  And it is certain that this, and other instances of her complicated wickedness, turned early Lovelace’s heart against her; and, had she not been subservient to him in his other pursuits, he would not have endured her:  for, speaking of her, he would say, Let not any one reproach us, Jack:  there is no wickedness like the wickedness of a woman.*

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Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 9 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.