Evelina, or: a Young Lady's Entrance into the World/Volume 1/Letter IX
LETTER IX.
Mr. Villars to Evelina.
To resist the urgency of entreaty, is a power which I have not yet acquired: I aim not at an au|thority which deprives you of liberty, yet I would fain guide myself by a prudence which should save me the pangs of repentance. Your impatience to fly to a place which your imagination has painted to you in colours so attractive, surprizes me not; I have only to hope that the liveliness of your fancy may not deceive you: to refuse, would be to raise it still higher. To see my Evelina happy, is to see myself without a wish: go then, my child, and may that Heaven which alone can, direct, preserve, and strengthen you! To That, my love, will I daily offer prayers for your felicity; O may it guard, watch over you! defend you from danger, save you from distress, and keep vice as distant from your person as from your heart! And to Me, may it grant the ultimate blessing of closing these aged eyes in the arms of one so dear—so deservedly beloved!