Pamela Or Virtue Rewarded Quotes

The first collection which he published, intituled PAMELA, exhibited the beauty and superiority of virtue in an innocent and unpolished mind, with the reward which often, even in this life, a protecting Providence bestows on goodness. A young woman of low degree, relating to her honest parents the severe trials she met with from a master who ought to have been the protector, not the assailer of her honour, shews the character of a libertine in its truly contemptible light.

What then, presumptuous Pamela, dost thou here, thought I? Quit with Speed these guilty Banks, and flee from these dashing Waters, that even in their sounding Murmurs, this still Night, reproach thy Rashness! Tempt not God's Good|ness on the mossy Banks, that have been Witnesses of thy guilty Intentions; and while thou hast Power left thee, avoid the tempting Evil, lest thy grand Enemy, now repuls'd by Divine Grace, and due Reflection, return to the Charge with a Force that thy Weakness may not be able to resist! And lest one rash Moment destroy all the Convictions, which now have aw'd thy rebellious Mind into Duty and Resignation to the Divine Will!

O, Sir, said I, either I have not Words, or else the English Tongue affords them not, to express sufficiently my Gratitude. Learn me, dear Sir, continued I, and pressed his dear Hands to my Lips, learn me some other Language, if there be any, that abounds with more grateful Terms, that I may not thus be choaked with Meanings, for which I can find no adequate Utterance.

let me read over again that fearful letter of yours, that I may get it by heart, and with it feed my distress, and make calamity familiar to me.