Read "Clarissa Harlowe" by Samuel Richardson online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Tuesday, Apr. 13 Why, Jack, thou needest not make such a wonderment, as the girls say, if I should have taken large strides already towards reformation: for dost thou not see, that while I have been so assiduously, night and day, pursuing this single charmer, I have infinitely less to answer for, than otherwise I should have had? Let me see, how many days and nights? -- Forty, I believe, after open trenches, spent in the sap only, and never a mine sprung yet!
By a moderate computation, a dozen kites might have fallen, while I have been only trying to ensnare this single lark. Nor yet do I see when I shall be able to bring her to my lure: more innocent days yet, therefore! -- But reformation for my stalking-horse, I hope, will be a sure, though a slow method to effect all my purposes.