Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady Volume VII Part 49

** Vol. VI. Letter x.x.xVI. in the pen-knife-scene.

Yet in both these to find her power over me, and my love for her, and to hate, to despise, and to refuse me!--She might have done this with some show of justice, had the last-intended violation been perpetrated:--but to go away conqueress and triumphant in every light!--Well may she despise me for suffering her to do so.

She left me low and mean indeed!--And the impression holds with her.--I could tear my flesh, that I gave her not cause--that I humbled her not indeed;--or that I staid not in town to attend her motions instead of Lord M.'s, till I could have exalted myself, by giving to myself a wife superior to all trial, to all temptation.

I will venture one more letter to her, however; and if that don't do, or procure me an answer, then will I endeavour to see her, let what will be the consequence. If she get out of my way, I will do some n.o.ble mischief to the vixen girl whom she most loves, and then quit the kingdom for ever.

And now, Jack, since thy hand is in at communicating the contents of private letters, tell her this, if thou wilt. And add to it, That if SHE abandon me, G.o.d will: and what then will be the fate of

Her LOVELACE.

LETTER LXXVIII

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

[IN ANSWER TO LETTER LXV. OF THIS VOLUME.]

MONDAY, AUG. 7.

And so you have actually delivered to the fair implacable extracts of letters written in the confidence of friendship! Take care--take care, Belford--I do indeed love you better than I love any man in the world: but this is a very delicate point. The matter is grown very serious to me. My heart is bent upon having her. And have her I will, though I marry her in the agonies of death.

She is very earnest, you say, that I will not offer to molest her. That, let me tell her, will absolutely depend upon herself, and the answer she returns, whether by pen and ink, or the contemptuous one of silence, which she bestowed upon my last four to her: and I will write it in such humble, and in such reasonable terms, that, if she be not a true Harlowe, she shall forgive me. But as to the executorship which she is for conferring upon thee--thou shalt not be her executor: let me perish if thou shalt.--Nor shall she die. n.o.body shall be any thing, n.o.body shall dare to be any thing, to her, but I--thy happiness is already too great, to be admitted daily to her presence; to look upon her, to talk to her, to hear her talk, while I am forbid to come within view of her window-- What a reprobation is this, of the man who was once more dear to her than all the men in the world!--And now to be able to look down upon me, while her exalted head is hid from me among the stars, sometimes with scorn, at other times with pity; I cannot bear it.

This I tell thee, that if I have not success in my effort by letter, I will overcome the creeping folly that has found its way to my heart, or I will tear it out in her presence, and throw it at her's, that she may see how much more tender than her own that organ is, which she, and you, and every one else, have taken the liberty to call callous.

Give notice of the people who live back and edge, and on either hand, of the cursed mother, to remove their best effects, if I am rejected: for the first vengeance I shall take will be to set fire to that den of serpents. Nor will there be any fear of taking them when they are in any act that has the relish of salvation in it, as Shakspeare says--so that my revenge, if they perish in the flames I shall light up, will be complete as to them.

LETTER LXXIX

MR. LOVELACE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE MONDAY, AUG. 7.

Little as I have reason to expect either your patient ear, or forgiving heart, yet cannot I forbear to write to you once more, (as a more pardonable intrusion, perhaps, than a visit would be,) to beg of you to put it in my power to atone, as far as it is possible to atone, for the injuries I have done you.

Your angelic purity, and my awakened conscience, are standing records of your exalted merit, and of my detestable baseness: but your forgiveness will lay me under an eternal obligation to you.--Forgive me then, my dearest life, my earthly good, the visible anchor of my future hope!--As you, (who believe you have something to be forgiven for,) hope for pardon yourself, forgive me, and consent to meet me, upon your own conditions, and in whose company you please, at the holy altar, and to give yourself a t.i.tle to the most repentant and affectionate heart that ever beat in a human bosom.

But, perhaps, a time of probation may be required. It may be impossible for you, as well from indisposition as doubt, so soon to receive me to absolute favour as my heart wishes to be received. In this case, I will submit to your pleasure; and there shall be no penance which you can impose that I will not cheerfully undergo, if you will be pleased to give me hope that, after an expiation, suppose of months, wherein the regularity of my future life and actions shall convince you of my reformation, you will at last be mine.

Let me beg then the favour of a few lines, encouraging me in this conditional hope, if it must not be a still nearer hope, and a more generous encouragement.

If you refuse me this, you will make me desperate. But even then I must, at all events, throw myself at your feet, that I may not charge myself with the omission of any earnest, any humble effort, to move you in my favour: for in YOU, Madam, in YOUR forgiveness, are centred my hopes as to both worlds: since to be reprobated finally by you, will leave me without expectation of mercy from above! For I am now awakened enough to think that to be forgiven by injured innocents is necessary to the Divine pardon; the Almighty putting into the power of such, (as is reasonable to believe,) the wretch who causelessly and capitally offends them. And who can be ent.i.tled to this power, if YOU are not?

Your cause, Madam, in a word, I look upon to be the cause of virtue, and, as such, the cause of G.o.d. And may I not expect that He will a.s.sert it in the perdition of a man, who has acted by a person of the most spotless purity as I have done, if you, by rejecting me, show that I have offended beyond the possibility of forgiveness.

I do most solemnly a.s.sure you that no temporal or worldly views induce me to this earnest address. I deserve not forgiveness from you. Nor do my Lord M. and his sisters from me. I despise them from my heart for presuming to imagine that I will be controuled by the prospect of any benefits in their power to confer. There is not a person breathing, but yourself, who shall prescribe to me. Your whole conduct, Madam, has been so n.o.bly principled, and your resentments are so admirably just, that you appear to me even in a divine light; and in an infinitely more amiable one at the same time than you could have appeared in, had you not suffered the barbarous wrongs, that now fill my mind with anguish and horror at my own recollected villany to the most excellent of women.

I repeat, that all I beg for the present is a few lines to guide my doubtful steps; and, if possible for you so far to condescend, to encourage me to hope that, if I can justify my present vows by my future conduct, I may be permitted the honour to style myself,

Eternally your's, R. LOVELACE.

LETTER Lx.x.x

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO LORD M. AND TO THE LADIES OF HIS HOUSE [IN REPLY TO MISS MONTAGUE'S OF AUG. 7. SEE LETTER LXXVI. OF THIS VOLUME.]

TUESDAY, AUG. 8.

Excuse me, my good Lord, and my ever-honoured Ladies, from accepting of your n.o.ble quarterly bounty; and allow me to return, with all grateful acknowledgement, and true humility, the enclosed earnest of your goodness to me. Indeed I have no need of the one, and cannot possibly want the other: but, nevertheless have such a sense of your generous favour, that, to my last hour, I shall have pleasure in contemplating upon it, and be proud of the place I hold in the esteem of such venerable persons, to whom I once had the ambition to hope to be related.

But give me leave to express my concern that you have banished your kinsman from your presence and favour: since now, perhaps, he will be under less restraint than ever; and since I in particular, who had hoped by your influence to remain unmolested for the remainder of my days, may again be subjected to his persecutions.

He has not, my good Lord, and my dear Ladies, offended against you, as he has against me; yet you could all very generously intercede for him with me: and shall I be very improper, if I desire, for my own peace-sake; for the sake of other poor creatures, who may still be injured by him, if he be made quite desperate; and for the sake of all your worthy family; that you will extend to him that forgiveness which you hope for from me? and this the rather, as I presume to think, that his daring and impetuous spirit will not be subdued by violent methods; since I have no doubt that the gratifying of a present pa.s.sion will be always more prevalent with him than any future prospects, however unwarrantable the one, or beneficial the other.

Your resentments on my account are extremely generous, as your goodness to me is truly n.o.ble: but I am not without hope that he will be properly affected by the evils he has made me suffer; and that, when I am laid low and forgotten, your whole honourable family will be enabled to rejoice in his reformation; and see many of those happy years together, which, my good Lord, and my dear Ladies, you so kindly wish to

Your ever-grateful and obliged CLARISSA HARLOWE.

LETTER Lx.x.xI

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

THURSDAY NIGHT, AUG. 10.

You have been informed by Tourville, how much Belton's illness and affairs have engaged me, as well as Mowbray and him, since my former.

I called at Smith's on Monday, in my way to Epsom.

The lady was gone to chapel: but I had the satisfaction to hear she was not worse; and left my compliments, and an intimation that I should be out of town for three or four days.

I refer myself to Tourville, who will let you know the difficulty we had to drive out this meek mistress, and frugal manager, with her cubs, and to give the poor fellow's sister possession for him of his own house; he skulking mean while at an inn at Croydon, too dispirited to appear in his own cause.

But I must observe that we were probably but just in time to save the shattered remains of his fortune from this rapacious woman, and her accomplices: for, as he cannot live long, and she thinks so, we found she had certainly taken measures to set up a marriage, and keep possession of all for herself and her sons.

Tourville will tell you how I was forced to chastise the quondam hostler in her sight, before I could drive him out of the house. He had the insolence to lay hands on me: and I made him take but one step from the top to the bottom of a pair of stairs. I thought his neck and all his bones had been broken. And then, he being carried out neck-and-heels, Thomasine thought fit to walk out after him.

Charming consequences of keeping; the state we have been so fond of extolling!--Whatever it may be thought of in strong health, sickness and declining spirits in the keeper will bring him to see the difference.

She should soon have him, she told a confidant, in the s.p.a.ce of six foot by five; meaning his bed: and then she would let n.o.body come near him but whom she pleased. This hostler-fellow, I suppose, would then have been his physician; his will ready made for him; and widows' weeds probably ready provided; who knows, but she to appear in them in his own sight? as once I knew an instance in a wicked wife; insulting a husband she hated, when she thought him past recovery: though it gave the man such spirits, and such a turn, that he got over it, and lived to see her in her coffin, dressed out in the very weeds she had insulted him in.

So much, for the present, for Belton and his Thomasine.