Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 8
Page 51
LETTER L
MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.UXBRIDGE, SEPT. 1, TWELVE O'CLOCK AT NIGHT.
I send you the papers with this. You must account to me honestly andfairly, when I see you, for the earnestness with which you write forthem. And then also will we talk about the contents of your lastdispatch, and about some of your severe and unfriendly reflections.
Mean time, whatever thou dost, don't let the wonderful creature leave us!Set before her the sin of her preparation, as if she thought she coulddepart when she pleased. She'll persuade herself, at this rate, that shehas nothing to do, when all is ready, but to lie down, and go to sleep:and such a lively fancy as her's will make a reality of a jest at anytime.
A jest I call all that has passed between her and me; a mere jest to diefor--For has not her triumph over me, from first to last, been infinitelygreater than her sufferings from me?
Would the sacred regard I have for her purity, even for her personal aswell as intellectual purity, permit, I could prove this as clear as thesun. Tell, therefore, the dear creature that she must not be wicked inher piety. There is a too much, as well as too little, even inrighteousness. Perhaps she does not think of that.--Oh! that she wouldhave permitted my attendance, as obligingly as she does of thine!--Thedear soul used to love humour. I remember the time that she knew how tosmile at a piece of apropos humour. And, let me tell thee, a smile uponthe lips, or a sparkling in the eye, must have had its correspondentcheerfulness in a heart so sincere as her's.
Tell the doctor I will make over all my possessions, and all myreversions, to him, if he will but prolong her life for one twelvemonthto come. But for one twelvemonth, Jack!--He will lose all his reputationwith me, and I shall treat him as Belton did his doctor, if he cannot dothis for me, on so young a subject. But nineteen, Belford!--nineteencannot so soon die of grief, if the doctor deserve that title; and soblooming and so fine a constitution as she had but three or four monthsago!
But what need the doctor to ask her leave to write to her friends? Couldhe not have done it without letting her know any thing of the matter?That was one of the likeliest means that could be thought of to bringsome of them about her, since she is so desirous to see them. At leastit would have induced them to send up her favourite Norton. But theseplaguy solemn fellows are great traders in parade. They'll cram downyour throat their poisonous drugs by wholesale, without asking you aquestion; and have the assurance to own it to be prescribing: but whenthey are to do good, they are to require your consent.
How the dear creature's character rises in every line of thy letters!But it is owing to the uncommon occasions she has met with that sheblazes out upon us with such a meridian lustre. How, but for thoseoccasions, could her noble sentiments, her prudent consideration, herforgiving spirit, her exalted benevolence, and her equanimity in view ofthe most shocking prospects (which set her in a light so superior to allher sex, and even to the philosophers of antiquity) have been manifested?
I know thou wilt think I am going to claim some merit to myself, forhaving given her such opportunities of signalizing her virtues. But I amnot; for, if I did, I must share that merit with her implacablerelations, who would justly be entitled to two-thirds of it, at least:and my soul disdains a partnership in any thing with such a family.
But this I mention as an answer to thy reproaches, that I could be solittle edified by perfections, to which, thou supposest, I was for solong together daily and hourly a personal witness--when, admirable as shewas in all she said, and in all she did, occasion had not at that timeripened, and called forth, those amazing perfections which now astonishand confound me.
Hence it is that I admire her more than ever; and that my love for her isless personal, as I may say, more intellectual, than ever I thought itcould be to a woman.
Hence also it is that I am confident (would it please the Fates to spareher, and make her mine) I could love her with a purity that would draw onmy own FUTURE, as well as ensure her TEMPORAL, happiness.--And hence, bynecessary consequence, shall I be the most miserable of all men, if I amdeprived of her.
Thou severely reflectest upon me for my levity: the Abbey instance inthine eye, I suppose. And I will be ingenuous enough to own, that asthou seest not my heart, there may be passages, in every one of myletters, which (the melancholy occasion considered) deserve thy mostpointed rebukes. But faith, Jack, thou art such a tragi-comical mortal,with thy leaden aspirations at one time, and thy flying hour-glasses anddreaming terrors at another, that, as Prior says, What serious is, thouturn'st to farce; and it is impossible to keep within the bounds ofdecorum or gravity when one reads what thou writest.
But to restrain myself (for my constitutional gayety was ready to runaway with me again) I will repeat, I must ever repeat, that I am mostegregiously affected with the circumstances of the case: and, were thisparagon actually to quit the world, should never enjoy myself one hourtogether, though I were to live to the age of Methusalem.
Indeed it is to this deep concern, that my levity is owing: for Istruggle and struggle, and try to buffet down my cruel reflections asthey rise; and when I cannot, I am forced, as I have often said, to tryto make myself laugh, that I may not cry; for one or other I must do: andis it not philosophy carried to the highest pitch, for a man to conquersuch tumults of soul as I am sometimes agitated by, and, in the veryheight of the storm, to be able to quaver out an horse-laugh?
Your Seneca's, your Epictetus's, and the rest of your stoical tribe, withall their apathy nonsense, could not come up to this. They could forbearwry faces: bodily pains they could well enough seem to support; and thatwas all: but the pangs of their own smitten-down souls they could notlaugh over, though they could at the follies of others. They read gravelectures; but they were grave. This high point of philosophy, to laughand be merry in the midst of the most soul-harrowing woes, when theheart-strings are just bursting asunder, was reserved for thy Lovelace.
There is something owing to constitution, I own; and that this is thelaughing-time of my life. For what a woe must that be, which for an hourtogether can mortify a man six or seven and twenty, in high blood andspirits, of a naturally gay disposition, who can sing, dance, andscribble, and take and give delight in them all?--But then my grief, asmy joy, is sharper-pointed than most other men's; and, like what DollyWelby once told me, describing the parturient throes, if there were notlucid intervals, if they did not come and go, there would be no bearingthem.
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After all, as I am so little distant from the dear creature, and as sheis so very ill, I think I cannot excuse myself from making her one visit.Nevertheless, if I thought her so near--[what word shall I use, that mysoul is not shocked at!] and that she would be too much discomposed by avisit, I would not think of it.--Yet how can I bear the recollection,that, when she last went from me (her innocence so triumphant over mypremeditated guilt, as was enough to reconcile her to life, and to sether above the sense of injuries so nobly sustained, that) she should thendepart with an incurable fracture in her heart; and that that should bethe last time I should ever see her!--How, how, can I bear thisreflection!
O Jack! how my conscience, that gives edge even to thy blunt reflections,tears me!--Even this moment would I give the world to push the cruelreproacher from me by one ray of my usual gayety!--Sick of myself!--sickof the remembrance of my vile plots; and of my light, my momentaryecstacy [villanous burglar, felon, thief, that I was!] which has broughton me such durable and such heavy remorse! what would I give that I hadnot been guilty of such barbarous and ungrateful perfidy to the mostexcellent of God's creatures!
I would end, methinks, with one sprightlier line!--but it will not be.--Let me tell thee then, and rejoice at it if thou wilt, that I am
Inexpressibly miserable!