Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) by Samuel Richardson

S >> Samuel Richardson >> Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9)

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23

* See Vol. VIII. Letter LVII.

I broke it open accordingly, and found in it no less than eleven letters,
each sealed with her own seal, and black wax, one of which was directed
to me.

I will enclose a copy of it.

TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
SUNDAY EVENING, SEPT. 3.

SIR,

I take this last and solemn occasion to repeat to you my thanks for all
your kindness to me at a time when I most needed countenance and
protection.

A few considerations I beg leave, as now at your perusal of this, from
the dead, to press upon you, with all the warmth of a sincere friendship.

By the time you will see this, you will have had an instance, I humbly
trust, of the comfortable importance of a pacified conscience, in the
last hours of one, who, to the last hour, will wish your eternal welfare.

The great Duke of Luxemburgh, as I have heard, on his death-bed,
declared, that he would then much rather have had it to reflect upon,
that he had administered a cup of cold water to a worthy poor creature in
distress, than that he had won so many battles as he had triumphed for.
And, as one well observes, All the sentiments of worldly grandeur vanish
at that unavoidable moment which decides the destiny of men.

If then, Sir, at the tremendous hour it be thus with the conquerors of
armies, and the subduers of nations, let me in a very few words (many are
not needed,) ask, What, at that period, must be the reflection of those,
(if capable of reflection,) who have lived a life of sense and offence;
whose study and whose pride most ingloriously have been to seduce the
innocent, and to ruin the weak, the unguarded, and the friendless; made
still more friendless by their base seductions?--O Mr. Belford, weigh,
ponder, and reflect upon it, now that, in health, and in vigour of mind
and body, the reflections will most avail you--what an ungrateful, what
an unmanly, what a meaner than reptile pride is this!

In the next place, Sir, let me beg of you, for my sake, who AM, or, as
now you will best read it, have been, driven to the necessity of applying
to you to be the executor of my will, that you will bear, according to
that generosity which I think to be in you, with all my friends, and
particularly with my brother, (who is really a worthy young man, but
perhaps a little too headstrong in his first resentments and conceptions
of things,) if any thing, by reason of this trust, should fall out
disagreeably; and that you will study to make peace, and to reconcile all
parties; and more especially, that you, who seem to have a great
influence upon your still-more headstrong friend, will interpose, if
occasion be, to prevent farther mischief--for surely, Sir, that violent
spirit may sit down satisfied with the evils he has already wrought; and,
particularly, with the wrongs, the heinous and ignoble wrongs, he has in
me done to my family, wounded in the tenderest part of its honour.

For your compliance with this request I have already your repeated
promise. I claim the observance of it, therefore, as a debt from you:
and though I hope I need not doubt it, yet was I willing, on this solemn,
this last occasion, thus earnestly to re-inforce it.

I have another request to make to you; it is only, that you will be
pleased, by a particular messenger, to forward the enclosed letters as
directed.

And now, Sir, having the presumption to think that an useful member is
lost to society by means of the unhappy step which has brought my life so
soon to its period, let me hope that I may be an humble instrument, in
the hands of Providence, to reform a man of your abilities; and then I
shall think that loss will be more abundantly repaired to the world,
while it will be, by God's goodness, my gain; and I shall have this
farther hope, that once more I shall have an opportunity in a blessed
eternity to thank you, as I now repeatedly do, for the good you have done
to, and the trouble you will have taken for, Sir,

Your obliged servant,
CLARISSA HARLOWE.

***

The other letters are directed to her father, to her mother, one to her
two uncles, to her brother, to her sister, to her aunt Hervey, to her
cousin Morden, to Miss Howe, to Mrs. Norton, and lastly one to you, in
performance of her promise, that a letter should be sent you when she
arrived at her father's house!----I will withhold this last till I can
be assured that you will be fitter to receive it than Tourville tells me
you are at present.

Copies of all these are sealed up, and entitled, Copies of my ten
posthumous letters, for J. Belford, Esq.; and put in among the bundle of
papers left to my direction, which I have not yet had leisure to open.

No wonder, while able, that she was always writing, since thus only of
late could she employ that time, which heretofore, from the long days she
made, caused so many beautiful works to spring from her fingers. It is
my opinion, that there never was a woman so young, who wrote so much, and
with such celerity. Her thoughts keeping pace, as I have seen, with her
pen, she hardly ever stopped or hesitated; and very seldom blotted out,
or altered. It was a natural talent she was mistress of, among many
other extraordinary ones. I gave the Colonel his letter, and ordered
Harry instantly to get ready to carry the others. Mean time (retiring
into the next apartment) we opened the will. We were both so much
affected in perusing it, that at one time the Colonel, breaking off, gave
it to me to read on; at another I gave it back to him to proceed with;
neither of us being able to read it through without such tokens of
sensibility as affected the voice of each.

Mrs. Lovick, Mrs. Smith, and her nurse, were still more touched, when we
read those articles in which they are respectively remembered: but I will
avoid mentioning the particulars, (except in what relates to the thread
of my narration,) as in proper time I shall send you a copy of it.

The Colonel told me, he was ready to account with me for the money and
bills brought up from Harlowe-place; which would enable me, as he said,
directly to execute the legacy parts of the will; and he would needs at
the instant force into my hands a paper relating to that subject. I put
it into my pocket-book, without looking into it; telling him, that as I
hoped he would do all in his power to promote a literal performance of
the will, I must beg his advice and assistance in the execution of it.

Her request to be buried with her ancestors, made a letter of the
following import necessary, which I prevailed upon the Colonel to write;
being unwilling myself (so early at least,) to appear officious in the
eye of a family which probably wishes not any communication with me.

TO JAMES HARLOWE, JUN. ESQ.

SIR,

The letter which the bearer of this brings with him, will, I presume,
make it unnecessary to acquaint you and my cousins with the death of the
most excellent of women. But I am requested by her executor, who will
soon send you a copy of her last will, to acquaint her father (which I
choose to do by your means,) that in it she earnestly desires to be laid
in the family-vault, at the feet of her grandfather.

If her father will not admit of it, she has directed her body to be
buried in the church-yard of the parish where she died.

I need not tell you, that a speedy answer to this is necessary.

Her beatification commenced yesterday afternoon, exactly at forty minutes
after six.

I can write no more, than that I am

Your's, &c.
WM. MORDEN.

FRIDAY MORN. SEPT. 8.

By the time this was written, and by the Colonel's leave transcribed,
Harry was booted and spurred, his horse at the door; and I delivered him
the letters to the family, with those to Mrs. Norton and Miss Howe,
(eight in all,) together with the above of the Colonel to Mr. James
Harlowe; and gave him orders to use the utmost dispatch with them.

The Colonel and I have bespoke mourning for our selves and servants.

LETTER XIII

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
SAT. TEN O'CLOCK.

Poor Mrs. Norton is come. She was set down at the door; and would have
gone up stairs directly. But Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick being together
and in tears, and the former hinting too suddenly to the truly-venerable
woman the fatal news, she sunk down at her feet in fits; so that they
were forced to breath a vein to bring her to herself, and to a capacity
of exclamation; and then she ran on to Mrs. Lovick and me, who entered
just as she recovered, in praise of the lady, in lamentations for her,
and invectives against you; but yet so circumscribed were her invectives,
that I could observe in them the woman well educated, and in her
lamentations the passion christianized, as I may say.

She was impatient to see the corpse. The women went up with her. But
they owned that they were too much affected themselves on this occasion
to describe her extremely-affecting behaviour.

With trembling impatience she pushed aside the coffin-lid. She bathed
the face with her tears, and kissed her cheeks and forehead, as if she
were living. It was she indeed! she said; her sweet young lady! her very
self! Nor had death, which changed all things, a power to alter her
lovely features! She admired the serenity of her aspect. She no doubt
was happy, she said, as she had written to her she should be; but how
many miserable creatures had she left behind her!--The good woman
lamenting that she herself had lived to be one of them.

It was with difficulty they prevailed upon her to quit the corpse; and
when they went into the next apartment, I joined them, and acquainted her
with the kind legacy her beloved young lady had left her; but this rather
augmented than diminished her concern. She ought, she said, to have
attended her in person. What was the world to her, wringing her hands,
now the child of her bosom, and of her heart, was no more? Her principal
consolation, however, was, that she should not long survive her. She
hoped, she said, that she did not sin, in wishing she might not.

It was easy to observe, by the similitude of sentiments shown in this and
other particulars, that the divine lady owed to this excellent woman many
of her good notions.

I thought it would divert the poor gentlewoman, and not altogether
unsuitably, if I were to put her upon furnishing mourning for herself; as
it would rouse her, by a seasonable and necessary employment, from that
dismal lethargy of grief, which generally succeeds to the violent anguish
with which a gentle nature is accustomed to be torn upon the first
communication of the unexpected loss of a dear friend. I gave her
therefore the thirty guineas bequeathed to her and to her son for
mourning; the only mourning which the testatrix has mentioned; and
desired her to lose no time in preparing her own, as I doubted not, that
she would accompany the corpse, if it were permitted to be carried down.

The Colonel proposes to attend the hearse, if his kindred give him not
fresh cause of displeasure; and will take with him a copy of the will.
And being intent to give the family some favourable impressions of me, he
desired me to permit him to take with him the copy of the posthumous
letter to me; which I readily granted. He is so kind as to promise me a
minute account of all that should pass on the melancholy occasion. And
we have begun a friendship and settled a correspondence, which but one
incident can possibly happen to interrupt to the end of our lives. And
that I hope will not happen.

But what must be the grief, the remorse, that will seize upon the hearts
of this hitherto-inexorable family, on the receiving of the posthumous
letters, and that of the Colonel apprizing them of what has happened? I
have given requisite orders to an undertaker, on the supposition that the
body will be permitted to be carried down; and the women intend to fill
the coffin with aromatic herbs.

The Colonel has obliged me to take the bills and draughts which he
brought up with him, for the considerable sums which accrued since the
grandfather's death from the lady's estate.

I could have shown to Mrs. Norton the copies of the two letters which she
missed by coming up. But her grief wants not the heightenings which the
reading of them would have given her.

***

I have been dipping into the copies of the posthumous letters to the
family, which Harry has carried down. Well may I call this lady divine.
They are all calculated to give comfort rather than reproach, though
their cruelty to her merited nothing but reproach. But were I in any of
their places, how much rather had I, that she had quitted scores with me
by the most severe recrimination, than that she should thus nobly triumph
over me by a generosity that has no example? I will enclose some of
them, which I desire you to return as soon as you can.

LETTER XIV

TO THE EVER-HONOURED JAS. HARLOWE, SEN. ESQ.

MOST DEAR SIR,

With exulting confidence now does your emboldened daughter come into your
awful presence by these lines, who dared not, but upon this occasion, to
look up to you with hopes of favour and forgiveness; since, when this
comes to your hands, it will be out of her power ever to offend you more.

And now let me bless you, my honoured Papa, and bless you, as I write,
upon my knees, for all the benefits I have received from your indulgence:
for your fond love to me in the days of my prattling innocence: for the
virtuous education you gave me: and for, the crown of all, the happy end,
which, through divine grace, by means of that virtuous education, I hope,
by the time you will receive this, I shall have made. And let me beg of
you, dear, venerable Sir, to blot out from your remembrance, if possible,
the last unhappy eight months; and then I shall hope to be remembered
with advantage for the pleasure you had the goodness to take in your
Clarissa.

Still on her knees, let your poor penitent implore your forgiveness of
all her faults and follies; more especially of that fatal error which
threw her out of your protection.

When you know, Sir, that I have never been faulty in my will; that ever
since my calamity became irretrievable, I have been in a state of
preparation; that I have the strongest assurance that the Almighty has
accepted my unfeigned repentance; and that by this time you will (as I
humbly presume to hope,) have been the means of adding one to the number
of the blessed; you will have reason for joy rather than sorrow. Since,
had I escaped the snares by which I was entangled, I might have wanted
those exercises which I look upon now as so many mercies dispensed to
wean me betimes from a world that presented itself to me with prospects
too alluring; and in that case (too easily satisfied with the worldly
felicity) I might not have attained to that blessedness, in which now,
on your reading of this, I humbly presume, (through the divine goodness,)
I am rejoicing.

That the Almighty, in his own good time, will bring you, Sir, and my
ever-honoured mother, after a series of earthly felicities, of which my
unhappy fault be the only interruption, (and very grievous I know that
must have been,) to rejoice in the same blessed state, is the repeated
prayer of, Sir,

Your now happy daughter,
CLARISSA HARLOWE.

LETTER XV

TO THE EVER-HONOURED MRS. HARLOWE

HONOURED MADAM,

The last time I had the boldness to write to you, it was with all the
consciousness of a self-convicted criminal, supplicating her offended
judge for mercy and pardon. I now, by these lines, approach you with
more assurance; but nevertheless with the highest degree of reverence,
gratitude, and duty. The reason of my assurance, my letter to my papa
will give; and as I humbly on my knees implored his pardon, so now, in
the same dutiful manner, do I supplicate your's, for the grief and
trouble I have given you.

Every vein of my heart has bled for an unhappy rashness; which, (although
involuntary as to the act,) from the moment it was committed, carried
with it its own punishment; and was accompanied with a true and sincere
penitence.

God, who has been a witness of my distresses, knows that, great as they
have been, the greatest of all was the distress that I knew I must have
given to you, Madam, and to my father, by a step that had so very ugly an
appearance in your eyes and his; and indeed in the eyes of all my family;
a step so unworthy of your daughter, and of the education you had given
her.

But HE, I presume to hope, has forgiven me; and, at the instant this will
reach your hands, I humbly trust, I shall be rejoicing in the blessed
fruits of his forgiveness. And be this your comfort, my ever-honoured
Mamma, that the principal end of your pious care for me is attained,
though not in the way so much hoped for.

May the grief which my fatal error has given to you both, be the only
grief that shall ever annoy you in this world!--May you, Madam, long live
to sweeten the cares, and heighten the comforts, of my papa!--May my
sister's continued, and, if possible, augmented duty, happily make up to
you the loss you have sustained in me! And whenever my brother and she
change their single state, may it be with such satisfaction to you both
as may make you forget my offence; and remember me only in those days in
which you took pleasure in me! And, at last, may a happy meeting with
your forgiven penitent, in the eternal mansions, augment the bliss of
her, who, purified by sufferings already, when this salutes your hands,
presumes she shall be

The happy and for ever happy
CLARISSA HARLOWE.

LETTER XVI

TO JAMES HARLOWE, JUN. ESQ.

SIR,

There was but one time, but one occasion, after the rash step I was
precipitated upon, that I would hope to be excused looking up to you
in the character of a brother and friend. And NOW is that time, and
THIS the occasion. NOW, at reading this, will you pity your late unhappy
sister! NOW will you forgive her faults, both supposed and real! And
NOW will you afford to her memory that kind concern which you refused to
her before!

I write, my Brother, in the first place, to beg your pardon for the
offence my unhappy step gave to you, and to the rest of a family so dear
to me.

Virgin purity should not so behave as to be suspected, yet, when you come
to know all my story, you will find farther room for pity, if not more
than pity, for your late unhappy sister!

O that passion had not been deaf! That misconception would have given
way to inquiry! That your rigorous heart, if it could not itself be
softened (moderating the power you had obtained over every one) had
permitted other hearts more indulgently to expand!

But I write not to give pain. I had rather you should think me faulty
still, than take to yourself the consequence that will follow from
acquitting me.

Abandoning therefore a subject which I had not intended to touch upon,
(for I hope, at the writing of this, I am above the spirit of
recrimination,) let me tell you, Sir, that my next motive for writing to
you in this last and most solemn manner is, to beg of you to forego any
active resentments (which may endanger a life so precious to all your
friends) against the man to whose elaborate baseness I owe my worldly
ruin.

For, ought an innocent man to run an equal risque with a guilty one?--
A more than equal risque, as the guilty one has been long inured to acts
of violence, and is skilled in the arts of offence?

You would not arrogate to yourself God's province, who has said,
Vengeance is mine, and I will repay it. If you would, I tremble for the
consequence: For will it not be suitable to the divine justice to punish
the presumptuous innocent (as you would be in this case) in the very
error, and that by the hand of the self-defending guilty--reserving him
for a future day of vengeance for his accumulated crimes?

Leave then the poor wretch to the divine justice. Let your sister's
fault die with her. At least, let it not be revived in blood. Life is a
short stage where longest. A little time hence, the now-green head will
be grey, if it lives this little time: and if Heaven will afford him time
for repentance, why should not you?

Then think, my Brother, what will be the consequence to your dear
parents, if the guilty wretch, who has occasioned to them the loss of a
daughter, should likewise deprive them of their best hope, and only son,
more worth in the family account than several daughters?

Would you add, my Brother, to those distresses which you hold your sister
so inexcusable for having (although from involuntary and undersigned
causes) given?

Seek not then, I beseech you, to extend the evil consequences of your
sister's error. His conscience, when it shall please God to touch it,
will be sharper than your sword.

I have still another motive for writing to you in this solemn manner: it
is, to entreat you to watch over your passions. The principal fault I
knew you to be guilty of is, the violence of your temper when you think
yourself in the right; which you would oftener be, but for that very
violence.

You have several times brought your life into danger by it.

Is not the man guilty of a high degree of injustice, who is more apt
to give contradiction, than able to bear it? How often, with you, has
impetuosity brought on abasement? A consequence too natural.

Let me then caution you, dear Sir, against a warmth of temper, an
impetuosity when moved, and you so ready to be moved, that may hurry you
into unforeseen difficulties; and which it is in some measure a sin not
to endeavour to restrain. God enable you to do it for the sake of your
own peace and safety, as well present as future! and for the sake of your
family and friends, who all see your fault, but are tender of speaking to
you of it!

As for me, my Brother, my punishment has been seasonable. God gave me
grace to make a right use of my sufferings. I early repented. I never
loved the man half so much as I hated his actions, when I saw what he was
capable of. I gave up my whole heart to a better hope. God blessed my
penitence and my reliance upon him. And now I presume to say, I AM
HAPPY.

May Heave preserve you in safety, health, and honour, and long continue
your life for a comfort and stay to your honoured parents! And may you,
in that change of your single state, meet with a wife as agreeable to
every one else as to yourself, and be happy in a hopeful race, and not
have one Clarissa among them, to embitter your comforts when she should
give you most comfort! But may my example be of use to warn the dear
creatures whom once I hoped to live to see and to cherish, of the evils
with which the deceitful world abounds! are the prayers of

Your affectionate sister,
CL. HARLOWE.

LETTER XVII

TO MISS HARLOWE

Now may you, my dear Arabella, unrestrained by the severity of your
virtue, let fall a pitying tear on the past faults and sufferings of
your late unhappy sister; since, now, she can never offend you more.
The Divine mercy, which first inspired her with repentance (an early
repentance it was; since it preceded her sufferings) for an error which
she offers not to extenuate, although perhaps it were capable of some
extenuation, has now, as the instant that you are reading this, as I
humbly hope, blessed her with the fruits of it.

Thus already, even while she writes, in imagination purified and exalted,
she the more fearlessly writes to her sister; and now is assured of
pardon for all those little occasions of displeasure which her forwarder
youth might give you; and for the disgrace which her fall has fastened
upon you, and upon her family.

May you, my Sister, continue to bless those dear and honoured relations,
whose indulgence so well deserves your utmost gratitude, with those
cheerful instances of duty and obedience which have hitherto been so
acceptable to them, and praise-worthy in you! And may you, when a
suitable proposal shall offer, fill up more worthily that chasm, which
the loss they have sustained in me has made in the family!

Thus, my Arabella! my only sister! and for many happy years, my friend!
most fervently prays that sister, whose affection for you, no acts, no
unkindness, no misconstruction of her conduct, could cancel! And who
NOW, made perfect (as she hopes) through sufferings, styles herself,

The happy
CLARISSA HARLOWE.

LETTER XVIII

TO JOHN AND ANTONY HARLOWE, ESQRS.

HONOURED SIRS,

When these lines reach your hands, your late unhappy niece will have
known the end of all her troubles; and, as she humbly hopes, will be
rejoicing in the mercies of a gracious God, who has declared, that he
will forgive the truly penitent of heart.

I write, therefore, my dear uncles, and to you both in one letter (since
your fraternal love has made you both but as one person) to give you
comfort, and not distress; for, however sharp my afflictions have been,
they have been but of short duration; and I am betimes (happily as I
hope) arrived at the end of a painful journey.

At the same time I write to thank you both for all your kind indulgence
to me, and to beg your forgiveness of my last, my only great fault to
you and to my family.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23