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

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Mr. Mowbray then recites some lines from that poem, describing a
distracted man, and runs the parallel; and then, priding himself
in his performance, says:

Let me tell you, that had I begun to write as early as you and Lovelace,
I might have cut as good a figure as either of you. Why not? But boy or
man I ever hated a book. 'Tis folly to lie. I loved action, my boy. I
hated droning; and have led in former days more boys from their book,
than ever my master made to profit by it. Kicking and cuffing, and
orchard-robbing, were my early glory.

But I am tired of writing. I never wrote such a long letter in my life.
My wrist and my fingers and thumb ache d----n----y. The pen is an
hundred weight at least. And my eyes are ready to drop out of my head
upon the paper.--The cramp but this minute in my fingers. Rot the goose
and the goose-quill! I will write no more long letters for a
twelve-month to come. Yet one word; we think the mad fellow coming to.
Adieu.

LETTER XXIII

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
UXBRIDGE, SAT. SEPT. 9.

JACK,

I think it absolutely right that my ever-dear and beloved lady should be
opened and embalmed. It must be done out of hand this very afternoon.
Your acquaintance, Tomkins, and old Anderson of this place, I will bring
with me, shall be the surgeons. I have talked to the latter about it.

I will see every thing done with that decorum which the case, and the
sacred person of my beloved require.

Every thing that can be done to preserve the charmer from decay shall
also be done. And when she will descend to her original dust, or cannot
be kept longer, I will then have her laid in my family-vault, between my
own father and mother. Myself, as I am in my soul, so in person, chief
mourner. But her heart, to which I have such unquestionable pretensions,
in which once I had so large a share, and which I will prize above my
own, I will have. I will keep it in spirits. It shall never be out of
my sight. And all the charges of sepulture too shall be mine.

Surely nobody will dispute my right to her. Whose was she living?--Whose
is she dead but mine?--Her cursed parents, whose barbarity to her, no
doubt, was the true cause of her death, have long since renounced her.
She left them for me. She chose me therefore; and I was her husband.
What though I treated her like a villain? Do I not pay for it now?
Would she not have been mine had I not? Nobody will dispute but she
would. And has she not forgiven me?--I am then in statu quo prius with
her, am I not? as if I had never offended?--Whose then can she be but
mine?

I will free you from your executorship, and all your cares.

Take notice, Belford, that I do hereby actually discharge you, and every
body, from all cares and troubles relating to her. And as to her last
testament, I will execute it myself.

There were no articles between us, no settlements; and she is mine, as
you see I have proved to a demonstration; nor could she dispose of
herself but as I pleased.--D----n----n seize me then if I make not good
my right against all opposers!

Her bowels, if her friends are very solicitous about them, and very
humble and sorrowful, (and none have they of their own,) shall be sent
down to them--to be laid with her ancestors--unless she has ordered
otherwise. For, except that, she shall not be committed to the unworthy
earth so long as she can be kept out of it, her will shall be performed
in every thing.

I send in the mean time for a lock of her hair.

I charge you stir not in any part of her will but by my express
direction. I will order every thing myself. For am I not her husband?
and, being forgiven by her, am I not the chosen of her heart? What else
signifies her forgiveness?

The two insufferable wretches you have sent me plague me to death, and
would treat me like a babe in strings.--D--n the fellows, what end can
they mean by it? Yet that crippled monkey Doleman joins with them. And,
as I hear them whisper, they have sent for Lord M.--to controul me, I
suppose.

What I write to you for is,

1. To forbid you intermeddling with any thing relating to her. To
forbid Morden intermeddling also. If I remember right, he has threatened
me, and cursed me, and used me ill--and let him be gone from her, if he
would avoid my resentment.

2. To send me a lock of her hair instantly by the bearer.

3. To engage Tomkins to have every thing ready for the opening and
embalming. I shall bring Anderson with me.

4. To get her will and every thing ready for my perusal and
consideration.

I will have possession of her dear heart this very night; and let Tomkins
provide a proper receptacle and spirits, till I can get a golden one made
for it.

I will take her papers. And, as no one can do her memory justice equal
to myself, and I will not spare myself, who can better show the world
what she was, and what a villain he that could use her ill? And the
world shall also see what implacable and unworthy parents she had.

All shall be set forth in words at length. No mincing of the matter.
Names undisguised as well as facts. For, as I shall make the worst
figure in it myself, and have a right to treat myself as nobody else
shall, who shall controul me? who dare call me to account?

Let me know, if the d----d mother be yet the subject of the devil's own
vengeance--if the old wretch be dead or alive? Some exemplary mischief
I must yet do. My revenge shall sweep away that devil, and all my
opposers of the cruel Harlowe family, from the face of the earth. Whole
hecatombs ought to be offered up to the manes of my Clarissa Lovelace.

Although her will may in some respects cross mine, yet I expect to be
observed. I will be the interpreter of her's.

Next to mine, her's shall be observed: for she is my wife, and shall be
to all eternity.--I will never have another.

Adieu, Jack, I am preparing to be with you. I charge you, as you value
my life or your own, do not oppose me in any thing relating to my
Clarissa Lovelace.

My temper is entirely altered. I know not what it is to laugh, or smile,
or be pleasant. I am grown choleric and impatient, and will not be
controuled.

I write this in characters as I used to do, that nobody but you should
know what I write. For never was any man plagued with impertinents as
I am.

R. LOVELACE.

IN A SEPARATE PAPER ENCLOSED IN THE ABOVE.

Let me tell thee, in characters still, that I am in a dreadful way just
now. My brain is all boiling like a cauldron over a fiery furnace. What
a devil is the matter with me, I wonder! I never was so strange in my
life.

In truth, Jack, I have been a most execrable villain. And when I
consider all my actions to the angel of a woman, and in her the piety,
the charity, the wit, the beauty, I have helped to destroy, and the good
to the world I have thereby been a mean of frustrating, I can pronounce
d----n----n upon myself. How then can I expect mercy any where else?

I believe I shall have no patience with you when I see you. Your d----d
stings and reflections have almost turned my brain.

But here Lord M. they tell me, is come!--D----n him, and those who sent
for him!

I know not what I have written. But her dear heart and a lock of her
hair I will have, let who will be the gainsayers! For is she not mine?
Whose else can she be? She has no father nor mother, no sister, no
brother, no relations but me. And my beloved is mine, and I am her's--
and that's enough.--But Oh!--

She's out. The damp of death has quench'd her quite!
Those spicy doors, her lips, are shut, close lock'd,
Which never gale of life shall open more!

And is it so?--Is it indeed so?--Good God!--Good God!--But they will not
let me write on. I must go down to this officious Peer--Who the devil
sent for him?

LETTER XXIV

MR. BELFORD, TO RICHARD MOWBRAY, ESQ.
SUNDAY, SEPT. 10. FOUR IN THE AFTERNOON.

I have your's, with our unhappy friend's enclosed. I am glad my Lord is
with him. As I presume that his phrensy will be but of short
continuance, I most earnestly wish, that on his recovery he could be
prevailed upon to go abroad. Mr. Morden, who is inconsolable, has seen
by the will, (as indeed he suspected before he read it,) that the case
was more than a common seduction; and has dropt hints already, that he
looks on himself, on that account, as freed from his promises made to the
dying lady, which were, that he would not seek to avenge her death.

You must make the recovery of his health the motive for urging him on
this head; for, if you hint at his own safety, he will not stir, but
rather seek the Colonel.

As to the lock of hair, you may easily pacify him, (as you once saw the
angel,) with hair near the colour, if he be intent upon it.

At my Lord's desire I will write on, and in my common hand; that you may
judge what is, and what is not, fit to be read to Mr. Lovelace at
present. But as I shall not forbear reflections as I go along, in hopes
to reach his heart on his recovery, I think it best to direct myself to
him still, and that as if he were not disordered.

As I shall not have leisure to take copies, and yet am willing to have
the whole subject before me, for my own future contemplation, I must
insist upon a return of my letters some time hence. Mr. Lovelace knows
that this is one of my conditions; and has hitherto complied with it.

Thy letter, Mowbray, is an inimitable performance. Thou art a strange
impenetrable creature. But let me most earnestly conjure thee, and the
idle flutterer, Tourville, from what you have seen of poor Belton's exit;
from our friend Lovelace's phrensy, and the occasion of it; and from the
terrible condition in which the wretched Sinclair lies; to set about an
immediate change of life and manners. For my own part, I am determined,
be your resolutions what they may, to take the advice I give.

As witness,
J. BELFORD.

LETTER XXV

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

O Lovelace! I have a scene to paint in relation to the wretched Sinclair,
that, if I do it justice, will make thee seriously ponder and reflect, or
nothing can. I will lead thee to it in order; and that in my usual hand,
that thy compeers may be able to read it as well as thyself.

When I had written the preceding letter, not knowing what to do with
myself, recollecting, and in vain wishing for that delightful and
improving conversation, which I had now for ever lost; I thought I had as
good begin the task, which I had for some time past resolved to begin;
that is to say, to go to church; and see if I could not reap some benefit
from what I should hear there. Accordingly I determined to go to hear
the celebrated preacher at St. James's church. But, as if the devil (for
so I was then ready to conclude) thought himself concerned to prevent my
intention, a visit was made me, just as I was dressed, which took me off
from my purpose.

From whom should this visit be, but from Sally Martin, accompanied by
Mrs. Carter, the sister of the infamous Sinclair! the same, I suppose I
need not tell you, who keeps the bagnio near Bloomsbury.

These told me that the surgeon, apothecary, and physician, had all given
the wretched woman over; but that she said, she should not die, nor be at
rest, till she saw me; and they besought me to accompany them in the
coach they came in, if I had one spark of charity, of christian charity,
as they called it, left.

I was very loth to be diverted from my purpose by a request so unwelcome,
and from people so abhorred; but at last went, and we got thither by ten;
where a scene so shocking presented itself to me, that the death of poor
desponding Belton is not, I think, to be compared with it.

The old wretch had once put her leg out by her rage and violence, and had
been crying, scolding, cursing, ever since the preceding evening, that
the surgeon had told her it was impossible to save her; and that a
mortification had begun to show itself; insomuch that, purely in
compassion to their own ears, they had been forced to send for another
surgeon, purposely to tell her, though against his judgment, and (being a
friend of the other) to seem to convince him, that he mistook the case;
and that if she would be patient, she might recover. But, nevertheless,
her apprehensions of death, and her antipathy to the thoughts of dying,
were so strong, that their imposture had not the intended effect, and she
was raving, crying, cursing, and even howling, more like a wolf than a
human creature, when I came; so that as I went up stairs, I said, Surely
this noise, this howling, cannot be from the unhappy woman! Sally said
it was; and assured me, that it was noting to the noise she had made all
night; and stepping into her room before me, dear Madam Sinclair, said
she, forbear this noise! It is more like that of a bull than a woman!--
Here comes Mr. Belford; and you'll fright him away if you bellow at this
rate.

There were no less than eight of her cursed daughters surrounding her bed
when I entered; one of her partners, Polly Horton, at their head; and now
Sally, her other partner, and Madam Carter, as they called her, (for they
are all Madams with one another,) made the number ten; all in shocking
dishabille, and without stays, except Sally, Carter, and Polly; who, not
daring to leave her, had not been in bed all night.

The other seven seemed to have been but just up, risen perhaps from their
customers in the fore-house, and their nocturnal orgies, with faces,
three or four of them, that had run, the paint lying in streaky seams not
half blowzed off, discovering coarse wrinkled skins: the hair of some of
them of divers colours, obliged to the black-lead comb where black was
affected; the artificial jet, however, yielding apace to the natural
brindle: that of others plastered with oil and powder; the oil
predominating: but every one's hanging about her ears and neck in broken
curls, or ragged ends; and each at my entrance taken with one motion,
stroking their matted locks with both hands under their coifs, mobs, or
pinners, every one of which was awry. They were all slip-shoed;
stockingless some; only under-petticoated all; their gowns, made to cover
straddling hoops, hanging trollopy, and tangling about their heels; but
hastily wrapt round them, as soon as I came up stairs. And half of them
(unpadded, shoulder-bent, pallid-lips, limber-jointed wretches)
appearing, from a blooming nineteen or twenty perhaps over-night, haggard
well-worn strumpets of thirty-eight or forty.

I am the more particular in describing to thee the appearance these
creatures made in my eyes when I came into the room, because I believe
thou never sawest any of them, much less a group of them, thus unprepared
for being seen.* I, for my part, never did before; nor had I now, but
upon this occasion, being thus favoured. If thou hadst, I believe thou
wouldst hate a profligate woman, as one of Swift's yahoos, or Virgil's
obscene harpies, squirting their ordure upon the Trojan trenches; since
the persons of such in their retirements are as filthy as their minds.--
Hate them as much as I do; and as much as I admire, and next to adore, a
truly virtuous and elegant woman: for to me it is evident, that as a neat
and clean woman must be an angel of a creature, so a sluttish one is the
impurest animal in nature. But these were the veterans, the chosen band;
for now-and-then flitted in to the number of half a dozen or more, by
turns, subordinate sinners, under-graduates, younger than some of the
chosen phalanx, but not less obscene in their appearance, though indeed
not so much beholden to the plastering focus; yet unpropt by stays,
squalid, loose in attire, sluggish-haired, uner-petticoated only as the
former, eyes half-opened, winking and pinking, mispatched, yawning,
stretching, as if from the unworn-off effects of the midnight revel; all
armed in succession with supplies of cordials (of which every one present
was either taster or partaker) under the direction of the busier Dorcas,
who frequently popt in, to see her slops duly given and taken.

* Whoever has seen Dean Swift's Lady's Dressing room, will think this
description of Mr. Belford's not only more natural, but more decent
painting, as well as better justified by the design, and by the use that
may be made of it.

But when I approached the old wretch, what a spectacle presented itself
to my eyes!

Her misfortune has not at all sunk, but rather, as I thought, increased
her flesh; rage and violence perhaps swelling her muscular features.
Behold her, then, spreading the whole troubled bed with her huge quaggy
carcase: her mill-post arms held up; her broad hands clenched with
violence; her big eyes, goggling and flaming ready as we may suppose
those of a salamander; her matted griesly hair, made irreverend by her
wickedness (her clouted head-dress being half off, spread about her fat
ears and brawny neck;) her livid lips parched, and working violently;
her broad chin in convulsive motion; her wide mouth, by reason of the
contraction of her forehead (which seemed to be half-lost in its own
frightful furrows) splitting her face, as it were, into two parts; and
her huge tongue hideously rolling in it; heaving, puffing as if four
breath; her bellows-shaped and various-coloured breasts ascending by
turns to her chin, and descending out of sight, with the violence of her
gaspings.

This was the spectacle, as recollection has enabled me to describe it,
that this wretch made to my eye, by her suffragans and daughters, who
surveyed her with scouling frighted attention, which one might easily
see had more in it of horror and self-concern (and self-condemnation too)
than of love or pity; as who should say, See! what we ourselves must one
day be!

As soon as she saw me, her naturally-big voice, more hoarsened by her
ravings, broke upon me: O Mr. Belford! O Sir! see what I am come to!--
See what I am brought to!--To have such a cursed crew about me, and not
one of them to take care of me! But to let me tumble down stairs so
distant from the room I went from! so distant from the room I meant to go
to!--Cursed, cursed be every careless devil!--May this or worse be their
fate every one of them!

And then she cursed and swore most vehemently, and the more, as two or
three of them were excusing themselves on the score of their being at
that time as unable to help themselves as she. As soon as she had
cleared the passage of her throat by the oaths and curses which her wild
impatience made her utter, she began in a more hollow and whining strain
to bemoan herself. And here, said she--Heaven grant me patience!
[clenching and unclenching her hands] am I to die thus miserably!--of a
broken leg in my old age!--snatched away by means of my own intemperance!
Self-do! Self-undone!--No time for my affairs! No time to repent!--And
in a few hours (Oh!--Oh!--with another long howling O--h!--U--gh--o! a
kind of screaming key terminating it) who knows, who can tell where I
shall be?--Oh! that indeed I never, never, had had a being!

What could one say to such a wretch as this, whose whole life had been
spent in the most diffusive wickedness, and who no doubt has numbers of
souls to answer for? Yet I told her, she must be patient: that her
violence made her worse: and that, if she would compose herself, she
might get into a frame more proper for her present circumstances.

Who, I? interrupted she: I get into a better frame! I, who can neither
cry, nor pray! Yet already feel the torments of the d----d! What mercy
can I expect? What hope is left for me?--Then, that sweet creature! that
incomparable Miss Harlowe! she, it seems, is dead and gone! O that
cursed man! Had it not been for him! I had never had this, the most
crying of all my sins, to answer for!

And then she set up another howl.

And is she dead?--Indeed dead? proceeded she, when her howl was over--O
what an angel have I been the means of destroying! For though it was
that it was mine, and your's, and your's, and your's, devils as we all
were [turning to Sally, to Polly, and to one or two more] that he did not
do her justice! And that, that is my curse, and will one day be yours!
And then again she howled.

I still advised patience. I said, that if her time were to be so short
as she apprehended, the more ought she to endeavour to compose herself:
and then she would at least die with more ease to herself--and
satisfaction to her friends, I was going to say--But the word die put her
into a violent raving, and thus she broke in upon me. Die, did you say,
Sir?--Die!--I will not, I cannot die!--I know not how to die!--Die, Sir!
--And must I then die?--Leave this world?--I cannot bear it!--And who
brought you hither, Sir?--[her eyes striking fire at me] Who brought you
hither to tell me I must die, Sir?--I cannot, I will not leave this
world. Let others die, who wish for another! who expect a better!--I
have had my plagues in this; but would compound for all future hopes, so
as I may be nothing after this!

And then she howled and bellowed by turns.

By my faith, Lovelace, I trembled in every joint; and looking upon her
who spoke this, and roared thus, and upon the company round me, I more
than once thought myself to be in one of the infernal mansions.

Yet will I proceed, and try, for thy good, if I can shock thee but half
as much with my descriptions, as I was shocked with what I saw and heard.

Sally!--Polly!--Sister Carter! said she, did you not tell me I might
recover? Did not the surgeon tell me I might?

And so you may, cried Sally; Monsieur Garon says you may, if you'll be
patient. But, as I have often told you this blessed morning, you are
reader to take despair from your own fears, than comfort from all the
hope we can give you.

Yet, cried the wretch, interrupting, does not Mr. Belford (and to him you
have told the truth, though you won't to me; does not he) tell me that I
shall die?--I cannot bear it! I cannot bear the thoughts of dying!

And then, but that half a dozen at once endeavoured to keep down her
violent hands, would she have beaten herself; as it seems she had often
attempted to do from the time the surgeon popt out the word mortification
to her.

Well, but to what purpose, said I (turning aside to her sister, and to
Sally and Polly), are these hopes given her, if the gentlemen of the
faculty give her over? You should let her know the worst, and then she
must submit; for there is no running away from death. If she had any
matters to settle, put her upon settling them; and do not, by telling her
she will live, when there is no room to expect it, take from her the
opportunity of doing needful things. Do the surgeons actually give her
over?

They do, whispered they. Her gross habit, they say, gives no hopes. We
have sent for both surgeons, whom we expect every minute.

Both the surgeons (who are French; for Mrs. Sinclair has heard Tourville
launch out in the praise of French surgeons) came in while we were thus
talking. I retired to the farther end of the room, and threw up a window
for a little air, being half-poisoned by the effluvia arising from so
many contaminated carcases; which gave me no imperfect idea of the stench
of gaols, which, corrupting the ambient air, gives what is called the
prison distemper.

I came back to the bed-side when the surgeons had inspected the fracture;
and asked them, If there were any expectation of her life?

One of them whispered me, there was none: that she had a strong fever
upon her, which alone, in such a habit, would probably do the business;
and that the mortification had visibly gained upon her since they were
there six hours ago.

Will amputation save her? Her affairs and her mind want settling. A
few days added to her life may be of service to her in both respects.

They told me the fracture was high in her leg; that the knee was greatly
bruised; that the mortification, in all probability, had spread half-way
of the femur: and then, getting me between them, (three or four of the
women joining us, and listening with their mouths open, and all the signs
of ignorant wonder in their faces, as there appeared of self-sufficiency
in those of the artists,) did they by turns fill my ears with an
anatomical description of the leg and thigh; running over with terms of
art, of the tarsus, the metatarsus, the tibia, the fibula, the patella,
the os tali, the os tibae, the tibialis posticus and tibialis anticus, up
to the os femoris, to the acetabulum of the os ischion, the great
trochanter, glutaeus, triceps, lividus, and little rotators; in short, of
all the muscles, cartilages, and bones, that constitute the leg and thigh
from the great toe to the hip; as if they would show me, that all their
science had penetrated their heads no farther than their mouths; while
Sally lifted up her hands with a Laud bless me! Are all surgeons so
learned!--But at last both the gentlemen declared, that if she and her
friends would consent to amputation, they would whip off her leg in a
moment.

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