[Page 3] THE HISTORY OF Clarissa Harlowe. VOL. VI. LETTER I. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Tuesday Morning, June 20. Well, Jack, now are we upon another foot together. This dear creature will not let me be good. She is now authorizing all my plots by her own example. Thou must be partial in the highest degree, if now thou blamest me for resuming my former schemes, since in that case I shall but follow her clue. No forced construction of her actions do I make on this occasion in order to justify a bad cause or a worse intention. A slight pretence, indeed, served the Wolf, when he had a mind to quarrel with the Lamb; but this is not now my case. For here [Wouldst thou have thought it?]...
LETTER II. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Tuesday Morning, 10 o'Clock. Very ill---Exceeding ill---as Dorcas tells me, in order to avoid seeing me---And yet the dear soul may be so in her mind. But is not that equivocation? Some one passion predominating, in every human breast, breaks thro' principle, and controuls us all. Mine is Love and Revenge taking turns. Hers is Hatred.---But this is my consolation, that Hatred appeased, is Love begun; or Love renewed I may rather say, if Love ever had footing here. But reflectioning apart, thou seest, Jack, that her plot is beginning to work. To-morrow it is to break out. I have been abroad, to set on foot a plot of circumvention. All fair now, Belford! I insisted upon...
LETTER III. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Tired with a succession of fatiguing days and sleepless nights, and with contemplating the precarious situation I stand in with my Beloved, I fell into a profound Resverie; which brought on Sleep; and that produced a Dream; a fortunate Dream; which, as I imagine, will afford my working mind the means to effect the obliging double purpose my heart is now once more set upon. What, as I have often contemplated, is the enjoyment of the finest woman in the world, to the contrivance, the bustle, the surprizes, and at last the happy conclusion, of a well-laid plot?---The charming round-abouts, to come the nearest way home;---the doubts; the apprehensions; the heart-akings; the...
LETTER IV. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Tuesday Night, June 20. No admittance yet to my Charmer! She is very ill---in a violent fever, Dorcas thinks. Yet will have no advice. Dorcas tells her how much I am concerned at it. But again let me ask, Does this Lady do right to make herself ill, when she is not ill? For my own part, Libertine as people think me, when I had occasion to be sick, I took a dose of Ipecacuanha, that I might not be guilty of a falshood; and most heartily sick was I; as [Page 16] she, who then pitied me, full well knew. But here to pretend to be very ill, only to get an opportunity to run away, in order to avoid forgiving a man who has offended her, how unchristian!---If good folks...
LETTER V. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Wedn. Noon, June 21. What shall I say now!---I, who but a few hours ago had such faith in dreams, and had proposed out of hand to begin my treatise of Dreams sleeping and Dreams waking, and was pleasing myself with the dialoguings between the old matronly Lady, and the young Lady; and with the two metamorphoses (absolutely assured that every-thing would happen as my dream chalked it out); shall never more depend upon those flying follies, those illusions of a fancy depraved, and run mad. Thus confoundedly have matters happened. [Page 19] I went out at Eight o'clock in high good humour with myself, in order to give the sought-for opportunity to the plotting mistress and corrupted...
[Page 23] LETTER VI. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Wednesday afternoon. Disappointed in her meditated escape; obliged, against her will, to meet me in the Dining-room; and perhaps apprehensive of being upbraided for her art in feigning herself ill; I expected that the dear Perverse would begin with me with spirit and indignation. But I was in hopes, from the gentleness of her natural disposition; from the consideration which I expected from her on her situation; from the contents of the Letter of Captain Tomlinson, which Dorcas told me she had seen; and from the time she had to cool and reflect since she last admitted me to her presence, that she would not have carried it so strongly through as she did. As I...
LETTER VII. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Wednesday Night. A man is just now arrived from M. Hall, who tells me, that my Lord is in a very dangerous way. The Gout in his Stomach to an extreme degree, occasioned by drinking a great quantity of Limonade. A man of 8000l. a year to prefer his appetite to his health!---He deserves to die!---But we have all of us our inordinate passions to gratify: And they generally bring their punishment along with them.---So witnesses the Nephew, as well as the Uncle. The fellow was sent up on other business; but stretched his orders a little, to make his court to a successor. I am glad I was not at M. Hall, at the time my Lord took the grateful dose [It was certainly grateful...
LETTER VIII. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Thursday Noon, June 22. Let me perish, if I know what to make either of myself, or of this surprising creature---Now calm, now tempestuous---But I know thou lovest not anticipation any more than I. At my repeated requests, she met me at Six this morning. She was ready dressed; for she has not had her cloaths off ever since she declared, that they never more should be off in this house. And charmingly she looked, with all the disadvantages of a three hours violent Stomach-ach (for Dorcas told me that she had been really ill) no Rest, and Eyes red, and swelled with weeping. Strange to me, that those charming fountains have not been long ago exhausted! But she is a Woman. And I...
LETTER IX. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Thursday Night. Confoundedly out of humour with this perverse woman!---Nor wilt thou blame me, if thou art my friend. She regards the concession she made, as a [Page 39] concession extorted from her: And we are but just where we were before she made it. With great difficulty I prevailed upon her to favour me with her company for one half-hour this evening. The necessity I was under to go down to M. Hall, was the subject I wanted to talk upon. I told her, that as she had been so good as to promise, that she would endeavour to make herself easy till she saw the Thursday in next week over, I hoped, that she would not scruple to oblige me with her word, that I should find her...
LETTER X. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; June 23. Friday Morning. I went out early this morning, on a design that I know not yet whether I shall or shall not pursue; and on my return found Simon Parsons, my Lord's Berkshire Bailiff (just before arrived) waiting for me with a message in form, sent by all the family, to press me to go down, and that at my Lord's particular desire; who wants to see me before he dies. Simon has brought my Lord's chariot-and-six [perhaps my own by this time] to carry me down. I have ordered it to be in readiness by Four to-morrow morning. The cattle shall smoke for the delay; and by the rest they'll have in the interim, will be better able to bear it. I am still resolved upon...
LETTER XI. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Just come from the women. 'Have I gone so far, and am I afraid to go farther?---Have I not already, as it is evident by her [Page 51] behaviour, sinned beyond forgiveness?---A Woman's tears used to be to me but as water sprinkled on a glowing fire, which gives it a fiercer and brighter blaze: What defence has this Lady, but her Tears and her Eloquence? She was before taken at no weak advantage. She was insensible in her moments of trial. Had she been sensible, she must have been sensible. So they say. The methods taken with her have augmented her glory and her pride. She has now a Tale to tell, that she may tell, with honour to herself. No accomplice-inclination. She...
LETTER XII. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Just come from my Charmer. She will not suffer me to say half the obliging, the tender things, which my honest heart is ready to overflow with. A confounded situation That, when a man finds himself in humour to be eloquent, and pathetic at the same time; yet cannot engage the mistress of his fate to lend an ear to his fine speeches. I can account now, how it comes about, that Lovers, when their mistresses are cruel, run into solitude, and disburden their minds to Stocks and Stones: For am I not forced to make my complaints to Thee? She claimed the performance of my promise, the moment she saw me, of permitting her [haughtily she spoke the word] to go to Hamstead, as soon...
LETTER XIII. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Friday Night, or rather Sat. Morn. 1 o'Clock. I thought I should not have had either time or inclination to write another line before I got to M. Hall. [Page 55] But have the first; must find the last; since I can neither sleep, nor do anything but write, if I can do that. I am most confoundedly out of humour. The reason let it follow; if it will follow---No preparation for it, from me. I tried by Gentleness and Love to soften---What?---Marble. A heart incapable either of Love or Gentleness. Her past injuries for ever in her head. Ready to receive a favour; the permission to go to Hamstead; but neither to deserve it, nor return any. So my Scheme of the gentle kind was soon...
[Page 68] LETTER XIV. Mr. Lovelace, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Superscribed, To Mrs. Lovelace. M. Hall, Sat. Night, June 24. My dearest Life, If you do not impute to Love, and to Terror raised by Love, the poor figure I made before you last night, you will not do me justice. I thought I would try to the very last moment, if, by complying with you in every-thing, I could prevail upon you to promise to be mine on Thursday next, since you refused me an earlier day. Could I have been so happy, you had not been hindered going to Hamstead, or where-ever else you pleased. But when I could not prevail upon you to give me this assurance, what room had I (my demerit so great) to suppose, that your going thither would...
LETTER XV. Mr. Lovelace, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Superscribed, To Mrs. Lovelace. M. Hall, Sunday Night, June 25. My dearest Love, I cannot find words to express how much I am mortified at the return of my messenger without a line from you. Thursday is so near, that I will send messenger after messenger every Four hours, till I have a favourable answer; the one to meet the other, till its eve arrives, to know if I may venture to appear in your presence with the hope of having my wishes answered on that day. Your Love, Madam, I neither expect, nor ask for; nor will, till my future behaviour gives you cause to think I deserve it. All I at present presume to wish, is, To have it in my power to do you...
LETTER XVI. Mr. Lovelace, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Superscribed, To Mrs. Lovelace. M, Hall, Monday, June 26. Once more, my dearest Love, do I conjure you to send me the Four requested words. There is no time to be lost. And I would not have next Thursday go over, without being entitled to call you mine, for the world; and that as well for your sake as my own. Hitherto all that has passed is between you and me only; but, after Thursday, if my wishes are unanswered, the whole will be before the world. My Lord is extremely ill, and endures not to have me out of his sight for one half-hour. But this shall not have the least weight with me, if you be pleased to hold out the olive-branch to me in the Four requested words....
LETTER XVII. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Monday, June 26. Thou wilt see the situation I am in with Miss Harlowe by the inclosed copies of Three Letters; [Page 75] to Two of which I am so much scorned as not to have one word given me in answer; and of the Third (now sent by the messenger who brings thee this) I am afraid as little notice will be taken---And if so, her Day of Grace is absolutely over. One would imagine (so long used to constraint too as she has been) that she might have been satisfied with the Triumph she had over us all on Friday night: A Triumph that to this hour has sunk my pride and my vanity so much, that I almost hate the words, Plot, Contrivance, Scheme; and shall mistrust myself in future...
LETTER XVIII. Mr. Belford, To Robert Lovelace, Esq; London, June 27. Tuesday. You must excuse me, Lovelace, from engaging in the office you would have me undertake, till [Page 77] I can be better assured you really intend honourably at last by this much-injured Lady. I believe you know your friend Belford too well, to think he would be easy with you or with any man alive, who should seek to make him promise for him what he never intended to perform. And let me tell thee, that I have not much confidence in the Honour of a man, who by imitation of hands (I will only call it) has shewn so little regard to the Honour of his own relations. Only that thou hast such jesuitical qualifyings, or I should think thee at last...
LETTER XIX. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; M. Hall, June 27. Tuesday Night, near 12. Yours reached me this moment, by an extraordinary push in the messengers. What a man of honour, thou, of a sudden!--- And so, in the imaginary shape of a guarantee, thou threatenest me! Had I not been in earnest as to the Lady, I should not have offered to employ thee in the affair. But, let me say, that hadst thou undertaken the task, and I had afterwards thought fit to change my mind, I should have contented myself to tell thee, that That was my mind when thou engagedst for me, and to have given thee the reasons for the change, and then left thee to thy own direction: For never knew I what fear of man was---nor fear of...
LETTER XX. Mr. Lovelace, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Superscribed, To Mrs. Lovelace. M. Hall, Wedn. Morn. One o'Clock, June 28. Not one line, my dearest life, not one word, in answer to three Letters I have written! The time is now so short, that this must be the last Letter that can reach you on this side of the important hour that might make us legally one. My friend Mr. Belford is apprehensive, that he cannot wait upon you in time, by reason of some urgent affairs of his own. I the less regret the disappointment, because I have procured a more acceptable person, as I hope, to attend you; Captain Tomlinson I mean: To whom I had applied for this purpose, before I had Mr. Belford's answer. I was the more...
[Page 82] LETTER XXI. To Mr. Patrick McDonald, at his Lodgings, at Mr. Brown's, Perukemaker, in St. Martin's lane, Westminster. M. Hall, Wedn. Morning, two o'clock. Dear McDonald, The Bearer of this has a Letter to carry to the Lady (a) [Footnote a: 1Kb] . I have been at the trouble of writing a copy of it; which I inclose, that you may not mistake your cue. You will judge of my reasons for ante-dating the inclosed sealed one (b) [Footnote b: 1Kb] , directed to you by the name of Tomlinson; which you are to shew the Lady, as in confidence. You will open it of course. I doubt not your dexterity and management, dear McDonald; nor your zeal; especially as the hope of Cohabitation must now be given up....
LETTER XXII. To Captain Antony Tomlinson. [Inclosed in the preceding; To be shewn to the Lady as in confidence.] M. Hall, Tuesday Morn. June 27. Dear Capt. Tomlinson, An unhappy misunderstanding having arisen between the dearest Lady in the world and me (the particulars of which she perhaps may give you, but I will not, because I might be thought partial to myself); and she refusing to answer my most pressing and respectful Letters; I am at a most perplexing uncertainty whether she will meet us or not next Thursday, to solemnize. My Lord is so extremely ill, that if I thought she would not oblige me, I would defer going up to town for two or three days. He cares not to have me out of his sight: Yet is...
LETTER XXIII. To Robert Lovelace, Esq; Wedn. June 28. near 12 o'clock. Honoured Sir, I received yours, as your servant desired me to acquaint you, by ten this morning. Horse and man were in a foam. I instantly equipped myself, as if come off from a journey, and posted away to the Lady, intending to [Page 86] plead great affairs that I came not before, in order to favour your ante-date; and likewise to be in a hurry, to have a pretence to hurry her Ladyship, and to take no denial for her giving a satisfactory return to your messenger: But, upon my entering Mrs. Sinclair's house, I found all in the greatest consternation. You must not, Sir, be surprised. It is a trouble to me to be the relater of the bad news: But...
[Page 87] LETTER XXIV. Mr. Mowbray, To Robert Lovelace, Esq; Wednesday, 12 o'clock. Dear Lovelace, I have plaguy news to acquaint thee with. Miss Harlowe is gon off!---Quite gon, by my Soul!---I have not time for particulars, your servant being going off. But iff I had, we are not yet come to the bottom of the matter. The Ladies here are all blubbering like devils, accusing one another most confoundedly: Whilst Belton and I damn them all together in thy name. If thou shouldst hear that thy fellow Will. is taken dead out of some horse pond, and Dorcas cutt down from her bed's teaster from dangling in her own garters, be not surprized. Here's the devill to pay. Nobody serene but Jack Belford, who is taking...
[Page 88] LETTER XXV. Mr. Belford, To Robert Lovelace, Esq; Thursday, June 29. Thou hast heard from McDonald and Mowbray the news. Bad or good, I know not which thou'lt deem it. I only wish I could have given thee joy upon the same account, before the unhappy Lady was seduced from Hamstead: For then of what an ungrateful villainy hadst thou been spared the perpetration, which now thou hast to answer for! I came to town purely to serve thee with her, expecting that thy next would satisfy me that I might endeavour it without dishonour: And at first when I found her gone, I half pitied thee; for now wilt thou be inevitably blown up: And in what an execrable light wilt thou appear to all the world!---Poor Lovelace! Caught...
LETTER XXVI. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Friday, June 30. I am ruined, undone, blown up, destroyed, and worse than annihilated, that's certain!---But was not the news shocking enough, dost thou think, without thy throwing into the too weighty scale reproaches, which thou couldst have had no opportunity to make, but for my own voluntary communications? At a time too, when, as it falls out, I have another very sensible disappointment to struggle with? I imagine, if there be such a thing as future punishment, it must be none of the smallest mortifications, that a new devil shall be punished by a worse old one. And, Take that! And, Take that! to have the old satyr cry to the screaming sufferer, laying on with a cat-o'-...
LETTER XXVII. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Wednesday Night, June 28. O my dearest Miss Howe! Once more have I escaped---But, alas! I, my best self, have not escaped!---Oh! your poor Clarissa Harlowe! You also will hate me, I fear!---Yet you won't, when you know All! But no more of my Self! My lost Self. You that can rise in a morning, to be blest, and to bless; and go to rest delighted with your own reflections, and in your unbroken, unstarting slumbers, conversing with saints and angels, the former only more pure than yourself, as they have shaken off the incumbrance of body; You shall be my subject, as you have long, long, been my only pleasure. And let me, at awful [Page 107] distance, revere my beloved Anna...
[Page 108] LETTER XXVIII. Mrs. Howe, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. (Superscribed, as directed in the preceding.) Friday, June 30. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, You will wonder to receive a Letter from me. I am sorry for the great distress you seem to be in. Such a hopeful young Lady as you were!---But see what comes of disobedience to parents! For my part; altho' I pity you, yet I much more pity your poor Father and Mother. Such education as they gave you! such improvements as you made! and such delight as they took in you!---And all come to this!--- But pray, Miss, don't make my Nancy guilty of your fault; which is that of disobedience. I have charged her over and over not to correspond with one who has...
LETTER XXIX. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Mrs. Howe. Saturday, July 1. Permit me, Madam, to trouble you with a few lines, were it only to thank you for your reproofs; which have nevertheless drawn fresh streams of blood from a bleeding heart. My Story is a dismal Story. It has circumstances in it, that would engage pity and possibly a judgment not altogether unfavourable, were those circumstances known. But it is my business, and shall be all my [Page 110] business, to repent of my failings, and not endeavour to extenuate them. Nor will I seek to distress your worthy mind. If I cannot suffer alone, I will make as few parties as I can in my sufferings. And, indeed, I took up my pen with this resolution when I wrote the...
LETTER XXX. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Hannah Burton. Thursday, June 29. My good Hannah, Strange things have happened to me, since you were dismissed my service (so sorely against my will) and your pert fellow-servant set over me. But that must be all forgotten now--- How do you, my Hannah? Are you recovered of you illness? If you are, Do you chuse to come and be with me? Or can you conveniently? I am a very unhappy creature, and, being among all strangers, should be glad to have you with me, of whose Fidelity and Love I have had so many acceptable instances. Living or dying, I will endeavour to make it worth your while, my Hannah. If you are recovered, as I hope, and if you have a good place, it may be...
LETTER XXXI. Hannah Burton. In Answer. Monday, July 3. Honored Maddam, I have not forgot to write, and never will forget any-thing you, my dear young Lady, was so good as to larn me. I am very sorrowfull for your misfortens, my dearest young Lady; so sorrowfull, I do not know what to do. Gladd at harte would I be to be able to come to you. But indeed I have not been able to stir out of my rome here at my Mother's, ever since I was forsed to leave my plase with a Roomatise, which has made me quite and clene helpless. I will pray for you night and day, my dearest, my kindest, my goodest young Lady, who have been so badly used; and I am very sorry I cannot come to do you love and service; which will ever be in the harte of...
[Page 113] LETTER XXXII. Miss Cl. Harlowe, To Mrs. Judith Norton. Thursday, June 29. My dear Mrs. Norton, I address myself to you after a very long silence (which, however, was not owing either to want of Love or Duty) principally to desire you to satisfy me in two or three points, which it behoves me to know. My Father, and all the family, I am informed, are to be at my Uncle Harlowe's this day, as usual. Pray acquaint me, if they have been there? And if they were chearful on the anniversary occasion? And also, if you have heard of any journey, or intended journey, of my Brother, in company with Captain Singleton and Mr. Solmes? Strange things have happened to me, my dear worthy and maternal friend---Very...
LETTER XXXIII. Mrs. Norton. In Answer. Saturday, July 1. Your Letter, my dearest young Lady, cuts me to the heart! Why will you not let me know all your distresses?---Yet you have said enough! [Page 115] My Son is very good to me. A few hours ago he was taken with a feverish disorder. But I hope it will go off happily, if his ardour for business will give him the recess from it which his good master is willing to allow him. He presents his duty to you, and shed tears at hearing your sad Letter read. You have been misinformed as to your family's being at your Uncle Harlowe's. They did not intend to be there. Nor was the Day kept at all. Indeed, they have not stirred out, but to Church (and that but three times)...
LETTER XXXIV. Miss Cl. Harlowe, To Lady Betty Lawrance. Thursday, June 29. Madam, I hope you'll excuse the freedom of this address, from one who has not the honour to be personally known to you, although you must have heard much [Page 120] of Clarissa Harlowe. It is only to beg the favour of a line from your Ladyship's hand (by the next post, if convenient) in answer to the following questions. 1. Whether you wrote a Letter, dated, as I have a memorandum, Wedn. June 7. congratulating your Nephew Lovelace on his supposed Nuptials, as reported to you by Mr. Spurrier, your Ladyship's Steward, as from one Captain Tomlinson:---And in it reproaching Mr. Lovelace, as guilty of slight, &c. in not having acquainted...
[Page 121] LETTER XXXV. Lady Betty Lawrance, To Miss Cl. Harlowe. Saturday, July 1. Dear Madam, I find, that all is not as it should be between you and my Nephew Lovelace. It will very much afflict me, and all his friends, if he has been guilty of any designed baseness to a Lady of your character and merit. We have been long in expectation of an opportunity to congratulate you and ourselves upon an event most earnestly wished for by us all; since all our hopes of him are built upon the power you have over him: For if ever man adored a woman, he is that man, and you, Madam, are that woman. Miss Montague, in her last Letter to me, in answer to one of mine, enquiring if she knew, from him, whether he could...
[Page 123] LETTER XXXVI. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Mrs. Hodges. Enfield, June 29. Mrs. Hodges, I am under a kind of necessity to write to you, having no one among my relations to whom I dare write, or hope a line from if I did. It is but to answer a question. It is this: Whether you know such a Man as Capt. Tomlinson? And, if you do, whether he be very intimate with my Uncle Harlowe? I will describe his person, lest, possibly, he should go by another name among you; altho' I know not why he should. 'He is a thin, tallish man, a little pock-fretten; of a sallowish complexion. Fifty years of age, or more. Of a good aspect when he looks up. He seems to be a serious man, and one who knows the world. He...
LETTER XXXVII. Mrs. Hodges. In Answer. Sat. July 1. Maddam, I return you an anser, as you wish me to doe. Master is acquented with no sitch man. I am shure no sitch ever came to our house. And master sturs very little out. He has no harte to stur out. For why? Your obstincy makes um not care to see one another. Master's Birth-day never was kept soe before: For not a sole heere; and nothing but siking and sorrowin from master to think how it yused to bee. I axed master, if soe bee he knoed sitch a man as one Captain Tomlinson? But sayed not whirfor I axed. He sed, No, not he. Shure this is no trix nor forgary bruing against master by won Tomlinson---Won knoes not what cumpany you may have been forsed to keep, sen...
LETTER XXXIX. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Mrs. Norton. Sunday Evening, July 2. How kindly, my beloved Mrs. Norton, do you sooth the anguish of a bleeding heart! Surely you are mine own Mother; and, by some unaccountable mistake, I must have been laid to a family, that having newly found out, or at least suspected, the imposture, cast me from their hearts, with the indignation that such a discovery will warrant. O that I had indeed been your own child, born to partake of your humble fortunes, an heiress only to that content in which you are so happy! Then should I have had a truly gentle spirit to have guided my ductile heart, which force and ungenerous usage sit [Page 128] so ill upon; and nothing of what has happened would...
LETTER XL. Mrs. Norton, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Monday Night, July 3. O the barbarous villainy of this detestable man! And is there a man in the world, who could offer violence to so sweet a creature! And are you sure you are now out of his reach? You command me to keep secret the particulars of the vile treatment you have met with; or else, upon an unexpected visit which Miss Harlowe favoured me with, soon after I had received your melancholy Letter, I should have been tempted to own I had heard from you, and to have communicated to her such parts of your two Letters as would have demonstrated your penitence, and your earnestness to obtain the revocation of your Father's Malediction, as well as his...
LETTER XLI. Miss Cl. Harlowe, To Mrs. Judith Norton. Thursday, July 6. I ought not, especially at this time, to add to your afflictions---But yet I cannot help communicating to you (who now are my only soothing friend) a new trouble that has befallen me. I had but one friend in the world, besides you; and she is utterly displeased with me (a) [Footnote a: 1Kb] : It is grievous, but for one moment, to lie under a beloved person's censure; and this through imputations that affect one's honour and prudence. There are points so delicate, you know, my dear Mrs. Norton, that it is a degree of dishonour to have a vindication of one's self from them appear to be necessary. In the present case, my misfortune is, that I know not how to...
LETTER XLII. Miss Howe, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Superscribed, For Mrs. Rachel Clark, &c. Wednesday, July 5. My dear Clarissa, I have at last heard from you from a quarter I little expected. From my Mother. She had for some time seen me uneasy and grieving; and justly supposed it was about you: And this morning dropt a hint, which made me conjecture that she must have heard something of you more than I knew. And when she found that this added to my uneasiness, she owned she had a Letter in her hands of yours, dated the 29th of June, directed for me. You may guess, that this occasioned a little warmth, that could not be wished for by either. [It is surprising, my dear, mighty...
LETTER XLIII. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Thursday, July 6. Few young persons have been able to give more convincing proofs than myself, how little true happiness lies in the enjoyment of our own wishes. To produce one instance only of the truth of this observation; What would I have given for weeks past, for the favour of a Letter from my dear Miss Howe, in whose friendship I placed all my remaining comfort? Little did I think, that the next Letter she would honour me with, should be in such a style, as should make me look more than once at the Subscription, that I might be sure (the name not being written at length) that it was not signed by another A. H. For surely, thought I, this is my Sister Arabella's style:...
LETTER XLIV. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. [Referred to in Vol. V. p. 291.] Thursday Night. He had found me out at Hamstead: Strangely found me out; for I am still at a loss to know by what means. I was loth, in my billet of the 9th (a) [Footnote a: 1Kb] , to tell you so, for fear of giving you apprehensions for me; and besides, I hoped then to have a shorter and happier issue to account to you for, thro' your assistance, than I met with. She then gives a Narrative of all that passed at Hamstead between herself, Mr. Lovelace, Capt. Tomlinson, and the women there, to the same effect with that so amply given by Mr. Lovelace. Mr. Lovelace, finding all he could say, and all Capt. Tomlinson could urge,...
LETTER XLV. Miss Clarissa Harlowe; In Continuation. I was very ill, and obliged to lay down my pen. I thought I should have fainted. But am better now---So will proceed. The pretended Ladies, the more we talked, the [Page 155] fonder seemed to be of me. And The Lady Betty had Mrs. Moore called up; and asked her, If she had accommodations for her Niece and Self, her Woman, and two Men-servants, for three or four days? Mr. Lovelace answered for her that she had. She would not ask her dear Niece Lovelace [Permit me, my dear, whispered she, this charming style before strangers!---I will keep your Uncle's secret] whether she should be welcome or not to be so near her. But for the time she should stay in...
LETTER XLVI. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. In the midst of these agreeablenesses, the coach came to the door. The pretended Lady Betty besought me to give them my company to their Cousin Leeson's. [Page 164] I desired to be excused: Yet suspected nothing. She would not be denied. How happy would a visit so condescending make her Cousin Leeson!---Her Cousin Leeson was not unworthy of my acquaintance: And would take it for the greatest favour in the world. I objected my dress. But the objection was not admitted. She bespoke a Supper of Mrs. Moore to be ready at nine. Mr. Lovelace, vile hypocrite, and wicked deceiver! seeing, as he said, my dislike to go, desired her Ladyship not to insist upon it. ...
LETTER XLVII. Miss Clarissa Harlowe; In Continuation. The Lady next gives an account, Of her recovery from her delirium and sleepy disorder: Of her attempt to get away in his absence: Of the conversations that followed, at his return, between them: Of the guilty figure he made: Of her resolution not to have him: Of her several efforts to escape: Of her treaty with Dorcas, to assist her in it: Of Dorcas's dropping the promisory note, undoubtedly, as she says, on purpose to betray her: Of her triumph over all the creatures of the house, assembled to terrify her; and perhaps to commit fresh outrages upon her: Of his setting out for M. Hall: Of his repeated Letters to...
LETTER XLVIII. Miss Howe, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Sunday, July 9. May heaven signalize its vengeance, in the face of all the world, upon the most abandoned and profligate of men! And in its own time, I doubt not but it will.---And we must look to a world beyond this for the Reward of your Sufferings! Another shocking detection, my dear!---How have you been deluded!---Very watchful I have thought you; very sagacious:---But, alas! not watchful, not sagacious enough, for the horrid villain you have had to deal with!--- The Letter you sent me inclosed as mine, of the 7th of June, is a villainous forgery (a) [Footnote a: 1Kb] . The Hand, indeed, is astonishingly like mine; and the Cover, I see, is actually my Cover: But...
LETTER XLIX. Miss Howe, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Monday, July 10. I now, my dearest friend, resume my pen, to obey my Mother, in giving you her opinion upon your unhappy Story. She still harps upon the old string, and will have it, that all your calamities are owing to your first fatal step; for she believes (what I cannot) that your relations had intended, after one general trial more, to comply with your aversion, if they had found it as riveted a one, as, let me say, it was a folly to suppose it would not be found to be, after so many ridiculously repeated experiments. As to your latter sufferings from that vilest of miscreants, she is unalterably of opinion, that if all be as you have related (which she...
[Page 187] LETTER L. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Tuesday, July 11. ·Forgive you, my dear!---Most cordially do I forgive you---Will you forgive me for some sharp things I wrote in return to yours of the 5th? You could not have loved me, as you do, nor had the concern you have always shewn for my Honour, if you had not been utterly displeased with me, on the appearance which my conduct wore to you when you wrote that Letter. I most heartily thank you, my best and only Love, for the opportunity you gave me of clearing it up; and for being generously ready to acquit me of intentional blame, the moment you had read my melancholy Narrative.· As you are so earnest to have all the particulars of my sad Story before...
LETTER LI. Mrs. Howe, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Wedn. Night, July 12. I write, my dearest creature, I cannot but write, to express my concern on your dejection. Let me beseech you, my charming excellence, let me beseech you, not to give way to it. Comfort yourself, on the contrary, in the triumphs of a virtue unsullied; a will wholly faultless. Who could have withstood the trials that you have surmounted?---Your Cousin Morden will soon come. He will see justice done you, I make no doubt, as well with regard to what concerns your person as your estate. And many happy days may you yet see; and much good may you still do, if you will not heighten unavoidable accidents into guilty despondency. But why, my dear, this pining...
LETTER LII. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Thursday, July 13. I am extremely concerned, my dear Miss Howe, for being primarily the occasion of the apprehensions you have of this wicked man's vindictive attempts. What a wide-spreading error is mine!--- [Page 193] If I find, that he sets on foot any machination against you, or against Mr. Hickman, I do assure you I will consent to prosecute him, altho' I were sure I should not survive my first appearance at the Bar he should be arraigned at. I own the justice of your Mother's arguments on that subject; but must say, that I think there are circumstances in my particular case, which will excuse me, altho' on a slighter occasion than that you are apprehensive of...
LETTER LIII. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Friday, July 7. I have three of thy Letters at once before me to answer; in each of which thou complainest of my silence; and in one of them tellest me, that thou canst not live without I scribble to thee every day, or every other day at least. Why, then, die, Jack, if thou wilt. What heart, thinkest thou, can I have to write, when I have lost the only subject worth writing upon? Help me again to my Angel, to my Clarissa; and thou shalt have a Letter from me, or writing at least, part of a Letter, every hour. All that the Charmer of my heart shall say, that will I put down: Every motion, every air of her beloved person, every look, will I try to describe; and when she is...
LETTER LIV. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Six Saturday Morning, July 8. Have I nothing new, nothing diverting, in my whimsical way, thou askest, in one of thy three Letters before me, to entertain thee with?---And thou tellest me, that, when I have least to narrate, to speak in the Scotish phrase, I am most diverting. A pretty compliment, either to thyself, or to me. To both indeed!---A sign that thou hast as frothy a heart [Page 200] as I a head. But canst thou suppose, that this admirable woman is not All, is not Every-thing with me? Yet I dread to think of her too; for detection of all my contrivances, I doubt, must come next. The old Peer is also full of Miss Harlowe: And so are my Cousins. He hopes I will not be...
LETTER LV. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Sunday Night, July 9. Now, Jack, have I a subject with a vengeance. I am in the very height of my tryal for all my sins to my beloved Fugitive. For here to-day, at about Five o'Clock, arrived Lady Sarah Sadleir and Lady Betty Lawrance, each in her Chariot-and-six. Dowagers love Equipage; and these cannot travel ten miles without a Set, and half a dozen horsemen. My time had hung heavy upon my hands; and so I went to Church after dinner. Why may not handsome fellows, thought I, like to be looked at, as well as handsome wenches? I fell in, when Service was over, with Major Warneton; and so came not home till after Six; and was surprised, at entering the Court-yard here, to...
LETTER LVI. Mr. Lovelace. In Continuation. The Ladies, instead of taking up the subject where we had laid it down, must needs touch upon passages in my fair Accuser's Letter, which I was in hopes they would have let rest, as we were in a tolerable way. But, truly, they must hear all they could hear, of our Story, and what I had to say to those passages, that they might be better enabled to mediate between us, if I were really and indeed inclined to do her the hoped-for justice. [Page 218] These passages were, 1st, "That after I had compulsatorily tricked her into the act of going off with me, I carried her to one of the worst houses in London." 2. "That I had made a wicked attempt upon her; in resentment of which, she fled...
LETTER LVII. Mr. Lovelace. In Continuation. It is much better, Jack, to tell your own Story, when it must be known, than to have an adversary tell it for you. Conscious of this, I gave them a particular [Page 225] account how urgent I had been with her to fix upon the Thursday after I left her (it being her Uncle Harlowe's anniversary Birth-day, and named to oblige her) for the private Celebration; having some days before actually procured a Licence, which still remained with her. That, not being able to prevail upon her to promise any-thing, while under a supposed restraint; I offered to leave her at full liberty, if she would give me the least hope for that day. But neither did this offer avail me. That this...
LETTER LVIII. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Wedn. July 12. So, Jack, they think they have gained a mighty point. But, were I to change my mind, were I to repent, I fansy I am safe.---And yet this very moment it rises to my mind, that 'tis hard trusting too; for surely there must be some embers, where there was fire so lately, that may be stirred up to give a blaze to combustibles strewed lightly upon them. Love (like [Page 229] some self-propagating plants or roots, which have taken strong hold in the earth) when once got deep into the heart, is hardly ever totally extirpated, except by Matrimony indeed, which is the Grave of Love, because it allows of the End of Love. Then these Ladies, all advocates for herself, with...
[Page 232] LETTER LIX. Miss Howe, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Thursday Night, July 13. Collins sets not out to-morrow. Some domestic occasion hinders him. Rogers is but now returned from you, and cannot well be spared. Mr. Hickman is gone upon an affair of my Mother's, and has taken both his servants with him, to do credit to his employer: So I am forced to venture this by the Post, directed by your assumed name. I am to acquaint you, that I have been favoured with a visit from Miss Montague and her Sister, in Lord M.'s chariot-and-six. My Lord's gentleman rode here yesterday, with a request that I would receive a visit from the two young Ladies, on a very particular occasion; the greater favour, if it might be the next...
LETTER LX. Miss Howe, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Sunday Night, July 16. My dearest Friend, Why would you permit a mind so much devoted to your service, to labour under such an impatience as you must know it would labour under, for want of an Answer to a Letter of such consequence to you, and therefore to me, as was mine of Thursday night?---Rogers told me on Thursday, you were so ill; your Letter sent by him was so melancholy!---Yet you must be ill indeed, if you could not write something to such a Letter; were it but a line, to say you would write as soon as you could. Sure you have received it. The master of our nearest Post-office will pawn his reputation that it went safe: I gave him particular charge of it. God send...
LETTER LXI. Miss Howe, To Miss Charlotte Montague. Tuesday Morning, July 18. Madam, I take the liberty to write to you, by this special messenger. In the phrensy of my soul I write to you, to demand of you, and of any of your family [Page 238] who can tell, news of my beloved friend; who, I doubt, has been spirited away by the base Arts of one of the blackest---O help me to a name bad enough to call him by! Her pitty is proof against self-attempts. It must, it must be He, the only wretch, who could injure such an Innocent; and now---who knows what he has done with her! If I have patience, I will give you the occasion of this distracted vehemence. I wrote to her the very moment you and your Sister left me. But...
LETTER LXII. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; M. Hall, Sat. Night, July 15. All undone, undone, by Jupiter!---Zounds, Jack, what shall I do now! A curse upon all my plots and contrivances!---But I have it---In the very heart and soul of me, I have it! Thou toldest me, that my punishments were but beginning---Canst thou, O fatal prognosticator! canst thou tell me, where they will end? Thy assistance I bespeak. The moment thou receivest this, I bespeak thy assistance. This messenger rides for life and death---And I hope he'll find you at your town-lodgings; if he meet not with you at Edgware; where, being Sunday, he will call first. [Page 240] This cursed, cursed woman, on Friday dispatched man and horse...
[Page 242] LETTER LXIII. Miss Charlotte Montague, To Miss Howe. M. Hall, Tuesday Afternoon. Dear Miss Howe, Your Letter has infinitely disturbed us all. This wretched man has been half distracted ever since Saturday night. We knew not what ailed him, till your Letter was brought. Vile wretch, as he is, he is however innocent of this new evil. Indeed he is, he must be; as I shall more at large acquaint you. But will not now detain your messenger. Only to satisfy your just impatience, by telling you, that the dear young Lady is safe, and, we hope, well. A horrid mistake of his general orders has subjected her to the terror and disgrace of an Arrest. Poor dear Miss...
[Page 243] LETTER LXIV. Miss Montague, To Miss Howe. M. Hall, July 18. Dear Madam, In pursuance of my promise, I will minutely inform you of every-thing we know, relating to this shocking transaction. When we returned from you on Thursday night, and made our report of the kind reception both we and our message met with, in that you had been so good as to promise to use your interest with your dear friend; it put us all into such good humour with one another, and with my cousin Lovelace, that we resolved upon a little tour of two days, the Friday and Saturday, in order to give an airing to my Lord, and Lady Sarah; both having been long confined, one by illness, the other by melancholy. My Lord, Lady Sarah,...
LETTER LXV. Mr. Belford, To Robert Lovelace, Esq; Sunday Night, July 16. What a cursed piece of work hast thou made of it, with the most excellent of women! Thou mayest be in earnest, or in jest, as thou wilt; but the poor Lady will not be long either thy sport, or the sport of fortune! I will give thee an account of a Scene that wants but her affecting pen to represent it justly; and it would wring all the black blood out of thy callous heart. Thou only, who art the author of her calamities, shouldst have attended her in her prison. I am unequal to such a task: Nor know I any other man but would. This last act, however unintended by thee, yet a consequence of thy general orders, and too likely to thought...
[Page 272] LETTER LXVI. Mr. Belford, To Robert Lovelace, Esq; Monday, July 17. About Six this morning I went to Rowland's. Mrs. Sinclair was to follow me, in order to dismiss the action; but not to come in sight. Rowland, upon enquiry, told me, that the Lady was extremely ill; and that she had desired, that no one but his wife or maid should come near her. I said, I must see her. I had told him my business over-night; and I must see her. His wife went up: But returned presently, saying, She could not get her to speak to her; yet that her eyelids moved; tho' she either would not, or could not, open them, to look up at her. Oons, woman, said I, the Lady may be in a Fit: The Lady may be dying.---Let me...
LETTER LXVII. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Monday, July 17. Eleven at Night. Curse upon thy hard heart, thou vile caitiff! How hast thou tortured me, by thy designed abruption! 'Tis impossible that Miss Harlowe should have ever suffered as thou hast made me suffer, and as I now suffer! That Sex is made to bear pain. It is a curse, that the first of it entailed upon all her daughters, when [Page 281] she brought the curse upon us all. And they love those best, whether man or child, who give them most---But to stretch upon thy damn'd tenter-hooks such a spirit as mine---No rack, no torture, can equal my torture! And must I still wait the return of another messenger? Confound thee for a malicious devil! I wish thou...
LETTER LXVIII. Mr. Belford, To Robert Lovelace, Esq; Monday Night, July 17. On my return to Rowland's, I found that the Apothecary was just gone up. Mrs. Rowland being above with him, I made the less scruple to go up too, as it was probable, that to ask for leave would be to ask to be denied; hoping also, that the Letters I had with me would be a good excuse. [Page 282] She was sitting on the side of the broken couch, extremely weak and low; and, I observed, cared not to speak to the man: And no wonder; for I never saw a more shocking fellow, of a profession tolerably genteel, nor heard a more illiterate one prate---Physician in ordinary to this house, and others like it, I suppose! He put me in mind of Otway's...
LETTER LXIX. Mr. Belford, To Robert Lovelace, Esq; Tuesday Morn. (July 18.) 6 o'Clock. Having sat up late to finish and seal in readiness my Letter to the above period, I am disturbed before I wished to have risen, by the arrival of thy second fellow, man and horse in a foam. While he baits, I will write a few lines, most heartily to congratulate thee on thy expected rage and impatience, and on thy recovery of mental feeling. How much does the idea thou givest me of thy deserved torments, by thy upright awls, bodkins, pins, and packing-needles, by thy rolling hogshead with iron spikes, and by thy macerated sides, delight me! I will, upon every occasion that offers, drive more spikes into thy hogshead, and roll...
LETTER LXX. Mr. Belford, To Robert Lovelace, Esq; Tuesday, July 18. Afternoon. I renewed my enquiries after the Lady's health, in the morning, by my servant: And, as soon as I had dined, I went myself. I had but a poor account of it: Yet sent up my compliments. She returned me thanks for all my good offices; and her excuses, that they could not be personal just then, being very low and faint: But if I gave myself the trouble of coming about Six this evening, she should be able, she hoped, to drink a dish of Tea with me, and would then thank me herself. I am very proud of this condescension; and think it looks not amiss for you, as I am your avowed friend. Methinks I want fully to remove from her mind all doubts of you in this...
[Page 294] LETTER LXXI. Mr. Belford, To Robert Lovelace, Esq; Tuesday Night, July 18. I am just come from the Lady. I was admitted into the Dining-room, where she was sitting in an elbow-chair, in a very weak and low way. She made an effort to stand up, when I entered; but was forced to keep her seat. You'll excuse me, Mr. Belford: I ought to rise, to thank you for all your kindness to me. I was to blame to be so loth to leave that sad place; for I am in Heaven here, to what I was there: And good people about me too!---I have not had good people about me for a long, long time before; so that [with a half-smile] I had begun to wonder whither they were all gone. Her Nurse and Mrs. Smith, who were present, took occasion...
LETTER LXXII. Mr. Belford, To Robert Lovelace, Esq; Wednesday, July 19. This morning I took chair to Smith's; and, being told, that the Lady had a very bad night, but was up, I sent for her worthy Apothecary; who, on his coming to me, approving of my proposal of calling in Dr. H.; I bid the women acquaint her with the designed visit. It seems, she was at first displeased; yet withdrew her objection: But, after a pause, asked them, What [Page 303] she should do? She had effects of value, some of which she intended, as soon as she could, to turn into money; but, till then, had not a single guinea to give the Doctor for his fee. Mrs. Lovick said, She had five guineas by her: They were at her service. She would accept...
LETTER LXXIII. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; [In Answer to Letter lxxi.] M. Hall, Wedn. Night, July 19. You might well apprehend, that I should think you were playing me booty in communicating my Letter to the Lady. [Page 308] You ask, Who would think you might not read to her the least exceptionable parts of a Letter written in my own defence?---I'll tell you who---The man, who, in the same Letter that he asks this question, tells the friend whom he exposes to her resentment, "That there is such an air of Levity runs thro' his most serious Letters, that those of his are least fit to be seen, which ought to be most to his credit:" And now, what thinkest thou of thy self-condemned folly? Be, however, I...
[Page 317] LETTER LXXIV. Miss Howe, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Thursday Morn. July 20. What, my dearest creature, have been your sufferings!---What must have been your anguish on so disgraceful an insult, committed in the open streets, and in the broad day! No end, I think, of the undeserved calamities of a dear Soul, who has been so unhappily driven and betrayed into the hands of a vile Libertine!---How was I shocked at the receiving of your Letter written by another hand, and only dictated by you!---You must be very ill. Nor is it to be wondered at. But I hope it is rather from hurry, and surprize, and lowness, which may be overcome, than from a grief given way to, which may be attended with effects I cannot bear to...
LETTER LXXV. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Thursday Afternoon. You pain me, my dearest Miss Howe, by the ardor of your noble Friendship. I will be very brief, because I am not well; yet a good deal better than I was; and because I am preparing an Answer to yours of the 13th. But, beforehand, I must tell you, my dear, I will not have that man---Don't be angry with me.---But indeed I won't. So let him be asked no questions about me, I beseech you. I do not despond, my dear. I hope I may say, I will not despond. Is not my condition greatly mended? I thank Heaven it is! I am no prisoner now in a vile house. I am not now in the power of that man's devices. I am not now obliged to hide myself in corners for fear of him...
LETTER LXXVI. Mr. Belford, To Robert Lovelace, Esq; [In Answer to Letter lxxiii.] Thursday, July 20. I re'd that part of your conclusion to poor Belton, where you enquire after him, and mention how merrily you, and the rest, pass your time at M. Hall. He fetched a deep sigh: You are all very happy! [Page 321] were his words.---I am sorry they were his words; for, poor fellow, he is going very fast. Change of Air, he hopes, will mend him, joined to the chearful Company I have left him in. But nothing, I dare say, will. A consuming Malady, and a consuming Mistress, to an indulgent Keeper, are dreadful things to struggle with both together: Violence must be used to get rid of the latter; and yet he has not spirit left him...
LETTER LXXVII. Mr. Belford, To Robert Lovelace, Esq; Thursday Night. I was forced to take back my twenty guineas. How the women managed it, I can't tell (I suppose too readily found a purchaser for the rich suit); but she mistrusted, that I was the advancer of the money; [Page 327] and would not let the cloaths go. But Mrs. Lovick has actually sold, for fifteen guineas, some rich Lace worth three times the sum: Out of which she repaid her the money she borrowed for fees to the doctor, in an illness occasioned by the barbarity of the most savage of men. Thou knowest his name! The Doctor called on her in the morning it seems, and had a short debate with her about fees. She insisted, that he should take one every time he came,...
[Page 328] LETTER LXXVIII. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; M. Hall, Friday, July 21. Just returned from an interview with this Hickman: A precise fop of a fellow, as starched as his Ruffles. Thou knowest I love him not, Jack; and whom we love not, we cannot allow a merit to; perhaps not the merit they should be granted. However, I am in earnest, when I say, that he seems to me to be so set, so prim, so affected, so mincing, yet so clouterly in his person, that I dare engage for thy opinion, if thou dost justice to him, and to thyself, that thou never beheldest such another, except in a pier-glass. I'll tell thee how I plaid him off. He came in his own chariot to Dormer's; and we took a turn in the...
[Page 343] LETTER LXXIX. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; [In answer to Letters lxxii. lxxvi. lxxvii.] Friday Night, July 21. I will throw away a few paragraphs upon the contents of thy last shocking Letters, just brought me; and send what I shall write by the fellow who carries mine on the interview with Hickman. Reformation, I see, is coming fast upon thee. Thy Uncle's slow death, and thy attendance upon him, thro' every stage towards it, prepared thee for it. But go thou on in thy own way, as I will in mine. Happiness consists in being pleased with what we do: And if thou canst find delight in being sad, it will be as well for thee, as if thou wert merry, tho' no other person should join to keep thee...
LETTER LXXX. Mr. Belford, To Robert Lovelace, Esq; Friday Noon, July 21. This morning I was admitted, as soon as I sent up my name, into the presence of the divine Lady. Such I may call her; as what I have to relate will fully prove. She had had a tolerable night, and was much better in spirits; though weak in person; and visibly declining in looks. Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith were with her; and accused her, in a gentle manner, of having applied herself too assiduously to her pen for her strength, having been up ever since Five. She said, she had rested better than she had done for many nights: She had found her spirits free, and her mind tolerably easy: And having, as she had reason to think, but a short time, and...
LETTER LXXXI. Mr. Belford. In Continuation. You will imagine how affecting her noble speech and behaviour were to me, at the time, when the bare recollecting and transcribing them obliged me to [Page 350] drop my pen. The women had tears in their eyes. I was silent for a few moments.---At last, Matchless excellence! inimitable goodness! I called her, with a voice so accented, that I was half-ashamed of myself, as it was before the women---But who could stand such sublime generosity of soul, in so young a creature, her loveliness giving grace to all she said?---Methinks, said I [and I really, in a manner involuntarily, bent my knee] I have before me an angel indeed. I can hardly forbear prostration, and to beg your influence...
LETTER LXXXII. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Sat. July 22. What dost hate me for, Belford?---And why more and more?---Have I been guilty of any offence thou knewest not before?---If pathos can move such a heart as thine, can it alter facts?---Did I not always do this incomparable creature as much justice as thou canst do her for the heart of thee, or as she can do herself?---What nonsense then thy hatred, thy augmented hatred, when I still persist to marry her, pursuant to word given to thee, and to faith plighted to all my relations? But hate, if thou wilt, so thou dost but write. Thou canst not hate me so much as I do myself: And yet I know, if thou really hatedst me, thou wouldst not venture to tell me so. Well...
LETTER LXXXIII. Miss Howe, To Miss Arabella Harlowe. Thursday, July 20. Miss Harlowe, I cannot help acquainting you (however it may be received, coming from me) that your poor Sister is dangerously ill, at the house of one Smith, who keeps a glover's and perfume-shop, in King-street, Covent-Garden. She knows not that I write. Some violent words, in the nature of an imprecation, from [Page 364] her Father, afflict her greatly in her weak state. I presume not to direct you what to do in this case. You are her Sister. I therefore could not help writing to you, not only for her sake, but for your own. I am, Madam, Your humble Servant, Anna Howe.
LETTER LXXXIV. Miss Arabella Harlowe. In Answer. Thursday, July 20. Miss Howe, I have yours of this morning. All that has happened to the unhappy body you mention, is what we foretold and expected. Let him, for whose sake she abandoned us, be her comfort. We are told he has remorse, and would marry her. We don't believe it, indeed. She may be very ill. Her disappointment may make her so, or ought. Yet is she the only one I know, who is disappointed. I cannot say, Miss, that the notification from you is the more welcome for the liberties you have been pleased to take with our whole family, for resenting a conduct, that it is a shame any young Lady should justify. Excuse this freedom, occasioned by greater. I am,...
LETTER LXXXV. Miss Howe. In Reply. Friday, July 21. Miss Arabella Harlowe, If you had half as much sense as you have ill-nature, you would (notwithstanding the exuberance of the latter) have been able to distinguish between a kind intention to you all (that you might [Page 365] have the less to reproach yourselves with, if a deplorable case should happen) and an officiousness I owed you not, by reason of freedoms at least reciprocal. I will not, for the unhappy body's sake, as you call a Sister you have helped to make so, say all that I could say. If what I fear happen, you shall hear (whether desired or not) all the mind of Anna Howe.
LETTER LXXXVI. Miss Arabella Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Friday, July 21. Miss Ann Howe, Your pert Letter I have received. You, that spare no-body, I cannot expect should spare me. You are very happy in a prudent and watchful Mother---But else---Mine cannot be exceeded in prudence: But we had all too good an opinion of Somebody, to think watchfulness needful. There may possibly be some reason why you are so much attached to her, in an error of this flagrant nature. I help to make a Sister unhappy!---It is false, Miss!---It is all her own doings!---Except, indeed, what she may owe to Somebody's advice---You know who can best answer for that. Let us know your mind as soon as you please: As we shall know it to be your...
LETTER LXXXVII. Miss Howe, To Miss Arabella Harlowe. Sat. July 22. It may be the misfortune of some people to engage every-body's notice: Others may be the happier, tho' they may be the more envious, for nobody's thinking them worthy of any. But one would [Page 366] be glad people had the sense to be thankful for that want of consequence, which subjected them not to hazards they would hardly have been able to manage under. I own to you, that had it not been for the prudent advice of that admirable Somebody (whose principal fault is the superiority of her talents, and whose misfortune to be brother'd and sister'd by a couple of creatures, who are not able to comprehend her excellencies) I might at one time have been plunged...
LETTER LXXXVIII. Mrs. Harlowe, To Mrs. Howe. Sat. July 22. Dear Madam, I send you, inclosed, copies of five Letters that have passed between Miss Howe and my Arabella. You are a person of so much prudence and good sense, and (being a Mother yourself) can so well enter into the distresses of all our family, upon the rashness and ingratitude of a child we once doated upon, that, I dare say, you will not countenance the strange freedoms your Daughter has taken with us all. These are not the only ones we have to complain of; but we were silent on the others, as they did not, as these have done, spread themselves out upon paper. We only beg, that we may not be reflected upon by a young Lady, who knows not what we have...
[Page 368] LETTER LXXXIX. Mrs. Howe. In Answer. Sat. July 22. Dear Madam, I am highly offended with my Daughter's Letters to Miss Harlowe. I knew nothing at all of her having taken such a liberty. These young creatures have such romantic notions, some of Love, some of Friendship, that there is no governing them in either. Nothing but time, and dear experience, will convince them of their absurdities in both. I have chidden Miss Howe very severely. I had before so just a notion of what your whole family's distress must be, that, as I told your Brother, Mr. Antony Harlowe, I had often forbid her corresponding with the poor fallen Angel---For surely never did young Lady more resemble what we imagine of Angels, both in...
LETTER XC. Miss Howe, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Sat. July 22. My dearest Friend, We are busy in preparing for our little journey and voyage: But I will be ill, I will be very ill, if I cannot hear you are better before I go. Rogers greatly afflicted me, by telling me the bad way you are in. But now you have been able to hold a pen, and as your sense is strong and clear, I hope that the amusement you will receive from writing will make you better. I dispatch this by an extraordinary way, that it may reach you time enough to move you to consider well before you absolutely decide upon the contents of mine of the 13th, on the subject of the two Misses [Page 370] Montague's visit to me; since, according to what...
LETTER XCI. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Sunday, July 23. What pain, my dearest friend, does your kind solicitude for my welfare give me! How much more binding and tender are the Ties of pure Friendship, and the Union of Like minds, than the Ties of Nature! Well might the Sweet-Singer of Israel, when he was carrying to the utmost extent the praises of the friendship between him and his beloved friend, say, that the Love of Jonathan to him was wonderful; that it surpassed the Love of women! What an exalted idea does it give of the Soul of Jonathan, sweetly attempered for the sacred band, if we may suppose it but equal to that of my Anna Howe for her fallen Clarissa!---But, altho' I can glory in your kind Love for me, think,...
LETTER XCII. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Sunday, July 23. The Letter accompanying This being upon a very peculiar subject, I would not embarrass it, as I may say, with any other. And yet having some further matters upon my mind, which will want your excuse for directing them to you, I hope the following lines will have that excuse. My good Mrs. Norton, so long ago as in a Letter dated the 3d of this month (a) [Footnote a: 1Kb] , hinted to me, that my relations took amiss some severe things you were pleased, in love to me, to say of them. Mrs. Norton mentioned it with that respectful love which she bears to my dearest friend: But wished, for my sake, that you would rein in a vivacity, which, on most other occasions,...
[Page 383] LETTER XCIII. Mrs. Norton, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Monday, July 24. Excuse, my dearest young Lady, my long silence. I have been extremely ill. My poor Boy has also been at death's door; and, when I hoped that he was better, he has relapsed. Alas! my dear, he is very dangerously ill. Let us both have your prayers! Very angry Letters have passed between your Sister and Miss Howe. Every one of your family is incensed against that young Lady. I wish you would remonstrate against her warmth; since it can do no good; for they will not believe, but that her interposition has your connivance; nor that you are so ill as Miss Howe assures them you are. Before she wrote, they were going to send up young...
LETTER XCIV. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Mrs. Norton. Monday Night, July 24. My dear Mrs. Norton, Had I not fallen into fresh troubles, which disabled me for several days from holding a pen, I should not have forborn enquiring after your health, and that of your Son; for I should have been but too ready to impute your silence to the cause, to which, to my very great concern, I find it was owing. I pray to Heaven, my dear good friend, to give you comfort in the way most desirable to yourself. I am exceedingly concerned at Miss Howe's writing about me to my friends. I do assure you, that I was as ignorant of her intention so to do, as of the contents of her Letter. Nor has she yet let me know (discouraged, I suppose, by her...
LETTER XCV. Miss Cl. Harlowe, To Miss Arab. Harlowe. Friday, July 21. If, my dearest Sister, I did not think the state of my health very precarious, and that it was my duty to take this step, I should hardly have dared to approach you, altho' but with my pen, after having found your censures so dreadfully justified as they have been. I have not the courage to write to my Father himself; nor yet to my Mother. And it is with trembling, that I address myself to you, to beg of you to intercede for me, that my Father will have the goodness to revoke that heaviest part of the very heavy Curse he laid upon me, which relates to hereafter: [Page 388] For, as to the here, I have indeed met with my punishment from the very wretch...
LETTER XCVI. Mr. Belford, To Robert Lovelace, Esq; [In answer to his Letters lxxix. lxxxii.] Edgware, Monday, July 24. What pains thou takest to persuade thyself, that the Lady's ill health is owing to the vile Arrest, and to the Implacableness of her Friends! Both primarily (if they were) to be laid at thy door. What poor excuses will good heads make for the evils they are put upon by bad hearts!---But 'tis no wonder, that he who can sit down premeditatedly to do a bad [Page 389] action, will content himself with a bad excuse: And yet, what fools must he suppose the rest of the world to be, if he imagines them as easy to be imposed upon, as he can impose upon himself? In vain dost thou impute to pride or...
LETTER XCVII. Mr. Belford, To Robert Lovelace, Esq; Wednesday, July 26. I came not to town till this morning early; poor Belton clinging to me, as a man destitute of all other hold. I hastened to Smith's; and had but a very indifferent account of the Lady's health. I sent up my compliments; and she desired to see me in the afternoon. Mrs. Lovick told me, that, after I went away on Saturday, she actually parted with one of her best suits of cloaths to a gentlewoman who is her [Mrs. Lovick's] benefactress, and who bought them for a Niece who is very speedily to be married, and whom she fits out and portions as her intended heiress. The Lady was so jealous that the money might come from you or me, that she would see the...
LETTER XCVIII. Mr. Belford, To Robert Lovelace, Esq; Thursday, July 27. I went this morning, according to the Lady's invitation, to breakfast, and found Mr. Hickman with her. A good deal of heaviness and concern hung upon his countenance; but he received me with more respect than he did yesterday; which, I presume, was owing to the Lady's favourable character of me. [Page 400] He spoke very little; for I suppose they had all their talk out yesterday and before I came this morning. By the hints that dropt, I perceived that Miss Howe's Letter gave an account of your interview with her at Col. Ambrose's---of your professions to Miss Howe; and Miss Howe's opinion, that marrying you was the only way now left to repair her...
[Page 406] LETTER XCIX. Miss Howe, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Tuesday, July 25. Your two affecting Letters were brought to me (as I had directed any Letter from you should be) to the Colonel's, about an hour before we broke up. I could not forbear dipping into them there; and shedding more tears over them than I will tell you of; altho' I dried my eyes as well as I could, that the company I was obliged to return to, and my Mother, should see as little of my concern as possible. I am yet (and was then still more) excessively fluttered. The occasion I will communicate to you by-and-by: For nothing but the flutters given by the stroke of death could divert my first attention from the sad and solemn contents of your last...
LETTER C. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Thursday, July 27. My dearest Miss Howe, After I have thankfully acknowleged your favour in sending Mr. Hickman to visit me before you set out upon your intended journey, I must chide you (in the sincerity of that faithful Love, which could not be the Love it is if it would not admit of that cementing freedom) for suspending the decisive Negative, which, upon such full deliberation, I had entreated you to give to Mr. Lovelace's relations. I am sorry, that I am obliged to repeat to you, my dear, who know me so well, that, were I sure I should live many years, I would not have Mr. Lovelace: Much less can I think of him, as it is probable I may not live one. As to the...
LETTER CI. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. [Inclosed in the preceding.] Thursday, July 27. My dearest Miss Howe, Since you seem loth to acquiesce in my determined resolution, signified to you as soon as I was able to hold a pen, I beg the favour of you, by this, or by any other way you think most proper, to acquaint the worthy Ladies who have applied to you in behalf of their Relation, that, altho' I am infinitely obliged to their generous opinion of me, yet I cannot consent to sanctify, as I may say, Mr. Lovelace's repeated breaches of all moral sanctions, and hazard my future happiness by an union with a man, thro' whose premeditated injuries, in a long train of the basest contrivances, I have...