LETTER XCVI.
Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Mrs. Norton. In Answer to Letter xc. (a).
[Footnote a: 1Kb]
My dearest Mrs. Norton,
I am afraid I shall not be able to write all that is upon my mind to say to you upon the subject of your last. Yet I will try.
As to my friends, and as to the sad breakfasting, I cannot help being afflicted for them. What, alas! has not my Mother, in particular, suffered by my rashness!---Yet to allow so much for a Son!---so little
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for a Daughter!---But all now will soon be over, as to me. I hope they will bury all their resentments in my grave.
As to your advice in relation to Mr. Belford, let me only say, that the unhappy reprobation I have met with, and my short time, must be my apology now---I wish I could have written to my Mother and my Uncles, as you advise. And yet, favours come so slowly from them!---
The granting of one request only now remains as a desireable from them. Which nevertheless, when granted, I shall not be sensible of. It is, that they will be pleased to permit my remains to be laid with those of my ancestors---Placed at the feet of my dear Grandfather, as I have mentioned in my Will. This, however, as they please. For, after all, this vile body ought not so much to engage my cares. It is a weakness---But let it be called a natural weakness, and I shall be excused; especially when a reverential gratitude shall be known to be the foundation of it. You know, my dear woman, how my Grandfather loved me. And you know how much I honoured him, and that from my very infancy to the hour of his death. How often since have I wished, that he had not loved me so well!
I wish not now, at the writing of this, to see even my Cousin Morden. O my blessed woman! My dear maternal friend! I am entering upon a better Tour, than to France or Italy either!---Or even than to settle at my once beloved dairy-house!---All these prospects and pleasures, which used to be so agreeable to me in health, how poor seem they to me now!---
Indeed, indeed, my dear Mamma Norton, I shall be happy! I know I shall!---I have charming forebodings of happiness already!---Tell all my dear friends, for their comfort, that I shall!---Who would not bear the punishments I have borne, to have the prospects and assurances I rejoice in!---Assurances I
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might not have had were my own wishes to have been granted to me!
Neither do I want to see even you, my dear Mrs. Norton. Nevertheless, I must, in justice to my own gratitude, declare, that there was a time, could you have been permitted to come, without incurring displeasure from those whose esteem it is necessary for you to cultivate and preserve, that your presence and comfortings would have been balm to my wounded mind. But were you now, even by consent, and with reconciliatory tidings, to come, it would but add to your grief; and the sight of one I so dearly love, so happily fraught with good news, might but draw me back to wishes I have had great struggles to get above. And let me tell you for your comfort, that I have not left undone any-thing that ought to be done, either respecting mind or person; no, no to the minutest preparation: So that nothing is left for you to do for me. Every one has her direction as to the last offices.---And my desk, that I now write upon---O my dearest Mrs. Norton, All is provided!---All is ready! And all will be as decent as it should be!
And pray let my Miss Howe know, that by the time you will receive This, and she your signification of the contents of it, it will, in all probability, be too late for her to do me the inestimable favour, as I should once have thought it, to see me. God will have no rivals in the hearts of those he sanctifies. By various methods he deadens all other sensations, or rather absorbs them all in the Love of Him.
I shall nevertheless love you, my Mamma Norton, and my Miss Howe, whose Love to me has passed the Love of women, to my latest hour!---But yet, I am now above the quick sense of those pleasures, which once most delighted me: And once more I say, that I do not wish to see objects so dear to me,
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which might bring me back again into sense, and rival my Supreme Love.
Twice have I been forced to leave off. I wished, that my last writing might be to You, or to Miss Howe, if it might not be to my dearest Ma---
Mamma, I would have wrote---Is the word distinct?---My eyes are so misty!---If, when I apply to you, I break off in half-words, do you supply them---The kindest are your due.---Besure take the kindest, to fill up chasms with, if any chasms there be---
Another breaking off!---But the new day seems to rise upon me with healing in its wings. I have gotten, I think, a recruit of strength: Spirits, I bless God, I have not of late wanted.
Let my dearest Miss Howe purchase her wedding garments---And may all temporal blessings attend the charming preparation!---Blessings will, I make no question, notwithstanding the little cloudinesses that Mr. Hickman encounters with now-and-then, which are but prognostics of a future golden day to him: For her heart is good, and her head not wrong---But great merit is coy, and that coyness has not always its foundation in pride: But, if it should seem to be pride, take off the skin-deep covering, and, in her, it is noble diffidence, and a Love that wants but to be assured!
Tell Mr. Hickman I write this, and write it, as I believe, with my last pen; and bid him bear a little at first, and forbear; and all the future will be crowning gratitude, and rewarding love: For Miss Howe has great sense, fine judgment, and exalted generosity; and can such a one be ungrateful or easy under those obligations which his assiduity and obligingness (when he shall be so happy as to call her his) will lay her under to him?
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As for me, never Bride was so ready as I am. My wedding garments are bought---And tho' not fine or gawdy to the sight, tho' not adorned with jewels, and set off with gold and silver (for I have no beholders eyes to wish to glitter in); yet will they be the easiest, the happiest suit, that ever bridal maiden wore---for they are such as carry with them a security against all those anxieties, pains, and perturbations, which sometimes succeed to the most promising outsettings.
And now, my dear Mrs. Norton, do I wish for no other.
O hasten, good God, if it be thy blessed will, the happy moment that I am to be decked out in this all-quieting garb! And sustain, comfort, bless, and protect with the all-shadowing wing of thy mercy, my dear Parents, my Uncles, my Brother, my Sister, my Cousin Morden, my ever-dear and ever-kind Miss Howe, my good Mrs. Norton, and every deserving person to whom they wish well! is the ardent prayer, first and last, of every beginning hour, as the clock tells it me (Hours now are days, nay years) of
Your now not sorrowing or afflicted, but happy,
Clarissa Harlowe.