LETTER XCVIII.
Mr. Belford, to Robert Lovelace, Esq;
Tuesday, Sept. 5. Six o'clock.
The Lady remains exceedingly weak and ill. Her intellects, nevertheless, continue clear and strong, and her piety and patience are without example. Every one thinks this night will be her last. What a shocking thing is that to say of such an excellence!
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She will not however send away her Letter to her Norton, as yet. She endeavoured in vain to superscribe it: So desired me to do it. Her fingers will not hold her pen with the requisite steadiness. She has, I fear, written and re'd her last!
Eight o'clock.
She is somewhat better than she was. The Doctor has been here, and thinks she will hold out yet a day or two. He has ordered her, as for some time past, only some little cordials to take when ready to faint. She seemed disappointed, when he told her, she might yet live two or three days; and said, She longed for dismission! ---Life was not so easily extinguished, she saw, as some imagine. ---Death from grief, was, she believed, the slowest of deaths. But God's will must be done! ---Her only prayer was now for submission to it: For she doubted not but by the Divine goodness she should be an happy creature, as soon as she could be divested of these rags of mortality.
Of her own accord she mentioned you; which, till then, she had avoided to do. She asked, with great serenity, where you were?
I told her where; and your motives of being so near; and read to her a few lines of yours of this morning, in which you mention your wishes to see her, your sincere affliction, and your resolution not to approach her without her consent.
I would have re'd more; but she said, Enough, Mr. Belford, Enough! ---Poor man! Does his conscience begin to find him! ---Then need not any-body to wish him a greater punishment! ---May it work upon him to an happy purpose!
I took the liberty to say, that as she was in such a frame, that nothing now seemed capable of discomposing her, I could wish that you might have the benefit of her exhortations, which, I dared to say, while you were so seriously affected, would have a
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greater force upon you than a thousand sermons; and how happy you would think yourself, if you could but receive her forgiveness on your knees.
How can you think of such a thing, Mr. Belford? said she, with some emotion: My composure is owing, next to the Divine goodness blessing my earnest supplications for it, to the not seeing him. Yet let him know, that I now again repeat, that I forgive him. ---And may God Almighty, clasping her fingers, and lifting up her eyes, forgive him too; and perfect his repentance, and sanctify it to him! ---Tell him I say so! And tell him, that if I could not say so with my whole heart, I should be very uneasy, and think that my hopes of mercy to myself were but weakly founded; and that I had still, in any harboured resentments, some hankerings after a life which he has been the cause of shortening.
The divine creature then turning aside her head--- Poor man, said she! I once could have loved him. This is saying more than ever I could say of any other man out of my own family! Would he have permitted me to have been an humble instrument to have made him good, I think I could have made him happy! ---But tell him not this, if he be really penitent ---It may too much affect him! ---There she paused.
Admirable creature! ---Heavenly forgiver! ---Then resuming---But pray tell him, that if I could know, that my death might be a means to reclaim and save him, it would be an inexpressible satisfaction to me!
But let me not, however, be made uneasy with the apprehension of seeing him. I cannot bear to see him!
Just as she had done speaking, the minister, who had so often attended her, sent up his name; and was admitted.
Being apprehensive, that it would be with difficulty that you could prevail upon that impetuous spirit
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of yours, not to invade her in her dying hours, and of the agonies into which a surprize of this nature would throw her; I thought this gentleman's visit afforded a proper opportunity to renew the subject; and (having asked her leave) acquainted him with the topic we had been upon.
The good man urged, That some condescensions were usually expected, on these solemn occasions, from pious souls like hers, however satisfied with themselves, for the sake of shewing the world, and for example-sake, that all resentments against those who had most injured them were subdued: And if she would vouchsafe to a heart so truly penitent, as I had represented Mr. Lovelace's to be, that personal pardon, which I had been pleading for, there would be no room to suppose the least lurking resentment remained; and it might have very happy effects upon the gentleman.
I have no lurking resentment, Sir, said she---This is not a time for resentment: And you will be the readier to believe me, when I can assure you (looking at me) that even what I have most rejoiced in, the truly friendly Love that has so long subsisted between my Miss Howe and her Clarissa, altho' to my last gasp it will be the dearest to me of all that is dear in this life, has already abated of its fervor; has already given place to supremer fervors: And shall the remembrance of Mr. Lovelace's personal insults, which, I bless God, never corrupted that mind which her friendship so much delighted, be stronger in these hours with me, than the remembrance of a Love as pure as the human heart ever boasted? Tell therefore the world, if you please, and (if, Mr. Belford, you think what I said to you before, not strong enough) tell the poor man, that I not only forgive him, but have such earnest wishes for the good of his soul, and that from considerations of its immortality, that could my penitence avail for more sins than my own, my last tear should fall for him by whom I die!
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Our eyes and hands expressed for us both, what our lips could not utter.
Say not then, proceeded she, nor let it be said, that my resentments are unsubdued! ---And yet these eyes, lifted up to Heaven as witness to the truth of what I have said, shall never, if I can help it, behold him more! ---For do you not consider, Sirs, how short my time is; what much more important subjects I have to employ it upon; and how unable I should be (so weak as I am) to contend even with the avowed penitence of a person in strong health, governed by passions unabated, and always violent? --- And now I hope you will never urge me more on this subject.
The minister said, it were pity ever to urge this plea again.
You see, Lovelace, that I did not forget the office of a friend, in endeavouring to prevail upon her to give you her last forgiveness personally. And I hope, as she is so near her end, you will not invade her in her last hours; since she must be extremely discomposed at such an interview; and it might make her leave the world the sooner for it.
This reminds me of an expression which she used on your barbarous hunting her at Smith's, on her return to her lodgings; and that with a serenity unexampled (as Mrs. Lovick told me, considering the occasion, and the trouble given her by it, and her indisposition at the time): He will not let me die decently, said the angelic sufferer! ---He will not let me enter into my Maker's presence, with the composure that is required in entering into the drawing-room of an earthly prince!
I cannot, however, forbear to wish, that the heavenly creature could have prevailed upon herself, in these her last hours, to see you; and that for my sake, as well as yours: For altho' I am determined never to be guilty of the crimes, which till within these few
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past weeks have blackened my former life; and for which, at present, I most heartily hate myself; yet should I be less apprehensive of a relapse, if (wrought upon by the solemnity which such an interview must have been attended with) you had become a reformed man: For no devil do I fear, but one in your shape.
It is now Eleven o'clock at night. The Lady, who retired to rest an hour ago, is, as Mrs. Lovick tells me, in a sweet slumber.
I will close here. I hope I shall find her the better for it in the morning. Yet, alas! how frail is hope! How frail is life; when we are apt to build so much on every shadowy relief; altho' in such a desperate case as this, fitting down to reflect, we must know, that it is but shadowy!
I will inclose Brand's horrid pedantry. And for once am aforehand with thy ravenous impatience.