Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 9. Сэмюэл РичардсонЧитать онлайн книгу.
epistles. Adieu, my dear Clary! I am,
Your loving sister, and true friend, ARABELLA HARLOWE.
LETTER XI
TO HIS DEAR NIECE, MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 6
We were greatly grieved, my beloved Miss Clary, at your fault; but we are still more, if possible, to hear you are so very ill; and we are sorry things have been carried so far. We know your talents, my dear, and how movingly you could write, whenever you pleased; so that nobody could ever deny you any thing; and, believing you depended on your pen, and little thinking you were so ill, and that you lived so regular a life, and are so truly penitent, are must troubled every one of us, your brother and all, for being so severe. Forgive my part in it, my dearest Clary. I am your second papa, you know. And you used to love me.
I hope you'll soon be able to come down, and, after a while, when your indulgent parents can spare you, that you will come to me for a whole month, and rejoice my heart, as you used to do. But if, through illness, you cannot so soon come down as we wish, I will go up to you; for I long to see you. I never more longed to see you in my life; and you was always the darling of my heart, you know.
My brother Antony desires his hearty commendations to you, and joins with me in the tenderest assurance, that all shall be well, and, if possible, better than ever; for we now have been so long without you, that we know the miss of you, and even hunger and thirst, as I may say, to see you, and to take you once more to our hearts; whence indeed you was never banished so far as our concern for the unhappy step made us think and you believe you were. Your sister and brother both talk of seeing you in town; so does my dear sister, your indulgent mother.
God restore your health, if it be his will; else, I know not what will become of
Your truly loving uncle, and second papa, JOHN HARLOWE.
LETTER XII
MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. FRIDAY NIGHT, SEPT. 8, PAST TEN
I will now take up the account of our proceedings from my letter of last night, which contained the dying words of this incomparable lady.
As soon as we had seen the last scene closed (so blessedly for herself!) we left the body to the care of the good women, who, according to the orders she had given them that very night, removed her into that last house which she had displayed so much fortitude in providing.
In the morning, between seven and eight o'clock, according to appointment, the Colonel came to me here. He was very much indisposed. We went together, accompanied by Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith, into the deceased's chamber. We could not help taking a view of the lovely corpse, and admiring the charming serenity of her noble aspect. The women declared they never say death so lovely before; and that she looked as if in an easy slumber, the colour having not quite left her cheeks and lips.
I unlocked the drawer, in which (as I mentioned in a former3) she had deposited her papers. I told you in mine of Monday last, that she had the night before sealed up, with three black seals, a parcel inscribed, As soon as I am certainly dead, this to be broke open by Mr. Belford. I accused myself for not having done it over-night. But really I was then incapable of any thing.
I broke it open accordingly, and found in it no less than eleven letters, each sealed with her own seal, and black wax, one of which was directed to me.
I will enclose a copy of it.
TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. SUNDAY EVENING, SEPT. 3.
SIR,
I take this last and solemn occasion to repeat to you my thanks for all your kindness to me at a time when I most needed countenance and protection.
A few considerations I beg leave, as now at your perusal of this, from the dead, to press upon you, with all the warmth of a sincere friendship.
By the time you will see this, you will have had an instance, I humbly trust, of the comfortable importance of a pacified conscience, in the last hours of one, who, to the last hour, will wish your eternal welfare.
The great Duke of Luxemburgh, as I have heard, on his death-bed, declared, that he would then much rather have had it to reflect upon, that he had administered a cup of cold water to a worthy poor creature in distress, than that he had won so many battles as he had triumphed for. And, as one well observes, All the sentiments of worldly grandeur vanish at that unavoidable moment which decides the destiny of men.
If then, Sir, at the tremendous hour it be thus with the conquerors of armies, and the subduers of nations, let me in a very few words (many are not needed,) ask, What, at that period, must be the reflection of those, (if capable of reflection,) who have lived a life of sense and offence; whose study and whose pride most ingloriously have been to seduce the innocent, and to ruin the weak, the unguarded, and the friendless; made still more friendless by their base seductions?—O Mr. Belford, weigh, ponder, and reflect upon it, now that, in health, and in vigour of mind and body, the reflections will most avail you—what an ungrateful, what an unmanly, what a meaner than reptile pride is this!
In the next place, Sir, let me beg of you, for my sake, who AM, or, as now you will best read it, have been, driven to the necessity of applying to you to be the executor of my will, that you will bear, according to that generosity which I think to be in you, with all my friends, and particularly with my brother, (who is really a worthy young man, but perhaps a little too headstrong in his first resentments and conceptions of things,) if any thing, by reason of this trust, should fall out disagreeably; and that you will study to make peace, and to reconcile all parties; and more especially, that you, who seem to have a great influence upon your still-more headstrong friend, will interpose, if occasion be, to prevent farther mischief—for surely, Sir, that violent spirit may sit down satisfied with the evils he has already wrought; and, particularly, with the wrongs, the heinous and ignoble wrongs, he has in me done to my family, wounded in the tenderest part of its honour.
For your compliance with this request I have already your repeated promise. I claim the observance of it, therefore, as a debt from you: and though I hope I need not doubt it, yet was I willing, on this solemn, this last occasion, thus earnestly to re-inforce it.
I have another request to make to you; it is only, that you will be pleased, by a particular messenger, to forward the enclosed letters as directed.
And now, Sir, having the presumption to think that an useful member is lost to society by means of the unhappy step which has brought my life so soon to its period, let me hope that I may be an humble instrument, in the hands of Providence, to reform a man of your abilities; and then I shall think that loss will be more abundantly repaired to the world, while it will be, by God's goodness, my gain; and I shall have this farther hope, that once more I shall have an opportunity in a blessed eternity to thank you, as I now repeatedly do, for the good you have done to, and the trouble you will have taken for, Sir,
Your obliged servant, CLARISSA HARLOWE.
The other letters are directed to her father, to her mother, one to her two uncles, to her brother, to her sister, to her aunt Hervey, to her cousin Morden, to Miss Howe, to Mrs. Norton, and lastly one to you, in performance of her promise, that a letter should be sent you when she arrived at her father's house!——I will withhold this last till I can be assured that you will be fitter to receive it than Tourville tells me you are at present.
Copies of all these are sealed up, and entitled, Copies of my ten posthumous letters, for J. Belford, Esq.; and put in among the bundle of papers left to my direction, which I have not yet had leisure to open.
No wonder, while able, that she was always writing, since thus only of late could she employ that time, which heretofore, from the long days she made, caused so many beautiful works to spring from her fingers. It is my opinion, that there never was a woman so young, who wrote so much, and with such celerity. Her thoughts keeping pace, as I have seen, with her pen, she hardly ever stopped or hesitated; and very seldom blotted out,
See Vol. VIII. Letter LVII.