Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady Volume IX Part 21

The accursed woman, they tell me, has broken her leg. Why was it not her neck?--All, all, but what is owing to her relations, is the fault of that woman, and of her h.e.l.l-born nymphs. The greater the virtue, the n.o.bler the triumph, was a sentence for ever in their mouths.--I have had it several times in my head to set fire to the execrable house; and to watch at the doors and windows, that not a devil in it escape the consuming flames. Had the house stood by itself, I had certainly done it.

But, it seems, the old wretch is in the way to be rewarded, without my help. A shocking letter is received of somebody's in relation to her-- your's, I suppose--too shocking for me, they say, to see at present.*

* See Letter XXV. of this volume.

They govern me as a child in strings; yet did I suffer so much in my fever, that I am willing to bear with them, till I can get tolerably well.

At present I can neither eat, drink, nor sleep. Yet are my disorders nothing to what they were; for, Jack, my brain was on fire day and night; and had it not been of the asbestos kind, it had all been consumed.

I had no distinct ideas, but of dark and confused misery; it was all remorse and horror indeed!--Thoughts of hanging, drowning, shooting--then rage, violence, mischief, and despair, took their turns with me. My lucid intervals still worse, giving me to reflect upon what I was the hour before, and what I was likely to be the next, and perhaps for life-- the sport of enemies!--the laughter of fools!--and the hanging-sleeved, go-carted property of hired slaves; who were, perhaps, to find their account in manacling, and (abhorred thought!) in personally abusing me by blows and stripes!

Who can bear such reflections as these? TO be made to fear only, to such a one as me, and to fear such wretches too?--What a thing was this, but remotely to apprehend! And yet for a man to be in such a state as to render it necessary for his dearest friends to suffer this to be done for his own sake, and in order to prevent further mischief!--There is no thinking of these things!

I will not think of them, therefore; but will either get a train of cheerful ideas, or hang myself by to-morrow morning.

---- To be a dog, and dead, Were paradise, to such a life as mine.

LETTER x.x.xVIII

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 20.

I write to demand back again my last letter. I own it was my mind at the different times I wrote it; and, whatever ailed me, I could not help writing it. Such a gloomy impulse came upon me, and increased as I wrote, that, for my soul, I could not forbear running into the miserable.

'Tis strange, very strange, that a man's conscience should be able to force his fingers to write whether he will or not; and to run him into a subject he more than once, at the very time, resolved not to think of.

Nor is it less strange, that (no new reason occurring) he should, in a day or two more, so totally change his mind; have his mind, I should rather say, so wholly illuminated by gay hopes and rising prospects, as to be ashamed of what he had written.

For, on reperusal of a copy of my letter, which fell into my hands by accident, in the hand-writing of my cousin Charlotte, who, unknown to me, had transcribed it, I find it to be such a letter as an enemy would rejoice to see.

This I know, that were I to have continued but one week more in the way I was in when I wrote the latter part of it, I should have been confined, and in straw, the next; for I now recollect, that all my distemper was returning upon me with irresistible violence--and that in spite of water-gruel and soup-meagre.

I own I am still excessively grieved at the disappointment this admirable woman made it so much her whimsical choice to give me.

But, since it has thus fallen out; since she was determined to leave the world; and since she actually ceases to be; ought I, who have such a share of life and health in hand, to indulge gloomy reflections upon an event that is pa.s.sed; and being pa.s.sed, cannot be recalled?--Have I not had a specimen of what will be my case, if I do.

For, Belford, ('tis a folly to deny it,) I have been, to use an old word, quite bestraught.

Why, why did my mother bring me up to bear no controul? Why was I so enabled, as that to my very tutors it was a request that I should not know what contradiction or disappointment was?--Ought she not to have known what cruelty there was in her kindness?

What a punishment, to have my first very great disappointment touch my intellect!--And intellects, once touched--but that I cannot bear to think of--only thus far; the very repentance and amendment, wished me so heartily by my kind and cross dear, have been invalidated and postponed, and who knows for how long?--the amendment at least; can a madman be capable of either?

Once touched, therefore, I must endeavour to banish those gloomy reflections, which might otherwise have brought on the right turn of mind: and this, to express myself in Lord M.'s style, that my wits may not be sent a wool-gathering.

For, let me moreover own to thee, that Dr. Hale, who was my good Astolfo, [you read Ariosto, Jack,] and has brought me back my wit-jar, had much ado, by starving, diet, by profuse phlebotomy, by flaying-blisters, eyelet-hole-cupping, a dark room, a midnight solitude in a midday sun, to effect my recovery. And now, for my comfort, he tells me, that I may still have returns upon full moons--horrible! most horrible!--and must be as careful of myself at both equinoctials, as Caesar was warned to be of the Ides of March.

How my heart sickens at looking back upon what I was! Denied the sun, and all comfort: all my visiters low-born, tip-toe attendants: even those tip-toe slaves never approaching me but periodically, armed with gallipots, boluses, and cephalic draughts; delivering their orders to me in hated whispers; and answering other curtain-holding impertinents, inquiring how I was, and how I took their execrable potions, whisperingly too! What a cursed still life was this!--Nothing active in me, or about me, but the worm that never dies.

Again I hasten from the recollection of scenes, which will, at times, obtrude themselves upon me.

Adieu, Belford!

But return me my last letter--and build nothing upon its contents. I must, I will, I have already, overcome these fruitless gloominess. Every hour my const.i.tution rises stronger and stronger to befriend me; and, except a tributary sigh now-and-then to the memory of my heart's beloved, it gives me hope that I shall quickly be what I was--life, spirit, gaiety, and once more the plague of a s.e.x that has been my plague, and will be every man's plague at one time or other of his life. I repeat my desire, however, that you will write to me as usual. I hope you have good store of particulars by you to communicate, when I can better bear to hear of the dispositions that were made for all that was mortal of my beloved Clarissa.

But it will be the joy of my heart to be told that her implacable friends are plagued with remorse. Such things as those you may now send me: for company in misery is some relief; especially when a man can think those he hates as miserable as himself.

One more adieu, Jack!

LETTER x.x.xIX

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

I am preparing to leave this kingdom. Mowbray and Tourville promise to give me their company in a month or two.

I'll give thee my route.

I shall first to Paris; and, for some amus.e.m.e.nt and diversion sake, try to renew some of my old friends.h.i.+ps: thence to some of the German courts: thence, perhaps, to Vienna: thence descend through Bavaria and the Tyrol to Venice, where I shall keep the carnival: thence to Florence and Turin: thence again over Mount Cenis to France: and, when I return again to Paris, shall expect to see my friend Belford, who, by that time, I doubt not, will be all crusted and bearded over with penitence, self-denial, and mortification; a very anch.o.r.et, only an itinerant one, journeying over in hope to cover a mult.i.tude of his own sins, by proselyting his old companions.

But let me tell thee, Jack, if stock rises on, as it has done since I wrote my last letter, I am afraid thou wilt find a difficult task in succeeding, should such be thy purpose.

Nor, I verily think, can thy own penitence and reformation hold. Strong habits are not so easily rooted out. Old Satan has had too much benefit from thy faithful services, for a series of years, to let thee so easily get out of his clutches. He knows what will do with thee. A fine strapping Bona Roba, in the Charters-taste, but well-limbed, clear-complexioned, and Turkish-eyed; thou the first man with her, or made to believe so, which is the same thing; how will thy frosty face be illuminated by it! A composition will be made between thee and the grand tempter: thou wilt promise to do him suit and service till old age and inability come. And then will he, in all probability, be sure of thee for ever. For, wert thou to outlive thy present reigning appet.i.tes, he will trump up some other darling sin, or make a now secondary one darling, in order to keep thee firmly attached to his infernal interests.

Thou wilt continue resolving to amend, but never amending, till, grown old before thou art aware, (a dozen years after thou art old with every body else,) thy for-time-built tenement having lasted its allotted period, he claps down upon thy grizzled head the universal trap-door: and then all will be over with thee in his own way.

Thou wilt think these hints uncharacteristic from me. But yet I cannot help warning thee of the danger thou art actually in; which is the greater, as thou seemst not to know it. A few words more, therefore, on this subject.

Thou hast made good resolutions. If thou keepest them not, thou wilt never be able to keep any. But, nevertheless, the devil and thy time of life are against thee: and six to one thou failest. Were it only that thou hast resolved, six to one thou failest. And if thou dost, thou wilt become the scoff of men, and the triumph of devils.--Then how will I laugh at thee! For this warning is not from principle. Perhaps I wish it were: but I never lied to man, and hardly ever said truth to woman.

The firs is what all free-livers cannot say: the second what every one can.

I am mad again, by Jupiter!--But, thank my stars, not gloomily so!-- Farewell, farewell, farewell, for the third or fourth time, concludes

Thy LOVELACE.

I believe Charlotte and you are in private league together. Letters, I find, have pa.s.sed between her and you, and Lord M. I have been kept strangely in the dark of late; but will soon break upon you all, as the sun upon a midnight thief.

Remember that you never sent me the copy of my beloved's will.

LETTER XL