Clarissa Harlowe, Samuel Richardson [black authors fiction .txt] 📗

lot; for already is there a hell begun in my own mind. Never more mention it to me, let her, or who will say it, the prison⁠—I cannot bear it⁠—May d⁠⸺⁠n⁠—n seize quick the cursed woman, who could set death upon taking that large stride, as the dear creature calls it!⁠—I had no hand in it!⁠—But her relations, her implacable relations, have done the business. All else would have been got over. Never persuade me but it would. The fire of youth, and the violence of passion, would have pleaded for me to good purpose, with an individual of a sex, which loves to be addressed with passionate ardour, even to tumult, had it not been for that cruelty and unforgivingness, which, (the object and the penitence considered), have no example, and have aggravated the heinousness of my faults.

Unable to rest, though I went not to bed till two, I dispatch this ere the day dawn⁠—who knows what this night, this dismal night, may have produced!

I must after my messenger. I have told the varlet I will meet him, perhaps at Knightsbridge, perhaps in Piccadilly; and I trust not myself with pistols, not only on his account, but my own⁠—for pistols are too ready a mischief.

I hope thou hast a letter ready for him. He goes to thy lodgings first⁠—for surely thou wilt not presume to take thy rest in an apartment near hers. If he miss thee there, he flies to Smith’s, and brings me word whether in being, or not.

I shall look for him through the air as I ride, as well as on horseback; for if the prince of it serve me, as well as I have served him, he will bring the dog by his ears, like another Habakkuk, to my saddlebow, with the tidings that my heart pants after.

Nothing but the excruciating pangs the condemned soul fells, at its entrance into the eternity of the torments we are taught to fear, can exceed what I now feel, and have felt for almost this week past; and mayest thou have a spice of those, if thou hast not a letter ready written for thy

Lovelace.

Letter 467 Mr. Belford, to Robert Lovelace, Esq.

Tueday, 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. Everyone thinks this night will be her last. What a shocking thing is that to say of such an excellence! 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 the pen with the requisite steadiness.⁠—She has, I fear, written and read her last!

Eight o’clock.

She is somewhat better than she was. The doctor had 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 imagined.⁠—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 for 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 read more; but she said, Enough, Mr. Belford, enough!⁠—Poor man, does his conscience begin to find him!⁠—Then need not anybody 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 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 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 were but weakly founded; and that I had still, in my harboured resentment, 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 mean to reclaim and save him, it would be an inexpressible satisfaction to me!

But let me not, however, be made uneasy with the