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

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 486 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 saw 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 former384) 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 overnight. But really I was then incapable of anything.

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 deathbed, 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 anything, 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