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

and expresses her concern for the trouble she has occasioned to the former, as well as to her; and prays that all the earthly blessings they used to wish to each other, may singly devolve upon her.”

She beseeches her, “that she will not suspend the day which shall supply to herself the friend she will have lost in her, and give to herself a still nearer and dearer relation.”

She tells her, “That her choice (a choice made with the approbation of all her friends) has fallen upon a sincere, an honest, a virtuous, and, what is more than all, a pious man; a man who, although he admires her person, is still more in love with the graces of her mind. And as those graces are improvable with every added year of life, which will impair the transitory ones of person, what a firm basis, infers she, has Mr. Hickman chosen to build his love upon!”

She prays, “That God will bless them together; and that the remembrance of her, and of what she has suffered, may not interrupt their mutual happiness; she desires them to think of nothing but what she now is; and that a time will come when they shall meet again, never to be divided.

“To the Divine protection, meantime, she commits her; and charges her, by the love that has always subsisted between them, that she will not mourn too heavily for her; and again calls upon her, after a gentle tear, which she will allow her to let fall in memory of their uninterrupted friendship, to rejoice that she is so early released; and that she is purified by her sufferings, and is made, as she assuredly trusts, by God’s goodness, eternally happy.”

[The posthumous letters to Mr. Lovelace and Mr. Morden will be inserted hereafter: as will also the substance of that written to Mrs. Norton.]

Letter 493 Mr. Belford, to Robert Lovelace, Esq.

Sat. Afternoon, Sept. 9

I understand, that thou breathest nothing but revenge against me, for treating thee with so much freedom; and against the cursed woman and her infernal crew. I am not at all concerned for thy menaces against myself. It is my design to make thee feel. It gives me pleasure to find my intention answered. And I congratulate thee, that thou hast not lost that sense.

As to the cursed crew, well do they deserve the fire here, that thou threatenest them with, and the fire hereafter, that seems to await them. But I have this moment received news which will, in all likelihood, save thee the guilt of punishing the old wretch for her share of wickedness as thy agent. But if that happens to her which is likely to happen, wilt thou not tremble for what may befall the principal?

Not to keep thee longer in suspense; last night, it seems, the infamous woman got so heartily intoxicated with her beloved liquor, arrack punch, at the expense of Colonel Salter, that, mistaking her way, she fell down a pair of stairs, and broke her leg: and now, after a dreadful night, she lies foaming, raving, roaring, in a burning fever, that wants not any other fire to scorch her into a feeling more exquisite and durable than any thy vengeance could give her.

The wretch has requested me to come to her; and lest I should refuse a common messenger, sent her vile associate, Sally Martin; who not finding me at Soho, came hither; another part of her business being to procure the divine lady’s pardon for the old creature’s wickedness to her.

This devil incarnate, Sally, declares that she never was so shocked in her life, as when I told her the lady was dead.

She took out her salts to keep from fainting; and when a little recovered she accused herself for her part of the injuries the lady had sustained; as she said Polly Horton would do for hers; and shedding tears, declared, that the world never produced such another woman. She called her the ornament and glory of her sex; acknowledged, that her ruin was owing more to their instigations, than even (savage as thou art) to thy own vileness; since thou wert inclined to have done her justice more than once, had they not kept up thy profligate spirit to its height.

This wretch would fain have been admitted to a sight of the corpse; but I refused the request with execrations.

She could forgive herself, she said, for everything but her insults upon the admirable lady at Rowland’s, since all the rest was but in pursuit of a livelihood, to which she had been reduced, as she boasted, from better expectations, and which hundred follow as well as she. I did not ask her, by whom reduced?

At going away, she told me, that the old monster’s bruises are of more dangerous consequence than the fracture; that a mortification is apprehended, and that the vile wretch has so much compunction of heart, on recollecting her treatment of Miss Harlowe, and is so much set upon procuring her forgiveness, that she is sure the news she is to carry her will hasten her end.

All these things I leave upon thy reflection.

Letter 494 Mr. Belford, to Robert Lovelace, Esq.

Sat. Night

Your servant gives me a dreadful account of your raving unmanageableness. I wonder not at it. But as nothing violent is lasting, I dare say that your habitual gaiety of heart will quickly get the better of your frenzy; and the rather do I judge so, as your fits are of the raving kind, (suitable to your natural impetuosity), and not of that melancholy species which seizes slower souls.

For this reason I will proceed in writing to you, that my narrative may not be broken by your discomposure; and that the contents of it may find you, and help you to reflection, when you shall be restored.

Harry is returned from carrying the posthumous letters to the family, and to Miss Howe; and that of the