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

I pleased.⁠—D⁠⸺⁠n⁠—n seize me then if I make not good my right against all opposers!

Her bowels, if her friends are very solicitous about them, and very humble and sorrowful, (and none have they of their own), shall be sent down to them⁠—to be laid with her ancestors⁠—unless she has ordered otherwise. For, except that, she shall not be committed to the unworthy earth so long as she can be kept out of it, her will shall be performed in everything.

I send in the meantime for a lock of her hair.

I charge you stir not in any part of her will but by my express direction. I will order everything myself. For am I not her husband? and, being forgiven by her, am I not the chosen of her heart? What else signifies her forgiveness?

The two insufferable wretches you have sent me plague me to death, and would treat me like a babe in strings.⁠—D⁠⸺⁠n the fellows, what end can they mean by it? Yet that crippled monkey Doleman joins with them. And, as I hear them whisper, they have sent for Lord M.⁠—to control me, I suppose.

What can they mean by this usage? Sure all the world is run mad but myself. They treat me as they ought every one of themselves to be treated. The whole world is but one great bedlam!⁠—God confound it, and everything in it, since now my beloved Clarissa Lovelace⁠—no more Harlowe⁠—Curse upon that name, and everyone called by it!

What I write to you for is,

To forbid you intermeddling with anything relating to her. To forbid Morden intermeddling also. If I remember right, he has threatened me, and cursed me, and used me ill⁠—and let him be gone from her, if he would avoid my resentment.

To send me a lock of her hair instantly by the bearer.

To engage Tomkins to have everything ready for the opening and embalming. I shall bring Anderson with me.

To get her will and everything ready for my perusal and consideration.

I will have possession of her dear heart this very night; and let Tomkins provide a proper receptacle and spirits, till I can get a golden one made for it.

I will take her papers. And, as no one can do her memory justice equal to myself, and I will not spare myself, who can better show the world what she was, and what a villain he that could use her ill? And the world shall also see what implacable and unworthy parents she had.

All shall be set forth in words at length. No mincing of the matter. Names undisguised as well as facts. For, as I shall make the worst figure in it myself, and have a right to treat myself as nobody else shall, who shall control me? who dare call me to account?

Let me know, if the d⁠⸺⁠d mother be yet the subject of the devil’s own vengeance⁠—if the old wretch be dead or alive? Some exemplary mischief I must yet do. My revenge shall sweep away that devil, and all my opposers of the cruel Harlowe family, from the face of the earth. Whole hecatombs ought to be offered up to the manes of my Clarissa Lovelace.

Although her will may in some respects cross mine, yet I expect to be observed. I will be the interpreter of hers.

Next to mine, hers shall be observed: for she is my wife, and shall be to all eternity.⁠—I will never have another.

Adieu, Jack, I am preparing to be with you. I charge you, as you value my life or your own, do not oppose me in anything relating to my Clarissa Lovelace.

My temper is entirely altered. I know not what it is to laugh, or smile, or be pleasant. I am grown choleric and impatient, and will not be controlled.

I write this in characters as I used to do, that nobody but you should know what I write. For never was any man plagued with impertinents as I am.

R. Lovelace.

[In a separate paper enclosed in the above]

Let me tell thee, in characters still, that I am in a dreadful way just now. My brain is all boiling like a cauldron over a fiery furnace. What a devil is the matter with me, I wonder! I never was so strange in my life.

In truth, Jack, I have been a most execrable villain. And when I consider all my actions to the angel of a woman, and in her the piety, the charity, the wit, the beauty, I have helped to destroy, and the good to the world I have thereby been a mean of frustrating, I can pronounce d⁠⸺⁠n⁠—n upon myself. How then can I expect mercy anywhere else?

I believe I shall have no patience with you when I see you. Your d⁠⸺⁠d stings and reflections have almost turned my brain.

But here Lord M. they tell me, is come!⁠—D⁠⸺⁠n him, and those who sent for him!

I know not what I have written. But her dear heart and a lock of her hair I will have, let who will be the gainsayers! For is she not mine? Whose else can she be? She has no father nor mother, no sister, no brother, no relations but me. And my beloved is mine, and I am hers⁠—and that’s enough.⁠—But Oh!⁠—

She’s out. The damp of death has quench’d her quite!
Those spicy doors, her lips, are shut, close lock’d,
Which never gale of life shall open more!

And is it so?⁠—Is it indeed so?⁠—Good God!⁠—Good God!⁠—But they will not let me write on. I must go down to this officious Peer⁠—Who the devil sent for him?

Letter 498 Mr. Belford, to Richard Mowbray, Esq.

Sunday, Sept. 10. Four in the Afternoon

I have yours, with our unhappy friend’s enclosed. I am glad my Lord is with him. As I presume that his frenzy will be but of short continuance, I most earnestly wish, that on his recovery he could be prevailed upon to go abroad. Mr. Morden, who