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

We are just returned from the solemnization of the last mournful rite. My cousin James and his sister, Mr. and Mrs. Hervey, and their daughter, a young lady whose affection for my departed cousin shall ever bind me to her, my cousins John and Antony Harlowe, myself, and some other more distant relations of the names of Fuller and Allinson, (who, to testify their respect to the memory of the dear deceased, had put themselves in mourning), self-invited, attended it.

The father and mother would have joined in these last honours, had they been able; but they were both very much indisposed; and continue to be so.

The inconsolable mother told Mrs. Norton, that the two mothers of the sweetest child in the world ought not, on this occasion, to be separated. She therefore desired her to stay with her.

The whole solemnity was performed with great decency and order. The distance from Harlowe-place to the church is about half a mile. All the way the corpse was attended by great numbers of people of all conditions.

It was nine when it entered the church; every corner of which was crowded. Such a profound, such a silent respect did I never see paid at the funeral of princes. An attentive sadness overspread the face of all.

The eulogy pronounced by Mr. Melvill was a very pathetic one. He wiped his own eyes often, and made everybody present still oftener wipe theirs.

The auditors were most particularly affected, when he told them, that the solemn text was her own choice.

He enumerated her fine qualities, naming with honour their late worthy pastor for his authority.

Every enumerated excellence was witnessed to in different parts of the church in respectful whispers by different persons, as of their own knowledge, as I have been since informed.

When he pointed to the pew where (doing credit to religion by her example) she used to sit or kneel, the whole auditory, as one person, turned to the pew with the most respectful solemnity, as if she had been herself there.

When the gentleman attributed condescension and mingled dignity to her, a buzzing approbation was given to the attribute throughout the church; and a poor, neat woman under my pew added, “That she was indeed all graciousness, and would speak to anybody.”

Many eyes ran over when he mentioned her charities, her well-judged charities. And her reward was decreed from every mouth with sighs and sobs from some, and these words from others, “The poor will dearly miss her.”

The cheerful giver whom God is said to love, was allowed to be her: and a young lady, I am told, said, It was Miss Clarissa Harlowe’s care to find out the unhappy, upon a sudden distress, before the sighing heart was overwhelmed by it.

She had a set of poor people, chosen for their remarkable honesty and ineffectual industry. These voluntarily paid their last attendance on their benefactress; and mingling in the church as they could crowd near the aisle where the corpse was on stands, it was the less wonder that her praises from the preacher met with such general and such grateful whispers of approbation.

Some, it seems there were, who, knowing her unhappy story, remarked upon the dejected looks of the brother, and the drowned eyes of the sister! “O what would they now give, they’d warrant, had they not been so hardhearted!”⁠—Others pursued, as I may say, the severe father and unhappy mother into their chambers at home⁠—“They answered for their relenting, now that it was too late!⁠—What must be their grief!⁠—No wonder they could not be present!”

Several expressed their astonishment, as people do every hour, “that a man could live whom such perfections could not engage to be just to her;”⁠—to be humane I may say. And who, her rank and fortune considered, could be so disregardful of his own interest, had he had no other motive to be just!⁠—

The good divine, led by his text, just touched upon the unhappy step that was the cause of her untimely fate. He attributed it to the state of things below, in which there could not be absolute perfection. He very politely touched upon the noble disdain she showed (though earnestly solicited by a whole splendid family) to join interests with a man whom she found unworthy of her esteem and confidence: and who courted her with the utmost earnestness to accept of him.

What he most insisted upon was, the happy end she made; and thence drew consolation to her relations, and instruction to the auditory.

In a word, his performance was such as heightened the reputation which he had before in a very eminent degree obtained.

When the corpse was to be carried down into the vault, (a very spacious one, within the church), there was great crowding to see the coffin-lid, and the devices upon it. Particularly two gentlemen, muffled up in cloaks, pressed forward. These, it seems, were Mr. Mullins and Mr. Wyerley; both of them professed admirers of my dear cousin.

When they came near the coffin, and cast their eyes upon the lid, “In that little space,” said Mr. Mullins, “is included all human excellence!”⁠—And then Mr. Wyerley, unable to contain himself, was forced to quit the church, and we hear is very ill.

It is said that Mr. Solmes was in a remote part of the church, wrapped round in a horseman’s coat; and that he shed tears several times. But I saw him not.

Another gentleman was there incognito, in a pew near the entrance of the vault, who had not been taken notice of, but for his great emotion when he looked over his pew, at the time the coffin was carried down to its last place. This was Miss Howe’s worthy Mr. Hickman.

My cousins John and Antony and their nephew James chose not to descend into the vault among their departed ancestors.

Miss Harlowe was extremely affected. Her conscience, as well as her love, was concerned on the occasion. She would go down with the corpse of her dear, her only sister, she said; but her brother would not permit