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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12180 ***
+
+CLARISSA HARLOWE
+
+or the
+
+HISTORY OF A YOUNG LADY
+
+Nine Volumes
+Volume VIII.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOLUME VIII
+
+
+LETTER I.  Miss Howe, from the Isle of Wight.--
+In answer to her's, No. LXI. of Vol. VII.  Approves not of her choice of
+Belford for her executor; yet thinks she cannot appoint for that office
+any of her own family.  Hopes she will live any years.
+
+LETTER II.  Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
+Sends her a large packet of letters; but (for her relations' sake) not
+all she has received.  Must now abide by the choice of Mr. Belford for
+executor; but farther refers to the papers she sends her, for her
+justification on this head.
+
+LETTER III.  Antony Harlowe to Clarissa.--
+A letter more taunting and reproachful than that of her other uncle.  To
+what owing.
+
+LETTER IV.  Clarissa.  In answer.--
+Wishes that the circumstances of her case had been inquired into.
+Concludes with a solemn and pathetic prayer for the happiness of the
+whole family.
+
+LETTER V.  Mrs. Norton to Clarissa.--
+Her friends, through Brand's reports, as she imagines, intent upon her
+going to the plantations.  Wishes her to discourage improper visiters.
+Difficult situations the tests of prudence as well as virtue.  Dr.
+Lewen's solicitude for her welfare.  Her cousin Morden arrived in
+England.  Farther pious consolations.
+
+LETTER VI.  Clarissa.  In answer.--
+Sends her a packet of letters, which, for her relations' sake, she cannot
+communicate to Miss Howe.  From these she will collect a good deal of her
+story.  Defends, yet gently blames her mother.  Afraid that her cousin
+Morden will be set against her; or, what is worse, that he will seek to
+avenge her.  Her affecting conclusion on her Norton's divine
+consolations.
+
+LETTER VII.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Is very ill.  The lady, if he die, will repent her refusal of him.  One
+of the greatest felicities that can befal a woman, what.  Extremely ill.
+His ludicrous behaviour on awaking, and finding a clergyman and his
+friends praying for him by his bedside.
+
+LETTER VIII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Concerned at his illness.  Wishes that he had died before last April.
+The lady, he tells him, generously pities him; and prays that he may meet
+with the mercy he has not shown.
+
+LETTER IX.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+In raptures on her goodness to him.  His deep regrets for his treatment
+of her.  Blesses her.
+
+LETTER X.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Congratulates him on his amendment.  The lady's exalted charity to him.
+Her story a fine subject for tragedy.  Compares with it, and censures,
+the play of the Fair Penitent.  She is very ill; the worse for some new
+instances of the implacableness of her relations.  A meditation on the
+subject.  Poor Belton, he tells him, is at death's door; and desirous to
+see him.
+
+LETTER XI.  Belford to Clarissa.--
+Acquaints her with the obligation he is under to go to Belton, and (lest
+she should be surprised) with Lovelace's resolution (as signified in the
+next letter) to visit her.
+
+LETTER XII.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Resolves to throw himself at the lady's feet.  Lord M. of opinion that
+she ought to admit of one interview.
+
+LETTER XIII.  From the same.--
+Arrived in London, he finds the lady gone abroad.  Suspects Belford.  His
+unaccountable freaks at Smith's.  His motives for behaving so ludicrously
+there.  The vile Sally Martin entertains him with her mimicry of the
+divine lady.
+
+LETTER XIV.  From the same.--
+His frightful dream.  How affected by it.  Sleeping or waking, his
+Clarissa always present with him.  Hears she is returned to her lodgings.
+Is hastening to her.
+
+LETTER XV.  From the same.--
+Disappointed again.  Is affected by Mrs. Lovick's expostulations.  Is
+shown a meditation on being hunted after by the enemy of her soul, as it
+is entitled.  His light comments upon it.  Leaves word that he resolves
+to see her.  Makes several other efforts for that purpose.
+
+LETTER XVI.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Reproaches him that he has not kept his honour with him.  Inveighs
+against, and severely censures him for his light behaviour at Smith's.
+Belton's terrors and despondency.  Mowbray's impenetrable behaviour.
+
+LETTER XVII.  From the same.--
+Mowbray's impatience to run from a dying Belton to a too-lively Lovelace.
+Mowbray abuses Mr. Belton's servant in the language of a rake of the
+common class.  Reflection on the brevity of life.
+
+LETTER XVIII.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Receives a letter from Clarissa, written by way of allegory to induce him
+to forbear hunting after her.  Copy of it.  He takes it in a literal
+sense.  Exults upon it.  Will now hasten down to Lord M. and receive the
+gratulations of all his family on her returning favour.  Gives an
+interpretation of his frightful dream to his own liking.
+
+LETTER XIX. XX.  From the same.--
+Pities Belton.  Rakishly defends him on the issue of a duel, which now
+adds to the poor man's terrors.  His opinion of death, and the fear of
+it.  Reflections upon the conduct of play-writers with regard
+servants.  He cannot account for the turn his Clarissa has taken in his
+favour.  Hints at one hopeful cause of it.  Now matrimony seems to be in
+his power, he has some retrograde motions.
+
+LETTER XXI.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Continuation of his narrative of Belton's last illness and impatience.
+The poor man abuses the gentlemen of the faculty.  Belford censures some
+of them for their greediness after fees.  Belton dies.  Serious
+reflections on the occasion.
+
+LETTER XXII.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Hopes Belton is happy; and why.  He is setting out for Berks.
+
+LETTER XXIII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Attends the lady.  She is extremely ill, and receives the sacrament.
+Complains of the harasses his friend had given her.  Two different
+persons (from her relations, he supposes) inquire after her.  Her
+affecting address to the doctor, apothecary, and himself.  Disposes of
+some more of her apparel for a very affecting purpose.
+
+LETTER XXIV.  Dr. Lewen to Clarissa.--
+Writes on his pillow, to prevail upon her to prosecute Lovelace for his
+life.
+
+LETTER XXV.  Her pathetic and noble answer.
+
+LETTER XXVI.  Miss Arabella Harlowe to Clarissa.--
+Proposes, in a most taunting and cruel manner, the prosecution of
+Lovelace; or, if not, her going to Pensylvania.
+
+LETTER XXVII.  Clarissa's affecting answer.
+
+LETTER XXVIII. XXIX.  Mrs. Norton to Clarissa.--
+Her uncle's cruel letter to what owing.  Colonel Morden resolved on a
+visit to Lovelace.--Mrs. Hervey, in a private conversation with her,
+accounts for, yet blames, the cruelty of her family.  Miss Dolly Hervey
+wishes to attend her.
+
+LETTER XXX. Clarissa.  In answer.--
+Thinks she has been treated with great rigour by her relations.
+Expresses more warmth than usual on this subject.  Yet soon checks
+herself.  Grieves that Colonel Morden resolves on a visit to Lovelace.
+Touches upon her sister's taunting letter.  Requests Mrs. Norton's
+prayers for patience and resignation.
+
+LETTER XXXI.  Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
+Approves now of her appointment of Belford for an executor.  Admires her
+greatness of mind in despising Lovelace.  Every body she is with taken
+with Hickman; yet she cannot help wantoning with the power his obsequious
+love gives her over him.
+
+LETTER XXXII. XXXIII.  Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
+Instructive lessons and observations on her treatment of Hickman.--
+Acquaints her with all that has happened since her last.  Fears that all
+her allegorical letter is not strictly right.  Is forced by illness to
+break off.  Resumes.  Wishes her married.
+
+LETTER XXXIV.  Mr. Wyerley to Clarissa.--
+A generous renewal of his address to her now in her calamity; and a
+tender of his best services.
+
+LETTER XXXV.  Her open, kind, and instructive answer.
+
+LETTER XXXVI.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Uneasy, on a suspicion that her letter to him was a stratagem only.  What
+he will do, if he find it so.
+
+LETTER XXXVII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Brief account of his proceedings in Belton's affairs.  The lady extremely
+ill.  Thought to be near her end.  Has a low-spirited day.  Recovers her
+spirits; and thinks herself above this world.  She bespeaks her coffin.
+Confesses that her letter to Lovelace was allegorical only.  The light in
+which Belford beholds her.
+
+LETTER XXXVIII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+An affecting conversation that passed between the lady and Dr. H.  She
+talks of death, he says, and prepares for it, as if it were an occurrence
+as familiar to her as dressing and undressing.  Worthy behaviour of the
+doctor.  She makes observations on the vanity of life, on the wisdom of
+an early preparation for death, and on the last behaviour of Belton.
+
+LETTER XXXIX. XL. XLI.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Particulars of what passed between himself, Colonel Morden, Lord M., and
+Mowbray, on the visit made him by the Colonel.  Proposes Belford to Miss
+Charlotte Montague, by way of raillery, for an husband.--He encloses
+Brand's letter, which misrepresents (from credulity and officiousness,
+rather than ill-will) the lady's conduct.
+
+LETTER XLII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Expatiates on the baseness of deluding young creatures, whose confidence
+has been obtained by oaths, vows, promises.  Evil of censoriousness.
+People deemed good too much addicted to it.  Desires to know what he
+means my his ridicule with regard to his charming cousin.
+
+LETTER XLIII.  From the same.--
+A proper test of the purity of writing.  The lady again makes excuses for
+her allegorical letter.  Her calm behaviour, and generous and useful
+reflections, on his communicating to her Brand's misrepresentations of
+her conduct.
+
+LETTER XLIV.  Colonel Morden to Clarissa.--
+Offers his assistance and service to make the best of what has happened.
+Advises her to marry Lovelace, as the only means to bring about a general
+reconciliation.  Has no doubt of his resolution to do her justice.
+Desires to know if she has.
+
+LETTER XLV.  Clarissa.  In answer.
+
+LETTER XLVI.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+His reasonings and ravings on finding the lady's letter to him only an
+allegorical one.  In the midst of these, the natural gayety of his heart
+runs him into ridicule on Belford.  His ludicrous image drawn from a
+monument in Westminster Abbey.  Resumes his serious disposition.  If the
+worst happen, (the Lord of Heaven and Earth, says he, avert that worst!)
+he bids him only write that he advises him to take a trip to Paris; and
+that will stab him to the heart.
+
+LETTER XLVII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+The lady's coffin brought up stairs.  He is extremely shocked and
+discomposed at it.  Her intrepidity.  Great minds, he observes, cannot
+avoid doing uncommon things.  Reflections on the curiosity of women.
+
+LETTER XLVIII.  From the same.--
+Description of the coffin, and devices on the lid.  It is placed in her
+bed-chamber.  His serious application to Lovelace on her great behaviour.
+
+LETTER XLIX.  From the same.--
+Astonished at his levity in the Abbey-instance.  The lady extremely ill.
+
+LETTER L.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+All he has done to the lady a jest to die for; since her triumph has ever
+been greater than her sufferings.  He will make over all his possessions
+and all his reversions to the doctor, if he will but prolong her life for
+one twelvemonth.  How, but for her calamities, could her equanimity blaze
+out as it does!  He would now love her with an intellectual flame.  He
+cannot bear to think that the last time she so triumphantly left him
+should be the last.  His conscience, he says, tears him.  He is sick of
+the remembrance of his vile plots.
+
+LETTER LI.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+The lady alive, serene, and calm.  The more serene for having finished,
+signed, and sealed her last will; deferred till now for reasons of filial
+duty.
+
+LETTER LII.  Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
+Pathetically laments the illness of her own mother, and of her dear
+friend.  Now all her pertness to the former, she says, fly in her face.
+She lays down her pen; and resumes it, to tell her, with great joy, that
+her mother is better.  She has had a visit form her cousin Morden.  What
+passed in it.
+
+LETTER LIII.  From the same.--
+Displeased with the Colonel for thinking too freely of the sex.  Never
+knew a man that had a slight notion of the virtue of women in general,
+who deserved to be valued for his morals.  Why women must either be more
+or less virtuous than men.  Useful hints to young ladies.  Is out of
+humour with Mr. Hickman.  Resolves to see her soon in town.
+
+LETTER LIV.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+The lady writes and reads upon her coffin, as upon a desk.  The doctor
+resolves to write to her father.  Her intense, yet cheerful devotion.
+
+LETTER LV.  Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
+A letter full of pious reflections, and good advice, both general and
+particular; and breathing the true spirit of charity, forgiveness,
+patience, and resignation.  A just reflection, to her dear friend, upon
+the mortifying nature of pride.
+
+LETTER LVI.  Mrs. Norton to Clarissa.--
+Her account of an interesting conversation at Harlowe-place between the
+family and Colonel Morden; and of another between her mother and self.
+The Colonel incensed against them all.  Her advice concerning Belford,
+and other matters.  Miss Howe has obtained leave, she hears, to visit
+her.  Praises Mr. Hickman.  Gently censures Miss Howe on his account.
+Her truly maternal and pious comfortings.
+
+LETTER LVII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+The lady's sight begins to fail her.  She blesses God for the serenity
+she enjoys.  It is what, she says, she had prayed for.  What a blessing,
+so near to her dissolution, to have her prayers answered!  Gives
+particular directions to him about her papers, about her last will and
+apparel.  Comforts the women and him on their concern for her.  Another
+letter brought her from Colonel Morden.  The substance of it.  Belford
+writes to hasten up the Colonel.  Dr. H. has also written to her father;
+and Brand to Mr. John Harlowe a letter recanting his officious one.
+
+LETTER LVIII.  Dr. H. to James Harlowe, Senior, Esq.
+
+LETTER LIX.  Copy of Mr. Belford's letter to Colonel Morden,
+to hasten him up.
+
+LETTER LX.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+He feels the torments of the damned, in the remorse that wrings his
+heart, on looking back on his past actions by this lady.  Gives him what
+he calls a faint picture of his horrible uneasiness, riding up and down,
+expecting the return of his servant as soon as he had dispatched him.
+Woe be to the man who brings him the fatal news!
+
+LETTER LXI.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Farther particulars of the lady's pious and exemplary behaviour.  She
+rejoices in the gradual death afforded her.  Her thankful acknowledgments
+to Mr. Belford, Mrs. Smith, and Mrs. Lovick, for their kindness to her.
+Her edifying address to Mr. Belford.
+
+LETTER LXII.  Clarissa to Mrs. Norton.  In answer to her's, No. LVI.--
+Afflicted only for her friends.  Desires not now to see her cousin
+Morden, nor even herself, or Miss Howe.  God will have no rivals, she
+says, in the hearts of those whom HE sanctifies.  Advice to Miss Howe.
+To Mr. Hickman.  Blesses all her relations and friends.
+
+LETTER LXIII.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+A letter of deep distress, remorse, and impatience.  Yet would he fain
+lighten his own guilt by reflections on the cruelty of her relations.
+
+LETTER LXIV.  Belford to Lovelace
+The lady is disappointed at the Doctor's telling her that she may yet
+live two or three days.  Death from grief the slowest of deaths.  Her
+solemn forgiveness of Lovelace, and prayer for him.  Owns that once she
+could have loved him.  Her generous concern for his future happiness.
+Belford's good resolutions.
+
+LETTER LXV.  Mr. Brand to Mr. John Walton.
+
+LETTER LXVI.  Mr. Brand to John Harlowe, Esq.;
+in excuse of his credulity, and of the misreports founded upon it.
+
+LETTER LXVII.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Blesses him for sending him word the lady is better.  Her charity towards
+him cuts him to the heart.  He cannot bear it.  His vehement self
+reproaches.  Curses his contriving genius, and his disbelief that there
+could be such virtue in woman.  The world never saw such an husband as he
+will make, if she recover, and will be his.
+
+LETTER LXVIII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+The lady's pious frame.  The approaches of death how supportable to her;
+and why.  She has no reason, she says, to grieve for any thing but the
+sorrow she has given to her friends.
+
+LETTER LXIX.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Never prayed in his life, put all the years of it together, as he has
+done for this fortnight.  Has repented of all his baseness: And will
+nothing do?  Conjures him to send him good news in his next, as he would
+not be answerable for consequences.
+
+LETTER LXX.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Solemn leave taken of her by the doctor and apothecary; who tell her she
+will hardly see the next night.  The pleasure with which she receives the
+intimation.  How unlike poor Belton's behaviour her's!  A letter from
+Miss Howe.  Copy of it.  She cannot see to read it.  Her exalted
+expressions on hearing it read.  Tries to write an answer to it; but
+cannot.  Dictates to Mrs. Lovick.  Writes the superscriptive part herself
+on her knees.  Colonel Morden arrives in town.
+
+LETTER LXXI.  From the same.--
+What passes on Colonel Morden's visit to his cousin.  She enjoins the
+Colonel not to avenge her.
+
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY
+
+OF
+
+CLARISSA HARLOWE
+
+
+
+LETTER I
+
+MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+YARMOUTH, ISLE OF WIGHT, MONDAY, AUG. 7.
+
+
+MY DEAREST CREATURE,
+
+I can write but just now a few lines.  I cannot tell how to bear the
+sound of that Mr. Belford for your executor, cogent as your reasons for
+that measure are: and yet I am firmly of opinion, that none of your
+relations should be named for the trust.  But I dwell the less on this
+subject, as I hope (and cannot bear to apprehend the contrary) that you
+will still live many, many years.
+
+Mr. Hickman, indeed, speaks very handsomely of Mr. Belford.  But he, poor
+man! has not much penetration.--If he had, he would hardly think so well
+of me as he does.
+
+I have a particular opportunity of sending this by a friend of my aunt
+Harman's; who is ready to set out for London, (and this occasions my
+hurry,) and is to return out of hand.  I expect therefore, by him a large
+packet from you; and hope and long for news of your amended health: which
+Heaven grant to the prayers of
+
+Your ever-affectionate
+ANNA HOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER II
+
+MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
+FRIDAY, AUG. 11.
+
+
+I will send you a large packet, as you desire and expect; since I can do
+it by so safe a conveyance: but not all that is come to my hand--for I
+must own that my friends are very severe; too severe for any body, who
+loves them not, to see their letters.  You, my dear, would not call them
+my friends, you said, long ago; but my relations: indeed I cannot call
+them my relations, I think!----But I am ill; and therefore perhaps more
+peevish than I should be.  It is difficult to go out of ourselves to give
+a judgment against ourselves; and yet, oftentimes, to pass a just
+judgment, we ought.
+
+I thought I should alarm you in the choice of my executor.  But the sad
+necessity I am reduced to must excuse me.
+
+I shall not repeat any thing I have said before on that subject: but if
+your objections will not be answered to your satisfaction by the papers
+and letters I shall enclose, marked 1, 2, 3, 4, to 9, I must think myself
+in another instance unhappy; since I am engaged too far (and with my own
+judgment too) to recede.
+
+As Mr. Belford has transcribed for me, in confidence, from his friend's
+letters, the passages which accompany this, I must insist that you suffer
+no soul but yourself to peruse them; and that you return them by the very
+first opportunity; that so no use may be made of them that may do hurt
+either to the original writer or to the communicator.  You'll observe I
+am bound by promise to this care.  If through my means any mischief
+should arise, between this humane and that inhuman libertine, I should
+think myself utterly inexcusable.
+
+I subjoin a list of the papers or letters I shall enclose.  You must
+return them all when perused.*
+
+
+* 1. A letter from Miss Montague, dated . . . .  Aug. 1.
+  2. A copy of my answer  . . . . . . . . . . .  Aug. 3.
+  3. Mr. Belford's Letter to me, which will show
+      you what my request was to him, and his
+      compliance with it; and the desired ex-
+      tracts from his friend's letters  . . . .  Aug. 3, 4.
+  4. A copy of my answer, with thanks; and re-
+      questing him to undertake the executor-
+      ship  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Aug. 4.
+  5. Mr. Belford's acceptance of the trust  . .  Aug. 4.
+  6. Miss Montague's letter, with a generous
+      offer from Lord M. and the Ladies of that
+      family  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Aug. 7.
+  7. Mr. Lovelace's to me . . . . . . . . . . .  Aug. 7.
+  8. Copy of mine to Miss Montague, in answer
+      to her's of the day before  . . . . . . .  Aug. 8.
+  9. Copy of my answer to Mr. Lovelace  . . . .  Aug. 11.
+
+You will see by these several Letters, written and received in so little
+a space of time (to say nothing of what I have received and written which
+I cannot show you,) how little opportunity or leisure I can have for
+writing my own story.
+
+
+I am very much tired and fatigued--with--I don't know what--with writing,
+I think--but most with myself, and with a situation I cannot help
+aspiring to get out of, and above!
+
+O my dear, the world we live in is a sad, a very sad world!----While
+under our parents' protecting wings, we know nothing at all of it.
+Book-learned and a scribbler, and looking at people as I saw them as
+visiters or visiting, I thought I knew a great deal of it.  Pitiable
+ignorance!--Alas! I knew nothing at all!
+
+With zealous wishes for your happiness, and the happiness of every one
+dear to you, I am, and will ever be,
+
+Your gratefully-affectionate
+CL. HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER III
+
+MR. ANTONY HARLOWE, TO MISS CL. HARLOWE
+[IN REPLY TO HER'S TO HER UNCLE HARLOWE, OF THURSDAY, AUG. 10.]
+AUG. 12.
+
+
+UNHAPPY GIRL!
+
+As your uncle Harlowe chooses not to answer your pert letter to him;
+and as mine, written to you before,* was written as if it were in the
+spirit of prophecy, as you have found to your sorrow; and as you are now
+making yourself worse than you are in your health, and better than you
+are in your penitence, as we are very well assured, in order to move
+compassion; which you do not deserve, having had so much warning: for all
+these reasons, I take up my pen once more; though I had told your
+brother, at his going to Edinburgh, that I would not write to you, even
+were you to write to me, without letting him know.  So indeed had we all;
+for he prognosticated what would happen, as to your applying to us, when
+you knew not how to help it.
+
+
+* See Vol. I. Letter XXXII.
+
+
+Brother John has hurt your niceness, it seems, by asking you a plain
+question, which your mother's heart is too full of grief to let her ask;
+and modesty will not let your sister ask; though but the consequence of
+your actions--and yet it must be answered, before you'll obtain from your
+father and mother, and us, the notice you hope for, I can tell you that.
+
+You lived several guilty weeks with one of the vilest fellows that ever
+drew breath, at bed, as well as at board, no doubt, (for is not his
+character known?) and pray don't be ashamed to be asked after what may
+naturally come of such free living.  This modesty indeed would have
+become you for eighteen years of your life--you'll be pleased to mark
+that--but makes no good figure compared with your behaviour since the
+beginning of April last.  So pray don't take it up, and wipe your mouth
+upon it, as if nothing had happened.
+
+But, may be, I likewise am to shocking to your niceness!--O girl, girl!
+your modesty had better been shown at the right time and place--Every
+body but you believed what the rake was: but you would believe nothing
+bad of him--What think you now?
+
+Your folly has ruined all our peace.  And who knows where it may yet end?
+--Your poor father but yesterday showed me this text: With bitter grief
+he showed it me, poor man! and do you lay it to your heart:
+
+'A father waketh for his daughter, when no man knoweth; and the care for
+her taketh away his sleep--When she is young, lest she pass away the
+flower of her age--[and you know what proposals were made to you at
+different times.]  And, being married, lest she should be hated.  In her
+virginity, lest she should be defiled, and gotten with child in her
+father's house--[and I don't make the words, mind that.]  And, having an
+husband, lest she should misbehave herself.'  And what follows?  'Keep
+a sure watch over a shameless daughter--[yet no watch could hold you!]
+lest she make thee a laughing stock to thine enemies--[as you have made
+us all to this cursed Lovelace,] and a bye-word in the city, and a
+reproach among the people, and make thee ashamed before the multitude.'
+Eccles. xlii. 9, 10, &c.
+
+Now will you wish you had not written pertly.  Your sister's severities!
+--Never, girl, say that is severe that is deserved.  You know the meaning
+of words.  No body better.  Would to the Lord you had acted up but to one
+half of what you know! then had we not been disappointed and grieved, as
+we all have been: and nobody more than him who was
+
+Your loving uncle,
+ANTONY HARLOWE.
+
+This will be with you to-morrow.  Perhaps you may be suffered to have
+      some part of your estate, after you have smarted a little more.
+      Your pertly-answered uncle John, who is your trustee, will not have
+      you be destitute.  But we hope all is not true that we hear of you.
+      --Only take care, I advise you, that, bad as you have acted, you
+      act not still worse, if it be possible to act worse.  Improve upon
+      the hint.
+
+
+
+LETTER IV
+
+MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO ANTONY HARLOWE, ESQ.
+SUNDAY, AUG. 13.
+
+
+HONOURED SIR,
+
+I am very sorry for my pert letter to my uncle Harlowe.  Yet I did not
+intend it to be pert.  People new to misfortune may be too easily moved
+to impatience.
+
+The fall of a regular person, no doubt, is dreadful and inexcusable. It is like the sin of apostacy.  Would to Heaven, however, that I had had
+the circumstances of mine inquired into!
+
+If, Sir, I make myself worse than I am in my health, and better than I am
+in my penitence, it is fit I should be punished for my double
+dissimulation: and you have the pleasure of being one of my punishers.
+My sincerity in both respects will, however, be best justified by the
+event.  To that I refer.--May Heaven give you always as much comfort in
+reflecting upon the reprobation I have met with, as you seem to have
+pleasure in mortifying a young creature, extremely mortified; and that
+from a right sense, as she presumes to hope, of her own fault!
+
+What you heard of me I cannot tell.  When the nearest and dearest
+relations give up an unhappy wretch, it is not to be wondered at that
+those who are not related to her are ready to take up and propagate
+slanders against her.  Yet I think I may defy calumny itself, and
+(excepting the fatal, though involuntary step of April 10) wrap myself in
+my own innocence, and be easy.  I thank you, Sir, nevertheless, for your
+caution, mean it what it will.
+
+As to the question required of me to answer, and which is allowed to be
+too shocking either for a mother to put to a daughter, or a sister to a
+sister; and which, however, you say I must answer;--O Sir!--And must I
+answer?--This then be my answer:--'A little time, a much less time than
+is imagined, will afford a more satisfactory answer to my whole family,
+and even to my brother and sister, than I can give in words.'
+
+Nevertheless, be pleased to let it be remembered, that I did not petition
+for a restoration to favour.  I could not hope for that.  Nor yet to be
+put in possession of any part of my own estate.  Nor even for means of
+necessary subsistence from the produce of that estate--but only for a
+blessing; for a last blessing!
+
+And this I will farther add, because it is true, that I have no wilful
+crime to charge against myself: no free living at bed and at board, as
+you phrase it!
+
+Why, why, Sir, were not other inquiries made of me, as well as this
+shocking one?--inquiries that modesty would have permitted a mother or
+sister to make; and which, if I may be excused to say so, would have been
+still less improper, and more charitable, to have been made by uncles,
+(were the mother forbidden, or the sister not inclined, to make them,)
+than those they have made.
+
+Although my humble application has brought upon me so much severe
+reproach, I repent not that I have written to my mother, (although I
+cannot but wish that I had not written to my sister;) because I have
+satisfied a dutiful consciousness by it, however unanswered by the
+wished-for success.  Nevertheless, I cannot help saying, that mine is
+indeed a hard fate, that I cannot beg pardon for my capital errors
+without doing it in such terms as shall be an aggravation of the offence.
+
+But I had best leave off, lest, as my full mind, I find, is rising to my
+pen, I have other pardons to beg as I multiply lines, where none at all
+will be given.
+
+God Almighty bless, preserve, and comfort my dear sorrowing and
+grievously offended father and mother!--and continue in honour, favour,
+and merit, my happy sister!--May God forgive my brother, and protect him
+from the violence of his own temper, as well as from the destroyer of his
+sister's honour!--And may you, my dear uncle, and your no less now than
+ever dear brother, my second papa, as he used to bid me call him, be
+blessed and happy in them, and in each other!--And, in order to this, may
+you all speedily banish from your remembrance, for ever,
+
+The unhappy
+CLARISSA HARLOWE!
+
+
+
+LETTER V
+
+MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+MONDAY, AUG. 14.
+
+
+All your friends here, my dear young lady, now seem set upon proposing to
+you to go to one of the plantations.  This, I believe, is owing to some
+misrepresentations of Mr. Brand; from whom they have received a letter.
+
+I wish, with all my heart, that you could, consistently with your own
+notions of honour, yield to the pressing requests of all Mr. Lovelace's
+family in his behalf.  This, I think, would stop every mouth; and, in
+time, reconcile every body to you.  For your own friends will not believe
+that he is in earnest to marry you; and the hatred between the families
+is such, that they will not condescend to inform themselves better; nor
+would believe him, if he were ever so solemnly to avow that he is.
+
+I should be very glad to have in readiness, upon occasion, some brief
+particulars of your sad story under your own hand.  But let me tell you,
+at the same time, that no misrepresentations, nor even your own
+confession, shall lessen my opinion either of your piety, or of your
+prudence in essential points; because I know it was always your humble
+way to make light faults heavy against yourself: and well might you, my
+dearest young lady, aggravate your own failings, who have ever had so
+few; and those few so slight, that your ingenuousness has turned most of
+them into excellencies.
+
+Nevertheless, let me advise you, my dear Miss Clary, to discountenance
+any visits, which, with the censorious, may affect your character.  As
+that has not hitherto suffered by your wilful default, I hope you will
+not, in a desponding negligence (satisfying yourself with a consciousness
+of your own innocence) permit it to suffer.  Difficult situations, you
+know, my dear young lady, are the tests not only of prudence but of
+virtue.
+
+I think, I must own to you, that, since Mr. Brand's letter has been
+received, I have a renewed prohibition to attend you.  However, if you
+will give me leave, that shall not detain me from you.  Nor would I stay
+for that leave, if I were not in hopes that, in this critical situation,
+I may be able to do you service here.
+
+I have often had messages and inquiries after your health from the
+truly-reverend Dr. Lewen, who has always expressed, and still expresses,
+infinite concern for you.  He entirely disapproves of the measures of the
+family with regard to you.  He is too much indisposed to go abroad.  But,
+were he in good health, he would not, as I understand, visit at
+Harlowe-place, having some time since been unhandsomely treated by your
+brother, on his offering to mediate for you with your family.
+
+
+***
+
+
+I am just now informed that your cousin Morden is arrived in England.  He
+is at Canterbury, it seems, looking after some concerns he has there; and
+is soon expected in these parts.  Who knows what may arise from his
+arrival?  God be with you, my dearest Miss Clary, and be your comforter
+and sustainer.  And never fear but He will; for I am sure, I am very
+sure, that you put your whole trust in Him.
+
+And what, after all, is this world, on which we so much depend for
+durable good, poor creatures that we are!--When all the joys of it, and
+(what is a balancing comfort) all the troubles of it, are but momentary,
+and vanish like a morning dream!
+
+And be this remembered, my dearest young lady, that worldly joy claims no
+kindred with the joys we are bid to aspire after.  These latter we must
+be fitted for by affliction and disappointment.  You are therefore in the
+direct road to glory, however thorny the path you are in.  And I had
+almost said, that it depends upon yourself, by your patience, and by your
+resignedness to the dispensation, (God enabling you, who never fails the
+true penitent, and sincere invoker,) to be an heir of a blessed
+immortality.
+
+But this glory, I humbly pray, that you may not be permitted to enter
+into, ripe as you are so soon to be for it, till, with your gentle hand,
+(a pleasure I have so often, as you now, promised to myself,) you have
+closed the eyes of
+
+Your maternally-affectionate
+JUDITH NORTON.
+
+
+
+LETTER VI
+
+MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MRS. NORTON
+THURSDAY, AUG. 27.
+
+
+What Mr. Brand, or any body, can have written or said to my prejudice, I
+cannot imagine; and yet some evil reports have gone out against me; as I
+find by some hints in a very severe letter written to me by my uncle
+Antony.  Such a letter as I believe was never written to any poor
+creature, who, by ill health of body, as well as of mind, was before
+tottering on the brink of the grave.  But my friends may possibly be
+better justified than the reporters--For who knows what they may have
+heard?
+
+You give me a kind caution, which seems to imply more than you express,
+when you advise me against countenancing visiters that may discredit me.
+You have spoken quite out.  Surely, I have had afflictions enow to
+strengthen my mind, and to enable it to bear the worst that can now
+happen.  But I will not puzzle myself by conjectural evils; as I might
+perhaps do, if I had not enow that were certain.  I shall hear all, when
+it is thought proper that I should.  Mean time, let me say, for your
+satisfaction, that I know not that I have any thing criminal or
+disreputable to answer for either in word or deed, since the fatal 10th
+of April last.
+
+You desire an account of what passes between me and my friends; and also
+particulars or brief heads of my sad story, in order to serve me as
+occasion shall offer.  My dear good Mrs. Norton, you shall have a whole
+packet of papers, which I have sent to my Miss Howe, when she returns
+them; and you shall have likewise another packet, (and that with this
+letter,) which I cannot at present think of sending to that dear friend
+for the sake of my own relations; whom, without seeing that packet, she
+is but too ready to censure heavily.  From these you will be able to
+collect a great deal of my story.  But for what is previous to these
+papers, and which more particularly relates to what I have suffered from
+Mr. Lovelace, you must have patience; for at present I have neither head
+nor heart for such subjects.  The papers I send you with this will be
+those mentioned in the margin.*  You must restore them to me as soon as
+perused; and upon your honour make no use of them, or of any intelligence
+you have from me, but by my previous consent.
+
+
+* 1. A copy of mine to my sister, begging
+      off my father's malediction . . . . . .  dated July 21.
+  2. My sister's answer . . . . . . . . . . .  dated July 27.
+  3. Copy of my second letter to my sister. .  dated July 29.
+  4. My sister's answer . . . . . . . . . . .  dated Aug. 3.
+  5. Copy of my Letter to my mother . . . . .  dated Aug. 5.
+  6. My uncle Harlowe's letter  . . . . . . .  dated Aug. 7.
+  7. Copy of my answer to it  . . . . . . . .  dated the 1oth.
+  8. Letter from my uncle Antony  . . . . . .  dated the 12th.
+  9. And lastly, the copy of my answer to it.  dated the 13th.
+
+
+These communications you must not, my good Mrs. Norton, look upon as
+appeals against my relations.  On the contrary, I am heartily sorry that
+they have incurred the displeasure of so excellent a divine as Dr. Lewen.
+But you desire to have every thing before you: and I think you ought; for
+who knows, as you say, but you may be applied to at last to administer
+comfort from their conceding hearts, to one that wants it; and who
+sometimes, judging by what she knows of her own heart, thinks herself
+entitled to it?
+
+I know that I have a most indulgent and sweet-tempered mother; but,
+having to deal with violent spirits, she has too often forfeited that
+peace of mind which she so much prefers, by her over concern to preserve
+it.
+
+I am sure she would not have turned me over for an answer to a letter
+written with so contrite and fervent a spirit, as was mine to her, to a
+masculine spirit, had she been left to herself.
+
+But, my dear Mrs. Norton, might not, think you, the revered lady have
+favoured me with one private line?----If not, might not you have written
+by her order, or connivance, one softening, one motherly line, when she
+saw her poor girl, whom once she dearly loved, borne so hard upon?
+
+O no, she might not!--because her heart, to be sure, is in their
+measures! and if she think them right, perhaps they must be right!--at
+least, knowing only what they know, they must!--and yet they might know
+all, if they would!--and possibly, in their own good time, they think to
+make proper inquiry.--My application was made to them but lately.--Yet
+how deeply will it afflict them, if their time should be out of time!
+
+When you have before you the letters I have sent to Miss Howe, you will
+see that Lord M. and the Ladies of his family, jealous as they are of the
+honour of their house, (to express myself in their language,) think
+better of me than my own relations do.  You will see an instance of their
+generosity to me, which at the time extremely affected me, and indeed
+still affects me.  Unhappy man! gay, inconsiderate, and cruel! what has
+been his gain by making unhappy a creature who hoped to make him happy!
+and who was determined to deserve the love of all to whom he is related!
+--Poor man!--but you will mistake a compassionate and placable nature for
+love!--he took care, great care, that I should rein-in betimes any
+passion that I might have had for him, had he known how to be but
+commonly grateful or generous!--But the Almighty knows what is best for
+his poor creatures.
+
+Some of the letters in the same packet will also let you into the
+knowledge of a strange step which I have taken, (strange you will think
+it); and, at the same time, give you my reasons for taking it.*
+
+
+* She means that of making Mr. Belford her executor.
+
+
+It must be expected, that situations uncommonly difficult will make
+necessary some extraordinary steps, which, but for those situations,
+would be hardly excusable.  It will be very happy indeed, and somewhat
+wonderful, if all the measures I have been driven to take should be
+right.  A pure intention, void of all undutiful resentment, is what must
+be my consolation, whatever others may think of those measures, when they
+come to know them: which, however, will hardly be till it is out of my
+power to justify them, or to answer for myself.
+
+I am glad to hear of my cousin Morden's safe arrival.  I should wish to
+see him methinks: but I am afraid that he will sail with the stream; as
+it must be expected, that he will hear what they have to say first.--But
+what I most fear is, that he will take upon himself to avenge me.  Rather
+than he should do so, I would have him look upon me as a creature utterly
+unworthy of his concern; at least of his vindictive concern.
+
+How soothing to the wounded heart of your Clarissa, how balmy are the
+assurances of your continued love and favour;--love me, my dear mamma
+Norton, continue to love me, to the end!--I now think that I may, without
+presumption, promise to deserve your love to the end.  And, when I am
+gone, cherish my memory in your worthy heart; for in so doing you will
+cherish the memory of one who loves and honours you more than she can
+express.
+
+But when I am no more, I charge you, as soon as you can, the smarting
+pangs of grief that will attend a recent loss; and let all be early
+turned into that sweetly melancholy regard to MEMORY, which, engaging us
+to forget all faults, and to remember nothing but what was thought
+amiable, gives more pleasure than pain to survivors--especially if they
+can comfort themselves with the humble hope, that the Divine mercy has
+taken the dear departed to itself.
+
+And what is the space of time to look backward upon, between an early
+departure and the longest survivance!--and what the consolation attending
+the sweet hope of meeting again, never more to be separated, never more
+to be pained, grieved, or aspersed;--but mutually blessing, and being
+blessed, to all eternity!
+
+In the contemplation of this happy state, in which I hope, in God's good
+time, to rejoice with you, my beloved Mrs. Norton, and also with my dear
+relations, all reconciled to, and blessing the child against whom they
+are now so much incensed, I conclude myself
+
+Your ever dutiful and affectionate
+CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER VII
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+SUNDAY, AUG. 13.
+
+
+I don't know what a devil ails me; but I never was so much indisposed in
+my life.  At first, I thought some of my blessed relations here had got a
+dose administered to me, in order to get the whole house to themselves.
+But, as I am the hopes of the family, I believe they would not be so
+wicked.
+
+I must lay down my pen.  I cannot write with any spirit at all.  What a
+plague can be the matter with me!
+
+
+***
+
+
+Lord M. paid me just now a cursed gloomy visit, to ask how I do after
+bleeding.  His sisters both drove away yesterday, God be thanked.  But
+they asked not my leave; and hardly bid me good-bye.  My Lord was more
+tender, and more dutiful, than I expected.  Men are less unforgiving than
+women.  I have reason to say so, I am sure.  For, besides implacable Miss
+Harlowe, and the old Ladies, the two Montague apes han't been near me
+yet.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Neither eat, drink, nor sleep!--a piteous case, Jack!  If I should die
+like a fool now, people would say Miss Harlowe had broken my heart.--That
+she vexes me to the heart, is certain.
+
+Confounded squeamish!  I would fain write it off.  But must lay down my
+pen again.  It won't do.  Poor Lovelace!----What a devil ails thee?
+
+
+***
+
+
+Well, but now let's try for't--Hoy--Hoy--Hoy!  Confound me for a gaping
+puppy, how I yawn!--Where shall I begin? at thy executorship--thou shalt
+have a double office of it: for I really think thou mayest send me a
+coffin and a shroud.  I shall be ready for them by the time they can come
+down.
+
+What a little fool is this Miss Harlowe!  I warrant she'll now repent
+that she refused me.  Such a lovely young widow--What a charming widow
+would she have made! how would she have adorned the weeds! to be a widow
+in the first twelve months is one of the greatest felicities that can
+befal a fine woman.  Such pretty employment in new dismals, when she had
+hardly worn round her blazing joyfuls!  Such lights, and such shades! how
+would they set off one another, and be adorned by the wearer!--
+
+Go to the devil!--I will write!--Can I do anything else?
+
+They would not have me write, Belford.--I must be ill indeed, when I
+can't write.
+
+
+***
+
+
+But thou seemest nettled, Jack!  Is it because I was stung?  It is not
+for two friends, any more than for man and wife, to be out of patience
+at one time.--What must be the consequence if they are?--I am in no
+fighting mood just now: but as patient and passive as the chickens that
+are brought me in broth--for I am come to that already.
+
+But I can tell thee, for all this, be thy own man, if thou wilt, as to
+the executorship, I will never suffer thee to expose my letters.  They
+are too ingenuous by half to be seen.  And I absolutely insist upon it,
+that, on receipt of this, thou burn them all.
+
+I will never forgive thee that impudent and unfriendly reflection, of my
+cavaliering it here over half a dozen persons of distinction: remember,
+too, thy words poor helpless orphan--these reflections are too serious,
+and thou art also too serious, for me to let these things go off as
+jesting; notwithstanding the Roman style* is preserved; and, indeed, but
+just preserved.  By my soul, Jack, if I had not been taken thus
+egregiously cropsick, I would have been up with thee, and the lady too,
+before now.
+
+
+* For what these gentlemen mean by the Roman style, see Vol. I. Letter
+XXXI. in the first note.
+
+
+But write on, however: and send me copies, if thou canst, of all that
+passes between our Charlotte and Miss Harlowe.  I'll take no notice of
+what thou communicatest of that sort.  I like not the people here the
+worse for their generous offer to the lady.  But you see she is as proud
+as implacable.  There's no obliging her.  She'd rather sell her clothes
+than be beholden to any body, although she would oblige by permitting the
+obligation.
+
+O Lord! O Lord!--Mortal ill!--Adieu, Jack!
+
+
+***
+
+
+I was forced to leave off, I was so ill, at this place.  And what dost
+think! why Lord M. brought the parson of the parish to pray by me; for
+his chaplain is at Oxford.  I was lain down in my night-gown over my
+waistcoat, and in a doze: and, when I opened my eyes, who should I see,
+but the parson kneeling on one side the bed; Lord M. on the other; Mrs.
+Greme, who had been sent for to tend me, as they call it, at the feet!
+God be thanked, my Lord, said I in an ecstasy!--Where's Miss?--for I
+supposed they were going to marry me.
+
+They thought me delirious at first; and prayed louder and louder.
+
+This roused me: off the bed I started; slid my feet into my slippers;
+put my hand in my waistcoat pocket, and pulled out thy letter with my
+beloved's meditation in it!  My Lord, Dr. Wright, Mrs. Greme, you have
+thought me a very wicked fellow: but, see! I can read you as good as you
+can read me.
+
+They stared at one another.  I gaped, and read, Poor mo--or--tals the
+cau--o--ause of their own--their own mi--ser--ry.
+
+It is as suitable to my case, as to the lady's, as thou'lt observe, if
+thou readest it again.*  At the passage where it is said, That when a man
+is chastened for sin, his beauty consumes away, I stept to the glass: A
+poor figure, by Jupiter, cried I!--And they all praised and admired me;
+lifted up their hands and their eyes; and the doctor said, he always
+thought it impossible, that a man of my sense could be so wild as the
+world said I was.  My Lord chuckled for joy; congratulated me; and, thank
+my dear Miss Harlowe, I got high reputation among good, bad, and
+indifferent.  In short, I have established myself for ever with all here.
+--But, O Belford, even this will not do--I must leave off again.
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI.
+
+
+***
+
+
+A visit from the Montague sisters, led in by the hobbling Peer, to
+congratulate my amendment and reformation both in one.  What a lucky
+event this illness with this meditation in my pocket; for we were all to
+pieces before!  Thus, when a boy, have I joined with a crowd coming out
+of church, and have been thought to have been there myself.
+
+I am incensed at the insolence of the young Levite.  Thou wilt highly
+oblige me, if thou'lt find him out, and send me his ears in the next
+letter.
+
+My beloved mistakes me, if she thinks I proposed her writing to me as an
+alternative that should dispense with my attendance upon her.  That it
+shall not do, nor did I intend it should, unless she pleased me better in
+the contents of her letter than she has done.  Bid her read again.  I
+gave no such hopes.  I would have been with her in spite of you both, by
+to-morrow, at farthest, had I not been laid by the heels thus, like a
+helpless miscreant.
+
+But I grow better and better every hour, I say: the doctor says not: but
+I am sure I know best: and I will soon be in London, depend on't.  But
+say nothing of this to my dear, cruel, and implacable Miss Harlowe.
+
+A--dieu--u, Ja--aack--What a gaping puppy (yaw--n! yaw--n! yaw--n!)
+
+Thy
+LOVELACE.
+
+
+
+LETTER VIII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+MONDAY, AUG. 15.
+
+
+I am extremely concerned for thy illness.  I should be very sorry to lose
+thee.  Yet, if thou diest so soon, I could wish, from my soul, it had
+been before the beginning of last April: and this as well for thy sake,
+as for the sake of the most excellent woman in the world: for then thou
+wouldst not have had the most crying sin of thy life to answer for.
+
+I was told on Saturday that thou wert very much out of order; and this
+made me forbear writing till I heard farther.  Harry, on his return from
+thee, confirmed the bad way thou art in.  But I hope Lord M. in his
+unmerited tenderness for thee, thinks the worst of thee.  What can it be,
+Bob.?  A violent fever, they say; but attended with odd and severe
+symptoms.
+
+I will not trouble thee in the way thou art in, with what passes here
+with Miss Harlowe.  I wish thy repentance as swift as thy illness; and as
+efficacious, if thou diest; for it is else to be feared, that she and you
+will never meet in one place.
+
+I told her how ill you are.  Poor man! said she.  Dangerously ill, say
+you?
+
+Dangerously indeed, Madam!--So Lord M. sends me word!
+
+God be merciful to him, if he die!--said the admirable creature.--Then,
+after a pause, Poor wretch!--may he meet with the mercy he has not shown!
+
+I send this by a special messenger: for I am impatient to hear how it
+goes with thee.--If I have received thy last letter, what melancholy
+reflections will that last, so full of shocking levity, give to
+
+Thy true friend,
+JOHN BELFORD.
+
+
+
+LETTER IX
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+TUESDAY, AUG. 15.*
+
+
+* Text error: should be Aug. 16.
+
+
+Thank thee, Jack; most heartily I thank thee, for the sober conclusion of
+thy last!--I have a good mind, for the sake of it, to forgive thy till
+now absolutely unpardonable extracts.
+
+But dost think I will lose such an angel, such a forgiving angel, as
+this?--By my soul, I will not!--To pray for mercy for such an ungrateful
+miscreant!--how she wounds me, how she cuts me to the soul, by her
+exalted generosity!--But SHE must have mercy upon me first!--then will
+she teach me a reliance for the sake of which her prayer for me will be
+answered.
+
+But hasten, hasten to me particulars of her health, of her employments,
+of her conversation.
+
+I am sick only of love!  Oh! that I could have called her mine!--it would
+then have been worth while to be sick!--to have sent for her down to me
+from town; and to have had her, with healing in her dove-like wings,
+flying to my comfort; her duty and her choice to pray for me, and to bid
+me live for her sake!--O Jack! what an angel have I--
+
+But I have not lost her!--I will not lose her!  I am almost well; should
+be quite well but for these prescribing rascals, who, to do credit to
+their skill, will make the disease of importance.--And I will make her
+mine!--and be sick again, to entitle myself to her dutiful tenderness,
+and pious as well as personal concern!
+
+God for ever bless her!--Hasten, hasten particulars of her!--I am sick
+of love!--such generous goodness!--By all that's great and good, I will
+not lose her!--so tell her!--She says, that she could not pity me, if she
+thought of being mine!  This, according to Miss Howe's transcriptions to
+Charlotte.--But bid her hate me, and have me: and my behaviour to her
+shall soon turn that hate to love! for, body and mind, I will be wholly
+her's.
+
+
+
+LETTER X
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+THURSDAY, AUG. 17.
+
+
+I am sincerely rejoiced to hear that thou art already so much amended, as
+thy servant tells me thou art.  Thy letter looks as if thy morals were
+mending with thy health.  This was a letter I could show, as I did, to
+the lady.
+
+She is very ill: (cursed letters received from her implacable family!) so
+I could not have much conversation with her, in thy favour, upon it.--But
+what passed will make thee more and more adore her.
+
+She was very attentive to me, as I read it; and, when I had done, Poor
+man! said she; what a letter is this!  He had timely instances that my
+temper was not ungenerous, if generosity could have obliged him!  But his
+remorse, and that for his own sake, is all the punishment I wish him.--
+Yet I must be more reserved, if you write to him every thing I say!
+
+I extolled her unbounded goodness--how could I help it, though to her
+face!
+
+No goodness in it! she said--it was a frame of mind she had endeavoured
+after for her own sake.  She suffered too much in want of mercy, not to
+wish it to a penitent heart.  He seems to be penitent, said she; and it
+is not for me to judge beyond appearances.--If he be not, he deceives
+himself more than any body else.
+
+She was so ill that this was all that passed on the occasion.
+
+What a fine subject for tragedy, would the injuries of this lady, and her
+behaviour under them, both with regard to her implacable friends, and to
+her persecutor, make!  With a grand objection as to the moral,
+nevertheless;* for here virtue is punished!  Except indeed we look
+forward to the rewards of HEREAFTER, which, morally, she must be sure of,
+or who can?  Yet, after all, I know not, so sad a fellow art thou, and so
+vile an husband mightest thou have made, whether her virtue is not
+rewarded in missing thee: for things the most grievous to human nature,
+when they happen, as this charming creature once observed, are often the
+happiest for us in the event.
+
+
+* Mr. Belford's objections, That virtue ought not to suffer in a tragedy,
+is not well considered: Monimia in the Orphean, Belvidera in Venice
+Preserved, Athenais in Theodosius, Cordelia in Shakespeare's King Lear,
+Desdemona in Othello, Hamlet, (to name no more,) are instances that a
+tragedy could hardly be justly called a tragedy, if virtue did not
+temporarily suffer, and vice for a while triumph.  But he recovers
+himself in the same paragraph; and leads us to look up to the FUTURE for
+the reward of virtue, and for the punishment of guilt: and observes not
+amiss, when he says, He knows not but that the virtue of such a woman as
+Clarissa is rewarded in missing such a man as Lovelace.
+
+
+I have frequently thought, in my attendance on this lady, that if
+Belton's admired author, Nic. Rowe, had had such a character before him,
+he would have drawn another sort of penitent than he has done, or given
+his play, which he calls The Fair Penitent, a fitter title.  Miss Harlowe
+is a penitent indeed!  I think, if I am not guilty of a contradiction in
+terms; a penitent without a fault; her parents' conduct towards her from
+the first considered.
+
+The whole story of the other is a pack of d----d stuff.  Lothario, 'tis
+true, seems such another wicked ungenerous varlet as thou knowest who:
+the author knew how to draw a rake; but not to paint a penitent.  Calista
+is a desiring luscious wench, and her penitence is nothing else but rage,
+insolence, and scorn.  Her passions are all storm and tumult; nothing of
+the finer passions of the sex, which, if naturally drawn, will
+distinguish themselves from the masculine passions, by a softness that
+will even shine through rage and despair.  Her character is made up of
+deceit and disguise.  She has no virtue; is all pride; and her devil is
+as much within her, as without her.
+
+How then can the fall of such a one create a proper distress, when all
+the circumstances of it are considered?  For does she not brazen out her
+crime, even after detection?  Knowing her own guilt, she calls for
+Altamont's vengeance on his best friend, as if he had traduced her;
+yields to marry Altamont, though criminal with another; and actually beds
+that whining puppy, when she had given up herself, body and soul, to
+Lothario; who, nevertheless, refused to marry her.
+
+Her penitence, when begun, she justly styles the phrensy of her soul;
+and, as I said, after having, as long as she could, most audaciously
+brazened out her crime, and done all the mischief she could do,
+(occasioning the death of Lothario, of her father, and others,) she stabs
+herself.
+
+And can this be the act of penitence?
+
+But, indeed, our poets hardly know how to create a distress without
+horror, murder, and suicide; and must shock your soul, to bring tears
+from your eyes.
+
+Altamont indeed, who is an amorous blockhead, a credulous cuckold, and,
+(though painted as a brave fellow, and a soldier,) a mere Tom. Essence,
+and a quarreler with his best friend, dies like a fool, (as we are led to
+suppose at the conclusion of the play,) without either sword or pop-gun,
+of mere grief and nonsense for one of the vilest of her sex: but the Fair
+Penitent, as she is called, perishes by her own hand; and, having no
+title by her past crimes to laudable pity, forfeits all claim to true
+penitence, and, in all probability, to future mercy.
+
+But here is Miss CLARISSA HARLOWE, a virtuous, noble, wise, and pious
+young lady; who being ill used by her friends, and unhappily ensnared by
+a vile libertine, whom she believes to be a man of honour, is in a manner
+forced to throw herself upon his protection.  And he, in order to obtain
+her confidence, never scruples the deepest and most solemn protestations
+of honour.
+
+After a series of plots and contrivances, all baffled by her virtue and
+vigilance, he basely has recourse to the vilest of arts, and, to rob her
+of her honour, is forced first to rob her of her senses.
+
+Unable to bring her, notwithstanding, to his ungenerous views of
+cohabitation, she over-awes him in the very entrance of a fresh act of
+premeditated guilt, in presence of the most abandoned of women assembled
+to assist his devilish purpose; triumphs over them all, by virtue only of
+her innocence; and escapes from the vile hands he had put her into.
+
+She nobly, not franticly, resents: refuses to see or to marry the wretch;
+who, repenting his usage of so divine a creature, would fain move her to
+forgive his baseness, and make him her husband: and this, though
+persecuted by all her friends, and abandoned to the deepest distress,
+being obliged, from ample fortunes, to make away with her apparel for
+subsistence; surrounded also by strangers, and forced (in want of others)
+to make a friend of the friend of her seducer.
+
+Though longing for death, and making all proper preparations for it,
+convinced that grief and ill usage have broken her noble heart, she
+abhors the impious thought of shortening her allotted period; and, as
+much a stranger to revenge as despair, is able to forgive the author of
+her ruin; wishes his repentance, and that she may be the last victim to
+his barbarous perfidy: and is solicitous for nothing so much in this
+life, as to prevent vindictive mischief to and from the man who used her
+so basely.
+
+This is penitence!  This is piety!  And hence distress naturally arises,
+that must worthily effect every heart.
+
+Whatever the ill usage of this excellent woman is from her relations, she
+breaks not out into excesses: she strives, on the contrary, to find
+reason to justify them at her own expense; and seems more concerned for
+their cruelty to her for their sakes hereafter, when she shall be no
+more, than for her own: for, as to herself, she is sure, she says, God
+will forgive her, though no one on earth will.
+
+On every extraordinary provocation she has recourse to the Scriptures,
+and endeavours to regulate her vehemence by sacred precedents.  'Better
+people, she says, have been more afflicted than she, grievous as she
+sometimes thinks her afflictions: and shall she not bear what less faulty
+persons have borne?'  On the very occasion I have mentioned, (some new
+instances of implacableness from her friends,) the enclosed meditation
+will show how mildly, and yet how forcibly, she complains.  See if thou,
+in the wicked levity of thy heart, canst apply it to thy cause, as thou
+didst the other.  If thou canst not, give way to thy conscience, and that
+will make the properest application.
+
+
+MEDITATION
+
+How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words!
+
+Be it indeed that I have erred, mine error remaineth with myself.
+
+To her that is afflicted, pity should be shown from her friend.
+
+But she that is ready to slip with her feet, is as a lamp despised in the
+thought of them that are at ease.
+
+There is a shame which bringeth sin, and there is a shame which bringeth
+glory and grace.
+
+Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye, my friends! for the hand of
+God hath touched me.
+
+If your soul were in my soul's stead, I also could speak as ye do: I
+could heap up words against you--
+
+But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips
+should assuage your grief.
+
+Why will ye break a leaf driven to and fro?  Why will ye pursue the dry
+stubble?  Why will ye write bitter words against me, and make me possess
+the iniquities of my youth?
+
+Mercy is seasonable in the time of affliction, as clouds of rain in the
+time of drought.
+
+Are not my days few?  Cease then, and let me alone, that I may take
+comfort a little--before I go whence I shall not return; even to the land
+of darkness, and shadow of death!
+
+
+Let me add, that the excellent lady is informed, by a letter from Mrs.
+Norton, that Colonel Morden is just arrived in England.  He is now the
+only person she wishes to see.
+
+I expressed some jealousy upon it, lest he should have place given over
+me in the executorship.  She said, That she had no thoughts to do so now;
+because such a trust, were he to accept of it, (which she doubted,)
+might, from the nature of some of the papers which in that case would
+necessarily pass through his hands, occasion mischiefs between my friend
+and him, that would be worse than death for her to think of.
+
+Poor Belton, I hear, is at death's door.  A messenger is just come from
+him, who tells me he cannot die till he sees me.  I hope the poor fellow
+will not go off yet; since neither his affairs of this world, nor for the
+other, are in tolerable order.  I cannot avoid going to the poor man.
+Yet am unwilling to stir, till I have an assurance from you that you will
+not disturb the lady: for I know he will be very loth to part with me,
+when he gets me to him.
+
+Tourville tells me how fast thou mendest: let me conjure thee not to
+think of molesting this incomparable woman.  For thy own sake I request
+this, as well as for her's, and for the sake of thy given promise: for,
+should she die within a few weeks, as I fear she will, it will be said,
+and perhaps too justly, that thy visit has hastened her end.
+
+In hopes thou wilt not, I wish thy perfect recovery: else that thou
+mayest relapse, and be confined to thy bed.
+
+
+
+LETTER XI
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+SAT. MORN. AUG. 19.
+
+
+MADAM,
+
+I think myself obliged in honour to acquaint you that I am afraid Mr.
+Lovelace will try his fate by an interview with you.
+
+I wish to Heaven you could prevail upon yourself to receive his visit.
+All that is respectful, even to veneration, and all that is penitent,
+will you see in his behaviour, if you can admit of it.  But as I am
+obliged to set out directly for Epsom, (to perform, as I apprehend, the
+last friendly offices for poor Mr. Belton, whom once you saw,) and as I
+think it more likely that Mr. Lovelace will not be prevailed upon, than
+that he will, I thought fit to give you this intimation, lest, if he
+should come, you should be too much surprised.
+
+He flatters himself that you are not so ill as I represent you to be.
+When he sees you, he will be convinced that the most obliging things he
+can do, will be as proper to be done for the sake of his own future peace
+of mind, as for your health-sake; and, I dare say, in fear of hurting the
+latter, he will forbear the thoughts of any farther intrusion; at least
+while you are so much indisposed: so that one half-hour's shock, if it
+will be a shock to see the unhappy man, (but just got up himself from a
+dangerous fever,) will be all you will have occasion to stand.
+
+I beg you will not too much hurry and discompose yourself.  It is
+impossible he can be in town till Monday, at soonest.  And if he resolve
+to come, I hope to be at Mr. Smith's before him.
+
+I am, Madam, with the profoundest veneration,
+
+Your most faithful and most obedient servant,
+J. BELFORD.
+
+
+
+LETTER XII
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+[IN ANSWER TO HIS OF AUG. 17.  SEE LETTER X. OF THIS VOLUME.]
+SUNDAY, AUG. 20.
+
+
+What an unmerciful fellow art thou!  A man has no need of a conscience,
+who has such an impertinent monitor.  But if Nic. Rowe wrote a play that
+answers not his title, am I to be reflected upon for that?--I have
+sinned; I repent; I would repair--she forgives my sin: she accepts my
+repentance: but she won't let me repair--What wouldst thou have me do?
+
+But get thee gone to Belton, as soon as thou canst.  Yet whether thou
+goest or not, up I must go, and see what I can do with the sweet oddity
+myself.  The moment these prescribing varlets will let me, depend
+upon it, I go.  Nay, Lord M. thinks she ought to permit me one interview.
+His opinion has great authority with me--when it squares with my own: and
+I have assured him, and my two cousins, that I will behave with all the
+decency and respect that man can behave with to the person whom he most
+respects.  And so I will.  Of this, if thou choosest not to go to Belton
+mean time, thou shalt be witness.
+
+Colonel Morden, thou hast heard me say, is a man of honour and bravery:--
+but Colonel Morden has had his girls, as well as you or I.  And indeed,
+either openly or secretly, who has not?  The devil always baits with a
+pretty wench, when he angles for a man, be his age, rank, or degree, what
+it will.
+
+I have often heard my beloved speak of the Colonel with great distinction
+and esteem.  I wish he could make matters a little easier, for her mind's
+sake, between the rest of the implacables and herself.
+
+Methinks I am sorry for honest Belton.  But a man cannot be ill, or
+vapourish, but thou liftest up thy shriek-owl note, and killest him
+immediately.  None but a fellow, who is for a drummer in death's
+forlorn-hope, could take so much delight, as thou dost, in beating a
+dead-march with thy goose-quills.  Whereas, didst thou but know thine own
+talents, thou art formed to give mirth by thy very appearance; and
+wouldst make a better figure by half, leading up thy brother-bears at
+Hockley in the Hole, to the music of a Scot's bagpipe.  Methinks I see
+thy clumsy sides shaking, (and shaking the sides of all beholders,) in
+these attitudes; thy fat head archly beating time on thy porterly
+shoulders, right and left by turns, as I once beheld thee practising to
+the horn-pipe at Preston.  Thou remembrest the frolick, as I have done
+an hundred times; for I never before saw thee appear so much in
+character.
+
+But I know what I shall get by this--only that notable observation
+repeated, That thy outside is the worst of thee, and mine the best of me.
+And so let it be.  Nothing thou writest of this sort can I take amiss.
+
+But I shall call thee seriously to account, when I see thee, for the
+extracts thou hast given the lady from my letters, notwithstanding what I
+said in my last; especially if she continue to refuse me.  An hundred
+times have I myself known a woman deny, yet comply at last: but, by these
+extracts, thou hast, I doubt, made her bar up the door of her heart, as
+she used to do her chamber-door, against me.--This therefore is a
+disloyalty that friendship cannot bear, nor honour allow me to forgive.
+
+
+
+LETTER XIII
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+LONDON, AUG. 21, MONDAY.
+
+
+I believe I am bound to curse thee, Jack.  Nevertheless I won't
+anticipate, but proceed to write thee a longer letter than thou hast had
+from me for some time past.  So here goes.
+
+That thou mightest have as little notice as possible of the time I was
+resolved to be in town, I set out in my Lord's chariot-and-six yesterday,
+as soon as I had dispatched my letter to thee, and arrived in town last
+night: for I knew I could have no dependence on thy friendship where Miss
+Harlowe's humour was concerned.
+
+I had no other place so ready, and so was forced to go to my old
+lodgings, where also my wardrobe is; and there I poured out millions of
+curses upon the whole crew, and refused to see either Sally or Polly; and
+this not only for suffering the lady to escape, but for the villanous
+arrest, and for their detestable insolence to her at the officer's house.
+
+I dressed myself in a never-worn suit, which I had intended for one of my
+wedding-suits; and liked myself so well, that I began to think, with
+thee, that my outside was the best of me:
+
+I took a chair to Smith's, my heart bounding in almost audible thumps to
+my throat, with the assured expectations of seeing my beloved.  I clasped
+my fingers, as I was danced along: I charged my eyes to languish and
+sparkle by turns: I talked to my knees, telling them how they must bend;
+and, in the language of a charming describer, acted my part in fancy, as
+well as spoke it to myself.
+
+      Tenderly kneeling, thus will I complain:
+      Thus court her pity; and thus plead my pain:
+      Thus sigh for fancy'd frowns, if frowns should rise;
+      And thus meet favour in her soft'ning eyes.
+
+In this manner entertained I myself till I arrived at Smith's; and there
+the fellows set down their gay burden.  Off went their hats; Will. ready
+at hand in a new livery; up went the head; out rushed my honour; the
+woman behind the counter all in flutters, respect and fear giving due
+solemnity to her features, and her knees, I doubt not, knocking against
+the inside of her wainscot-fence.
+
+Your servant, Madam--Will. let the fellows move to some distance, and
+wait.
+
+You have a young lady lodges here; Miss Harlowe, Madam: Is she above?
+
+Sir, Sir, and please your Honour: [the woman is struck with my figure,
+thought I:] Miss Harlowe, Sir!  There is, indeed, such a young lady
+lodges here--But, but--
+
+But, what, Madam?--I must see her.--One pair of stairs; is it not?--
+Don't trouble yourself--I shall find her apartment.  And was making
+towards the stairs.
+
+Sir, Sir, the lady, the lady is not at home--she is abroad--she is in the
+country--
+
+In the country!  Not at home!--Impossible!  You will not pass this story
+upon me, good woman.  I must see her.  I have business of life and death
+with her.
+
+Indeed, Sir, the lady is not at home!  Indeed, Sir, she is abroad!--
+
+She then rung a bell: John, cried she, pray step down!--Indeed, Sir, the
+lady is not at home.
+
+Down came John, the good man of the house, when I expected one of his
+journeymen, by her saucy familiarity.
+
+My dear, said she, the gentleman will not believe Miss Harlowe is abroad.
+
+John bowed to my fine clothes: Your servant, Sir,--indeed the lady is
+abroad.  She went out of town this morning by six o'clock--into the
+country--by the doctor's advice.
+
+Still I would not believe either John or his wife.  I am sure, said I,
+she cannot be abroad.  I heard she was very ill--she is not able to go
+out in a coach.  Do you know Mr. Belford, friend?
+
+Yes, Sir; I have the honour to know 'Squire Belford.  He is gone into the
+country to visit a sick friend.  He went on Saturday, Sir.
+
+This had also been told from thy lodgings to Will. whom I sent to desire
+to see thee on my first coming to town.
+
+Well, and Mr. Belford wrote me word that she was exceeding ill.  How then
+can she be gone out?
+
+O Sir, she is very ill; very ill, indeed--she could hardly walk to the
+coach.
+
+Belford, thought I, himself knew nothing of the time of my coming;
+neither can he have received my letter of yesterday: and so ill, 'tis
+impossible she would go out.
+
+Where is her servant?  Call her servant to me.
+
+Her servant, Sir, is her nurse: she has no other.  And she is gone with
+her.
+
+Well, friend, I must not believe you.  You'll excuse me; but I must go up
+stairs myself.  And was stepping up.
+
+John hereupon put on a serious, and a less respectful face--Sir, this
+house is mine; and--
+
+And what, friend? not doubting then but she was above.--I must and will
+see her.  I have authority for it.  I am a justice of the peace.  I have
+a search warrant.
+
+And up I went; they following me, muttering, and in a plaguy flutter.
+
+The first door I came to was locked.  I tapped at it.
+
+The lady, Sir, has the key of her own apartment.
+
+On the inside, I question not, my honest friend; tapping again.  And
+being assured, if she heard my voice, that her timorous and soft temper
+would make her betray herself, by some flutters, to my listning ear, I
+said aloud, I am confident Miss Harlowe is here: dearest Madam, open the
+door: admit me but for one moment to your presence.
+
+But neither answer nor fluttering saluted my ear; and, the people being
+very quiet, I led on to the next apartment; and, the key being on the
+outside, I opened it, and looked all around it, and into the closet.
+
+The man said he never saw so uncivil a gentleman in his life.
+
+Hark thee, friend, said I; let me advise thee to be a little decent; or
+I shall teach thee a lesson thou never learnedst in all thy life.
+
+Sir, said he, 'tis not like a gentleman, to affront a man in his own
+house.
+
+Then prythee, man, replied I, don't crow upon thine own dunghil.
+
+I stept back to the locked door: My dear Miss Harlowe, I beg of you to
+open the door, or I'll break it open;--pushing hard against it, that it
+cracked again.
+
+The man looked pale: and, trembling with his fright, made a plaguy long
+face; and called to one of his bodice-makers above, Joseph, come down
+quickly.
+
+Joseph came down: a lion's-face grinning fellow; thick, and short, and
+bushy-headed, like an old oak-pollard.  Then did master John put on a
+sturdier look.  But I only hummed a tune, traversed all the other
+apartments, sounded the passages with my knuckles, to find whether there
+were private doors, and walked up the next pair of stairs, singing all
+the way; John and Joseph, and Mrs. Smith, following me up, trembling.
+
+I looked round me there, and went into two open-door bed-chambers;
+searched the closets, and the passages, and peeped through the key-hole
+of another: no Miss Harlowe, by Jupiter!  What shall I do!--what shall I
+do! as the girls say.--Now will she be grieved that she is out of the
+way.
+
+I said this on purpose to find out whether these people knew the lady's
+story; and had the answer I expected from Mrs. Smith--I believe not, Sir.
+
+Why so, Mrs. Smith?  Do you know who I am?
+
+I can guess, Sir.
+
+Whom do you guess me to be?
+
+Your name is Mr. Lovelace, Sir, I make no doubt.
+
+The very same.  But how came you to guess so well, dame Smith!  You never
+saw me before, did you?
+
+Here, Jack, I laid out for a compliment, and missed it.
+
+'Tis easy to guess, Sir; for there cannot be two such gentlemen as you.
+
+Well said, dame Smith--but mean you good or bad?--Handsome was the least
+I thought she would have said.
+
+I leave you to guess, Sir.
+
+Condemned, thought I, by myself, on this appeal.
+
+Why, father Smith, thy wife is a wit, man!--Didst thou ever find that out
+before?--But where is widow Lovick, dame Smith?  My cousin John Belford
+says she is a very good woman.  Is she within? or is she gone with Miss
+Harlowe too?
+
+She will be within by-and-by, Sir.  She is not with the lady.
+
+Well, but my good dear Mrs. Smith, where is the lady gone? and when will
+she return?
+
+I can't tell, Sir.
+
+Don't tell fibs, dame Smith; don't tell fibs, chucking her under the
+chin: which made John's upper-lip, with chin shortened, rise to his nose.
+--I am sure you know!--But here's another pair of stairs: let us see: Who
+lives up there?--but hold, here's another room locked up, tapping at the
+door--Who's at home? cried I.
+
+That's Mrs. Lovick's apartment.  She is gone out, and has the key with
+her.
+
+Widow Lovick! rapping again, I believe you are at home: pray open the
+door.
+
+John and Joseph muttered and whispered together.
+
+No whispering, honest friends: 'tis not manners to whisper.  Joseph, what
+said John to thee?
+
+JOHN! Sir, disdainfully repeated the good woman.
+
+I beg pardon, Mrs. Smith: but you see the force of example.  Had you
+showed your honest man more respect, I should.  Let me give you a piece
+of advice--women who treat their husbands irreverently, teach strangers
+to use them with contempt.  There, honest master John; why dost not pull
+off thy hat to me?--Oh! so thou wouldst, if thou hadst it on: but thou
+never wearest thy hat in thy wife's presence, I believe; dost thou?
+
+None of your fleers and your jeers, Sir, cried John.  I wish every
+married pair lived as happily as we do.
+
+I wish so too, honest friend.  But I'll be hanged if thou hast any
+children.
+
+Why so, Sir?
+
+Hast thou?--Answer me, man: Hast thou, or not?
+
+Perhaps not, Sir.  But what of that?
+
+What of that?--Why I'll tell thee: The man who has no children by his
+wife must put up with plain John.  Hadst thou a child or two, thou'dst be
+called Mr. Smith, with a courtesy, or a smile at least, at every word.
+
+You are very pleasant, Sir, replied my dame.  I fancy, if either my
+husband or I had as much to answer for as I know whom, we should not be
+so merry.
+
+Why then, dame Smith, so much the worse for those who were obliged to
+keep you company.  But I am not merry--I am sad!--Hey-ho!--Where shall I
+find my dear Miss Harlowe?
+
+My beloved Miss Harlowe! [calling at the foot of the third pair of
+stairs,] if you are above, for Heaven's sake answer me.  I am coming up.
+
+Sir, said the good man, I wish you'd walk down.  The servants' rooms, and
+the working-rooms, are up those stairs, and another pair; and nobody's
+there that you want.
+
+Shall I go up, and see if Miss Harlowe be there, Mrs. Smith?
+
+You may, Sir, if you please.
+
+Then I won't; for, if she was, you would not be so obliging.
+
+I am ashamed to give you all this attendance: you are the politest
+traders I ever knew.  Honest Joseph, slapping him upon the shoulders on
+a sudden, which made him jump, didst ever grin for a wager, man?--for the
+rascal seemed not displeased with me; and, cracking his flat face from
+ear to ear, with a distended mouth, showed his teeth, as broad and as
+black as his thumb-nails.--But don't I hinder thee?  What canst earn
+a-day, man?
+
+Half-a-crown I can earn a-day; with an air of pride and petulance, at
+being startled.
+
+There then is a day's wages for thee.  But thou needest not attend me
+farther.
+
+Come, Mrs. Smith, come John, (Master Smith I should say,) let's walk
+down, and give me an account where the lady is gone, and when she will
+return.
+
+So down stairs led I.  John and Joseph (though I had discharged the
+latter,) and my dame, following me, to show their complaisance to a
+stranger.
+
+I re-entered one of the first-floor rooms.  I have a great mind to be
+your lodger: for I never saw such obliging folks in my life.  What rooms
+have you to let?
+
+None at all, Sir.
+
+I am sorry for that.  But whose is this?
+
+Mine, Sir, chuffily said John.
+
+Thine, man! why then I will take it of thee.  This, and a bed-chamber,
+and a garret for one servant, will content me.  I will give thee thine
+own price, and half a guinea a day over, for those conveniencies.
+
+For ten guineas a day, Sir--
+
+Hold, John! (Master Smith I should say)--Before thou speakest, consider--
+I won't be affronted, man.
+
+Sir, I wish you'd walk down, said the good woman.  Really, Sir, you
+take--
+
+Great liberties I hope you would not say, Mrs. Smith?
+
+Indeed, Sir, I was going to say something like it.
+
+Well, then, I am glad I prevented you; for such words better become my
+mouth than yours.  But I must lodge with you till the lady returns.  I
+believe I must.  However, you may be wanted in the shop; so we'll talk
+that over there.
+
+Down I went, they paying diligent attendance on my steps.
+
+When I came into the shop, seeing no chair or stool, I went behind the
+compter, and sat down under an arched kind of canopy of carved work,
+which these proud traders, emulating the royal niche-fillers, often give
+themselves, while a joint-stool, perhaps, serves those by whom they get
+their bread: such is the dignity of trade in this mercantile nation!
+
+I looked about me, and above me; and told them I was very proud of my
+seat; asking, if John were ever permitted to fill this superb niche?
+
+Perhaps he was, he said, very surlily.
+
+That is it that makes thee looks so like a statue, man.
+
+John looked plaguy glum upon me.  But his man Joseph and my man Will.
+turned round with their backs to us, to hide their grinning, with each
+his fist in his mouth.
+
+I asked, what it was they sold?
+
+Powder, and wash-balls, and snuff, they said; and gloves and stockings.
+
+O come, I'll be your customer.  Will. do I want wash-balls?
+
+Yes, and please your Honour, you can dispense with one or two.
+
+Give him half a dozen, dame Smith.
+
+She told me she must come where I was, to serve them.  Pray, Sir, walk
+from behind the compter.
+
+Indeed but I won't.  The shop shall be mine.  Where are they, if a
+customer shall come in?
+
+She pointed over my head, with a purse mouth, as if she would not have
+simpered, could she have helped it.  I reached down the glass, and gave
+Will. six.  There--put 'em up, Sirrah.
+
+He did, grinning with his teeth out before; which touching my conscience,
+as the loss of them was owing to me, Joseph, said I, come hither.  Come
+hither, man, when I bid thee.
+
+He stalked towards me, his hands behind him, half willing, and half
+unwilling.
+
+I suddenly wrapt my arm round his neck.  Will. thy penknife, this moment.
+D----n the fellow, where's thy penknife?
+
+O Lord! said the pollard-headed dog, struggling to get his head loose
+from under my arm, while my other hand was muzzling about his cursed
+chaps, as if I would take his teeth out.
+
+I will pay thee a good price, man: don't struggle thus?  The penknife,
+Will.!
+
+O Lord, cried Joseph, struggling still more and more: and out comes
+Will.'s pruning-knife; for the rascal is a gardener in the country.  I
+have only this, Sir.
+
+The best in the world to launch a gum.  D----n the fellow, why dost
+struggle thus?
+
+Master and Mistress Smith being afraid, I suppose, that I had a design
+upon Joseph's throat, because he was their champion, (and this, indeed,
+made me take the more notice of him,) coming towards me with countenances
+tragic-comical, I let him go.
+
+I only wanted, said I, to take out two or three of this rascal's broad
+teeth, to put them into my servant's jaws--and I would have paid him his
+price for them.--I would by my soul, Joseph.
+
+Joseph shook his ears; and with both hands stroked down, smooth as it
+would lie, his bushy hair; and looked at me as if he knew not whether he
+should laugh or be angry: but, after a stupid stare or two, stalked off
+to the other end of the shop, nodding his head at me as he went, still
+stroking down his hair; and took his stand by his master, facing about
+and muttering, that I was plaguy strong in the arms, and he thought would
+have throttled him.  Then folding his arms, and shaking his bristled
+head, added, 'twas well I was a gentleman, or he would not have taken
+such an affront.
+
+I demanded where their rappee was? the good woman pointed to the place;
+and I took up a scollop-shell of it, refusing to let her weight it, and
+filled my box.  And now, Mrs. Smith, said I, where are your gloves?
+
+She showed me; and I chose four pair of them, and set Joseph, who looked
+as if he wanted to be taken notice of again, to open the fingers.
+
+A female customer, who had been gaping at the door, came in for some
+Scots sniff; and I would serve her.  The wench was plaguy homely; and I
+told her so; or else, I said, I would have treated her.  She, in anger,
+[no woman is homely in her own opinion,] threw down her penny; and I put
+it in my pocket.
+
+Just then, turning my eye to the door, I saw a pretty, genteel lady, with
+a footman after her, peeping in with a What's the matter, good folks? to
+the starers; and I ran to her from behind the compter, and, as she was
+making off, took her hand, and drew her into the shop; begging that she
+would be my customer; for that I had but just begun trade.
+
+What do you sell, Sir? said she, smiling; but a little surprised.
+
+Tapes, ribbands, silk laces, pins, and needles; for I am a pedlar:
+powder, patches, wash-balls, stockings, garters, snuffs, and pin
+cushions--Don't we, goody Smith?
+
+So in I gently drew her to the compter, running behind it myself, with an
+air of great dilingence and obligingness.  I have excellent gloves and
+wash-balls, Madam: rappee, Scots, Portugal, and all sorts of snuff.
+
+Well, said she, in a very good humour, I'll encourage a young beginner
+for once.  Here, Andrew, [to her footman,] you want a pair of gloves,
+don't you?
+
+I took down a parcel of gloves, which Mrs. Smith pointed to, and came
+round to the fellow to fit them on myself.
+
+No matter for opening them, said I: thy fingers, friend, are as stiff as
+drum-sticks.  Push!--Thou'rt an awkward dog!  I wonder such a pretty lady
+will be followed by such a clumsy varlet.
+
+The fellow had no strength for laughing: and Joseph was mightily pleased,
+in hopes, I suppose, I would borrow a few of Andrew's teeth, to keep him
+in countenance: and, father and mother Smith, like all the world, as the
+jest was turned from themselves, seemed diverted with the humour.
+
+The fellow said the gloves were too little.
+
+Thrust, and be d----d to thee, said I: why, fellow, thou hast not the
+strength of a cat.
+
+Sir, Sir, said he, laughing, I shall hurt your Honour's side.
+
+D----n thee, thrust I say.
+
+He did; and burst out the sides of the glove.
+
+Will. said I, where's thy pruning-knife?  By my soul, friend, I had a
+good mind to pare thy cursed paws.  But come, here's a larger pair: try
+them, when thou gettest home; and let thy sweetheart, if thou hast one,
+mend the other, so take both.
+
+The lady laughed at the humour; as did my fellow, and Mrs. Smith, and
+Joseph: even John laughed, though he seemed by the force put upon his
+countenance to be but half pleased with me neither.
+
+Madam, said I, and stepped behind the compter, bowing over it, now I hope
+you will buy something for yourself.  Nobody shall use you better, nor
+sell you cheaper.
+
+Come, said she, give me six-penny worth of Portugal snuff.
+
+They showed me where it was, and I served her; and said, when she would
+have paid me, I took nothing at my opening.
+
+If I treated her footman, she told me, I should not treat her.
+
+Well, with all my heart, said I: 'tis not for us tradesmen to be saucy--
+Is it, Mrs. Smith?
+
+I put her sixpence in my pocket; and, seizing her hand, took notice to
+her of the crowd that had gathered about the door, and besought her to
+walk into the back-shop with me.
+
+She struggled her hand out of mine, and would stay no longer.
+
+So I bowed, and bid her kindly welcome, and thanked her, and hoped I
+should have her custom another time.
+
+She went away smiling; and Andrew after her; who made me a fine bow.
+
+I began to be out of countenance at the crowd, which thickened apace; and
+bid Will. order the chair to the door.
+
+Well, Mrs. Smith, with a grave air, I am heartily sorry Miss Harlowe is
+abroad.  You don't tell me where she is?
+
+Indeed, Sir, I cannot.
+
+You will not, you mean.--She could have no notion of my coming.  I came
+to town but last night.  I have been very ill.  She has almost broken my
+heart by her cruelty.  You know my story, I doubt not.  Tell her, I must
+go out of town to-morrow morning.  But I will send my servant, to know if
+she will favour me with one half-hour's conversation; for, as soon as I
+get down, I shall set out for Dover, in my way to France, if I have not a
+countermand from her, who has the sole disposal of my fate.
+
+And so flinging down a Portugal six-and-thirty, I took Mr. Smith by the
+hand, telling him, I was sorry we had not more time to be better
+acquainted; and bidding farewell to honest Joseph, (who pursed up his
+mouth as I passed by him, as if he thought his teeth still in jeopardy,)
+and Mrs. Smith adieu, and to recommend me to her fair lodger, hummed an
+air, and, the chair being come, whipt into it; the people about the door
+seeming to be in good humour with me; one crying, a pleasant gentleman, I
+warrant him! and away I was carried to White's, according to direction.
+
+As soon as I came thither, I ordered Will. to go and change his clothes,
+and to disguise himself by putting on his black wig, and keeping his
+mouth shut; and then to dodge about Smith's, to inform himself of the
+lady's motions.
+
+
+***
+
+
+I give thee this impudent account of myself, that thou mayest rave at me,
+and call me hardened, and what thou wilt.  For, in the first place, I,
+who had been so lately ill, was glad I was alive; and then I was so
+balked by my charmer's unexpected absence, and so ruffled by that, and by
+the bluff treatment of father John, that I had no other way to avoid
+being out of humour with all I met with.  Moreover I was rejoiced to
+find, by the lady's absence, and by her going out at six in the morning,
+that it was impossible she should be so ill as thou representest her to
+be; and this gave me still higher spirits.  Then I know the sex always
+love cheerful and humourous fellows.  The dear creature herself used to
+be pleased with my gay temper and lively manner; and had she been told
+that I was blubbering for her in the back-shop, she would have despised
+me still more than she does.
+
+Furthermore, I was sensible that the people of the house must needs have
+a terrible notion of me, as a savage, bloody-minded, obdurate fellow; a
+perfect woman-eater; and, no doubt, expected to see me with the claws of
+a lion, and the fangs of a tiger; and it was but policy to show them what
+a harmless pleasant fellow I am, in order to familiarize the Johns and
+the Josephs to me.  For it was evident to me, by the good woman's calling
+them down, that she thought me a dangerous man.  Whereas now, John and I
+have shaken hands together, and dame Smith having seen that I have the
+face, and hands, and looks of a man, and walk upright, and prate, and
+laugh, and joke, like other people; and Joseph, that I can talk of taking
+his teeth out of his head, without doing him the least hurt; they will
+all, at my next visit, be much more easy and pleasant to me than Andrew's
+gloves were to him; and we shall be as thoroughly acquainted, as if we
+had known one another a twelvemonth.
+
+When I returned to our mother's, I again cursed her and all her nymphs
+together; and still refused to see either Sally or Polly!  I raved at the
+horrid arrest; and told the old dragon that it was owing to her and her's
+that the fairest virtue in the world was ruined; my reputation for ever
+blasted; and that I was not married and perfectly happy in the love of
+the most excellent of her sex.
+
+She, to pacify me, said she would show me a new face that would please
+me; since I would not see my Sally, who was dying with grief.
+
+Where is this new face? cried I: let me see her, though I shall never see
+any face with pleasure but Miss Harlowe's.
+
+She won't come down, replied she.  She will not be at the word of command
+yet.  She is but just in the trammels; and must be waited upon, I'll
+assure you; and courted much besides.
+
+Ay! said I, that looks well.  Lead me to her this instant.
+
+I followed her up: and who should she be, but that little toad Sally!
+
+O curse you, said I, for a devil!  Is it you? is your's the new face?
+
+O my dear, dear Mr. Lovelace! cried she, I am glad any thing will bring
+you to me!--and so the little beast threw herself about my neck, and
+there clung like a cat.  Come, said she, what will you give me, and I'll
+be as virtuous for a quarter of an hour, and mimic your Clarissa to the
+life?
+
+I was Belforded all over.  I could not bear such an insult upon the dear
+creature, (for I have a soft and generous nature in the main, whatever
+thou thinkest;) and cursed her most devoutly, for taking my beloved's
+name in her mouth in such a way.  But the little devil was not to be
+balked; but fell a crying, sobbing, praying, begging, exclaiming,
+fainting, that I never saw my lovely girl so well aped.  Indeed I was
+almost taken in; for I could have fancied I had her before me once more.
+
+O this sex! this artful sex! there's no minding them.  At first, indeed,
+their grief and their concern may be real: but, give way to the
+hurricane, and it will soon die away in soft murmurs, thrilling upon your
+ears like the notes of a well-tuned viol.  And, by Sally, one sees that
+art will generally so well supply the place of nature, that you shall not
+easily know the difference.  Miss Clarisa Harlowe, indeed, is the only
+woman in the world I believe that can say, in the words of her favourite
+Job, (for I can quote a text as well as she,) But it is not so with me.
+
+They were very inquisitive about my fair-one.  They told me that you
+seldom came near them; that, when you did, you put on plaguy grave airs;
+would hardly stay five minutes; and did nothing but praise Miss Harlowe,
+and lament her hard fate.  In short, that you despised them; was full of
+sentences; and they doubted not, in a little while, would be a lost man,
+and marry.
+
+A pretty character for thee, is it not? thou art in a blessed way; yet
+hast nothing to do but to go on in it: and then what work hast thou to go
+through!  If thou turnest back, these sorceresses will be like the czar's
+cossacks, [at Pultowa, I think it was,] who were planted with ready
+primed and cocked pieces behind the regulars, in order to shoot them
+dead, if they did not push on and conquer; and then wilt thou be most
+lamentably despised by every harlot thou hast made--and, O Jack, how
+formidable, in that case, will be the number of thy enemies!
+
+I intend to regulate my motions by Will.'s intelligence; for see this
+dear creature I must and will.  Yet I have promised Lord M. to be down in
+two or three days at farthest; for he is grown plaguy fond of me since I
+was ill.
+
+I am in hopes that the word I left, that I am to go out of town to-morrow
+morning, will soon bring the lady back again.
+
+Mean time, I thought I would write to divert thee, while thou art of such
+importance about the dying; and as thy servant, it seems, comes backward
+and forward every day, perhaps I may send thee another letter to-morrow,
+with the particulars of the interview between the dear creature and me;
+after which my soul thirsteth.
+
+
+
+LETTER XIV
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+
+
+I must write on, to divert myself: for I can get no rest; no refreshing
+rest.  I awaked just now in a cursed fright.  How a man may be affected
+by dreams!
+
+'Methought I had an interview with my beloved.  I found her all goodness,
+condescension, and forgiveness.  She suffered herself to be overcome in
+my favour by the joint intercessions of Lord M., Lady Sarah, Lady Betty,
+and my two cousins Montague, who waited upon her in deep mourning; the
+ladies in long trains sweeping after them; Lord M. in a long black mantle
+trailing after him.  They told her they came in these robs to express
+their sorrow for my sins against her, and to implore her to forgive me.
+
+'I myself, I thought, was upon my knees, with a sword in my hand,
+offering either to put it up in the scabbard, or to thrust it into my
+heart, as she should command the one or the other.
+
+'At that moment her cousin Morden, I thought, all of a sudden, flashed in
+through a window, with his drawn sword--Die, Lovelace! said he; this
+instant die, and be d----d, if in earnest thou repairest not by marriage
+my cousin's wrongs!
+
+'I was rising to resent this insult, I thought, when Lord M. ran between
+us with his great black mantle, and threw it over my face: and instantly
+my charmer, with that sweet voice which has so often played upon my
+ravished ears, wrapped her arms around me, muffled as I was in my Lord's
+mantle: O spare, spare my Lovelace! and spare, O Lovelace, my beloved
+cousin Morden!  Let me not have my distresses augmented by the fall of
+either or both of those who are so dear to me!
+
+'At this, charmed with her sweet mediation, I thought I would have
+clasped her in my arms: when immediately the most angelic form I had ever
+beheld, all clad in transparent white, descended in a cloud, which,
+opening, discovered a firmament above it, crowded with golden cherubs and
+glittering seraphs, all addressing her with Welcome, welcome, welcome!
+and, encircling my charmer, ascended with her to the region of seraphims;
+and instantly, the opened cloud closing, I lost sight of her, and of the
+bright form together, and found wrapt in my arms her azure robe (all
+stuck thick with stars of embossed silver) which I had caught hold of in
+hopes of detaining her; but was all that was left me of my beloved
+Clarissa.  And then, (horrid to relate!) the floor sinking under me, as
+the firmament had opened for her, I dropt into a hole more frightful than
+that of Elden; and, tumbling over and over down it, without view of a
+bottom, I awaked in a panic; and was as effectually disordered for half
+an hour, as if my dream had been a reality.'
+
+Wilt thou forgive my troubling thee with such visionary stuff?  Thou wilt
+see by it only that, sleeping or waking, my Clarissa is always present
+with me.
+
+But here this moment is Will. come running hither to tell me that his
+lady actually returned to her lodgings last night between eleven and
+twelve; and is now there, though very ill.
+
+I hasten to her.  But, that I may not add to her indisposition, by any
+rough or boisterous behaviour, I will be as soft and gentle as the dove
+herself in my addresses to her.
+
+      That I do love her, I all ye host of Heaven,
+      Be witness.--That she is dear to me!
+      Dearer than day, to one whom sight must leave;
+      Dearer than life, to one who fears to die!
+
+The chair is come.  I fly to my beloved.
+
+
+
+LETTER XV
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+
+
+Curse upon my stars!--Disappointed again!  It was about eight when I
+arrived at Smith's.--The woman was in the shop.
+
+So, old acquaintance, how do you now?  I know my love is above.--Let her
+be acquainted that I am here, waiting for admission to her presence, and
+can take no denial.  Tell her, that I will approach her with the most
+respectful duty, and in whose company she pleases; and I will not touch
+the hem of her garment, without her leave.
+
+Indeed, Sir, you are mistaken.  The lady is not in this house, nor near
+it.
+
+I'll see that.--Will.! beckoning him to me, and whispering, see if thou
+canst any way find out (without losing sight of the door, lest she should
+be below stairs) if she be in the neighbourhood, if not within.
+
+Will. bowed, and went off.  Up went I, without further ceremony; attended
+now only by the good woman.
+
+I went into each apartment, except that which was locked before, and was
+now also locked: and I called to my Clarissa in the voice of love; but,
+by the still silence, was convinced she was not there.  Yet, on the
+strength of my intelligence, I doubted not but she was in the house.
+
+I then went up two pairs of stairs, and looked round the first room: but
+no Miss Harlowe.
+
+And who, pray, is in this room? stopping at the door of another.
+
+A widow gentlewoman, Sir.--Mrs. Lovick.
+
+O my dear Mrs. Lovick! said I.--I am intimately acquainted with Mrs.
+Lovick's character, from my cousin John Belford.  I must see Mrs. Lovick
+by all means.--Good Mrs. Lovick, open the door.
+
+She did.
+
+Your servant, Madam.  Be so good as to excuse me.--You have heard my
+story.  You are an admirer of the most excellent woman in the world.
+Dear Mrs. Lovick, tell me what is become of her?
+
+The poor lady, Sir, went out yesterday, on purpose to avoid you.
+
+How so? she knew not that I would be here.
+
+She was afraid you would come, when she heard you were recovered from
+your illness.  Ah! Sir, what pity it is that so fine a gentleman should
+make such ill returns for God's goodness to him!
+
+You are an excellent woman, Mrs. Lovick: I know that, by my cousin John
+Belford's account of you: and Miss Clarissa Harlowe is an angel.
+
+Miss Harlowe is indeed an angel, replied she; and soon will be company
+for angels.
+
+No jesting with such a woman as this, Jack.
+
+Tell me of a truth, good Mrs. Lovick, where I may see this dear lady.
+Upon my soul, I will neither fright for offend her.  I will only beg of
+her to hear me speak for one half-quarter of an hour; and, if she will
+have it so, I will never trouble her more.
+
+Sir, said the widow, it would be death for her to see you.  She was at
+home last night; I'll tell you truth: but fitter to be in bed all day.
+She came home, she said, to die; and, if she could not avoid your visit,
+she was unable to fly from you; and believed she should die in your
+presence.
+
+And yet go out again this morning early?  How can that be, widow?
+
+Why, Sir, she rested not two hours, for fear of you.  Her fear gave her
+strength, which she'll suffer for, when that fear is over.  And finding
+herself, the more she thought of your visit, the less able to stay to
+receive it, she took chair, and is gone nobody knows whither.  But, I
+believe, she intended to be carried to the waterside, in order to take
+boat; for she cannot bear a coach.  It extremely incommoded her
+yesterday.
+
+But before we talk any further, said I, if she be gone abroad, you can
+have no objection to my looking into every apartment above and below;
+because I am told she is actually in the house.
+
+Indeed, Sir, she is not.  You may satisfy yourself, if you please: but
+Mrs. Smith and I waited on her to her chair.  We were forced to support
+her, she was so weak.  She said, Whither can I go, Mrs. Lovick?  whither
+can I go, Mrs. Smith?--Cruel, cruel man!--tell him I called him so, if he
+come again!--God give him that peace which he denies me!
+
+Sweet creature! cried I; and looked down, and took out my handkerchief.
+
+The widow wept.  I wish, said she, I had never known so excellent a lady,
+and so great a sufferer!  I love her as my own child!
+
+Mrs. Smith wept.
+
+I then gave over the hope of seeing her for this time, I was extremely
+chagrined at my disappointment, and at the account they gave of her ill
+health.
+
+Would to Heaven, said I, she would put it in my power to repair her
+wrongs!  I have been an ungrateful wretch to her.  I need not tell you,
+Mrs. Lovick, how much I have injured her, nor how much she suffers by her
+relations' implacableness, Mrs. Smith, that cuts her to the heart.  Her
+family is the most implacable family on earth; and the dear creature, in
+refusing to see me, and to be reconciled to me, shows her relation to
+them a little too plainly.
+
+O Sir, said the widow, not one syllable of what you say belongs to this
+lady.  I never saw so sweet a temper! she is always accusing herself, and
+excusing her relations.  And, as to you, Sir, she forgives you: she
+wishes you well; and happier than you will let her die in peace? 'tis all
+she wishes for.  You don't look like a hard-hearted gentleman!--How can
+you thus hunt and persecute a poor lady, whom none of her relations will
+look upon?  It makes my heart bleed for her.
+
+And then she wept again.  Mrs. Smith wept also.  My seat grew uneasy to
+me. I shifted to another several times; and what Mrs. Lovick farther
+said, and showed me, made me still more uneasy.
+
+Bad as the poor lady was last night, said she, she transcribed into her
+book a meditation on your persecuting her thus.  I have a copy of it.  If
+I thought it would have any effect, I would read it to you.
+
+Let me read it myself, Mrs. Lovick.
+
+She gave it to me.  It has an Harlowe-spirited title: and, from a
+forgiving spirit, intolerable.  I desired to take it with me.  She
+consented, on condition  that I showed it to 'Squire Belford.  So here,
+Mr. 'Squire Belford, thou mayest read it, if thou wilt.
+
+
+ON BEING HUNTED AFTER BY THE ENEMY OF MY SOUL.
+
+MONDAY, AUG. 21.
+
+Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man.
+
+Preserve me from the violent man.
+
+Who imagines mischief in his heart.
+
+He hath sharpened his tongue like a serpent.  Adders' poison is under his
+lips.
+
+Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked.  Preserve me from the
+violent man, who hath purposed to overthrow my goings.
+
+He hath hid a snare for me.  He hath spread a net by the way-side.  He
+hath set gins for me in the way wherein I walked.
+
+Keep me from the snares which he hath laid for me, and the gins of this
+worker of iniquity.
+
+The enemy hath persecuted my soul.  He hath smitten my life down to the
+ground.  He hath made me dwell in darkness, as those that have been long
+dead.
+
+Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me.  My heart within me is
+desolate.
+
+Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble.
+
+For my days are consumed like smoke: and my bones are burnt as the
+hearth.
+
+My heart is smitten and withered like grass: so that I forget to eat my
+bread.
+
+By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my skin.
+
+I am like a pelican of the wilderness.  I am like an owl of the desert.
+
+I watch; and am as a sparrow alone upon the house-top.
+
+I have eaten ashes like bread; and mingled my drink with weeping:
+
+Because of thine indignation, and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up,
+and cast me down.
+
+My days are like a shadow that declineth, and I am withered like grass.
+
+Grant not, O Lord, the desires of the wicked: further not his devices,
+lest he exalt himself.
+
+
+Why now, Mrs. Lovick, said I, when I had read this meditation, as she
+called it, I think I am very severely treated by the lady, if she mean me
+in all this.  For how is it that I am the enemy of her soul, when I love
+her both soul and body?
+
+She says, that I am a violent man, and a wicked man.--That I have been
+so, I own: but I repent, and only wish to have it in my power to repair
+the injuries I have done her.
+
+The gin, the snare, the net, mean matrimony, I suppose--But is it a crime
+in me to wish to marry her?  Would any other woman think it so? and
+choose to become a pelican in the wilderness, or a lonely sparrow on the
+house-top, rather than have a mate that would chirp about her all day and
+all night?
+
+She says, she has eaten ashes like bread--A sad mistake to be sure!--And
+mingled her drink with weeping--Sweet maudlin soul! should I say of any
+body confessing this, but Miss Harlowe.
+
+She concludes with praying, that the desires of the wicked (meaning poor
+me, I doubt) may not be granted; that my devices may not be furthered,
+lest I exalt myself.  I should undoubtedly exalt myself, and with reason,
+could I have the honour and the blessing of such a wife.  And if my
+desires have so honourable an end, I know not why I should be called
+wicked, and why I should not be allowed to hope, that my honest devices
+may be furthered, that I MAY exalt myself.
+
+But here, Mrs. Lovick, let me ask, as something is undoubtedly meant by
+the lonely sparrow on the house-top, is not the dear creature at this
+very instant (tell me truly) concealed in Mrs. Smith's cockloft?--What
+say you, Mrs. Lovick?  What say you, Mrs. Smith, to this?
+
+They assured me to the contrary; and that she was actually abroad, and
+they knew not where.
+
+Thou seest, Jack, that I would fain have diverted the chagrin given me
+not only by the women's talk, but by this collection of Scripture-texts
+drawn up in array against me.  Several other whimsical and light things I
+said [all I had for it!] with the same view.  But the widow would not let
+me come off so.  She stuck to me; and gave me, as I told thee, a good
+deal of uneasiness, by her sensible and serious expostulations.  Mrs.
+Smith put in now-and-then; and the two Jack-pudding fellows, John and
+Joseph, not being present, I had no provocation to turn the conversation
+into a farce; and, at last, they both joined warmly to endeavour to
+prevail upon me to give up all thoughts of seeing the lady.  But I could
+not hear of that.  On the contrary, I besought Mrs. Smith to let me have
+one of her rooms but till I could see her; and were it but for one, two,
+or three days, I would pay a year's rent for it; and quit it the moment
+the interview was over.  But they desired to be excused; and were sure
+the lady would not come to the house till I was gone, were it for a
+month.
+
+This pleased me; for I found they did not think her so very ill as they
+would have me believe her to be; but I took no notice of the slip,
+because I would not guard them against more of the like.
+
+In short, I told them, I must and would see her: but that it should be
+with all the respect and veneration that heart could pay to excellence
+like her's: and that I would go round to all the churches in London and
+Westminster, where there were prayers or service, from sun-rise to
+sun-set, and haunt their house like a ghost, till I had the opportunity
+my soul panted after.
+
+This I bid them tell her.  And thus ended our serious conversation.
+
+I took leave of them; and went down; and, stepping into my chair, caused
+myself to be carried to Lincoln's-Inn; and walked in the gardens till the
+chapel was opened; and then I went in, and said prayers, in hopes of
+seeing the dear creature enter: but to no purpose; and yet I prayed most
+devoutly that she might be conducted thither, either by my good angel, or
+her own.  And indeed I burn more than ever with impatience to be once
+more permitted to kneel at the feet of this adorable woman.  And had I
+met her, or espied her in the chapel, it is my firm belief that I should
+not have been able (though it had been in the midst of the sacred office,
+and in the presence of thousands) to have forborne prostration to her,
+and even clamorous supplication for her forgiveness: a christian act; the
+exercise of it therefore worthy of the place.
+
+After service was over, I stept into my chair again, and once more was
+carried to Smith's, in hopes I might have surprised her there: but no
+such happiness for thy friend.  I staid in the back-shop an hour and an
+half, by my watch; and again underwent a good deal of preachment from the
+women.  John was mainly civil to me now; won over a little by my serious
+talk, and the honour I professed for the lady.  They all three wished
+matters could be made up between us: but still insisted that she could
+never get over her illness; and that her heart was broken.  A cue, I
+suppose, they had from you.
+
+While I was there a letter was brought by a particular hand.  They seemed
+very solicitous to hide it from me; which made me suspect it was for her.
+I desired to be suffered to cast an eye upon the seal, and the
+superscription; promising to give it back to them unopened.
+
+Looking upon it, I told them I knew the hand and seal.  It was from her
+sister.*  And I hoped it would bring her news that she would be pleased
+with.
+
+
+* See Letter XXVI. of this volume.
+
+
+They joined most heartily in the same hope: and, giving the letter to
+them again, I civilly took leave, and went away.
+
+But I will be there again presently; for I fancy my courteous behaviour
+to these women will, on their report of it, procure me the favour I so
+earnestly covet.  And so I will leave my letter unsealed, to tell thee
+the event of my next visit at Smith's.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Thy servant just calling, I sent thee this: and will soon follow it by
+another.  Mean time, I long to hear how poor Belton is: to whom my best
+wishes.
+
+
+
+LETTER XVI
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+
+
+I have been under such concern for the poor man, whose exit I almost
+hourly expect, and at the shocking scenes his illness and his agonies
+exhibit, that I have been only able to make memoranda of the melancholy
+passages, from which to draw up a more perfect account, for the
+instruction of us all, when the writing appetite shall return.
+
+
+***
+
+
+It is returned!  Indignation has revived it, on receipt of thy letters of
+Sunday and yesterday; by which I have reason to reproach thee in very
+serious terms, that thou hast not kept thy honour with me: and if thy
+breach of it be attended with such effects as I fear it will be, I shall
+let thee know more of my mind on this head.
+
+If thou wouldst be thought in earnest in thy wishes to move the poor lady
+in thy favour, thy ludicrous behaviour at Smith's, when it comes to be
+represented to her, will have a very consistent appearance; will it
+not?--I will, indeed, confirm in her opinion, that the grave is more to
+be wished-for, by one of her serious and pious turn, than a husband
+incapable either of reflection or remorse; just recovered, as thou art,
+from a dangerous, at least a sharp turn.
+
+I am extremely concerned for the poor unprotected lady.  She was so
+excessively low and weak on Saturday, that I could not be admitted to her
+speech: and to be driven out of her lodgings, when it was fitter for her
+to be in bed, is such a piece of cruelty, as he only could be guilty of
+who could act as thou hast done by such an angel.
+
+Canst thou thyself say, on reflection, that it has not the look of a
+wicked and hardened sportiveness, in thee, for the sake of a wanton
+humour only, (since it can answer no end that thou proposest to thyself,
+but the direct contrary,) to hunt from place to place a poor lady, who,
+like a harmless deer, that has already a barbed shaft in her breast,
+seeks only a refuge from thee in the shades of death.
+
+But I will leave this matter upon thy own conscience, to paint thee such
+a scene from my memoranda, as thou perhaps wilt be moved by more
+effectually than by any other: because it is such a one as thou thyself
+must one day be a principal actor in, and, as I thought, hadst very
+lately in apprehension: and is the last scene of one of thy more intimate
+friends, who has been for the four past days labouring in the agonies of
+death.  For, Lovelace, let this truth, this undoubted truth, be engraved
+on thy memory, in all thy gaieties, That the life we are so fond of is
+hardly life; a mere breathing space only; and that, at the end of its
+longest date,
+
+      Thou must die, as well as Belton.
+
+Thou knowest, by Tourville, what we had done as to the poor man's worldly
+affairs; and that we had got his unhappy sister to come and live with him
+(little did we think him so very near to his end): and so I will proceed
+to tell thee, that when I arrived at his house on Saturday night, I found
+him excessively ill: but just raised, and in his elbow-chair, held up by
+his nurse and Mowbray (the roughest and most untouched creature that ever
+entered a sick man's chamber); while the maid-servants were trying to
+make that bed easier for him which he was to return to; his mind ten
+times uneasier than that could be, and the true cause that the down was
+no softer to him.
+
+He had so much longed to see me, as I was told by his sister, (whom I
+sent for down to inquire how he was,) that they all rejoiced when I
+entered: Here, said Mowbray, here, Tommy, is honest Jack Belford!
+
+Where, where? said the poor man.
+
+I hear his voice, cried Mowbray: he is coming up stairs.
+
+In a transport of joy, he would have raised himself at my entrance, but
+had like to have pitched out of the chair: and when recovered, called me
+his best friend! his kindest friend! but burst into a flood of tears: O
+Jack! O Belford! said he, see the way I am in!  See how weak!  So much,
+and so soon reduced!  Do you know me?  Do you know your poor friend
+Belton?
+
+You are not so much altered, my dear Belton, as you think you are.  But I
+see you are weak; very weak--and I am sorry for it.
+
+Weak, weak, indeed, my dearest Belford, said he, and weaker in mind, if
+possible, than in body; and wept bitterly--or I should not thus unman
+myself.  I, who never feared any thing, to be forced to show myself such
+a nursling!--I am quite ashamed of myself!--But don't despise me; dear
+Belford, don't despise me, I beseech thee.
+
+I ever honoured a man that could weep for the distresses of others; and
+ever shall, said I; and such a one cannot be insensible of his own.
+
+However, I could not help being visibly moved at the poor fellow's emotion.
+
+Now, said the brutal Mowbray, do I think thee insufferable, Jack.  Our
+poor friend is already a peg too low; and here thou art letting him down
+lower and lower still.  This soothing of him in his dejected moments, and
+joining thy womanish tears with his, is not the way; I am sure it is not.
+If our Lovelace were here, he'd tell thee so.
+
+Thou art an impenetrable creature, replied I; unfit to be present at a
+scene, the terrors of which thou wilt not be able to feel till thou
+feelest them in thyself; and then, if thou hadst time for feeling, my
+life for thine, thou behavest as pitifully as those thou thinkest most
+pitiful.
+
+Then turning to the poor sick man, Tears, my dear Belton, are no signs of
+an unmanly, but, contrarily of a humane nature; they ease the
+over-charged heart, which would burst but for that kindly and natural
+relief.
+
+      Give sorrow words (says Shakspeare)
+      --The grief that does not speak,
+      Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.
+
+I know, my dear Belton, thou usedst to take pleasure in repetitions from
+the poets; but thou must be tasteless of their beauties now: yet be not
+discountenanced by this uncouth and unreflecting Mowbray, for, as Juvenal
+says, Tears are the prerogative of manhood.
+
+'Tis at least seasonably said, my dear Belford.  It is kind to keep me in
+countenance for this womanish weakness, as Mowbray has been upbraidingly
+calling it, ever since he has been with me: and in so doing, (whatever I
+might have thought in such high health as he enjoys,) has convinced me,
+that bottle-friends feel nothing but what moves in that little circle.
+
+Well, well, proceed in your own way, Jack.  I love my friend Belton as
+well as you can do; yet for the blood of me, I cannot but think, that
+soothing a man's weakness is increasing it.
+
+If it be a weakness, to be touched at great and concerning events, in
+which our humanity is concerned, said I, thou mayest be right.
+
+I have seen many a man, said the rough creature, going up Holborn-hill,
+that has behaved more like a man than either of you.
+
+Ay, but, Mowbray, replied the poor man, those wretches have not had their
+minds enervated by such infirmities of body as I have long laboured
+under.  Thou art a shocking fellow, and ever wert.--But to be able to
+remember nothing in these moments but what reproaches me, and to know
+that I cannot hold it long, and what may then be my lot, if--but
+interrupting himself, and turning to me, Give me thy pity, Jack; 'tis
+balm to my wounded soul; and let Mowbray sit indifferent enough to the
+pangs of a dying friend, to laugh at us both.
+
+The hardened fellow then retired, with the air of a Lovelace; only more
+stupid; yawning and stretching, instead of humming a tune as thou didst
+at Smith's.
+
+I assisted to get the poor man into bed.  He was so weak and low, that he
+could not bear the fatigue, and fainted away; and I verily thought was
+quite gone.  But recovering, and his doctor coming, and advising to keep
+him quiet, I retired, and joined Mowbray in the garden; who took more
+delight to talk of the living Lovelace and levities, than of the dying
+Belton and his repentance.
+
+I just saw him again on Saturday night before I went to bed; which I did
+early; for I was surfeited with Mowbray's frothy insensibility, and could
+not bear him.
+
+It is such a horrid thing to think of, that a man who had lived in such
+strict terms of--what shall I call it? with another; the proof does not
+come out so, as to say, friendship; who had pretended so much love for
+him; could not bear to be out of his company; would ride an hundred miles
+on end to enjoy it; and would fight for him, be the cause right or wrong:
+yet now, could be so little moved to see him in such misery of body and
+mind, as to be able to rebuke him, and rather ridicule than pity him,
+because he was more affected by what he felt, than he had seen a
+malefactor, (hardened perhaps by liquor, and not softened by previous
+sickness,) on his going to execution.
+
+This put me strongly in mind of what the divine Miss HARLOWE once said to
+me, talking of friendship, and what my friendship to you required of me:
+'Depend upon it, Mr. Belford,' said she, 'that one day you will be
+convinced, that what you call friendship, is chaff and stubble; and that
+nothing is worthy of that sacred name,
+
+      'That has not virtue for its base.'
+
+
+Sunday morning, I was called up at six o'clock, at the poor man's earnest
+request, and found him in a terrible agony.  O Jack! Jack! said he,
+looking wildly, as if he had seen a spectre--Come nearer me!--Dear, dear
+Belford, save me!  Then clasping my arm with both his hands, and rearing
+up his head towards me, his eyes strangely rolling, Save me! dear
+Belford, save me! repeated he.
+
+I put my other arm about him--Save you from what, my dear Belton! said I;
+save you from what?  Nothing shall hurt you.  What must I save you from?
+
+Recovering from his terror, he sunk down again, O save me from myself!
+said he; save me from my own reflections.  O dear Jack! what a thing it
+is to die; and not to have one comfortable reflection to revolve!  What
+would I give for one year of my past life?--only one year--and to have
+the same sense of things that I now have?
+
+I tried to comfort him as well as I could: but free-livers to free-livers
+are sorry death-bed comforters.  And he broke in upon me: O my dear
+Belford, said he, I am told, (and I have heard you ridiculed for it,)
+that the excellent Miss Harlowe has wrought a conversion in you.  May it
+be so!  You are a man of sense: O may it be so!  Now is your time!  Now,
+that you are in full vigour of mind and body!--But your poor Belton,
+alas! your poor Belton kept his vices, till they left him--and see the
+miserable effects in debility of mind and despondency!  Were Mowbray
+here, and were he to laugh at me, I would own that this is the cause of
+my despair--that God's justice cannot let his mercy operate for my
+comfort: for, Oh! I have been very, very wicked; and have despised the
+offers of his grace, till he has withdrawn it from me for ever.
+
+I used all the arguments I could think of to give him consolation: and
+what I said had such an effect upon him, as to quiet his mind for the
+greatest part of the day; and in a lucid hour his memory served him to
+repeat these lines of Dryden, grasping my hand, and looking wistfully
+upon me:
+
+      O that I less could fear to lose this being,
+      Which, like a snow-ball, in my coward hand,
+      The more 'tis grasped, the faster melts away!
+
+In the afternoon of Sunday, he was inquisitive after you, and your
+present behaviour to Miss Harlowe.  I told him how you had been, and how
+light you made of it.  Mowbray was pleased with your impenetrable
+hardness of heart, and said, Bob. Lovelace was a good edge-tool, and
+steel to the back: and such coarse but hearty praises he gave you, as an
+abandoned man might give, and only an abandoned man could wish to
+deserve.
+
+But hadst thou heard what the poor dying Belton said on this occasion,
+perhaps it would have made thee serious an hour or two, at least.
+
+'When poor Lovelace is brought,' said he, 'to a sick-bed, as I am now,
+and his mind forebodes that it is impossible he should recover, (which
+his could not do in his late illness: if it had, he could not have
+behaved so lightly in it;) when he revolves his past mis-spent life; his
+actions of offence to helpless innocents; in Miss Harlowe's case
+particularly; what then will he think of himself, or of his past actions?
+his mind debilitated; his strength turned into weakness; unable to stir
+or to move without help; not one ray of hope darting in upon his
+benighted soul; his conscience standing in the place of a thousand
+witnesses; his pains excruciating; weary of the poor remnant of life he
+drags, yet dreading, that, in a few short hours, his bad will be changed
+to worse, nay, to worst of all; and that worst of all, to last beyond
+time and to all eternity; O Jack! what will he then think of the poor
+transitory gratifications of sense, which now engage all his attention?
+Tell him, dear Belford, tell him, how happy he is if he know his own
+dying happiness; how happy, compared to his poor dying friend, that he
+has recovered from his illness, and has still an opportunity lent him,
+for which I would give a thousand worlds, had I them to give!'
+
+I approved exceedingly of his reflections, as suited to his present
+circumstances; and inferred consolations to him from a mind so properly
+touched.
+
+He proceeded in the like penitent strain.  I have lived a very wicked
+life; so have we all.  We have never made a conscience of doing whatever
+mischief either force or fraud enabled us to do.  We have laid snares for
+the innocent heart; and have not scrupled by the too-ready sword to
+extend, as occasions offered, the wrongs we did to the persons whom we
+had before injured in their dearest relations.  But yet, I flatter
+myself, sometimes, that I have less to answer for than either Lovelace or
+Mowbray; for I, by taking to myself that accursed deceiver from whom thou
+hast freed me, (and who, for years, unknown to me, was retaliating upon
+my own head some of the evils I had brought upon others,) and retiring,
+and living with her as a wife, was not party to half the mischiefs, that
+I doubt they, and Tourville, and even you, Belford, committed.  As to the
+ungrateful Thomasine, I hope I have met with my punishment in her.  But
+notwithstanding this, dost thou not think, that such an action--and such
+an action--and such an action; [and then he recapitulated several
+enormities, in the perpetration of which (led on by false bravery, and
+the heat of youth and wine) we have all been concerned;] dost thou not
+think that these villanies, (let me call them now by their proper name,)
+joined to the wilful and gloried-in neglect of every duty that our better
+sense and education gave us to know were required of us as men and
+christians, are not enough to weigh down my soul into despondency?--
+Indeed, indeed, they are! and now to hope for mercy; and to depend upon
+the efficacy of that gracious attribute, when that no less shining one of
+justice forbids me to hope; how can I!--I, who have despised all
+warnings, and taken no advantage of the benefit I might have reaped from
+the lingering consumptive illness I have laboured under, but left all to
+the last stake; hoping for recovery against hope, and driving off
+repentance, till that grace is denied me; for, oh! my dear Belford! I can
+now neither repent, nor pray, as I ought; my heart is hardened, and I can
+do nothing but despair!--
+
+More he would have said; but, overwhelmed with grief and infirmity, he
+bowed his head upon his pangful bosom, endeavouring to hide from the
+sight of the hardened Mowbray, who just then entered the room, those
+tears which he could not restrain.
+
+Prefaced by a phlegmatic hem; sad, very sad, truly! cried Mowbray; who
+sat himself down on one side of the bed, as I sat on the other: his eyes
+half closed, and his lips pouting out to his turned-up nose, his chin
+curdled [to use one of thy descriptions]; leaving one at a loss to know
+whether stupid drowsiness or intense contemplation had got most hold of
+him.
+
+An excellent, however uneasy lesson, Mowbray! said I.--By my faith it is!
+It may one day, who knows how soon? be our own case!
+
+I thought of thy yawning-fit, as described in thy letter of Aug. 13.  For
+up started Mowbray, writhing and shaking himself as in an ague-fit; his
+hands stretched over his head--with thy hoy! hoy! hoy! yawning.  And then
+recovering himself, with another stretch and a shake, What's o'clock?
+cried he; pulling out his watch--and stalking by long tip-toe strides
+through the room, down stairs he went; and meeting the maid in the
+passage, I heard him say--Betty, bring me a bumper of claret; thy poor
+master, and this d----d Belford, are enough to throw a Hercules into the
+vapours.
+
+Mowbray, after this, assuming himself in our friend's library, which is,
+as thou knowest, chiefly classical and dramatical, found out a passage in
+Lee's Oedipus, which he would needs have to be extremely apt; and in he
+came full fraught with the notion of the courage it would give the dying
+man, and read it to him.  'Tis poetical and pretty.  This is it:
+
+      When the sun sets, shadows that show'd at noon
+      But small, appear most long and terrible:
+      So when we think fate hovers o'er our heads,
+      Our apprehensions shoot beyond all bounds:
+      Owls, ravens, crickets, seem the watch of death;
+      Nature's worst vermin scare her godlike sons:
+      Echoes, the very leavings of a voice,
+      Grow babbling ghosts, and call us to our graves.
+      Each mole-hill thought swells to a huge Olympus;
+      While we, fantastic dreamers, heave and puff,
+      And sweat with our imagination's weight.
+
+He expected praises for finding this out.  But Belton turning his head
+from him, Ah, Dick! (said he,) these are not the reflections of a dying
+man!--What thou wilt one day feel, if it be what I now feel, will
+convince thee that the evils before thee, and with thee, are more than
+the effects of imagination.
+
+I was called twice on Sunday night to him; for the poor fellow, when his
+reflections on his past life annoy him most, is afraid of being left with
+the women; and his eyes, they tell me, hunt and roll about for me.
+Where's Mr. Belford?--But I shall tire him out, cries he--yet beg of him
+to step to me--yet don't--yet do; were once the doubting and changeful
+orders he gave: and they called me accordingly.
+
+But, alas!  What could Belford do for him?  Belford, who had been but too
+often the companion of his guilty hours; who wants mercy as much as he
+does; and is unable to promise it to himself, though 'tis all he can bid
+his poor friend rely upon!
+
+What miscreants are we!  What figures shall we make in these terrible
+hours!
+
+If Miss HARLOWE'S glorious example, on one hand, and the terrors of this
+poor man's last scene on the other, affect me not, I must be abandoned to
+perdition; as I fear thou wilt be, if thou benefittest not thyself from
+both.
+
+Among the consolatory things I urged, when I was called up the last time
+on Sunday night, I told him, that he must not absolutely give himself up
+to despair: that many of the apprehensions he was under, were such as the
+best men must have, on the dreadful uncertainty of what was to succeed to
+this life.  'Tis well observed, said I, by a poetical divine, who was an
+excellent christian,* That
+
+        Death could not a more sad retinue find,
+      Sickness and pain before, and darkness all behind.
+
+
+* The Rev Mr. Norris, of Bremerton.
+
+
+About eight o'clock yesterday (Monday) morning, I found him a little
+calmer.  He asked me who was the author of the two lines I had repeated
+to him; and made me speak them over again.  A sad retinue, indeed! said
+the poor man.  And then expressing his hopelessness of life, and his
+terrors at the thoughts of dying; and drawing from thence terrible
+conclusions with regard to his future state; There is, said I, such a
+natural aversion to death in human nature, that you are not to imagine,
+that you, my dear Belton, are singular in the fear of it, and in the
+apprehensions that fill the thoughtful mind upon its approach; but you
+ought, as much as possible, to separate those natural fears which all men
+must have on so solemn an occasion, from those particular ones which your
+justly-apprehended unfitness fills you with.  Mr. Pomfret, in his
+Prospect of Death, which I dipped into last night from a collection in
+your closet, which I put into my pocket, says, [and I turned to the
+place]
+
+      Merely to die, no man of reason fears;
+            For certainly we must,
+            As we are born, return to dust;
+      'Tis the last point of many ling-ring years;
+            But whither then we go,
+            Whither, we fain would know;
+      But human understanding cannot show.
+            This makes US tremble----
+
+Mr. Pomfret, therefore, proceeded I, had such apprehensions of this dark
+state as you have: and the excellent divine I hinted at last night, who
+had very little else but human frailties to reproach himself with, and
+whose miscellanies fell into my hands among my uncle's books in my
+attendance upon him in his last hours, says,
+
+      It must be done, my soul: but 'tis a strange,
+         A dismal, and mysterious change,
+      When thou shalt leave this tenement of clay,
+         And to an unknown--somewhere--wing away;
+      When time shall be eternity, and thou
+         Shalt be--thou know'st not what--and live--
+            thou know'st not how!
+      Amazing state! no wonder that we dread
+         To think of death, or view the dead;
+      Thou'rt all wrapt up in clouds, as if to thee
+            Our very knowledge had antipathy.
+
+Then follows, what I repeated,
+
+        Death could not a more sad retinue find,
+      Sickness and pain before, and darkness all behind.
+
+Alas! my dear Belford [inferred the unhappy deep-thinker] what poor
+creatures does this convince me we mortals are at best!--But what then
+must be the case of such a profligate as I, who by a past wicked life
+have added greater force to these natural terrors?  If death be so
+repugnant a thing to human nature, that good men will be startled at it,
+what must it be to one who has lived a life of sense and appetite; nor
+ever reflected upon the end which I now am within view of?
+
+What could I say to an inference so fairly drawn?  Mercy, mercy,
+unbounded mercy, was still my plea, though his repeated opposition of
+justice to it, in a manner silenced that plea: and what would I have
+given to have had rise in my mind, one good, eminently good action to
+have remembered him of, in order to combat his fears with it?
+
+I believe, Lovelace, I shall tire thee, and that more with the subject
+of my letter, than even with the length of it.  But really, I think thy
+spirits are so offensively up since thy recovery, that I ought, as the
+melancholy subjects offer, to endeavour to reduce thee to the standard
+of humanity, by expatiating upon them.  And then thou canst not but be
+curious to know every thing that concerns the poor man, for whom thou
+hast always expressed a great regard.  I will therefore proceed as I have
+begun.  If thou likest not to read it now, lay it by, if thou wilt, till
+the like circumstances befall thee, till like reflections from those
+circumstances seize thee; and then take it up, and compare the two cases
+together.
+
+
+***
+
+
+At his earnest request, I sat up with him last night; and, poor man! it
+is impossible to tell thee, how easy and safe he thought himself in my
+company, for the first part of the night: A drowning man will catch at a
+straw, the proverb well says: and a straw was I, with respect to any real
+help I could give him.  He often awaked in terrors; and once calling out
+for me, Dear Belford, said he, Where are you!--Oh!  There you are!--Give
+me your friendly hand!--Then grasping it, and putting his clammy,
+half-cold lips to it--How kind!  I fear every thing when you are absent.
+But the presence of a friend, a sympathising friend--Oh! how comfortable!
+
+But, about four in the morning, he frighted me much: he waked with three
+terrible groans; and endeavoured to speak, but could not presently--and
+when he did,--Jack, Jack, Jack, five or six times repeated he as quick as
+thought, now, now, now, save me, save me, save me--I am going--going
+indeed!
+
+I threw my arms about him, and raised him upon his pillow, as he was
+sinking (as if to hide himself) in the bed-clothes--And staring wildly,
+Where am I? said he, a little recovering.  Did you not see him? turning
+his head this way and that; horror in his countenance; Did you not see
+him?
+
+See whom, see what, my dear Belton!
+
+O lay me upon the bed again, cried he!--Let me not die upon the floor!--
+Lay me down gently; and stand by me!--Leave me not!--All, all will soon
+be over!
+
+You are already, my dear Belton, upon the bed.  You have not been upon
+the floor.  This is a strong delirium; you are faint for want of
+refreshment [for he had refused several times to take any thing]: let me
+persuade you to take some of this cordial julap.  I will leave you, if
+you will not oblige me.
+
+He then readily took it; but said he could have sworn that Tom. Metcalfe
+had been in the room, and had drawn him out of bed by the throat,
+upbraiding him with the injuries he had first done his sister, and then
+him, in the duel to which he owed that fever which cost him his life.
+
+Thou knowest the story, Lovelace, too well, to need my repeating it: but,
+mercy on us, if in these terrible moments all the evils we do rise to our
+frighted imaginations!--If so, what shocking scenes have I, but still
+what more shocking ones hast thou, to go through, if, as the noble poet
+says,
+
+      If any sense at that sad time remains!
+
+The doctor ordered him an opiate this morning early, which operated so
+well, that he dosed and slept several hours more quietly than he had done
+for the two past days and nights, though he had sleeping-draughts given
+him before.  But it is more and more evident every hour that nature is
+almost worn out in him.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Mowbray, quite tired with this house of mourning, intends to set out in
+the morning to find you.  He was not a little rejoiced to hear you were
+in town; I believe to have a pretence to leave us.
+
+
+***
+
+
+He has just taken leave of his poor friend, intending to go away early:
+an everlasting leave, I may venture to say; for I think he will hardly
+live till to-morrow night.
+
+I believe the poor man would not have been sorry had he left him when I
+arrived; for 'tis a shocking creature, and enjoys too strong health to
+know how to pity the sick.  Then (to borrow an observation from thee) he
+has, by nature, strong bodily organs, which those of his soul are not
+likely to whet out; and he, as well as the wicked friend he is going to,
+may last a great while from the strength of their constitutions, though
+so greatly different in their talents, if neither the sword nor the
+halter interpose.
+
+I must repeat, That I cannot but be very uneasy for the poor lady whom
+you so cruelly persecute; and that I do not think that you have kept your
+honour with me.  I was apprehensive, indeed, that you would attempt to
+see her, as soon as you got well enough to come up; and I told her as
+much, making use of it as an argument to prepare her for your visit, and
+to induce her to stand it.  But she could not, it is plain, bear the
+shock of it: and indeed she told me that she would not see you, though
+but for one half-hour, for the world.
+
+Could she have prevailed upon herself, I know that the sight of her would
+have been as affecting to you, as your visit could have been to her; when
+you had seen to what a lovely skeleton (for she is really lovely still,
+nor can she, with such a form and features, be otherwise) you have, in a
+few weeks, reduced one of the most charming women in the world; and that
+in the full bloom of her youth and beauty.
+
+Mowbray undertakes to carry this, that he may be more welcome to you, he
+says.  Were it to be sent unsealed, the characters we write in would be
+Hebrew to the dunce.  I desire you to return it; and I'll give you a copy
+of it upon demand; for I intend to keep it by me, as a guard against the
+infection of your company, which might otherwise, perhaps, some time
+hence, be apt to weaken the impressions I always desire to have of the
+awful scene before me.  God convert us both!
+
+
+
+LETTER XVII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+WEDNESDAY MORN. 11 O'CLOCK.
+
+
+I believe no man has two such servants as I have.  Because I treat them
+with kindness, and do not lord it over my inferiors, and d--n and curse
+them by looks and words like Mowbray; or beat their teeth out like
+Lovelace; but cry, Pr'ythee, Harry, do this, and, Pr'ythee, Jonathan, do
+that; the fellows pursue their own devices, and regard nothing I say, but
+what falls in with these.
+
+Here, this vile Harry, who might have brought your letter of yesterday in
+good time, came not in with it till past eleven at night (drunk, I
+suppose); and concluding that I was in bed, as he pretends (because he
+was told I sat up the preceding night) brought it not to me; and having
+overslept himself, just as I had sealed up my letter, in comes the
+villain with the forgotten one, shaking his ears, and looking as if he
+himself did not believe the excuses he was going to make.  I questioned
+him about it, and heard his pitiful pleas; and though I never think it
+becomes a gentleman to treat people insolently who by their stations are
+humbled beneath his feet, yet could I not forbear to Lovelace and Mowbray
+him most cordially.
+
+And this detaining Mowbray (who was ready to set out to you before) while
+I write a few lines upon it, the fierce fellow, who is impatient to
+exchange the company of a dying Belton for that of a too-lively Lovelace,
+affixed a supplement of curses upon the staring fellow, that was larger
+than my book--nor did I offer to take off the bear from such a mongrel,
+since, on this occasion, he deserved not of me the protection which every
+master owes to a good servant.
+
+He has not done cursing him yet; for stalking about the court-yard with
+his boots on, (the poor fellow dressing his horse, and unable to get from
+him,) he is at him without mercy; and I will heighten his impatience,
+(since being just under the window where I am writing, he will not let me
+attend to my pen,) by telling you how he fills my ears as well as the
+fellow's, with his--Hay, Sir!  And G--d d--n ye, Sir!  And were ye my
+servant, ye dog ye!  And must I stay here till the mid-day sun scorches
+me to a parchment, for such a mangy dog's drunken neglect?--Ye lie,
+Sirrah!--Ye lie, I tell you--[I hear the fellow's voice in an humble
+excusatory tone, though not articulately] Ye lie, ye dog!--I'd a good
+mind to thrust my whip down your drunken throat: d--n me, if I would not
+flay the skin from the back of such a rascal, if thou wert mine, and have
+dog's-skin gloves made of it, for thy brother scoundrels to wear in
+remembrance of thy abuses of such a master.
+
+The poor horse suffers for this, I doubt not; for, What now! and, Stand
+still, and be d--d to ye, cries the fellow, with a kick, I suppose, which
+he better deserves himself; for these varlets, where they can, are
+Mowbrays and Lovelaces to man or beast; and not daring to answer him, is
+flaying the poor horse.
+
+I hear the fellow is just escaped, the horse, (better curried than
+ordinary, I suppose, in half the usual time,) by his clanking shoes, and
+Mowbray's silence, letting me know, that I may now write on: and so, I
+will tell thee that, in the first place, (little as I, as well as you,
+regard dreams,) I would have thee lay thine to heart; for I could give
+thee such an interpretation of it, as would shock thee, perhaps; and if
+thou askest me for it, I will.
+
+Mowbray calls to me from the court-yard, that 'tis a cursed hot day, and
+he shall be fried by riding in the noon of it: and that poor Belton longs
+to see me.  So I will only add my earnest desire, that you will give over
+all thoughts of seeing the lady, if, when this comes to your hand, you
+have not seen her: and, that it would be kind, if you'd come, and, for
+the last time you will ever see your poor friend, share my concern for
+him; and, in him, see what, in a little time, will be your fate and mine,
+and that of Mowbray, Tourville, and the rest of us--For what are ten,
+fifteen, twenty, or thirty years, to look back to; in the longest of
+which periods forward we shall all perhaps be mingled with the dust from
+which we sprung?
+
+
+
+LETTER XVIII
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+WEDNESDAY MORN. AUG. 23.
+
+
+All alive, dear Jack, and in ecstacy!--Likely to be once more a happy
+man!  For I have received a letter from my beloved Miss HARLOWE; in
+consequence, I suppose, of that which I mentioned in my last to be left
+for her from her sister.  And I am setting out for Berks directly, to
+show the contents to my Lord M. and to receive the congratulations of all
+my kindred upon it.
+
+I went, last night, as I intended, to Smith's: but the dear creature was
+not returned at near ten o'clock.  And, lighting upon Tourville, I took
+him home with me, and made him sing me out of my megrims.  I went to bed
+tolerably easy at two; had bright and pleasant dreams; (not such of a
+frightful one as that I gave thee an account of;) and at eight this
+morning, as I was dressing, to be in readiness against the return of my
+fellow, whom I had sent to inquire after the lady, I had the following
+letter brought to me by a chairman:
+
+
+TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+TUESDAY NIGHT, 11 O'CLOCK (AUG. 22.)
+
+
+SIR,
+
+I have good news to tell you.  I am setting out with all diligence for my
+father's house, I am bid to hope that he will receive his poor penitent
+with a goodness peculiar to himself; for I am overjoyed with the
+assurance of a thorough reconciliation, through the interposition of a
+dear, blessed friend, whom I always loved and honoured.  I am so taken up
+with my preparation for this joyful and long-wished-for journey, that I
+cannot spare one moment for any other business, having several matters of
+the last importance to settle first.  So, pray, Sir, don't disturb or
+interrupt me--I beseech you don't.  You may possibly in time see me at my
+father's; at least if it be not your own fault.
+
+I will write a letter, which shall be sent you when I am got thither and
+received: till when, I am, &c.
+
+CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+
+
+***
+
+
+I dispatched instantly a letter to the dear creature, assuring her, with
+the most thankful joy, 'That I would directly set out for Berks, and wait
+the issue of the happy reconciliation, and the charming hopes she had
+filled me with.  I poured out upon her a thousand blessings.  I declared
+that it should be the study of my whole life to merit such transcendent
+goodness: and that there was nothing which her father or friends should
+require at my hands, that I would not for her sake comply with, in order
+to promote and complete so desirable a reconciliation.'
+
+I hurried it away without taking a copy of it; and I have ordered the
+chariot-and-six to be got ready; and hey for M. Hall!  Let me but know
+how Belton does.  I hope a letter from thee is on the road.  And if the
+poor fellow can spare thee, make haste, I command thee, to attend this
+truly divine lady.  Thou mayest not else see her of months perhaps; at
+least, not while she is Miss HARLOWE.  And oblige me, if possible, with
+one letter before she sets out, confirming to me and accounting for this
+generous change.
+
+But what accounting for it is necessary?  The dear creature cannot
+receive consolation herself but she must communicate it to others.  How
+noble!  She would not see me in her adversity; but no sooner does the sun
+of prosperity begin to shine upon her than she forgives me.
+
+I know to whose mediation all this is owing.  It is to Colonel Morden's.
+She always, as she says, loved and honoured him!  And he loved her above
+all his relations.
+
+I shall now be convinced that there is something in dreams.  The opening
+cloud is the reconciliation in view.  The bright form, lifting up my
+charmer through it to a firmament stuck round with golden cherubims and
+seraphims, indicates the charming little boys and girls, that will be the
+fruits of this happy reconciliation.  The welcomes, thrice repeated, are
+those of her family, now no more to be deemed implacable.  Yet are they
+family, too, that my soul cannot mingle with.
+
+But then what is my tumbling over and over through the floor into a
+frightful hole, descending as she ascends?  Ho! only this! it alludes to
+my disrelish to matrimony: Which is a bottomless pit, a gulph, and I know
+not what.  And I suppose, had I not awoke in such a plaguy fright, I had
+been soused into some river at the bottom of the hole, and then been
+carried (mundified or purified from my past iniquities,) by the same
+bright form (waiting for me upon the mossy banks,) to my beloved girl;
+and we should have gone on cherubiming of it and caroling to the end of
+the chapter.
+
+But what are the black sweeping mantles and robes of Lord M. thrown over
+my face?  And what are those of the ladies?  O Jack!  I have these too:
+They indicate nothing in the world but that my Lord will be so good as to
+die, and leave me all he has.  So, rest to thy good-natured soul, honest
+Lord M.
+
+Lady Sarah Sadleir and Lady Betty Lawrance, will also die, and leave me
+swinging legacies.
+
+Miss Charlotte and her sister--what will become of the?--Oh! they will be
+in mourning, of course, for their uncle and aunts--that's right!
+
+As to Morden's flashing through the window, and crying, Die, Lovelace,
+and be d----d, if thou wilt not repair my cousin's wrong!  That is only,
+that he would have sent me a challenge, had I not been disposed to do the
+lady justice.
+
+All I dislike is this part of the dream: for, even in a dream, I would
+not be thought to be threatened into any measure, though I liked it ever
+so well.
+
+And so much for my prophetic dream.
+
+Dear charming creature!  What a meeting will there be between her and her
+father and mother and uncles!  What transports, what pleasure, will this
+happy, long-wished-for reconciliation give her dutiful heart!  And indeed
+now methinks I am glad she is so dutiful to them; for her duty to her
+parents is a conviction to me that she will be as dutiful to her husband:
+since duty upon principle is an uniform thing.
+
+Why pr'ythee, now, Jack, I have not been so much to blame as thou
+thinkest: for had it not been for me, who have led her into so much
+distress, she could neither have received nor given the joy that will now
+overwhelm them all.  So here rises great and durable good out of
+temporary evil.
+
+I know they loved her (the pride and glory of their family,) too well to
+hold out long!
+
+I wish I could have seen Arabella's letter.  She has always been so much
+eclipsed by her sister, that I dare say she has signified this
+reconciliation to her with intermingled phlegm and wormwood; and her
+invitation must certainly runs all in the rock-water style.
+
+I shall long to see the promised letter too when she is got to her
+father's, which I hope will give an account of the reception she will
+meet with.
+
+There is a solemnity, however, I think, in the style of her letter, which
+pleases and affects me at the same time.  But as it is evident she loves
+me still, and hopes soon to see me at her father's, she could not help
+being a little solemn, and half-ashamed, [dear blushing pretty rogue!] to
+own her love, after my usage of her.
+
+And then her subscription: Till when, I am, CLARISSA HARLOWE: as much as
+to say, after that, I shall be, if not to your own fault,
+CLARISSA LOVELACE!
+
+O my best love!  My ever-generous and adorable creature!  How much does
+this thy forgiving goodness exalt us both!--Me, for the occasion given
+thee!  Thee, for turning it so gloriously to thy advantage, and to the
+honour of both!
+
+And if, my beloved creature, you will but connive at the imperfections of
+your adorer, and not play the wife with me: if, while the charms of
+novelty have their force with me, I should happen to be drawn aside by
+the love of intrigue, and of plots that my soul delights to form and
+pursue; and if thou wilt not be open-eyed to the follies of my youth, [a
+transitory state;] every excursion shall serve but the more to endear
+thee to me, till in time, and in a very little time too, I shall get
+above sense; and then, charmed by thy soul-attracting converse; and
+brought to despise my former courses;  what I now, at distance, consider
+as a painful duty, will be my joyful choice, and all my delight will
+centre in thee!
+
+
+***
+
+
+Mowbray is just arrived with thy letters.  I therefore close my agreeable
+subject, to attend to one which I doubt will be very shocking.
+
+I have engaged the rough varlet to bear me company in the morning to
+Berks; where I shall file off the rust he has contracted in his
+attendance upon the poor fellow.
+
+He tells me that, between the dying Belton and the preaching Belford, he
+shan't be his own man these three days: and says that thou addest to the
+unhappy fellow's weakness, instead of giving him courage to help him to
+bear his destiny.
+
+I am sorry he takes the unavoidable lot so heavily.  But he has been long
+ill; and sickness enervates the mind as well as the body; as he himself
+very significantly observed to thee.
+
+
+
+LETTER XIX
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+WEDN. EVENING.
+
+
+I have been reading thy shocking letter--Poor Belton! what a multitude of
+lively hours have we passed together!  He was a fearless, cheerful
+fellow: who'd have thought all that should end in such dejected
+whimpering and terror?
+
+But why didst thou not comfort the poor man about the rencounter between
+him and that poltroon Metcalfe?  He acted in that affair like a man of
+true honour, and as I should have acted in the same circumstances.  Tell
+him I say so; and that what happened he could neither help nor foresee.
+
+Some people are as sensible of a scratch from a pin's point, as others
+from a push of a sword: and who can say any thing for the sensibility of
+such fellows?  Metcalfe would resent for his sister, when his sister
+resented not for herself.  Had she demanded her brother's protection and
+resentment, that would have been another man's matte, to speak in Lord
+M.'s phrase: but she herself thought her brother a coxcomb to busy
+himself undesired in her affairs, and wished for nothing but to be
+provided for decently and privately in her lying-in; and was willing to
+take the chance of Maintenon-ing his conscience in her favour,* and
+getting him to marry when the little stranger came; for she knew what
+an easy, good-natured fellow he was.  And indeed if she had prevailed
+upon him, it might have been happy for both; as then he would not have
+fallen in with his cursed Thomasine.  But truly this officious brother of
+her's must interpose.  This made a trifling affair important: And what
+was the issue?  Metcalfe challenged; Belton met him; disarmed him; gave
+him his life: but the fellow, more sensible in his skin than in his head,
+having received a scratch, was frighted: it gave him first a puke, then
+a fever, and then he died, that was all.  And how could Belton help that?
+--But sickness, a long tedious sickness, will make a bugbear of any thing
+to a languishing heart, I see that.  And so far was Mowbray à-propos in
+the verses from Nat. Lee, which thou hast described.
+
+
+* Madam Maintenon was reported to have prevailed upon Lewis XIV. of
+France, in his old age, (sunk, as he was, by ill success in the field,)
+to marry her, by way of compounding with his conscience for the freedoms
+of his past life, to which she attributed his public losses.
+
+
+Merely to die, no man of reason fears, is a mistake, say thou, or say
+thy author, what ye will.  And thy solemn parading about the natural
+repugnance between life and death, is a proof that it is.
+
+Let me tell thee, Jack, that so much am I pleased with this world, in
+the main; though, in some points too, the world (to make a person of it,)
+has been a rascal to me; so delighted am I with the joys of youth; with
+my worldly prospects as to fortune; and now, newly, with the charming
+hopes given me by my dear, thrice dear, and for ever dear CLARISSA; that
+were I even sure that nothing bad would come hereafter, I should be very
+loth (very much afraid, if thou wilt have it so,) to lay down my life
+and them together; and yet, upon a call of honour, no man fears death
+less than myself.
+
+But I have not either inclination or leisure to weigh thy leaden
+arguments, except in the pig, or, as thou wouldst say, in the lump.
+
+If I return thy letters, let me have them again some time hence, that is
+to say, when I am married, or when poor Belton is half forgotten; or when
+time has enrolled the honest fellow among those whom we have so long
+lost, that we may remember them with more pleasure than pain; and then I
+may give them a serious perusal, and enter with thee as deeply as thou
+wilt into the subject.
+
+When I am married, said I?--What a sound has that!
+
+I must wait with patience for a sight of this charming creature, till she
+is at her father's.  And yet, as the but blossoming beauty, as thou
+tellest me, is reduced to a shadow, I should have been exceedingly
+delighted to see her now, and every day till the happy one; that I might
+have the pleasure of observing how sweetly, hour by hour, she will rise
+to her pristine glories, by means of that state of ease and contentment,
+which will take place of the stormy past, upon her reconciliation with
+her friends, and our happy nuptials.
+
+
+
+LETTER XX
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+
+
+Well, but now my heart is a little at ease, I will condescend to take
+brief notice of some other passages in thy letters.
+
+I find I am to thank thee, that the dear creature has avoided my visit.
+Things are now in so good a train that I must forgive thee; else thou
+shouldst have heard more of this new instance of disloyalty to thy
+general.
+
+Thou art continually giving thyself high praise, by way of opposition, as
+I may say, to others; gently and artfully blaming thyself for qualities
+thou wouldst at the same time have to be thought, and which generally are
+thought, praise-worthy.
+
+Thus, in the airs thou assumest about thy servants, thou wouldst pass for
+a mighty humane mortal; and that at the expense of Mowbray and me, whom
+thou representest as kings and emperors to our menials.  Yet art thou
+always unhappy in thy attempts of this kind, and never canst make us, who
+know thee, believe that to be a virtue in thee, which is but the effect
+of constitutional phlegm and absurdity.
+
+Knowest thou not, that some men have a native dignity in their manner,
+that makes them more regarded by a look, than either thou canst be in thy
+low style, or Mowbray in his high?
+
+I am fit to be a prince, I can tell thee, for I reward well, and I punish
+seasonably and properly; and I am generally as well served by any man.
+
+The art of governing these underbred varlets lies more in the dignity of
+looks than in words; and thou art a sorry fellow, to think humanity
+consists in acting by thy servants, as men must act who are not able to
+pay them their wages; or had made them masters of secrets, which, if
+divulged, would lay them at the mercy of such wretches.
+
+Now to me, who never did any thing I was ashamed to own, and who have
+more ingenuousness than ever man had; who can call a villany by its own
+right name, though practised by myself, and (by my own readiness to
+reproach myself) anticipate all reproach from others; who am not such a
+hypocrite, as to wish the world to think me other or better than I am--
+it is my part, to look a servant into his duty, if I can; nor will I keep
+one who knows not how to take me by a nod, or a wink; and who, when I
+smile, shall not be all transport; when I frown, all terror.  If, indeed,
+I am out of the way a little, I always take care to reward the varlets
+for patiently bearing my displeasure.  But this I hardly ever am but when
+a fellow is egregiously stupid in any plain point of duty, or will be
+wiser than his master; and when he shall tell me, that he thought acting
+contrary to my orders was the way to serve me best.
+
+One time or other I will enter the lists with thee upon thy conduct and
+mine to servants; and I will convince thee, that what thou wouldst have
+pass for humanity, if it be indiscriminately practised to all tempers,
+will perpetually subject thee to the evils thou complainest of; and
+justly too; and that he only is fit to be a master of servants, who can
+command their attention as much by a nod, as if he were to pr'ythee a
+fellow to do his duty, on one hand, or to talk of flaying, and
+horse-whipping, like Mowbray, on the other: for the servant who being
+used to expect thy creeping style, will always be master of his master,
+and he who deserves to be treated as the other, is not fit to be any
+man's servant; nor would I keep such a fellow to rub my horse's heels.
+
+I shall be the readier to enter the lists with thee upon this argument,
+because I have presumption enough to think that we have not in any of our
+dramatic poets, that I can at present call to mind, one character of a
+servant of either sex, that is justly hit off.  So absurdly wise some,
+and so sottishly foolish others; and both sometime in the same person.
+Foils drawn from lees or dregs of the people to set off the characters of
+their masters and mistresses; nay, sometimes, which is still more absurd,
+introduced with more wit than the poet has to bestow upon their
+principals.--Mere flints and steels to strike fire with--or, to vary the
+metaphor, to serve for whetstones to wit, which, otherwise, could not be
+made apparent; or, for engines to be made use of like the machinery of
+the antient poets, (or the still more unnatural soliloquy,) to help on a
+sorry plot, or to bring about a necessary eclaircissement, to save the
+poet the trouble of thinking deeply for a better way to wind up his
+bottoms.
+
+Of this I am persuaded, (whatever my practice be to my own servants,)
+that thou wilt be benefited by my theory, when we come to controvert the
+point.  For then I shall convince thee, that the dramatic as well as
+natural characteristics of a good servant ought to be fidelity, common
+sense, cheerful obedience, and silent respect; that wit in his station,
+except to his companions, would be sauciness; that he should never
+presume to give his advice; that if he venture to expostulate upon any
+unreasonable command, or such a one a appeared to him to be so, he should
+do it with humility and respect, and take a proper season for it.  But
+such lessons do most of the dramatic performances I have seen give, where
+servants are introduced as characters essential to the play, or to act
+very significant or long parts in it, (which, of itself, I think a
+fault;) such lessons, I say, do they give to the footmen's gallery, that
+I have not wondered we have so few modest or good men-servants among
+those who often attend their masters or mistresses to plays.  Then how
+miserably evident must that poet's conscious want of genius be, who can
+stoop to raise or give force to a clap by the indiscriminate roar of the
+party-coloured gallery!
+
+But this subject I will suspend to a better opportunity; that is to say,
+to the happy one, when my nuptials with my Clarissa will oblige me to
+increase the number of my servants, and of consequence to enter more
+nicely into their qualifications.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Although I have the highest opinion that man can have of the generosity
+of my dear Miss Harlowe, yet I cannot for the heart of me account for
+this agreeable change in her temper but one way.  Faith and troth,
+Belford, I verily believe, laying all circumstances together, that the
+dear creature unexpectedly finds herself in the way I have so ardently
+wished her to be in; and that this makes her, at last, incline to favour
+me, that she may set the better face upon her gestation, when at her
+father's.
+
+If this be the case, all her falling away, and her fainting fits, are
+charmingly accounted for.  Nor is it surprising, that such a sweet novice
+in these matters should not, for some time, have known to what to
+attribute her frequent indispositions.  If this should be the case, how I
+shall laugh at thee! and (when I am sure of her) at the dear novice
+herself, that all her grievous distresses shall end in a man-child; which
+I shall love better than all the cherubims and seraphims that may come
+after; though there were to be as many of them as I beheld in my dream;
+in which a vast expanse of firmament was stuck as full of them as it
+could hold!
+
+I shall be afraid to open thy next, lest it bring me the account of poor
+Belton's death.  Yet, as there are no hopes of his recovery--but what
+should I say, unless the poor man were better fitted--but thy heavy
+sermon shall not affect me too much neither.
+
+I enclose thy papers; and do thou transcribe them for me, or return them;
+for there are some things in them, which, at a proper season, a mortal
+man should not avoid attending to; and thou seemest to have entered
+deeply into the shocking subject.--But here I will end, lest I grow too
+serious.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Thy servant called here about an hour ago, to know if I had any commands;
+I therefore hope that thou wilt have this early in the morning.  And if
+thou canst let me hear from thee, do.  I'll stretch an hour or two in
+expectation of it.  Yet I must be at Lord M.'s to-morrow night, if
+possible, though ever so late.
+
+Thy fellow tells me the poor man is much as he was when Mowbray left him.
+
+Wouldst thou think that this varlet Mowbray is sorry that I am so near
+being happy with Miss Harlowe?  And, 'egad, Jack, I know not what to say
+to it, now the fruit seems to be within my reach--but let what will come,
+I'll stand to't: for I find I can't live without her.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXI
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+WEDNESDAY, THREE O'CLOCK.
+
+
+I will proceed where I left off in my last.
+
+As soon as I had seen Mowbray mounted, I went to attend upon poor Belton;
+whom I found in dreadful agonies, in which he awoke, after he generally
+does.
+
+The doctor came in presently after, and I was concerned at the scene that
+passed between them.
+
+It opened with the dying man's asking him, with melancholy earnestness,
+if nothing--if nothing at all could be done for him?
+
+The doctor shook his head, and told him, he doubted not.
+
+I cannot die, said the poor man--I cannot think of dying.  I am very
+desirous of living a little longer, if I could but be free from these
+horrible pains in my stomach and head.  Can you give me nothing to make
+me pass one week--but one week, in tolerable ease, that I may die like a
+man, if I must die!
+
+But, Doctor, I am yet a young man; in the prime of my years--youth is a
+good subject for a physician to work upon--Can you do nothing--nothing at
+all for me, Doctor?
+
+Alas! Sir, replied his physician, you have been long in a bad way.  I
+fear, I fear, nothing in physic can help you!
+
+He was then out of all patience: What, then, is your art, Sir?--I have
+been a passive machine for a whole twelvemonth, to be wrought upon at the
+pleasure of you people of the faculty.--I verily believe, had I not taken
+such doses of nasty stuff, I had been now a well man--But who the plague
+would regard physicians, whose art is to cheat us with hopes while they
+help to destroy us?--And who, not one of you, know any thing but by
+guess?
+
+Sir, continued he, fiercely, (and with more strength of voice and
+coherence, than he had shown for several hours before,) if you give me
+over, I give you over.--The only honest and certain part of the art of
+healing is surgery.  A good surgeon is worth a thousand of you.  I have
+been in surgeons' hands often, and have always found reason to depend
+upon their skill; but your art, Sir, what is it?--but to daub, daub,
+daub; load, load, load; plaster, plaster, plaster; till ye utterly
+destroy the appetite first, and the constitution afterwards, which you
+are called in to help.  I had a companion once, my dear Belford, thou
+knewest honest Blomer, as pretty a physician he would have made as any
+in England, had he kept himself from excess in wine and women; and he
+always used to say, there was nothing at all but the pick-pocket parade
+in the physician's art; and that the best guesser was the best physician.
+And I used to believe him too--and yet, fond of life, and fearful of
+death, what do we do, when we are taken ill, but call ye in?  And what
+do ye do, when called in, but nurse our distempers, till from pigmies you
+make giants of them? and then ye come creeping with solemn faces, when ye
+are ashamed to prescribe, or when the stomach won't bear its natural
+food, by reason of your poisonous potions,--Alas, I am afraid physic can
+do no more for him!--Nor need it, when it has brought to the brink of the
+grave the poor wretch who placed all his reliance in your cursed slops,
+and the flattering hopes you gave him.
+
+The doctor was out of countenance; but said, if we could make mortal men
+immortal, and would not, all this might be just.
+
+I blamed the poor man; yet excused him to the physician.  To die, dear
+Doctor, when, like my poor friend, we are so desirous of life, is a
+melancholy thing.  We are apt to hope too much, not considering that the
+seeds of death are sown in us when we begin to live, and grow up, till,
+like rampant weeds, they choke the tender flower of life; which declines
+in us as those weeds flourish.  We ought, therefore, to begin early to
+study what our constitutions will bear, in order to root out, by
+temperance, the weeds which the soil is most apt to produce; or, at
+least, to keep them down as they rise; and not, when the flower or plant
+is withered at the root, and the weed in its full vigour, expect, that
+the medical art will restore the one, or destroy the other; when that
+other, as I hinted, has been rooting itself in the habit from the time of
+our birth.
+
+This speech, Bob., thou wilt call a prettiness; but the allegory is just;
+and thou hast not quite cured me of the metaphorical.
+
+Very true, said the doctor; you have brought a good metaphor to
+illustrate the thing.  I am sorry I can do nothing for the gentleman; and
+can only recommend patience, and a better frame of mind.
+
+Well, Sir, said the poor angry man, vexed at the doctor, but more at
+death, you will perhaps recommend the next succession to the physician,
+when he can do no more; and, I suppose, will send your brother to pray by
+me for those virtues which you wish me.
+
+It seems the physician's brother is a clergyman in the neighbourhood.
+
+I was greatly concerned to see the gentleman thus treated; and so I told
+poor Belton when he was gone; but he continued impatient, and would not
+be denied, he said, the liberty of talking to a man, who had taken so
+many guineas of him for doing nothing, or worse than nothing, and never
+declined one, though he know all the time he could do him no good.
+
+It seems the gentleman, though rich, is noted for being greedy after
+fees! and poor Belton went on raving at the extravagant fees of English
+physicians, compared with those of the most eminent foreign ones.  But,
+poor man! he, like the Turks, who judge of a general by his success, (out
+of patience to think he must die,) would have worshipped the doctor, and
+not grudged thee times the sum, could he have given him hopes of
+recovery.
+
+But, nevertheless, I must needs say, that gentlemen of the faculty should
+be more moderate in their fees, or take more pains to deserve them; for,
+generally, they only come into a room, feel the sick man's pulse, ask the
+nurse a few questions, inspect the patient's tongue, and, perhaps, his
+water; then sit down, look plaguy wise, and write.  The golden fee finds
+the ready hand, and they hurry away, as if the sick man's room were
+infectious.  So to the next they troll, and to the next, if men of great
+practice; valuing themselves upon the number of visits they make in a
+morning, and the little time they make them in.  They go to dinner and
+unload their pockets; and sally out again to refill them.  And thus, in a
+little time, they raise vast estates; for, as Ratcliffe said, when first
+told of a great loss which befell him, It was only going up and down one
+hundred pairs of stairs to fetch it up.
+
+Mrs. Sambre (Belton's sister) had several times proposed to him a
+minister to pray by him, but the poor man could not, he said, bear the
+thoughts of one; for that he should certainly die in an hour or two
+after; and he was willing to hope still, against all probability, that he
+might recover; and was often asking his sister if she had not seen people
+as bad as he was, who, almost to a miracle, when every body gave them
+over, had got up again?
+
+She, shaking her head, told him she had; but, once saying, that their
+disorders were of an acute kind, and such as had a crisis in them, he
+called her Small-hopes, and Job's comforter; and bid her say nothing, if
+she could not say more to the purpose, and what was fitter for a sick man
+to hear.  And yet, poor fellow, he has no hopes himself, as is plain by
+his desponding terrors; one of which he fell into, and a very dreadful
+one, soon after the doctor went.
+
+
+***
+
+
+WEDNESDAY, NINE O'CLOCK AT NIGHT.
+
+The poor man had been in convulsions, terrible convulsions! for an hour
+past.  O Lord! Lovelace, death is a shocking thing! by my faith it is!--
+I wish thou wert present on this occasion.  It is not merely the concern
+a man has for his friend; but, as death is the common lot, we see, in his
+agonies, how it will be one day with ourselves.  I am all over as if cold
+water were poured down my back, or as if I had a strong ague-fit upon me.
+I was obliged to come away.  And I write, hardly knowing what.--I wish
+thou wert here.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Though I left him, because I could stay no longer, I can't be easy by
+myself, but must go to him again.
+
+
+ELEVEN O'CLOCK.
+
+Poor Belton!--Drawing on apace!  Yet was he sensible when I went in--too
+sensible, poor man!  He has something upon his mind to reveal, he tells
+me, that is the worst action of his life; worse than ever you or I knew
+of him, he says.  It must then be very bad!
+
+He ordered every body out; but was seized with another convulsion-fit,
+before he could reveal it; and in it he lies struggling between life and
+death--but I'll go in again.
+
+
+ONE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING.
+
+All now must soon be over with him: Poor, poor fellow!  He has given me
+some hints of what he wanted to say; but all incoherent, interrupted by
+dying hiccoughs and convulsions.
+
+Bad enough it must be, Heaven knows, by what I can gather!--Alas!
+Lovelace, I fear, I fear, he came too soon into his uncle's estate.
+
+If a man were to live always, he might have some temptation to do base
+things, in order to procure to himself, as it would then be, everlasting
+ease, plenty, or affluence; but, for the sake of ten, twenty, thirty
+years of poor life to be a villain--Can that be worth while? with a
+conscience stinging him all the time too!  And when he comes to wind up
+all, such agonizing reflections upon his past guilt!  All then appearing
+as nothing!  What he most valued, most disgustful! and not one thing to
+think of, as the poor fellow says twenty and twenty times over, but what
+is attended with anguish and reproach!--
+
+To hear the poor man wish he had never been born!--To hear him pray to be
+nothing after death!  Good God! how shocking!
+
+By his incoherent hints, I am afraid 'tis very bad with him.  No pardon,
+no mercy, he repeats, can lie for him!
+
+I hope I shall make a proper use of this lesson.  Laugh at me if thou
+wilt; but never, never more, will I take the liberties I have taken; but
+whenever I am tempted, will think of Belton's dying agonies, and what my
+own may be.
+
+
+***
+
+
+THURSDAY, THREE IN THE MORNING.
+
+He is now at the last gasp--rattles in the throat--has a new convulsion
+every minute almost!  What horror is he in!  His eyes look like
+breath-stained glass!  They roll ghastly no more; are quite set; his face
+distorted, and drawn out, by his sinking jaws, and erected staring
+eyebrows, with his lengthened furrowed forehead, to double its usual
+length, as it seems.  It is not, it cannot be the face of Belton, thy
+Belton, and my Belton, whom we have beheld with so much delight over the
+social bottle, comparing notes, that one day may be brought against us,
+and make us groan, as they very lately did him--that is to say, while he
+had strength to groan; for now his voice is not to be heard; all inward,
+lost; not so much as speaking by his eyes; yet, strange! how can it be?
+the bed rocking under him like a cradle.
+
+FOUR O'CLOCK.
+
+      Alas: he's gone! that groan, that dreadful groan,
+      Was the last farewell of the parting mind!
+      The struggling soul has bid a long adieu
+      To its late mansion--Fled!  Ah! whither fled?
+
+Now is all indeed over!--Poor, poor Belton! by this time thou knowest if
+thy crimes were above the size of God's mercies!  Now are every one's
+cares and attendance at an end! now do we, thy friends,--poor Belton!--
+know the worst of thee, as to this life!  Thou art released from
+insufferable tortures both of body and mind! may those tortures, and thy
+repentance, expiate for thy offences, and mayest thou be happy to all
+eternity!
+
+We are told, that God desires not the death, the spiritual death of a
+sinner: And 'tis certain, that thou didst deeply repent!  I hope,
+therefore, as thou wert not cut off in the midst of thy sins by the sword
+of injured friendship, which more than once thou hadst braved, [the
+dreadfullest of all deaths, next to suicide, because it gives no
+opportunity for repentance] that this is a merciful earnest that thy
+penitence is accepted; and that thy long illness, and dreadful agonies in
+the last stages of it, were thy only punishment.
+
+I wish indeed, I heartily wish, we could have seen one ray of comfort
+darting in upon his benighted mind, before he departed.  But all, alas!
+to the very last gasp, was horror and confusion.  And my only fear arises
+from this, that, till within the four last days of his life, he could not
+be brought to think he should die, though in a visible decline for
+months; and, in that presumption, was too little inclined to set about a
+serious preparation for a journey, which he hoped he should not be
+obliged to take; and when he began to apprehend that he could not put it
+off, his impatience, and terror, and apprehension, showed too little of
+that reliance and resignation, which afford the most comfortable
+reflections to the friends of the dying, as well as to the dying
+themselves.
+
+But we must leave poor Belton to that mercy, of which we have all so much
+need; and, for my own part (do you, Lovelace, and the rest of the
+fraternity, as ye will) I am resolved, I will endeavour to begin to
+repent of my follies while my health is sound, my intellects untouched,
+and while it is in my power to make some atonement, as near to
+restitution or reparation, as is possible, to those I have wronged or
+misled.  And do ye outwardly, and from a point of false bravery, make as
+light as ye will of my resolution, as ye are none of ye of the class of
+abandoned and stupid sots who endeavour to disbelieve the future
+existence of which ye are afraid, I am sure you will justify me in your
+hearts, if not by your practices; and one day you will wish you had
+joined with me in the same resolution, and will confess there is more
+good sense in it, than now perhaps you will own.
+
+
+SEVEN O'CLOCK, THURSDAY MORNING.
+
+You are very earnest, by your last letter, (just given me) to hear again
+from me, before you set out for Berks.  I will therefore close with a few
+words upon the only subject in your letter which I can at present touch
+upon: and this is the letter of which you give me a copy from the lady.
+
+Want of rest, and the sad scene I have before my eyes, have rendered me
+altogether incapable of accounting for the contents of it in any shape.
+You are in ecstacies upon it.  You have reason to be so, if it be as you
+think.  Nor would I rob you of your joy: but I must say I am amazed at
+it.
+
+Surely, Lovelace, this surprising letter cannot be a forgery of thy own,
+in order to carry on some view, and to impose upon me.  Yet, by the style
+of it, it cannot though thou art a perfect Proteus too.
+
+I will not, however, add another word, after I have desired the return of
+this, and have told you that I am
+
+Your true friend, and well-wisher,
+J. BELFORD.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXII
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+AUG. 24, THURSDAY MORNING.
+
+
+I received thy letter in such good time, by thy fellow's dispatch, that
+it gives me an opportunity of throwing in a few paragraphs upon it.  I
+read a passage or two of it to Mowbray; and we both agree that thou art
+an absolute master of the lamentable.
+
+Poor Belton! what terrible conflicts were thy last conflicts!--I hope,
+however, that he is happy: and I have the more hope, because the hardness
+of his death is likely to be such a warning to thee.  If it have the
+effect thou declarest it shall have, what a world of mischief will it
+prevent! how much good will it do! how many poor wretches will rejoice at
+the occasion, (if they know it,) however melancholy in itself, which
+shall bring them in a compensation for injuries they had been forced to
+sit down contented with!  But, Jack, though thy uncle's death has made
+thee a rich fellow, art thou sure that the making good of such a vow will
+not totally bankrupt thee?
+
+Thou sayest I may laugh at thee, if I will.  Not I, Jack: I do not take
+it to be a laughing subject: and I am heartily concerned at the loss we
+all have in poor Belton: and when I get a little settled, and have
+leisure to contemplate the vanity of all sublunary things (a subject that
+will now-and-then, in my gayest hours, obtrude itself upon me) it is very
+likely that I may talk seriously with thee upon these topics; and, if
+thou hast not got too much the start of me in the repentance thou art
+entering upon, will go hand-in-hand with thee in it.  If thou hast, thou
+wilt let me just keep thee in my eye; for it is an up-hill work; and I
+shall see thee, at setting out, at a great distance; but as thou art a
+much heavier and clumsier fellow than myself, I hope that without much
+puffing and sweating, only keeping on a good round dog-trot, I shall be
+able to overtake thee.
+
+Mean time, take back thy letter, as thou desirest.  I would not have it
+in my pocket upon any account at present; nor read it once more.
+
+I am going down without seeing my beloved.  I was a hasty fool to write
+her a letter, promising that I would not come near her till I saw her at
+her father's.  For as she is now actually at Smith's, and I so near her,
+one short visit could have done no harm.
+
+I sent Will., two hours ago, with my grateful compliments, and to know
+how she does.
+
+How must I adore this charming creature! for I am ready to think my
+servant a happier fellow than myself, for having been within a pair of
+stairs and an apartment of her.
+
+Mowbray and I will drop a tear a-piece, as we ride along, to the memory
+of poor Belton:--as we ride along, said I: for we shall have so much joy
+when we arrive at Lord M.'s, and when I communicate to him and my cousins
+the dear creature's letter, that we shall forget every thing grievous:
+since now their family-hopes in my reformation (the point which lies so
+near their hearts) will all revive; it being an article of their faith,
+that if I marry, repentance and mortification will follow of course.
+
+Neither Mowbray nor I shall accept of thy verbal invitation to the
+funeral.  We like not these dismal formalities.  And as to the respect
+that is supposed to be shown to the memory of a deceased friend in such
+an attendance, why should we do any thing to reflect upon those who have
+made it a fashion to leave this parade to people whom they hire for that
+purpose?
+
+Adieu, and be cheerful.  Thou canst now do no more for poor Belton, wert
+thou to howl for him to the end of thy life.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXIII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+SAT. AUG. 26.
+
+
+On Thursday afternoon I assisted at the opening of poor Belton's will, in
+which he has left me his sole executor, and bequeathed me a legacy of an
+hundred guineas; which I shall present to his unfortunate sister, to whom
+he has not been so kind as I think he ought to have been.  He has also
+left twenty pounds a-piece to Mowbray, Tourville, thyself, and me, for a
+ring to be worn in remembrance of him.
+
+After I had given some particular orders about the preparations to be
+made for his funeral, I went to town; but having made it late before I
+got in on Thursday night, and being fatigued for want of rest several
+nights before, and now in my spirits, [I could not help it, Lovelace!] I
+contented myself to send my compliments to the innocent sufferer, to
+inquire after her health.
+
+My servant saw Mrs. Smith, who told him, she was very glad I was come to
+town; for that lady was worse than she had yet been.
+
+It is impossible to account for the contents of her letter to you; or to
+reconcile those contents to the facts I have to communicate.
+
+I was at Smith's by seven yesterday (Friday) morning; and found that the
+lady was just gone in a chair to St. Dunstan's to prayers: she was too
+ill to get out by six to Covent-garden church; and was forced to be
+supported to her chair by Mrs. Lovick.  They would have persuaded her
+against going; but she said she knew not but it would be her last
+opportunity.  Mrs. Lovick, dreading that she would be taken worse at
+church, walked thither before her.
+
+Mrs. Smith told me she was so ill on Wednesday night, that she had
+desired to receive the sacrament; and accordingly it was administered to
+her, by the parson of the parish: whom she besought to take all
+opportunities of assisting her in her solemn preparation.
+
+This the gentleman promised: and called in the morning to inquire after
+her health; and was admitted at the first word.  He staid with her about
+half an hour; and when he came down, with his face turned aside, and a
+faltering accent, 'Mrs. Smith,' said he, 'you have an angel in your
+house.--I will attend her again in the evening, as she desires, and as
+often as I think it will be agreeable to her.'
+
+Her increased weakness she attributed to the fatigues she had undergone
+by your means; and to a letter she had received from her sister, which
+she answered the same day.
+
+Mrs. Smith told me that two different persons had called there, one on
+Thursday morning, one in the evening, to inquire after her state of
+health; and seemed as if commissioned from her relations for that
+purpose; but asked not to see her, only were very inquisitive after her
+visiters: (particularly, it seems, after me: What could they mean by
+that?) after her way of life, and expenses; and one of them inquired
+after her manner of supporting them; to the latter of which, Mrs. Smith
+said, she had answered, as the truth was, that she had been obliged to
+sell some of her clothes, and was actually about parting with more; at
+which the inquirist (a grave old farmer-looking man) held up his hands,
+and said, Good God!--this will be sad, sad news to somebody!  I believe
+I must not mention it.  But Mrs. Smith says she desired he would, let him
+come from whom he would.  He shook his head, and said if she died, the
+flower of the world would be gone, and the family she belonged to would
+be no more than a common family.*  I was pleased with the man's
+expression.
+
+
+* This man came from her cousin Morden; as will be seen hereafter,
+Letters LII. and LVI. of this volume.
+
+
+You may be curious to know how she passed her time, when she was obliged
+to leave her lodging to avoid you.
+
+Mrs. Smith tells me 'that she was very ill when she went out on Monday
+morning, and sighed as if her heart would break as she came down stairs,
+and as she went through the shop into the coach, her nurse with her, as
+you had informed me before: that she ordered the coachman (whom she hired
+for the day) to drive any where, so it was into the air: he accordingly
+drove her to Hampstead, and thence to Highgate.  There at the
+Bowling-green House, she alighted, extremely ill, and having breakfasted,
+ordered the coachman to drive very slowly any where.  He crept along to
+Muswell-hill, and put up at a public house there; where she employed
+herself two hours in writing, though exceedingly weak and low, till the
+dinner she had ordered was brought in: she endeavoured to eat, but could
+not: her appetite was gone, quite gone, she said.  And then she wrote on
+for three hours more: after which, being heavy, she dozed a little in an
+elbow-chair.  When she awoke, she ordered the coachman to drive her very
+slowly to town, to the house of a friend of Mrs. Lovick; whom, as agreed
+upon, she met there: but, being extremely ill, she would venture home at
+a late hour, although she heard from the widow that you had been there;
+and had reason to be shocked at your behaviour.  She said she found there
+was no avoiding you: she was apprehensive she should not live many hours,
+and it was not impossible but the shock the sight of you must give her
+would determine her fate in your presence.
+
+'She accordingly went home.  She heard the relation of your astonishing
+vagaries, with hands and eyes often lifted up; and with these words
+intermingled, Shocking creature! incorrigible wretch!  And will nothing
+make him serious?  And not being able to bear the thoughts of an
+interview with a man so hardened, she took to her usual chair early in
+the morning, and was carried to the Temple-stairs, where she had ordered
+her nurse before her, to get a pair of oars in readiness (for her
+fatigues the day before made her unable to bear a coach;) and then she
+was rowed to Chelsea, where she breakfasted; and after rowing about, put
+in at the Swan at Brentford-ait, where she dined; and would have written,
+but had no conveniency either of tolerable pens, or ink, or private room;
+and then proceeding to Richmond, they rowed her back to Mort-lake; where
+she put in, and drank tea at a house her waterman recommended to her.
+She wrote there for an hour; and returned to the Temple; and, when she
+landed, made one of the watermen get her a chair, and so was carried to
+the widow's friend, as the night before; where she again met the widow,
+who informed her that you had been after her twice that day.
+
+'Mrs. Lovick gave her there her sister's letter;* and she was so much
+affected with the contents of it, that she was twice very nigh fainting
+away; and wept bitterly, as Mrs. Lovick told Mrs. Smith; dropping some
+warmer expressions than ever they had heard proceed from her lips, in
+relation to her friends; calling them cruel, and complaining of ill
+offices done her, and of vile reports raised against her.
+
+
+* See Letter XXVI. of this volume.
+
+
+'While she was thus disturbed, Mrs. Smith came to her, and told her, that
+you had been there a third time, and was just gone, (at half an hour
+after nine,) having left word how civil and respectful you would be; but
+that you was determined to see her at all events.
+
+'She said it was hard she could not be permitted to die in peace: that
+her lot was a severe one: that she began to be afraid she should not
+forbear repining, and to think her punishment greater than her fault:
+but, recalling herself immediately, she comforted herself, that her life
+would be short, and with the assurance of a better.'
+
+By what I have mentioned, you will conclude with me, that the letter
+brought her by Mrs. Lovick (the superscription of which you saw to be
+written in her sister's hand) could not be the letter on the contents of
+which she grounded that she wrote to you, on her return home.  And yet
+neither Mrs. Lovick, nor Mrs. Smith, nor the servant of the latter, know
+of any other brought her.  But as the women assured me, that she actually
+did write to you, I was eased of a suspicion which I had begun to
+entertain, that you (for some purpose I could not guess at) had forged
+the letter from her of which you sent me a copy.
+
+On Wednesday morning, when she received your letter, in answer to her's,
+she said, Necessity may well be called the mother of invention--but
+calamity is the test of integrity.--I hope I have not taken an
+inexcusable step--And there she stopt a minute or two; and then said, I
+shall now, perhaps, be allowed to die in peace.
+
+I staid till she came in.  She was glad to see me; but, being very weak,
+said, she must sit down before she could go up stairs: and so went into
+the back-shop; leaning upon Mrs. Lovick: and when she had sat down, 'I am
+glad to see you, Mr. Belford, said she; I must say so--let mis-reporters
+say what they will.'
+
+I wondered at this expression;* but would not interrupt her.
+
+
+* Explained in Letter XXVIII. of this volume.
+
+
+O Sir, said she, I have been grievously harassed.  Your friend, who would
+not let me live with reputation, will not permit me to die in peace.  You
+see how I am.  Is there not a great alteration in me within this week!
+but 'tis all for the better.  Yet were I to wish for life, I must say
+that your friend, your barbarous friend, has hurt me greatly.
+
+She was so weak, so short breathed, and her words and actions so very
+moving, that I was forced to walk from her; the two women and her nurse
+turning away their faces also, weeping.
+
+I have had, Madam, said I, since I saw you, a most shocking scene before
+my eyes for days together.  My poor friend Belton is no more.  He quitted
+the world yesterday morning in such dreadful agonies, that the impression
+they have left upon me have so weakened my mind--
+
+I was loth to have her think that my grief was owing to the weak state I
+saw her in, for fear of dispiriting her.
+
+That is only, Mr. Belford, interrupted she, in order to strengthen it, if
+a proper use be made of the impression.  But I should be glad, since you
+are so humanely affected with the solemn circumstance, that you could
+have written an account of it to your gay friend, in the style and manner
+you are master of.  Who knows, as it would have come from an associate,
+and of an associate, it might have affected him?
+
+That I had done, I told her, in such a manner as had, I believed, some
+effect upon you.
+
+His behaviour in this honest family so lately, said she, and his cruel
+pursuit of me, give me but little hope that any thing serious or solemn
+will affect him.
+
+We had some talk about Belton's dying behaviour, and I gave her several
+particulars of the poor man's impatience and despair; to which she was
+very attentive; and made fine observations upon the subject of
+procrastination.
+
+A letter and packet were brought her by a man on horseback from Miss
+Howe, while we were talking.  She retired up stairs to read it; and while
+I was in discourse with Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick, the doctor and
+apothecary both came in together.  They confirmed to me my fears, as to
+the dangerous way she is in.  They had both been apprized of the new
+instances of implacableness in her friends, and of your persecutions: and
+the doctor said he would not for the world be either the unforgiving
+father of that lady, or the man who had brought her to this distress.
+Her heart's broken: she'll die, said he: there is no saving her.  But
+how, were I either the one or the other of the people I have named, I
+should support myself afterwards, I cannot tell.
+
+When she was told we were all three together, she desired us to walk up.
+She arose to receive us, and after answering two or three general
+questions relating to her health, she addressed herself to us, to the
+following effect:
+
+As I may not, said she, see you three gentlemen together again, let me
+take this opportunity to acknowledge my obligations to you all.  I am
+inexpressibly obliged to you, Sir, and to you, Sir, [courtesying to the
+doctor and to Mr. Goddard] for your more than friendly, your paternal
+care and concern for me.  Humanity in your profession, I dare say, is far
+from being a rare qualification, because you are gentlemen by your
+profession: but so much kindness, so much humanity, did never desolate
+creature meet with, as I have met with from you both.  But indeed I have
+always observed, that where a person relies upon Providence, it never
+fails to raise up a new friend for every old one that falls off.
+
+This gentleman, [bowing to me,] who, some people think, should have been
+one of the last I should have thought of for my executor--is,
+nevertheless, (such is the strange turn that things have taken!) the only
+one I can choose; and therefore I have chosen him for that charitable
+office, and he has been so good as to accept of it: for, rich as I may
+boast myself to be, I am rather so in right than in fact, at this
+present.  I repeat, therefore, my humble thanks to you all three, and beg
+of God to return to you and yours [looking to each] an hundred-fold, the
+kindness and favour you have shown me; and that it may be in the power of
+you and of yours, to the end of time, to confer benefits, rather than to
+be obliged to receive them.  This is a godlike power, gentlemen: I once
+rejoiced in it some little degree; and much more in the prospect I had of
+its being enlarged to me; though I have had the mortification to
+experience the reverse, and to be obliged almost to every body I have
+seen or met with: but all, originally, through my own fault; so I ought
+to bear the punishment without repining: and I hope I do.  Forgive these
+impertinencies: a grateful heart, that wants the power it wishes for, to
+express itself suitably to its own impulses, will be at a loss what
+properly to dictate to the tongue; and yet, unable to restrain its
+overflowings, will force the tongue to say weak and silly things, rather
+than appear ungratefully silent.  Once more, then, I thank ye all three
+for your kindness to me: and God Almighty make you that amends which at
+present I cannot!
+
+She retired from us to her closet with her eyes full; and left us looking
+upon one another.
+
+We had hardly recovered ourselves, when she, quite easy, cheerful, and
+smiling, returned to us: Doctor, said she (seeing we had been moved) you
+will excuse me for the concern I give you; and so will you, Mr. Goddard,
+and you, Mr. Belford; for 'tis a concern that only generous natures can
+show: and to such natures sweet is the pain, if I may say so, that
+attends such a concern.  But as I have some few preparations still to
+make, and would not (though in ease of Mr. Belford's future cares, which
+is, and ought to be, part of my study) undertake more than it is likely I
+shall have time lent me to perform, I would beg of you to give me your
+opinions [you see my way of living, and you may be assured that I will do
+nothing wilfully to shorten my life] how long it may possibly be, before
+I may hope to be released from all my troubles.
+
+They both hesitated, and looked upon each other.  Don't be afraid to
+answer me, said she, each sweet hand pressing upon the arm of each
+gentleman, with that mingled freedom and reserve, which virgin modesty,
+mixed with conscious dignity, can only express, and with a look serenely
+earnest, tell me how long you think I may hold it! and believe me,
+gentlemen, the shorter you tell me my time is likely to be, the more
+comfort you will give me.
+
+With what pleasing woe, said the Doctor, do you fill the minds of those
+who have the happiness to converse with you, and see the happy frame you
+are in! what you have undergone within a few days past has much hurt you:
+and should you have fresh troubles of those kinds, I could not be
+answerable for your holding it--And there he paused.
+
+How long, Doctor?--I believe I shall have a little more ruffling--I am
+afraid I shall--but there can happen only one thing that I shall not be
+tolerably easy under--How long then, Sir?--
+
+He was silent.
+
+A fortnight, Sir?
+
+He was still silent.
+
+Ten days?--A week?--How long, Sir? with smiling earnestness.
+
+If I must speak, Madam, if you have not better treatment than you have
+lately met with, I am afraid--There again he stopt.
+
+Afraid of what, Doctor? don't be afraid--How long, Sir?
+
+That a fortnight or three weeks may deprive the world of the finest
+flower in it.
+
+A fortnight or three weeks yet, Doctor?--But God's will be done!  I
+shall, however, by this means, have full time, if I have but strength
+and intellect, to do all that is now upon my mind to do.  And so, Sirs,
+I can but once more thank you [turning to each of us] for all your
+goodness to me; and, having letters to write, will take up no more of
+your time--Only, Doctor, be pleased to order me some more of those drops:
+they cheer me a little, when I am low; and putting a fee into his
+unwilling hand--You know the terms, Sir!--Then, turning to Mr. Goddard,
+you'll be so good, Sir, as to look in upon me to-night or to-morrow, as
+you have opportunity: and you, Mr. Belford, I know, will be desirous to
+set out to prepare for the last office for your late friend: so I wish
+you a good journey, and hope to see you when that is performed.
+
+She then retired with a cheerful and serene air.  The two gentlemen
+went away together.  I went down to the women, and, inquiring, found,
+that Mrs. Lovick was this day to bring her twenty guineas more, for some
+other of her apparel.
+
+The widow told me that she had taken the liberty to expostulate with her
+upon the occasion she had for raising this money, to such great
+disadvantage; and it produced the following short and affecting
+conversation between them.
+
+None of my friends will wear any thing of mine, said she.  I shall leave
+a great many good things behind me.--And as to what I want the money for
+--don't be surprised:--But suppose I want it to purchase a house?
+
+You are all mystery, Madam.  I don't comprehend you.
+
+Why, then, Mrs. Lovick, I will explain myself.--I have a man, not a
+woman, for my executor: and think you that I will leave to his care any
+thing that concerns my own person?--Now, Mrs. Lovick, smiling, do you
+comprehend me?
+
+Mrs. Lovick wept.
+
+O fie! proceeded the Lady, drying up her tears with her own handkerchief,
+and giving her a kiss--Why this kind weakness for one with whom you have
+been so little while acquainted?  Dear, good Mrs. Lovick, don't be
+concerned for me on a prospect with which I have occasion to be pleased;
+but go to-morrow to your friends, and bring me the money they have agreed
+to give you.
+
+Thus, Lovelace, it is plain she means to bespeak her last house!  Here's
+presence of mind; here's tranquillity of heart, on the most affecting
+occasion--This is magnanimity indeed!--Couldst thou, or could I, with all
+our boisterous bravery, and offensive false courage, act thus?--Poor
+Belton! how unlike was thy behaviour!
+
+Mrs. Lovick tells me that the lady spoke of a letter she had received
+from her favourite divine Dr. Lewen, in the time of my absence; and of an
+letter she had returned to it.  But Mrs. Lovick knows not the contents of
+either.
+
+When thou receivest the letter I am now writing, thou wilt see what will
+soon be the end of all thy injuries to this divine lady.  I say when thou
+receivest it; for I will delay it for some little time, lest thou
+shouldest take it into thy head (under pretence of resenting the
+disappointment her letter must give thee) to molest her again.
+
+This letter having detained me by its length, I shall not now set out for
+Epsom till to-morrow.
+
+I should have mentioned that the lady explained to me what the one thing
+was that she was afraid might happen to ruffle her.  It was the
+apprehension of what may result from a visit which Col. Morden, as she is
+informed, designs to make you.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXIV
+
+THE REV. DR. LEWEN, TO MISS CL. HARLOWE
+FRIDAY, AUG. 18.
+
+
+Presuming, dearest and ever-respectable young lady, upon your former
+favour, and upon your opinion of my judgment and sincerity, I cannot help
+addressing you by a few lines on your present unhappy situation.
+
+I will not look back upon the measures into which you have either been
+led or driven.  But will only say as to those, that I think you are the
+least to blame of any young lady that was ever reduced from happy to
+unhappy circumstances; and I have not been wanting to say as much, where
+I hoped my freedom would have been better received than I have had the
+mortification to find it to be.
+
+What I principally write for now is, to put you upon doing a piece of
+justice to yourself, and to your sex, in the prosecuting for his life (I
+am assured his life is in your power) the most profligate and abandoned
+of men, as he must be, who could act so basely, as I understand Mr.
+Lovelace has acted by you.
+
+I am very ill; and am now forced to write upon my pillow; my thoughts
+confused; and incapable of method: I shall not therefore aim at method:
+but to give you in general my opinion--and that is, that your religion,
+your duty to your family, the duty you owe to your honour, and even
+charity to your sex, oblige you to give public evidence against this very
+wicked man.
+
+And let me add another consideration: The prevention, by this means, of
+the mischiefs that may otherwise happen between your brother and Mr.
+Lovelace, or between the latter and your cousin Morden, who is now, I
+hear, arrived, and resolves to have justice done you.
+
+A consideration which ought to affect your conscience, [forgive me,
+dearest young lady, I think I am now in the way of my duty;] and to be
+of more concern to you, than that hard pressure upon your modesty which
+I know the appearance against him in an open court must be of to such a
+lady as you; and which, I conceive, will be your great difficulty.  But I
+know, Madam, that you have dignity enough to become the blushes of the
+most naked truth, when necessity, justice, and honour, exact it from you.
+Rakes and ravishers would meet with encouragement indeed, and most from
+those who had the greatest abhorrence of their actions, if violated
+modesty were never to complain of the injury it received from the
+villanous attempters of it.
+
+In a word, the reparation of your family dishonour now rests in your own
+bosom: and which only one of these two alternatives can repair; to wit,
+either to marry the offender, or to prosecute him at law.  Bitter
+expedients for a soul so delicate as your's!
+
+He, and all his friends, I understand, solicit you to the first: and it
+is certainly, now, all the amends within his power to make.  But I am
+assured that you have rejected their solicitations, and his, with the
+indignation and contempt that his foul actions have deserved: but yet,
+that you refuse not to extend to him the christian forgiveness he has so
+little reason to expect, provided he will not disturb you farther.
+
+But, Madam, the prosecution I advise, will not let your present and
+future exemption from fresh disturbance from so vile a molester depend
+upon his courtesy: I should think so noble and so rightly-guided a spirit
+as your's would not permit that it should, if you could help it.
+
+And can indignities of any kind be properly pardoned till we have it in
+our power to punish them?  To pretend to pardon, while we are labouring
+under the pain or dishonour of them, will be thought by some to be but
+the vaunted mercy of a pusillanimous heart, trembling to resent them.
+The remedy I propose is a severe one: But what pain can be more severe
+than the injury?  Or how will injuries be believed to grieve us, that are
+never honourably complained of?
+
+I am sure Miss Clarissa Harlowe, however injured and oppressed, remains
+unshaken in her sentiments of honour and virtue: and although she would
+sooner die than deserve that her modesty should be drawn into question;
+yet she will think no truth immodest that is to be uttered in the
+vindicated cause of innocence and chastity.  Little, very little
+difference is there, my dear young lady, between a suppressed evidence,
+and a false one.
+
+It is a terrible circumstance, I once more own, for a young lady of your
+delicacy to be under the obligation of telling so shocking a story in
+public court: but it is still a worse imputation, that she should pass
+over so mortal an injury unresented.
+
+Conscience, honour, justice, are on your side: and modesty would, by
+some, be thought but an empty name, should you refuse to obey their
+dictates.
+
+I have been consulted, I own, on this subject.  I have given it as my
+opinion, that you ought to prosecute the abandoned man--but without my
+reasons.  These I reserved, with a resolution to lay them before you
+unknown to any body, that the result, if what I wish, may be your own.
+
+I will only add that the misfortunes which have befallen you, had they
+been the lot of a child of my own, could not have affected me more than
+your's have done.  My own child I love: but I both love and honour you:
+since to love you, is to love virtue, good sense, prudence, and every
+thing that is good and noble in woman.
+
+Wounded as I think all these are by the injuries you have received, you
+will believe that the knowledge of your distresses must have afflicted,
+beyond what I am able to express,
+
+Your sincere admirer, and humble servant,
+ARTHUR LEWEN.
+
+
+I just now understand that your sister will, by proper authority, propose
+      this prosecution to you.  I humbly presume that the reason why you
+      resolved not upon this step from the first, was, that you did not
+      know that it would have the countenance and support of your
+      relations.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXV
+
+MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO THE REV. DR. LEWEN
+SAT. AUG. 19.
+
+
+REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,
+
+I thought, till I received your affectionate and welcome letter, that I
+had neither father, uncle, brother left; nor hardly a friend among my
+former favourers of your sex.  Yet, knowing you so well, and having no
+reason to upbraid myself with a faulty will, I was to blame, (even
+although I had doubted the continuance of your good opinion,) to decline
+the trial whether I had forfeited it or not; and if I had, whether I
+could not honourably reinstate myself in it.
+
+But, Sir, it was owing to different causes that I did not; partly to
+shame, to think how high, in my happier days, I stood in your esteem, and
+how much I must be sunk in it, since those so much nearer in relation to
+me gave me up; partly to deep distress, which makes the humbled heart
+diffident; and made mine afraid to claim the kindred mind in your's,
+which would have supplied to me in some measure all the dear and lost
+relations I have named.
+
+Then, so loth, as I sometimes was, to be thought to want to make a party
+against those whom both duty and inclination bid me reverence: so long
+trailed on between hope and doubt: so little my own mistress at one time;
+so fearful of making or causing mischief at another; and not being
+encouraged to hope, by your kind notice, that my application to you would
+be acceptable:--apprehending that my relations had engaged your silence
+at least*--THESE--But why these unavailing retrospections now?--I was to
+be unhappy--in order to be happy; that is my hope!--Resigning therefore
+to that hope, I will, without any further preamble, write a few lines,
+(if writing to you, I can write but a few,) in answer to the subject of
+your kind letter.
+
+
+* The stiff visit this good divine was prevailed upon to make her, as
+mentioned in Vol. II. Letter XXXI. (of which, however, she was too
+generous to remind him) might warrant the lady to think that he had
+rather inclined to their party, as to the parental side, than to her's.
+
+
+Permit me, then, to say, That I believe your arguments would have been
+unanswerable in almost every other case of this nature, but in that of
+the unhappy Clarissa Harlowe.
+
+It is certain that creatures who cannot stand the shock of public shame,
+should be doubly careful how they expose themselves to the danger of
+incurring private guilt, which may possibly bring them to it.  But as to
+myself, suppose there were no objections from the declining way I am in
+as to my health; and supposing I could have prevailed upon myself to
+appear against this man; were there not room to apprehend that the end so
+much wished for by my friends, (to wit, his condign punishment,) would
+not have been obtained, when it came to be seen that I had consented to
+give him a clandestine meeting; and, in consequence of that, had been
+weakly tricked out of living under one roof with him for several weeks;
+which I did, (not only without complaint, but) without cause of
+complaint?
+
+Little advantage in a court, (perhaps, bandied about, and jested
+profligately with,) would some of those pleas in my favour have been,
+which out of court, and to a private and serious audience, would have
+carried the greatest weight against him--Such, particularly, as the
+infamous methods to which he had recourse--
+
+It would, no doubt, have been a ready retort from every mouth, that I
+ought not to have thrown myself into the power of such a man, and that I
+ought to take for my pains what had befallen me.
+
+But had the prosecution been carried on to effect, and had he even been
+sentenced to death, can it be supposed that his family would not have had
+interest enough to obtain his pardon, for a crime thought too lightly of,
+though one of the greatest that can be committed against a creature
+valuing her honour above her life?--While I had been censured as pursuing
+with sanguinary views a man who offered me early all the reparation in
+his power to make?
+
+And had he been pardoned, would he not then have been at liberty to do as
+much mischief as ever?
+
+I dare say, Sir, such is the assurance of the man upon whom my unhappy
+destiny threw me; and such his inveteracy to my family, (which would then
+have appeared to be justified by their known inveteracy to him, and by
+their earnest endeavours to take away his life;) that he would not have
+been sorry to have had an opportunity to confront me, and my father,
+uncles, and brother, at the bar of a court of justice, on such an
+occasion.  In which case, would not (on his acquittal, or pardon)
+resentments have been reciprocally heightened?  And then would my
+brother, or my cousin Morden, have been more secure than now?
+
+How do these conditions aggravate my fault!  My motives, at first, were
+not indeed blamable: but I had forgotten the excellent caution, which yet
+I was not ignorant of, That we ought not to do evil that good may come of
+it.
+
+In full conviction of the purity of my heart, and of the firmness of my
+principles, [Why may I not, thus called upon, say what I am conscious of,
+and yet without the imputation of faulty pride; since all is but a duty,
+and I should be utterly inexcusable, could I not justly say what I do?--
+In this full conviction,] he has offered me marriage.  He has avowed his
+penitence: a sincere penitence I have reason to think it, though perhaps
+not a christian one.  And his noble relations, (kinder to the poor
+sufferer than her own,) on the same conviction, and his own not
+ungenerous acknowledgements, have joined to intercede with me to forgive
+and accept of him.  Although I cannot comply with the latter part of
+their intercession, have not you, Sir, from the best rules, and from the
+divinest example, taught me to forgive injuries?
+
+The injury I have received from him is indeed of the highest nature, and
+it was attended with circumstances of unmanly baseness and premeditation;
+yet, I bless God, it has not tainted my mind; it has not hurt my morals.
+No thanks indeed to the wicked man that it has not.  No vile courses have
+followed it.  My will is unviolated.  The evil, (respecting myself, and
+not my friends,) is merely personal.  No credulity, no weakness, no want
+of vigilance, have I to reproach myself with.  I have, through grace,
+triumphed over the deepest machinations.  I have escaped from him.  I
+have renounced him.  The man whom once I could have loved, I have been
+enabled to despise: And shall not charity complete my triumph? and shall
+I not enjoy it?--And where would be my triumph if he deserved my
+forgiveness?--Poor man! he has had a loss in losing me!  I have the pride
+to think so, because I think I know my own heart.  I have had none in
+losing him.
+
+But I have another plea to make, which alone would have been enough (as I
+presume) to answer the contents of your very kind and friendly letter.
+
+I know, my dear and reverend friend, the spiritual guide and director of
+my happier days! I know, that you will allow of my endeavour to bring
+myself to this charitable disposition, when I tell you how near I think
+myself to that great and awful moment, in which, and even in the ardent
+preparation to which, every sense of indignity or injury that concerns
+not the immortal soul, ought to be absorbed in higher and more important
+contemplations.
+
+Thus much for myself.
+
+And for the satisfaction of my friends and favourers, Miss Howe is
+solicitous to have all those letters and materials preserved, which will
+set my whole story in a true light.  The good Dr. Lewen is one of the
+principal of those friends and favourers.
+
+The warning that may be given from those papers to all such young
+creatures as may have known or heard of me, may be of more efficacy to
+the end wished for, as I humbly presume to think, than my appearance
+could have been in a court of justice, pursuing a doubtful event, under
+the disadvantages I have mentioned.  And if, my dear and good Sir, you
+are now, on considering every thing, of this opinion, and I could know
+it, I should consider it as a particular felicity; being as solicitous
+as ever to be justified in what I may in your eyes.
+
+I am sorry, Sir, that your indisposition has reduced you to the necessity
+of writing upon your pillow.  But how much am I obliged to that kind and
+generous concern for me, which has impelled you, as I may say, to write a
+letter, containing so many paternal lines, with such inconvenience to
+yourself!
+
+May the Almighty bless you, dear and reverend Sir, for all your goodness
+to me of long time past, as well as for that which engaged my present
+gratitude!  Continue to esteem me to the last, as I do and will venerate
+you!  And let me bespeak your prayers, the continuance, I should say, of
+your prayers; for I doubt not, that I have always had them: and to them,
+perhaps, has in part been owing (as well as to your pious precepts
+instilled through my earlier youth) that I have been able to make the
+stand I have made; although every thing that you prayed for has not been
+granted to me by that Divine Wisdom, which knows what is best for its
+poor creatures.
+
+My prayers for you are, that it will please God to restore you to your
+affectionate flock; and after as many years of life as shall be for his
+service, and to your own comfort, give us a happy meeting in those
+regions of blessedness, which you have taught me, as well by example, as
+by precept, to aspire to!
+
+CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXVI
+
+MISS ARAB. HARLOWE, TO MISS CL. HARLOWE
+[IN ANSWER TO HER'S TO HER UNCLE ANTONY OF AUG. 13.*]
+MONDAY, AUG. 21.
+
+
+* See Letter IV. of this volume.
+
+
+SISTER CLARY,
+
+I find by your letters to my uncles, that they, as well as I, are in
+great disgrace with you for writing our minds to you.
+
+We can't help it, sister Clary.
+
+You don't think it worth your while, I find, a second time to press for
+the blessing you pretend to be so earnest about.  You think, no doubt,
+that you have done your duty in asking for it: so you'll sit down
+satisfied with that, I suppose, and leave it to your wounded parents to
+repent hereafter that they have not done theirs, in giving it to you, at
+the first word; and in making such inquiries about you, as you think
+ought to have been made.  Fine encouragement to inquire after a run-away
+daughter! living with her fellow as long as he would live with her!  You
+repent also (with your full mind, as you modestly call it) that you wrote
+to me.
+
+So we are not likely to be applied to any more, I find, in this way.
+
+Well then, since this is the case, sister Clary, let me, with all
+humility, address myself with a proposal or two to you; to which you will
+be graciously pleased to give an answer.
+
+Now you must know, that we have had hints given us, from several
+quarters, that you have been used in such a manner by the villain you ran
+away with, that his life would be answerable for his crime, if it were
+fairly to be proved.  And, by your own hints, something like it appears
+to us.
+
+If, Clary, there be any thing but jingle and affected period in what
+proceeds from your full mind, and your dutiful consciousness; and if
+there be truth in what Mrs. Norton and Mrs. Howe have acquainted us with;
+you may yet justify your character to us, and to the world, in every
+thing but your scandalous elopement; and the law may reach the villain:
+and, could we but bring him to the gallows, what a meritorious revenge
+would that be to our whole injured family, and to the innocents he has
+deluded, as well as the saving from ruin many others!
+
+Let me, therefore, know (if you please) whether you are willing to appear
+to do yourself, and us, and your sex, this justice?  If not, sister
+Clary, we shall know what to think of you; for neither you nor we can
+suffer more than we have done from the scandal of your fall: and, if you
+will, Mr. Ackland and counselor Derham will both attend you to make
+proper inquiries, and to take minutes of your story, to found a process
+upon, if it will bear one with as great a probability of success as we
+are told it may be prosecuted with.
+
+But, by what Mrs. Howe intimates, this is not likely to be complied with;
+for it is what she hinted to you, it seems, by her lively daughter, but
+not without effect;* so prudently in some certain points, as to entitle
+yourself to public justice; which, if true, the Lord have mercy upon you!
+
+
+* See Vol. VI. Letter LXXII.
+
+
+One word only more as to the above proposal:--Your admirer, Dr. Lewen, is
+clear, in his opinion, that you should prosecute the villain.
+
+But if you will not agree to this, I have another proposal to make to
+you, and that in the name of every one in the family; which is, that you
+will think of going to Pensylvania to reside there for some few years
+till all is blown over: and, if it please God to spare you, and your
+unhappy parents, till they can be satisfied that you behave like a true
+and uniform penitent; at least till you are one-and-twenty; you may then
+come back to your own estate, or have the produce of it sent you thither,
+as you shall choose.  A period which my father fixes, because it is the
+custom; and because he thinks your grandfather should have fixed it; and
+because, let me add, you have fully proved by your fine conduct, that you
+were not at years of discretion at eighteen.  Poor doting, though good
+old man!--Your grandfather, he thought--But I would not be too severe.
+
+Mr. Hartley has a widow-sister at Pensylvania, with whom he will
+undertake you may board, and who is a sober, sensible, well-read woman.
+And if you were once well there, it would rid your father and mother of
+a world of cares, and fears, and scandal; and that I think is what you
+should wish for of all things.
+
+Mr. Hartley will engage for all accommodations in your passage suitable
+to your rank and fortune; and he has a concern in a ship, which will sail
+in a month; and you may take your secret-keeping Hannah with you, or whom
+you will of your newer acquaintance.  'Tis presumed that your companions
+will be of your own sex.
+
+These are what I had to communicate to you; and if you'll oblige me with
+an answer, (which the hand that conveys this will call for on Wednesday
+morning,) it will be very condescending.
+
+ARABELLA HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXVII
+
+MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO MISS ARAB. HARLOWE
+TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+
+
+Write to me, my hard-hearted Sister, in what manner you please, I shall
+always be thankful to you for your notice.  But (think what you will of
+me) I cannot see Mr. Ackland and the counselor on such a business as you
+mention.
+
+The Lord have mercy upon me indeed! for none else will.
+
+Surely I am believed to a creature past all shame, or it could not be
+thought of sending two gentlemen to me on such an errand.
+
+Had my mother required of me (or would modesty have permitted you to
+inquire into) the particulars of my sad story, or had Mrs. Norton been
+directed to receive them from me, methinks it had been more fit: and I
+presume to think that it would have been more in every one's character
+too, had they been required of me before such heavy judgment had been
+passed upon me as has been passed.
+
+I know that this is Dr. Lewen's opinion.  He has been so good as to
+enforce it in a kind letter to me.  I have answered his letter; and given
+such reasons as I hope will satisfy him.  I could wish it were thought
+worth while to request of him a sight of my answer.*
+
+
+* Her letter, containing the reasons she refers to, was not asked for;
+and Dr. Lewen's death, which fell out soon after he had received it, was
+the reason that it was not communicated to the family, till it was too
+late to do the service that might have been hoped for from it.
+
+
+To your other proposal, of going to Pensylvania; this is my answer--If
+nothing happen within a month which may full as effectually rid my
+parents and friends of that world of cares, and fears, and scandals,
+which you mention, and if I am then able to be carried on board of ship,
+I will cheerfully obey my father and mother, although I were sure to die
+in the passage.  And, if I may be forgiven for saying so (for indeed it
+proceeds not from a spirit of reprisal) you shall set over me, instead of
+my poor obliging, but really-unculpable, Hannah, your Betty Barnes; to
+whom I will be answerable for all my conduct.  And I will make it worth
+her while to accompany me.
+
+I am equally surprised and concerned at the hints which both you and my
+uncle Antony give of new points of misbehaviour in me!--What can be meant
+by them?
+
+I will not tell you, Miss Harlowe, how much I am afflicted at your
+severity, and how much I suffer by it, and by your hard-hearted levity of
+style, because what I shall say may be construed into jingle and period,
+and because I know it is intended, very possibly for kind ends, to
+mortify me.  All I will therefore say is, that it does not lose its end,
+if that be it.
+
+But, nevertheless, (divesting myself as much as possible of all
+resentment,) I will only pray that Heaven will give you, for your own
+sake, a kinder heart than at present you seem to have; since a kind
+heart, I am convinced, is a greater blessing to its possessor than it can
+be to any other person.  Under this conviction I subscribe myself, my
+dear Bella,
+
+Your ever-affectionate sister,
+CL. HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXVIII
+
+MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+[IN ANSWER TO HER'S OF THURSDAY, AUG. 17.*]
+TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+
+
+* See Letter VI. of this volume.
+
+
+MY DEAREST YOUNG LADY,
+
+The letters you sent me I now return by the hand that brings you this.
+
+It is impossible for me to express how much I have been affected by them,
+and by your last of the 17th.  Indeed, my dear Miss Clary, you are very
+harshly used; indeed you are!  And if you should be taken from us, what
+grief and what punishment are not treasuring up against themselves in the
+heavy reflections which their rash censures and unforgivingness will
+occasion them!
+
+But I find to what your uncle Antony's cruel letter is owing, as well as
+one you will be still more afflicted by, [God help you, my poor dear
+child!] when it comes to your hand, written by your sister, with
+proposals to you.*
+
+
+* See Letter XXVI. ibid.
+
+
+It was finished to send you yesterday, I know; and I apprize you of it,
+that you should fortify your heart against the contents of it.
+
+The motives which incline them all to this severity, if well grounded,
+would authorize any severity they could express, and which, while they
+believe them to be so, both they and you are to be equally pitied.
+
+They are owning to the information of that officious Mr. Brand, who has
+acquainted them (from some enemy of your's in the neighbourhood about
+you) that visits are made you, highly censurable, by a man of a free
+character, and an intimate of Mr. Lovelace; who is often in private with
+you; sometimes twice or thrice a day.
+
+Betty gives herself great liberties of speech upon this occasion, and all
+your friends are too ready to believe that things are not as they should
+be; which makes me wish that, let the gentleman's views be ever so
+honourable, you could entirely drop acquaintance with him.
+
+Something of this nature was hinted at by Betty to me before, but so
+darkly that I could not tell what to make of it; and this made me mention
+to you so generally as I did in my last.
+
+Your cousin Morden has been among them.  He is exceedingly concerned for
+your misfortunes; and as they will not believe Mr. Lovelace would marry
+you, he is determined to go to Lord M.'s, in order to inform himself from
+Mr. Lovelace's own mouth, whether he intends to do you that justice or
+not.
+
+He was extremely caressed by every one at his first arrival; but I am
+told there is some little coldness between them and him at present.
+
+I was in hopes of getting a sight of this letter of Mr. Brand: (a rash
+officious man!) but it seems Mr. Morden had it given him yesterday to
+read, and he took it away with him.
+
+God be your comfort, my dear Miss!  But indeed I am exceedingly disturbed
+at the thoughts of what may still be the issue of all these things.  I
+am, my beloved young lady,
+
+Your most affectionate and faithful
+JUDITH NORTON.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXIX
+
+MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+
+
+After I had sealed up the enclosed, I had the honour of a private visit
+from your aunt Hervey; who has been in a very low-spirited way, and kept
+her chamber for several weeks past; and is but just got abroad.
+
+She longed, she said, to see me, and to weep with me, on the hard fate
+that had befallen her beloved niece.
+
+I will give you a faithful account of what passed between us; as I expect
+that it will, upon the whole, administer hope and comfort to you.
+
+'She pitied very much your good mother, who, she assured me, is obliged
+to act a part entirely contrary to her inclinations; as she herself, she
+owns, had been in a great measure.
+
+'She said, that the poor lady was with great difficulty with-held from
+answering your letter to her; which had (as was your aunt's expression)
+almost broken the heart of every one: that she had reason to think that
+she was neither consenting to your two uncles writing, nor approving of
+what they wrote.
+
+'She is sure they all love you dearly; but have gone so far, that they
+know not how to recede.
+
+'That, but for the abominable league which your brother had got every
+body into (he refusing to set out for Scotland till it was renewed, and
+till they had all promised to take no step towards a reconciliation in
+his absence but by his consent; and to which your sister's resentments
+kept them up); all would before now have happily subsided.
+
+'That nobody knew the pangs which their inflexible behaviour gave them,
+ever since you had begun to write to them in so affecting and humble a
+style.
+
+'That, however, they were not inclined to believe that you were either so
+ill, or so penitent as you really are; and still less, that Mr. Lovelace
+is in earnest in his offers of marriage.
+
+'She is sure, however, she says, that all will soon be well: and the
+sooner for Mr. Morden's arrival: who is very zealous in your behalf.
+
+'She wished to Heaven that you would accept of Mr. Lovelace, wicked as he
+has been, if he were now in earnest.
+
+'It had always,' she said, 'been matter of astonishment to her, that so
+weak a pride in her cousin James, of making himself the whole family,
+should induce them all to refuse an alliance with such a family as Mr.
+Lovelace's was.
+
+'She would have it, that your going off with Mr. Lovelace was the
+unhappiest step for your honour and your interest that could have been
+taken; for that although you would have had a severe trial the next day,
+yet it would probably have been the last; and your pathetic powers must
+have drawn you off some friends--hinting at your mother, at your uncle
+Harlowe, at your uncle Hervey, and herself.'
+
+But here (that the regret that you did not trust to the event of that
+meeting, may not, in your present low way, too much afflict you) I must
+observe, that it seems a little too evident, even from this opinion of
+your aunt's, that it was not absolutely determined that all compulsion
+was designed to be avoided, since your freedom from it must have been
+owing to the party to be made among them by your persuasive eloquence and
+dutiful expostulation.
+
+'She owned, that some of them were as much afraid of meeting you as you
+could be of meeting them:'--But why so, if they designed, in the last
+instance, to give you your way?
+
+Your aunt told me, 'That Mrs. Williams* had been with her, and asked her
+opinion, if it would be taken amiss, if she desired leave to go up, to
+attend her dearest young lady in her calamity.  Your aunt referred her to
+your mother: but had heard no more of it.
+
+
+* The former housekeeper at Harlowe-place.
+
+
+'Her daughter,' (Miss Dolly,) she said, 'had been frequently earnest with
+her on the same subject; and renewed her request with the greatest
+fervour when your first letter came to hand.'
+
+Your aunt says, 'That she then being very ill, wrote to your mother upon
+it, hoping it would not be taken amiss if she permitted Dolly to go; but
+that your sister, as from your mother, answered her, That now you seemed
+to be coming-to, and to have a due sense of your faults, you must be left
+entirely to their own management.
+
+'Miss Dolly,' she said, 'had pined ever since she had heard of Mr.
+Lovelace's baseness, being doubly mortified by it: first, on account of
+your sufferings; next, because she was one who rejoiced in your getting
+off, and vindicated you for it; and had incurred censure and ill-will on
+that account; especially from your brother and sister; so that she seldom
+went to Harlowe-place.'
+
+Make the best use of these intelligences, my dearest young lady, for your
+consolation.
+
+I will only add, that I am, with the most fervent prayers for your
+recovery and restoration to favour,
+
+Your ever-faithful
+JUDITH NORTON.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXX
+
+MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO MRS. JUDITH NORTON
+THURSDAY, AUG. 24.
+
+
+The relation of such a conversation as passed between my aunt and you
+would have given me pleasure, had it come some time ago; because it would
+have met with a spirit more industrious than mine now is, to pick out
+remote comfort in the hope of a favourable turn that might one day have
+rewarded my patient duty.
+
+I did not doubt my aunt's good-will to me.  Her affection I did not
+doubt.  But shall we wonder that kings and princes meet with so little
+controul in their passions, be they every so violent, when, in a private
+family, an aunt, nay, even a mother in that family, shall choose to give
+up a once-favoured child against their own inclinations, rather than
+oppose an aspiring young man, who had armed himself with the authority of
+a father, who, when once determined, never would be expostulated with?
+
+And will you not blame me, if I say, that good sense, that kindred
+indulgence, must be a little offended at the treatment I have met with;
+and if I own, that I think that great rigour has been exercised towards
+me!  And yet I am now authorized to call it rigour by the judgment of two
+excellent sisters, my mother and my aunt, who acknowledge (as you tell me
+from my aunt) that they have been obliged to join against me, contrary to
+their inclinations; and that even in a point which might seem to concern
+my eternal welfare.
+
+But I must not go on at this rate.  For may not the inclination my mother
+has given up be the effect of a too-fond indulgence, rather than that I
+merit the indulgence?  And yet so petulantly perverse am I, that I must
+tear myself from the subject.
+
+All then that I will say further to it, at this time, is, that were the
+intended goodness to be granted to me but a week hence, it would possibly
+be too late--too late I mean to be of the consolation to me that I would
+wish from it: for what an inefficacious preparation must I have been
+making, if it has not, by this time, carried me above--But above what?--
+Poor mistaken creature!  Unhappy self-deluder! that finds herself above
+nothing!  Nor able to subdue her own faulty impatience!
+
+But in-deed, to have done with a subject that I dare not trust myself
+with, if it come in your way, let my aunt Hervey, let my dear cousin
+Dolly, let the worthy Mrs. Williams, know how exceedingly grateful to me
+their kind intentions and concern for me are: and, as the best warrant
+or justification of their good opinions, (since I know that their favour
+for me is founded on the belief that I loved virtue,) tell them, that I
+continued to love virtue to my last hour, as I presume to hope it may be
+said; and assure them that I never made the least wilful deviation,
+however unhappy I became for one faulty step; which nevertheless was not
+owing to unworthy or perverse motives.
+
+I am very sorry that my cousin Morden has taken a resolution to see Mr.
+Lovelace.
+
+My apprehensions on this intelligence are a great abatement to the
+pleasure I have in knowing that he still loves me.
+
+My sister's letter to me is a most affecting one--so needlessly, so
+ludicrously taunting!--But for that part of it that is so, I ought rather
+to pity her, than to be so much concerned at it as I am.
+
+I wonder what I have done to Mr. Brand--I pray God to forgive both him
+and his informants, whoever they be.  But if the scandal arise solely
+from Mr. Belford's visits, a very little time will confute it.  Mean
+while, the packet I shall send you, which I sent to Miss Howe, will, I
+hope, satisfy you, my dear Mrs. Norton, as to my reasons for admitting
+his visits.
+
+My sister's taunting letter, and the inflexibleness of my dearer friends
+--But how do remoter-begun subjects tend to the point which lies nearest
+the heart!--As new-caught bodily disorders all crowd to a fractured or
+distempered part.
+
+I will break off, with requesting your prayers that I may be blessed with
+patience and due resignation; and with assuring you, that I am, and will
+be to the last hour of my life,
+
+Your equally grateful and affectionate
+CL. HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXI
+
+MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+[IN REPLY TO HER'S OF FRIDAY, AUG. 11.*]
+YARMOUTH, ISLE OF WIGHT, AUG. 23.
+
+
+* See Letter II. of this volume.
+
+
+MY DEAREST FRIEND,
+
+I have read the letters and copies of letters you favoured me with: and I
+return them by a particular hand.  I am extremely concerned at your
+indifferent state of health: but I approve of all your proceedings and
+precautions in relation to the appointment of Mr. Belford for an office,
+in which, I hope, neither he nor any body else will be wanted to act, for
+many, very many years.
+
+I admire, and so we do all, that greatness of mind which can make you so
+stedfastly [sic] despise (through such inducements as no other woman
+could resist, and in such desolate circumstances as you have been reduced
+to) the wretch that ought to be so heartily despised and detested.
+
+What must the contents of those letters from your relations be, which you
+will not communicate to me!--Fie upon them!  How my heart rises!--But I
+dare say no more--though you yourself now begin to think they use you
+with great severity.
+
+Every body here is so taken with Mr. Hickman (and the more from the
+horror they conceive at the character of the detestable Lovelace,) that I
+have been teased to death almost to name a day.  This has given him airs:
+and, did I not keep him to it, he would behave as carelessly and as
+insolently as if he were sure of me.  I have been forced to mortify him
+no less than four times since we have been here.
+
+I made him lately undergo a severe penance for some negligences that were
+not to be passed over.  Not designed ones, he said: but that was a poor
+excuse, as I told him: for, had they been designed, he should never have
+come into my presence more: that they were not, showed his want of
+thought and attention; and those were inexcusable in a man only in his
+probatory state.
+
+He hoped he had been more than in a probatory state, he said.
+
+And therefore, Sir, might be more careless!--So you add ingratitude to
+negligence, and make what you plead as accident, that itself wants an
+excuse, design, which deserves none.
+
+I would not see him for two days, and he was so penitent, and so humble,
+that I had like to have lost myself, to make him amends: for, as you have
+said, resentment carried too high, often ends in amends too humble.
+
+I long to be nearer to you: but that must not yet be, it seems.  Pray, my
+dear, let me hear from you as often as you can.
+
+May Heaven increase your comforts, and restore your health, are the
+prayers of
+
+Your ever faithful and affectionate
+ANNA HOWE.
+
+
+P.S. Excuse me that I did not write before: it was owing to a little
+      coasting voyage I was obliged to give into.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXII
+
+MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
+FRIDAY, AUG. 25.
+
+
+You are very obliging, my dear Miss Howe, to account to me for your
+silence.  I was easy in it, as I doubted not that, among such near and
+dear friends as you are with, you was diverted from writing by some such
+agreeable excursion as that you mention.
+
+I was in hopes that you had given over, at this time of day, those very
+sprightly airs, which I have taken the liberty to blame you for, as often
+as you have given me occasion to so do; and that has been very often.
+
+I was always very grave with you upon this subject: and while your own
+and a worthy man's future happiness are in the question, I must enter
+into it, whenever you forget yourself, although I had not a day to live:
+and indeed I am very ill.
+
+I am sure it was not your intention to take your future husband with you
+to the little island to make him look weak and silly among those of your
+relations who never before had seen him.  Yet do you think it possible
+for them (however prepared and resolved they may be to like him) to
+forbear smiling at him, when they see him suffering under your whimsical
+penances?  A modest man should no more be made little in his own eyes,
+than in the eyes of others.  If he be, he will have a diffidence, which
+will give an awkwardness to every thing he says or does; and this will be
+no more to the credit of your choice than to that of the approbation he
+meets with from your friends, or to his own credit.
+
+I love an obliging, and even an humble, deportment in a man to the woman
+he addresses.  It is a mark of his politeness, and tends to give her that
+opinion of herself, which it may be supposed bashful merit wants to be
+inspired with.  But if the woman exacts it with an high hand, she shows
+not either her own politeness or gratitude; although I must confess she
+does her courage.  I gave you expectations that I would be very serious
+with you.
+
+O my dear, that it had been my lot (as I was not permitted to live
+single,) to have met with a man by whom I could have acted generously and
+unreservedly!
+
+Mr. Lovelace, it is now plain, in order to have a pretence against me,
+taxed my behaviour to him with stiffness and distance.  You, at one time,
+thought me guilty of some degree of prudery.  Difficult situations should
+be allowed for: which often make seeming occasions for censure
+unavoidable.  I deserved not blame from him who made mine difficult.  And
+you, my dear, had I any other man to deal with, or had he but half the
+merit which Mr. Hickman has, would have found that my doctrine on this
+subject should have governed my practice.
+
+But to put myself out of the question--I'll tell you what I should think,
+were I an indifferent by-stander, of those high airs of your's, in return
+for Mr. Hickman's humble demeanour.  'The lady thinks of having the
+gentleman, I see plainly, would I say.  But I see as plainly, that she
+has a very great indifference to him.  And to what may this indifference
+be owing?  To one or all of these considerations, no doubt: that she
+receives his addresses rather from motives of convenience than choice:
+that she thinks meanly of his endowments and intellects; at least more
+highly of her own: or, she has not the generosity to use that power with
+moderation, which his great affection for her puts into her hands.'
+
+How would you like, my dear, to have any of these things said?
+
+Then to give but the shadow of a reason for free-livers and free speakers
+to say, or to imagine, that Miss Howe gives her hand to a man who has no
+reason to expect any share in her heart, I am sure you would not wish
+that such a thing should be so much as supposed.  Then all the regard
+from you to come afterwards; none to be shown before; must, should I
+think, be capable of being construed as a compliment to the husband, made
+at the expense of the wife's and even of the sex's delicacy!
+
+There is no fear that attempts could be formed by the most audacious [two
+Lovelaces there cannot be!] upon a character so revered for virtue, and
+so charmingly spirited, as Miss Howe's: yet, to have any man encouraged
+to despise a husband by the example of one who is most concerned to do
+him honour; what, my dear, think you of that?  It is but too natural for
+envious men (and who that knows Miss Howe, will not envy Mr. Hickman!) to
+scoff at, and to jest upon, those who are treated with or will bear
+indignity from a woman.
+
+If a man so treated have a true and ardent love for the woman he
+addresses, he will be easily overawed by her displeasure: and this will
+put him upon acts of submission, which will be called meanness.  And what
+woman of true spirit would like to have it said, that she would impose
+any thing upon the man from whom she one day expects protection and
+defence, that should be capable of being construed as a meanness, or
+unmanly abjectness in his behaviour, even to herself?--Nay, I am not
+sure, and I ask it of you, my dear, to resolve me, whether, in your own
+opinion, it is not likely, that a woman of spirit will despise rather
+than value more, the man who will take patiently an insult at her hands;
+especially before company.
+
+I have always observed, that prejudices in disfavour of a person at his
+first appearance, fix deeper, and are much more difficult to be removed
+when fixed, than that malignant principle so eminently visible in little
+minds, which makes them wish to bring down the more worthy characters to
+their own low level, I pretend not to determine.  When once, therefore, a
+woman of your good sense gives room to the world to think she has not an
+high opinion of the lover, whom nevertheless she entertains, it will be
+very difficult for her afterwards to make that world think so well as she
+would have it of the husband she has chosen.
+
+Give me leave to observe, that to condescend with dignity, and to command
+with such kindness, and sweetness of manners, as should let the
+condescension, while in a single state, be seen and acknowledged, are
+points, which a wise woman, knowing her man, should aim at: and a wise
+woman, I should think, would choose to live single all her life rather
+than give herself to a man whom she thinks unworthy of a treatment so
+noble.
+
+But when a woman lets her lover see that she has the generosity to
+approve of and reward a well-meant service; that she has a mind that
+lifts her above the little captious follies, which some (too
+licentiously, I hope,) attribute to the sex in general: that she resents
+not (if ever she thinks she has reason to be displeased) with petulance,
+or through pride: nor thinks it necessary to insist upon little points,
+to come at or secure great ones, perhaps not proper to be aimed at: nor
+leaves room to suppose she has so much cause to doubt her own merit, as
+to put the love of the man she intends to favour upon disagreeable or
+arrogant trials: but let reason be the principal guide of her actions--
+she will then never fail of that true respect, of that sincere
+veneration, which she wishes to meet with; and which will make her
+judgment after marriage consulted, sometimes with a preference to a man's
+own; at other times as a delightful confirmation of his.
+
+And so much, my beloved Miss Howe, for this subject now, and I dare say,
+for ever!
+
+I will begin another letter by-and-by, and send both together.  Mean
+time, I am, &c.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXIII
+
+MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
+
+
+[In this letter, the Lady acquaints Miss Howe with Mr. Brand's report;
+      with her sister's proposals either that she will go abroad, or
+      prosecute Mr. Lovelace.  She complains of the severe letters of
+      her uncle Antony and her sister; but in milder terms than they
+      deserved.
+
+She sends her Dr. Lewen's letter, and the copy of her answer to it.
+
+She tells her of the difficulties she had been under to avoid seeing Mr.
+      Lovelace.  She gives her the contents of the letter she wrote to
+      him to divert him from his proposed visit: she is afraid, she says,
+      that it is a step that is not strictly right, if allegory or
+      metaphor be not allowable to one in her circumstances.
+
+She informs her of her cousin Morden's arrival and readiness to take her
+      part with her relations; of his designed interview with Mr.
+      Lovelace; and tells her what her apprehensions are upon it.
+
+She gives her the purport of the conversation between her aunt Hervey and
+      Mrs. Norton. And then adds:]
+
+
+But were they ever so favourably inclined to me now, what can they do for
+me?  I wish, and that for their sakes more than for my own, that they
+would yet relent--but I am very ill--I must drop my pen--a sudden
+faintness overspreads my heart--excuse my crooked writing!--Adieu, my
+dear!--Adieu!
+
+
+THREE O'CLOCK, FRIDAY.
+
+Once more I resume my pen.  I thought I had taken my last farewell to
+you.  I never was so very oddly affected: something that seemed totally
+to overwhelm my faculties--I don't know how to describe it--I believe I
+do amiss in writing so much, and taking too much upon me: but an active
+mind, though clouded by bodily illness, cannot be idle.
+
+I'll see if the air, and a discontinued attention, will help me.  But, if
+it will not, don't be concerned for me, my dear.  I shall be happy.  Nay,
+I am more so already than of late I thought I could ever be in this life.
+--Yet how this body clings!--How it encumbers!
+
+
+SEVEN O'CLOCK.
+
+I could not send this letter away with so melancholy an ending, as you
+would have thought it.  So I deferred closing it, till I saw how I should
+be on my return from my airing: and now I must say I am quite another
+thing: so alert! that I could proceed with as much spirit as I began, and
+add more preachment to your lively subject, if I had not written more
+than enough upon it already.
+
+I wish you would let me give you and Mr. Hickman joy.  Do, my dear.  I
+should take some to myself, if you would.
+
+My respectful compliments to all your friends, as well to those I have
+the honour to know, as to those I do not know.
+
+
+***
+
+
+I have just now been surprised with a letter from one whom I long ago
+gave up all thoughts of hearing from.  From Mr. Wyerley.  I will enclose
+it.  You'll be surprised at it as much as I was.  This seems to be a man
+whom I might have reclaimed.  But I could not love him.  Yet I hope I
+never treated him with arrogance.  Indeed, my dear, if I am not too
+partial to myself, I think I refused him with more gentleness, than you
+retain somebody else.  And this recollection gives me less pain than I
+should have had in the other case, on receiving this instance of a
+generosity that affects me.  I will also enclose the rough draught of my
+answer, as soon as I have transcribed it.
+
+If I begin another sheet, I shall write to the end of it: wherefore I
+will only add my prayers for your honour and prosperity, and for a long,
+long, happy life; and that, when it comes to be wound up, you may be as
+calm and as easy at quitting it as I hope in God I shall be.  I am, and
+will be, to the latest moment,
+
+Your truly affectionate and obliged servant,
+CL. HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXIV
+
+MR. WYERLEY, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+WEDNESDAY, AUG. 23.
+
+
+DEAREST MADAM,
+
+You will be surprised to find renewed, at this distance of time, an
+address so positively though so politely discouraged: but, however it be
+received, I must renew it.  Every body has heard that you have been
+vilely treated by a man who, to treat you ill, must be the vilest of men.
+Every body knows your just resentment of his base treatment: that you are
+determined never to be reconciled to him: and that you persist in these
+sentiments against all the entreaties of his noble relations, against all
+the prayers and repentance of his ignoble self.  And all the world that
+have the honour to know you, or have heard of him, applaud your
+resolution, as worthy of yourself; worthy of your virtue, and of that
+strict honour which was always attributed to you by every one who spoke
+of you.
+
+But, Madam, were all the world to have been of a different opinion, it
+could never have altered mine.  I ever loved you; I ever must love you.
+Yet have I endeavoured to resign to my hard fate.  When I had so many
+ways, in vain, sought to move you in my favour, I sat down seemingly
+contented.  I even wrote to you that I would sit down contented.  And I
+endeavoured to make all my friends and companions think I was.  But
+nobody knows what pangs this self-denial cost me!  In vain did the chace,
+in vain did travel, in vain did lively company, offer themselves, and
+were embraced in their turn: with redoubled force did my passion for you
+renew my unhappiness, when I looked into myself, into my own heart; for
+there did your charming image sit enthroned; and you engrossed me all.
+
+I truly deplore those misfortunes, and those sufferings, for your own
+sake; which nevertheless encourage me to renew my old hope.  I know not
+particulars.  I dare not inquire after them; because my sufferings would
+be increased with the knowledge of what your's have been.  I therefore
+desire not to know more than what common report wounds my ears with; and
+what is given me to know, by your absence from your cruel family, and
+from the sacred place, where I, among numbers of your rejected admirers,
+used to be twice a week sure to behold you doing credit to that service
+of which your example gave me the highest notions.  But whatever be those
+misfortunes, of whatsoever nature those sufferings, I shall bless the
+occasion for my own sake (though for your's curse the author of them,) if
+they may give me the happiness to know that this my renewed address may
+not be absolutely rejected.--Only give me hope, that it may one day meet
+with encouragement, if in the interim nothing happen, either in my morals
+or behaviour, to give you fresh offence.  Give me but hope of this--not
+absolutely to reject me is all the hope I ask for; and I will love you,
+if possible, still more than I ever loved you--and that for your
+sufferings; for well you deserve to be loved, even to adoration, who can,
+for honour's and for virtue's sake, subdue a passion which common spirits
+[I speak by cruel experience] find invincible; and this at a time when
+the black offender kneels and supplicates, as I am well assured he does,
+(all his friends likewise supplicating for him,) to be forgiven.
+
+That you cannot forgive him, not forgive him so as to receive him again
+to favour, is no wonder.  His offence is against virtue: this is a part
+of your essence.  What magnanimity is this!  How just to yourself, and to
+your spotless character!  Is it any merit to admire more than ever a lady
+who can so exaltedly distinguish?  It is not.  I cannot plead it.
+
+What hope have I left, may it be said, when my address was before
+rejected, now, that your sufferings, so nobly borne, have, with all the
+good judges, exalted your character?  Yet, Madam, I have to pride myself
+in this, that while your friends (not looking upon you in the just light
+I do) persecute and banish you; while your estate is withheld from you,
+and threatened (as I know,) to be withheld, as long as the chicaning law,
+or rather the chicaneries of its practisers, can keep it from you: while
+you are destitute of protection; every body standing aloof, either
+through fear of the injurer of one family, or of the hard-hearted of the
+other; I pride myself, I say, to stand forth, and offer my fortune, and
+my life, at your devotion.  With a selfish hope indeed: I should be too
+great an hypocrite not to own this! and I know how much you abhor
+insincerity.
+
+But, whether you encourage that hope or not, accept my best services, I
+beseech you, Madam: and be pleased to excuse me for a piece of honest
+art, which the nature of the case (doubting the honour of your notice
+otherwise) makes me choose to conclude with--it is this:
+
+If I am to be still the most unhappy of men, let your pen by one line
+tell me so.  If I am permitted to indulge a hope, however distant, your
+silence shall be deemed, by me, the happiest indication of it that you
+can give--except that still happier--(the happiest than can befall me,)
+a signification that you will accept the tender of that life and fortune,
+which it would be my pride and my glory to sacrifice in your service,
+leaving the reward to yourself.
+
+Be your determination as it may, I must for ever admire and love you.
+Nor will I ever change my condition, while you live, whether you change
+your's or not: for, having once had the presumption to address you, I
+cannot stoop to think of any other woman: and this I solemnly declare in
+the presence of that God, whom I daily pray to bless and protect you, be
+your determination what it will with regard to, dearest Madam,
+
+Your most devoted and ever affectionate
+and faithful servant,
+ALEXANDER WYERLEY.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXV
+
+MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO ALEX. WYERLEY, ESQ.
+SAT. AUG. 26.
+
+
+SIR,
+
+The generosity of your purpose would have commanded not only my notice,
+but my thanks, although you had not given me the alternative you are
+pleased to call artful.  And I do therefore give you my thanks for your
+kind letter.
+
+At the time you distinguished me by your favourable opinion, I told you,
+Sir, that my choice was the single life.  And most truly did I tell you
+so.
+
+When that was not permitted me, and I looked round upon the several
+gentlemen who had been proposed to me, and had reason to believe that
+there was not one of them against whose morals or principles there lay
+not some exception, it would not have been much to be wondered at, if
+FANCY had been allowed to give a preference, where JUDGMENT was at a loss
+to determine.
+
+Far be it from me to say this with a design to upbraid you, Sir, or to
+reflect upon you.  I always wished you well.  You had reason to think I
+did.  You had the generosity to be pleased with the frankness of my
+behaviour to you; as I had with that of your's to me; and I am sorry,
+very sorry, to be now told, that the acquaintance you obliged me with
+gave you so much pain.
+
+Had the option I have mentioned been allowed me afterwards, (as I not
+only wished, but proposed,) things had not happened that did happen.  But
+there was a kind of fatality by which our whole family was impelled, as I
+may say; and which none of us were permitted to avoid.  But this is a
+subject that cannot be dwelt upon.
+
+As matters are, I have only to wish, for your own sake, that you will
+encourage and cultivate those good motions in your mind, to which many
+passages in your kind and generous letter now before me must be owing.
+Depend upon it, Sir, that such motions, wrought into habit, will yield
+you pleasure at a time when nothing else can; and at present, shining out
+in your actions and conversation, will commend you to the worthiest of
+our sex.  For, Sir, the man who is so good upon choice, as well as by
+education, has that quality in himself, which ennobles the human race,
+and without which the most dignified by birth or rank are ignoble.
+
+As to the resolution you solemnly make not to marry while I live, I
+should be concerned at it, were I not morally sure that you may keep it,
+and yet not be detrimented by it: since a few, a very few days, will
+convince you, that I am got above all human dependence; and that there is
+no need of that protection and favour, which you so generously offer to,
+Sir,
+
+Your obliged well-wisher, and humble servant,
+CL. HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXVI
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+MONDAY NOON, AUG. 28.
+
+
+About the time of poor Belton's interment last night, as near as we could
+guess, Lord M., Mowbray, and myself, toasted once, To the memory of
+honest Tom. Belton; and, by a quick transition to the living, Health to
+Miss Harlowe; which Lord M. obligingly began, and, To the happy
+reconciliation; and then we stuck in a remembrance To honest Jack
+Belford, who, of late, we all agreed, is become an useful and humane man;
+and one who prefers his friend's service to his own.
+
+But what is the meaning I hear nothing from thee?*  And why dost thou not
+let me into the grounds of the sudden reconciliation between my beloved
+and her friends, and the cause of the generous invitation which she gives
+me of attending her at her father's some time hence?
+
+
+* Mr. Belford has not yet sent him his last-written letter.  His reason
+for which see Letter XXIII. of this volume.
+
+
+Thou must certainly have been let into the secret by this time; and I can
+tell thee, I shall be plaguy jealous if there is to be any one thing pass
+between my angel and thee that is to be concealed from me.  For either I
+am a principal in this cause, or I am nothing.
+
+I have dispatched Will. to know the reason of thy neglect.
+
+But let me whisper a word or two in thy ear.  I begin to be afraid, after
+all, that this letter was a stratagem to get me out of town, and for
+nothing else: for, in the first place, Tourville, in a letter I received
+this morning, tells me, that the lady is actually very ill!  [I am sorry
+for it with all my soul!].  This, thou'lt say, I may think a reason why
+she cannot set out as yet: but then I have heard, on the other hand, but
+last night, that the family is as implacable as ever; and my Lord and I
+expect this very afternoon a visit from Colonel Morden; who, undertakes,
+it seems, to question me as to my intention with regard to his cousin.
+
+This convinces me, that if she has apprized her friends of my offers to
+her, they will not believe me to be in earnest, till they are assured
+that I am so from my own mouth.  But then I understand, that the intended
+visit is an officiousness of Morden's own, without the desire of any of
+her friends.
+
+Now, Jack, what can a man make of all this?  My intelligence as to the
+continuance of her family's implacableness is not to be doubted; and yet
+when I read her letter, what can one say?--Surely, the dear little rogue
+will not lie!
+
+I never knew her dispense with her word, but once; and that was, when she
+promised to forgive me after the dreadful fire that had like to have
+happened at our mother's, and yet would not see me the next day, and
+afterwards made her escape to Hampstead, in order to avoid forgiving me:
+and as she severely smarted for this departure from her honour given,
+(for it is a sad thing for good people to break their word when it is in
+their power to keep it,) one would not expect that she should set about
+deceiving again; more especially by the premeditation of writing.  Thou,
+perhaps, wilt ask, what honest man is obliged to keep his promise with a
+highwayman? for well I know thy unmannerly way of making comparisons; but
+I say, every honest man is--and I will give thee an illustration.
+
+Here is a marauding varlet, who demands your money, with a pistol at your
+breast.  You have neither money nor valuable effects about you; and
+promise solemnly, if he will spare your life, that you will send him an
+agreed-upon sum, by such a day, to such a place.
+
+The question is, if your life is not in the fellow's power?
+
+How he came by the power is another question; for which he must answer
+with his life when caught--so he runs risque for risque.
+
+Now if he give you your life, does he not give, think you, a valuable
+consideration for the money you engage your honour to send him?  If not,
+the sum must be exorbitant, or your life is a very paltry one, even in
+your own opinion.
+
+I need not make the application; and I am sure that even thou thyself,
+who never sparest me, and thinkest thou knowest my heart by thy own,
+canst not possibly put the case in a stronger light against me.
+
+Then, why do good people take upon themselves to censure, as they do,
+persons less scrupulous than themselves?  Is it not because the latter
+allow themselves in any liberty, in order to carry a point?  And can my
+not doing my duty, warrant another for not doing his?--Thou wilt not say
+it can.
+
+And how would it sound, to put the case as strongly once more, as my
+greatest enemy would put it, both as to fact and in words--here has that
+profligate wretch Lovelace broken his vow with and deceived Miss Clarissa
+Harlowe.--A vile fellow! would an enemy say: but it is like him.  But
+when it comes to be said that the pious Clarissa has broken her word with
+and deceived Lovelace; Good Lord! would every one say; sure it cannot be!
+
+Upon my soul, Jack, such is the veneration I have for this admirable
+woman, that I am shocked barely at putting the case--and so wilt thou, if
+thou respectest her as thou oughtest: for thou knowest that men and
+women, all the world over, form their opinions of one another by each
+person's professions and known practices.  In this lady, therefore, it
+would be unpardonable to tell a wilful untruth, as it would be strange if
+I kept my word.--In love cases, I mean; for, as to the rest, I am an
+honest, moral man, as all who know me can testify.
+
+And what, after all, would this lady deserve, if she has deceived me in
+this case?  For did she not set me prancing away, upon Lord M.'s best
+nag, to Lady Sarah's, and to Lady Betty's, with an erect and triumphing
+countenance, to show them her letter to me?
+
+And let me tell thee, that I have received their congratulations upon it:
+Well, and now, cousin Lovelace, cries one: Well, and now, cousin
+Lovelace, cries t'other; I hope you will make the best of husbands to so
+excellent and so forgiving a lady!--And now we shall soon have the
+pleasure of looking upon you as a reformed man, added one!  And now we
+shall see you in the way we have so long wished you to be in, cried the
+other!
+
+My cousins Montague also have been ever since rejoicing in the new
+relationship.  Their charming cousin, and their lovely cousin, at every
+word!  And how dearly they will love he!  What lessons they will take
+from her!  And yet Charlotte, who pretends to have the eye of an eagle,
+was for finding out some mystery in the style and manner, till I overbore
+her, and laughed her out of it.
+
+As for Lord M. he has been in hourly expectation of being sent to with
+proposals of one sort or other from the Harlowes; and still we have it,
+that such proposals will be made by Colonel Morden when he comes; and
+that the Harlowes only put on a face of irreconcileableness, till they
+know the issue of Morden's visit, in order to make the better terms with
+us.
+
+Indeed, if I had not undoubted reason, as I said, to believe the
+continuance of their antipathy to me, and implacableness to her, I should
+be apt to think there might be some foundation for my Lord's conjecture;
+for there is a cursed deal of low cunning in all that family, except in
+the angel of it; who has so much generosity of soul, that she despises
+cunning, both name and thing.
+
+What I mean by all this is, to let thee see what a stupid figure I shall
+make to all my own family, if my Clarissa has been capable, as Gulliver
+in his abominable Yahoo story phrases it, if it were only that I should
+be outwitted by such a novice at plotting, and that it would make me look
+silly to my kinswomen here, who know I value myself upon my contrivances,
+it would vex me to the heart; and I would instantly clap a featherbed
+into a coach and six, and fetch her away, sick or well, and marry her at
+my leisure.
+
+But Col. Morden is come, and I must break off.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXVII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+MONDAY NIGHT, AUG. 28.
+
+
+I doubt you will be all impatience that you have not heard from me since
+mine of Thursday last.  You would be still more so, if you knew that I
+had by me a letter ready written.
+
+I went early yesterday morning to Epsom; and found every thing disposed
+according to the directions I had left on Friday; and at night the solemn
+office was performed.  Tourville was there; and behaved very decently,
+and with greater concern than I thought he would ever have expressed for
+any body.
+
+Thomasine, they told me, in a kind of disguise, was in an obscure pew,
+out of curiosity (for it seems she was far from showing any tokens of
+grief) to see the last office performed for the man whose heart she had
+so largely contributed to break.
+
+I was obliged to stay till this afternoon, to settle several necessary
+matters, and to direct inventories to be taken, in order for
+appraisement; for every thing is to be turned into money, by his will.
+I presented his sister with the hundred guineas the poor man left me as
+his executor, and desired her to continue in the house, and take the
+direction of every thing, till I could hear from his nephew at Antigua,
+who is heir at law.  He had left her but fifty pounds, although he knew
+her indigence; and that it was owing to a vile husband, and not to
+herself, that she was indigent.
+
+The poor man left about two hundred pounds in money, and two hundred
+pounds in two East-India bonds; and I will contrive, if I can, to make
+up the poor woman's fifty pounds, and my hundred guineas, two hundred
+pounds to her; and then she will have some little matter coming in
+certain, which I will oblige her to keep out of the hands of a son, who
+has completed that ruin which his father had very nearly effected.
+
+I gave Tourville his twenty pounds, and will send you and Mowbray your's
+by the first order.
+
+And so much for poor Belton's affairs till I see you.
+
+I got to town in the evening, and went directly to Smith's.  I found Mrs.
+Lovick and Mrs. Smith in the back shop, and I saw they had been both in
+tears.  They rejoiced to see me, however; and told me, that the Doctor
+and Mr. Goddard were but just gone; as was also the worthy clergyman, who
+often comes to pray by her; and all three were of opinion, that she would
+hardly live to see the entrance of another week.  I was not so much
+surprised as grieved; for I had feared as much when I left her on
+Saturday.
+
+I sent up my compliments; and she returned, that she would take it for a
+favour if I would call upon her in the morning by eight o'clock.  Mrs.
+Lovick told me that she had fainted away on Saturday, while she was
+writing, as she had done likewise the day before; and having received
+benefit then by a little turn in a chair, she was carried abroad again.
+She returned somewhat better; and wrote till late; yet had a pretty good
+night: and went to Covent-garden church in the morning; but came home so
+ill that she was obliged to lie down.
+
+When she arose, seeing how much grieved Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith were
+for her, she made apologies for the trouble she gave them--You were
+happy, said she, before I came hither.  It was a cruel thing in me to
+come amongst honest strangers, and to be sick, and die with you.
+
+When they touched upon the irreconcileableness of her friends, I have had
+ill offices done me to them, said she, and they do not know how ill I am;
+nor will they believe any thing I should write.  But yet I cannot
+sometimes forbear thinking it a little hard, that out of so many near and
+dear friends as I have living, not one of them will vouchsafe to look
+upon me.  No old servant, no old friend, proceeded she, to be permitted
+to come near me, without being sure of incurring displeasure!  And to
+have such a great work to go through by myself, a young creature as I am,
+and to have every thing to think of as to my temporal matters, and to
+order, to my very interment!  No dear mother, said the sweet sufferer, to
+pray by me and bless me!--No kind sister to sooth and comfort me!--But
+come, recollected she, how do I know but all is for the best--if I can
+but make a right use of my discomforts?--Pray for me, Mrs. Lovick--pray
+for me, Mrs. Smith, that I may--I have great need of your prayers.--This
+cruel man has discomposed me.  His persecutions have given me pain just
+here, [putting her hand to her heart.]  What a step has he made me take
+to avoid him!--Who can touch pitch, and not be defiled?  He had made a
+bad spirit take possession of me, I think--broken in upon all my duties
+--and will not yet, I doubt, let me be at rest.  Indeed he is very cruel
+--but this is one of my trials, I believe.  By God's grace, I shall be
+easier to-morrow, and especially if I have no more of his tormentings,
+and if I can get a tolerable night.  And I will sit up till eleven, that
+I may.
+
+She said, that though this was so heavy a day with her, she was at other
+times, within these few days past especially, blessed with bright hours;
+and particularly that she had now and then such joyful assurances, (which
+she hoped were not presumptuous ones,) that God would receive her to his
+mercy, that she could hardly contain herself, and was ready to think
+herself above this earth while she was in it: And what, inferred she to
+Mrs. Lovick, must be the state itself, the very aspirations after which
+have often cast a beamy light through the thickest darkness, and, when I
+have been at the lowest ebb, have dispelled the black clouds of
+despondency?--As I hope they soon will this spirit of repining.
+
+She had a pretty good night, it seems; and this morning went in a chair
+to St. Dunstan's church.
+
+The chairmen told Mrs. Smith, that after prayers (for she did not return
+till between nine and ten) they carried her to a house in Fleet-street,
+whither they never waited on her before.  And where dost think this was?
+--Why to an undertaker's!  Good Heaven! what a woman is this!  She went
+into the back shop, and talked with the master of it about half an hour,
+and came from him with great serenity; he waiting upon her to her chair
+with a respectful countenance, but full of curiosity and seriousness.
+
+'Tis evident that she went to bespeak her house that she talked of*--As
+soon as you can, Sir, were her words to him as she got into the chair.
+Mrs. Smith told me this with the same surprise and grief that I heard it.
+
+
+* See Letter XXIII. of this volume.
+
+
+She was very ill in the afternoon, having got cold either at St.
+Dunstan's, or at chapel, and sent for the clergyman to pray by her; and
+the women, unknown to her, sent both for Dr. H. and Mr. Goddard: who were
+just gone, as I told you, when I came to pay my respects to her this
+evening.
+
+And thus have I recounted from the good women what passed to this night
+since my absence.
+
+I long for to-morrow, that I may see her: and yet it is such a melancholy
+longing as I never experienced, and know not how to describe.
+
+
+TUESDAY, AUG. 29.
+
+I was at Smith's at half an hour after seven.  They told me that the lady
+was gone in a chair to St. Dunstan's: but was better than she had been in
+either of the two preceding days; and that she said she to Mrs. Lovick
+and Mrs. Smith, as she went into the chair, I have a good deal to answer
+for to you, my good friends, for my vapourish conversation of last night.
+
+If, Mrs. Lovick, said she, smiling, I have no new matters to discompose
+me, I believe my spirits will hold out purely.
+
+She returned immediately after prayers.
+
+Mr. Belford, said she, as she entered the back shop where I was, (and
+upon my approaching her,) I am very glad to see you.  You have been
+performing for your poor friend a kind last office.  'Tis not long ago
+since you did the same for a near relation.  Is it not a little hard upon
+you, that these troubles should fall so thick to your lot?  But they are
+charitable offices: and it is a praise to your humanity, that poor dying
+people know not where to choose so well.
+
+I told her I was sorry to hear she had been so ill since I had the honour
+to attend her; but rejoiced to find that now she seemed a good deal
+better.
+
+It will be sometimes better, and sometimes worse, replied she, with poor
+creatures, when they are balancing between life and death.  But no more
+of these matters just now.  I hope, Sir, you'll breakfast with me.  I was
+quite vapourish yesterday.  I had a very bad spirit upon me.  Had I not,
+Mrs. Smith?  But I hope I shall be no more so.  And to-day I am perfectly
+serene.  This day rises upon me as if it would be a bright one.
+
+She desired me to walk up, and invited Mr. Smith and his wife, and Mrs.
+Lovick also, to breakfast with her.  I was better pleased with her
+liveliness than with her looks.
+
+The good people retiring after breakfast, the following conversation
+passed between us:
+
+Pray, Sir, let me ask you, if you think I may promise myself that I shall
+be no more molested by your friend?
+
+I hesitated: For how could I answer for such a man?
+
+What shall I do, if he comes again?--You see how I am.--I cannot fly from
+him now--If he has any pity left for the poor creature whom he has thus
+reduced, let him not come.--But have you heard from him lately?  And will
+he come?
+
+I hope not, Madam.  I have not heard from him since Thursday last, that
+he went out of town, rejoicing in the hopes your letter gave him of a
+reconciliation between your friends and you, and that he might in good
+time see you at your father's; and he is gone down to give all his
+friends joy of the news, and is in high spirits upon it.
+
+Alas! for me: I shall then surely have him come up to persecute me again!
+As soon as he discovers that that was only a stratagem to keep him away,
+he will come up, and who knows but even now he is upon the road?  I
+thought I was so bad that I should have been out of his and every body's
+way before now; for I expected not that this contrivance would serve me
+above two or three days; and by this time he must have found out that I
+am not so happy as to have any hope of a reconciliation with my family;
+and then he will come, if it be only in revenge for what he will think a
+deceit, but is not, I hope, a wicked one.
+
+I believe I looked surprised to hear her confess that her letter was a
+stratagem only; for she said, You wonder, Mr. Belford, I observe, that I
+could be guilty of such an artifice.  I doubt it is not right: it was
+done in a hurry of spirits.  How could I see a man who had so mortally
+injured me; yet pretending a sorrow for his crimes, (and wanting to see
+me,) could behave with so much shocking levity, as he did to the honest
+people of the house?  Yet, 'tis strange too, that neither you nor he
+found out my meaning on perusal of my letter.  You have seen what I
+wrote, no doubt?
+
+I have, Madam.  And then I began to account for it, as an innocent
+artifice.
+
+Thus far indeed, Sir, it is an innocent, that I meant him no hurt, and
+had a right to the effect I hoped for from it; and he had none to invade
+me.  But have you, Sir, that letter of his in which he gives you (as I
+suppose he does) the copy of mine?
+
+I have, Madam.  And pulled it out of my letter-case.  But hesitating--
+Nay, Sir, said she, be pleased to read my letter to yourself--I desire
+not to see his--and see if you can be longer a stranger to a meaning so
+obvious.
+
+I read it to myself--Indeed, Madam, I can find nothing but that you are
+going down to Harlowe-place to be reconciled to your father and other
+friends: and Mr. Lovelace presumed that a letter from your sister, which
+he saw brought when he was at Mr. Smith's, gave you the welcome news of
+it.
+
+She then explained all to me, and that, as I may say, in six words--A
+religious meaning is couched under it, and that's the reason that neither
+you nor I could find it out.
+
+'Read but for my father's house, Heaven, said she, and for the
+interposition of my dear blessed friend, suppose the mediation of my
+Saviour (which I humbly rely upon); and all the rest of the letter will
+be accounted for.'  I hope (repeated she) that it is a pardonable
+artifice.  But I am afraid it is not strictly right.
+
+I read it so, and stood astonished for a minute at her invention, her
+piety, her charity, and at thine and mine own stupidity to be thus taken
+in.
+
+And now, thou vile Lovelace, what hast thou to do (the lady all
+consistent with herself, and no hopes left for thee) but to hang, drown,
+or shoot thyself, for an outwitted boaster?
+
+My surprise being a little over, she proceeded: As to the letter that
+came from my sister while your friend was here, you will soon see, Sir,
+that it is the cruellest letter she ever wrote me.
+
+And then she expressed a deep concern for what might be the consequence
+of Colonel Morden's intended visit to you; and besought me, that if now,
+or at any time hereafter, I had opportunity to prevent any further
+mischief, without detriment or danger to myself, I would do it.
+
+I assured her of the most particular attention to this and to all her
+commands; and that in a manner so agreeable to her, that she invoked a
+blessing upon me for my goodness, as she called it, to a desolate
+creature who suffered under the worst of orphanage; those were her words.
+
+She then went back to her first subject, her uneasiness for fear of your
+molesting her again; and said, If you have any influence over him, Mr.
+Belford, prevail upon him that he will give me the assurance that the
+short remainder of my time shall be all my own.  I have need of it.
+Indeed I have.  Why will he wish to interrupt me in my duty?  Has he not
+punished me enough for my preference of him to all his sex?  Has he not
+destroyed my fame and my fortune?  And will not his causeless vengeance
+upon me be complete, unless he ruin my soul too?--Excuse me, Sir, for
+this vehemence!  But indeed it greatly imports me to know that I shall be
+no more disturbed by him.  And yet, with all this aversion, I would
+sooner give way to his visit, though I were to expire the moment I saw
+him, than to be the cause of any fatal misunderstanding between you and
+him.
+
+I assured her that I would make such a representation of the matter to
+you, and of the state of her health, that I would undertake to answer for
+you, that you would not attempt to come near her.
+
+And for this reason, Lovelace, do I lay the whole matter before you, and
+desire you will authorize me, as soon as this and mine of Saturday last
+come to your hands, to dissipate her fears.
+
+This gave her a little satisfaction; and then she said that had I not
+told her that I could promise for you, she was determined, ill as she is,
+to remove somewhere out of my knowledge as well as out of your's.  And
+yet, to have been obliged to leave people I am but just got acquainted
+with, said the poor lady, and to have died among perfect strangers, would
+have completed my hardships.
+
+This conversation, I found, as well from the length as the nature of it,
+had fatigued her; and seeing her change colour once or twice, I made that
+my excuse, and took leave of her: desiring her permission, however, to
+attend her in the evening; and as often as possible; for I could not help
+telling her that, every time I saw her, I more and more considered her as
+a beatified spirit; and as one sent from Heaven to draw me after her out
+of the miry gulf in which I had been so long immersed.
+
+And laugh at me if thou wilt; but it is true that, every time I approach
+her, I cannot but look upon her as one just entering into a companionship
+with saints and angels.  This thought so wholly possessed me, that I
+could not help begging, as I went away, her prayers and her blessing,
+with the reverence due to an angel.
+
+In the evening, she was so low and weak, that I took my leave of her in
+less than a quarter of an hour.  I went directly home.  Where, to the
+pleasure and wonder of my cousin and her family, I now pass many honest
+evenings: which they impute to your being out of town.
+
+I shall dispatch my packet to-morrow morning early by my own servant, to
+make thee amends for the suspense I must have kept thee in: thou'lt thank
+me for that, I hope; but wilt not, I am sure, for sending thy servant
+back without a letter.
+
+I long for the particulars of the conversation between you and Mr.
+Morden; the lady, as I have hinted, is full of apprehensions about it.
+Send me back this packet when perused; for I have not had either time or
+patience to take a copy of it.  And I beseech you enable me to make good
+my engagements to the poor lady that you will not invade her again.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXVIII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+WEDNESDAY, AUG. 30.
+
+
+I have a conversation to give you that passed between this admirable lady
+and Dr. H. which will furnish a new instance of the calmness and serenity
+with which she can talk of death, and prepare for it, as if it were an
+occurrence as familiar to her as dressing and undressing.
+
+As soon as I had dispatched my servant to you with my letters of the
+26th, 28th, and yesterday the 29th, I went to pay my duty to her, and had
+the pleasure to find her, after a tolerable night, pretty lively and
+cheerful.  She was but just returned from her usual devotions; and Doctor
+H. alighted as she entered the door.
+
+After inquiring how she did, and hearing her complaints of shortness of
+breath, (which she attributed to inward decay, precipitated by her late
+harasses, as well from her friends as from you,) he was for advising her
+to go into the air.
+
+What will that do for me? said she: tell me truly, good Sir, with a
+cheerful aspect, (you know you cannot disturb me by it,) whether now you
+do not put on the true physician; and despairing that any thing in
+medicine will help me, advise me to the air, as the last resource?--Can
+you think the air will avail in such a malady as mine?
+
+He was silent.
+
+I ask, said she, because my friends (who will possibly some time hence
+inquire after the means I used for my recovery) may be satisfied that I
+omitted nothing which so worthy and skilful a physician prescribed?
+
+The air, Madam, may possibly help the difficulty of breathing, which has
+so lately attacked you.
+
+But, Sir, you see how weak I am.  You must see that I have been consuming
+from day to day; and now, if I can judge by what I feel in myself,
+putting her hand to her heart, I cannot continue long.  If the air would
+very probably add to my days, though I am far from being desirous to have
+them lengthened, I would go into it; and the rather, as I know Mrs.
+Lovick would kindly accompany me.  But if I were to be at the trouble of
+removing into new lodgings, (a trouble which I think now would be too
+much for me,) and this only to die in the country, I had rather the scene
+were to shut up here.  For here have I meditated the spot, and the
+manner, and every thing, as well of the minutest as of the highest
+consequence, that can attend the solemn moments.  So, Doctor, tell me
+truly, may I stay here, and be clear of any imputations of curtailing,
+through wilfulness or impatiency, or through resentments which I hope I
+am got above, a life that might otherwise be prolonged?--Tell me, Sir;
+you are not talking to a coward in this respect; indeed you are not!--
+Unaffectedly smiling.
+
+The doctor, turning to me, was at a loss what to say, lifting up his eyes
+only in admiration of her.
+
+Never had any patient, said she, a more indulgent and more humane
+physician.  But since you are loth to answer my question directly, I will
+put it in other words--You don't enjoin me to go into the air, Doctor, do
+you?
+
+I do not, Madam.  Nor do I now visit you as a physician; but as a person
+whose conversation I admire, and whose sufferings I condole.  And, to
+explain myself more directly, as to the occasion of this day's visit in
+particular, I must tell you, Madam, that, understanding how much you
+suffer by the displeasure of your friends; and having no doubt but that,
+if they knew the way you are in, they would alter their conduct to you;
+and believing it must cut them to the heart, when too late, they shall be
+informed of every thing; I have resolved to apprize them by letter
+(stranger as I am to their persons) how necessary it is for some of them
+to attend you very speedily.  For their sakes, Madam, let me press for
+your approbation of this measure.
+
+She paused; and at last said, This is kind, very kind, in you, Sir.  But
+I hope that you do not think me so perverse, and so obstinate, as to have
+left till now any means unessayed which I thought likely to move my
+friends in my favour.  But now, Doctor, said she, I should be too much
+disturbed at their grief, if they were any of them to come or to send to
+me: and perhaps, if I found they still loved me, wish to live; and so
+should quit unwillingly that life, which I am now really fond of
+quitting, and hope to quit as becomes a person who has had such a
+weaning-time as I have been favoured with.
+
+I hope, Madam, said I, we are not so near as you apprehend to that
+deplorable catastrophe you hint at with such an amazing presence of mind.
+And therefore I presume to second the doctor's motion, if it were only
+for the sake of your father and mother, that they may have the
+satisfaction, if they must lose you, to think they were first reconciled
+to you.
+
+It is very kindly, very humanely considered, said she.  But, if you think
+me not so very near my last hour, let me desire this may be postponed
+till I see what effect my cousin Morden's mediation may have.  Perhaps he
+may vouchsafe to make me a visit yet, after his intended interview with
+Mr. Lovelace is over; of which, who knows, Mr. Belford, but your next
+letters may give an account?  I hope it will not be a fatal one to any
+body.  Will you promise me, Doctor, to forbear writing for two days only,
+and I will communicate to you any thing that occurs in that time; and then
+you shall take your own way?  Mean time, I repeat my thanks for your
+goodness to me.--Nay, dear Doctor, hurry not away from me so
+precipitately [for he was going, for fear of an offered fee]: I will no
+more affront you with tenders that have pained you for some time past:
+and since I must now, from this kindly-offered favour, look upon you only
+as a friend, I will assure you henceforth that I will give you no more
+uneasiness on that head: and now, Sir, I know I shall have the pleasure
+of seeing you oftener than heretofore.
+
+The worthy gentleman was pleased with this assurance, telling her that he
+had always come to see her with great pleasure, but parted with her, on
+the account she hinted at, with as much pain; and that he should not have
+forborne to double his visits, could he have had this kind assurance as
+early as he wished for it.
+
+There are few instances of like disinterestedness, I doubt, in this
+tribe.  Till now I always held it for gospel, that friendship and
+physician were incompatible things; and little imagined that a man of
+medicine, when he had given over his patient to death, would think of any
+visits but those of ceremony, that he might stand well with the family,
+against it came to their turns to go through his turnpike.
+
+After the doctor was gone, she fell into a very serious discourse of the
+vanity of life, and the wisdom of preparing for death, while health and
+strength remained, and before the infirmities of body impaired the
+faculties of the mind, and disabled them from acting with the necessary
+efficacy and clearness: the whole calculated for every one's meridian,
+but particularly, as it was easy to observe, for thine and mine.
+
+She was very curious to know farther particulars of the behaviour of poor
+Belton in his last moments.  You must not wonder at my inquiries, Mr.
+Belford, said she; For who is it, that is to undertake a journey into a
+country they never travelled to before, that inquires not into the
+difficulties of the road, and what accommodations are to be expected in
+the way?
+
+I gave her a brief account of the poor man's terrors, and unwillingness
+to die: and, when I had done, Thus, Mr. Belford, said she, must it always
+be with poor souls who have never thought of their long voyage till the
+moment they are to embark for it.
+
+She made other such observations upon this subject as, coming from the
+mouth of a person who will so soon be a companion for angels, I shall
+never forget.  And indeed, when I went home, that I might engraft them
+the better on my memory, I entered them down in writing: but I will not
+let you see them until you are in a frame more proper to benefit by them
+than you are likely to be in one while.
+
+Thus far had I written, when the unexpected early return of my servant
+with your packet (your's and he meeting at Slough, and exchanging
+letters) obliged me to leave off to give its contents a reading.--Here,
+therefore, I close this letter.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXIX
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+TUESDAY MORN. AUG. 29.
+
+
+Now, Jack, will I give thee an account of what passed on occasion of the
+visit made us by Col. Morden.
+
+He came on horseback, attended by one servant; and Lord M. received him
+as a relation of Miss Harlowe's with the highest marks of civility and
+respect.
+
+After some general talk of the times, and of the weather, and such
+nonsense as Englishmen generally make their introductory topics to
+conversation, the Colonel addressed himself to Lord M. and to me, as
+follows:
+
+I need not, my Lord, and Mr. Lovelace, as you know the relation I bear to
+the Harlowe family, make any apology for entering upon a subject, which,
+on account of that relation, you must think is the principal reason of
+the honour I have done myself in this visit.
+
+Miss Harlowe, Miss Clarissa Harlowe's affair, said Lord M. with his usual
+forward bluntness.  That, Sir, is what you mean.  She is, by all
+accounts, the most excellent woman in the world.
+
+I am glad to hear that is your Lordship's opinion of her.  It is every
+one's.
+
+It is not only my opinion, Col. Morden (proceeded the prating Peer), but
+it is the opinion of all my family.  Of my sisters, of my nieces, and of
+Mr. Lovelace himself.
+
+Col.   Would to Heaven it had been always Mr. Lovelace's opinion of her!
+
+Lovel.   You have been out of England, Colonel, a good many years.
+Perhaps you are not yet fully apprized of all the particulars of this
+case.
+
+Col.   I have been out of England, Sir, about seven years.  My cousin
+Clary was then about 12 years of age: but never was there at twenty so
+discreet, so prudent, and so excellent a creature.  All that knew her, or
+saw her, admired her.  Mind and person, never did I see such promises of
+perfection in any young lady: and I am told, nor is it to be wondered at,
+that, as she advanced to maturity, she more than justified and made good
+those promises.--Then as to fortune--what her father, what her uncles,
+and what I myself, intended to do for her, besides what her grandfather
+had done--there is not a finer fortune in the country.
+
+Lovel.   All this, Colonel, and more than this, is Miss Clarissa Harlowe;
+and had it not been for the implacableness and violence of her family
+(all resolved to push her upon a match as unworthy of her as hateful to
+her) she had still been happy.
+
+Col.   I own, Mr. Lovelace, the truth of what you observed just now, that
+I am not thoroughly acquainted with all that has passed between you and
+my cousin.  But permit me to say, that when I first heard that you made
+your addresses to her, I knew but of one objection against you; that,
+indeed, a very great one: and upon a letter sent me, I gave her my free
+opinion upon that subject.*  But had it not been for that, I own, that,
+in my private mind, there could not have been a more suitable match: for
+you are a gallant gentleman, graceful in your person, easy and genteel in
+your deportment, and in your family, fortunes, and expectations, happy as
+a man can wish to be.  Then the knowledge I had of you in Italy
+(although, give me leave to say, your conduct there was not wholly
+unexceptionable) convinces me that you are brave: and few gentlemen come
+up to you in wit and vivacity.  Your education has given you great
+advantages; your manners are engaging, and you have travelled; and I
+know, if you'll excuse me, you make better observations than you are
+governed by.  All these qualifications make it not at all surprising that
+a young lady should love you: and that this love, joined to that
+indiscreet warmth wherewith my cousin's friends would have forced her
+inclinations in favour of men who are far your inferiors in the qualities
+I have named, should throw herself upon your protection.  But then, if
+there were these two strong motives, the one to induce, the other to
+impel, her, let me ask you, Sir, if she were not doubly entitled to
+generous usage from a man whom she chose for her protector; and whom, let
+me take the liberty to say, she could so amply reward for the protection
+he was to afford her?
+
+
+* See Vol. IV. Letter XIX.
+
+
+Lovel.   Miss Clarissa Harlowe was entitled, Sir, to have the best usage
+that man could give her.  I have no scruple to own it.  I will always do
+her the justice she so well deserves. I know what will be your inference;
+and have only to say, that time past cannot be recalled; perhaps I wish
+it could.
+
+The Colonel then, in a very manly strain, set forth the wickedness of
+attempting a woman of virtue and character.  He said, that men had
+generally too many advantages from the weakness, credulity, and
+inexperience of the fair sex: that their early learning, which chiefly
+consisted in inflaming novels, and idle and improbable romances,
+contributed to enervate and weaken their minds: that his cousin, however,
+he was sure, was above the reach of common seduction, and not to be
+influenced to the rashness her parents accused her of, by weaker motives
+than their violence, and the most solemn promises on my part: but,
+nevertheless, having those motives, and her prudence (eminent as it was)
+being rather the effect of constitution than experience, (a fine
+advantage, however, he said, to ground an unblamable future life upon,)
+she might not be apprehensive of bad designs in a man she loved: it was,
+therefore, a very heinous thing to abuse the confidence of such a woman.
+
+He was going on in this trite manner; when, interrupting him, I said,
+These general observations, Colonel, suit not perhaps this particular
+case.  But you yourself are a man of gallantry; and, possibly, were you
+to be put to the question, might not be able to vindicate every action of
+your life, any more than I.
+
+Col.   You are welcome, Sir, to put what questions you please to me.
+And, I thank God, I can both own and be ashamed of my errors.
+
+Lord M. looked at me; but as the Colonel did not by his manner seem to
+intend a reflection, I had no occasion to take it for one; especially as
+I can as readily own my errors, as he, or any man, can his, whether
+ashamed of them or not.
+
+He proceeded.  As you seem to call upon me, Mr. Lovelace, I will tell you
+(without boasting of it) what has been my general practice, till lately,
+that I hope I have reformed it a good deal.
+
+I have taken liberties, which the laws of morality will by no means
+justify; and once I should have thought myself warranted to cut the
+throat of any young fellow who should make as free with a sister of mine
+as I have made with the sisters and daughters of others.  But then I took
+care never to promise any thing I intended not to perform.  A modest ear
+should as soon have heard downright obscenity from my lips, as matrimony,
+if I had not intended it.  Young ladies are generally ready enough to
+believe we mean honourably, if they love us; and it would look lie a
+strange affront to their virtue and charms, that it should be supposed
+needful to put the question whether in your address you mean a wife.  But
+when once a man make a promise, I think it ought to be performed; and a
+woman is well warranted to appeal to every one against the perfidy of a
+deceiver; and is always sure to have the world on her side.
+
+Now, Sir, continued he, I believe you have so much honour as to own, that
+you could not have made way to so eminent a virtue, without promising
+marriage; and that very explicitly and solemnly--
+
+I know very well, Colonel, interrupted I, all you would say.  You will
+excuse me, I am sure, that I break in upon you, when you find it is to
+answer the end you drive at.
+
+I own to you then that I have acted very unworthily by Miss Clarissa
+Harlowe; and I'll tell you farther, that I heartily repent of my
+ingratitude and baseness to her.  Nay, I will say still farther, that I
+am so grossly culpable as to her, that even to plead that the abuses and
+affronts I daily received from her implacable relations were in any
+manner a provocation to me to act vilely by her, would be a mean and low
+attempt to excuse myself--so low and so mean, that it would doubly
+condemn me.  And if you can say worse, speak it.
+
+He looked upon Lord M. and then upon me, two or three times.  And my Lord
+said, My kinsman speaks what he thinks, I'll answer for him.
+
+Lovel.   I do, Sir; and what can I say more?  And what farther, in your
+opinion, can be done?
+
+Col.   Done!  Sir?  Why, Sir, [in a haughty tone he spoke,] I need not
+tell you that reparation follows repentance.  And I hope you make no
+scruple of justifying your sincerity as to the one or the other.
+
+I hesitated, (for I relished not the manner of his speech, and his
+haughty accent,) as undetermined whether to take proper notice of it or
+not.
+
+Col.   Let me put this question to you, Mr. Lovelace: Is it true, as I
+have heard it is, that you would marry my cousin, if she would have you?
+--What say you, Sir?--
+
+This wound me up a peg higher.
+
+Lovel.   Some questions, as they may be put, imply commands, Colonel.  I
+would be glad to know how I am to take your's?  And what is to be the end
+of your interrogatories?
+
+Col.   My questions are not meant by me as commands, Mr. Lovelace.  The
+end is, to prevail upon a gentleman to act like a gentleman, and a man of
+honour.
+
+Lovel. (briskly)   And by what arguments, Sir, do you propose to prevail
+upon me?
+
+Col.   By what arguments, Sir, prevail upon a gentleman to act like a
+gentleman!--I am surprised at that question from Mr. Lovelace.
+
+Lovel.   Why so, Sir?
+
+Col.   WHY so, Sir!  (angrily)--Let me--
+
+Lovel. (interrupting)   I don't choose, Colonel, to be repeated upon, in
+that accent.
+
+Lord M.   Come, come, gentlemen, I beg of you to be willing to understand
+one another.  You young gentlemen are so warm--
+
+Col.   Not I, my Lord--I am neither very young, nor unduly warm.  Your
+nephew, my Lord, can make me be every thing he would have me to be.
+
+Lovel.   And that shall be, whatever you please to be, Colonel.
+
+Col. (fiercely)   The choice be your's, Mr. Lovelace.  Friend or foe! as
+you do or are willing to do justice to one of the finest women in the
+world.
+
+Lord M.   I guessed, from both your characters, what would be the case
+when you met.  Let me interpose, gentlemen, and beg you but to understand
+one another.  You both shoot at one mark; and, if you are patient, will
+both hit it.  Let me beg of you, Colonel, to give no challenges--
+
+Col.   Challenges, my Lord!--They are things I ever was readier to accept
+than to offer.  But does your Lordship think that a man, so nearly
+related as I have the honour to be to the most accomplished woman on
+earth,--
+
+Lord M. (interrupting)   We all allow the excellencies of the lady--and
+we shall all take it as the greatest honour to be allied to her that can
+be conferred upon us.
+
+Col.   So you ought, my Lord!--
+
+A perfect Chamont; thought I.*
+
+
+* See Otway's Orphan.
+
+
+Lord M.   So we ought, Colonel! and so we do!--and pray let every one do
+as he ought!--and no more than he ought; and you, Colonel, let me tell
+you, will not be so hasty.
+
+Lovel. (coolly)   Come, come, Col. Morden, don't let this dispute, whatever
+you intend to make of it, go farther than with you and me.  You
+deliver yourself in very high terms.  Higher than ever I was talked to in
+my life.  But here, beneath this roof, 'twould be inexcusable for me to
+take that notice of it which, perhaps, it would become me to take
+elsewhere.
+
+Col.   That is spoken as I wish the man to speak whom I should be pleased
+to call my friend, if all his actions were of a piece; and as I would
+have the man speak whom I would think it worth my while to call my foe.
+I love a man of spirit, as I love my soul.  But, Mr. Lovelace, as my Lord
+thinks we aim at one mark, let me say, that were we permitted to be alone
+for six minutes, I dare say, we should soon understand one another
+perfectly well.--And he moved to the door.
+
+Lovel.   I am entirely of your opinion, Sir; and will attend you.
+
+My Lord rung, and stept between us: Colonel, return, I beseech you
+return, said he: for he had stept out of the room while my Lord held me--
+Nephew, you shall not go out.
+
+The bell and my Lord's raised voice brought in Mowbray, and Clements, my
+Lord's gentleman; the former in his careless way, with his hands behind
+him, What's the matter, Bobby?  What's the matter, my Lord?
+
+Only, only, only, stammered the agitated peer, these young gentlemen are,
+are, are--are young gentlemen, that's all.--Pray, Colonel Morden, [who
+again entered the room with a sedater aspect,] let this cause have a fair
+trial, I beseech you.
+
+Col.   With all my heart, my Lord.
+
+Mowbray whispered me, What is the cause, Bobby?--Shall I take the
+gentleman to task for thee, my boy?
+
+Not for the world, whispered I.  The Colonel is a gentleman, and I desire
+you'll not say one word.
+
+Well, well, well, Bobby, I have done.  I can turn thee loose to the best
+man upon God's earth; that's all, Bobby; strutting off to the other end
+of the room.
+
+Col.   I am sorry, my Lord, I should give your Lordship the least
+uneasiness.  I came not with such a design.
+
+Lord M.   Indeed, Colonel, I thought you did, by your taking fire so
+quickly.  I am glad to hear you say you did not.  How soon a little spark
+kindles into a flame; especially when it meets with such combustible
+spirits!
+
+Col.   If I had had the least thought of proceeding to extremities, I am
+sure Mr. Lovelace would have given me the honour of a meeting where I
+should have been less an intruder: but I came with an amicable intention;
+to reconcile differences rather than to widen them.
+
+Lovel.   Well then, Colonel Morden, let us enter upon the subject in your
+own way.  I don't know the man I should sooner choose to be upon terms
+with than one whom Miss Clarissa Harlowe so much respects.  But I cannot
+bear to be treated, either in word or accent, in a menacing way.
+
+Lord M.   Well, well, well, well, gentlemen, this is somewhat like.
+Angry men make to themselves beds of nettles, and, when they lie down in
+them, are uneasy with every body.  But I hope you are friends.  Let me
+hear you say you are.  I am persuaded, Colonel, that you don't know all
+this unhappy story.  You don't know how desirous my kinsman is, as well
+as all of us, to have this matter end happily.  You don't know, do you,
+Colonel, that Mr. Lovelace, at all our requests, is disposed to marry the
+lady?
+
+Col.   At all your requests, my Lord?--I should have hoped that Mr.
+Lovelace was disposed to do justice for the sake of justice; and when at
+the same time the doing of justice was doing himself the highest honour.
+
+Mowbray lifted up his before half-closed eyes to the Colonel, and glanced
+them upon me.
+
+Lovel.   This is in very high language, Colonel.
+
+Mowbr.   By my soul, I thought so.
+
+Col.   High language, Mr. Lovelace?  Is it not just language?
+
+Lovel.   It is, Colonel.  And I think, the man that does honour to Miss
+Clarissa Harlowe, does me honour.  But, nevertheless, there is a manner
+in speaking, that may be liable to exception, where the words, without
+that manner, can bear none.
+
+Col.   Your observation in the general is undoubtedly just: but, if you
+have the value for my cousin that you say you have, you must needs think
+--
+
+Lovel.   You must allow me, Sir, to interrupt you--IF I have the value I
+say I have--I hope, Sir, when I say I have that value, there is no room
+for that if, pronounced as you pronounced it with an emphasis.
+
+Col.   You have broken in upon me twice, Mr. Lovelace.  I am as little
+accustomed to be broken in upon, as you are to be repeated upon.
+
+Lord M.   Two barrels of gunpowder, by my conscience!  What a devil will
+it signify talking, if thus you are to blow one another up at every word?
+
+Lovel.   No man of honour, my Lord, will be easy to have his veracity
+called into question, though but by implication.
+
+Col.   Had you heard me out, Mr. Lovelace, you would have found, that my
+if was rather an if of inference, than of doubt.  But 'tis, really a
+strange liberty gentlemen of free principles take; who at the same time
+that they would resent unto death the imputation of being capable of
+telling an untruth to a man, will not scruple to break through the most
+solemn oaths and promises to a woman.  I must assure you, Mr. Lovelace,
+that I always made a conscience of my vows and promises.
+
+Lovel.   You did right, Colonel.  But let me tell you, Sir, that you know
+not the man you talk to, if you imagine he is not able to rise to a
+proper resentment, when he sees his generous confessions taken for a mark
+of base-spiritedness.
+
+Col. (warmly, and with a sneer,)   Far be it from me, Mr. Lovelace, to
+impute to you the baseness of spirit you speak of; for what would that be
+but to imagine that a man, who has done a very flagrant injury, is not
+ready to show his bravery in defending it--
+
+Mowbr.   This is d----d severe, Colonel.  It is, by Jove.  I could not
+take so much at the hands of any man breathing as Mr. Lovelace before
+this took at your's.
+
+Col.   Who are you, Sir?  What pretence have you to interpose in a cause
+where there is an acknowledged guilt on one side, and the honour of a
+considerable family wounded in the tenderest part by that guilt on the
+other?
+
+Mowbr. (whispering to the Colonel)   My dear child, you will oblige me
+highly if you will give me the opportunity of answering your question.
+And was going out.
+
+The Colonel was held in by my Lord.  And I brought in Mowbray.
+
+Col.   Pray, my good Lord, let me attend this officious gentleman, I
+beseech you do.  I will wait upon your Lordship in three minutes, depend
+upon it.
+
+Lovel.   Mowbray, is this acting like a friend by me, to suppose me
+incapable of answering for myself?  And shall a man of honour and
+bravery, as I know Colonel Morden to be, (rash as perhaps in this visit
+he has shown himself,) have it to say, that he comes to my Lord M.'s
+house, in a manner naked as to attendants and friends, and shall not for
+that reason be rather borne with than insulted?  This moment, my dear
+Mowbray, leave us.  You have really no concern in this business; and if
+you are my friend, I desire you'll ask the Colonel pardon for interfering
+in it in the manner you have done.
+
+Mowbr.   Well, well, Bob.; thou shalt be arbiter in this matter; I know I
+have no business in it--and, Colonel, (holding out his hand,) I leave you
+to one who knows how to defend his own cause as well as any man in
+England.
+
+Col. (taking Mowbray's hand, at Lord M.'s request,)   You need not tell
+me that, Mr. Mowbray.  I have no doubt of Mr. Lovelace's ability to
+defend his own cause, were it a cause to be defended.  And let me tell
+you, Mr. Lovelace, that I am astonished to think that a brave man, and a
+generous man, as you have appeared to be in two or three instances that
+you have given in the little knowledge I have of you, should be capable
+of acting as you have done by the most excellent of her sex.
+
+Lord M.   Well, but, gentlemen, now Mr. Mowbray is gone, and you have
+both shown instances of courage and generosity to boot, let me desire you
+to lay your heads together amicably, and think whether there be any thing
+to be done to make all end happily for the lady?
+
+Lovel.   But hold, my Lord, let me say one thing, now Mowbray is gone;
+and that is, that I think a gentleman ought not to put up tamely one or
+two severe things that the Colonel has said.
+
+Lord M.   What the devil canst thou mean?  I thought all had been over.
+Why thou hast nothing to do but to confirm to the Colonel that thou art
+willing to marry Miss Harlowe, if she will have thee.
+
+Col.   Mr. Lovelace will not scruple to say that, I suppose,
+notwithstanding all that has passed: but if you think, Mr. Lovelace, I
+have said any thing I should not have said, I suppose it is this, that
+the man who has shown so little of the thing honour, to a defenceless
+unprotected woman, ought not to stand so nicely upon the empty name of
+it, with a man who is expostulating with him upon it.  I am sorry to have
+cause to say this, Mr. Lovelace; but I would, on the same occasion,
+repeat it to a king upon his throne, and surrounded by all his guards.
+
+Lord M.   But what is all this, but more sacks upon the mill? more coals
+upon the fire?  You have a mind to quarrel both of you, I see that.  Are
+you not willing, Nephew, are you not most willing, to marry this lady, if
+she can be prevailed upon to have you?
+
+Lovel.   D--n me, my Lord, if I'd marry my empress upon such treatment
+as this.
+
+Lord M.   Why now, Bob., thou art more choleric than the Colonel.  It was
+his turn just now.  And now you see he is cool, you are all gunpowder.
+
+Lovel.   I own the Colonel has many advantages over me; but, perhaps,
+there is one advantage he has not, if it were put to the trial.
+
+Col.   I came not hither, as I said before, to seek the occasion: but if
+it were offered me, I won't refuse it--and since we find we disturb my
+good Lord M. I'll take my leave, and will go home by the way of St.
+Alban's.
+
+Lovel.   I'll see you part of the way, with all my heart, Colonel.
+
+Col.   I accept your civility very cheerfully, Mr. Lovelace.
+
+Lord M. (interposing again, as we were both for going out,)   And what
+will this do, gentlemen?  Suppose you kill one another, will the matter
+be bettered or worsted by that?  Will the lady be made happier or
+unhappier, do you think, by either or both of your deaths?  Your
+characters are too well known to make fresh instances of the courage of
+either needful.  And, I think, if the honour of the lady is your view,
+Colonel, it can by no other way so effectually promoted as by marriage.
+And, Sir, if you would use your interest with her, it is very probable
+that you may succeed, though nobody else can.
+
+Lovel.   I think, my Lord, I have said all that a man can say, (since
+what is passed cannot be recalled:) and you see Colonel Morden rises in
+proportion to my coolness, till it is necessary for me to assert myself,
+or even he would despise me.
+
+Lord M.   Let me ask you, Colonel, have you any way, any method, that you
+think reasonable and honourable to propose, to bring about a
+reconciliation with the lady?  That is what we all wish for.  And I can
+tell you, Sir, it is not a little owing to her family, and to their
+implacable usage of her, that her resentments are heightened against my
+kinsman; who, however, has used her vilely; but is willing to repair her
+wrongs.--
+
+Lovel.   Not, my Lord, for the sake of her family; nor for this
+gentleman's haughty behaviour; but for her own sake, and in full sense of
+the wrongs I have done her.
+
+Col.   As to my haughty behaviour, as you call it, Sir, I am mistaken if
+you would not have gone beyond it in the like case of a relation so
+meritorious, and so unworthily injured.  And, Sir, let me tell you, that
+if your motives are not love, honour, and justice, and if they have the
+least tincture of mean compassion for her, or of an uncheerful assent on
+your part, I am sure it will neither be desired or accepted by a person
+of my cousin's merit and sense; nor shall I wish that it should.
+
+Lovel.   Don't think, Colonel, that I am meanly compounding off a debate,
+that I should as willingly go through with you as to eat or drink, if I
+have the occasion given me for it: but thus much I will tell you, that my
+Lord, that Lady Sarah Sadleir, Lady Betty Lawrance, my two cousins
+Montague, and myself, have written to her in the most solemn and sincere
+manner, to offer her such terms as no one but herself would refuse, and
+this long enough before Colonel Morden's arrival was dreamt of.
+
+Col.   What reason, Sir, may I ask, does she give, against listening to
+so powerful a mediation, and to such offers?
+
+Lovel.   It looks like capitulating, or else--
+
+Col.   It looks not like any such thing to me, Mr. Lovelace, who have as
+good an opinion of your spirit as man can have.  And what, pray, is the
+part I act, and my motives for it?  Are they not, in desiring that
+justice may be done to my Cousin Clarissa Harlowe, that I seek to
+establish the honour of Mrs. Lovelace, if matters can once be brought to
+bear?
+
+Lovel.   Were she to honour me with her acceptance of that name, Mr.
+Morden, I should not want you or any man to assert the honour of Mrs.
+Lovelace.
+
+Col.   I believe it.  But still she has honoured you with that
+acceptance, she is nearer to me than to you, Mr. Lovelace.  And I speak
+this, only to show you that, in the part I take, I mean rather to deserve
+your thanks than your displeasure, though against yourself, were there
+occasion.  Nor ought you take it amiss, if you rightly weigh the matter:
+For, Sir, whom does a lady want protection against but her injurers?  And
+who has been her greatest injurer?--Till, therefore, she becomes entitled
+to your protection, as your wife, you yourself cannot refuse me some
+merit in wishing to have justice done my cousin.  But, Sir, you were
+going to say, that if it were not to look like capitulating, you would
+hint the reasons my cousin gives against accepting such an honourable
+mediation?
+
+I then told him of my sincere offers of marriage: 'I made no difficulty,
+I said, to own my apprehensions, that my unhappy behaviour to her had
+greatly affected her: but that it was the implacableness of her friends
+that had thrown her into despair, and given her a contempt for life.'  I
+told him, 'that she had been so good as to send me a letter to divert me
+from a visit my heart was set upon making her: a letter on which I built
+great hopes, because she assured me that in it she was going to her
+father's; and that I might see her there, when she was received, if it
+were not my own fault.
+
+Col.   Is it possible?  And were you, Sir, thus earnest?  And did she
+send you such a letter?
+
+Lord M. confirmed both; and also, that, in obedience to her desires, and
+that intimation, I had come down without the satisfaction I had proposed
+to myself in seeing her.
+
+It is very true, Colonel, said I: and I should have told you this before:
+but your heat made me decline it; for, as I said, it had an appearance of
+meanly capitulating with you.  An abjectness of heart, of which, had I
+been capable, I should have despised myself as much as I might have
+expected you would despise me.
+
+Lord M. proposed to enter into the proof of all this.  He said, in his
+phraseological way, That one story was good till another was heard; and
+that the Harlowe family and I, 'twas true, had behaved like so many
+Orsons to one another; and that they had been very free with all our
+family besides: that nevertheless, for the lady's sake, more than for
+their's, or even for mine, (he could tell me,) he would do greater things
+for me than they could ask, if she could be brought to have me: and that
+this he wanted to declare, and would sooner have declared, if he could
+have brought us sooner to patience, and a good understanding.
+
+The Colonel made excuses for his warmth, on the score of his affection to
+his cousin.
+
+My regard for her made me readily admit them: and so a fresh bottle of
+Burgundy, and another of Champagne, being put upon the table, we sat down
+in good humour, after all this blustering, in order to enter closer into
+the particulars of the case: which I undertook, at both their desires, to
+do.
+
+But these things must be the subject of another letter, which shall
+immediately follow this, if it do not accompany it.
+
+Mean time you will observe that a bad cause gives a man great
+disadvantages: for I myself think that the interrogatories put to me with
+so much spirit by the Colonel made me look cursedly mean; at the same
+time that it gave him a superiority which I know not how to allow to the
+best man in Europe.  So that, literally speaking, as a good man would
+infer, guilt is its own punisher: in that it makes the most lofty spirit
+look like the miscreant he is--a good man, I say: So, Jack, proleptically
+I add, thou hast no right to make the observation.
+
+
+
+LETTER XL
+
+MR. LOVELACE
+[IN CONTINUATION.]
+TUESDAY AFTERNOON, AUG. 29.
+
+
+I went back, in this part of our conversation, to the day that I was
+obliged to come down to attend my Lord in the dangerous illness which
+some feared would have been his last.
+
+I told the Colonel, 'what earnest letters I had written to a particular
+friend, to engage him to prevail upon the lady not to slip a day that had
+been proposed for the private celebration of our nuptials; and of my
+letters* written to her on that subject;' for I had stepped to my closet,
+and fetched down all the letters and draughts and copies of letters
+relating to this affair.
+
+
+* See Vol. VI. Letters XXXVII. XXXVIII. XXXIX. XLIII.
+
+
+I read to him, 'several passages in the copies of those letters, which,
+thou wilt remember, make not a little to my honour.'  And I told him,
+'that I wished I had kept copies of those to my friend on the same
+occasion; by which he would have seen how much in earnest I was in my
+professions to her, although she would not answer one of them;' and thou
+mayest remember, that one of those four letters accounted to herself why
+I was desirous she should remain where I had left her.*
+
+
+* See Vol. VI. Letter XXXVII.
+
+
+I then proceeded to give him an account 'of the visit made by Lady Sarah
+and Lady Betty to Lord M. and me, in order to induce me to do her
+justice: of my readiness to comply with their desires; and of their high
+opinion of her merit: of the visit made to Miss Howe by my cousins
+Montague, in the name of us all, to engage her interest with her friend
+in my behalf: of my conversation with Miss Howe, at a private assembly,
+to whom I gave the same assurances, and besought her interest with her
+friend.'
+
+I then read a copy of the letter (though so much to my disadvantage)
+which was written to her by Miss Charlotte Montague, Aug. 1,* entreating
+her alliance in the names of all our family.
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. Letter LXVI.
+
+
+This made him ready to think that his fair cousin carried her resentment
+against me too far.  He did not imagine, he said, that either myself or
+our family had been so much in earnest.
+
+So thou seest, Belford, that it is but glossing over one part of a story,
+and omitting another, that will make a bad cause a good one at any time.
+What an admirable lawyer should I have made!  And what a poor hand would
+this charming creature, with all her innocence, have made of it in a
+court of justice against a man who had so much to say and to show for
+himself!
+
+I then hinted at the generous annual tender which Lord M. and his sisters
+made to his fair cousin, in apprehension that she might suffer by her
+friends' implacableness.
+
+And this also the Colonel highly applauded, and was pleased to lament the
+unhappy misunderstanding between the two families, which had made the
+Harlowes less fond of an alliance with a family of so much honour as this
+instance showed ours to be.
+
+I then told him, 'That having, by my friend, [meaning thee,] who was
+admitted into her presence, (and who had always been an admirer of her
+virtues, and had given me such advice from time to time in relation to
+her as I wished I had followed,) been assured that a visit from me would
+be very disagreeable to her, I once more resolved to try what a letter
+would do; and that, accordingly, on the seventh of August, I wrote her
+one.
+
+'This, Colonel, is the copy of it.  I was then out of humour with my Lord
+M. and the ladies of my family.  You will, therefore, read it to
+yourself.'*
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXIX.
+
+
+This letter gave him high satisfaction.  You write here, Mr. Lovelace,
+from your heart.  'Tis a letter full of penitence and acknowledgement.
+Your request is reasonable--To be forgiven only as you shall appear to
+deserve it after a time of probation, which you leave to her to fix.
+Pray, Sir, did she return an answer to this letter?
+
+She did, but with reluctance, I own, and not till I had declared by my
+friend, that, if I could not procure one, I would go up to town, and
+throw myself at her feet.
+
+I wish I might be permitted to see it, Sir, or to hear such parts of it
+read as you shall think proper.
+
+Turning over my papers, Here it is, Sir.*  I will make no scruple to put
+it into your hands.
+
+This is very obliging, Mr. Lovelace.
+
+He read it.  My charming cousin!--How strong her resentments!--Yet how
+charitable her wishes!--Good Heaven! that such an excellent creature--
+But, Mr. Lovelace, it is to your regret, as much as to mine, I doubt not
+--
+
+Interrupting him, I swore that it was.
+
+So it ought, said he.  Nor do I wonder that it should be so.  I shall
+tell you by-and-by, proceeded he, how much she suffers with her friends
+by false and villanous reports.  But, Sir, will you permit me to take
+with me these two letters?  I shall make use of them to the advantage of
+you both.
+
+I told him I would oblige him with all my heart.  And this he took very
+kindly (as he had reason); and put them in his pocket-book, promising to
+return hem in a few days.
+
+I then told him, 'That upon this her refusal, I took upon myself to go to
+town, in hopes to move her in my favour; and that, though I went without
+giving her notice of my intention, yet had she got some notion of my
+coming, and so contrived to be out of the way: and at last, when she
+found I was fully determined at all events to see her, before I went
+abroad, (which I shall do, said I, if I cannot prevail upon her,) she
+sent me the letter I have already mentioned to you, desiring me to
+suspend my purposed visit: and that for a reason which amazes and
+confounds me; because I don't find there is any thing in it: and yet I
+never knew her once dispense with her word; for she always made it a
+maxim, that it was not lawful to do evil, that good might come of it: and
+yet in this letter, for no reason in the world but to avoid seeing me (to
+gratify an humour only) has she sent me out of town, depending upon the
+assurance she had given me.'
+
+Col.   This is indeed surprising.  But I cannot believe that my cousin,
+for such an end only, or indeed for any end, according to the character I
+hear of her, should stoop to make use of such an artifice.
+
+Lovel.   This, Colonel, is the thing that astonishes me; and yet, see
+here!--This is the letter she wrote me--Nay, Sir, 'tis her own hand.
+
+Col.   I see it is; and a charming hand it is.
+
+Lovel.   You observe, Colonel, that all her hopes of reconciliation with
+her parents are from you.  You are her dear blessed friend!  She always
+talked of you with delight.
+
+Col.   Would to Heaven I had come to England before she left
+Harlowe-place!--Nothing of this had then happened.  Not a man of those
+whom I have heard that her friends proposed for her should have had her.
+Nor you, Mr. Lovelace, unless I had found you to be the man every one who
+sees you must wish you to be: and if you had been that man, no one living
+should I have preferred to you for such an excellence.
+
+My Lord and I both joined in the wish: and 'faith I wished it most
+cordially.
+
+The Colonel read the letter twice over, and then returned it to me.  'Tis
+all a mystery, said he.  I can make nothing of it.  For, alas! her
+friends are as averse to a reconciliation as ever.
+
+Lord M.   I could not have thought it.  But don't you think there is
+something very favourable to my nephew in this letter--something that
+looks as if the lady would comply at last?
+
+Col.   Let me die if I know what to make of it.  This letter is very
+different from her preceding one!--You returned an answer to it, Mr.
+Lovelace?
+
+Lovel.   An answer, Colonel!  No doubt of it.  And an answer full of
+transport.  I told her, 'I would directly set out for Lord M.'s, in
+obedience to her will.  I told her that I would consent to any thing she
+should command, in order to promote this happy reconciliation.  I told
+her that it should be my hourly study, to the end of my life, to deserve
+a goodness so transcendent.'  But I cannot forbear saying that I am not a
+little shocked and surprised, if nothing more be meant by it than to get
+me into the country without seeing her.
+
+Col.   That can't be the thing, depend upon it, Sir.  There must be more
+in it than that.  For, were that all, she must think you would soon be
+undeceived, and that you would then most probably resume your intention--
+unless, indeed, she depended upon seeing me in the interim, as she knew I
+was arrived.  But I own I know not what to make of it.  Only that she
+does me a great deal of honour, if it be me that she calls her dear
+blessed friend, whom she always loved and honoured.  Indeed I ever loved
+her: and if I die unmarried, and without children, shall be as kind to
+her as her grandfather was: and the rather, as I fear there is too much
+of envy and self-love in the resentments her brother and sister endeavour
+to keep up in her father and mother against her.  But I shall know better
+how to judge of this, when my cousin James comes from Edinburgh; and he
+is every hour expected.
+
+But let me ask you, Mr. Lovelace, what is the name of your friend, who is
+admitted so easily into my cousin's presence?  Is it not Belford, pray?
+
+Lovel.   It is, Sir; and Mr. Belford's a man of honour; and a great
+admirer of your fair cousin.
+
+Was I right, as to the first, Jack?  The last I have such strong proof
+of, that it makes me question the first; since she would not have been
+out of the way of my intended visit but for thee.
+
+Col.   Are you sure, Sir, that Mr. Belford is a man of honour?
+
+Lovel.   I can swear for him, Colonel.  What makes you put this question?
+
+Col.   Only this: that an officious pragmatical novice has been sent up
+to inquire into my cousin's life and conversation: And, would you believe
+it? the frequent visits of this gentlemen have been interpreted basely to
+her disreputation.--Read that letter, Mr. Lovelace; and you will be
+shocked at ever part of it.
+
+This cursed letter, no doubt, is from the young Levite, whom thou, Jack,
+describest as making inquiry of Mrs. Smith about Miss Harlowe's character
+and visiters.*
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI.
+
+
+I believe I was a quarter of an hour in reading it: for I made it, though
+not a short one, six times as long as it is, by the additions of oaths
+and curses to every pedantic line.  Lord M. too helped to lengthen it, by
+the like execrations.  And thou, Jack, wilt have as much reason to curse
+it as we.
+
+You cannot but see, said the Colonel, when I had done reading it, that
+this fellow has been officious in his malevolence; for what he says is
+mere hearsay, and that hearsay conjectural scandal without fact, or the
+appearance of fact, to support it; so that an unprejudiced eye, upon the
+face of the letter, would condemn the writer of it, as I did, and acquit
+my cousin.  But yet, such is the spirit by which the rest of my relations
+are governed, that they run away with the belief of the worst it
+insinuates, and the dear creature has had shocking letters upon it; the
+pedant's hints are taken; and a voyage to one of the colonies has been
+proposed to her, as the only way to avoid Mr. Belford and you.  I have
+not seen these letters indeed; but they took a pride in repeating some of
+their contents, which must have cut the poor soul to the heart; and
+these, joined to her former sufferings,--What have you not, Mr. Lovelace,
+to answer for?
+
+Lovel.   Who the devil could have expected such consequences as these?
+Who could have believe there could be parents so implacable?  Brother and
+sister so immovably fixed against the only means that could be taken to
+put all right with every body?--And what now can be done?
+
+Lord M.   I have great hopes that Col. Morden may yet prevail upon his
+cousin.  And, by her last letter, it runs in my mind that she has some
+thoughts of forgiving all that's past.  Do you think, Colonel, if there
+should not be such a thing as a reconciliation going forward at present,
+that her letter may not imply that, if we could bring such a thing to
+bear with her friends, she would be reconciled with Mr. Lovelace?
+
+Col.   Such an artifice would better become the Italian subtilty than the
+English simplicity.  Your Lordship has been in Italy, I presume?
+
+Lovel.   My Lord has read Boccaccio, perhaps; and that's as well, as to
+the hint he gives, which may be borrowed from one of that author's
+stories.  But Miss Clarissa Harlowe is above all artifice.  She must have
+some meaning I cannot fathom.
+
+Col.   Well, my Lord, I can only say that I will make some use of the
+letters Mr. Lovelace has obliged me with: and after I have had some talk
+with my cousin James, who is hourly expected; and when I have dispatched
+two or three affairs that press upon me; I will pay my respects to my
+dear cousin; and shall then be able to form a better judgment of things.
+Mean time I will write to her; for I have sent to inquire about her, and
+find she wants consolation.
+
+Lovel.   If you favour me, Colonel, with the d----d letter of that fellow
+Brand for a day or two, you will oblige me.
+
+Col.   I will.  But remember, the man is a parson, Mr. Lovelace; an
+innocent one too, they say.  Else I had been at him before now.  And
+these college novices, who think they know every thing in their
+cloisters, and that all learning lies in books, make dismal figures when
+they come into the world among men and women.
+
+Lord M.   Brand!  Brand!  It should have been Firebrand, I think in my
+conscience!
+
+Thus ended this doughty conference.
+
+I cannot say, Jack, but I am greatly taken with Col. Morden.  He is brave
+and generous, and knows the world; and then his contempt of the parsons
+is a certain sign that he is one of us.
+
+We parted with great civility: Lord M. (not a little pleased that we did,
+and as greatly taken with Colonel) repeated his wish, after the Colonel
+was gone, that he had arrived in time to save the lady, if that would
+have done it.
+
+I wish so too.  For by my soul, Jack, I am every day more and more uneasy
+about her.  But I hope she is not so ill as I am told she is.
+
+I have made Charlotte transcribe the letter of this Firebrand, as my Lord
+calls him; and will enclose her copy of it.  All thy phlegm I know will
+be roused into vengeance when thou readest it.
+
+I know not what to advise as to showing it to the lady.  Yet, perhaps,
+she will be able to reap more satisfaction than concern from it, knowing
+her own innocence; in that it will give her to hope that her friends'
+treatment of her is owing as much to misrepresentation as to their own
+natural implacableness.  Such a mind as her's, I know, would be glad to
+find out the shadow of a reason for the shocking letters the Colonel says
+they have sent her, and for their proposal to her of going to some one of
+the colonies [confound them all--but, if I begin to curse, I shall never
+have done]--Then it may put her upon such a defence as she might be glad
+of an opportunity to make, and to shame them for their monstrous
+credulity--but this I leave to thy own fat-headed prudence--Only it vexes
+me to the heart, that even scandal and calumny should dare to surmise the
+bare possibility of any man sharing the favours of a woman, whom now
+methinks I could worship with a veneration due only to a divinity.
+
+Charlotte and her sister could not help weeping at the base aspersion:
+When, when, said Patty, lifting up her hands, will this sweet lady's
+sufferings be at an end?--O cousin Lovelace!--
+
+And thus am I blamed for every one's faults!--When her brutal father
+curses her, it is I.  I upbraid her with her severe mother.  The
+implacableness of her stupid uncles is all mine.  The virulence of her
+brother, and the spite of her sister, are entirely owing to me.  The
+letter of this rascal Brand is of my writing--O Jack, what a wretch is
+thy Lovelace!
+
+
+***
+
+
+Returned without a letter!--This d----d fellow Will. is returned without
+a letter!--Yet the rascal tells me that he hears you have been writing to
+me these two days!
+
+Plague confound thee, who must know my impatience, and the reason for it!
+
+To send a man and horse on purpose; as I did!  My imagination chained me
+to the belly of the beast, in order to keep pace with him!--Now he is got
+to this place; now to that; now to London; now to thee!
+
+Now [a letter given him] whip and spur upon the return.  This town just
+entered, not staying to bait: that village passed by: leaves the wind
+behind him; in a foaming sweat man and horse.
+
+And in this way did he actually enter Lord M.'s courtyard.
+
+The reverberating pavement brought me down--The letter, Will.!  The
+letter, dog!--The letter, Sirrah!
+
+No letter, Sir!--Then wildly staring round me, fists clenched, and
+grinning like a maniac, Confound thee for a dog, and him that sent thee
+without one!--This moment out of my sight, or I'll scatter thy stupid
+brains through the air.  I snatched from his holsters a pistol, while the
+rascal threw himself from the foaming beast, and ran to avoid the fate
+which I wished with all my soul thou hadst been within the reach of me to
+have met with.
+
+But, to be as meek as a lamb to one who has me at his mercy, and can
+wring and torture my soul as he pleases, What canst thou mean to send
+back my varlet without a letter?--I will send away by day-dawn another
+fellow upon another beast for what thou hast written; and I charge thee
+on thy allegiance, that thou dispatch him not back empty-handed.
+
+
+POSTSCRIPT
+
+Charlotte, in a whim of delicacy, is displeased that I send the enclosed
+letter to you--that her handwriting, forsooth! should go into the hands
+of a single man!
+
+There's encouragement for thee, Belford!  This is a certain sign that
+thou may'st have her if thou wilt.  And yet, till she has given me this
+unerring demonstration of her glancing towards thee, I could not have
+thought it.  Indeed I have often in pleasantry told her that I would
+bring such an affair to bear.  But I never intended it; because she
+really is a dainty girl; and thou art such a clumsy fellow in thy person,
+that I should as soon have wished her a rhinoceros for a husband as thee.
+But, poor little dears! they must stay till their time's come!  They
+won't have this man, and they won't have that man, from seventeen to
+twenty-five: but then, afraid, as the saying is, that God has forgot
+them, and finding their bloom departing, they are glad of whom they can
+get, and verify the fable of the parson and the pears.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLI
+
+MR. BRAND, TO JOHN HARLOWE, ESQ.
+[ENCLOSED IN THE PRECEDING.]
+
+
+WORTHY SIR, MY VERY GOOD FRIEND AND PATRON,
+
+I arrived in town yesterday, after a tolerably pleasant journey
+(considering the hot weather and dusty roads).  I put up at the Bull and
+Gate in Holborn, and hastened to Covent-garden.  I soon found the house
+where the unhappy lady lodgeth.  And, in the back shop, had a good deal
+of discourse* with Mrs. Smith, (her landlady,) whom I found to be so
+'highly prepossessed'** in her 'favour,' that I saw it would not answer
+your desires to take my informations 'altogether' from her: and being
+obliged to attend my patron, (who to my sorrow,
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI.
+** Transcriber's note: Mr. Brand's letters are characterized by a style
+that makes excessive use of italics for emphasis. Although in the
+remainder of _Clarissa_ I have largely disregarded italics for the sake
+of plain-text formatting, this style makes such emphatic use of italics
+that I have indicated all such instances in his letters by placing the
+italicized words and phrases in quotations, thus ' '.
+
+
+      'Miserum et aliena vivere quadra,')
+
+I find wanteth much waiting upon, and is 'another' sort of man than he
+was at college: for, Sir, 'inter nos,' 'honours change manners.'  For the
+'aforesaid causes,' I thought it would best answer all the ends of the
+commission with which you honoured me, to engage, in the desired
+scrutiny,  the wife of a 'particular friend,' who liveth almost
+over-against the house where she lodgeth, and who is a gentlewoman of
+'character,' and 'sobriety,' a 'mother of children,' and one who
+'knoweth' the 'world' well.
+
+To her I applied myself, therefore, and gave her a short history of the
+case, and desired she would very particularly inquire into the 'conduct'
+of the unhappy young lady; her 'present way of life' and 'subsistence';
+her 'visiters,' her 'employments,' and such-like: for these, Sir, you
+know, are the things whereof you wished to be informed.
+
+Accordingly, Sir, I waited upon the gentlewoman aforesaid, this day; and,
+to 'my' very great trouble, (because I know it will be to 'your's,' and
+likewise to all your worthy family's,) I must say, that I do find things
+look a little more 'darkly' than I hoped the would.  For, alas! Sir, the
+gentlewoman's report turneth out not so 'favourable' for Miss's
+reputation, as 'I' wished, as 'you' wished, and as 'every one' of her
+friends wished.  But so it is throughout the world, that 'one false step'
+generally brings on 'another'; and peradventure 'a worse,' and 'a still
+worse'; till the poor 'limed soul' (a very fit epithet of the Divine
+Quarles's!) is quite 'entangled,' and (without infinite mercy) lost for
+ever.
+
+It seemeth, Sir, she is, notwithstanding, in a very 'ill state of
+health.'  In this, 'both' gentlewomen (that is to say, Mrs. Smith, her
+landlady, and my friend's wife) agree.  Yet she goeth often out in a
+chair, to 'prayers' (as it is said).  But my friend's wife told me, that
+nothing is more common in London, than that the frequenting of the church
+at morning prayers is made the 'pretence' and 'cover' for 'private
+assignations.'  What a sad thing is this! that what was designed for
+'wholesome nourishment' to the 'poor soul,' should be turned into 'rank
+poison!'  But as Mr. Daniel de Foe (an ingenious man, though a
+'dissenter') observeth (but indeed it is an old proverb; only I think he
+was the first that put it into verse)
+
+      God never had a house of pray'r
+      But Satan had a chapel there.
+
+Yet to do the lady 'justice,' nobody cometh home with her: nor indeed
+'can' they, because she goeth forward and backward in a 'sedan,' or
+'chair,' (as they call it).  But then there is a gentleman of 'no good
+character' (an 'intimado' of Mr. Lovelace) who is a 'constant' visiter
+of her, and of the people of the house, whom he 'regaleth' and
+'treateth,' and hath (of consequence) their 'high good words.'
+
+I have thereupon taken the trouble (for I love to be 'exact' in any
+'commission' I undertake) to inquire 'particularly' about this
+'gentleman,' as he is called (albeit I hold no man so but by his actions:
+for, as Juvenal saith,
+
+      --'Nobilitas sola est, atque unica virtus')
+
+And this I did 'before' I would sit down to write to you.
+
+His name is Belford.  He hath a paternal estate of upwards of one
+thousand pounds by the year; and is now in mourning for an uncle who left
+him very considerably besides.  He beareth a very profligate character as
+to 'women,' (for I inquired particularly about 'that,') and is Mr.
+Lovelace's more especial 'privado,' with whom he holdeth a 'regular
+correspondence'; and hath been often seen with Miss (tête à tête) at the
+'window'--in no 'bad way,' indeed: but my friend's wife is of opinion
+that all is not 'as it should be.'  And, indeed, it is mighty strange to
+me, if Miss be so 'notable a penitent' (as is represented) and if she
+have such an 'aversion' to Mr. Lovelace, that she will admit his
+'privado' into 'her retirements,' and see 'no other company.'
+
+I understand, from Mrs. Smith, that Mr. Hickman was to see her some time
+ago, from Miss Howe; and I am told, by 'another' hand, (you see, Sir, how
+diligent I have been to execute the 'commissions' you gave me,) that he
+had no 'extraordinary opinion' of this Belford at first; though they were
+seen together one morning by the opposite neighbour, at 'breakfast': and
+another time this Belford was observed to 'watch' Mr. Hickman's coming
+from her; so that, as it should seem, he was mighty zealous to
+'ingratiate' himself with Mr. Hickman; no doubt to engage him to make a
+'favourable report to Miss Howe' of the 'intimacy' he was admitted into
+by her unhappy friend; who ('as she is very ill') may 'mean no harm' in
+allowing his visits, (for he, it seemeth, brought to her, or recommended,
+at least, the doctor and apothecary that attend her:) but I think (upon
+the whole) 'it looketh not well.'
+
+I am sorry, Sir, I cannot give you a better account of the young lady's
+'prudence.'  But, what shall we say?
+
+      'Uvaque conspectâ livorem ducit ab uvâ,'
+
+as Juvenal observeth.
+
+One thing I am afraid of; which is, that Miss may be under 'necessities';
+and that this Belford (who, as Mrs. Smith owns, hath 'offered her money,'
+which she, 'at the time,' refused) may find an opportunity to 'take
+advantage' of those 'necessities': and it is well observed by that poet,
+that
+
+      'Ægrè formosam poteris servare puellam:
+         Nunc prece, nunc pretio, forma petita ruit.'
+
+And this Belford (who is a 'bold man,' and hath, as they say, the 'look'
+of one) may make good that of Horace, (with whose writings you are so
+well acquainted; nobody better;)
+
+      'Audax omnia perpeti,
+      Gens humana ruit per vetitum nefas.'
+
+Forgive me, Sir, for what I am going to write: but if you could prevail
+upon the rest of your family to join in the scheme which 'you,' and her
+'virtuous sister,' Miss Arabella, and the Archdeacon, and I, once talked
+of, (which is to persuade the unhappy young lady to go, in some
+'creditable' manner, to some one of the foreign colonies,) it might not
+save only her 'own credit' and 'reputation,' but the 'reputation' and
+'credit' of all her 'family,' and a great deal of 'vexation' moreover.
+For it is my humble opinion, that you will hardly (any of you) enjoy
+yourselves while this ('once' innocent) young lady is in the way of being
+so frequently heard of by you: and this would put her 'out of the way'
+both of 'this Belford' and of 'that Lovelace,' and it might,
+peradventure, prevent as much 'evil' as 'scandal.'
+
+You will forgive me, Sir, for this my 'plainness.'  Ovid pleadeth for me,
+
+      '----Adulator nullus amicus erit.'
+
+And I have no view but that of approving myself a 'zealous well-wisher'
+to 'all' your worthy family, (whereto I owe a great number of
+obligations,) and very particularly, Sir,
+
+Your obliged and humble servant,
+ELIAS BRAND.
+
+WEDN. AUG. 9.
+
+
+P.S. I shall give you 'farther hints' when I come down, (which will be in
+      a few days;) and who my 'informants' were; but by 'these' you will
+      see, that I have been very assiduous (for the time) in the task you
+      set me upon.
+
+The 'length' of my letter you will excuse: for I need not tell you, Sir,
+      what 'narrative,' 'complex,' and 'conversation' letters (such a one
+      as 'mine') require.  Every one to his 'talent.'  'Letter-writing'
+      is mine.  I will be bold to say; and that my 'correspondence' was
+      much coveted in the university, on that account, by 'tyros,' and
+      by 'sophs,' when I was hardly a 'soph' myself.  But this I should
+      not have taken upon myself to mention, but only in defence of the
+      'length' of my letter; for nobody writeth 'shorter' or 'pithier,'
+      when the subject requireth 'common forms' only--but, in apologizing
+      for my 'prolixity,' I am 'adding' to the 'fault,' (if it were one,
+      which, however, I cannot think it to be, the 'subject' considered:
+      but this I have said before in other words:) so, Sir, if you will
+      excuse my 'post-script,' I am sure you will not find fault with my
+      'letter.'
+
+One word more as to a matter of 'erudition,' which you greatly love to
+      hear me 'start' and 'dwell upon.'  Dr. Lewen once, in 'your'
+      presence, (as you, 'my good patron,' cannot but remember,) in a
+      'smartish' kind of debate between 'him' and 'me,' took upon him to
+      censure the 'paranthetical' style, as I call it.  He was a very
+      learned and judicious man, to be sure, and an ornament to 'our
+      function': but yet I must needs say, that it is a style which I
+      greatly like; and the good Doctor was then past his 'youth,' and
+      that time of life, of consequence, when a 'fertile imagination,'
+      and a 'rich fancy,' pour in ideas so fast upon a writer, that
+      parentheses are often wanted (and that for the sake of 'brevity,'
+      as well as 'perspicuity') to save the reader the trouble of reading
+      a passage 'more than once.'  Every man to his talent, (as I said
+      before.)  We are all so apt to set up our 'natural biasses' for
+      'general standards,' that I wondered 'the less' at the worthy
+      Doctor's 'stiffness' on this occasion.  He 'smiled at me,' you may
+      remember, Sir--and, whether I was right or not, I am sure I 'smiled
+      at him.'  And 'you,' my 'worthy patron,' (as I had the satisfaction
+      to observe,) seemed to be of 'my party.'  But was it not strange,
+      that the 'old gentleman' and 'I' should so widely differ, when the
+      'end' with 'both' (that is to say, 'perspicuity' or 'clearness,')
+      was the same?--But what shall we say?--
+
+            'Errare est hominis, sed non persistere.'
+
+I think I have nothing to add until I have the honour of attending you in
+      'person'; but I am, (as above,) &c. &c. &c.
+
+E.B.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+WEDNESDAY NIGHT, AUG. 30.
+
+
+It was lucky enough that our two servants met at Hannah's,* which gave
+them so good an opportunity of exchanging their letters time enough for
+each to return to his master early in the day.
+
+
+* The Windmill, near Slough.
+
+
+Thou dost well to boast of thy capacity for managing servants, and to set
+up for correcting our poets in their characters of this class of people,*
+when, like a madman, thou canst beat their teeth out, and attempt to
+shoot them through the head, for not bringing to thee what they had no
+power to obtain.
+
+
+* See Letter XX. of this volume.
+
+
+You well observe* that you would have made a thorough-paced lawyer.  The
+whole of the conversation-piece between you and the Colonel affords a
+convincing proof that there is a black and a white side to every cause:
+But what must the conscience of a partial whitener of his own cause, or
+blackener of another's, tell him, while he is throwing dust in the eyes
+of his judges, and all the time knows his own guilt?
+
+
+* See Letter XL. of this volume.
+
+
+The Colonel, I see, is far from being a faultless man: but while he
+sought not to carry his point by breach of faith, he has an excuse which
+thou hast not.  But, with respect to him, and to us all, I can now, with
+the detestation of some of my own actions, see, that the taking advantage
+of another person's good opinion of us to injure (perhaps to ruin) that
+other, is the most ungenerous wickedness that can be committed.
+
+Man acting thus by man, we should not be at a loss to give such actions a
+name: But is it not doubly and trebly aggravated, when such advantage is
+taken of an unexperienced and innocent young creature, whom we pretend to
+love above all the women in the world; and when we seal our pretences by
+the most solemn vows and protestations of inviolable honour that we can
+invent?
+
+I see that this gentleman is the best match thou ever couldest have had,
+upon all accounts: his spirit such another impetuous one as thy own; soon
+taking fire; vindictive; and only differing in this, that the cause he
+engages in is a just one.  But commend me to honest brutal Mowbray, who,
+before he knew the cause, offers his sword in thy behalf against a man
+who had taken the injured side, and whom he had never seen before.
+
+As soon as I had run through your letters, and the copy of that of the
+incendiary Brand's, (by the latter of which I saw to what cause a great
+deal of this last implacableness of the Harlowe family is owing,) I took
+coach to Smith's, although I had been come from thence but about an hour,
+and had taken leave of the lady for the night.
+
+I sent up for Mrs. Lovick, and desired her, in the first place, to
+acquaint the lady (who was busied in her closet,) that I had letters from
+Berks: in which I was informed, that the interview between Colonel Morden
+and Mr. Lovelace had ended without ill consequences; that the Colonel
+intended to write to her very soon, and was interesting himself mean
+while, in her favour, with her relations; that I hoped that this
+agreeable news would be means of giving her good rest; and I would wait
+upon her in the morning, by the time she should return from prayers, with
+all the particulars.
+
+She sent me word that she should be glad to see me in the morning; and
+was highly obliged to me for the good news I had sent her up.
+
+I then, in the back shop, read to Mrs. Lovick and to Mrs. Smith the copy
+of Brand's letter, and asked them if they could guess at the man's
+informant?  They were not at a loss; Mrs. Smith having seen the same
+fellow Brand who had talked with her, as I mentioned in the former,* come
+out of a milliner's shop over against them; which milliner, she said, had
+also lately been very inquisitive about the lady.
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI.
+
+
+I wanted no farther hint; but, bidding them take no notice to the lady of
+what I had read, I shot over the way, and, asking for the mistress of the
+house, she came to me.
+
+Retiring with her, at her invitation, into her parlour, I desired to know
+if she were acquainted with a young country clergyman of the name of
+Brand.  She hesitatingly, seeing me in some emotion, owned that she had
+some small knowledge of the gentleman.  Just then came in her husband,
+who is, it seems, a petty officer of excise, (and not an ill-behaved
+man,) who owned a fuller knowledge of him.
+
+I have the copy of a letter, said I, from this Brand, in which he has
+taken great liberties with my character, and with that of the most
+unblamable lady in the world, which he grounds upon information that you,
+Madam, have given him.  And then I read to them several passages in his
+letter, and asked what foundation she had for giving that fellow such
+impressions of either of us?
+
+They knew not what to answer: but at last said, that he had told them how
+wickedly the young lady had run away from her parents: what worthy and
+rich people they were: in what favour he stood with them; and that they
+had employed him to inquire after her behaviour, visiters, &c.
+
+They said, 'That indeed they knew very little of the young lady; but that
+[curse upon their censoriousness!] it was but too natural to think, that,
+where a lady had given way to a delusion, and taken so wrong a step, she
+would not stop there: that the most sacred places and things were but too
+often made clokes for bad actions; that Mr. Brand had been informed
+(perhaps by some enemy of mine) that I was a man of very free principles,
+and an intimado, as he calls it, of the man who had ruined her.  And that
+their cousin Barker, a manteau-maker, who lodged up one pair of stairs,'
+(and who, at their desire, came down and confirmed what they said,) 'had
+often, from her window, seen me with the lady in her chamber, and both
+talking very earnestly together; and that Mr. Brand, being unable to
+account for her admiring my visits, and knowing I was but a new
+acquaintance of her's, and an old one of Mr. Lovelace, thought himself
+obliged to lay these matters before her friends.'
+
+This was the sum and substance of their tale.  O how I cursed the
+censoriousness of this plaguy triumvirate!  A parson, a milliner, and a
+mantua-maker!  The two latter, not more by business led to adorn the
+persons, than generally by scandal to destroy the reputations, of those
+they have a mind to exercise their talents upon!
+
+The two women took great pains to persuade me that they themselves were
+people of conscience;--of consequence, I told them, too much addicted, I
+feared, to censure other people who pretended not to their strictness;
+for that I had ever found censoriousness, with those who affected to be
+thought more pious than their neighbours.
+
+They answered, that that was not their case; and that they had since
+inquired into the lady's character and manner of life, and were very much
+concerned to think any thing they had said should be made use of against
+her: and as they heard from Mrs. Smith that she was not likely to live
+long, they should be sorry she should go out of the world a sufferer by
+their means, or with an ill opinion of them, though strangers to her.
+The husband offered to write, if I pleased, to Mr. Brand, in vindication
+of the lady; and the two women said they should be glad to wait upon her
+in person, to beg her pardon for any thing she had reason to take amiss
+from them; because they were now convinced that there was not such
+another young lady in the world.
+
+I told them that the least said of the affair to the lady, in her present
+circumstances, was best.  That she was a heavenly creature, and fond of
+taking all occasions to find excuses for her relations on their
+implacableness to her: that therefore I should take some notice to her of
+the uncharitable and weak surmises which gave birth to so vile a scandal:
+but that I would have him, Mr. Walton, (for that is the husband's name,)
+write to his acquaintance Brand as soon as possible, as he had offered;
+and so I left them.
+
+As to what thou sayest of thy charming cousin, let me know if thou hast
+any meaning in it.  I have not the vanity to think myself deserving of
+such a lady as Miss Montague; and should not therefore care to expose
+myself to her scorn and to thy derision.  But were I assured I might
+avoid both of these, I would soon acquaint thee that I should think no
+pains nor assiduity too much to obtain a share in the good graces of such
+a lady.
+
+But I know thee too well to depend upon any thing thou sayest on this
+subject.  Thou lovest to make thy friends the objects of ridicule to
+ladies; and imaginest, from the vanity, (and, in this respect, I will say
+littleness,) of thine own heart, that thou shinest the brighter for the
+foil.
+
+Thus didst thou once play off the rough Mowbray with Miss Hatton, till
+the poor fellow knew not how to go either backward or forward.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLIII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+THURSDAY, 11 O'CLOCK, AUG. 31.
+
+
+I am just come from the lady, whom I left cheerful and serene.
+
+She thanked me for my communication of the preceding night.  I read to
+her such parts of your letters as I could read to her; and I thought it
+was a good test to distinguish the froth and whipt-syllabub in them from
+the cream, in what one could and could not read to a woman of so fine a
+mind; since four parts out of six of thy letters, which I thought
+entertaining as I read them to myself, appeared to me, when I should have
+read them to her, most abominable stuff, and gave me a very contemptible
+idea of thy talents, and of my own judgment.
+
+She as far from rejoicing, as I had done, at the disappointment her
+letter gave you when explained.
+
+She said, she meant only an innocent allegory, which might carry
+instruction and warning to you, when the meaning was taken, as well as
+answer her own hopes for the time.  It was run off in a hurry.  She was
+afraid it was not quite right in her.  But hoped the end would excuse (if
+it could not justify) the means.  And then she again expressed a good
+deal of apprehension lest you should still take it into your head to
+molest her, when her time, she said, was so short, that she wanted every
+moment of it; repeating what she had once said before, that, when she
+wrote, she was so ill that she believed she should not have lived till
+now: if she had thought she should, she must have studied for an
+expedient that would have better answered her intentions.  Hinting at a
+removal out of the knowledge of us both.
+
+But she was much pleased that the conference between you and Colonel
+Morden, after two or three such violent sallies, as I acquainted her you
+had had between you, ended so amicably; and said she must absolutely
+depend upon the promise I had given her to use my utmost endeavours to
+prevent farther mischief on her account.
+
+She was pleased with the justice you did her character to her cousin.
+
+She was glad to hear that he had so kind an opinion of her, and that he
+would write to her.
+
+I was under an unnecessary concern, how to break to her that I had the
+copy of Brand's vile letter: unnecessary, I say; for she took it just as
+you thought she would, as an excuse she wished to have for the
+implacableness of her friends; and begged I would let her read it
+herself; for, said she, the contents cannot disturb me, be they what they
+will.
+
+I gave it to her, and she read it to herself; a tear now and then being
+ready to start, and a sigh sometimes interposing.
+
+She gave me back the letter with great and surprising calmness,
+considering the subject.
+
+There was a time, said she, and that not long since, when such a letter
+as this would have greatly pained me.  But I hope I have now go above all
+these things: and I can refer to your kind offices, and to those of Miss
+Howe, the justice that will be done to my memory among my friends.  There
+is a good and a bad light in which every thing that befalls us may be
+taken.  If the human mind will busy itself to make the worst of every
+disagreeable occurrence, it will never want woe.  This letter, affecting
+as the subject of it is to my reputation, gives me more pleasure than
+pain, because I can gather from it, that had not my friends been
+prepossessed by misinformed or rash and officious persons, who are always
+at hand to flatter or soothe the passions of the affluent, they could not
+have been so immovably determined against me.  But now they are
+sufficiently cleared from every imputation of unforgivingness; for, while
+I appeared to them in the character of a vile hypocrite, pretending to
+true penitence, yet giving up myself to profligate courses, how could I
+expect either their pardon or blessing?
+
+But, Madam, said I, you'll see by the date of this letter, that their
+severity, previous to that, cannot be excused by it.
+
+It imports me much, replied she, on account of my present wishes, as to
+the office you are so kind to undertake, that you should not think
+harshly of my friends.  I must own to you, that I have been apt sometimes
+myself to think them not only severe but cruel.  Suffering minds will be
+partial to their own cause and merits.  Knowing their own hearts, if
+sincere, they are apt to murmur when harshly treated: But, if they are
+not believed to be innocent, by persons who have a right to decide upon
+their conduct according to their own judgments, how can it be helped?
+Besides, Sir, how do you know, that there are not about my friends as
+well-meaning misrepresenters as Mr. Brand really seems to be?  But, be
+this as it will, there is no doubt that there are and have been
+multitudes of persons, as innocent as myself, who have suffered upon
+surmises as little probable as those on which Mr. Brand founds his
+judgment.  Your intimacy, Sir, with Mr. Lovelace, and (may I say?) a
+character which, it seems, you have been less solicitous formerly to
+justify than perhaps you will be for the future, and your frequent visits
+to me may well be thought to be questionable circumstances in my conduct.
+
+I could only admire her in silence.
+
+But you see, Sir, proceeded she, how necessary it is for young people of
+our sex to be careful of our company.  And how much, at the same time, it
+behoves young persons of your's to be chary of their own reputation, were
+it only for the sake of such of our's as they may mean honourably by, and
+who otherwise may suffer in their good names for being seen in their
+company.
+
+As to Mr. Brand, continued she, he is to be pitied; and let me enjoin
+you, Mr. Belford, not to take any resentments against him which may be
+detrimental either to his person or his fortunes.  Let his function and
+his good meaning plead for him.  He will have concern enough, when he
+finds every body, whose displeasure I now labour under, acquitting my
+memory of perverse guilt, and joining in a general pity for me.
+
+This, Lovelace, is the woman whose life thou hast curtailed in the
+blossom of it!--How many opportunities must thou have had of admiring her
+inestimable worth, yet couldst have thy senses so much absorbed in the
+WOMAN, in her charming person, as to be blind to the ANGEL, that shines
+out in such full glory in her mind!  Indeed, I have ever thought myself,
+when blest with her conversation, in the company of a real angel: and I
+am sure it would be impossible for me, were she to be as beautiful, and
+as crimsoned over with health, as I have seen her, to have the least
+thought of sex, when I heard her talk.
+
+
+THURSDAY, THREE O'CLOCK, AUG. 31.
+
+On my re-visit to the lady, I found her almost as much a sufferer from
+joy as she had sometimes been from grief; for she had just received a
+very kind letter from her cousin Morden; which she was so good as to
+communicate to me.  As she had already begun to answer it, I begged leave
+to attend her in the evening, that I might not interrupt her in it.
+
+The letter is a very tender one * * * *
+
+[Here Mr. Belford gives the substance of it upon his memory; but that is
+      omitted; as the letter is given at length (see the next letter.)
+      And then adds:]
+
+But, alas! all will be now too late.  For the decree is certainly gone
+out--the world is unworthy of her.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLIV
+
+COLONEL MORDEN, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+TUESDAY, AUG. 29.
+
+
+I should not, my dearest Cousin, have been a fortnight in England,
+without either doing myself the honour of waiting upon you in person, or
+of writing to you; if I had not been busying myself almost all the time
+in your service, in hopes of making my visit or letter still more
+acceptable to you--acceptable as I have reason to presume either will be
+from the unquestionable love I ever bore you, and from the esteem you
+always honoured me with.
+
+Little did I think that so many days would have been required to effect
+my well-intended purpose, where there used to be a love so ardent on one
+side, and where there still is, as I am thoroughly convinced, the most
+exalted merit on the other!
+
+I was yesterday with Mr. Lovelace and Lord M.  I need not tell you, it
+seems, how very desirous the whole family and all the relations of that
+nobleman are of the honour of an alliance with you; nor how exceedingly
+earnest the ungrateful man is to make you all the reparation in his
+power.
+
+I think, my dear Cousin, that you cannot now do better than to give him
+the honour of your hand.  He says just and great things of your virtue,
+and so heartily condemns himself, that I think there is honorable room
+for you to forgive him: and the more room, as it seems you are determined
+against a legal prosecution.
+
+Your effectual forgiveness of Mr. Lovelace, it is evident to me, will
+accelerate a general reconciliation: for, at present, my other cousins
+cannot persuade themselves that he is in earnest to do you justice; or
+that you would refuse him, if you believed he was.
+
+But, my dear Cousin, there may possibly be something in this affair, to
+which I may be a stranger.  If there be, and you will acquaint me with
+it, all that a naturally-warm heart can do in your behalf shall be done.
+
+I hope I shall be able, in my next visits to my several cousins, to set
+all right with them.  Haughty spirits, when convinced that they have
+carried resentments too high, want but a good excuse to condescend: and
+parents must always love the child they once loved.
+
+But if I find them inflexible, I will set out, and attend you without
+delay; for I long to see you, after so many years' absence.
+
+Mean while, I beg the favour of a few lines, to know if you have reason
+to doubt Mr. Lovelace's sincerity.  For my part, I can have none, if I am
+to judge from the conversation that passed between us yesterday, in
+presence of Lord M.
+
+You will be pleased to direct for me at your uncle Antony's.
+
+Permit me, my dearest Cousin, till I can procure a happy reconciliation
+between you and your father, and brother, and uncles, to supply the place
+to you of all those near relations, as well as that of
+
+Your affectionate kinsman, and humble servant,
+WM. MORDEN.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLV
+
+MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO WM. MORDEN, ESQ.
+THURSDAY, AUG. 31.
+
+
+I most heartily congratulate you, dear Sir, on your return to your native
+country.
+
+I heard with much pleasure that you were come; but I was both afraid and
+ashamed, till you encouraged me by a first notice, to address myself to
+you.
+
+How consoling is it to my wounded heart to find that you have not been
+carried away by that tide of resentment and displeasure with which I have
+been so unhappily overwhelmed--but that, while my still nearer relations
+have not thought fit to examine into the truth of vile reports raised
+against me, you have informed yourself of my innocence, and generously
+credited the information!
+
+I have not the least reason to doubt Mr. Lovelace's sincerity in his
+offers of marriage; nor that all his relations are heartily desirous of
+ranking me among them.  I have had noble instances of their esteem for
+me, on their apprehending that my father's displeasure must have had
+absolutely refused their pressing solicitations in their kinsman's favour
+as well as his own.
+
+Nor think me, my dear Cousin, blamable for refusing him.  I had given Mr.
+Lovelace no reason to think me a weak creature.  If I had, a man of his
+character might have thought himself warranted to endeavour to take
+ungenerous advantage of the weakness he had been able to inspire.  The
+consciousness of my own weakness (in that case) might have brought me to
+a composition with his wickedness.
+
+I can indeed forgive him.  But that is, because I think his crimes have
+set me above him.  Can I be above the man, Sir, to whom I shall give my
+hand and my vows, and with them a sanction to the most premeditated
+baseness?  No, Sir, let me say, that your cousin Clarissa, were she
+likely to live many years, and that (if she married not this man) in
+penury or want, despised and forsaken by all her friends, puts not so
+high a value upon the conveniencies of life, nor upon life itself, as to
+seek to re-obtain the one, or to preserve the other, by giving such a
+sanction: a sanction, which (were she to perform her duty,) would reward
+the violator.
+
+Nor is it so much from pride as from principle that I say this.  What,
+Sir! when virtue, when chastity, is the crown of a woman, and
+particularly of a wife, shall form an attempt upon her's but upon a
+presumption that she was capable of receiving his offered hand when he
+had found himself mistaken in the vile opinion he had conceived of her?
+Hitherto he has not had reason to think me weak.  Nor will I give an
+instance so flagrant, that weak I am in a point in which it would be
+criminal to be found weak.
+
+One day, Sir, you will perhaps know all my story.  But, whenever it is
+known, I beg that the author of my calamities may not be vindictively
+sought after.  He could not have been the author of them, but for a
+strange concurrence of unhappy causes.  As the law will not be able to
+reach him when I am gone, the apprehension of any other sort of vengeance
+terrifies me; since, in such a case, should my friends be safe, what
+honour would his death bring to my memory?--If any of them should come to
+misfortune, how would my fault be aggravated!
+
+God long preserve you, my dearest Cousin, and bless you but in proportion
+to the consolation you have given me, in letting me know that you still
+love me; and that I have one near and dear relation who can pity and
+forgive me; (and then you will be greatly blessed;) is the prayer of
+
+Your ever grateful and affectionate
+CL. HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLVI
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+[IN ANSWER TO HIS LETTERS XXIII. XXXVII. OF THIS VOLUME.]
+THURSDAY, AUG. 31.
+
+
+I cannot but own that I am cut to the heart by this Miss Harlowe's
+interpretation of her letter.  She ought never to be forgiven.  She, a
+meek person, and a penitent, and innocent, and pious, and I know not
+what, who can deceive with a foot in the grave!--
+
+'Tis evident, that she sat down to write this letter with a design to
+mislead and deceive.  And if she be capable of that, at such a crisis,
+she has as much need of Heaven's forgiveness, as I have of her's: and,
+with all her cant of charity and charity, if she be not more sure of it
+than I am of her real pardon, and if she take the thing in the light she
+ought to take it in, she will have a few darker moments yet to come than
+she seems to expect.
+
+Lord M. himself, who is not one of those (to speak in his own phrase) who
+can penetrate a millstone, sees the deceit, and thinks it unworthy of
+her; though my cousins Montague vindicate her.  And no wonder this cursed
+partial sex [I hate 'em all--by my soul, I hate 'em all!] will never
+allow any thing against an individual of it, where our's is concerned.
+And why?  Because, if they censure deceit in another, they must condemn
+their own hearts.
+
+She is to send me a letter after she is in Heaven, is she?  The devil
+take such allegories, and the devil take thee for calling this absurdity
+an innocent artifice!
+
+I insist upon it, that if a woman of her character, at such a critical
+time, is to be justified in such a deception, a man in full health and
+vigour of body and mind, as I am, may be excused for all his stratagems
+and attempts against her.  And, thank my stars, I can now sit me down
+with a quiet conscience on that score.  By my soul, I can, Jack.  Nor has
+any body, who can acquit her, a right to blame me.  But with some,
+indeed, every thing she does must be good, every thing I do must be bad--
+And why?  Because she has always taken care to coax the stupid misjudging
+world, like a woman: while I have constantly defied and despised its
+censures, like a man.
+
+But, notwithstanding all, you may let her know from me that I will not
+molest her, since my visits would be so shocking to her: and I hope she
+will take this into her consideration as a piece of generosity which she
+could hardly expect after the deception she has put upon me.  And let her
+farther know, that if there be any thing in my power, that will
+contribute either to her ease or honour, I will obey her, at the very
+first intimation, however disgraceful or detrimental to myself.  All
+this, to make her unapprehensive, and that she may have nothing to pull
+her back.
+
+If her cursed relations could be brought as cheerfully to perform their
+parts, I'd answer life for life for her recovery.
+
+But who, that has so many ludicrous images raised in his mind by the
+awkward penitence, can forbear laughing at thee?  Spare, I beseech thee,
+dear Belford, for the future, all thine own aspirations, if thou wouldst
+not dishonour those of an angel indeed.
+
+When I came to that passage, where thou sayest that thou considerest her*
+as one sent from Heaven to draw thee after her--for the heart of me I
+could not for an hour put thee out of my head, in the attitude of dame
+Elizabeth Carteret, on her monument in Westminster Abbey.  If thou never
+observedst it, go thither on purpose: and there wilt thou see this dame
+in effigy, with uplifted head and hand, the latter taken hold of by a
+cupid every inch of stone, one clumsy foot lifted up also, aiming, as the
+sculptor designed it, to ascend; but so executed, as would rather make
+one imagine that the figure (without shoe or stocking, as it is, though
+the rest of the body is robed) was looking up to its corn-cutter: the
+other riveted to its native earth, bemired, like thee (immersed thou
+callest it) beyond the possibility of unsticking itself.  Both figures,
+thou wilt find, seem to be in a contention, the bigger, whether it should
+pull down the lesser about its ears--the lesser (a chubby fat little
+varlet, of a fourth part of the other's bigness, with wings not much
+larger than those of a butterfly) whether it should raise the larger to a
+Heaven it points to, hardly big enough to contain the great toes of
+either.
+
+
+* See Letter XXXVII. of this volume.
+
+
+Thou wilt say, perhaps, that the dame's figure in stone may do credit, in
+the comparison, to thine, both in grain and shape, wooden as thou art all
+over: but that the lady, who, in every thing but in the trick she has
+played me so lately, is truly an angel, is but sorrily represented by the
+fat-flanked cupid.  This I allow thee.  But yet there is enough in thy
+aspirations to strike my mind with a resemblance of thee and the lady to
+the figures on the wretched monument; for thou oughtest to remember,
+that, prepared as she may be to mount to her native skies, it is
+impossible for her to draw after her a heavy fellow who has so much to
+repent of as thou hast.
+
+But now, to be serious once more, let me tell you, Belford, that, if the
+lady be really so ill as you write she is, it will become you [no Roman
+style here!] in a case so very affecting, to be a little less pointed and
+sarcastic in your reflections.  For, upon my soul, the matter begins to
+grate me most confoundedly.
+
+I am now so impatient to hear oftener of her, that I take the hint
+accidentally given me by our two fellows meeting at Slough, and resolve
+to go to our friend Doleman's at Uxbridge; whose wife and sister, as well
+as he, have so frequently pressed me to give them my company for a week
+or two.  There shall I be within two hours' ride, if any thing should
+happen to induce her to see me: for it will well become her piety, and
+avowed charity, should the worst happen, [the Lord of Heaven and Earth,
+however, avert that worst!] to give me that pardon from her lips, which
+she has not denied to me by pen and ink.  And as she wishes my
+reformation, she knows not what good effects such an interview may have
+upon me.
+
+I shall accordingly be at Doleman's to-morrow morning, by eleven at
+farthest.  My fellow will find me there at his return from you (with a
+letter, I hope).  I shall have Joel with me likewise, that I may send
+the oftener, as matters fall out.  Were I to be still nearer, or in town,
+it would be impossible to withhold myself from seeing her.
+
+But, if the worst happen!--as, by your continual knelling, I know not
+what to think of it!--[Yet, once more, Heaven avert that worst!--How
+natural it is to pray, when once cannot help one's self!]--THEN say not,
+in so many dreadful words, what the event is--Only, that you advise me to
+take a trip to Paris--And that will stab me to the heart.
+
+
+***
+
+
+I so well approve of your generosity to poor Belton's sister, that I have
+made Mowbray give up his legacy, as I do mine, towards her India bonds.
+When I come to town, Tourville shall do the like; and we will buy each a
+ring to wear in memory of the honest fellow, with our own money, that we
+may perform his will, as well as our own.
+
+My fellow rides the rest of the night.  I charge you, Jack, if you would
+save his life, that you send him not back empty-handed.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLVII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+TUESDAY NIGHT, AUG. 30.
+
+
+When I concluded my last, I hoped that my next attendance upon this
+surprising lady would furnish me with some particulars as agreeable as
+now could be hoped for from the declining way she is in, by reason of
+the welcome letter she had received from her cousin Morden.  But it
+proved quite otherwise to me, though not to herself; for I think I was
+never more shocked in my life than on the occasion I shall mention
+presently.
+
+When I attended her about seven in the evening, she told me that she
+found herself in a very petulant way after I had left her.  Strange, said
+she, that the pleasure I received from my cousin's letter should have
+such an effect upon me!  But I could not help giving way to a comparative
+humour, as I may call it, and to think it very hard that my nearer
+relations did not take the methods which my cousin Morden kindly took, by
+inquiring into my merit or demerit, and giving my cause a fair audit
+before they proceeded to condemnation.
+
+She had hardly said this, when she started, and a blush overspread her
+sweet face, on hearing, as I also did, a sort of lumbering noise upon the
+stairs, as if a large trunk were bringing up between two people: and,
+looking upon me with an eye of concern, Blunderers! said she, they have
+brought in something two hours before the time.--Don't be surprised, Sir
+--it is all to save you trouble.
+
+Before I could speak, in came Mrs. Smith: O Madam, said she, what have
+you done?--Mrs. Lovick, entering, made the same exclamation.  Lord have
+mercy upon me, Madam! cried I, what have you done?--For she, stepping at
+the same instant to the door, the women told me it was a coffin.--O
+Lovelace! that thou hadst been there at that moment!--Thou, the causer of
+all these shocking scenes!  Surely thou couldst not have been less
+affected than I, who have no guilt, as to her, to answer for.
+
+With an intrepidity of a piece with the preparation, having directed them
+to carry it to her bed-chamber, she returned to us: they were not to have
+brought it in till after dark, said she--Pray, excuse me, Mr. Belford:
+and don't you, Mrs. Lovick, be concerned: nor you, Mrs. Smith.--Why
+should you?  There is nothing more in it than the unusualness of the
+thing.  Why may we not be as reasonably shocked at going to church where
+are the monuments of our ancestors, with whose dust we even hope our dust
+shall be one day mingled, as to be moved at such a sight as this?
+
+We all remaining silent, the women having their aprons at their eyes, Why
+this concern for nothing at all? said she.  If I am to be blamed for any
+thing, it is for showing too much solicitude, as it may be thought, for
+this earthly part.  I love to do every thing for myself that I can do.  I
+ever did.  Every other material point is so far done, and taken care of,
+that I have had leisure for things of lesser moment.  Minutenesses may be
+observed, where greater articles are not neglected for them.  I might
+have had this to order, perhaps, when less fit to order it.  I have no
+mother, no sister, no Mrs. Norton, no Miss Howe, near me.  Some of you
+must have seen this in a few days, if not now; perhaps have had the
+friendly trouble of directing it.  And what is the difference of a few
+days to you, when I am gratified rather than discomposed by it?  I shall
+not die the sooner for such a preparation.  Should not every body that
+has any thing to bequeath make their will?  And who, that makes a will,
+should be afraid of a coffin?--My dear friends, [to the women] I have
+considered these things; do not, with such an object before you as you
+have had in me for weeks, give me reason to think you have not.
+
+How reasonable was all this!--It showed, indeed, that she herself had
+well considered it.  But yet we could not help being shocked at the
+thoughts of the coffin thus brought in; the lovely person before our
+eyes who is, in all likelihood, so soon to fill it.
+
+We were all silent still, the women in grief; I in a manner stunned.  She
+would not ask me, she said; but would be glad, since it had thus earlier
+than she had intended been brought in, that her two good friends would
+walk in and look upon it.  They would be less shocked when it was made
+more familiar to their eye: don't you lead back, said she, a starting
+steed to the object he is apt to start at, in order to familiarize him to
+it, and cure his starting?  The same reason will hold in this case.  Come,
+my good friends, I will lead you in.
+
+I took my leave; telling her she had done wrong, very wrong; and ought
+not, by any means, to have such an object before her.
+
+The women followed her in.--'Tis a strange sex!  Nothing is too shocking
+for them to look upon, or see acted, that has but novelty and curiosity
+in it.
+
+Down I posted; got a chair; and was carried home, extremely shocked and
+discomposed: yet, weighing the lady's arguments, I know not why I was so
+affected--except, as she said, at the unusualness of the thing.
+
+While I waited for a chair, Mrs. Smith came down, and told me that there
+were devices and inscriptions upon the lid.  Lord bless me! is a coffin a
+proper subject to display fancy upon?--But these great minds cannot avoid
+doing extraordinary things!
+
+
+
+LETTER XLVIII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+FRIDAY MORN. SEPT. 1.
+
+
+It is surprising, that I, a man, should be so much affected as I was, at
+such an object as is the subject of my former letter; who also, in my
+late uncle's case, and poor Belton's had the like before me, and the
+directing of it: when she, a woman, of so weak and tender a frame, who
+was to fill it (so soon perhaps to fill it!) could give orders about it,
+and draw out the devices upon it, and explain them with so little concern
+as the women tell me she did to them last night after I was gone.
+
+I really was ill, and restless all night.  Thou wert the subject of my
+execration, as she was of my admiration, all the time I was quite awake:
+and, when I dozed, I dreamt of nothing but of flying hour-glasses,
+deaths-heads, spades, mattocks, and eternity; the hint of her devices (as
+given me by Mrs. Smith) running in my head.
+
+However, not being able to keep away from Smith's, I went thither about
+seven.  The lady was just gone out: she had slept better, I found, than
+I, though her solemn repository was under her window, not far from her
+bed-side.
+
+I was prevailed upon by Mrs. Smith and her nurse Shelburne (Mrs. Lovick
+being abroad with her) to go up and look at the devices.  Mrs. Lovick has
+since shown me a copy of the draught by which all was ordered; and I will
+give thee a sketch of the symbols.
+
+The principal device, neatly etched on a plate of white metal, is a
+crowned serpent, with its tail in its mouth, forming a ring, the emblem
+of eternity: and in the circle made by it is this inscription:
+
+                          CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+
+                               April x.
+
+                           [Then the year.]
+
+                              ÆTAT. XIX.
+
+For ornaments: at top, an hour-glass, winged.  At bottom, an urn.
+
+Under the hour-glass, on another plate, this inscription:
+
+      HERE the wicked cease from troubling: and HERE the
+        weary be at rest.  Job. iii. 17.
+
+Over the urn, near the bottom:
+
+      Turn again unto thy rest, O my soul! for the Lord hath
+        rewarded thee: And why?  Thou hast delivered my
+        soul from death; mine eyes from tears; and my feet
+        from falling.  Ps. cxvi. 7, 8.
+
+Over this is the head of a white lily snapt short off, and just falling
+from the stalk; and this inscription over that, between the principal
+plate and the lily:
+
+      The days of man are but as grass.  For he flourisheth as a
+        flower of the field: for, as soon as the wind goeth over
+        it, it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no
+        more.  Ps. ciii. 15, 16.
+
+She excused herself to the women, on the score of her youth, and being
+used to draw for her needleworks, for having shown more fancy than would
+perhaps be thought suitable on so solemn an occasion.
+
+The date, April 10, she accounted for, as not being able to tell what her
+closing-day would be; and as that was the fatal day of her leaving her
+father's house.
+
+She discharged the undertaker's bill after I went away, with as much
+cheerfulness as she could ever have paid for the clothes she sold to
+purchase this her palace: for such she called it; reflecting upon herself
+for the expensiveness of it, saying, that they might observe in her, that
+pride left not poor mortals to the last: but indeed she did not know but
+her father would permit it, when furnished, to be carried down to be
+deposited with her ancestors; and, in that case, she ought not to
+discredit those ancestors in her appearance amongst them.
+
+It is covered with fine black cloth, and lined with white satin; soon,
+she said, to be tarnished with viler earth than any it could be covered
+by.
+
+The burial-dress was brought home with it.  The women had curiosity
+enough, I suppose, to see her open that, if she did open it.--And,
+perhaps, thou wouldst have been glad to have been present to have admired
+it too!--
+
+Mrs. Lovick said, she took the liberty to blame her; and wished the
+removal of such an object--from her bed-chamber, at least: and was so
+affected with the noble answer she made upon it, that she entered it down
+the moment she left her.
+
+'To persons in health, said she, this sight may be shocking; and the
+preparation, and my unconcernedness in it, may appear affected: but to
+me, who have had so gradual a weaning-time from the world, and so much
+reason not to love it, I must say, I dwell on, I indulge, (and, strictly
+speaking, I enjoy,) the thoughts of death.  For, believe me,' [looking
+stedfastly at the awful receptacle,] 'believe what at this instant I feel
+to be most true, That there is such a vast superiority of weight and
+importance in the thought of death, and its hoped-for happy consequences,
+that it in a manner annihilates all other considerations and concerns.
+Believe me, my good friends, it does what nothing else can do: it teaches
+me, by strengthening in me the force of the divinest example, to forgive
+the injuries I have received; and shuts out the remembrance of past evils
+from my soul.'
+
+And now let me ask thee, Lovelace, Dost thou think that, when the time
+shall come that thou shalt be obliged to launch into the boundless ocean
+of eternity, thou wilt be able (any more than poor Belton) to act thy
+part with such true heroism, as this sweet and tender blossom of a woman
+has manifested, and continues to manifest!
+
+Oh! no! it cannot be!--And why can't it be?--The reason is evident: she
+has no wilful errors to look back upon with self-reproach--and her mind
+is strengthened by the consolations which flow from that religious
+rectitude which has been the guide of all her actions; and which has
+taught her rather to choose to be a sufferer than an aggressor!
+
+This was the support of the divine Socrates, as thou hast read.  When led
+to execution, his wife lamenting that he should suffer being innocent,
+Thou fool, said he, wouldst thou wish me to be guilty!
+
+
+
+LETTER XLIX
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+FRIDAY, SEPT. 1.
+
+
+How astonishing, in the midst of such affecting scenes, is thy mirth on
+what thou callest my own aspirations!  Never, surely, was there such
+another man in this world, thy talents and thy levity taken together!--
+Surely, what I shall send thee with this will affect thee.  If not,
+nothing can, till thy own hour come: and heavy will then thy reflections
+be!
+
+I am glad, however, that thou enablest me to assure the lady that thou
+wilt no more molest her; that is to say, in other words, that, after
+having ruined her fortunes, and all her worldly prospects, thou wilt be
+so gracious, as to let her lie down and die in peace.
+
+Thy giving up to poor Belton's sister the little legacy, and thy
+undertaking to make Mowbray and Tourville follow thy example, are, I must
+say to thy honour, of a piece with thy generosity to thy Rose-bud and her
+Johnny; and to a number of other good actions in pecuniary matters:
+although thy Rose-bud's is, I believe, the only instance, where a pretty
+woman was concerned, of such a disinterested bounty.
+
+Upon my faith, Lovelace, I love to praise thee; and often and often, as
+thou knowest, have I studied for occasions to do it: insomuch that when,
+for the life of me, I could not think of any thing done by thee that
+deserved praise, I have taken pains to applaud the not ungraceful manner
+in which thou hast performed actions that merited the gallows.
+
+Now thou art so near, I will dispatch my servant to thee, if occasion
+requires.  But, I fear, I shall soon give thee the news thou art
+apprehensive of.  For I am just now sent for by Mrs. Smith; who has
+ordered the messenger to tell me, that she knew not if the lady will be
+alive when I come.
+
+
+FRIDAY, SEPT. 1, TWO O'CLOCK, AT SMITH'S.
+
+I could not close my letter in such an uncertainty as must have added to
+your impatience.  For you have, on several occasions, convinced me, that
+the suspense you love to give would be the greatest torment to you that
+you could receive.  A common case with all aggressive and violent
+spirits, I believe.  I will just mention then (your servant waiting here
+till I have written) that the lady has had two very severe fits: in the
+last of which whilst she lay, they sent to the doctor and Mr. Goddard,
+who both advised that a messenger should be dispatched for me, as her
+executor; being doubtful whether, if she had a third, it would not carry
+her off.
+
+She was tolerably recovered by the time I cane; and the doctor made her
+promise before me, that, while she was so weak, she would not attempt any
+more to go abroad; for, by Mrs. Lovick's description, who attended her,
+the shortness of her breath, her extreme weakness, and the fervour of her
+devotions when at church, were contraries, which, pulling different ways
+(the soul aspiring, the body sinking) tore her tender frame in pieces.
+
+So much for the present.  I shall detain Will. no longer than just to beg
+that you will send me back this packet and the last.  Your memory is so
+good, that once reading is all you ever give, or need to give, to any
+thing.  And who but ourselves can make out our characters, were you
+inclined to let any body see what passes between us?  If I cannot be
+obliged, I shall be tempted to withhold what I write, till I have time to
+take a copy of it.*
+
+
+* It may not be amiss to observe, that Mr. Belford's solicitude to get
+back his letters was owing to his desire of fulfilling the lady's wishes
+that he would furnish Miss Howe with materials to vindicate her memory.
+
+
+A letter from Miss Howe is just now brought by a particular messenger,
+who says he must carry back a few lines in return.  But, as the lady is
+just retired to lie down, the man is to call again by-and-by.
+
+
+
+LETTER L
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+UXBRIDGE, SEPT. 1, TWELVE O'CLOCK AT NIGHT.
+
+
+I send you the papers with this.  You must account to me honestly and
+fairly, when I see you, for the earnestness with which you write for
+them.  And then also will we talk about the contents of your last
+dispatch, and about some of your severe and unfriendly reflections.
+
+Mean time, whatever thou dost, don't let the wonderful creature leave us!
+Set before her the sin of her preparation, as if she thought she could
+depart when she pleased.  She'll persuade herself, at this rate, that she
+has nothing to do, when all is ready, but to lie down, and go to sleep:
+and such a lively fancy as her's will make a reality of a jest at any
+time.
+
+A jest I call all that has passed between her and me; a mere jest to die
+for--For has not her triumph over me, from first to last, been infinitely
+greater than her sufferings from me?
+
+Would the sacred regard I have for her purity, even for her personal as
+well as intellectual purity, permit, I could prove this as clear as the
+sun.  Tell, therefore, the dear creature that she must not be wicked in
+her piety.  There is a too much, as well as too little, even in
+righteousness.  Perhaps she does not think of that.--Oh! that she would
+have permitted my attendance, as obligingly as she does of thine!--The
+dear soul used to love humour.  I remember the time that she knew how to
+smile at a piece of apropos humour.  And, let me tell thee, a smile upon
+the lips, or a sparkling in the eye, must have had its correspondent
+cheerfulness in a heart so sincere as her's.
+
+Tell the doctor I will make over all my possessions, and all my
+reversions, to him, if he will but prolong her life for one twelvemonth
+to come.  But for one twelvemonth, Jack!--He will lose all his reputation
+with me, and I shall treat him as Belton did his doctor, if he cannot do
+this for me, on so young a subject.  But nineteen, Belford!--nineteen
+cannot so soon die of grief, if the doctor deserve that title; and so
+blooming and so fine a constitution as she had but three or four months
+ago!
+
+But what need the doctor to ask her leave to write to her friends?  Could
+he not have done it without letting her know any thing of the matter?
+That was one of the likeliest means that could be thought of to bring
+some of them about her, since she is so desirous to see them.  At least
+it would have induced them to send up her favourite Norton.  But these
+plaguy solemn fellows are great traders in parade.  They'll cram down
+your throat their poisonous drugs by wholesale, without asking you a
+question; and have the assurance to own it to be prescribing: but when
+they are to do good, they are to require your consent.
+
+How the dear creature's character rises in every line of thy letters!
+But it is owing to the uncommon occasions she has met with that she
+blazes out upon us with such a meridian lustre.  How, but for those
+occasions, could her noble sentiments, her prudent consideration, her
+forgiving spirit, her exalted benevolence, and her equanimity in view of
+the most shocking prospects (which set her in a light so superior to all
+her sex, and even to the philosophers of antiquity) have been manifested?
+
+I know thou wilt think I am going to claim some merit to myself, for
+having given her such opportunities of signalizing her virtues.  But I am
+not; for, if I did, I must share that merit with her implacable
+relations, who would justly be entitled to two-thirds of it, at least:
+and my soul disdains a partnership in any thing with such a family.
+
+But this I mention as an answer to thy reproaches, that I could be so
+little edified by perfections, to which, thou supposest, I was for so
+long together daily and hourly a personal witness--when, admirable as she
+was in all she said, and in all she did, occasion had not at that time
+ripened, and called forth, those amazing perfections which now astonish
+and confound me.
+
+Hence it is that I admire her more than ever; and that my love for her is
+less personal, as I may say, more intellectual, than ever I thought it
+could be to a woman.
+
+Hence also it is that I am confident (would it please the Fates to spare
+her, and make her mine) I could love her with a purity that would draw on
+my own FUTURE, as well as ensure her TEMPORAL, happiness.--And hence, by
+necessary consequence, shall I be the most miserable of all men, if I am
+deprived of her.
+
+Thou severely reflectest upon me for my levity: the Abbey instance in
+thine eye, I suppose.  And I will be ingenuous enough to own, that as
+thou seest not my heart, there may be passages, in every one of my
+letters, which (the melancholy occasion considered) deserve thy most
+pointed rebukes.  But faith, Jack, thou art such a tragi-comical mortal,
+with thy leaden aspirations at one time, and thy flying hour-glasses and
+dreaming terrors at another, that, as Prior says, What serious is, thou
+turn'st to farce; and it is impossible to keep within the bounds of
+decorum or gravity when one reads what thou writest.
+
+But to restrain myself (for my constitutional gayety was ready to run
+away with me again) I will repeat, I must ever repeat, that I am most
+egregiously affected with the circumstances of the case: and, were this
+paragon actually to quit the world, should never enjoy myself one hour
+together, though I were to live to the age of Methusalem.
+
+Indeed it is to this deep concern, that my levity is owing: for I
+struggle and struggle, and try to buffet down my cruel reflections as
+they rise; and when I cannot, I am forced, as I have often said, to try
+to make myself laugh, that I may not cry; for one or other I must do: and
+is it not philosophy carried to the highest pitch, for a man to conquer
+such tumults of soul as I am sometimes agitated by, and, in the very
+height of the storm, to be able to quaver out an horse-laugh?
+
+Your Seneca's, your Epictetus's, and the rest of your stoical tribe, with
+all their apathy nonsense, could not come up to this.  They could forbear
+wry faces: bodily pains they could well enough seem to support; and that
+was all: but the pangs of their own smitten-down souls they could not
+laugh over, though they could at the follies of others.  They read grave
+lectures; but they were grave.  This high point of philosophy, to laugh
+and be merry in the midst of the most soul-harrowing woes, when the
+heart-strings are just bursting asunder, was reserved for thy Lovelace.
+
+There is something owing to constitution, I own; and that this is the
+laughing-time of my life.  For what a woe must that be, which for an hour
+together can mortify a man six or seven and twenty, in high blood and
+spirits, of a naturally gay disposition, who can sing, dance, and
+scribble, and take and give delight in them all?--But then my grief, as
+my joy, is sharper-pointed than most other men's; and, like what Dolly
+Welby once told me, describing the parturient throes, if there were not
+lucid intervals, if they did not come and go, there would be no bearing
+them.
+
+
+***
+
+
+After all, as I am so little distant from the dear creature, and as she
+is so very ill, I think I cannot excuse myself from making her one visit.
+Nevertheless, if I thought her so near--[what word shall I use, that my
+soul is not shocked at!] and that she would be too much discomposed by a
+visit, I would not think of it.--Yet how can I bear the recollection,
+that, when she last went from me (her innocence so triumphant over my
+premeditated guilt, as was enough to reconcile her to life, and to set
+her above the sense of injuries so nobly sustained, that) she should then
+depart with an incurable fracture in her heart; and that that should be
+the last time I should ever see her!--How, how, can I bear this
+reflection!
+
+O Jack! how my conscience, that gives edge even to thy blunt reflections,
+tears me!--Even this moment would I give the world to push the cruel
+reproacher from me by one ray of my usual gayety!--Sick of myself!--sick
+of the remembrance of my vile plots; and of my light, my momentary
+ecstacy [villanous burglar, felon, thief, that I was!] which has brought
+on me such durable and such heavy remorse! what would I give that I had
+not been guilty of such barbarous and ungrateful perfidy to the most
+excellent of God's creatures!
+
+I would end, methinks, with one sprightlier line!--but it will not be.--
+Let me tell thee then, and rejoice at it if thou wilt, that I am
+
+Inexpressibly miserable!
+
+
+
+LETTER LI
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+SAT. MORNING, SEPT. 2.
+
+
+I have some little pleasure given me by thine, just now brought me.  I
+see now that thou hast a little humanity left.  Would to Heaven, for the
+dear lady's sake, as well as for thy own, that thou hadst rummaged it up
+from all the dark forgotten corners of thy soul a little sooner!
+
+The lady is alive, and serene, and calm, and has all her noble intellects
+clear and strong: but nineteen will not however save her.  She says she
+will now content herself with her closet duties, and the visits of the
+parish-minister; and will not attempt to go out.  Nor, indeed, will she,
+I am afraid, ever walk up or down a pair of stairs again.
+
+I am sorry at my soul to have this to say: but it would be a folly to
+flatter thee.
+
+As to thy seeing her, I believe the least hint of that sort, now, would
+cut off some hours of her life.
+
+What has contributed to her serenity, it seems, is, that taking the alarm
+her fits gave her, she has entirely finished, and signed and sealed, her
+last will: which she had deferred till this time, in hopes, as she said,
+of some good news from Harlowe-place; which would have induced her to
+alter some passages in it.
+
+Miss Howe's letter was not given her till four in the afternoon,
+yesterday; at which time the messenger returned for an answer.  She
+admitted him into her presence in the dining-room, ill as she then was,
+and she would have written a few lines, as desired by Miss Howe; but, not
+being able to hold a pen, she bid the messenger tell her that she hoped
+to be well enough to write a long letter by the next day's post; and
+would not now detain him.
+
+
+***
+
+
+SATURDAY, SIX IN THE AFTERNOON.
+
+I called just now, and found the lady writing to Miss Howe.  She made me
+a melancholy compliment, that she showed me not Miss Howe's letter,
+because I should soon have that and all her papers before me.  But she
+told me that Miss Howe had very considerably obviated to Colonel Morden
+several things which might have occasioned misapprehensions between him
+and me; and had likewise put a lighter construction, for the sake of
+peace, on some of your actions than they deserved.
+
+She added, that her cousin Morden was warmly engaged in her favour with
+her friends: and one good piece of news Miss Howe's letter contained,
+that her father would give up some matters, which (appertaining to her of
+right) would make my executorship the easier in some particulars that had
+given her a little pain.
+
+She owned she had been obliged to leave off (in the letter she was
+writing) through weakness.
+
+Will. says he shall reach you to-night.  I shall send in the morning;
+and, if I find her not worse, will ride to Edgware, and return in the
+afternoon.
+
+
+
+LETTER LII
+
+MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+TUESDAY, AUG. 29.
+
+
+MY DEAREST FRIEND,
+
+We are at length returned to our own home.  I had intended to wait on you
+in London: but my mother is very ill--Alas! my dear, she is very ill
+indeed--and you are likewise very ill--I see that by your's of the 25th--
+What shall I do, if I lose two such near, and dear, and tender friends?
+She was taken ill yesterday at our last stage in our return home--and has
+a violent surfeit and fever, and the doctors are doubtful about her.
+
+If she should die, how will all my pertnesses to her fly in my face!--
+Why, why, did I ever vex her?  She says I have been all duty and
+obedience!--She kindly forgets all my faults, and remembers every thing I
+have been so happy as to oblige her in.  And this cuts me to the heart.
+
+I see, I see, my dear, that you are very bad--and I cannot bear it.  Do,
+my beloved Miss Harlowe, if you can be better, do, for my sake, be
+better; and send me word of it.  Let the bearer bring me a line.  Be sure
+you send me a line.  If I lose you, my more than sister, and lose my
+mother, I shall distrust my own conduct, and will not marry.  And why
+should I?--Creeping, cringing in courtship!--O my dear, these men are a
+vile race of reptiles in our day, and mere bears in their own.  See in
+Lovelace all that is desirable in figure, in birth, and in fortune: but
+in his heart a devil!--See in Hickman--Indeed, my dear, I cannot tell
+what any body can see in Hickman, to be always preaching in his favour.
+And is it to be expected that I, who could hardly bear control from a
+mother, should take it from a husband?--from one too, who has neither
+more wit, nor more understanding, than myself? yet he to be my
+instructor!--So he will, I suppose; but more by the insolence of his will
+than by the merit of his counsel.  It is in vain to think of it.  I
+cannot be a wife to any man breathing whom I at present know.  This I the
+rather mention now, because, on my mother's danger, I know you will be
+for pressing me the sooner to throw myself into another sort of
+protection, should I be deprived of her.  But no more of this subject, or
+indeed of any other; for I am obliged to attend my mamma, who cannot bear
+me out of her sight.
+
+
+***
+
+
+WEDNESDAY, AUG. 30.
+
+My mother, Heaven be praised! has had a fine night, and is much better.
+Her fever has yielded to medicine! and now I can write once more with
+freedom and ease to you, in hopes that you also are better.  If this be
+granted to my prayers, I shall again be happy, I write with still the
+more alacrity as I have an opportunity given me to touch upon a subject
+in which you are nearly concerned.
+
+You must know then, my dear, that your cousin Morden has been here with
+me.  He told me of an interview he had on Monday at Lord M.'s with
+Lovelace; and asked me abundance of questions about you, and about that
+villanous man.
+
+I could have raised a fine flame between them if I would: but, observing
+that he is a man of very lively passions, and believing you would be
+miserable if any thing should happen to him from a quarrel with a man who
+is known to have so many advantages at his sword, I made not the worst of
+the subjects we talked of.  But, as I could not tell untruths in his
+favour, you must think I said enough to make him curse the wretch.
+
+I don't find, well as they all used to respect Colonel Morden, that he
+has influence enough upon them to bring them to any terms of
+reconciliation.
+
+What can they mean by it!--But your brother is come home, it seems: so,
+the honour of the house, the reputation of the family, is all the cry!
+
+The Colonel is exceedingly out of humour with them all.  Yet has he not
+hitherto, it seems, seen your brutal brother.--I told him how ill you
+were, and communicated to him some of the contents of your letter.  He
+admired you, cursed Lovelace, and raved against all your family.--He
+declared that they were all unworthy of you.
+
+At his earnest request, I permitted him to take some brief notes of such
+of the contents of your letter to me as I thought I could read to him;
+and, particularly, of your melancholy conclusion.*
+
+
+* See Letter XXXII. of this volume.
+
+
+He says that none of your friends think you are so ill as you are; nor
+will believe it.  He is sure they all love you; and that dearly too.
+
+If they do, their present hardness of heart will be the subject of
+everlasting remorse to them should you be taken from us--but now it seems
+[barbarous wretches!] you are to suffer within an inch of your life.
+
+He asked me questions about Mr. Belford: and, when he had heard what I
+had to say of that gentleman, and his disinterested services to you, he
+raved at some villanous surmises thrown out against you by that officious
+pedant, Brand: who, but for his gown, I find, would come off poorly enough
+between your cousin and Lovelace.
+
+He was so uneasy about you himself, that on Thursday, the 24th, he sent
+up an honest serious man,* one Alston, a gentleman farmer, to inquire of
+your condition, your visiters, and the like; who brought him word that
+you was very ill, and was put to great straits to support yourself: but
+as this was told him by the gentlewoman of the house where you lodge,
+who, it seems, mingled it with some tart, though deserved, reflections
+upon your relations' cruelty, it was not credited by them: and I myself
+hope it cannot be true; for surely you could not be so unjust, I will
+say, to my friendship, as to suffer any inconveniencies for want of
+money.  I think I could not forgive you, if it were so.
+
+
+* See Letter XXIII. ibid.
+
+
+The Colonel (as one of your trustees) is resolved to see you put into
+possession of your estate: and, in the mean time, he has actually engaged
+them to remit to him for you the produce of it accrued since your
+grandfather's death, (a very considerable sum;) and proposes himself to
+attend you with it.  But, by a hint he dropt, I find you had disappointed
+some people's littleness, by not writing to them for money and supplies;
+since they were determined to distress you, and to put you at defiance.
+
+Like all the rest!--I hope I may say that without offence.
+
+Your cousin imagines that, before a reconciliation takes place, they will
+insist that you make such a will, as to that estate, as they shall
+approve of: but he declares that he will not go out of England till he
+has seen justice done you by every body; and that you shall not be
+imposed on either by friend or foe--
+
+By relation or foe, should he not have said?--for a friend will not
+impose upon a friend.
+
+So, my dear, you are to buy your peace, if some people are to have their
+wills!
+
+Your cousin [not I, my dear, though it was always my opinion*] says, that
+the whole family is too rich to be either humble, considerate, or
+contented.  And as for himself, he has an ample fortune, he says, and
+thinks of leaving it wholly to you.
+
+
+* See Vol. I. Letter X.
+
+
+Had this villain Lovelace consulted his worldly interest only, what a
+fortune would he have had in you, even although your marrying him had
+deprived you of a paternal share!
+
+I am obliged to leave off here.  But having a good deal still more to
+write, and my mother better, I will pursue the subject in another letter,
+although I send both together.  I need not say how much I am, and will
+ever be,
+
+Your affectionate, &c.
+ANNA HOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER LIII
+
+MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+THURSDAY, AUGUST 31.
+
+
+The Colonel thought fit once, in praise of Lovelace's generosity, to say,
+that (as a man of honour ought) he took to himself all the blame, and
+acquitted you of the consequences of the precipitate step you had taken;
+since he said, as you loved him, and was in his power, he must have had
+advantages which he would not have had, if you had continued at your
+father's, or at any friend's.
+
+Mighty generous, I said, (were it as he supposed,) in such insolent
+reflectors, the best of them; who pretend to clear reputations which
+never had been sullied but by falling into their dirty acquaintance! but
+in this case, I averred, that there was no need of any thing but the
+strictest truth, to demonstrate Lovelace to be the blackest of villains,
+you the brightest of innocents.
+
+This he catched at; and swore, that if any thing uncommon or barbarous in
+the seduction were to come out, as indeed one of the letters you had
+written to your friends, and which had been shown him, very strongly
+implied; that is to say, my dear, if any thing worse than perjury, breach
+of faith, and abuse of a generous confidence, were to appear! [sorry
+fellows!] he would avenge his cousin to the utmost.
+
+I urged your apprehensions on this head from your last letter to me: but
+he seemed capable of taking what I know to be real greatness of soul, in
+an unworthy sense: for he mentioned directly upon it the expectations
+your friends had, that you should (previous to any reconciliation with
+them) appear in a court of justice against the villain--IF you could do
+it with the advantage to yourself that I hinted might be done.
+
+And truly, if I would have heard him, he had indelicacy enough to have
+gone into the nature of the proof of the crime upon which they wanted to
+have Lovelace arraigned.  Yet this is a man improved by travel and
+learning!--Upon my word, my dear, I, who have been accustomed to the most
+delicate conversation ever since I had the honour to know you, despise
+this sex from the gentleman down to the peasant.
+
+Upon the whole, I find that Mr. Morden has a very slender notion of
+women's virtue in particular cases: for which reason I put him down,
+though your favourite, as one who is not entitled to cast the first
+stone.
+
+I never knew a man who deserved to be well thought of himself for his
+morals, who had a slight opinion of the virtue of our sex in general.
+For if, from the difference of temperament and education, modesty,
+chastity, and piety too, are not to be found in our sex preferably to
+the other, I should think it a sign of much worse nature in ours.
+
+He even hinted (as from your relations indeed) that it is impossible
+but there most be some will where there is much love.
+
+These sort of reflections are enough to make a woman, who has at heart
+her own honour and the honour of her sex, to look about her, and consider
+what she is doing when she enters into an intimacy with these wretches;
+since it is plain, that whenever she throws herself into the power of a
+man, and leaves for him her parents or guardians, every body will believe
+it to be owing more to her good luck than to her discretion if there be
+not an end of her virtue: and let the man be ever such a villain to her,
+she must take into her own bosom a share of his guilty baseness.
+
+I am writing to general cases.  You, my dear, are out of the question.
+Your story, as I have heretofore said, will afford a warning as well as
+an example:* For who is it that will not infer, that if a person of your
+fortune, character, and merit, could not escape ruin, after she had put
+herself into the power of her hyæna, what can a thoughtless, fond, giddy
+creature expect?
+
+
+* See Vol. IV. Letter XXIII.
+
+
+Every man, they will say, is not a LOVELACE--True: but then, neither is
+every woman a CLARISSA.  And allow for the one and for the other the
+example must be of general use.
+
+I prepared Mr. Morden to expect your appointment of Mr. Belford for an
+office that we both hope he will have no occasion to act in (nor any body
+else) for many, very many years to come.  He was at first startled at it:
+but, upon hearing such of your reasons as had satisfied me, he only said
+that such an appointment, were it to take place, would exceedingly affect
+his other cousins.
+
+He told me, he had a copy of Lovelace's letter to you, imploring your
+pardon, and offering to undergo any penance to procure it;* and also of
+your answer to it.**
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXIX.
+** Ibid. Letter LXXXIII.
+
+
+I find he is willing to hope that a marriage between you may still take
+place; which, he says, will heal up all breaches.
+
+I would have written much more--on the following particulars especially;
+to wit, of the wretched man's hunting you out of your lodgings: of your
+relations' strange implacableness, [I am in haste, and cannot think of a
+word you would like better just now:] of your last letter to Lovelace, to
+divert him from pursuing you: of your aunt Hervey's penitential
+conversation with Mrs. Norton: of Mr. Wyerley's renewed address: of your
+lessons to me in Hickman's behalf, so approvable, were the man more so
+than he is; but indeed I am offended with him at this instant, and have
+been for these two days: of your sister's transportation-project: and of
+twenty and twenty other things: but am obliged to leave off, to attend my
+two cousins Spilsworth, and my cousin Herbert, who are come to visit us
+on account of my mother's illness--I will therefore dispatch these by
+Rogers; and if my mother gets well soon (as I hope she will) I am
+resolved to see you in town, and tell you every thing that now is upon my
+mind; and particularly, mingling my soul with your's, how much I am, and
+will ever be, my dearest, dear friend,
+
+Your affectionate
+ANNA HOWE.
+
+Let Rogers bring one line, I pray you.  I thought to have sent him this
+      afternoon; but he cannot set out till to-morrow morning early.
+
+I cannot express how much your staggering lines and your conclusion
+      affect me!
+
+
+
+LETTER LIV
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+SUNDAY EVENING, SEPT. 3.
+
+
+I wonder not at the impatience your servant tells me you express to hear
+from me.  I was designing to write you a long letter, and was just
+returned from Smith's for that purpose; but, since you are urgent, you
+must be contented with a short one.
+
+I attended the lady this morning, just before I set out for Edgware.  She
+was so ill over-night, that she was obliged to leave unfinished her
+letter to Miss Howe.  But early this morning she made an end of it, and
+just sealed it up as I came.  She was so fatigued with writing, that she
+told me she would lie down after I was gone, and endeavour to recruit her
+spirits.
+
+They had sent for Mr. Goddard, when she was so ill last night; and not
+being able to see him out of her own chamber, he, for the first time, saw
+her house, as she calls it.  He was extremely shocked and concerned at
+it; and chid Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick for not persuading her to have
+such an object removed form her bed-chamber: and when they excused
+themselves on the little authority it was reasonable to suppose they must
+have with a lady so much their superior, he reflected warmly on those who
+had more authority, and who left her to proceed with such a shocking and
+solemn whimsy, as he called it.
+
+It is placed near the window, like a harpsichord, though covered over to
+the ground: and when she is so ill that she cannot well go to her closet,
+she writes and reads upon it, as others would upon a desk or table.  But
+(only as she was so ill last night) she chooses not to see any body in
+that apartment.
+
+I went to Edgware; and, returning in the evening, attended her again.
+She had a letter brought her from Mrs. Norton (a long one, as it seems by
+its bulk,) just before I came.  But she had not opened it; and said, that
+as she was pretty calm and composed, she was afraid to look into the
+contents, lest she should be ruffled; expecting now to hear of nothing
+that could do her good or give her pleasure from that good woman's dear
+hard-hearted neighbours, as she called her own relations.
+
+Seeing her so weak and ill, I withdrew; nor did she desire me to tarry,
+as sometimes she does, when I make a motion to depart.
+
+I had some hints, as I went away, from Mrs. Smith, that she had
+appropriated that evening to some offices, that were to save trouble, as
+she called it, after her departure; and had been giving orders to her
+nurse, and to Mrs. Lovick, and Mrs. Smith, about what she would have done
+when she was gone; and I believe they were of a very delicate and
+affecting nature; but Mrs. Smith descended not to particulars.
+
+The doctor had been with her, as well as Mr. Goddard; and they both
+joined with great earnestness to persuade her to have her house removed
+out of her sight; but she assured them that it gave her pleasure and
+spirits; and, being a necessary preparation, she wondered they should be
+surprised at it, when she had not any of her family about her, or any old
+acquaintance, on whose care and exactness in these punctilios, as she
+called them, she could rely.
+
+The doctor told Mrs. Smith, that he believed she would hold out long
+enough for any of her friends to have notice of her state, and to see
+her; and hardly longer; and since he could not find that she had any
+certainty of seeing her cousin Morden, (which made it plain that her
+relations continued inflexible,) he would go home, and write a letter to
+her father, take it as she would.
+
+She had spent great part of the day in intense devotions; and to-morrow
+morning she is to have with her the same clergyman who has often attended
+her; from whose hands she will again receive the sacrament.
+
+Thou seest, Lovelace, that all is preparing, that all will be ready; and
+I am to attend her to-morrow afternoon, to take some instructions from
+her in relation to my part in the office to be performed for her.  And
+thus, omitting the particulars of a fine conversation between her and
+Mrs. Lovick, which the latter acquainted me with, as well as another
+between her and the doctor and apothecary, which I had a design this
+evening to give you, they being of a very affecting nature, I have
+yielded to your impatience.
+
+   I shall dispatch Harry to-morrow morning early with her letter to Miss
+      Howe: an offer she took very kindly; as she is extremely
+      solicitous to lessen that young lady's apprehensions for her on
+      not hearing from her by Saturday's post: and yet, if she write
+      truth, as no doubt but she will, how can her apprehensions be
+      lessened?
+
+
+
+LETTER LV
+
+MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
+SATURDAY, SEPT. 2.
+
+
+I write, my beloved Miss Howe, though very ill still: but I could not by
+the return of your messenger; for I was then unable to hold a pen.
+
+Your mother's illness (as mentioned in the first part of your letter,)
+gave me great distress for you, till I read farther.  You bewailed it as
+became a daughter so sensible.  May you be blessed in each other for
+many, very many years to come!  I doubt not, that even this sudden and
+grievous indisposition, by the frame it has put you in, and the
+apprehension it has given you of losing so dear a mother, will contribute
+to the happiness I wish you: for, alas! my dear, we seldom know how to
+value the blessings we enjoy, till we are in danger of losing them, or
+have actually lost them: and then, what would we give to have them
+restored to us!
+
+What, I wonder, has again happened between you and Mr. Hickman?  Although
+I know not, I dare say it is owing to some petty petulance, to some
+half-ungenerous advantage taken of his obligingness and assiduity.  Will
+you never, my dear, give the weight you and all our sex ought to give to
+the qualities of sobriety and regularity of life and manners in that sex?
+Must bold creatures, and forward spirits, for ever, and by the best and
+wisest of us, as well as by the indiscreetest, be the most kindly
+treated?
+
+My dear friends know not that I have actually suffered within less than
+an inch of my life.
+
+Poor Mr. Brand! he meant well, I believe.  I am afraid all will turn
+heavily upon him, when he probably imagined that he was taking the best
+method to oblige.  But were he not to have been so light of belief, and
+so weakly officious; and had given a more favourable, and, it would be
+strange if I could not say, a juster report; things would have been,
+nevertheless, exactly as they are.
+
+I must lay down my pen.  I am very ill.  I believe I shall be better
+by-and-by.  The bad writing would betray me, although I had a mind to
+keep from you what the event must soon--
+
+
+***
+
+
+Now I resume my trembling pen.  Excuse the unsteady writing.  It will
+be so--
+
+I have wanted no money: so don't be angry about such a trifle as money.
+Yet I am glad of what you inclined me to hope, that my friends will give
+up the produce of my grandfather's estate since it has been in their
+hands: because, knowing it to be my right, and that they could not want
+it, I had already disposed of a good part of it; and could only hope they
+would be willing to give it up at my last request.  And now how rich
+shall I think myself in this my last stage!--And yet I did not want
+before--indeed I did not--for who, that has many superfluities, can be
+said to want!
+
+Do not, my dear friend, be concerned that I call it my last stage; For
+what is even the long life which in high health we wish for?  What, but,
+as we go along, a life of apprehension, sometimes for our friends,
+oftener for ourselves?  And at last, when arrived at the old age we
+covet, one heavy loss or deprivation having succeeded another, we see
+ourselves stript, as I may say, of every one we loved; and find ourselves
+exposed, as uncompanionable poor creatures, to the slights, to the
+contempts, of jostling youth, who want to push us off the stage, in hopes
+to possess what we have:--and, superadded to all, our own infirmities
+every day increasing: of themselves enough to make the life we wished for
+the greatest disease of all!  Don't you remember the lines of Howard,
+which once you read to me in my ivy-bower?*
+
+
+* These are the lines the lady refers to:
+
+      From death we rose to life: 'tis but the same,
+      Through life to pass again from whence we came.
+      With shame we see our PASSIONS can prevail,
+      Where reason, certainty, and virtue fail.
+      HONOUR, that empty name, can death despise;    |
+      SCORN'D LOVE to death, as to a refuge, flies;  |
+      And SORROW waits for death with longing eyes.  |
+      HOPE triumphs o'er the thoughts of death; and FATE
+      Cheats fools, and flatters the unfortunate.
+      We fear to lose, what a small time must waste,
+      Till life itself grows the disease at last.
+      Begging for life, we beg for more decay,
+      And to be long a dying only pray.
+
+
+In the disposition of what belongs to me, I have endeavoured to do every
+thing in the justest and best manner I could think of; putting myself in
+my relations' places, and, in the greater points, ordering my matters as
+if no misunderstanding had happened.
+
+I hope they will not think much of some bequests where wanted, and where
+due from my gratitude: but if they should, what is done, is done; and I
+cannot now help it.  Yet I must repeat, that I hope, I hope, I have
+pleased every one of them.  For I would not, on any account, have it
+thought that, in my last disposition, any thing undaughterly, unsisterly,
+or unlike a kinswoman, should have had place in a mind that is a truly
+free (as I will presume to say) from all resentment, that it now
+overflows with gratitude and blessings for the good I have received,
+although it be not all that my heart wished to receive.  Were it even an
+hardship that I was not favoured with more, what is it but an hardship
+of half a year, against the most indulgent goodness of eighteen years and
+an half, that ever was shown to a daughter?
+
+My cousin, you tell me, thinks I was off my guard, and that I was taken
+at some advantage.  Indeed, my dear, I was not.  Indeed I gave no room
+for advantage to be taken of me.  I hope, one day, that will be seen, if
+I have the justice done me which Mr. Belford assures me of.
+
+I should hope that my cousin has not taken the liberties which you (by an
+observation not, in general, unjust) seem to charge him with.  For it is
+sad to think, that the generality of that sex should make so light of
+crimes, which they justly hold so unpardonable in their own most intimate
+relations of our's--yet cannot commit them without doing such injuries to
+other families as they think themselves obliged to resent unto death,
+when offered to their own.
+
+But we women are too often to blame on this head; since the most virtuous
+among us seldom make virtue the test of their approbation of the other
+sex; insomuch that a man may glory in his wickedness of this sort without
+being rejected on that account, even to the faces of women of
+unquestionable virtue.  Hence it is, that a libertine seldom thinks
+himself concerned so much as to save appearances: And what is it not that
+our sex suffers in their opinion on this very score?  And what have I,
+more than many others, to answer for on this account in the world's eye?
+
+May my story be a warning to all, how they prefer a libertine to a man of
+true honour; and how they permit themselves to be misled (where they mean
+the best) by the specious, yet foolish hope of subduing riveted habits,
+and, as I may say, of altering natures!--The more foolish, as constant
+experience might convince us, that there is hardly one in ten, of even
+tolerably happy marriages, in which the wife keeps the hold in the
+husband's affections, which she had in the lover's.  What influence then
+can she hope to have over the morals of an avowed libertine, who marries
+perhaps for conveniency, who despises the tie, and whom, it is too
+probable, nothing but old age, or sickness, or disease, (the consequence
+of ruinous riot,) can reclaim?
+
+I am very glad you gave my cous--
+
+
+SUNDAY MORNING, SEPT. 3, SIX O'CLOCK.
+
+Hither I had written, and was forced to quit my pen.  And so much weaker
+and worse I grew, that had I resumed it, to have closed here, it must
+have been with such trembling unsteadiness, that it would have given you
+more concern for me, than the delay of sending it away by last night's
+post can do.  I deferred it, therefore, to see how it would please God to
+deal with me.  And I find myself, after a better night than I expected,
+lively and clear; and hope to give a proof that I do, in the continuation
+of my letter, which I will pursue as currently as if I had not left off.
+
+I am glad that you so considerately gave my cousin Morden favourable
+impressions of Mr. Belford; since, otherwise, some misunderstanding might
+have happened between them: for although I hope this Mr. Belford is an
+altered man, and in time will be a reformed one, yet is he one of those
+high spirits that has been accustomed to resent imaginary indignities to
+himself, when, I believe, he has not been studious to avoid giving real
+offences to others; men of this cast acting as if they thought all the
+world was made to bar with them, and they with nobody in it.
+
+Mr. Lovelace, you tell me, thought fit to intrust my cousin with the copy
+of his letter of penitence to me, and with my answer to it, rejecting him
+and his suit: and Mr. Belford, moreover, acquaints me, how much concerned
+Mr. Lovelace is for his baseness, and how freely he accused himself to my
+cousin.  This shows, that the true bravery of spirit is to be above doing
+a vile action; and that nothing subjects the human mind to so much
+meanness, as the consciousness of having done wilful wrong to our fellow
+creatures.  How low, how sordid, are the submissions which elaborate
+baseness compels! that that wretch could treat me as he did, and then
+could so poorly creep to me for forgiveness of crimes so wilful, so
+black, and so premeditated! how my soul despised him for his meanness on
+a certain occasion, of which you will one day be informed!* and him whose
+actions one's heart despises, it is far from being difficult to reject,
+had one ever so partially favoured him once.
+
+
+* Meaning his meditated second violence (See Vol. VI. Letter XXXVI.) and
+his succeeding letters to her, supplicating for her pardon.
+
+
+Yet am I glad this violent spirit can thus creep; that, like a poisonous
+serpent, he can thus coil himself, and hide his head in his own narrow
+circlets; because this stooping, this abasement, gives me hope that no
+farther mischief will ensue.
+
+All my apprehension is, what may happen when I am gone; lest then my
+cousin, or any other of my family, should endeavour to avenge me, and
+risk their own more precious lives on that account.
+
+If that part of Cain's curse were Mr. Lovelace's, to be a fugitive and
+vagabond in the earth; that is to say, if it meant no more harm to him
+than that he should be obliged to travel, as it seems he intends, (though
+I wish him no ill in his travels;) and I could know it; then should I be
+easy in the hoped-for safety of my friends from his skilful violence--Oh!
+that I could hear he was a thousand miles off!
+
+When I began this letter, I did not think I could have run to such a
+length.  But 'tis to YOU, my dearest friend, and you have a title to the
+spirits you raise and support; for they are no longer mine, and will
+subside the moment I cease writing to you.
+
+But what do you bid me hope for, when you tell me that, if your mother's
+health will permit, you will see me in town?  I hope your mother's health
+will be perfected as you wish; but I dare not promise myself so great a
+favour; so great a blessing, I will call it--and indeed I know not if I
+should be able to bear it now!
+
+Yet one comfort it is in your power to give me; and that is, let me know,
+and very speedily it must be, if you wish to oblige me, that all matters
+are made up between you and Mr. Hickman; to whom, I see, you are
+resolved, with all your bravery of spirit, to owe a multitude of
+obligations for his patience with your flightiness.  Think of this, my
+dear proud friend! and think, likewise, of what I have often told you,
+that PRIDE, in man or woman, is an extreme that hardly ever fails, sooner
+or later, to bring forth its mortifying CONTRARY.
+
+May you, my dear Miss Howe, have no discomforts but what you make to
+yourself! as it will be in your own power to lessen such as these, they
+ought to be your punishment if you do not.  There is no such thing as
+perfect happiness here, since the busy mind will make to itself evils,
+were it to find none.  You will, therefore, pardon this limited wish,
+strange as it may appear, till you consider it: for to wish you no
+infelicity, either within or without you, were to wish you what can never
+happen in this world; and what perhaps ought not to be wished for, if by
+a wish one could give one's friend such an exemption; since we are not to
+live here always.
+
+We must not, in short, expect that our roses will grow without thorns:
+but then they are useful and instructive thorns: which, by pricking the
+fingers of the too-hasty plucker, teach future caution.  And who knows
+not that difficulty gives poignancy to our enjoyments; which are apt to
+lose their relish with us when they are over easily obtained?
+
+I must conclude--
+
+God for ever bless you, and all you love and honour, and reward you here
+and hereafter for your kindness to
+
+Your ever obliged and affectionate
+CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER LVI
+
+MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+[IN ANSWER TO HER'S OF THURSDAY, AUGUST 24.  SEE LETTER XXX. OF THIS
+VOLUME.]
+THURSDAY, AUG. 31.
+
+
+I had written sooner, my dearest young lady, but that I have been
+endeavouring, ever since the receipt of your last letter, to obtain a
+private audience of your mother, in hopes of leave to communicate it to
+her.  But last night I was surprised by an invitation to breakfast at
+Harlowe-place this morning; and the chariot came early to fetch me--an
+honour I did not expect.
+
+When I came, I found there was to be a meeting of all your family with
+Col. Morden, at Harlowe-place; and it was proposed by your mother, and
+consented to, that I should be present.  Your cousin, I understand, had
+with difficulty brought this meeting to bear; for your brother had before
+industriously avoided all conversation with him on the affecting subject;
+urging that it was not necessary to talk to Mr. Morden upon it, who,
+being a remoter relation than themselves, had no business to make himself
+a judge of their conduct to their daughter, their niece, and their
+sister; especially as he had declared himself in her favour; adding, that
+he should hardly have patience to be questioned by Mr. Morden on that
+head.
+
+I was in hopes that your mother would have given me an opportunity of
+talking with her alone before the company met; but she seemed studiously
+to avoid it; I dare say, however, not with her inclination.
+
+I was ordered in just before Mr. Morden came; and was bid to sit down--
+which I did in the window.
+
+The Colonel, when he came, began the discourse, by renewing, as he called
+it, his solicitations in your favour.  He set before them your penitence;
+your ill health; your virtue, though once betrayed, and basely used; he
+then read to them Mr. Lovelace's letter, a most contrite one indeed,* and
+your high-souled answer;** for that was what he justly called it; and he
+treated as it deserved Mr. Brand's officious information, (of which I had
+before heard he had made them ashamed,) by representations founded upon
+inquiries made by Mr. Alston,*** whom he had procured to go up on purpose
+to acquaint himself with your manner of life, and what was meant by the
+visits of that Mr. Belford.
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. LXXIX.
+** Ibid. Letter LXXXIII.
+*** See Vol. VIII. Letter XXIII.
+
+
+He then told them, that he had the day before waited upon Miss Howe, and
+had been shown a letter from you to her,* and permitted to take some
+memorandums from it, in which you appeared, both by handwriting, and the
+contents, to be so very ill, that it seemed doubtful to him, if it were
+possible for you to get over it.  And when he read to them that passage,
+where you ask Miss Howe, 'What can be done for you now, were your friends
+to be ever so favourable? and wish for their sakes, more than for your
+own, that they would still relent;' and then say, 'You are very ill--you
+must drop your pen--and ask excuse for your crooked writing; and take, as
+it were, a last farewell of Miss Howe;--adieu, my dear, adieu,' are your
+words--
+
+
+* Ibid. Letter XXXIII.
+
+
+O my child! my child! said you mamma, weeping, and clasping her hands.
+
+Dear Madam, said your brother, be so good as to think you have more
+children than this ungrateful one.
+
+Yet your sister seemed affected.
+
+Your uncle Harlowe, wiping his eyes, O cousin, said he, if one thought
+the poor girl was really so ill--
+
+She must, said your uncle Antony.  This is written to her private friend.
+God forbid she should be quite lost!
+
+Your uncle Harlowe wished they did not carry their resentments too far.
+
+I begged for God's sake, wringing my hands, and with a bended knee, that
+they would permit me to go up to you; engaging to give them a faithful
+account of the way you were in.  But I was chidden by your brother; and
+this occasioned some angry words between him and Mr. Morden.
+
+I believe, Sir, I believe, Madam, said your sister to her father and
+mother, we need not trouble my cousin to read any more.  It does but
+grieve and disturb you.  My sister Clary seems to be ill: I think, if
+Mrs. Norton were permitted to go up to her, it would be right; wickedly
+as she has acted, if she be truly penitent--
+
+Here she stopt; and every one being silent, I stood up once more, and
+besought them to let me go; and then I offered to read a passage or two
+in your letter to me of the 24th.  But I was taken up again by your
+brother, and this occasioned still higher words between the Colonel and
+him.
+
+Your mother, hoping to gain upon your inflexible brother, and to divert
+the anger of the two gentlemen from each other, proposed that the Colonel
+should proceed in reading the minutes he had taken from your letter.
+
+He accordingly read, 'of your resuming your pen; that you thought you had
+taken your last farewell; and the rest of that very affecting passage, in
+which you are obliged to break off more than once, and afterwards to take
+an airing in a chair.'  Your brother and sister were affected at this;
+and he had recourse to his snuff-box.  And where you comfort Miss Howe,
+and say, 'You shall be happy;' It is more, said he, than she will let any
+body else be.
+
+Your sister called you sweet soul! but with a low voice: then grew
+hard-hearted again; set said [sic], Nobody could help being affected by
+your pathetic grief--but that it was your talent.
+
+The Colonel then went on to the good effect your airing had upon you; to
+your good wishes to Miss Howe and Mr. Hickman; and to your concluding
+sentence, that when the happy life you wished to her comes to be wound
+up, she may be as calm and as easy at quitting it, as you hope in God you
+shall be.  Your mother could not stand this; but retired to a corner of
+the room, and sobbed, and wept.  Your father for a few minutes could not
+speak, though he seemed inclined to say something.
+
+Your uncles were also both affected; but your brother went round to each,
+and again reminded your mother that she had other children.--What was
+there, he said, in what was read, but the result of the talent you had of
+moving the passions?  And he blamed them for choosing to hear read what
+they knew their abused indulgence could not be a proof against.
+
+This set Mr. Morden up again--Fie upon you, Cousin Harlowe, said he, I
+see plainly to whom it is owing that all relationship and ties of blood,
+with regard to this sweet sufferer, are laid aside.  Such rigours as
+these make it difficult for a sliding virtue ever to recover itself.
+
+Your brother pretended the honour of the family; and declared, that no
+child ought to be forgiven who abandoned the most indulgent of parents
+against warning, against the light of knowledge, as you had done.
+
+But, Sir, and Ladies, said I, rising from the seat in the window, and
+humbly turning round to each, if I may be permitted to speak, my dear
+Miss asks only for a blessing.  She does not beg to be received to
+favour; she is very ill, and asks only for a last blessing.
+
+Come, come, good Norton, [I need not tell you who said this,] you are
+up again with your lamentables!--A good woman, as you are, to forgive
+so readily a crime, that has been as disgraceful to your part in her
+education as to her family, is a weakness that would induce one to
+suspect your virtue, if you were to be encountered by a temptation
+properly adapted.
+
+By some such charitable logic, said Mr. Morden, as this, is my cousin
+Arabella captivated, I doubt not.  If virtue, you, Mr. James Harlowe,
+are the most virtuous young man in the world.
+
+I knew how it would be, replied your brother, in a passion, if I met Mr.
+Morden upon this business.  I would have declined it; but you, Sir, to
+his father, would not permit me to do so.
+
+But, Sir, turning to the Colonel, in no other presence----
+
+Then, Cousin James, interrupted the other gentleman, that which is your
+protection, it seems, is mine.  I am not used to bear defiances thus--
+you are my Cousin, Sir, and the son and nephew of persons as dear as near
+to me--There he paused--
+
+Are we, said your father, to be made still more unhappy among ourselves,
+when the villain lives that ought to be the object of every one's
+resentment who has either a value for the family, or for this ungrateful
+girl?
+
+That's the man, said your cousin, whom last Monday, as you know, I went
+purposely to make the object of mine.  But what could I say, when I found
+him so willing to repair his crime?--And I give it as my opinion, and
+have written accordingly to my poor cousin, that it is best for all round
+that his offer should be accepted; and let me tell you--
+
+Tell me nothing, said your father, quite enraged, or that very vile
+fellow!  I have a rivetted hatred to him.  I would rather see the rebel
+die an hundred deaths, were it possible, than that she should give such a
+villain as him a relation to my family.
+
+Well, but there is no room to think, said you mother, that she will give
+us such a relation, my dear.  The poor girl will lessen, I fear, the
+number of our relations not increase it.  If she be so ill as we are told
+she is, let us send Mrs. Norton up to her.--That's the least we can do--
+let us take her, however, out of the hands of that Belford.
+
+Both your uncles supported this motion; the latter part of it especially.
+
+Your brother observed, in his ill-natured way, what a fine piece of
+consistency it was in you to refuse the vile injurer, and the amends he
+offered; yet to throw yourself upon the protection of his fast friend.
+
+Miss Harlowe was apprehensive, she said, that you would leave all you
+could leave to that pert creature, Miss Howe, [so she called her,] if you
+should die.
+
+O do not, do not suppose that, my Bella, said your poor mother.  I cannot
+think of parting with my Clary--with all her faults, she is my child--her
+reasons for her conduct are not heard--it would break my heart to lose
+her.--I think, my dear, to your father, none so fit as I to go up, if you
+will give me leave, and Mrs. Norton shall accompany me.
+
+This was a sweet motion, and your father paused upon it.  Mr. Morden
+offered his service to escort her; your uncles seemed to approve of it;
+but your brother dashed all.  I hope, Sir, said he, to his father--I
+hope, Madam, to his mother--that you will not endeavour to recover a
+faulty daughter by losing an unculpable son.  I do declare, that if ever
+my sister Clary darkens these doors again, I never will.  I will set out,
+Madam, the same hour you go to London, (on such an errand,) to Edinburgh;
+and there I will reside, and try to forget that I have relations in
+England, so near and so dear as you are now all to me.
+
+Good God, said the Colonel, what a declaration is this!  And suppose,
+Sir, and suppose, Madam, [turning to your father and mother,] this should
+be the case, whether it is better, think you, that you should lose for
+ever such a daughter as my cousin Clary, or that your son should go to
+Edinburgh, and reside there upon an estate which will be the better for
+his residence upon it?--
+
+Your brother's passionate behaviour hereupon is hardly to be described.
+He resented it as promising an alienation of the affection of the family
+to him.  And to such an height were resentments carried, every one siding
+with him, that the Colonel, with hands and eyes lifted up, cried out,
+What hearts of flint am I related to!--O, Cousin Harlowe, to your father,
+are you resolved to have but one daughter?--Are you, Madam, to be taught,
+by a son, who has no bowels, to forget you are a mother?
+
+The Colonel turned from them to draw out his handkerchief, and could not
+for a minute speak.  The eyes of every one, but the hard-hearted brother,
+caught tears from his.
+
+But then turning to them, (with the more indignation, as it seemed, as he
+had been obliged to show a humanity, which, however, no brave heart
+should be ashamed of,) I leave ye all, said he, fit company for one
+another.  I will never open my lips to any of you more upon this subject.
+I will instantly make my will, and in me shall the dear creature have the
+father, uncle, brother, she has lost.  I will prevail upon her to take
+the tour of France and Italy with me; nor shall she return till ye know
+the value of such a daughter.
+
+And saying this, he hurried out of the room, went into the court-yard,
+and ordered his horse.
+
+Mr. Antony Harlowe went to him there, just as he was mounting, and said
+he hoped he should find him cooler in the evening, (for he, till then,
+had lodged at his house,) and that then they would converse calmly, and
+every one, mean time, would weigh all matters well.--But the angry
+gentleman said, Cousin Harlowe, I shall endeavour to discharge the
+obligations I owe to your civility since I have been in England; but I
+have been so treated by that hot-headed young man, (who, as far as I
+know, has done more to ruin his sister than Lovelace himself, and this
+with the approbation of you all,) that I will not again enter into your
+doors, or theirs.  My servants shall have orders whither to bring what
+belongs to me from your house.  I will see my dear cousin Clary as soon
+as I can.  And so God bless you altogether!--only this one word to your
+nephew, if you please--That he wants to be taught the difference between
+courage and bluster; and it is happy for him, perhaps, that I am his
+kinsman; though I am sorry he is mine.
+
+I wondered to hear your uncle, on his return to them all, repeat this;
+because of the consequences it may be attended with, though I hope it
+will not have bad ones; yet it was considered as a sort of challenge, and
+so it confirmed every body in your brother's favour; and Miss Harlowe
+forgot not to inveigh against that error which had brought on all these
+evils.
+
+I took the liberty again, but with fear and trembling, to desire leave to
+attend you.
+
+Before any other person could answer, your brother said, I suppose you
+look upon yourself, Mrs. Norton, to be your own mistress.  Pray do you
+want our consents and courtship to go up?--If I may speak my mind, you
+and my sister Clary are the fittest to be together.--Yet I wish you would
+not trouble your head about our family matters, till you are desired to
+do so.
+
+But don't you know, brother, said Miss Harlowe, that the error of any
+branch of a family splits that family into two parties, and makes not
+only every common friend and acquaintance, but even servants judges over
+both?--This is one of the blessed effects of my sister Clary's fault!
+
+There never was a creature so criminal, said your father, looking with
+displeasure at me, who had not some weak heads to pity and side with her.
+
+I wept.  Your mother was so good as to take me by the hand; come, good
+woman, said she, come along with me.  You have too much reason to be
+afflicted with what afflicts us, to want additions to your grief.
+
+But, my dearest young lady, I was more touched for your sake than for my
+own; for I have been low in the world for a great number of years; and,
+of consequence, have been accustomed to snubs and rebuffs from the
+affluent.  But I hope that patience is written as legibly on my forehead,
+as haughtiness on that of any of my obligers.
+
+Your mother led me to her chamber; and there we sat and wept together for
+several minutes, without being able to speak either of us one word to the
+other.  At last she broke silence, asking me, if you were really and
+indeed so ill as it was said you were?
+
+I answered in the affirmative; and would have shown her your last letter;
+but she declined seeing it.
+
+I would fain have procured from her the favour of a line to you, with her
+blessing.  I asked, what was intended by your brother and sister?  Would
+nothing satisfy them but your final reprobation?--I insinuated, how easy
+it would be, did not your duty and humility govern you, to make yourself
+independent as to circumstances; but that nothing but a blessing, a last
+blessing, was requested by you.  And many other things I urged in your
+behalf.  The following brief repetition of what she was pleased to say in
+answer to my pleas, will give you a notion of it all; and of the present
+situation of things.
+
+She said, 'She was very unhappy!--She had lost the little authority she
+once had over her other children, through one child's failing! and all
+influence over Mr. Harlowe and his brothers.  Your father, she said, had
+besought her to leave it to him to take his own methods with you; and,
+(as she valued him,) to take no step in your favour unknown to him and
+your uncles; yet she owned, that they were too much governed by your
+brother.  They would, however, give way in time, she knew, to a
+reconciliation--they designed no other, for they all still loved you.
+
+'Your brother and sister, she owned, were very jealous of your coming
+into favour again;--yet could but Mr. Morden have kept his temper, and
+stood her son's first sallies, who (having always had the family grandeur
+in view) had carried his resentment so high, that he knew not how to
+descend, the conferences, so abruptly broken off just now, would have
+ended more happily; for that she had reason to think that a few
+concessions on your part, with regard to your grandfather's estate, and
+your cousin's engaging for your submission as from proper motives, would
+have softened them all.
+
+'Mr. Brand's account of your intimacy with the friend of the obnoxious
+man, she said, had, for the time very unhappy effects; for before that
+she had gained some ground: but afterwards dared not, nor indeed had
+inclination, to open her lips in your behalf.  Your continued intimacy
+with that Mr. Belford was wholly unaccountable, and as wholly
+inexcusable.
+
+'What made the wished-for reconciliation, she said, more difficult, was,
+first, that you yourself acknowledged yourself dishonoured; (and it was
+too well known, that it was your own fault that you ever were in the
+power of so great a profligate;) of consequence, that their and your
+disgrace could not be greater than it was; yet, that you refuse to
+prosecute the wretch.  Next, that the pardon and blessing hoped for must
+probably be attended with your marriage to the man they hate, and who
+hates them as much: very disagreeable circumstances, she said, I must
+allow, to found a reconciliation upon.
+
+'As to her own part, she must needs say, that if there were any hope that
+Mr. Lovelace would become a reformed man, the letter her cousin Morden
+had read to them from him to you, and the justice (as she hoped it was)
+he did your character, though to his own condemnation, (his family and
+fortunes being unexceptionable,) and all his relations earnest to be
+related to you, were arguments that would weigh with her, could they have
+any with your father and uncles.'
+
+To my plea of your illness, 'she could not but flatter herself, she
+answered, that it was from lowness of spirits, and temporary dejection.
+A young creature, she said, so very considerate as you naturally were,
+and fallen so low, must have enough of that.  Should they lose you, which
+God forbid! the scene would then indeed be sadly changed; for then those
+who now most resented, would be most grieved; all your fine qualities
+would rise to their remembrance, and your unhappy error would be quite
+forgotten.
+
+'She wished you would put yourself into your cousin's protection
+entirely, and have nothing to more to say to Mr. Belford.
+
+And I would recommend it to your most serious consideration, my dear Miss
+Clary, whether now, as your cousin (who is your trustee for your
+grandfather's estate,) is come, you should not give over all thoughts of
+Mr. Lovelace's intimate friend for your executor; more especially, as
+that gentleman's interfering in the concerns of your family, should the
+sad event take place (which my heart aches but to think of) might be
+attended with those consequences which you are so desirous, in other
+cases, to obviate and prevent.  And suppose, my dear young lady, you were
+to write one letter more to each of your uncles, to let them know how ill
+you are?--And to ask their advice, and offer to be governed by it, in
+relation to the disposition of your estate and effects?--Methinks I wish
+you would.
+
+I find they will send you up a large part of what has been received from
+that estate since it was your's; together with your current cash which
+you left behind you: and this by your cousin Morden, for fear you should
+have contracted debts which may make you uneasy.
+
+They seem to expect, that you will wish to live at your grandfather's
+house, in a private manner, if your cousin prevail not upon you to go
+abroad for a year or two.
+
+
+FRIDAY MORNING.
+
+Betty was with me just now.  She tells me, that your cousin Morden is so
+much displeased with them all, that he has refused to lodge any more at
+your uncle Antony's; and has even taken up with inconvenient lodgings,
+till he is provided with others to his mind.  This very much concerns
+them; and they repent their violent treatment of him: and the more, as he
+is resolved, he says, to make you his sole executrix, and heir to all his
+fortune.
+
+What noble fortunes still, my dearest young lady, await you!  I am
+thoroughly convinced, if it please God to preserve your life and your
+health, that every body will soon be reconciled to you, and that you will
+see many happy days.
+
+Your mother wished me not to attend you as yet, because she hopes that I
+may give myself that pleasure soon with every body's good liking, and
+even at their desire.  Your cousin Morden's reconciliation with them,
+which they are very desirous of, I am ready to hope will include theirs
+with you.
+
+But if that should happen which I so much dread, and I not with you, I
+should never forgive myself.  Let me, therefore, my dearest young lady,
+desire you to command my attendance, if you find any danger, and if you
+wish me peace of mind; and no consideration shall withhold me.
+
+I hear that Miss Howe has obtained leave from her mother to see you; and
+intends next week to go to town for that purpose; and (as it is believed)
+to buy clothes for her approaching nuptials.
+
+Mr. Hickman's mother-in-law is lately dead.  Her jointure of 600£. a-year
+is fallen to him; and she has, moreover, as an acknowledgement of his
+good behaviour to her, left him all she was worth, which was very
+considerable, a few legacies excepted to her own relations.
+
+These good men are uniformly good: indeed could not else be good; and
+never fare the worse for being so.  All the world agrees he will make
+that fine young lady an excellent husband: and I am sorry they are not as
+much agreed in her making him an excellent wife.  But I hope a woman of
+her principles would not encourage his address, if, whether she at
+present love him or not, she thought she could not love him; or if she
+preferred any other man to him.
+
+Mr. Pocock undertakes to deliver this; but fears it will be Saturday
+night first, if not Sunday morning.
+
+May the Almighty protect and bless you!--I long to see you--my dearest
+young lady, I long to see you; and to fold you once more to my fond
+heart.  I dare to say happy days are coming.  Be but cheerful.  Give way
+to hope.
+
+Whether for this world, or the other, you must be happy.  Wish to live,
+however, were it only because you are so well fitted in mind to make
+every one happy who has the honour to know you.  What signifies this
+transitory eclipse?  You are as near perfection, by all I have heard,
+as any creature in this world can be: for here is your glory--you are
+brightened and purified, as I may say, by your sufferings!--How I long to
+hear your whole sad, yet instructive story, from your own lips!
+
+For Miss Howe's sake, who, in her new engagements will so much want you;
+for your cousin Morden's sake, for your mother's sake, if I must go on
+farther in your family; and yet I can say, for all their sakes; and for
+my sake, my dearest Miss Clary; let your resumed and accustomed
+magnanimity bear you up.  You have many things to do which I know not the
+person who will do if you leave us.
+
+Join your prayers then to mine, that God will spare you to a world that
+wants you and your example; and, although your days may seem to have been
+numbered, who knows but that, with the good King Hezekiah, you may have
+them prolonged?  Which God grant, if it be his blessed will, to the
+prayers of
+
+Your
+JUDITH NORTON
+
+
+
+LETTER LVII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+MONDAY, SEPT. 4.
+
+
+The lady would not read the letter she had from Mrs. Norton till she had
+received the Communion, for fear it should contain any thing that might
+disturb that happy calm, which she had been endeavouring to obtain for
+it.  And when that solemn office was over, she was so composed, she said,
+that she thought she could receive any news, however affecting, with
+tranquillity.
+
+Nevertheless, in reading it, she was forced to leave off several times
+through weakness and a dimness in her sight, of which she complained; if
+I may say complained; for so easy and soft were her complaints, that they
+could hardly be called such.
+
+She was very much affected at divers parts of this letter.  She wept
+several times, and sighed often.  Mrs. Lovick told me, that these were
+the gentle exclamations she broke out into, as she read:--Her unkind, her
+cruel brother!--How unsisterly!--Poor dear woman! seeming to speak of
+Mrs. Norton.  Her kind cousin!--O these flaming spirits!  And then
+reflecting upon herself more than once--What a deep error is mine!--What
+evils have I been the occasion of!--
+
+When I was admitted to her presence, I have received, said she, a long
+and not very pleasing letter from my dear Mrs. Norton.  It will soon be
+in your hands.  I am advised against appointing you to the office you
+have so kindly accepted of: but you must resent nothing of these things.
+My choice will have an odd appearance to them: but it is now too late to
+alter it, if I would.
+
+I would fain write an answer to it, continued she: but I have no distinct
+sight, Mr. Belford, no steadiness of fingers.--This mistiness, however,
+will perhaps be gone by-and-by.--Then turning to Mrs. Lovick, I don't
+think I am dying yet--not actually dying, Mrs. Lovick--for I have no
+bodily pain--no numbnesses; no signs of immediate death, I think.--And my
+breath, which used of late to be so short, is now tolerable--my head
+clear, my intellects free--I think I cannot be dying yet--I shall have
+agonies, I doubt--life will not give up so blessedly easy, I fear--yet
+how merciful is the Almighty, to give his poor creature such a sweet
+serenity!--'Tis what I have prayed for!--What encouragement, Mrs. Lovick,
+so near one's dissolution, to have it to hope that one's prayers are
+answered.
+
+Mrs. Smith, as well as Mrs. Lovick, was with her.  They were both in
+tears; nor had I, any more than they, power to say a word in answer: yet
+she spoke all this, as well as what follows, with a surprising composure
+of mind and countenance.
+
+But, Mr. Belford, said she, assuming a still sprightlier air and accent,
+let me talk a little to you, while I am thus able to say what I have to
+say.
+
+Mrs. Lovick, don't leave us, [for the women were rising to go,] pray sit
+down; and do you, Mrs. Smith, sit down too.--Dame Shelbourne, take this
+key, and open the upper drawer.  I will move to it.
+
+She did, with trembling knees.  Here, Mr. Belford, is my will.  It is
+witnessed by three persons of Mr. Smith's acquaintance.
+
+I dare to hope, that my cousin Morden will give you assistance, if you
+request it of him.  My cousin Morden continued his affection for me: but
+as I have not seen him, I leave all the trouble upon you, Mr. Belford.
+This deed may want forms; and it does, no doubt: but the less, as I have
+my grandfather's will almost by heart, and have often enough heard that
+canvassed.  I will lay it by itself in this corner; putting it at the
+further end of the drawer.
+
+She then took up a parcel of letters, enclosed in one cover, sealed with
+three seals of black wax: This, said she, I sealed up last night.  The
+cover, Sir, will let you know what is to be done with what it encloses.
+This is the superscription [holding it close to her eyes, and rubbing
+them]; As soon as I am certainly dead, this to be broke open by Mr.
+Belford.--Here, Sir, I put it [placing it by the will].--These folded
+papers are letters, and copies of letters, disposed according to their
+dates.  Miss Howe will do with those as you and she shall think fit.
+If I receive any more, or more come when I cannot receive them, they may
+be put into this drawer, [pulling out and pushing in the looking-glass
+drawer,] to be given to Mr. Belford, be they from whom they will.  You'll
+be so kind as to observe that, Mrs. Lovick, and dame Shelbourne.
+
+Here, Sir, proceeded she, I put the keys of my apparel [putting them into
+the drawer with her papers].  All is in order, and the inventory upon
+them, and an account of what I have disposed of: so that nobody need to
+ask Mrs. Smith any questions.
+
+There will be no immediate need to open or inspect the trunks which
+contain my wearing apparel.  Mrs. Norton will open them, or order
+somebody to do it for her, in your presence, Mrs. Lovick; for so I have
+directed in my will.  They may be sealed up now: I shall never more have
+occasion to open them.
+
+She then, though I expostulated with her to the contrary, caused me to
+seal them up with my seal.
+
+After this, she locked up the drawer where were her papers; first taking
+out her book of meditations, as she called it; saying, she should,
+perhaps, have use for that; and then desired me to take the key of that
+drawer; for she should have no further occasion for that neither.
+
+All this in so composed and cheerful a manner, that we were equally
+surprised and affected with it.
+
+You can witness for me, Mrs. Smith, and so can you, Mrs. Lovick,
+proceeded she, if any one ask after my life and conversation, since you
+have known me, that I have been very orderly; have kept good hours; and
+never have lain out of your house but when I was in prison; and then you
+know I could not help it.
+
+O, Lovelace! that thou hadst heard her or seen her, unknown to herself,
+on this occasion!--Not one of us could speak a word.
+
+I shall leave the world in perfect charity, proceeded she.  And turning
+towards the women, don't be so much concerned for me, my good friends.
+This is all but needful preparation; and I shall be very happy.
+
+Then again rubbing her eyes, which she said were misty, and looked more
+intently round upon each, particularly on me--God bless you all! said
+she; how kindly are you concerned for me!--Who says I am friendless?  Who
+says I am abandoned, and among strangers?--Good Mr. Belford, don't be so
+generously humane!--Indeed [putting her handkerchief to her charming
+eyes,] you will make me less happy, than I am sure you wish me to be.
+
+While we were thus solemnly engaged, a servant came with a letter from
+her cousin Morden:--Then, said she, he is not come himself!
+
+She broke it open; but every line, she said, appeared two to her: so
+that, being unable to read it herself, she desired I would read it to
+her.  I did so; and wished it were more consolatory to her: but she was
+all patient attention: tears, however, often trickling down her cheeks.
+By the date, it was written yesterday; and this is the substance of it.
+
+He tells her, 'That the Thursday before he had procured a general meeting
+of her principal relations, at her father's; though not without
+difficulty, her haughty brother opposing it, and, when met, rendering all
+his endeavours to reconcile them to her ineffectual.  He censures him, as
+the most ungovernable young man he ever knew: some great sickness, he
+says, some heavy misfortune, is wanted to bring him to a knowledge of
+himself, and of what is due from him to others; and he wishes that he
+were not her brother, and his cousin.  Nor doe he spare her father and
+uncles for being so implicitly led by him.'
+
+He tells her, 'That he parted with them all in high displeasure, and
+thought never more to darken any of their doors: that he declared as much
+to her two uncles, who came to him on Saturday, to try to accommodate
+with him; and who found him preparing to go to London to attend her; and
+that, notwithstanding their pressing entreaties, he determined so to do,
+and not to go with them to Harlowe-place, or to either of their own
+houses; and accordingly dismissed them with such an answer.
+
+'But that her noble letter,' as he calls it, of Aug. 31,* 'being brought
+him about an hour after their departure, he thought it might affect them
+as much as it did him; and give them the exalted opinion of her virtue
+which was so well deserved; he therefore turned his horse's head back
+to her uncle Antony's, instead of forwards toward London.
+
+
+* See Letter XLV. of this volume.
+
+
+'That accordingly arriving there, and finding her two uncles together, he
+read to them the affecting letter; which left none of the three a dry
+eye: that the absent, as is usual in such cases, bearing all the load,
+they accused her brother and sister; and besought him to put off his
+journey to town, till he could carry with him the blessings which she had
+formerly in vain solicited for; and (as they hoped) the happy tidings of
+a general reconciliation.
+
+'That not doubting but his visit would be the more welcome to her, if
+these good ends could be obtained, he the more readily complied with
+their desires.  But not being willing to subject himself to the
+possibility of receiving fresh insult from her brother, he had given her
+uncles a copy of her letter, for the family to assemble upon; and desired
+to know, as soon as possible, the result of their deliberations.
+
+'He tells her, that he shall bring her up the accounts relating to the
+produce of her grandfather's estate, and adjust them with her; having
+actually in his hands the arrears due to her from it.
+
+'He highly applauds the noble manner in which she resents your usage of
+her.  It is impossible, he owns, that you can either deserve her, or to
+be forgiven.  But as you do justice to her virtue, and offer to make her
+all the reparation now in your power; and as she is so very earnest with
+him not to resent that usage; and declares, that you could not have been
+the author of her calamities but through a strange concurrence of unhappy
+causes; and as he is not at a loss to know how to place to a proper
+account that strange concurrence; he desires her not to be apprehensive
+of any vindictive measures from him.'
+
+Nevertheless (as may be expected) 'he inveighs against you; as he finds
+that she gave you no advantage over her.  But he forbears to enter
+further into this subject, he says, till he has the honour to see her;
+and the rather, as she seems so much determined against you.  However, he
+cannot but say, that he thinks you a gallant man, and a man of sense; and
+that you have the reputation of being thought a generous man in every
+instance but where the sex is concerned.  In such, he owns, that you have
+taken inexcusable liberties.  And he is sorry to say, that there are very
+few young men of fortune but who allow themselves in the same.  Both
+sexes, he observes, too much love to have each other in their power: yet
+he hardly ever knew man or woman who was very fond of power make a right
+use of it.
+
+'If she be so absolutely determined against marrying you, as she declares
+she is, he hopes, he says, to prevail upon her to take (as soon as her
+health will permit) a little tour abroad with him, as what will probably
+establish it; since traveling is certainly the best physic for all those
+disorders which owe their rise to grief or disappointment.  An absence of
+two or three years will endear her to every one, on her return, and every
+one to her.
+
+'He expresses his impatience to see her.  He will set out, he says, the
+moment he knows the result of her family's determination; which, he
+doubts not, will be favourable.  Nor will he wait long for that.'
+
+When I had read the letter through to the languishing lady, And so, my
+friends, said she, have I heard of a patient who actually died, while
+five or six principal physicians were in a consultation, and not agreed
+upon what name to give his distemper.  The patient was an emperor, the
+emperor Joseph, I think.
+
+I asked, if I should write to her cousin, as he knew not how ill she was,
+to hasten up?
+
+By no means, she said; since, if he were not already set out, she was
+persuaded that she should be so low by the time he could receive my
+letter, and come, that his presence would but discompose and hurry her,
+and afflict him.
+
+I hope, however, she is not so very near her end.  And without saying any
+more to her, when I retired, I wrote to Colonel Morden, that if he
+expects to see his beloved cousin alive, he must lose no time in setting
+out.  I sent this letter by his own servant.
+
+Dr. H. sent away his letter to her father by a particular hand this
+morning.
+
+Mrs. Walton the milliner has also just now acquainted Mrs. Smith, that
+her husband had a letter brought by a special messenger from Parson
+Brand, within this half hour, enclosing the copy of one he had written to
+Mr. John Harlowe, recanting his officious one.
+
+And as all these, and the copy of the lady's letter to Col. Morden, will
+be with them pretty much at a time, the devil's in the family if they are
+not struck with a remorse that shall burst open the double-barred doors
+of their hearts.
+
+Will. engages to reach you with this (late as it will be) before you go
+to rest.  He begs that I will testify for him the hour and the minute I
+shall give it him.  It is just half an hour after ten.
+
+I pretend to be (now by use) the swiftest short-hand writer in England,
+next to yourself.  But were matter to arise every hour to write upon, and
+I had nothing else to do, I cannot write so fast as you expect.  And let
+it be remembered, that your servants cannot bring letters or messages
+before they are written or sent.
+
+
+
+LETTER LVIII
+
+DR. H. TO JAMES HARLOWE, SENIOR, ESQ.
+LONDON, SEPT. 4.
+
+
+SIR,
+
+If I may judge of the hearts of other parents by my own, I cannot doubt
+but you will take it well to be informed that you have yet an opportunity
+to save yourself and family great future regret, by dispatching hither
+some one of it with your last blessing, and your lady's, to the most
+excellent of her sex.
+
+I have some reason to believe, Sir, that she has been represented to you
+in a very different light from the true one.  And this it is that induces
+me to acquaint you, that I think her, on the best grounds, absolutely
+irreproachable in all her conduct which has passed under my eye, or come
+to my ear; and that her very misfortunes are made glorious to her, and
+honourable to all that are related to her, by the use she has made of
+them; and by the patience and resignation with which she supports herself
+in a painful, lingering, and dispiriting decay! and by the greatness of
+mind with which she views her approaching dissolution.  And all this from
+proper motives; from motives in which a dying saint might glory.
+
+She knows not that I write.  I must indeed acknowledge, that I offered to
+do so some days ago, and that very pressingly: nor did she refuse me from
+obstinacy--she seemed not to know what that is--but desired me to forbear
+for two days only, in hopes that her newly-arrived cousin, who, as she
+heard, was soliciting for her, would be able to succeed in her favour.
+
+I hope I shall not be thought an officious man on this occasion; but, if
+I am, I cannot help it, being driven to write, by a kind of parental and
+irresistible impulse.
+
+But, Sir, whatever you think fit to do, or permit to be done, must be
+speedily done; for she cannot, I verily think, live a week: and how long
+of that short space she may enjoy her admirable intellects to take
+comfort in the favours you may think proper to confer upon her cannot be
+said.  I am, Sir,
+
+Your most humble servant,
+
+R.H.
+
+
+
+LETTER LIX
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO WILLIAM MORDEN, ESQ.
+LONDON, SEPT. 4.
+
+
+SIR,
+
+The urgency of the case, and the opportunity by your servant, will
+sufficiently apologize for this trouble from a stranger to your person,
+who, however, is not a stranger to your merit.
+
+I understand you are employing your good offices with the parents of
+Miss Clarissa Harlowe, and other relations, to reconcile them to the most
+meritorious daughter and kinswoman that ever family had to boast of.
+
+Generously as this is intended by you, we here have too much reason to
+think all your solicitudes on this head will be unnecessary: for it is
+the opinion of every one who has the honour of being admitted to her
+presence, that she cannot live over three days: so that, if you wish to
+see her alive, you must lose no time to come up.
+
+She knows not that I write.  I had done it sooner, if I had had the least
+doubt that before now she would not have received from you some news of
+the happy effects of your kind mediation in her behalf.  I am, Sir,
+
+Your most humble servant,
+J. BELFORD.
+
+
+
+LETTER LX
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+[IN ANSWER TO LETTER LVII.]
+UXBRIDGE, TUESDAY MORN, BETWEEN 4 AND 5.
+
+
+And can it be, that this admirable creature will so soon leave this
+cursed world!  For cursed I shall think it, and more cursed myself, when
+she is gone.  O, Jack! thou who canst sit so cool, and, like Addison's
+Angel, direct, and even enjoy, the storm, that tears up my happiness by
+the roots; blame me not for my impatience, however unreasonable!  If thou
+knowest, that already I feel the torments of the damned, in the remorse
+that wrings my heart, on looking back upon my past actions by her, thou
+wouldst not be the devil thou art, to halloo on a worrying conscience,
+which, without my merciless aggravations, is altogether intolerable.
+
+I know not what to write, nor what I would write.  When the company that
+used to delight me is as uneasy to me as my reflections are painful, and
+I can neither help nor divert myself, must not every servant about me
+partake in a perturbation so sincere!
+
+Shall I give thee a faint picture of the horrible uneasiness with which
+my mind struggles?  And faint indeed it must be; for nothing but
+outrageous madness can exceed it; and that only in the apprehension of
+others; since, as to the sufferer, it is certain, that actual distraction
+(take it out of its lucid intervals) must be an infinitely more happy
+state than the state of suspense and anxiety, which often brings it on.
+
+Forbidden to attend the dear creature, yet longing to see her, I would
+give the world to be admitted once more to her beloved presence.  I ride
+towards London three or four times a day, resolving pro and con, twenty
+times in two or three miles; and at last ride back; and, in view of
+Uxbridge, loathing even the kind friend, and hospitable house, turn my
+horse's head again towards the town, and resolve to gratify my humour,
+let her take it as she will; but, at the very entrance of it, after
+infinite canvassings, once more alter my mind, dreading to offend and
+shock her, lest, by that means, I should curtail a life so precious.
+
+Yesterday, in particular, to give you an idea of the strength of that
+impatience, which I cannot avoid suffering to break out upon my servants,
+I had no sooner dispatched Will., than I took horse to meet him on his
+return.
+
+In order to give him time, I loitered about on the road, riding up this
+lane to the one highway, down that to the other, just as my horse
+pointed; all the way cursing my very being; and though so lately looking
+down upon all the world, wishing to change conditions with the poorest
+beggar that cried to me for charity as I rode by him--and throwing him
+money, in hopes to obtain by his prayers the blessing my heart pants
+after.
+
+After I had sauntered about an hour or two, (which seemed three or four
+tedious ones,) fearing I had slipt the fellow, I inquired at every
+turnpike, whether a servant in such a livery had not passed through in
+his return from London, on a full gallop; for woe had been to the dog,
+had I met him on a sluggish trot!  And lest I should miss him at one end
+of Kensingtohn, as he might take either the Acton or Hammersmith road; or
+at the other, as he might come through the Park, or not; how many score
+times did I ride backwards and forwards from the Palace to the Gore,
+making myself the subject of observation to all passengers whether on
+horseback or on foot; who, no doubt, wondered to see a well-dressed and
+well-mounted man, sometimes ambling, sometimes prancing, (as the beast
+had more fire than his master) backwards and forwards in so short a
+compass!
+
+Yet all this time, though longing to espy the fellow, did I dread to meet
+him, lest he should be charged with fatal tidings.
+
+When at distance I saw any man galloping towards me, my
+resemblance-forming fancy immediately made it to be him; and then my
+heart choked me.  But when the person's nearer approach undeceived me,
+how did I curse the varlet's delay, and thee, by turns!  And how ready
+was I to draw my pistol at the stranger, for having the impudence to
+gallop; which none but my messenger, I thought, had either right or
+reason to do!  For all the business of the world, I am ready to imagine,
+should stand still on an occasion so melancholy and so interesting to me.
+Nay, for this week past, I could cut the throat of any man or woman I see
+laugh, while I am in such dejection of mind.
+
+I am now convinced that the wretches who fly from a heavy scene, labour
+under ten times more distress in the intermediate suspense and
+apprehension, than they could have, were they present at it, and to see
+and know the worst: so capable is fancy or imagination, the more
+immediate offspring of the soul, to outgo fact, let the subject be either
+joyous or grievous.
+
+And hence, as I conceive, it is, that all pleasures are greater in the
+expectation, or in the reflection, than in fruition; as all pains, which
+press heavy upon both parts of that unequal union by which frail
+mortality holds its precarious tenure, are ever most acute in the time of
+suffering: for how easy sit upon the reflection the heaviest misfortunes,
+when surmounted!--But most easy, I confess, those in which body has more
+concern than soul.  This, however, is a point of philosophy I have
+neither time nor head just now to weigh: so take it as it falls from a
+madman's pen.
+
+Woe be to either of the wretches who shall bring me the fatal news that
+she is no more!  For it is but too likely that a shriek-owl so hated will
+never hoot or scream again; unless the shock, that will probably disorder
+my whole frame on so sad an occasion, (by unsteadying my hand,) shall
+divert my aim from his head, heart, or bowels, if it turn not against my
+own.
+
+But, surely, she will not, she cannot yet die!  Such a matchless
+excellence,
+
+            ----whose mind
+      Contains a world, and seems for all things fram'd,
+
+could not be lent to be so soon demanded back again!
+
+But may it not be, that thou, Belford, art in a plot with the dear
+creature, (who will not let me attend her to convince myself,) in order
+to work up my soul to the deepest remorse; and that, when she is
+convinced of the sincerity of my penitence, and when my mind is made such
+wax, as to be fit to take what impression she pleases to give it, she
+will then raise me up with the joyful tidings of her returning health and
+acceptance of me!
+
+What would I give to have it so!  And when the happiness of hundreds, as
+well as the peace and reconciliation of several eminent families, depend
+upon her restoration and happiness, why should it not be so?
+
+But let me presume it will.  Let me indulge my former hope, however
+improbable--I will; and enjoy it too.  And let me tell thee how ecstatic
+my delight would be on the unravelling of such a plot as this!
+
+Do, dear Belford, let it be so!--And, O, my dearest, and ever-dear
+Clarissa, keep me no loner in this cruel suspense; in which I suffer a
+thousand times more than ever I made thee suffer.  Nor fear thou that I
+will resent, or recede, on an ecclaircissement so desirable; for I will
+adore thee for ever, and without reproaching thee for the pangs thou hast
+tortured me with, confess thee as much my superior in virtue and honour!
+
+But once more, should the worst happen--say not what that worst is--and I
+am gone from this hated island--gone for ever--and may eternal--but I am
+crazed already--and will therefore conclude myself,
+
+Thine more than my own,
+(and no great compliment neither)
+R.L.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXI
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+TUES. SEPT. 9 IN THE MORN. AT MR. SMITH'S.
+
+
+When I read yours of this morning, I could not help pitying you for the
+account you give of the dreadful anxiety and suspense you labour under.
+I wish from my heart all were to end as you are so willing to hope: but
+it will not be; and your suspense, if the worst part of your torment, as
+you say it is, will soon be over; but, alas! in a way you wish not.
+
+I attended the lady just now.  She is extremely ill: yet is she aiming
+at an answer to her Norton's letter, which she began yesterday in her own
+chamber, and has written a good deal: but in a hand not like her own fine
+one, as Mrs. Lovick tells me, but larger, and the lines crooked.
+
+I have accepted of the offer of a room adjoining to the widow Lovick's,
+till I see how matters go; but unknown to the lady; and I shall go home
+every night, for a few hours.  I would not lose a sentence that I could
+gain from lips so instructive, nor the opportunity of receiving any
+command from her, for an estate.
+
+In this my new apartment I now write, and shall continue to write, as
+occasions offer, that I may be the more circumstantial: but I depend upon
+the return of my letters, or copies of them, on demand, that I may have
+together all that relates to this affecting story; which I shall
+re-peruse with melancholy pleasure to the end of my life.
+
+I think I will send thee Brand's letter to Mr. John Harlowe, recanting
+his base surmises.  It is a matchless piece of pedantry; and may perhaps
+a little divert thy deep chagrin: some time hence at least it may, if not
+now.
+
+What wretched creatures are there in the world!  What strangely mixed
+creatures!--So sensible and so silly at the same time!  What a various,
+what a foolish creature is man!--
+
+
+THREE O'CLOCK.
+
+The lady has just finished her letter, and has entertained Mrs. Lovick,
+Mrs. Smith, and me, with a noble discourse on the vanity and brevity of
+life, to which I cannot do justice in the repetition: and indeed I am so
+grieved for her, that, ill as she is, my intellects are not half so clear
+as her's.
+
+A few things which made the strongest impression upon me, as well from
+the sentiments themselves as from her manner of uttering them, I
+remember.  She introduced them thus:
+
+I am thinking, said she, what a gradual and happy death God Almighty
+(blessed be his name) affords me!  Who would have thought, that, suffering
+what I have suffered, and abandoned as I have been, with such a
+tender education as I have had, I should be so long a dying!--But see now
+by little and little it had come to this.  I was first take off from the
+power of walking; then I took a coach--a coach grew too violent an
+exercise: then I took up a chair--the prison was a large DEATH-STRIDE
+upon me--I should have suffered longer else!--Next, I was unable to go to
+church; then to go up or down stairs; now hardly can move from one room
+to another: and a less room will soon hold me.--My eyes begin to fail me,
+so that at times I cannot see to read distinctly; and now I can hardly
+write, or hold a pen.--Next, I presume, I shall know nobody, nor be able
+to thank any of you; I therefore now once more thank you, Mrs. Lovick,
+and you, Mrs. Smith, and you, Mr. Belford, while I can thank you, for all
+your kindness to me.  And thus by little and little, in such a gradual
+sensible death as I am blessed with, God dies away in us, as I may say,
+all human satisfaction, in order to subdue his poor creatures to himself.
+
+Thou mayest guess how affected we all were at this moving account of her
+progressive weakness.  We heard it with wet eyes; for what with the
+women's example, and what with her moving eloquence, I could no more help
+it than they.  But we were silent nevertheless; and she went on applying
+herself to me.
+
+O Mr. Belford!  This is a poor transitory life in the best enjoyments.
+We flutter about here and there, with all our vanities about us, like
+painted butterflies, for a gay, but a very short season, till at last we
+lay ourselves down in a quiescent state, and turn into vile worms: And
+who knows in what form, or to what condition we shall rise again?
+
+I wish you would permit me, a young creature, just turned of nineteen
+years of age, blooming and healthy as I was a few months ago, now nipt by
+the cold hand of death, to influence you, in these my last hours, to a
+life of regularity and repentance for any past evils you may have been
+guilty of.  For, believe me, Sir, that now, in this last stage, very few
+things will bear the test, or be passed as laudable, if pardonable, at
+our own bar, much less at a more tremendous one, in all we have done, or
+delighted in, even in a life not very offensive neither, as we may think!
+--Ought we not then to study in our full day, before the dark hours
+approach, so to live, as may afford reflections that will soften the
+agony of the last moments when they come, and let in upon the departing
+soul a ray of Divine mercy to illuminate its passage into an awful
+eternity?
+
+She was ready to faint, and choosing to lie down, I withdrew; I need not
+say with a melancholy heart: and when I got to my new-taken apartment, my
+heart was still more affected by the sight of the solemn letter the
+admirable lady had so lately finished.  It was communicated to me by Mrs.
+Lovick; who had it to copy for me; but it was not to be delivered to me
+till after her departure.  However, I trespassed so far, as to prevail
+upon the widow to let me take a copy of it; which I did directly in
+character.
+
+I send it enclosed.  If thou canst read it, and thy heart not bleed at
+thy eyes, thy remorse can hardly be so deep as thou hast inclined me to
+think it is.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXII
+
+MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MRS. NORTON
+[IN ANSWER TO LETTER LVI.*]
+
+
+* Begun on Monday Sept. 4, and by piecemeal finished on Tuesday; but not
+sent till the Thursday following.
+
+
+MY DEAREST MRS. NORTON,
+
+I am afraid I shall not be able to write all that is upon my mind to say
+to you upon the subject of your last.  Yet I will try.
+
+As to my friends, and as to the sad breakfasting, I cannot help being
+afflicted for them.  What, alas! has not my mother, in particular,
+suffered by my rashness!--Yet to allow so much for a son!--so little for
+a daughter!--But all now will soon be over, as to me.  I hope they will
+bury all their resentments in my grave.
+
+As to your advice, in relation to Mr. Belford, let me only say, that the
+unhappy reprobation I have met with, and my short time, must be my
+apology now.--I wish I could have written to my mother and my uncles as
+you advise.  And yet, favours come so slowly from them.
+
+The granting of one request only now remains as a desirable one from
+them.  Which nevertheless, when granted, I shall not be sensible of.  It
+is that they will be pleased to permit my remains to be laid with those
+of my ancestors--placed at the feet of my dear grandfather, as I have
+mentioned in my will.  This, however, as they please.  For, after all,
+this vile body ought not so much to engage my cares.  It is a weakness--
+but let it be called a natural weakness, and I shall be excused;
+especially when a reverential gratitude shall be known to be the
+foundation of it.   You know, my dear woman, how my grandfather loved me.
+And you know how much I honoured him, and that from my very infancy to
+the hour of his death.  How often since have I wished, that he had not
+loved me so well!
+
+I wish not now,  at the writing of this, to see even my cousin Morden.
+O, my blessed woman!  My dear maternal friend!  I am entering upon a
+better tour than to France or Italy either!--or even than to settle at my
+once-beloved Dairy-house!--All these prospects and pleasures, which used
+to be so agreeable to me in health, how poor seem they to me now!--
+
+Indeed, indeed, my dear Mamma Norton, I shall be happy!  I know I shall!
+--I have charming forebodings of happiness already!--Tell all my dear
+friends, for their comfort, that I shall!--Who would not bear the
+punishments I have borne, to have the prospects and assurances I rejoice
+in!--Assurances I might not have had, were my own wishes to have been
+granted to me!
+
+Neither do I want to see even you, my dear Mrs. Norton.  Nevertheless I
+must, in justice to my own gratitude, declare, that there was a time,
+could you have been permitted to come, without incurring displeasure from
+those whose esteem it is necessary for you to cultivate and preserve,
+that your presence and comfortings would have been balm to my wounded
+mind.  But were you now, even by consent, and with reconciliatory
+tidings, to come, it would but add to your grief; and the sight of one I
+so dearly love, so happily fraught with good news, might but draw me back
+to wishes I have had great struggles to get above.  And let me tell you
+for your comfort, that I have not left undone any thing that ought to be
+done, either respecting mind or person; no, not to the minutest
+preparation: so that nothing is left for you to do for me.  Every one has
+her direction as to the last offices.--And my desk, that I now write upon
+--O my dearest Mrs. Norton, all is provided!--All is ready!  And all will
+be as decent as it should be!
+
+And pray let my Miss Howe know, that by the time you will receive this,
+and she your signification of the contents of it, will, in all
+probability, be too late for her to do me the inestimable favour, as I
+should once have thought it, to see me.  God will have no rivals in the
+hearts of those he sanctifies.  By various methods he deadens all other
+sensations, or rather absorbs them all in the love of him.
+
+I shall nevertheless love you, my Mamma Norton, and my Miss Howe, whose
+love to me has passed the love of woman, to my latest hour!--But yet, I
+am now above the quick sense of those pleasures which once delighted me,
+and once more I say, that I do not wish to see objects so dear to me,
+which might bring me back again into sense, and rival my supreme love.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Twice have I been forced to leave off.  I wished, that my last writing
+might be to you, or to Miss Howe, if it might not be to my dearest Ma----
+
+Mamma, I would have wrote--is the word distinct?--My eyes are so misty!--
+If, when I apply to you, I break off in half-words, do you supply them--
+the kindest are your due.--Be sure take the kindest, to fill up chasms
+with, if any chasms there be--
+
+
+***
+
+
+Another breaking off!--But the new day seems to rise upon me with healing
+in its wings.  I have gotten, I think, a recruit of strength: spirits, I
+bless God, I have not of late wanted.
+
+Let my dearest Miss Howe purchase her wedding-garments--and may all
+temporal blessings attend the charming preparation!--Blessings will, I
+make no question, notwithstanding the little cloudiness that Mr. Hickman
+encounters with now and then, which are but prognostications of a future
+golden day to him: for her heart is good, and her head not wrong.--But
+great merit is coy, and that coyness had not always its foundation in
+pride: but if it should seem to be pride, take off the skin-deep
+covering, and, in her, it is noble diffidence, and a love that wants but
+to be assured!
+
+Tell Mr. Hickman I write this, and write it, as I believe, with my last
+pen; and bid him bear a little at first, and forbear; and all the future
+will be crowning gratitude, and rewarding love: for Miss Howe had great
+sense, fine judgment, and exalted generosity; and can such a one be
+ungrateful or easy under those obligations which his assiduity and
+obligingness (when he shall be so happy as to call her his) will lay her
+under to him?
+
+As for me, never bride was so ready as I am.  My wedding garments are
+bought---and though not fine or gawdy to the sight, though not adorned
+with jewels, and set off with gold and silver, (for I have no beholders'
+eyes to wish to glitter in,) yet will they be the easiest, the happiest
+suit, that ever bridal maiden wore--for they are such as carry with them
+a security against all those anxieties, pains, and perturbations, which
+sometimes succeed to the most promising outsettings.
+
+And now, my dear Mrs. Norton, do I wish for no other.
+
+O hasten, good God, if it be thy blessed will, the happy moment that I am
+to be decked out in his all-quieting garb!  And sustain, comfort, bless,
+and protect with the all-shadowing wing of thy mercy, my dear parents, my
+uncles, my brother, my sister, my cousin Morden, my ever-dear and
+ever-kind Miss Howe, my good Mrs. Norton, and every deserving person to
+whom they wish well! is the ardent prayer, first and last, of every
+beginning hour, as the clock tells it me, (hours now are days, nay,
+years,) of
+
+Your now not sorrowing or afflicted, but happy,
+CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXIII
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+WED. MORN. SEPT. 6, HALF AN HOUR AFTER THREE.
+
+
+I am not the savage which you and my worst enemies think me.  My soul is
+too much penetrated by the contents of the letter which you enclosed in
+your last, to say one word more to it, than that my heart has bled over
+it from every vein!--I will fly from the subject--but what other can I
+choose, that will not be as grievous, and lead into the same?
+
+I could quarrel with all the world; with thee, as well as the rest;
+obliging as thou supposest thyself for writing to me hourly.  How darest
+thou, (though unknown to her,) to presume to take an apartment under the
+sane roof with her?--I cannot bear to think that thou shouldest be seen,
+at all hours passing to and repassing from her apartments, while I, who
+have so much reason to call her mine, and one was preferred by her to all
+the world, am forced to keep aloof, and hardly dare to enter the city
+where she is!
+
+If there be any thing in Brand's letter that will divert me, hasten it to
+me.  But nothing now will ever divert me, will ever again give me joy or
+pleasure!  I can neither eat, drink, nor sleep.  I am sick of all the
+world.
+
+Surely it will be better when all is over--when I know the worst the
+Fates can do against me--yet how shall I bear that worst?--O Belford,
+Belford! write it not to me!--But if it must happen, get somebody else to
+write; for I shall curse the pen, the hand, the head, and the heart,
+employed in communicating to me the fatal tidings.  But what is this
+saying, when already I curse the whole world except her--myself most?
+
+In fine, I am a most miserable being.  Life is a burden to me.  I would
+not bear it upon these terms for one week more, let what would be my 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
+her's. 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 saddle-bow, 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 LXIV
+
+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.  Every one 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 your's 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 any body 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 apprehension of seeing
+him.  I cannot bear to see him!
+
+Just as she had done speaking, the minister, who had so often attended
+her, sent up his name; and was admitted.
+
+Being apprehensive that it would be with difficulty that you could
+prevail upon that impetuous spirit of your's not to invade her in her
+dying hours, and of the agonies into which a surprise of this nature
+would throw her, I thought this gentleman's visit afforded a proper
+opportunity to renew the subject; and, (having asked her leave,)
+acquainted him with the topic we had been upon.
+
+The good man urged that some condescensions were usually expected, on
+these solemn occasions, from pious souls like her's, however satisfied
+with themselves, for the sake of showing the world, and for example-sake,
+that all resentments against those who had most injured them were
+subdued; and if she would vouchsafe to a heart so truly penitent, as I
+had represented Mr. Lovelace's to be, that personal pardon, which I had
+been pleading for there would be no room to suppose the least lurking
+resentment remained; and it might have very happy effects upon the
+gentleman.
+
+I have no lurking resentment, Sir, said she--this is not a time for
+resentment: and you will be the readier to believe me, when I can assure
+you, (looking at me,) that even what I have most rejoiced in, the truly
+friendly love that has so long subsisted between my Miss Howe and her
+Clarissa, although to my last gasp it will be the dearest to me of all
+that is dear in this life, has already abated of its fervour; has already
+given place to supremer fervours; and shall the remembrance of Mr.
+Lovelace's personal insults, which I bless God never corrupted that mind
+which her friendship so much delighted, be stronger in these hours with
+me, then the remembrance of a love as pure as the human heart ever
+boasted?  Tell, therefore, the world, if you please, and (if, Mr.
+Belford, you think what I said to you before not strong enough,) tell the
+poor man, that I not only forgive him, but have such earnest wishes for
+the good of his soul, and that from consideration of its immortality,
+that could my penitence avail for more sins than my own, my last tear
+should fall for him by whom I die!
+
+Our eyes and hands expressed to us both what our lips could not utter.
+
+Say not, then, proceeded she, nor let it be said, that my resentments are
+unsubdued!--And yet these eyes, lifted up to Heaven as witness to the
+truth of what I have said, shall never, if I can help it, behold him
+more!--For do you not consider, Sirs, how short my time is; what much
+more important subjects I have to employ it upon; and how unable I should
+be, (so weak as I am,) to contend even with the avowed penitence of a
+person in strong health, governed by passions unabated, and always
+violent?--And now I hope you will never urge me more on this subject?
+
+The minister said, it were pity ever to urge this plea again.
+
+You see, Lovelace, that I did not forget the office of a friend, in
+endeavouring to prevail upon her to give you her last forgiveness
+personally.  And I hope, as she is so near her end, you will not invade
+her in her last hours; since she must be extremely discomposed at such an
+interview; and it might make her leave the world the sooner for it.
+
+This reminds me of an expression which she used on your barbarous hunting
+of her at Smith's, on her return to her lodgings; and that with a
+serenity unexampled, (as Mrs. Lovick told me, considering the occasion,
+and the trouble given her by it, and her indisposition at the time;) he
+will not let me die decently, said the angelic sufferer!--He will not let
+me enter into my Maker's presence with the composure that is required in
+entering into the drawing-room of an earthly prince!
+
+I cannot, however, forbear to wish, that the heavenly creature could have
+prevailed upon herself, in these her last hours, to see you; and that for
+my sake, as well as yours; for although I am determined never to be
+guilty of the crimes, which, till within these few past weeks have
+blackened my former life; and for which, at present, I most heartily hate
+myself; yet should I be less apprehensive of such a relapse, if wrought
+upon by the solemnity which such an interview must have been attended
+with, you had become a reformed man: for no devil do I fear, but one in
+your shape.
+
+
+***
+
+
+It is now eleven o'clock at night.  The lady who retired to rest an hour
+ago, is, as Mrs. Lovick tells me, in a sweet slumber.
+
+I will close here.  I hope I shall find her the better for it in the
+morning.  Yet, alas! how frail is hope--How frail is life; when we are
+apt to build so much on every shadowy relief; although in such a
+desperate case as this, sitting down to reflect, we must know, that it is
+but shadowy!
+
+I will enclose Brand's horrid pedantry.  And for once am aforehand with
+thy ravenous impatience.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXV
+
+MR. BRAND, TO MR. JOHN WALTON
+SAT. NIGHT, SEPT. 2.
+
+
+DEAR MR. WALTON,
+
+I am obliged to you for the very 'handsomely penned', (and 'elegantly
+written,') letter which you have sent me on purpose to do 'justice' to
+the 'character' of the 'younger' Miss Harlowe; and yet I must tell you
+that I had reason, 'before that came,' to 'think,' (and to 'know'
+indeed,) that we were 'all wrong.'  And so I had employed the 'greatest
+part' of this 'week,' in drawing up an 'apologetical letter' to my worthy
+'patron,' Mr. John Harlowe, in order to set all 'matters right' between
+'me and them,' and, ('as far as I could,') between 'them' and 'Miss.'
+So it required little more than 'connection' and 'transcribing,' when I
+received 'your's'; and it will be with Mr. Harlowe aforesaid, 'to-morrow
+morning'; and this, and the copy of that, will be with you on 'Monday
+morning.'
+
+You cannot imagine how sorry I am that 'you' and Mrs. Walton, and Mrs.
+Barker, and 'I myself,' should have taken matters up so lightly,
+(judging, alas-a-day! by appearance and conjecture,) where 'character'
+and 'reputation' are concerned.  Horace says truly,
+
+      'Et semel emissum volat irrevocabile verbum.'
+
+That is, 'Words one spoken cannot be recalled.'  But, Mr. Walton, they
+may be 'contradicted' by 'other' words; and we may confess ourselves
+guilty of a 'mistake,' and express our 'concern' for being 'mistaken';
+and resolve to make our 'mistake' a 'warning' to us for the 'future': and
+this is all that 'can be done,' and what every 'worthy mind will do'; and
+what nobody can be 'readier to do' than 'we four undesigning offenders,'
+(as I see by 'your letter,' on 'your part,' and as you will see by the
+'enclosed copy,' on 'mine';) which, if it be received as I 'think it
+ought,' (and as I 'believe it will,') must give me a 'speedy' opportunity
+to see you when I 'visit the lady'; to whom, (as you will see in  it,) I
+expect to be sent up with the 'olive-branch.'
+
+The matter in which we all 'erred,' must be owned to be 'very nice'; and
+(Mr. Belford's 'character considered') 'appearances' ran very strong
+'against the lady.'  But all that this serveth to show is, 'that in
+doubtful matters, the wisest people may be mistaken'; for so saith the
+'Poet,'
+
+      'Fallitur in dubiis hominum solertia rebus.'
+
+If you have an 'opportunity,' you may (as if 'from yourself,' and
+'unknown to me') show the enclosed to Mr. Belford, who (you tell me)
+'resenteth' the matter very heinously; but not to let him 'see' or 'hear
+read,' those words 'that relate to him,' in the paragraph at the 'bottom
+of the second page,' beginning, ['But yet I do insist upon it,] to the
+'end' of that paragraph; for one would not make one's self 'enemies,' you
+know; and I have 'reason to think,' that this Mr. 'Belford' is as
+'passionate' and 'fierce' a man as Mr. Lovelace.  What pity it is the
+lady could find no 'worthier a protector!'  You may paste those lines
+over with 'blue' or 'black paper,' before he seeth it: and if he
+insisteth upon taking a copy of my letter, (for he, or any body that
+'seeth it,' or 'heareth it read,' will, no doubt, be glad to have by them
+the copy of a letter so full of the 'sentiments' of the 'noblest writers'
+of 'antiquity,' and 'so well adapted,' as I will be bold to say they are,
+to the 'point in hand'; I say, if he insisteth upon taking a copy,) let
+him give you the 'strongest assurances' not to suffer it to be 'printed'
+on 'any account'; and I make the same request to you, that 'you' will
+not; for if any thing be to be made of a 'man's works,' who, but the
+'author,' should have the 'advantage'?  And if the 'Spectators,' the
+'Tatlers,' the 'Examiners,' the 'Guardians,' and other of our polite
+papers, make such a 'strutting' with a 'single verse,' or so by way of
+'motto,' in the 'front' of 'each day's' paper; and if other 'authors'
+pride themselves in 'finding out' and 'embellishing' the 'title-pages'
+of their 'books' with a 'verse' or 'adage' from the 'classical writers';
+what a figure would 'such a letter as the enclosed make,' so full fraught
+with 'admirable precepts,' and 'à-propos quotations,' from the 'best
+authority'?
+
+I have been told that a 'certain noble Lord,' who once sat himself down
+to write a 'pamphlet' in behalf of a 'great minister,' after taking
+'infinite pains' to 'no purpose' to find a 'Latin motto,' gave commission
+to a friend of 'his' to offer to 'any one,' who could help him to a
+'suitable one,' but of one or two lines, a 'hamper of claret.'
+Accordingly, his lordship had a 'motto found him' from 'Juvenal,' which
+he 'unhappily mistaking,' (not knowing 'Juvenal' was a 'poet,') printed
+as a prose 'sentence' in his 'title-page.'
+
+If, then, 'one' or 'two' lines were of so much worth, (A 'hamper of
+claret'!  No 'less'!) of what 'inestimable value' would 'such a letter as
+mine' be deemed?--And who knoweth but that this noble P--r, (who is now*
+living,) if he should happen to see 'this letter' shining with such a
+'glorious string of jewels,' might give the 'writer a scarf,' in order to
+have him 'always at hand,' or be a 'mean' (some way or other) to bring
+him into 'notice'?  And I would be bold to say ('bad' as the 'world' is)
+a man of 'sound learning' wanteth nothing but an 'initiation' to make his
+'fortune.'
+
+
+* i.e. At the time this Letter was written.
+
+
+I hope, my good friend, that the lady will not 'die': I shall be much
+'grieved,' if she doth; and the more because of mine 'unhappy
+misrepresentation': so will 'you' for the 'same cause'; so will her
+'parents' and 'friends.'  They are very 'rich' and 'very worthy'
+gentlefolks.
+
+But let me tell you, 'by-the-by,' that they had carried the matter
+against her 'so far,' that I believe in my heart they were glad to
+'justify themselves' by 'my report'; and would have been 'less pleased,'
+had I made a 'more favourable one.'  And yet in 'their hearts' they
+'dote' upon her.  But now they are all (as I hear) inclined to be
+'friends with her,' and 'forgive her'; her 'brother,' as well as 'the
+rest.'
+
+But their 'cousin,' Col. Morden, 'a very fine gentleman,' had had such
+'high words' with them, and they with him, that they know not how to
+'stoop,' lest it should look like being frighted into an 'accommodation.'
+Hence it is, that 'I' have taken the greater liberty to 'press the
+reconciliation'; and I hope in 'such good season,' that they will all be
+'pleased' with it: for can they have a 'better handle' to save their
+'pride' all round, than by my 'mediation'?  And let me tell you, (inter
+nos, 'betwixt ourselves,') 'very proud they all are.'
+
+By this 'honest means,' (for by 'dishonest ones' I would not be
+'Archbishop of Canterbury,') I hope to please every body; to be
+'forgiven,' in the 'first place,' by 'the lady,' (whom, being a 'lover of
+learning' and 'learned men,' I shall have great 'opportunities' of
+'obliging'; for, when she departed from her father's house, I had but
+just the honour of her 'notice,' and she seemed 'highly pleased' with my
+'conversation';) and, 'next' to be 'thanked' and 'respected' by her
+'parents,' and 'all her family'; as I am (I bless God for it) by my 'dear
+friend' Mr. John Harlowe: who indeed is a man that professeth a 'great
+esteem' for 'men of erudition'; and who (with 'singular delight,' I know)
+will run over with me the 'authorities' I have 'quoted,' and 'wonder' at
+my 'memory,' and the 'happy knack' I have of recommending 'mine own sense
+of things' in the words of the 'greatest sages of antiquity.'
+
+Excuse me, my good friend, for this 'seeming vanity.'  The great Cicero
+(you must have heard, I suppose) had a 'much greater' spice of it, and
+wrote a 'long letter begging' and 'praying' to be 'flattered.'  But if I
+say 'less of myself' than other people (who know me) 'say of me,' I think
+I keep a 'medium' between 'vanity' and 'false modesty'; the latter of
+which oftentimes gives itself the 'lie,' when it is 'declaring of' the
+'compliments,' that 'every body' gives it as its due: an hypocrisy, as
+well as folly, that, (I hope,) I shall for ever scorn to be guilty of.
+
+I have 'another reason' (as I may tell to you, my 'old school-fellow') to
+make me wish for this 'fine lady's recovery' and 'health'; and that is,
+(by some distant intimations,) I have heard from Mr. John Harlowe, that
+it is 'very likely' (because of the 'slur' she hath received) that she
+will choose to 'live privately' and 'penitently'--and will probably (when
+she cometh into her 'estate') keep a 'chaplain' to direct her in her
+'devotions' and 'penitence'--If she doth, who can stand a 'better chance'
+than 'myself'?--And as I find (by 'your' account, as well as by 'every
+body's') that she is innocent as to 'intention,' and is resolved never to
+think of Mr. 'Lovelace more,' who knoweth 'what' (in time) 'may happen'?
+--And yet it must be after Mr. 'Lovelace's death,' (which may possibly
+sooner happen than he 'thinketh' of, by means of his 'detestable
+courses':) for, after all, a man who is of 'public utility,' ought not
+(for the 'finest woman' in the world) to lay his 'throat' at the 'mercy'
+of a man who boggleth at nothing.
+
+I beseech you, let not this hint 'go farther' than to 'yourself,' your
+'spouse,' and Mrs. 'Barker.'  I know I may trust my 'life' in 'your
+hands' and 'theirs.'  There have been (let me tell ye) 'unlikelier'
+things come to pass, and that with 'rich widows,' (some of 'quality'
+truly!) whose choice, in their 'first marriages' hath (perhaps) been
+guided by 'motives of convenience,' or 'mere corporalities,' as I may
+say; but who by their 'second' have had for their view the 'corporal' and
+'spiritual' mingled; which is the most eligible (no doubt) to 'substance'
+composed 'of both,' as 'men' and 'women' are.
+
+Nor think (Sir) that, should such a thing come to pass, 'either' would be
+'disgraced,' since 'the lady' in 'me' would marry a 'gentleman' and a
+'scholar': and as to 'mine own honour,' as the 'slur' would bring her
+'high fortunes' down to an 'equivalence' with my 'mean ones,' (if
+'fortune' only, and not 'merit,' be considered,) so hath not the 'life'
+of 'this lady' been 'so tainted,' (either by 'length of time,' or
+'naughtiness of practice,') as to put her on a 'foot' with the 'cast
+Abigails,' that too, too often, (God knoweth,) are thought good enough
+for a 'young clergyman,' who, perhaps, is drawn in by a 'poor benefice';
+and (if the 'wicked one' be not 'quite worn out') groweth poorer and
+poorer upon it, by an 'increase of family' he knoweth not whether 'is
+most his,' or his 'noble,' ('ignoble,' I should say,) 'patrons.'
+
+But, all this 'apart,' and 'in confidence.'
+
+I know you made at school but a small progress in 'languages.'  So I have
+restrained myself from 'many illustrations' from the 'classics,' that I
+could have filled this letter with, (as I have done the enclosed one:)
+and, being at a 'distance,' I cannot 'explain' them to you, as I 'do to
+my friend,' Mr. John Harlowe; and who, (after all,) is obliged to 'me'
+for pointing out to 'him' many 'beauties' of the 'authors I quote,' which
+otherwise would lie concealed from 'him,' as they must from every 'common
+observer.'--But this (too) 'inter nos'--for he would not take it well to
+'have it known'--'Jays' (you know, old school-fellow, 'jays,' you know)
+'will strut in peacocks' feathers.'
+
+But whither am I running?  I never know where to end, when I get upon
+'learned topics.'  And albeit I cannot compliment 'you' with the 'name of
+a learned man,' yet are you 'a sensible man'; and ('as such') must have
+'pleasure' in 'learned men,' and in 'their writings.'
+
+In this confidence, (Mr. Walton,) with my 'kind respects' to the good
+ladies, (your 'spouse' and 'sister,') and in hopes, for the 'young lady's
+sake,' soon to follow this long, long epistle, in 'person,' I conclude
+myself,
+
+Your loving and faithful friend,
+ELIAS BRAND.
+
+
+You will perhaps, Mr. Walton, wonder at the meaning of the 'lines drawn
+      under many of the words and sentences,' (UNDERSCORING we call it;)
+      and were my letters to be printed, those would be put in a
+      'different character.'  Now, you must know, Sir, that 'we learned
+      men' do this to point out to the readers, who are not 'so learned,'
+      where the 'jet of our arguments lieth,' and the 'emphasis' they are
+      to lay upon 'those words'; whereby they will take in readily our
+      'sense' and 'cogency.'  Some 'pragmatical' people have said, that
+      an author who doth a 'great deal of this,' either calleth his
+      readers 'fools,' or tacitly condemneth 'his own style,' as
+      supposing his meaning would be 'dark' without it, or that all of
+      his 'force' lay in 'words.'  But all of those with whom I have
+      conversed in a learned way, 'think as I think.'  And to give a very
+      'pretty,' though 'familiar illustration,' I have considered a page
+      distinguished by 'different characters,' as a 'verdant field'
+      overspread with 'butter-flowers' and 'daisies,' and other
+      summer-flowers.  These the poets liken to 'enamelling'--have you
+      not read in the poets of 'enamelled meads,' and so forth?
+
+
+
+LETTER LXVI
+
+MR. BRAND, TO JOHN HARLOWE, ESQ.
+SAT. NIGHT, SEPT. 2.
+
+
+WORTHY SIR,
+
+I am under no 'small concern,' that I should (unhappily) be the
+'occasion' (I am sure I 'intended' nothing like it) of 'widening
+differences' by 'light misreport,' when it is the 'duty' of one of 'my
+function' (and no less consisting with my 'inclination') to 'heal' and
+'reconcile.'
+
+I have received two letter to set me 'right': one from a 'particular
+acquaintance,' (whom I set to inquire of Mr. Belford's character); and
+that came on Tuesday last, informing me, that your 'unhappy niece' was
+greatly injured in the account I had had of her; (for I had told 'him'
+of it, and that with very 'great concern,' I am sure, apprehending it to
+be 'true.')  So I 'then' set about writing to you, to 'acknowledge' the
+'error.'  And had gone a good way in it, when the second letter came (a
+very 'handsome one' it is, both in 'style' and 'penmanship') from my
+friend Mr. Walton, (though I am sure it cannot be 'his inditing,')
+expressing his sorrow, and his wife's, and his sister-in-law's likewise,
+for having been the cause of 'misleading me,' in the account I gave of
+the said 'young lady'; whom they 'now' say (upon 'further inquiry') they
+find to be the 'most unblameable,' and 'most prudent,' and (it seems) the
+most 'pious' young lady, that ever (once) committed a 'great error'; as
+(to be sure) 'her's was,' in leaving such 'worthy parents' and
+'relations' for so 'vile a man' as Mr. Lovelace; but what shall we say?--
+Why, the divine Virgil tells us,
+
+      'Improbe amor, quid non mortalia pectora cogis?'
+
+For 'my part,' I was but too much afraid (for we have 'great
+opportunities,' you are sensible, Sir, at the 'University,' of knowing
+'human nature' from 'books,' the 'calm result' of the 'wise man's
+wisdom,' as I may say,
+
+      '(Haurit aquam cribro, qui discere vult sine libro)'
+
+'uninterrupted' by the 'noise' and 'vanities' that will mingle with
+'personal conversation,' which (in the 'turbulent world') is not to be
+enjoyed but over a 'bottle,' where you have an 'hundred foolish things'
+pass to 'one that deserveth to be remembered'; I was but too much afraid
+'I say') that so 'great a slip' might be attended with 'still greater'
+and 'worse': for 'your' Horace, and 'my' Horace, the most charming writer
+that ever lived among the 'Pagans' (for the 'lyric kind of poetry,' I
+mean; for, the be sure, 'Homer' and 'Virgil' would 'otherwise' be 'first'
+named 'in their way') well observeth (and who understood 'human nature'
+better than he?)
+
+      'Nec vera virtus, cum semel excidit,
+      Curat reponi deterioribus.'
+
+And 'Ovid' no less wisely observeth:
+
+      'Et mala sunt vicina bonis.  Errore sub illo
+         Pro vitio virtus crimina sæpe tulit.'
+
+Who, that can draw 'knowledge' from its 'fountain-head,' the works of the
+'sages of antiquity,' (improved by the 'comments' of the 'moderns,') but
+would 'prefer' to all others the 'silent quiet life,' which
+'contemplative men' lead in the 'seats of learning,' were they not called
+out (according to their 'dedication') to the 'service' and 'instruction'
+of the world?
+
+Now, Sir, 'another' favourite poet of mine (and not the 'less a
+favourite' for being a 'Christian') telleth us, that ill is the custom of
+'some,' when in a 'fault,' to throw the blame upon the backs of 'others,'
+
+      '----Hominum quoque mos est,
+      Quæ nos cunque premunt, alieno imponere tergo.'
+                                         MANT.
+
+But I, though (in this case) 'misled,' ('well intendedly,' nevertheless,
+both in the 'misleaders' and 'misled,' and therefore entitled to lay hold
+of that plea, if 'any body' is so entitled,) will not however, be classed
+among such 'extenuators'; but (contrarily) will always keep in mind that
+verse, which 'comforteth in mistake,' as well as 'instructeth'; and which
+I quoted in my last letter;
+
+      'Errare est hominis, sed non persistere----'
+
+And will own, that I was very 'rash' to take up with 'conjectures' and
+'consequences' drawn from 'probabilites,' where (especially) the
+'character' of so 'fine a lady' was concerned.
+
+      'Credere fallacy gravis est dementia famæ.'      MANT.
+
+Notwithstanding, Miss Clarissa Harlowe (I must be bold to say) is the
+'only young lady,' that ever I heard of (or indeed read of) that, 'having
+made such a false step,' so 'soon' (of 'her own accord,' as I may say)
+'recovered' herself, and conquered her 'love of the deceiver'; (a great
+conquest indeed!) and who flieth him, and resolveth to 'die,' rather than
+to be his; which now, to her never-dying 'honour' (I am well assured) is
+the case--and, in 'justice' to her, I am now ready to take to myself
+(with no small vexation) that of Ovid,
+
+      'Heu! patior telis vulnera facta meis.'
+
+But yet I do insist upon it, that all 'that part' of my 'information,'
+which I took upon mine own 'personal inquiry,' which is what relates to
+Mr. 'Belford' and 'his character,' is 'literally true'; for there is not
+any where to be met with a man of a more 'libertine character' as to
+'women,' Mr. 'Lovelace' excepted, than he beareth.
+
+And so, Sir, I must desire of you, that you will not let 'any blame' lie
+upon my 'intention'; since you see how ready I am to 'accuse myself' of
+too lightly giving ear to a 'rash information' (not knowing it to be so,
+however): for I depended the more upon it, as the 'people I had it from'
+are very 'sober,' and live in the 'fear of God': and indeed when I wait
+upon you, you will see by their letter, that they must be 'conscientious'
+good people: wherefore, Sir, let me be entitled, from 'all your good
+family,' to that of my last-named poet,
+
+      'Aspera confesso verba remitte reo.'
+
+And now, Sir, (what is much more becoming of my 'function,') let me,
+instead of appearing with the 'face of an accuser,' and a 'rash
+censurer,' (which in my 'heart' I have not 'deserved' to be thought,)
+assume the character of a 'reconciler'; and propose (by way of 'penance'
+to myself for my 'fault') to be sent up as a 'messenger of peace' to the
+'pious young lady'; for they write me word 'absolutely' (and, I believe
+in my heart, 'truly') that the 'doctors' have 'given her over,' and that
+she 'cannot live.'  Alas! alas! what a sad thing would that be, if the
+'poor bough,' that was only designed (as I 'very well know,' and am
+'fully assured') 'to be bent, should be broken!'
+
+Let it not, dear Sir, seem to the 'world' that there was any thing in
+your 'resentments' (which, while meant for 'reclaiming,' were just and
+fit) that hath the 'appearance' of 'violence,' and 'fierce wrath,' and
+'inexorability'; (as it would look to some, if carried to extremity,
+after 'repentance' and 'contrition,' and 'humiliation,' on the 'fair
+offender's' side:) for all this while (it seemeth) she hath been a 'second
+Magdalen' in her 'penitence,' and yet not so bad as a 'Magdalen' in her
+'faults'; (faulty, nevertheless, as she hath been once, the Lord knoweth!
+
+      'Nam vitiis nemo sine nascitur: optimus ille est,
+      Qui minimis urgentur'----saith Horace).
+
+Now, Sir, if I may be named for this 'blessed' employment, (for, 'Blessed
+is the peace-maker!') I will hasten to London; and (as I know Miss had
+always a 'great regard' to the 'function' I have the honour to be of) I
+have no doubt of making myself acceptable to her, and to bring her, by
+'sound arguments,' and 'good advice,' into a 'liking of life,' which must
+be the 'first step' to her 'recovery': for, when the 'mind' is 'made
+easy,' the 'body' will not 'long suffer'; and the 'love of life' is a
+'natural passion,' that is soon 'revived,' when fortune turneth about,
+and smileth:
+
+      'Vivere quisque diu, quamvis & egenus & ager,
+      Optat.---- ---- ----' OVID.
+
+And the sweet Lucan truly observeth,
+
+      '---- ---- Fatis debentibus annos
+      Mors invita subit.---- ----'
+
+And now, Sir, let me tell you what shall be the 'tenor' of my 'pleadings'
+with her, and 'comfortings' of her, as she is, as I may say, a 'learned
+lady'; and as I can 'explain' to her 'those sentences,' which she cannot
+so readily 'construe herself': and this in order to convince 'you' (did
+you not already 'know' my 'qualifications') how well qualified I 'am' for
+the 'christian office' to which I commend myself.
+
+I will, IN THE FIRST PLACE, put her in mind of the 'common course of
+things' in this 'sublunary world,' in which 'joy' and 'sorrow, sorrow'
+and joy,' succeed one another by turns'; in order to convince her, that
+her griefs have been but according to 'that' common course of things:
+
+      'Gaudia post luctus veniunt, post gaudia luctus.'
+
+SECONDLY, I will remind her of her own notable description of 'sorrow,'
+whence she was once called upon to distinguish wherein 'sorrow, grief,'
+and 'melancholy,' differed from each other; which she did 'impromptu,' by
+their 'effects,' in a truly admirable manner, to the high satisfaction of
+every one: I myself could not, by 'study,' have distinguished 'better,'
+nor more 'concisely'--SORROW, said she, 'wears'; GRIEF 'tears'; but
+MELANCHOLY 'sooths.'
+
+My inference to her shall be, that since a happy reconciliation will take
+place, 'grief' will be banished; 'sorrow' dismissed; and only sweet
+'melancholy' remain to 'sooth' and 'indulge' her contrite 'heart,' and
+show to all the world the penitent sense she hath of her great error.
+
+THIRDLY, That her 'joys,'* when restored to health and favour, will be
+the greater, the deeper her griefs were.
+
+
+* 'Joy,' let me here observe, my dear Sir, by way of note, is not
+absolutely inconsistent with 'melancholy'; a 'soft gentle joy,' not a
+'rapid,' not a 'rampant joy,' however; but such a 'joy,' as shall lift
+her 'temporarily' out of her 'soothing melancholy,' and then 'let her
+down gently' into it again; for 'melancholy,' to be sure, her
+'reflection' will generally make to be her state.
+
+
+      'Gaudia, quæ multo parta labore, placent.'
+
+FOURTHLY, That having 'really' been guilty of a 'great error,' she should
+not take 'impatiently' the 'correction' and 'anger' with which she hath
+been treated.
+
+      'Leniter, ex merito quicquid patiare ferundum est.'
+
+FIFTHLY, That 'virtue' must be established by 'patience'; as saith
+Prudentius:
+
+      'Hæc virtus vidua est, quam non patientia firmat.'
+
+SIXTHLY, That in the words of Horace, she may 'expect better times,' than
+(of late) she had 'reason' to look for.
+
+      'Grata superveniet, quæ non sperabitur, hora.'
+
+SEVENTHLY, That she is really now in 'a way' to be 'happy,' since,
+according to 'Ovid,' she 'can count up all her woe':
+
+      'Felix, qui patitur quæ numerare potest.'
+
+And those comforting lines,
+
+      'Estque serena dies post longos gratior imbres,
+          Et post triste malum gratior ipsa salus.'
+
+EIGHTHLY, That, in the words of Mantuan, her 'parents' and 'uncles' could
+not 'help loving her' all the time they were 'angry at her':
+
+      'Æqua tamen mens est, & amica voluntas,
+      Sit licet in natos austere parentum.'
+
+NINTHLY, That the 'ills she hath met with' may be turned (by the 'good
+use' to be made of them) to her 'everlasting benefit'; for that,
+
+      'Cum furit atque ferit, Deus olim parcere quærit.'
+
+TENTHLY, That she will be able to give a 'fine lesson' (a 'very' fine
+lesson) to all the 'young ladies' of her 'acquaintance,' of the 'vanity'
+of being 'lifted up' in 'prosperity,' and the 'weakness' of being 'cast
+down' in 'adversity'; since no one is so 'high,' as to be above being
+'humbled'; so 'low,' as to 'need to despair': for which purpose the
+advice of 'Ausonius,'
+
+      'Dum fortuna juvat, caveto tolli:
+      Dum fortuna tonat, caveto mergi.'
+
+I shall tell her, that Lucan saith well, when he calleth 'adversity the
+element of patience';
+
+      '----Gaudet patientia duris:'
+
+That
+
+      'Fortunam superat virtus, prudential famam.'
+
+That while weak souls are 'crushed by fortune,' the 'brave mind' maketh
+the fickle deity afraid of it:
+
+      'Fortuna fortes metuit, ignavos permit.'
+
+ELEVENTHLY, That if she take the advice of 'Horace,'
+
+      'Fortiaque adversis opponite pectora rebus,'
+
+it will delight her 'hereafter' (as 'Virgil' saith) to 'revoke her past
+troubles':
+
+      '----Forsan & hæc olim meminisse juvabit.'
+
+And, to the same purpose, 'Juvenal' speaking of the 'prating joy' of
+mariners, after all their 'dangers are over':
+
+      'Gaudent securi narrare pericula nautæ.'
+
+Which suiting the case so well, you'll forgive me, Sir, for 'popping
+down' in 'English metre,' as the 'translative impulse' (pardon a new
+word, and yet we 'scholars' are not fond of 'authenticating new' words)
+came upon me 'uncalled for':
+
+      The seaman, safe on shore, with joy doth tell
+      What cruel dangers him at sea befell.
+
+With 'these,' Sir, and an 'hundred more' wise 'adages,' which I have
+always at my 'fingers' end,' will I (when reduced to 'form' and 'method')
+entertain Miss; and as she is a 'well-read,' and (I might say, but for
+this 'one' great error) a 'wise' young lady, I make no doubt but I shall
+'prevail' upon her, if not by 'mine own arguments,' by those of 'wits'
+and 'capacities' that have a 'congeniality' (as I may say) to 'her own,'
+to take to heart,
+
+      ----Nor of the laws of fate complain,
+      Since, though it has been cloudy, now't clears up again.----
+
+Oh! what 'wisdom' is there in these 'noble classical authors!'  A 'wise
+man' will (upon searching into them,) always find that they speak 'his'
+sense of 'men' and 'things.'  Hence it is, that they so readily occur to
+my 'memory' on every occasion--though this may look like 'vanity,' it is
+too true to be omitted; and I see not why a man may not 'know these
+things of himself,' which 'every body' seeth and 'saith of him'; who,
+nevertheless, perhaps know not 'half so much as he,' in other matters.
+
+I know but of 'one objection,' Sir, that can lie against my going; and
+that will arise from your kind 'care' and 'concern' for the 'safety of my
+person,' in case that 'fierce' and 'terrible man,' the wicked Mr.
+Lovelace, (of whom every one standeth in fear,) should come cross me, as
+he may be resolved to try once more to 'gain a footing in Miss's
+affections': but I will trust in 'Providence' for 'my safety,' while I
+shall be engaged in a 'cause so worthy of my function'; and the 'more'
+trust in it, as he is a 'learned man' as I am told.
+
+Strange too, that so 'vile a rake' (I hope he will never see this!)
+should be a 'learned man'; that is to say, that a 'learned man' may be a
+'sly sinner,' and take opportunities, 'as they come in his way'--which,
+however, I do assure you, 'I never did,'
+
+I repeat, that as he is a 'learned man,' I shall 'vest myself,' as I may
+say, in 'classical armour'; beginning 'meekly' with him (for, Sir,
+'bravery' and 'meekness' are qualities 'very consistent with each other,'
+and in no persons so shiningly 'exert' themselves, as in the 'Christian
+priesthood'; beginning 'meekly' with him, I say) from Ovid,
+
+      'Corpora magnanimo satis est protrasse leoni:'
+
+So that, if I should not be safe behind the 'shield of mine own
+prudence,' I certainly should be behind the 'shields' of the
+'ever-admirable classics': of 'Horace' particularly; who, being a 'rake'
+(and a 'jovial rake' too,) himself, must have great weight with all
+'learned rakes.'
+
+And who knoweth but I may be able to bring even this 'Goliath in
+wickedness,' although in 'person' but a 'little David' myself, (armed
+with the 'slings' and 'stones' of the 'ancient sages,') to a due sense of
+his errors?  And what a victory would that be!
+
+I could here, Sir, pursuing the allegory of David and Goliath, give you
+some of the 'stones' ('hard arguments' may be called 'stones,' since they
+'knock down a pertinacious opponent') which I could 'pelt him with,' were
+he to be wroth with me; and this in order to take from you, Sir, all
+apprehensions for my 'life,' or my 'bones'; but I forbear them till you
+demand them of me, when I have the honour to attend you in person.
+
+And now, (my dear Sir,) what remaineth, but that having shown you (what
+yet, I believe, you did not doubt) how 'well qualified' I am to attend
+the lady with the 'olive-branch,' I beg of you to dispatch me with it
+'out of hand'?  For if she be so 'very ill,' and if she should not live
+to receive the grace, which (to my knowledge) all the 'worthy family'
+design her, how much will that grieve you all!  And then, Sir, of what
+avail will be the 'eulogies' you shall all, peradventure, join to give to
+her memory?  For, as Martial wisely observeth,
+
+      '---- Post cineres gloria sera venit.'
+
+Then, as 'Ausonius' layeth it down with 'equal propriety,' that 'those
+favours which are speedily conferred are the most grateful and obliging'
+----
+
+And to the same purpose Ovid:
+
+      'Gratia ab officio, quod mora tar dat, abest.'
+
+And, Sir, whatever you do, let the 'lady's pardon' be as 'ample,' and as
+'cheerfully given,' as she can 'wish for it': that I may be able to tell
+her, that it hath your 'hands,' your 'countenances,' and your 'whole
+hearts,' with it--for, as the Latin verse hath it, (and I presume to
+think I have not weakened its sense by my humble advice),
+
+      'Dat bene, dat multum, qui dat cum munere vultum.'
+
+And now, Sir, when I survey this long letter,* (albeit I see it
+enamelled, as a  'beautiful meadow' is enamelled by the 'spring' or
+'summer' flowers, very glorious to behold!) I begin to be afraid that I
+may have tired you; and the more likely, as I have written without that
+'method' or 'order,' which I think constituteth the 'beauty' of 'good
+writing': which 'method' or 'order,' nevertheless, may be the 'better
+excused' in a 'familiar epistle,' (as this may be called,) you pardoning,
+Sir, the 'familiarity' of the 'word'; but yet not altogether 'here,' I
+must needs own; because this is 'a letter' and 'not a letter,' as I may
+say; but a kind of 'short' and 'pithy discourse,' touching upon 'various'
+and 'sundry topics,' every one of which might be a 'fit theme' to enlarge
+upon of volumes; if this 'epistolary discourse' (then let me call it)
+should be pleasing to you, (as I am inclined to think it will, because of
+the 'sentiments' and 'aphorisms' of the 'wisest of the antients,' which
+'glitter through it' like so many dazzling 'sunbeams,') I will (at my
+leisure) work it up into a 'methodical discourse'; and perhaps may one
+day print it, with a 'dedication' to my 'honoured patron,' (if, Sir, I
+have 'your' leave,) 'singly' at first, (but not till I have thrown out
+'anonymously,' two or three 'smaller things,' by the success of which I
+shall have made myself of 'some account' in the 'commonwealth of
+letters,') and afterwards in my 'works'--not for the 'vanity' of the
+thing (however) I will say, but for the 'use' it may be of to the
+'public'; for, (as one well observeth,) 'though glory always followeth
+virtue, yet it should be considered only as its shadow.'
+
+
+* And here, by way of note, permit me to say, that no 'sermon' I ever
+composed cost me half the 'pains' that this letter hath done--but I knew
+your great 'appetite' after, as well as 'admiration' of, the 'antient
+wisdom,' which you so justly prefer to the 'modern'--and indeed I join
+with you to think, that the 'modern' is only 'borrowed,' (as the 'moon'
+doth its light from the 'sun,') at least, that we 'excel' them in
+nothing; and that our 'best cogitations' may be found, generally
+speaking, more 'elegantly' dressed and expressed by them.
+
+
+      'Contemnit laudem virtus, licet usque sequatur
+          Gloria virtutem, corpus ut umbra suum.'
+
+A very pretty saying, and worthy of all men's admiration.
+
+And now, ('most worthy Sir,' my very good friend and patron,) referring
+the whole to 'your's,' and to your 'two brothers,' and to 'young Mr.
+Harlowe's' consideration, and to the wise consideration of good 'Madam
+Harlowe,' and her excellent daughter, 'Miss Arabella Harlowe'; I take the
+liberty to subscribe myself, what I 'truly am,' and 'every shall delight
+to be,' in 'all cases,' and at 'all times,'
+
+Your and their most ready and obedient
+as well as faithful servant,
+ELIAS BRAND.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXVII
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+[IN ANSWER TO LETTER LXIV. OF THIS VOLUME.]
+WEDN. MORN. SEPT. 6.
+
+
+And is she somewhat better?--Blessings upon thee without number or
+measure!  Let her still be better and better!  Tell me so at least, if
+she be not so: for thou knowest not what a joy that poor temporary
+reprieve, that she will hold out yet a day or two, gave me.
+
+But who told this hard-hearted and death-pronouncing doctor that she will
+hold it no longer?  By what warrant says he this?  What presumption in
+these parading solemn fellows of a college, which will be my contempt to
+the latest hour of my life, if this brother of it (eminent as he is
+deemed to be) cannot work an ordinary miracle in her favour, or rather in
+mine!
+
+Let me tell thee, Belford, that already he deserves the utmost contempt,
+for suffering this charming clock to run down so low.  What must be his
+art, if it could not wind it up in a quarter of the time he has attended
+her, when, at his first visits, the springs and wheels of life and motion
+were so god, that they seemed only to want common care and oiling!
+
+I am obliged to you for endeavouring to engage her to see me.  'Twas
+acting like a friend.  If she had vouchsafed me that favour, she should
+have seen at her feet the most abject adorer that ever kneeled to
+justly-offended beauty.
+
+What she bid you, and what she forbid you, to tell me, (the latter for
+tender considerations:) that she forgives me; and that, could she have
+made me a good man, she would have made me a happy one!  That she even
+loved me!  At such a moment to own that she once loved me!  Never before
+loved any man!  That she prays for me!  That her last tear should be shed
+for me, could she by it save a soul, doomed, without her, to perdition!--
+O Belford! Belford! I cannot bear it!--What a dog, what a devil have I
+been to a goodness so superlative!--Why does she not inveigh against me?
+--Why does she not execrate me?--O the triumphant subduer!  Ever above
+me!--And now to leave me so infinitely below her!
+
+Marry and repair, at any time; this, wretch that I was, was my plea to
+myself.  To give her a lowering sensibility; to bring her down from among
+the stars which her beamy head was surrounded by, that my wife, so
+greatly above me, might not despise me; this was one of my reptile
+motives, owing to my more reptile envy, and to my consciousness of
+inferiority to her!--Yet she, from step to step, from distress to
+distress, to maintain her superiority; and, like the sun, to break out
+upon me with the greater refulgence for the clouds that I had contrived
+to cast about her!--And now to escape me thus!--No power left me to
+repair her wrongs!--No alleviation to my self-reproach!--No dividing of
+blame with her!--
+
+Tell her, O tell her, Belford, that her prayers and wishes, her
+superlatively-generous prayers and wishes, shall not be vain: that I can,
+and do repent--and long have repented.--Tell her of my frequent deep
+remorses--it was impossible that such remorses should not at last produce
+effectual remorse--yet she must not leave me--she must live, if she would
+wish to have my contrition perfect--For what can despair produce?
+
+
+***
+
+
+I will do every thing you would have me do, in the return of your
+letters.  You have infinitely obliged me by this last, and by pressing
+for an admission for me, though it succeeded not.
+
+Once more, how could I be such a villain to so divine a creature!  Yet
+love her all the time, as never man loved woman!--Curse upon my
+contriving genius!--Curse upon my intriguing head, and upon my seconding
+heart!--To sport with the fame, with the honour, with the life, of such
+an angel of a woman!--O my d----d incredulity!  That, believing her to be
+a woman, I must hope to find her a woman!  On my incredulity, that there
+could be such virtue (virtue for virtue's sake) in the sex, founded I my
+hope of succeeding with her.
+
+But say not, Jack, that she must leave us yet.  If she recover, and if I
+can but re-obtain her favour, then, indeed, will life be life to me.  The
+world never saw such an husband as I will make.  I will have no will but
+her's.  She shall conduct me in all my steps.  She shall open and direct
+my prospects, and turn every motion of my heart as she pleases.
+
+You tell me, in your letter, that at eleven o'clock she had sweet rest;
+and my servant acquaints me, from Mrs. Smith, that she has had a good
+night.  What hopes does this fill me with!  I have given the fellow five
+guineas for his good news, to be divided between him and his
+fellow-servant.
+
+Dear, dear Jack! confirm this to me in thy next--for Heaven's sake, do!--
+Tell the doctor I'll make a present of a thousand guineas if he recover
+her.  Ask if a consultation then be necessary.
+
+Adieu, dear Belford!  Confirm, I beseech thee, the hopes that now, with
+sovereign gladness, have taken possession of a heart, that, next to
+her's, is
+
+Thine.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXVIII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+WEDN. MORN. EIGHT O'CLOCK, (6 SEPT.)
+
+
+Your servant arrived here before I was stirring.  I sent him to Smith's
+to inquire how the lady was; and ordered him to call upon me when he came
+back.  I was pleased to hear she had tolerable rest.  As soon as I had
+dispatched him with the letter I had written over night, I went to attend
+her.
+
+I found her up, and dressed; in a white satin night-gown.  Ever elegant;
+but now more so than I had seen her for a week past: her aspect serenely
+cheerful.
+
+She mentioned the increased dimness of her eyes, and the tremor which had
+invaded her limbs.  If this be dying, said she, there is nothing at all
+shocking in it.  My body hardly sensible of pain, my mind at ease, my
+intellects clear and perfect as ever.  What a good and gracious God have
+I!--For this is what I always prayed for.
+
+I told her it was not so serene with you.
+
+There is not the same reason for it, replied she.  'Tis a choice comfort,
+Mr. Belford, at the winding up of our short story, to be able to say, I
+have rather suffered injuries myself, than offered them to others.  I
+bless God, though I have been unhappy, as the world deems it, and once I
+thought more so than at present I think I ought to have done, since my
+calamities were to work out for me my everlasting happiness; yet have I
+not wilfully made any one creature so.  I have no reason to grieve for
+any thing but for the sorrow I have given my friends.
+
+But pray, Mr. Belford, remember me in the best manner to my cousin
+Morden; and desire him to comfort them, and to tell them, that all would
+have been the same, had they accepted of my true penitence, as I wish and
+as I trust the Almighty has done.
+
+I was called down: it was to Harry, who was just returned from Miss
+Howe's, to whom he carried the lady's letter.  The stupid fellow being
+bid to make haste with it, and return as soon as possible, staid not
+until Miss Howe had it, she being at the distance of five minutes,
+although Mrs. Howe would have had him stay, and sent a man and horse
+purposely with it to her daughter.
+
+
+WEDNESDAY MORNING, TEN O'CLOCK.
+
+The poor lady is just recovered from a fainting fit, which has left her
+at death's door.  Her late tranquillity and freedom from pain seemed but
+a lightening, as Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith call it.
+
+By my faith, Lovelace, I had rather part with all the friends I have in
+the world, than with this lady.  I never knew what a virtuous, a holy
+friendship, as I may call mine to her, was before.  But to be so new to
+it, and to be obliged to forego it so soon, what an affliction!  Yet,
+thank Heaven, I lose her not by my own fault!--But 'twould be barbarous
+not to spare thee now.
+
+She has sent for the divine who visited her before, to pray with her.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXIX
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+KENSINGTON, WEDNESDAY NOON.
+
+
+Like Æsop's traveller, thou blowest hot and cold, life and death, in the
+same breath, with a view, no doubt, to distract me.  How familiarly dost
+thou use the words, dying, dimness, tremor?  Never did any mortal ring so
+many changes on so few bells.  Thy true father, I dare swear, was a
+butcher, or an undertaker, by the delight thou seemest to take in scenes
+of death and horror.  Thy barbarous reflection, that thou losest her not
+by thy own fault, is never to be forgiven.  Thou hast but one way to
+atone for the torments thou hast given me, and that is, by sending me
+word that she is better, and will recover.  Whether it be true or not,
+let me be told so, and I will go abroad rejoicing and believing it, and
+my wishes and imaginations shall make out all the rest.
+
+If she live but one year, that I may acquit myself to myself (no matter
+for the world!) that her death is not owing to me, I will compound for
+the rest.
+
+Will neither vows nor prayers save her?  I never prayed in my life, put
+all the years of it together, as I have done for this fortnight past: and
+I have most sincerely repented of all my baseness to her--And will
+nothing do?
+
+But after all, if she recovers not, this reflection must be my comfort;
+and it is truth; that her departure will be owing rather to wilfulness,
+to downright female wilfulness, than to any other cause.
+
+It is difficult for people, who pursue the dictates of a violent
+resentment, to stop where first they designed to stop.
+
+I have the charity to believe, that even James and Arabella Harlowe, at
+first, intended no more by the confederacy they formed against this their
+angel sister, than to disgrace and keep her down, lest (sordid wretches!)
+their uncles should follow the example their grandfather had set, to
+their detriment.
+
+So this lady, as I suppose, intended only at first to vex and plague me;
+and, finding she could do it to purpose, her desire of revenge insensibly
+became stronger in her than the desire of life; and now she is willing to
+die, as an event which she thinks will cut my heart-strings asunder.  And
+still, the more to be revenged, puts on the Christian, and forgives me.
+
+But I'll have none of her forgiveness!  My own heart tells me I do not
+deserve it; and I cannot bear it!--And what is it but a mere verbal
+forgiveness, as ostentatiously as cruelly given with a view to magnify
+herself, and wound me deeper!  A little, dear, specious--but let me stop
+--lest I blaspheme!
+
+
+***
+
+
+Reading over the above, I am ashamed of my ramblings; but what wouldest
+have me do?--Seest thou not that I am but seeking to run out of myself,
+in hope to lose myself; yet, that I am unable to do either?
+
+If ever thou lovedst but half so fervently as I love--but of that thy
+heavy soul is not capable.
+
+Send me word by the next, I conjure thee, in the names of all her kindred
+saints and angels, that she is living, and likely to live!--If thou
+sendest ill news, thou wilt be answerable for the consequences, whether
+it be fatal to the messenger, or to
+
+Thy
+LOVELACE.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXX
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+WEDNESDAY, ELEVEN O'CLOCK.
+
+
+Dr. H. has just been here.  He tarried with me till the minister had done
+praying by the lady; and then we were both admitted.  Mr. Goddard, who
+came while the doctor and the clergyman were with her, went away with
+them when they went.  They took a solemn and everlasting leave of her, as
+I have no scruple to say; blessing her, and being blessed by her; and
+wishing (when it came to be their lot) for an exit as happy as her's is
+likely to be.
+
+She had again earnestly requested of the doctor his opinion how long it
+was now probable that she could continue; and he told her, that he
+apprehended she would hardly see to-morrow night.  She said, she should
+number the hours with greater pleasure than ever she numbered any in her
+life on the most joyful occasion.
+
+How unlike poor Belton's last hours her's!  See the infinite differences
+in the effects, on the same awful and affecting occasion, between a good
+and a bad conscience!
+
+This moment a man is come from Miss Howe with a letter.  Perhaps I shall
+be able to send you the contents.
+
+
+***
+
+
+She endeavoured several times with earnestness, but in vain, to read the
+letter of her dear friend.  The writing, she said, was too fine for her
+grosser sight, and the lines staggered under her eye.  And indeed she
+trembled so, she could not hold the paper; and at last desired Mrs.
+Lovick to read it to her, the messenger waiting for an answer.
+
+Thou wilt see in Miss Howe's letter, how different the expression of the
+same impatience, and passionate love, is, when dictated by the gentler
+mind of a woman, from that which results from a mind so boisterous and
+knotty as thine.  For Mrs. Lovick will transcribe it, and I shall send
+it--to be read in this place, if thou wilt.
+
+
+MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+TUESDAY, SEPT. 5.
+
+
+O MY DEAREST FRIEND!
+
+What will become of your poor Anna Howe!  I see by your writing, as well
+as read by your own account, (which, were you not very, very ill, you
+would have touched more tenderly,) how it is with you!  Why have I thus
+long delayed to attend you!  Could I think, that the comfortings of a
+faithful friend were as nothing to a gentle mind in distress, that I
+could be prevailed upon to forbear visiting you so much as once in all
+this time!  I, as well as every body else, to desert and abandon my dear
+creature to strangers!  What will become of you, if you be as bad as my
+apprehensions make you!
+
+I will set out this moment, little as the encouragement is that you give
+me to do so!  My mother is willing I should!  Why, O why was she not
+before willing?
+
+Yet she persuades me too, (lest I should be fatally affected were I to
+find my fears too well justified,) to wait the return of this messenger,
+who rides our swiftest horse.--God speed him with good news to me--One
+line from your hand by him!--Send me but one line to bid me attend you!
+I will set out the moment, the very moment I receive it.  I am now
+actually ready to do so!  And if you love me, as I love you, the sight
+of me will revive you to my hopes.--But why, why, when I can think this,
+did I not go up sooner!
+
+Blessed Heaven! deny not to my prayers, my friend, my admonisher, my
+adviser, at a time so critical to myself.
+
+But methinks, your style and sentiments are too well connected, too
+full of life and vigour, to give cause for so much despair as thy
+staggering pen seems to forbode.
+
+I am sorry I was not at home, [I must add thus much, though the servant
+is ready mounted at the door,] when Mr. Belford's servant came with your
+affecting letter.  I was at Miss Lloyd's.  My mamma sent it to me--and I
+came home that instant.  But he was gone: he would not stay, it seems.
+Yet I wanted to ask him an hundred thousand questions.  But why delay I
+thus my messenger?  I have a multitude of things to say to you--to advise
+with you about!--You shall direct me in every thing.  I will obey the
+holding up of your finger.  But, if you leave me--what is the world, or
+any thing in it, to your
+
+ANNA HOWE?
+
+
+The effect this letter had on the lady, who is so near the end which the
+fair writer so much apprehends and deplores, obliged Mrs. Lovick to make
+many breaks in reading it, and many changes of voice.
+
+This is a friend, said the divine lady, (taking the letter in her hand,
+and kissing it,) worth wishing to live for.--O my dear Anna Howe! how
+uninterruptedly sweet and noble has been our friendship!--But we shall
+one day meet, (and this hope must comfort us both,) never to part again!
+Then, divested of the shades of body, shall be all light and all mind!--
+Then how unalloyed, how perfect, will be our friendship!  Our love then
+will have one and the same adorable object, and we shall enjoy it and
+each other to all eternity!
+
+She said, her dear friend was so earnest for a line or two, that she fain
+would write, if she could: and she tried--but to no purpose.  She could
+dictate, however, she believed; and desired Mrs. Lovick would take pen
+and paper.  Which she did, and then she dictated to her.  I would have
+withdrawn; but at her desire staid.
+
+She wandered a good deal at first.  She took notice that she did.  And
+when she got into a little train, not pleasing herself, she apologized to
+Mrs. Lovick for making her begin again and again; and said, that the
+third time should go, let it be as it would.
+
+She dictated the farewell part without hesitation; and when she came to
+blessing and subscription, she took the pen, and dropping on her knees,
+supported by Mrs. Lovick, wrote the conclusion; but Mrs. Lovick was
+forced to guide her hand.
+
+You will find the sense surprisingly entire, her weakness considered.
+
+I made the messenger wait while I transcribed it.  I have endeavoured to
+imitate the subscriptive part; and in the letter made pauses where, to
+the best of my remembrance, she paused.  In nothing that relates to this
+admirable lady can I be too minute.
+
+
+WEDN. NEAR THREE O'CLOCK.
+
+
+MY DEAREST MISS HOWE,
+
+You must not be surprised--nor grieved--that Mrs. Lovick writes for me.
+Although I cannot obey you, and write with my pen, yet my heart writes
+by her's--accept it so--it is the nearest to obedience I can!
+
+And now, what ought I to say?  What can I say?--But why should not you
+know the truth? since soon you must--very soon.
+
+Know then, and let your tears be those, if of pity, of joyful pity! for
+I permit you to shed a few, to embalm, as I may say, a fallen blossom--
+know then, that the good doctor, and the pious clergyman, and the worthy
+apothecary, have just now--with joint benedictions--taken their last
+leave of me; and the former bids me hope--do, my dearest, let me say hope
+--hope for my enlargement before to-morrow sun-set.
+
+Adieu, therefore, my dearest friend!--Be this your consolation, as it is
+mine, that in God's good time we shall meet in a blessed eternity, never
+more to part!--Once more, then, adieu!--and be happy!--Which a generous
+nature cannot be, unless--to its power--it makes others so too.
+
+God for ever bless you!--prays, dropt on my bended knees, although
+supported upon them,
+
+Your obliged, grateful, affectionate,
+CL. HARLOWE.
+
+
+***
+
+
+When I had transcribed and sealed this letter, by her direction, I gave
+it to the messenger myself, who told me that Miss Howe waited for nothing
+but his return to set out for London.
+
+Thy servant is just come; so I will close here.  Thou art a merciless
+master.  These two fellows are battered to death by thee, to use a female
+word; and all female words, though we are not sure of their derivation,
+have very significant meanings.  I believe, in their hearts, they wish
+the angel in the Heaven that is ready to receive her, and thee at the
+proper place, that there might be an end of their flurries--another word
+of the same gender.
+
+What a letter hast thou sent me!--Poor Lovelace!--is all the answer I
+will return.
+
+
+FIVE O'CLOCK.] Col. Morden is this moment arrived.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXXI
+
+MR. BELFORD
+[IN CONTINUATION.]
+EIGHT IN THE EVENING.
+
+
+I had but just time, in my former, to tell you that Col. Morden was
+arrived.  He was on horseback, attended by two servants, and alighted
+at the door just as the clock struck five.  Mrs. Smith was then below in
+her back-shop, weeping, her husband with her, who was as much affected as
+she; Mrs. Lovick having left them a little before, in tears likewise; for
+they had been bemoaning one another; joining in opinion that the
+admirable lady would not live the night over.  She had told them, it was
+her opinion too, from some numbnesses, which she called the forerunners
+of death, and from an increased inclination to doze.
+
+The Colonel, as Mrs. Smith told me afterwards, asked with great
+impatience, the moment he alighted, how Miss Harlowe was?  She answered--
+Alive!--but, she feared, drawing on apace.--Good God! said he, with his
+hands and eyes lifted up, can I see her?  My name is Morden.  I have the
+honour to be nearly related to her.--Step up, pray, and let her know,
+(she is sensible, I hope,) that I am here--Who is with her?
+
+Nobody but her nurse, and Mrs. Lovick, a widow gentlewoman, who is as
+careful of her as if she were her mother.
+
+And more careful too, interrupted he, or she is not careful at all----
+
+Except a gentleman be with her, one Mr. Belford, continued Mrs. Smith,
+who has been the best friend she has had.
+
+If Mr. Belford be with her, surely I may--but pray step up, and let Mr.
+Belford know that I shall take it for a favour to speak with him first.
+
+Mrs. Smith came up to me in my new apartment.  I had but just dispatched
+your servant, and was asking her nurse if I might be again admitted?  Who
+answered, that she was dozing in the elbow chair, having refused to lie
+down, saying, she should soon, she hoped, lie down for good.
+
+The Colonel, who is really a fine gentleman, received me with great
+politeness.  After the first compliments--My kinswoman, Sir, said he, is
+more obliged to you than to any of her own family.  For my part, I have
+been endeavouring to move so many rocks in her favour; and, little
+thinking the dear creature so very bad, have neglected to attend her, as
+I ought to have done the moment I arrived; and would, had I known how ill
+she was, and what a task I should have had with the family.  But, Sir,
+your friend has been excessively to blame; and you being so intimately
+his friend, has made her fare the worse for your civilities to her.  But
+are there no hopes of her recovery?
+
+The doctors have left her, with the melancholy declaration that there are
+none.
+
+Has she had good attendance, Sir?  A skilful physician?  I hear these
+good folks have been very civil and obliging to her.
+
+Who could be otherwise? said Mrs. Smith, weeping.--She is the sweetest
+lady in the world!
+
+The character, said the Colonel, lifting up his eyes and one hand, that
+she has from every living creature!--Good God!  How could your accursed
+friend--
+
+And how could her cruel parents? interrupted I.--We may as easily account
+for him, as for them.
+
+Too true! returned me, the vileness of the profligates of our sex
+considered, whenever they can get any of the other into their power.
+
+I satisfied him about the care that had been taken of her, and told him
+of the friendly and even paternal attendance she had had from Dr. H. and
+Mr. Goddard.
+
+He was impatient to attend her, having not seen her, as he said, since
+she was twelve years old; and that then she gave promises of being one of
+the finest women in England.
+
+She was so, replied I, a very few months ago: and, though emaciated, she
+will appear to you to have confirmed those promises; for her features are
+so regular and exact, her proportions so fine, and her manner so
+inimitably graceful, that, were she only skin and bone, she must be a
+beauty.
+
+Mrs. Smith, at his request, stept up, and brought us down word that Mrs.
+Lovick and her nurse were with her; and that she was in so sound a sleep,
+leaning upon the former in her elbow-chair, that she had neither heard
+her enter the room, nor go out.  The Colonel begged, if not improper,
+that he might see her, though sleeping.  He said, that his impatience
+would not let him stay till he awaked.  Yet he would not have her
+disturbed; and should be glad to contemplate her sweet features, when she
+saw not him; and asked, if she thought he could not go in, and come out,
+without disturbing her?
+
+She believed he might, she answered; for her chair's back was towards the
+door.
+
+He said he would take care to withdraw, if she awoke, that his sudden
+appearance might not surprise her.
+
+Mrs. Smith, stepping up before us, bid Mrs. Lovick and nurse not stir,
+when we entered; and then we went up softly together.
+
+We beheld the lady in a charming attitude.  Dressed, as I told you
+before, in her virgin white.  She was sitting in her elbow-chair, Mrs.
+Lovick close by her, in another chair, with her left arm round her neck,
+supporting it, as it were; for, it seems, the lady had bid her do so,
+saying, she had been a mother to her, and she would delight herself in
+thinking she was in her mamma's arms; for she found herself drowsy;
+perhaps, she said, for the last time she should be so.
+
+One faded cheek rested upon the good woman's bosom, the kindly warmth of
+which had overspread it with a faint, but charming flush; the other paler
+and hollow, as if already iced over by death.  Her hands white as the
+lily, with her meandering veins more transparently blue than ever I had
+seen even her's, (veins so soon, alas! to be choked up by the congealment
+of that purple stream, which already so languidly creeps, rather than
+flows, through them!) her hands hanging lifelessly, one before her, the
+other grasped by the right-hand of the kind widow, whose tears bedewed
+the sweet face which her motherly boson supported, though unfelt by the
+fair sleeper; and either insensibly to the good woman, or what she would
+not disturb her to wipe off, or to change her posture: her aspect was
+sweetly calm and serene: and though she started now and then, yet her
+sleep seemed easy; her breath, indeed short and quick; but tolerably
+free, and not like that of a dying person.
+
+In this heart-moving attitude she appeared to us when we approached her,
+and came to have her lovely face before us.
+
+The Colonel, sighing often, gazed upon her with his arms folded, and with
+the most profound and affectionate attention; till at last, on her
+starting, and fetching her breath with greater difficulty than before, he
+retired to a screen, that was drawn before her house, as she calls it,
+which, as I have heretofore observed, stands under one of the windows.
+This screen was placed there at the time she found herself obliged to
+take to her chamber; and in the depth of our concern, and the fulness of
+other discourse at our first interview, I had forgotten to apprize the
+Colonel of what he would probably see.
+
+Retiring thither, he drew out his handkerchief, and, overwhelmed with
+grief, seemed unable to speak; but, on casting his eye behind the screen,
+he soon broke silence; for, struck with the shape of the coffin, he
+lifted up a purplish-coloured cloth that was spread over it, and,
+starting back, Good God! said he, what's here?
+
+Mrs. Smith standing next him, Why, said he, with great emotion, is my
+cousin suffered to indulge her sad reflections with such an object before
+her?
+
+Alas! Sir, replied the good woman, who should controul her?  We are all
+strangers about her, in a manner: and yet we have expostulated with her
+upon this sad occasion.
+
+I ought, said I, (stepping softly up to him, the lady again falling into
+a doze,) to have apprized you of this.  I was here when it was brought
+in, and never was so shocked in my life.  But she had none of her friends
+about her, and no reason to hope for any of them to come near her; and,
+assured she should not recover, she was resolved to leave as little as
+possible, especially as to what related to her person, to her executor.
+But it is not a shocking object to her, though it be to every body else.
+
+Curse upon the hard-heartedness of those, said he, who occasioned her to
+make so sad a provision for herself!--What must her reflections have been
+all the time she was thinking of it, and giving orders about it?  And
+what must they be every time she turns her head towards it?  These
+uncommon genius's--but indeed she should have been controuled in it, had
+I been here.
+
+The lady fetched a profound sigh, and, starting, it broke off our talk;
+and the Colonel then withdrew farther behind the screen, that his sudden
+appearance might not surprise her.
+
+Where am I?--said she.  How drowsy I am!  How long have I dozed?  Don't
+go, Sir, (for I was retiring,) I am very stupid, and shall be more and
+more so, I suppose.
+
+She then offered to raise herself; but being ready to faint through
+weakness, was forced to sit down again, reclining her head on her chair
+back; and, after a few moments, I believe now, my good friends, said she,
+all your kind trouble will soon be over.  I have slept, but am not
+refreshed, and my fingers' ends seem numbed--have no feeling! (holding
+them up,)--'tis time to send the letter to my good Norton.
+
+Shall I, Madam, send my servant post with it?
+
+O no, Sir, I thank you.  It will reach the dear woman too soon, (as she
+will think,) by the post.
+
+I told her this was not post-day.
+
+Is it Wednesday still, said she; bless me!  I know not how the time goes
+--but very tediously, 'tis plain.  And now I think I must soon take to my
+bed.  All will be most conveniently, and with least trouble, over there--
+will it not, Mrs. Lovick?--I think, Sir, turning to me, I have left
+nothing to these last incapacitating hours.  Nothing either to say, or to
+do--I bless God, I have not.  If I had, how unhappy should I be!  Can
+you, Sir, remind me of any thing necessary to be done or said to make
+your office easy?
+
+If, Madam, your cousin Morden should come, you would be glad to see him,
+I presume?
+
+I am too weak to wish to see my cousin now.  It would but discompose me,
+and him too.  Yet, if he come while I can see him, I will see him, were
+it but to thank him for former favours, and for his present kind
+intentions to me.  Has any body been here from him?
+
+He has called, and will be here, Madam, in half an hour; but he feared to
+surprise you.
+
+Nothing can surprise me now, except my mamma were to favour me with her
+last blessing in person.  That would be a welcome surprise to me, even
+yet.  But did my cousin come purposely to town to see me?
+
+Yes, Madam, I took the liberty to let him know, by a line last Monday,
+how ill you were.
+
+You are very kind, Sir.  I am, and have been greatly obliged to you.  But
+I think I shall be pained to see him now, because he will be concerned to
+see me.  And yet, as I am not so ill as I shall presently be--the sooner
+he comes the better.  But if he come, what shall I do about the screen?
+He will chide me, very probably, and I cannot bear chiding now.  Perhaps,
+[leaning upon Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith,] I can walk into the next
+apartment to receive him.
+
+She motioned to rise, but was ready to faint again, and forced to sit
+still.
+
+The Colonel was in a perfect agitation behind the screen to hear this
+discourse; and twice, unseen by his cousin, was coming from it towards
+her; but retreated for fear of surprising her too much.
+
+I stept to him, and favoured his retreat; she only saying, Are you going,
+Mr. Belford?  Are you sent for down?  Is my cousin come?  For she heard
+somebody step softly across the room, and thought it to be me; her
+hearing being more perfect than her sight.
+
+I told her, I believed he was; and she said, We must make the best of it,
+Mrs. Lovick, and Mrs. Smith.  I shall otherwise most grievously shock my
+poor cousin: for he loved me dearly once.--Pray give me a few of the
+doctor's last drops in water, to keep up my spirits for this one
+interview; and that is all, I believe, that can concern me now.
+
+The Colonel, (who heard all this,) sent in his name; and I, pretending to
+go down to him, introduced the afflicted gentleman; she having first
+ordered the screen to be put as close to the window as possible, that he
+might not see what was behind it; while he, having heard what she had
+said about it, was determined to take no notice of it.
+
+He folded the angel in his arms as she sat, dropping down on one knee;
+for, supporting herself upon the two elbows of the chair, she attempted
+to rise, but could not.  Excuse, my dear Cousin, said she, excuse me,
+that I cannot stand up--I did not expect this favour now.  But I am glad
+of this opportunity to thank you for all your generous goodness to me.
+
+I never, my best-beloved and dearest Cousin, said he, (with eyes running
+over,) shall forgive myself, that I did not attend you sooner.  Little
+did I think you were so ill; nor do any of your friends believe it.  If
+they did--
+
+If they did, repeated she, interrupting him, I should have had more
+compassion from them.  I am sure I should--But pray, Sir, how did you
+leave them?  Are you reconciled to them?  If you are not, I beg, if you
+love your poor Clarissa, that you will; for every widened difference
+augments but my fault; since that is the foundation of all.
+
+I had been expecting to hear from them in your favour, my dear Cousin,
+said he, for some hours, when this gentleman's letter arrived, which
+hastened me up; but I have the account of your grandfather's estate to
+make up with you, and have bills and drafts upon their banker for the
+sums due to you; which they desire you may receive, lest you should have
+occasion for money.  And this is such an earnest of an approaching
+reconciliation, that I dare to answer for all the rest being according to
+your wishes, if----
+
+Ah! Sir, interrupted she, with frequent breaks and pauses--I wish--I wish
+this does not rather show that, were I to live, they would have nothing
+more to say to me.  I never had any pride in being independent of them;
+all my actions, when I might have made myself more independent, show this
+--But what avail these reflections now?--I only beg, Sir, that you, and
+this gentleman--to whom I am exceedingly obliged--will adjust those
+matters--according to the will I have written.  Mr. Belford will excuse
+me; but it was in truth more necessity than choice that made me think of
+giving him the trouble he so kindly accepts.  Had I the happiness to see
+you, my Cousin, sooner--or to know that you still honoured me with your
+regard--I should not have had the assurance to ask this favour of him.--
+But, though the friend of Mr. Lovelace, he is a man of honour, and he
+will make peace rather than break it.  And, my dear Cousin, let me beg
+of you while I have nearer relations than my Cousin Morden, dear as you
+are, and always were to me, you have no title to avenge my wrongs upon
+him who has been the occasion of them.  But I wrote to you my mind on
+this subject, and my reasons--and I hope I need not further urge them.
+
+I must do Mr. Lovelace so much justice, answered he, wiping his eyes, as
+to witness how sincerely he repents him of his ungrateful baseness to
+you, and how ready he is to make you all the amends in his power.  He
+owns his wickedness, and your merit.  If he did not, I could not pass it
+over, though you have nearer relations; for, my dear Cousin, did not your
+grandfather leave me in trust for you?  And should I think myself
+concerned for your fortune, and not for your honour?  But since he is so
+desirous to do you justice, I have the less to say; and you may make
+yourself entirely easy on that account.
+
+I thank you, thank you, Sir, said she;--all is now as I wished.--But I am
+very faint, very weak.  I am sorry I cannot hold up; that I cannot better
+deserve the honour of this visit--but it will not be--and saying this, she
+sunk down in her chair, and was silent.
+
+Hereupon we both withdrew, leaving word that we would be at the Bedford
+Head, if any thing extraordinary happened.
+
+We bespoke a little repast, having neither of us dined; and, while it was
+getting ready, you may guess at the subject of our discourse.  Both
+joined in lamentation for the lady's desperate state; admired her
+manifold excellencies; severely condemned you and her friends.  Yet, to
+bring him into better opinion of you, I read to him some passages from
+your last letters, which showed your concern for the wrongs you had done
+her, and your deep remorse: and he said it was a dreadful thing to labour
+under the sense of a guilt so irredeemable.
+
+We procured Mr. Goddard, (Dr. H. not being at home,) once more to visit
+her, and to call upon us in his return.  He was so good as to do so; but
+he tarried with her not five minutes; and told us, that she was drawing
+on apace; that he feared she would not live till morning; and that she
+wished to see Colonel Morden directly.
+
+The Colonel made excuses where none were needed; and though our little
+refection was just brought in, he went away immediately.
+
+I could not touch a morsel; and took pen and ink to amuse myself, and
+oblige you; knowing how impatient you would be for a few lines: for, from
+what I have recited, you see it was impossible I could withdraw to write
+when your servant came at half an hour after five, or have an opportunity
+for it till now; and this is accidental; and yet your poor fellow was
+afraid to go away with the verbal message I sent; importing, as no doubt
+he told you, that the Colonel was with us, the lady excessively ill, and
+that I could not stir to write a line.
+
+
+TEN O'CLOCK.
+
+The Colonel sent to me afterwards, to tell me that the lady having been
+in convulsions, he was so much disordered that he could not possibly
+attend me.
+
+I have sent every half hour to know how she does--and just now I have the
+pleasure to hear that her convulsions have left her; and that she is gone
+to rest in a much quieter way than could be expected.
+
+Her poor cousin is very much indisposed; yet will not stir out of the
+house while she is in such a way; but intends to lie down on a couch,
+having refused any other accommodation.
+
+END OF VOL. 8.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young
+Lady, Volume 8, by Samuel Richardson
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12180 ***
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+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Clarissa Harlowe, Volue 8 (of 9) by Samuel Richardson
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+    
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
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+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
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+  <body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12180 ***</div>
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      CLARISSA HARLOWE
+    </h1>
+    <h3>
+      or the
+    </h3>
+    <h2>
+      HISTORY OF A YOUNG LADY
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Samuel Richardson
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      Volume VIII. (of Nine Volumes)
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> DETAILED CONTENTS </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> THE HISTORY OF CLARISSA HARLOWE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> LETTER I </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> LETTER II </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> LETTER III </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> LETTER IV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> LETTER V </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> LETTER VI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> LETTER VII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> LETTER VIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> LETTER IX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> LETTER X </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> LETTER XI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> LETTER XII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> LETTER XIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> LETTER XIV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> LETTER XV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> LETTER XVI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> LETTER XVII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> LETTER XVIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> LETTER XIX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> LETTER XX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> LETTER XXI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> LETTER XXII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> LETTER XXIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> LETTER XXIV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> LETTER XXV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> LETTER XXVI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> LETTER XXVII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> LETTER XXVIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0032"> LETTER XXIX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0033"> LETTER XXX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0034"> LETTER XXXI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0035"> LETTER XXXII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0036"> LETTER XXXIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0037"> LETTER XXXIV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0038"> LETTER XXXV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0039"> LETTER XXXVI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0040"> LETTER XXXVII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0041"> LETTER XXXVIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0042"> LETTER XXXIX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0043"> LETTER XL </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0044"> LETTER XLI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0045"> LETTER XLII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0046"> LETTER XLIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0047"> LETTER XLIV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0048"> LETTER XLV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0049"> LETTER XLVI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0050"> LETTER XLVII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0051"> LETTER XLVIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0052"> LETTER XLIX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0053"> LETTER L </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0054"> LETTER LI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0055"> LETTER LII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0056"> LETTER LIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0057"> LETTER LIV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0058"> LETTER LV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0059"> LETTER LVI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0060"> LETTER LVII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0061"> LETTER LVIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0062"> LETTER LIX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0063"> LETTER LX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0064"> LETTER LXI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0065"> LETTER LXII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0066"> LETTER LXIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0067"> LETTER LXIV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0068"> LETTER LXV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0069"> LETTER LXVI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0070"> LETTER LXVII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0071"> LETTER LXVIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0072"> LETTER LXIX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0073"> LETTER LXX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0074"> LETTER LXXI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p>
+        <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+        <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>DETAILED CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br /> <br />
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER I. Miss Howe, from the Isle of Wight.&mdash; In answer to her's,
+        No. LXI. of Vol. VII. Approves not of her choice of Belford for her
+        executor; yet thinks she cannot appoint for that office any of her own
+        family. Hopes she will live many years.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER II. Clarissa to Miss Howe.&mdash; Sends her a large packet of
+        letters; but (for her relations' sake) not all she has received. Must
+        now abide by the choice of Mr. Belford for executor; but farther refers
+        to the papers she sends her, for her justification on this head.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER III. Antony Harlowe to Clarissa.&mdash; A letter more taunting
+        and reproachful than that of her other uncle. To what owing.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER IV. Clarissa. In answer.&mdash; Wishes that the circumstances of
+        her case had been inquired into. Concludes with a solemn and pathetic
+        prayer for the happiness of the whole family.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER V. Mrs. Norton to Clarissa.&mdash; Her friends, through Brand's
+        reports, as she imagines, intent upon her going to the plantations.
+        Wishes her to discourage improper visiters. Difficult situations the
+        tests of prudence as well as virtue. Dr. Lewen's solicitude for her
+        welfare. Her cousin Morden arrived in England. Farther pious
+        consolations.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER VI. Clarissa. In answer.&mdash; Sends her a packet of letters,
+        which, for her relations' sake, she cannot communicate to Miss Howe.
+        From these she will collect a good deal of her story. Defends, yet
+        gently blames her mother. Afraid that her cousin Morden will be set
+        against her; or, what is worse, that he will seek to avenge her. Her
+        affecting conclusion on her Norton's divine consolations.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER VII. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; Is very ill. The lady, if he
+        die, will repent her refusal of him. One of the greatest felicities that
+        can befal a woman, what. Extremely ill. His ludicrous behaviour on
+        awaking, and finding a clergyman and his friends praying for him by his
+        bedside.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER VIII. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; Concerned at his illness.
+        Wishes that he had died before last April. The lady, he tells him,
+        generously pities him; and prays that he may meet with the mercy he has
+        not shown.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER IX. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; In raptures on her goodness to
+        him. His deep regrets for his treatment of her. Blesses her.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER X. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; Congratulates him on his
+        amendment. The lady's exalted charity to him. Her story a fine subject
+        for tragedy. Compares with it, and censures, the play of the Fair
+        Penitent. She is very ill; the worse for some new instances of the
+        implacableness of her relations. A meditation on the subject. Poor
+        Belton, he tells him, is at death's door; and desirous to see him.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XI. Belford to Clarissa.&mdash; Acquaints her with the obligation
+        he is under to go to Belton, and (lest she should be surprised) with
+        Lovelace's resolution (as signified in the next letter) to visit her.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XII. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; Resolves to throw himself at the
+        lady's feet. Lord M. of opinion that she ought to admit of one
+        interview.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XIII. From the same.&mdash; Arrived in London, he finds the lady
+        gone abroad. Suspects Belford. His unaccountable freaks at Smith's. His
+        motives for behaving so ludicrously there. The vile Sally Martin
+        entertains him with her mimicry of the divine lady.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XIV. From the same.&mdash; His frightful dream. How affected by
+        it. Sleeping or waking, his Clarissa always present with him. Hears she
+        is returned to her lodgings. Is hastening to her.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XV. From the same.&mdash; Disappointed again. Is affected by Mrs.
+        Lovick's expostulations. Is shown a meditation on being hunted after by
+        the enemy of her soul, as it is entitled. His light comments upon it.
+        Leaves word that he resolves to see her. Makes several other efforts for
+        that purpose.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XVI. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; Reproaches him that he has not
+        kept his honour with him. Inveighs against, and severely censures him
+        for his light behaviour at Smith's. Belton's terrors and despondency.
+        Mowbray's impenetrable behaviour.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XVII. From the same.&mdash; Mowbray's impatience to run from a
+        dying Belton to a too-lively Lovelace. Mowbray abuses Mr. Belton's
+        servant in the language of a rake of the common class. Reflection on the
+        brevity of life.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XVIII. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; Receives a letter from
+        Clarissa, written by way of allegory to induce him to forbear hunting
+        after her. Copy of it. He takes it in a literal sense. Exults upon it.
+        Will now hasten down to Lord M. and receive the gratulations of all his
+        family on her returning favour. Gives an interpretation of his frightful
+        dream to his own liking.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XIX. XX. From the same.&mdash; Pities Belton. Rakishly defends
+        him on the issue of a duel, which now adds to the poor man's terrors.
+        His opinion of death, and the fear of it. Reflections upon the conduct
+        of play-writers with regard servants. He cannot account for the turn his
+        Clarissa has taken in his favour. Hints at one hopeful cause of it. Now
+        matrimony seems to be in his power, he has some retrograde motions.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXI. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; Continuation of his narrative of
+        Belton's last illness and impatience. The poor man abuses the gentlemen
+        of the faculty. Belford censures some of them for their greediness after
+        fees. Belton dies. Serious reflections on the occasion.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXII. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; Hopes Belton is happy; and why.
+        He is setting out for Berks.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXIII. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; Attends the lady. She is
+        extremely ill, and receives the sacrament. Complains of the harasses his
+        friend had given her. Two different persons (from her relations, he
+        supposes) inquire after her. Her affecting address to the doctor,
+        apothecary, and himself. Disposes of some more of her apparel for a very
+        affecting purpose.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXIV. Dr. Lewen to Clarissa.&mdash; Writes on his pillow, to
+        prevail upon her to prosecute Lovelace for his life.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXV. Her pathetic and noble answer.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXVI. Miss Arabella Harlowe to Clarissa.&mdash; Proposes, in a
+        most taunting and cruel manner, the prosecution of Lovelace; or, if not,
+        her going to Pensylvania.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXVII. Clarissa's affecting answer.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXVIII. XXIX. Mrs. Norton to Clarissa.&mdash; Her uncle's cruel
+        letter to what owing. Colonel Morden resolved on a visit to Lovelace.&mdash;Mrs.
+        Hervey, in a private conversation with her, accounts for, yet blames,
+        the cruelty of her family. Miss Dolly Hervey wishes to attend her.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXX. Clarissa. In answer.&mdash; Thinks she has been treated with
+        great rigour by her relations. Expresses more warmth than usual on this
+        subject. Yet soon checks herself. Grieves that Colonel Morden resolves
+        on a visit to Lovelace. Touches upon her sister's taunting letter.
+        Requests Mrs. Norton's prayers for patience and resignation.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXXI. Miss Howe to Clarissa.&mdash; Approves now of her
+        appointment of Belford for an executor. Admires her greatness of mind in
+        despising Lovelace. Every body she is with taken with Hickman; yet she
+        cannot help wantoning with the power his obsequious love gives her over
+        him.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXXII. XXXIII. Clarissa to Miss Howe.&mdash; Instructive lessons
+        and observations on her treatment of Hickman.&mdash; Acquaints her with
+        all that has happened since her last. Fears that all her allegorical
+        letter is not strictly right. Is forced by illness to break off.
+        Resumes. Wishes her married.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXXIV. Mr. Wyerley to Clarissa.&mdash; A generous renewal of his
+        address to her now in her calamity; and a tender of his best services.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXXV. Her open, kind, and instructive answer.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXXVI. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; Uneasy, on a suspicion that
+        her letter to him was a stratagem only. What he will do, if he find it
+        so.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXXVII. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; Brief account of his
+        proceedings in Belton's affairs. The lady extremely ill. Thought to be
+        near her end. Has a low-spirited day. Recovers her spirits; and thinks
+        herself above this world. She bespeaks her coffin. Confesses that her
+        letter to Lovelace was allegorical only. The light in which Belford
+        beholds her.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXXVIII. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; An affecting conversation
+        that passed between the lady and Dr. H. She talks of death, he says, and
+        prepares for it, as if it were an occurrence as familiar to her as
+        dressing and undressing. Worthy behaviour of the doctor. She makes
+        observations on the vanity of life, on the wisdom of an early
+        preparation for death, and on the last behaviour of Belton.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXXIX. XL. XLI. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; Particulars of what
+        passed between himself, Colonel Morden, Lord M., and Mowbray, on the
+        visit made him by the Colonel. Proposes Belford to Miss Charlotte
+        Montague, by way of raillery, for an husband.&mdash;He encloses Brand's
+        letter, which misrepresents (from credulity and officiousness, rather
+        than ill-will) the lady's conduct.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XLII. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; Expatiates on the baseness of
+        deluding young creatures, whose confidence has been obtained by oaths,
+        vows, promises. Evil of censoriousness. People deemed good too much
+        addicted to it. Desires to know what he means my his ridicule with
+        regard to his charming cousin.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XLIII. From the same.&mdash; A proper test of the purity of
+        writing. The lady again makes excuses for her allegorical letter. Her
+        calm behaviour, and generous and useful reflections, on his
+        communicating to her Brand's misrepresentations of her conduct.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XLIV. Colonel Morden to Clarissa.&mdash; Offers his assistance
+        and service to make the best of what has happened. Advises her to marry
+        Lovelace, as the only means to bring about a general reconciliation. Has
+        no doubt of his resolution to do her justice. Desires to know if she
+        has.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XLV. Clarissa. In answer.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XLVI. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; His reasonings and ravings on
+        finding the lady's letter to him only an allegorical one. In the midst
+        of these, the natural gayety of his heart runs him into ridicule on
+        Belford. His ludicrous image drawn from a monument in Westminster Abbey.
+        Resumes his serious disposition. If the worst happen, (the Lord of
+        Heaven and Earth, says he, avert that worst!) he bids him only write
+        that he advises him to take a trip to Paris; and that will stab him to
+        the heart.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XLVII. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; The lady's coffin brought up
+        stairs. He is extremely shocked and discomposed at it. Her intrepidity.
+        Great minds, he observes, cannot avoid doing uncommon things.
+        Reflections on the curiosity of women.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XLVIII. From the same.&mdash; Description of the coffin, and
+        devices on the lid. It is placed in her bed-chamber. His serious
+        application to Lovelace on her great behaviour.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XLIX. From the same.&mdash; Astonished at his levity in the
+        Abbey-instance. The lady extremely ill.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER L. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; All he has done to the lady a jest
+        to die for; since her triumph has ever been greater than her sufferings.
+        He will make over all his possessions and all his reversions to the
+        doctor, if he will but prolong her life for one twelvemonth. How, but
+        for her calamities, could her equanimity blaze out as it does! He would
+        now love her with an intellectual flame. He cannot bear to think that
+        the last time she so triumphantly left him should be the last. His
+        conscience, he says, tears him. He is sick of the remembrance of his
+        vile plots.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LI. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; The lady alive, serene, and calm.
+        The more serene for having finished, signed, and sealed her last will;
+        deferred till now for reasons of filial duty.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LII. Miss Howe to Clarissa.&mdash; Pathetically laments the
+        illness of her own mother, and of her dear friend. Now all her pertness
+        to the former, she says, fly in her face. She lays down her pen; and
+        resumes it, to tell her, with great joy, that her mother is better. She
+        has had a visit form her cousin Morden. What passed in it.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LIII. From the same.&mdash; Displeased with the Colonel for
+        thinking too freely of the sex. Never knew a man that had a slight
+        notion of the virtue of women in general, who deserved to be valued for
+        his morals. Why women must either be more or less virtuous than men.
+        Useful hints to young ladies. Is out of humour with Mr. Hickman.
+        Resolves to see her soon in town.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LIV. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; The lady writes and reads upon
+        her coffin, as upon a desk. The doctor resolves to write to her father.
+        Her intense, yet cheerful devotion.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LV. Clarissa to Miss Howe.&mdash; A letter full of pious
+        reflections, and good advice, both general and particular; and breathing
+        the true spirit of charity, forgiveness, patience, and resignation. A
+        just reflection, to her dear friend, upon the mortifying nature of
+        pride.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LVI. Mrs. Norton to Clarissa.&mdash; Her account of an
+        interesting conversation at Harlowe-place between the family and Colonel
+        Morden; and of another between her mother and self. The Colonel incensed
+        against them all. Her advice concerning Belford, and other matters. Miss
+        Howe has obtained leave, she hears, to visit her. Praises Mr. Hickman.
+        Gently censures Miss Howe on his account. Her truly maternal and pious
+        comfortings.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LVII. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; The lady's sight begins to fail
+        her. She blesses God for the serenity she enjoys. It is what, she says,
+        she had prayed for. What a blessing, so near to her dissolution, to have
+        her prayers answered! Gives particular directions to him about her
+        papers, about her last will and apparel. Comforts the women and him on
+        their concern for her. Another letter brought her from Colonel Morden.
+        The substance of it. Belford writes to hasten up the Colonel. Dr. H. has
+        also written to her father; and Brand to Mr. John Harlowe a letter
+        recanting his officious one.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LVIII. Dr. H. to James Harlowe, Senior, Esq.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LIX. Copy of Mr. Belford's letter to Colonel Morden, to hasten
+        him up.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LX. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; He feels the torments of the
+        damned, in the remorse that wrings his heart, on looking back on his
+        past actions by this lady. Gives him what he calls a faint picture of
+        his horrible uneasiness, riding up and down, expecting the return of his
+        servant as soon as he had dispatched him. Woe be to the man who brings
+        him the fatal news!
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXI. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; Farther particulars of the
+        lady's pious and exemplary behaviour. She rejoices in the gradual death
+        afforded her. Her thankful acknowledgments to Mr. Belford, Mrs. Smith,
+        and Mrs. Lovick, for their kindness to her. Her edifying address to Mr.
+        Belford.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXII. Clarissa to Mrs. Norton. In answer to her's, No. LVI.&mdash;
+        Afflicted only for her friends. Desires not now to see her cousin
+        Morden, nor even herself, or Miss Howe. God will have no rivals, she
+        says, in the hearts of those whom HE sanctifies. Advice to Miss Howe. To
+        Mr. Hickman. Blesses all her relations and friends.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXIII. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; A letter of deep distress,
+        remorse, and impatience. Yet would he fain lighten his own guilt by
+        reflections on the cruelty of her relations.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXIV. Belford to Lovelace The lady is disappointed at the
+        Doctor's telling her that she may yet live two or three days. Death from
+        grief the slowest of deaths. Her solemn forgiveness of Lovelace, and
+        prayer for him. Owns that once she could have loved him. Her generous
+        concern for his future happiness. Belford's good resolutions.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXV. Mr. Brand to Mr. John Walton.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXVI. Mr. Brand to John Harlowe, Esq.; in excuse of his
+        credulity, and of the misreports founded upon it.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXVII. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; Blesses him for sending him
+        word the lady is better. Her charity towards him cuts him to the heart.
+        He cannot bear it. His vehement self reproaches. Curses his contriving
+        genius, and his disbelief that there could be such virtue in woman. The
+        world never saw such an husband as he will make, if she recover, and
+        will be his.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXVIII. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; The lady's pious frame. The
+        approaches of death how supportable to her; and why. She has no reason,
+        she says, to grieve for any thing but the sorrow she has given to her
+        friends.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXIX. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; Never prayed in his life, put
+        all the years of it together, as he has done for this fortnight. Has
+        repented of all his baseness: And will nothing do? Conjures him to send
+        him good news in his next, as he would not be answerable for
+        consequences.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXX. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; Solemn leave taken of her by the
+        doctor and apothecary; who tell her she will hardly see the next night.
+        The pleasure with which she receives the intimation. How unlike poor
+        Belton's behaviour her's! A letter from Miss Howe. Copy of it. She
+        cannot see to read it. Her exalted expressions on hearing it read. Tries
+        to write an answer to it; but cannot. Dictates to Mrs. Lovick. Writes
+        the superscriptive part herself on her knees. Colonel Morden arrives in
+        town.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXXI. From the same.&mdash; What passes on Colonel Morden's visit
+        to his cousin. She enjoins the Colonel not to avenge her.
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE HISTORY OF CLARISSA HARLOWE
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /> <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE YARMOUTH, ISLE OF WIGHT, MONDAY, AUG.
+      7.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MY DEAREST CREATURE,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I can write but just now a few lines. I cannot tell how to bear the sound
+      of that Mr. Belford for your executor, cogent as your reasons for that
+      measure are: and yet I am firmly of opinion, that none of your relations
+      should be named for the trust. But I dwell the less on this subject, as I
+      hope (and cannot bear to apprehend the contrary) that you will still live
+      many, many years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Hickman, indeed, speaks very handsomely of Mr. Belford. But he, poor
+      man! has not much penetration.&mdash;If he had, he would hardly think so
+      well of me as he does.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have a particular opportunity of sending this by a friend of my aunt
+      Harman's; who is ready to set out for London, (and this occasions my
+      hurry,) and is to return out of hand. I expect therefore, by him a large
+      packet from you; and hope and long for news of your amended health: which
+      Heaven grant to the prayers of
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your ever-affectionate ANNA HOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE FRIDAY, AUG. 11.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will send you a large packet, as you desire and expect; since I can do
+      it by so safe a conveyance: but not all that is come to my hand&mdash;for
+      I must own that my friends are very severe; too severe for any body, who
+      loves them not, to see their letters. You, my dear, would not call them my
+      friends, you said, long ago; but my relations: indeed I cannot call them
+      my relations, I think!&mdash;&mdash;But I am ill; and therefore perhaps
+      more peevish than I should be. It is difficult to go out of ourselves to
+      give a judgment against ourselves; and yet, oftentimes, to pass a just
+      judgment, we ought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought I should alarm you in the choice of my executor. But the sad
+      necessity I am reduced to must excuse me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall not repeat any thing I have said before on that subject: but if
+      your objections will not be answered to your satisfaction by the papers
+      and letters I shall enclose, marked 1, 2, 3, 4, to 9, I must think myself
+      in another instance unhappy; since I am engaged too far (and with my own
+      judgment too) to recede.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Mr. Belford has transcribed for me, in confidence, from his friend's
+      letters, the passages which accompany this, I must insist that you suffer
+      no soul but yourself to peruse them; and that you return them by the very
+      first opportunity; that so no use may be made of them that may do hurt
+      either to the original writer or to the communicator. You'll observe I am
+      bound by promise to this care. If through my means any mischief should
+      arise, between this humane and that inhuman libertine, I should think
+      myself utterly inexcusable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I subjoin a list of the papers or letters I shall enclose. You must return
+      them all when perused.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+* 1. A letter from Miss Montague, dated . . . .  Aug. 1.
+  2. A copy of my answer  . . . . . . . . . . .  Aug. 3.
+  3. Mr. Belford's Letter to me, which will show
+      you what my request was to him, and his
+      compliance with it; and the desired ex-
+      tracts from his friend's letters  . . . .  Aug. 3, 4.
+  4. A copy of my answer, with thanks; and re-
+      questing him to undertake the executor-
+      ship  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Aug. 4.
+  5. Mr. Belford's acceptance of the trust  . .  Aug. 4.
+  6. Miss Montague's letter, with a generous
+      offer from Lord M. and the Ladies of that
+      family  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Aug. 7.
+  7. Mr. Lovelace's to me . . . . . . . . . . .  Aug. 7.
+  8. Copy of mine to Miss Montague, in answer
+      to her's of the day before  . . . . . . .  Aug. 8.
+  9. Copy of my answer to Mr. Lovelace  . . . .  Aug. 11.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      You will see by these several Letters, written and received in so little a
+      space of time (to say nothing of what I have received and written which I
+      cannot show you,) how little opportunity or leisure I can have for writing
+      my own story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am very much tired and fatigued&mdash;with&mdash;I don't know what&mdash;with
+      writing, I think&mdash;but most with myself, and with a situation I cannot
+      help aspiring to get out of, and above!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O my dear, the world we live in is a sad, a very sad world!&mdash;&mdash;While
+      under our parents' protecting wings, we know nothing at all of it.
+      Book-learned and a scribbler, and looking at people as I saw them as
+      visiters or visiting, I thought I knew a great deal of it. Pitiable
+      ignorance!&mdash;Alas! I knew nothing at all!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With zealous wishes for your happiness, and the happiness of every one
+      dear to you, I am, and will ever be,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your gratefully-affectionate CL. HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER III
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. ANTONY HARLOWE, TO MISS CL. HARLOWE [IN REPLY TO HER'S TO HER UNCLE
+      HARLOWE, OF THURSDAY, AUG. 10.] AUG. 12.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      UNHAPPY GIRL!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As your uncle Harlowe chooses not to answer your pert letter to him; and
+      as mine, written to you before,* was written as if it were in the spirit
+      of prophecy, as you have found to your sorrow; and as you are now making
+      yourself worse than you are in your health, and better than you are in
+      your penitence, as we are very well assured, in order to move compassion;
+      which you do not deserve, having had so much warning: for all these
+      reasons, I take up my pen once more; though I had told your brother, at
+      his going to Edinburgh, that I would not write to you, even were you to
+      write to me, without letting him know. So indeed had we all; for he
+      prognosticated what would happen, as to your applying to us, when you knew
+      not how to help it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. I. Letter XXXII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Brother John has hurt your niceness, it seems, by asking you a plain
+      question, which your mother's heart is too full of grief to let her ask;
+      and modesty will not let your sister ask; though but the consequence of
+      your actions&mdash;and yet it must be answered, before you'll obtain from
+      your father and mother, and us, the notice you hope for, I can tell you
+      that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You lived several guilty weeks with one of the vilest fellows that ever
+      drew breath, at bed, as well as at board, no doubt, (for is not his
+      character known?) and pray don't be ashamed to be asked after what may
+      naturally come of such free living. This modesty indeed would have become
+      you for eighteen years of your life&mdash;you'll be pleased to mark that&mdash;but
+      makes no good figure compared with your behaviour since the beginning of
+      April last. So pray don't take it up, and wipe your mouth upon it, as if
+      nothing had happened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, may be, I likewise am to shocking to your niceness!&mdash;O girl,
+      girl! your modesty had better been shown at the right time and place&mdash;Every
+      body but you believed what the rake was: but you would believe nothing bad
+      of him&mdash;What think you now?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your folly has ruined all our peace. And who knows where it may yet end?
+      &mdash;Your poor father but yesterday showed me this text: With bitter
+      grief he showed it me, poor man! and do you lay it to your heart:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A father waketh for his daughter, when no man knoweth; and the care for
+      her taketh away his sleep&mdash;When she is young, lest she pass away the
+      flower of her age&mdash;[and you know what proposals were made to you at
+      different times.] And, being married, lest she should be hated. In her
+      virginity, lest she should be defiled, and gotten with child in her
+      father's house&mdash;[and I don't make the words, mind that.] And, having
+      an husband, lest she should misbehave herself.' And what follows? 'Keep a
+      sure watch over a shameless daughter&mdash;[yet no watch could hold you!]
+      lest she make thee a laughing stock to thine enemies&mdash;[as you have
+      made us all to this cursed Lovelace,] and a bye-word in the city, and a
+      reproach among the people, and make thee ashamed before the multitude.'
+      Eccles. xlii. 9, 10, &amp;c.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now will you wish you had not written pertly. Your sister's severities!
+      &mdash;Never, girl, say that is severe that is deserved. You know the
+      meaning of words. No body better. Would to the Lord you had acted up but
+      to one half of what you know! then had we not been disappointed and
+      grieved, as we all have been: and nobody more than him who was
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your loving uncle, ANTONY HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+This will be with you to-morrow.  Perhaps you may be suffered to have
+      some part of your estate, after you have smarted a little more.
+      Your pertly-answered uncle John, who is your trustee, will not have
+      you be destitute.  But we hope all is not true that we hear of you.
+      &mdash;Only take care, I advise you, that, bad as you have acted, you
+      act not still worse, if it be possible to act worse.  Improve upon
+      the hint.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER IV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO ANTONY HARLOWE, ESQ. SUNDAY, AUG. 13.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      HONOURED SIR,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am very sorry for my pert letter to my uncle Harlowe. Yet I did not
+      intend it to be pert. People new to misfortune may be too easily moved to
+      impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fall of a regular person, no doubt, is dreadful and inexcusable. It is
+      like the sin of apostacy. Would to Heaven, however, that I had had the
+      circumstances of mine inquired into!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If, Sir, I make myself worse than I am in my health, and better than I am
+      in my penitence, it is fit I should be punished for my double
+      dissimulation: and you have the pleasure of being one of my punishers. My
+      sincerity in both respects will, however, be best justified by the event.
+      To that I refer.&mdash;May Heaven give you always as much comfort in
+      reflecting upon the reprobation I have met with, as you seem to have
+      pleasure in mortifying a young creature, extremely mortified; and that
+      from a right sense, as she presumes to hope, of her own fault!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What you heard of me I cannot tell. When the nearest and dearest relations
+      give up an unhappy wretch, it is not to be wondered at that those who are
+      not related to her are ready to take up and propagate slanders against
+      her. Yet I think I may defy calumny itself, and (excepting the fatal,
+      though involuntary step of April 10) wrap myself in my own innocence, and
+      be easy. I thank you, Sir, nevertheless, for your caution, mean it what it
+      will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to the question required of me to answer, and which is allowed to be
+      too shocking either for a mother to put to a daughter, or a sister to a
+      sister; and which, however, you say I must answer;&mdash;O Sir!&mdash;And
+      must I answer?&mdash;This then be my answer:&mdash;'A little time, a much
+      less time than is imagined, will afford a more satisfactory answer to my
+      whole family, and even to my brother and sister, than I can give in
+      words.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, be pleased to let it be remembered, that I did not petition
+      for a restoration to favour. I could not hope for that. Nor yet to be put
+      in possession of any part of my own estate. Nor even for means of
+      necessary subsistence from the produce of that estate&mdash;but only for a
+      blessing; for a last blessing!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And this I will farther add, because it is true, that I have no wilful
+      crime to charge against myself: no free living at bed and at board, as you
+      phrase it!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why, why, Sir, were not other inquiries made of me, as well as this
+      shocking one?&mdash;inquiries that modesty would have permitted a mother
+      or sister to make; and which, if I may be excused to say so, would have
+      been still less improper, and more charitable, to have been made by
+      uncles, (were the mother forbidden, or the sister not inclined, to make
+      them,) than those they have made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although my humble application has brought upon me so much severe
+      reproach, I repent not that I have written to my mother, (although I
+      cannot but wish that I had not written to my sister;) because I have
+      satisfied a dutiful consciousness by it, however unanswered by the
+      wished-for success. Nevertheless, I cannot help saying, that mine is
+      indeed a hard fate, that I cannot beg pardon for my capital errors without
+      doing it in such terms as shall be an aggravation of the offence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I had best leave off, lest, as my full mind, I find, is rising to my
+      pen, I have other pardons to beg as I multiply lines, where none at all
+      will be given.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      God Almighty bless, preserve, and comfort my dear sorrowing and grievously
+      offended father and mother!&mdash;and continue in honour, favour, and
+      merit, my happy sister!&mdash;May God forgive my brother, and protect him
+      from the violence of his own temper, as well as from the destroyer of his
+      sister's honour!&mdash;And may you, my dear uncle, and your no less now
+      than ever dear brother, my second papa, as he used to bid me call him, be
+      blessed and happy in them, and in each other!&mdash;And, in order to this,
+      may you all speedily banish from your remembrance, for ever,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The unhappy CLARISSA HARLOWE!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER V
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE MONDAY, AUG. 14.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All your friends here, my dear young lady, now seem set upon proposing to
+      you to go to one of the plantations. This, I believe, is owing to some
+      misrepresentations of Mr. Brand; from whom they have received a letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish, with all my heart, that you could, consistently with your own
+      notions of honour, yield to the pressing requests of all Mr. Lovelace's
+      family in his behalf. This, I think, would stop every mouth; and, in time,
+      reconcile every body to you. For your own friends will not believe that he
+      is in earnest to marry you; and the hatred between the families is such,
+      that they will not condescend to inform themselves better; nor would
+      believe him, if he were ever so solemnly to avow that he is.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I should be very glad to have in readiness, upon occasion, some brief
+      particulars of your sad story under your own hand. But let me tell you, at
+      the same time, that no misrepresentations, nor even your own confession,
+      shall lessen my opinion either of your piety, or of your prudence in
+      essential points; because I know it was always your humble way to make
+      light faults heavy against yourself: and well might you, my dearest young
+      lady, aggravate your own failings, who have ever had so few; and those few
+      so slight, that your ingenuousness has turned most of them into
+      excellencies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, let me advise you, my dear Miss Clary, to discountenance any
+      visits, which, with the censorious, may affect your character. As that has
+      not hitherto suffered by your wilful default, I hope you will not, in a
+      desponding negligence (satisfying yourself with a consciousness of your
+      own innocence) permit it to suffer. Difficult situations, you know, my
+      dear young lady, are the tests not only of prudence but of virtue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I think, I must own to you, that, since Mr. Brand's letter has been
+      received, I have a renewed prohibition to attend you. However, if you will
+      give me leave, that shall not detain me from you. Nor would I stay for
+      that leave, if I were not in hopes that, in this critical situation, I may
+      be able to do you service here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have often had messages and inquiries after your health from the
+      truly-reverend Dr. Lewen, who has always expressed, and still expresses,
+      infinite concern for you. He entirely disapproves of the measures of the
+      family with regard to you. He is too much indisposed to go abroad. But,
+      were he in good health, he would not, as I understand, visit at
+      Harlowe-place, having some time since been unhandsomely treated by your
+      brother, on his offering to mediate for you with your family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am just now informed that your cousin Morden is arrived in England. He
+      is at Canterbury, it seems, looking after some concerns he has there; and
+      is soon expected in these parts. Who knows what may arise from his
+      arrival? God be with you, my dearest Miss Clary, and be your comforter and
+      sustainer. And never fear but He will; for I am sure, I am very sure, that
+      you put your whole trust in Him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And what, after all, is this world, on which we so much depend for durable
+      good, poor creatures that we are!&mdash;When all the joys of it, and (what
+      is a balancing comfort) all the troubles of it, are but momentary, and
+      vanish like a morning dream!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And be this remembered, my dearest young lady, that worldly joy claims no
+      kindred with the joys we are bid to aspire after. These latter we must be
+      fitted for by affliction and disappointment. You are therefore in the
+      direct road to glory, however thorny the path you are in. And I had almost
+      said, that it depends upon yourself, by your patience, and by your
+      resignedness to the dispensation, (God enabling you, who never fails the
+      true penitent, and sincere invoker,) to be an heir of a blessed
+      immortality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this glory, I humbly pray, that you may not be permitted to enter
+      into, ripe as you are so soon to be for it, till, with your gentle hand,
+      (a pleasure I have so often, as you now, promised to myself,) you have
+      closed the eyes of
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your maternally-affectionate JUDITH NORTON.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER VI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MRS. NORTON THURSDAY, AUG. 27.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What Mr. Brand, or any body, can have written or said to my prejudice, I
+      cannot imagine; and yet some evil reports have gone out against me; as I
+      find by some hints in a very severe letter written to me by my uncle
+      Antony. Such a letter as I believe was never written to any poor creature,
+      who, by ill health of body, as well as of mind, was before tottering on
+      the brink of the grave. But my friends may possibly be better justified
+      than the reporters&mdash;For who knows what they may have heard?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You give me a kind caution, which seems to imply more than you express,
+      when you advise me against countenancing visiters that may discredit me.
+      You have spoken quite out. Surely, I have had afflictions enow to
+      strengthen my mind, and to enable it to bear the worst that can now
+      happen. But I will not puzzle myself by conjectural evils; as I might
+      perhaps do, if I had not enow that were certain. I shall hear all, when it
+      is thought proper that I should. Mean time, let me say, for your
+      satisfaction, that I know not that I have any thing criminal or
+      disreputable to answer for either in word or deed, since the fatal 10th of
+      April last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You desire an account of what passes between me and my friends; and also
+      particulars or brief heads of my sad story, in order to serve me as
+      occasion shall offer. My dear good Mrs. Norton, you shall have a whole
+      packet of papers, which I have sent to my Miss Howe, when she returns
+      them; and you shall have likewise another packet, (and that with this
+      letter,) which I cannot at present think of sending to that dear friend
+      for the sake of my own relations; whom, without seeing that packet, she is
+      but too ready to censure heavily. From these you will be able to collect a
+      great deal of my story. But for what is previous to these papers, and
+      which more particularly relates to what I have suffered from Mr. Lovelace,
+      you must have patience; for at present I have neither head nor heart for
+      such subjects. The papers I send you with this will be those mentioned in
+      the margin.* You must restore them to me as soon as perused; and upon your
+      honour make no use of them, or of any intelligence you have from me, but
+      by my previous consent.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+* 1. A copy of mine to my sister, begging
+      off my father's malediction . . . . . .  dated July 21.
+  2. My sister's answer . . . . . . . . . . .  dated July 27.
+  3. Copy of my second letter to my sister. .  dated July 29.
+  4. My sister's answer . . . . . . . . . . .  dated Aug. 3.
+  5. Copy of my Letter to my mother . . . . .  dated Aug. 5.
+  6. My uncle Harlowe's letter  . . . . . . .  dated Aug. 7.
+  7. Copy of my answer to it  . . . . . . . .  dated the 10th.
+  8. Letter from my uncle Antony  . . . . . .  dated the 12th.
+  9. And lastly, the copy of my answer to it.  dated the 13th.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      These communications you must not, my good Mrs. Norton, look upon as
+      appeals against my relations. On the contrary, I am heartily sorry that
+      they have incurred the displeasure of so excellent a divine as Dr. Lewen.
+      But you desire to have every thing before you: and I think you ought; for
+      who knows, as you say, but you may be applied to at last to administer
+      comfort from their conceding hearts, to one that wants it; and who
+      sometimes, judging by what she knows of her own heart, thinks herself
+      entitled to it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know that I have a most indulgent and sweet-tempered mother; but, having
+      to deal with violent spirits, she has too often forfeited that peace of
+      mind which she so much prefers, by her over concern to preserve it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sure she would not have turned me over for an answer to a letter
+      written with so contrite and fervent a spirit, as was mine to her, to a
+      masculine spirit, had she been left to herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, my dear Mrs. Norton, might not, think you, the revered lady have
+      favoured me with one private line?&mdash;&mdash;If not, might not you have
+      written by her order, or connivance, one softening, one motherly line,
+      when she saw her poor girl, whom once she dearly loved, borne so hard
+      upon?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O no, she might not!&mdash;because her heart, to be sure, is in their
+      measures! and if she think them right, perhaps they must be right!&mdash;at
+      least, knowing only what they know, they must!&mdash;and yet they might
+      know all, if they would!&mdash;and possibly, in their own good time, they
+      think to make proper inquiry.&mdash;My application was made to them but
+      lately.&mdash;Yet how deeply will it afflict them, if their time should be
+      out of time!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When you have before you the letters I have sent to Miss Howe, you will
+      see that Lord M. and the Ladies of his family, jealous as they are of the
+      honour of their house, (to express myself in their language,) think better
+      of me than my own relations do. You will see an instance of their
+      generosity to me, which at the time extremely affected me, and indeed
+      still affects me. Unhappy man! gay, inconsiderate, and cruel! what has
+      been his gain by making unhappy a creature who hoped to make him happy!
+      and who was determined to deserve the love of all to whom he is related!
+      &mdash;Poor man!&mdash;but you will mistake a compassionate and placable
+      nature for love!&mdash;he took care, great care, that I should rein-in
+      betimes any passion that I might have had for him, had he known how to be
+      but commonly grateful or generous!&mdash;But the Almighty knows what is
+      best for his poor creatures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some of the letters in the same packet will also let you into the
+      knowledge of a strange step which I have taken, (strange you will think
+      it); and, at the same time, give you my reasons for taking it.*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * She means that of making Mr. Belford her executor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It must be expected, that situations uncommonly difficult will make
+      necessary some extraordinary steps, which, but for those situations, would
+      be hardly excusable. It will be very happy indeed, and somewhat wonderful,
+      if all the measures I have been driven to take should be right. A pure
+      intention, void of all undutiful resentment, is what must be my
+      consolation, whatever others may think of those measures, when they come
+      to know them: which, however, will hardly be till it is out of my power to
+      justify them, or to answer for myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am glad to hear of my cousin Morden's safe arrival. I should wish to see
+      him methinks: but I am afraid that he will sail with the stream; as it
+      must be expected, that he will hear what they have to say first.&mdash;But
+      what I most fear is, that he will take upon himself to avenge me. Rather
+      than he should do so, I would have him look upon me as a creature utterly
+      unworthy of his concern; at least of his vindictive concern.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How soothing to the wounded heart of your Clarissa, how balmy are the
+      assurances of your continued love and favour;&mdash;love me, my dear mamma
+      Norton, continue to love me, to the end!&mdash;I now think that I may,
+      without presumption, promise to deserve your love to the end. And, when I
+      am gone, cherish my memory in your worthy heart; for in so doing you will
+      cherish the memory of one who loves and honours you more than she can
+      express.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when I am no more, I charge you, as soon as you can, the smarting
+      pangs of grief that will attend a recent loss; and let all be early turned
+      into that sweetly melancholy regard to MEMORY, which, engaging us to
+      forget all faults, and to remember nothing but what was thought amiable,
+      gives more pleasure than pain to survivors&mdash;especially if they can
+      comfort themselves with the humble hope, that the Divine mercy has taken
+      the dear departed to itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And what is the space of time to look backward upon, between an early
+      departure and the longest survivance!&mdash;and what the consolation
+      attending the sweet hope of meeting again, never more to be separated,
+      never more to be pained, grieved, or aspersed;&mdash;but mutually
+      blessing, and being blessed, to all eternity!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the contemplation of this happy state, in which I hope, in God's good
+      time, to rejoice with you, my beloved Mrs. Norton, and also with my dear
+      relations, all reconciled to, and blessing the child against whom they are
+      now so much incensed, I conclude myself
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your ever dutiful and affectionate CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER VII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. SUNDAY, AUG. 13.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I don't know what a devil ails me; but I never was so much indisposed in
+      my life. At first, I thought some of my blessed relations here had got a
+      dose administered to me, in order to get the whole house to themselves.
+      But, as I am the hopes of the family, I believe they would not be so
+      wicked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must lay down my pen. I cannot write with any spirit at all. What a
+      plague can be the matter with me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. paid me just now a cursed gloomy visit, to ask how I do after
+      bleeding. His sisters both drove away yesterday, God be thanked. But they
+      asked not my leave; and hardly bid me good-bye. My Lord was more tender,
+      and more dutiful, than I expected. Men are less unforgiving than women. I
+      have reason to say so, I am sure. For, besides implacable Miss Harlowe,
+      and the old Ladies, the two Montague apes han't been near me yet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither eat, drink, nor sleep!&mdash;a piteous case, Jack! If I should die
+      like a fool now, people would say Miss Harlowe had broken my heart.&mdash;That
+      she vexes me to the heart, is certain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Confounded squeamish! I would fain write it off. But must lay down my pen
+      again. It won't do. Poor Lovelace!&mdash;&mdash;What a devil ails thee?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, but now let's try for't&mdash;Hoy&mdash;Hoy&mdash;Hoy! Confound me
+      for a gaping puppy, how I yawn!&mdash;Where shall I begin? at thy
+      executorship&mdash;thou shalt have a double office of it: for I really
+      think thou mayest send me a coffin and a shroud. I shall be ready for them
+      by the time they can come down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a little fool is this Miss Harlowe! I warrant she'll now repent that
+      she refused me. Such a lovely young widow&mdash;What a charming widow
+      would she have made! how would she have adorned the weeds! to be a widow
+      in the first twelve months is one of the greatest felicities that can
+      befal a fine woman. Such pretty employment in new dismals, when she had
+      hardly worn round her blazing joyfuls! Such lights, and such shades! how
+      would they set off one another, and be adorned by the wearer!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Go to the devil!&mdash;I will write!&mdash;Can I do anything else?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They would not have me write, Belford.&mdash;I must be ill indeed, when I
+      can't write.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But thou seemest nettled, Jack! Is it because I was stung? It is not for
+      two friends, any more than for man and wife, to be out of patience at one
+      time.&mdash;What must be the consequence if they are?&mdash;I am in no
+      fighting mood just now: but as patient and passive as the chickens that
+      are brought me in broth&mdash;for I am come to that already.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I can tell thee, for all this, be thy own man, if thou wilt, as to the
+      executorship, I will never suffer thee to expose my letters. They are too
+      ingenuous by half to be seen. And I absolutely insist upon it, that, on
+      receipt of this, thou burn them all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will never forgive thee that impudent and unfriendly reflection, of my
+      cavaliering it here over half a dozen persons of distinction: remember,
+      too, thy words poor helpless orphan&mdash;these reflections are too
+      serious, and thou art also too serious, for me to let these things go off
+      as jesting; notwithstanding the Roman style* is preserved; and, indeed,
+      but just preserved. By my soul, Jack, if I had not been taken thus
+      egregiously cropsick, I would have been up with thee, and the lady too,
+      before now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * For what these gentlemen mean by the Roman style, see Vol. I. Letter
+      XXXI. in the first note.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But write on, however: and send me copies, if thou canst, of all that
+      passes between our Charlotte and Miss Harlowe. I'll take no notice of what
+      thou communicatest of that sort. I like not the people here the worse for
+      their generous offer to the lady. But you see she is as proud as
+      implacable. There's no obliging her. She'd rather sell her clothes than be
+      beholden to any body, although she would oblige by permitting the
+      obligation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O Lord! O Lord!&mdash;Mortal ill!&mdash;Adieu, Jack!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was forced to leave off, I was so ill, at this place. And what dost
+      think! why Lord M. brought the parson of the parish to pray by me; for his
+      chaplain is at Oxford. I was lain down in my night-gown over my waistcoat,
+      and in a doze: and, when I opened my eyes, who should I see, but the
+      parson kneeling on one side the bed; Lord M. on the other; Mrs. Greme, who
+      had been sent for to tend me, as they call it, at the feet! God be
+      thanked, my Lord, said I in an ecstasy!&mdash;Where's Miss?&mdash;for I
+      supposed they were going to marry me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They thought me delirious at first; and prayed louder and louder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This roused me: off the bed I started; slid my feet into my slippers; put
+      my hand in my waistcoat pocket, and pulled out thy letter with my
+      beloved's meditation in it! My Lord, Dr. Wright, Mrs. Greme, you have
+      thought me a very wicked fellow: but, see! I can read you as good as you
+      can read me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They stared at one another. I gaped, and read, Poor mo&mdash;or&mdash;tals
+      the cau&mdash;o&mdash;ause of their own&mdash;their own mi&mdash;ser&mdash;ry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is as suitable to my case, as to the lady's, as thou'lt observe, if
+      thou readest it again.* At the passage where it is said, That when a man
+      is chastened for sin, his beauty consumes away, I stept to the glass: A
+      poor figure, by Jupiter, cried I!&mdash;And they all praised and admired
+      me; lifted up their hands and their eyes; and the doctor said, he always
+      thought it impossible, that a man of my sense could be so wild as the
+      world said I was. My Lord chuckled for joy; congratulated me; and, thank
+      my dear Miss Harlowe, I got high reputation among good, bad, and
+      indifferent. In short, I have established myself for ever with all here.
+      &mdash;But, O Belford, even this will not do&mdash;I must leave off again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A visit from the Montague sisters, led in by the hobbling Peer, to
+      congratulate my amendment and reformation both in one. What a lucky event
+      this illness with this meditation in my pocket; for we were all to pieces
+      before! Thus, when a boy, have I joined with a crowd coming out of church,
+      and have been thought to have been there myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am incensed at the insolence of the young Levite. Thou wilt highly
+      oblige me, if thou'lt find him out, and send me his ears in the next
+      letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My beloved mistakes me, if she thinks I proposed her writing to me as an
+      alternative that should dispense with my attendance upon her. That it
+      shall not do, nor did I intend it should, unless she pleased me better in
+      the contents of her letter than she has done. Bid her read again. I gave
+      no such hopes. I would have been with her in spite of you both, by
+      to-morrow, at farthest, had I not been laid by the heels thus, like a
+      helpless miscreant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I grow better and better every hour, I say: the doctor says not: but I
+      am sure I know best: and I will soon be in London, depend on't. But say
+      nothing of this to my dear, cruel, and implacable Miss Harlowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A&mdash;dieu&mdash;u, Ja&mdash;aack&mdash;What a gaping puppy (yaw&mdash;n!
+      yaw&mdash;n! yaw&mdash;n!)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thy LOVELACE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER VIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. MONDAY, AUG. 15.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am extremely concerned for thy illness. I should be very sorry to lose
+      thee. Yet, if thou diest so soon, I could wish, from my soul, it had been
+      before the beginning of last April: and this as well for thy sake, as for
+      the sake of the most excellent woman in the world: for then thou wouldst
+      not have had the most crying sin of thy life to answer for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was told on Saturday that thou wert very much out of order; and this
+      made me forbear writing till I heard farther. Harry, on his return from
+      thee, confirmed the bad way thou art in. But I hope Lord M. in his
+      unmerited tenderness for thee, thinks the worst of thee. What can it be,
+      Bob.? A violent fever, they say; but attended with odd and severe
+      symptoms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will not trouble thee in the way thou art in, with what passes here with
+      Miss Harlowe. I wish thy repentance as swift as thy illness; and as
+      efficacious, if thou diest; for it is else to be feared, that she and you
+      will never meet in one place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her how ill you are. Poor man! said she. Dangerously ill, say you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dangerously indeed, Madam!&mdash;So Lord M. sends me word!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      God be merciful to him, if he die!&mdash;said the admirable creature.&mdash;Then,
+      after a pause, Poor wretch!&mdash;may he meet with the mercy he has not
+      shown!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I send this by a special messenger: for I am impatient to hear how it goes
+      with thee.&mdash;If I have received thy last letter, what melancholy
+      reflections will that last, so full of shocking levity, give to
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thy true friend, JOHN BELFORD.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER IX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. TUESDAY, AUG. 15.*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * Text error: should be Aug. 16.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thank thee, Jack; most heartily I thank thee, for the sober conclusion of
+      thy last!&mdash;I have a good mind, for the sake of it, to forgive thy
+      till now absolutely unpardonable extracts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But dost think I will lose such an angel, such a forgiving angel, as this?&mdash;By
+      my soul, I will not!&mdash;To pray for mercy for such an ungrateful
+      miscreant!&mdash;how she wounds me, how she cuts me to the soul, by her
+      exalted generosity!&mdash;But SHE must have mercy upon me first!&mdash;then
+      will she teach me a reliance for the sake of which her prayer for me will
+      be answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But hasten, hasten to me particulars of her health, of her employments, of
+      her conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sick only of love! Oh! that I could have called her mine!&mdash;it
+      would then have been worth while to be sick!&mdash;to have sent for her
+      down to me from town; and to have had her, with healing in her dove-like
+      wings, flying to my comfort; her duty and her choice to pray for me, and
+      to bid me live for her sake!&mdash;O Jack! what an angel have I&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I have not lost her!&mdash;I will not lose her! I am almost well;
+      should be quite well but for these prescribing rascals, who, to do credit
+      to their skill, will make the disease of importance.&mdash;And I will make
+      her mine!&mdash;and be sick again, to entitle myself to her dutiful
+      tenderness, and pious as well as personal concern!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      God for ever bless her!&mdash;Hasten, hasten particulars of her!&mdash;I
+      am sick of love!&mdash;such generous goodness!&mdash;By all that's great
+      and good, I will not lose her!&mdash;so tell her!&mdash;She says, that she
+      could not pity me, if she thought of being mine! This, according to Miss
+      Howe's transcriptions to Charlotte.&mdash;But bid her hate me, and have
+      me: and my behaviour to her shall soon turn that hate to love! for, body
+      and mind, I will be wholly her's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER X
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. THURSDAY, AUG. 17.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sincerely rejoiced to hear that thou art already so much amended, as
+      thy servant tells me thou art. Thy letter looks as if thy morals were
+      mending with thy health. This was a letter I could show, as I did, to the
+      lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She is very ill: (cursed letters received from her implacable family!) so
+      I could not have much conversation with her, in thy favour, upon it.&mdash;But
+      what passed will make thee more and more adore her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was very attentive to me, as I read it; and, when I had done, Poor
+      man! said she; what a letter is this! He had timely instances that my
+      temper was not ungenerous, if generosity could have obliged him! But his
+      remorse, and that for his own sake, is all the punishment I wish him.&mdash;
+      Yet I must be more reserved, if you write to him every thing I say!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I extolled her unbounded goodness&mdash;how could I help it, though to her
+      face!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No goodness in it! she said&mdash;it was a frame of mind she had
+      endeavoured after for her own sake. She suffered too much in want of
+      mercy, not to wish it to a penitent heart. He seems to be penitent, said
+      she; and it is not for me to judge beyond appearances.&mdash;If he be not,
+      he deceives himself more than any body else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was so ill that this was all that passed on the occasion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a fine subject for tragedy, would the injuries of this lady, and her
+      behaviour under them, both with regard to her implacable friends, and to
+      her persecutor, make! With a grand objection as to the moral,
+      nevertheless;* for here virtue is punished! Except indeed we look forward
+      to the rewards of HEREAFTER, which, morally, she must be sure of, or who
+      can? Yet, after all, I know not, so sad a fellow art thou, and so vile an
+      husband mightest thou have made, whether her virtue is not rewarded in
+      missing thee: for things the most grievous to human nature, when they
+      happen, as this charming creature once observed, are often the happiest
+      for us in the event.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * Mr. Belford's objections, That virtue ought not to suffer in a tragedy,
+      is not well considered: Monimia in the Orphean, Belvidera in Venice
+      Preserved, Athenais in Theodosius, Cordelia in Shakespeare's King Lear,
+      Desdemona in Othello, Hamlet, (to name no more,) are instances that a
+      tragedy could hardly be justly called a tragedy, if virtue did not
+      temporarily suffer, and vice for a while triumph. But he recovers himself
+      in the same paragraph; and leads us to look up to the FUTURE for the
+      reward of virtue, and for the punishment of guilt: and observes not amiss,
+      when he says, He knows not but that the virtue of such a woman as Clarissa
+      is rewarded in missing such a man as Lovelace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have frequently thought, in my attendance on this lady, that if Belton's
+      admired author, Nic. Rowe, had had such a character before him, he would
+      have drawn another sort of penitent than he has done, or given his play,
+      which he calls The Fair Penitent, a fitter title. Miss Harlowe is a
+      penitent indeed! I think, if I am not guilty of a contradiction in terms;
+      a penitent without a fault; her parents' conduct towards her from the
+      first considered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole story of the other is a pack of d&mdash;&mdash;d stuff.
+      Lothario, 'tis true, seems such another wicked ungenerous varlet as thou
+      knowest who: the author knew how to draw a rake; but not to paint a
+      penitent. Calista is a desiring luscious wench, and her penitence is
+      nothing else but rage, insolence, and scorn. Her passions are all storm
+      and tumult; nothing of the finer passions of the sex, which, if naturally
+      drawn, will distinguish themselves from the masculine passions, by a
+      softness that will even shine through rage and despair. Her character is
+      made up of deceit and disguise. She has no virtue; is all pride; and her
+      devil is as much within her, as without her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How then can the fall of such a one create a proper distress, when all the
+      circumstances of it are considered? For does she not brazen out her crime,
+      even after detection? Knowing her own guilt, she calls for Altamont's
+      vengeance on his best friend, as if he had traduced her; yields to marry
+      Altamont, though criminal with another; and actually beds that whining
+      puppy, when she had given up herself, body and soul, to Lothario; who,
+      nevertheless, refused to marry her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her penitence, when begun, she justly styles the phrensy of her soul; and,
+      as I said, after having, as long as she could, most audaciously brazened
+      out her crime, and done all the mischief she could do, (occasioning the
+      death of Lothario, of her father, and others,) she stabs herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And can this be the act of penitence?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, indeed, our poets hardly know how to create a distress without
+      horror, murder, and suicide; and must shock your soul, to bring tears from
+      your eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Altamont indeed, who is an amorous blockhead, a credulous cuckold, and,
+      (though painted as a brave fellow, and a soldier,) a mere Tom. Essence,
+      and a quarreler with his best friend, dies like a fool, (as we are led to
+      suppose at the conclusion of the play,) without either sword or pop-gun,
+      of mere grief and nonsense for one of the vilest of her sex: but the Fair
+      Penitent, as she is called, perishes by her own hand; and, having no title
+      by her past crimes to laudable pity, forfeits all claim to true penitence,
+      and, in all probability, to future mercy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But here is Miss CLARISSA HARLOWE, a virtuous, noble, wise, and pious
+      young lady; who being ill used by her friends, and unhappily ensnared by a
+      vile libertine, whom she believes to be a man of honour, is in a manner
+      forced to throw herself upon his protection. And he, in order to obtain
+      her confidence, never scruples the deepest and most solemn protestations
+      of honour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a series of plots and contrivances, all baffled by her virtue and
+      vigilance, he basely has recourse to the vilest of arts, and, to rob her
+      of her honour, is forced first to rob her of her senses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unable to bring her, notwithstanding, to his ungenerous views of
+      cohabitation, she over-awes him in the very entrance of a fresh act of
+      premeditated guilt, in presence of the most abandoned of women assembled
+      to assist his devilish purpose; triumphs over them all, by virtue only of
+      her innocence; and escapes from the vile hands he had put her into.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She nobly, not franticly, resents: refuses to see or to marry the wretch;
+      who, repenting his usage of so divine a creature, would fain move her to
+      forgive his baseness, and make him her husband: and this, though
+      persecuted by all her friends, and abandoned to the deepest distress,
+      being obliged, from ample fortunes, to make away with her apparel for
+      subsistence; surrounded also by strangers, and forced (in want of others)
+      to make a friend of the friend of her seducer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though longing for death, and making all proper preparations for it,
+      convinced that grief and ill usage have broken her noble heart, she abhors
+      the impious thought of shortening her allotted period; and, as much a
+      stranger to revenge as despair, is able to forgive the author of her ruin;
+      wishes his repentance, and that she may be the last victim to his
+      barbarous perfidy: and is solicitous for nothing so much in this life, as
+      to prevent vindictive mischief to and from the man who used her so basely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is penitence! This is piety! And hence distress naturally arises,
+      that must worthily effect every heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whatever the ill usage of this excellent woman is from her relations, she
+      breaks not out into excesses: she strives, on the contrary, to find reason
+      to justify them at her own expense; and seems more concerned for their
+      cruelty to her for their sakes hereafter, when she shall be no more, than
+      for her own: for, as to herself, she is sure, she says, God will forgive
+      her, though no one on earth will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On every extraordinary provocation she has recourse to the Scriptures, and
+      endeavours to regulate her vehemence by sacred precedents. 'Better people,
+      she says, have been more afflicted than she, grievous as she sometimes
+      thinks her afflictions: and shall she not bear what less faulty persons
+      have borne?' On the very occasion I have mentioned, (some new instances of
+      implacableness from her friends,) the enclosed meditation will show how
+      mildly, and yet how forcibly, she complains. See if thou, in the wicked
+      levity of thy heart, canst apply it to thy cause, as thou didst the other.
+      If thou canst not, give way to thy conscience, and that will make the
+      properest application.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MEDITATION
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Be it indeed that I have erred, mine error remaineth with myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To her that is afflicted, pity should be shown from her friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she that is ready to slip with her feet, is as a lamp despised in the
+      thought of them that are at ease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a shame which bringeth sin, and there is a shame which bringeth
+      glory and grace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye, my friends! for the hand of
+      God hath touched me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If your soul were in my soul's stead, I also could speak as ye do: I could
+      heap up words against you&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should
+      assuage your grief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why will ye break a leaf driven to and fro? Why will ye pursue the dry
+      stubble? Why will ye write bitter words against me, and make me possess
+      the iniquities of my youth?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mercy is seasonable in the time of affliction, as clouds of rain in the
+      time of drought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Are not my days few? Cease then, and let me alone, that I may take comfort
+      a little&mdash;before I go whence I shall not return; even to the land of
+      darkness, and shadow of death!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let me add, that the excellent lady is informed, by a letter from Mrs.
+      Norton, that Colonel Morden is just arrived in England. He is now the only
+      person she wishes to see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I expressed some jealousy upon it, lest he should have place given over me
+      in the executorship. She said, That she had no thoughts to do so now;
+      because such a trust, were he to accept of it, (which she doubted,) might,
+      from the nature of some of the papers which in that case would necessarily
+      pass through his hands, occasion mischiefs between my friend and him, that
+      would be worse than death for her to think of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Belton, I hear, is at death's door. A messenger is just come from
+      him, who tells me he cannot die till he sees me. I hope the poor fellow
+      will not go off yet; since neither his affairs of this world, nor for the
+      other, are in tolerable order. I cannot avoid going to the poor man. Yet
+      am unwilling to stir, till I have an assurance from you that you will not
+      disturb the lady: for I know he will be very loth to part with me, when he
+      gets me to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tourville tells me how fast thou mendest: let me conjure thee not to think
+      of molesting this incomparable woman. For thy own sake I request this, as
+      well as for her's, and for the sake of thy given promise: for, should she
+      die within a few weeks, as I fear she will, it will be said, and perhaps
+      too justly, that thy visit has hastened her end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In hopes thou wilt not, I wish thy perfect recovery: else that thou mayest
+      relapse, and be confined to thy bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE SAT. MORN. AUG. 19.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MADAM,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I think myself obliged in honour to acquaint you that I am afraid Mr.
+      Lovelace will try his fate by an interview with you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish to Heaven you could prevail upon yourself to receive his visit. All
+      that is respectful, even to veneration, and all that is penitent, will you
+      see in his behaviour, if you can admit of it. But as I am obliged to set
+      out directly for Epsom, (to perform, as I apprehend, the last friendly
+      offices for poor Mr. Belton, whom once you saw,) and as I think it more
+      likely that Mr. Lovelace will not be prevailed upon, than that he will, I
+      thought fit to give you this intimation, lest, if he should come, you
+      should be too much surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He flatters himself that you are not so ill as I represent you to be. When
+      he sees you, he will be convinced that the most obliging things he can do,
+      will be as proper to be done for the sake of his own future peace of mind,
+      as for your health-sake; and, I dare say, in fear of hurting the latter,
+      he will forbear the thoughts of any farther intrusion; at least while you
+      are so much indisposed: so that one half-hour's shock, if it will be a
+      shock to see the unhappy man, (but just got up himself from a dangerous
+      fever,) will be all you will have occasion to stand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I beg you will not too much hurry and discompose yourself. It is
+      impossible he can be in town till Monday, at soonest. And if he resolve to
+      come, I hope to be at Mr. Smith's before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am, Madam, with the profoundest veneration,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your most faithful and most obedient servant, J. BELFORD.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. [IN ANSWER TO HIS OF AUG. 17. SEE
+      LETTER X. OF THIS VOLUME.] SUNDAY, AUG. 20.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What an unmerciful fellow art thou! A man has no need of a conscience, who
+      has such an impertinent monitor. But if Nic. Rowe wrote a play that
+      answers not his title, am I to be reflected upon for that?&mdash;I have
+      sinned; I repent; I would repair&mdash;she forgives my sin: she accepts my
+      repentance: but she won't let me repair&mdash;What wouldst thou have me
+      do?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But get thee gone to Belton, as soon as thou canst. Yet whether thou goest
+      or not, up I must go, and see what I can do with the sweet oddity myself.
+      The moment these prescribing varlets will let me, depend upon it, I go.
+      Nay, Lord M. thinks she ought to permit me one interview. His opinion has
+      great authority with me&mdash;when it squares with my own: and I have
+      assured him, and my two cousins, that I will behave with all the decency
+      and respect that man can behave with to the person whom he most respects.
+      And so I will. Of this, if thou choosest not to go to Belton mean time,
+      thou shalt be witness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Colonel Morden, thou hast heard me say, is a man of honour and bravery:&mdash;
+      but Colonel Morden has had his girls, as well as you or I. And indeed,
+      either openly or secretly, who has not? The devil always baits with a
+      pretty wench, when he angles for a man, be his age, rank, or degree, what
+      it will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have often heard my beloved speak of the Colonel with great distinction
+      and esteem. I wish he could make matters a little easier, for her mind's
+      sake, between the rest of the implacables and herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Methinks I am sorry for honest Belton. But a man cannot be ill, or
+      vapourish, but thou liftest up thy shriek-owl note, and killest him
+      immediately. None but a fellow, who is for a drummer in death's
+      forlorn-hope, could take so much delight, as thou dost, in beating a
+      dead-march with thy goose-quills. Whereas, didst thou but know thine own
+      talents, thou art formed to give mirth by thy very appearance; and wouldst
+      make a better figure by half, leading up thy brother-bears at Hockley in
+      the Hole, to the music of a Scot's bagpipe. Methinks I see thy clumsy
+      sides shaking, (and shaking the sides of all beholders,) in these
+      attitudes; thy fat head archly beating time on thy porterly shoulders,
+      right and left by turns, as I once beheld thee practising to the horn-pipe
+      at Preston. Thou remembrest the frolick, as I have done an hundred times;
+      for I never before saw thee appear so much in character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I know what I shall get by this&mdash;only that notable observation
+      repeated, That thy outside is the worst of thee, and mine the best of me.
+      And so let it be. Nothing thou writest of this sort can I take amiss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I shall call thee seriously to account, when I see thee, for the
+      extracts thou hast given the lady from my letters, notwithstanding what I
+      said in my last; especially if she continue to refuse me. An hundred times
+      have I myself known a woman deny, yet comply at last: but, by these
+      extracts, thou hast, I doubt, made her bar up the door of her heart, as
+      she used to do her chamber-door, against me.&mdash;This therefore is a
+      disloyalty that friendship cannot bear, nor honour allow me to forgive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. LONDON, AUG. 21, MONDAY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe I am bound to curse thee, Jack. Nevertheless I won't anticipate,
+      but proceed to write thee a longer letter than thou hast had from me for
+      some time past. So here goes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That thou mightest have as little notice as possible of the time I was
+      resolved to be in town, I set out in my Lord's chariot-and-six yesterday,
+      as soon as I had dispatched my letter to thee, and arrived in town last
+      night: for I knew I could have no dependence on thy friendship where Miss
+      Harlowe's humour was concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had no other place so ready, and so was forced to go to my old lodgings,
+      where also my wardrobe is; and there I poured out millions of curses upon
+      the whole crew, and refused to see either Sally or Polly; and this not
+      only for suffering the lady to escape, but for the villanous arrest, and
+      for their detestable insolence to her at the officer's house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I dressed myself in a never-worn suit, which I had intended for one of my
+      wedding-suits; and liked myself so well, that I began to think, with thee,
+      that my outside was the best of me:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took a chair to Smith's, my heart bounding in almost audible thumps to
+      my throat, with the assured expectations of seeing my beloved. I clasped
+      my fingers, as I was danced along: I charged my eyes to languish and
+      sparkle by turns: I talked to my knees, telling them how they must bend;
+      and, in the language of a charming describer, acted my part in fancy, as
+      well as spoke it to myself.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      Tenderly kneeling, thus will I complain:
+      Thus court her pity; and thus plead my pain:
+      Thus sigh for fancy'd frowns, if frowns should rise;
+      And thus meet favour in her soft'ning eyes.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In this manner entertained I myself till I arrived at Smith's; and there
+      the fellows set down their gay burden. Off went their hats; Will. ready at
+      hand in a new livery; up went the head; out rushed my honour; the woman
+      behind the counter all in flutters, respect and fear giving due solemnity
+      to her features, and her knees, I doubt not, knocking against the inside
+      of her wainscot-fence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your servant, Madam&mdash;Will. let the fellows move to some distance, and
+      wait.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You have a young lady lodges here; Miss Harlowe, Madam: Is she above?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir, Sir, and please your Honour: [the woman is struck with my figure,
+      thought I:] Miss Harlowe, Sir! There is, indeed, such a young lady lodges
+      here&mdash;But, but&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, what, Madam?&mdash;I must see her.&mdash;One pair of stairs; is it
+      not?&mdash; Don't trouble yourself&mdash;I shall find her apartment. And
+      was making towards the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir, Sir, the lady, the lady is not at home&mdash;she is abroad&mdash;she
+      is in the country&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the country! Not at home!&mdash;Impossible! You will not pass this
+      story upon me, good woman. I must see her. I have business of life and
+      death with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, Sir, the lady is not at home! Indeed, Sir, she is abroad!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She then rung a bell: John, cried she, pray step down!&mdash;Indeed, Sir,
+      the lady is not at home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Down came John, the good man of the house, when I expected one of his
+      journeymen, by her saucy familiarity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My dear, said she, the gentleman will not believe Miss Harlowe is abroad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John bowed to my fine clothes: Your servant, Sir,&mdash;indeed the lady is
+      abroad. She went out of town this morning by six o'clock&mdash;into the
+      country&mdash;by the doctor's advice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still I would not believe either John or his wife. I am sure, said I, she
+      cannot be abroad. I heard she was very ill&mdash;she is not able to go out
+      in a coach. Do you know Mr. Belford, friend?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, Sir; I have the honour to know 'Squire Belford. He is gone into the
+      country to visit a sick friend. He went on Saturday, Sir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This had also been told from thy lodgings to Will. whom I sent to desire
+      to see thee on my first coming to town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, and Mr. Belford wrote me word that she was exceeding ill. How then
+      can she be gone out?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O Sir, she is very ill; very ill, indeed&mdash;she could hardly walk to
+      the coach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Belford, thought I, himself knew nothing of the time of my coming; neither
+      can he have received my letter of yesterday: and so ill, 'tis impossible
+      she would go out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where is her servant? Call her servant to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her servant, Sir, is her nurse: she has no other. And she is gone with
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, friend, I must not believe you. You'll excuse me; but I must go up
+      stairs myself. And was stepping up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John hereupon put on a serious, and a less respectful face&mdash;Sir, this
+      house is mine; and&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And what, friend? not doubting then but she was above.&mdash;I must and
+      will see her. I have authority for it. I am a justice of the peace. I have
+      a search warrant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And up I went; they following me, muttering, and in a plaguy flutter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first door I came to was locked. I tapped at it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady, Sir, has the key of her own apartment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the inside, I question not, my honest friend; tapping again. And being
+      assured, if she heard my voice, that her timorous and soft temper would
+      make her betray herself, by some flutters, to my listning ear, I said
+      aloud, I am confident Miss Harlowe is here: dearest Madam, open the door:
+      admit me but for one moment to your presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But neither answer nor fluttering saluted my ear; and, the people being
+      very quiet, I led on to the next apartment; and, the key being on the
+      outside, I opened it, and looked all around it, and into the closet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man said he never saw so uncivil a gentleman in his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hark thee, friend, said I; let me advise thee to be a little decent; or I
+      shall teach thee a lesson thou never learnedst in all thy life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir, said he, 'tis not like a gentleman, to affront a man in his own
+      house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then prythee, man, replied I, don't crow upon thine own dunghil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stept back to the locked door: My dear Miss Harlowe, I beg of you to
+      open the door, or I'll break it open;&mdash;pushing hard against it, that
+      it cracked again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man looked pale: and, trembling with his fright, made a plaguy long
+      face; and called to one of his bodice-makers above, Joseph, come down
+      quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joseph came down: a lion's-face grinning fellow; thick, and short, and
+      bushy-headed, like an old oak-pollard. Then did master John put on a
+      sturdier look. But I only hummed a tune, traversed all the other
+      apartments, sounded the passages with my knuckles, to find whether there
+      were private doors, and walked up the next pair of stairs, singing all the
+      way; John and Joseph, and Mrs. Smith, following me up, trembling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked round me there, and went into two open-door bed-chambers;
+      searched the closets, and the passages, and peeped through the key-hole of
+      another: no Miss Harlowe, by Jupiter! What shall I do!&mdash;what shall I
+      do! as the girls say.&mdash;Now will she be grieved that she is out of the
+      way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I said this on purpose to find out whether these people knew the lady's
+      story; and had the answer I expected from Mrs. Smith&mdash;I believe not,
+      Sir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why so, Mrs. Smith? Do you know who I am?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I can guess, Sir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whom do you guess me to be?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your name is Mr. Lovelace, Sir, I make no doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The very same. But how came you to guess so well, dame Smith! You never
+      saw me before, did you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, Jack, I laid out for a compliment, and missed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Tis easy to guess, Sir; for there cannot be two such gentlemen as you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well said, dame Smith&mdash;but mean you good or bad?&mdash;Handsome was
+      the least I thought she would have said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I leave you to guess, Sir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Condemned, thought I, by myself, on this appeal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why, father Smith, thy wife is a wit, man!&mdash;Didst thou ever find that
+      out before?&mdash;But where is widow Lovick, dame Smith? My cousin John
+      Belford says she is a very good woman. Is she within? or is she gone with
+      Miss Harlowe too?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She will be within by-and-by, Sir. She is not with the lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, but my good dear Mrs. Smith, where is the lady gone? and when will
+      she return?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I can't tell, Sir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Don't tell fibs, dame Smith; don't tell fibs, chucking her under the chin:
+      which made John's upper-lip, with chin shortened, rise to his nose.
+      &mdash;I am sure you know!&mdash;But here's another pair of stairs: let us
+      see: Who lives up there?&mdash;but hold, here's another room locked up,
+      tapping at the door&mdash;Who's at home? cried I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That's Mrs. Lovick's apartment. She is gone out, and has the key with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Widow Lovick! rapping again, I believe you are at home: pray open the
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John and Joseph muttered and whispered together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No whispering, honest friends: 'tis not manners to whisper. Joseph, what
+      said John to thee?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      JOHN! Sir, disdainfully repeated the good woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I beg pardon, Mrs. Smith: but you see the force of example. Had you showed
+      your honest man more respect, I should. Let me give you a piece of advice&mdash;women
+      who treat their husbands irreverently, teach strangers to use them with
+      contempt. There, honest master John; why dost not pull off thy hat to me?&mdash;Oh!
+      so thou wouldst, if thou hadst it on: but thou never wearest thy hat in
+      thy wife's presence, I believe; dost thou?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      None of your fleers and your jeers, Sir, cried John. I wish every married
+      pair lived as happily as we do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish so too, honest friend. But I'll be hanged if thou hast any
+      children.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why so, Sir?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hast thou?&mdash;Answer me, man: Hast thou, or not?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps not, Sir. But what of that?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What of that?&mdash;Why I'll tell thee: The man who has no children by his
+      wife must put up with plain John. Hadst thou a child or two, thou'dst be
+      called Mr. Smith, with a courtesy, or a smile at least, at every word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You are very pleasant, Sir, replied my dame. I fancy, if either my husband
+      or I had as much to answer for as I know whom, we should not be so merry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why then, dame Smith, so much the worse for those who were obliged to keep
+      you company. But I am not merry&mdash;I am sad!&mdash;Hey-ho!&mdash;Where
+      shall I find my dear Miss Harlowe?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My beloved Miss Harlowe! [calling at the foot of the third pair of
+      stairs,] if you are above, for Heaven's sake answer me. I am coming up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir, said the good man, I wish you'd walk down. The servants' rooms, and
+      the working-rooms, are up those stairs, and another pair; and nobody's
+      there that you want.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shall I go up, and see if Miss Harlowe be there, Mrs. Smith?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You may, Sir, if you please.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I won't; for, if she was, you would not be so obliging.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am ashamed to give you all this attendance: you are the politest traders
+      I ever knew. Honest Joseph, slapping him upon the shoulders on a sudden,
+      which made him jump, didst ever grin for a wager, man?&mdash;for the
+      rascal seemed not displeased with me; and, cracking his flat face from ear
+      to ear, with a distended mouth, showed his teeth, as broad and as black as
+      his thumb-nails.&mdash;But don't I hinder thee? What canst earn a-day,
+      man?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Half-a-crown I can earn a-day; with an air of pride and petulance, at
+      being startled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There then is a day's wages for thee. But thou needest not attend me
+      farther.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Come, Mrs. Smith, come John, (Master Smith I should say,) let's walk down,
+      and give me an account where the lady is gone, and when she will return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So down stairs led I. John and Joseph (though I had discharged the
+      latter,) and my dame, following me, to show their complaisance to a
+      stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I re-entered one of the first-floor rooms. I have a great mind to be your
+      lodger: for I never saw such obliging folks in my life. What rooms have
+      you to let?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      None at all, Sir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sorry for that. But whose is this?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mine, Sir, chuffily said John.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thine, man! why then I will take it of thee. This, and a bed-chamber, and
+      a garret for one servant, will content me. I will give thee thine own
+      price, and half a guinea a day over, for those conveniencies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For ten guineas a day, Sir&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hold, John! (Master Smith I should say)&mdash;Before thou speakest,
+      consider&mdash; I won't be affronted, man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir, I wish you'd walk down, said the good woman. Really, Sir, you take&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Great liberties I hope you would not say, Mrs. Smith?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, Sir, I was going to say something like it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, then, I am glad I prevented you; for such words better become my
+      mouth than yours. But I must lodge with you till the lady returns. I
+      believe I must. However, you may be wanted in the shop; so we'll talk that
+      over there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Down I went, they paying diligent attendance on my steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I came into the shop, seeing no chair or stool, I went behind the
+      compter, and sat down under an arched kind of canopy of carved work, which
+      these proud traders, emulating the royal niche-fillers, often give
+      themselves, while a joint-stool, perhaps, serves those by whom they get
+      their bread: such is the dignity of trade in this mercantile nation!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked about me, and above me; and told them I was very proud of my
+      seat; asking, if John were ever permitted to fill this superb niche?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps he was, he said, very surlily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That is it that makes thee looks so like a statue, man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John looked plaguy glum upon me. But his man Joseph and my man Will.
+      turned round with their backs to us, to hide their grinning, with each his
+      fist in his mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I asked, what it was they sold?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Powder, and wash-balls, and snuff, they said; and gloves and stockings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O come, I'll be your customer. Will. do I want wash-balls?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, and please your Honour, you can dispense with one or two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Give him half a dozen, dame Smith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She told me she must come where I was, to serve them. Pray, Sir, walk from
+      behind the compter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed but I won't. The shop shall be mine. Where are they, if a customer
+      shall come in?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She pointed over my head, with a purse mouth, as if she would not have
+      simpered, could she have helped it. I reached down the glass, and gave
+      Will. six. There&mdash;put 'em up, Sirrah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did, grinning with his teeth out before; which touching my conscience,
+      as the loss of them was owing to me, Joseph, said I, come hither. Come
+      hither, man, when I bid thee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stalked towards me, his hands behind him, half willing, and half
+      unwilling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I suddenly wrapt my arm round his neck. Will. thy penknife, this moment. D&mdash;&mdash;n
+      the fellow, where's thy penknife?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O Lord! said the pollard-headed dog, struggling to get his head loose from
+      under my arm, while my other hand was muzzling about his cursed chaps, as
+      if I would take his teeth out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will pay thee a good price, man: don't struggle thus? The penknife,
+      Will.!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O Lord, cried Joseph, struggling still more and more: and out comes
+      Will.'s pruning-knife; for the rascal is a gardener in the country. I have
+      only this, Sir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The best in the world to launch a gum. D&mdash;&mdash;n the fellow, why
+      dost struggle thus?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Master and Mistress Smith being afraid, I suppose, that I had a design
+      upon Joseph's throat, because he was their champion, (and this, indeed,
+      made me take the more notice of him,) coming towards me with countenances
+      tragic-comical, I let him go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I only wanted, said I, to take out two or three of this rascal's broad
+      teeth, to put them into my servant's jaws&mdash;and I would have paid him
+      his price for them.&mdash;I would by my soul, Joseph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joseph shook his ears; and with both hands stroked down, smooth as it
+      would lie, his bushy hair; and looked at me as if he knew not whether he
+      should laugh or be angry: but, after a stupid stare or two, stalked off to
+      the other end of the shop, nodding his head at me as he went, still
+      stroking down his hair; and took his stand by his master, facing about and
+      muttering, that I was plaguy strong in the arms, and he thought would have
+      throttled him. Then folding his arms, and shaking his bristled head,
+      added, 'twas well I was a gentleman, or he would not have taken such an
+      affront.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I demanded where their rappee was? the good woman pointed to the place;
+      and I took up a scollop-shell of it, refusing to let her weight it, and
+      filled my box. And now, Mrs. Smith, said I, where are your gloves?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She showed me; and I chose four pair of them, and set Joseph, who looked
+      as if he wanted to be taken notice of again, to open the fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A female customer, who had been gaping at the door, came in for some Scots
+      sniff; and I would serve her. The wench was plaguy homely; and I told her
+      so; or else, I said, I would have treated her. She, in anger, [no woman is
+      homely in her own opinion,] threw down her penny; and I put it in my
+      pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just then, turning my eye to the door, I saw a pretty, genteel lady, with
+      a footman after her, peeping in with a What's the matter, good folks? to
+      the starers; and I ran to her from behind the compter, and, as she was
+      making off, took her hand, and drew her into the shop; begging that she
+      would be my customer; for that I had but just begun trade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What do you sell, Sir? said she, smiling; but a little surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tapes, ribbands, silk laces, pins, and needles; for I am a pedlar: powder,
+      patches, wash-balls, stockings, garters, snuffs, and pin cushions&mdash;Don't
+      we, goody Smith?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So in I gently drew her to the compter, running behind it myself, with an
+      air of great dilingence and obligingness. I have excellent gloves and
+      wash-balls, Madam: rappee, Scots, Portugal, and all sorts of snuff.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, said she, in a very good humour, I'll encourage a young beginner for
+      once. Here, Andrew, [to her footman,] you want a pair of gloves, don't
+      you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took down a parcel of gloves, which Mrs. Smith pointed to, and came
+      round to the fellow to fit them on myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No matter for opening them, said I: thy fingers, friend, are as stiff as
+      drum-sticks. Push!&mdash;Thou'rt an awkward dog! I wonder such a pretty
+      lady will be followed by such a clumsy varlet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fellow had no strength for laughing: and Joseph was mightily pleased,
+      in hopes, I suppose, I would borrow a few of Andrew's teeth, to keep him
+      in countenance: and, father and mother Smith, like all the world, as the
+      jest was turned from themselves, seemed diverted with the humour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fellow said the gloves were too little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thrust, and be d&mdash;&mdash;d to thee, said I: why, fellow, thou hast
+      not the strength of a cat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir, Sir, said he, laughing, I shall hurt your Honour's side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      D&mdash;&mdash;n thee, thrust I say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did; and burst out the sides of the glove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Will. said I, where's thy pruning-knife? By my soul, friend, I had a good
+      mind to pare thy cursed paws. But come, here's a larger pair: try them,
+      when thou gettest home; and let thy sweetheart, if thou hast one, mend the
+      other, so take both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady laughed at the humour; as did my fellow, and Mrs. Smith, and
+      Joseph: even John laughed, though he seemed by the force put upon his
+      countenance to be but half pleased with me neither.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madam, said I, and stepped behind the compter, bowing over it, now I hope
+      you will buy something for yourself. Nobody shall use you better, nor sell
+      you cheaper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Come, said she, give me six-penny worth of Portugal snuff.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They showed me where it was, and I served her; and said, when she would
+      have paid me, I took nothing at my opening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If I treated her footman, she told me, I should not treat her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, with all my heart, said I: 'tis not for us tradesmen to be saucy&mdash;
+      Is it, Mrs. Smith?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I put her sixpence in my pocket; and, seizing her hand, took notice to her
+      of the crowd that had gathered about the door, and besought her to walk
+      into the back-shop with me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She struggled her hand out of mine, and would stay no longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So I bowed, and bid her kindly welcome, and thanked her, and hoped I
+      should have her custom another time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She went away smiling; and Andrew after her; who made me a fine bow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I began to be out of countenance at the crowd, which thickened apace; and
+      bid Will. order the chair to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, Mrs. Smith, with a grave air, I am heartily sorry Miss Harlowe is
+      abroad. You don't tell me where she is?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, Sir, I cannot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You will not, you mean.&mdash;She could have no notion of my coming. I
+      came to town but last night. I have been very ill. She has almost broken
+      my heart by her cruelty. You know my story, I doubt not. Tell her, I must
+      go out of town to-morrow morning. But I will send my servant, to know if
+      she will favour me with one half-hour's conversation; for, as soon as I
+      get down, I shall set out for Dover, in my way to France, if I have not a
+      countermand from her, who has the sole disposal of my fate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so flinging down a Portugal six-and-thirty, I took Mr. Smith by the
+      hand, telling him, I was sorry we had not more time to be better
+      acquainted; and bidding farewell to honest Joseph, (who pursed up his
+      mouth as I passed by him, as if he thought his teeth still in jeopardy,)
+      and Mrs. Smith adieu, and to recommend me to her fair lodger, hummed an
+      air, and, the chair being come, whipt into it; the people about the door
+      seeming to be in good humour with me; one crying, a pleasant gentleman, I
+      warrant him! and away I was carried to White's, according to direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as I came thither, I ordered Will. to go and change his clothes,
+      and to disguise himself by putting on his black wig, and keeping his mouth
+      shut; and then to dodge about Smith's, to inform himself of the lady's
+      motions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I give thee this impudent account of myself, that thou mayest rave at me,
+      and call me hardened, and what thou wilt. For, in the first place, I, who
+      had been so lately ill, was glad I was alive; and then I was so balked by
+      my charmer's unexpected absence, and so ruffled by that, and by the bluff
+      treatment of father John, that I had no other way to avoid being out of
+      humour with all I met with. Moreover I was rejoiced to find, by the lady's
+      absence, and by her going out at six in the morning, that it was
+      impossible she should be so ill as thou representest her to be; and this
+      gave me still higher spirits. Then I know the sex always love cheerful and
+      humourous fellows. The dear creature herself used to be pleased with my
+      gay temper and lively manner; and had she been told that I was blubbering
+      for her in the back-shop, she would have despised me still more than she
+      does.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Furthermore, I was sensible that the people of the house must needs have a
+      terrible notion of me, as a savage, bloody-minded, obdurate fellow; a
+      perfect woman-eater; and, no doubt, expected to see me with the claws of a
+      lion, and the fangs of a tiger; and it was but policy to show them what a
+      harmless pleasant fellow I am, in order to familiarize the Johns and the
+      Josephs to me. For it was evident to me, by the good woman's calling them
+      down, that she thought me a dangerous man. Whereas now, John and I have
+      shaken hands together, and dame Smith having seen that I have the face,
+      and hands, and looks of a man, and walk upright, and prate, and laugh, and
+      joke, like other people; and Joseph, that I can talk of taking his teeth
+      out of his head, without doing him the least hurt; they will all, at my
+      next visit, be much more easy and pleasant to me than Andrew's gloves were
+      to him; and we shall be as thoroughly acquainted, as if we had known one
+      another a twelvemonth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I returned to our mother's, I again cursed her and all her nymphs
+      together; and still refused to see either Sally or Polly! I raved at the
+      horrid arrest; and told the old dragon that it was owing to her and her's
+      that the fairest virtue in the world was ruined; my reputation for ever
+      blasted; and that I was not married and perfectly happy in the love of the
+      most excellent of her sex.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She, to pacify me, said she would show me a new face that would please me;
+      since I would not see my Sally, who was dying with grief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where is this new face? cried I: let me see her, though I shall never see
+      any face with pleasure but Miss Harlowe's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She won't come down, replied she. She will not be at the word of command
+      yet. She is but just in the trammels; and must be waited upon, I'll assure
+      you; and courted much besides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ay! said I, that looks well. Lead me to her this instant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I followed her up: and who should she be, but that little toad Sally!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O curse you, said I, for a devil! Is it you? is your's the new face?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O my dear, dear Mr. Lovelace! cried she, I am glad any thing will bring
+      you to me!&mdash;and so the little beast threw herself about my neck, and
+      there clung like a cat. Come, said she, what will you give me, and I'll be
+      as virtuous for a quarter of an hour, and mimic your Clarissa to the life?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was Belforded all over. I could not bear such an insult upon the dear
+      creature, (for I have a soft and generous nature in the main, whatever
+      thou thinkest;) and cursed her most devoutly, for taking my beloved's name
+      in her mouth in such a way. But the little devil was not to be balked; but
+      fell a crying, sobbing, praying, begging, exclaiming, fainting, that I
+      never saw my lovely girl so well aped. Indeed I was almost taken in; for I
+      could have fancied I had her before me once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O this sex! this artful sex! there's no minding them. At first, indeed,
+      their grief and their concern may be real: but, give way to the hurricane,
+      and it will soon die away in soft murmurs, thrilling upon your ears like
+      the notes of a well-tuned viol. And, by Sally, one sees that art will
+      generally so well supply the place of nature, that you shall not easily
+      know the difference. Miss Clarisa Harlowe, indeed, is the only woman in
+      the world I believe that can say, in the words of her favourite Job, (for
+      I can quote a text as well as she,) But it is not so with me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were very inquisitive about my fair-one. They told me that you seldom
+      came near them; that, when you did, you put on plaguy grave airs; would
+      hardly stay five minutes; and did nothing but praise Miss Harlowe, and
+      lament her hard fate. In short, that you despised them; was full of
+      sentences; and they doubted not, in a little while, would be a lost man,
+      and marry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A pretty character for thee, is it not? thou art in a blessed way; yet
+      hast nothing to do but to go on in it: and then what work hast thou to go
+      through! If thou turnest back, these sorceresses will be like the czar's
+      cossacks, [at Pultowa, I think it was,] who were planted with ready primed
+      and cocked pieces behind the regulars, in order to shoot them dead, if
+      they did not push on and conquer; and then wilt thou be most lamentably
+      despised by every harlot thou hast made&mdash;and, O Jack, how formidable,
+      in that case, will be the number of thy enemies!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I intend to regulate my motions by Will.'s intelligence; for see this dear
+      creature I must and will. Yet I have promised Lord M. to be down in two or
+      three days at farthest; for he is grown plaguy fond of me since I was ill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am in hopes that the word I left, that I am to go out of town to-morrow
+      morning, will soon bring the lady back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mean time, I thought I would write to divert thee, while thou art of such
+      importance about the dying; and as thy servant, it seems, comes backward
+      and forward every day, perhaps I may send thee another letter to-morrow,
+      with the particulars of the interview between the dear creature and me;
+      after which my soul thirsteth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must write on, to divert myself: for I can get no rest; no refreshing
+      rest. I awaked just now in a cursed fright. How a man may be affected by
+      dreams!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Methought I had an interview with my beloved. I found her all goodness,
+      condescension, and forgiveness. She suffered herself to be overcome in my
+      favour by the joint intercessions of Lord M., Lady Sarah, Lady Betty, and
+      my two cousins Montague, who waited upon her in deep mourning; the ladies
+      in long trains sweeping after them; Lord M. in a long black mantle
+      trailing after him. They told her they came in these robs to express their
+      sorrow for my sins against her, and to implore her to forgive me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I myself, I thought, was upon my knees, with a sword in my hand, offering
+      either to put it up in the scabbard, or to thrust it into my heart, as she
+      should command the one or the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'At that moment her cousin Morden, I thought, all of a sudden, flashed in
+      through a window, with his drawn sword&mdash;Die, Lovelace! said he; this
+      instant die, and be d&mdash;&mdash;d, if in earnest thou repairest not by
+      marriage my cousin's wrongs!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I was rising to resent this insult, I thought, when Lord M. ran between
+      us with his great black mantle, and threw it over my face: and instantly
+      my charmer, with that sweet voice which has so often played upon my
+      ravished ears, wrapped her arms around me, muffled as I was in my Lord's
+      mantle: O spare, spare my Lovelace! and spare, O Lovelace, my beloved
+      cousin Morden! Let me not have my distresses augmented by the fall of
+      either or both of those who are so dear to me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'At this, charmed with her sweet mediation, I thought I would have clasped
+      her in my arms: when immediately the most angelic form I had ever beheld,
+      all clad in transparent white, descended in a cloud, which, opening,
+      discovered a firmament above it, crowded with golden cherubs and
+      glittering seraphs, all addressing her with Welcome, welcome, welcome!
+      and, encircling my charmer, ascended with her to the region of seraphims;
+      and instantly, the opened cloud closing, I lost sight of her, and of the
+      bright form together, and found wrapt in my arms her azure robe (all stuck
+      thick with stars of embossed silver) which I had caught hold of in hopes
+      of detaining her; but was all that was left me of my beloved Clarissa. And
+      then, (horrid to relate!) the floor sinking under me, as the firmament had
+      opened for her, I dropt into a hole more frightful than that of Elden;
+      and, tumbling over and over down it, without view of a bottom, I awaked in
+      a panic; and was as effectually disordered for half an hour, as if my
+      dream had been a reality.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilt thou forgive my troubling thee with such visionary stuff? Thou wilt
+      see by it only that, sleeping or waking, my Clarissa is always present
+      with me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But here this moment is Will. come running hither to tell me that his lady
+      actually returned to her lodgings last night between eleven and twelve;
+      and is now there, though very ill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hasten to her. But, that I may not add to her indisposition, by any
+      rough or boisterous behaviour, I will be as soft and gentle as the dove
+      herself in my addresses to her.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      That I do love her, I all ye host of Heaven,
+      Be witness.&mdash;That she is dear to me!
+      Dearer than day, to one whom sight must leave;
+      Dearer than life, to one who fears to die!
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The chair is come. I fly to my beloved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Curse upon my stars!&mdash;Disappointed again! It was about eight when I
+      arrived at Smith's.&mdash;The woman was in the shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, old acquaintance, how do you now? I know my love is above.&mdash;Let
+      her be acquainted that I am here, waiting for admission to her presence,
+      and can take no denial. Tell her, that I will approach her with the most
+      respectful duty, and in whose company she pleases; and I will not touch
+      the hem of her garment, without her leave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, Sir, you are mistaken. The lady is not in this house, nor near it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I'll see that.&mdash;Will.! beckoning him to me, and whispering, see if
+      thou canst any way find out (without losing sight of the door, lest she
+      should be below stairs) if she be in the neighbourhood, if not within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Will. bowed, and went off. Up went I, without further ceremony; attended
+      now only by the good woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went into each apartment, except that which was locked before, and was
+      now also locked: and I called to my Clarissa in the voice of love; but, by
+      the still silence, was convinced she was not there. Yet, on the strength
+      of my intelligence, I doubted not but she was in the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I then went up two pairs of stairs, and looked round the first room: but
+      no Miss Harlowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And who, pray, is in this room? stopping at the door of another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A widow gentlewoman, Sir.&mdash;Mrs. Lovick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O my dear Mrs. Lovick! said I.&mdash;I am intimately acquainted with Mrs.
+      Lovick's character, from my cousin John Belford. I must see Mrs. Lovick by
+      all means.&mdash;Good Mrs. Lovick, open the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your servant, Madam. Be so good as to excuse me.&mdash;You have heard my
+      story. You are an admirer of the most excellent woman in the world. Dear
+      Mrs. Lovick, tell me what is become of her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor lady, Sir, went out yesterday, on purpose to avoid you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How so? she knew not that I would be here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was afraid you would come, when she heard you were recovered from your
+      illness. Ah! Sir, what pity it is that so fine a gentleman should make
+      such ill returns for God's goodness to him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You are an excellent woman, Mrs. Lovick: I know that, by my cousin John
+      Belford's account of you: and Miss Clarissa Harlowe is an angel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Harlowe is indeed an angel, replied she; and soon will be company for
+      angels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No jesting with such a woman as this, Jack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tell me of a truth, good Mrs. Lovick, where I may see this dear lady. Upon
+      my soul, I will neither fright for offend her. I will only beg of her to
+      hear me speak for one half-quarter of an hour; and, if she will have it
+      so, I will never trouble her more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir, said the widow, it would be death for her to see you. She was at home
+      last night; I'll tell you truth: but fitter to be in bed all day. She came
+      home, she said, to die; and, if she could not avoid your visit, she was
+      unable to fly from you; and believed she should die in your presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet go out again this morning early? How can that be, widow?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why, Sir, she rested not two hours, for fear of you. Her fear gave her
+      strength, which she'll suffer for, when that fear is over. And finding
+      herself, the more she thought of your visit, the less able to stay to
+      receive it, she took chair, and is gone nobody knows whither. But, I
+      believe, she intended to be carried to the waterside, in order to take
+      boat; for she cannot bear a coach. It extremely incommoded her yesterday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But before we talk any further, said I, if she be gone abroad, you can
+      have no objection to my looking into every apartment above and below;
+      because I am told she is actually in the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, Sir, she is not. You may satisfy yourself, if you please: but Mrs.
+      Smith and I waited on her to her chair. We were forced to support her, she
+      was so weak. She said, Whither can I go, Mrs. Lovick? whither can I go,
+      Mrs. Smith?&mdash;Cruel, cruel man!&mdash;tell him I called him so, if he
+      come again!&mdash;God give him that peace which he denies me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sweet creature! cried I; and looked down, and took out my handkerchief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The widow wept. I wish, said she, I had never known so excellent a lady,
+      and so great a sufferer! I love her as my own child!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Smith wept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I then gave over the hope of seeing her for this time, I was extremely
+      chagrined at my disappointment, and at the account they gave of her ill
+      health.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Would to Heaven, said I, she would put it in my power to repair her
+      wrongs! I have been an ungrateful wretch to her. I need not tell you, Mrs.
+      Lovick, how much I have injured her, nor how much she suffers by her
+      relations' implacableness, Mrs. Smith, that cuts her to the heart. Her
+      family is the most implacable family on earth; and the dear creature, in
+      refusing to see me, and to be reconciled to me, shows her relation to them
+      a little too plainly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O Sir, said the widow, not one syllable of what you say belongs to this
+      lady. I never saw so sweet a temper! she is always accusing herself, and
+      excusing her relations. And, as to you, Sir, she forgives you: she wishes
+      you well; and happier than you will let her die in peace? 'tis all she
+      wishes for. You don't look like a hard-hearted gentleman!&mdash;How can
+      you thus hunt and persecute a poor lady, whom none of her relations will
+      look upon? It makes my heart bleed for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then she wept again. Mrs. Smith wept also. My seat grew uneasy to me.
+      I shifted to another several times; and what Mrs. Lovick farther said, and
+      showed me, made me still more uneasy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bad as the poor lady was last night, said she, she transcribed into her
+      book a meditation on your persecuting her thus. I have a copy of it. If I
+      thought it would have any effect, I would read it to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let me read it myself, Mrs. Lovick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave it to me. It has an Harlowe-spirited title: and, from a forgiving
+      spirit, intolerable. I desired to take it with me. She consented, on
+      condition that I showed it to 'Squire Belford. So here, Mr. 'Squire
+      Belford, thou mayest read it, if thou wilt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ON BEING HUNTED AFTER BY THE ENEMY OF MY SOUL. MONDAY, AUG. 21.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Preserve me from the violent man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who imagines mischief in his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He hath sharpened his tongue like a serpent. Adders' poison is under his
+      lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked. Preserve me from the
+      violent man, who hath purposed to overthrow my goings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He hath hid a snare for me. He hath spread a net by the way-side. He hath
+      set gins for me in the way wherein I walked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Keep me from the snares which he hath laid for me, and the gins of this
+      worker of iniquity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The enemy hath persecuted my soul. He hath smitten my life down to the
+      ground. He hath made me dwell in darkness, as those that have been long
+      dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me. My heart within me is
+      desolate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For my days are consumed like smoke: and my bones are burnt as the hearth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My heart is smitten and withered like grass: so that I forget to eat my
+      bread.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my skin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am like a pelican of the wilderness. I am like an owl of the desert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I watch; and am as a sparrow alone upon the house-top.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have eaten ashes like bread; and mingled my drink with weeping:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Because of thine indignation, and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up,
+      and cast me down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My days are like a shadow that declineth, and I am withered like grass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grant not, O Lord, the desires of the wicked: further not his devices,
+      lest he exalt himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why now, Mrs. Lovick, said I, when I had read this meditation, as she
+      called it, I think I am very severely treated by the lady, if she mean me
+      in all this. For how is it that I am the enemy of her soul, when I love
+      her both soul and body?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She says, that I am a violent man, and a wicked man.&mdash;That I have
+      been so, I own: but I repent, and only wish to have it in my power to
+      repair the injuries I have done her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gin, the snare, the net, mean matrimony, I suppose&mdash;But is it a
+      crime in me to wish to marry her? Would any other woman think it so? and
+      choose to become a pelican in the wilderness, or a lonely sparrow on the
+      house-top, rather than have a mate that would chirp about her all day and
+      all night?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She says, she has eaten ashes like bread&mdash;A sad mistake to be sure!&mdash;And
+      mingled her drink with weeping&mdash;Sweet maudlin soul! should I say of
+      any body confessing this, but Miss Harlowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She concludes with praying, that the desires of the wicked (meaning poor
+      me, I doubt) may not be granted; that my devices may not be furthered,
+      lest I exalt myself. I should undoubtedly exalt myself, and with reason,
+      could I have the honour and the blessing of such a wife. And if my desires
+      have so honourable an end, I know not why I should be called wicked, and
+      why I should not be allowed to hope, that my honest devices may be
+      furthered, that I MAY exalt myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But here, Mrs. Lovick, let me ask, as something is undoubtedly meant by
+      the lonely sparrow on the house-top, is not the dear creature at this very
+      instant (tell me truly) concealed in Mrs. Smith's cockloft?&mdash;What say
+      you, Mrs. Lovick? What say you, Mrs. Smith, to this?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They assured me to the contrary; and that she was actually abroad, and
+      they knew not where.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou seest, Jack, that I would fain have diverted the chagrin given me not
+      only by the women's talk, but by this collection of Scripture-texts drawn
+      up in array against me. Several other whimsical and light things I said
+      [all I had for it!] with the same view. But the widow would not let me
+      come off so. She stuck to me; and gave me, as I told thee, a good deal of
+      uneasiness, by her sensible and serious expostulations. Mrs. Smith put in
+      now-and-then; and the two Jack-pudding fellows, John and Joseph, not being
+      present, I had no provocation to turn the conversation into a farce; and,
+      at last, they both joined warmly to endeavour to prevail upon me to give
+      up all thoughts of seeing the lady. But I could not hear of that. On the
+      contrary, I besought Mrs. Smith to let me have one of her rooms but till I
+      could see her; and were it but for one, two, or three days, I would pay a
+      year's rent for it; and quit it the moment the interview was over. But
+      they desired to be excused; and were sure the lady would not come to the
+      house till I was gone, were it for a month.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This pleased me; for I found they did not think her so very ill as they
+      would have me believe her to be; but I took no notice of the slip, because
+      I would not guard them against more of the like.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In short, I told them, I must and would see her: but that it should be
+      with all the respect and veneration that heart could pay to excellence
+      like her's: and that I would go round to all the churches in London and
+      Westminster, where there were prayers or service, from sun-rise to
+      sun-set, and haunt their house like a ghost, till I had the opportunity my
+      soul panted after.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This I bid them tell her. And thus ended our serious conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took leave of them; and went down; and, stepping into my chair, caused
+      myself to be carried to Lincoln's-Inn; and walked in the gardens till the
+      chapel was opened; and then I went in, and said prayers, in hopes of
+      seeing the dear creature enter: but to no purpose; and yet I prayed most
+      devoutly that she might be conducted thither, either by my good angel, or
+      her own. And indeed I burn more than ever with impatience to be once more
+      permitted to kneel at the feet of this adorable woman. And had I met her,
+      or espied her in the chapel, it is my firm belief that I should not have
+      been able (though it had been in the midst of the sacred office, and in
+      the presence of thousands) to have forborne prostration to her, and even
+      clamorous supplication for her forgiveness: a christian act; the exercise
+      of it therefore worthy of the place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After service was over, I stept into my chair again, and once more was
+      carried to Smith's, in hopes I might have surprised her there: but no such
+      happiness for thy friend. I staid in the back-shop an hour and an half, by
+      my watch; and again underwent a good deal of preachment from the women.
+      John was mainly civil to me now; won over a little by my serious talk, and
+      the honour I professed for the lady. They all three wished matters could
+      be made up between us: but still insisted that she could never get over
+      her illness; and that her heart was broken. A cue, I suppose, they had
+      from you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While I was there a letter was brought by a particular hand. They seemed
+      very solicitous to hide it from me; which made me suspect it was for her.
+      I desired to be suffered to cast an eye upon the seal, and the
+      superscription; promising to give it back to them unopened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Looking upon it, I told them I knew the hand and seal. It was from her
+      sister.* And I hoped it would bring her news that she would be pleased
+      with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter XXVI. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They joined most heartily in the same hope: and, giving the letter to them
+      again, I civilly took leave, and went away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I will be there again presently; for I fancy my courteous behaviour to
+      these women will, on their report of it, procure me the favour I so
+      earnestly covet. And so I will leave my letter unsealed, to tell thee the
+      event of my next visit at Smith's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thy servant just calling, I sent thee this: and will soon follow it by
+      another. Mean time, I long to hear how poor Belton is: to whom my best
+      wishes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have been under such concern for the poor man, whose exit I almost
+      hourly expect, and at the shocking scenes his illness and his agonies
+      exhibit, that I have been only able to make memoranda of the melancholy
+      passages, from which to draw up a more perfect account, for the
+      instruction of us all, when the writing appetite shall return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is returned! Indignation has revived it, on receipt of thy letters of
+      Sunday and yesterday; by which I have reason to reproach thee in very
+      serious terms, that thou hast not kept thy honour with me: and if thy
+      breach of it be attended with such effects as I fear it will be, I shall
+      let thee know more of my mind on this head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If thou wouldst be thought in earnest in thy wishes to move the poor lady
+      in thy favour, thy ludicrous behaviour at Smith's, when it comes to be
+      represented to her, will have a very consistent appearance; will it not?&mdash;I
+      will, indeed, confirm in her opinion, that the grave is more to be
+      wished-for, by one of her serious and pious turn, than a husband incapable
+      either of reflection or remorse; just recovered, as thou art, from a
+      dangerous, at least a sharp turn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am extremely concerned for the poor unprotected lady. She was so
+      excessively low and weak on Saturday, that I could not be admitted to her
+      speech: and to be driven out of her lodgings, when it was fitter for her
+      to be in bed, is such a piece of cruelty, as he only could be guilty of
+      who could act as thou hast done by such an angel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Canst thou thyself say, on reflection, that it has not the look of a
+      wicked and hardened sportiveness, in thee, for the sake of a wanton humour
+      only, (since it can answer no end that thou proposest to thyself, but the
+      direct contrary,) to hunt from place to place a poor lady, who, like a
+      harmless deer, that has already a barbed shaft in her breast, seeks only a
+      refuge from thee in the shades of death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I will leave this matter upon thy own conscience, to paint thee such a
+      scene from my memoranda, as thou perhaps wilt be moved by more effectually
+      than by any other: because it is such a one as thou thyself must one day
+      be a principal actor in, and, as I thought, hadst very lately in
+      apprehension: and is the last scene of one of thy more intimate friends,
+      who has been for the four past days labouring in the agonies of death.
+      For, Lovelace, let this truth, this undoubted truth, be engraved on thy
+      memory, in all thy gaieties, That the life we are so fond of is hardly
+      life; a mere breathing space only; and that, at the end of its longest
+      date,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      Thou must die, as well as Belton.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Thou knowest, by Tourville, what we had done as to the poor man's worldly
+      affairs; and that we had got his unhappy sister to come and live with him
+      (little did we think him so very near to his end): and so I will proceed
+      to tell thee, that when I arrived at his house on Saturday night, I found
+      him excessively ill: but just raised, and in his elbow-chair, held up by
+      his nurse and Mowbray (the roughest and most untouched creature that ever
+      entered a sick man's chamber); while the maid-servants were trying to make
+      that bed easier for him which he was to return to; his mind ten times
+      uneasier than that could be, and the true cause that the down was no
+      softer to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had so much longed to see me, as I was told by his sister, (whom I sent
+      for down to inquire how he was,) that they all rejoiced when I entered:
+      Here, said Mowbray, here, Tommy, is honest Jack Belford!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where, where? said the poor man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hear his voice, cried Mowbray: he is coming up stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a transport of joy, he would have raised himself at my entrance, but
+      had like to have pitched out of the chair: and when recovered, called me
+      his best friend! his kindest friend! but burst into a flood of tears: O
+      Jack! O Belford! said he, see the way I am in! See how weak! So much, and
+      so soon reduced! Do you know me? Do you know your poor friend Belton?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You are not so much altered, my dear Belton, as you think you are. But I
+      see you are weak; very weak&mdash;and I am sorry for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Weak, weak, indeed, my dearest Belford, said he, and weaker in mind, if
+      possible, than in body; and wept bitterly&mdash;or I should not thus unman
+      myself. I, who never feared any thing, to be forced to show myself such a
+      nursling!&mdash;I am quite ashamed of myself!&mdash;But don't despise me;
+      dear Belford, don't despise me, I beseech thee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I ever honoured a man that could weep for the distresses of others; and
+      ever shall, said I; and such a one cannot be insensible of his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, I could not help being visibly moved at the poor fellow's
+      emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, said the brutal Mowbray, do I think thee insufferable, Jack. Our poor
+      friend is already a peg too low; and here thou art letting him down lower
+      and lower still. This soothing of him in his dejected moments, and joining
+      thy womanish tears with his, is not the way; I am sure it is not. If our
+      Lovelace were here, he'd tell thee so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou art an impenetrable creature, replied I; unfit to be present at a
+      scene, the terrors of which thou wilt not be able to feel till thou
+      feelest them in thyself; and then, if thou hadst time for feeling, my life
+      for thine, thou behavest as pitifully as those thou thinkest most pitiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then turning to the poor sick man, Tears, my dear Belton, are no signs of
+      an unmanly, but, contrarily of a humane nature; they ease the over-charged
+      heart, which would burst but for that kindly and natural relief.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      Give sorrow words (says Shakspeare)
+      &mdash;The grief that does not speak,
+      Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I know, my dear Belton, thou usedst to take pleasure in repetitions from
+      the poets; but thou must be tasteless of their beauties now: yet be not
+      discountenanced by this uncouth and unreflecting Mowbray, for, as Juvenal
+      says, Tears are the prerogative of manhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Tis at least seasonably said, my dear Belford. It is kind to keep me in
+      countenance for this womanish weakness, as Mowbray has been upbraidingly
+      calling it, ever since he has been with me: and in so doing, (whatever I
+      might have thought in such high health as he enjoys,) has convinced me,
+      that bottle-friends feel nothing but what moves in that little circle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, well, proceed in your own way, Jack. I love my friend Belton as well
+      as you can do; yet for the blood of me, I cannot but think, that soothing
+      a man's weakness is increasing it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If it be a weakness, to be touched at great and concerning events, in
+      which our humanity is concerned, said I, thou mayest be right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have seen many a man, said the rough creature, going up Holborn-hill,
+      that has behaved more like a man than either of you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ay, but, Mowbray, replied the poor man, those wretches have not had their
+      minds enervated by such infirmities of body as I have long laboured under.
+      Thou art a shocking fellow, and ever wert.&mdash;But to be able to
+      remember nothing in these moments but what reproaches me, and to know that
+      I cannot hold it long, and what may then be my lot, if&mdash;but
+      interrupting himself, and turning to me, Give me thy pity, Jack; 'tis balm
+      to my wounded soul; and let Mowbray sit indifferent enough to the pangs of
+      a dying friend, to laugh at us both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hardened fellow then retired, with the air of a Lovelace; only more
+      stupid; yawning and stretching, instead of humming a tune as thou didst at
+      Smith's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I assisted to get the poor man into bed. He was so weak and low, that he
+      could not bear the fatigue, and fainted away; and I verily thought was
+      quite gone. But recovering, and his doctor coming, and advising to keep
+      him quiet, I retired, and joined Mowbray in the garden; who took more
+      delight to talk of the living Lovelace and levities, than of the dying
+      Belton and his repentance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I just saw him again on Saturday night before I went to bed; which I did
+      early; for I was surfeited with Mowbray's frothy insensibility, and could
+      not bear him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is such a horrid thing to think of, that a man who had lived in such
+      strict terms of&mdash;what shall I call it? with another; the proof does
+      not come out so, as to say, friendship; who had pretended so much love for
+      him; could not bear to be out of his company; would ride an hundred miles
+      on end to enjoy it; and would fight for him, be the cause right or wrong:
+      yet now, could be so little moved to see him in such misery of body and
+      mind, as to be able to rebuke him, and rather ridicule than pity him,
+      because he was more affected by what he felt, than he had seen a
+      malefactor, (hardened perhaps by liquor, and not softened by previous
+      sickness,) on his going to execution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This put me strongly in mind of what the divine Miss HARLOWE once said to
+      me, talking of friendship, and what my friendship to you required of me:
+      'Depend upon it, Mr. Belford,' said she, 'that one day you will be
+      convinced, that what you call friendship, is chaff and stubble; and that
+      nothing is worthy of that sacred name,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'That has not virtue for its base.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Sunday morning, I was called up at six o'clock, at the poor man's earnest
+      request, and found him in a terrible agony. O Jack! Jack! said he, looking
+      wildly, as if he had seen a spectre&mdash;Come nearer me!&mdash;Dear, dear
+      Belford, save me! Then clasping my arm with both his hands, and rearing up
+      his head towards me, his eyes strangely rolling, Save me! dear Belford,
+      save me! repeated he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I put my other arm about him&mdash;Save you from what, my dear Belton!
+      said I; save you from what? Nothing shall hurt you. What must I save you
+      from?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Recovering from his terror, he sunk down again, O save me from myself!
+      said he; save me from my own reflections. O dear Jack! what a thing it is
+      to die; and not to have one comfortable reflection to revolve! What would
+      I give for one year of my past life?&mdash;only one year&mdash;and to have
+      the same sense of things that I now have?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I tried to comfort him as well as I could: but free-livers to free-livers
+      are sorry death-bed comforters. And he broke in upon me: O my dear
+      Belford, said he, I am told, (and I have heard you ridiculed for it,) that
+      the excellent Miss Harlowe has wrought a conversion in you. May it be so!
+      You are a man of sense: O may it be so! Now is your time! Now, that you
+      are in full vigour of mind and body!&mdash;But your poor Belton, alas!
+      your poor Belton kept his vices, till they left him&mdash;and see the
+      miserable effects in debility of mind and despondency! Were Mowbray here,
+      and were he to laugh at me, I would own that this is the cause of my
+      despair&mdash;that God's justice cannot let his mercy operate for my
+      comfort: for, Oh! I have been very, very wicked; and have despised the
+      offers of his grace, till he has withdrawn it from me for ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I used all the arguments I could think of to give him consolation: and
+      what I said had such an effect upon him, as to quiet his mind for the
+      greatest part of the day; and in a lucid hour his memory served him to
+      repeat these lines of Dryden, grasping my hand, and looking wistfully upon
+      me:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      O that I less could fear to lose this being,
+      Which, like a snow-ball, in my coward hand,
+      The more 'tis grasped, the faster melts away!
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In the afternoon of Sunday, he was inquisitive after you, and your present
+      behaviour to Miss Harlowe. I told him how you had been, and how light you
+      made of it. Mowbray was pleased with your impenetrable hardness of heart,
+      and said, Bob. Lovelace was a good edge-tool, and steel to the back: and
+      such coarse but hearty praises he gave you, as an abandoned man might
+      give, and only an abandoned man could wish to deserve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But hadst thou heard what the poor dying Belton said on this occasion,
+      perhaps it would have made thee serious an hour or two, at least.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'When poor Lovelace is brought,' said he, 'to a sick-bed, as I am now, and
+      his mind forebodes that it is impossible he should recover, (which his
+      could not do in his late illness: if it had, he could not have behaved so
+      lightly in it;) when he revolves his past mis-spent life; his actions of
+      offence to helpless innocents; in Miss Harlowe's case particularly; what
+      then will he think of himself, or of his past actions? his mind
+      debilitated; his strength turned into weakness; unable to stir or to move
+      without help; not one ray of hope darting in upon his benighted soul; his
+      conscience standing in the place of a thousand witnesses; his pains
+      excruciating; weary of the poor remnant of life he drags, yet dreading,
+      that, in a few short hours, his bad will be changed to worse, nay, to
+      worst of all; and that worst of all, to last beyond time and to all
+      eternity; O Jack! what will he then think of the poor transitory
+      gratifications of sense, which now engage all his attention? Tell him,
+      dear Belford, tell him, how happy he is if he know his own dying
+      happiness; how happy, compared to his poor dying friend, that he has
+      recovered from his illness, and has still an opportunity lent him, for
+      which I would give a thousand worlds, had I them to give!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I approved exceedingly of his reflections, as suited to his present
+      circumstances; and inferred consolations to him from a mind so properly
+      touched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He proceeded in the like penitent strain. I have lived a very wicked life;
+      so have we all. We have never made a conscience of doing whatever mischief
+      either force or fraud enabled us to do. We have laid snares for the
+      innocent heart; and have not scrupled by the too-ready sword to extend, as
+      occasions offered, the wrongs we did to the persons whom we had before
+      injured in their dearest relations. But yet, I flatter myself, sometimes,
+      that I have less to answer for than either Lovelace or Mowbray; for I, by
+      taking to myself that accursed deceiver from whom thou hast freed me, (and
+      who, for years, unknown to me, was retaliating upon my own head some of
+      the evils I had brought upon others,) and retiring, and living with her as
+      a wife, was not party to half the mischiefs, that I doubt they, and
+      Tourville, and even you, Belford, committed. As to the ungrateful
+      Thomasine, I hope I have met with my punishment in her. But
+      notwithstanding this, dost thou not think, that such an action&mdash;and
+      such an action&mdash;and such an action; [and then he recapitulated
+      several enormities, in the perpetration of which (led on by false bravery,
+      and the heat of youth and wine) we have all been concerned;] dost thou not
+      think that these villanies, (let me call them now by their proper name,)
+      joined to the wilful and gloried-in neglect of every duty that our better
+      sense and education gave us to know were required of us as men and
+      christians, are not enough to weigh down my soul into despondency?&mdash;
+      Indeed, indeed, they are! and now to hope for mercy; and to depend upon
+      the efficacy of that gracious attribute, when that no less shining one of
+      justice forbids me to hope; how can I!&mdash;I, who have despised all
+      warnings, and taken no advantage of the benefit I might have reaped from
+      the lingering consumptive illness I have laboured under, but left all to
+      the last stake; hoping for recovery against hope, and driving off
+      repentance, till that grace is denied me; for, oh! my dear Belford! I can
+      now neither repent, nor pray, as I ought; my heart is hardened, and I can
+      do nothing but despair!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More he would have said; but, overwhelmed with grief and infirmity, he
+      bowed his head upon his pangful bosom, endeavouring to hide from the sight
+      of the hardened Mowbray, who just then entered the room, those tears which
+      he could not restrain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Prefaced by a phlegmatic hem; sad, very sad, truly! cried Mowbray; who sat
+      himself down on one side of the bed, as I sat on the other: his eyes half
+      closed, and his lips pouting out to his turned-up nose, his chin curdled
+      [to use one of thy descriptions]; leaving one at a loss to know whether
+      stupid drowsiness or intense contemplation had got most hold of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An excellent, however uneasy lesson, Mowbray! said I.&mdash;By my faith it
+      is! It may one day, who knows how soon? be our own case!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought of thy yawning-fit, as described in thy letter of Aug. 13. For
+      up started Mowbray, writhing and shaking himself as in an ague-fit; his
+      hands stretched over his head&mdash;with thy hoy! hoy! hoy! yawning. And
+      then recovering himself, with another stretch and a shake, What's o'clock?
+      cried he; pulling out his watch&mdash;and stalking by long tip-toe strides
+      through the room, down stairs he went; and meeting the maid in the
+      passage, I heard him say&mdash;Betty, bring me a bumper of claret; thy
+      poor master, and this d&mdash;&mdash;d Belford, are enough to throw a
+      Hercules into the vapours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbray, after this, assuming himself in our friend's library, which is,
+      as thou knowest, chiefly classical and dramatical, found out a passage in
+      Lee's Oedipus, which he would needs have to be extremely apt; and in he
+      came full fraught with the notion of the courage it would give the dying
+      man, and read it to him. 'Tis poetical and pretty. This is it:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      When the sun sets, shadows that show'd at noon
+      But small, appear most long and terrible:
+      So when we think fate hovers o'er our heads,
+      Our apprehensions shoot beyond all bounds:
+      Owls, ravens, crickets, seem the watch of death;
+      Nature's worst vermin scare her godlike sons:
+      Echoes, the very leavings of a voice,
+      Grow babbling ghosts, and call us to our graves.
+      Each mole-hill thought swells to a huge Olympus;
+      While we, fantastic dreamers, heave and puff,
+      And sweat with our imagination's weight.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He expected praises for finding this out. But Belton turning his head from
+      him, Ah, Dick! (said he,) these are not the reflections of a dying man!&mdash;What
+      thou wilt one day feel, if it be what I now feel, will convince thee that
+      the evils before thee, and with thee, are more than the effects of
+      imagination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was called twice on Sunday night to him; for the poor fellow, when his
+      reflections on his past life annoy him most, is afraid of being left with
+      the women; and his eyes, they tell me, hunt and roll about for me. Where's
+      Mr. Belford?&mdash;But I shall tire him out, cries he&mdash;yet beg of him
+      to step to me&mdash;yet don't&mdash;yet do; were once the doubting and
+      changeful orders he gave: and they called me accordingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, alas! What could Belford do for him? Belford, who had been but too
+      often the companion of his guilty hours; who wants mercy as much as he
+      does; and is unable to promise it to himself, though 'tis all he can bid
+      his poor friend rely upon!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What miscreants are we! What figures shall we make in these terrible
+      hours!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If Miss HARLOWE'S glorious example, on one hand, and the terrors of this
+      poor man's last scene on the other, affect me not, I must be abandoned to
+      perdition; as I fear thou wilt be, if thou benefittest not thyself from
+      both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the consolatory things I urged, when I was called up the last time
+      on Sunday night, I told him, that he must not absolutely give himself up
+      to despair: that many of the apprehensions he was under, were such as the
+      best men must have, on the dreadful uncertainty of what was to succeed to
+      this life. 'Tis well observed, said I, by a poetical divine, who was an
+      excellent christian,* That
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        Death could not a more sad retinue find,
+      Sickness and pain before, and darkness all behind.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      * The Rev Mr. Norris, of Bremerton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About eight o'clock yesterday (Monday) morning, I found him a little
+      calmer. He asked me who was the author of the two lines I had repeated to
+      him; and made me speak them over again. A sad retinue, indeed! said the
+      poor man. And then expressing his hopelessness of life, and his terrors at
+      the thoughts of dying; and drawing from thence terrible conclusions with
+      regard to his future state; There is, said I, such a natural aversion to
+      death in human nature, that you are not to imagine, that you, my dear
+      Belton, are singular in the fear of it, and in the apprehensions that fill
+      the thoughtful mind upon its approach; but you ought, as much as possible,
+      to separate those natural fears which all men must have on so solemn an
+      occasion, from those particular ones which your justly-apprehended
+      unfitness fills you with. Mr. Pomfret, in his Prospect of Death, which I
+      dipped into last night from a collection in your closet, which I put into
+      my pocket, says, [and I turned to the place]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      Merely to die, no man of reason fears;
+            For certainly we must,
+            As we are born, return to dust;
+      'Tis the last point of many ling-ring years;
+            But whither then we go,
+            Whither, we fain would know;
+      But human understanding cannot show.
+            This makes US tremble&mdash;&mdash;
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Pomfret, therefore, proceeded I, had such apprehensions of this dark
+      state as you have: and the excellent divine I hinted at last night, who
+      had very little else but human frailties to reproach himself with, and
+      whose miscellanies fell into my hands among my uncle's books in my
+      attendance upon him in his last hours, says,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      It must be done, my soul: but 'tis a strange,
+         A dismal, and mysterious change,
+      When thou shalt leave this tenement of clay,
+         And to an unknown&mdash;somewhere&mdash;wing away;
+      When time shall be eternity, and thou
+         Shalt be&mdash;thou know'st not what&mdash;and live&mdash;
+            thou know'st not how!
+      Amazing state! no wonder that we dread
+         To think of death, or view the dead;
+      Thou'rt all wrapt up in clouds, as if to thee
+            Our very knowledge had antipathy.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Then follows, what I repeated,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        Death could not a more sad retinue find,
+      Sickness and pain before, and darkness all behind.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Alas! my dear Belford [inferred the unhappy deep-thinker] what poor
+      creatures does this convince me we mortals are at best!&mdash;But what
+      then must be the case of such a profligate as I, who by a past wicked life
+      have added greater force to these natural terrors? If death be so
+      repugnant a thing to human nature, that good men will be startled at it,
+      what must it be to one who has lived a life of sense and appetite; nor
+      ever reflected upon the end which I now am within view of?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What could I say to an inference so fairly drawn? Mercy, mercy, unbounded
+      mercy, was still my plea, though his repeated opposition of justice to it,
+      in a manner silenced that plea: and what would I have given to have had
+      rise in my mind, one good, eminently good action to have remembered him
+      of, in order to combat his fears with it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe, Lovelace, I shall tire thee, and that more with the subject of
+      my letter, than even with the length of it. But really, I think thy
+      spirits are so offensively up since thy recovery, that I ought, as the
+      melancholy subjects offer, to endeavour to reduce thee to the standard of
+      humanity, by expatiating upon them. And then thou canst not but be curious
+      to know every thing that concerns the poor man, for whom thou hast always
+      expressed a great regard. I will therefore proceed as I have begun. If
+      thou likest not to read it now, lay it by, if thou wilt, till the like
+      circumstances befall thee, till like reflections from those circumstances
+      seize thee; and then take it up, and compare the two cases together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At his earnest request, I sat up with him last night; and, poor man! it is
+      impossible to tell thee, how easy and safe he thought himself in my
+      company, for the first part of the night: A drowning man will catch at a
+      straw, the proverb well says: and a straw was I, with respect to any real
+      help I could give him. He often awaked in terrors; and once calling out
+      for me, Dear Belford, said he, Where are you!&mdash;Oh! There you are!&mdash;Give
+      me your friendly hand!&mdash;Then grasping it, and putting his clammy,
+      half-cold lips to it&mdash;How kind! I fear every thing when you are
+      absent. But the presence of a friend, a sympathising friend&mdash;Oh! how
+      comfortable!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, about four in the morning, he frighted me much: he waked with three
+      terrible groans; and endeavoured to speak, but could not presently&mdash;and
+      when he did,&mdash;Jack, Jack, Jack, five or six times repeated he as
+      quick as thought, now, now, now, save me, save me, save me&mdash;I am
+      going&mdash;going indeed!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I threw my arms about him, and raised him upon his pillow, as he was
+      sinking (as if to hide himself) in the bed-clothes&mdash;And staring
+      wildly, Where am I? said he, a little recovering. Did you not see him?
+      turning his head this way and that; horror in his countenance; Did you not
+      see him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      See whom, see what, my dear Belton!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O lay me upon the bed again, cried he!&mdash;Let me not die upon the
+      floor!&mdash; Lay me down gently; and stand by me!&mdash;Leave me not!&mdash;All,
+      all will soon be over!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You are already, my dear Belton, upon the bed. You have not been upon the
+      floor. This is a strong delirium; you are faint for want of refreshment
+      [for he had refused several times to take any thing]: let me persuade you
+      to take some of this cordial julap. I will leave you, if you will not
+      oblige me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He then readily took it; but said he could have sworn that Tom. Metcalfe
+      had been in the room, and had drawn him out of bed by the throat,
+      upbraiding him with the injuries he had first done his sister, and then
+      him, in the duel to which he owed that fever which cost him his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou knowest the story, Lovelace, too well, to need my repeating it: but,
+      mercy on us, if in these terrible moments all the evils we do rise to our
+      frighted imaginations!&mdash;If so, what shocking scenes have I, but still
+      what more shocking ones hast thou, to go through, if, as the noble poet
+      says,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      If any sense at that sad time remains!
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The doctor ordered him an opiate this morning early, which operated so
+      well, that he dosed and slept several hours more quietly than he had done
+      for the two past days and nights, though he had sleeping-draughts given
+      him before. But it is more and more evident every hour that nature is
+      almost worn out in him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbray, quite tired with this house of mourning, intends to set out in
+      the morning to find you. He was not a little rejoiced to hear you were in
+      town; I believe to have a pretence to leave us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He has just taken leave of his poor friend, intending to go away early: an
+      everlasting leave, I may venture to say; for I think he will hardly live
+      till to-morrow night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe the poor man would not have been sorry had he left him when I
+      arrived; for 'tis a shocking creature, and enjoys too strong health to
+      know how to pity the sick. Then (to borrow an observation from thee) he
+      has, by nature, strong bodily organs, which those of his soul are not
+      likely to whet out; and he, as well as the wicked friend he is going to,
+      may last a great while from the strength of their constitutions, though so
+      greatly different in their talents, if neither the sword nor the halter
+      interpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must repeat, That I cannot but be very uneasy for the poor lady whom you
+      so cruelly persecute; and that I do not think that you have kept your
+      honour with me. I was apprehensive, indeed, that you would attempt to see
+      her, as soon as you got well enough to come up; and I told her as much,
+      making use of it as an argument to prepare her for your visit, and to
+      induce her to stand it. But she could not, it is plain, bear the shock of
+      it: and indeed she told me that she would not see you, though but for one
+      half-hour, for the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Could she have prevailed upon herself, I know that the sight of her would
+      have been as affecting to you, as your visit could have been to her; when
+      you had seen to what a lovely skeleton (for she is really lovely still,
+      nor can she, with such a form and features, be otherwise) you have, in a
+      few weeks, reduced one of the most charming women in the world; and that
+      in the full bloom of her youth and beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbray undertakes to carry this, that he may be more welcome to you, he
+      says. Were it to be sent unsealed, the characters we write in would be
+      Hebrew to the dunce. I desire you to return it; and I'll give you a copy
+      of it upon demand; for I intend to keep it by me, as a guard against the
+      infection of your company, which might otherwise, perhaps, some time
+      hence, be apt to weaken the impressions I always desire to have of the
+      awful scene before me. God convert us both!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. WEDNESDAY MORN. 11 O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe no man has two such servants as I have. Because I treat them
+      with kindness, and do not lord it over my inferiors, and d&mdash;n and
+      curse them by looks and words like Mowbray; or beat their teeth out like
+      Lovelace; but cry, Pr'ythee, Harry, do this, and, Pr'ythee, Jonathan, do
+      that; the fellows pursue their own devices, and regard nothing I say, but
+      what falls in with these.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, this vile Harry, who might have brought your letter of yesterday in
+      good time, came not in with it till past eleven at night (drunk, I
+      suppose); and concluding that I was in bed, as he pretends (because he was
+      told I sat up the preceding night) brought it not to me; and having
+      overslept himself, just as I had sealed up my letter, in comes the villain
+      with the forgotten one, shaking his ears, and looking as if he himself did
+      not believe the excuses he was going to make. I questioned him about it,
+      and heard his pitiful pleas; and though I never think it becomes a
+      gentleman to treat people insolently who by their stations are humbled
+      beneath his feet, yet could I not forbear to Lovelace and Mowbray him most
+      cordially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And this detaining Mowbray (who was ready to set out to you before) while
+      I write a few lines upon it, the fierce fellow, who is impatient to
+      exchange the company of a dying Belton for that of a too-lively Lovelace,
+      affixed a supplement of curses upon the staring fellow, that was larger
+      than my book&mdash;nor did I offer to take off the bear from such a
+      mongrel, since, on this occasion, he deserved not of me the protection
+      which every master owes to a good servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He has not done cursing him yet; for stalking about the court-yard with
+      his boots on, (the poor fellow dressing his horse, and unable to get from
+      him,) he is at him without mercy; and I will heighten his impatience,
+      (since being just under the window where I am writing, he will not let me
+      attend to my pen,) by telling you how he fills my ears as well as the
+      fellow's, with his&mdash;Hay, Sir! And G&mdash;d d&mdash;n ye, Sir! And
+      were ye my servant, ye dog ye! And must I stay here till the mid-day sun
+      scorches me to a parchment, for such a mangy dog's drunken neglect?&mdash;Ye
+      lie, Sirrah!&mdash;Ye lie, I tell you&mdash;[I hear the fellow's voice in
+      an humble excusatory tone, though not articulately] Ye lie, ye dog!&mdash;I'd
+      a good mind to thrust my whip down your drunken throat: d&mdash;n me, if I
+      would not flay the skin from the back of such a rascal, if thou wert mine,
+      and have dog's-skin gloves made of it, for thy brother scoundrels to wear
+      in remembrance of thy abuses of such a master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor horse suffers for this, I doubt not; for, What now! and, Stand
+      still, and be d&mdash;d to ye, cries the fellow, with a kick, I suppose,
+      which he better deserves himself; for these varlets, where they can, are
+      Mowbrays and Lovelaces to man or beast; and not daring to answer him, is
+      flaying the poor horse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hear the fellow is just escaped, the horse, (better curried than
+      ordinary, I suppose, in half the usual time,) by his clanking shoes, and
+      Mowbray's silence, letting me know, that I may now write on: and so, I
+      will tell thee that, in the first place, (little as I, as well as you,
+      regard dreams,) I would have thee lay thine to heart; for I could give
+      thee such an interpretation of it, as would shock thee, perhaps; and if
+      thou askest me for it, I will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbray calls to me from the court-yard, that 'tis a cursed hot day, and
+      he shall be fried by riding in the noon of it: and that poor Belton longs
+      to see me. So I will only add my earnest desire, that you will give over
+      all thoughts of seeing the lady, if, when this comes to your hand, you
+      have not seen her: and, that it would be kind, if you'd come, and, for the
+      last time you will ever see your poor friend, share my concern for him;
+      and, in him, see what, in a little time, will be your fate and mine, and
+      that of Mowbray, Tourville, and the rest of us&mdash;For what are ten,
+      fifteen, twenty, or thirty years, to look back to; in the longest of which
+      periods forward we shall all perhaps be mingled with the dust from which
+      we sprung?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. WEDNESDAY MORN. AUG. 23.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All alive, dear Jack, and in ecstacy!&mdash;Likely to be once more a happy
+      man! For I have received a letter from my beloved Miss HARLOWE; in
+      consequence, I suppose, of that which I mentioned in my last to be left
+      for her from her sister. And I am setting out for Berks directly, to show
+      the contents to my Lord M. and to receive the congratulations of all my
+      kindred upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went, last night, as I intended, to Smith's: but the dear creature was
+      not returned at near ten o'clock. And, lighting upon Tourville, I took him
+      home with me, and made him sing me out of my megrims. I went to bed
+      tolerably easy at two; had bright and pleasant dreams; (not such of a
+      frightful one as that I gave thee an account of;) and at eight this
+      morning, as I was dressing, to be in readiness against the return of my
+      fellow, whom I had sent to inquire after the lady, I had the following
+      letter brought to me by a chairman:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. TUESDAY NIGHT, 11 O'CLOCK (AUG. 22.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SIR,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have good news to tell you. I am setting out with all diligence for my
+      father's house, I am bid to hope that he will receive his poor penitent
+      with a goodness peculiar to himself; for I am overjoyed with the assurance
+      of a thorough reconciliation, through the interposition of a dear, blessed
+      friend, whom I always loved and honoured. I am so taken up with my
+      preparation for this joyful and long-wished-for journey, that I cannot
+      spare one moment for any other business, having several matters of the
+      last importance to settle first. So, pray, Sir, don't disturb or interrupt
+      me&mdash;I beseech you don't. You may possibly in time see me at my
+      father's; at least if it be not your own fault.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will write a letter, which shall be sent you when I am got thither and
+      received: till when, I am, &amp;c.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CLARISSA HARLOWE. ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I dispatched instantly a letter to the dear creature, assuring her, with
+      the most thankful joy, 'That I would directly set out for Berks, and wait
+      the issue of the happy reconciliation, and the charming hopes she had
+      filled me with. I poured out upon her a thousand blessings. I declared
+      that it should be the study of my whole life to merit such transcendent
+      goodness: and that there was nothing which her father or friends should
+      require at my hands, that I would not for her sake comply with, in order
+      to promote and complete so desirable a reconciliation.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hurried it away without taking a copy of it; and I have ordered the
+      chariot-and-six to be got ready; and hey for M. Hall! Let me but know how
+      Belton does. I hope a letter from thee is on the road. And if the poor
+      fellow can spare thee, make haste, I command thee, to attend this truly
+      divine lady. Thou mayest not else see her of months perhaps; at least, not
+      while she is Miss HARLOWE. And oblige me, if possible, with one letter
+      before she sets out, confirming to me and accounting for this generous
+      change.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what accounting for it is necessary? The dear creature cannot receive
+      consolation herself but she must communicate it to others. How noble! She
+      would not see me in her adversity; but no sooner does the sun of
+      prosperity begin to shine upon her than she forgives me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know to whose mediation all this is owing. It is to Colonel Morden's.
+      She always, as she says, loved and honoured him! And he loved her above
+      all his relations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall now be convinced that there is something in dreams. The opening
+      cloud is the reconciliation in view. The bright form, lifting up my
+      charmer through it to a firmament stuck round with golden cherubims and
+      seraphims, indicates the charming little boys and girls, that will be the
+      fruits of this happy reconciliation. The welcomes, thrice repeated, are
+      those of her family, now no more to be deemed implacable. Yet are they
+      family, too, that my soul cannot mingle with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But then what is my tumbling over and over through the floor into a
+      frightful hole, descending as she ascends? Ho! only this! it alludes to my
+      disrelish to matrimony: Which is a bottomless pit, a gulph, and I know not
+      what. And I suppose, had I not awoke in such a plaguy fright, I had been
+      soused into some river at the bottom of the hole, and then been carried
+      (mundified or purified from my past iniquities,) by the same bright form
+      (waiting for me upon the mossy banks,) to my beloved girl; and we should
+      have gone on cherubiming of it and caroling to the end of the chapter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what are the black sweeping mantles and robes of Lord M. thrown over
+      my face? And what are those of the ladies? O Jack! I have these too: They
+      indicate nothing in the world but that my Lord will be so good as to die,
+      and leave me all he has. So, rest to thy good-natured soul, honest Lord M.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Sarah Sadleir and Lady Betty Lawrance, will also die, and leave me
+      swinging legacies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Charlotte and her sister&mdash;what will become of the?&mdash;Oh!
+      they will be in mourning, of course, for their uncle and aunts&mdash;that's
+      right!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to Morden's flashing through the window, and crying, Die, Lovelace, and
+      be d&mdash;&mdash;d, if thou wilt not repair my cousin's wrong! That is
+      only, that he would have sent me a challenge, had I not been disposed to
+      do the lady justice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All I dislike is this part of the dream: for, even in a dream, I would not
+      be thought to be threatened into any measure, though I liked it ever so
+      well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so much for my prophetic dream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dear charming creature! What a meeting will there be between her and her
+      father and mother and uncles! What transports, what pleasure, will this
+      happy, long-wished-for reconciliation give her dutiful heart! And indeed
+      now methinks I am glad she is so dutiful to them; for her duty to her
+      parents is a conviction to me that she will be as dutiful to her husband:
+      since duty upon principle is an uniform thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why pr'ythee, now, Jack, I have not been so much to blame as thou
+      thinkest: for had it not been for me, who have led her into so much
+      distress, she could neither have received nor given the joy that will now
+      overwhelm them all. So here rises great and durable good out of temporary
+      evil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know they loved her (the pride and glory of their family,) too well to
+      hold out long!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish I could have seen Arabella's letter. She has always been so much
+      eclipsed by her sister, that I dare say she has signified this
+      reconciliation to her with intermingled phlegm and wormwood; and her
+      invitation must certainly runs all in the rock-water style.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall long to see the promised letter too when she is got to her
+      father's, which I hope will give an account of the reception she will meet
+      with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a solemnity, however, I think, in the style of her letter, which
+      pleases and affects me at the same time. But as it is evident she loves me
+      still, and hopes soon to see me at her father's, she could not help being
+      a little solemn, and half-ashamed, [dear blushing pretty rogue!] to own
+      her love, after my usage of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then her subscription: Till when, I am, CLARISSA HARLOWE: as much as
+      to say, after that, I shall be, if not to your own fault, CLARISSA
+      LOVELACE!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O my best love! My ever-generous and adorable creature! How much does this
+      thy forgiving goodness exalt us both!&mdash;Me, for the occasion given
+      thee! Thee, for turning it so gloriously to thy advantage, and to the
+      honour of both!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And if, my beloved creature, you will but connive at the imperfections of
+      your adorer, and not play the wife with me: if, while the charms of
+      novelty have their force with me, I should happen to be drawn aside by the
+      love of intrigue, and of plots that my soul delights to form and pursue;
+      and if thou wilt not be open-eyed to the follies of my youth, [a
+      transitory state;] every excursion shall serve but the more to endear thee
+      to me, till in time, and in a very little time too, I shall get above
+      sense; and then, charmed by thy soul-attracting converse; and brought to
+      despise my former courses; what I now, at distance, consider as a painful
+      duty, will be my joyful choice, and all my delight will centre in thee!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbray is just arrived with thy letters. I therefore close my agreeable
+      subject, to attend to one which I doubt will be very shocking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have engaged the rough varlet to bear me company in the morning to
+      Berks; where I shall file off the rust he has contracted in his attendance
+      upon the poor fellow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He tells me that, between the dying Belton and the preaching Belford, he
+      shan't be his own man these three days: and says that thou addest to the
+      unhappy fellow's weakness, instead of giving him courage to help him to
+      bear his destiny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sorry he takes the unavoidable lot so heavily. But he has been long
+      ill; and sickness enervates the mind as well as the body; as he himself
+      very significantly observed to thee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. WEDN. EVENING.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have been reading thy shocking letter&mdash;Poor Belton! what a
+      multitude of lively hours have we passed together! He was a fearless,
+      cheerful fellow: who'd have thought all that should end in such dejected
+      whimpering and terror?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But why didst thou not comfort the poor man about the rencounter between
+      him and that poltroon Metcalfe? He acted in that affair like a man of true
+      honour, and as I should have acted in the same circumstances. Tell him I
+      say so; and that what happened he could neither help nor foresee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some people are as sensible of a scratch from a pin's point, as others
+      from a push of a sword: and who can say any thing for the sensibility of
+      such fellows? Metcalfe would resent for his sister, when his sister
+      resented not for herself. Had she demanded her brother's protection and
+      resentment, that would have been another man's matte, to speak in Lord
+      M.'s phrase: but she herself thought her brother a coxcomb to busy himself
+      undesired in her affairs, and wished for nothing but to be provided for
+      decently and privately in her lying-in; and was willing to take the chance
+      of Maintenon-ing his conscience in her favour,* and getting him to marry
+      when the little stranger came; for she knew what an easy, good-natured
+      fellow he was. And indeed if she had prevailed upon him, it might have
+      been happy for both; as then he would not have fallen in with his cursed
+      Thomasine. But truly this officious brother of her's must interpose. This
+      made a trifling affair important: And what was the issue? Metcalfe
+      challenged; Belton met him; disarmed him; gave him his life: but the
+      fellow, more sensible in his skin than in his head, having received a
+      scratch, was frighted: it gave him first a puke, then a fever, and then he
+      died, that was all. And how could Belton help that? &mdash;But sickness, a
+      long tedious sickness, will make a bugbear of any thing to a languishing
+      heart, I see that. And so far was Mowbray à-propos in the verses from Nat.
+      Lee, which thou hast described.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * Madam Maintenon was reported to have prevailed upon Lewis XIV. of
+      France, in his old age, (sunk, as he was, by ill success in the field,) to
+      marry her, by way of compounding with his conscience for the freedoms of
+      his past life, to which she attributed his public losses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Merely to die, no man of reason fears, is a mistake, say thou, or say thy
+      author, what ye will. And thy solemn parading about the natural repugnance
+      between life and death, is a proof that it is.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let me tell thee, Jack, that so much am I pleased with this world, in the
+      main; though, in some points too, the world (to make a person of it,) has
+      been a rascal to me; so delighted am I with the joys of youth; with my
+      worldly prospects as to fortune; and now, newly, with the charming hopes
+      given me by my dear, thrice dear, and for ever dear CLARISSA; that were I
+      even sure that nothing bad would come hereafter, I should be very loth
+      (very much afraid, if thou wilt have it so,) to lay down my life and them
+      together; and yet, upon a call of honour, no man fears death less than
+      myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I have not either inclination or leisure to weigh thy leaden
+      arguments, except in the pig, or, as thou wouldst say, in the lump.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If I return thy letters, let me have them again some time hence, that is
+      to say, when I am married, or when poor Belton is half forgotten; or when
+      time has enrolled the honest fellow among those whom we have so long lost,
+      that we may remember them with more pleasure than pain; and then I may
+      give them a serious perusal, and enter with thee as deeply as thou wilt
+      into the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I am married, said I?&mdash;What a sound has that!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must wait with patience for a sight of this charming creature, till she
+      is at her father's. And yet, as the but blossoming beauty, as thou tellest
+      me, is reduced to a shadow, I should have been exceedingly delighted to
+      see her now, and every day till the happy one; that I might have the
+      pleasure of observing how sweetly, hour by hour, she will rise to her
+      pristine glories, by means of that state of ease and contentment, which
+      will take place of the stormy past, upon her reconciliation with her
+      friends, and our happy nuptials.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XX
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Well, but now my heart is a little at ease, I will condescend to take
+      brief notice of some other passages in thy letters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I find I am to thank thee, that the dear creature has avoided my visit.
+      Things are now in so good a train that I must forgive thee; else thou
+      shouldst have heard more of this new instance of disloyalty to thy
+      general.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou art continually giving thyself high praise, by way of opposition, as
+      I may say, to others; gently and artfully blaming thyself for qualities
+      thou wouldst at the same time have to be thought, and which generally are
+      thought, praise-worthy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus, in the airs thou assumest about thy servants, thou wouldst pass for
+      a mighty humane mortal; and that at the expense of Mowbray and me, whom
+      thou representest as kings and emperors to our menials. Yet art thou
+      always unhappy in thy attempts of this kind, and never canst make us, who
+      know thee, believe that to be a virtue in thee, which is but the effect of
+      constitutional phlegm and absurdity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Knowest thou not, that some men have a native dignity in their manner,
+      that makes them more regarded by a look, than either thou canst be in thy
+      low style, or Mowbray in his high?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am fit to be a prince, I can tell thee, for I reward well, and I punish
+      seasonably and properly; and I am generally as well served by any man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The art of governing these underbred varlets lies more in the dignity of
+      looks than in words; and thou art a sorry fellow, to think humanity
+      consists in acting by thy servants, as men must act who are not able to
+      pay them their wages; or had made them masters of secrets, which, if
+      divulged, would lay them at the mercy of such wretches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now to me, who never did any thing I was ashamed to own, and who have more
+      ingenuousness than ever man had; who can call a villany by its own right
+      name, though practised by myself, and (by my own readiness to reproach
+      myself) anticipate all reproach from others; who am not such a hypocrite,
+      as to wish the world to think me other or better than I am&mdash; it is my
+      part, to look a servant into his duty, if I can; nor will I keep one who
+      knows not how to take me by a nod, or a wink; and who, when I smile, shall
+      not be all transport; when I frown, all terror. If, indeed, I am out of
+      the way a little, I always take care to reward the varlets for patiently
+      bearing my displeasure. But this I hardly ever am but when a fellow is
+      egregiously stupid in any plain point of duty, or will be wiser than his
+      master; and when he shall tell me, that he thought acting contrary to my
+      orders was the way to serve me best.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One time or other I will enter the lists with thee upon thy conduct and
+      mine to servants; and I will convince thee, that what thou wouldst have
+      pass for humanity, if it be indiscriminately practised to all tempers,
+      will perpetually subject thee to the evils thou complainest of; and justly
+      too; and that he only is fit to be a master of servants, who can command
+      their attention as much by a nod, as if he were to pr'ythee a fellow to do
+      his duty, on one hand, or to talk of flaying, and horse-whipping, like
+      Mowbray, on the other: for the servant who being used to expect thy
+      creeping style, will always be master of his master, and he who deserves
+      to be treated as the other, is not fit to be any man's servant; nor would
+      I keep such a fellow to rub my horse's heels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall be the readier to enter the lists with thee upon this argument,
+      because I have presumption enough to think that we have not in any of our
+      dramatic poets, that I can at present call to mind, one character of a
+      servant of either sex, that is justly hit off. So absurdly wise some, and
+      so sottishly foolish others; and both sometime in the same person. Foils
+      drawn from lees or dregs of the people to set off the characters of their
+      masters and mistresses; nay, sometimes, which is still more absurd,
+      introduced with more wit than the poet has to bestow upon their
+      principals.&mdash;Mere flints and steels to strike fire with&mdash;or, to
+      vary the metaphor, to serve for whetstones to wit, which, otherwise, could
+      not be made apparent; or, for engines to be made use of like the machinery
+      of the antient poets, (or the still more unnatural soliloquy,) to help on
+      a sorry plot, or to bring about a necessary eclaircissement, to save the
+      poet the trouble of thinking deeply for a better way to wind up his
+      bottoms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of this I am persuaded, (whatever my practice be to my own servants,) that
+      thou wilt be benefited by my theory, when we come to controvert the point.
+      For then I shall convince thee, that the dramatic as well as natural
+      characteristics of a good servant ought to be fidelity, common sense,
+      cheerful obedience, and silent respect; that wit in his station, except to
+      his companions, would be sauciness; that he should never presume to give
+      his advice; that if he venture to expostulate upon any unreasonable
+      command, or such a one a appeared to him to be so, he should do it with
+      humility and respect, and take a proper season for it. But such lessons do
+      most of the dramatic performances I have seen give, where servants are
+      introduced as characters essential to the play, or to act very significant
+      or long parts in it, (which, of itself, I think a fault;) such lessons, I
+      say, do they give to the footmen's gallery, that I have not wondered we
+      have so few modest or good men-servants among those who often attend their
+      masters or mistresses to plays. Then how miserably evident must that
+      poet's conscious want of genius be, who can stoop to raise or give force
+      to a clap by the indiscriminate roar of the party-coloured gallery!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this subject I will suspend to a better opportunity; that is to say,
+      to the happy one, when my nuptials with my Clarissa will oblige me to
+      increase the number of my servants, and of consequence to enter more
+      nicely into their qualifications.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although I have the highest opinion that man can have of the generosity of
+      my dear Miss Harlowe, yet I cannot for the heart of me account for this
+      agreeable change in her temper but one way. Faith and troth, Belford, I
+      verily believe, laying all circumstances together, that the dear creature
+      unexpectedly finds herself in the way I have so ardently wished her to be
+      in; and that this makes her, at last, incline to favour me, that she may
+      set the better face upon her gestation, when at her father's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If this be the case, all her falling away, and her fainting fits, are
+      charmingly accounted for. Nor is it surprising, that such a sweet novice
+      in these matters should not, for some time, have known to what to
+      attribute her frequent indispositions. If this should be the case, how I
+      shall laugh at thee! and (when I am sure of her) at the dear novice
+      herself, that all her grievous distresses shall end in a man-child; which
+      I shall love better than all the cherubims and seraphims that may come
+      after; though there were to be as many of them as I beheld in my dream; in
+      which a vast expanse of firmament was stuck as full of them as it could
+      hold!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall be afraid to open thy next, lest it bring me the account of poor
+      Belton's death. Yet, as there are no hopes of his recovery&mdash;but what
+      should I say, unless the poor man were better fitted&mdash;but thy heavy
+      sermon shall not affect me too much neither.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I enclose thy papers; and do thou transcribe them for me, or return them;
+      for there are some things in them, which, at a proper season, a mortal man
+      should not avoid attending to; and thou seemest to have entered deeply
+      into the shocking subject.&mdash;But here I will end, lest I grow too
+      serious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thy servant called here about an hour ago, to know if I had any commands;
+      I therefore hope that thou wilt have this early in the morning. And if
+      thou canst let me hear from thee, do. I'll stretch an hour or two in
+      expectation of it. Yet I must be at Lord M.'s to-morrow night, if
+      possible, though ever so late.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thy fellow tells me the poor man is much as he was when Mowbray left him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wouldst thou think that this varlet Mowbray is sorry that I am so near
+      being happy with Miss Harlowe? And, 'egad, Jack, I know not what to say to
+      it, now the fruit seems to be within my reach&mdash;but let what will
+      come, I'll stand to't: for I find I can't live without her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. WEDNESDAY, THREE O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will proceed where I left off in my last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as I had seen Mowbray mounted, I went to attend upon poor Belton;
+      whom I found in dreadful agonies, in which he awoke, after he generally
+      does.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor came in presently after, and I was concerned at the scene that
+      passed between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It opened with the dying man's asking him, with melancholy earnestness, if
+      nothing&mdash;if nothing at all could be done for him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor shook his head, and told him, he doubted not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I cannot die, said the poor man&mdash;I cannot think of dying. I am very
+      desirous of living a little longer, if I could but be free from these
+      horrible pains in my stomach and head. Can you give me nothing to make me
+      pass one week&mdash;but one week, in tolerable ease, that I may die like a
+      man, if I must die!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, Doctor, I am yet a young man; in the prime of my years&mdash;youth is
+      a good subject for a physician to work upon&mdash;Can you do nothing&mdash;nothing
+      at all for me, Doctor?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alas! Sir, replied his physician, you have been long in a bad way. I fear,
+      I fear, nothing in physic can help you!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was then out of all patience: What, then, is your art, Sir?&mdash;I
+      have been a passive machine for a whole twelvemonth, to be wrought upon at
+      the pleasure of you people of the faculty.&mdash;I verily believe, had I
+      not taken such doses of nasty stuff, I had been now a well man&mdash;But
+      who the plague would regard physicians, whose art is to cheat us with
+      hopes while they help to destroy us?&mdash;And who, not one of you, know
+      any thing but by guess?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir, continued he, fiercely, (and with more strength of voice and
+      coherence, than he had shown for several hours before,) if you give me
+      over, I give you over.&mdash;The only honest and certain part of the art
+      of healing is surgery. A good surgeon is worth a thousand of you. I have
+      been in surgeons' hands often, and have always found reason to depend upon
+      their skill; but your art, Sir, what is it?&mdash;but to daub, daub, daub;
+      load, load, load; plaster, plaster, plaster; till ye utterly destroy the
+      appetite first, and the constitution afterwards, which you are called in
+      to help. I had a companion once, my dear Belford, thou knewest honest
+      Blomer, as pretty a physician he would have made as any in England, had he
+      kept himself from excess in wine and women; and he always used to say,
+      there was nothing at all but the pick-pocket parade in the physician's
+      art; and that the best guesser was the best physician. And I used to
+      believe him too&mdash;and yet, fond of life, and fearful of death, what do
+      we do, when we are taken ill, but call ye in? And what do ye do, when
+      called in, but nurse our distempers, till from pigmies you make giants of
+      them? and then ye come creeping with solemn faces, when ye are ashamed to
+      prescribe, or when the stomach won't bear its natural food, by reason of
+      your poisonous potions,&mdash;Alas, I am afraid physic can do no more for
+      him!&mdash;Nor need it, when it has brought to the brink of the grave the
+      poor wretch who placed all his reliance in your cursed slops, and the
+      flattering hopes you gave him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor was out of countenance; but said, if we could make mortal men
+      immortal, and would not, all this might be just.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I blamed the poor man; yet excused him to the physician. To die, dear
+      Doctor, when, like my poor friend, we are so desirous of life, is a
+      melancholy thing. We are apt to hope too much, not considering that the
+      seeds of death are sown in us when we begin to live, and grow up, till,
+      like rampant weeds, they choke the tender flower of life; which declines
+      in us as those weeds flourish. We ought, therefore, to begin early to
+      study what our constitutions will bear, in order to root out, by
+      temperance, the weeds which the soil is most apt to produce; or, at least,
+      to keep them down as they rise; and not, when the flower or plant is
+      withered at the root, and the weed in its full vigour, expect, that the
+      medical art will restore the one, or destroy the other; when that other,
+      as I hinted, has been rooting itself in the habit from the time of our
+      birth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This speech, Bob., thou wilt call a prettiness; but the allegory is just;
+      and thou hast not quite cured me of the metaphorical.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Very true, said the doctor; you have brought a good metaphor to illustrate
+      the thing. I am sorry I can do nothing for the gentleman; and can only
+      recommend patience, and a better frame of mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, Sir, said the poor angry man, vexed at the doctor, but more at
+      death, you will perhaps recommend the next succession to the physician,
+      when he can do no more; and, I suppose, will send your brother to pray by
+      me for those virtues which you wish me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seems the physician's brother is a clergyman in the neighbourhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was greatly concerned to see the gentleman thus treated; and so I told
+      poor Belton when he was gone; but he continued impatient, and would not be
+      denied, he said, the liberty of talking to a man, who had taken so many
+      guineas of him for doing nothing, or worse than nothing, and never
+      declined one, though he know all the time he could do him no good.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seems the gentleman, though rich, is noted for being greedy after fees!
+      and poor Belton went on raving at the extravagant fees of English
+      physicians, compared with those of the most eminent foreign ones. But,
+      poor man! he, like the Turks, who judge of a general by his success, (out
+      of patience to think he must die,) would have worshipped the doctor, and
+      not grudged thee times the sum, could he have given him hopes of recovery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, nevertheless, I must needs say, that gentlemen of the faculty should
+      be more moderate in their fees, or take more pains to deserve them; for,
+      generally, they only come into a room, feel the sick man's pulse, ask the
+      nurse a few questions, inspect the patient's tongue, and, perhaps, his
+      water; then sit down, look plaguy wise, and write. The golden fee finds
+      the ready hand, and they hurry away, as if the sick man's room were
+      infectious. So to the next they troll, and to the next, if men of great
+      practice; valuing themselves upon the number of visits they make in a
+      morning, and the little time they make them in. They go to dinner and
+      unload their pockets; and sally out again to refill them. And thus, in a
+      little time, they raise vast estates; for, as Ratcliffe said, when first
+      told of a great loss which befell him, It was only going up and down one
+      hundred pairs of stairs to fetch it up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Sambre (Belton's sister) had several times proposed to him a minister
+      to pray by him, but the poor man could not, he said, bear the thoughts of
+      one; for that he should certainly die in an hour or two after; and he was
+      willing to hope still, against all probability, that he might recover; and
+      was often asking his sister if she had not seen people as bad as he was,
+      who, almost to a miracle, when every body gave them over, had got up
+      again?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She, shaking her head, told him she had; but, once saying, that their
+      disorders were of an acute kind, and such as had a crisis in them, he
+      called her Small-hopes, and Job's comforter; and bid her say nothing, if
+      she could not say more to the purpose, and what was fitter for a sick man
+      to hear. And yet, poor fellow, he has no hopes himself, as is plain by his
+      desponding terrors; one of which he fell into, and a very dreadful one,
+      soon after the doctor went.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      *** WEDNESDAY, NINE O'CLOCK AT NIGHT.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor man had been in convulsions, terrible convulsions! for an hour
+      past. O Lord! Lovelace, death is a shocking thing! by my faith it is!&mdash;
+      I wish thou wert present on this occasion. It is not merely the concern a
+      man has for his friend; but, as death is the common lot, we see, in his
+      agonies, how it will be one day with ourselves. I am all over as if cold
+      water were poured down my back, or as if I had a strong ague-fit upon me.
+      I was obliged to come away. And I write, hardly knowing what.&mdash;I wish
+      thou wert here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though I left him, because I could stay no longer, I can't be easy by
+      myself, but must go to him again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ELEVEN O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Belton!&mdash;Drawing on apace! Yet was he sensible when I went in&mdash;too
+      sensible, poor man! He has something upon his mind to reveal, he tells me,
+      that is the worst action of his life; worse than ever you or I knew of
+      him, he says. It must then be very bad!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He ordered every body out; but was seized with another convulsion-fit,
+      before he could reveal it; and in it he lies struggling between life and
+      death&mdash;but I'll go in again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ONE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All now must soon be over with him: Poor, poor fellow! He has given me
+      some hints of what he wanted to say; but all incoherent, interrupted by
+      dying hiccoughs and convulsions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bad enough it must be, Heaven knows, by what I can gather!&mdash;Alas!
+      Lovelace, I fear, I fear, he came too soon into his uncle's estate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If a man were to live always, he might have some temptation to do base
+      things, in order to procure to himself, as it would then be, everlasting
+      ease, plenty, or affluence; but, for the sake of ten, twenty, thirty years
+      of poor life to be a villain&mdash;Can that be worth while? with a
+      conscience stinging him all the time too! And when he comes to wind up
+      all, such agonizing reflections upon his past guilt! All then appearing as
+      nothing! What he most valued, most disgustful! and not one thing to think
+      of, as the poor fellow says twenty and twenty times over, but what is
+      attended with anguish and reproach!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To hear the poor man wish he had never been born!&mdash;To hear him pray
+      to be nothing after death! Good God! how shocking!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By his incoherent hints, I am afraid 'tis very bad with him. No pardon, no
+      mercy, he repeats, can lie for him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope I shall make a proper use of this lesson. Laugh at me if thou wilt;
+      but never, never more, will I take the liberties I have taken; but
+      whenever I am tempted, will think of Belton's dying agonies, and what my
+      own may be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      *** THURSDAY, THREE IN THE MORNING.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He is now at the last gasp&mdash;rattles in the throat&mdash;has a new
+      convulsion every minute almost! What horror is he in! His eyes look like
+      breath-stained glass! They roll ghastly no more; are quite set; his face
+      distorted, and drawn out, by his sinking jaws, and erected staring
+      eyebrows, with his lengthened furrowed forehead, to double its usual
+      length, as it seems. It is not, it cannot be the face of Belton, thy
+      Belton, and my Belton, whom we have beheld with so much delight over the
+      social bottle, comparing notes, that one day may be brought against us,
+      and make us groan, as they very lately did him&mdash;that is to say, while
+      he had strength to groan; for now his voice is not to be heard; all
+      inward, lost; not so much as speaking by his eyes; yet, strange! how can
+      it be? the bed rocking under him like a cradle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FOUR O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      Alas: he's gone! that groan, that dreadful groan,
+      Was the last farewell of the parting mind!
+      The struggling soul has bid a long adieu
+      To its late mansion&mdash;Fled!  Ah! whither fled?
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Now is all indeed over!&mdash;Poor, poor Belton! by this time thou knowest
+      if thy crimes were above the size of God's mercies! Now are every one's
+      cares and attendance at an end! now do we, thy friends,&mdash;poor Belton!&mdash;
+      know the worst of thee, as to this life! Thou art released from
+      insufferable tortures both of body and mind! may those tortures, and thy
+      repentance, expiate for thy offences, and mayest thou be happy to all
+      eternity!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We are told, that God desires not the death, the spiritual death of a
+      sinner: And 'tis certain, that thou didst deeply repent! I hope,
+      therefore, as thou wert not cut off in the midst of thy sins by the sword
+      of injured friendship, which more than once thou hadst braved, [the
+      dreadfullest of all deaths, next to suicide, because it gives no
+      opportunity for repentance] that this is a merciful earnest that thy
+      penitence is accepted; and that thy long illness, and dreadful agonies in
+      the last stages of it, were thy only punishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish indeed, I heartily wish, we could have seen one ray of comfort
+      darting in upon his benighted mind, before he departed. But all, alas! to
+      the very last gasp, was horror and confusion. And my only fear arises from
+      this, that, till within the four last days of his life, he could not be
+      brought to think he should die, though in a visible decline for months;
+      and, in that presumption, was too little inclined to set about a serious
+      preparation for a journey, which he hoped he should not be obliged to
+      take; and when he began to apprehend that he could not put it off, his
+      impatience, and terror, and apprehension, showed too little of that
+      reliance and resignation, which afford the most comfortable reflections to
+      the friends of the dying, as well as to the dying themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But we must leave poor Belton to that mercy, of which we have all so much
+      need; and, for my own part (do you, Lovelace, and the rest of the
+      fraternity, as ye will) I am resolved, I will endeavour to begin to repent
+      of my follies while my health is sound, my intellects untouched, and while
+      it is in my power to make some atonement, as near to restitution or
+      reparation, as is possible, to those I have wronged or misled. And do ye
+      outwardly, and from a point of false bravery, make as light as ye will of
+      my resolution, as ye are none of ye of the class of abandoned and stupid
+      sots who endeavour to disbelieve the future existence of which ye are
+      afraid, I am sure you will justify me in your hearts, if not by your
+      practices; and one day you will wish you had joined with me in the same
+      resolution, and will confess there is more good sense in it, than now
+      perhaps you will own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SEVEN O'CLOCK, THURSDAY MORNING.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You are very earnest, by your last letter, (just given me) to hear again
+      from me, before you set out for Berks. I will therefore close with a few
+      words upon the only subject in your letter which I can at present touch
+      upon: and this is the letter of which you give me a copy from the lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Want of rest, and the sad scene I have before my eyes, have rendered me
+      altogether incapable of accounting for the contents of it in any shape.
+      You are in ecstacies upon it. You have reason to be so, if it be as you
+      think. Nor would I rob you of your joy: but I must say I am amazed at it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Surely, Lovelace, this surprising letter cannot be a forgery of thy own,
+      in order to carry on some view, and to impose upon me. Yet, by the style
+      of it, it cannot though thou art a perfect Proteus too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will not, however, add another word, after I have desired the return of
+      this, and have told you that I am
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your true friend, and well-wisher, J. BELFORD.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. AUG. 24, THURSDAY MORNING.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I received thy letter in such good time, by thy fellow's dispatch, that it
+      gives me an opportunity of throwing in a few paragraphs upon it. I read a
+      passage or two of it to Mowbray; and we both agree that thou art an
+      absolute master of the lamentable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Belton! what terrible conflicts were thy last conflicts!&mdash;I
+      hope, however, that he is happy: and I have the more hope, because the
+      hardness of his death is likely to be such a warning to thee. If it have
+      the effect thou declarest it shall have, what a world of mischief will it
+      prevent! how much good will it do! how many poor wretches will rejoice at
+      the occasion, (if they know it,) however melancholy in itself, which shall
+      bring them in a compensation for injuries they had been forced to sit down
+      contented with! But, Jack, though thy uncle's death has made thee a rich
+      fellow, art thou sure that the making good of such a vow will not totally
+      bankrupt thee?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou sayest I may laugh at thee, if I will. Not I, Jack: I do not take it
+      to be a laughing subject: and I am heartily concerned at the loss we all
+      have in poor Belton: and when I get a little settled, and have leisure to
+      contemplate the vanity of all sublunary things (a subject that will
+      now-and-then, in my gayest hours, obtrude itself upon me) it is very
+      likely that I may talk seriously with thee upon these topics; and, if thou
+      hast not got too much the start of me in the repentance thou art entering
+      upon, will go hand-in-hand with thee in it. If thou hast, thou wilt let me
+      just keep thee in my eye; for it is an up-hill work; and I shall see thee,
+      at setting out, at a great distance; but as thou art a much heavier and
+      clumsier fellow than myself, I hope that without much puffing and
+      sweating, only keeping on a good round dog-trot, I shall be able to
+      overtake thee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mean time, take back thy letter, as thou desirest. I would not have it in
+      my pocket upon any account at present; nor read it once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am going down without seeing my beloved. I was a hasty fool to write her
+      a letter, promising that I would not come near her till I saw her at her
+      father's. For as she is now actually at Smith's, and I so near her, one
+      short visit could have done no harm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sent Will., two hours ago, with my grateful compliments, and to know how
+      she does.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How must I adore this charming creature! for I am ready to think my
+      servant a happier fellow than myself, for having been within a pair of
+      stairs and an apartment of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbray and I will drop a tear a-piece, as we ride along, to the memory of
+      poor Belton:&mdash;as we ride along, said I: for we shall have so much joy
+      when we arrive at Lord M.'s, and when I communicate to him and my cousins
+      the dear creature's letter, that we shall forget every thing grievous:
+      since now their family-hopes in my reformation (the point which lies so
+      near their hearts) will all revive; it being an article of their faith,
+      that if I marry, repentance and mortification will follow of course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither Mowbray nor I shall accept of thy verbal invitation to the
+      funeral. We like not these dismal formalities. And as to the respect that
+      is supposed to be shown to the memory of a deceased friend in such an
+      attendance, why should we do any thing to reflect upon those who have made
+      it a fashion to leave this parade to people whom they hire for that
+      purpose?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adieu, and be cheerful. Thou canst now do no more for poor Belton, wert
+      thou to howl for him to the end of thy life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. SAT. AUG. 26.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Thursday afternoon I assisted at the opening of poor Belton's will, in
+      which he has left me his sole executor, and bequeathed me a legacy of an
+      hundred guineas; which I shall present to his unfortunate sister, to whom
+      he has not been so kind as I think he ought to have been. He has also left
+      twenty pounds a-piece to Mowbray, Tourville, thyself, and me, for a ring
+      to be worn in remembrance of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After I had given some particular orders about the preparations to be made
+      for his funeral, I went to town; but having made it late before I got in
+      on Thursday night, and being fatigued for want of rest several nights
+      before, and now in my spirits, [I could not help it, Lovelace!] I
+      contented myself to send my compliments to the innocent sufferer, to
+      inquire after her health.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My servant saw Mrs. Smith, who told him, she was very glad I was come to
+      town; for that lady was worse than she had yet been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is impossible to account for the contents of her letter to you; or to
+      reconcile those contents to the facts I have to communicate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was at Smith's by seven yesterday (Friday) morning; and found that the
+      lady was just gone in a chair to St. Dunstan's to prayers: she was too ill
+      to get out by six to Covent-garden church; and was forced to be supported
+      to her chair by Mrs. Lovick. They would have persuaded her against going;
+      but she said she knew not but it would be her last opportunity. Mrs.
+      Lovick, dreading that she would be taken worse at church, walked thither
+      before her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Smith told me she was so ill on Wednesday night, that she had desired
+      to receive the sacrament; and accordingly it was administered to her, by
+      the parson of the parish: whom she besought to take all opportunities of
+      assisting her in her solemn preparation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This the gentleman promised: and called in the morning to inquire after
+      her health; and was admitted at the first word. He staid with her about
+      half an hour; and when he came down, with his face turned aside, and a
+      faltering accent, 'Mrs. Smith,' said he, 'you have an angel in your house.&mdash;I
+      will attend her again in the evening, as she desires, and as often as I
+      think it will be agreeable to her.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her increased weakness she attributed to the fatigues she had undergone by
+      your means; and to a letter she had received from her sister, which she
+      answered the same day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Smith told me that two different persons had called there, one on
+      Thursday morning, one in the evening, to inquire after her state of
+      health; and seemed as if commissioned from her relations for that purpose;
+      but asked not to see her, only were very inquisitive after her visiters:
+      (particularly, it seems, after me: What could they mean by that?) after
+      her way of life, and expenses; and one of them inquired after her manner
+      of supporting them; to the latter of which, Mrs. Smith said, she had
+      answered, as the truth was, that she had been obliged to sell some of her
+      clothes, and was actually about parting with more; at which the inquirist
+      (a grave old farmer-looking man) held up his hands, and said, Good God!&mdash;this
+      will be sad, sad news to somebody! I believe I must not mention it. But
+      Mrs. Smith says she desired he would, let him come from whom he would. He
+      shook his head, and said if she died, the flower of the world would be
+      gone, and the family she belonged to would be no more than a common
+      family.* I was pleased with the man's expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * This man came from her cousin Morden; as will be seen hereafter, Letters
+      LII. and LVI. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You may be curious to know how she passed her time, when she was obliged
+      to leave her lodging to avoid you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Smith tells me 'that she was very ill when she went out on Monday
+      morning, and sighed as if her heart would break as she came down stairs,
+      and as she went through the shop into the coach, her nurse with her, as
+      you had informed me before: that she ordered the coachman (whom she hired
+      for the day) to drive any where, so it was into the air: he accordingly
+      drove her to Hampstead, and thence to Highgate. There at the Bowling-green
+      House, she alighted, extremely ill, and having breakfasted, ordered the
+      coachman to drive very slowly any where. He crept along to Muswell-hill,
+      and put up at a public house there; where she employed herself two hours
+      in writing, though exceedingly weak and low, till the dinner she had
+      ordered was brought in: she endeavoured to eat, but could not: her
+      appetite was gone, quite gone, she said. And then she wrote on for three
+      hours more: after which, being heavy, she dozed a little in an
+      elbow-chair. When she awoke, she ordered the coachman to drive her very
+      slowly to town, to the house of a friend of Mrs. Lovick; whom, as agreed
+      upon, she met there: but, being extremely ill, she would venture home at a
+      late hour, although she heard from the widow that you had been there; and
+      had reason to be shocked at your behaviour. She said she found there was
+      no avoiding you: she was apprehensive she should not live many hours, and
+      it was not impossible but the shock the sight of you must give her would
+      determine her fate in your presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She accordingly went home. She heard the relation of your astonishing
+      vagaries, with hands and eyes often lifted up; and with these words
+      intermingled, Shocking creature! incorrigible wretch! And will nothing
+      make him serious? And not being able to bear the thoughts of an interview
+      with a man so hardened, she took to her usual chair early in the morning,
+      and was carried to the Temple-stairs, where she had ordered her nurse
+      before her, to get a pair of oars in readiness (for her fatigues the day
+      before made her unable to bear a coach;) and then she was rowed to
+      Chelsea, where she breakfasted; and after rowing about, put in at the Swan
+      at Brentford-ait, where she dined; and would have written, but had no
+      conveniency either of tolerable pens, or ink, or private room; and then
+      proceeding to Richmond, they rowed her back to Mort-lake; where she put
+      in, and drank tea at a house her waterman recommended to her. She wrote
+      there for an hour; and returned to the Temple; and, when she landed, made
+      one of the watermen get her a chair, and so was carried to the widow's
+      friend, as the night before; where she again met the widow, who informed
+      her that you had been after her twice that day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mrs. Lovick gave her there her sister's letter;* and she was so much
+      affected with the contents of it, that she was twice very nigh fainting
+      away; and wept bitterly, as Mrs. Lovick told Mrs. Smith; dropping some
+      warmer expressions than ever they had heard proceed from her lips, in
+      relation to her friends; calling them cruel, and complaining of ill
+      offices done her, and of vile reports raised against her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter XXVI. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'While she was thus disturbed, Mrs. Smith came to her, and told her, that
+      you had been there a third time, and was just gone, (at half an hour after
+      nine,) having left word how civil and respectful you would be; but that
+      you was determined to see her at all events.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She said it was hard she could not be permitted to die in peace: that her
+      lot was a severe one: that she began to be afraid she should not forbear
+      repining, and to think her punishment greater than her fault: but,
+      recalling herself immediately, she comforted herself, that her life would
+      be short, and with the assurance of a better.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By what I have mentioned, you will conclude with me, that the letter
+      brought her by Mrs. Lovick (the superscription of which you saw to be
+      written in her sister's hand) could not be the letter on the contents of
+      which she grounded that she wrote to you, on her return home. And yet
+      neither Mrs. Lovick, nor Mrs. Smith, nor the servant of the latter, know
+      of any other brought her. But as the women assured me, that she actually
+      did write to you, I was eased of a suspicion which I had begun to
+      entertain, that you (for some purpose I could not guess at) had forged the
+      letter from her of which you sent me a copy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Wednesday morning, when she received your letter, in answer to her's,
+      she said, Necessity may well be called the mother of invention&mdash;but
+      calamity is the test of integrity.&mdash;I hope I have not taken an
+      inexcusable step&mdash;And there she stopt a minute or two; and then said,
+      I shall now, perhaps, be allowed to die in peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I staid till she came in. She was glad to see me; but, being very weak,
+      said, she must sit down before she could go up stairs: and so went into
+      the back-shop; leaning upon Mrs. Lovick: and when she had sat down, 'I am
+      glad to see you, Mr. Belford, said she; I must say so&mdash;let
+      mis-reporters say what they will.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wondered at this expression;* but would not interrupt her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * Explained in Letter XXVIII. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O Sir, said she, I have been grievously harassed. Your friend, who would
+      not let me live with reputation, will not permit me to die in peace. You
+      see how I am. Is there not a great alteration in me within this week! but
+      'tis all for the better. Yet were I to wish for life, I must say that your
+      friend, your barbarous friend, has hurt me greatly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was so weak, so short breathed, and her words and actions so very
+      moving, that I was forced to walk from her; the two women and her nurse
+      turning away their faces also, weeping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have had, Madam, said I, since I saw you, a most shocking scene before
+      my eyes for days together. My poor friend Belton is no more. He quitted
+      the world yesterday morning in such dreadful agonies, that the impression
+      they have left upon me have so weakened my mind&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was loth to have her think that my grief was owing to the weak state I
+      saw her in, for fear of dispiriting her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That is only, Mr. Belford, interrupted she, in order to strengthen it, if
+      a proper use be made of the impression. But I should be glad, since you
+      are so humanely affected with the solemn circumstance, that you could have
+      written an account of it to your gay friend, in the style and manner you
+      are master of. Who knows, as it would have come from an associate, and of
+      an associate, it might have affected him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That I had done, I told her, in such a manner as had, I believed, some
+      effect upon you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His behaviour in this honest family so lately, said she, and his cruel
+      pursuit of me, give me but little hope that any thing serious or solemn
+      will affect him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had some talk about Belton's dying behaviour, and I gave her several
+      particulars of the poor man's impatience and despair; to which she was
+      very attentive; and made fine observations upon the subject of
+      procrastination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A letter and packet were brought her by a man on horseback from Miss Howe,
+      while we were talking. She retired up stairs to read it; and while I was
+      in discourse with Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick, the doctor and apothecary
+      both came in together. They confirmed to me my fears, as to the dangerous
+      way she is in. They had both been apprized of the new instances of
+      implacableness in her friends, and of your persecutions: and the doctor
+      said he would not for the world be either the unforgiving father of that
+      lady, or the man who had brought her to this distress. Her heart's broken:
+      she'll die, said he: there is no saving her. But how, were I either the
+      one or the other of the people I have named, I should support myself
+      afterwards, I cannot tell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she was told we were all three together, she desired us to walk up.
+      She arose to receive us, and after answering two or three general
+      questions relating to her health, she addressed herself to us, to the
+      following effect:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I may not, said she, see you three gentlemen together again, let me
+      take this opportunity to acknowledge my obligations to you all. I am
+      inexpressibly obliged to you, Sir, and to you, Sir, [courtesying to the
+      doctor and to Mr. Goddard] for your more than friendly, your paternal care
+      and concern for me. Humanity in your profession, I dare say, is far from
+      being a rare qualification, because you are gentlemen by your profession:
+      but so much kindness, so much humanity, did never desolate creature meet
+      with, as I have met with from you both. But indeed I have always observed,
+      that where a person relies upon Providence, it never fails to raise up a
+      new friend for every old one that falls off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This gentleman, [bowing to me,] who, some people think, should have been
+      one of the last I should have thought of for my executor&mdash;is,
+      nevertheless, (such is the strange turn that things have taken!) the only
+      one I can choose; and therefore I have chosen him for that charitable
+      office, and he has been so good as to accept of it: for, rich as I may
+      boast myself to be, I am rather so in right than in fact, at this present.
+      I repeat, therefore, my humble thanks to you all three, and beg of God to
+      return to you and yours [looking to each] an hundred-fold, the kindness
+      and favour you have shown me; and that it may be in the power of you and
+      of yours, to the end of time, to confer benefits, rather than to be
+      obliged to receive them. This is a godlike power, gentlemen: I once
+      rejoiced in it some little degree; and much more in the prospect I had of
+      its being enlarged to me; though I have had the mortification to
+      experience the reverse, and to be obliged almost to every body I have seen
+      or met with: but all, originally, through my own fault; so I ought to bear
+      the punishment without repining: and I hope I do. Forgive these
+      impertinencies: a grateful heart, that wants the power it wishes for, to
+      express itself suitably to its own impulses, will be at a loss what
+      properly to dictate to the tongue; and yet, unable to restrain its
+      overflowings, will force the tongue to say weak and silly things, rather
+      than appear ungratefully silent. Once more, then, I thank ye all three for
+      your kindness to me: and God Almighty make you that amends which at
+      present I cannot!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She retired from us to her closet with her eyes full; and left us looking
+      upon one another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had hardly recovered ourselves, when she, quite easy, cheerful, and
+      smiling, returned to us: Doctor, said she (seeing we had been moved) you
+      will excuse me for the concern I give you; and so will you, Mr. Goddard,
+      and you, Mr. Belford; for 'tis a concern that only generous natures can
+      show: and to such natures sweet is the pain, if I may say so, that attends
+      such a concern. But as I have some few preparations still to make, and
+      would not (though in ease of Mr. Belford's future cares, which is, and
+      ought to be, part of my study) undertake more than it is likely I shall
+      have time lent me to perform, I would beg of you to give me your opinions
+      [you see my way of living, and you may be assured that I will do nothing
+      wilfully to shorten my life] how long it may possibly be, before I may
+      hope to be released from all my troubles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They both hesitated, and looked upon each other. Don't be afraid to answer
+      me, said she, each sweet hand pressing upon the arm of each gentleman,
+      with that mingled freedom and reserve, which virgin modesty, mixed with
+      conscious dignity, can only express, and with a look serenely earnest,
+      tell me how long you think I may hold it! and believe me, gentlemen, the
+      shorter you tell me my time is likely to be, the more comfort you will
+      give me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With what pleasing woe, said the Doctor, do you fill the minds of those
+      who have the happiness to converse with you, and see the happy frame you
+      are in! what you have undergone within a few days past has much hurt you:
+      and should you have fresh troubles of those kinds, I could not be
+      answerable for your holding it&mdash;And there he paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How long, Doctor?&mdash;I believe I shall have a little more ruffling&mdash;I
+      am afraid I shall&mdash;but there can happen only one thing that I shall
+      not be tolerably easy under&mdash;How long then, Sir?&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A fortnight, Sir?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was still silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ten days?&mdash;A week?&mdash;How long, Sir? with smiling earnestness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If I must speak, Madam, if you have not better treatment than you have
+      lately met with, I am afraid&mdash;There again he stopt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Afraid of what, Doctor? don't be afraid&mdash;How long, Sir?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That a fortnight or three weeks may deprive the world of the finest flower
+      in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A fortnight or three weeks yet, Doctor?&mdash;But God's will be done! I
+      shall, however, by this means, have full time, if I have but strength and
+      intellect, to do all that is now upon my mind to do. And so, Sirs, I can
+      but once more thank you [turning to each of us] for all your goodness to
+      me; and, having letters to write, will take up no more of your time&mdash;Only,
+      Doctor, be pleased to order me some more of those drops: they cheer me a
+      little, when I am low; and putting a fee into his unwilling hand&mdash;You
+      know the terms, Sir!&mdash;Then, turning to Mr. Goddard, you'll be so
+      good, Sir, as to look in upon me to-night or to-morrow, as you have
+      opportunity: and you, Mr. Belford, I know, will be desirous to set out to
+      prepare for the last office for your late friend: so I wish you a good
+      journey, and hope to see you when that is performed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She then retired with a cheerful and serene air. The two gentlemen went
+      away together. I went down to the women, and, inquiring, found, that Mrs.
+      Lovick was this day to bring her twenty guineas more, for some other of
+      her apparel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The widow told me that she had taken the liberty to expostulate with her
+      upon the occasion she had for raising this money, to such great
+      disadvantage; and it produced the following short and affecting
+      conversation between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      None of my friends will wear any thing of mine, said she. I shall leave a
+      great many good things behind me.&mdash;And as to what I want the money
+      for &mdash;don't be surprised:&mdash;But suppose I want it to purchase a
+      house?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You are all mystery, Madam. I don't comprehend you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why, then, Mrs. Lovick, I will explain myself.&mdash;I have a man, not a
+      woman, for my executor: and think you that I will leave to his care any
+      thing that concerns my own person?&mdash;Now, Mrs. Lovick, smiling, do you
+      comprehend me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lovick wept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O fie! proceeded the Lady, drying up her tears with her own handkerchief,
+      and giving her a kiss&mdash;Why this kind weakness for one with whom you
+      have been so little while acquainted? Dear, good Mrs. Lovick, don't be
+      concerned for me on a prospect with which I have occasion to be pleased;
+      but go to-morrow to your friends, and bring me the money they have agreed
+      to give you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus, Lovelace, it is plain she means to bespeak her last house! Here's
+      presence of mind; here's tranquillity of heart, on the most affecting
+      occasion&mdash;This is magnanimity indeed!&mdash;Couldst thou, or could I,
+      with all our boisterous bravery, and offensive false courage, act thus?&mdash;Poor
+      Belton! how unlike was thy behaviour!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lovick tells me that the lady spoke of a letter she had received from
+      her favourite divine Dr. Lewen, in the time of my absence; and of an
+      letter she had returned to it. But Mrs. Lovick knows not the contents of
+      either.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When thou receivest the letter I am now writing, thou wilt see what will
+      soon be the end of all thy injuries to this divine lady. I say when thou
+      receivest it; for I will delay it for some little time, lest thou
+      shouldest take it into thy head (under pretence of resenting the
+      disappointment her letter must give thee) to molest her again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This letter having detained me by its length, I shall not now set out for
+      Epsom till to-morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I should have mentioned that the lady explained to me what the one thing
+      was that she was afraid might happen to ruffle her. It was the
+      apprehension of what may result from a visit which Col. Morden, as she is
+      informed, designs to make you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      THE REV. DR. LEWEN, TO MISS CL. HARLOWE FRIDAY, AUG. 18.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presuming, dearest and ever-respectable young lady, upon your former
+      favour, and upon your opinion of my judgment and sincerity, I cannot help
+      addressing you by a few lines on your present unhappy situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will not look back upon the measures into which you have either been led
+      or driven. But will only say as to those, that I think you are the least
+      to blame of any young lady that was ever reduced from happy to unhappy
+      circumstances; and I have not been wanting to say as much, where I hoped
+      my freedom would have been better received than I have had the
+      mortification to find it to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What I principally write for now is, to put you upon doing a piece of
+      justice to yourself, and to your sex, in the prosecuting for his life (I
+      am assured his life is in your power) the most profligate and abandoned of
+      men, as he must be, who could act so basely, as I understand Mr. Lovelace
+      has acted by you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am very ill; and am now forced to write upon my pillow; my thoughts
+      confused; and incapable of method: I shall not therefore aim at method:
+      but to give you in general my opinion&mdash;and that is, that your
+      religion, your duty to your family, the duty you owe to your honour, and
+      even charity to your sex, oblige you to give public evidence against this
+      very wicked man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And let me add another consideration: The prevention, by this means, of
+      the mischiefs that may otherwise happen between your brother and Mr.
+      Lovelace, or between the latter and your cousin Morden, who is now, I
+      hear, arrived, and resolves to have justice done you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A consideration which ought to affect your conscience, [forgive me,
+      dearest young lady, I think I am now in the way of my duty;] and to be of
+      more concern to you, than that hard pressure upon your modesty which I
+      know the appearance against him in an open court must be of to such a lady
+      as you; and which, I conceive, will be your great difficulty. But I know,
+      Madam, that you have dignity enough to become the blushes of the most
+      naked truth, when necessity, justice, and honour, exact it from you. Rakes
+      and ravishers would meet with encouragement indeed, and most from those
+      who had the greatest abhorrence of their actions, if violated modesty were
+      never to complain of the injury it received from the villanous attempters
+      of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a word, the reparation of your family dishonour now rests in your own
+      bosom: and which only one of these two alternatives can repair; to wit,
+      either to marry the offender, or to prosecute him at law. Bitter
+      expedients for a soul so delicate as your's!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He, and all his friends, I understand, solicit you to the first: and it is
+      certainly, now, all the amends within his power to make. But I am assured
+      that you have rejected their solicitations, and his, with the indignation
+      and contempt that his foul actions have deserved: but yet, that you refuse
+      not to extend to him the christian forgiveness he has so little reason to
+      expect, provided he will not disturb you farther.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, Madam, the prosecution I advise, will not let your present and future
+      exemption from fresh disturbance from so vile a molester depend upon his
+      courtesy: I should think so noble and so rightly-guided a spirit as your's
+      would not permit that it should, if you could help it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And can indignities of any kind be properly pardoned till we have it in
+      our power to punish them? To pretend to pardon, while we are labouring
+      under the pain or dishonour of them, will be thought by some to be but the
+      vaunted mercy of a pusillanimous heart, trembling to resent them. The
+      remedy I propose is a severe one: But what pain can be more severe than
+      the injury? Or how will injuries be believed to grieve us, that are never
+      honourably complained of?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sure Miss Clarissa Harlowe, however injured and oppressed, remains
+      unshaken in her sentiments of honour and virtue: and although she would
+      sooner die than deserve that her modesty should be drawn into question;
+      yet she will think no truth immodest that is to be uttered in the
+      vindicated cause of innocence and chastity. Little, very little difference
+      is there, my dear young lady, between a suppressed evidence, and a false
+      one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a terrible circumstance, I once more own, for a young lady of your
+      delicacy to be under the obligation of telling so shocking a story in
+      public court: but it is still a worse imputation, that she should pass
+      over so mortal an injury unresented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Conscience, honour, justice, are on your side: and modesty would, by some,
+      be thought but an empty name, should you refuse to obey their dictates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have been consulted, I own, on this subject. I have given it as my
+      opinion, that you ought to prosecute the abandoned man&mdash;but without
+      my reasons. These I reserved, with a resolution to lay them before you
+      unknown to any body, that the result, if what I wish, may be your own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will only add that the misfortunes which have befallen you, had they
+      been the lot of a child of my own, could not have affected me more than
+      your's have done. My own child I love: but I both love and honour you:
+      since to love you, is to love virtue, good sense, prudence, and every
+      thing that is good and noble in woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wounded as I think all these are by the injuries you have received, you
+      will believe that the knowledge of your distresses must have afflicted,
+      beyond what I am able to express,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your sincere admirer, and humble servant, ARTHUR LEWEN.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+I just now understand that your sister will, by proper authority, propose
+      this prosecution to you.  I humbly presume that the reason why you
+      resolved not upon this step from the first, was, that you did not
+      know that it would have the countenance and support of your
+      relations.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO THE REV. DR. LEWEN SAT. AUG. 19.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought, till I received your affectionate and welcome letter, that I
+      had neither father, uncle, brother left; nor hardly a friend among my
+      former favourers of your sex. Yet, knowing you so well, and having no
+      reason to upbraid myself with a faulty will, I was to blame, (even
+      although I had doubted the continuance of your good opinion,) to decline
+      the trial whether I had forfeited it or not; and if I had, whether I could
+      not honourably reinstate myself in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, Sir, it was owing to different causes that I did not; partly to
+      shame, to think how high, in my happier days, I stood in your esteem, and
+      how much I must be sunk in it, since those so much nearer in relation to
+      me gave me up; partly to deep distress, which makes the humbled heart
+      diffident; and made mine afraid to claim the kindred mind in your's, which
+      would have supplied to me in some measure all the dear and lost relations
+      I have named.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, so loth, as I sometimes was, to be thought to want to make a party
+      against those whom both duty and inclination bid me reverence: so long
+      trailed on between hope and doubt: so little my own mistress at one time;
+      so fearful of making or causing mischief at another; and not being
+      encouraged to hope, by your kind notice, that my application to you would
+      be acceptable:&mdash;apprehending that my relations had engaged your
+      silence at least*&mdash;THESE&mdash;But why these unavailing
+      retrospections now?&mdash;I was to be unhappy&mdash;in order to be happy;
+      that is my hope!&mdash;Resigning therefore to that hope, I will, without
+      any further preamble, write a few lines, (if writing to you, I can write
+      but a few,) in answer to the subject of your kind letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * The stiff visit this good divine was prevailed upon to make her, as
+      mentioned in Vol. II. Letter XXXI. (of which, however, she was too
+      generous to remind him) might warrant the lady to think that he had rather
+      inclined to their party, as to the parental side, than to her's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Permit me, then, to say, That I believe your arguments would have been
+      unanswerable in almost every other case of this nature, but in that of the
+      unhappy Clarissa Harlowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is certain that creatures who cannot stand the shock of public shame,
+      should be doubly careful how they expose themselves to the danger of
+      incurring private guilt, which may possibly bring them to it. But as to
+      myself, suppose there were no objections from the declining way I am in as
+      to my health; and supposing I could have prevailed upon myself to appear
+      against this man; were there not room to apprehend that the end so much
+      wished for by my friends, (to wit, his condign punishment,) would not have
+      been obtained, when it came to be seen that I had consented to give him a
+      clandestine meeting; and, in consequence of that, had been weakly tricked
+      out of living under one roof with him for several weeks; which I did, (not
+      only without complaint, but) without cause of complaint?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little advantage in a court, (perhaps, bandied about, and jested
+      profligately with,) would some of those pleas in my favour have been,
+      which out of court, and to a private and serious audience, would have
+      carried the greatest weight against him&mdash;Such, particularly, as the
+      infamous methods to which he had recourse&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would, no doubt, have been a ready retort from every mouth, that I
+      ought not to have thrown myself into the power of such a man, and that I
+      ought to take for my pains what had befallen me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But had the prosecution been carried on to effect, and had he even been
+      sentenced to death, can it be supposed that his family would not have had
+      interest enough to obtain his pardon, for a crime thought too lightly of,
+      though one of the greatest that can be committed against a creature
+      valuing her honour above her life?&mdash;While I had been censured as
+      pursuing with sanguinary views a man who offered me early all the
+      reparation in his power to make?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And had he been pardoned, would he not then have been at liberty to do as
+      much mischief as ever?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I dare say, Sir, such is the assurance of the man upon whom my unhappy
+      destiny threw me; and such his inveteracy to my family, (which would then
+      have appeared to be justified by their known inveteracy to him, and by
+      their earnest endeavours to take away his life;) that he would not have
+      been sorry to have had an opportunity to confront me, and my father,
+      uncles, and brother, at the bar of a court of justice, on such an
+      occasion. In which case, would not (on his acquittal, or pardon)
+      resentments have been reciprocally heightened? And then would my brother,
+      or my cousin Morden, have been more secure than now?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How do these conditions aggravate my fault! My motives, at first, were not
+      indeed blamable: but I had forgotten the excellent caution, which yet I
+      was not ignorant of, That we ought not to do evil that good may come of
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In full conviction of the purity of my heart, and of the firmness of my
+      principles, [Why may I not, thus called upon, say what I am conscious of,
+      and yet without the imputation of faulty pride; since all is but a duty,
+      and I should be utterly inexcusable, could I not justly say what I do?&mdash;
+      In this full conviction,] he has offered me marriage. He has avowed his
+      penitence: a sincere penitence I have reason to think it, though perhaps
+      not a christian one. And his noble relations, (kinder to the poor sufferer
+      than her own,) on the same conviction, and his own not ungenerous
+      acknowledgements, have joined to intercede with me to forgive and accept
+      of him. Although I cannot comply with the latter part of their
+      intercession, have not you, Sir, from the best rules, and from the
+      divinest example, taught me to forgive injuries?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The injury I have received from him is indeed of the highest nature, and
+      it was attended with circumstances of unmanly baseness and premeditation;
+      yet, I bless God, it has not tainted my mind; it has not hurt my morals.
+      No thanks indeed to the wicked man that it has not. No vile courses have
+      followed it. My will is unviolated. The evil, (respecting myself, and not
+      my friends,) is merely personal. No credulity, no weakness, no want of
+      vigilance, have I to reproach myself with. I have, through grace,
+      triumphed over the deepest machinations. I have escaped from him. I have
+      renounced him. The man whom once I could have loved, I have been enabled
+      to despise: And shall not charity complete my triumph? and shall I not
+      enjoy it?&mdash;And where would be my triumph if he deserved my
+      forgiveness?&mdash;Poor man! he has had a loss in losing me! I have the
+      pride to think so, because I think I know my own heart. I have had none in
+      losing him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I have another plea to make, which alone would have been enough (as I
+      presume) to answer the contents of your very kind and friendly letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know, my dear and reverend friend, the spiritual guide and director of
+      my happier days! I know, that you will allow of my endeavour to bring
+      myself to this charitable disposition, when I tell you how near I think
+      myself to that great and awful moment, in which, and even in the ardent
+      preparation to which, every sense of indignity or injury that concerns not
+      the immortal soul, ought to be absorbed in higher and more important
+      contemplations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus much for myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And for the satisfaction of my friends and favourers, Miss Howe is
+      solicitous to have all those letters and materials preserved, which will
+      set my whole story in a true light. The good Dr. Lewen is one of the
+      principal of those friends and favourers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The warning that may be given from those papers to all such young
+      creatures as may have known or heard of me, may be of more efficacy to the
+      end wished for, as I humbly presume to think, than my appearance could
+      have been in a court of justice, pursuing a doubtful event, under the
+      disadvantages I have mentioned. And if, my dear and good Sir, you are now,
+      on considering every thing, of this opinion, and I could know it, I should
+      consider it as a particular felicity; being as solicitous as ever to be
+      justified in what I may in your eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sorry, Sir, that your indisposition has reduced you to the necessity
+      of writing upon your pillow. But how much am I obliged to that kind and
+      generous concern for me, which has impelled you, as I may say, to write a
+      letter, containing so many paternal lines, with such inconvenience to
+      yourself!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      May the Almighty bless you, dear and reverend Sir, for all your goodness
+      to me of long time past, as well as for that which engaged my present
+      gratitude! Continue to esteem me to the last, as I do and will venerate
+      you! And let me bespeak your prayers, the continuance, I should say, of
+      your prayers; for I doubt not, that I have always had them: and to them,
+      perhaps, has in part been owing (as well as to your pious precepts
+      instilled through my earlier youth) that I have been able to make the
+      stand I have made; although every thing that you prayed for has not been
+      granted to me by that Divine Wisdom, which knows what is best for its poor
+      creatures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My prayers for you are, that it will please God to restore you to your
+      affectionate flock; and after as many years of life as shall be for his
+      service, and to your own comfort, give us a happy meeting in those regions
+      of blessedness, which you have taught me, as well by example, as by
+      precept, to aspire to!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CLARISSA HARLOWE. <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS ARAB. HARLOWE, TO MISS CL. HARLOWE [IN ANSWER TO HER'S TO HER UNCLE
+      ANTONY OF AUG. 13.*] MONDAY, AUG. 21.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter IV. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SISTER CLARY,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I find by your letters to my uncles, that they, as well as I, are in great
+      disgrace with you for writing our minds to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We can't help it, sister Clary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You don't think it worth your while, I find, a second time to press for
+      the blessing you pretend to be so earnest about. You think, no doubt, that
+      you have done your duty in asking for it: so you'll sit down satisfied
+      with that, I suppose, and leave it to your wounded parents to repent
+      hereafter that they have not done theirs, in giving it to you, at the
+      first word; and in making such inquiries about you, as you think ought to
+      have been made. Fine encouragement to inquire after a run-away daughter!
+      living with her fellow as long as he would live with her! You repent also
+      (with your full mind, as you modestly call it) that you wrote to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So we are not likely to be applied to any more, I find, in this way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well then, since this is the case, sister Clary, let me, with all
+      humility, address myself with a proposal or two to you; to which you will
+      be graciously pleased to give an answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now you must know, that we have had hints given us, from several quarters,
+      that you have been used in such a manner by the villain you ran away with,
+      that his life would be answerable for his crime, if it were fairly to be
+      proved. And, by your own hints, something like it appears to us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If, Clary, there be any thing but jingle and affected period in what
+      proceeds from your full mind, and your dutiful consciousness; and if there
+      be truth in what Mrs. Norton and Mrs. Howe have acquainted us with; you
+      may yet justify your character to us, and to the world, in every thing but
+      your scandalous elopement; and the law may reach the villain: and, could
+      we but bring him to the gallows, what a meritorious revenge would that be
+      to our whole injured family, and to the innocents he has deluded, as well
+      as the saving from ruin many others!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let me, therefore, know (if you please) whether you are willing to appear
+      to do yourself, and us, and your sex, this justice? If not, sister Clary,
+      we shall know what to think of you; for neither you nor we can suffer more
+      than we have done from the scandal of your fall: and, if you will, Mr.
+      Ackland and counselor Derham will both attend you to make proper
+      inquiries, and to take minutes of your story, to found a process upon, if
+      it will bear one with as great a probability of success as we are told it
+      may be prosecuted with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, by what Mrs. Howe intimates, this is not likely to be complied with;
+      for it is what she hinted to you, it seems, by her lively daughter, but
+      not without effect;* so prudently in some certain points, as to entitle
+      yourself to public justice; which, if true, the Lord have mercy upon you!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VI. Letter LXXII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One word only more as to the above proposal:&mdash;Your admirer, Dr.
+      Lewen, is clear, in his opinion, that you should prosecute the villain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if you will not agree to this, I have another proposal to make to you,
+      and that in the name of every one in the family; which is, that you will
+      think of going to Pensylvania to reside there for some few years till all
+      is blown over: and, if it please God to spare you, and your unhappy
+      parents, till they can be satisfied that you behave like a true and
+      uniform penitent; at least till you are one-and-twenty; you may then come
+      back to your own estate, or have the produce of it sent you thither, as
+      you shall choose. A period which my father fixes, because it is the
+      custom; and because he thinks your grandfather should have fixed it; and
+      because, let me add, you have fully proved by your fine conduct, that you
+      were not at years of discretion at eighteen. Poor doting, though good old
+      man!&mdash;Your grandfather, he thought&mdash;But I would not be too
+      severe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Hartley has a widow-sister at Pensylvania, with whom he will undertake
+      you may board, and who is a sober, sensible, well-read woman. And if you
+      were once well there, it would rid your father and mother of a world of
+      cares, and fears, and scandal; and that I think is what you should wish
+      for of all things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Hartley will engage for all accommodations in your passage suitable to
+      your rank and fortune; and he has a concern in a ship, which will sail in
+      a month; and you may take your secret-keeping Hannah with you, or whom you
+      will of your newer acquaintance. 'Tis presumed that your companions will
+      be of your own sex.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These are what I had to communicate to you; and if you'll oblige me with
+      an answer, (which the hand that conveys this will call for on Wednesday
+      morning,) it will be very condescending.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ARABELLA HARLOWE. <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO MISS ARAB. HARLOWE TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Write to me, my hard-hearted Sister, in what manner you please, I shall
+      always be thankful to you for your notice. But (think what you will of me)
+      I cannot see Mr. Ackland and the counselor on such a business as you
+      mention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lord have mercy upon me indeed! for none else will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Surely I am believed to a creature past all shame, or it could not be
+      thought of sending two gentlemen to me on such an errand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had my mother required of me (or would modesty have permitted you to
+      inquire into) the particulars of my sad story, or had Mrs. Norton been
+      directed to receive them from me, methinks it had been more fit: and I
+      presume to think that it would have been more in every one's character
+      too, had they been required of me before such heavy judgment had been
+      passed upon me as has been passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know that this is Dr. Lewen's opinion. He has been so good as to enforce
+      it in a kind letter to me. I have answered his letter; and given such
+      reasons as I hope will satisfy him. I could wish it were thought worth
+      while to request of him a sight of my answer.*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * Her letter, containing the reasons she refers to, was not asked for; and
+      Dr. Lewen's death, which fell out soon after he had received it, was the
+      reason that it was not communicated to the family, till it was too late to
+      do the service that might have been hoped for from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To your other proposal, of going to Pensylvania; this is my answer&mdash;If
+      nothing happen within a month which may full as effectually rid my parents
+      and friends of that world of cares, and fears, and scandals, which you
+      mention, and if I am then able to be carried on board of ship, I will
+      cheerfully obey my father and mother, although I were sure to die in the
+      passage. And, if I may be forgiven for saying so (for indeed it proceeds
+      not from a spirit of reprisal) you shall set over me, instead of my poor
+      obliging, but really-unculpable, Hannah, your Betty Barnes; to whom I will
+      be answerable for all my conduct. And I will make it worth her while to
+      accompany me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am equally surprised and concerned at the hints which both you and my
+      uncle Antony give of new points of misbehaviour in me!&mdash;What can be
+      meant by them?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will not tell you, Miss Harlowe, how much I am afflicted at your
+      severity, and how much I suffer by it, and by your hard-hearted levity of
+      style, because what I shall say may be construed into jingle and period,
+      and because I know it is intended, very possibly for kind ends, to mortify
+      me. All I will therefore say is, that it does not lose its end, if that be
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, nevertheless, (divesting myself as much as possible of all
+      resentment,) I will only pray that Heaven will give you, for your own
+      sake, a kinder heart than at present you seem to have; since a kind heart,
+      I am convinced, is a greater blessing to its possessor than it can be to
+      any other person. Under this conviction I subscribe myself, my dear Bella,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your ever-affectionate sister, CL. HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE [IN ANSWER TO HER'S OF THURSDAY,
+      AUG. 17.*] TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter VI. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MY DEAREST YOUNG LADY,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letters you sent me I now return by the hand that brings you this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is impossible for me to express how much I have been affected by them,
+      and by your last of the 17th. Indeed, my dear Miss Clary, you are very
+      harshly used; indeed you are! And if you should be taken from us, what
+      grief and what punishment are not treasuring up against themselves in the
+      heavy reflections which their rash censures and unforgivingness will
+      occasion them!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I find to what your uncle Antony's cruel letter is owing, as well as
+      one you will be still more afflicted by, [God help you, my poor dear
+      child!] when it comes to your hand, written by your sister, with proposals
+      to you.*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter XXVI. ibid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was finished to send you yesterday, I know; and I apprize you of it,
+      that you should fortify your heart against the contents of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The motives which incline them all to this severity, if well grounded,
+      would authorize any severity they could express, and which, while they
+      believe them to be so, both they and you are to be equally pitied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They are owning to the information of that officious Mr. Brand, who has
+      acquainted them (from some enemy of your's in the neighbourhood about you)
+      that visits are made you, highly censurable, by a man of a free character,
+      and an intimate of Mr. Lovelace; who is often in private with you;
+      sometimes twice or thrice a day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Betty gives herself great liberties of speech upon this occasion, and all
+      your friends are too ready to believe that things are not as they should
+      be; which makes me wish that, let the gentleman's views be ever so
+      honourable, you could entirely drop acquaintance with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something of this nature was hinted at by Betty to me before, but so
+      darkly that I could not tell what to make of it; and this made me mention
+      to you so generally as I did in my last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your cousin Morden has been among them. He is exceedingly concerned for
+      your misfortunes; and as they will not believe Mr. Lovelace would marry
+      you, he is determined to go to Lord M.'s, in order to inform himself from
+      Mr. Lovelace's own mouth, whether he intends to do you that justice or
+      not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was extremely caressed by every one at his first arrival; but I am told
+      there is some little coldness between them and him at present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was in hopes of getting a sight of this letter of Mr. Brand: (a rash
+      officious man!) but it seems Mr. Morden had it given him yesterday to
+      read, and he took it away with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      God be your comfort, my dear Miss! But indeed I am exceedingly disturbed
+      at the thoughts of what may still be the issue of all these things. I am,
+      my beloved young lady,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your most affectionate and faithful JUDITH NORTON.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After I had sealed up the enclosed, I had the honour of a private visit
+      from your aunt Hervey; who has been in a very low-spirited way, and kept
+      her chamber for several weeks past; and is but just got abroad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She longed, she said, to see me, and to weep with me, on the hard fate
+      that had befallen her beloved niece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will give you a faithful account of what passed between us; as I expect
+      that it will, upon the whole, administer hope and comfort to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She pitied very much your good mother, who, she assured me, is obliged to
+      act a part entirely contrary to her inclinations; as she herself, she
+      owns, had been in a great measure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She said, that the poor lady was with great difficulty with-held from
+      answering your letter to her; which had (as was your aunt's expression)
+      almost broken the heart of every one: that she had reason to think that
+      she was neither consenting to your two uncles writing, nor approving of
+      what they wrote.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She is sure they all love you dearly; but have gone so far, that they
+      know not how to recede.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That, but for the abominable league which your brother had got every body
+      into (he refusing to set out for Scotland till it was renewed, and till
+      they had all promised to take no step towards a reconciliation in his
+      absence but by his consent; and to which your sister's resentments kept
+      them up); all would before now have happily subsided.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That nobody knew the pangs which their inflexible behaviour gave them,
+      ever since you had begun to write to them in so affecting and humble a
+      style.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That, however, they were not inclined to believe that you were either so
+      ill, or so penitent as you really are; and still less, that Mr. Lovelace
+      is in earnest in his offers of marriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She is sure, however, she says, that all will soon be well: and the
+      sooner for Mr. Morden's arrival: who is very zealous in your behalf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She wished to Heaven that you would accept of Mr. Lovelace, wicked as he
+      has been, if he were now in earnest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It had always,' she said, 'been matter of astonishment to her, that so
+      weak a pride in her cousin James, of making himself the whole family,
+      should induce them all to refuse an alliance with such a family as Mr.
+      Lovelace's was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She would have it, that your going off with Mr. Lovelace was the
+      unhappiest step for your honour and your interest that could have been
+      taken; for that although you would have had a severe trial the next day,
+      yet it would probably have been the last; and your pathetic powers must
+      have drawn you off some friends&mdash;hinting at your mother, at your
+      uncle Harlowe, at your uncle Hervey, and herself.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But here (that the regret that you did not trust to the event of that
+      meeting, may not, in your present low way, too much afflict you) I must
+      observe, that it seems a little too evident, even from this opinion of
+      your aunt's, that it was not absolutely determined that all compulsion was
+      designed to be avoided, since your freedom from it must have been owing to
+      the party to be made among them by your persuasive eloquence and dutiful
+      expostulation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She owned, that some of them were as much afraid of meeting you as you
+      could be of meeting them:'&mdash;But why so, if they designed, in the last
+      instance, to give you your way?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your aunt told me, 'That Mrs. Williams* had been with her, and asked her
+      opinion, if it would be taken amiss, if she desired leave to go up, to
+      attend her dearest young lady in her calamity. Your aunt referred her to
+      your mother: but had heard no more of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * The former housekeeper at Harlowe-place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Her daughter,' (Miss Dolly,) she said, 'had been frequently earnest with
+      her on the same subject; and renewed her request with the greatest fervour
+      when your first letter came to hand.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your aunt says, 'That she then being very ill, wrote to your mother upon
+      it, hoping it would not be taken amiss if she permitted Dolly to go; but
+      that your sister, as from your mother, answered her, That now you seemed
+      to be coming-to, and to have a due sense of your faults, you must be left
+      entirely to their own management.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Miss Dolly,' she said, 'had pined ever since she had heard of Mr.
+      Lovelace's baseness, being doubly mortified by it: first, on account of
+      your sufferings; next, because she was one who rejoiced in your getting
+      off, and vindicated you for it; and had incurred censure and ill-will on
+      that account; especially from your brother and sister; so that she seldom
+      went to Harlowe-place.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Make the best use of these intelligences, my dearest young lady, for your
+      consolation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will only add, that I am, with the most fervent prayers for your
+      recovery and restoration to favour,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your ever-faithful JUDITH NORTON.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO MRS. JUDITH NORTON THURSDAY, AUG. 24.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The relation of such a conversation as passed between my aunt and you
+      would have given me pleasure, had it come some time ago; because it would
+      have met with a spirit more industrious than mine now is, to pick out
+      remote comfort in the hope of a favourable turn that might one day have
+      rewarded my patient duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not doubt my aunt's good-will to me. Her affection I did not doubt.
+      But shall we wonder that kings and princes meet with so little controul in
+      their passions, be they every so violent, when, in a private family, an
+      aunt, nay, even a mother in that family, shall choose to give up a
+      once-favoured child against their own inclinations, rather than oppose an
+      aspiring young man, who had armed himself with the authority of a father,
+      who, when once determined, never would be expostulated with?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And will you not blame me, if I say, that good sense, that kindred
+      indulgence, must be a little offended at the treatment I have met with;
+      and if I own, that I think that great rigour has been exercised towards
+      me! And yet I am now authorized to call it rigour by the judgment of two
+      excellent sisters, my mother and my aunt, who acknowledge (as you tell me
+      from my aunt) that they have been obliged to join against me, contrary to
+      their inclinations; and that even in a point which might seem to concern
+      my eternal welfare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I must not go on at this rate. For may not the inclination my mother
+      has given up be the effect of a too-fond indulgence, rather than that I
+      merit the indulgence? And yet so petulantly perverse am I, that I must
+      tear myself from the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All then that I will say further to it, at this time, is, that were the
+      intended goodness to be granted to me but a week hence, it would possibly
+      be too late&mdash;too late I mean to be of the consolation to me that I
+      would wish from it: for what an inefficacious preparation must I have been
+      making, if it has not, by this time, carried me above&mdash;But above
+      what?&mdash; Poor mistaken creature! Unhappy self-deluder! that finds
+      herself above nothing! Nor able to subdue her own faulty impatience!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in-deed, to have done with a subject that I dare not trust myself
+      with, if it come in your way, let my aunt Hervey, let my dear cousin
+      Dolly, let the worthy Mrs. Williams, know how exceedingly grateful to me
+      their kind intentions and concern for me are: and, as the best warrant or
+      justification of their good opinions, (since I know that their favour for
+      me is founded on the belief that I loved virtue,) tell them, that I
+      continued to love virtue to my last hour, as I presume to hope it may be
+      said; and assure them that I never made the least wilful deviation,
+      however unhappy I became for one faulty step; which nevertheless was not
+      owing to unworthy or perverse motives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am very sorry that my cousin Morden has taken a resolution to see Mr.
+      Lovelace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My apprehensions on this intelligence are a great abatement to the
+      pleasure I have in knowing that he still loves me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My sister's letter to me is a most affecting one&mdash;so needlessly, so
+      ludicrously taunting!&mdash;But for that part of it that is so, I ought
+      rather to pity her, than to be so much concerned at it as I am.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wonder what I have done to Mr. Brand&mdash;I pray God to forgive both
+      him and his informants, whoever they be. But if the scandal arise solely
+      from Mr. Belford's visits, a very little time will confute it. Mean while,
+      the packet I shall send you, which I sent to Miss Howe, will, I hope,
+      satisfy you, my dear Mrs. Norton, as to my reasons for admitting his
+      visits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My sister's taunting letter, and the inflexibleness of my dearer friends
+      &mdash;But how do remoter-begun subjects tend to the point which lies
+      nearest the heart!&mdash;As new-caught bodily disorders all crowd to a
+      fractured or distempered part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will break off, with requesting your prayers that I may be blessed with
+      patience and due resignation; and with assuring you, that I am, and will
+      be to the last hour of my life,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your equally grateful and affectionate CL. HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXXI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE [IN REPLY TO HER'S OF FRIDAY, AUG.
+      11.*] YARMOUTH, ISLE OF WIGHT, AUG. 23.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter II. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MY DEAREST FRIEND,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have read the letters and copies of letters you favoured me with: and I
+      return them by a particular hand. I am extremely concerned at your
+      indifferent state of health: but I approve of all your proceedings and
+      precautions in relation to the appointment of Mr. Belford for an office,
+      in which, I hope, neither he nor any body else will be wanted to act, for
+      many, very many years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I admire, and so we do all, that greatness of mind which can make you so
+      stedfastly [sic] despise (through such inducements as no other woman could
+      resist, and in such desolate circumstances as you have been reduced to)
+      the wretch that ought to be so heartily despised and detested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What must the contents of those letters from your relations be, which you
+      will not communicate to me!&mdash;Fie upon them! How my heart rises!&mdash;But
+      I dare say no more&mdash;though you yourself now begin to think they use
+      you with great severity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every body here is so taken with Mr. Hickman (and the more from the horror
+      they conceive at the character of the detestable Lovelace,) that I have
+      been teased to death almost to name a day. This has given him airs: and,
+      did I not keep him to it, he would behave as carelessly and as insolently
+      as if he were sure of me. I have been forced to mortify him no less than
+      four times since we have been here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I made him lately undergo a severe penance for some negligences that were
+      not to be passed over. Not designed ones, he said: but that was a poor
+      excuse, as I told him: for, had they been designed, he should never have
+      come into my presence more: that they were not, showed his want of thought
+      and attention; and those were inexcusable in a man only in his probatory
+      state.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He hoped he had been more than in a probatory state, he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And therefore, Sir, might be more careless!&mdash;So you add ingratitude
+      to negligence, and make what you plead as accident, that itself wants an
+      excuse, design, which deserves none.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I would not see him for two days, and he was so penitent, and so humble,
+      that I had like to have lost myself, to make him amends: for, as you have
+      said, resentment carried too high, often ends in amends too humble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I long to be nearer to you: but that must not yet be, it seems. Pray, my
+      dear, let me hear from you as often as you can.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      May Heaven increase your comforts, and restore your health, are the
+      prayers of
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your ever faithful and affectionate ANNA HOWE.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+P.S. Excuse me that I did not write before: it was owing to a little
+      coasting voyage I was obliged to give into.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0035" id="link2H_4_0035">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXXII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE FRIDAY, AUG. 25.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You are very obliging, my dear Miss Howe, to account to me for your
+      silence. I was easy in it, as I doubted not that, among such near and dear
+      friends as you are with, you was diverted from writing by some such
+      agreeable excursion as that you mention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was in hopes that you had given over, at this time of day, those very
+      sprightly airs, which I have taken the liberty to blame you for, as often
+      as you have given me occasion to so do; and that has been very often.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was always very grave with you upon this subject: and while your own and
+      a worthy man's future happiness are in the question, I must enter into it,
+      whenever you forget yourself, although I had not a day to live: and indeed
+      I am very ill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sure it was not your intention to take your future husband with you
+      to the little island to make him look weak and silly among those of your
+      relations who never before had seen him. Yet do you think it possible for
+      them (however prepared and resolved they may be to like him) to forbear
+      smiling at him, when they see him suffering under your whimsical penances?
+      A modest man should no more be made little in his own eyes, than in the
+      eyes of others. If he be, he will have a diffidence, which will give an
+      awkwardness to every thing he says or does; and this will be no more to
+      the credit of your choice than to that of the approbation he meets with
+      from your friends, or to his own credit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I love an obliging, and even an humble, deportment in a man to the woman
+      he addresses. It is a mark of his politeness, and tends to give her that
+      opinion of herself, which it may be supposed bashful merit wants to be
+      inspired with. But if the woman exacts it with an high hand, she shows not
+      either her own politeness or gratitude; although I must confess she does
+      her courage. I gave you expectations that I would be very serious with
+      you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O my dear, that it had been my lot (as I was not permitted to live
+      single,) to have met with a man by whom I could have acted generously and
+      unreservedly!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Lovelace, it is now plain, in order to have a pretence against me,
+      taxed my behaviour to him with stiffness and distance. You, at one time,
+      thought me guilty of some degree of prudery. Difficult situations should
+      be allowed for: which often make seeming occasions for censure
+      unavoidable. I deserved not blame from him who made mine difficult. And
+      you, my dear, had I any other man to deal with, or had he but half the
+      merit which Mr. Hickman has, would have found that my doctrine on this
+      subject should have governed my practice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But to put myself out of the question&mdash;I'll tell you what I should
+      think, were I an indifferent by-stander, of those high airs of your's, in
+      return for Mr. Hickman's humble demeanour. 'The lady thinks of having the
+      gentleman, I see plainly, would I say. But I see as plainly, that she has
+      a very great indifference to him. And to what may this indifference be
+      owing? To one or all of these considerations, no doubt: that she receives
+      his addresses rather from motives of convenience than choice: that she
+      thinks meanly of his endowments and intellects; at least more highly of
+      her own: or, she has not the generosity to use that power with moderation,
+      which his great affection for her puts into her hands.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How would you like, my dear, to have any of these things said?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then to give but the shadow of a reason for free-livers and free speakers
+      to say, or to imagine, that Miss Howe gives her hand to a man who has no
+      reason to expect any share in her heart, I am sure you would not wish that
+      such a thing should be so much as supposed. Then all the regard from you
+      to come afterwards; none to be shown before; must, should I think, be
+      capable of being construed as a compliment to the husband, made at the
+      expense of the wife's and even of the sex's delicacy!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no fear that attempts could be formed by the most audacious [two
+      Lovelaces there cannot be!] upon a character so revered for virtue, and so
+      charmingly spirited, as Miss Howe's: yet, to have any man encouraged to
+      despise a husband by the example of one who is most concerned to do him
+      honour; what, my dear, think you of that? It is but too natural for
+      envious men (and who that knows Miss Howe, will not envy Mr. Hickman!) to
+      scoff at, and to jest upon, those who are treated with or will bear
+      indignity from a woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If a man so treated have a true and ardent love for the woman he
+      addresses, he will be easily overawed by her displeasure: and this will
+      put him upon acts of submission, which will be called meanness. And what
+      woman of true spirit would like to have it said, that she would impose any
+      thing upon the man from whom she one day expects protection and defence,
+      that should be capable of being construed as a meanness, or unmanly
+      abjectness in his behaviour, even to herself?&mdash;Nay, I am not sure,
+      and I ask it of you, my dear, to resolve me, whether, in your own opinion,
+      it is not likely, that a woman of spirit will despise rather than value
+      more, the man who will take patiently an insult at her hands; especially
+      before company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have always observed, that prejudices in disfavour of a person at his
+      first appearance, fix deeper, and are much more difficult to be removed
+      when fixed, than that malignant principle so eminently visible in little
+      minds, which makes them wish to bring down the more worthy characters to
+      their own low level, I pretend not to determine. When once, therefore, a
+      woman of your good sense gives room to the world to think she has not an
+      high opinion of the lover, whom nevertheless she entertains, it will be
+      very difficult for her afterwards to make that world think so well as she
+      would have it of the husband she has chosen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Give me leave to observe, that to condescend with dignity, and to command
+      with such kindness, and sweetness of manners, as should let the
+      condescension, while in a single state, be seen and acknowledged, are
+      points, which a wise woman, knowing her man, should aim at: and a wise
+      woman, I should think, would choose to live single all her life rather
+      than give herself to a man whom she thinks unworthy of a treatment so
+      noble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when a woman lets her lover see that she has the generosity to approve
+      of and reward a well-meant service; that she has a mind that lifts her
+      above the little captious follies, which some (too licentiously, I hope,)
+      attribute to the sex in general: that she resents not (if ever she thinks
+      she has reason to be displeased) with petulance, or through pride: nor
+      thinks it necessary to insist upon little points, to come at or secure
+      great ones, perhaps not proper to be aimed at: nor leaves room to suppose
+      she has so much cause to doubt her own merit, as to put the love of the
+      man she intends to favour upon disagreeable or arrogant trials: but let
+      reason be the principal guide of her actions&mdash; she will then never
+      fail of that true respect, of that sincere veneration, which she wishes to
+      meet with; and which will make her judgment after marriage consulted,
+      sometimes with a preference to a man's own; at other times as a delightful
+      confirmation of his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so much, my beloved Miss Howe, for this subject now, and I dare say,
+      for ever!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will begin another letter by-and-by, and send both together. Mean time,
+      I am, &amp;c.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0036" id="link2H_4_0036">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXXIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
+    </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+[In this letter, the Lady acquaints Miss Howe with Mr. Brand's report;
+      with her sister's proposals either that she will go abroad, or
+      prosecute Mr. Lovelace.  She complains of the severe letters of
+      her uncle Antony and her sister; but in milder terms than they
+      deserved.
+
+      She sends her Dr. Lewen's letter, and the copy of her answer to it.
+ 
+She tells her of the difficulties she had been under to avoid seeing Mr.
+      Lovelace.  She gives her the contents of the letter she wrote to
+      him to divert him from his proposed visit: she is afraid, she says,
+      that it is a step that is not strictly right, if allegory or
+      metaphor be not allowable to one in her circumstances.
+ 
+She informs her of her cousin Morden's arrival and readiness to take her
+      part with her relations; of his designed interview with Mr.
+      Lovelace; and tells her what her apprehensions are upon it.
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+She gives her the purport of the conversation between her aunt Hervey and
+      Mrs. Norton. And then adds:]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But were they ever so favourably inclined to me now, what can they do for
+      me? I wish, and that for their sakes more than for my own, that they would
+      yet relent&mdash;but I am very ill&mdash;I must drop my pen&mdash;a sudden
+      faintness overspreads my heart&mdash;excuse my crooked writing!&mdash;Adieu,
+      my dear!&mdash;Adieu!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THREE O'CLOCK, FRIDAY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more I resume my pen. I thought I had taken my last farewell to you.
+      I never was so very oddly affected: something that seemed totally to
+      overwhelm my faculties&mdash;I don't know how to describe it&mdash;I
+      believe I do amiss in writing so much, and taking too much upon me: but an
+      active mind, though clouded by bodily illness, cannot be idle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I'll see if the air, and a discontinued attention, will help me. But, if
+      it will not, don't be concerned for me, my dear. I shall be happy. Nay, I
+      am more so already than of late I thought I could ever be in this life.
+      &mdash;Yet how this body clings!&mdash;How it encumbers!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SEVEN O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not send this letter away with so melancholy an ending, as you
+      would have thought it. So I deferred closing it, till I saw how I should
+      be on my return from my airing: and now I must say I am quite another
+      thing: so alert! that I could proceed with as much spirit as I began, and
+      add more preachment to your lively subject, if I had not written more than
+      enough upon it already.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish you would let me give you and Mr. Hickman joy. Do, my dear. I
+      should take some to myself, if you would.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My respectful compliments to all your friends, as well to those I have the
+      honour to know, as to those I do not know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have just now been surprised with a letter from one whom I long ago gave
+      up all thoughts of hearing from. From Mr. Wyerley. I will enclose it.
+      You'll be surprised at it as much as I was. This seems to be a man whom I
+      might have reclaimed. But I could not love him. Yet I hope I never treated
+      him with arrogance. Indeed, my dear, if I am not too partial to myself, I
+      think I refused him with more gentleness, than you retain somebody else.
+      And this recollection gives me less pain than I should have had in the
+      other case, on receiving this instance of a generosity that affects me. I
+      will also enclose the rough draught of my answer, as soon as I have
+      transcribed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If I begin another sheet, I shall write to the end of it: wherefore I will
+      only add my prayers for your honour and prosperity, and for a long, long,
+      happy life; and that, when it comes to be wound up, you may be as calm and
+      as easy at quitting it as I hope in God I shall be. I am, and will be, to
+      the latest moment,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your truly affectionate and obliged servant, CL. HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0037" id="link2H_4_0037">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXXIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. WYERLEY, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE WEDNESDAY, AUG. 23.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DEAREST MADAM,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You will be surprised to find renewed, at this distance of time, an
+      address so positively though so politely discouraged: but, however it be
+      received, I must renew it. Every body has heard that you have been vilely
+      treated by a man who, to treat you ill, must be the vilest of men. Every
+      body knows your just resentment of his base treatment: that you are
+      determined never to be reconciled to him: and that you persist in these
+      sentiments against all the entreaties of his noble relations, against all
+      the prayers and repentance of his ignoble self. And all the world that
+      have the honour to know you, or have heard of him, applaud your
+      resolution, as worthy of yourself; worthy of your virtue, and of that
+      strict honour which was always attributed to you by every one who spoke of
+      you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, Madam, were all the world to have been of a different opinion, it
+      could never have altered mine. I ever loved you; I ever must love you. Yet
+      have I endeavoured to resign to my hard fate. When I had so many ways, in
+      vain, sought to move you in my favour, I sat down seemingly contented. I
+      even wrote to you that I would sit down contented. And I endeavoured to
+      make all my friends and companions think I was. But nobody knows what
+      pangs this self-denial cost me! In vain did the chace, in vain did travel,
+      in vain did lively company, offer themselves, and were embraced in their
+      turn: with redoubled force did my passion for you renew my unhappiness,
+      when I looked into myself, into my own heart; for there did your charming
+      image sit enthroned; and you engrossed me all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I truly deplore those misfortunes, and those sufferings, for your own
+      sake; which nevertheless encourage me to renew my old hope. I know not
+      particulars. I dare not inquire after them; because my sufferings would be
+      increased with the knowledge of what your's have been. I therefore desire
+      not to know more than what common report wounds my ears with; and what is
+      given me to know, by your absence from your cruel family, and from the
+      sacred place, where I, among numbers of your rejected admirers, used to be
+      twice a week sure to behold you doing credit to that service of which your
+      example gave me the highest notions. But whatever be those misfortunes, of
+      whatsoever nature those sufferings, I shall bless the occasion for my own
+      sake (though for your's curse the author of them,) if they may give me the
+      happiness to know that this my renewed address may not be absolutely
+      rejected.&mdash;Only give me hope, that it may one day meet with
+      encouragement, if in the interim nothing happen, either in my morals or
+      behaviour, to give you fresh offence. Give me but hope of this&mdash;not
+      absolutely to reject me is all the hope I ask for; and I will love you, if
+      possible, still more than I ever loved you&mdash;and that for your
+      sufferings; for well you deserve to be loved, even to adoration, who can,
+      for honour's and for virtue's sake, subdue a passion which common spirits
+      [I speak by cruel experience] find invincible; and this at a time when the
+      black offender kneels and supplicates, as I am well assured he does, (all
+      his friends likewise supplicating for him,) to be forgiven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That you cannot forgive him, not forgive him so as to receive him again to
+      favour, is no wonder. His offence is against virtue: this is a part of
+      your essence. What magnanimity is this! How just to yourself, and to your
+      spotless character! Is it any merit to admire more than ever a lady who
+      can so exaltedly distinguish? It is not. I cannot plead it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What hope have I left, may it be said, when my address was before
+      rejected, now, that your sufferings, so nobly borne, have, with all the
+      good judges, exalted your character? Yet, Madam, I have to pride myself in
+      this, that while your friends (not looking upon you in the just light I
+      do) persecute and banish you; while your estate is withheld from you, and
+      threatened (as I know,) to be withheld, as long as the chicaning law, or
+      rather the chicaneries of its practisers, can keep it from you: while you
+      are destitute of protection; every body standing aloof, either through
+      fear of the injurer of one family, or of the hard-hearted of the other; I
+      pride myself, I say, to stand forth, and offer my fortune, and my life, at
+      your devotion. With a selfish hope indeed: I should be too great an
+      hypocrite not to own this! and I know how much you abhor insincerity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, whether you encourage that hope or not, accept my best services, I
+      beseech you, Madam: and be pleased to excuse me for a piece of honest art,
+      which the nature of the case (doubting the honour of your notice
+      otherwise) makes me choose to conclude with&mdash;it is this:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If I am to be still the most unhappy of men, let your pen by one line tell
+      me so. If I am permitted to indulge a hope, however distant, your silence
+      shall be deemed, by me, the happiest indication of it that you can give&mdash;except
+      that still happier&mdash;(the happiest than can befall me,) a
+      signification that you will accept the tender of that life and fortune,
+      which it would be my pride and my glory to sacrifice in your service,
+      leaving the reward to yourself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Be your determination as it may, I must for ever admire and love you. Nor
+      will I ever change my condition, while you live, whether you change your's
+      or not: for, having once had the presumption to address you, I cannot
+      stoop to think of any other woman: and this I solemnly declare in the
+      presence of that God, whom I daily pray to bless and protect you, be your
+      determination what it will with regard to, dearest Madam,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your most devoted and ever affectionate and faithful servant, ALEXANDER
+      WYERLEY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0038" id="link2H_4_0038">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXXV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO ALEX. WYERLEY, ESQ. SAT. AUG. 26.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SIR,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The generosity of your purpose would have commanded not only my notice,
+      but my thanks, although you had not given me the alternative you are
+      pleased to call artful. And I do therefore give you my thanks for your
+      kind letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the time you distinguished me by your favourable opinion, I told you,
+      Sir, that my choice was the single life. And most truly did I tell you so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When that was not permitted me, and I looked round upon the several
+      gentlemen who had been proposed to me, and had reason to believe that
+      there was not one of them against whose morals or principles there lay not
+      some exception, it would not have been much to be wondered at, if FANCY
+      had been allowed to give a preference, where JUDGMENT was at a loss to
+      determine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Far be it from me to say this with a design to upbraid you, Sir, or to
+      reflect upon you. I always wished you well. You had reason to think I did.
+      You had the generosity to be pleased with the frankness of my behaviour to
+      you; as I had with that of your's to me; and I am sorry, very sorry, to be
+      now told, that the acquaintance you obliged me with gave you so much pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had the option I have mentioned been allowed me afterwards, (as I not only
+      wished, but proposed,) things had not happened that did happen. But there
+      was a kind of fatality by which our whole family was impelled, as I may
+      say; and which none of us were permitted to avoid. But this is a subject
+      that cannot be dwelt upon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As matters are, I have only to wish, for your own sake, that you will
+      encourage and cultivate those good motions in your mind, to which many
+      passages in your kind and generous letter now before me must be owing.
+      Depend upon it, Sir, that such motions, wrought into habit, will yield you
+      pleasure at a time when nothing else can; and at present, shining out in
+      your actions and conversation, will commend you to the worthiest of our
+      sex. For, Sir, the man who is so good upon choice, as well as by
+      education, has that quality in himself, which ennobles the human race, and
+      without which the most dignified by birth or rank are ignoble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to the resolution you solemnly make not to marry while I live, I should
+      be concerned at it, were I not morally sure that you may keep it, and yet
+      not be detrimented by it: since a few, a very few days, will convince you,
+      that I am got above all human dependence; and that there is no need of
+      that protection and favour, which you so generously offer to, Sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your obliged well-wisher, and humble servant, CL. HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0039" id="link2H_4_0039">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXXVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. MONDAY NOON, AUG. 28.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About the time of poor Belton's interment last night, as near as we could
+      guess, Lord M., Mowbray, and myself, toasted once, To the memory of honest
+      Tom. Belton; and, by a quick transition to the living, Health to Miss
+      Harlowe; which Lord M. obligingly began, and, To the happy reconciliation;
+      and then we stuck in a remembrance To honest Jack Belford, who, of late,
+      we all agreed, is become an useful and humane man; and one who prefers his
+      friend's service to his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what is the meaning I hear nothing from thee?* And why dost thou not
+      let me into the grounds of the sudden reconciliation between my beloved
+      and her friends, and the cause of the generous invitation which she gives
+      me of attending her at her father's some time hence?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * Mr. Belford has not yet sent him his last-written letter. His reason for
+      which see Letter XXIII. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou must certainly have been let into the secret by this time; and I can
+      tell thee, I shall be plaguy jealous if there is to be any one thing pass
+      between my angel and thee that is to be concealed from me. For either I am
+      a principal in this cause, or I am nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have dispatched Will. to know the reason of thy neglect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But let me whisper a word or two in thy ear. I begin to be afraid, after
+      all, that this letter was a stratagem to get me out of town, and for
+      nothing else: for, in the first place, Tourville, in a letter I received
+      this morning, tells me, that the lady is actually very ill! [I am sorry
+      for it with all my soul!]. This, thou'lt say, I may think a reason why she
+      cannot set out as yet: but then I have heard, on the other hand, but last
+      night, that the family is as implacable as ever; and my Lord and I expect
+      this very afternoon a visit from Colonel Morden; who, undertakes, it
+      seems, to question me as to my intention with regard to his cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This convinces me, that if she has apprized her friends of my offers to
+      her, they will not believe me to be in earnest, till they are assured that
+      I am so from my own mouth. But then I understand, that the intended visit
+      is an officiousness of Morden's own, without the desire of any of her
+      friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, Jack, what can a man make of all this? My intelligence as to the
+      continuance of her family's implacableness is not to be doubted; and yet
+      when I read her letter, what can one say?&mdash;Surely, the dear little
+      rogue will not lie!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I never knew her dispense with her word, but once; and that was, when she
+      promised to forgive me after the dreadful fire that had like to have
+      happened at our mother's, and yet would not see me the next day, and
+      afterwards made her escape to Hampstead, in order to avoid forgiving me:
+      and as she severely smarted for this departure from her honour given, (for
+      it is a sad thing for good people to break their word when it is in their
+      power to keep it,) one would not expect that she should set about
+      deceiving again; more especially by the premeditation of writing. Thou,
+      perhaps, wilt ask, what honest man is obliged to keep his promise with a
+      highwayman? for well I know thy unmannerly way of making comparisons; but
+      I say, every honest man is&mdash;and I will give thee an illustration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here is a marauding varlet, who demands your money, with a pistol at your
+      breast. You have neither money nor valuable effects about you; and promise
+      solemnly, if he will spare your life, that you will send him an
+      agreed-upon sum, by such a day, to such a place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The question is, if your life is not in the fellow's power?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How he came by the power is another question; for which he must answer
+      with his life when caught&mdash;so he runs risque for risque.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now if he give you your life, does he not give, think you, a valuable
+      consideration for the money you engage your honour to send him? If not,
+      the sum must be exorbitant, or your life is a very paltry one, even in
+      your own opinion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I need not make the application; and I am sure that even thou thyself, who
+      never sparest me, and thinkest thou knowest my heart by thy own, canst not
+      possibly put the case in a stronger light against me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, why do good people take upon themselves to censure, as they do,
+      persons less scrupulous than themselves? Is it not because the latter
+      allow themselves in any liberty, in order to carry a point? And can my not
+      doing my duty, warrant another for not doing his?&mdash;Thou wilt not say
+      it can.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And how would it sound, to put the case as strongly once more, as my
+      greatest enemy would put it, both as to fact and in words&mdash;here has
+      that profligate wretch Lovelace broken his vow with and deceived Miss
+      Clarissa Harlowe.&mdash;A vile fellow! would an enemy say: but it is like
+      him. But when it comes to be said that the pious Clarissa has broken her
+      word with and deceived Lovelace; Good Lord! would every one say; sure it
+      cannot be!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon my soul, Jack, such is the veneration I have for this admirable
+      woman, that I am shocked barely at putting the case&mdash;and so wilt
+      thou, if thou respectest her as thou oughtest: for thou knowest that men
+      and women, all the world over, form their opinions of one another by each
+      person's professions and known practices. In this lady, therefore, it
+      would be unpardonable to tell a wilful untruth, as it would be strange if
+      I kept my word.&mdash;In love cases, I mean; for, as to the rest, I am an
+      honest, moral man, as all who know me can testify.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And what, after all, would this lady deserve, if she has deceived me in
+      this case? For did she not set me prancing away, upon Lord M.'s best nag,
+      to Lady Sarah's, and to Lady Betty's, with an erect and triumphing
+      countenance, to show them her letter to me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And let me tell thee, that I have received their congratulations upon it:
+      Well, and now, cousin Lovelace, cries one: Well, and now, cousin Lovelace,
+      cries t'other; I hope you will make the best of husbands to so excellent
+      and so forgiving a lady!&mdash;And now we shall soon have the pleasure of
+      looking upon you as a reformed man, added one! And now we shall see you in
+      the way we have so long wished you to be in, cried the other!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My cousins Montague also have been ever since rejoicing in the new
+      relationship. Their charming cousin, and their lovely cousin, at every
+      word! And how dearly they will love he! What lessons they will take from
+      her! And yet Charlotte, who pretends to have the eye of an eagle, was for
+      finding out some mystery in the style and manner, till I overbore her, and
+      laughed her out of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for Lord M. he has been in hourly expectation of being sent to with
+      proposals of one sort or other from the Harlowes; and still we have it,
+      that such proposals will be made by Colonel Morden when he comes; and that
+      the Harlowes only put on a face of irreconcileableness, till they know the
+      issue of Morden's visit, in order to make the better terms with us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, if I had not undoubted reason, as I said, to believe the
+      continuance of their antipathy to me, and implacableness to her, I should
+      be apt to think there might be some foundation for my Lord's conjecture;
+      for there is a cursed deal of low cunning in all that family, except in
+      the angel of it; who has so much generosity of soul, that she despises
+      cunning, both name and thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What I mean by all this is, to let thee see what a stupid figure I shall
+      make to all my own family, if my Clarissa has been capable, as Gulliver in
+      his abominable Yahoo story phrases it, if it were only that I should be
+      outwitted by such a novice at plotting, and that it would make me look
+      silly to my kinswomen here, who know I value myself upon my contrivances,
+      it would vex me to the heart; and I would instantly clap a featherbed into
+      a coach and six, and fetch her away, sick or well, and marry her at my
+      leisure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Col. Morden is come, and I must break off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0040" id="link2H_4_0040">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXXVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. MONDAY NIGHT, AUG. 28.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I doubt you will be all impatience that you have not heard from me since
+      mine of Thursday last. You would be still more so, if you knew that I had
+      by me a letter ready written.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went early yesterday morning to Epsom; and found every thing disposed
+      according to the directions I had left on Friday; and at night the solemn
+      office was performed. Tourville was there; and behaved very decently, and
+      with greater concern than I thought he would ever have expressed for any
+      body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomasine, they told me, in a kind of disguise, was in an obscure pew, out
+      of curiosity (for it seems she was far from showing any tokens of grief)
+      to see the last office performed for the man whose heart she had so
+      largely contributed to break.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was obliged to stay till this afternoon, to settle several necessary
+      matters, and to direct inventories to be taken, in order for appraisement;
+      for every thing is to be turned into money, by his will. I presented his
+      sister with the hundred guineas the poor man left me as his executor, and
+      desired her to continue in the house, and take the direction of every
+      thing, till I could hear from his nephew at Antigua, who is heir at law.
+      He had left her but fifty pounds, although he knew her indigence; and that
+      it was owing to a vile husband, and not to herself, that she was indigent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor man left about two hundred pounds in money, and two hundred
+      pounds in two East-India bonds; and I will contrive, if I can, to make up
+      the poor woman's fifty pounds, and my hundred guineas, two hundred pounds
+      to her; and then she will have some little matter coming in certain, which
+      I will oblige her to keep out of the hands of a son, who has completed
+      that ruin which his father had very nearly effected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave Tourville his twenty pounds, and will send you and Mowbray your's
+      by the first order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so much for poor Belton's affairs till I see you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I got to town in the evening, and went directly to Smith's. I found Mrs.
+      Lovick and Mrs. Smith in the back shop, and I saw they had been both in
+      tears. They rejoiced to see me, however; and told me, that the Doctor and
+      Mr. Goddard were but just gone; as was also the worthy clergyman, who
+      often comes to pray by her; and all three were of opinion, that she would
+      hardly live to see the entrance of another week. I was not so much
+      surprised as grieved; for I had feared as much when I left her on
+      Saturday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sent up my compliments; and she returned, that she would take it for a
+      favour if I would call upon her in the morning by eight o'clock. Mrs.
+      Lovick told me that she had fainted away on Saturday, while she was
+      writing, as she had done likewise the day before; and having received
+      benefit then by a little turn in a chair, she was carried abroad again.
+      She returned somewhat better; and wrote till late; yet had a pretty good
+      night: and went to Covent-garden church in the morning; but came home so
+      ill that she was obliged to lie down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she arose, seeing how much grieved Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith were
+      for her, she made apologies for the trouble she gave them&mdash;You were
+      happy, said she, before I came hither. It was a cruel thing in me to come
+      amongst honest strangers, and to be sick, and die with you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they touched upon the irreconcileableness of her friends, I have had
+      ill offices done me to them, said she, and they do not know how ill I am;
+      nor will they believe any thing I should write. But yet I cannot sometimes
+      forbear thinking it a little hard, that out of so many near and dear
+      friends as I have living, not one of them will vouchsafe to look upon me.
+      No old servant, no old friend, proceeded she, to be permitted to come near
+      me, without being sure of incurring displeasure! And to have such a great
+      work to go through by myself, a young creature as I am, and to have every
+      thing to think of as to my temporal matters, and to order, to my very
+      interment! No dear mother, said the sweet sufferer, to pray by me and
+      bless me!&mdash;No kind sister to sooth and comfort me!&mdash;But come,
+      recollected she, how do I know but all is for the best&mdash;if I can but
+      make a right use of my discomforts?&mdash;Pray for me, Mrs. Lovick&mdash;pray
+      for me, Mrs. Smith, that I may&mdash;I have great need of your prayers.&mdash;This
+      cruel man has discomposed me. His persecutions have given me pain just
+      here, [putting her hand to her heart.] What a step has he made me take to
+      avoid him!&mdash;Who can touch pitch, and not be defiled? He had made a
+      bad spirit take possession of me, I think&mdash;broken in upon all my
+      duties &mdash;and will not yet, I doubt, let me be at rest. Indeed he is
+      very cruel &mdash;but this is one of my trials, I believe. By God's grace,
+      I shall be easier to-morrow, and especially if I have no more of his
+      tormentings, and if I can get a tolerable night. And I will sit up till
+      eleven, that I may.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She said, that though this was so heavy a day with her, she was at other
+      times, within these few days past especially, blessed with bright hours;
+      and particularly that she had now and then such joyful assurances, (which
+      she hoped were not presumptuous ones,) that God would receive her to his
+      mercy, that she could hardly contain herself, and was ready to think
+      herself above this earth while she was in it: And what, inferred she to
+      Mrs. Lovick, must be the state itself, the very aspirations after which
+      have often cast a beamy light through the thickest darkness, and, when I
+      have been at the lowest ebb, have dispelled the black clouds of
+      despondency?&mdash;As I hope they soon will this spirit of repining.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had a pretty good night, it seems; and this morning went in a chair to
+      St. Dunstan's church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chairmen told Mrs. Smith, that after prayers (for she did not return
+      till between nine and ten) they carried her to a house in Fleet-street,
+      whither they never waited on her before. And where dost think this was?
+      &mdash;Why to an undertaker's! Good Heaven! what a woman is this! She went
+      into the back shop, and talked with the master of it about half an hour,
+      and came from him with great serenity; he waiting upon her to her chair
+      with a respectful countenance, but full of curiosity and seriousness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Tis evident that she went to bespeak her house that she talked of*&mdash;As
+      soon as you can, Sir, were her words to him as she got into the chair.
+      Mrs. Smith told me this with the same surprise and grief that I heard it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter XXIII. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was very ill in the afternoon, having got cold either at St.
+      Dunstan's, or at chapel, and sent for the clergyman to pray by her; and
+      the women, unknown to her, sent both for Dr. H. and Mr. Goddard: who were
+      just gone, as I told you, when I came to pay my respects to her this
+      evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And thus have I recounted from the good women what passed to this night
+      since my absence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I long for to-morrow, that I may see her: and yet it is such a melancholy
+      longing as I never experienced, and know not how to describe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TUESDAY, AUG. 29.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was at Smith's at half an hour after seven. They told me that the lady
+      was gone in a chair to St. Dunstan's: but was better than she had been in
+      either of the two preceding days; and that she said she to Mrs. Lovick and
+      Mrs. Smith, as she went into the chair, I have a good deal to answer for
+      to you, my good friends, for my vapourish conversation of last night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If, Mrs. Lovick, said she, smiling, I have no new matters to discompose
+      me, I believe my spirits will hold out purely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She returned immediately after prayers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Belford, said she, as she entered the back shop where I was, (and upon
+      my approaching her,) I am very glad to see you. You have been performing
+      for your poor friend a kind last office. 'Tis not long ago since you did
+      the same for a near relation. Is it not a little hard upon you, that these
+      troubles should fall so thick to your lot? But they are charitable
+      offices: and it is a praise to your humanity, that poor dying people know
+      not where to choose so well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her I was sorry to hear she had been so ill since I had the honour
+      to attend her; but rejoiced to find that now she seemed a good deal
+      better.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It will be sometimes better, and sometimes worse, replied she, with poor
+      creatures, when they are balancing between life and death. But no more of
+      these matters just now. I hope, Sir, you'll breakfast with me. I was quite
+      vapourish yesterday. I had a very bad spirit upon me. Had I not, Mrs.
+      Smith? But I hope I shall be no more so. And to-day I am perfectly serene.
+      This day rises upon me as if it would be a bright one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She desired me to walk up, and invited Mr. Smith and his wife, and Mrs.
+      Lovick also, to breakfast with her. I was better pleased with her
+      liveliness than with her looks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The good people retiring after breakfast, the following conversation
+      passed between us:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pray, Sir, let me ask you, if you think I may promise myself that I shall
+      be no more molested by your friend?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated: For how could I answer for such a man?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What shall I do, if he comes again?&mdash;You see how I am.&mdash;I cannot
+      fly from him now&mdash;If he has any pity left for the poor creature whom
+      he has thus reduced, let him not come.&mdash;But have you heard from him
+      lately? And will he come?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope not, Madam. I have not heard from him since Thursday last, that he
+      went out of town, rejoicing in the hopes your letter gave him of a
+      reconciliation between your friends and you, and that he might in good
+      time see you at your father's; and he is gone down to give all his friends
+      joy of the news, and is in high spirits upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alas! for me: I shall then surely have him come up to persecute me again!
+      As soon as he discovers that that was only a stratagem to keep him away,
+      he will come up, and who knows but even now he is upon the road? I thought
+      I was so bad that I should have been out of his and every body's way
+      before now; for I expected not that this contrivance would serve me above
+      two or three days; and by this time he must have found out that I am not
+      so happy as to have any hope of a reconciliation with my family; and then
+      he will come, if it be only in revenge for what he will think a deceit,
+      but is not, I hope, a wicked one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe I looked surprised to hear her confess that her letter was a
+      stratagem only; for she said, You wonder, Mr. Belford, I observe, that I
+      could be guilty of such an artifice. I doubt it is not right: it was done
+      in a hurry of spirits. How could I see a man who had so mortally injured
+      me; yet pretending a sorrow for his crimes, (and wanting to see me,) could
+      behave with so much shocking levity, as he did to the honest people of the
+      house? Yet, 'tis strange too, that neither you nor he found out my meaning
+      on perusal of my letter. You have seen what I wrote, no doubt?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have, Madam. And then I began to account for it, as an innocent
+      artifice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus far indeed, Sir, it is an innocent, that I meant him no hurt, and had
+      a right to the effect I hoped for from it; and he had none to invade me.
+      But have you, Sir, that letter of his in which he gives you (as I suppose
+      he does) the copy of mine?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have, Madam. And pulled it out of my letter-case. But hesitating&mdash;
+      Nay, Sir, said she, be pleased to read my letter to yourself&mdash;I
+      desire not to see his&mdash;and see if you can be longer a stranger to a
+      meaning so obvious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I read it to myself&mdash;Indeed, Madam, I can find nothing but that you
+      are going down to Harlowe-place to be reconciled to your father and other
+      friends: and Mr. Lovelace presumed that a letter from your sister, which
+      he saw brought when he was at Mr. Smith's, gave you the welcome news of
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She then explained all to me, and that, as I may say, in six words&mdash;A
+      religious meaning is couched under it, and that's the reason that neither
+      you nor I could find it out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Read but for my father's house, Heaven, said she, and for the
+      interposition of my dear blessed friend, suppose the mediation of my
+      Saviour (which I humbly rely upon); and all the rest of the letter will be
+      accounted for.' I hope (repeated she) that it is a pardonable artifice.
+      But I am afraid it is not strictly right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I read it so, and stood astonished for a minute at her invention, her
+      piety, her charity, and at thine and mine own stupidity to be thus taken
+      in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, thou vile Lovelace, what hast thou to do (the lady all consistent
+      with herself, and no hopes left for thee) but to hang, drown, or shoot
+      thyself, for an outwitted boaster?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My surprise being a little over, she proceeded: As to the letter that came
+      from my sister while your friend was here, you will soon see, Sir, that it
+      is the cruellest letter she ever wrote me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then she expressed a deep concern for what might be the consequence of
+      Colonel Morden's intended visit to you; and besought me, that if now, or
+      at any time hereafter, I had opportunity to prevent any further mischief,
+      without detriment or danger to myself, I would do it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I assured her of the most particular attention to this and to all her
+      commands; and that in a manner so agreeable to her, that she invoked a
+      blessing upon me for my goodness, as she called it, to a desolate creature
+      who suffered under the worst of orphanage; those were her words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She then went back to her first subject, her uneasiness for fear of your
+      molesting her again; and said, If you have any influence over him, Mr.
+      Belford, prevail upon him that he will give me the assurance that the
+      short remainder of my time shall be all my own. I have need of it. Indeed
+      I have. Why will he wish to interrupt me in my duty? Has he not punished
+      me enough for my preference of him to all his sex? Has he not destroyed my
+      fame and my fortune? And will not his causeless vengeance upon me be
+      complete, unless he ruin my soul too?&mdash;Excuse me, Sir, for this
+      vehemence! But indeed it greatly imports me to know that I shall be no
+      more disturbed by him. And yet, with all this aversion, I would sooner
+      give way to his visit, though I were to expire the moment I saw him, than
+      to be the cause of any fatal misunderstanding between you and him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I assured her that I would make such a representation of the matter to
+      you, and of the state of her health, that I would undertake to answer for
+      you, that you would not attempt to come near her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And for this reason, Lovelace, do I lay the whole matter before you, and
+      desire you will authorize me, as soon as this and mine of Saturday last
+      come to your hands, to dissipate her fears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This gave her a little satisfaction; and then she said that had I not told
+      her that I could promise for you, she was determined, ill as she is, to
+      remove somewhere out of my knowledge as well as out of your's. And yet, to
+      have been obliged to leave people I am but just got acquainted with, said
+      the poor lady, and to have died among perfect strangers, would have
+      completed my hardships.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This conversation, I found, as well from the length as the nature of it,
+      had fatigued her; and seeing her change colour once or twice, I made that
+      my excuse, and took leave of her: desiring her permission, however, to
+      attend her in the evening; and as often as possible; for I could not help
+      telling her that, every time I saw her, I more and more considered her as
+      a beatified spirit; and as one sent from Heaven to draw me after her out
+      of the miry gulf in which I had been so long immersed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And laugh at me if thou wilt; but it is true that, every time I approach
+      her, I cannot but look upon her as one just entering into a companionship
+      with saints and angels. This thought so wholly possessed me, that I could
+      not help begging, as I went away, her prayers and her blessing, with the
+      reverence due to an angel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the evening, she was so low and weak, that I took my leave of her in
+      less than a quarter of an hour. I went directly home. Where, to the
+      pleasure and wonder of my cousin and her family, I now pass many honest
+      evenings: which they impute to your being out of town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall dispatch my packet to-morrow morning early by my own servant, to
+      make thee amends for the suspense I must have kept thee in: thou'lt thank
+      me for that, I hope; but wilt not, I am sure, for sending thy servant back
+      without a letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I long for the particulars of the conversation between you and Mr. Morden;
+      the lady, as I have hinted, is full of apprehensions about it. Send me
+      back this packet when perused; for I have not had either time or patience
+      to take a copy of it. And I beseech you enable me to make good my
+      engagements to the poor lady that you will not invade her again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0041" id="link2H_4_0041">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXXVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. WEDNESDAY, AUG. 30.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have a conversation to give you that passed between this admirable lady
+      and Dr. H. which will furnish a new instance of the calmness and serenity
+      with which she can talk of death, and prepare for it, as if it were an
+      occurrence as familiar to her as dressing and undressing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as I had dispatched my servant to you with my letters of the 26th,
+      28th, and yesterday the 29th, I went to pay my duty to her, and had the
+      pleasure to find her, after a tolerable night, pretty lively and cheerful.
+      She was but just returned from her usual devotions; and Doctor H. alighted
+      as she entered the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After inquiring how she did, and hearing her complaints of shortness of
+      breath, (which she attributed to inward decay, precipitated by her late
+      harasses, as well from her friends as from you,) he was for advising her
+      to go into the air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What will that do for me? said she: tell me truly, good Sir, with a
+      cheerful aspect, (you know you cannot disturb me by it,) whether now you
+      do not put on the true physician; and despairing that any thing in
+      medicine will help me, advise me to the air, as the last resource?&mdash;Can
+      you think the air will avail in such a malady as mine?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I ask, said she, because my friends (who will possibly some time hence
+      inquire after the means I used for my recovery) may be satisfied that I
+      omitted nothing which so worthy and skilful a physician prescribed?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The air, Madam, may possibly help the difficulty of breathing, which has
+      so lately attacked you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, Sir, you see how weak I am. You must see that I have been consuming
+      from day to day; and now, if I can judge by what I feel in myself, putting
+      her hand to her heart, I cannot continue long. If the air would very
+      probably add to my days, though I am far from being desirous to have them
+      lengthened, I would go into it; and the rather, as I know Mrs. Lovick
+      would kindly accompany me. But if I were to be at the trouble of removing
+      into new lodgings, (a trouble which I think now would be too much for me,)
+      and this only to die in the country, I had rather the scene were to shut
+      up here. For here have I meditated the spot, and the manner, and every
+      thing, as well of the minutest as of the highest consequence, that can
+      attend the solemn moments. So, Doctor, tell me truly, may I stay here, and
+      be clear of any imputations of curtailing, through wilfulness or
+      impatiency, or through resentments which I hope I am got above, a life
+      that might otherwise be prolonged?&mdash;Tell me, Sir; you are not talking
+      to a coward in this respect; indeed you are not!&mdash; Unaffectedly
+      smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor, turning to me, was at a loss what to say, lifting up his eyes
+      only in admiration of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never had any patient, said she, a more indulgent and more humane
+      physician. But since you are loth to answer my question directly, I will
+      put it in other words&mdash;You don't enjoin me to go into the air,
+      Doctor, do you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I do not, Madam. Nor do I now visit you as a physician; but as a person
+      whose conversation I admire, and whose sufferings I condole. And, to
+      explain myself more directly, as to the occasion of this day's visit in
+      particular, I must tell you, Madam, that, understanding how much you
+      suffer by the displeasure of your friends; and having no doubt but that,
+      if they knew the way you are in, they would alter their conduct to you;
+      and believing it must cut them to the heart, when too late, they shall be
+      informed of every thing; I have resolved to apprize them by letter
+      (stranger as I am to their persons) how necessary it is for some of them
+      to attend you very speedily. For their sakes, Madam, let me press for your
+      approbation of this measure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused; and at last said, This is kind, very kind, in you, Sir. But I
+      hope that you do not think me so perverse, and so obstinate, as to have
+      left till now any means unessayed which I thought likely to move my
+      friends in my favour. But now, Doctor, said she, I should be too much
+      disturbed at their grief, if they were any of them to come or to send to
+      me: and perhaps, if I found they still loved me, wish to live; and so
+      should quit unwillingly that life, which I am now really fond of quitting,
+      and hope to quit as becomes a person who has had such a weaning-time as I
+      have been favoured with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope, Madam, said I, we are not so near as you apprehend to that
+      deplorable catastrophe you hint at with such an amazing presence of mind.
+      And therefore I presume to second the doctor's motion, if it were only for
+      the sake of your father and mother, that they may have the satisfaction,
+      if they must lose you, to think they were first reconciled to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is very kindly, very humanely considered, said she. But, if you think
+      me not so very near my last hour, let me desire this may be postponed till
+      I see what effect my cousin Morden's mediation may have. Perhaps he may
+      vouchsafe to make me a visit yet, after his intended interview with Mr.
+      Lovelace is over; of which, who knows, Mr. Belford, but your next letters
+      may give an account? I hope it will not be a fatal one to any body. Will
+      you promise me, Doctor, to forbear writing for two days only, and I will
+      communicate to you any thing that occurs in that time; and then you shall
+      take your own way? Mean time, I repeat my thanks for your goodness to me.&mdash;Nay,
+      dear Doctor, hurry not away from me so precipitately [for he was going,
+      for fear of an offered fee]: I will no more affront you with tenders that
+      have pained you for some time past: and since I must now, from this
+      kindly-offered favour, look upon you only as a friend, I will assure you
+      henceforth that I will give you no more uneasiness on that head: and now,
+      Sir, I know I shall have the pleasure of seeing you oftener than
+      heretofore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The worthy gentleman was pleased with this assurance, telling her that he
+      had always come to see her with great pleasure, but parted with her, on
+      the account she hinted at, with as much pain; and that he should not have
+      forborne to double his visits, could he have had this kind assurance as
+      early as he wished for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are few instances of like disinterestedness, I doubt, in this tribe.
+      Till now I always held it for gospel, that friendship and physician were
+      incompatible things; and little imagined that a man of medicine, when he
+      had given over his patient to death, would think of any visits but those
+      of ceremony, that he might stand well with the family, against it came to
+      their turns to go through his turnpike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the doctor was gone, she fell into a very serious discourse of the
+      vanity of life, and the wisdom of preparing for death, while health and
+      strength remained, and before the infirmities of body impaired the
+      faculties of the mind, and disabled them from acting with the necessary
+      efficacy and clearness: the whole calculated for every one's meridian, but
+      particularly, as it was easy to observe, for thine and mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was very curious to know farther particulars of the behaviour of poor
+      Belton in his last moments. You must not wonder at my inquiries, Mr.
+      Belford, said she; For who is it, that is to undertake a journey into a
+      country they never travelled to before, that inquires not into the
+      difficulties of the road, and what accommodations are to be expected in
+      the way?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave her a brief account of the poor man's terrors, and unwillingness to
+      die: and, when I had done, Thus, Mr. Belford, said she, must it always be
+      with poor souls who have never thought of their long voyage till the
+      moment they are to embark for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She made other such observations upon this subject as, coming from the
+      mouth of a person who will so soon be a companion for angels, I shall
+      never forget. And indeed, when I went home, that I might engraft them the
+      better on my memory, I entered them down in writing: but I will not let
+      you see them until you are in a frame more proper to benefit by them than
+      you are likely to be in one while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus far had I written, when the unexpected early return of my servant
+      with your packet (your's and he meeting at Slough, and exchanging letters)
+      obliged me to leave off to give its contents a reading.&mdash;Here,
+      therefore, I close this letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0042" id="link2H_4_0042">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXXIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. TUESDAY MORN. AUG. 29.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, Jack, will I give thee an account of what passed on occasion of the
+      visit made us by Col. Morden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came on horseback, attended by one servant; and Lord M. received him as
+      a relation of Miss Harlowe's with the highest marks of civility and
+      respect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After some general talk of the times, and of the weather, and such
+      nonsense as Englishmen generally make their introductory topics to
+      conversation, the Colonel addressed himself to Lord M. and to me, as
+      follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I need not, my Lord, and Mr. Lovelace, as you know the relation I bear to
+      the Harlowe family, make any apology for entering upon a subject, which,
+      on account of that relation, you must think is the principal reason of the
+      honour I have done myself in this visit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Harlowe, Miss Clarissa Harlowe's affair, said Lord M. with his usual
+      forward bluntness. That, Sir, is what you mean. She is, by all accounts,
+      the most excellent woman in the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am glad to hear that is your Lordship's opinion of her. It is every
+      one's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not only my opinion, Col. Morden (proceeded the prating Peer), but
+      it is the opinion of all my family. Of my sisters, of my nieces, and of
+      Mr. Lovelace himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Would to Heaven it had been always Mr. Lovelace's opinion of her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. You have been out of England, Colonel, a good many years. Perhaps
+      you are not yet fully apprized of all the particulars of this case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. I have been out of England, Sir, about seven years. My cousin Clary
+      was then about 12 years of age: but never was there at twenty so discreet,
+      so prudent, and so excellent a creature. All that knew her, or saw her,
+      admired her. Mind and person, never did I see such promises of perfection
+      in any young lady: and I am told, nor is it to be wondered at, that, as
+      she advanced to maturity, she more than justified and made good those
+      promises.&mdash;Then as to fortune&mdash;what her father, what her uncles,
+      and what I myself, intended to do for her, besides what her grandfather
+      had done&mdash;there is not a finer fortune in the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. All this, Colonel, and more than this, is Miss Clarissa Harlowe;
+      and had it not been for the implacableness and violence of her family (all
+      resolved to push her upon a match as unworthy of her as hateful to her)
+      she had still been happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. I own, Mr. Lovelace, the truth of what you observed just now, that I
+      am not thoroughly acquainted with all that has passed between you and my
+      cousin. But permit me to say, that when I first heard that you made your
+      addresses to her, I knew but of one objection against you; that, indeed, a
+      very great one: and upon a letter sent me, I gave her my free opinion upon
+      that subject.* But had it not been for that, I own, that, in my private
+      mind, there could not have been a more suitable match: for you are a
+      gallant gentleman, graceful in your person, easy and genteel in your
+      deportment, and in your family, fortunes, and expectations, happy as a man
+      can wish to be. Then the knowledge I had of you in Italy (although, give
+      me leave to say, your conduct there was not wholly unexceptionable)
+      convinces me that you are brave: and few gentlemen come up to you in wit
+      and vivacity. Your education has given you great advantages; your manners
+      are engaging, and you have travelled; and I know, if you'll excuse me, you
+      make better observations than you are governed by. All these
+      qualifications make it not at all surprising that a young lady should love
+      you: and that this love, joined to that indiscreet warmth wherewith my
+      cousin's friends would have forced her inclinations in favour of men who
+      are far your inferiors in the qualities I have named, should throw herself
+      upon your protection. But then, if there were these two strong motives,
+      the one to induce, the other to impel, her, let me ask you, Sir, if she
+      were not doubly entitled to generous usage from a man whom she chose for
+      her protector; and whom, let me take the liberty to say, she could so
+      amply reward for the protection he was to afford her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. IV. Letter XIX.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. Miss Clarissa Harlowe was entitled, Sir, to have the best usage
+      that man could give her. I have no scruple to own it. I will always do her
+      the justice she so well deserves. I know what will be your inference; and
+      have only to say, that time past cannot be recalled; perhaps I wish it
+      could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel then, in a very manly strain, set forth the wickedness of
+      attempting a woman of virtue and character. He said, that men had
+      generally too many advantages from the weakness, credulity, and
+      inexperience of the fair sex: that their early learning, which chiefly
+      consisted in inflaming novels, and idle and improbable romances,
+      contributed to enervate and weaken their minds: that his cousin, however,
+      he was sure, was above the reach of common seduction, and not to be
+      influenced to the rashness her parents accused her of, by weaker motives
+      than their violence, and the most solemn promises on my part: but,
+      nevertheless, having those motives, and her prudence (eminent as it was)
+      being rather the effect of constitution than experience, (a fine
+      advantage, however, he said, to ground an unblamable future life upon,)
+      she might not be apprehensive of bad designs in a man she loved: it was,
+      therefore, a very heinous thing to abuse the confidence of such a woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was going on in this trite manner; when, interrupting him, I said,
+      These general observations, Colonel, suit not perhaps this particular
+      case. But you yourself are a man of gallantry; and, possibly, were you to
+      be put to the question, might not be able to vindicate every action of
+      your life, any more than I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. You are welcome, Sir, to put what questions you please to me. And, I
+      thank God, I can both own and be ashamed of my errors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. looked at me; but as the Colonel did not by his manner seem to
+      intend a reflection, I had no occasion to take it for one; especially as I
+      can as readily own my errors, as he, or any man, can his, whether ashamed
+      of them or not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He proceeded. As you seem to call upon me, Mr. Lovelace, I will tell you
+      (without boasting of it) what has been my general practice, till lately,
+      that I hope I have reformed it a good deal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have taken liberties, which the laws of morality will by no means
+      justify; and once I should have thought myself warranted to cut the throat
+      of any young fellow who should make as free with a sister of mine as I
+      have made with the sisters and daughters of others. But then I took care
+      never to promise any thing I intended not to perform. A modest ear should
+      as soon have heard downright obscenity from my lips, as matrimony, if I
+      had not intended it. Young ladies are generally ready enough to believe we
+      mean honourably, if they love us; and it would look like a strange affront
+      to their virtue and charms, that it should be supposed needful to put the
+      question whether in your address you mean a wife. But when once a man make
+      a promise, I think it ought to be performed; and a woman is well warranted
+      to appeal to every one against the perfidy of a deceiver; and is always
+      sure to have the world on her side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, Sir, continued he, I believe you have so much honour as to own, that
+      you could not have made way to so eminent a virtue, without promising
+      marriage; and that very explicitly and solemnly&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know very well, Colonel, interrupted I, all you would say. You will
+      excuse me, I am sure, that I break in upon you, when you find it is to
+      answer the end you drive at.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I own to you then that I have acted very unworthily by Miss Clarissa
+      Harlowe; and I'll tell you farther, that I heartily repent of my
+      ingratitude and baseness to her. Nay, I will say still farther, that I am
+      so grossly culpable as to her, that even to plead that the abuses and
+      affronts I daily received from her implacable relations were in any manner
+      a provocation to me to act vilely by her, would be a mean and low attempt
+      to excuse myself&mdash;so low and so mean, that it would doubly condemn
+      me. And if you can say worse, speak it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked upon Lord M. and then upon me, two or three times. And my Lord
+      said, My kinsman speaks what he thinks, I'll answer for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. I do, Sir; and what can I say more? And what farther, in your
+      opinion, can be done?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Done! Sir? Why, Sir, [in a haughty tone he spoke,] I need not tell
+      you that reparation follows repentance. And I hope you make no scruple of
+      justifying your sincerity as to the one or the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated, (for I relished not the manner of his speech, and his haughty
+      accent,) as undetermined whether to take proper notice of it or not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Let me put this question to you, Mr. Lovelace: Is it true, as I have
+      heard it is, that you would marry my cousin, if she would have you?
+      &mdash;What say you, Sir?&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This wound me up a peg higher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. Some questions, as they may be put, imply commands, Colonel. I
+      would be glad to know how I am to take your's? And what is to be the end
+      of your interrogatories?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. My questions are not meant by me as commands, Mr. Lovelace. The end
+      is, to prevail upon a gentleman to act like a gentleman, and a man of
+      honour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. (briskly) And by what arguments, Sir, do you propose to prevail
+      upon me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. By what arguments, Sir, prevail upon a gentleman to act like a
+      gentleman!&mdash;I am surprised at that question from Mr. Lovelace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. Why so, Sir?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. WHY so, Sir! (angrily)&mdash;Let me&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. (interrupting) I don't choose, Colonel, to be repeated upon, in
+      that accent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. Come, come, gentlemen, I beg of you to be willing to understand
+      one another. You young gentlemen are so warm&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Not I, my Lord&mdash;I am neither very young, nor unduly warm. Your
+      nephew, my Lord, can make me be every thing he would have me to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. And that shall be, whatever you please to be, Colonel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. (fiercely) The choice be your's, Mr. Lovelace. Friend or foe! as you
+      do or are willing to do justice to one of the finest women in the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. I guessed, from both your characters, what would be the case when
+      you met. Let me interpose, gentlemen, and beg you but to understand one
+      another. You both shoot at one mark; and, if you are patient, will both
+      hit it. Let me beg of you, Colonel, to give no challenges&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Challenges, my Lord!&mdash;They are things I ever was readier to
+      accept than to offer. But does your Lordship think that a man, so nearly
+      related as I have the honour to be to the most accomplished woman on
+      earth,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. (interrupting) We all allow the excellencies of the lady&mdash;and
+      we shall all take it as the greatest honour to be allied to her that can
+      be conferred upon us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. So you ought, my Lord!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A perfect Chamont; thought I.*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Otway's Orphan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. So we ought, Colonel! and so we do!&mdash;and pray let every one
+      do as he ought!&mdash;and no more than he ought; and you, Colonel, let me
+      tell you, will not be so hasty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. (coolly) Come, come, Col. Morden, don't let this dispute, whatever
+      you intend to make of it, go farther than with you and me. You deliver
+      yourself in very high terms. Higher than ever I was talked to in my life.
+      But here, beneath this roof, 'twould be inexcusable for me to take that
+      notice of it which, perhaps, it would become me to take elsewhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. That is spoken as I wish the man to speak whom I should be pleased to
+      call my friend, if all his actions were of a piece; and as I would have
+      the man speak whom I would think it worth my while to call my foe. I love
+      a man of spirit, as I love my soul. But, Mr. Lovelace, as my Lord thinks
+      we aim at one mark, let me say, that were we permitted to be alone for six
+      minutes, I dare say, we should soon understand one another perfectly well.&mdash;And
+      he moved to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. I am entirely of your opinion, Sir; and will attend you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My Lord rung, and stept between us: Colonel, return, I beseech you return,
+      said he: for he had stept out of the room while my Lord held me&mdash;
+      Nephew, you shall not go out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bell and my Lord's raised voice brought in Mowbray, and Clements, my
+      Lord's gentleman; the former in his careless way, with his hands behind
+      him, What's the matter, Bobby? What's the matter, my Lord?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Only, only, only, stammered the agitated peer, these young gentlemen are,
+      are, are&mdash;are young gentlemen, that's all.&mdash;Pray, Colonel
+      Morden, [who again entered the room with a sedater aspect,] let this cause
+      have a fair trial, I beseech you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. With all my heart, my Lord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbray whispered me, What is the cause, Bobby?&mdash;Shall I take the
+      gentleman to task for thee, my boy?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not for the world, whispered I. The Colonel is a gentleman, and I desire
+      you'll not say one word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, well, well, Bobby, I have done. I can turn thee loose to the best
+      man upon God's earth; that's all, Bobby; strutting off to the other end of
+      the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. I am sorry, my Lord, I should give your Lordship the least
+      uneasiness. I came not with such a design.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. Indeed, Colonel, I thought you did, by your taking fire so
+      quickly. I am glad to hear you say you did not. How soon a little spark
+      kindles into a flame; especially when it meets with such combustible
+      spirits!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. If I had had the least thought of proceeding to extremities, I am
+      sure Mr. Lovelace would have given me the honour of a meeting where I
+      should have been less an intruder: but I came with an amicable intention;
+      to reconcile differences rather than to widen them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. Well then, Colonel Morden, let us enter upon the subject in your
+      own way. I don't know the man I should sooner choose to be upon terms with
+      than one whom Miss Clarissa Harlowe so much respects. But I cannot bear to
+      be treated, either in word or accent, in a menacing way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. Well, well, well, well, gentlemen, this is somewhat like. Angry
+      men make to themselves beds of nettles, and, when they lie down in them,
+      are uneasy with every body. But I hope you are friends. Let me hear you
+      say you are. I am persuaded, Colonel, that you don't know all this unhappy
+      story. You don't know how desirous my kinsman is, as well as all of us, to
+      have this matter end happily. You don't know, do you, Colonel, that Mr.
+      Lovelace, at all our requests, is disposed to marry the lady?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. At all your requests, my Lord?&mdash;I should have hoped that Mr.
+      Lovelace was disposed to do justice for the sake of justice; and when at
+      the same time the doing of justice was doing himself the highest honour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbray lifted up his before half-closed eyes to the Colonel, and glanced
+      them upon me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. This is in very high language, Colonel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbr. By my soul, I thought so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. High language, Mr. Lovelace? Is it not just language?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. It is, Colonel. And I think, the man that does honour to Miss
+      Clarissa Harlowe, does me honour. But, nevertheless, there is a manner in
+      speaking, that may be liable to exception, where the words, without that
+      manner, can bear none.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Your observation in the general is undoubtedly just: but, if you have
+      the value for my cousin that you say you have, you must needs think
+      &mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. You must allow me, Sir, to interrupt you&mdash;IF I have the value
+      I say I have&mdash;I hope, Sir, when I say I have that value, there is no
+      room for that if, pronounced as you pronounced it with an emphasis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. You have broken in upon me twice, Mr. Lovelace. I am as little
+      accustomed to be broken in upon, as you are to be repeated upon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. Two barrels of gunpowder, by my conscience! What a devil will it
+      signify talking, if thus you are to blow one another up at every word?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. No man of honour, my Lord, will be easy to have his veracity called
+      into question, though but by implication.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Had you heard me out, Mr. Lovelace, you would have found, that my if
+      was rather an if of inference, than of doubt. But 'tis, really a strange
+      liberty gentlemen of free principles take; who at the same time that they
+      would resent unto death the imputation of being capable of telling an
+      untruth to a man, will not scruple to break through the most solemn oaths
+      and promises to a woman. I must assure you, Mr. Lovelace, that I always
+      made a conscience of my vows and promises.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. You did right, Colonel. But let me tell you, Sir, that you know not
+      the man you talk to, if you imagine he is not able to rise to a proper
+      resentment, when he sees his generous confessions taken for a mark of
+      base-spiritedness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. (warmly, and with a sneer,) Far be it from me, Mr. Lovelace, to
+      impute to you the baseness of spirit you speak of; for what would that be
+      but to imagine that a man, who has done a very flagrant injury, is not
+      ready to show his bravery in defending it&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbr. This is d&mdash;&mdash;d severe, Colonel. It is, by Jove. I could
+      not take so much at the hands of any man breathing as Mr. Lovelace before
+      this took at your's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Who are you, Sir? What pretence have you to interpose in a cause
+      where there is an acknowledged guilt on one side, and the honour of a
+      considerable family wounded in the tenderest part by that guilt on the
+      other?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbr. (whispering to the Colonel) My dear child, you will oblige me
+      highly if you will give me the opportunity of answering your question. And
+      was going out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel was held in by my Lord. And I brought in Mowbray.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Pray, my good Lord, let me attend this officious gentleman, I beseech
+      you do. I will wait upon your Lordship in three minutes, depend upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. Mowbray, is this acting like a friend by me, to suppose me
+      incapable of answering for myself? And shall a man of honour and bravery,
+      as I know Colonel Morden to be, (rash as perhaps in this visit he has
+      shown himself,) have it to say, that he comes to my Lord M.'s house, in a
+      manner naked as to attendants and friends, and shall not for that reason
+      be rather borne with than insulted? This moment, my dear Mowbray, leave
+      us. You have really no concern in this business; and if you are my friend,
+      I desire you'll ask the Colonel pardon for interfering in it in the manner
+      you have done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbr. Well, well, Bob.; thou shalt be arbiter in this matter; I know I
+      have no business in it&mdash;and, Colonel, (holding out his hand,) I leave
+      you to one who knows how to defend his own cause as well as any man in
+      England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. (taking Mowbray's hand, at Lord M.'s request,) You need not tell me
+      that, Mr. Mowbray. I have no doubt of Mr. Lovelace's ability to defend his
+      own cause, were it a cause to be defended. And let me tell you, Mr.
+      Lovelace, that I am astonished to think that a brave man, and a generous
+      man, as you have appeared to be in two or three instances that you have
+      given in the little knowledge I have of you, should be capable of acting
+      as you have done by the most excellent of her sex.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. Well, but, gentlemen, now Mr. Mowbray is gone, and you have both
+      shown instances of courage and generosity to boot, let me desire you to
+      lay your heads together amicably, and think whether there be any thing to
+      be done to make all end happily for the lady?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. But hold, my Lord, let me say one thing, now Mowbray is gone; and
+      that is, that I think a gentleman ought not to put up tamely one or two
+      severe things that the Colonel has said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. What the devil canst thou mean? I thought all had been over. Why
+      thou hast nothing to do but to confirm to the Colonel that thou art
+      willing to marry Miss Harlowe, if she will have thee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Mr. Lovelace will not scruple to say that, I suppose, notwithstanding
+      all that has passed: but if you think, Mr. Lovelace, I have said any thing
+      I should not have said, I suppose it is this, that the man who has shown
+      so little of the thing honour, to a defenceless unprotected woman, ought
+      not to stand so nicely upon the empty name of it, with a man who is
+      expostulating with him upon it. I am sorry to have cause to say this, Mr.
+      Lovelace; but I would, on the same occasion, repeat it to a king upon his
+      throne, and surrounded by all his guards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. But what is all this, but more sacks upon the mill? more coals
+      upon the fire? You have a mind to quarrel both of you, I see that. Are you
+      not willing, Nephew, are you not most willing, to marry this lady, if she
+      can be prevailed upon to have you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. D&mdash;n me, my Lord, if I'd marry my empress upon such treatment
+      as this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. Why now, Bob., thou art more choleric than the Colonel. It was his
+      turn just now. And now you see he is cool, you are all gunpowder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. I own the Colonel has many advantages over me; but, perhaps, there
+      is one advantage he has not, if it were put to the trial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. I came not hither, as I said before, to seek the occasion: but if it
+      were offered me, I won't refuse it&mdash;and since we find we disturb my
+      good Lord M. I'll take my leave, and will go home by the way of St.
+      Alban's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. I'll see you part of the way, with all my heart, Colonel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. I accept your civility very cheerfully, Mr. Lovelace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. (interposing again, as we were both for going out,) And what will
+      this do, gentlemen? Suppose you kill one another, will the matter be
+      bettered or worsted by that? Will the lady be made happier or unhappier,
+      do you think, by either or both of your deaths? Your characters are too
+      well known to make fresh instances of the courage of either needful. And,
+      I think, if the honour of the lady is your view, Colonel, it can by no
+      other way so effectually promoted as by marriage. And, Sir, if you would
+      use your interest with her, it is very probable that you may succeed,
+      though nobody else can.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. I think, my Lord, I have said all that a man can say, (since what
+      is passed cannot be recalled:) and you see Colonel Morden rises in
+      proportion to my coolness, till it is necessary for me to assert myself,
+      or even he would despise me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. Let me ask you, Colonel, have you any way, any method, that you
+      think reasonable and honourable to propose, to bring about a
+      reconciliation with the lady? That is what we all wish for. And I can tell
+      you, Sir, it is not a little owing to her family, and to their implacable
+      usage of her, that her resentments are heightened against my kinsman; who,
+      however, has used her vilely; but is willing to repair her wrongs.&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. Not, my Lord, for the sake of her family; nor for this gentleman's
+      haughty behaviour; but for her own sake, and in full sense of the wrongs I
+      have done her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. As to my haughty behaviour, as you call it, Sir, I am mistaken if you
+      would not have gone beyond it in the like case of a relation so
+      meritorious, and so unworthily injured. And, Sir, let me tell you, that if
+      your motives are not love, honour, and justice, and if they have the least
+      tincture of mean compassion for her, or of an uncheerful assent on your
+      part, I am sure it will neither be desired or accepted by a person of my
+      cousin's merit and sense; nor shall I wish that it should.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. Don't think, Colonel, that I am meanly compounding off a debate,
+      that I should as willingly go through with you as to eat or drink, if I
+      have the occasion given me for it: but thus much I will tell you, that my
+      Lord, that Lady Sarah Sadleir, Lady Betty Lawrance, my two cousins
+      Montague, and myself, have written to her in the most solemn and sincere
+      manner, to offer her such terms as no one but herself would refuse, and
+      this long enough before Colonel Morden's arrival was dreamt of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. What reason, Sir, may I ask, does she give, against listening to so
+      powerful a mediation, and to such offers?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. It looks like capitulating, or else&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. It looks not like any such thing to me, Mr. Lovelace, who have as
+      good an opinion of your spirit as man can have. And what, pray, is the
+      part I act, and my motives for it? Are they not, in desiring that justice
+      may be done to my Cousin Clarissa Harlowe, that I seek to establish the
+      honour of Mrs. Lovelace, if matters can once be brought to bear?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. Were she to honour me with her acceptance of that name, Mr. Morden,
+      I should not want you or any man to assert the honour of Mrs. Lovelace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. I believe it. But still she has honoured you with that acceptance,
+      she is nearer to me than to you, Mr. Lovelace. And I speak this, only to
+      show you that, in the part I take, I mean rather to deserve your thanks
+      than your displeasure, though against yourself, were there occasion. Nor
+      ought you take it amiss, if you rightly weigh the matter: For, Sir, whom
+      does a lady want protection against but her injurers? And who has been her
+      greatest injurer?&mdash;Till, therefore, she becomes entitled to your
+      protection, as your wife, you yourself cannot refuse me some merit in
+      wishing to have justice done my cousin. But, Sir, you were going to say,
+      that if it were not to look like capitulating, you would hint the reasons
+      my cousin gives against accepting such an honourable mediation?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I then told him of my sincere offers of marriage: 'I made no difficulty, I
+      said, to own my apprehensions, that my unhappy behaviour to her had
+      greatly affected her: but that it was the implacableness of her friends
+      that had thrown her into despair, and given her a contempt for life.' I
+      told him, 'that she had been so good as to send me a letter to divert me
+      from a visit my heart was set upon making her: a letter on which I built
+      great hopes, because she assured me that in it she was going to her
+      father's; and that I might see her there, when she was received, if it
+      were not my own fault.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Is it possible? And were you, Sir, thus earnest? And did she send you
+      such a letter?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. confirmed both; and also, that, in obedience to her desires, and
+      that intimation, I had come down without the satisfaction I had proposed
+      to myself in seeing her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is very true, Colonel, said I: and I should have told you this before:
+      but your heat made me decline it; for, as I said, it had an appearance of
+      meanly capitulating with you. An abjectness of heart, of which, had I been
+      capable, I should have despised myself as much as I might have expected
+      you would despise me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. proposed to enter into the proof of all this. He said, in his
+      phraseological way, That one story was good till another was heard; and
+      that the Harlowe family and I, 'twas true, had behaved like so many Orsons
+      to one another; and that they had been very free with all our family
+      besides: that nevertheless, for the lady's sake, more than for their's, or
+      even for mine, (he could tell me,) he would do greater things for me than
+      they could ask, if she could be brought to have me: and that this he
+      wanted to declare, and would sooner have declared, if he could have
+      brought us sooner to patience, and a good understanding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel made excuses for his warmth, on the score of his affection to
+      his cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My regard for her made me readily admit them: and so a fresh bottle of
+      Burgundy, and another of Champagne, being put upon the table, we sat down
+      in good humour, after all this blustering, in order to enter closer into
+      the particulars of the case: which I undertook, at both their desires, to
+      do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But these things must be the subject of another letter, which shall
+      immediately follow this, if it do not accompany it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mean time you will observe that a bad cause gives a man great
+      disadvantages: for I myself think that the interrogatories put to me with
+      so much spirit by the Colonel made me look cursedly mean; at the same time
+      that it gave him a superiority which I know not how to allow to the best
+      man in Europe. So that, literally speaking, as a good man would infer,
+      guilt is its own punisher: in that it makes the most lofty spirit look
+      like the miscreant he is&mdash;a good man, I say: So, Jack, proleptically
+      I add, thou hast no right to make the observation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0043" id="link2H_4_0043">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XL
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE [IN CONTINUATION.] TUESDAY AFTERNOON, AUG. 29.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went back, in this part of our conversation, to the day that I was
+      obliged to come down to attend my Lord in the dangerous illness which some
+      feared would have been his last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told the Colonel, 'what earnest letters I had written to a particular
+      friend, to engage him to prevail upon the lady not to slip a day that had
+      been proposed for the private celebration of our nuptials; and of my
+      letters* written to her on that subject;' for I had stepped to my closet,
+      and fetched down all the letters and draughts and copies of letters
+      relating to this affair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VI. Letters XXXVII. XXXVIII. XXXIX. XLIII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I read to him, 'several passages in the copies of those letters, which,
+      thou wilt remember, make not a little to my honour.' And I told him, 'that
+      I wished I had kept copies of those to my friend on the same occasion; by
+      which he would have seen how much in earnest I was in my professions to
+      her, although she would not answer one of them;' and thou mayest remember,
+      that one of those four letters accounted to herself why I was desirous she
+      should remain where I had left her.*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VI. Letter XXXVII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I then proceeded to give him an account 'of the visit made by Lady Sarah
+      and Lady Betty to Lord M. and me, in order to induce me to do her justice:
+      of my readiness to comply with their desires; and of their high opinion of
+      her merit: of the visit made to Miss Howe by my cousins Montague, in the
+      name of us all, to engage her interest with her friend in my behalf: of my
+      conversation with Miss Howe, at a private assembly, to whom I gave the
+      same assurances, and besought her interest with her friend.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I then read a copy of the letter (though so much to my disadvantage) which
+      was written to her by Miss Charlotte Montague, Aug. 1,* entreating her
+      alliance in the names of all our family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VII. Letter LXVI.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This made him ready to think that his fair cousin carried her resentment
+      against me too far. He did not imagine, he said, that either myself or our
+      family had been so much in earnest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So thou seest, Belford, that it is but glossing over one part of a story,
+      and omitting another, that will make a bad cause a good one at any time.
+      What an admirable lawyer should I have made! And what a poor hand would
+      this charming creature, with all her innocence, have made of it in a court
+      of justice against a man who had so much to say and to show for himself!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I then hinted at the generous annual tender which Lord M. and his sisters
+      made to his fair cousin, in apprehension that she might suffer by her
+      friends' implacableness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And this also the Colonel highly applauded, and was pleased to lament the
+      unhappy misunderstanding between the two families, which had made the
+      Harlowes less fond of an alliance with a family of so much honour as this
+      instance showed ours to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I then told him, 'That having, by my friend, [meaning thee,] who was
+      admitted into her presence, (and who had always been an admirer of her
+      virtues, and had given me such advice from time to time in relation to her
+      as I wished I had followed,) been assured that a visit from me would be
+      very disagreeable to her, I once more resolved to try what a letter would
+      do; and that, accordingly, on the seventh of August, I wrote her one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'This, Colonel, is the copy of it. I was then out of humour with my Lord
+      M. and the ladies of my family. You will, therefore, read it to
+      yourself.'*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VII. Letter LXXIX.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This letter gave him high satisfaction. You write here, Mr. Lovelace, from
+      your heart. 'Tis a letter full of penitence and acknowledgement. Your
+      request is reasonable&mdash;To be forgiven only as you shall appear to
+      deserve it after a time of probation, which you leave to her to fix. Pray,
+      Sir, did she return an answer to this letter?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did, but with reluctance, I own, and not till I had declared by my
+      friend, that, if I could not procure one, I would go up to town, and throw
+      myself at her feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish I might be permitted to see it, Sir, or to hear such parts of it
+      read as you shall think proper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Turning over my papers, Here it is, Sir.* I will make no scruple to put it
+      into your hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is very obliging, Mr. Lovelace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He read it. My charming cousin!&mdash;How strong her resentments!&mdash;Yet
+      how charitable her wishes!&mdash;Good Heaven! that such an excellent
+      creature&mdash; But, Mr. Lovelace, it is to your regret, as much as to
+      mine, I doubt not &mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Interrupting him, I swore that it was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So it ought, said he. Nor do I wonder that it should be so. I shall tell
+      you by-and-by, proceeded he, how much she suffers with her friends by
+      false and villanous reports. But, Sir, will you permit me to take with me
+      these two letters? I shall make use of them to the advantage of you both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told him I would oblige him with all my heart. And this he took very
+      kindly (as he had reason); and put them in his pocket-book, promising to
+      return hem in a few days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I then told him, 'That upon this her refusal, I took upon myself to go to
+      town, in hopes to move her in my favour; and that, though I went without
+      giving her notice of my intention, yet had she got some notion of my
+      coming, and so contrived to be out of the way: and at last, when she found
+      I was fully determined at all events to see her, before I went abroad,
+      (which I shall do, said I, if I cannot prevail upon her,) she sent me the
+      letter I have already mentioned to you, desiring me to suspend my purposed
+      visit: and that for a reason which amazes and confounds me; because I
+      don't find there is any thing in it: and yet I never knew her once
+      dispense with her word; for she always made it a maxim, that it was not
+      lawful to do evil, that good might come of it: and yet in this letter, for
+      no reason in the world but to avoid seeing me (to gratify an humour only)
+      has she sent me out of town, depending upon the assurance she had given
+      me.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. This is indeed surprising. But I cannot believe that my cousin, for
+      such an end only, or indeed for any end, according to the character I hear
+      of her, should stoop to make use of such an artifice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. This, Colonel, is the thing that astonishes me; and yet, see here!&mdash;This
+      is the letter she wrote me&mdash;Nay, Sir, 'tis her own hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. I see it is; and a charming hand it is.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. You observe, Colonel, that all her hopes of reconciliation with her
+      parents are from you. You are her dear blessed friend! She always talked
+      of you with delight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Would to Heaven I had come to England before she left Harlowe-place!&mdash;Nothing
+      of this had then happened. Not a man of those whom I have heard that her
+      friends proposed for her should have had her. Nor you, Mr. Lovelace,
+      unless I had found you to be the man every one who sees you must wish you
+      to be: and if you had been that man, no one living should I have preferred
+      to you for such an excellence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My Lord and I both joined in the wish: and 'faith I wished it most
+      cordially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel read the letter twice over, and then returned it to me. 'Tis
+      all a mystery, said he. I can make nothing of it. For, alas! her friends
+      are as averse to a reconciliation as ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. I could not have thought it. But don't you think there is
+      something very favourable to my nephew in this letter&mdash;something that
+      looks as if the lady would comply at last?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Let me die if I know what to make of it. This letter is very
+      different from her preceding one!&mdash;You returned an answer to it, Mr.
+      Lovelace?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. An answer, Colonel! No doubt of it. And an answer full of
+      transport. I told her, 'I would directly set out for Lord M.'s, in
+      obedience to her will. I told her that I would consent to any thing she
+      should command, in order to promote this happy reconciliation. I told her
+      that it should be my hourly study, to the end of my life, to deserve a
+      goodness so transcendent.' But I cannot forbear saying that I am not a
+      little shocked and surprised, if nothing more be meant by it than to get
+      me into the country without seeing her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. That can't be the thing, depend upon it, Sir. There must be more in
+      it than that. For, were that all, she must think you would soon be
+      undeceived, and that you would then most probably resume your intention&mdash;
+      unless, indeed, she depended upon seeing me in the interim, as she knew I
+      was arrived. But I own I know not what to make of it. Only that she does
+      me a great deal of honour, if it be me that she calls her dear blessed
+      friend, whom she always loved and honoured. Indeed I ever loved her: and
+      if I die unmarried, and without children, shall be as kind to her as her
+      grandfather was: and the rather, as I fear there is too much of envy and
+      self-love in the resentments her brother and sister endeavour to keep up
+      in her father and mother against her. But I shall know better how to judge
+      of this, when my cousin James comes from Edinburgh; and he is every hour
+      expected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But let me ask you, Mr. Lovelace, what is the name of your friend, who is
+      admitted so easily into my cousin's presence? Is it not Belford, pray?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. It is, Sir; and Mr. Belford's a man of honour; and a great admirer
+      of your fair cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was I right, as to the first, Jack? The last I have such strong proof of,
+      that it makes me question the first; since she would not have been out of
+      the way of my intended visit but for thee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Are you sure, Sir, that Mr. Belford is a man of honour?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. I can swear for him, Colonel. What makes you put this question?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Only this: that an officious pragmatical novice has been sent up to
+      inquire into my cousin's life and conversation: And, would you believe it?
+      the frequent visits of this gentlemen have been interpreted basely to her
+      disreputation.&mdash;Read that letter, Mr. Lovelace; and you will be
+      shocked at ever part of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This cursed letter, no doubt, is from the young Levite, whom thou, Jack,
+      describest as making inquiry of Mrs. Smith about Miss Harlowe's character
+      and visiters.*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe I was a quarter of an hour in reading it: for I made it, though
+      not a short one, six times as long as it is, by the additions of oaths and
+      curses to every pedantic line. Lord M. too helped to lengthen it, by the
+      like execrations. And thou, Jack, wilt have as much reason to curse it as
+      we.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You cannot but see, said the Colonel, when I had done reading it, that
+      this fellow has been officious in his malevolence; for what he says is
+      mere hearsay, and that hearsay conjectural scandal without fact, or the
+      appearance of fact, to support it; so that an unprejudiced eye, upon the
+      face of the letter, would condemn the writer of it, as I did, and acquit
+      my cousin. But yet, such is the spirit by which the rest of my relations
+      are governed, that they run away with the belief of the worst it
+      insinuates, and the dear creature has had shocking letters upon it; the
+      pedant's hints are taken; and a voyage to one of the colonies has been
+      proposed to her, as the only way to avoid Mr. Belford and you. I have not
+      seen these letters indeed; but they took a pride in repeating some of
+      their contents, which must have cut the poor soul to the heart; and these,
+      joined to her former sufferings,&mdash;What have you not, Mr. Lovelace, to
+      answer for?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. Who the devil could have expected such consequences as these? Who
+      could have believe there could be parents so implacable? Brother and
+      sister so immovably fixed against the only means that could be taken to
+      put all right with every body?&mdash;And what now can be done?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. I have great hopes that Col. Morden may yet prevail upon his
+      cousin. And, by her last letter, it runs in my mind that she has some
+      thoughts of forgiving all that's past. Do you think, Colonel, if there
+      should not be such a thing as a reconciliation going forward at present,
+      that her letter may not imply that, if we could bring such a thing to bear
+      with her friends, she would be reconciled with Mr. Lovelace?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Such an artifice would better become the Italian subtilty than the
+      English simplicity. Your Lordship has been in Italy, I presume?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. My Lord has read Boccaccio, perhaps; and that's as well, as to the
+      hint he gives, which may be borrowed from one of that author's stories.
+      But Miss Clarissa Harlowe is above all artifice. She must have some
+      meaning I cannot fathom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Well, my Lord, I can only say that I will make some use of the
+      letters Mr. Lovelace has obliged me with: and after I have had some talk
+      with my cousin James, who is hourly expected; and when I have dispatched
+      two or three affairs that press upon me; I will pay my respects to my dear
+      cousin; and shall then be able to form a better judgment of things. Mean
+      time I will write to her; for I have sent to inquire about her, and find
+      she wants consolation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. If you favour me, Colonel, with the d&mdash;&mdash;d letter of that
+      fellow Brand for a day or two, you will oblige me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. I will. But remember, the man is a parson, Mr. Lovelace; an innocent
+      one too, they say. Else I had been at him before now. And these college
+      novices, who think they know every thing in their cloisters, and that all
+      learning lies in books, make dismal figures when they come into the world
+      among men and women.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. Brand! Brand! It should have been Firebrand, I think in my
+      conscience!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus ended this doughty conference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I cannot say, Jack, but I am greatly taken with Col. Morden. He is brave
+      and generous, and knows the world; and then his contempt of the parsons is
+      a certain sign that he is one of us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We parted with great civility: Lord M. (not a little pleased that we did,
+      and as greatly taken with Colonel) repeated his wish, after the Colonel
+      was gone, that he had arrived in time to save the lady, if that would have
+      done it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish so too. For by my soul, Jack, I am every day more and more uneasy
+      about her. But I hope she is not so ill as I am told she is.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have made Charlotte transcribe the letter of this Firebrand, as my Lord
+      calls him; and will enclose her copy of it. All thy phlegm I know will be
+      roused into vengeance when thou readest it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know not what to advise as to showing it to the lady. Yet, perhaps, she
+      will be able to reap more satisfaction than concern from it, knowing her
+      own innocence; in that it will give her to hope that her friends'
+      treatment of her is owing as much to misrepresentation as to their own
+      natural implacableness. Such a mind as her's, I know, would be glad to
+      find out the shadow of a reason for the shocking letters the Colonel says
+      they have sent her, and for their proposal to her of going to some one of
+      the colonies [confound them all&mdash;but, if I begin to curse, I shall
+      never have done]&mdash;Then it may put her upon such a defence as she
+      might be glad of an opportunity to make, and to shame them for their
+      monstrous credulity&mdash;but this I leave to thy own fat-headed prudence&mdash;Only
+      it vexes me to the heart, that even scandal and calumny should dare to
+      surmise the bare possibility of any man sharing the favours of a woman,
+      whom now methinks I could worship with a veneration due only to a
+      divinity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte and her sister could not help weeping at the base aspersion:
+      When, when, said Patty, lifting up her hands, will this sweet lady's
+      sufferings be at an end?&mdash;O cousin Lovelace!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And thus am I blamed for every one's faults!&mdash;When her brutal father
+      curses her, it is I. I upbraid her with her severe mother. The
+      implacableness of her stupid uncles is all mine. The virulence of her
+      brother, and the spite of her sister, are entirely owing to me. The letter
+      of this rascal Brand is of my writing&mdash;O Jack, what a wretch is thy
+      Lovelace!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Returned without a letter!&mdash;This d&mdash;&mdash;d fellow Will. is
+      returned without a letter!&mdash;Yet the rascal tells me that he hears you
+      have been writing to me these two days!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Plague confound thee, who must know my impatience, and the reason for it!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To send a man and horse on purpose; as I did! My imagination chained me to
+      the belly of the beast, in order to keep pace with him!&mdash;Now he is
+      got to this place; now to that; now to London; now to thee!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now [a letter given him] whip and spur upon the return. This town just
+      entered, not staying to bait: that village passed by: leaves the wind
+      behind him; in a foaming sweat man and horse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And in this way did he actually enter Lord M.'s courtyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reverberating pavement brought me down&mdash;The letter, Will.! The
+      letter, dog!&mdash;The letter, Sirrah!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No letter, Sir!&mdash;Then wildly staring round me, fists clenched, and
+      grinning like a maniac, Confound thee for a dog, and him that sent thee
+      without one!&mdash;This moment out of my sight, or I'll scatter thy stupid
+      brains through the air. I snatched from his holsters a pistol, while the
+      rascal threw himself from the foaming beast, and ran to avoid the fate
+      which I wished with all my soul thou hadst been within the reach of me to
+      have met with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, to be as meek as a lamb to one who has me at his mercy, and can wring
+      and torture my soul as he pleases, What canst thou mean to send back my
+      varlet without a letter?&mdash;I will send away by day-dawn another fellow
+      upon another beast for what thou hast written; and I charge thee on thy
+      allegiance, that thou dispatch him not back empty-handed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      POSTSCRIPT
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte, in a whim of delicacy, is displeased that I send the enclosed
+      letter to you&mdash;that her handwriting, forsooth! should go into the
+      hands of a single man!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There's encouragement for thee, Belford! This is a certain sign that thou
+      may'st have her if thou wilt. And yet, till she has given me this unerring
+      demonstration of her glancing towards thee, I could not have thought it.
+      Indeed I have often in pleasantry told her that I would bring such an
+      affair to bear. But I never intended it; because she really is a dainty
+      girl; and thou art such a clumsy fellow in thy person, that I should as
+      soon have wished her a rhinoceros for a husband as thee. But, poor little
+      dears! they must stay till their time's come! They won't have this man,
+      and they won't have that man, from seventeen to twenty-five: but then,
+      afraid, as the saying is, that God has forgot them, and finding their
+      bloom departing, they are glad of whom they can get, and verify the fable
+      of the parson and the pears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0044" id="link2H_4_0044">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XLI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BRAND, TO JOHN HARLOWE, ESQ. [ENCLOSED IN THE PRECEDING.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WORTHY SIR, MY VERY GOOD FRIEND AND PATRON,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I arrived in town yesterday, after a tolerably pleasant journey
+      (considering the hot weather and dusty roads). I put up at the Bull and
+      Gate in Holborn, and hastened to Covent-garden. I soon found the house
+      where the unhappy lady lodgeth. And, in the back shop, had a good deal of
+      discourse* with Mrs. Smith, (her landlady,) whom I found to be so 'highly
+      prepossessed'** in her 'favour,' that I saw it would not answer your
+      desires to take my informations 'altogether' from her: and being obliged
+      to attend my patron, (who to my sorrow,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI. ** Transcriber's note: Mr. Brand's letters
+      are characterized by a style that makes excessive use of italics for
+      emphasis. Although in the remainder of <i>Clarissa</i> I have largely
+      disregarded italics for the sake of plain-text formatting, this style
+      makes such emphatic use of italics that I have indicated all such
+      instances in his letters by placing the italicized words and phrases in
+      quotations, thus ' '.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Miserum et aliena vivere quadra,')
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I find wanteth much waiting upon, and is 'another' sort of man than he was
+      at college: for, Sir, 'inter nos,' 'honours change manners.' For the
+      'aforesaid causes,' I thought it would best answer all the ends of the
+      commission with which you honoured me, to engage, in the desired scrutiny,
+      the wife of a 'particular friend,' who liveth almost over-against the
+      house where she lodgeth, and who is a gentlewoman of 'character,' and
+      'sobriety,' a 'mother of children,' and one who 'knoweth' the 'world'
+      well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To her I applied myself, therefore, and gave her a short history of the
+      case, and desired she would very particularly inquire into the 'conduct'
+      of the unhappy young lady; her 'present way of life' and 'subsistence';
+      her 'visiters,' her 'employments,' and such-like: for these, Sir, you
+      know, are the things whereof you wished to be informed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Accordingly, Sir, I waited upon the gentlewoman aforesaid, this day; and,
+      to 'my' very great trouble, (because I know it will be to 'your's,' and
+      likewise to all your worthy family's,) I must say, that I do find things
+      look a little more 'darkly' than I hoped the would. For, alas! Sir, the
+      gentlewoman's report turneth out not so 'favourable' for Miss's
+      reputation, as 'I' wished, as 'you' wished, and as 'every one' of her
+      friends wished. But so it is throughout the world, that 'one false step'
+      generally brings on 'another'; and peradventure 'a worse,' and 'a still
+      worse'; till the poor 'limed soul' (a very fit epithet of the Divine
+      Quarles's!) is quite 'entangled,' and (without infinite mercy) lost for
+      ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemeth, Sir, she is, notwithstanding, in a very 'ill state of health.'
+      In this, 'both' gentlewomen (that is to say, Mrs. Smith, her landlady, and
+      my friend's wife) agree. Yet she goeth often out in a chair, to 'prayers'
+      (as it is said). But my friend's wife told me, that nothing is more common
+      in London, than that the frequenting of the church at morning prayers is
+      made the 'pretence' and 'cover' for 'private assignations.' What a sad
+      thing is this! that what was designed for 'wholesome nourishment' to the
+      'poor soul,' should be turned into 'rank poison!' But as Mr. Daniel de Foe
+      (an ingenious man, though a 'dissenter') observeth (but indeed it is an
+      old proverb; only I think he was the first that put it into verse)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      God never had a house of pray'r
+      But Satan had a chapel there.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Yet to do the lady 'justice,' nobody cometh home with her: nor indeed
+      'can' they, because she goeth forward and backward in a 'sedan,' or
+      'chair,' (as they call it). But then there is a gentleman of 'no good
+      character' (an 'intimado' of Mr. Lovelace) who is a 'constant' visiter of
+      her, and of the people of the house, whom he 'regaleth' and 'treateth,'
+      and hath (of consequence) their 'high good words.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have thereupon taken the trouble (for I love to be 'exact' in any
+      'commission' I undertake) to inquire 'particularly' about this
+      'gentleman,' as he is called (albeit I hold no man so but by his actions:
+      for, as Juvenal saith,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      &mdash;'Nobilitas sola est, atque unica virtus')
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And this I did 'before' I would sit down to write to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His name is Belford. He hath a paternal estate of upwards of one thousand
+      pounds by the year; and is now in mourning for an uncle who left him very
+      considerably besides. He beareth a very profligate character as to
+      'women,' (for I inquired particularly about 'that,') and is Mr. Lovelace's
+      more especial 'privado,' with whom he holdeth a 'regular correspondence';
+      and hath been often seen with Miss (tête à tête) at the 'window'&mdash;in
+      no 'bad way,' indeed: but my friend's wife is of opinion that all is not
+      'as it should be.' And, indeed, it is mighty strange to me, if Miss be so
+      'notable a penitent' (as is represented) and if she have such an
+      'aversion' to Mr. Lovelace, that she will admit his 'privado' into 'her
+      retirements,' and see 'no other company.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I understand, from Mrs. Smith, that Mr. Hickman was to see her some time
+      ago, from Miss Howe; and I am told, by 'another' hand, (you see, Sir, how
+      diligent I have been to execute the 'commissions' you gave me,) that he
+      had no 'extraordinary opinion' of this Belford at first; though they were
+      seen together one morning by the opposite neighbour, at 'breakfast': and
+      another time this Belford was observed to 'watch' Mr. Hickman's coming
+      from her; so that, as it should seem, he was mighty zealous to
+      'ingratiate' himself with Mr. Hickman; no doubt to engage him to make a
+      'favourable report to Miss Howe' of the 'intimacy' he was admitted into by
+      her unhappy friend; who ('as she is very ill') may 'mean no harm' in
+      allowing his visits, (for he, it seemeth, brought to her, or recommended,
+      at least, the doctor and apothecary that attend her:) but I think (upon
+      the whole) 'it looketh not well.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sorry, Sir, I cannot give you a better account of the young lady's
+      'prudence.' But, what shall we say?
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Uvaque conspectâ livorem ducit ab uvâ,'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      as Juvenal observeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One thing I am afraid of; which is, that Miss may be under 'necessities';
+      and that this Belford (who, as Mrs. Smith owns, hath 'offered her money,'
+      which she, 'at the time,' refused) may find an opportunity to 'take
+      advantage' of those 'necessities': and it is well observed by that poet,
+      that
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Ægrè formosam poteris servare puellam:
+         Nunc prece, nunc pretio, forma petita ruit.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And this Belford (who is a 'bold man,' and hath, as they say, the 'look'
+      of one) may make good that of Horace, (with whose writings you are so well
+      acquainted; nobody better;)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Audax omnia perpeti,
+      Gens humana ruit per vetitum nefas.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Forgive me, Sir, for what I am going to write: but if you could prevail
+      upon the rest of your family to join in the scheme which 'you,' and her
+      'virtuous sister,' Miss Arabella, and the Archdeacon, and I, once talked
+      of, (which is to persuade the unhappy young lady to go, in some
+      'creditable' manner, to some one of the foreign colonies,) it might not
+      save only her 'own credit' and 'reputation,' but the 'reputation' and
+      'credit' of all her 'family,' and a great deal of 'vexation' moreover. For
+      it is my humble opinion, that you will hardly (any of you) enjoy
+      yourselves while this ('once' innocent) young lady is in the way of being
+      so frequently heard of by you: and this would put her 'out of the way'
+      both of 'this Belford' and of 'that Lovelace,' and it might, peradventure,
+      prevent as much 'evil' as 'scandal.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You will forgive me, Sir, for this my 'plainness.' Ovid pleadeth for me,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      '&mdash;&mdash;Adulator nullus amicus erit.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And I have no view but that of approving myself a 'zealous well-wisher' to
+      'all' your worthy family, (whereto I owe a great number of obligations,)
+      and very particularly, Sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your obliged and humble servant, ELIAS BRAND.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WEDN. AUG. 9.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+P.S. I shall give you 'farther hints' when I come down, (which will be in
+      a few days;) and who my 'informants' were; but by 'these' you will
+      see, that I have been very assiduous (for the time) in the task you
+      set me upon.
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+The 'length' of my letter you will excuse: for I need not tell you, Sir,
+      what 'narrative,' 'complex,' and 'conversation' letters (such a one
+      as 'mine') require.  Every one to his 'talent.'  'Letter-writing'
+      is mine.  I will be bold to say; and that my 'correspondence' was
+      much coveted in the university, on that account, by 'tyros,' and
+      by 'sophs,' when I was hardly a 'soph' myself.  But this I should
+      not have taken upon myself to mention, but only in defence of the
+      'length' of my letter; for nobody writeth 'shorter' or 'pithier,'
+      when the subject requireth 'common forms' only&mdash;but, in apologizing
+      for my 'prolixity,' I am 'adding' to the 'fault,' (if it were one,
+      which, however, I cannot think it to be, the 'subject' considered:
+      but this I have said before in other words:) so, Sir, if you will
+      excuse my 'post-script,' I am sure you will not find fault with my
+      'letter.'
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+One word more as to a matter of 'erudition,' which you greatly love to
+      hear me 'start' and 'dwell upon.'  Dr. Lewen once, in 'your'
+      presence, (as you, 'my good patron,' cannot but remember,) in a
+      'smartish' kind of debate between 'him' and 'me,' took upon him to
+      censure the 'paranthetical' style, as I call it.  He was a very
+      learned and judicious man, to be sure, and an ornament to 'our
+      function': but yet I must needs say, that it is a style which I
+      greatly like; and the good Doctor was then past his 'youth,' and
+      that time of life, of consequence, when a 'fertile imagination,'
+      and a 'rich fancy,' pour in ideas so fast upon a writer, that
+      parentheses are often wanted (and that for the sake of 'brevity,'
+      as well as 'perspicuity') to save the reader the trouble of reading
+      a passage 'more than once.'  Every man to his talent, (as I said
+      before.)  We are all so apt to set up our 'natural biasses' for
+      'general standards,' that I wondered 'the less' at the worthy
+      Doctor's 'stiffness' on this occasion.  He 'smiled at me,' you may
+      remember, Sir&mdash;and, whether I was right or not, I am sure I 'smiled
+      at him.'  And 'you,' my 'worthy patron,' (as I had the satisfaction
+      to observe,) seemed to be of 'my party.'  But was it not strange,
+      that the 'old gentleman' and 'I' should so widely differ, when the
+      'end' with 'both' (that is to say, 'perspicuity' or 'clearness,')
+      was the same?&mdash;But what shall we say?&mdash;
+
+            'Errare est hominis, sed non persistere.'
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+I think I have nothing to add until I have the honour of attending you in
+      'person'; but I am, (as above,) &amp;c. &amp;c. &amp;c.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      E.B. <a name="link2H_4_0045" id="link2H_4_0045">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XLII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. WEDNESDAY NIGHT, AUG. 30.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was lucky enough that our two servants met at Hannah's,* which gave
+      them so good an opportunity of exchanging their letters time enough for
+      each to return to his master early in the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * The Windmill, near Slough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou dost well to boast of thy capacity for managing servants, and to set
+      up for correcting our poets in their characters of this class of people,*
+      when, like a madman, thou canst beat their teeth out, and attempt to shoot
+      them through the head, for not bringing to thee what they had no power to
+      obtain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter XX. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You well observe* that you would have made a thorough-paced lawyer. The
+      whole of the conversation-piece between you and the Colonel affords a
+      convincing proof that there is a black and a white side to every cause:
+      But what must the conscience of a partial whitener of his own cause, or
+      blackener of another's, tell him, while he is throwing dust in the eyes of
+      his judges, and all the time knows his own guilt?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter XL. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel, I see, is far from being a faultless man: but while he sought
+      not to carry his point by breach of faith, he has an excuse which thou
+      hast not. But, with respect to him, and to us all, I can now, with the
+      detestation of some of my own actions, see, that the taking advantage of
+      another person's good opinion of us to injure (perhaps to ruin) that
+      other, is the most ungenerous wickedness that can be committed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Man acting thus by man, we should not be at a loss to give such actions a
+      name: But is it not doubly and trebly aggravated, when such advantage is
+      taken of an unexperienced and innocent young creature, whom we pretend to
+      love above all the women in the world; and when we seal our pretences by
+      the most solemn vows and protestations of inviolable honour that we can
+      invent?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I see that this gentleman is the best match thou ever couldest have had,
+      upon all accounts: his spirit such another impetuous one as thy own; soon
+      taking fire; vindictive; and only differing in this, that the cause he
+      engages in is a just one. But commend me to honest brutal Mowbray, who,
+      before he knew the cause, offers his sword in thy behalf against a man who
+      had taken the injured side, and whom he had never seen before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as I had run through your letters, and the copy of that of the
+      incendiary Brand's, (by the latter of which I saw to what cause a great
+      deal of this last implacableness of the Harlowe family is owing,) I took
+      coach to Smith's, although I had been come from thence but about an hour,
+      and had taken leave of the lady for the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sent up for Mrs. Lovick, and desired her, in the first place, to
+      acquaint the lady (who was busied in her closet,) that I had letters from
+      Berks: in which I was informed, that the interview between Colonel Morden
+      and Mr. Lovelace had ended without ill consequences; that the Colonel
+      intended to write to her very soon, and was interesting himself mean
+      while, in her favour, with her relations; that I hoped that this agreeable
+      news would be means of giving her good rest; and I would wait upon her in
+      the morning, by the time she should return from prayers, with all the
+      particulars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sent me word that she should be glad to see me in the morning; and was
+      highly obliged to me for the good news I had sent her up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I then, in the back shop, read to Mrs. Lovick and to Mrs. Smith the copy
+      of Brand's letter, and asked them if they could guess at the man's
+      informant? They were not at a loss; Mrs. Smith having seen the same fellow
+      Brand who had talked with her, as I mentioned in the former,* come out of
+      a milliner's shop over against them; which milliner, she said, had also
+      lately been very inquisitive about the lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wanted no farther hint; but, bidding them take no notice to the lady of
+      what I had read, I shot over the way, and, asking for the mistress of the
+      house, she came to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Retiring with her, at her invitation, into her parlour, I desired to know
+      if she were acquainted with a young country clergyman of the name of
+      Brand. She hesitatingly, seeing me in some emotion, owned that she had
+      some small knowledge of the gentleman. Just then came in her husband, who
+      is, it seems, a petty officer of excise, (and not an ill-behaved man,) who
+      owned a fuller knowledge of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have the copy of a letter, said I, from this Brand, in which he has
+      taken great liberties with my character, and with that of the most
+      unblamable lady in the world, which he grounds upon information that you,
+      Madam, have given him. And then I read to them several passages in his
+      letter, and asked what foundation she had for giving that fellow such
+      impressions of either of us?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They knew not what to answer: but at last said, that he had told them how
+      wickedly the young lady had run away from her parents: what worthy and
+      rich people they were: in what favour he stood with them; and that they
+      had employed him to inquire after her behaviour, visiters, &amp;c.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They said, 'That indeed they knew very little of the young lady; but that
+      [curse upon their censoriousness!] it was but too natural to think, that,
+      where a lady had given way to a delusion, and taken so wrong a step, she
+      would not stop there: that the most sacred places and things were but too
+      often made clokes for bad actions; that Mr. Brand had been informed
+      (perhaps by some enemy of mine) that I was a man of very free principles,
+      and an intimado, as he calls it, of the man who had ruined her. And that
+      their cousin Barker, a manteau-maker, who lodged up one pair of stairs,'
+      (and who, at their desire, came down and confirmed what they said,) 'had
+      often, from her window, seen me with the lady in her chamber, and both
+      talking very earnestly together; and that Mr. Brand, being unable to
+      account for her admiring my visits, and knowing I was but a new
+      acquaintance of her's, and an old one of Mr. Lovelace, thought himself
+      obliged to lay these matters before her friends.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the sum and substance of their tale. O how I cursed the
+      censoriousness of this plaguy triumvirate! A parson, a milliner, and a
+      mantua-maker! The two latter, not more by business led to adorn the
+      persons, than generally by scandal to destroy the reputations, of those
+      they have a mind to exercise their talents upon!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two women took great pains to persuade me that they themselves were
+      people of conscience;&mdash;of consequence, I told them, too much
+      addicted, I feared, to censure other people who pretended not to their
+      strictness; for that I had ever found censoriousness, with those who
+      affected to be thought more pious than their neighbours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They answered, that that was not their case; and that they had since
+      inquired into the lady's character and manner of life, and were very much
+      concerned to think any thing they had said should be made use of against
+      her: and as they heard from Mrs. Smith that she was not likely to live
+      long, they should be sorry she should go out of the world a sufferer by
+      their means, or with an ill opinion of them, though strangers to her. The
+      husband offered to write, if I pleased, to Mr. Brand, in vindication of
+      the lady; and the two women said they should be glad to wait upon her in
+      person, to beg her pardon for any thing she had reason to take amiss from
+      them; because they were now convinced that there was not such another
+      young lady in the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told them that the least said of the affair to the lady, in her present
+      circumstances, was best. That she was a heavenly creature, and fond of
+      taking all occasions to find excuses for her relations on their
+      implacableness to her: that therefore I should take some notice to her of
+      the uncharitable and weak surmises which gave birth to so vile a scandal:
+      but that I would have him, Mr. Walton, (for that is the husband's name,)
+      write to his acquaintance Brand as soon as possible, as he had offered;
+      and so I left them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to what thou sayest of thy charming cousin, let me know if thou hast
+      any meaning in it. I have not the vanity to think myself deserving of such
+      a lady as Miss Montague; and should not therefore care to expose myself to
+      her scorn and to thy derision. But were I assured I might avoid both of
+      these, I would soon acquaint thee that I should think no pains nor
+      assiduity too much to obtain a share in the good graces of such a lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I know thee too well to depend upon any thing thou sayest on this
+      subject. Thou lovest to make thy friends the objects of ridicule to
+      ladies; and imaginest, from the vanity, (and, in this respect, I will say
+      littleness,) of thine own heart, that thou shinest the brighter for the
+      foil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus didst thou once play off the rough Mowbray with Miss Hatton, till the
+      poor fellow knew not how to go either backward or forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0046" id="link2H_4_0046">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XLIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. THURSDAY, 11 O'CLOCK, AUG. 31.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am just come from the lady, whom I left cheerful and serene.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She thanked me for my communication of the preceding night. I read to her
+      such parts of your letters as I could read to her; and I thought it was a
+      good test to distinguish the froth and whipt-syllabub in them from the
+      cream, in what one could and could not read to a woman of so fine a mind;
+      since four parts out of six of thy letters, which I thought entertaining
+      as I read them to myself, appeared to me, when I should have read them to
+      her, most abominable stuff, and gave me a very contemptible idea of thy
+      talents, and of my own judgment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She as far from rejoicing, as I had done, at the disappointment her letter
+      gave you when explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She said, she meant only an innocent allegory, which might carry
+      instruction and warning to you, when the meaning was taken, as well as
+      answer her own hopes for the time. It was run off in a hurry. She was
+      afraid it was not quite right in her. But hoped the end would excuse (if
+      it could not justify) the means. And then she again expressed a good deal
+      of apprehension lest you should still take it into your head to molest
+      her, when her time, she said, was so short, that she wanted every moment
+      of it; repeating what she had once said before, that, when she wrote, she
+      was so ill that she believed she should not have lived till now: if she
+      had thought she should, she must have studied for an expedient that would
+      have better answered her intentions. Hinting at a removal out of the
+      knowledge of us both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she was much pleased that the conference between you and Colonel
+      Morden, after two or three such violent sallies, as I acquainted her you
+      had had between you, ended so amicably; and said she must absolutely
+      depend upon the promise I had given her to use my utmost endeavours to
+      prevent farther mischief on her account.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was pleased with the justice you did her character to her cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was glad to hear that he had so kind an opinion of her, and that he
+      would write to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was under an unnecessary concern, how to break to her that I had the
+      copy of Brand's vile letter: unnecessary, I say; for she took it just as
+      you thought she would, as an excuse she wished to have for the
+      implacableness of her friends; and begged I would let her read it herself;
+      for, said she, the contents cannot disturb me, be they what they will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave it to her, and she read it to herself; a tear now and then being
+      ready to start, and a sigh sometimes interposing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave me back the letter with great and surprising calmness,
+      considering the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a time, said she, and that not long since, when such a letter as
+      this would have greatly pained me. But I hope I have now go above all
+      these things: and I can refer to your kind offices, and to those of Miss
+      Howe, the justice that will be done to my memory among my friends. There
+      is a good and a bad light in which every thing that befalls us may be
+      taken. If the human mind will busy itself to make the worst of every
+      disagreeable occurrence, it will never want woe. This letter, affecting as
+      the subject of it is to my reputation, gives me more pleasure than pain,
+      because I can gather from it, that had not my friends been prepossessed by
+      misinformed or rash and officious persons, who are always at hand to
+      flatter or soothe the passions of the affluent, they could not have been
+      so immovably determined against me. But now they are sufficiently cleared
+      from every imputation of unforgivingness; for, while I appeared to them in
+      the character of a vile hypocrite, pretending to true penitence, yet
+      giving up myself to profligate courses, how could I expect either their
+      pardon or blessing?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, Madam, said I, you'll see by the date of this letter, that their
+      severity, previous to that, cannot be excused by it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It imports me much, replied she, on account of my present wishes, as to
+      the office you are so kind to undertake, that you should not think harshly
+      of my friends. I must own to you, that I have been apt sometimes myself to
+      think them not only severe but cruel. Suffering minds will be partial to
+      their own cause and merits. Knowing their own hearts, if sincere, they are
+      apt to murmur when harshly treated: But, if they are not believed to be
+      innocent, by persons who have a right to decide upon their conduct
+      according to their own judgments, how can it be helped? Besides, Sir, how
+      do you know, that there are not about my friends as well-meaning
+      misrepresenters as Mr. Brand really seems to be? But, be this as it will,
+      there is no doubt that there are and have been multitudes of persons, as
+      innocent as myself, who have suffered upon surmises as little probable as
+      those on which Mr. Brand founds his judgment. Your intimacy, Sir, with Mr.
+      Lovelace, and (may I say?) a character which, it seems, you have been less
+      solicitous formerly to justify than perhaps you will be for the future,
+      and your frequent visits to me may well be thought to be questionable
+      circumstances in my conduct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could only admire her in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But you see, Sir, proceeded she, how necessary it is for young people of
+      our sex to be careful of our company. And how much, at the same time, it
+      behoves young persons of your's to be chary of their own reputation, were
+      it only for the sake of such of our's as they may mean honourably by, and
+      who otherwise may suffer in their good names for being seen in their
+      company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to Mr. Brand, continued she, he is to be pitied; and let me enjoin you,
+      Mr. Belford, not to take any resentments against him which may be
+      detrimental either to his person or his fortunes. Let his function and his
+      good meaning plead for him. He will have concern enough, when he finds
+      every body, whose displeasure I now labour under, acquitting my memory of
+      perverse guilt, and joining in a general pity for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This, Lovelace, is the woman whose life thou hast curtailed in the blossom
+      of it!&mdash;How many opportunities must thou have had of admiring her
+      inestimable worth, yet couldst have thy senses so much absorbed in the
+      WOMAN, in her charming person, as to be blind to the ANGEL, that shines
+      out in such full glory in her mind! Indeed, I have ever thought myself,
+      when blest with her conversation, in the company of a real angel: and I am
+      sure it would be impossible for me, were she to be as beautiful, and as
+      crimsoned over with health, as I have seen her, to have the least thought
+      of sex, when I heard her talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THURSDAY, THREE O'CLOCK, AUG. 31.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On my re-visit to the lady, I found her almost as much a sufferer from joy
+      as she had sometimes been from grief; for she had just received a very
+      kind letter from her cousin Morden; which she was so good as to
+      communicate to me. As she had already begun to answer it, I begged leave
+      to attend her in the evening, that I might not interrupt her in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter is a very tender one * * * *
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+[Here Mr. Belford gives the substance of it upon his memory; but that is
+      omitted; as the letter is given at length (see the next letter.)
+      And then adds:]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But, alas! all will be now too late. For the decree is certainly gone out&mdash;the
+      world is unworthy of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0047" id="link2H_4_0047">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XLIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      COLONEL MORDEN, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TUESDAY, AUG. 29.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I should not, my dearest Cousin, have been a fortnight in England, without
+      either doing myself the honour of waiting upon you in person, or of
+      writing to you; if I had not been busying myself almost all the time in
+      your service, in hopes of making my visit or letter still more acceptable
+      to you&mdash;acceptable as I have reason to presume either will be from
+      the unquestionable love I ever bore you, and from the esteem you always
+      honoured me with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little did I think that so many days would have been required to effect my
+      well-intended purpose, where there used to be a love so ardent on one
+      side, and where there still is, as I am thoroughly convinced, the most
+      exalted merit on the other!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was yesterday with Mr. Lovelace and Lord M. I need not tell you, it
+      seems, how very desirous the whole family and all the relations of that
+      nobleman are of the honour of an alliance with you; nor how exceedingly
+      earnest the ungrateful man is to make you all the reparation in his power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I think, my dear Cousin, that you cannot now do better than to give him
+      the honour of your hand. He says just and great things of your virtue, and
+      so heartily condemns himself, that I think there is honorable room for you
+      to forgive him: and the more room, as it seems you are determined against
+      a legal prosecution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your effectual forgiveness of Mr. Lovelace, it is evident to me, will
+      accelerate a general reconciliation: for, at present, my other cousins
+      cannot persuade themselves that he is in earnest to do you justice; or
+      that you would refuse him, if you believed he was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, my dear Cousin, there may possibly be something in this affair, to
+      which I may be a stranger. If there be, and you will acquaint me with it,
+      all that a naturally-warm heart can do in your behalf shall be done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope I shall be able, in my next visits to my several cousins, to set
+      all right with them. Haughty spirits, when convinced that they have
+      carried resentments too high, want but a good excuse to condescend: and
+      parents must always love the child they once loved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if I find them inflexible, I will set out, and attend you without
+      delay; for I long to see you, after so many years' absence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mean while, I beg the favour of a few lines, to know if you have reason to
+      doubt Mr. Lovelace's sincerity. For my part, I can have none, if I am to
+      judge from the conversation that passed between us yesterday, in presence
+      of Lord M.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You will be pleased to direct for me at your uncle Antony's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Permit me, my dearest Cousin, till I can procure a happy reconciliation
+      between you and your father, and brother, and uncles, to supply the place
+      to you of all those near relations, as well as that of
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your affectionate kinsman, and humble servant, WM. MORDEN.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0048" id="link2H_4_0048">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XLV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO WM. MORDEN, ESQ. THURSDAY, AUG. 31.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I most heartily congratulate you, dear Sir, on your return to your native
+      country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I heard with much pleasure that you were come; but I was both afraid and
+      ashamed, till you encouraged me by a first notice, to address myself to
+      you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How consoling is it to my wounded heart to find that you have not been
+      carried away by that tide of resentment and displeasure with which I have
+      been so unhappily overwhelmed&mdash;but that, while my still nearer
+      relations have not thought fit to examine into the truth of vile reports
+      raised against me, you have informed yourself of my innocence, and
+      generously credited the information!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have not the least reason to doubt Mr. Lovelace's sincerity in his
+      offers of marriage; nor that all his relations are heartily desirous of
+      ranking me among them. I have had noble instances of their esteem for me,
+      on their apprehending that my father's displeasure must have had
+      absolutely refused their pressing solicitations in their kinsman's favour
+      as well as his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor think me, my dear Cousin, blamable for refusing him. I had given Mr.
+      Lovelace no reason to think me a weak creature. If I had, a man of his
+      character might have thought himself warranted to endeavour to take
+      ungenerous advantage of the weakness he had been able to inspire. The
+      consciousness of my own weakness (in that case) might have brought me to a
+      composition with his wickedness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I can indeed forgive him. But that is, because I think his crimes have set
+      me above him. Can I be above the man, Sir, to whom I shall give my hand
+      and my vows, and with them a sanction to the most premeditated baseness?
+      No, Sir, let me say, that your cousin Clarissa, were she likely to live
+      many years, and that (if she married not this man) in penury or want,
+      despised and forsaken by all her friends, puts not so high a value upon
+      the conveniencies of life, nor upon life itself, as to seek to re-obtain
+      the one, or to preserve the other, by giving such a sanction: a sanction,
+      which (were she to perform her duty,) would reward the violator.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor is it so much from pride as from principle that I say this. What, Sir!
+      when virtue, when chastity, is the crown of a woman, and particularly of a
+      wife, shall form an attempt upon her's but upon a presumption that she was
+      capable of receiving his offered hand when he had found himself mistaken
+      in the vile opinion he had conceived of her? Hitherto he has not had
+      reason to think me weak. Nor will I give an instance so flagrant, that
+      weak I am in a point in which it would be criminal to be found weak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day, Sir, you will perhaps know all my story. But, whenever it is
+      known, I beg that the author of my calamities may not be vindictively
+      sought after. He could not have been the author of them, but for a strange
+      concurrence of unhappy causes. As the law will not be able to reach him
+      when I am gone, the apprehension of any other sort of vengeance terrifies
+      me; since, in such a case, should my friends be safe, what honour would
+      his death bring to my memory?&mdash;If any of them should come to
+      misfortune, how would my fault be aggravated!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      God long preserve you, my dearest Cousin, and bless you but in proportion
+      to the consolation you have given me, in letting me know that you still
+      love me; and that I have one near and dear relation who can pity and
+      forgive me; (and then you will be greatly blessed;) is the prayer of
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your ever grateful and affectionate CL. HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0049" id="link2H_4_0049">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XLVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. [IN ANSWER TO HIS LETTERS XXIII.
+      XXXVII. OF THIS VOLUME.] THURSDAY, AUG. 31.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I cannot but own that I am cut to the heart by this Miss Harlowe's
+      interpretation of her letter. She ought never to be forgiven. She, a meek
+      person, and a penitent, and innocent, and pious, and I know not what, who
+      can deceive with a foot in the grave!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Tis evident, that she sat down to write this letter with a design to
+      mislead and deceive. And if she be capable of that, at such a crisis, she
+      has as much need of Heaven's forgiveness, as I have of her's: and, with
+      all her cant of charity and charity, if she be not more sure of it than I
+      am of her real pardon, and if she take the thing in the light she ought to
+      take it in, she will have a few darker moments yet to come than she seems
+      to expect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. himself, who is not one of those (to speak in his own phrase) who
+      can penetrate a millstone, sees the deceit, and thinks it unworthy of her;
+      though my cousins Montague vindicate her. And no wonder this cursed
+      partial sex [I hate 'em all&mdash;by my soul, I hate 'em all!] will never
+      allow any thing against an individual of it, where our's is concerned. And
+      why? Because, if they censure deceit in another, they must condemn their
+      own hearts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She is to send me a letter after she is in Heaven, is she? The devil take
+      such allegories, and the devil take thee for calling this absurdity an
+      innocent artifice!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I insist upon it, that if a woman of her character, at such a critical
+      time, is to be justified in such a deception, a man in full health and
+      vigour of body and mind, as I am, may be excused for all his stratagems
+      and attempts against her. And, thank my stars, I can now sit me down with
+      a quiet conscience on that score. By my soul, I can, Jack. Nor has any
+      body, who can acquit her, a right to blame me. But with some, indeed,
+      every thing she does must be good, every thing I do must be bad&mdash; And
+      why? Because she has always taken care to coax the stupid misjudging
+      world, like a woman: while I have constantly defied and despised its
+      censures, like a man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, notwithstanding all, you may let her know from me that I will not
+      molest her, since my visits would be so shocking to her: and I hope she
+      will take this into her consideration as a piece of generosity which she
+      could hardly expect after the deception she has put upon me. And let her
+      farther know, that if there be any thing in my power, that will contribute
+      either to her ease or honour, I will obey her, at the very first
+      intimation, however disgraceful or detrimental to myself. All this, to
+      make her unapprehensive, and that she may have nothing to pull her back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If her cursed relations could be brought as cheerfully to perform their
+      parts, I'd answer life for life for her recovery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But who, that has so many ludicrous images raised in his mind by the
+      awkward penitence, can forbear laughing at thee? Spare, I beseech thee,
+      dear Belford, for the future, all thine own aspirations, if thou wouldst
+      not dishonour those of an angel indeed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I came to that passage, where thou sayest that thou considerest her*
+      as one sent from Heaven to draw thee after her&mdash;for the heart of me I
+      could not for an hour put thee out of my head, in the attitude of dame
+      Elizabeth Carteret, on her monument in Westminster Abbey. If thou never
+      observedst it, go thither on purpose: and there wilt thou see this dame in
+      effigy, with uplifted head and hand, the latter taken hold of by a cupid
+      every inch of stone, one clumsy foot lifted up also, aiming, as the
+      sculptor designed it, to ascend; but so executed, as would rather make one
+      imagine that the figure (without shoe or stocking, as it is, though the
+      rest of the body is robed) was looking up to its corn-cutter: the other
+      riveted to its native earth, bemired, like thee (immersed thou callest it)
+      beyond the possibility of unsticking itself. Both figures, thou wilt find,
+      seem to be in a contention, the bigger, whether it should pull down the
+      lesser about its ears&mdash;the lesser (a chubby fat little varlet, of a
+      fourth part of the other's bigness, with wings not much larger than those
+      of a butterfly) whether it should raise the larger to a Heaven it points
+      to, hardly big enough to contain the great toes of either.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter XXXVII. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou wilt say, perhaps, that the dame's figure in stone may do credit, in
+      the comparison, to thine, both in grain and shape, wooden as thou art all
+      over: but that the lady, who, in every thing but in the trick she has
+      played me so lately, is truly an angel, is but sorrily represented by the
+      fat-flanked cupid. This I allow thee. But yet there is enough in thy
+      aspirations to strike my mind with a resemblance of thee and the lady to
+      the figures on the wretched monument; for thou oughtest to remember, that,
+      prepared as she may be to mount to her native skies, it is impossible for
+      her to draw after her a heavy fellow who has so much to repent of as thou
+      hast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now, to be serious once more, let me tell you, Belford, that, if the
+      lady be really so ill as you write she is, it will become you [no Roman
+      style here!] in a case so very affecting, to be a little less pointed and
+      sarcastic in your reflections. For, upon my soul, the matter begins to
+      grate me most confoundedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am now so impatient to hear oftener of her, that I take the hint
+      accidentally given me by our two fellows meeting at Slough, and resolve to
+      go to our friend Doleman's at Uxbridge; whose wife and sister, as well as
+      he, have so frequently pressed me to give them my company for a week or
+      two. There shall I be within two hours' ride, if any thing should happen
+      to induce her to see me: for it will well become her piety, and avowed
+      charity, should the worst happen, [the Lord of Heaven and Earth, however,
+      avert that worst!] to give me that pardon from her lips, which she has not
+      denied to me by pen and ink. And as she wishes my reformation, she knows
+      not what good effects such an interview may have upon me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall accordingly be at Doleman's to-morrow morning, by eleven at
+      farthest. My fellow will find me there at his return from you (with a
+      letter, I hope). I shall have Joel with me likewise, that I may send the
+      oftener, as matters fall out. Were I to be still nearer, or in town, it
+      would be impossible to withhold myself from seeing her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, if the worst happen!&mdash;as, by your continual knelling, I know not
+      what to think of it!&mdash;[Yet, once more, Heaven avert that worst!&mdash;How
+      natural it is to pray, when once cannot help one's self!]&mdash;THEN say
+      not, in so many dreadful words, what the event is&mdash;Only, that you
+      advise me to take a trip to Paris&mdash;And that will stab me to the
+      heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I so well approve of your generosity to poor Belton's sister, that I have
+      made Mowbray give up his legacy, as I do mine, towards her India bonds.
+      When I come to town, Tourville shall do the like; and we will buy each a
+      ring to wear in memory of the honest fellow, with our own money, that we
+      may perform his will, as well as our own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My fellow rides the rest of the night. I charge you, Jack, if you would
+      save his life, that you send him not back empty-handed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0050" id="link2H_4_0050">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XLVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. TUESDAY NIGHT, AUG. 30.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I concluded my last, I hoped that my next attendance upon this
+      surprising lady would furnish me with some particulars as agreeable as now
+      could be hoped for from the declining way she is in, by reason of the
+      welcome letter she had received from her cousin Morden. But it proved
+      quite otherwise to me, though not to herself; for I think I was never more
+      shocked in my life than on the occasion I shall mention presently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I attended her about seven in the evening, she told me that she found
+      herself in a very petulant way after I had left her. Strange, said she,
+      that the pleasure I received from my cousin's letter should have such an
+      effect upon me! But I could not help giving way to a comparative humour,
+      as I may call it, and to think it very hard that my nearer relations did
+      not take the methods which my cousin Morden kindly took, by inquiring into
+      my merit or demerit, and giving my cause a fair audit before they
+      proceeded to condemnation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had hardly said this, when she started, and a blush overspread her
+      sweet face, on hearing, as I also did, a sort of lumbering noise upon the
+      stairs, as if a large trunk were bringing up between two people: and,
+      looking upon me with an eye of concern, Blunderers! said she, they have
+      brought in something two hours before the time.&mdash;Don't be surprised,
+      Sir &mdash;it is all to save you trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before I could speak, in came Mrs. Smith: O Madam, said she, what have you
+      done?&mdash;Mrs. Lovick, entering, made the same exclamation. Lord have
+      mercy upon me, Madam! cried I, what have you done?&mdash;For she, stepping
+      at the same instant to the door, the women told me it was a coffin.&mdash;O
+      Lovelace! that thou hadst been there at that moment!&mdash;Thou, the
+      causer of all these shocking scenes! Surely thou couldst not have been
+      less affected than I, who have no guilt, as to her, to answer for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With an intrepidity of a piece with the preparation, having directed them
+      to carry it to her bed-chamber, she returned to us: they were not to have
+      brought it in till after dark, said she&mdash;Pray, excuse me, Mr.
+      Belford: and don't you, Mrs. Lovick, be concerned: nor you, Mrs. Smith.&mdash;Why
+      should you? There is nothing more in it than the unusualness of the thing.
+      Why may we not be as reasonably shocked at going to church where are the
+      monuments of our ancestors, with whose dust we even hope our dust shall be
+      one day mingled, as to be moved at such a sight as this?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We all remaining silent, the women having their aprons at their eyes, Why
+      this concern for nothing at all? said she. If I am to be blamed for any
+      thing, it is for showing too much solicitude, as it may be thought, for
+      this earthly part. I love to do every thing for myself that I can do. I
+      ever did. Every other material point is so far done, and taken care of,
+      that I have had leisure for things of lesser moment. Minutenesses may be
+      observed, where greater articles are not neglected for them. I might have
+      had this to order, perhaps, when less fit to order it. I have no mother,
+      no sister, no Mrs. Norton, no Miss Howe, near me. Some of you must have
+      seen this in a few days, if not now; perhaps have had the friendly trouble
+      of directing it. And what is the difference of a few days to you, when I
+      am gratified rather than discomposed by it? I shall not die the sooner for
+      such a preparation. Should not every body that has any thing to bequeath
+      make their will? And who, that makes a will, should be afraid of a coffin?&mdash;My
+      dear friends, [to the women] I have considered these things; do not, with
+      such an object before you as you have had in me for weeks, give me reason
+      to think you have not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How reasonable was all this!&mdash;It showed, indeed, that she herself had
+      well considered it. But yet we could not help being shocked at the
+      thoughts of the coffin thus brought in; the lovely person before our eyes
+      who is, in all likelihood, so soon to fill it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were all silent still, the women in grief; I in a manner stunned. She
+      would not ask me, she said; but would be glad, since it had thus earlier
+      than she had intended been brought in, that her two good friends would
+      walk in and look upon it. They would be less shocked when it was made more
+      familiar to their eye: don't you lead back, said she, a starting steed to
+      the object he is apt to start at, in order to familiarize him to it, and
+      cure his starting? The same reason will hold in this case. Come, my good
+      friends, I will lead you in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took my leave; telling her she had done wrong, very wrong; and ought
+      not, by any means, to have such an object before her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The women followed her in.&mdash;'Tis a strange sex! Nothing is too
+      shocking for them to look upon, or see acted, that has but novelty and
+      curiosity in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Down I posted; got a chair; and was carried home, extremely shocked and
+      discomposed: yet, weighing the lady's arguments, I know not why I was so
+      affected&mdash;except, as she said, at the unusualness of the thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While I waited for a chair, Mrs. Smith came down, and told me that there
+      were devices and inscriptions upon the lid. Lord bless me! is a coffin a
+      proper subject to display fancy upon?&mdash;But these great minds cannot
+      avoid doing extraordinary things!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0051" id="link2H_4_0051">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XLVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. FRIDAY MORN. SEPT. 1.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is surprising, that I, a man, should be so much affected as I was, at
+      such an object as is the subject of my former letter; who also, in my late
+      uncle's case, and poor Belton's had the like before me, and the directing
+      of it: when she, a woman, of so weak and tender a frame, who was to fill
+      it (so soon perhaps to fill it!) could give orders about it, and draw out
+      the devices upon it, and explain them with so little concern as the women
+      tell me she did to them last night after I was gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I really was ill, and restless all night. Thou wert the subject of my
+      execration, as she was of my admiration, all the time I was quite awake:
+      and, when I dozed, I dreamt of nothing but of flying hour-glasses,
+      deaths-heads, spades, mattocks, and eternity; the hint of her devices (as
+      given me by Mrs. Smith) running in my head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, not being able to keep away from Smith's, I went thither about
+      seven. The lady was just gone out: she had slept better, I found, than I,
+      though her solemn repository was under her window, not far from her
+      bed-side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was prevailed upon by Mrs. Smith and her nurse Shelburne (Mrs. Lovick
+      being abroad with her) to go up and look at the devices. Mrs. Lovick has
+      since shown me a copy of the draught by which all was ordered; and I will
+      give thee a sketch of the symbols.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The principal device, neatly etched on a plate of white metal, is a
+      crowned serpent, with its tail in its mouth, forming a ring, the emblem of
+      eternity: and in the circle made by it is this inscription:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                          CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+
+                               April x.
+
+                           [Then the year.]
+
+                              ÆTAT. XIX.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      For ornaments: at top, an hour-glass, winged. At bottom, an urn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under the hour-glass, on another plate, this inscription:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      HERE the wicked cease from troubling: and HERE the
+        weary be at rest.  Job. iii. 17.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Over the urn, near the bottom:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      Turn again unto thy rest, O my soul! for the Lord hath
+        rewarded thee: And why?  Thou hast delivered my
+        soul from death; mine eyes from tears; and my feet
+        from falling.  Ps. cxvi. 7, 8.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Over this is the head of a white lily snapt short off, and just falling
+      from the stalk; and this inscription over that, between the principal
+      plate and the lily:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      The days of man are but as grass.  For he flourisheth as a
+        flower of the field: for, as soon as the wind goeth over
+        it, it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no
+        more.  Ps. ciii. 15, 16.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      She excused herself to the women, on the score of her youth, and being
+      used to draw for her needleworks, for having shown more fancy than would
+      perhaps be thought suitable on so solemn an occasion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The date, April 10, she accounted for, as not being able to tell what her
+      closing-day would be; and as that was the fatal day of her leaving her
+      father's house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She discharged the undertaker's bill after I went away, with as much
+      cheerfulness as she could ever have paid for the clothes she sold to
+      purchase this her palace: for such she called it; reflecting upon herself
+      for the expensiveness of it, saying, that they might observe in her, that
+      pride left not poor mortals to the last: but indeed she did not know but
+      her father would permit it, when furnished, to be carried down to be
+      deposited with her ancestors; and, in that case, she ought not to
+      discredit those ancestors in her appearance amongst them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is covered with fine black cloth, and lined with white satin; soon, she
+      said, to be tarnished with viler earth than any it could be covered by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The burial-dress was brought home with it. The women had curiosity enough,
+      I suppose, to see her open that, if she did open it.&mdash;And, perhaps,
+      thou wouldst have been glad to have been present to have admired it too!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lovick said, she took the liberty to blame her; and wished the
+      removal of such an object&mdash;from her bed-chamber, at least: and was so
+      affected with the noble answer she made upon it, that she entered it down
+      the moment she left her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To persons in health, said she, this sight may be shocking; and the
+      preparation, and my unconcernedness in it, may appear affected: but to me,
+      who have had so gradual a weaning-time from the world, and so much reason
+      not to love it, I must say, I dwell on, I indulge, (and, strictly
+      speaking, I enjoy,) the thoughts of death. For, believe me,' [looking
+      stedfastly at the awful receptacle,] 'believe what at this instant I feel
+      to be most true, That there is such a vast superiority of weight and
+      importance in the thought of death, and its hoped-for happy consequences,
+      that it in a manner annihilates all other considerations and concerns.
+      Believe me, my good friends, it does what nothing else can do: it teaches
+      me, by strengthening in me the force of the divinest example, to forgive
+      the injuries I have received; and shuts out the remembrance of past evils
+      from my soul.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now let me ask thee, Lovelace, Dost thou think that, when the time
+      shall come that thou shalt be obliged to launch into the boundless ocean
+      of eternity, thou wilt be able (any more than poor Belton) to act thy part
+      with such true heroism, as this sweet and tender blossom of a woman has
+      manifested, and continues to manifest!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh! no! it cannot be!&mdash;And why can't it be?&mdash;The reason is
+      evident: she has no wilful errors to look back upon with self-reproach&mdash;and
+      her mind is strengthened by the consolations which flow from that
+      religious rectitude which has been the guide of all her actions; and which
+      has taught her rather to choose to be a sufferer than an aggressor!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the support of the divine Socrates, as thou hast read. When led
+      to execution, his wife lamenting that he should suffer being innocent,
+      Thou fool, said he, wouldst thou wish me to be guilty!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0052" id="link2H_4_0052">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XLIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. FRIDAY, SEPT. 1.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How astonishing, in the midst of such affecting scenes, is thy mirth on
+      what thou callest my own aspirations! Never, surely, was there such
+      another man in this world, thy talents and thy levity taken together!&mdash;
+      Surely, what I shall send thee with this will affect thee. If not, nothing
+      can, till thy own hour come: and heavy will then thy reflections be!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am glad, however, that thou enablest me to assure the lady that thou
+      wilt no more molest her; that is to say, in other words, that, after
+      having ruined her fortunes, and all her worldly prospects, thou wilt be so
+      gracious, as to let her lie down and die in peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thy giving up to poor Belton's sister the little legacy, and thy
+      undertaking to make Mowbray and Tourville follow thy example, are, I must
+      say to thy honour, of a piece with thy generosity to thy Rose-bud and her
+      Johnny; and to a number of other good actions in pecuniary matters:
+      although thy Rose-bud's is, I believe, the only instance, where a pretty
+      woman was concerned, of such a disinterested bounty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon my faith, Lovelace, I love to praise thee; and often and often, as
+      thou knowest, have I studied for occasions to do it: insomuch that when,
+      for the life of me, I could not think of any thing done by thee that
+      deserved praise, I have taken pains to applaud the not ungraceful manner
+      in which thou hast performed actions that merited the gallows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now thou art so near, I will dispatch my servant to thee, if occasion
+      requires. But, I fear, I shall soon give thee the news thou art
+      apprehensive of. For I am just now sent for by Mrs. Smith; who has ordered
+      the messenger to tell me, that she knew not if the lady will be alive when
+      I come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FRIDAY, SEPT. 1, TWO O'CLOCK, AT SMITH'S.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not close my letter in such an uncertainty as must have added to
+      your impatience. For you have, on several occasions, convinced me, that
+      the suspense you love to give would be the greatest torment to you that
+      you could receive. A common case with all aggressive and violent spirits,
+      I believe. I will just mention then (your servant waiting here till I have
+      written) that the lady has had two very severe fits: in the last of which
+      whilst she lay, they sent to the doctor and Mr. Goddard, who both advised
+      that a messenger should be dispatched for me, as her executor; being
+      doubtful whether, if she had a third, it would not carry her off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was tolerably recovered by the time I cane; and the doctor made her
+      promise before me, that, while she was so weak, she would not attempt any
+      more to go abroad; for, by Mrs. Lovick's description, who attended her,
+      the shortness of her breath, her extreme weakness, and the fervour of her
+      devotions when at church, were contraries, which, pulling different ways
+      (the soul aspiring, the body sinking) tore her tender frame in pieces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So much for the present. I shall detain Will. no longer than just to beg
+      that you will send me back this packet and the last. Your memory is so
+      good, that once reading is all you ever give, or need to give, to any
+      thing. And who but ourselves can make out our characters, were you
+      inclined to let any body see what passes between us? If I cannot be
+      obliged, I shall be tempted to withhold what I write, till I have time to
+      take a copy of it.*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * It may not be amiss to observe, that Mr. Belford's solicitude to get
+      back his letters was owing to his desire of fulfilling the lady's wishes
+      that he would furnish Miss Howe with materials to vindicate her memory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A letter from Miss Howe is just now brought by a particular messenger, who
+      says he must carry back a few lines in return. But, as the lady is just
+      retired to lie down, the man is to call again by-and-by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0053" id="link2H_4_0053">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER L
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. UXBRIDGE, SEPT. 1, TWELVE O'CLOCK AT
+      NIGHT.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I send you the papers with this. You must account to me honestly and
+      fairly, when I see you, for the earnestness with which you write for them.
+      And then also will we talk about the contents of your last dispatch, and
+      about some of your severe and unfriendly reflections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mean time, whatever thou dost, don't let the wonderful creature leave us!
+      Set before her the sin of her preparation, as if she thought she could
+      depart when she pleased. She'll persuade herself, at this rate, that she
+      has nothing to do, when all is ready, but to lie down, and go to sleep:
+      and such a lively fancy as her's will make a reality of a jest at any
+      time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A jest I call all that has passed between her and me; a mere jest to die
+      for&mdash;For has not her triumph over me, from first to last, been
+      infinitely greater than her sufferings from me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Would the sacred regard I have for her purity, even for her personal as
+      well as intellectual purity, permit, I could prove this as clear as the
+      sun. Tell, therefore, the dear creature that she must not be wicked in her
+      piety. There is a too much, as well as too little, even in righteousness.
+      Perhaps she does not think of that.&mdash;Oh! that she would have
+      permitted my attendance, as obligingly as she does of thine!&mdash;The
+      dear soul used to love humour. I remember the time that she knew how to
+      smile at a piece of apropos humour. And, let me tell thee, a smile upon
+      the lips, or a sparkling in the eye, must have had its correspondent
+      cheerfulness in a heart so sincere as her's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tell the doctor I will make over all my possessions, and all my
+      reversions, to him, if he will but prolong her life for one twelvemonth to
+      come. But for one twelvemonth, Jack!&mdash;He will lose all his reputation
+      with me, and I shall treat him as Belton did his doctor, if he cannot do
+      this for me, on so young a subject. But nineteen, Belford!&mdash;nineteen
+      cannot so soon die of grief, if the doctor deserve that title; and so
+      blooming and so fine a constitution as she had but three or four months
+      ago!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what need the doctor to ask her leave to write to her friends? Could
+      he not have done it without letting her know any thing of the matter? That
+      was one of the likeliest means that could be thought of to bring some of
+      them about her, since she is so desirous to see them. At least it would
+      have induced them to send up her favourite Norton. But these plaguy solemn
+      fellows are great traders in parade. They'll cram down your throat their
+      poisonous drugs by wholesale, without asking you a question; and have the
+      assurance to own it to be prescribing: but when they are to do good, they
+      are to require your consent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How the dear creature's character rises in every line of thy letters! But
+      it is owing to the uncommon occasions she has met with that she blazes out
+      upon us with such a meridian lustre. How, but for those occasions, could
+      her noble sentiments, her prudent consideration, her forgiving spirit, her
+      exalted benevolence, and her equanimity in view of the most shocking
+      prospects (which set her in a light so superior to all her sex, and even
+      to the philosophers of antiquity) have been manifested?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know thou wilt think I am going to claim some merit to myself, for
+      having given her such opportunities of signalizing her virtues. But I am
+      not; for, if I did, I must share that merit with her implacable relations,
+      who would justly be entitled to two-thirds of it, at least: and my soul
+      disdains a partnership in any thing with such a family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this I mention as an answer to thy reproaches, that I could be so
+      little edified by perfections, to which, thou supposest, I was for so long
+      together daily and hourly a personal witness&mdash;when, admirable as she
+      was in all she said, and in all she did, occasion had not at that time
+      ripened, and called forth, those amazing perfections which now astonish
+      and confound me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hence it is that I admire her more than ever; and that my love for her is
+      less personal, as I may say, more intellectual, than ever I thought it
+      could be to a woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hence also it is that I am confident (would it please the Fates to spare
+      her, and make her mine) I could love her with a purity that would draw on
+      my own FUTURE, as well as ensure her TEMPORAL, happiness.&mdash;And hence,
+      by necessary consequence, shall I be the most miserable of all men, if I
+      am deprived of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou severely reflectest upon me for my levity: the Abbey instance in
+      thine eye, I suppose. And I will be ingenuous enough to own, that as thou
+      seest not my heart, there may be passages, in every one of my letters,
+      which (the melancholy occasion considered) deserve thy most pointed
+      rebukes. But faith, Jack, thou art such a tragi-comical mortal, with thy
+      leaden aspirations at one time, and thy flying hour-glasses and dreaming
+      terrors at another, that, as Prior says, What serious is, thou turn'st to
+      farce; and it is impossible to keep within the bounds of decorum or
+      gravity when one reads what thou writest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But to restrain myself (for my constitutional gayety was ready to run away
+      with me again) I will repeat, I must ever repeat, that I am most
+      egregiously affected with the circumstances of the case: and, were this
+      paragon actually to quit the world, should never enjoy myself one hour
+      together, though I were to live to the age of Methusalem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed it is to this deep concern, that my levity is owing: for I struggle
+      and struggle, and try to buffet down my cruel reflections as they rise;
+      and when I cannot, I am forced, as I have often said, to try to make
+      myself laugh, that I may not cry; for one or other I must do: and is it
+      not philosophy carried to the highest pitch, for a man to conquer such
+      tumults of soul as I am sometimes agitated by, and, in the very height of
+      the storm, to be able to quaver out an horse-laugh?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your Seneca's, your Epictetus's, and the rest of your stoical tribe, with
+      all their apathy nonsense, could not come up to this. They could forbear
+      wry faces: bodily pains they could well enough seem to support; and that
+      was all: but the pangs of their own smitten-down souls they could not
+      laugh over, though they could at the follies of others. They read grave
+      lectures; but they were grave. This high point of philosophy, to laugh and
+      be merry in the midst of the most soul-harrowing woes, when the
+      heart-strings are just bursting asunder, was reserved for thy Lovelace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is something owing to constitution, I own; and that this is the
+      laughing-time of my life. For what a woe must that be, which for an hour
+      together can mortify a man six or seven and twenty, in high blood and
+      spirits, of a naturally gay disposition, who can sing, dance, and
+      scribble, and take and give delight in them all?&mdash;But then my grief,
+      as my joy, is sharper-pointed than most other men's; and, like what Dolly
+      Welby once told me, describing the parturient throes, if there were not
+      lucid intervals, if they did not come and go, there would be no bearing
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After all, as I am so little distant from the dear creature, and as she is
+      so very ill, I think I cannot excuse myself from making her one visit.
+      Nevertheless, if I thought her so near&mdash;[what word shall I use, that
+      my soul is not shocked at!] and that she would be too much discomposed by
+      a visit, I would not think of it.&mdash;Yet how can I bear the
+      recollection, that, when she last went from me (her innocence so
+      triumphant over my premeditated guilt, as was enough to reconcile her to
+      life, and to set her above the sense of injuries so nobly sustained, that)
+      she should then depart with an incurable fracture in her heart; and that
+      that should be the last time I should ever see her!&mdash;How, how, can I
+      bear this reflection!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O Jack! how my conscience, that gives edge even to thy blunt reflections,
+      tears me!&mdash;Even this moment would I give the world to push the cruel
+      reproacher from me by one ray of my usual gayety!&mdash;Sick of myself!&mdash;sick
+      of the remembrance of my vile plots; and of my light, my momentary ecstacy
+      [villanous burglar, felon, thief, that I was!] which has brought on me
+      such durable and such heavy remorse! what would I give that I had not been
+      guilty of such barbarous and ungrateful perfidy to the most excellent of
+      God's creatures!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I would end, methinks, with one sprightlier line!&mdash;but it will not
+      be.&mdash; Let me tell thee then, and rejoice at it if thou wilt, that I
+      am
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Inexpressibly miserable!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0054" id="link2H_4_0054">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. SAT. MORNING, SEPT. 2.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have some little pleasure given me by thine, just now brought me. I see
+      now that thou hast a little humanity left. Would to Heaven, for the dear
+      lady's sake, as well as for thy own, that thou hadst rummaged it up from
+      all the dark forgotten corners of thy soul a little sooner!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady is alive, and serene, and calm, and has all her noble intellects
+      clear and strong: but nineteen will not however save her. She says she
+      will now content herself with her closet duties, and the visits of the
+      parish-minister; and will not attempt to go out. Nor, indeed, will she, I
+      am afraid, ever walk up or down a pair of stairs again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sorry at my soul to have this to say: but it would be a folly to
+      flatter thee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to thy seeing her, I believe the least hint of that sort, now, would
+      cut off some hours of her life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What has contributed to her serenity, it seems, is, that taking the alarm
+      her fits gave her, she has entirely finished, and signed and sealed, her
+      last will: which she had deferred till this time, in hopes, as she said,
+      of some good news from Harlowe-place; which would have induced her to
+      alter some passages in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Howe's letter was not given her till four in the afternoon,
+      yesterday; at which time the messenger returned for an answer. She
+      admitted him into her presence in the dining-room, ill as she then was,
+      and she would have written a few lines, as desired by Miss Howe; but, not
+      being able to hold a pen, she bid the messenger tell her that she hoped to
+      be well enough to write a long letter by the next day's post; and would
+      not now detain him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      *** SATURDAY, SIX IN THE AFTERNOON.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I called just now, and found the lady writing to Miss Howe. She made me a
+      melancholy compliment, that she showed me not Miss Howe's letter, because
+      I should soon have that and all her papers before me. But she told me that
+      Miss Howe had very considerably obviated to Colonel Morden several things
+      which might have occasioned misapprehensions between him and me; and had
+      likewise put a lighter construction, for the sake of peace, on some of
+      your actions than they deserved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She added, that her cousin Morden was warmly engaged in her favour with
+      her friends: and one good piece of news Miss Howe's letter contained, that
+      her father would give up some matters, which (appertaining to her of
+      right) would make my executorship the easier in some particulars that had
+      given her a little pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She owned she had been obliged to leave off (in the letter she was
+      writing) through weakness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Will. says he shall reach you to-night. I shall send in the morning; and,
+      if I find her not worse, will ride to Edgware, and return in the
+      afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0055" id="link2H_4_0055">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TUESDAY, AUG. 29.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MY DEAREST FRIEND,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We are at length returned to our own home. I had intended to wait on you
+      in London: but my mother is very ill&mdash;Alas! my dear, she is very ill
+      indeed&mdash;and you are likewise very ill&mdash;I see that by your's of
+      the 25th&mdash; What shall I do, if I lose two such near, and dear, and
+      tender friends? She was taken ill yesterday at our last stage in our
+      return home&mdash;and has a violent surfeit and fever, and the doctors are
+      doubtful about her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If she should die, how will all my pertnesses to her fly in my face!&mdash;
+      Why, why, did I ever vex her? She says I have been all duty and obedience!&mdash;She
+      kindly forgets all my faults, and remembers every thing I have been so
+      happy as to oblige her in. And this cuts me to the heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I see, I see, my dear, that you are very bad&mdash;and I cannot bear it.
+      Do, my beloved Miss Harlowe, if you can be better, do, for my sake, be
+      better; and send me word of it. Let the bearer bring me a line. Be sure
+      you send me a line. If I lose you, my more than sister, and lose my
+      mother, I shall distrust my own conduct, and will not marry. And why
+      should I?&mdash;Creeping, cringing in courtship!&mdash;O my dear, these
+      men are a vile race of reptiles in our day, and mere bears in their own.
+      See in Lovelace all that is desirable in figure, in birth, and in fortune:
+      but in his heart a devil!&mdash;See in Hickman&mdash;Indeed, my dear, I
+      cannot tell what any body can see in Hickman, to be always preaching in
+      his favour. And is it to be expected that I, who could hardly bear control
+      from a mother, should take it from a husband?&mdash;from one too, who has
+      neither more wit, nor more understanding, than myself? yet he to be my
+      instructor!&mdash;So he will, I suppose; but more by the insolence of his
+      will than by the merit of his counsel. It is in vain to think of it. I
+      cannot be a wife to any man breathing whom I at present know. This I the
+      rather mention now, because, on my mother's danger, I know you will be for
+      pressing me the sooner to throw myself into another sort of protection,
+      should I be deprived of her. But no more of this subject, or indeed of any
+      other; for I am obliged to attend my mamma, who cannot bear me out of her
+      sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      *** WEDNESDAY, AUG. 30.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My mother, Heaven be praised! has had a fine night, and is much better.
+      Her fever has yielded to medicine! and now I can write once more with
+      freedom and ease to you, in hopes that you also are better. If this be
+      granted to my prayers, I shall again be happy, I write with still the
+      more alacrity as I have an opportunity given me to touch upon a subject in
+      which you are nearly concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You must know then, my dear, that your cousin Morden has been here with
+      me. He told me of an interview he had on Monday at Lord M.'s with
+      Lovelace; and asked me abundance of questions about you, and about that
+      villanous man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could have raised a fine flame between them if I would: but, observing
+      that he is a man of very lively passions, and believing you would be
+      miserable if any thing should happen to him from a quarrel with a man who
+      is known to have so many advantages at his sword, I made not the worst of
+      the subjects we talked of. But, as I could not tell untruths in his
+      favour, you must think I said enough to make him curse the wretch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I don't find, well as they all used to respect Colonel Morden, that he has
+      influence enough upon them to bring them to any terms of reconciliation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What can they mean by it!&mdash;But your brother is come home, it seems:
+      so, the honour of the house, the reputation of the family, is all the cry!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel is exceedingly out of humour with them all. Yet has he not
+      hitherto, it seems, seen your brutal brother.&mdash;I told him how ill you
+      were, and communicated to him some of the contents of your letter. He
+      admired you, cursed Lovelace, and raved against all your family.&mdash;He
+      declared that they were all unworthy of you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At his earnest request, I permitted him to take some brief notes of such
+      of the contents of your letter to me as I thought I could read to him;
+      and, particularly, of your melancholy conclusion.*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter XXXII. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He says that none of your friends think you are so ill as you are; nor
+      will believe it. He is sure they all love you; and that dearly too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If they do, their present hardness of heart will be the subject of
+      everlasting remorse to them should you be taken from us&mdash;but now it
+      seems [barbarous wretches!] you are to suffer within an inch of your life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He asked me questions about Mr. Belford: and, when he had heard what I had
+      to say of that gentleman, and his disinterested services to you, he raved
+      at some villanous surmises thrown out against you by that officious
+      pedant, Brand: who, but for his gown, I find, would come off poorly enough
+      between your cousin and Lovelace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was so uneasy about you himself, that on Thursday, the 24th, he sent up
+      an honest serious man,* one Alston, a gentleman farmer, to inquire of your
+      condition, your visiters, and the like; who brought him word that you was
+      very ill, and was put to great straits to support yourself: but as this
+      was told him by the gentlewoman of the house where you lodge, who, it
+      seems, mingled it with some tart, though deserved, reflections upon your
+      relations' cruelty, it was not credited by them: and I myself hope it
+      cannot be true; for surely you could not be so unjust, I will say, to my
+      friendship, as to suffer any inconveniencies for want of money. I think I
+      could not forgive you, if it were so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter XXIII. ibid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel (as one of your trustees) is resolved to see you put into
+      possession of your estate: and, in the mean time, he has actually engaged
+      them to remit to him for you the produce of it accrued since your
+      grandfather's death, (a very considerable sum;) and proposes himself to
+      attend you with it. But, by a hint he dropt, I find you had disappointed
+      some people's littleness, by not writing to them for money and supplies;
+      since they were determined to distress you, and to put you at defiance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like all the rest!&mdash;I hope I may say that without offence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your cousin imagines that, before a reconciliation takes place, they will
+      insist that you make such a will, as to that estate, as they shall approve
+      of: but he declares that he will not go out of England till he has seen
+      justice done you by every body; and that you shall not be imposed on
+      either by friend or foe&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By relation or foe, should he not have said?&mdash;for a friend will not
+      impose upon a friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, my dear, you are to buy your peace, if some people are to have their
+      wills!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your cousin [not I, my dear, though it was always my opinion*] says, that
+      the whole family is too rich to be either humble, considerate, or
+      contented. And as for himself, he has an ample fortune, he says, and
+      thinks of leaving it wholly to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. I. Letter X.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had this villain Lovelace consulted his worldly interest only, what a
+      fortune would he have had in you, even although your marrying him had
+      deprived you of a paternal share!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am obliged to leave off here. But having a good deal still more to
+      write, and my mother better, I will pursue the subject in another letter,
+      although I send both together. I need not say how much I am, and will ever
+      be,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your affectionate, &amp;c. ANNA HOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0056" id="link2H_4_0056">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE THURSDAY, AUGUST 31.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel thought fit once, in praise of Lovelace's generosity, to say,
+      that (as a man of honour ought) he took to himself all the blame, and
+      acquitted you of the consequences of the precipitate step you had taken;
+      since he said, as you loved him, and was in his power, he must have had
+      advantages which he would not have had, if you had continued at your
+      father's, or at any friend's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mighty generous, I said, (were it as he supposed,) in such insolent
+      reflectors, the best of them; who pretend to clear reputations which never
+      had been sullied but by falling into their dirty acquaintance! but in this
+      case, I averred, that there was no need of any thing but the strictest
+      truth, to demonstrate Lovelace to be the blackest of villains, you the
+      brightest of innocents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This he catched at; and swore, that if any thing uncommon or barbarous in
+      the seduction were to come out, as indeed one of the letters you had
+      written to your friends, and which had been shown him, very strongly
+      implied; that is to say, my dear, if any thing worse than perjury, breach
+      of faith, and abuse of a generous confidence, were to appear! [sorry
+      fellows!] he would avenge his cousin to the utmost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I urged your apprehensions on this head from your last letter to me: but
+      he seemed capable of taking what I know to be real greatness of soul, in
+      an unworthy sense: for he mentioned directly upon it the expectations your
+      friends had, that you should (previous to any reconciliation with them)
+      appear in a court of justice against the villain&mdash;IF you could do it
+      with the advantage to yourself that I hinted might be done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And truly, if I would have heard him, he had indelicacy enough to have
+      gone into the nature of the proof of the crime upon which they wanted to
+      have Lovelace arraigned. Yet this is a man improved by travel and
+      learning!&mdash;Upon my word, my dear, I, who have been accustomed to the
+      most delicate conversation ever since I had the honour to know you,
+      despise this sex from the gentleman down to the peasant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon the whole, I find that Mr. Morden has a very slender notion of
+      women's virtue in particular cases: for which reason I put him down,
+      though your favourite, as one who is not entitled to cast the first stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I never knew a man who deserved to be well thought of himself for his
+      morals, who had a slight opinion of the virtue of our sex in general. For
+      if, from the difference of temperament and education, modesty, chastity,
+      and piety too, are not to be found in our sex preferably to the other, I
+      should think it a sign of much worse nature in ours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He even hinted (as from your relations indeed) that it is impossible but
+      there most be some will where there is much love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These sort of reflections are enough to make a woman, who has at heart her
+      own honour and the honour of her sex, to look about her, and consider what
+      she is doing when she enters into an intimacy with these wretches; since
+      it is plain, that whenever she throws herself into the power of a man, and
+      leaves for him her parents or guardians, every body will believe it to be
+      owing more to her good luck than to her discretion if there be not an end
+      of her virtue: and let the man be ever such a villain to her, she must
+      take into her own bosom a share of his guilty baseness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am writing to general cases. You, my dear, are out of the question. Your
+      story, as I have heretofore said, will afford a warning as well as an
+      example:* For who is it that will not infer, that if a person of your
+      fortune, character, and merit, could not escape ruin, after she had put
+      herself into the power of her hyæna, what can a thoughtless, fond, giddy
+      creature expect?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. IV. Letter XXIII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every man, they will say, is not a LOVELACE&mdash;True: but then, neither
+      is every woman a CLARISSA. And allow for the one and for the other the
+      example must be of general use.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I prepared Mr. Morden to expect your appointment of Mr. Belford for an
+      office that we both hope he will have no occasion to act in (nor any body
+      else) for many, very many years to come. He was at first startled at it:
+      but, upon hearing such of your reasons as had satisfied me, he only said
+      that such an appointment, were it to take place, would exceedingly affect
+      his other cousins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He told me, he had a copy of Lovelace's letter to you, imploring your
+      pardon, and offering to undergo any penance to procure it;* and also of
+      your answer to it.**
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VII. Letter LXXIX. ** Ibid. Letter LXXXIII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I find he is willing to hope that a marriage between you may still take
+      place; which, he says, will heal up all breaches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I would have written much more&mdash;on the following particulars
+      especially; to wit, of the wretched man's hunting you out of your
+      lodgings: of your relations' strange implacableness, [I am in haste, and
+      cannot think of a word you would like better just now:] of your last
+      letter to Lovelace, to divert him from pursuing you: of your aunt Hervey's
+      penitential conversation with Mrs. Norton: of Mr. Wyerley's renewed
+      address: of your lessons to me in Hickman's behalf, so approvable, were
+      the man more so than he is; but indeed I am offended with him at this
+      instant, and have been for these two days: of your sister's
+      transportation-project: and of twenty and twenty other things: but am
+      obliged to leave off, to attend my two cousins Spilsworth, and my cousin
+      Herbert, who are come to visit us on account of my mother's illness&mdash;I
+      will therefore dispatch these by Rogers; and if my mother gets well soon
+      (as I hope she will) I am resolved to see you in town, and tell you every
+      thing that now is upon my mind; and particularly, mingling my soul with
+      your's, how much I am, and will ever be, my dearest, dear friend,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your affectionate ANNA HOWE.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Let Rogers bring one line, I pray you.  I thought to have sent him this
+      afternoon; but he cannot set out till to-morrow morning early.
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+I cannot express how much your staggering lines and your conclusion
+      affect me!
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0057" id="link2H_4_0057">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. SUNDAY EVENING, SEPT. 3.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wonder not at the impatience your servant tells me you express to hear
+      from me. I was designing to write you a long letter, and was just returned
+      from Smith's for that purpose; but, since you are urgent, you must be
+      contented with a short one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I attended the lady this morning, just before I set out for Edgware. She
+      was so ill over-night, that she was obliged to leave unfinished her letter
+      to Miss Howe. But early this morning she made an end of it, and just
+      sealed it up as I came. She was so fatigued with writing, that she told me
+      she would lie down after I was gone, and endeavour to recruit her spirits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had sent for Mr. Goddard, when she was so ill last night; and not
+      being able to see him out of her own chamber, he, for the first time, saw
+      her house, as she calls it. He was extremely shocked and concerned at it;
+      and chid Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick for not persuading her to have such an
+      object removed form her bed-chamber: and when they excused themselves on
+      the little authority it was reasonable to suppose they must have with a
+      lady so much their superior, he reflected warmly on those who had more
+      authority, and who left her to proceed with such a shocking and solemn
+      whimsy, as he called it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is placed near the window, like a harpsichord, though covered over to
+      the ground: and when she is so ill that she cannot well go to her closet,
+      she writes and reads upon it, as others would upon a desk or table. But
+      (only as she was so ill last night) she chooses not to see any body in
+      that apartment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went to Edgware; and, returning in the evening, attended her again. She
+      had a letter brought her from Mrs. Norton (a long one, as it seems by its
+      bulk,) just before I came. But she had not opened it; and said, that as
+      she was pretty calm and composed, she was afraid to look into the
+      contents, lest she should be ruffled; expecting now to hear of nothing
+      that could do her good or give her pleasure from that good woman's dear
+      hard-hearted neighbours, as she called her own relations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing her so weak and ill, I withdrew; nor did she desire me to tarry, as
+      sometimes she does, when I make a motion to depart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had some hints, as I went away, from Mrs. Smith, that she had
+      appropriated that evening to some offices, that were to save trouble, as
+      she called it, after her departure; and had been giving orders to her
+      nurse, and to Mrs. Lovick, and Mrs. Smith, about what she would have done
+      when she was gone; and I believe they were of a very delicate and
+      affecting nature; but Mrs. Smith descended not to particulars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor had been with her, as well as Mr. Goddard; and they both joined
+      with great earnestness to persuade her to have her house removed out of
+      her sight; but she assured them that it gave her pleasure and spirits;
+      and, being a necessary preparation, she wondered they should be surprised
+      at it, when she had not any of her family about her, or any old
+      acquaintance, on whose care and exactness in these punctilios, as she
+      called them, she could rely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor told Mrs. Smith, that he believed she would hold out long
+      enough for any of her friends to have notice of her state, and to see her;
+      and hardly longer; and since he could not find that she had any certainty
+      of seeing her cousin Morden, (which made it plain that her relations
+      continued inflexible,) he would go home, and write a letter to her father,
+      take it as she would.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had spent great part of the day in intense devotions; and to-morrow
+      morning she is to have with her the same clergyman who has often attended
+      her; from whose hands she will again receive the sacrament.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou seest, Lovelace, that all is preparing, that all will be ready; and I
+      am to attend her to-morrow afternoon, to take some instructions from her
+      in relation to my part in the office to be performed for her. And thus,
+      omitting the particulars of a fine conversation between her and Mrs.
+      Lovick, which the latter acquainted me with, as well as another between
+      her and the doctor and apothecary, which I had a design this evening to
+      give you, they being of a very affecting nature, I have yielded to your
+      impatience.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   I shall dispatch Harry to-morrow morning early with her letter to Miss
+      Howe: an offer she took very kindly; as she is extremely
+      solicitous to lessen that young lady's apprehensions for her on
+      not hearing from her by Saturday's post: and yet, if she write
+      truth, as no doubt but she will, how can her apprehensions be
+      lessened?
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0058" id="link2H_4_0058">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE SATURDAY, SEPT. 2.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I write, my beloved Miss Howe, though very ill still: but I could not by
+      the return of your messenger; for I was then unable to hold a pen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your mother's illness (as mentioned in the first part of your letter,)
+      gave me great distress for you, till I read farther. You bewailed it as
+      became a daughter so sensible. May you be blessed in each other for many,
+      very many years to come! I doubt not, that even this sudden and grievous
+      indisposition, by the frame it has put you in, and the apprehension it has
+      given you of losing so dear a mother, will contribute to the happiness I
+      wish you: for, alas! my dear, we seldom know how to value the blessings we
+      enjoy, till we are in danger of losing them, or have actually lost them:
+      and then, what would we give to have them restored to us!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What, I wonder, has again happened between you and Mr. Hickman? Although I
+      know not, I dare say it is owing to some petty petulance, to some
+      half-ungenerous advantage taken of his obligingness and assiduity. Will
+      you never, my dear, give the weight you and all our sex ought to give to
+      the qualities of sobriety and regularity of life and manners in that sex?
+      Must bold creatures, and forward spirits, for ever, and by the best and
+      wisest of us, as well as by the indiscreetest, be the most kindly treated?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My dear friends know not that I have actually suffered within less than an
+      inch of my life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Mr. Brand! he meant well, I believe. I am afraid all will turn
+      heavily upon him, when he probably imagined that he was taking the best
+      method to oblige. But were he not to have been so light of belief, and so
+      weakly officious; and had given a more favourable, and, it would be
+      strange if I could not say, a juster report; things would have been,
+      nevertheless, exactly as they are.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must lay down my pen. I am very ill. I believe I shall be better
+      by-and-by. The bad writing would betray me, although I had a mind to keep
+      from you what the event must soon&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now I resume my trembling pen. Excuse the unsteady writing. It will be so&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have wanted no money: so don't be angry about such a trifle as money.
+      Yet I am glad of what you inclined me to hope, that my friends will give
+      up the produce of my grandfather's estate since it has been in their
+      hands: because, knowing it to be my right, and that they could not want
+      it, I had already disposed of a good part of it; and could only hope they
+      would be willing to give it up at my last request. And now how rich shall
+      I think myself in this my last stage!&mdash;And yet I did not want before&mdash;indeed
+      I did not&mdash;for who, that has many superfluities, can be said to want!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Do not, my dear friend, be concerned that I call it my last stage; For
+      what is even the long life which in high health we wish for? What, but, as
+      we go along, a life of apprehension, sometimes for our friends, oftener
+      for ourselves? And at last, when arrived at the old age we covet, one
+      heavy loss or deprivation having succeeded another, we see ourselves
+      stript, as I may say, of every one we loved; and find ourselves exposed,
+      as uncompanionable poor creatures, to the slights, to the contempts, of
+      jostling youth, who want to push us off the stage, in hopes to possess
+      what we have:&mdash;and, superadded to all, our own infirmities every day
+      increasing: of themselves enough to make the life we wished for the
+      greatest disease of all! Don't you remember the lines of Howard, which
+      once you read to me in my ivy-bower?*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * These are the lines the lady refers to:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      From death we rose to life: 'tis but the same,
+      Through life to pass again from whence we came.
+      With shame we see our PASSIONS can prevail,
+      Where reason, certainty, and virtue fail.
+      HONOUR, that empty name, can death despise;    |
+      SCORN'D LOVE to death, as to a refuge, flies;  |
+      And SORROW waits for death with longing eyes.  |
+      HOPE triumphs o'er the thoughts of death; and FATE
+      Cheats fools, and flatters the unfortunate.
+      We fear to lose, what a small time must waste,
+      Till life itself grows the disease at last.
+      Begging for life, we beg for more decay,
+      And to be long a dying only pray.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In the disposition of what belongs to me, I have endeavoured to do every
+      thing in the justest and best manner I could think of; putting myself in
+      my relations' places, and, in the greater points, ordering my matters as
+      if no misunderstanding had happened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope they will not think much of some bequests where wanted, and where
+      due from my gratitude: but if they should, what is done, is done; and I
+      cannot now help it. Yet I must repeat, that I hope, I hope, I have pleased
+      every one of them. For I would not, on any account, have it thought that,
+      in my last disposition, any thing undaughterly, unsisterly, or unlike a
+      kinswoman, should have had place in a mind that is a truly free (as I will
+      presume to say) from all resentment, that it now overflows with gratitude
+      and blessings for the good I have received, although it be not all that my
+      heart wished to receive. Were it even an hardship that I was not favoured
+      with more, what is it but an hardship of half a year, against the most
+      indulgent goodness of eighteen years and an half, that ever was shown to a
+      daughter?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My cousin, you tell me, thinks I was off my guard, and that I was taken at
+      some advantage. Indeed, my dear, I was not. Indeed I gave no room for
+      advantage to be taken of me. I hope, one day, that will be seen, if I have
+      the justice done me which Mr. Belford assures me of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I should hope that my cousin has not taken the liberties which you (by an
+      observation not, in general, unjust) seem to charge him with. For it is
+      sad to think, that the generality of that sex should make so light of
+      crimes, which they justly hold so unpardonable in their own most intimate
+      relations of our's&mdash;yet cannot commit them without doing such
+      injuries to other families as they think themselves obliged to resent unto
+      death, when offered to their own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But we women are too often to blame on this head; since the most virtuous
+      among us seldom make virtue the test of their approbation of the other
+      sex; insomuch that a man may glory in his wickedness of this sort without
+      being rejected on that account, even to the faces of women of
+      unquestionable virtue. Hence it is, that a libertine seldom thinks himself
+      concerned so much as to save appearances: And what is it not that our sex
+      suffers in their opinion on this very score? And what have I, more than
+      many others, to answer for on this account in the world's eye?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      May my story be a warning to all, how they prefer a libertine to a man of
+      true honour; and how they permit themselves to be misled (where they mean
+      the best) by the specious, yet foolish hope of subduing riveted habits,
+      and, as I may say, of altering natures!&mdash;The more foolish, as
+      constant experience might convince us, that there is hardly one in ten, of
+      even tolerably happy marriages, in which the wife keeps the hold in the
+      husband's affections, which she had in the lover's. What influence then
+      can she hope to have over the morals of an avowed libertine, who marries
+      perhaps for conveniency, who despises the tie, and whom, it is too
+      probable, nothing but old age, or sickness, or disease, (the consequence
+      of ruinous riot,) can reclaim?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am very glad you gave my cous&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SUNDAY MORNING, SEPT. 3, SIX O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hither I had written, and was forced to quit my pen. And so much weaker
+      and worse I grew, that had I resumed it, to have closed here, it must have
+      been with such trembling unsteadiness, that it would have given you more
+      concern for me, than the delay of sending it away by last night's post can
+      do. I deferred it, therefore, to see how it would please God to deal with
+      me. And I find myself, after a better night than I expected, lively and
+      clear; and hope to give a proof that I do, in the continuation of my
+      letter, which I will pursue as currently as if I had not left off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am glad that you so considerately gave my cousin Morden favourable
+      impressions of Mr. Belford; since, otherwise, some misunderstanding might
+      have happened between them: for although I hope this Mr. Belford is an
+      altered man, and in time will be a reformed one, yet is he one of those
+      high spirits that has been accustomed to resent imaginary indignities to
+      himself, when, I believe, he has not been studious to avoid giving real
+      offences to others; men of this cast acting as if they thought all the
+      world was made to bar with them, and they with nobody in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Lovelace, you tell me, thought fit to intrust my cousin with the copy
+      of his letter of penitence to me, and with my answer to it, rejecting him
+      and his suit: and Mr. Belford, moreover, acquaints me, how much concerned
+      Mr. Lovelace is for his baseness, and how freely he accused himself to my
+      cousin. This shows, that the true bravery of spirit is to be above doing a
+      vile action; and that nothing subjects the human mind to so much meanness,
+      as the consciousness of having done wilful wrong to our fellow creatures.
+      How low, how sordid, are the submissions which elaborate baseness compels!
+      that that wretch could treat me as he did, and then could so poorly creep
+      to me for forgiveness of crimes so wilful, so black, and so premeditated!
+      how my soul despised him for his meanness on a certain occasion, of which
+      you will one day be informed!* and him whose actions one's heart despises,
+      it is far from being difficult to reject, had one ever so partially
+      favoured him once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * Meaning his meditated second violence (See Vol. VI. Letter XXXVI.) and
+      his succeeding letters to her, supplicating for her pardon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet am I glad this violent spirit can thus creep; that, like a poisonous
+      serpent, he can thus coil himself, and hide his head in his own narrow
+      circlets; because this stooping, this abasement, gives me hope that no
+      farther mischief will ensue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All my apprehension is, what may happen when I am gone; lest then my
+      cousin, or any other of my family, should endeavour to avenge me, and risk
+      their own more precious lives on that account.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If that part of Cain's curse were Mr. Lovelace's, to be a fugitive and
+      vagabond in the earth; that is to say, if it meant no more harm to him
+      than that he should be obliged to travel, as it seems he intends, (though
+      I wish him no ill in his travels;) and I could know it; then should I be
+      easy in the hoped-for safety of my friends from his skilful violence&mdash;Oh!
+      that I could hear he was a thousand miles off!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I began this letter, I did not think I could have run to such a
+      length. But 'tis to YOU, my dearest friend, and you have a title to the
+      spirits you raise and support; for they are no longer mine, and will
+      subside the moment I cease writing to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what do you bid me hope for, when you tell me that, if your mother's
+      health will permit, you will see me in town? I hope your mother's health
+      will be perfected as you wish; but I dare not promise myself so great a
+      favour; so great a blessing, I will call it&mdash;and indeed I know not if
+      I should be able to bear it now!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet one comfort it is in your power to give me; and that is, let me know,
+      and very speedily it must be, if you wish to oblige me, that all matters
+      are made up between you and Mr. Hickman; to whom, I see, you are resolved,
+      with all your bravery of spirit, to owe a multitude of obligations for his
+      patience with your flightiness. Think of this, my dear proud friend! and
+      think, likewise, of what I have often told you, that PRIDE, in man or
+      woman, is an extreme that hardly ever fails, sooner or later, to bring
+      forth its mortifying CONTRARY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      May you, my dear Miss Howe, have no discomforts but what you make to
+      yourself! as it will be in your own power to lessen such as these, they
+      ought to be your punishment if you do not. There is no such thing as
+      perfect happiness here, since the busy mind will make to itself evils,
+      were it to find none. You will, therefore, pardon this limited wish,
+      strange as it may appear, till you consider it: for to wish you no
+      infelicity, either within or without you, were to wish you what can never
+      happen in this world; and what perhaps ought not to be wished for, if by a
+      wish one could give one's friend such an exemption; since we are not to
+      live here always.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We must not, in short, expect that our roses will grow without thorns: but
+      then they are useful and instructive thorns: which, by pricking the
+      fingers of the too-hasty plucker, teach future caution. And who knows not
+      that difficulty gives poignancy to our enjoyments; which are apt to lose
+      their relish with us when they are over easily obtained?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must conclude&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      God for ever bless you, and all you love and honour, and reward you here
+      and hereafter for your kindness to
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your ever obliged and affectionate CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0059" id="link2H_4_0059">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE [IN ANSWER TO HER'S OF THURSDAY,
+      AUGUST 24. SEE LETTER XXX. OF THIS VOLUME.] THURSDAY, AUG. 31.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had written sooner, my dearest young lady, but that I have been
+      endeavouring, ever since the receipt of your last letter, to obtain a
+      private audience of your mother, in hopes of leave to communicate it to
+      her. But last night I was surprised by an invitation to breakfast at
+      Harlowe-place this morning; and the chariot came early to fetch me&mdash;an
+      honour I did not expect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I came, I found there was to be a meeting of all your family with
+      Col. Morden, at Harlowe-place; and it was proposed by your mother, and
+      consented to, that I should be present. Your cousin, I understand, had
+      with difficulty brought this meeting to bear; for your brother had before
+      industriously avoided all conversation with him on the affecting subject;
+      urging that it was not necessary to talk to Mr. Morden upon it, who, being
+      a remoter relation than themselves, had no business to make himself a
+      judge of their conduct to their daughter, their niece, and their sister;
+      especially as he had declared himself in her favour; adding, that he
+      should hardly have patience to be questioned by Mr. Morden on that head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was in hopes that your mother would have given me an opportunity of
+      talking with her alone before the company met; but she seemed studiously
+      to avoid it; I dare say, however, not with her inclination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was ordered in just before Mr. Morden came; and was bid to sit down&mdash;
+      which I did in the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel, when he came, began the discourse, by renewing, as he called
+      it, his solicitations in your favour. He set before them your penitence;
+      your ill health; your virtue, though once betrayed, and basely used; he
+      then read to them Mr. Lovelace's letter, a most contrite one indeed,* and
+      your high-souled answer;** for that was what he justly called it; and he
+      treated as it deserved Mr. Brand's officious information, (of which I had
+      before heard he had made them ashamed,) by representations founded upon
+      inquiries made by Mr. Alston,*** whom he had procured to go up on purpose
+      to acquaint himself with your manner of life, and what was meant by the
+      visits of that Mr. Belford.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VII. LXXIX. ** Ibid. Letter LXXXIII. *** See Vol. VIII. Letter
+      XXIII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He then told them, that he had the day before waited upon Miss Howe, and
+      had been shown a letter from you to her,* and permitted to take some
+      memorandums from it, in which you appeared, both by handwriting, and the
+      contents, to be so very ill, that it seemed doubtful to him, if it were
+      possible for you to get over it. And when he read to them that passage,
+      where you ask Miss Howe, 'What can be done for you now, were your friends
+      to be ever so favourable? and wish for their sakes, more than for your
+      own, that they would still relent;' and then say, 'You are very ill&mdash;you
+      must drop your pen&mdash;and ask excuse for your crooked writing; and
+      take, as it were, a last farewell of Miss Howe;&mdash;adieu, my dear,
+      adieu,' are your words&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * Ibid. Letter XXXIII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O my child! my child! said you mamma, weeping, and clasping her hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dear Madam, said your brother, be so good as to think you have more
+      children than this ungrateful one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet your sister seemed affected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your uncle Harlowe, wiping his eyes, O cousin, said he, if one thought the
+      poor girl was really so ill&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She must, said your uncle Antony. This is written to her private friend.
+      God forbid she should be quite lost!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your uncle Harlowe wished they did not carry their resentments too far.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I begged for God's sake, wringing my hands, and with a bended knee, that
+      they would permit me to go up to you; engaging to give them a faithful
+      account of the way you were in. But I was chidden by your brother; and
+      this occasioned some angry words between him and Mr. Morden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe, Sir, I believe, Madam, said your sister to her father and
+      mother, we need not trouble my cousin to read any more. It does but grieve
+      and disturb you. My sister Clary seems to be ill: I think, if Mrs. Norton
+      were permitted to go up to her, it would be right; wickedly as she has
+      acted, if she be truly penitent&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here she stopt; and every one being silent, I stood up once more, and
+      besought them to let me go; and then I offered to read a passage or two in
+      your letter to me of the 24th. But I was taken up again by your brother,
+      and this occasioned still higher words between the Colonel and him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your mother, hoping to gain upon your inflexible brother, and to divert
+      the anger of the two gentlemen from each other, proposed that the Colonel
+      should proceed in reading the minutes he had taken from your letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He accordingly read, 'of your resuming your pen; that you thought you had
+      taken your last farewell; and the rest of that very affecting passage, in
+      which you are obliged to break off more than once, and afterwards to take
+      an airing in a chair.' Your brother and sister were affected at this; and
+      he had recourse to his snuff-box. And where you comfort Miss Howe, and
+      say, 'You shall be happy;' It is more, said he, than she will let any body
+      else be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your sister called you sweet soul! but with a low voice: then grew
+      hard-hearted again; set said [sic], Nobody could help being affected by
+      your pathetic grief&mdash;but that it was your talent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel then went on to the good effect your airing had upon you; to
+      your good wishes to Miss Howe and Mr. Hickman; and to your concluding
+      sentence, that when the happy life you wished to her comes to be wound up,
+      she may be as calm and as easy at quitting it, as you hope in God you
+      shall be. Your mother could not stand this; but retired to a corner of the
+      room, and sobbed, and wept. Your father for a few minutes could not speak,
+      though he seemed inclined to say something.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your uncles were also both affected; but your brother went round to each,
+      and again reminded your mother that she had other children.&mdash;What was
+      there, he said, in what was read, but the result of the talent you had of
+      moving the passions? And he blamed them for choosing to hear read what
+      they knew their abused indulgence could not be a proof against.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This set Mr. Morden up again&mdash;Fie upon you, Cousin Harlowe, said he,
+      I see plainly to whom it is owing that all relationship and ties of blood,
+      with regard to this sweet sufferer, are laid aside. Such rigours as these
+      make it difficult for a sliding virtue ever to recover itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your brother pretended the honour of the family; and declared, that no
+      child ought to be forgiven who abandoned the most indulgent of parents
+      against warning, against the light of knowledge, as you had done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, Sir, and Ladies, said I, rising from the seat in the window, and
+      humbly turning round to each, if I may be permitted to speak, my dear Miss
+      asks only for a blessing. She does not beg to be received to favour; she
+      is very ill, and asks only for a last blessing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Come, come, good Norton, [I need not tell you who said this,] you are up
+      again with your lamentables!&mdash;A good woman, as you are, to forgive so
+      readily a crime, that has been as disgraceful to your part in her
+      education as to her family, is a weakness that would induce one to suspect
+      your virtue, if you were to be encountered by a temptation properly
+      adapted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By some such charitable logic, said Mr. Morden, as this, is my cousin
+      Arabella captivated, I doubt not. If virtue, you, Mr. James Harlowe, are
+      the most virtuous young man in the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I knew how it would be, replied your brother, in a passion, if I met Mr.
+      Morden upon this business. I would have declined it; but you, Sir, to his
+      father, would not permit me to do so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, Sir, turning to the Colonel, in no other presence&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, Cousin James, interrupted the other gentleman, that which is your
+      protection, it seems, is mine. I am not used to bear defiances thus&mdash;
+      you are my Cousin, Sir, and the son and nephew of persons as dear as near
+      to me&mdash;There he paused&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Are we, said your father, to be made still more unhappy among ourselves,
+      when the villain lives that ought to be the object of every one's
+      resentment who has either a value for the family, or for this ungrateful
+      girl?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That's the man, said your cousin, whom last Monday, as you know, I went
+      purposely to make the object of mine. But what could I say, when I found
+      him so willing to repair his crime?&mdash;And I give it as my opinion, and
+      have written accordingly to my poor cousin, that it is best for all round
+      that his offer should be accepted; and let me tell you&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tell me nothing, said your father, quite enraged, or that very vile
+      fellow! I have a rivetted hatred to him. I would rather see the rebel die
+      an hundred deaths, were it possible, than that she should give such a
+      villain as him a relation to my family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, but there is no room to think, said you mother, that she will give
+      us such a relation, my dear. The poor girl will lessen, I fear, the number
+      of our relations not increase it. If she be so ill as we are told she is,
+      let us send Mrs. Norton up to her.&mdash;That's the least we can do&mdash;
+      let us take her, however, out of the hands of that Belford.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both your uncles supported this motion; the latter part of it especially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your brother observed, in his ill-natured way, what a fine piece of
+      consistency it was in you to refuse the vile injurer, and the amends he
+      offered; yet to throw yourself upon the protection of his fast friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Harlowe was apprehensive, she said, that you would leave all you
+      could leave to that pert creature, Miss Howe, [so she called her,] if you
+      should die.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O do not, do not suppose that, my Bella, said your poor mother. I cannot
+      think of parting with my Clary&mdash;with all her faults, she is my child&mdash;her
+      reasons for her conduct are not heard&mdash;it would break my heart to
+      lose her.&mdash;I think, my dear, to your father, none so fit as I to go
+      up, if you will give me leave, and Mrs. Norton shall accompany me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a sweet motion, and your father paused upon it. Mr. Morden
+      offered his service to escort her; your uncles seemed to approve of it;
+      but your brother dashed all. I hope, Sir, said he, to his father&mdash;I
+      hope, Madam, to his mother&mdash;that you will not endeavour to recover a
+      faulty daughter by losing an unculpable son. I do declare, that if ever my
+      sister Clary darkens these doors again, I never will. I will set out,
+      Madam, the same hour you go to London, (on such an errand,) to Edinburgh;
+      and there I will reside, and try to forget that I have relations in
+      England, so near and so dear as you are now all to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Good God, said the Colonel, what a declaration is this! And suppose, Sir,
+      and suppose, Madam, [turning to your father and mother,] this should be
+      the case, whether it is better, think you, that you should lose for ever
+      such a daughter as my cousin Clary, or that your son should go to
+      Edinburgh, and reside there upon an estate which will be the better for
+      his residence upon it?&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your brother's passionate behaviour hereupon is hardly to be described. He
+      resented it as promising an alienation of the affection of the family to
+      him. And to such an height were resentments carried, every one siding with
+      him, that the Colonel, with hands and eyes lifted up, cried out, What
+      hearts of flint am I related to!&mdash;O, Cousin Harlowe, to your father,
+      are you resolved to have but one daughter?&mdash;Are you, Madam, to be
+      taught, by a son, who has no bowels, to forget you are a mother?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel turned from them to draw out his handkerchief, and could not
+      for a minute speak. The eyes of every one, but the hard-hearted brother,
+      caught tears from his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But then turning to them, (with the more indignation, as it seemed, as he
+      had been obliged to show a humanity, which, however, no brave heart should
+      be ashamed of,) I leave ye all, said he, fit company for one another. I
+      will never open my lips to any of you more upon this subject. I will
+      instantly make my will, and in me shall the dear creature have the father,
+      uncle, brother, she has lost. I will prevail upon her to take the tour of
+      France and Italy with me; nor shall she return till ye know the value of
+      such a daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And saying this, he hurried out of the room, went into the court-yard, and
+      ordered his horse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Antony Harlowe went to him there, just as he was mounting, and said he
+      hoped he should find him cooler in the evening, (for he, till then, had
+      lodged at his house,) and that then they would converse calmly, and every
+      one, mean time, would weigh all matters well.&mdash;But the angry
+      gentleman said, Cousin Harlowe, I shall endeavour to discharge the
+      obligations I owe to your civility since I have been in England; but I
+      have been so treated by that hot-headed young man, (who, as far as I know,
+      has done more to ruin his sister than Lovelace himself, and this with the
+      approbation of you all,) that I will not again enter into your doors, or
+      theirs. My servants shall have orders whither to bring what belongs to me
+      from your house. I will see my dear cousin Clary as soon as I can. And so
+      God bless you altogether!&mdash;only this one word to your nephew, if you
+      please&mdash;That he wants to be taught the difference between courage and
+      bluster; and it is happy for him, perhaps, that I am his kinsman; though I
+      am sorry he is mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wondered to hear your uncle, on his return to them all, repeat this;
+      because of the consequences it may be attended with, though I hope it will
+      not have bad ones; yet it was considered as a sort of challenge, and so it
+      confirmed every body in your brother's favour; and Miss Harlowe forgot not
+      to inveigh against that error which had brought on all these evils.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took the liberty again, but with fear and trembling, to desire leave to
+      attend you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before any other person could answer, your brother said, I suppose you
+      look upon yourself, Mrs. Norton, to be your own mistress. Pray do you want
+      our consents and courtship to go up?&mdash;If I may speak my mind, you and
+      my sister Clary are the fittest to be together.&mdash;Yet I wish you would
+      not trouble your head about our family matters, till you are desired to do
+      so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But don't you know, brother, said Miss Harlowe, that the error of any
+      branch of a family splits that family into two parties, and makes not only
+      every common friend and acquaintance, but even servants judges over both?&mdash;This
+      is one of the blessed effects of my sister Clary's fault!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There never was a creature so criminal, said your father, looking with
+      displeasure at me, who had not some weak heads to pity and side with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wept. Your mother was so good as to take me by the hand; come, good
+      woman, said she, come along with me. You have too much reason to be
+      afflicted with what afflicts us, to want additions to your grief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, my dearest young lady, I was more touched for your sake than for my
+      own; for I have been low in the world for a great number of years; and, of
+      consequence, have been accustomed to snubs and rebuffs from the affluent.
+      But I hope that patience is written as legibly on my forehead, as
+      haughtiness on that of any of my obligers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your mother led me to her chamber; and there we sat and wept together for
+      several minutes, without being able to speak either of us one word to the
+      other. At last she broke silence, asking me, if you were really and indeed
+      so ill as it was said you were?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I answered in the affirmative; and would have shown her your last letter;
+      but she declined seeing it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I would fain have procured from her the favour of a line to you, with her
+      blessing. I asked, what was intended by your brother and sister? Would
+      nothing satisfy them but your final reprobation?&mdash;I insinuated, how
+      easy it would be, did not your duty and humility govern you, to make
+      yourself independent as to circumstances; but that nothing but a blessing,
+      a last blessing, was requested by you. And many other things I urged in
+      your behalf. The following brief repetition of what she was pleased to say
+      in answer to my pleas, will give you a notion of it all; and of the
+      present situation of things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She said, 'She was very unhappy!&mdash;She had lost the little authority
+      she once had over her other children, through one child's failing! and all
+      influence over Mr. Harlowe and his brothers. Your father, she said, had
+      besought her to leave it to him to take his own methods with you; and, (as
+      she valued him,) to take no step in your favour unknown to him and your
+      uncles; yet she owned, that they were too much governed by your brother.
+      They would, however, give way in time, she knew, to a reconciliation&mdash;they
+      designed no other, for they all still loved you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Your brother and sister, she owned, were very jealous of your coming into
+      favour again;&mdash;yet could but Mr. Morden have kept his temper, and
+      stood her son's first sallies, who (having always had the family grandeur
+      in view) had carried his resentment so high, that he knew not how to
+      descend, the conferences, so abruptly broken off just now, would have
+      ended more happily; for that she had reason to think that a few
+      concessions on your part, with regard to your grandfather's estate, and
+      your cousin's engaging for your submission as from proper motives, would
+      have softened them all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mr. Brand's account of your intimacy with the friend of the obnoxious
+      man, she said, had, for the time very unhappy effects; for before that she
+      had gained some ground: but afterwards dared not, nor indeed had
+      inclination, to open her lips in your behalf. Your continued intimacy with
+      that Mr. Belford was wholly unaccountable, and as wholly inexcusable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What made the wished-for reconciliation, she said, more difficult, was,
+      first, that you yourself acknowledged yourself dishonoured; (and it was
+      too well known, that it was your own fault that you ever were in the power
+      of so great a profligate;) of consequence, that their and your disgrace
+      could not be greater than it was; yet, that you refuse to prosecute the
+      wretch. Next, that the pardon and blessing hoped for must probably be
+      attended with your marriage to the man they hate, and who hates them as
+      much: very disagreeable circumstances, she said, I must allow, to found a
+      reconciliation upon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'As to her own part, she must needs say, that if there were any hope that
+      Mr. Lovelace would become a reformed man, the letter her cousin Morden had
+      read to them from him to you, and the justice (as she hoped it was) he did
+      your character, though to his own condemnation, (his family and fortunes
+      being unexceptionable,) and all his relations earnest to be related to
+      you, were arguments that would weigh with her, could they have any with
+      your father and uncles.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To my plea of your illness, 'she could not but flatter herself, she
+      answered, that it was from lowness of spirits, and temporary dejection. A
+      young creature, she said, so very considerate as you naturally were, and
+      fallen so low, must have enough of that. Should they lose you, which God
+      forbid! the scene would then indeed be sadly changed; for then those who
+      now most resented, would be most grieved; all your fine qualities would
+      rise to their remembrance, and your unhappy error would be quite
+      forgotten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She wished you would put yourself into your cousin's protection entirely,
+      and have nothing to more to say to Mr. Belford.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I would recommend it to your most serious consideration, my dear Miss
+      Clary, whether now, as your cousin (who is your trustee for your
+      grandfather's estate,) is come, you should not give over all thoughts of
+      Mr. Lovelace's intimate friend for your executor; more especially, as that
+      gentleman's interfering in the concerns of your family, should the sad
+      event take place (which my heart aches but to think of) might be attended
+      with those consequences which you are so desirous, in other cases, to
+      obviate and prevent. And suppose, my dear young lady, you were to write
+      one letter more to each of your uncles, to let them know how ill you are?&mdash;And
+      to ask their advice, and offer to be governed by it, in relation to the
+      disposition of your estate and effects?&mdash;Methinks I wish you would.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I find they will send you up a large part of what has been received from
+      that estate since it was your's; together with your current cash which you
+      left behind you: and this by your cousin Morden, for fear you should have
+      contracted debts which may make you uneasy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They seem to expect, that you will wish to live at your grandfather's
+      house, in a private manner, if your cousin prevail not upon you to go
+      abroad for a year or two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FRIDAY MORNING.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Betty was with me just now. She tells me, that your cousin Morden is so
+      much displeased with them all, that he has refused to lodge any more at
+      your uncle Antony's; and has even taken up with inconvenient lodgings,
+      till he is provided with others to his mind. This very much concerns them;
+      and they repent their violent treatment of him: and the more, as he is
+      resolved, he says, to make you his sole executrix, and heir to all his
+      fortune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What noble fortunes still, my dearest young lady, await you! I am
+      thoroughly convinced, if it please God to preserve your life and your
+      health, that every body will soon be reconciled to you, and that you will
+      see many happy days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your mother wished me not to attend you as yet, because she hopes that I
+      may give myself that pleasure soon with every body's good liking, and even
+      at their desire. Your cousin Morden's reconciliation with them, which they
+      are very desirous of, I am ready to hope will include theirs with you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if that should happen which I so much dread, and I not with you, I
+      should never forgive myself. Let me, therefore, my dearest young lady,
+      desire you to command my attendance, if you find any danger, and if you
+      wish me peace of mind; and no consideration shall withhold me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hear that Miss Howe has obtained leave from her mother to see you; and
+      intends next week to go to town for that purpose; and (as it is believed)
+      to buy clothes for her approaching nuptials.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Hickman's mother-in-law is lately dead. Her jointure of 600£. a-year
+      is fallen to him; and she has, moreover, as an acknowledgement of his good
+      behaviour to her, left him all she was worth, which was very considerable,
+      a few legacies excepted to her own relations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These good men are uniformly good: indeed could not else be good; and
+      never fare the worse for being so. All the world agrees he will make that
+      fine young lady an excellent husband: and I am sorry they are not as much
+      agreed in her making him an excellent wife. But I hope a woman of her
+      principles would not encourage his address, if, whether she at present
+      love him or not, she thought she could not love him; or if she preferred
+      any other man to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Pocock undertakes to deliver this; but fears it will be Saturday night
+      first, if not Sunday morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      May the Almighty protect and bless you!&mdash;I long to see you&mdash;my
+      dearest young lady, I long to see you; and to fold you once more to my
+      fond heart. I dare to say happy days are coming. Be but cheerful. Give way
+      to hope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether for this world, or the other, you must be happy. Wish to live,
+      however, were it only because you are so well fitted in mind to make every
+      one happy who has the honour to know you. What signifies this transitory
+      eclipse? You are as near perfection, by all I have heard, as any creature
+      in this world can be: for here is your glory&mdash;you are brightened and
+      purified, as I may say, by your sufferings!&mdash;How I long to hear your
+      whole sad, yet instructive story, from your own lips!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For Miss Howe's sake, who, in her new engagements will so much want you;
+      for your cousin Morden's sake, for your mother's sake, if I must go on
+      farther in your family; and yet I can say, for all their sakes; and for my
+      sake, my dearest Miss Clary; let your resumed and accustomed magnanimity
+      bear you up. You have many things to do which I know not the person who
+      will do if you leave us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Join your prayers then to mine, that God will spare you to a world that
+      wants you and your example; and, although your days may seem to have been
+      numbered, who knows but that, with the good King Hezekiah, you may have
+      them prolonged? Which God grant, if it be his blessed will, to the prayers
+      of
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your JUDITH NORTON
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0060" id="link2H_4_0060">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. MONDAY, SEPT. 4.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady would not read the letter she had from Mrs. Norton till she had
+      received the Communion, for fear it should contain any thing that might
+      disturb that happy calm, which she had been endeavouring to obtain for it.
+      And when that solemn office was over, she was so composed, she said, that
+      she thought she could receive any news, however affecting, with
+      tranquillity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, in reading it, she was forced to leave off several times
+      through weakness and a dimness in her sight, of which she complained; if I
+      may say complained; for so easy and soft were her complaints, that they
+      could hardly be called such.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was very much affected at divers parts of this letter. She wept
+      several times, and sighed often. Mrs. Lovick told me, that these were the
+      gentle exclamations she broke out into, as she read:&mdash;Her unkind, her
+      cruel brother!&mdash;How unsisterly!&mdash;Poor dear woman! seeming to
+      speak of Mrs. Norton. Her kind cousin!&mdash;O these flaming spirits! And
+      then reflecting upon herself more than once&mdash;What a deep error is
+      mine!&mdash;What evils have I been the occasion of!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I was admitted to her presence, I have received, said she, a long and
+      not very pleasing letter from my dear Mrs. Norton. It will soon be in your
+      hands. I am advised against appointing you to the office you have so
+      kindly accepted of: but you must resent nothing of these things. My choice
+      will have an odd appearance to them: but it is now too late to alter it,
+      if I would.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I would fain write an answer to it, continued she: but I have no distinct
+      sight, Mr. Belford, no steadiness of fingers.&mdash;This mistiness,
+      however, will perhaps be gone by-and-by.&mdash;Then turning to Mrs.
+      Lovick, I don't think I am dying yet&mdash;not actually dying, Mrs. Lovick&mdash;for
+      I have no bodily pain&mdash;no numbnesses; no signs of immediate death, I
+      think.&mdash;And my breath, which used of late to be so short, is now
+      tolerable&mdash;my head clear, my intellects free&mdash;I think I cannot
+      be dying yet&mdash;I shall have agonies, I doubt&mdash;life will not give
+      up so blessedly easy, I fear&mdash;yet how merciful is the Almighty, to
+      give his poor creature such a sweet serenity!&mdash;'Tis what I have
+      prayed for!&mdash;What encouragement, Mrs. Lovick, so near one's
+      dissolution, to have it to hope that one's prayers are answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Smith, as well as Mrs. Lovick, was with her. They were both in tears;
+      nor had I, any more than they, power to say a word in answer: yet she
+      spoke all this, as well as what follows, with a surprising composure of
+      mind and countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, Mr. Belford, said she, assuming a still sprightlier air and accent,
+      let me talk a little to you, while I am thus able to say what I have to
+      say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lovick, don't leave us, [for the women were rising to go,] pray sit
+      down; and do you, Mrs. Smith, sit down too.&mdash;Dame Shelbourne, take
+      this key, and open the upper drawer. I will move to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did, with trembling knees. Here, Mr. Belford, is my will. It is
+      witnessed by three persons of Mr. Smith's acquaintance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I dare to hope, that my cousin Morden will give you assistance, if you
+      request it of him. My cousin Morden continued his affection for me: but as
+      I have not seen him, I leave all the trouble upon you, Mr. Belford. This
+      deed may want forms; and it does, no doubt: but the less, as I have my
+      grandfather's will almost by heart, and have often enough heard that
+      canvassed. I will lay it by itself in this corner; putting it at the
+      further end of the drawer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She then took up a parcel of letters, enclosed in one cover, sealed with
+      three seals of black wax: This, said she, I sealed up last night. The
+      cover, Sir, will let you know what is to be done with what it encloses.
+      This is the superscription [holding it close to her eyes, and rubbing
+      them]; As soon as I am certainly dead, this to be broke open by Mr.
+      Belford.&mdash;Here, Sir, I put it [placing it by the will].&mdash;These
+      folded papers are letters, and copies of letters, disposed according to
+      their dates. Miss Howe will do with those as you and she shall think fit.
+      If I receive any more, or more come when I cannot receive them, they may
+      be put into this drawer, [pulling out and pushing in the looking-glass
+      drawer,] to be given to Mr. Belford, be they from whom they will. You'll
+      be so kind as to observe that, Mrs. Lovick, and dame Shelbourne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, Sir, proceeded she, I put the keys of my apparel [putting them into
+      the drawer with her papers]. All is in order, and the inventory upon them,
+      and an account of what I have disposed of: so that nobody need to ask Mrs.
+      Smith any questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There will be no immediate need to open or inspect the trunks which
+      contain my wearing apparel. Mrs. Norton will open them, or order somebody
+      to do it for her, in your presence, Mrs. Lovick; for so I have directed in
+      my will. They may be sealed up now: I shall never more have occasion to
+      open them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She then, though I expostulated with her to the contrary, caused me to
+      seal them up with my seal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After this, she locked up the drawer where were her papers; first taking
+      out her book of meditations, as she called it; saying, she should,
+      perhaps, have use for that; and then desired me to take the key of that
+      drawer; for she should have no further occasion for that neither.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this in so composed and cheerful a manner, that we were equally
+      surprised and affected with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You can witness for me, Mrs. Smith, and so can you, Mrs. Lovick, proceeded
+      she, if any one ask after my life and conversation, since you have known
+      me, that I have been very orderly; have kept good hours; and never have
+      lain out of your house but when I was in prison; and then you know I could
+      not help it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O, Lovelace! that thou hadst heard her or seen her, unknown to herself, on
+      this occasion!&mdash;Not one of us could speak a word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall leave the world in perfect charity, proceeded she. And turning
+      towards the women, don't be so much concerned for me, my good friends.
+      This is all but needful preparation; and I shall be very happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then again rubbing her eyes, which she said were misty, and looked more
+      intently round upon each, particularly on me&mdash;God bless you all! said
+      she; how kindly are you concerned for me!&mdash;Who says I am friendless?
+      Who says I am abandoned, and among strangers?&mdash;Good Mr. Belford,
+      don't be so generously humane!&mdash;Indeed [putting her handkerchief to
+      her charming eyes,] you will make me less happy, than I am sure you wish
+      me to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While we were thus solemnly engaged, a servant came with a letter from her
+      cousin Morden:&mdash;Then, said she, he is not come himself!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She broke it open; but every line, she said, appeared two to her: so that,
+      being unable to read it herself, she desired I would read it to her. I did
+      so; and wished it were more consolatory to her: but she was all patient
+      attention: tears, however, often trickling down her cheeks. By the date,
+      it was written yesterday; and this is the substance of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He tells her, 'That the Thursday before he had procured a general meeting
+      of her principal relations, at her father's; though not without
+      difficulty, her haughty brother opposing it, and, when met, rendering all
+      his endeavours to reconcile them to her ineffectual. He censures him, as
+      the most ungovernable young man he ever knew: some great sickness, he
+      says, some heavy misfortune, is wanted to bring him to a knowledge of
+      himself, and of what is due from him to others; and he wishes that he were
+      not her brother, and his cousin. Nor doe he spare her father and uncles
+      for being so implicitly led by him.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He tells her, 'That he parted with them all in high displeasure, and
+      thought never more to darken any of their doors: that he declared as much
+      to her two uncles, who came to him on Saturday, to try to accommodate with
+      him; and who found him preparing to go to London to attend her; and that,
+      notwithstanding their pressing entreaties, he determined so to do, and not
+      to go with them to Harlowe-place, or to either of their own houses; and
+      accordingly dismissed them with such an answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But that her noble letter,' as he calls it, of Aug. 31,* 'being brought
+      him about an hour after their departure, he thought it might affect them
+      as much as it did him; and give them the exalted opinion of her virtue
+      which was so well deserved; he therefore turned his horse's head back to
+      her uncle Antony's, instead of forwards toward London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter XLV. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That accordingly arriving there, and finding her two uncles together, he
+      read to them the affecting letter; which left none of the three a dry eye:
+      that the absent, as is usual in such cases, bearing all the load, they
+      accused her brother and sister; and besought him to put off his journey to
+      town, till he could carry with him the blessings which she had formerly in
+      vain solicited for; and (as they hoped) the happy tidings of a general
+      reconciliation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That not doubting but his visit would be the more welcome to her, if
+      these good ends could be obtained, he the more readily complied with their
+      desires. But not being willing to subject himself to the possibility of
+      receiving fresh insult from her brother, he had given her uncles a copy of
+      her letter, for the family to assemble upon; and desired to know, as soon
+      as possible, the result of their deliberations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He tells her, that he shall bring her up the accounts relating to the
+      produce of her grandfather's estate, and adjust them with her; having
+      actually in his hands the arrears due to her from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He highly applauds the noble manner in which she resents your usage of
+      her. It is impossible, he owns, that you can either deserve her, or to be
+      forgiven. But as you do justice to her virtue, and offer to make her all
+      the reparation now in your power; and as she is so very earnest with him
+      not to resent that usage; and declares, that you could not have been the
+      author of her calamities but through a strange concurrence of unhappy
+      causes; and as he is not at a loss to know how to place to a proper
+      account that strange concurrence; he desires her not to be apprehensive of
+      any vindictive measures from him.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless (as may be expected) 'he inveighs against you; as he finds
+      that she gave you no advantage over her. But he forbears to enter further
+      into this subject, he says, till he has the honour to see her; and the
+      rather, as she seems so much determined against you. However, he cannot
+      but say, that he thinks you a gallant man, and a man of sense; and that
+      you have the reputation of being thought a generous man in every instance
+      but where the sex is concerned. In such, he owns, that you have taken
+      inexcusable liberties. And he is sorry to say, that there are very few
+      young men of fortune but who allow themselves in the same. Both sexes, he
+      observes, too much love to have each other in their power: yet he hardly
+      ever knew man or woman who was very fond of power make a right use of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If she be so absolutely determined against marrying you, as she declares
+      she is, he hopes, he says, to prevail upon her to take (as soon as her
+      health will permit) a little tour abroad with him, as what will probably
+      establish it; since traveling is certainly the best physic for all those
+      disorders which owe their rise to grief or disappointment. An absence of
+      two or three years will endear her to every one, on her return, and every
+      one to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He expresses his impatience to see her. He will set out, he says, the
+      moment he knows the result of her family's determination; which, he doubts
+      not, will be favourable. Nor will he wait long for that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I had read the letter through to the languishing lady, And so, my
+      friends, said she, have I heard of a patient who actually died, while five
+      or six principal physicians were in a consultation, and not agreed upon
+      what name to give his distemper. The patient was an emperor, the emperor
+      Joseph, I think.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I asked, if I should write to her cousin, as he knew not how ill she was,
+      to hasten up?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By no means, she said; since, if he were not already set out, she was
+      persuaded that she should be so low by the time he could receive my
+      letter, and come, that his presence would but discompose and hurry her,
+      and afflict him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope, however, she is not so very near her end. And without saying any
+      more to her, when I retired, I wrote to Colonel Morden, that if he expects
+      to see his beloved cousin alive, he must lose no time in setting out. I
+      sent this letter by his own servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. H. sent away his letter to her father by a particular hand this
+      morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Walton the milliner has also just now acquainted Mrs. Smith, that her
+      husband had a letter brought by a special messenger from Parson Brand,
+      within this half hour, enclosing the copy of one he had written to Mr.
+      John Harlowe, recanting his officious one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And as all these, and the copy of the lady's letter to Col. Morden, will
+      be with them pretty much at a time, the devil's in the family if they are
+      not struck with a remorse that shall burst open the double-barred doors of
+      their hearts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Will. engages to reach you with this (late as it will be) before you go to
+      rest. He begs that I will testify for him the hour and the minute I shall
+      give it him. It is just half an hour after ten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I pretend to be (now by use) the swiftest short-hand writer in England,
+      next to yourself. But were matter to arise every hour to write upon, and I
+      had nothing else to do, I cannot write so fast as you expect. And let it
+      be remembered, that your servants cannot bring letters or messages before
+      they are written or sent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0061" id="link2H_4_0061">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      DR. H. TO JAMES HARLOWE, SENIOR, ESQ. LONDON, SEPT. 4.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SIR,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If I may judge of the hearts of other parents by my own, I cannot doubt
+      but you will take it well to be informed that you have yet an opportunity
+      to save yourself and family great future regret, by dispatching hither
+      some one of it with your last blessing, and your lady's, to the most
+      excellent of her sex.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have some reason to believe, Sir, that she has been represented to you
+      in a very different light from the true one. And this it is that induces
+      me to acquaint you, that I think her, on the best grounds, absolutely
+      irreproachable in all her conduct which has passed under my eye, or come
+      to my ear; and that her very misfortunes are made glorious to her, and
+      honourable to all that are related to her, by the use she has made of
+      them; and by the patience and resignation with which she supports herself
+      in a painful, lingering, and dispiriting decay! and by the greatness of
+      mind with which she views her approaching dissolution. And all this from
+      proper motives; from motives in which a dying saint might glory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She knows not that I write. I must indeed acknowledge, that I offered to
+      do so some days ago, and that very pressingly: nor did she refuse me from
+      obstinacy&mdash;she seemed not to know what that is&mdash;but desired me
+      to forbear for two days only, in hopes that her newly-arrived cousin, who,
+      as she heard, was soliciting for her, would be able to succeed in her
+      favour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope I shall not be thought an officious man on this occasion; but, if I
+      am, I cannot help it, being driven to write, by a kind of parental and
+      irresistible impulse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, Sir, whatever you think fit to do, or permit to be done, must be
+      speedily done; for she cannot, I verily think, live a week: and how long
+      of that short space she may enjoy her admirable intellects to take comfort
+      in the favours you may think proper to confer upon her cannot be said. I
+      am, Sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your most humble servant,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      R.H. <a name="link2H_4_0062" id="link2H_4_0062">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO WILLIAM MORDEN, ESQ. LONDON, SEPT. 4.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SIR,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The urgency of the case, and the opportunity by your servant, will
+      sufficiently apologize for this trouble from a stranger to your person,
+      who, however, is not a stranger to your merit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I understand you are employing your good offices with the parents of Miss
+      Clarissa Harlowe, and other relations, to reconcile them to the most
+      meritorious daughter and kinswoman that ever family had to boast of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Generously as this is intended by you, we here have too much reason to
+      think all your solicitudes on this head will be unnecessary: for it is the
+      opinion of every one who has the honour of being admitted to her presence,
+      that she cannot live over three days: so that, if you wish to see her
+      alive, you must lose no time to come up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She knows not that I write. I had done it sooner, if I had had the least
+      doubt that before now she would not have received from you some news of
+      the happy effects of your kind mediation in her behalf. I am, Sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your most humble servant, J. BELFORD.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0063" id="link2H_4_0063">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. [IN ANSWER TO LETTER LVII.] UXBRIDGE,
+      TUESDAY MORN, BETWEEN 4 AND 5.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And can it be, that this admirable creature will so soon leave this cursed
+      world! For cursed I shall think it, and more cursed myself, when she is
+      gone. O, Jack! thou who canst sit so cool, and, like Addison's Angel,
+      direct, and even enjoy, the storm, that tears up my happiness by the
+      roots; blame me not for my impatience, however unreasonable! If thou
+      knowest, that already I feel the torments of the damned, in the remorse
+      that wrings my heart, on looking back upon my past actions by her, thou
+      wouldst not be the devil thou art, to halloo on a worrying conscience,
+      which, without my merciless aggravations, is altogether intolerable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know not what to write, nor what I would write. When the company that
+      used to delight me is as uneasy to me as my reflections are painful, and I
+      can neither help nor divert myself, must not every servant about me
+      partake in a perturbation so sincere!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shall I give thee a faint picture of the horrible uneasiness with which my
+      mind struggles? And faint indeed it must be; for nothing but outrageous
+      madness can exceed it; and that only in the apprehension of others; since,
+      as to the sufferer, it is certain, that actual distraction (take it out of
+      its lucid intervals) must be an infinitely more happy state than the state
+      of suspense and anxiety, which often brings it on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Forbidden to attend the dear creature, yet longing to see her, I would
+      give the world to be admitted once more to her beloved presence. I ride
+      towards London three or four times a day, resolving pro and con, twenty
+      times in two or three miles; and at last ride back; and, in view of
+      Uxbridge, loathing even the kind friend, and hospitable house, turn my
+      horse's head again towards the town, and resolve to gratify my humour, let
+      her take it as she will; but, at the very entrance of it, after infinite
+      canvassings, once more alter my mind, dreading to offend and shock her,
+      lest, by that means, I should curtail a life so precious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yesterday, in particular, to give you an idea of the strength of that
+      impatience, which I cannot avoid suffering to break out upon my servants,
+      I had no sooner dispatched Will., than I took horse to meet him on his
+      return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In order to give him time, I loitered about on the road, riding up this
+      lane to the one highway, down that to the other, just as my horse pointed;
+      all the way cursing my very being; and though so lately looking down upon
+      all the world, wishing to change conditions with the poorest beggar that
+      cried to me for charity as I rode by him&mdash;and throwing him money, in
+      hopes to obtain by his prayers the blessing my heart pants after.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After I had sauntered about an hour or two, (which seemed three or four
+      tedious ones,) fearing I had slipt the fellow, I inquired at every
+      turnpike, whether a servant in such a livery had not passed through in his
+      return from London, on a full gallop; for woe had been to the dog, had I
+      met him on a sluggish trot! And lest I should miss him at one end of
+      Kensingtohn, as he might take either the Acton or Hammersmith road; or at
+      the other, as he might come through the Park, or not; how many score times
+      did I ride backwards and forwards from the Palace to the Gore, making
+      myself the subject of observation to all passengers whether on horseback
+      or on foot; who, no doubt, wondered to see a well-dressed and well-mounted
+      man, sometimes ambling, sometimes prancing, (as the beast had more fire
+      than his master) backwards and forwards in so short a compass!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet all this time, though longing to espy the fellow, did I dread to meet
+      him, lest he should be charged with fatal tidings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When at distance I saw any man galloping towards me, my
+      resemblance-forming fancy immediately made it to be him; and then my heart
+      choked me. But when the person's nearer approach undeceived me, how did I
+      curse the varlet's delay, and thee, by turns! And how ready was I to draw
+      my pistol at the stranger, for having the impudence to gallop; which none
+      but my messenger, I thought, had either right or reason to do! For all the
+      business of the world, I am ready to imagine, should stand still on an
+      occasion so melancholy and so interesting to me. Nay, for this week past,
+      I could cut the throat of any man or woman I see laugh, while I am in such
+      dejection of mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am now convinced that the wretches who fly from a heavy scene, labour
+      under ten times more distress in the intermediate suspense and
+      apprehension, than they could have, were they present at it, and to see
+      and know the worst: so capable is fancy or imagination, the more immediate
+      offspring of the soul, to outgo fact, let the subject be either joyous or
+      grievous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And hence, as I conceive, it is, that all pleasures are greater in the
+      expectation, or in the reflection, than in fruition; as all pains, which
+      press heavy upon both parts of that unequal union by which frail mortality
+      holds its precarious tenure, are ever most acute in the time of suffering:
+      for how easy sit upon the reflection the heaviest misfortunes, when
+      surmounted!&mdash;But most easy, I confess, those in which body has more
+      concern than soul. This, however, is a point of philosophy I have neither
+      time nor head just now to weigh: so take it as it falls from a madman's
+      pen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Woe be to either of the wretches who shall bring me the fatal news that
+      she is no more! For it is but too likely that a shriek-owl so hated will
+      never hoot or scream again; unless the shock, that will probably disorder
+      my whole frame on so sad an occasion, (by unsteadying my hand,) shall
+      divert my aim from his head, heart, or bowels, if it turn not against my
+      own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, surely, she will not, she cannot yet die! Such a matchless
+      excellence,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+            &mdash;&mdash;whose mind
+      Contains a world, and seems for all things fram'd,
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      could not be lent to be so soon demanded back again!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But may it not be, that thou, Belford, art in a plot with the dear
+      creature, (who will not let me attend her to convince myself,) in order to
+      work up my soul to the deepest remorse; and that, when she is convinced of
+      the sincerity of my penitence, and when my mind is made such wax, as to be
+      fit to take what impression she pleases to give it, she will then raise me
+      up with the joyful tidings of her returning health and acceptance of me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What would I give to have it so! And when the happiness of hundreds, as
+      well as the peace and reconciliation of several eminent families, depend
+      upon her restoration and happiness, why should it not be so?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But let me presume it will. Let me indulge my former hope, however
+      improbable&mdash;I will; and enjoy it too. And let me tell thee how
+      ecstatic my delight would be on the unravelling of such a plot as this!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Do, dear Belford, let it be so!&mdash;And, O, my dearest, and ever-dear
+      Clarissa, keep me no loner in this cruel suspense; in which I suffer a
+      thousand times more than ever I made thee suffer. Nor fear thou that I
+      will resent, or recede, on an ecclaircissement so desirable; for I will
+      adore thee for ever, and without reproaching thee for the pangs thou hast
+      tortured me with, confess thee as much my superior in virtue and honour!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But once more, should the worst happen&mdash;say not what that worst is&mdash;and
+      I am gone from this hated island&mdash;gone for ever&mdash;and may eternal&mdash;but
+      I am crazed already&mdash;and will therefore conclude myself,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thine more than my own, (and no great compliment neither) R.L.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0064" id="link2H_4_0064">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. TUES. SEPT. 9 IN THE MORN. AT MR.
+      SMITH'S.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I read yours of this morning, I could not help pitying you for the
+      account you give of the dreadful anxiety and suspense you labour under. I
+      wish from my heart all were to end as you are so willing to hope: but it
+      will not be; and your suspense, if the worst part of your torment, as you
+      say it is, will soon be over; but, alas! in a way you wish not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I attended the lady just now. She is extremely ill: yet is she aiming at
+      an answer to her Norton's letter, which she began yesterday in her own
+      chamber, and has written a good deal: but in a hand not like her own fine
+      one, as Mrs. Lovick tells me, but larger, and the lines crooked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have accepted of the offer of a room adjoining to the widow Lovick's,
+      till I see how matters go; but unknown to the lady; and I shall go home
+      every night, for a few hours. I would not lose a sentence that I could
+      gain from lips so instructive, nor the opportunity of receiving any
+      command from her, for an estate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this my new apartment I now write, and shall continue to write, as
+      occasions offer, that I may be the more circumstantial: but I depend upon
+      the return of my letters, or copies of them, on demand, that I may have
+      together all that relates to this affecting story; which I shall re-peruse
+      with melancholy pleasure to the end of my life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I think I will send thee Brand's letter to Mr. John Harlowe, recanting his
+      base surmises. It is a matchless piece of pedantry; and may perhaps a
+      little divert thy deep chagrin: some time hence at least it may, if not
+      now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What wretched creatures are there in the world! What strangely mixed
+      creatures!&mdash;So sensible and so silly at the same time! What a
+      various, what a foolish creature is man!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THREE O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady has just finished her letter, and has entertained Mrs. Lovick,
+      Mrs. Smith, and me, with a noble discourse on the vanity and brevity of
+      life, to which I cannot do justice in the repetition: and indeed I am so
+      grieved for her, that, ill as she is, my intellects are not half so clear
+      as her's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few things which made the strongest impression upon me, as well from the
+      sentiments themselves as from her manner of uttering them, I remember. She
+      introduced them thus:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am thinking, said she, what a gradual and happy death God Almighty
+      (blessed be his name) affords me! Who would have thought, that, suffering
+      what I have suffered, and abandoned as I have been, with such a tender
+      education as I have had, I should be so long a dying!&mdash;But see now by
+      little and little it had come to this. I was first take off from the power
+      of walking; then I took a coach&mdash;a coach grew too violent an
+      exercise: then I took up a chair&mdash;the prison was a large DEATH-STRIDE
+      upon me&mdash;I should have suffered longer else!&mdash;Next, I was unable
+      to go to church; then to go up or down stairs; now hardly can move from
+      one room to another: and a less room will soon hold me.&mdash;My eyes
+      begin to fail me, so that at times I cannot see to read distinctly; and
+      now I can hardly write, or hold a pen.&mdash;Next, I presume, I shall know
+      nobody, nor be able to thank any of you; I therefore now once more thank
+      you, Mrs. Lovick, and you, Mrs. Smith, and you, Mr. Belford, while I can
+      thank you, for all your kindness to me. And thus by little and little, in
+      such a gradual sensible death as I am blessed with, God dies away in us,
+      as I may say, all human satisfaction, in order to subdue his poor
+      creatures to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou mayest guess how affected we all were at this moving account of her
+      progressive weakness. We heard it with wet eyes; for what with the women's
+      example, and what with her moving eloquence, I could no more help it than
+      they. But we were silent nevertheless; and she went on applying herself to
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O Mr. Belford! This is a poor transitory life in the best enjoyments. We
+      flutter about here and there, with all our vanities about us, like painted
+      butterflies, for a gay, but a very short season, till at last we lay
+      ourselves down in a quiescent state, and turn into vile worms: And who
+      knows in what form, or to what condition we shall rise again?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish you would permit me, a young creature, just turned of nineteen
+      years of age, blooming and healthy as I was a few months ago, now nipt by
+      the cold hand of death, to influence you, in these my last hours, to a
+      life of regularity and repentance for any past evils you may have been
+      guilty of. For, believe me, Sir, that now, in this last stage, very few
+      things will bear the test, or be passed as laudable, if pardonable, at our
+      own bar, much less at a more tremendous one, in all we have done, or
+      delighted in, even in a life not very offensive neither, as we may think!
+      &mdash;Ought we not then to study in our full day, before the dark hours
+      approach, so to live, as may afford reflections that will soften the agony
+      of the last moments when they come, and let in upon the departing soul a
+      ray of Divine mercy to illuminate its passage into an awful eternity?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was ready to faint, and choosing to lie down, I withdrew; I need not
+      say with a melancholy heart: and when I got to my new-taken apartment, my
+      heart was still more affected by the sight of the solemn letter the
+      admirable lady had so lately finished. It was communicated to me by Mrs.
+      Lovick; who had it to copy for me; but it was not to be delivered to me
+      till after her departure. However, I trespassed so far, as to prevail upon
+      the widow to let me take a copy of it; which I did directly in character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I send it enclosed. If thou canst read it, and thy heart not bleed at thy
+      eyes, thy remorse can hardly be so deep as thou hast inclined me to think
+      it is.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0065" id="link2H_4_0065">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MRS. NORTON [IN ANSWER TO LETTER LVI.*]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * Begun on Monday Sept. 4, and by piecemeal finished on Tuesday; but not
+      sent till the Thursday following.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MY DEAREST MRS. NORTON,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am afraid I shall not be able to write all that is upon my mind to say
+      to you upon the subject of your last. Yet I will try.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to my friends, and as to the sad breakfasting, I cannot help being
+      afflicted for them. What, alas! has not my mother, in particular, suffered
+      by my rashness!&mdash;Yet to allow so much for a son!&mdash;so little for
+      a daughter!&mdash;But all now will soon be over, as to me. I hope they
+      will bury all their resentments in my grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to your advice, in relation to Mr. Belford, let me only say, that the
+      unhappy reprobation I have met with, and my short time, must be my apology
+      now.&mdash;I wish I could have written to my mother and my uncles as you
+      advise. And yet, favours come so slowly from them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The granting of one request only now remains as a desirable one from them.
+      Which nevertheless, when granted, I shall not be sensible of. It is that
+      they will be pleased to permit my remains to be laid with those of my
+      ancestors&mdash;placed at the feet of my dear grandfather, as I have
+      mentioned in my will. This, however, as they please. For, after all, this
+      vile body ought not so much to engage my cares. It is a weakness&mdash;
+      but let it be called a natural weakness, and I shall be excused;
+      especially when a reverential gratitude shall be known to be the
+      foundation of it. You know, my dear woman, how my grandfather loved me.
+      And you know how much I honoured him, and that from my very infancy to the
+      hour of his death. How often since have I wished, that he had not loved me
+      so well!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish not now, at the writing of this, to see even my cousin Morden. O,
+      my blessed woman! My dear maternal friend! I am entering upon a better
+      tour than to France or Italy either!&mdash;or even than to settle at my
+      once-beloved Dairy-house!&mdash;All these prospects and pleasures, which
+      used to be so agreeable to me in health, how poor seem they to me now!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, indeed, my dear Mamma Norton, I shall be happy! I know I shall!
+      &mdash;I have charming forebodings of happiness already!&mdash;Tell all my
+      dear friends, for their comfort, that I shall!&mdash;Who would not bear
+      the punishments I have borne, to have the prospects and assurances I
+      rejoice in!&mdash;Assurances I might not have had, were my own wishes to
+      have been granted to me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither do I want to see even you, my dear Mrs. Norton. Nevertheless I
+      must, in justice to my own gratitude, declare, that there was a time,
+      could you have been permitted to come, without incurring displeasure from
+      those whose esteem it is necessary for you to cultivate and preserve, that
+      your presence and comfortings would have been balm to my wounded mind. But
+      were you now, even by consent, and with reconciliatory tidings, to come,
+      it would but add to your grief; and the sight of one I so dearly love, so
+      happily fraught with good news, might but draw me back to wishes I have
+      had great struggles to get above. And let me tell you for your comfort,
+      that I have not left undone any thing that ought to be done, either
+      respecting mind or person; no, not to the minutest preparation: so that
+      nothing is left for you to do for me. Every one has her direction as to
+      the last offices.&mdash;And my desk, that I now write upon &mdash;O my
+      dearest Mrs. Norton, all is provided!&mdash;All is ready! And all will be
+      as decent as it should be!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And pray let my Miss Howe know, that by the time you will receive this,
+      and she your signification of the contents of it, will, in all
+      probability, be too late for her to do me the inestimable favour, as I
+      should once have thought it, to see me. God will have no rivals in the
+      hearts of those he sanctifies. By various methods he deadens all other
+      sensations, or rather absorbs them all in the love of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall nevertheless love you, my Mamma Norton, and my Miss Howe, whose
+      love to me has passed the love of woman, to my latest hour!&mdash;But yet,
+      I am now above the quick sense of those pleasures which once delighted me,
+      and once more I say, that I do not wish to see objects so dear to me,
+      which might bring me back again into sense, and rival my supreme love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Twice have I been forced to leave off. I wished, that my last writing
+      might be to you, or to Miss Howe, if it might not be to my dearest Ma&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mamma, I would have wrote&mdash;is the word distinct?&mdash;My eyes are so
+      misty!&mdash; If, when I apply to you, I break off in half-words, do you
+      supply them&mdash; the kindest are your due.&mdash;Be sure take the
+      kindest, to fill up chasms with, if any chasms there be&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another breaking off!&mdash;But the new day seems to rise upon me with
+      healing in its wings. I have gotten, I think, a recruit of strength:
+      spirits, I bless God, I have not of late wanted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let my dearest Miss Howe purchase her wedding-garments&mdash;and may all
+      temporal blessings attend the charming preparation!&mdash;Blessings will,
+      I make no question, notwithstanding the little cloudiness that Mr. Hickman
+      encounters with now and then, which are but prognostications of a future
+      golden day to him: for her heart is good, and her head not wrong.&mdash;But
+      great merit is coy, and that coyness had not always its foundation in
+      pride: but if it should seem to be pride, take off the skin-deep covering,
+      and, in her, it is noble diffidence, and a love that wants but to be
+      assured!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tell Mr. Hickman I write this, and write it, as I believe, with my last
+      pen; and bid him bear a little at first, and forbear; and all the future
+      will be crowning gratitude, and rewarding love: for Miss Howe had great
+      sense, fine judgment, and exalted generosity; and can such a one be
+      ungrateful or easy under those obligations which his assiduity and
+      obligingness (when he shall be so happy as to call her his) will lay her
+      under to him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for me, never bride was so ready as I am. My wedding garments are
+      bought&mdash;-and though not fine or gawdy to the sight, though not
+      adorned with jewels, and set off with gold and silver, (for I have no
+      beholders' eyes to wish to glitter in,) yet will they be the easiest, the
+      happiest suit, that ever bridal maiden wore&mdash;for they are such as
+      carry with them a security against all those anxieties, pains, and
+      perturbations, which sometimes succeed to the most promising outsettings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, my dear Mrs. Norton, do I wish for no other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O hasten, good God, if it be thy blessed will, the happy moment that I am
+      to be decked out in his all-quieting garb! And sustain, comfort, bless,
+      and protect with the all-shadowing wing of thy mercy, my dear parents, my
+      uncles, my brother, my sister, my cousin Morden, my ever-dear and
+      ever-kind Miss Howe, my good Mrs. Norton, and every deserving person to
+      whom they wish well! is the ardent prayer, first and last, of every
+      beginning hour, as the clock tells it me, (hours now are days, nay,
+      years,) of
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your now not sorrowing or afflicted, but happy, CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0066" id="link2H_4_0066">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. WED. MORN. SEPT. 6, HALF AN HOUR AFTER
+      THREE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am not the savage which you and my worst enemies think me. My soul is
+      too much penetrated by the contents of the letter which you enclosed in
+      your last, to say one word more to it, than that my heart has bled over it
+      from every vein!&mdash;I will fly from the subject&mdash;but what other
+      can I choose, that will not be as grievous, and lead into the same?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could quarrel with all the world; with thee, as well as the rest;
+      obliging as thou supposest thyself for writing to me hourly. How darest
+      thou, (though unknown to her,) to presume to take an apartment under the
+      sane roof with her?&mdash;I cannot bear to think that thou shouldest be
+      seen, at all hours passing to and repassing from her apartments, while I,
+      who have so much reason to call her mine, and one was preferred by her to
+      all the world, am forced to keep aloof, and hardly dare to enter the city
+      where she is!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If there be any thing in Brand's letter that will divert me, hasten it to
+      me. But nothing now will ever divert me, will ever again give me joy or
+      pleasure! I can neither eat, drink, nor sleep. I am sick of all the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Surely it will be better when all is over&mdash;when I know the worst the
+      Fates can do against me&mdash;yet how shall I bear that worst?&mdash;O
+      Belford, Belford! write it not to me!&mdash;But if it must happen, get
+      somebody else to write; for I shall curse the pen, the hand, the head, and
+      the heart, employed in communicating to me the fatal tidings. But what is
+      this saying, when already I curse the whole world except her&mdash;myself
+      most?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In fine, I am a most miserable being. Life is a burden to me. I would not
+      bear it upon these terms for one week more, let what would be my 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&mdash;I cannot bear it&mdash;May d&mdash;&mdash;n&mdash;&mdash;n
+      seize quick the cursed woman, who could set death upon taking that large
+      stride, as the dear creature calls it!&mdash;I had no hand in it!&mdash;
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unable to rest, though I went not to bed till two, I dispatch this ere the
+      day dawn&mdash;who knows what this night, this dismal night, may have
+      produced!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;for pistols are too
+      ready a mischief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope thou hast a letter ready for him. He goes to thy lodgings first&mdash;
+      for surely thou wilt not presume to take thy rest in an apartment near
+      her's. If he miss thee there, he flies to Smith's, and brings me word
+      whether in being, or not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 saddle-bow, with
+      the tidings that my heart pants after.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      LOVELACE. <a name="link2H_4_0067" id="link2H_4_0067">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. TUEDAY, SEPT. 5, SIX O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady remains exceedingly weak and ill. Her intellects, nevertheless,
+      continue clear and strong, and her piety and patience are without example.
+      Every one 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.&mdash;She has, I fear, written and read her last!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      EIGHT O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!&mdash;Life was not so easily
+      extinguished, she saw, as some imagined.&mdash;Death from grief, was, she
+      believed, the slowest of deaths. But God's will must be done!&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of her own accord she mentioned you; which, till then, she had avoided to
+      do. She asked, with great serenity, where you were?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her where, and your motives for being so near; and read to her a
+      few lines of your's 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I would have read more; but she said, Enough, Mr. Belford, enough!&mdash;Poor
+      man, does his conscience begin to find him!&mdash;Then need not any body
+      to wish him a greater punishment!&mdash;May it work upon him to an happy
+      purpose!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.&mdash;And may God Almighty,
+      clasping her fingers, and lifting up her eyes, forgive him too; and
+      perfect repentance, and sanctify it to him!&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The divine creature then turning aside her head&mdash;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&mdash;it may too
+      much affect him!&mdash;There she paused.&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Admirable creature!&mdash;Heavenly forgiver!&mdash;Then resuming&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But let me not, however, be made uneasy with the apprehension of seeing
+      him. I cannot bear to see him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just as she had done speaking, the minister, who had so often attended
+      her, sent up his name; and was admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Being apprehensive that it would be with difficulty that you could prevail
+      upon that impetuous spirit of your's not to invade her in her dying hours,
+      and of the agonies into which a surprise of this nature would throw her, I
+      thought this gentleman's visit afforded a proper opportunity to renew the
+      subject; and, (having asked her leave,) acquainted him with the topic we
+      had been upon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The good man urged that some condescensions were usually expected, on
+      these solemn occasions, from pious souls like her's, however satisfied
+      with themselves, for the sake of showing the world, and for example-sake,
+      that all resentments against those who had most injured them were subdued;
+      and if she would vouchsafe to a heart so truly penitent, as I had
+      represented Mr. Lovelace's to be, that personal pardon, which I had been
+      pleading for there would be no room to suppose the least lurking
+      resentment remained; and it might have very happy effects upon the
+      gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have no lurking resentment, Sir, said she&mdash;this is not a time for
+      resentment: and you will be the readier to believe me, when I can assure
+      you, (looking at me,) that even what I have most rejoiced in, the truly
+      friendly love that has so long subsisted between my Miss Howe and her
+      Clarissa, although to my last gasp it will be the dearest to me of all
+      that is dear in this life, has already abated of its fervour; has already
+      given place to supremer fervours; and shall the remembrance of Mr.
+      Lovelace's personal insults, which I bless God never corrupted that mind
+      which her friendship so much delighted, be stronger in these hours with
+      me, then the remembrance of a love as pure as the human heart ever
+      boasted? Tell, therefore, the world, if you please, and (if, Mr. Belford,
+      you think what I said to you before not strong enough,) tell the poor man,
+      that I not only forgive him, but have such earnest wishes for the good of
+      his soul, and that from consideration of its immortality, that could my
+      penitence avail for more sins than my own, my last tear should fall for
+      him by whom I die!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our eyes and hands expressed to us both what our lips could not utter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Say not, then, proceeded she, nor let it be said, that my resentments are
+      unsubdued!&mdash;And yet these eyes, lifted up to Heaven as witness to the
+      truth of what I have said, shall never, if I can help it, behold him more!&mdash;For
+      do you not consider, Sirs, how short my time is; what much more important
+      subjects I have to employ it upon; and how unable I should be, (so weak as
+      I am,) to contend even with the avowed penitence of a person in strong
+      health, governed by passions unabated, and always violent?&mdash;And now I
+      hope you will never urge me more on this subject?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The minister said, it were pity ever to urge this plea again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You see, Lovelace, that I did not forget the office of a friend, in
+      endeavouring to prevail upon her to give you her last forgiveness
+      personally. And I hope, as she is so near her end, you will not invade her
+      in her last hours; since she must be extremely discomposed at such an
+      interview; and it might make her leave the world the sooner for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This reminds me of an expression which she used on your barbarous hunting
+      of her at Smith's, on her return to her lodgings; and that with a serenity
+      unexampled, (as Mrs. Lovick told me, considering the occasion, and the
+      trouble given her by it, and her indisposition at the time;) he will not
+      let me die decently, said the angelic sufferer!&mdash;He will not let me
+      enter into my Maker's presence with the composure that is required in
+      entering into the drawing-room of an earthly prince!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I cannot, however, forbear to wish, that the heavenly creature could have
+      prevailed upon herself, in these her last hours, to see you; and that for
+      my sake, as well as yours; for although I am determined never to be guilty
+      of the crimes, which, till within these few past weeks have blackened my
+      former life; and for which, at present, I most heartily hate myself; yet
+      should I be less apprehensive of such a relapse, if wrought upon by the
+      solemnity which such an interview must have been attended with, you had
+      become a reformed man: for no devil do I fear, but one in your shape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is now eleven o'clock at night. The lady who retired to rest an hour
+      ago, is, as Mrs. Lovick tells me, in a sweet slumber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will close here. I hope I shall find her the better for it in the
+      morning. Yet, alas! how frail is hope&mdash;How frail is life; when we are
+      apt to build so much on every shadowy relief; although in such a desperate
+      case as this, sitting down to reflect, we must know, that it is but
+      shadowy!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will enclose Brand's horrid pedantry. And for once am aforehand with thy
+      ravenous impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0068" id="link2H_4_0068">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BRAND, TO MR. JOHN WALTON SAT. NIGHT, SEPT. 2.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DEAR MR. WALTON,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am obliged to you for the very 'handsomely penned', (and 'elegantly
+      written,') letter which you have sent me on purpose to do 'justice' to the
+      'character' of the 'younger' Miss Harlowe; and yet I must tell you that I
+      had reason, 'before that came,' to 'think,' (and to 'know' indeed,) that
+      we were 'all wrong.' And so I had employed the 'greatest part' of this
+      'week,' in drawing up an 'apologetical letter' to my worthy 'patron,' Mr.
+      John Harlowe, in order to set all 'matters right' between 'me and them,'
+      and, ('as far as I could,') between 'them' and 'Miss.' So it required
+      little more than 'connection' and 'transcribing,' when I received
+      'your's'; and it will be with Mr. Harlowe aforesaid, 'to-morrow morning';
+      and this, and the copy of that, will be with you on 'Monday morning.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You cannot imagine how sorry I am that 'you' and Mrs. Walton, and Mrs.
+      Barker, and 'I myself,' should have taken matters up so lightly, (judging,
+      alas-a-day! by appearance and conjecture,) where 'character' and
+      'reputation' are concerned. Horace says truly,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Et semel emissum volat irrevocabile verbum.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      That is, 'Words one spoken cannot be recalled.' But, Mr. Walton, they may
+      be 'contradicted' by 'other' words; and we may confess ourselves guilty of
+      a 'mistake,' and express our 'concern' for being 'mistaken'; and resolve
+      to make our 'mistake' a 'warning' to us for the 'future': and this is all
+      that 'can be done,' and what every 'worthy mind will do'; and what nobody
+      can be 'readier to do' than 'we four undesigning offenders,' (as I see by
+      'your letter,' on 'your part,' and as you will see by the 'enclosed copy,'
+      on 'mine';) which, if it be received as I 'think it ought,' (and as I
+      'believe it will,') must give me a 'speedy' opportunity to see you when I
+      'visit the lady'; to whom, (as you will see in it,) I expect to be sent up
+      with the 'olive-branch.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The matter in which we all 'erred,' must be owned to be 'very nice'; and
+      (Mr. Belford's 'character considered') 'appearances' ran very strong
+      'against the lady.' But all that this serveth to show is, 'that in
+      doubtful matters, the wisest people may be mistaken'; for so saith the
+      'Poet,'
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Fallitur in dubiis hominum solertia rebus.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      If you have an 'opportunity,' you may (as if 'from yourself,' and 'unknown
+      to me') show the enclosed to Mr. Belford, who (you tell me) 'resenteth'
+      the matter very heinously; but not to let him 'see' or 'hear read,' those
+      words 'that relate to him,' in the paragraph at the 'bottom of the second
+      page,' beginning, ['But yet I do insist upon it,] to the 'end' of that
+      paragraph; for one would not make one's self 'enemies,' you know; and I
+      have 'reason to think,' that this Mr. 'Belford' is as 'passionate' and
+      'fierce' a man as Mr. Lovelace. What pity it is the lady could find no
+      'worthier a protector!' You may paste those lines over with 'blue' or
+      'black paper,' before he seeth it: and if he insisteth upon taking a copy
+      of my letter, (for he, or any body that 'seeth it,' or 'heareth it read,'
+      will, no doubt, be glad to have by them the copy of a letter so full of
+      the 'sentiments' of the 'noblest writers' of 'antiquity,' and 'so well
+      adapted,' as I will be bold to say they are, to the 'point in hand'; I
+      say, if he insisteth upon taking a copy,) let him give you the 'strongest
+      assurances' not to suffer it to be 'printed' on 'any account'; and I make
+      the same request to you, that 'you' will not; for if any thing be to be
+      made of a 'man's works,' who, but the 'author,' should have the
+      'advantage'? And if the 'Spectators,' the 'Tatlers,' the 'Examiners,' the
+      'Guardians,' and other of our polite papers, make such a 'strutting' with
+      a 'single verse,' or so by way of 'motto,' in the 'front' of 'each day's'
+      paper; and if other 'authors' pride themselves in 'finding out' and
+      'embellishing' the 'title-pages' of their 'books' with a 'verse' or
+      'adage' from the 'classical writers'; what a figure would 'such a letter
+      as the enclosed make,' so full fraught with 'admirable precepts,' and
+      'à-propos quotations,' from the 'best authority'?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have been told that a 'certain noble Lord,' who once sat himself down to
+      write a 'pamphlet' in behalf of a 'great minister,' after taking 'infinite
+      pains' to 'no purpose' to find a 'Latin motto,' gave commission to a
+      friend of 'his' to offer to 'any one,' who could help him to a 'suitable
+      one,' but of one or two lines, a 'hamper of claret.' Accordingly, his
+      lordship had a 'motto found him' from 'Juvenal,' which he 'unhappily
+      mistaking,' (not knowing 'Juvenal' was a 'poet,') printed as a prose
+      'sentence' in his 'title-page.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If, then, 'one' or 'two' lines were of so much worth, (A 'hamper of
+      claret'! No 'less'!) of what 'inestimable value' would 'such a letter as
+      mine' be deemed?&mdash;And who knoweth but that this noble P&mdash;r, (who
+      is now* living,) if he should happen to see 'this letter' shining with
+      such a 'glorious string of jewels,' might give the 'writer a scarf,' in
+      order to have him 'always at hand,' or be a 'mean' (some way or other) to
+      bring him into 'notice'? And I would be bold to say ('bad' as the 'world'
+      is) a man of 'sound learning' wanteth nothing but an 'initiation' to make
+      his 'fortune.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * i.e. At the time this Letter was written.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope, my good friend, that the lady will not 'die': I shall be much
+      'grieved,' if she doth; and the more because of mine 'unhappy
+      misrepresentation': so will 'you' for the 'same cause'; so will her
+      'parents' and 'friends.' They are very 'rich' and 'very worthy'
+      gentlefolks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But let me tell you, 'by-the-by,' that they had carried the matter against
+      her 'so far,' that I believe in my heart they were glad to 'justify
+      themselves' by 'my report'; and would have been 'less pleased,' had I made
+      a 'more favourable one.' And yet in 'their hearts' they 'dote' upon her.
+      But now they are all (as I hear) inclined to be 'friends with her,' and
+      'forgive her'; her 'brother,' as well as 'the rest.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But their 'cousin,' Col. Morden, 'a very fine gentleman,' had had such
+      'high words' with them, and they with him, that they know not how to
+      'stoop,' lest it should look like being frighted into an 'accommodation.'
+      Hence it is, that 'I' have taken the greater liberty to 'press the
+      reconciliation'; and I hope in 'such good season,' that they will all be
+      'pleased' with it: for can they have a 'better handle' to save their
+      'pride' all round, than by my 'mediation'? And let me tell you, (inter
+      nos, 'betwixt ourselves,') 'very proud they all are.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this 'honest means,' (for by 'dishonest ones' I would not be
+      'Archbishop of Canterbury,') I hope to please every body; to be
+      'forgiven,' in the 'first place,' by 'the lady,' (whom, being a 'lover of
+      learning' and 'learned men,' I shall have great 'opportunities' of
+      'obliging'; for, when she departed from her father's house, I had but just
+      the honour of her 'notice,' and she seemed 'highly pleased' with my
+      'conversation';) and, 'next' to be 'thanked' and 'respected' by her
+      'parents,' and 'all her family'; as I am (I bless God for it) by my 'dear
+      friend' Mr. John Harlowe: who indeed is a man that professeth a 'great
+      esteem' for 'men of erudition'; and who (with 'singular delight,' I know)
+      will run over with me the 'authorities' I have 'quoted,' and 'wonder' at
+      my 'memory,' and the 'happy knack' I have of recommending 'mine own sense
+      of things' in the words of the 'greatest sages of antiquity.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Excuse me, my good friend, for this 'seeming vanity.' The great Cicero
+      (you must have heard, I suppose) had a 'much greater' spice of it, and
+      wrote a 'long letter begging' and 'praying' to be 'flattered.' But if I
+      say 'less of myself' than other people (who know me) 'say of me,' I think
+      I keep a 'medium' between 'vanity' and 'false modesty'; the latter of
+      which oftentimes gives itself the 'lie,' when it is 'declaring of' the
+      'compliments,' that 'every body' gives it as its due: an hypocrisy, as
+      well as folly, that, (I hope,) I shall for ever scorn to be guilty of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have 'another reason' (as I may tell to you, my 'old school-fellow') to
+      make me wish for this 'fine lady's recovery' and 'health'; and that is,
+      (by some distant intimations,) I have heard from Mr. John Harlowe, that it
+      is 'very likely' (because of the 'slur' she hath received) that she will
+      choose to 'live privately' and 'penitently'&mdash;and will probably (when
+      she cometh into her 'estate') keep a 'chaplain' to direct her in her
+      'devotions' and 'penitence'&mdash;If she doth, who can stand a 'better
+      chance' than 'myself'?&mdash;And as I find (by 'your' account, as well as
+      by 'every body's') that she is innocent as to 'intention,' and is resolved
+      never to think of Mr. 'Lovelace more,' who knoweth 'what' (in time) 'may
+      happen'? &mdash;And yet it must be after Mr. 'Lovelace's death,' (which
+      may possibly sooner happen than he 'thinketh' of, by means of his
+      'detestable courses':) for, after all, a man who is of 'public utility,'
+      ought not (for the 'finest woman' in the world) to lay his 'throat' at the
+      'mercy' of a man who boggleth at nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I beseech you, let not this hint 'go farther' than to 'yourself,' your
+      'spouse,' and Mrs. 'Barker.' I know I may trust my 'life' in 'your hands'
+      and 'theirs.' There have been (let me tell ye) 'unlikelier' things come to
+      pass, and that with 'rich widows,' (some of 'quality' truly!) whose
+      choice, in their 'first marriages' hath (perhaps) been guided by 'motives
+      of convenience,' or 'mere corporalities,' as I may say; but who by their
+      'second' have had for their view the 'corporal' and 'spiritual' mingled;
+      which is the most eligible (no doubt) to 'substance' composed 'of both,'
+      as 'men' and 'women' are.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor think (Sir) that, should such a thing come to pass, 'either' would be
+      'disgraced,' since 'the lady' in 'me' would marry a 'gentleman' and a
+      'scholar': and as to 'mine own honour,' as the 'slur' would bring her
+      'high fortunes' down to an 'equivalence' with my 'mean ones,' (if
+      'fortune' only, and not 'merit,' be considered,) so hath not the 'life' of
+      'this lady' been 'so tainted,' (either by 'length of time,' or
+      'naughtiness of practice,') as to put her on a 'foot' with the 'cast
+      Abigails,' that too, too often, (God knoweth,) are thought good enough for
+      a 'young clergyman,' who, perhaps, is drawn in by a 'poor benefice'; and
+      (if the 'wicked one' be not 'quite worn out') groweth poorer and poorer
+      upon it, by an 'increase of family' he knoweth not whether 'is most his,'
+      or his 'noble,' ('ignoble,' I should say,) 'patrons.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, all this 'apart,' and 'in confidence.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know you made at school but a small progress in 'languages.' So I have
+      restrained myself from 'many illustrations' from the 'classics,' that I
+      could have filled this letter with, (as I have done the enclosed one:)
+      and, being at a 'distance,' I cannot 'explain' them to you, as I 'do to my
+      friend,' Mr. John Harlowe; and who, (after all,) is obliged to 'me' for
+      pointing out to 'him' many 'beauties' of the 'authors I quote,' which
+      otherwise would lie concealed from 'him,' as they must from every 'common
+      observer.'&mdash;But this (too) 'inter nos'&mdash;for he would not take it
+      well to 'have it known'&mdash;'Jays' (you know, old school-fellow, 'jays,'
+      you know) 'will strut in peacocks' feathers.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But whither am I running? I never know where to end, when I get upon
+      'learned topics.' And albeit I cannot compliment 'you' with the 'name of a
+      learned man,' yet are you 'a sensible man'; and ('as such') must have
+      'pleasure' in 'learned men,' and in 'their writings.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this confidence, (Mr. Walton,) with my 'kind respects' to the good
+      ladies, (your 'spouse' and 'sister,') and in hopes, for the 'young lady's
+      sake,' soon to follow this long, long epistle, in 'person,' I conclude
+      myself,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your loving and faithful friend, ELIAS BRAND.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+You will perhaps, Mr. Walton, wonder at the meaning of the 'lines drawn
+      under many of the words and sentences,' (UNDERSCORING we call it;)
+      and were my letters to be printed, those would be put in a
+      'different character.'  Now, you must know, Sir, that 'we learned
+      men' do this to point out to the readers, who are not 'so learned,'
+      where the 'jet of our arguments lieth,' and the 'emphasis' they are
+      to lay upon 'those words'; whereby they will take in readily our
+      'sense' and 'cogency.'  Some 'pragmatical' people have said, that
+      an author who doth a 'great deal of this,' either calleth his
+      readers 'fools,' or tacitly condemneth 'his own style,' as
+      supposing his meaning would be 'dark' without it, or that all of
+      his 'force' lay in 'words.'  But all of those with whom I have
+      conversed in a learned way, 'think as I think.'  And to give a very
+      'pretty,' though 'familiar illustration,' I have considered a page
+      distinguished by 'different characters,' as a 'verdant field'
+      overspread with 'butter-flowers' and 'daisies,' and other
+      summer-flowers.  These the poets liken to 'enamelling'&mdash;have you
+      not read in the poets of 'enamelled meads,' and so forth?
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0069" id="link2H_4_0069">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BRAND, TO JOHN HARLOWE, ESQ. SAT. NIGHT, SEPT. 2.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WORTHY SIR,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am under no 'small concern,' that I should (unhappily) be the 'occasion'
+      (I am sure I 'intended' nothing like it) of 'widening differences' by
+      'light misreport,' when it is the 'duty' of one of 'my function' (and no
+      less consisting with my 'inclination') to 'heal' and 'reconcile.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have received two letter to set me 'right': one from a 'particular
+      acquaintance,' (whom I set to inquire of Mr. Belford's character); and
+      that came on Tuesday last, informing me, that your 'unhappy niece' was
+      greatly injured in the account I had had of her; (for I had told 'him' of
+      it, and that with very 'great concern,' I am sure, apprehending it to be
+      'true.') So I 'then' set about writing to you, to 'acknowledge' the
+      'error.' And had gone a good way in it, when the second letter came (a
+      very 'handsome one' it is, both in 'style' and 'penmanship') from my
+      friend Mr. Walton, (though I am sure it cannot be 'his inditing,')
+      expressing his sorrow, and his wife's, and his sister-in-law's likewise,
+      for having been the cause of 'misleading me,' in the account I gave of the
+      said 'young lady'; whom they 'now' say (upon 'further inquiry') they find
+      to be the 'most unblameable,' and 'most prudent,' and (it seems) the most
+      'pious' young lady, that ever (once) committed a 'great error'; as (to be
+      sure) 'her's was,' in leaving such 'worthy parents' and 'relations' for so
+      'vile a man' as Mr. Lovelace; but what shall we say?&mdash; Why, the
+      divine Virgil tells us,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Improbe amor, quid non mortalia pectora cogis?'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      For 'my part,' I was but too much afraid (for we have 'great
+      opportunities),' you are sensible, Sir, at the 'University,' of knowing
+      'human nature' from 'books,' the 'calm result' of the 'wise man's wisdom,'
+      as I may say,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      '(Haurit aquam cribro, qui discere vult sine libro)'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      'uninterrupted' by the 'noise' and 'vanities' that will mingle with
+      'personal conversation,' which (in the 'turbulent world') is not to be
+      enjoyed but over a 'bottle,' where you have an 'hundred foolish things'
+      pass to 'one that deserveth to be remembered'; I was but too much afraid
+      'I say', that so 'great a slip' might be attended with 'still greater' and
+      'worse': for 'your' Horace, and 'my' Horace, the most charming writer that
+      ever lived among the 'Pagans' (for the 'lyric kind of poetry,' I mean;
+      for, the be sure, 'Homer' and 'Virgil' would 'otherwise' be 'first' named
+      'in their way') well observeth (and who understood 'human nature' better
+      than he?)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Nec vera virtus, cum semel excidit,
+      Curat reponi deterioribus.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And 'Ovid' no less wisely observeth:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Et mala sunt vicina bonis.  Errore sub illo
+         Pro vitio virtus crimina sæpe tulit.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Who, that can draw 'knowledge' from its 'fountain-head,' the works of the
+      'sages of antiquity,' (improved by the 'comments' of the 'moderns,') but
+      would 'prefer' to all others the 'silent quiet life,' which 'contemplative
+      men' lead in the 'seats of learning,' were they not called out (according
+      to their 'dedication') to the 'service' and 'instruction' of the world?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, Sir, 'another' favourite poet of mine (and not the 'less a favourite'
+      for being a 'Christian') telleth us, that ill is the custom of 'some,'
+      when in a 'fault,' to throw the blame upon the backs of 'others,'
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      '&mdash;&mdash;Hominum quoque mos est,
+      Quæ nos cunque premunt, alieno imponere tergo.'
+                                         MANT.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But I, though (in this case) 'misled,' ('well intendedly,' nevertheless,
+      both in the 'misleaders' and 'misled,' and therefore entitled to lay hold
+      of that plea, if 'any body' is so entitled,) will not however, be classed
+      among such 'extenuators'; but (contrarily) will always keep in mind that
+      verse, which 'comforteth in mistake,' as well as 'instructeth'; and which
+      I quoted in my last letter;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Errare est hominis, sed non persistere&mdash;&mdash;'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And will own, that I was very 'rash' to take up with 'conjectures' and
+      'consequences' drawn from 'probabilites,' where (especially) the
+      'character' of so 'fine a lady' was concerned.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Credere fallacy gravis est dementia famæ.'      MANT.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Notwithstanding, Miss Clarissa Harlowe (I must be bold to say) is the
+      'only young lady,' that ever I heard of (or indeed read of) that, 'having
+      made such a false step,' so 'soon' (of 'her own accord,' as I may say)
+      'recovered' herself, and conquered her 'love of the deceiver'; (a great
+      conquest indeed!) and who flieth him, and resolveth to 'die,' rather than
+      to be his; which now, to her never-dying 'honour' (I am well assured) is
+      the case&mdash;and, in 'justice' to her, I am now ready to take to myself
+      (with no small vexation) that of Ovid,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Heu! patior telis vulnera facta meis.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But yet I do insist upon it, that all 'that part' of my 'information,'
+      which I took upon mine own 'personal inquiry,' which is what relates to
+      Mr. 'Belford' and 'his character,' is 'literally true'; for there is not
+      any where to be met with a man of a more 'libertine character' as to
+      'women,' Mr. 'Lovelace' excepted, than he beareth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so, Sir, I must desire of you, that you will not let 'any blame' lie
+      upon my 'intention'; since you see how ready I am to 'accuse myself' of
+      too lightly giving ear to a 'rash information' (not knowing it to be so,
+      however): for I depended the more upon it, as the 'people I had it from'
+      are very 'sober,' and live in the 'fear of God': and indeed when I wait
+      upon you, you will see by their letter, that they must be 'conscientious'
+      good people: wherefore, Sir, let me be entitled, from 'all your good
+      family,' to that of my last-named poet,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Aspera confesso verba remitte reo.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And now, Sir, (what is much more becoming of my 'function,') let me,
+      instead of appearing with the 'face of an accuser,' and a 'rash censurer,'
+      (which in my 'heart' I have not 'deserved' to be thought,) assume the
+      character of a 'reconciler'; and propose (by way of 'penance' to myself
+      for my 'fault') to be sent up as a 'messenger of peace' to the 'pious
+      young lady'; for they write me word 'absolutely' (and, I believe in my
+      heart, 'truly') that the 'doctors' have 'given her over,' and that she
+      'cannot live.' Alas! alas! what a sad thing would that be, if the 'poor
+      bough,' that was only designed (as I 'very well know,' and am 'fully
+      assured') 'to be bent, should be broken!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let it not, dear Sir, seem to the 'world' that there was any thing in your
+      'resentments' (which, while meant for 'reclaiming,' were just and fit)
+      that hath the 'appearance' of 'violence,' and 'fierce wrath,' and
+      'inexorability'; (as it would look to some, if carried to extremity, after
+      'repentance' and 'contrition,' and 'humiliation,' on the 'fair offender's'
+      side:) for all this while (it seemeth) she hath been a 'second Magdalen' in
+      her 'penitence,' and yet not so bad as a 'Magdalen' in her 'faults';
+      (faulty, nevertheless, as she hath been once, the Lord knoweth!
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Nam vitiis nemo sine nascitur: optimus ille est,
+      Qui minimis urgentur'&mdash;&mdash;saith Horace).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Now, Sir, if I may be named for this 'blessed' employment, (for, 'Blessed
+      is the peace-maker!') I will hasten to London; and (as I know Miss had
+      always a 'great regard' to the 'function' I have the honour to be of) I
+      have no doubt of making myself acceptable to her, and to bring her, by
+      'sound arguments,' and 'good advice,' into a 'liking of life,' which must
+      be the 'first step' to her 'recovery': for, when the 'mind' is 'made
+      easy,' the 'body' will not 'long suffer'; and the 'love of life' is a
+      'natural passion,' that is soon 'revived,' when fortune turneth about, and
+      smileth:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Vivere quisque diu, quamvis &amp; egenus &amp; ager,
+      Optat.&mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash;' OVID.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And the sweet Lucan truly observeth,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      '&mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash; Fatis debentibus annos
+      Mors invita subit.&mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash;'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And now, Sir, let me tell you what shall be the 'tenor' of my 'pleadings'
+      with her, and 'comfortings' of her, as she is, as I may say, a 'learned
+      lady'; and as I can 'explain' to her 'those sentences,' which she cannot
+      so readily 'construe herself': and this in order to convince 'you' (did
+      you not already 'know' my 'qualifications') how well qualified I 'am' for
+      the 'christian office' to which I commend myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will, IN THE FIRST PLACE, put her in mind of the 'common course of
+      things' in this 'sublunary world,' in which 'joy' and 'sorrow, sorrow' and
+      joy,' succeed one another by turns'; in order to convince her, that her
+      griefs have been but according to 'that' common course of things:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Gaudia post luctus veniunt, post gaudia luctus.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SECONDLY, I will remind her of her own notable description of 'sorrow,'
+      whence she was once called upon to distinguish wherein 'sorrow, grief,'
+      and 'melancholy,' differed from each other; which she did 'impromptu,' by
+      their 'effects,' in a truly admirable manner, to the high satisfaction of
+      every one: I myself could not, by 'study,' have distinguished 'better,'
+      nor more 'concisely'&mdash;SORROW, said she, 'wears'; GRIEF 'tears'; but
+      MELANCHOLY 'sooths.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My inference to her shall be, that since a happy reconciliation will take
+      place, 'grief' will be banished; 'sorrow' dismissed; and only sweet
+      'melancholy' remain to 'sooth' and 'indulge' her contrite 'heart,' and
+      show to all the world the penitent sense she hath of her great error.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THIRDLY, That her 'joys,'* when restored to health and favour, will be the
+      greater, the deeper her griefs were.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * 'Joy,' let me here observe, my dear Sir, by way of note, is not
+      absolutely inconsistent with 'melancholy'; a 'soft gentle joy,' not a
+      'rapid,' not a 'rampant joy,' however; but such a 'joy,' as shall lift her
+      'temporarily' out of her 'soothing melancholy,' and then 'let her down
+      gently' into it again; for 'melancholy,' to be sure, her 'reflection' will
+      generally make to be her state.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Gaudia, quæ multo parta labore, placent.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      FOURTHLY, That having 'really' been guilty of a 'great error,' she should
+      not take 'impatiently' the 'correction' and 'anger' with which she hath
+      been treated.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Leniter, ex merito quicquid patiare ferundum est.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      FIFTHLY, That 'virtue' must be established by 'patience'; as saith
+      Prudentius:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Hæc virtus vidua est, quam non patientia firmat.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SIXTHLY, That in the words of Horace, she may 'expect better times,' than
+      (of late) she had 'reason' to look for.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Grata superveniet, quæ non sperabitur, hora.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SEVENTHLY, That she is really now in 'a way' to be 'happy,' since,
+      according to 'Ovid,' she 'can count up all her woe':
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Felix, qui patitur quæ numerare potest.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And those comforting lines,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Estque serena dies post longos gratior imbres,
+          Et post triste malum gratior ipsa salus.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      EIGHTHLY, That, in the words of Mantuan, her 'parents' and 'uncles' could
+      not 'help loving her' all the time they were 'angry at her':
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Æqua tamen mens est, &amp; amica voluntas,
+      Sit licet in natos austere parentum.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      NINTHLY, That the 'ills she hath met with' may be turned (by the 'good
+      use' to be made of them) to her 'everlasting benefit'; for that,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Cum furit atque ferit, Deus olim parcere quærit.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      TENTHLY, That she will be able to give a 'fine lesson' (a 'very' fine
+      lesson) to all the 'young ladies' of her 'acquaintance,' of the 'vanity'
+      of being 'lifted up' in 'prosperity,' and the 'weakness' of being 'cast
+      down' in 'adversity'; since no one is so 'high,' as to be above being
+      'humbled'; so 'low,' as to 'need to despair': for which purpose the advice
+      of 'Ausonius,'
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Dum fortuna juvat, caveto tolli:
+      Dum fortuna tonat, caveto mergi.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I shall tell her, that Lucan saith well, when he calleth 'adversity the
+      element of patience';
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      '&mdash;&mdash;Gaudet patientia duris:'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      That
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Fortunam superat virtus, prudential famam.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      That while weak souls are 'crushed by fortune,' the 'brave mind' maketh
+      the fickle deity afraid of it:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Fortuna fortes metuit, ignavos permit.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      ELEVENTHLY, That if she take the advice of 'Horace,'
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Fortiaque adversis opponite pectora rebus,'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      it will delight her 'hereafter' (as 'Virgil' saith) to 'revoke her past
+      troubles':
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      '&mdash;&mdash;Forsan &amp; hæc olim meminisse juvabit.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And, to the same purpose, 'Juvenal' speaking of the 'prating joy' of
+      mariners, after all their 'dangers are over':
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Gaudent securi narrare pericula nautæ.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Which suiting the case so well, you'll forgive me, Sir, for 'popping down'
+      in 'English metre,' as the 'translative impulse' (pardon a new word, and
+      yet we 'scholars' are not fond of 'authenticating new' words) came upon me
+      'uncalled for':
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      The seaman, safe on shore, with joy doth tell
+      What cruel dangers him at sea befell.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      With 'these,' Sir, and an 'hundred more' wise 'adages,' which I have
+      always at my 'fingers' end,' will I (when reduced to 'form' and 'method')
+      entertain Miss; and as she is a 'well-read,' and (I might say, but for
+      this 'one' great error) a 'wise' young lady, I make no doubt but I shall
+      'prevail' upon her, if not by 'mine own arguments,' by those of 'wits' and
+      'capacities' that have a 'congeniality' (as I may say) to 'her own,' to
+      take to heart,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      &mdash;&mdash;Nor of the laws of fate complain,
+      Since, though it has been cloudy, now't clears up again.&mdash;&mdash;
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Oh! what 'wisdom' is there in these 'noble classical authors!' A 'wise
+      man' will (upon searching into them,) always find that they speak 'his'
+      sense of 'men' and 'things.' Hence it is, that they so readily occur to my
+      'memory' on every occasion&mdash;though this may look like 'vanity,' it is
+      too true to be omitted; and I see not why a man may not 'know these things
+      of himself,' which 'every body' seeth and 'saith of him'; who,
+      nevertheless, perhaps know not 'half so much as he,' in other matters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know but of 'one objection,' Sir, that can lie against my going; and
+      that will arise from your kind 'care' and 'concern' for the 'safety of my
+      person,' in case that 'fierce' and 'terrible man,' the wicked Mr.
+      Lovelace, (of whom every one standeth in fear,) should come cross me, as
+      he may be resolved to try once more to 'gain a footing in Miss's
+      affections': but I will trust in 'Providence' for 'my safety,' while I
+      shall be engaged in a 'cause so worthy of my function'; and the 'more'
+      trust in it, as he is a 'learned man' as I am told.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Strange too, that so 'vile a rake' (I hope he will never see this!) should
+      be a 'learned man'; that is to say, that a 'learned man' may be a 'sly
+      sinner,' and take opportunities, 'as they come in his way'&mdash;which,
+      however, I do assure you, 'I never did,'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I repeat, that as he is a 'learned man,' I shall 'vest myself,' as I may
+      say, in 'classical armour'; beginning 'meekly' with him (for, Sir,
+      'bravery' and 'meekness' are qualities 'very consistent with each other,'
+      and in no persons so shiningly 'exert' themselves, as in the 'Christian
+      priesthood'; beginning 'meekly' with him, I say) from Ovid,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Corpora magnanimo satis est protrasse leoni:'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      So that, if I should not be safe behind the 'shield of mine own prudence,'
+      I certainly should be behind the 'shields' of the 'ever-admirable
+      classics': of 'Horace' particularly; who, being a 'rake' (and a 'jovial
+      rake' too,) himself, must have great weight with all 'learned rakes.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And who knoweth but I may be able to bring even this 'Goliath in
+      wickedness,' although in 'person' but a 'little David' myself, (armed with
+      the 'slings' and 'stones' of the 'ancient sages,') to a due sense of his
+      errors? And what a victory would that be!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could here, Sir, pursuing the allegory of David and Goliath, give you
+      some of the 'stones' ('hard arguments' may be called 'stones,' since they
+      'knock down a pertinacious opponent') which I could 'pelt him with,' were
+      he to be wroth with me; and this in order to take from you, Sir, all
+      apprehensions for my 'life,' or my 'bones'; but I forbear them till you
+      demand them of me, when I have the honour to attend you in person.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, (my dear Sir,) what remaineth, but that having shown you (what
+      yet, I believe, you did not doubt) how 'well qualified' I am to attend the
+      lady with the 'olive-branch,' I beg of you to dispatch me with it 'out of
+      hand'? For if she be so 'very ill,' and if she should not live to receive
+      the grace, which (to my knowledge) all the 'worthy family' design her, how
+      much will that grieve you all! And then, Sir, of what avail will be the
+      'eulogies' you shall all, peradventure, join to give to her memory? For,
+      as Martial wisely observeth,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      '&mdash;&mdash; Post cineres gloria sera venit.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Then, as 'Ausonius' layeth it down with 'equal propriety,' that 'those
+      favours which are speedily conferred are the most grateful and obliging'
+      &mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And to the same purpose Ovid:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Gratia ab officio, quod mora tar dat, abest.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And, Sir, whatever you do, let the 'lady's pardon' be as 'ample,' and as
+      'cheerfully given,' as she can 'wish for it': that I may be able to tell
+      her, that it hath your 'hands,' your 'countenances,' and your 'whole
+      hearts,' with it&mdash;for, as the Latin verse hath it, (and I presume to
+      think I have not weakened its sense by my humble advice),
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Dat bene, dat multum, qui dat cum munere vultum.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And now, Sir, when I survey this long letter,* (albeit I see it enamelled,
+      as a 'beautiful meadow' is enamelled by the 'spring' or 'summer' flowers,
+      very glorious to behold!) I begin to be afraid that I may have tired you;
+      and the more likely, as I have written without that 'method' or 'order,'
+      which I think constituteth the 'beauty' of 'good writing': which 'method'
+      or 'order,' nevertheless, may be the 'better excused' in a 'familiar
+      epistle,' (as this may be called,) you pardoning, Sir, the 'familiarity'
+      of the 'word'; but yet not altogether 'here,' I must needs own; because
+      this is 'a letter' and 'not a letter,' as I may say; but a kind of 'short'
+      and 'pithy discourse,' touching upon 'various' and 'sundry topics,' every
+      one of which might be a 'fit theme' to enlarge upon of volumes; if this
+      'epistolary discourse' (then let me call it) should be pleasing to you,
+      (as I am inclined to think it will, because of the 'sentiments' and
+      'aphorisms' of the 'wisest of the antients,' which 'glitter through it'
+      like so many dazzling 'sunbeams,') I will (at my leisure) work it up into
+      a 'methodical discourse'; and perhaps may one day print it, with a
+      'dedication' to my 'honoured patron,' (if, Sir, I have 'your' leave,)
+      'singly' at first, (but not till I have thrown out 'anonymously,' two or
+      three 'smaller things,' by the success of which I shall have made myself
+      of 'some account' in the 'commonwealth of letters,') and afterwards in my
+      'works'&mdash;not for the 'vanity' of the thing (however) I will say, but
+      for the 'use' it may be of to the 'public'; for, (as one well observeth,)
+      'though glory always followeth virtue, yet it should be considered only as
+      its shadow.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * And here, by way of note, permit me to say, that no 'sermon' I ever
+      composed cost me half the 'pains' that this letter hath done&mdash;but I
+      knew your great 'appetite' after, as well as 'admiration' of, the 'antient
+      wisdom,' which you so justly prefer to the 'modern'&mdash;and indeed I
+      join with you to think, that the 'modern' is only 'borrowed,' (as the
+      'moon' doth its light from the 'sun,') at least, that we 'excel' them in
+      nothing; and that our 'best cogitations' may be found, generally speaking,
+      more 'elegantly' dressed and expressed by them.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Contemnit laudem virtus, licet usque sequatur
+          Gloria virtutem, corpus ut umbra suum.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A very pretty saying, and worthy of all men's admiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, ('most worthy Sir,' my very good friend and patron,) referring
+      the whole to 'your's,' and to your 'two brothers,' and to 'young Mr.
+      Harlowe's' consideration, and to the wise consideration of good 'Madam
+      Harlowe,' and her excellent daughter, 'Miss Arabella Harlowe'; I take the
+      liberty to subscribe myself, what I 'truly am,' and 'every shall delight
+      to be,' in 'all cases,' and at 'all times,'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your and their most ready and obedient as well as faithful servant, ELIAS
+      BRAND.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0070" id="link2H_4_0070">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. [IN ANSWER TO LETTER LXIV. OF THIS
+      VOLUME.] WEDN. MORN. SEPT. 6.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And is she somewhat better?&mdash;Blessings upon thee without number or
+      measure! Let her still be better and better! Tell me so at least, if she
+      be not so: for thou knowest not what a joy that poor temporary reprieve,
+      that she will hold out yet a day or two, gave me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But who told this hard-hearted and death-pronouncing doctor that she will
+      hold it no longer? By what warrant says he this? What presumption in these
+      parading solemn fellows of a college, which will be my contempt to the
+      latest hour of my life, if this brother of it (eminent as he is deemed to
+      be) cannot work an ordinary miracle in her favour, or rather in mine!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let me tell thee, Belford, that already he deserves the utmost contempt,
+      for suffering this charming clock to run down so low. What must be his
+      art, if it could not wind it up in a quarter of the time he has attended
+      her, when, at his first visits, the springs and wheels of life and motion
+      were so god, that they seemed only to want common care and oiling!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am obliged to you for endeavouring to engage her to see me. 'Twas acting
+      like a friend. If she had vouchsafed me that favour, she should have seen
+      at her feet the most abject adorer that ever kneeled to justly-offended
+      beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What she bid you, and what she forbid you, to tell me, (the latter for
+      tender considerations:) that she forgives me; and that, could she have
+      made me a good man, she would have made me a happy one! That she even
+      loved me! At such a moment to own that she once loved me! Never before
+      loved any man! That she prays for me! That her last tear should be shed
+      for me, could she by it save a soul, doomed, without her, to perdition!&mdash;
+      O Belford! Belford! I cannot bear it!&mdash;What a dog, what a devil have
+      I been to a goodness so superlative!&mdash;Why does she not inveigh
+      against me? &mdash;Why does she not execrate me?&mdash;O the triumphant
+      subduer! Ever above me!&mdash;And now to leave me so infinitely below her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marry and repair, at any time; this, wretch that I was, was my plea to
+      myself. To give her a lowering sensibility; to bring her down from among
+      the stars which her beamy head was surrounded by, that my wife, so greatly
+      above me, might not despise me; this was one of my reptile motives, owing
+      to my more reptile envy, and to my consciousness of inferiority to her!&mdash;Yet
+      she, from step to step, from distress to distress, to maintain her
+      superiority; and, like the sun, to break out upon me with the greater
+      refulgence for the clouds that I had contrived to cast about her!&mdash;And
+      now to escape me thus!&mdash;No power left me to repair her wrongs!&mdash;No
+      alleviation to my self-reproach!&mdash;No dividing of blame with her!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tell her, O tell her, Belford, that her prayers and wishes, her
+      superlatively-generous prayers and wishes, shall not be vain: that I can,
+      and do repent&mdash;and long have repented.&mdash;Tell her of my frequent
+      deep remorses&mdash;it was impossible that such remorses should not at
+      last produce effectual remorse&mdash;yet she must not leave me&mdash;she
+      must live, if she would wish to have my contrition perfect&mdash;For what
+      can despair produce?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will do every thing you would have me do, in the return of your letters.
+      You have infinitely obliged me by this last, and by pressing for an
+      admission for me, though it succeeded not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more, how could I be such a villain to so divine a creature! Yet love
+      her all the time, as never man loved woman!&mdash;Curse upon my contriving
+      genius!&mdash;Curse upon my intriguing head, and upon my seconding heart!&mdash;To
+      sport with the fame, with the honour, with the life, of such an angel of a
+      woman!&mdash;O my d&mdash;&mdash;d incredulity! That, believing her to be
+      a woman, I must hope to find her a woman! On my incredulity, that there
+      could be such virtue (virtue for virtue's sake) in the sex, founded I my
+      hope of succeeding with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But say not, Jack, that she must leave us yet. If she recover, and if I
+      can but re-obtain her favour, then, indeed, will life be life to me. The
+      world never saw such an husband as I will make. I will have no will but
+      her's. She shall conduct me in all my steps. She shall open and direct my
+      prospects, and turn every motion of my heart as she pleases.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You tell me, in your letter, that at eleven o'clock she had sweet rest;
+      and my servant acquaints me, from Mrs. Smith, that she has had a good
+      night. What hopes does this fill me with! I have given the fellow five
+      guineas for his good news, to be divided between him and his
+      fellow-servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dear, dear Jack! confirm this to me in thy next&mdash;for Heaven's sake,
+      do!&mdash; Tell the doctor I'll make a present of a thousand guineas if he
+      recover her. Ask if a consultation then be necessary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adieu, dear Belford! Confirm, I beseech thee, the hopes that now, with
+      sovereign gladness, have taken possession of a heart, that, next to her's,
+      is
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0071" id="link2H_4_0071">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. WEDN. MORN. EIGHT O'CLOCK, (6 SEPT.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your servant arrived here before I was stirring. I sent him to Smith's to
+      inquire how the lady was; and ordered him to call upon me when he came
+      back. I was pleased to hear she had tolerable rest. As soon as I had
+      dispatched him with the letter I had written over night, I went to attend
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I found her up, and dressed; in a white satin night-gown. Ever elegant;
+      but now more so than I had seen her for a week past: her aspect serenely
+      cheerful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She mentioned the increased dimness of her eyes, and the tremor which had
+      invaded her limbs. If this be dying, said she, there is nothing at all
+      shocking in it. My body hardly sensible of pain, my mind at ease, my
+      intellects clear and perfect as ever. What a good and gracious God have I!&mdash;For
+      this is what I always prayed for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her it was not so serene with you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is not the same reason for it, replied she. 'Tis a choice comfort,
+      Mr. Belford, at the winding up of our short story, to be able to say, I
+      have rather suffered injuries myself, than offered them to others. I bless
+      God, though I have been unhappy, as the world deems it, and once I thought
+      more so than at present I think I ought to have done, since my calamities
+      were to work out for me my everlasting happiness; yet have I not wilfully
+      made any one creature so. I have no reason to grieve for any thing but for
+      the sorrow I have given my friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But pray, Mr. Belford, remember me in the best manner to my cousin Morden;
+      and desire him to comfort them, and to tell them, that all would have been
+      the same, had they accepted of my true penitence, as I wish and as I trust
+      the Almighty has done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was called down: it was to Harry, who was just returned from Miss
+      Howe's, to whom he carried the lady's letter. The stupid fellow being bid
+      to make haste with it, and return as soon as possible, staid not until
+      Miss Howe had it, she being at the distance of five minutes, although Mrs.
+      Howe would have had him stay, and sent a man and horse purposely with it
+      to her daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WEDNESDAY MORNING, TEN O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor lady is just recovered from a fainting fit, which has left her at
+      death's door. Her late tranquillity and freedom from pain seemed but a
+      lightening, as Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith call it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By my faith, Lovelace, I had rather part with all the friends I have in
+      the world, than with this lady. I never knew what a virtuous, a holy
+      friendship, as I may call mine to her, was before. But to be so new to it,
+      and to be obliged to forego it so soon, what an affliction! Yet, thank
+      Heaven, I lose her not by my own fault!&mdash;But 'twould be barbarous not
+      to spare thee now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She has sent for the divine who visited her before, to pray with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0072" id="link2H_4_0072">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. KENSINGTON, WEDNESDAY NOON.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like Æsop's traveller, thou blowest hot and cold, life and death, in the
+      same breath, with a view, no doubt, to distract me. How familiarly dost
+      thou use the words, dying, dimness, tremor? Never did any mortal ring so
+      many changes on so few bells. Thy true father, I dare swear, was a
+      butcher, or an undertaker, by the delight thou seemest to take in scenes
+      of death and horror. Thy barbarous reflection, that thou losest her not by
+      thy own fault, is never to be forgiven. Thou hast but one way to atone for
+      the torments thou hast given me, and that is, by sending me word that she
+      is better, and will recover. Whether it be true or not, let me be told so,
+      and I will go abroad rejoicing and believing it, and my wishes and
+      imaginations shall make out all the rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If she live but one year, that I may acquit myself to myself (no matter
+      for the world!) that her death is not owing to me, I will compound for the
+      rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Will neither vows nor prayers save her? I never prayed in my life, put all
+      the years of it together, as I have done for this fortnight past: and I
+      have most sincerely repented of all my baseness to her&mdash;And will
+      nothing do?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But after all, if she recovers not, this reflection must be my comfort;
+      and it is truth; that her departure will be owing rather to wilfulness, to
+      downright female wilfulness, than to any other cause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is difficult for people, who pursue the dictates of a violent
+      resentment, to stop where first they designed to stop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have the charity to believe, that even James and Arabella Harlowe, at
+      first, intended no more by the confederacy they formed against this their
+      angel sister, than to disgrace and keep her down, lest (sordid wretches!)
+      their uncles should follow the example their grandfather had set, to their
+      detriment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So this lady, as I suppose, intended only at first to vex and plague me;
+      and, finding she could do it to purpose, her desire of revenge insensibly
+      became stronger in her than the desire of life; and now she is willing to
+      die, as an event which she thinks will cut my heart-strings asunder. And
+      still, the more to be revenged, puts on the Christian, and forgives me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I'll have none of her forgiveness! My own heart tells me I do not
+      deserve it; and I cannot bear it!&mdash;And what is it but a mere verbal
+      forgiveness, as ostentatiously as cruelly given with a view to magnify
+      herself, and wound me deeper! A little, dear, specious&mdash;but let me
+      stop &mdash;lest I blaspheme!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Reading over the above, I am ashamed of my ramblings; but what wouldest
+      have me do?&mdash;Seest thou not that I am but seeking to run out of
+      myself, in hope to lose myself; yet, that I am unable to do either?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If ever thou lovedst but half so fervently as I love&mdash;but of that thy
+      heavy soul is not capable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Send me word by the next, I conjure thee, in the names of all her kindred
+      saints and angels, that she is living, and likely to live!&mdash;If thou
+      sendest ill news, thou wilt be answerable for the consequences, whether it
+      be fatal to the messenger, or to
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thy LOVELACE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0073" id="link2H_4_0073">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. WEDNESDAY, ELEVEN O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. H. has just been here. He tarried with me till the minister had done
+      praying by the lady; and then we were both admitted. Mr. Goddard, who came
+      while the doctor and the clergyman were with her, went away with them when
+      they went. They took a solemn and everlasting leave of her, as I have no
+      scruple to say; blessing her, and being blessed by her; and wishing (when
+      it came to be their lot) for an exit as happy as her's is likely to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had again earnestly requested of the doctor his opinion how long it
+      was now probable that she could continue; and he told her, that he
+      apprehended she would hardly see to-morrow night. She said, she should
+      number the hours with greater pleasure than ever she numbered any in her
+      life on the most joyful occasion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How unlike poor Belton's last hours her's! See the infinite differences in
+      the effects, on the same awful and affecting occasion, between a good and
+      a bad conscience!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This moment a man is come from Miss Howe with a letter. Perhaps I shall be
+      able to send you the contents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She endeavoured several times with earnestness, but in vain, to read the
+      letter of her dear friend. The writing, she said, was too fine for her
+      grosser sight, and the lines staggered under her eye. And indeed she
+      trembled so, she could not hold the paper; and at last desired Mrs. Lovick
+      to read it to her, the messenger waiting for an answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou wilt see in Miss Howe's letter, how different the expression of the
+      same impatience, and passionate love, is, when dictated by the gentler
+      mind of a woman, from that which results from a mind so boisterous and
+      knotty as thine. For Mrs. Lovick will transcribe it, and I shall send it&mdash;to
+      be read in this place, if thou wilt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TUESDAY, SEPT. 5.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O MY DEAREST FRIEND!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What will become of your poor Anna Howe! I see by your writing, as well as
+      read by your own account, (which, were you not very, very ill, you would
+      have touched more tenderly,) how it is with you! Why have I thus long
+      delayed to attend you! Could I think, that the comfortings of a faithful
+      friend were as nothing to a gentle mind in distress, that I could be
+      prevailed upon to forbear visiting you so much as once in all this time!
+      I, as well as every body else, to desert and abandon my dear creature to
+      strangers! What will become of you, if you be as bad as my apprehensions
+      make you!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will set out this moment, little as the encouragement is that you give
+      me to do so! My mother is willing I should! Why, O why was she not before
+      willing?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet she persuades me too, (lest I should be fatally affected were I to
+      find my fears too well justified,) to wait the return of this messenger,
+      who rides our swiftest horse.&mdash;God speed him with good news to me&mdash;One
+      line from your hand by him!&mdash;Send me but one line to bid me attend
+      you! I will set out the moment, the very moment I receive it. I am now
+      actually ready to do so! And if you love me, as I love you, the sight of
+      me will revive you to my hopes.&mdash;But why, why, when I can think this,
+      did I not go up sooner!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blessed Heaven! deny not to my prayers, my friend, my admonisher, my
+      adviser, at a time so critical to myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But methinks, your style and sentiments are too well connected, too full
+      of life and vigour, to give cause for so much despair as thy staggering
+      pen seems to forbode.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sorry I was not at home, [I must add thus much, though the servant is
+      ready mounted at the door,] when Mr. Belford's servant came with your
+      affecting letter. I was at Miss Lloyd's. My mamma sent it to me&mdash;and
+      I came home that instant. But he was gone: he would not stay, it seems.
+      Yet I wanted to ask him an hundred thousand questions. But why delay I
+      thus my messenger? I have a multitude of things to say to you&mdash;to
+      advise with you about!&mdash;You shall direct me in every thing. I will
+      obey the holding up of your finger. But, if you leave me&mdash;what is the
+      world, or any thing in it, to your
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ANNA HOWE?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The effect this letter had on the lady, who is so near the end which the
+      fair writer so much apprehends and deplores, obliged Mrs. Lovick to make
+      many breaks in reading it, and many changes of voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is a friend, said the divine lady, (taking the letter in her hand,
+      and kissing it,) worth wishing to live for.&mdash;O my dear Anna Howe! how
+      uninterruptedly sweet and noble has been our friendship!&mdash;But we
+      shall one day meet, (and this hope must comfort us both,) never to part
+      again! Then, divested of the shades of body, shall be all light and all
+      mind!&mdash; Then how unalloyed, how perfect, will be our friendship! Our
+      love then will have one and the same adorable object, and we shall enjoy
+      it and each other to all eternity!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She said, her dear friend was so earnest for a line or two, that she fain
+      would write, if she could: and she tried&mdash;but to no purpose. She
+      could dictate, however, she believed; and desired Mrs. Lovick would take
+      pen and paper. Which she did, and then she dictated to her. I would have
+      withdrawn; but at her desire staid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She wandered a good deal at first. She took notice that she did. And when
+      she got into a little train, not pleasing herself, she apologized to Mrs.
+      Lovick for making her begin again and again; and said, that the third time
+      should go, let it be as it would.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She dictated the farewell part without hesitation; and when she came to
+      blessing and subscription, she took the pen, and dropping on her knees,
+      supported by Mrs. Lovick, wrote the conclusion; but Mrs. Lovick was forced
+      to guide her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You will find the sense surprisingly entire, her weakness considered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I made the messenger wait while I transcribed it. I have endeavoured to
+      imitate the subscriptive part; and in the letter made pauses where, to the
+      best of my remembrance, she paused. In nothing that relates to this
+      admirable lady can I be too minute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WEDN. NEAR THREE O'CLOCK. MY DEAREST MISS HOWE,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You must not be surprised&mdash;nor grieved&mdash;that Mrs. Lovick writes
+      for me. Although I cannot obey you, and write with my pen, yet my heart
+      writes by her's&mdash;accept it so&mdash;it is the nearest to obedience I
+      can!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, what ought I to say? What can I say?&mdash;But why should not you
+      know the truth? since soon you must&mdash;very soon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Know then, and let your tears be those, if of pity, of joyful pity! for I
+      permit you to shed a few, to embalm, as I may say, a fallen blossom&mdash;
+      know then, that the good doctor, and the pious clergyman, and the worthy
+      apothecary, have just now&mdash;with joint benedictions&mdash;taken their
+      last leave of me; and the former bids me hope&mdash;do, my dearest, let me
+      say hope &mdash;hope for my enlargement before to-morrow sun-set.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adieu, therefore, my dearest friend!&mdash;Be this your consolation, as it
+      is mine, that in God's good time we shall meet in a blessed eternity,
+      never more to part!&mdash;Once more, then, adieu!&mdash;and be happy!&mdash;Which
+      a generous nature cannot be, unless&mdash;to its power&mdash;it makes
+      others so too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      God for ever bless you!&mdash;prays, dropt on my bended knees, although
+      supported upon them,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your obliged, grateful, affectionate, CL. HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I had transcribed and sealed this letter, by her direction, I gave it
+      to the messenger myself, who told me that Miss Howe waited for nothing but
+      his return to set out for London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thy servant is just come; so I will close here. Thou art a merciless
+      master. These two fellows are battered to death by thee, to use a female
+      word; and all female words, though we are not sure of their derivation,
+      have very significant meanings. I believe, in their hearts, they wish the
+      angel in the Heaven that is ready to receive her, and thee at the proper
+      place, that there might be an end of their flurries&mdash;another word of
+      the same gender.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a letter hast thou sent me!&mdash;Poor Lovelace!&mdash;is all the
+      answer I will return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [FIVE O'CLOCK.] Col. Morden is this moment arrived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0074" id="link2H_4_0074">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXXI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD [IN CONTINUATION.] EIGHT IN THE EVENING.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had but just time, in my former, to tell you that Col. Morden was
+      arrived. He was on horseback, attended by two servants, and alighted at
+      the door just as the clock struck five. Mrs. Smith was then below in her
+      back-shop, weeping, her husband with her, who was as much affected as she;
+      Mrs. Lovick having left them a little before, in tears likewise; for they
+      had been bemoaning one another; joining in opinion that the admirable lady
+      would not live the night over. She had told them, it was her opinion too,
+      from some numbnesses, which she called the forerunners of death, and from
+      an increased inclination to doze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel, as Mrs. Smith told me afterwards, asked with great
+      impatience, the moment he alighted, how Miss Harlowe was? She answered&mdash;
+      Alive!&mdash;but, she feared, drawing on apace.&mdash;Good God! said he,
+      with his hands and eyes lifted up, can I see her? My name is Morden. I
+      have the honour to be nearly related to her.&mdash;Step up, pray, and let
+      her know, (she is sensible, I hope,) that I am here&mdash;Who is with her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nobody but her nurse, and Mrs. Lovick, a widow gentlewoman, who is as
+      careful of her as if she were her mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And more careful too, interrupted he, or she is not careful at all&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Except a gentleman be with her, one Mr. Belford, continued Mrs. Smith, who
+      has been the best friend she has had.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If Mr. Belford be with her, surely I may&mdash;but pray step up, and let
+      Mr. Belford know that I shall take it for a favour to speak with him
+      first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Smith came up to me in my new apartment. I had but just dispatched
+      your servant, and was asking her nurse if I might be again admitted? Who
+      answered, that she was dozing in the elbow chair, having refused to lie
+      down, saying, she should soon, she hoped, lie down for good.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel, who is really a fine gentleman, received me with great
+      politeness. After the first compliments&mdash;My kinswoman, Sir, said he,
+      is more obliged to you than to any of her own family. For my part, I have
+      been endeavouring to move so many rocks in her favour; and, little
+      thinking the dear creature so very bad, have neglected to attend her, as I
+      ought to have done the moment I arrived; and would, had I known how ill
+      she was, and what a task I should have had with the family. But, Sir, your
+      friend has been excessively to blame; and you being so intimately his
+      friend, has made her fare the worse for your civilities to her. But are
+      there no hopes of her recovery?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctors have left her, with the melancholy declaration that there are
+      none.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Has she had good attendance, Sir? A skilful physician? I hear these good
+      folks have been very civil and obliging to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who could be otherwise? said Mrs. Smith, weeping.&mdash;She is the
+      sweetest lady in the world!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The character, said the Colonel, lifting up his eyes and one hand, that
+      she has from every living creature!&mdash;Good God! How could your
+      accursed friend&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And how could her cruel parents? interrupted I.&mdash;We may as easily
+      account for him, as for them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Too true! returned me, the vileness of the profligates of our sex
+      considered, whenever they can get any of the other into their power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I satisfied him about the care that had been taken of her, and told him of
+      the friendly and even paternal attendance she had had from Dr. H. and Mr.
+      Goddard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was impatient to attend her, having not seen her, as he said, since she
+      was twelve years old; and that then she gave promises of being one of the
+      finest women in England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was so, replied I, a very few months ago: and, though emaciated, she
+      will appear to you to have confirmed those promises; for her features are
+      so regular and exact, her proportions so fine, and her manner so
+      inimitably graceful, that, were she only skin and bone, she must be a
+      beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Smith, at his request, stept up, and brought us down word that Mrs.
+      Lovick and her nurse were with her; and that she was in so sound a sleep,
+      leaning upon the former in her elbow-chair, that she had neither heard her
+      enter the room, nor go out. The Colonel begged, if not improper, that he
+      might see her, though sleeping. He said, that his impatience would not let
+      him stay till he awaked. Yet he would not have her disturbed; and should
+      be glad to contemplate her sweet features, when she saw not him; and
+      asked, if she thought he could not go in, and come out, without disturbing
+      her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She believed he might, she answered; for her chair's back was towards the
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He said he would take care to withdraw, if she awoke, that his sudden
+      appearance might not surprise her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Smith, stepping up before us, bid Mrs. Lovick and nurse not stir,
+      when we entered; and then we went up softly together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We beheld the lady in a charming attitude. Dressed, as I told you before,
+      in her virgin white. She was sitting in her elbow-chair, Mrs. Lovick close
+      by her, in another chair, with her left arm round her neck, supporting it,
+      as it were; for, it seems, the lady had bid her do so, saying, she had
+      been a mother to her, and she would delight herself in thinking she was in
+      her mamma's arms; for she found herself drowsy; perhaps, she said, for the
+      last time she should be so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One faded cheek rested upon the good woman's bosom, the kindly warmth of
+      which had overspread it with a faint, but charming flush; the other paler
+      and hollow, as if already iced over by death. Her hands white as the lily,
+      with her meandering veins more transparently blue than ever I had seen
+      even her's, (veins so soon, alas! to be choked up by the congealment of
+      that purple stream, which already so languidly creeps, rather than flows,
+      through them!) her hands hanging lifelessly, one before her, the other
+      grasped by the right-hand of the kind widow, whose tears bedewed the sweet
+      face which her motherly boson supported, though unfelt by the fair
+      sleeper; and either insensibly to the good woman, or what she would not
+      disturb her to wipe off, or to change her posture: her aspect was sweetly
+      calm and serene: and though she started now and then, yet her sleep seemed
+      easy; her breath, indeed short and quick; but tolerably free, and not like
+      that of a dying person.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this heart-moving attitude she appeared to us when we approached her,
+      and came to have her lovely face before us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel, sighing often, gazed upon her with his arms folded, and with
+      the most profound and affectionate attention; till at last, on her
+      starting, and fetching her breath with greater difficulty than before, he
+      retired to a screen, that was drawn before her house, as she calls it,
+      which, as I have heretofore observed, stands under one of the windows.
+      This screen was placed there at the time she found herself obliged to take
+      to her chamber; and in the depth of our concern, and the fulness of other
+      discourse at our first interview, I had forgotten to apprize the Colonel
+      of what he would probably see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Retiring thither, he drew out his handkerchief, and, overwhelmed with
+      grief, seemed unable to speak; but, on casting his eye behind the screen,
+      he soon broke silence; for, struck with the shape of the coffin, he lifted
+      up a purplish-coloured cloth that was spread over it, and, starting back,
+      Good God! said he, what's here?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Smith standing next him, Why, said he, with great emotion, is my
+      cousin suffered to indulge her sad reflections with such an object before
+      her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alas! Sir, replied the good woman, who should controul her? We are all
+      strangers about her, in a manner: and yet we have expostulated with her
+      upon this sad occasion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I ought, said I, (stepping softly up to him, the lady again falling into a
+      doze,) to have apprized you of this. I was here when it was brought in,
+      and never was so shocked in my life. But she had none of her friends about
+      her, and no reason to hope for any of them to come near her; and, assured
+      she should not recover, she was resolved to leave as little as possible,
+      especially as to what related to her person, to her executor. But it is
+      not a shocking object to her, though it be to every body else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Curse upon the hard-heartedness of those, said he, who occasioned her to
+      make so sad a provision for herself!&mdash;What must her reflections have
+      been all the time she was thinking of it, and giving orders about it? And
+      what must they be every time she turns her head towards it? These uncommon
+      genius's&mdash;but indeed she should have been controuled in it, had I
+      been here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady fetched a profound sigh, and, starting, it broke off our talk;
+      and the Colonel then withdrew farther behind the screen, that his sudden
+      appearance might not surprise her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where am I?&mdash;said she. How drowsy I am! How long have I dozed? Don't
+      go, Sir, (for I was retiring,) I am very stupid, and shall be more and
+      more so, I suppose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She then offered to raise herself; but being ready to faint through
+      weakness, was forced to sit down again, reclining her head on her chair
+      back; and, after a few moments, I believe now, my good friends, said she,
+      all your kind trouble will soon be over. I have slept, but am not
+      refreshed, and my fingers' ends seem numbed&mdash;have no feeling!
+      (holding them up,)&mdash;'tis time to send the letter to my good Norton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shall I, Madam, send my servant post with it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O no, Sir, I thank you. It will reach the dear woman too soon, (as she
+      will think,) by the post.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her this was not post-day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Is it Wednesday still, said she; bless me! I know not how the time goes
+      &mdash;but very tediously, 'tis plain. And now I think I must soon take to
+      my bed. All will be most conveniently, and with least trouble, over there&mdash;
+      will it not, Mrs. Lovick?&mdash;I think, Sir, turning to me, I have left
+      nothing to these last incapacitating hours. Nothing either to say, or to
+      do&mdash;I bless God, I have not. If I had, how unhappy should I be! Can
+      you, Sir, remind me of any thing necessary to be done or said to make your
+      office easy?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If, Madam, your cousin Morden should come, you would be glad to see him, I
+      presume?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am too weak to wish to see my cousin now. It would but discompose me,
+      and him too. Yet, if he come while I can see him, I will see him, were it
+      but to thank him for former favours, and for his present kind intentions
+      to me. Has any body been here from him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He has called, and will be here, Madam, in half an hour; but he feared to
+      surprise you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing can surprise me now, except my mamma were to favour me with her
+      last blessing in person. That would be a welcome surprise to me, even yet.
+      But did my cousin come purposely to town to see me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, Madam, I took the liberty to let him know, by a line last Monday, how
+      ill you were.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You are very kind, Sir. I am, and have been greatly obliged to you. But I
+      think I shall be pained to see him now, because he will be concerned to
+      see me. And yet, as I am not so ill as I shall presently be&mdash;the
+      sooner he comes the better. But if he come, what shall I do about the
+      screen? He will chide me, very probably, and I cannot bear chiding now.
+      Perhaps, [leaning upon Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith,] I can walk into the
+      next apartment to receive him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She motioned to rise, but was ready to faint again, and forced to sit
+      still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel was in a perfect agitation behind the screen to hear this
+      discourse; and twice, unseen by his cousin, was coming from it towards
+      her; but retreated for fear of surprising her too much.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stept to him, and favoured his retreat; she only saying, Are you going,
+      Mr. Belford? Are you sent for down? Is my cousin come? For she heard
+      somebody step softly across the room, and thought it to be me; her hearing
+      being more perfect than her sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her, I believed he was; and she said, We must make the best of it,
+      Mrs. Lovick, and Mrs. Smith. I shall otherwise most grievously shock my
+      poor cousin: for he loved me dearly once.&mdash;Pray give me a few of the
+      doctor's last drops in water, to keep up my spirits for this one
+      interview; and that is all, I believe, that can concern me now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel, (who heard all this,) sent in his name; and I, pretending to
+      go down to him, introduced the afflicted gentleman; she having first
+      ordered the screen to be put as close to the window as possible, that he
+      might not see what was behind it; while he, having heard what she had said
+      about it, was determined to take no notice of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He folded the angel in his arms as she sat, dropping down on one knee;
+      for, supporting herself upon the two elbows of the chair, she attempted to
+      rise, but could not. Excuse, my dear Cousin, said she, excuse me, that I
+      cannot stand up&mdash;I did not expect this favour now. But I am glad of
+      this opportunity to thank you for all your generous goodness to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I never, my best-beloved and dearest Cousin, said he, (with eyes running
+      over,) shall forgive myself, that I did not attend you sooner. Little did
+      I think you were so ill; nor do any of your friends believe it. If they
+      did&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If they did, repeated she, interrupting him, I should have had more
+      compassion from them. I am sure I should&mdash;But pray, Sir, how did you
+      leave them? Are you reconciled to them? If you are not, I beg, if you love
+      your poor Clarissa, that you will; for every widened difference augments
+      but my fault; since that is the foundation of all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had been expecting to hear from them in your favour, my dear Cousin,
+      said he, for some hours, when this gentleman's letter arrived, which
+      hastened me up; but I have the account of your grandfather's estate to
+      make up with you, and have bills and drafts upon their banker for the sums
+      due to you; which they desire you may receive, lest you should have
+      occasion for money. And this is such an earnest of an approaching
+      reconciliation, that I dare to answer for all the rest being according to
+      your wishes, if&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah! Sir, interrupted she, with frequent breaks and pauses&mdash;I wish&mdash;I
+      wish this does not rather show that, were I to live, they would have
+      nothing more to say to me. I never had any pride in being independent of
+      them; all my actions, when I might have made myself more independent, show
+      this &mdash;But what avail these reflections now?&mdash;I only beg, Sir,
+      that you, and this gentleman&mdash;to whom I am exceedingly obliged&mdash;will
+      adjust those matters&mdash;according to the will I have written. Mr.
+      Belford will excuse me; but it was in truth more necessity than choice
+      that made me think of giving him the trouble he so kindly accepts. Had I
+      the happiness to see you, my Cousin, sooner&mdash;or to know that you
+      still honoured me with your regard&mdash;I should not have had the
+      assurance to ask this favour of him.&mdash; But, though the friend of Mr.
+      Lovelace, he is a man of honour, and he will make peace rather than break
+      it. And, my dear Cousin, let me beg of you while I have nearer relations
+      than my Cousin Morden, dear as you are, and always were to me, you have no
+      title to avenge my wrongs upon him who has been the occasion of them. But
+      I wrote to you my mind on this subject, and my reasons&mdash;and I hope I
+      need not further urge them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must do Mr. Lovelace so much justice, answered he, wiping his eyes, as
+      to witness how sincerely he repents him of his ungrateful baseness to you,
+      and how ready he is to make you all the amends in his power. He owns his
+      wickedness, and your merit. If he did not, I could not pass it over,
+      though you have nearer relations; for, my dear Cousin, did not your
+      grandfather leave me in trust for you? And should I think myself concerned
+      for your fortune, and not for your honour? But since he is so desirous to
+      do you justice, I have the less to say; and you may make yourself entirely
+      easy on that account.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thank you, thank you, Sir, said she;&mdash;all is now as I wished.&mdash;But
+      I am very faint, very weak. I am sorry I cannot hold up; that I cannot
+      better deserve the honour of this visit&mdash;but it will not be&mdash;and
+      saying this, she sunk down in her chair, and was silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hereupon we both withdrew, leaving word that we would be at the Bedford
+      Head, if any thing extraordinary happened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We bespoke a little repast, having neither of us dined; and, while it was
+      getting ready, you may guess at the subject of our discourse. Both joined
+      in lamentation for the lady's desperate state; admired her manifold
+      excellencies; severely condemned you and her friends. Yet, to bring him
+      into better opinion of you, I read to him some passages from your last
+      letters, which showed your concern for the wrongs you had done her, and
+      your deep remorse: and he said it was a dreadful thing to labour under the
+      sense of a guilt so irredeemable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We procured Mr. Goddard, (Dr. H. not being at home,) once more to visit
+      her, and to call upon us in his return. He was so good as to do so; but he
+      tarried with her not five minutes; and told us, that she was drawing on
+      apace; that he feared she would not live till morning; and that she wished
+      to see Colonel Morden directly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel made excuses where none were needed; and though our little
+      refection was just brought in, he went away immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not touch a morsel; and took pen and ink to amuse myself, and
+      oblige you; knowing how impatient you would be for a few lines: for, from
+      what I have recited, you see it was impossible I could withdraw to write
+      when your servant came at half an hour after five, or have an opportunity
+      for it till now; and this is accidental; and yet your poor fellow was
+      afraid to go away with the verbal message I sent; importing, as no doubt
+      he told you, that the Colonel was with us, the lady excessively ill, and
+      that I could not stir to write a line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TEN O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel sent to me afterwards, to tell me that the lady having been in
+      convulsions, he was so much disordered that he could not possibly attend
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have sent every half hour to know how she does&mdash;and just now I have
+      the pleasure to hear that her convulsions have left her; and that she is
+      gone to rest in a much quieter way than could be expected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her poor cousin is very much indisposed; yet will not stir out of the
+      house while she is in such a way; but intends to lie down on a couch,
+      having refused any other accommodation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      END OF VOL. 8.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+  <div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12180 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #12180 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12180)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady,
+Volume 8, by Samuel Richardson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8
+
+Author: Samuel Richardson
+
+Release Date: April 27, 2004 [EBook #12180]
+[Last updated: October 15, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLARISSA, VOL. 8 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Julie C. Sparks.
+
+
+
+
+CLARISSA HARLOWE
+
+or the
+
+HISTORY OF A YOUNG LADY
+
+Nine Volumes
+Volume VIII.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOLUME VIII
+
+
+LETTER I.  Miss Howe, from the Isle of Wight.--
+In answer to her's, No. LXI. of Vol. VII.  Approves not of her choice of
+Belford for her executor; yet thinks she cannot appoint for that office
+any of her own family.  Hopes she will live any years.
+
+LETTER II.  Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
+Sends her a large packet of letters; but (for her relations' sake) not
+all she has received.  Must now abide by the choice of Mr. Belford for
+executor; but farther refers to the papers she sends her, for her
+justification on this head.
+
+LETTER III.  Antony Harlowe to Clarissa.--
+A letter more taunting and reproachful than that of her other uncle.  To
+what owing.
+
+LETTER IV.  Clarissa.  In answer.--
+Wishes that the circumstances of her case had been inquired into.
+Concludes with a solemn and pathetic prayer for the happiness of the
+whole family.
+
+LETTER V.  Mrs. Norton to Clarissa.--
+Her friends, through Brand's reports, as she imagines, intent upon her
+going to the plantations.  Wishes her to discourage improper visiters.
+Difficult situations the tests of prudence as well as virtue.  Dr.
+Lewen's solicitude for her welfare.  Her cousin Morden arrived in
+England.  Farther pious consolations.
+
+LETTER VI.  Clarissa.  In answer.--
+Sends her a packet of letters, which, for her relations' sake, she cannot
+communicate to Miss Howe.  From these she will collect a good deal of her
+story.  Defends, yet gently blames her mother.  Afraid that her cousin
+Morden will be set against her; or, what is worse, that he will seek to
+avenge her.  Her affecting conclusion on her Norton's divine
+consolations.
+
+LETTER VII.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Is very ill.  The lady, if he die, will repent her refusal of him.  One
+of the greatest felicities that can befal a woman, what.  Extremely ill.
+His ludicrous behaviour on awaking, and finding a clergyman and his
+friends praying for him by his bedside.
+
+LETTER VIII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Concerned at his illness.  Wishes that he had died before last April.
+The lady, he tells him, generously pities him; and prays that he may meet
+with the mercy he has not shown.
+
+LETTER IX.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+In raptures on her goodness to him.  His deep regrets for his treatment
+of her.  Blesses her.
+
+LETTER X.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Congratulates him on his amendment.  The lady's exalted charity to him.
+Her story a fine subject for tragedy.  Compares with it, and censures,
+the play of the Fair Penitent.  She is very ill; the worse for some new
+instances of the implacableness of her relations.  A meditation on the
+subject.  Poor Belton, he tells him, is at death's door; and desirous to
+see him.
+
+LETTER XI.  Belford to Clarissa.--
+Acquaints her with the obligation he is under to go to Belton, and (lest
+she should be surprised) with Lovelace's resolution (as signified in the
+next letter) to visit her.
+
+LETTER XII.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Resolves to throw himself at the lady's feet.  Lord M. of opinion that
+she ought to admit of one interview.
+
+LETTER XIII.  From the same.--
+Arrived in London, he finds the lady gone abroad.  Suspects Belford.  His
+unaccountable freaks at Smith's.  His motives for behaving so ludicrously
+there.  The vile Sally Martin entertains him with her mimicry of the
+divine lady.
+
+LETTER XIV.  From the same.--
+His frightful dream.  How affected by it.  Sleeping or waking, his
+Clarissa always present with him.  Hears she is returned to her lodgings.
+Is hastening to her.
+
+LETTER XV.  From the same.--
+Disappointed again.  Is affected by Mrs. Lovick's expostulations.  Is
+shown a meditation on being hunted after by the enemy of her soul, as it
+is entitled.  His light comments upon it.  Leaves word that he resolves
+to see her.  Makes several other efforts for that purpose.
+
+LETTER XVI.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Reproaches him that he has not kept his honour with him.  Inveighs
+against, and severely censures him for his light behaviour at Smith's.
+Belton's terrors and despondency.  Mowbray's impenetrable behaviour.
+
+LETTER XVII.  From the same.--
+Mowbray's impatience to run from a dying Belton to a too-lively Lovelace.
+Mowbray abuses Mr. Belton's servant in the language of a rake of the
+common class.  Reflection on the brevity of life.
+
+LETTER XVIII.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Receives a letter from Clarissa, written by way of allegory to induce him
+to forbear hunting after her.  Copy of it.  He takes it in a literal
+sense.  Exults upon it.  Will now hasten down to Lord M. and receive the
+gratulations of all his family on her returning favour.  Gives an
+interpretation of his frightful dream to his own liking.
+
+LETTER XIX. XX.  From the same.--
+Pities Belton.  Rakishly defends him on the issue of a duel, which now
+adds to the poor man's terrors.  His opinion of death, and the fear of
+it.  Reflections upon the conduct of play-writers with regard
+servants.  He cannot account for the turn his Clarissa has taken in his
+favour.  Hints at one hopeful cause of it.  Now matrimony seems to be in
+his power, he has some retrograde motions.
+
+LETTER XXI.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Continuation of his narrative of Belton's last illness and impatience.
+The poor man abuses the gentlemen of the faculty.  Belford censures some
+of them for their greediness after fees.  Belton dies.  Serious
+reflections on the occasion.
+
+LETTER XXII.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Hopes Belton is happy; and why.  He is setting out for Berks.
+
+LETTER XXIII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Attends the lady.  She is extremely ill, and receives the sacrament.
+Complains of the harasses his friend had given her.  Two different
+persons (from her relations, he supposes) inquire after her.  Her
+affecting address to the doctor, apothecary, and himself.  Disposes of
+some more of her apparel for a very affecting purpose.
+
+LETTER XXIV.  Dr. Lewen to Clarissa.--
+Writes on his pillow, to prevail upon her to prosecute Lovelace for his
+life.
+
+LETTER XXV.  Her pathetic and noble answer.
+
+LETTER XXVI.  Miss Arabella Harlowe to Clarissa.--
+Proposes, in a most taunting and cruel manner, the prosecution of
+Lovelace; or, if not, her going to Pensylvania.
+
+LETTER XXVII.  Clarissa's affecting answer.
+
+LETTER XXVIII. XXIX.  Mrs. Norton to Clarissa.--
+Her uncle's cruel letter to what owing.  Colonel Morden resolved on a
+visit to Lovelace.--Mrs. Hervey, in a private conversation with her,
+accounts for, yet blames, the cruelty of her family.  Miss Dolly Hervey
+wishes to attend her.
+
+LETTER XXX. Clarissa.  In answer.--
+Thinks she has been treated with great rigour by her relations.
+Expresses more warmth than usual on this subject.  Yet soon checks
+herself.  Grieves that Colonel Morden resolves on a visit to Lovelace.
+Touches upon her sister's taunting letter.  Requests Mrs. Norton's
+prayers for patience and resignation.
+
+LETTER XXXI.  Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
+Approves now of her appointment of Belford for an executor.  Admires her
+greatness of mind in despising Lovelace.  Every body she is with taken
+with Hickman; yet she cannot help wantoning with the power his obsequious
+love gives her over him.
+
+LETTER XXXII. XXXIII.  Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
+Instructive lessons and observations on her treatment of Hickman.--
+Acquaints her with all that has happened since her last.  Fears that all
+her allegorical letter is not strictly right.  Is forced by illness to
+break off.  Resumes.  Wishes her married.
+
+LETTER XXXIV.  Mr. Wyerley to Clarissa.--
+A generous renewal of his address to her now in her calamity; and a
+tender of his best services.
+
+LETTER XXXV.  Her open, kind, and instructive answer.
+
+LETTER XXXVI.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Uneasy, on a suspicion that her letter to him was a stratagem only.  What
+he will do, if he find it so.
+
+LETTER XXXVII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Brief account of his proceedings in Belton's affairs.  The lady extremely
+ill.  Thought to be near her end.  Has a low-spirited day.  Recovers her
+spirits; and thinks herself above this world.  She bespeaks her coffin.
+Confesses that her letter to Lovelace was allegorical only.  The light in
+which Belford beholds her.
+
+LETTER XXXVIII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+An affecting conversation that passed between the lady and Dr. H.  She
+talks of death, he says, and prepares for it, as if it were an occurrence
+as familiar to her as dressing and undressing.  Worthy behaviour of the
+doctor.  She makes observations on the vanity of life, on the wisdom of
+an early preparation for death, and on the last behaviour of Belton.
+
+LETTER XXXIX. XL. XLI.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Particulars of what passed between himself, Colonel Morden, Lord M., and
+Mowbray, on the visit made him by the Colonel.  Proposes Belford to Miss
+Charlotte Montague, by way of raillery, for an husband.--He encloses
+Brand's letter, which misrepresents (from credulity and officiousness,
+rather than ill-will) the lady's conduct.
+
+LETTER XLII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Expatiates on the baseness of deluding young creatures, whose confidence
+has been obtained by oaths, vows, promises.  Evil of censoriousness.
+People deemed good too much addicted to it.  Desires to know what he
+means my his ridicule with regard to his charming cousin.
+
+LETTER XLIII.  From the same.--
+A proper test of the purity of writing.  The lady again makes excuses for
+her allegorical letter.  Her calm behaviour, and generous and useful
+reflections, on his communicating to her Brand's misrepresentations of
+her conduct.
+
+LETTER XLIV.  Colonel Morden to Clarissa.--
+Offers his assistance and service to make the best of what has happened.
+Advises her to marry Lovelace, as the only means to bring about a general
+reconciliation.  Has no doubt of his resolution to do her justice.
+Desires to know if she has.
+
+LETTER XLV.  Clarissa.  In answer.
+
+LETTER XLVI.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+His reasonings and ravings on finding the lady's letter to him only an
+allegorical one.  In the midst of these, the natural gayety of his heart
+runs him into ridicule on Belford.  His ludicrous image drawn from a
+monument in Westminster Abbey.  Resumes his serious disposition.  If the
+worst happen, (the Lord of Heaven and Earth, says he, avert that worst!)
+he bids him only write that he advises him to take a trip to Paris; and
+that will stab him to the heart.
+
+LETTER XLVII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+The lady's coffin brought up stairs.  He is extremely shocked and
+discomposed at it.  Her intrepidity.  Great minds, he observes, cannot
+avoid doing uncommon things.  Reflections on the curiosity of women.
+
+LETTER XLVIII.  From the same.--
+Description of the coffin, and devices on the lid.  It is placed in her
+bed-chamber.  His serious application to Lovelace on her great behaviour.
+
+LETTER XLIX.  From the same.--
+Astonished at his levity in the Abbey-instance.  The lady extremely ill.
+
+LETTER L.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+All he has done to the lady a jest to die for; since her triumph has ever
+been greater than her sufferings.  He will make over all his possessions
+and all his reversions to the doctor, if he will but prolong her life for
+one twelvemonth.  How, but for her calamities, could her equanimity blaze
+out as it does!  He would now love her with an intellectual flame.  He
+cannot bear to think that the last time she so triumphantly left him
+should be the last.  His conscience, he says, tears him.  He is sick of
+the remembrance of his vile plots.
+
+LETTER LI.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+The lady alive, serene, and calm.  The more serene for having finished,
+signed, and sealed her last will; deferred till now for reasons of filial
+duty.
+
+LETTER LII.  Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
+Pathetically laments the illness of her own mother, and of her dear
+friend.  Now all her pertness to the former, she says, fly in her face.
+She lays down her pen; and resumes it, to tell her, with great joy, that
+her mother is better.  She has had a visit form her cousin Morden.  What
+passed in it.
+
+LETTER LIII.  From the same.--
+Displeased with the Colonel for thinking too freely of the sex.  Never
+knew a man that had a slight notion of the virtue of women in general,
+who deserved to be valued for his morals.  Why women must either be more
+or less virtuous than men.  Useful hints to young ladies.  Is out of
+humour with Mr. Hickman.  Resolves to see her soon in town.
+
+LETTER LIV.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+The lady writes and reads upon her coffin, as upon a desk.  The doctor
+resolves to write to her father.  Her intense, yet cheerful devotion.
+
+LETTER LV.  Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
+A letter full of pious reflections, and good advice, both general and
+particular; and breathing the true spirit of charity, forgiveness,
+patience, and resignation.  A just reflection, to her dear friend, upon
+the mortifying nature of pride.
+
+LETTER LVI.  Mrs. Norton to Clarissa.--
+Her account of an interesting conversation at Harlowe-place between the
+family and Colonel Morden; and of another between her mother and self.
+The Colonel incensed against them all.  Her advice concerning Belford,
+and other matters.  Miss Howe has obtained leave, she hears, to visit
+her.  Praises Mr. Hickman.  Gently censures Miss Howe on his account.
+Her truly maternal and pious comfortings.
+
+LETTER LVII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+The lady's sight begins to fail her.  She blesses God for the serenity
+she enjoys.  It is what, she says, she had prayed for.  What a blessing,
+so near to her dissolution, to have her prayers answered!  Gives
+particular directions to him about her papers, about her last will and
+apparel.  Comforts the women and him on their concern for her.  Another
+letter brought her from Colonel Morden.  The substance of it.  Belford
+writes to hasten up the Colonel.  Dr. H. has also written to her father;
+and Brand to Mr. John Harlowe a letter recanting his officious one.
+
+LETTER LVIII.  Dr. H. to James Harlowe, Senior, Esq.
+
+LETTER LIX.  Copy of Mr. Belford's letter to Colonel Morden,
+to hasten him up.
+
+LETTER LX.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+He feels the torments of the damned, in the remorse that wrings his
+heart, on looking back on his past actions by this lady.  Gives him what
+he calls a faint picture of his horrible uneasiness, riding up and down,
+expecting the return of his servant as soon as he had dispatched him.
+Woe be to the man who brings him the fatal news!
+
+LETTER LXI.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Farther particulars of the lady's pious and exemplary behaviour.  She
+rejoices in the gradual death afforded her.  Her thankful acknowledgments
+to Mr. Belford, Mrs. Smith, and Mrs. Lovick, for their kindness to her.
+Her edifying address to Mr. Belford.
+
+LETTER LXII.  Clarissa to Mrs. Norton.  In answer to her's, No. LVI.--
+Afflicted only for her friends.  Desires not now to see her cousin
+Morden, nor even herself, or Miss Howe.  God will have no rivals, she
+says, in the hearts of those whom HE sanctifies.  Advice to Miss Howe.
+To Mr. Hickman.  Blesses all her relations and friends.
+
+LETTER LXIII.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+A letter of deep distress, remorse, and impatience.  Yet would he fain
+lighten his own guilt by reflections on the cruelty of her relations.
+
+LETTER LXIV.  Belford to Lovelace
+The lady is disappointed at the Doctor's telling her that she may yet
+live two or three days.  Death from grief the slowest of deaths.  Her
+solemn forgiveness of Lovelace, and prayer for him.  Owns that once she
+could have loved him.  Her generous concern for his future happiness.
+Belford's good resolutions.
+
+LETTER LXV.  Mr. Brand to Mr. John Walton.
+
+LETTER LXVI.  Mr. Brand to John Harlowe, Esq.;
+in excuse of his credulity, and of the misreports founded upon it.
+
+LETTER LXVII.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Blesses him for sending him word the lady is better.  Her charity towards
+him cuts him to the heart.  He cannot bear it.  His vehement self
+reproaches.  Curses his contriving genius, and his disbelief that there
+could be such virtue in woman.  The world never saw such an husband as he
+will make, if she recover, and will be his.
+
+LETTER LXVIII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+The lady's pious frame.  The approaches of death how supportable to her;
+and why.  She has no reason, she says, to grieve for any thing but the
+sorrow she has given to her friends.
+
+LETTER LXIX.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Never prayed in his life, put all the years of it together, as he has
+done for this fortnight.  Has repented of all his baseness: And will
+nothing do?  Conjures him to send him good news in his next, as he would
+not be answerable for consequences.
+
+LETTER LXX.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Solemn leave taken of her by the doctor and apothecary; who tell her she
+will hardly see the next night.  The pleasure with which she receives the
+intimation.  How unlike poor Belton's behaviour her's!  A letter from
+Miss Howe.  Copy of it.  She cannot see to read it.  Her exalted
+expressions on hearing it read.  Tries to write an answer to it; but
+cannot.  Dictates to Mrs. Lovick.  Writes the superscriptive part herself
+on her knees.  Colonel Morden arrives in town.
+
+LETTER LXXI.  From the same.--
+What passes on Colonel Morden's visit to his cousin.  She enjoins the
+Colonel not to avenge her.
+
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY
+
+OF
+
+CLARISSA HARLOWE
+
+
+
+LETTER I
+
+MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+YARMOUTH, ISLE OF WIGHT, MONDAY, AUG. 7.
+
+
+MY DEAREST CREATURE,
+
+I can write but just now a few lines.  I cannot tell how to bear the
+sound of that Mr. Belford for your executor, cogent as your reasons for
+that measure are: and yet I am firmly of opinion, that none of your
+relations should be named for the trust.  But I dwell the less on this
+subject, as I hope (and cannot bear to apprehend the contrary) that you
+will still live many, many years.
+
+Mr. Hickman, indeed, speaks very handsomely of Mr. Belford.  But he, poor
+man! has not much penetration.--If he had, he would hardly think so well
+of me as he does.
+
+I have a particular opportunity of sending this by a friend of my aunt
+Harman's; who is ready to set out for London, (and this occasions my
+hurry,) and is to return out of hand.  I expect therefore, by him a large
+packet from you; and hope and long for news of your amended health: which
+Heaven grant to the prayers of
+
+Your ever-affectionate
+ANNA HOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER II
+
+MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
+FRIDAY, AUG. 11.
+
+
+I will send you a large packet, as you desire and expect; since I can do
+it by so safe a conveyance: but not all that is come to my hand--for I
+must own that my friends are very severe; too severe for any body, who
+loves them not, to see their letters.  You, my dear, would not call them
+my friends, you said, long ago; but my relations: indeed I cannot call
+them my relations, I think!----But I am ill; and therefore perhaps more
+peevish than I should be.  It is difficult to go out of ourselves to give
+a judgment against ourselves; and yet, oftentimes, to pass a just
+judgment, we ought.
+
+I thought I should alarm you in the choice of my executor.  But the sad
+necessity I am reduced to must excuse me.
+
+I shall not repeat any thing I have said before on that subject: but if
+your objections will not be answered to your satisfaction by the papers
+and letters I shall enclose, marked 1, 2, 3, 4, to 9, I must think myself
+in another instance unhappy; since I am engaged too far (and with my own
+judgment too) to recede.
+
+As Mr. Belford has transcribed for me, in confidence, from his friend's
+letters, the passages which accompany this, I must insist that you suffer
+no soul but yourself to peruse them; and that you return them by the very
+first opportunity; that so no use may be made of them that may do hurt
+either to the original writer or to the communicator.  You'll observe I
+am bound by promise to this care.  If through my means any mischief
+should arise, between this humane and that inhuman libertine, I should
+think myself utterly inexcusable.
+
+I subjoin a list of the papers or letters I shall enclose.  You must
+return them all when perused.*
+
+
+* 1. A letter from Miss Montague, dated . . . .  Aug. 1.
+  2. A copy of my answer  . . . . . . . . . . .  Aug. 3.
+  3. Mr. Belford's Letter to me, which will show
+      you what my request was to him, and his
+      compliance with it; and the desired ex-
+      tracts from his friend's letters  . . . .  Aug. 3, 4.
+  4. A copy of my answer, with thanks; and re-
+      questing him to undertake the executor-
+      ship  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Aug. 4.
+  5. Mr. Belford's acceptance of the trust  . .  Aug. 4.
+  6. Miss Montague's letter, with a generous
+      offer from Lord M. and the Ladies of that
+      family  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Aug. 7.
+  7. Mr. Lovelace's to me . . . . . . . . . . .  Aug. 7.
+  8. Copy of mine to Miss Montague, in answer
+      to her's of the day before  . . . . . . .  Aug. 8.
+  9. Copy of my answer to Mr. Lovelace  . . . .  Aug. 11.
+
+You will see by these several Letters, written and received in so little
+a space of time (to say nothing of what I have received and written which
+I cannot show you,) how little opportunity or leisure I can have for
+writing my own story.
+
+
+I am very much tired and fatigued--with--I don't know what--with writing,
+I think--but most with myself, and with a situation I cannot help
+aspiring to get out of, and above!
+
+O my dear, the world we live in is a sad, a very sad world!----While
+under our parents' protecting wings, we know nothing at all of it.
+Book-learned and a scribbler, and looking at people as I saw them as
+visiters or visiting, I thought I knew a great deal of it.  Pitiable
+ignorance!--Alas! I knew nothing at all!
+
+With zealous wishes for your happiness, and the happiness of every one
+dear to you, I am, and will ever be,
+
+Your gratefully-affectionate
+CL. HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER III
+
+MR. ANTONY HARLOWE, TO MISS CL. HARLOWE
+[IN REPLY TO HER'S TO HER UNCLE HARLOWE, OF THURSDAY, AUG. 10.]
+AUG. 12.
+
+
+UNHAPPY GIRL!
+
+As your uncle Harlowe chooses not to answer your pert letter to him;
+and as mine, written to you before,* was written as if it were in the
+spirit of prophecy, as you have found to your sorrow; and as you are now
+making yourself worse than you are in your health, and better than you
+are in your penitence, as we are very well assured, in order to move
+compassion; which you do not deserve, having had so much warning: for all
+these reasons, I take up my pen once more; though I had told your
+brother, at his going to Edinburgh, that I would not write to you, even
+were you to write to me, without letting him know.  So indeed had we all;
+for he prognosticated what would happen, as to your applying to us, when
+you knew not how to help it.
+
+
+* See Vol. I. Letter XXXII.
+
+
+Brother John has hurt your niceness, it seems, by asking you a plain
+question, which your mother's heart is too full of grief to let her ask;
+and modesty will not let your sister ask; though but the consequence of
+your actions--and yet it must be answered, before you'll obtain from your
+father and mother, and us, the notice you hope for, I can tell you that.
+
+You lived several guilty weeks with one of the vilest fellows that ever
+drew breath, at bed, as well as at board, no doubt, (for is not his
+character known?) and pray don't be ashamed to be asked after what may
+naturally come of such free living.  This modesty indeed would have
+become you for eighteen years of your life--you'll be pleased to mark
+that--but makes no good figure compared with your behaviour since the
+beginning of April last.  So pray don't take it up, and wipe your mouth
+upon it, as if nothing had happened.
+
+But, may be, I likewise am to shocking to your niceness!--O girl, girl!
+your modesty had better been shown at the right time and place--Every
+body but you believed what the rake was: but you would believe nothing
+bad of him--What think you now?
+
+Your folly has ruined all our peace.  And who knows where it may yet end?
+--Your poor father but yesterday showed me this text: With bitter grief
+he showed it me, poor man! and do you lay it to your heart:
+
+'A father waketh for his daughter, when no man knoweth; and the care for
+her taketh away his sleep--When she is young, lest she pass away the
+flower of her age--[and you know what proposals were made to you at
+different times.]  And, being married, lest she should be hated.  In her
+virginity, lest she should be defiled, and gotten with child in her
+father's house--[and I don't make the words, mind that.]  And, having an
+husband, lest she should misbehave herself.'  And what follows?  'Keep
+a sure watch over a shameless daughter--[yet no watch could hold you!]
+lest she make thee a laughing stock to thine enemies--[as you have made
+us all to this cursed Lovelace,] and a bye-word in the city, and a
+reproach among the people, and make thee ashamed before the multitude.'
+Eccles. xlii. 9, 10, &c.
+
+Now will you wish you had not written pertly.  Your sister's severities!
+--Never, girl, say that is severe that is deserved.  You know the meaning
+of words.  No body better.  Would to the Lord you had acted up but to one
+half of what you know! then had we not been disappointed and grieved, as
+we all have been: and nobody more than him who was
+
+Your loving uncle,
+ANTONY HARLOWE.
+
+This will be with you to-morrow.  Perhaps you may be suffered to have
+      some part of your estate, after you have smarted a little more.
+      Your pertly-answered uncle John, who is your trustee, will not have
+      you be destitute.  But we hope all is not true that we hear of you.
+      --Only take care, I advise you, that, bad as you have acted, you
+      act not still worse, if it be possible to act worse.  Improve upon
+      the hint.
+
+
+
+LETTER IV
+
+MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO ANTONY HARLOWE, ESQ.
+SUNDAY, AUG. 13.
+
+
+HONOURED SIR,
+
+I am very sorry for my pert letter to my uncle Harlowe.  Yet I did not
+intend it to be pert.  People new to misfortune may be too easily moved
+to impatience.
+
+The fall of a regular person, no doubt, is dreadful and inexcusable. It is like the sin of apostacy.  Would to Heaven, however, that I had had
+the circumstances of mine inquired into!
+
+If, Sir, I make myself worse than I am in my health, and better than I am
+in my penitence, it is fit I should be punished for my double
+dissimulation: and you have the pleasure of being one of my punishers.
+My sincerity in both respects will, however, be best justified by the
+event.  To that I refer.--May Heaven give you always as much comfort in
+reflecting upon the reprobation I have met with, as you seem to have
+pleasure in mortifying a young creature, extremely mortified; and that
+from a right sense, as she presumes to hope, of her own fault!
+
+What you heard of me I cannot tell.  When the nearest and dearest
+relations give up an unhappy wretch, it is not to be wondered at that
+those who are not related to her are ready to take up and propagate
+slanders against her.  Yet I think I may defy calumny itself, and
+(excepting the fatal, though involuntary step of April 10) wrap myself in
+my own innocence, and be easy.  I thank you, Sir, nevertheless, for your
+caution, mean it what it will.
+
+As to the question required of me to answer, and which is allowed to be
+too shocking either for a mother to put to a daughter, or a sister to a
+sister; and which, however, you say I must answer;--O Sir!--And must I
+answer?--This then be my answer:--'A little time, a much less time than
+is imagined, will afford a more satisfactory answer to my whole family,
+and even to my brother and sister, than I can give in words.'
+
+Nevertheless, be pleased to let it be remembered, that I did not petition
+for a restoration to favour.  I could not hope for that.  Nor yet to be
+put in possession of any part of my own estate.  Nor even for means of
+necessary subsistence from the produce of that estate--but only for a
+blessing; for a last blessing!
+
+And this I will farther add, because it is true, that I have no wilful
+crime to charge against myself: no free living at bed and at board, as
+you phrase it!
+
+Why, why, Sir, were not other inquiries made of me, as well as this
+shocking one?--inquiries that modesty would have permitted a mother or
+sister to make; and which, if I may be excused to say so, would have been
+still less improper, and more charitable, to have been made by uncles,
+(were the mother forbidden, or the sister not inclined, to make them,)
+than those they have made.
+
+Although my humble application has brought upon me so much severe
+reproach, I repent not that I have written to my mother, (although I
+cannot but wish that I had not written to my sister;) because I have
+satisfied a dutiful consciousness by it, however unanswered by the
+wished-for success.  Nevertheless, I cannot help saying, that mine is
+indeed a hard fate, that I cannot beg pardon for my capital errors
+without doing it in such terms as shall be an aggravation of the offence.
+
+But I had best leave off, lest, as my full mind, I find, is rising to my
+pen, I have other pardons to beg as I multiply lines, where none at all
+will be given.
+
+God Almighty bless, preserve, and comfort my dear sorrowing and
+grievously offended father and mother!--and continue in honour, favour,
+and merit, my happy sister!--May God forgive my brother, and protect him
+from the violence of his own temper, as well as from the destroyer of his
+sister's honour!--And may you, my dear uncle, and your no less now than
+ever dear brother, my second papa, as he used to bid me call him, be
+blessed and happy in them, and in each other!--And, in order to this, may
+you all speedily banish from your remembrance, for ever,
+
+The unhappy
+CLARISSA HARLOWE!
+
+
+
+LETTER V
+
+MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+MONDAY, AUG. 14.
+
+
+All your friends here, my dear young lady, now seem set upon proposing to
+you to go to one of the plantations.  This, I believe, is owing to some
+misrepresentations of Mr. Brand; from whom they have received a letter.
+
+I wish, with all my heart, that you could, consistently with your own
+notions of honour, yield to the pressing requests of all Mr. Lovelace's
+family in his behalf.  This, I think, would stop every mouth; and, in
+time, reconcile every body to you.  For your own friends will not believe
+that he is in earnest to marry you; and the hatred between the families
+is such, that they will not condescend to inform themselves better; nor
+would believe him, if he were ever so solemnly to avow that he is.
+
+I should be very glad to have in readiness, upon occasion, some brief
+particulars of your sad story under your own hand.  But let me tell you,
+at the same time, that no misrepresentations, nor even your own
+confession, shall lessen my opinion either of your piety, or of your
+prudence in essential points; because I know it was always your humble
+way to make light faults heavy against yourself: and well might you, my
+dearest young lady, aggravate your own failings, who have ever had so
+few; and those few so slight, that your ingenuousness has turned most of
+them into excellencies.
+
+Nevertheless, let me advise you, my dear Miss Clary, to discountenance
+any visits, which, with the censorious, may affect your character.  As
+that has not hitherto suffered by your wilful default, I hope you will
+not, in a desponding negligence (satisfying yourself with a consciousness
+of your own innocence) permit it to suffer.  Difficult situations, you
+know, my dear young lady, are the tests not only of prudence but of
+virtue.
+
+I think, I must own to you, that, since Mr. Brand's letter has been
+received, I have a renewed prohibition to attend you.  However, if you
+will give me leave, that shall not detain me from you.  Nor would I stay
+for that leave, if I were not in hopes that, in this critical situation,
+I may be able to do you service here.
+
+I have often had messages and inquiries after your health from the
+truly-reverend Dr. Lewen, who has always expressed, and still expresses,
+infinite concern for you.  He entirely disapproves of the measures of the
+family with regard to you.  He is too much indisposed to go abroad.  But,
+were he in good health, he would not, as I understand, visit at
+Harlowe-place, having some time since been unhandsomely treated by your
+brother, on his offering to mediate for you with your family.
+
+
+***
+
+
+I am just now informed that your cousin Morden is arrived in England.  He
+is at Canterbury, it seems, looking after some concerns he has there; and
+is soon expected in these parts.  Who knows what may arise from his
+arrival?  God be with you, my dearest Miss Clary, and be your comforter
+and sustainer.  And never fear but He will; for I am sure, I am very
+sure, that you put your whole trust in Him.
+
+And what, after all, is this world, on which we so much depend for
+durable good, poor creatures that we are!--When all the joys of it, and
+(what is a balancing comfort) all the troubles of it, are but momentary,
+and vanish like a morning dream!
+
+And be this remembered, my dearest young lady, that worldly joy claims no
+kindred with the joys we are bid to aspire after.  These latter we must
+be fitted for by affliction and disappointment.  You are therefore in the
+direct road to glory, however thorny the path you are in.  And I had
+almost said, that it depends upon yourself, by your patience, and by your
+resignedness to the dispensation, (God enabling you, who never fails the
+true penitent, and sincere invoker,) to be an heir of a blessed
+immortality.
+
+But this glory, I humbly pray, that you may not be permitted to enter
+into, ripe as you are so soon to be for it, till, with your gentle hand,
+(a pleasure I have so often, as you now, promised to myself,) you have
+closed the eyes of
+
+Your maternally-affectionate
+JUDITH NORTON.
+
+
+
+LETTER VI
+
+MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MRS. NORTON
+THURSDAY, AUG. 27.
+
+
+What Mr. Brand, or any body, can have written or said to my prejudice, I
+cannot imagine; and yet some evil reports have gone out against me; as I
+find by some hints in a very severe letter written to me by my uncle
+Antony.  Such a letter as I believe was never written to any poor
+creature, who, by ill health of body, as well as of mind, was before
+tottering on the brink of the grave.  But my friends may possibly be
+better justified than the reporters--For who knows what they may have
+heard?
+
+You give me a kind caution, which seems to imply more than you express,
+when you advise me against countenancing visiters that may discredit me.
+You have spoken quite out.  Surely, I have had afflictions enow to
+strengthen my mind, and to enable it to bear the worst that can now
+happen.  But I will not puzzle myself by conjectural evils; as I might
+perhaps do, if I had not enow that were certain.  I shall hear all, when
+it is thought proper that I should.  Mean time, let me say, for your
+satisfaction, that I know not that I have any thing criminal or
+disreputable to answer for either in word or deed, since the fatal 10th
+of April last.
+
+You desire an account of what passes between me and my friends; and also
+particulars or brief heads of my sad story, in order to serve me as
+occasion shall offer.  My dear good Mrs. Norton, you shall have a whole
+packet of papers, which I have sent to my Miss Howe, when she returns
+them; and you shall have likewise another packet, (and that with this
+letter,) which I cannot at present think of sending to that dear friend
+for the sake of my own relations; whom, without seeing that packet, she
+is but too ready to censure heavily.  From these you will be able to
+collect a great deal of my story.  But for what is previous to these
+papers, and which more particularly relates to what I have suffered from
+Mr. Lovelace, you must have patience; for at present I have neither head
+nor heart for such subjects.  The papers I send you with this will be
+those mentioned in the margin.*  You must restore them to me as soon as
+perused; and upon your honour make no use of them, or of any intelligence
+you have from me, but by my previous consent.
+
+
+* 1. A copy of mine to my sister, begging
+      off my father's malediction . . . . . .  dated July 21.
+  2. My sister's answer . . . . . . . . . . .  dated July 27.
+  3. Copy of my second letter to my sister. .  dated July 29.
+  4. My sister's answer . . . . . . . . . . .  dated Aug. 3.
+  5. Copy of my Letter to my mother . . . . .  dated Aug. 5.
+  6. My uncle Harlowe's letter  . . . . . . .  dated Aug. 7.
+  7. Copy of my answer to it  . . . . . . . .  dated the 1oth.
+  8. Letter from my uncle Antony  . . . . . .  dated the 12th.
+  9. And lastly, the copy of my answer to it.  dated the 13th.
+
+
+These communications you must not, my good Mrs. Norton, look upon as
+appeals against my relations.  On the contrary, I am heartily sorry that
+they have incurred the displeasure of so excellent a divine as Dr. Lewen.
+But you desire to have every thing before you: and I think you ought; for
+who knows, as you say, but you may be applied to at last to administer
+comfort from their conceding hearts, to one that wants it; and who
+sometimes, judging by what she knows of her own heart, thinks herself
+entitled to it?
+
+I know that I have a most indulgent and sweet-tempered mother; but,
+having to deal with violent spirits, she has too often forfeited that
+peace of mind which she so much prefers, by her over concern to preserve
+it.
+
+I am sure she would not have turned me over for an answer to a letter
+written with so contrite and fervent a spirit, as was mine to her, to a
+masculine spirit, had she been left to herself.
+
+But, my dear Mrs. Norton, might not, think you, the revered lady have
+favoured me with one private line?----If not, might not you have written
+by her order, or connivance, one softening, one motherly line, when she
+saw her poor girl, whom once she dearly loved, borne so hard upon?
+
+O no, she might not!--because her heart, to be sure, is in their
+measures! and if she think them right, perhaps they must be right!--at
+least, knowing only what they know, they must!--and yet they might know
+all, if they would!--and possibly, in their own good time, they think to
+make proper inquiry.--My application was made to them but lately.--Yet
+how deeply will it afflict them, if their time should be out of time!
+
+When you have before you the letters I have sent to Miss Howe, you will
+see that Lord M. and the Ladies of his family, jealous as they are of the
+honour of their house, (to express myself in their language,) think
+better of me than my own relations do.  You will see an instance of their
+generosity to me, which at the time extremely affected me, and indeed
+still affects me.  Unhappy man! gay, inconsiderate, and cruel! what has
+been his gain by making unhappy a creature who hoped to make him happy!
+and who was determined to deserve the love of all to whom he is related!
+--Poor man!--but you will mistake a compassionate and placable nature for
+love!--he took care, great care, that I should rein-in betimes any
+passion that I might have had for him, had he known how to be but
+commonly grateful or generous!--But the Almighty knows what is best for
+his poor creatures.
+
+Some of the letters in the same packet will also let you into the
+knowledge of a strange step which I have taken, (strange you will think
+it); and, at the same time, give you my reasons for taking it.*
+
+
+* She means that of making Mr. Belford her executor.
+
+
+It must be expected, that situations uncommonly difficult will make
+necessary some extraordinary steps, which, but for those situations,
+would be hardly excusable.  It will be very happy indeed, and somewhat
+wonderful, if all the measures I have been driven to take should be
+right.  A pure intention, void of all undutiful resentment, is what must
+be my consolation, whatever others may think of those measures, when they
+come to know them: which, however, will hardly be till it is out of my
+power to justify them, or to answer for myself.
+
+I am glad to hear of my cousin Morden's safe arrival.  I should wish to
+see him methinks: but I am afraid that he will sail with the stream; as
+it must be expected, that he will hear what they have to say first.--But
+what I most fear is, that he will take upon himself to avenge me.  Rather
+than he should do so, I would have him look upon me as a creature utterly
+unworthy of his concern; at least of his vindictive concern.
+
+How soothing to the wounded heart of your Clarissa, how balmy are the
+assurances of your continued love and favour;--love me, my dear mamma
+Norton, continue to love me, to the end!--I now think that I may, without
+presumption, promise to deserve your love to the end.  And, when I am
+gone, cherish my memory in your worthy heart; for in so doing you will
+cherish the memory of one who loves and honours you more than she can
+express.
+
+But when I am no more, I charge you, as soon as you can, the smarting
+pangs of grief that will attend a recent loss; and let all be early
+turned into that sweetly melancholy regard to MEMORY, which, engaging us
+to forget all faults, and to remember nothing but what was thought
+amiable, gives more pleasure than pain to survivors--especially if they
+can comfort themselves with the humble hope, that the Divine mercy has
+taken the dear departed to itself.
+
+And what is the space of time to look backward upon, between an early
+departure and the longest survivance!--and what the consolation attending
+the sweet hope of meeting again, never more to be separated, never more
+to be pained, grieved, or aspersed;--but mutually blessing, and being
+blessed, to all eternity!
+
+In the contemplation of this happy state, in which I hope, in God's good
+time, to rejoice with you, my beloved Mrs. Norton, and also with my dear
+relations, all reconciled to, and blessing the child against whom they
+are now so much incensed, I conclude myself
+
+Your ever dutiful and affectionate
+CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER VII
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+SUNDAY, AUG. 13.
+
+
+I don't know what a devil ails me; but I never was so much indisposed in
+my life.  At first, I thought some of my blessed relations here had got a
+dose administered to me, in order to get the whole house to themselves.
+But, as I am the hopes of the family, I believe they would not be so
+wicked.
+
+I must lay down my pen.  I cannot write with any spirit at all.  What a
+plague can be the matter with me!
+
+
+***
+
+
+Lord M. paid me just now a cursed gloomy visit, to ask how I do after
+bleeding.  His sisters both drove away yesterday, God be thanked.  But
+they asked not my leave; and hardly bid me good-bye.  My Lord was more
+tender, and more dutiful, than I expected.  Men are less unforgiving than
+women.  I have reason to say so, I am sure.  For, besides implacable Miss
+Harlowe, and the old Ladies, the two Montague apes han't been near me
+yet.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Neither eat, drink, nor sleep!--a piteous case, Jack!  If I should die
+like a fool now, people would say Miss Harlowe had broken my heart.--That
+she vexes me to the heart, is certain.
+
+Confounded squeamish!  I would fain write it off.  But must lay down my
+pen again.  It won't do.  Poor Lovelace!----What a devil ails thee?
+
+
+***
+
+
+Well, but now let's try for't--Hoy--Hoy--Hoy!  Confound me for a gaping
+puppy, how I yawn!--Where shall I begin? at thy executorship--thou shalt
+have a double office of it: for I really think thou mayest send me a
+coffin and a shroud.  I shall be ready for them by the time they can come
+down.
+
+What a little fool is this Miss Harlowe!  I warrant she'll now repent
+that she refused me.  Such a lovely young widow--What a charming widow
+would she have made! how would she have adorned the weeds! to be a widow
+in the first twelve months is one of the greatest felicities that can
+befal a fine woman.  Such pretty employment in new dismals, when she had
+hardly worn round her blazing joyfuls!  Such lights, and such shades! how
+would they set off one another, and be adorned by the wearer!--
+
+Go to the devil!--I will write!--Can I do anything else?
+
+They would not have me write, Belford.--I must be ill indeed, when I
+can't write.
+
+
+***
+
+
+But thou seemest nettled, Jack!  Is it because I was stung?  It is not
+for two friends, any more than for man and wife, to be out of patience
+at one time.--What must be the consequence if they are?--I am in no
+fighting mood just now: but as patient and passive as the chickens that
+are brought me in broth--for I am come to that already.
+
+But I can tell thee, for all this, be thy own man, if thou wilt, as to
+the executorship, I will never suffer thee to expose my letters.  They
+are too ingenuous by half to be seen.  And I absolutely insist upon it,
+that, on receipt of this, thou burn them all.
+
+I will never forgive thee that impudent and unfriendly reflection, of my
+cavaliering it here over half a dozen persons of distinction: remember,
+too, thy words poor helpless orphan--these reflections are too serious,
+and thou art also too serious, for me to let these things go off as
+jesting; notwithstanding the Roman style* is preserved; and, indeed, but
+just preserved.  By my soul, Jack, if I had not been taken thus
+egregiously cropsick, I would have been up with thee, and the lady too,
+before now.
+
+
+* For what these gentlemen mean by the Roman style, see Vol. I. Letter
+XXXI. in the first note.
+
+
+But write on, however: and send me copies, if thou canst, of all that
+passes between our Charlotte and Miss Harlowe.  I'll take no notice of
+what thou communicatest of that sort.  I like not the people here the
+worse for their generous offer to the lady.  But you see she is as proud
+as implacable.  There's no obliging her.  She'd rather sell her clothes
+than be beholden to any body, although she would oblige by permitting the
+obligation.
+
+O Lord! O Lord!--Mortal ill!--Adieu, Jack!
+
+
+***
+
+
+I was forced to leave off, I was so ill, at this place.  And what dost
+think! why Lord M. brought the parson of the parish to pray by me; for
+his chaplain is at Oxford.  I was lain down in my night-gown over my
+waistcoat, and in a doze: and, when I opened my eyes, who should I see,
+but the parson kneeling on one side the bed; Lord M. on the other; Mrs.
+Greme, who had been sent for to tend me, as they call it, at the feet!
+God be thanked, my Lord, said I in an ecstasy!--Where's Miss?--for I
+supposed they were going to marry me.
+
+They thought me delirious at first; and prayed louder and louder.
+
+This roused me: off the bed I started; slid my feet into my slippers;
+put my hand in my waistcoat pocket, and pulled out thy letter with my
+beloved's meditation in it!  My Lord, Dr. Wright, Mrs. Greme, you have
+thought me a very wicked fellow: but, see! I can read you as good as you
+can read me.
+
+They stared at one another.  I gaped, and read, Poor mo--or--tals the
+cau--o--ause of their own--their own mi--ser--ry.
+
+It is as suitable to my case, as to the lady's, as thou'lt observe, if
+thou readest it again.*  At the passage where it is said, That when a man
+is chastened for sin, his beauty consumes away, I stept to the glass: A
+poor figure, by Jupiter, cried I!--And they all praised and admired me;
+lifted up their hands and their eyes; and the doctor said, he always
+thought it impossible, that a man of my sense could be so wild as the
+world said I was.  My Lord chuckled for joy; congratulated me; and, thank
+my dear Miss Harlowe, I got high reputation among good, bad, and
+indifferent.  In short, I have established myself for ever with all here.
+--But, O Belford, even this will not do--I must leave off again.
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI.
+
+
+***
+
+
+A visit from the Montague sisters, led in by the hobbling Peer, to
+congratulate my amendment and reformation both in one.  What a lucky
+event this illness with this meditation in my pocket; for we were all to
+pieces before!  Thus, when a boy, have I joined with a crowd coming out
+of church, and have been thought to have been there myself.
+
+I am incensed at the insolence of the young Levite.  Thou wilt highly
+oblige me, if thou'lt find him out, and send me his ears in the next
+letter.
+
+My beloved mistakes me, if she thinks I proposed her writing to me as an
+alternative that should dispense with my attendance upon her.  That it
+shall not do, nor did I intend it should, unless she pleased me better in
+the contents of her letter than she has done.  Bid her read again.  I
+gave no such hopes.  I would have been with her in spite of you both, by
+to-morrow, at farthest, had I not been laid by the heels thus, like a
+helpless miscreant.
+
+But I grow better and better every hour, I say: the doctor says not: but
+I am sure I know best: and I will soon be in London, depend on't.  But
+say nothing of this to my dear, cruel, and implacable Miss Harlowe.
+
+A--dieu--u, Ja--aack--What a gaping puppy (yaw--n! yaw--n! yaw--n!)
+
+Thy
+LOVELACE.
+
+
+
+LETTER VIII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+MONDAY, AUG. 15.
+
+
+I am extremely concerned for thy illness.  I should be very sorry to lose
+thee.  Yet, if thou diest so soon, I could wish, from my soul, it had
+been before the beginning of last April: and this as well for thy sake,
+as for the sake of the most excellent woman in the world: for then thou
+wouldst not have had the most crying sin of thy life to answer for.
+
+I was told on Saturday that thou wert very much out of order; and this
+made me forbear writing till I heard farther.  Harry, on his return from
+thee, confirmed the bad way thou art in.  But I hope Lord M. in his
+unmerited tenderness for thee, thinks the worst of thee.  What can it be,
+Bob.?  A violent fever, they say; but attended with odd and severe
+symptoms.
+
+I will not trouble thee in the way thou art in, with what passes here
+with Miss Harlowe.  I wish thy repentance as swift as thy illness; and as
+efficacious, if thou diest; for it is else to be feared, that she and you
+will never meet in one place.
+
+I told her how ill you are.  Poor man! said she.  Dangerously ill, say
+you?
+
+Dangerously indeed, Madam!--So Lord M. sends me word!
+
+God be merciful to him, if he die!--said the admirable creature.--Then,
+after a pause, Poor wretch!--may he meet with the mercy he has not shown!
+
+I send this by a special messenger: for I am impatient to hear how it
+goes with thee.--If I have received thy last letter, what melancholy
+reflections will that last, so full of shocking levity, give to
+
+Thy true friend,
+JOHN BELFORD.
+
+
+
+LETTER IX
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+TUESDAY, AUG. 15.*
+
+
+* Text error: should be Aug. 16.
+
+
+Thank thee, Jack; most heartily I thank thee, for the sober conclusion of
+thy last!--I have a good mind, for the sake of it, to forgive thy till
+now absolutely unpardonable extracts.
+
+But dost think I will lose such an angel, such a forgiving angel, as
+this?--By my soul, I will not!--To pray for mercy for such an ungrateful
+miscreant!--how she wounds me, how she cuts me to the soul, by her
+exalted generosity!--But SHE must have mercy upon me first!--then will
+she teach me a reliance for the sake of which her prayer for me will be
+answered.
+
+But hasten, hasten to me particulars of her health, of her employments,
+of her conversation.
+
+I am sick only of love!  Oh! that I could have called her mine!--it would
+then have been worth while to be sick!--to have sent for her down to me
+from town; and to have had her, with healing in her dove-like wings,
+flying to my comfort; her duty and her choice to pray for me, and to bid
+me live for her sake!--O Jack! what an angel have I--
+
+But I have not lost her!--I will not lose her!  I am almost well; should
+be quite well but for these prescribing rascals, who, to do credit to
+their skill, will make the disease of importance.--And I will make her
+mine!--and be sick again, to entitle myself to her dutiful tenderness,
+and pious as well as personal concern!
+
+God for ever bless her!--Hasten, hasten particulars of her!--I am sick
+of love!--such generous goodness!--By all that's great and good, I will
+not lose her!--so tell her!--She says, that she could not pity me, if she
+thought of being mine!  This, according to Miss Howe's transcriptions to
+Charlotte.--But bid her hate me, and have me: and my behaviour to her
+shall soon turn that hate to love! for, body and mind, I will be wholly
+her's.
+
+
+
+LETTER X
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+THURSDAY, AUG. 17.
+
+
+I am sincerely rejoiced to hear that thou art already so much amended, as
+thy servant tells me thou art.  Thy letter looks as if thy morals were
+mending with thy health.  This was a letter I could show, as I did, to
+the lady.
+
+She is very ill: (cursed letters received from her implacable family!) so
+I could not have much conversation with her, in thy favour, upon it.--But
+what passed will make thee more and more adore her.
+
+She was very attentive to me, as I read it; and, when I had done, Poor
+man! said she; what a letter is this!  He had timely instances that my
+temper was not ungenerous, if generosity could have obliged him!  But his
+remorse, and that for his own sake, is all the punishment I wish him.--
+Yet I must be more reserved, if you write to him every thing I say!
+
+I extolled her unbounded goodness--how could I help it, though to her
+face!
+
+No goodness in it! she said--it was a frame of mind she had endeavoured
+after for her own sake.  She suffered too much in want of mercy, not to
+wish it to a penitent heart.  He seems to be penitent, said she; and it
+is not for me to judge beyond appearances.--If he be not, he deceives
+himself more than any body else.
+
+She was so ill that this was all that passed on the occasion.
+
+What a fine subject for tragedy, would the injuries of this lady, and her
+behaviour under them, both with regard to her implacable friends, and to
+her persecutor, make!  With a grand objection as to the moral,
+nevertheless;* for here virtue is punished!  Except indeed we look
+forward to the rewards of HEREAFTER, which, morally, she must be sure of,
+or who can?  Yet, after all, I know not, so sad a fellow art thou, and so
+vile an husband mightest thou have made, whether her virtue is not
+rewarded in missing thee: for things the most grievous to human nature,
+when they happen, as this charming creature once observed, are often the
+happiest for us in the event.
+
+
+* Mr. Belford's objections, That virtue ought not to suffer in a tragedy,
+is not well considered: Monimia in the Orphean, Belvidera in Venice
+Preserved, Athenais in Theodosius, Cordelia in Shakespeare's King Lear,
+Desdemona in Othello, Hamlet, (to name no more,) are instances that a
+tragedy could hardly be justly called a tragedy, if virtue did not
+temporarily suffer, and vice for a while triumph.  But he recovers
+himself in the same paragraph; and leads us to look up to the FUTURE for
+the reward of virtue, and for the punishment of guilt: and observes not
+amiss, when he says, He knows not but that the virtue of such a woman as
+Clarissa is rewarded in missing such a man as Lovelace.
+
+
+I have frequently thought, in my attendance on this lady, that if
+Belton's admired author, Nic. Rowe, had had such a character before him,
+he would have drawn another sort of penitent than he has done, or given
+his play, which he calls The Fair Penitent, a fitter title.  Miss Harlowe
+is a penitent indeed!  I think, if I am not guilty of a contradiction in
+terms; a penitent without a fault; her parents' conduct towards her from
+the first considered.
+
+The whole story of the other is a pack of d----d stuff.  Lothario, 'tis
+true, seems such another wicked ungenerous varlet as thou knowest who:
+the author knew how to draw a rake; but not to paint a penitent.  Calista
+is a desiring luscious wench, and her penitence is nothing else but rage,
+insolence, and scorn.  Her passions are all storm and tumult; nothing of
+the finer passions of the sex, which, if naturally drawn, will
+distinguish themselves from the masculine passions, by a softness that
+will even shine through rage and despair.  Her character is made up of
+deceit and disguise.  She has no virtue; is all pride; and her devil is
+as much within her, as without her.
+
+How then can the fall of such a one create a proper distress, when all
+the circumstances of it are considered?  For does she not brazen out her
+crime, even after detection?  Knowing her own guilt, she calls for
+Altamont's vengeance on his best friend, as if he had traduced her;
+yields to marry Altamont, though criminal with another; and actually beds
+that whining puppy, when she had given up herself, body and soul, to
+Lothario; who, nevertheless, refused to marry her.
+
+Her penitence, when begun, she justly styles the phrensy of her soul;
+and, as I said, after having, as long as she could, most audaciously
+brazened out her crime, and done all the mischief she could do,
+(occasioning the death of Lothario, of her father, and others,) she stabs
+herself.
+
+And can this be the act of penitence?
+
+But, indeed, our poets hardly know how to create a distress without
+horror, murder, and suicide; and must shock your soul, to bring tears
+from your eyes.
+
+Altamont indeed, who is an amorous blockhead, a credulous cuckold, and,
+(though painted as a brave fellow, and a soldier,) a mere Tom. Essence,
+and a quarreler with his best friend, dies like a fool, (as we are led to
+suppose at the conclusion of the play,) without either sword or pop-gun,
+of mere grief and nonsense for one of the vilest of her sex: but the Fair
+Penitent, as she is called, perishes by her own hand; and, having no
+title by her past crimes to laudable pity, forfeits all claim to true
+penitence, and, in all probability, to future mercy.
+
+But here is Miss CLARISSA HARLOWE, a virtuous, noble, wise, and pious
+young lady; who being ill used by her friends, and unhappily ensnared by
+a vile libertine, whom she believes to be a man of honour, is in a manner
+forced to throw herself upon his protection.  And he, in order to obtain
+her confidence, never scruples the deepest and most solemn protestations
+of honour.
+
+After a series of plots and contrivances, all baffled by her virtue and
+vigilance, he basely has recourse to the vilest of arts, and, to rob her
+of her honour, is forced first to rob her of her senses.
+
+Unable to bring her, notwithstanding, to his ungenerous views of
+cohabitation, she over-awes him in the very entrance of a fresh act of
+premeditated guilt, in presence of the most abandoned of women assembled
+to assist his devilish purpose; triumphs over them all, by virtue only of
+her innocence; and escapes from the vile hands he had put her into.
+
+She nobly, not franticly, resents: refuses to see or to marry the wretch;
+who, repenting his usage of so divine a creature, would fain move her to
+forgive his baseness, and make him her husband: and this, though
+persecuted by all her friends, and abandoned to the deepest distress,
+being obliged, from ample fortunes, to make away with her apparel for
+subsistence; surrounded also by strangers, and forced (in want of others)
+to make a friend of the friend of her seducer.
+
+Though longing for death, and making all proper preparations for it,
+convinced that grief and ill usage have broken her noble heart, she
+abhors the impious thought of shortening her allotted period; and, as
+much a stranger to revenge as despair, is able to forgive the author of
+her ruin; wishes his repentance, and that she may be the last victim to
+his barbarous perfidy: and is solicitous for nothing so much in this
+life, as to prevent vindictive mischief to and from the man who used her
+so basely.
+
+This is penitence!  This is piety!  And hence distress naturally arises,
+that must worthily effect every heart.
+
+Whatever the ill usage of this excellent woman is from her relations, she
+breaks not out into excesses: she strives, on the contrary, to find
+reason to justify them at her own expense; and seems more concerned for
+their cruelty to her for their sakes hereafter, when she shall be no
+more, than for her own: for, as to herself, she is sure, she says, God
+will forgive her, though no one on earth will.
+
+On every extraordinary provocation she has recourse to the Scriptures,
+and endeavours to regulate her vehemence by sacred precedents.  'Better
+people, she says, have been more afflicted than she, grievous as she
+sometimes thinks her afflictions: and shall she not bear what less faulty
+persons have borne?'  On the very occasion I have mentioned, (some new
+instances of implacableness from her friends,) the enclosed meditation
+will show how mildly, and yet how forcibly, she complains.  See if thou,
+in the wicked levity of thy heart, canst apply it to thy cause, as thou
+didst the other.  If thou canst not, give way to thy conscience, and that
+will make the properest application.
+
+
+MEDITATION
+
+How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words!
+
+Be it indeed that I have erred, mine error remaineth with myself.
+
+To her that is afflicted, pity should be shown from her friend.
+
+But she that is ready to slip with her feet, is as a lamp despised in the
+thought of them that are at ease.
+
+There is a shame which bringeth sin, and there is a shame which bringeth
+glory and grace.
+
+Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye, my friends! for the hand of
+God hath touched me.
+
+If your soul were in my soul's stead, I also could speak as ye do: I
+could heap up words against you--
+
+But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips
+should assuage your grief.
+
+Why will ye break a leaf driven to and fro?  Why will ye pursue the dry
+stubble?  Why will ye write bitter words against me, and make me possess
+the iniquities of my youth?
+
+Mercy is seasonable in the time of affliction, as clouds of rain in the
+time of drought.
+
+Are not my days few?  Cease then, and let me alone, that I may take
+comfort a little--before I go whence I shall not return; even to the land
+of darkness, and shadow of death!
+
+
+Let me add, that the excellent lady is informed, by a letter from Mrs.
+Norton, that Colonel Morden is just arrived in England.  He is now the
+only person she wishes to see.
+
+I expressed some jealousy upon it, lest he should have place given over
+me in the executorship.  She said, That she had no thoughts to do so now;
+because such a trust, were he to accept of it, (which she doubted,)
+might, from the nature of some of the papers which in that case would
+necessarily pass through his hands, occasion mischiefs between my friend
+and him, that would be worse than death for her to think of.
+
+Poor Belton, I hear, is at death's door.  A messenger is just come from
+him, who tells me he cannot die till he sees me.  I hope the poor fellow
+will not go off yet; since neither his affairs of this world, nor for the
+other, are in tolerable order.  I cannot avoid going to the poor man.
+Yet am unwilling to stir, till I have an assurance from you that you will
+not disturb the lady: for I know he will be very loth to part with me,
+when he gets me to him.
+
+Tourville tells me how fast thou mendest: let me conjure thee not to
+think of molesting this incomparable woman.  For thy own sake I request
+this, as well as for her's, and for the sake of thy given promise: for,
+should she die within a few weeks, as I fear she will, it will be said,
+and perhaps too justly, that thy visit has hastened her end.
+
+In hopes thou wilt not, I wish thy perfect recovery: else that thou
+mayest relapse, and be confined to thy bed.
+
+
+
+LETTER XI
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+SAT. MORN. AUG. 19.
+
+
+MADAM,
+
+I think myself obliged in honour to acquaint you that I am afraid Mr.
+Lovelace will try his fate by an interview with you.
+
+I wish to Heaven you could prevail upon yourself to receive his visit.
+All that is respectful, even to veneration, and all that is penitent,
+will you see in his behaviour, if you can admit of it.  But as I am
+obliged to set out directly for Epsom, (to perform, as I apprehend, the
+last friendly offices for poor Mr. Belton, whom once you saw,) and as I
+think it more likely that Mr. Lovelace will not be prevailed upon, than
+that he will, I thought fit to give you this intimation, lest, if he
+should come, you should be too much surprised.
+
+He flatters himself that you are not so ill as I represent you to be.
+When he sees you, he will be convinced that the most obliging things he
+can do, will be as proper to be done for the sake of his own future peace
+of mind, as for your health-sake; and, I dare say, in fear of hurting the
+latter, he will forbear the thoughts of any farther intrusion; at least
+while you are so much indisposed: so that one half-hour's shock, if it
+will be a shock to see the unhappy man, (but just got up himself from a
+dangerous fever,) will be all you will have occasion to stand.
+
+I beg you will not too much hurry and discompose yourself.  It is
+impossible he can be in town till Monday, at soonest.  And if he resolve
+to come, I hope to be at Mr. Smith's before him.
+
+I am, Madam, with the profoundest veneration,
+
+Your most faithful and most obedient servant,
+J. BELFORD.
+
+
+
+LETTER XII
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+[IN ANSWER TO HIS OF AUG. 17.  SEE LETTER X. OF THIS VOLUME.]
+SUNDAY, AUG. 20.
+
+
+What an unmerciful fellow art thou!  A man has no need of a conscience,
+who has such an impertinent monitor.  But if Nic. Rowe wrote a play that
+answers not his title, am I to be reflected upon for that?--I have
+sinned; I repent; I would repair--she forgives my sin: she accepts my
+repentance: but she won't let me repair--What wouldst thou have me do?
+
+But get thee gone to Belton, as soon as thou canst.  Yet whether thou
+goest or not, up I must go, and see what I can do with the sweet oddity
+myself.  The moment these prescribing varlets will let me, depend
+upon it, I go.  Nay, Lord M. thinks she ought to permit me one interview.
+His opinion has great authority with me--when it squares with my own: and
+I have assured him, and my two cousins, that I will behave with all the
+decency and respect that man can behave with to the person whom he most
+respects.  And so I will.  Of this, if thou choosest not to go to Belton
+mean time, thou shalt be witness.
+
+Colonel Morden, thou hast heard me say, is a man of honour and bravery:--
+but Colonel Morden has had his girls, as well as you or I.  And indeed,
+either openly or secretly, who has not?  The devil always baits with a
+pretty wench, when he angles for a man, be his age, rank, or degree, what
+it will.
+
+I have often heard my beloved speak of the Colonel with great distinction
+and esteem.  I wish he could make matters a little easier, for her mind's
+sake, between the rest of the implacables and herself.
+
+Methinks I am sorry for honest Belton.  But a man cannot be ill, or
+vapourish, but thou liftest up thy shriek-owl note, and killest him
+immediately.  None but a fellow, who is for a drummer in death's
+forlorn-hope, could take so much delight, as thou dost, in beating a
+dead-march with thy goose-quills.  Whereas, didst thou but know thine own
+talents, thou art formed to give mirth by thy very appearance; and
+wouldst make a better figure by half, leading up thy brother-bears at
+Hockley in the Hole, to the music of a Scot's bagpipe.  Methinks I see
+thy clumsy sides shaking, (and shaking the sides of all beholders,) in
+these attitudes; thy fat head archly beating time on thy porterly
+shoulders, right and left by turns, as I once beheld thee practising to
+the horn-pipe at Preston.  Thou remembrest the frolick, as I have done
+an hundred times; for I never before saw thee appear so much in
+character.
+
+But I know what I shall get by this--only that notable observation
+repeated, That thy outside is the worst of thee, and mine the best of me.
+And so let it be.  Nothing thou writest of this sort can I take amiss.
+
+But I shall call thee seriously to account, when I see thee, for the
+extracts thou hast given the lady from my letters, notwithstanding what I
+said in my last; especially if she continue to refuse me.  An hundred
+times have I myself known a woman deny, yet comply at last: but, by these
+extracts, thou hast, I doubt, made her bar up the door of her heart, as
+she used to do her chamber-door, against me.--This therefore is a
+disloyalty that friendship cannot bear, nor honour allow me to forgive.
+
+
+
+LETTER XIII
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+LONDON, AUG. 21, MONDAY.
+
+
+I believe I am bound to curse thee, Jack.  Nevertheless I won't
+anticipate, but proceed to write thee a longer letter than thou hast had
+from me for some time past.  So here goes.
+
+That thou mightest have as little notice as possible of the time I was
+resolved to be in town, I set out in my Lord's chariot-and-six yesterday,
+as soon as I had dispatched my letter to thee, and arrived in town last
+night: for I knew I could have no dependence on thy friendship where Miss
+Harlowe's humour was concerned.
+
+I had no other place so ready, and so was forced to go to my old
+lodgings, where also my wardrobe is; and there I poured out millions of
+curses upon the whole crew, and refused to see either Sally or Polly; and
+this not only for suffering the lady to escape, but for the villanous
+arrest, and for their detestable insolence to her at the officer's house.
+
+I dressed myself in a never-worn suit, which I had intended for one of my
+wedding-suits; and liked myself so well, that I began to think, with
+thee, that my outside was the best of me:
+
+I took a chair to Smith's, my heart bounding in almost audible thumps to
+my throat, with the assured expectations of seeing my beloved.  I clasped
+my fingers, as I was danced along: I charged my eyes to languish and
+sparkle by turns: I talked to my knees, telling them how they must bend;
+and, in the language of a charming describer, acted my part in fancy, as
+well as spoke it to myself.
+
+      Tenderly kneeling, thus will I complain:
+      Thus court her pity; and thus plead my pain:
+      Thus sigh for fancy'd frowns, if frowns should rise;
+      And thus meet favour in her soft'ning eyes.
+
+In this manner entertained I myself till I arrived at Smith's; and there
+the fellows set down their gay burden.  Off went their hats; Will. ready
+at hand in a new livery; up went the head; out rushed my honour; the
+woman behind the counter all in flutters, respect and fear giving due
+solemnity to her features, and her knees, I doubt not, knocking against
+the inside of her wainscot-fence.
+
+Your servant, Madam--Will. let the fellows move to some distance, and
+wait.
+
+You have a young lady lodges here; Miss Harlowe, Madam: Is she above?
+
+Sir, Sir, and please your Honour: [the woman is struck with my figure,
+thought I:] Miss Harlowe, Sir!  There is, indeed, such a young lady
+lodges here--But, but--
+
+But, what, Madam?--I must see her.--One pair of stairs; is it not?--
+Don't trouble yourself--I shall find her apartment.  And was making
+towards the stairs.
+
+Sir, Sir, the lady, the lady is not at home--she is abroad--she is in the
+country--
+
+In the country!  Not at home!--Impossible!  You will not pass this story
+upon me, good woman.  I must see her.  I have business of life and death
+with her.
+
+Indeed, Sir, the lady is not at home!  Indeed, Sir, she is abroad!--
+
+She then rung a bell: John, cried she, pray step down!--Indeed, Sir, the
+lady is not at home.
+
+Down came John, the good man of the house, when I expected one of his
+journeymen, by her saucy familiarity.
+
+My dear, said she, the gentleman will not believe Miss Harlowe is abroad.
+
+John bowed to my fine clothes: Your servant, Sir,--indeed the lady is
+abroad.  She went out of town this morning by six o'clock--into the
+country--by the doctor's advice.
+
+Still I would not believe either John or his wife.  I am sure, said I,
+she cannot be abroad.  I heard she was very ill--she is not able to go
+out in a coach.  Do you know Mr. Belford, friend?
+
+Yes, Sir; I have the honour to know 'Squire Belford.  He is gone into the
+country to visit a sick friend.  He went on Saturday, Sir.
+
+This had also been told from thy lodgings to Will. whom I sent to desire
+to see thee on my first coming to town.
+
+Well, and Mr. Belford wrote me word that she was exceeding ill.  How then
+can she be gone out?
+
+O Sir, she is very ill; very ill, indeed--she could hardly walk to the
+coach.
+
+Belford, thought I, himself knew nothing of the time of my coming;
+neither can he have received my letter of yesterday: and so ill, 'tis
+impossible she would go out.
+
+Where is her servant?  Call her servant to me.
+
+Her servant, Sir, is her nurse: she has no other.  And she is gone with
+her.
+
+Well, friend, I must not believe you.  You'll excuse me; but I must go up
+stairs myself.  And was stepping up.
+
+John hereupon put on a serious, and a less respectful face--Sir, this
+house is mine; and--
+
+And what, friend? not doubting then but she was above.--I must and will
+see her.  I have authority for it.  I am a justice of the peace.  I have
+a search warrant.
+
+And up I went; they following me, muttering, and in a plaguy flutter.
+
+The first door I came to was locked.  I tapped at it.
+
+The lady, Sir, has the key of her own apartment.
+
+On the inside, I question not, my honest friend; tapping again.  And
+being assured, if she heard my voice, that her timorous and soft temper
+would make her betray herself, by some flutters, to my listning ear, I
+said aloud, I am confident Miss Harlowe is here: dearest Madam, open the
+door: admit me but for one moment to your presence.
+
+But neither answer nor fluttering saluted my ear; and, the people being
+very quiet, I led on to the next apartment; and, the key being on the
+outside, I opened it, and looked all around it, and into the closet.
+
+The man said he never saw so uncivil a gentleman in his life.
+
+Hark thee, friend, said I; let me advise thee to be a little decent; or
+I shall teach thee a lesson thou never learnedst in all thy life.
+
+Sir, said he, 'tis not like a gentleman, to affront a man in his own
+house.
+
+Then prythee, man, replied I, don't crow upon thine own dunghil.
+
+I stept back to the locked door: My dear Miss Harlowe, I beg of you to
+open the door, or I'll break it open;--pushing hard against it, that it
+cracked again.
+
+The man looked pale: and, trembling with his fright, made a plaguy long
+face; and called to one of his bodice-makers above, Joseph, come down
+quickly.
+
+Joseph came down: a lion's-face grinning fellow; thick, and short, and
+bushy-headed, like an old oak-pollard.  Then did master John put on a
+sturdier look.  But I only hummed a tune, traversed all the other
+apartments, sounded the passages with my knuckles, to find whether there
+were private doors, and walked up the next pair of stairs, singing all
+the way; John and Joseph, and Mrs. Smith, following me up, trembling.
+
+I looked round me there, and went into two open-door bed-chambers;
+searched the closets, and the passages, and peeped through the key-hole
+of another: no Miss Harlowe, by Jupiter!  What shall I do!--what shall I
+do! as the girls say.--Now will she be grieved that she is out of the
+way.
+
+I said this on purpose to find out whether these people knew the lady's
+story; and had the answer I expected from Mrs. Smith--I believe not, Sir.
+
+Why so, Mrs. Smith?  Do you know who I am?
+
+I can guess, Sir.
+
+Whom do you guess me to be?
+
+Your name is Mr. Lovelace, Sir, I make no doubt.
+
+The very same.  But how came you to guess so well, dame Smith!  You never
+saw me before, did you?
+
+Here, Jack, I laid out for a compliment, and missed it.
+
+'Tis easy to guess, Sir; for there cannot be two such gentlemen as you.
+
+Well said, dame Smith--but mean you good or bad?--Handsome was the least
+I thought she would have said.
+
+I leave you to guess, Sir.
+
+Condemned, thought I, by myself, on this appeal.
+
+Why, father Smith, thy wife is a wit, man!--Didst thou ever find that out
+before?--But where is widow Lovick, dame Smith?  My cousin John Belford
+says she is a very good woman.  Is she within? or is she gone with Miss
+Harlowe too?
+
+She will be within by-and-by, Sir.  She is not with the lady.
+
+Well, but my good dear Mrs. Smith, where is the lady gone? and when will
+she return?
+
+I can't tell, Sir.
+
+Don't tell fibs, dame Smith; don't tell fibs, chucking her under the
+chin: which made John's upper-lip, with chin shortened, rise to his nose.
+--I am sure you know!--But here's another pair of stairs: let us see: Who
+lives up there?--but hold, here's another room locked up, tapping at the
+door--Who's at home? cried I.
+
+That's Mrs. Lovick's apartment.  She is gone out, and has the key with
+her.
+
+Widow Lovick! rapping again, I believe you are at home: pray open the
+door.
+
+John and Joseph muttered and whispered together.
+
+No whispering, honest friends: 'tis not manners to whisper.  Joseph, what
+said John to thee?
+
+JOHN! Sir, disdainfully repeated the good woman.
+
+I beg pardon, Mrs. Smith: but you see the force of example.  Had you
+showed your honest man more respect, I should.  Let me give you a piece
+of advice--women who treat their husbands irreverently, teach strangers
+to use them with contempt.  There, honest master John; why dost not pull
+off thy hat to me?--Oh! so thou wouldst, if thou hadst it on: but thou
+never wearest thy hat in thy wife's presence, I believe; dost thou?
+
+None of your fleers and your jeers, Sir, cried John.  I wish every
+married pair lived as happily as we do.
+
+I wish so too, honest friend.  But I'll be hanged if thou hast any
+children.
+
+Why so, Sir?
+
+Hast thou?--Answer me, man: Hast thou, or not?
+
+Perhaps not, Sir.  But what of that?
+
+What of that?--Why I'll tell thee: The man who has no children by his
+wife must put up with plain John.  Hadst thou a child or two, thou'dst be
+called Mr. Smith, with a courtesy, or a smile at least, at every word.
+
+You are very pleasant, Sir, replied my dame.  I fancy, if either my
+husband or I had as much to answer for as I know whom, we should not be
+so merry.
+
+Why then, dame Smith, so much the worse for those who were obliged to
+keep you company.  But I am not merry--I am sad!--Hey-ho!--Where shall I
+find my dear Miss Harlowe?
+
+My beloved Miss Harlowe! [calling at the foot of the third pair of
+stairs,] if you are above, for Heaven's sake answer me.  I am coming up.
+
+Sir, said the good man, I wish you'd walk down.  The servants' rooms, and
+the working-rooms, are up those stairs, and another pair; and nobody's
+there that you want.
+
+Shall I go up, and see if Miss Harlowe be there, Mrs. Smith?
+
+You may, Sir, if you please.
+
+Then I won't; for, if she was, you would not be so obliging.
+
+I am ashamed to give you all this attendance: you are the politest
+traders I ever knew.  Honest Joseph, slapping him upon the shoulders on
+a sudden, which made him jump, didst ever grin for a wager, man?--for the
+rascal seemed not displeased with me; and, cracking his flat face from
+ear to ear, with a distended mouth, showed his teeth, as broad and as
+black as his thumb-nails.--But don't I hinder thee?  What canst earn
+a-day, man?
+
+Half-a-crown I can earn a-day; with an air of pride and petulance, at
+being startled.
+
+There then is a day's wages for thee.  But thou needest not attend me
+farther.
+
+Come, Mrs. Smith, come John, (Master Smith I should say,) let's walk
+down, and give me an account where the lady is gone, and when she will
+return.
+
+So down stairs led I.  John and Joseph (though I had discharged the
+latter,) and my dame, following me, to show their complaisance to a
+stranger.
+
+I re-entered one of the first-floor rooms.  I have a great mind to be
+your lodger: for I never saw such obliging folks in my life.  What rooms
+have you to let?
+
+None at all, Sir.
+
+I am sorry for that.  But whose is this?
+
+Mine, Sir, chuffily said John.
+
+Thine, man! why then I will take it of thee.  This, and a bed-chamber,
+and a garret for one servant, will content me.  I will give thee thine
+own price, and half a guinea a day over, for those conveniencies.
+
+For ten guineas a day, Sir--
+
+Hold, John! (Master Smith I should say)--Before thou speakest, consider--
+I won't be affronted, man.
+
+Sir, I wish you'd walk down, said the good woman.  Really, Sir, you
+take--
+
+Great liberties I hope you would not say, Mrs. Smith?
+
+Indeed, Sir, I was going to say something like it.
+
+Well, then, I am glad I prevented you; for such words better become my
+mouth than yours.  But I must lodge with you till the lady returns.  I
+believe I must.  However, you may be wanted in the shop; so we'll talk
+that over there.
+
+Down I went, they paying diligent attendance on my steps.
+
+When I came into the shop, seeing no chair or stool, I went behind the
+compter, and sat down under an arched kind of canopy of carved work,
+which these proud traders, emulating the royal niche-fillers, often give
+themselves, while a joint-stool, perhaps, serves those by whom they get
+their bread: such is the dignity of trade in this mercantile nation!
+
+I looked about me, and above me; and told them I was very proud of my
+seat; asking, if John were ever permitted to fill this superb niche?
+
+Perhaps he was, he said, very surlily.
+
+That is it that makes thee looks so like a statue, man.
+
+John looked plaguy glum upon me.  But his man Joseph and my man Will.
+turned round with their backs to us, to hide their grinning, with each
+his fist in his mouth.
+
+I asked, what it was they sold?
+
+Powder, and wash-balls, and snuff, they said; and gloves and stockings.
+
+O come, I'll be your customer.  Will. do I want wash-balls?
+
+Yes, and please your Honour, you can dispense with one or two.
+
+Give him half a dozen, dame Smith.
+
+She told me she must come where I was, to serve them.  Pray, Sir, walk
+from behind the compter.
+
+Indeed but I won't.  The shop shall be mine.  Where are they, if a
+customer shall come in?
+
+She pointed over my head, with a purse mouth, as if she would not have
+simpered, could she have helped it.  I reached down the glass, and gave
+Will. six.  There--put 'em up, Sirrah.
+
+He did, grinning with his teeth out before; which touching my conscience,
+as the loss of them was owing to me, Joseph, said I, come hither.  Come
+hither, man, when I bid thee.
+
+He stalked towards me, his hands behind him, half willing, and half
+unwilling.
+
+I suddenly wrapt my arm round his neck.  Will. thy penknife, this moment.
+D----n the fellow, where's thy penknife?
+
+O Lord! said the pollard-headed dog, struggling to get his head loose
+from under my arm, while my other hand was muzzling about his cursed
+chaps, as if I would take his teeth out.
+
+I will pay thee a good price, man: don't struggle thus?  The penknife,
+Will.!
+
+O Lord, cried Joseph, struggling still more and more: and out comes
+Will.'s pruning-knife; for the rascal is a gardener in the country.  I
+have only this, Sir.
+
+The best in the world to launch a gum.  D----n the fellow, why dost
+struggle thus?
+
+Master and Mistress Smith being afraid, I suppose, that I had a design
+upon Joseph's throat, because he was their champion, (and this, indeed,
+made me take the more notice of him,) coming towards me with countenances
+tragic-comical, I let him go.
+
+I only wanted, said I, to take out two or three of this rascal's broad
+teeth, to put them into my servant's jaws--and I would have paid him his
+price for them.--I would by my soul, Joseph.
+
+Joseph shook his ears; and with both hands stroked down, smooth as it
+would lie, his bushy hair; and looked at me as if he knew not whether he
+should laugh or be angry: but, after a stupid stare or two, stalked off
+to the other end of the shop, nodding his head at me as he went, still
+stroking down his hair; and took his stand by his master, facing about
+and muttering, that I was plaguy strong in the arms, and he thought would
+have throttled him.  Then folding his arms, and shaking his bristled
+head, added, 'twas well I was a gentleman, or he would not have taken
+such an affront.
+
+I demanded where their rappee was? the good woman pointed to the place;
+and I took up a scollop-shell of it, refusing to let her weight it, and
+filled my box.  And now, Mrs. Smith, said I, where are your gloves?
+
+She showed me; and I chose four pair of them, and set Joseph, who looked
+as if he wanted to be taken notice of again, to open the fingers.
+
+A female customer, who had been gaping at the door, came in for some
+Scots sniff; and I would serve her.  The wench was plaguy homely; and I
+told her so; or else, I said, I would have treated her.  She, in anger,
+[no woman is homely in her own opinion,] threw down her penny; and I put
+it in my pocket.
+
+Just then, turning my eye to the door, I saw a pretty, genteel lady, with
+a footman after her, peeping in with a What's the matter, good folks? to
+the starers; and I ran to her from behind the compter, and, as she was
+making off, took her hand, and drew her into the shop; begging that she
+would be my customer; for that I had but just begun trade.
+
+What do you sell, Sir? said she, smiling; but a little surprised.
+
+Tapes, ribbands, silk laces, pins, and needles; for I am a pedlar:
+powder, patches, wash-balls, stockings, garters, snuffs, and pin
+cushions--Don't we, goody Smith?
+
+So in I gently drew her to the compter, running behind it myself, with an
+air of great dilingence and obligingness.  I have excellent gloves and
+wash-balls, Madam: rappee, Scots, Portugal, and all sorts of snuff.
+
+Well, said she, in a very good humour, I'll encourage a young beginner
+for once.  Here, Andrew, [to her footman,] you want a pair of gloves,
+don't you?
+
+I took down a parcel of gloves, which Mrs. Smith pointed to, and came
+round to the fellow to fit them on myself.
+
+No matter for opening them, said I: thy fingers, friend, are as stiff as
+drum-sticks.  Push!--Thou'rt an awkward dog!  I wonder such a pretty lady
+will be followed by such a clumsy varlet.
+
+The fellow had no strength for laughing: and Joseph was mightily pleased,
+in hopes, I suppose, I would borrow a few of Andrew's teeth, to keep him
+in countenance: and, father and mother Smith, like all the world, as the
+jest was turned from themselves, seemed diverted with the humour.
+
+The fellow said the gloves were too little.
+
+Thrust, and be d----d to thee, said I: why, fellow, thou hast not the
+strength of a cat.
+
+Sir, Sir, said he, laughing, I shall hurt your Honour's side.
+
+D----n thee, thrust I say.
+
+He did; and burst out the sides of the glove.
+
+Will. said I, where's thy pruning-knife?  By my soul, friend, I had a
+good mind to pare thy cursed paws.  But come, here's a larger pair: try
+them, when thou gettest home; and let thy sweetheart, if thou hast one,
+mend the other, so take both.
+
+The lady laughed at the humour; as did my fellow, and Mrs. Smith, and
+Joseph: even John laughed, though he seemed by the force put upon his
+countenance to be but half pleased with me neither.
+
+Madam, said I, and stepped behind the compter, bowing over it, now I hope
+you will buy something for yourself.  Nobody shall use you better, nor
+sell you cheaper.
+
+Come, said she, give me six-penny worth of Portugal snuff.
+
+They showed me where it was, and I served her; and said, when she would
+have paid me, I took nothing at my opening.
+
+If I treated her footman, she told me, I should not treat her.
+
+Well, with all my heart, said I: 'tis not for us tradesmen to be saucy--
+Is it, Mrs. Smith?
+
+I put her sixpence in my pocket; and, seizing her hand, took notice to
+her of the crowd that had gathered about the door, and besought her to
+walk into the back-shop with me.
+
+She struggled her hand out of mine, and would stay no longer.
+
+So I bowed, and bid her kindly welcome, and thanked her, and hoped I
+should have her custom another time.
+
+She went away smiling; and Andrew after her; who made me a fine bow.
+
+I began to be out of countenance at the crowd, which thickened apace; and
+bid Will. order the chair to the door.
+
+Well, Mrs. Smith, with a grave air, I am heartily sorry Miss Harlowe is
+abroad.  You don't tell me where she is?
+
+Indeed, Sir, I cannot.
+
+You will not, you mean.--She could have no notion of my coming.  I came
+to town but last night.  I have been very ill.  She has almost broken my
+heart by her cruelty.  You know my story, I doubt not.  Tell her, I must
+go out of town to-morrow morning.  But I will send my servant, to know if
+she will favour me with one half-hour's conversation; for, as soon as I
+get down, I shall set out for Dover, in my way to France, if I have not a
+countermand from her, who has the sole disposal of my fate.
+
+And so flinging down a Portugal six-and-thirty, I took Mr. Smith by the
+hand, telling him, I was sorry we had not more time to be better
+acquainted; and bidding farewell to honest Joseph, (who pursed up his
+mouth as I passed by him, as if he thought his teeth still in jeopardy,)
+and Mrs. Smith adieu, and to recommend me to her fair lodger, hummed an
+air, and, the chair being come, whipt into it; the people about the door
+seeming to be in good humour with me; one crying, a pleasant gentleman, I
+warrant him! and away I was carried to White's, according to direction.
+
+As soon as I came thither, I ordered Will. to go and change his clothes,
+and to disguise himself by putting on his black wig, and keeping his
+mouth shut; and then to dodge about Smith's, to inform himself of the
+lady's motions.
+
+
+***
+
+
+I give thee this impudent account of myself, that thou mayest rave at me,
+and call me hardened, and what thou wilt.  For, in the first place, I,
+who had been so lately ill, was glad I was alive; and then I was so
+balked by my charmer's unexpected absence, and so ruffled by that, and by
+the bluff treatment of father John, that I had no other way to avoid
+being out of humour with all I met with.  Moreover I was rejoiced to
+find, by the lady's absence, and by her going out at six in the morning,
+that it was impossible she should be so ill as thou representest her to
+be; and this gave me still higher spirits.  Then I know the sex always
+love cheerful and humourous fellows.  The dear creature herself used to
+be pleased with my gay temper and lively manner; and had she been told
+that I was blubbering for her in the back-shop, she would have despised
+me still more than she does.
+
+Furthermore, I was sensible that the people of the house must needs have
+a terrible notion of me, as a savage, bloody-minded, obdurate fellow; a
+perfect woman-eater; and, no doubt, expected to see me with the claws of
+a lion, and the fangs of a tiger; and it was but policy to show them what
+a harmless pleasant fellow I am, in order to familiarize the Johns and
+the Josephs to me.  For it was evident to me, by the good woman's calling
+them down, that she thought me a dangerous man.  Whereas now, John and I
+have shaken hands together, and dame Smith having seen that I have the
+face, and hands, and looks of a man, and walk upright, and prate, and
+laugh, and joke, like other people; and Joseph, that I can talk of taking
+his teeth out of his head, without doing him the least hurt; they will
+all, at my next visit, be much more easy and pleasant to me than Andrew's
+gloves were to him; and we shall be as thoroughly acquainted, as if we
+had known one another a twelvemonth.
+
+When I returned to our mother's, I again cursed her and all her nymphs
+together; and still refused to see either Sally or Polly!  I raved at the
+horrid arrest; and told the old dragon that it was owing to her and her's
+that the fairest virtue in the world was ruined; my reputation for ever
+blasted; and that I was not married and perfectly happy in the love of
+the most excellent of her sex.
+
+She, to pacify me, said she would show me a new face that would please
+me; since I would not see my Sally, who was dying with grief.
+
+Where is this new face? cried I: let me see her, though I shall never see
+any face with pleasure but Miss Harlowe's.
+
+She won't come down, replied she.  She will not be at the word of command
+yet.  She is but just in the trammels; and must be waited upon, I'll
+assure you; and courted much besides.
+
+Ay! said I, that looks well.  Lead me to her this instant.
+
+I followed her up: and who should she be, but that little toad Sally!
+
+O curse you, said I, for a devil!  Is it you? is your's the new face?
+
+O my dear, dear Mr. Lovelace! cried she, I am glad any thing will bring
+you to me!--and so the little beast threw herself about my neck, and
+there clung like a cat.  Come, said she, what will you give me, and I'll
+be as virtuous for a quarter of an hour, and mimic your Clarissa to the
+life?
+
+I was Belforded all over.  I could not bear such an insult upon the dear
+creature, (for I have a soft and generous nature in the main, whatever
+thou thinkest;) and cursed her most devoutly, for taking my beloved's
+name in her mouth in such a way.  But the little devil was not to be
+balked; but fell a crying, sobbing, praying, begging, exclaiming,
+fainting, that I never saw my lovely girl so well aped.  Indeed I was
+almost taken in; for I could have fancied I had her before me once more.
+
+O this sex! this artful sex! there's no minding them.  At first, indeed,
+their grief and their concern may be real: but, give way to the
+hurricane, and it will soon die away in soft murmurs, thrilling upon your
+ears like the notes of a well-tuned viol.  And, by Sally, one sees that
+art will generally so well supply the place of nature, that you shall not
+easily know the difference.  Miss Clarisa Harlowe, indeed, is the only
+woman in the world I believe that can say, in the words of her favourite
+Job, (for I can quote a text as well as she,) But it is not so with me.
+
+They were very inquisitive about my fair-one.  They told me that you
+seldom came near them; that, when you did, you put on plaguy grave airs;
+would hardly stay five minutes; and did nothing but praise Miss Harlowe,
+and lament her hard fate.  In short, that you despised them; was full of
+sentences; and they doubted not, in a little while, would be a lost man,
+and marry.
+
+A pretty character for thee, is it not? thou art in a blessed way; yet
+hast nothing to do but to go on in it: and then what work hast thou to go
+through!  If thou turnest back, these sorceresses will be like the czar's
+cossacks, [at Pultowa, I think it was,] who were planted with ready
+primed and cocked pieces behind the regulars, in order to shoot them
+dead, if they did not push on and conquer; and then wilt thou be most
+lamentably despised by every harlot thou hast made--and, O Jack, how
+formidable, in that case, will be the number of thy enemies!
+
+I intend to regulate my motions by Will.'s intelligence; for see this
+dear creature I must and will.  Yet I have promised Lord M. to be down in
+two or three days at farthest; for he is grown plaguy fond of me since I
+was ill.
+
+I am in hopes that the word I left, that I am to go out of town to-morrow
+morning, will soon bring the lady back again.
+
+Mean time, I thought I would write to divert thee, while thou art of such
+importance about the dying; and as thy servant, it seems, comes backward
+and forward every day, perhaps I may send thee another letter to-morrow,
+with the particulars of the interview between the dear creature and me;
+after which my soul thirsteth.
+
+
+
+LETTER XIV
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+
+
+I must write on, to divert myself: for I can get no rest; no refreshing
+rest.  I awaked just now in a cursed fright.  How a man may be affected
+by dreams!
+
+'Methought I had an interview with my beloved.  I found her all goodness,
+condescension, and forgiveness.  She suffered herself to be overcome in
+my favour by the joint intercessions of Lord M., Lady Sarah, Lady Betty,
+and my two cousins Montague, who waited upon her in deep mourning; the
+ladies in long trains sweeping after them; Lord M. in a long black mantle
+trailing after him.  They told her they came in these robs to express
+their sorrow for my sins against her, and to implore her to forgive me.
+
+'I myself, I thought, was upon my knees, with a sword in my hand,
+offering either to put it up in the scabbard, or to thrust it into my
+heart, as she should command the one or the other.
+
+'At that moment her cousin Morden, I thought, all of a sudden, flashed in
+through a window, with his drawn sword--Die, Lovelace! said he; this
+instant die, and be d----d, if in earnest thou repairest not by marriage
+my cousin's wrongs!
+
+'I was rising to resent this insult, I thought, when Lord M. ran between
+us with his great black mantle, and threw it over my face: and instantly
+my charmer, with that sweet voice which has so often played upon my
+ravished ears, wrapped her arms around me, muffled as I was in my Lord's
+mantle: O spare, spare my Lovelace! and spare, O Lovelace, my beloved
+cousin Morden!  Let me not have my distresses augmented by the fall of
+either or both of those who are so dear to me!
+
+'At this, charmed with her sweet mediation, I thought I would have
+clasped her in my arms: when immediately the most angelic form I had ever
+beheld, all clad in transparent white, descended in a cloud, which,
+opening, discovered a firmament above it, crowded with golden cherubs and
+glittering seraphs, all addressing her with Welcome, welcome, welcome!
+and, encircling my charmer, ascended with her to the region of seraphims;
+and instantly, the opened cloud closing, I lost sight of her, and of the
+bright form together, and found wrapt in my arms her azure robe (all
+stuck thick with stars of embossed silver) which I had caught hold of in
+hopes of detaining her; but was all that was left me of my beloved
+Clarissa.  And then, (horrid to relate!) the floor sinking under me, as
+the firmament had opened for her, I dropt into a hole more frightful than
+that of Elden; and, tumbling over and over down it, without view of a
+bottom, I awaked in a panic; and was as effectually disordered for half
+an hour, as if my dream had been a reality.'
+
+Wilt thou forgive my troubling thee with such visionary stuff?  Thou wilt
+see by it only that, sleeping or waking, my Clarissa is always present
+with me.
+
+But here this moment is Will. come running hither to tell me that his
+lady actually returned to her lodgings last night between eleven and
+twelve; and is now there, though very ill.
+
+I hasten to her.  But, that I may not add to her indisposition, by any
+rough or boisterous behaviour, I will be as soft and gentle as the dove
+herself in my addresses to her.
+
+      That I do love her, I all ye host of Heaven,
+      Be witness.--That she is dear to me!
+      Dearer than day, to one whom sight must leave;
+      Dearer than life, to one who fears to die!
+
+The chair is come.  I fly to my beloved.
+
+
+
+LETTER XV
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+
+
+Curse upon my stars!--Disappointed again!  It was about eight when I
+arrived at Smith's.--The woman was in the shop.
+
+So, old acquaintance, how do you now?  I know my love is above.--Let her
+be acquainted that I am here, waiting for admission to her presence, and
+can take no denial.  Tell her, that I will approach her with the most
+respectful duty, and in whose company she pleases; and I will not touch
+the hem of her garment, without her leave.
+
+Indeed, Sir, you are mistaken.  The lady is not in this house, nor near
+it.
+
+I'll see that.--Will.! beckoning him to me, and whispering, see if thou
+canst any way find out (without losing sight of the door, lest she should
+be below stairs) if she be in the neighbourhood, if not within.
+
+Will. bowed, and went off.  Up went I, without further ceremony; attended
+now only by the good woman.
+
+I went into each apartment, except that which was locked before, and was
+now also locked: and I called to my Clarissa in the voice of love; but,
+by the still silence, was convinced she was not there.  Yet, on the
+strength of my intelligence, I doubted not but she was in the house.
+
+I then went up two pairs of stairs, and looked round the first room: but
+no Miss Harlowe.
+
+And who, pray, is in this room? stopping at the door of another.
+
+A widow gentlewoman, Sir.--Mrs. Lovick.
+
+O my dear Mrs. Lovick! said I.--I am intimately acquainted with Mrs.
+Lovick's character, from my cousin John Belford.  I must see Mrs. Lovick
+by all means.--Good Mrs. Lovick, open the door.
+
+She did.
+
+Your servant, Madam.  Be so good as to excuse me.--You have heard my
+story.  You are an admirer of the most excellent woman in the world.
+Dear Mrs. Lovick, tell me what is become of her?
+
+The poor lady, Sir, went out yesterday, on purpose to avoid you.
+
+How so? she knew not that I would be here.
+
+She was afraid you would come, when she heard you were recovered from
+your illness.  Ah! Sir, what pity it is that so fine a gentleman should
+make such ill returns for God's goodness to him!
+
+You are an excellent woman, Mrs. Lovick: I know that, by my cousin John
+Belford's account of you: and Miss Clarissa Harlowe is an angel.
+
+Miss Harlowe is indeed an angel, replied she; and soon will be company
+for angels.
+
+No jesting with such a woman as this, Jack.
+
+Tell me of a truth, good Mrs. Lovick, where I may see this dear lady.
+Upon my soul, I will neither fright for offend her.  I will only beg of
+her to hear me speak for one half-quarter of an hour; and, if she will
+have it so, I will never trouble her more.
+
+Sir, said the widow, it would be death for her to see you.  She was at
+home last night; I'll tell you truth: but fitter to be in bed all day.
+She came home, she said, to die; and, if she could not avoid your visit,
+she was unable to fly from you; and believed she should die in your
+presence.
+
+And yet go out again this morning early?  How can that be, widow?
+
+Why, Sir, she rested not two hours, for fear of you.  Her fear gave her
+strength, which she'll suffer for, when that fear is over.  And finding
+herself, the more she thought of your visit, the less able to stay to
+receive it, she took chair, and is gone nobody knows whither.  But, I
+believe, she intended to be carried to the waterside, in order to take
+boat; for she cannot bear a coach.  It extremely incommoded her
+yesterday.
+
+But before we talk any further, said I, if she be gone abroad, you can
+have no objection to my looking into every apartment above and below;
+because I am told she is actually in the house.
+
+Indeed, Sir, she is not.  You may satisfy yourself, if you please: but
+Mrs. Smith and I waited on her to her chair.  We were forced to support
+her, she was so weak.  She said, Whither can I go, Mrs. Lovick?  whither
+can I go, Mrs. Smith?--Cruel, cruel man!--tell him I called him so, if he
+come again!--God give him that peace which he denies me!
+
+Sweet creature! cried I; and looked down, and took out my handkerchief.
+
+The widow wept.  I wish, said she, I had never known so excellent a lady,
+and so great a sufferer!  I love her as my own child!
+
+Mrs. Smith wept.
+
+I then gave over the hope of seeing her for this time, I was extremely
+chagrined at my disappointment, and at the account they gave of her ill
+health.
+
+Would to Heaven, said I, she would put it in my power to repair her
+wrongs!  I have been an ungrateful wretch to her.  I need not tell you,
+Mrs. Lovick, how much I have injured her, nor how much she suffers by her
+relations' implacableness, Mrs. Smith, that cuts her to the heart.  Her
+family is the most implacable family on earth; and the dear creature, in
+refusing to see me, and to be reconciled to me, shows her relation to
+them a little too plainly.
+
+O Sir, said the widow, not one syllable of what you say belongs to this
+lady.  I never saw so sweet a temper! she is always accusing herself, and
+excusing her relations.  And, as to you, Sir, she forgives you: she
+wishes you well; and happier than you will let her die in peace? 'tis all
+she wishes for.  You don't look like a hard-hearted gentleman!--How can
+you thus hunt and persecute a poor lady, whom none of her relations will
+look upon?  It makes my heart bleed for her.
+
+And then she wept again.  Mrs. Smith wept also.  My seat grew uneasy to
+me. I shifted to another several times; and what Mrs. Lovick farther
+said, and showed me, made me still more uneasy.
+
+Bad as the poor lady was last night, said she, she transcribed into her
+book a meditation on your persecuting her thus.  I have a copy of it.  If
+I thought it would have any effect, I would read it to you.
+
+Let me read it myself, Mrs. Lovick.
+
+She gave it to me.  It has an Harlowe-spirited title: and, from a
+forgiving spirit, intolerable.  I desired to take it with me.  She
+consented, on condition  that I showed it to 'Squire Belford.  So here,
+Mr. 'Squire Belford, thou mayest read it, if thou wilt.
+
+
+ON BEING HUNTED AFTER BY THE ENEMY OF MY SOUL.
+
+MONDAY, AUG. 21.
+
+Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man.
+
+Preserve me from the violent man.
+
+Who imagines mischief in his heart.
+
+He hath sharpened his tongue like a serpent.  Adders' poison is under his
+lips.
+
+Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked.  Preserve me from the
+violent man, who hath purposed to overthrow my goings.
+
+He hath hid a snare for me.  He hath spread a net by the way-side.  He
+hath set gins for me in the way wherein I walked.
+
+Keep me from the snares which he hath laid for me, and the gins of this
+worker of iniquity.
+
+The enemy hath persecuted my soul.  He hath smitten my life down to the
+ground.  He hath made me dwell in darkness, as those that have been long
+dead.
+
+Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me.  My heart within me is
+desolate.
+
+Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble.
+
+For my days are consumed like smoke: and my bones are burnt as the
+hearth.
+
+My heart is smitten and withered like grass: so that I forget to eat my
+bread.
+
+By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my skin.
+
+I am like a pelican of the wilderness.  I am like an owl of the desert.
+
+I watch; and am as a sparrow alone upon the house-top.
+
+I have eaten ashes like bread; and mingled my drink with weeping:
+
+Because of thine indignation, and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up,
+and cast me down.
+
+My days are like a shadow that declineth, and I am withered like grass.
+
+Grant not, O Lord, the desires of the wicked: further not his devices,
+lest he exalt himself.
+
+
+Why now, Mrs. Lovick, said I, when I had read this meditation, as she
+called it, I think I am very severely treated by the lady, if she mean me
+in all this.  For how is it that I am the enemy of her soul, when I love
+her both soul and body?
+
+She says, that I am a violent man, and a wicked man.--That I have been
+so, I own: but I repent, and only wish to have it in my power to repair
+the injuries I have done her.
+
+The gin, the snare, the net, mean matrimony, I suppose--But is it a crime
+in me to wish to marry her?  Would any other woman think it so? and
+choose to become a pelican in the wilderness, or a lonely sparrow on the
+house-top, rather than have a mate that would chirp about her all day and
+all night?
+
+She says, she has eaten ashes like bread--A sad mistake to be sure!--And
+mingled her drink with weeping--Sweet maudlin soul! should I say of any
+body confessing this, but Miss Harlowe.
+
+She concludes with praying, that the desires of the wicked (meaning poor
+me, I doubt) may not be granted; that my devices may not be furthered,
+lest I exalt myself.  I should undoubtedly exalt myself, and with reason,
+could I have the honour and the blessing of such a wife.  And if my
+desires have so honourable an end, I know not why I should be called
+wicked, and why I should not be allowed to hope, that my honest devices
+may be furthered, that I MAY exalt myself.
+
+But here, Mrs. Lovick, let me ask, as something is undoubtedly meant by
+the lonely sparrow on the house-top, is not the dear creature at this
+very instant (tell me truly) concealed in Mrs. Smith's cockloft?--What
+say you, Mrs. Lovick?  What say you, Mrs. Smith, to this?
+
+They assured me to the contrary; and that she was actually abroad, and
+they knew not where.
+
+Thou seest, Jack, that I would fain have diverted the chagrin given me
+not only by the women's talk, but by this collection of Scripture-texts
+drawn up in array against me.  Several other whimsical and light things I
+said [all I had for it!] with the same view.  But the widow would not let
+me come off so.  She stuck to me; and gave me, as I told thee, a good
+deal of uneasiness, by her sensible and serious expostulations.  Mrs.
+Smith put in now-and-then; and the two Jack-pudding fellows, John and
+Joseph, not being present, I had no provocation to turn the conversation
+into a farce; and, at last, they both joined warmly to endeavour to
+prevail upon me to give up all thoughts of seeing the lady.  But I could
+not hear of that.  On the contrary, I besought Mrs. Smith to let me have
+one of her rooms but till I could see her; and were it but for one, two,
+or three days, I would pay a year's rent for it; and quit it the moment
+the interview was over.  But they desired to be excused; and were sure
+the lady would not come to the house till I was gone, were it for a
+month.
+
+This pleased me; for I found they did not think her so very ill as they
+would have me believe her to be; but I took no notice of the slip,
+because I would not guard them against more of the like.
+
+In short, I told them, I must and would see her: but that it should be
+with all the respect and veneration that heart could pay to excellence
+like her's: and that I would go round to all the churches in London and
+Westminster, where there were prayers or service, from sun-rise to
+sun-set, and haunt their house like a ghost, till I had the opportunity
+my soul panted after.
+
+This I bid them tell her.  And thus ended our serious conversation.
+
+I took leave of them; and went down; and, stepping into my chair, caused
+myself to be carried to Lincoln's-Inn; and walked in the gardens till the
+chapel was opened; and then I went in, and said prayers, in hopes of
+seeing the dear creature enter: but to no purpose; and yet I prayed most
+devoutly that she might be conducted thither, either by my good angel, or
+her own.  And indeed I burn more than ever with impatience to be once
+more permitted to kneel at the feet of this adorable woman.  And had I
+met her, or espied her in the chapel, it is my firm belief that I should
+not have been able (though it had been in the midst of the sacred office,
+and in the presence of thousands) to have forborne prostration to her,
+and even clamorous supplication for her forgiveness: a christian act; the
+exercise of it therefore worthy of the place.
+
+After service was over, I stept into my chair again, and once more was
+carried to Smith's, in hopes I might have surprised her there: but no
+such happiness for thy friend.  I staid in the back-shop an hour and an
+half, by my watch; and again underwent a good deal of preachment from the
+women.  John was mainly civil to me now; won over a little by my serious
+talk, and the honour I professed for the lady.  They all three wished
+matters could be made up between us: but still insisted that she could
+never get over her illness; and that her heart was broken.  A cue, I
+suppose, they had from you.
+
+While I was there a letter was brought by a particular hand.  They seemed
+very solicitous to hide it from me; which made me suspect it was for her.
+I desired to be suffered to cast an eye upon the seal, and the
+superscription; promising to give it back to them unopened.
+
+Looking upon it, I told them I knew the hand and seal.  It was from her
+sister.*  And I hoped it would bring her news that she would be pleased
+with.
+
+
+* See Letter XXVI. of this volume.
+
+
+They joined most heartily in the same hope: and, giving the letter to
+them again, I civilly took leave, and went away.
+
+But I will be there again presently; for I fancy my courteous behaviour
+to these women will, on their report of it, procure me the favour I so
+earnestly covet.  And so I will leave my letter unsealed, to tell thee
+the event of my next visit at Smith's.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Thy servant just calling, I sent thee this: and will soon follow it by
+another.  Mean time, I long to hear how poor Belton is: to whom my best
+wishes.
+
+
+
+LETTER XVI
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+
+
+I have been under such concern for the poor man, whose exit I almost
+hourly expect, and at the shocking scenes his illness and his agonies
+exhibit, that I have been only able to make memoranda of the melancholy
+passages, from which to draw up a more perfect account, for the
+instruction of us all, when the writing appetite shall return.
+
+
+***
+
+
+It is returned!  Indignation has revived it, on receipt of thy letters of
+Sunday and yesterday; by which I have reason to reproach thee in very
+serious terms, that thou hast not kept thy honour with me: and if thy
+breach of it be attended with such effects as I fear it will be, I shall
+let thee know more of my mind on this head.
+
+If thou wouldst be thought in earnest in thy wishes to move the poor lady
+in thy favour, thy ludicrous behaviour at Smith's, when it comes to be
+represented to her, will have a very consistent appearance; will it
+not?--I will, indeed, confirm in her opinion, that the grave is more to
+be wished-for, by one of her serious and pious turn, than a husband
+incapable either of reflection or remorse; just recovered, as thou art,
+from a dangerous, at least a sharp turn.
+
+I am extremely concerned for the poor unprotected lady.  She was so
+excessively low and weak on Saturday, that I could not be admitted to her
+speech: and to be driven out of her lodgings, when it was fitter for her
+to be in bed, is such a piece of cruelty, as he only could be guilty of
+who could act as thou hast done by such an angel.
+
+Canst thou thyself say, on reflection, that it has not the look of a
+wicked and hardened sportiveness, in thee, for the sake of a wanton
+humour only, (since it can answer no end that thou proposest to thyself,
+but the direct contrary,) to hunt from place to place a poor lady, who,
+like a harmless deer, that has already a barbed shaft in her breast,
+seeks only a refuge from thee in the shades of death.
+
+But I will leave this matter upon thy own conscience, to paint thee such
+a scene from my memoranda, as thou perhaps wilt be moved by more
+effectually than by any other: because it is such a one as thou thyself
+must one day be a principal actor in, and, as I thought, hadst very
+lately in apprehension: and is the last scene of one of thy more intimate
+friends, who has been for the four past days labouring in the agonies of
+death.  For, Lovelace, let this truth, this undoubted truth, be engraved
+on thy memory, in all thy gaieties, That the life we are so fond of is
+hardly life; a mere breathing space only; and that, at the end of its
+longest date,
+
+      Thou must die, as well as Belton.
+
+Thou knowest, by Tourville, what we had done as to the poor man's worldly
+affairs; and that we had got his unhappy sister to come and live with him
+(little did we think him so very near to his end): and so I will proceed
+to tell thee, that when I arrived at his house on Saturday night, I found
+him excessively ill: but just raised, and in his elbow-chair, held up by
+his nurse and Mowbray (the roughest and most untouched creature that ever
+entered a sick man's chamber); while the maid-servants were trying to
+make that bed easier for him which he was to return to; his mind ten
+times uneasier than that could be, and the true cause that the down was
+no softer to him.
+
+He had so much longed to see me, as I was told by his sister, (whom I
+sent for down to inquire how he was,) that they all rejoiced when I
+entered: Here, said Mowbray, here, Tommy, is honest Jack Belford!
+
+Where, where? said the poor man.
+
+I hear his voice, cried Mowbray: he is coming up stairs.
+
+In a transport of joy, he would have raised himself at my entrance, but
+had like to have pitched out of the chair: and when recovered, called me
+his best friend! his kindest friend! but burst into a flood of tears: O
+Jack! O Belford! said he, see the way I am in!  See how weak!  So much,
+and so soon reduced!  Do you know me?  Do you know your poor friend
+Belton?
+
+You are not so much altered, my dear Belton, as you think you are.  But I
+see you are weak; very weak--and I am sorry for it.
+
+Weak, weak, indeed, my dearest Belford, said he, and weaker in mind, if
+possible, than in body; and wept bitterly--or I should not thus unman
+myself.  I, who never feared any thing, to be forced to show myself such
+a nursling!--I am quite ashamed of myself!--But don't despise me; dear
+Belford, don't despise me, I beseech thee.
+
+I ever honoured a man that could weep for the distresses of others; and
+ever shall, said I; and such a one cannot be insensible of his own.
+
+However, I could not help being visibly moved at the poor fellow's emotion.
+
+Now, said the brutal Mowbray, do I think thee insufferable, Jack.  Our
+poor friend is already a peg too low; and here thou art letting him down
+lower and lower still.  This soothing of him in his dejected moments, and
+joining thy womanish tears with his, is not the way; I am sure it is not.
+If our Lovelace were here, he'd tell thee so.
+
+Thou art an impenetrable creature, replied I; unfit to be present at a
+scene, the terrors of which thou wilt not be able to feel till thou
+feelest them in thyself; and then, if thou hadst time for feeling, my
+life for thine, thou behavest as pitifully as those thou thinkest most
+pitiful.
+
+Then turning to the poor sick man, Tears, my dear Belton, are no signs of
+an unmanly, but, contrarily of a humane nature; they ease the
+over-charged heart, which would burst but for that kindly and natural
+relief.
+
+      Give sorrow words (says Shakspeare)
+      --The grief that does not speak,
+      Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.
+
+I know, my dear Belton, thou usedst to take pleasure in repetitions from
+the poets; but thou must be tasteless of their beauties now: yet be not
+discountenanced by this uncouth and unreflecting Mowbray, for, as Juvenal
+says, Tears are the prerogative of manhood.
+
+'Tis at least seasonably said, my dear Belford.  It is kind to keep me in
+countenance for this womanish weakness, as Mowbray has been upbraidingly
+calling it, ever since he has been with me: and in so doing, (whatever I
+might have thought in such high health as he enjoys,) has convinced me,
+that bottle-friends feel nothing but what moves in that little circle.
+
+Well, well, proceed in your own way, Jack.  I love my friend Belton as
+well as you can do; yet for the blood of me, I cannot but think, that
+soothing a man's weakness is increasing it.
+
+If it be a weakness, to be touched at great and concerning events, in
+which our humanity is concerned, said I, thou mayest be right.
+
+I have seen many a man, said the rough creature, going up Holborn-hill,
+that has behaved more like a man than either of you.
+
+Ay, but, Mowbray, replied the poor man, those wretches have not had their
+minds enervated by such infirmities of body as I have long laboured
+under.  Thou art a shocking fellow, and ever wert.--But to be able to
+remember nothing in these moments but what reproaches me, and to know
+that I cannot hold it long, and what may then be my lot, if--but
+interrupting himself, and turning to me, Give me thy pity, Jack; 'tis
+balm to my wounded soul; and let Mowbray sit indifferent enough to the
+pangs of a dying friend, to laugh at us both.
+
+The hardened fellow then retired, with the air of a Lovelace; only more
+stupid; yawning and stretching, instead of humming a tune as thou didst
+at Smith's.
+
+I assisted to get the poor man into bed.  He was so weak and low, that he
+could not bear the fatigue, and fainted away; and I verily thought was
+quite gone.  But recovering, and his doctor coming, and advising to keep
+him quiet, I retired, and joined Mowbray in the garden; who took more
+delight to talk of the living Lovelace and levities, than of the dying
+Belton and his repentance.
+
+I just saw him again on Saturday night before I went to bed; which I did
+early; for I was surfeited with Mowbray's frothy insensibility, and could
+not bear him.
+
+It is such a horrid thing to think of, that a man who had lived in such
+strict terms of--what shall I call it? with another; the proof does not
+come out so, as to say, friendship; who had pretended so much love for
+him; could not bear to be out of his company; would ride an hundred miles
+on end to enjoy it; and would fight for him, be the cause right or wrong:
+yet now, could be so little moved to see him in such misery of body and
+mind, as to be able to rebuke him, and rather ridicule than pity him,
+because he was more affected by what he felt, than he had seen a
+malefactor, (hardened perhaps by liquor, and not softened by previous
+sickness,) on his going to execution.
+
+This put me strongly in mind of what the divine Miss HARLOWE once said to
+me, talking of friendship, and what my friendship to you required of me:
+'Depend upon it, Mr. Belford,' said she, 'that one day you will be
+convinced, that what you call friendship, is chaff and stubble; and that
+nothing is worthy of that sacred name,
+
+      'That has not virtue for its base.'
+
+
+Sunday morning, I was called up at six o'clock, at the poor man's earnest
+request, and found him in a terrible agony.  O Jack! Jack! said he,
+looking wildly, as if he had seen a spectre--Come nearer me!--Dear, dear
+Belford, save me!  Then clasping my arm with both his hands, and rearing
+up his head towards me, his eyes strangely rolling, Save me! dear
+Belford, save me! repeated he.
+
+I put my other arm about him--Save you from what, my dear Belton! said I;
+save you from what?  Nothing shall hurt you.  What must I save you from?
+
+Recovering from his terror, he sunk down again, O save me from myself!
+said he; save me from my own reflections.  O dear Jack! what a thing it
+is to die; and not to have one comfortable reflection to revolve!  What
+would I give for one year of my past life?--only one year--and to have
+the same sense of things that I now have?
+
+I tried to comfort him as well as I could: but free-livers to free-livers
+are sorry death-bed comforters.  And he broke in upon me: O my dear
+Belford, said he, I am told, (and I have heard you ridiculed for it,)
+that the excellent Miss Harlowe has wrought a conversion in you.  May it
+be so!  You are a man of sense: O may it be so!  Now is your time!  Now,
+that you are in full vigour of mind and body!--But your poor Belton,
+alas! your poor Belton kept his vices, till they left him--and see the
+miserable effects in debility of mind and despondency!  Were Mowbray
+here, and were he to laugh at me, I would own that this is the cause of
+my despair--that God's justice cannot let his mercy operate for my
+comfort: for, Oh! I have been very, very wicked; and have despised the
+offers of his grace, till he has withdrawn it from me for ever.
+
+I used all the arguments I could think of to give him consolation: and
+what I said had such an effect upon him, as to quiet his mind for the
+greatest part of the day; and in a lucid hour his memory served him to
+repeat these lines of Dryden, grasping my hand, and looking wistfully
+upon me:
+
+      O that I less could fear to lose this being,
+      Which, like a snow-ball, in my coward hand,
+      The more 'tis grasped, the faster melts away!
+
+In the afternoon of Sunday, he was inquisitive after you, and your
+present behaviour to Miss Harlowe.  I told him how you had been, and how
+light you made of it.  Mowbray was pleased with your impenetrable
+hardness of heart, and said, Bob. Lovelace was a good edge-tool, and
+steel to the back: and such coarse but hearty praises he gave you, as an
+abandoned man might give, and only an abandoned man could wish to
+deserve.
+
+But hadst thou heard what the poor dying Belton said on this occasion,
+perhaps it would have made thee serious an hour or two, at least.
+
+'When poor Lovelace is brought,' said he, 'to a sick-bed, as I am now,
+and his mind forebodes that it is impossible he should recover, (which
+his could not do in his late illness: if it had, he could not have
+behaved so lightly in it;) when he revolves his past mis-spent life; his
+actions of offence to helpless innocents; in Miss Harlowe's case
+particularly; what then will he think of himself, or of his past actions?
+his mind debilitated; his strength turned into weakness; unable to stir
+or to move without help; not one ray of hope darting in upon his
+benighted soul; his conscience standing in the place of a thousand
+witnesses; his pains excruciating; weary of the poor remnant of life he
+drags, yet dreading, that, in a few short hours, his bad will be changed
+to worse, nay, to worst of all; and that worst of all, to last beyond
+time and to all eternity; O Jack! what will he then think of the poor
+transitory gratifications of sense, which now engage all his attention?
+Tell him, dear Belford, tell him, how happy he is if he know his own
+dying happiness; how happy, compared to his poor dying friend, that he
+has recovered from his illness, and has still an opportunity lent him,
+for which I would give a thousand worlds, had I them to give!'
+
+I approved exceedingly of his reflections, as suited to his present
+circumstances; and inferred consolations to him from a mind so properly
+touched.
+
+He proceeded in the like penitent strain.  I have lived a very wicked
+life; so have we all.  We have never made a conscience of doing whatever
+mischief either force or fraud enabled us to do.  We have laid snares for
+the innocent heart; and have not scrupled by the too-ready sword to
+extend, as occasions offered, the wrongs we did to the persons whom we
+had before injured in their dearest relations.  But yet, I flatter
+myself, sometimes, that I have less to answer for than either Lovelace or
+Mowbray; for I, by taking to myself that accursed deceiver from whom thou
+hast freed me, (and who, for years, unknown to me, was retaliating upon
+my own head some of the evils I had brought upon others,) and retiring,
+and living with her as a wife, was not party to half the mischiefs, that
+I doubt they, and Tourville, and even you, Belford, committed.  As to the
+ungrateful Thomasine, I hope I have met with my punishment in her.  But
+notwithstanding this, dost thou not think, that such an action--and such
+an action--and such an action; [and then he recapitulated several
+enormities, in the perpetration of which (led on by false bravery, and
+the heat of youth and wine) we have all been concerned;] dost thou not
+think that these villanies, (let me call them now by their proper name,)
+joined to the wilful and gloried-in neglect of every duty that our better
+sense and education gave us to know were required of us as men and
+christians, are not enough to weigh down my soul into despondency?--
+Indeed, indeed, they are! and now to hope for mercy; and to depend upon
+the efficacy of that gracious attribute, when that no less shining one of
+justice forbids me to hope; how can I!--I, who have despised all
+warnings, and taken no advantage of the benefit I might have reaped from
+the lingering consumptive illness I have laboured under, but left all to
+the last stake; hoping for recovery against hope, and driving off
+repentance, till that grace is denied me; for, oh! my dear Belford! I can
+now neither repent, nor pray, as I ought; my heart is hardened, and I can
+do nothing but despair!--
+
+More he would have said; but, overwhelmed with grief and infirmity, he
+bowed his head upon his pangful bosom, endeavouring to hide from the
+sight of the hardened Mowbray, who just then entered the room, those
+tears which he could not restrain.
+
+Prefaced by a phlegmatic hem; sad, very sad, truly! cried Mowbray; who
+sat himself down on one side of the bed, as I sat on the other: his eyes
+half closed, and his lips pouting out to his turned-up nose, his chin
+curdled [to use one of thy descriptions]; leaving one at a loss to know
+whether stupid drowsiness or intense contemplation had got most hold of
+him.
+
+An excellent, however uneasy lesson, Mowbray! said I.--By my faith it is!
+It may one day, who knows how soon? be our own case!
+
+I thought of thy yawning-fit, as described in thy letter of Aug. 13.  For
+up started Mowbray, writhing and shaking himself as in an ague-fit; his
+hands stretched over his head--with thy hoy! hoy! hoy! yawning.  And then
+recovering himself, with another stretch and a shake, What's o'clock?
+cried he; pulling out his watch--and stalking by long tip-toe strides
+through the room, down stairs he went; and meeting the maid in the
+passage, I heard him say--Betty, bring me a bumper of claret; thy poor
+master, and this d----d Belford, are enough to throw a Hercules into the
+vapours.
+
+Mowbray, after this, assuming himself in our friend's library, which is,
+as thou knowest, chiefly classical and dramatical, found out a passage in
+Lee's Oedipus, which he would needs have to be extremely apt; and in he
+came full fraught with the notion of the courage it would give the dying
+man, and read it to him.  'Tis poetical and pretty.  This is it:
+
+      When the sun sets, shadows that show'd at noon
+      But small, appear most long and terrible:
+      So when we think fate hovers o'er our heads,
+      Our apprehensions shoot beyond all bounds:
+      Owls, ravens, crickets, seem the watch of death;
+      Nature's worst vermin scare her godlike sons:
+      Echoes, the very leavings of a voice,
+      Grow babbling ghosts, and call us to our graves.
+      Each mole-hill thought swells to a huge Olympus;
+      While we, fantastic dreamers, heave and puff,
+      And sweat with our imagination's weight.
+
+He expected praises for finding this out.  But Belton turning his head
+from him, Ah, Dick! (said he,) these are not the reflections of a dying
+man!--What thou wilt one day feel, if it be what I now feel, will
+convince thee that the evils before thee, and with thee, are more than
+the effects of imagination.
+
+I was called twice on Sunday night to him; for the poor fellow, when his
+reflections on his past life annoy him most, is afraid of being left with
+the women; and his eyes, they tell me, hunt and roll about for me.
+Where's Mr. Belford?--But I shall tire him out, cries he--yet beg of him
+to step to me--yet don't--yet do; were once the doubting and changeful
+orders he gave: and they called me accordingly.
+
+But, alas!  What could Belford do for him?  Belford, who had been but too
+often the companion of his guilty hours; who wants mercy as much as he
+does; and is unable to promise it to himself, though 'tis all he can bid
+his poor friend rely upon!
+
+What miscreants are we!  What figures shall we make in these terrible
+hours!
+
+If Miss HARLOWE'S glorious example, on one hand, and the terrors of this
+poor man's last scene on the other, affect me not, I must be abandoned to
+perdition; as I fear thou wilt be, if thou benefittest not thyself from
+both.
+
+Among the consolatory things I urged, when I was called up the last time
+on Sunday night, I told him, that he must not absolutely give himself up
+to despair: that many of the apprehensions he was under, were such as the
+best men must have, on the dreadful uncertainty of what was to succeed to
+this life.  'Tis well observed, said I, by a poetical divine, who was an
+excellent christian,* That
+
+        Death could not a more sad retinue find,
+      Sickness and pain before, and darkness all behind.
+
+
+* The Rev Mr. Norris, of Bremerton.
+
+
+About eight o'clock yesterday (Monday) morning, I found him a little
+calmer.  He asked me who was the author of the two lines I had repeated
+to him; and made me speak them over again.  A sad retinue, indeed! said
+the poor man.  And then expressing his hopelessness of life, and his
+terrors at the thoughts of dying; and drawing from thence terrible
+conclusions with regard to his future state; There is, said I, such a
+natural aversion to death in human nature, that you are not to imagine,
+that you, my dear Belton, are singular in the fear of it, and in the
+apprehensions that fill the thoughtful mind upon its approach; but you
+ought, as much as possible, to separate those natural fears which all men
+must have on so solemn an occasion, from those particular ones which your
+justly-apprehended unfitness fills you with.  Mr. Pomfret, in his
+Prospect of Death, which I dipped into last night from a collection in
+your closet, which I put into my pocket, says, [and I turned to the
+place]
+
+      Merely to die, no man of reason fears;
+            For certainly we must,
+            As we are born, return to dust;
+      'Tis the last point of many ling-ring years;
+            But whither then we go,
+            Whither, we fain would know;
+      But human understanding cannot show.
+            This makes US tremble----
+
+Mr. Pomfret, therefore, proceeded I, had such apprehensions of this dark
+state as you have: and the excellent divine I hinted at last night, who
+had very little else but human frailties to reproach himself with, and
+whose miscellanies fell into my hands among my uncle's books in my
+attendance upon him in his last hours, says,
+
+      It must be done, my soul: but 'tis a strange,
+         A dismal, and mysterious change,
+      When thou shalt leave this tenement of clay,
+         And to an unknown--somewhere--wing away;
+      When time shall be eternity, and thou
+         Shalt be--thou know'st not what--and live--
+            thou know'st not how!
+      Amazing state! no wonder that we dread
+         To think of death, or view the dead;
+      Thou'rt all wrapt up in clouds, as if to thee
+            Our very knowledge had antipathy.
+
+Then follows, what I repeated,
+
+        Death could not a more sad retinue find,
+      Sickness and pain before, and darkness all behind.
+
+Alas! my dear Belford [inferred the unhappy deep-thinker] what poor
+creatures does this convince me we mortals are at best!--But what then
+must be the case of such a profligate as I, who by a past wicked life
+have added greater force to these natural terrors?  If death be so
+repugnant a thing to human nature, that good men will be startled at it,
+what must it be to one who has lived a life of sense and appetite; nor
+ever reflected upon the end which I now am within view of?
+
+What could I say to an inference so fairly drawn?  Mercy, mercy,
+unbounded mercy, was still my plea, though his repeated opposition of
+justice to it, in a manner silenced that plea: and what would I have
+given to have had rise in my mind, one good, eminently good action to
+have remembered him of, in order to combat his fears with it?
+
+I believe, Lovelace, I shall tire thee, and that more with the subject
+of my letter, than even with the length of it.  But really, I think thy
+spirits are so offensively up since thy recovery, that I ought, as the
+melancholy subjects offer, to endeavour to reduce thee to the standard
+of humanity, by expatiating upon them.  And then thou canst not but be
+curious to know every thing that concerns the poor man, for whom thou
+hast always expressed a great regard.  I will therefore proceed as I have
+begun.  If thou likest not to read it now, lay it by, if thou wilt, till
+the like circumstances befall thee, till like reflections from those
+circumstances seize thee; and then take it up, and compare the two cases
+together.
+
+
+***
+
+
+At his earnest request, I sat up with him last night; and, poor man! it
+is impossible to tell thee, how easy and safe he thought himself in my
+company, for the first part of the night: A drowning man will catch at a
+straw, the proverb well says: and a straw was I, with respect to any real
+help I could give him.  He often awaked in terrors; and once calling out
+for me, Dear Belford, said he, Where are you!--Oh!  There you are!--Give
+me your friendly hand!--Then grasping it, and putting his clammy,
+half-cold lips to it--How kind!  I fear every thing when you are absent.
+But the presence of a friend, a sympathising friend--Oh! how comfortable!
+
+But, about four in the morning, he frighted me much: he waked with three
+terrible groans; and endeavoured to speak, but could not presently--and
+when he did,--Jack, Jack, Jack, five or six times repeated he as quick as
+thought, now, now, now, save me, save me, save me--I am going--going
+indeed!
+
+I threw my arms about him, and raised him upon his pillow, as he was
+sinking (as if to hide himself) in the bed-clothes--And staring wildly,
+Where am I? said he, a little recovering.  Did you not see him? turning
+his head this way and that; horror in his countenance; Did you not see
+him?
+
+See whom, see what, my dear Belton!
+
+O lay me upon the bed again, cried he!--Let me not die upon the floor!--
+Lay me down gently; and stand by me!--Leave me not!--All, all will soon
+be over!
+
+You are already, my dear Belton, upon the bed.  You have not been upon
+the floor.  This is a strong delirium; you are faint for want of
+refreshment [for he had refused several times to take any thing]: let me
+persuade you to take some of this cordial julap.  I will leave you, if
+you will not oblige me.
+
+He then readily took it; but said he could have sworn that Tom. Metcalfe
+had been in the room, and had drawn him out of bed by the throat,
+upbraiding him with the injuries he had first done his sister, and then
+him, in the duel to which he owed that fever which cost him his life.
+
+Thou knowest the story, Lovelace, too well, to need my repeating it: but,
+mercy on us, if in these terrible moments all the evils we do rise to our
+frighted imaginations!--If so, what shocking scenes have I, but still
+what more shocking ones hast thou, to go through, if, as the noble poet
+says,
+
+      If any sense at that sad time remains!
+
+The doctor ordered him an opiate this morning early, which operated so
+well, that he dosed and slept several hours more quietly than he had done
+for the two past days and nights, though he had sleeping-draughts given
+him before.  But it is more and more evident every hour that nature is
+almost worn out in him.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Mowbray, quite tired with this house of mourning, intends to set out in
+the morning to find you.  He was not a little rejoiced to hear you were
+in town; I believe to have a pretence to leave us.
+
+
+***
+
+
+He has just taken leave of his poor friend, intending to go away early:
+an everlasting leave, I may venture to say; for I think he will hardly
+live till to-morrow night.
+
+I believe the poor man would not have been sorry had he left him when I
+arrived; for 'tis a shocking creature, and enjoys too strong health to
+know how to pity the sick.  Then (to borrow an observation from thee) he
+has, by nature, strong bodily organs, which those of his soul are not
+likely to whet out; and he, as well as the wicked friend he is going to,
+may last a great while from the strength of their constitutions, though
+so greatly different in their talents, if neither the sword nor the
+halter interpose.
+
+I must repeat, That I cannot but be very uneasy for the poor lady whom
+you so cruelly persecute; and that I do not think that you have kept your
+honour with me.  I was apprehensive, indeed, that you would attempt to
+see her, as soon as you got well enough to come up; and I told her as
+much, making use of it as an argument to prepare her for your visit, and
+to induce her to stand it.  But she could not, it is plain, bear the
+shock of it: and indeed she told me that she would not see you, though
+but for one half-hour, for the world.
+
+Could she have prevailed upon herself, I know that the sight of her would
+have been as affecting to you, as your visit could have been to her; when
+you had seen to what a lovely skeleton (for she is really lovely still,
+nor can she, with such a form and features, be otherwise) you have, in a
+few weeks, reduced one of the most charming women in the world; and that
+in the full bloom of her youth and beauty.
+
+Mowbray undertakes to carry this, that he may be more welcome to you, he
+says.  Were it to be sent unsealed, the characters we write in would be
+Hebrew to the dunce.  I desire you to return it; and I'll give you a copy
+of it upon demand; for I intend to keep it by me, as a guard against the
+infection of your company, which might otherwise, perhaps, some time
+hence, be apt to weaken the impressions I always desire to have of the
+awful scene before me.  God convert us both!
+
+
+
+LETTER XVII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+WEDNESDAY MORN. 11 O'CLOCK.
+
+
+I believe no man has two such servants as I have.  Because I treat them
+with kindness, and do not lord it over my inferiors, and d--n and curse
+them by looks and words like Mowbray; or beat their teeth out like
+Lovelace; but cry, Pr'ythee, Harry, do this, and, Pr'ythee, Jonathan, do
+that; the fellows pursue their own devices, and regard nothing I say, but
+what falls in with these.
+
+Here, this vile Harry, who might have brought your letter of yesterday in
+good time, came not in with it till past eleven at night (drunk, I
+suppose); and concluding that I was in bed, as he pretends (because he
+was told I sat up the preceding night) brought it not to me; and having
+overslept himself, just as I had sealed up my letter, in comes the
+villain with the forgotten one, shaking his ears, and looking as if he
+himself did not believe the excuses he was going to make.  I questioned
+him about it, and heard his pitiful pleas; and though I never think it
+becomes a gentleman to treat people insolently who by their stations are
+humbled beneath his feet, yet could I not forbear to Lovelace and Mowbray
+him most cordially.
+
+And this detaining Mowbray (who was ready to set out to you before) while
+I write a few lines upon it, the fierce fellow, who is impatient to
+exchange the company of a dying Belton for that of a too-lively Lovelace,
+affixed a supplement of curses upon the staring fellow, that was larger
+than my book--nor did I offer to take off the bear from such a mongrel,
+since, on this occasion, he deserved not of me the protection which every
+master owes to a good servant.
+
+He has not done cursing him yet; for stalking about the court-yard with
+his boots on, (the poor fellow dressing his horse, and unable to get from
+him,) he is at him without mercy; and I will heighten his impatience,
+(since being just under the window where I am writing, he will not let me
+attend to my pen,) by telling you how he fills my ears as well as the
+fellow's, with his--Hay, Sir!  And G--d d--n ye, Sir!  And were ye my
+servant, ye dog ye!  And must I stay here till the mid-day sun scorches
+me to a parchment, for such a mangy dog's drunken neglect?--Ye lie,
+Sirrah!--Ye lie, I tell you--[I hear the fellow's voice in an humble
+excusatory tone, though not articulately] Ye lie, ye dog!--I'd a good
+mind to thrust my whip down your drunken throat: d--n me, if I would not
+flay the skin from the back of such a rascal, if thou wert mine, and have
+dog's-skin gloves made of it, for thy brother scoundrels to wear in
+remembrance of thy abuses of such a master.
+
+The poor horse suffers for this, I doubt not; for, What now! and, Stand
+still, and be d--d to ye, cries the fellow, with a kick, I suppose, which
+he better deserves himself; for these varlets, where they can, are
+Mowbrays and Lovelaces to man or beast; and not daring to answer him, is
+flaying the poor horse.
+
+I hear the fellow is just escaped, the horse, (better curried than
+ordinary, I suppose, in half the usual time,) by his clanking shoes, and
+Mowbray's silence, letting me know, that I may now write on: and so, I
+will tell thee that, in the first place, (little as I, as well as you,
+regard dreams,) I would have thee lay thine to heart; for I could give
+thee such an interpretation of it, as would shock thee, perhaps; and if
+thou askest me for it, I will.
+
+Mowbray calls to me from the court-yard, that 'tis a cursed hot day, and
+he shall be fried by riding in the noon of it: and that poor Belton longs
+to see me.  So I will only add my earnest desire, that you will give over
+all thoughts of seeing the lady, if, when this comes to your hand, you
+have not seen her: and, that it would be kind, if you'd come, and, for
+the last time you will ever see your poor friend, share my concern for
+him; and, in him, see what, in a little time, will be your fate and mine,
+and that of Mowbray, Tourville, and the rest of us--For what are ten,
+fifteen, twenty, or thirty years, to look back to; in the longest of
+which periods forward we shall all perhaps be mingled with the dust from
+which we sprung?
+
+
+
+LETTER XVIII
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+WEDNESDAY MORN. AUG. 23.
+
+
+All alive, dear Jack, and in ecstacy!--Likely to be once more a happy
+man!  For I have received a letter from my beloved Miss HARLOWE; in
+consequence, I suppose, of that which I mentioned in my last to be left
+for her from her sister.  And I am setting out for Berks directly, to
+show the contents to my Lord M. and to receive the congratulations of all
+my kindred upon it.
+
+I went, last night, as I intended, to Smith's: but the dear creature was
+not returned at near ten o'clock.  And, lighting upon Tourville, I took
+him home with me, and made him sing me out of my megrims.  I went to bed
+tolerably easy at two; had bright and pleasant dreams; (not such of a
+frightful one as that I gave thee an account of;) and at eight this
+morning, as I was dressing, to be in readiness against the return of my
+fellow, whom I had sent to inquire after the lady, I had the following
+letter brought to me by a chairman:
+
+
+TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+TUESDAY NIGHT, 11 O'CLOCK (AUG. 22.)
+
+
+SIR,
+
+I have good news to tell you.  I am setting out with all diligence for my
+father's house, I am bid to hope that he will receive his poor penitent
+with a goodness peculiar to himself; for I am overjoyed with the
+assurance of a thorough reconciliation, through the interposition of a
+dear, blessed friend, whom I always loved and honoured.  I am so taken up
+with my preparation for this joyful and long-wished-for journey, that I
+cannot spare one moment for any other business, having several matters of
+the last importance to settle first.  So, pray, Sir, don't disturb or
+interrupt me--I beseech you don't.  You may possibly in time see me at my
+father's; at least if it be not your own fault.
+
+I will write a letter, which shall be sent you when I am got thither and
+received: till when, I am, &c.
+
+CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+
+
+***
+
+
+I dispatched instantly a letter to the dear creature, assuring her, with
+the most thankful joy, 'That I would directly set out for Berks, and wait
+the issue of the happy reconciliation, and the charming hopes she had
+filled me with.  I poured out upon her a thousand blessings.  I declared
+that it should be the study of my whole life to merit such transcendent
+goodness: and that there was nothing which her father or friends should
+require at my hands, that I would not for her sake comply with, in order
+to promote and complete so desirable a reconciliation.'
+
+I hurried it away without taking a copy of it; and I have ordered the
+chariot-and-six to be got ready; and hey for M. Hall!  Let me but know
+how Belton does.  I hope a letter from thee is on the road.  And if the
+poor fellow can spare thee, make haste, I command thee, to attend this
+truly divine lady.  Thou mayest not else see her of months perhaps; at
+least, not while she is Miss HARLOWE.  And oblige me, if possible, with
+one letter before she sets out, confirming to me and accounting for this
+generous change.
+
+But what accounting for it is necessary?  The dear creature cannot
+receive consolation herself but she must communicate it to others.  How
+noble!  She would not see me in her adversity; but no sooner does the sun
+of prosperity begin to shine upon her than she forgives me.
+
+I know to whose mediation all this is owing.  It is to Colonel Morden's.
+She always, as she says, loved and honoured him!  And he loved her above
+all his relations.
+
+I shall now be convinced that there is something in dreams.  The opening
+cloud is the reconciliation in view.  The bright form, lifting up my
+charmer through it to a firmament stuck round with golden cherubims and
+seraphims, indicates the charming little boys and girls, that will be the
+fruits of this happy reconciliation.  The welcomes, thrice repeated, are
+those of her family, now no more to be deemed implacable.  Yet are they
+family, too, that my soul cannot mingle with.
+
+But then what is my tumbling over and over through the floor into a
+frightful hole, descending as she ascends?  Ho! only this! it alludes to
+my disrelish to matrimony: Which is a bottomless pit, a gulph, and I know
+not what.  And I suppose, had I not awoke in such a plaguy fright, I had
+been soused into some river at the bottom of the hole, and then been
+carried (mundified or purified from my past iniquities,) by the same
+bright form (waiting for me upon the mossy banks,) to my beloved girl;
+and we should have gone on cherubiming of it and caroling to the end of
+the chapter.
+
+But what are the black sweeping mantles and robes of Lord M. thrown over
+my face?  And what are those of the ladies?  O Jack!  I have these too:
+They indicate nothing in the world but that my Lord will be so good as to
+die, and leave me all he has.  So, rest to thy good-natured soul, honest
+Lord M.
+
+Lady Sarah Sadleir and Lady Betty Lawrance, will also die, and leave me
+swinging legacies.
+
+Miss Charlotte and her sister--what will become of the?--Oh! they will be
+in mourning, of course, for their uncle and aunts--that's right!
+
+As to Morden's flashing through the window, and crying, Die, Lovelace,
+and be d----d, if thou wilt not repair my cousin's wrong!  That is only,
+that he would have sent me a challenge, had I not been disposed to do the
+lady justice.
+
+All I dislike is this part of the dream: for, even in a dream, I would
+not be thought to be threatened into any measure, though I liked it ever
+so well.
+
+And so much for my prophetic dream.
+
+Dear charming creature!  What a meeting will there be between her and her
+father and mother and uncles!  What transports, what pleasure, will this
+happy, long-wished-for reconciliation give her dutiful heart!  And indeed
+now methinks I am glad she is so dutiful to them; for her duty to her
+parents is a conviction to me that she will be as dutiful to her husband:
+since duty upon principle is an uniform thing.
+
+Why pr'ythee, now, Jack, I have not been so much to blame as thou
+thinkest: for had it not been for me, who have led her into so much
+distress, she could neither have received nor given the joy that will now
+overwhelm them all.  So here rises great and durable good out of
+temporary evil.
+
+I know they loved her (the pride and glory of their family,) too well to
+hold out long!
+
+I wish I could have seen Arabella's letter.  She has always been so much
+eclipsed by her sister, that I dare say she has signified this
+reconciliation to her with intermingled phlegm and wormwood; and her
+invitation must certainly runs all in the rock-water style.
+
+I shall long to see the promised letter too when she is got to her
+father's, which I hope will give an account of the reception she will
+meet with.
+
+There is a solemnity, however, I think, in the style of her letter, which
+pleases and affects me at the same time.  But as it is evident she loves
+me still, and hopes soon to see me at her father's, she could not help
+being a little solemn, and half-ashamed, [dear blushing pretty rogue!] to
+own her love, after my usage of her.
+
+And then her subscription: Till when, I am, CLARISSA HARLOWE: as much as
+to say, after that, I shall be, if not to your own fault,
+CLARISSA LOVELACE!
+
+O my best love!  My ever-generous and adorable creature!  How much does
+this thy forgiving goodness exalt us both!--Me, for the occasion given
+thee!  Thee, for turning it so gloriously to thy advantage, and to the
+honour of both!
+
+And if, my beloved creature, you will but connive at the imperfections of
+your adorer, and not play the wife with me: if, while the charms of
+novelty have their force with me, I should happen to be drawn aside by
+the love of intrigue, and of plots that my soul delights to form and
+pursue; and if thou wilt not be open-eyed to the follies of my youth, [a
+transitory state;] every excursion shall serve but the more to endear
+thee to me, till in time, and in a very little time too, I shall get
+above sense; and then, charmed by thy soul-attracting converse; and
+brought to despise my former courses;  what I now, at distance, consider
+as a painful duty, will be my joyful choice, and all my delight will
+centre in thee!
+
+
+***
+
+
+Mowbray is just arrived with thy letters.  I therefore close my agreeable
+subject, to attend to one which I doubt will be very shocking.
+
+I have engaged the rough varlet to bear me company in the morning to
+Berks; where I shall file off the rust he has contracted in his
+attendance upon the poor fellow.
+
+He tells me that, between the dying Belton and the preaching Belford, he
+shan't be his own man these three days: and says that thou addest to the
+unhappy fellow's weakness, instead of giving him courage to help him to
+bear his destiny.
+
+I am sorry he takes the unavoidable lot so heavily.  But he has been long
+ill; and sickness enervates the mind as well as the body; as he himself
+very significantly observed to thee.
+
+
+
+LETTER XIX
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+WEDN. EVENING.
+
+
+I have been reading thy shocking letter--Poor Belton! what a multitude of
+lively hours have we passed together!  He was a fearless, cheerful
+fellow: who'd have thought all that should end in such dejected
+whimpering and terror?
+
+But why didst thou not comfort the poor man about the rencounter between
+him and that poltroon Metcalfe?  He acted in that affair like a man of
+true honour, and as I should have acted in the same circumstances.  Tell
+him I say so; and that what happened he could neither help nor foresee.
+
+Some people are as sensible of a scratch from a pin's point, as others
+from a push of a sword: and who can say any thing for the sensibility of
+such fellows?  Metcalfe would resent for his sister, when his sister
+resented not for herself.  Had she demanded her brother's protection and
+resentment, that would have been another man's matte, to speak in Lord
+M.'s phrase: but she herself thought her brother a coxcomb to busy
+himself undesired in her affairs, and wished for nothing but to be
+provided for decently and privately in her lying-in; and was willing to
+take the chance of Maintenon-ing his conscience in her favour,* and
+getting him to marry when the little stranger came; for she knew what
+an easy, good-natured fellow he was.  And indeed if she had prevailed
+upon him, it might have been happy for both; as then he would not have
+fallen in with his cursed Thomasine.  But truly this officious brother of
+her's must interpose.  This made a trifling affair important: And what
+was the issue?  Metcalfe challenged; Belton met him; disarmed him; gave
+him his life: but the fellow, more sensible in his skin than in his head,
+having received a scratch, was frighted: it gave him first a puke, then
+a fever, and then he died, that was all.  And how could Belton help that?
+--But sickness, a long tedious sickness, will make a bugbear of any thing
+to a languishing heart, I see that.  And so far was Mowbray à-propos in
+the verses from Nat. Lee, which thou hast described.
+
+
+* Madam Maintenon was reported to have prevailed upon Lewis XIV. of
+France, in his old age, (sunk, as he was, by ill success in the field,)
+to marry her, by way of compounding with his conscience for the freedoms
+of his past life, to which she attributed his public losses.
+
+
+Merely to die, no man of reason fears, is a mistake, say thou, or say
+thy author, what ye will.  And thy solemn parading about the natural
+repugnance between life and death, is a proof that it is.
+
+Let me tell thee, Jack, that so much am I pleased with this world, in
+the main; though, in some points too, the world (to make a person of it,)
+has been a rascal to me; so delighted am I with the joys of youth; with
+my worldly prospects as to fortune; and now, newly, with the charming
+hopes given me by my dear, thrice dear, and for ever dear CLARISSA; that
+were I even sure that nothing bad would come hereafter, I should be very
+loth (very much afraid, if thou wilt have it so,) to lay down my life
+and them together; and yet, upon a call of honour, no man fears death
+less than myself.
+
+But I have not either inclination or leisure to weigh thy leaden
+arguments, except in the pig, or, as thou wouldst say, in the lump.
+
+If I return thy letters, let me have them again some time hence, that is
+to say, when I am married, or when poor Belton is half forgotten; or when
+time has enrolled the honest fellow among those whom we have so long
+lost, that we may remember them with more pleasure than pain; and then I
+may give them a serious perusal, and enter with thee as deeply as thou
+wilt into the subject.
+
+When I am married, said I?--What a sound has that!
+
+I must wait with patience for a sight of this charming creature, till she
+is at her father's.  And yet, as the but blossoming beauty, as thou
+tellest me, is reduced to a shadow, I should have been exceedingly
+delighted to see her now, and every day till the happy one; that I might
+have the pleasure of observing how sweetly, hour by hour, she will rise
+to her pristine glories, by means of that state of ease and contentment,
+which will take place of the stormy past, upon her reconciliation with
+her friends, and our happy nuptials.
+
+
+
+LETTER XX
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+
+
+Well, but now my heart is a little at ease, I will condescend to take
+brief notice of some other passages in thy letters.
+
+I find I am to thank thee, that the dear creature has avoided my visit.
+Things are now in so good a train that I must forgive thee; else thou
+shouldst have heard more of this new instance of disloyalty to thy
+general.
+
+Thou art continually giving thyself high praise, by way of opposition, as
+I may say, to others; gently and artfully blaming thyself for qualities
+thou wouldst at the same time have to be thought, and which generally are
+thought, praise-worthy.
+
+Thus, in the airs thou assumest about thy servants, thou wouldst pass for
+a mighty humane mortal; and that at the expense of Mowbray and me, whom
+thou representest as kings and emperors to our menials.  Yet art thou
+always unhappy in thy attempts of this kind, and never canst make us, who
+know thee, believe that to be a virtue in thee, which is but the effect
+of constitutional phlegm and absurdity.
+
+Knowest thou not, that some men have a native dignity in their manner,
+that makes them more regarded by a look, than either thou canst be in thy
+low style, or Mowbray in his high?
+
+I am fit to be a prince, I can tell thee, for I reward well, and I punish
+seasonably and properly; and I am generally as well served by any man.
+
+The art of governing these underbred varlets lies more in the dignity of
+looks than in words; and thou art a sorry fellow, to think humanity
+consists in acting by thy servants, as men must act who are not able to
+pay them their wages; or had made them masters of secrets, which, if
+divulged, would lay them at the mercy of such wretches.
+
+Now to me, who never did any thing I was ashamed to own, and who have
+more ingenuousness than ever man had; who can call a villany by its own
+right name, though practised by myself, and (by my own readiness to
+reproach myself) anticipate all reproach from others; who am not such a
+hypocrite, as to wish the world to think me other or better than I am--
+it is my part, to look a servant into his duty, if I can; nor will I keep
+one who knows not how to take me by a nod, or a wink; and who, when I
+smile, shall not be all transport; when I frown, all terror.  If, indeed,
+I am out of the way a little, I always take care to reward the varlets
+for patiently bearing my displeasure.  But this I hardly ever am but when
+a fellow is egregiously stupid in any plain point of duty, or will be
+wiser than his master; and when he shall tell me, that he thought acting
+contrary to my orders was the way to serve me best.
+
+One time or other I will enter the lists with thee upon thy conduct and
+mine to servants; and I will convince thee, that what thou wouldst have
+pass for humanity, if it be indiscriminately practised to all tempers,
+will perpetually subject thee to the evils thou complainest of; and
+justly too; and that he only is fit to be a master of servants, who can
+command their attention as much by a nod, as if he were to pr'ythee a
+fellow to do his duty, on one hand, or to talk of flaying, and
+horse-whipping, like Mowbray, on the other: for the servant who being
+used to expect thy creeping style, will always be master of his master,
+and he who deserves to be treated as the other, is not fit to be any
+man's servant; nor would I keep such a fellow to rub my horse's heels.
+
+I shall be the readier to enter the lists with thee upon this argument,
+because I have presumption enough to think that we have not in any of our
+dramatic poets, that I can at present call to mind, one character of a
+servant of either sex, that is justly hit off.  So absurdly wise some,
+and so sottishly foolish others; and both sometime in the same person.
+Foils drawn from lees or dregs of the people to set off the characters of
+their masters and mistresses; nay, sometimes, which is still more absurd,
+introduced with more wit than the poet has to bestow upon their
+principals.--Mere flints and steels to strike fire with--or, to vary the
+metaphor, to serve for whetstones to wit, which, otherwise, could not be
+made apparent; or, for engines to be made use of like the machinery of
+the antient poets, (or the still more unnatural soliloquy,) to help on a
+sorry plot, or to bring about a necessary eclaircissement, to save the
+poet the trouble of thinking deeply for a better way to wind up his
+bottoms.
+
+Of this I am persuaded, (whatever my practice be to my own servants,)
+that thou wilt be benefited by my theory, when we come to controvert the
+point.  For then I shall convince thee, that the dramatic as well as
+natural characteristics of a good servant ought to be fidelity, common
+sense, cheerful obedience, and silent respect; that wit in his station,
+except to his companions, would be sauciness; that he should never
+presume to give his advice; that if he venture to expostulate upon any
+unreasonable command, or such a one a appeared to him to be so, he should
+do it with humility and respect, and take a proper season for it.  But
+such lessons do most of the dramatic performances I have seen give, where
+servants are introduced as characters essential to the play, or to act
+very significant or long parts in it, (which, of itself, I think a
+fault;) such lessons, I say, do they give to the footmen's gallery, that
+I have not wondered we have so few modest or good men-servants among
+those who often attend their masters or mistresses to plays.  Then how
+miserably evident must that poet's conscious want of genius be, who can
+stoop to raise or give force to a clap by the indiscriminate roar of the
+party-coloured gallery!
+
+But this subject I will suspend to a better opportunity; that is to say,
+to the happy one, when my nuptials with my Clarissa will oblige me to
+increase the number of my servants, and of consequence to enter more
+nicely into their qualifications.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Although I have the highest opinion that man can have of the generosity
+of my dear Miss Harlowe, yet I cannot for the heart of me account for
+this agreeable change in her temper but one way.  Faith and troth,
+Belford, I verily believe, laying all circumstances together, that the
+dear creature unexpectedly finds herself in the way I have so ardently
+wished her to be in; and that this makes her, at last, incline to favour
+me, that she may set the better face upon her gestation, when at her
+father's.
+
+If this be the case, all her falling away, and her fainting fits, are
+charmingly accounted for.  Nor is it surprising, that such a sweet novice
+in these matters should not, for some time, have known to what to
+attribute her frequent indispositions.  If this should be the case, how I
+shall laugh at thee! and (when I am sure of her) at the dear novice
+herself, that all her grievous distresses shall end in a man-child; which
+I shall love better than all the cherubims and seraphims that may come
+after; though there were to be as many of them as I beheld in my dream;
+in which a vast expanse of firmament was stuck as full of them as it
+could hold!
+
+I shall be afraid to open thy next, lest it bring me the account of poor
+Belton's death.  Yet, as there are no hopes of his recovery--but what
+should I say, unless the poor man were better fitted--but thy heavy
+sermon shall not affect me too much neither.
+
+I enclose thy papers; and do thou transcribe them for me, or return them;
+for there are some things in them, which, at a proper season, a mortal
+man should not avoid attending to; and thou seemest to have entered
+deeply into the shocking subject.--But here I will end, lest I grow too
+serious.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Thy servant called here about an hour ago, to know if I had any commands;
+I therefore hope that thou wilt have this early in the morning.  And if
+thou canst let me hear from thee, do.  I'll stretch an hour or two in
+expectation of it.  Yet I must be at Lord M.'s to-morrow night, if
+possible, though ever so late.
+
+Thy fellow tells me the poor man is much as he was when Mowbray left him.
+
+Wouldst thou think that this varlet Mowbray is sorry that I am so near
+being happy with Miss Harlowe?  And, 'egad, Jack, I know not what to say
+to it, now the fruit seems to be within my reach--but let what will come,
+I'll stand to't: for I find I can't live without her.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXI
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+WEDNESDAY, THREE O'CLOCK.
+
+
+I will proceed where I left off in my last.
+
+As soon as I had seen Mowbray mounted, I went to attend upon poor Belton;
+whom I found in dreadful agonies, in which he awoke, after he generally
+does.
+
+The doctor came in presently after, and I was concerned at the scene that
+passed between them.
+
+It opened with the dying man's asking him, with melancholy earnestness,
+if nothing--if nothing at all could be done for him?
+
+The doctor shook his head, and told him, he doubted not.
+
+I cannot die, said the poor man--I cannot think of dying.  I am very
+desirous of living a little longer, if I could but be free from these
+horrible pains in my stomach and head.  Can you give me nothing to make
+me pass one week--but one week, in tolerable ease, that I may die like a
+man, if I must die!
+
+But, Doctor, I am yet a young man; in the prime of my years--youth is a
+good subject for a physician to work upon--Can you do nothing--nothing at
+all for me, Doctor?
+
+Alas! Sir, replied his physician, you have been long in a bad way.  I
+fear, I fear, nothing in physic can help you!
+
+He was then out of all patience: What, then, is your art, Sir?--I have
+been a passive machine for a whole twelvemonth, to be wrought upon at the
+pleasure of you people of the faculty.--I verily believe, had I not taken
+such doses of nasty stuff, I had been now a well man--But who the plague
+would regard physicians, whose art is to cheat us with hopes while they
+help to destroy us?--And who, not one of you, know any thing but by
+guess?
+
+Sir, continued he, fiercely, (and with more strength of voice and
+coherence, than he had shown for several hours before,) if you give me
+over, I give you over.--The only honest and certain part of the art of
+healing is surgery.  A good surgeon is worth a thousand of you.  I have
+been in surgeons' hands often, and have always found reason to depend
+upon their skill; but your art, Sir, what is it?--but to daub, daub,
+daub; load, load, load; plaster, plaster, plaster; till ye utterly
+destroy the appetite first, and the constitution afterwards, which you
+are called in to help.  I had a companion once, my dear Belford, thou
+knewest honest Blomer, as pretty a physician he would have made as any
+in England, had he kept himself from excess in wine and women; and he
+always used to say, there was nothing at all but the pick-pocket parade
+in the physician's art; and that the best guesser was the best physician.
+And I used to believe him too--and yet, fond of life, and fearful of
+death, what do we do, when we are taken ill, but call ye in?  And what
+do ye do, when called in, but nurse our distempers, till from pigmies you
+make giants of them? and then ye come creeping with solemn faces, when ye
+are ashamed to prescribe, or when the stomach won't bear its natural
+food, by reason of your poisonous potions,--Alas, I am afraid physic can
+do no more for him!--Nor need it, when it has brought to the brink of the
+grave the poor wretch who placed all his reliance in your cursed slops,
+and the flattering hopes you gave him.
+
+The doctor was out of countenance; but said, if we could make mortal men
+immortal, and would not, all this might be just.
+
+I blamed the poor man; yet excused him to the physician.  To die, dear
+Doctor, when, like my poor friend, we are so desirous of life, is a
+melancholy thing.  We are apt to hope too much, not considering that the
+seeds of death are sown in us when we begin to live, and grow up, till,
+like rampant weeds, they choke the tender flower of life; which declines
+in us as those weeds flourish.  We ought, therefore, to begin early to
+study what our constitutions will bear, in order to root out, by
+temperance, the weeds which the soil is most apt to produce; or, at
+least, to keep them down as they rise; and not, when the flower or plant
+is withered at the root, and the weed in its full vigour, expect, that
+the medical art will restore the one, or destroy the other; when that
+other, as I hinted, has been rooting itself in the habit from the time of
+our birth.
+
+This speech, Bob., thou wilt call a prettiness; but the allegory is just;
+and thou hast not quite cured me of the metaphorical.
+
+Very true, said the doctor; you have brought a good metaphor to
+illustrate the thing.  I am sorry I can do nothing for the gentleman; and
+can only recommend patience, and a better frame of mind.
+
+Well, Sir, said the poor angry man, vexed at the doctor, but more at
+death, you will perhaps recommend the next succession to the physician,
+when he can do no more; and, I suppose, will send your brother to pray by
+me for those virtues which you wish me.
+
+It seems the physician's brother is a clergyman in the neighbourhood.
+
+I was greatly concerned to see the gentleman thus treated; and so I told
+poor Belton when he was gone; but he continued impatient, and would not
+be denied, he said, the liberty of talking to a man, who had taken so
+many guineas of him for doing nothing, or worse than nothing, and never
+declined one, though he know all the time he could do him no good.
+
+It seems the gentleman, though rich, is noted for being greedy after
+fees! and poor Belton went on raving at the extravagant fees of English
+physicians, compared with those of the most eminent foreign ones.  But,
+poor man! he, like the Turks, who judge of a general by his success, (out
+of patience to think he must die,) would have worshipped the doctor, and
+not grudged thee times the sum, could he have given him hopes of
+recovery.
+
+But, nevertheless, I must needs say, that gentlemen of the faculty should
+be more moderate in their fees, or take more pains to deserve them; for,
+generally, they only come into a room, feel the sick man's pulse, ask the
+nurse a few questions, inspect the patient's tongue, and, perhaps, his
+water; then sit down, look plaguy wise, and write.  The golden fee finds
+the ready hand, and they hurry away, as if the sick man's room were
+infectious.  So to the next they troll, and to the next, if men of great
+practice; valuing themselves upon the number of visits they make in a
+morning, and the little time they make them in.  They go to dinner and
+unload their pockets; and sally out again to refill them.  And thus, in a
+little time, they raise vast estates; for, as Ratcliffe said, when first
+told of a great loss which befell him, It was only going up and down one
+hundred pairs of stairs to fetch it up.
+
+Mrs. Sambre (Belton's sister) had several times proposed to him a
+minister to pray by him, but the poor man could not, he said, bear the
+thoughts of one; for that he should certainly die in an hour or two
+after; and he was willing to hope still, against all probability, that he
+might recover; and was often asking his sister if she had not seen people
+as bad as he was, who, almost to a miracle, when every body gave them
+over, had got up again?
+
+She, shaking her head, told him she had; but, once saying, that their
+disorders were of an acute kind, and such as had a crisis in them, he
+called her Small-hopes, and Job's comforter; and bid her say nothing, if
+she could not say more to the purpose, and what was fitter for a sick man
+to hear.  And yet, poor fellow, he has no hopes himself, as is plain by
+his desponding terrors; one of which he fell into, and a very dreadful
+one, soon after the doctor went.
+
+
+***
+
+
+WEDNESDAY, NINE O'CLOCK AT NIGHT.
+
+The poor man had been in convulsions, terrible convulsions! for an hour
+past.  O Lord! Lovelace, death is a shocking thing! by my faith it is!--
+I wish thou wert present on this occasion.  It is not merely the concern
+a man has for his friend; but, as death is the common lot, we see, in his
+agonies, how it will be one day with ourselves.  I am all over as if cold
+water were poured down my back, or as if I had a strong ague-fit upon me.
+I was obliged to come away.  And I write, hardly knowing what.--I wish
+thou wert here.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Though I left him, because I could stay no longer, I can't be easy by
+myself, but must go to him again.
+
+
+ELEVEN O'CLOCK.
+
+Poor Belton!--Drawing on apace!  Yet was he sensible when I went in--too
+sensible, poor man!  He has something upon his mind to reveal, he tells
+me, that is the worst action of his life; worse than ever you or I knew
+of him, he says.  It must then be very bad!
+
+He ordered every body out; but was seized with another convulsion-fit,
+before he could reveal it; and in it he lies struggling between life and
+death--but I'll go in again.
+
+
+ONE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING.
+
+All now must soon be over with him: Poor, poor fellow!  He has given me
+some hints of what he wanted to say; but all incoherent, interrupted by
+dying hiccoughs and convulsions.
+
+Bad enough it must be, Heaven knows, by what I can gather!--Alas!
+Lovelace, I fear, I fear, he came too soon into his uncle's estate.
+
+If a man were to live always, he might have some temptation to do base
+things, in order to procure to himself, as it would then be, everlasting
+ease, plenty, or affluence; but, for the sake of ten, twenty, thirty
+years of poor life to be a villain--Can that be worth while? with a
+conscience stinging him all the time too!  And when he comes to wind up
+all, such agonizing reflections upon his past guilt!  All then appearing
+as nothing!  What he most valued, most disgustful! and not one thing to
+think of, as the poor fellow says twenty and twenty times over, but what
+is attended with anguish and reproach!--
+
+To hear the poor man wish he had never been born!--To hear him pray to be
+nothing after death!  Good God! how shocking!
+
+By his incoherent hints, I am afraid 'tis very bad with him.  No pardon,
+no mercy, he repeats, can lie for him!
+
+I hope I shall make a proper use of this lesson.  Laugh at me if thou
+wilt; but never, never more, will I take the liberties I have taken; but
+whenever I am tempted, will think of Belton's dying agonies, and what my
+own may be.
+
+
+***
+
+
+THURSDAY, THREE IN THE MORNING.
+
+He is now at the last gasp--rattles in the throat--has a new convulsion
+every minute almost!  What horror is he in!  His eyes look like
+breath-stained glass!  They roll ghastly no more; are quite set; his face
+distorted, and drawn out, by his sinking jaws, and erected staring
+eyebrows, with his lengthened furrowed forehead, to double its usual
+length, as it seems.  It is not, it cannot be the face of Belton, thy
+Belton, and my Belton, whom we have beheld with so much delight over the
+social bottle, comparing notes, that one day may be brought against us,
+and make us groan, as they very lately did him--that is to say, while he
+had strength to groan; for now his voice is not to be heard; all inward,
+lost; not so much as speaking by his eyes; yet, strange! how can it be?
+the bed rocking under him like a cradle.
+
+FOUR O'CLOCK.
+
+      Alas: he's gone! that groan, that dreadful groan,
+      Was the last farewell of the parting mind!
+      The struggling soul has bid a long adieu
+      To its late mansion--Fled!  Ah! whither fled?
+
+Now is all indeed over!--Poor, poor Belton! by this time thou knowest if
+thy crimes were above the size of God's mercies!  Now are every one's
+cares and attendance at an end! now do we, thy friends,--poor Belton!--
+know the worst of thee, as to this life!  Thou art released from
+insufferable tortures both of body and mind! may those tortures, and thy
+repentance, expiate for thy offences, and mayest thou be happy to all
+eternity!
+
+We are told, that God desires not the death, the spiritual death of a
+sinner: And 'tis certain, that thou didst deeply repent!  I hope,
+therefore, as thou wert not cut off in the midst of thy sins by the sword
+of injured friendship, which more than once thou hadst braved, [the
+dreadfullest of all deaths, next to suicide, because it gives no
+opportunity for repentance] that this is a merciful earnest that thy
+penitence is accepted; and that thy long illness, and dreadful agonies in
+the last stages of it, were thy only punishment.
+
+I wish indeed, I heartily wish, we could have seen one ray of comfort
+darting in upon his benighted mind, before he departed.  But all, alas!
+to the very last gasp, was horror and confusion.  And my only fear arises
+from this, that, till within the four last days of his life, he could not
+be brought to think he should die, though in a visible decline for
+months; and, in that presumption, was too little inclined to set about a
+serious preparation for a journey, which he hoped he should not be
+obliged to take; and when he began to apprehend that he could not put it
+off, his impatience, and terror, and apprehension, showed too little of
+that reliance and resignation, which afford the most comfortable
+reflections to the friends of the dying, as well as to the dying
+themselves.
+
+But we must leave poor Belton to that mercy, of which we have all so much
+need; and, for my own part (do you, Lovelace, and the rest of the
+fraternity, as ye will) I am resolved, I will endeavour to begin to
+repent of my follies while my health is sound, my intellects untouched,
+and while it is in my power to make some atonement, as near to
+restitution or reparation, as is possible, to those I have wronged or
+misled.  And do ye outwardly, and from a point of false bravery, make as
+light as ye will of my resolution, as ye are none of ye of the class of
+abandoned and stupid sots who endeavour to disbelieve the future
+existence of which ye are afraid, I am sure you will justify me in your
+hearts, if not by your practices; and one day you will wish you had
+joined with me in the same resolution, and will confess there is more
+good sense in it, than now perhaps you will own.
+
+
+SEVEN O'CLOCK, THURSDAY MORNING.
+
+You are very earnest, by your last letter, (just given me) to hear again
+from me, before you set out for Berks.  I will therefore close with a few
+words upon the only subject in your letter which I can at present touch
+upon: and this is the letter of which you give me a copy from the lady.
+
+Want of rest, and the sad scene I have before my eyes, have rendered me
+altogether incapable of accounting for the contents of it in any shape.
+You are in ecstacies upon it.  You have reason to be so, if it be as you
+think.  Nor would I rob you of your joy: but I must say I am amazed at
+it.
+
+Surely, Lovelace, this surprising letter cannot be a forgery of thy own,
+in order to carry on some view, and to impose upon me.  Yet, by the style
+of it, it cannot though thou art a perfect Proteus too.
+
+I will not, however, add another word, after I have desired the return of
+this, and have told you that I am
+
+Your true friend, and well-wisher,
+J. BELFORD.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXII
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+AUG. 24, THURSDAY MORNING.
+
+
+I received thy letter in such good time, by thy fellow's dispatch, that
+it gives me an opportunity of throwing in a few paragraphs upon it.  I
+read a passage or two of it to Mowbray; and we both agree that thou art
+an absolute master of the lamentable.
+
+Poor Belton! what terrible conflicts were thy last conflicts!--I hope,
+however, that he is happy: and I have the more hope, because the hardness
+of his death is likely to be such a warning to thee.  If it have the
+effect thou declarest it shall have, what a world of mischief will it
+prevent! how much good will it do! how many poor wretches will rejoice at
+the occasion, (if they know it,) however melancholy in itself, which
+shall bring them in a compensation for injuries they had been forced to
+sit down contented with!  But, Jack, though thy uncle's death has made
+thee a rich fellow, art thou sure that the making good of such a vow will
+not totally bankrupt thee?
+
+Thou sayest I may laugh at thee, if I will.  Not I, Jack: I do not take
+it to be a laughing subject: and I am heartily concerned at the loss we
+all have in poor Belton: and when I get a little settled, and have
+leisure to contemplate the vanity of all sublunary things (a subject that
+will now-and-then, in my gayest hours, obtrude itself upon me) it is very
+likely that I may talk seriously with thee upon these topics; and, if
+thou hast not got too much the start of me in the repentance thou art
+entering upon, will go hand-in-hand with thee in it.  If thou hast, thou
+wilt let me just keep thee in my eye; for it is an up-hill work; and I
+shall see thee, at setting out, at a great distance; but as thou art a
+much heavier and clumsier fellow than myself, I hope that without much
+puffing and sweating, only keeping on a good round dog-trot, I shall be
+able to overtake thee.
+
+Mean time, take back thy letter, as thou desirest.  I would not have it
+in my pocket upon any account at present; nor read it once more.
+
+I am going down without seeing my beloved.  I was a hasty fool to write
+her a letter, promising that I would not come near her till I saw her at
+her father's.  For as she is now actually at Smith's, and I so near her,
+one short visit could have done no harm.
+
+I sent Will., two hours ago, with my grateful compliments, and to know
+how she does.
+
+How must I adore this charming creature! for I am ready to think my
+servant a happier fellow than myself, for having been within a pair of
+stairs and an apartment of her.
+
+Mowbray and I will drop a tear a-piece, as we ride along, to the memory
+of poor Belton:--as we ride along, said I: for we shall have so much joy
+when we arrive at Lord M.'s, and when I communicate to him and my cousins
+the dear creature's letter, that we shall forget every thing grievous:
+since now their family-hopes in my reformation (the point which lies so
+near their hearts) will all revive; it being an article of their faith,
+that if I marry, repentance and mortification will follow of course.
+
+Neither Mowbray nor I shall accept of thy verbal invitation to the
+funeral.  We like not these dismal formalities.  And as to the respect
+that is supposed to be shown to the memory of a deceased friend in such
+an attendance, why should we do any thing to reflect upon those who have
+made it a fashion to leave this parade to people whom they hire for that
+purpose?
+
+Adieu, and be cheerful.  Thou canst now do no more for poor Belton, wert
+thou to howl for him to the end of thy life.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXIII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+SAT. AUG. 26.
+
+
+On Thursday afternoon I assisted at the opening of poor Belton's will, in
+which he has left me his sole executor, and bequeathed me a legacy of an
+hundred guineas; which I shall present to his unfortunate sister, to whom
+he has not been so kind as I think he ought to have been.  He has also
+left twenty pounds a-piece to Mowbray, Tourville, thyself, and me, for a
+ring to be worn in remembrance of him.
+
+After I had given some particular orders about the preparations to be
+made for his funeral, I went to town; but having made it late before I
+got in on Thursday night, and being fatigued for want of rest several
+nights before, and now in my spirits, [I could not help it, Lovelace!] I
+contented myself to send my compliments to the innocent sufferer, to
+inquire after her health.
+
+My servant saw Mrs. Smith, who told him, she was very glad I was come to
+town; for that lady was worse than she had yet been.
+
+It is impossible to account for the contents of her letter to you; or to
+reconcile those contents to the facts I have to communicate.
+
+I was at Smith's by seven yesterday (Friday) morning; and found that the
+lady was just gone in a chair to St. Dunstan's to prayers: she was too
+ill to get out by six to Covent-garden church; and was forced to be
+supported to her chair by Mrs. Lovick.  They would have persuaded her
+against going; but she said she knew not but it would be her last
+opportunity.  Mrs. Lovick, dreading that she would be taken worse at
+church, walked thither before her.
+
+Mrs. Smith told me she was so ill on Wednesday night, that she had
+desired to receive the sacrament; and accordingly it was administered to
+her, by the parson of the parish: whom she besought to take all
+opportunities of assisting her in her solemn preparation.
+
+This the gentleman promised: and called in the morning to inquire after
+her health; and was admitted at the first word.  He staid with her about
+half an hour; and when he came down, with his face turned aside, and a
+faltering accent, 'Mrs. Smith,' said he, 'you have an angel in your
+house.--I will attend her again in the evening, as she desires, and as
+often as I think it will be agreeable to her.'
+
+Her increased weakness she attributed to the fatigues she had undergone
+by your means; and to a letter she had received from her sister, which
+she answered the same day.
+
+Mrs. Smith told me that two different persons had called there, one on
+Thursday morning, one in the evening, to inquire after her state of
+health; and seemed as if commissioned from her relations for that
+purpose; but asked not to see her, only were very inquisitive after her
+visiters: (particularly, it seems, after me: What could they mean by
+that?) after her way of life, and expenses; and one of them inquired
+after her manner of supporting them; to the latter of which, Mrs. Smith
+said, she had answered, as the truth was, that she had been obliged to
+sell some of her clothes, and was actually about parting with more; at
+which the inquirist (a grave old farmer-looking man) held up his hands,
+and said, Good God!--this will be sad, sad news to somebody!  I believe
+I must not mention it.  But Mrs. Smith says she desired he would, let him
+come from whom he would.  He shook his head, and said if she died, the
+flower of the world would be gone, and the family she belonged to would
+be no more than a common family.*  I was pleased with the man's
+expression.
+
+
+* This man came from her cousin Morden; as will be seen hereafter,
+Letters LII. and LVI. of this volume.
+
+
+You may be curious to know how she passed her time, when she was obliged
+to leave her lodging to avoid you.
+
+Mrs. Smith tells me 'that she was very ill when she went out on Monday
+morning, and sighed as if her heart would break as she came down stairs,
+and as she went through the shop into the coach, her nurse with her, as
+you had informed me before: that she ordered the coachman (whom she hired
+for the day) to drive any where, so it was into the air: he accordingly
+drove her to Hampstead, and thence to Highgate.  There at the
+Bowling-green House, she alighted, extremely ill, and having breakfasted,
+ordered the coachman to drive very slowly any where.  He crept along to
+Muswell-hill, and put up at a public house there; where she employed
+herself two hours in writing, though exceedingly weak and low, till the
+dinner she had ordered was brought in: she endeavoured to eat, but could
+not: her appetite was gone, quite gone, she said.  And then she wrote on
+for three hours more: after which, being heavy, she dozed a little in an
+elbow-chair.  When she awoke, she ordered the coachman to drive her very
+slowly to town, to the house of a friend of Mrs. Lovick; whom, as agreed
+upon, she met there: but, being extremely ill, she would venture home at
+a late hour, although she heard from the widow that you had been there;
+and had reason to be shocked at your behaviour.  She said she found there
+was no avoiding you: she was apprehensive she should not live many hours,
+and it was not impossible but the shock the sight of you must give her
+would determine her fate in your presence.
+
+'She accordingly went home.  She heard the relation of your astonishing
+vagaries, with hands and eyes often lifted up; and with these words
+intermingled, Shocking creature! incorrigible wretch!  And will nothing
+make him serious?  And not being able to bear the thoughts of an
+interview with a man so hardened, she took to her usual chair early in
+the morning, and was carried to the Temple-stairs, where she had ordered
+her nurse before her, to get a pair of oars in readiness (for her
+fatigues the day before made her unable to bear a coach;) and then she
+was rowed to Chelsea, where she breakfasted; and after rowing about, put
+in at the Swan at Brentford-ait, where she dined; and would have written,
+but had no conveniency either of tolerable pens, or ink, or private room;
+and then proceeding to Richmond, they rowed her back to Mort-lake; where
+she put in, and drank tea at a house her waterman recommended to her.
+She wrote there for an hour; and returned to the Temple; and, when she
+landed, made one of the watermen get her a chair, and so was carried to
+the widow's friend, as the night before; where she again met the widow,
+who informed her that you had been after her twice that day.
+
+'Mrs. Lovick gave her there her sister's letter;* and she was so much
+affected with the contents of it, that she was twice very nigh fainting
+away; and wept bitterly, as Mrs. Lovick told Mrs. Smith; dropping some
+warmer expressions than ever they had heard proceed from her lips, in
+relation to her friends; calling them cruel, and complaining of ill
+offices done her, and of vile reports raised against her.
+
+
+* See Letter XXVI. of this volume.
+
+
+'While she was thus disturbed, Mrs. Smith came to her, and told her, that
+you had been there a third time, and was just gone, (at half an hour
+after nine,) having left word how civil and respectful you would be; but
+that you was determined to see her at all events.
+
+'She said it was hard she could not be permitted to die in peace: that
+her lot was a severe one: that she began to be afraid she should not
+forbear repining, and to think her punishment greater than her fault:
+but, recalling herself immediately, she comforted herself, that her life
+would be short, and with the assurance of a better.'
+
+By what I have mentioned, you will conclude with me, that the letter
+brought her by Mrs. Lovick (the superscription of which you saw to be
+written in her sister's hand) could not be the letter on the contents of
+which she grounded that she wrote to you, on her return home.  And yet
+neither Mrs. Lovick, nor Mrs. Smith, nor the servant of the latter, know
+of any other brought her.  But as the women assured me, that she actually
+did write to you, I was eased of a suspicion which I had begun to
+entertain, that you (for some purpose I could not guess at) had forged
+the letter from her of which you sent me a copy.
+
+On Wednesday morning, when she received your letter, in answer to her's,
+she said, Necessity may well be called the mother of invention--but
+calamity is the test of integrity.--I hope I have not taken an
+inexcusable step--And there she stopt a minute or two; and then said, I
+shall now, perhaps, be allowed to die in peace.
+
+I staid till she came in.  She was glad to see me; but, being very weak,
+said, she must sit down before she could go up stairs: and so went into
+the back-shop; leaning upon Mrs. Lovick: and when she had sat down, 'I am
+glad to see you, Mr. Belford, said she; I must say so--let mis-reporters
+say what they will.'
+
+I wondered at this expression;* but would not interrupt her.
+
+
+* Explained in Letter XXVIII. of this volume.
+
+
+O Sir, said she, I have been grievously harassed.  Your friend, who would
+not let me live with reputation, will not permit me to die in peace.  You
+see how I am.  Is there not a great alteration in me within this week!
+but 'tis all for the better.  Yet were I to wish for life, I must say
+that your friend, your barbarous friend, has hurt me greatly.
+
+She was so weak, so short breathed, and her words and actions so very
+moving, that I was forced to walk from her; the two women and her nurse
+turning away their faces also, weeping.
+
+I have had, Madam, said I, since I saw you, a most shocking scene before
+my eyes for days together.  My poor friend Belton is no more.  He quitted
+the world yesterday morning in such dreadful agonies, that the impression
+they have left upon me have so weakened my mind--
+
+I was loth to have her think that my grief was owing to the weak state I
+saw her in, for fear of dispiriting her.
+
+That is only, Mr. Belford, interrupted she, in order to strengthen it, if
+a proper use be made of the impression.  But I should be glad, since you
+are so humanely affected with the solemn circumstance, that you could
+have written an account of it to your gay friend, in the style and manner
+you are master of.  Who knows, as it would have come from an associate,
+and of an associate, it might have affected him?
+
+That I had done, I told her, in such a manner as had, I believed, some
+effect upon you.
+
+His behaviour in this honest family so lately, said she, and his cruel
+pursuit of me, give me but little hope that any thing serious or solemn
+will affect him.
+
+We had some talk about Belton's dying behaviour, and I gave her several
+particulars of the poor man's impatience and despair; to which she was
+very attentive; and made fine observations upon the subject of
+procrastination.
+
+A letter and packet were brought her by a man on horseback from Miss
+Howe, while we were talking.  She retired up stairs to read it; and while
+I was in discourse with Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick, the doctor and
+apothecary both came in together.  They confirmed to me my fears, as to
+the dangerous way she is in.  They had both been apprized of the new
+instances of implacableness in her friends, and of your persecutions: and
+the doctor said he would not for the world be either the unforgiving
+father of that lady, or the man who had brought her to this distress.
+Her heart's broken: she'll die, said he: there is no saving her.  But
+how, were I either the one or the other of the people I have named, I
+should support myself afterwards, I cannot tell.
+
+When she was told we were all three together, she desired us to walk up.
+She arose to receive us, and after answering two or three general
+questions relating to her health, she addressed herself to us, to the
+following effect:
+
+As I may not, said she, see you three gentlemen together again, let me
+take this opportunity to acknowledge my obligations to you all.  I am
+inexpressibly obliged to you, Sir, and to you, Sir, [courtesying to the
+doctor and to Mr. Goddard] for your more than friendly, your paternal
+care and concern for me.  Humanity in your profession, I dare say, is far
+from being a rare qualification, because you are gentlemen by your
+profession: but so much kindness, so much humanity, did never desolate
+creature meet with, as I have met with from you both.  But indeed I have
+always observed, that where a person relies upon Providence, it never
+fails to raise up a new friend for every old one that falls off.
+
+This gentleman, [bowing to me,] who, some people think, should have been
+one of the last I should have thought of for my executor--is,
+nevertheless, (such is the strange turn that things have taken!) the only
+one I can choose; and therefore I have chosen him for that charitable
+office, and he has been so good as to accept of it: for, rich as I may
+boast myself to be, I am rather so in right than in fact, at this
+present.  I repeat, therefore, my humble thanks to you all three, and beg
+of God to return to you and yours [looking to each] an hundred-fold, the
+kindness and favour you have shown me; and that it may be in the power of
+you and of yours, to the end of time, to confer benefits, rather than to
+be obliged to receive them.  This is a godlike power, gentlemen: I once
+rejoiced in it some little degree; and much more in the prospect I had of
+its being enlarged to me; though I have had the mortification to
+experience the reverse, and to be obliged almost to every body I have
+seen or met with: but all, originally, through my own fault; so I ought
+to bear the punishment without repining: and I hope I do.  Forgive these
+impertinencies: a grateful heart, that wants the power it wishes for, to
+express itself suitably to its own impulses, will be at a loss what
+properly to dictate to the tongue; and yet, unable to restrain its
+overflowings, will force the tongue to say weak and silly things, rather
+than appear ungratefully silent.  Once more, then, I thank ye all three
+for your kindness to me: and God Almighty make you that amends which at
+present I cannot!
+
+She retired from us to her closet with her eyes full; and left us looking
+upon one another.
+
+We had hardly recovered ourselves, when she, quite easy, cheerful, and
+smiling, returned to us: Doctor, said she (seeing we had been moved) you
+will excuse me for the concern I give you; and so will you, Mr. Goddard,
+and you, Mr. Belford; for 'tis a concern that only generous natures can
+show: and to such natures sweet is the pain, if I may say so, that
+attends such a concern.  But as I have some few preparations still to
+make, and would not (though in ease of Mr. Belford's future cares, which
+is, and ought to be, part of my study) undertake more than it is likely I
+shall have time lent me to perform, I would beg of you to give me your
+opinions [you see my way of living, and you may be assured that I will do
+nothing wilfully to shorten my life] how long it may possibly be, before
+I may hope to be released from all my troubles.
+
+They both hesitated, and looked upon each other.  Don't be afraid to
+answer me, said she, each sweet hand pressing upon the arm of each
+gentleman, with that mingled freedom and reserve, which virgin modesty,
+mixed with conscious dignity, can only express, and with a look serenely
+earnest, tell me how long you think I may hold it! and believe me,
+gentlemen, the shorter you tell me my time is likely to be, the more
+comfort you will give me.
+
+With what pleasing woe, said the Doctor, do you fill the minds of those
+who have the happiness to converse with you, and see the happy frame you
+are in! what you have undergone within a few days past has much hurt you:
+and should you have fresh troubles of those kinds, I could not be
+answerable for your holding it--And there he paused.
+
+How long, Doctor?--I believe I shall have a little more ruffling--I am
+afraid I shall--but there can happen only one thing that I shall not be
+tolerably easy under--How long then, Sir?--
+
+He was silent.
+
+A fortnight, Sir?
+
+He was still silent.
+
+Ten days?--A week?--How long, Sir? with smiling earnestness.
+
+If I must speak, Madam, if you have not better treatment than you have
+lately met with, I am afraid--There again he stopt.
+
+Afraid of what, Doctor? don't be afraid--How long, Sir?
+
+That a fortnight or three weeks may deprive the world of the finest
+flower in it.
+
+A fortnight or three weeks yet, Doctor?--But God's will be done!  I
+shall, however, by this means, have full time, if I have but strength
+and intellect, to do all that is now upon my mind to do.  And so, Sirs,
+I can but once more thank you [turning to each of us] for all your
+goodness to me; and, having letters to write, will take up no more of
+your time--Only, Doctor, be pleased to order me some more of those drops:
+they cheer me a little, when I am low; and putting a fee into his
+unwilling hand--You know the terms, Sir!--Then, turning to Mr. Goddard,
+you'll be so good, Sir, as to look in upon me to-night or to-morrow, as
+you have opportunity: and you, Mr. Belford, I know, will be desirous to
+set out to prepare for the last office for your late friend: so I wish
+you a good journey, and hope to see you when that is performed.
+
+She then retired with a cheerful and serene air.  The two gentlemen
+went away together.  I went down to the women, and, inquiring, found,
+that Mrs. Lovick was this day to bring her twenty guineas more, for some
+other of her apparel.
+
+The widow told me that she had taken the liberty to expostulate with her
+upon the occasion she had for raising this money, to such great
+disadvantage; and it produced the following short and affecting
+conversation between them.
+
+None of my friends will wear any thing of mine, said she.  I shall leave
+a great many good things behind me.--And as to what I want the money for
+--don't be surprised:--But suppose I want it to purchase a house?
+
+You are all mystery, Madam.  I don't comprehend you.
+
+Why, then, Mrs. Lovick, I will explain myself.--I have a man, not a
+woman, for my executor: and think you that I will leave to his care any
+thing that concerns my own person?--Now, Mrs. Lovick, smiling, do you
+comprehend me?
+
+Mrs. Lovick wept.
+
+O fie! proceeded the Lady, drying up her tears with her own handkerchief,
+and giving her a kiss--Why this kind weakness for one with whom you have
+been so little while acquainted?  Dear, good Mrs. Lovick, don't be
+concerned for me on a prospect with which I have occasion to be pleased;
+but go to-morrow to your friends, and bring me the money they have agreed
+to give you.
+
+Thus, Lovelace, it is plain she means to bespeak her last house!  Here's
+presence of mind; here's tranquillity of heart, on the most affecting
+occasion--This is magnanimity indeed!--Couldst thou, or could I, with all
+our boisterous bravery, and offensive false courage, act thus?--Poor
+Belton! how unlike was thy behaviour!
+
+Mrs. Lovick tells me that the lady spoke of a letter she had received
+from her favourite divine Dr. Lewen, in the time of my absence; and of an
+letter she had returned to it.  But Mrs. Lovick knows not the contents of
+either.
+
+When thou receivest the letter I am now writing, thou wilt see what will
+soon be the end of all thy injuries to this divine lady.  I say when thou
+receivest it; for I will delay it for some little time, lest thou
+shouldest take it into thy head (under pretence of resenting the
+disappointment her letter must give thee) to molest her again.
+
+This letter having detained me by its length, I shall not now set out for
+Epsom till to-morrow.
+
+I should have mentioned that the lady explained to me what the one thing
+was that she was afraid might happen to ruffle her.  It was the
+apprehension of what may result from a visit which Col. Morden, as she is
+informed, designs to make you.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXIV
+
+THE REV. DR. LEWEN, TO MISS CL. HARLOWE
+FRIDAY, AUG. 18.
+
+
+Presuming, dearest and ever-respectable young lady, upon your former
+favour, and upon your opinion of my judgment and sincerity, I cannot help
+addressing you by a few lines on your present unhappy situation.
+
+I will not look back upon the measures into which you have either been
+led or driven.  But will only say as to those, that I think you are the
+least to blame of any young lady that was ever reduced from happy to
+unhappy circumstances; and I have not been wanting to say as much, where
+I hoped my freedom would have been better received than I have had the
+mortification to find it to be.
+
+What I principally write for now is, to put you upon doing a piece of
+justice to yourself, and to your sex, in the prosecuting for his life (I
+am assured his life is in your power) the most profligate and abandoned
+of men, as he must be, who could act so basely, as I understand Mr.
+Lovelace has acted by you.
+
+I am very ill; and am now forced to write upon my pillow; my thoughts
+confused; and incapable of method: I shall not therefore aim at method:
+but to give you in general my opinion--and that is, that your religion,
+your duty to your family, the duty you owe to your honour, and even
+charity to your sex, oblige you to give public evidence against this very
+wicked man.
+
+And let me add another consideration: The prevention, by this means, of
+the mischiefs that may otherwise happen between your brother and Mr.
+Lovelace, or between the latter and your cousin Morden, who is now, I
+hear, arrived, and resolves to have justice done you.
+
+A consideration which ought to affect your conscience, [forgive me,
+dearest young lady, I think I am now in the way of my duty;] and to be
+of more concern to you, than that hard pressure upon your modesty which
+I know the appearance against him in an open court must be of to such a
+lady as you; and which, I conceive, will be your great difficulty.  But I
+know, Madam, that you have dignity enough to become the blushes of the
+most naked truth, when necessity, justice, and honour, exact it from you.
+Rakes and ravishers would meet with encouragement indeed, and most from
+those who had the greatest abhorrence of their actions, if violated
+modesty were never to complain of the injury it received from the
+villanous attempters of it.
+
+In a word, the reparation of your family dishonour now rests in your own
+bosom: and which only one of these two alternatives can repair; to wit,
+either to marry the offender, or to prosecute him at law.  Bitter
+expedients for a soul so delicate as your's!
+
+He, and all his friends, I understand, solicit you to the first: and it
+is certainly, now, all the amends within his power to make.  But I am
+assured that you have rejected their solicitations, and his, with the
+indignation and contempt that his foul actions have deserved: but yet,
+that you refuse not to extend to him the christian forgiveness he has so
+little reason to expect, provided he will not disturb you farther.
+
+But, Madam, the prosecution I advise, will not let your present and
+future exemption from fresh disturbance from so vile a molester depend
+upon his courtesy: I should think so noble and so rightly-guided a spirit
+as your's would not permit that it should, if you could help it.
+
+And can indignities of any kind be properly pardoned till we have it in
+our power to punish them?  To pretend to pardon, while we are labouring
+under the pain or dishonour of them, will be thought by some to be but
+the vaunted mercy of a pusillanimous heart, trembling to resent them.
+The remedy I propose is a severe one: But what pain can be more severe
+than the injury?  Or how will injuries be believed to grieve us, that are
+never honourably complained of?
+
+I am sure Miss Clarissa Harlowe, however injured and oppressed, remains
+unshaken in her sentiments of honour and virtue: and although she would
+sooner die than deserve that her modesty should be drawn into question;
+yet she will think no truth immodest that is to be uttered in the
+vindicated cause of innocence and chastity.  Little, very little
+difference is there, my dear young lady, between a suppressed evidence,
+and a false one.
+
+It is a terrible circumstance, I once more own, for a young lady of your
+delicacy to be under the obligation of telling so shocking a story in
+public court: but it is still a worse imputation, that she should pass
+over so mortal an injury unresented.
+
+Conscience, honour, justice, are on your side: and modesty would, by
+some, be thought but an empty name, should you refuse to obey their
+dictates.
+
+I have been consulted, I own, on this subject.  I have given it as my
+opinion, that you ought to prosecute the abandoned man--but without my
+reasons.  These I reserved, with a resolution to lay them before you
+unknown to any body, that the result, if what I wish, may be your own.
+
+I will only add that the misfortunes which have befallen you, had they
+been the lot of a child of my own, could not have affected me more than
+your's have done.  My own child I love: but I both love and honour you:
+since to love you, is to love virtue, good sense, prudence, and every
+thing that is good and noble in woman.
+
+Wounded as I think all these are by the injuries you have received, you
+will believe that the knowledge of your distresses must have afflicted,
+beyond what I am able to express,
+
+Your sincere admirer, and humble servant,
+ARTHUR LEWEN.
+
+
+I just now understand that your sister will, by proper authority, propose
+      this prosecution to you.  I humbly presume that the reason why you
+      resolved not upon this step from the first, was, that you did not
+      know that it would have the countenance and support of your
+      relations.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXV
+
+MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO THE REV. DR. LEWEN
+SAT. AUG. 19.
+
+
+REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,
+
+I thought, till I received your affectionate and welcome letter, that I
+had neither father, uncle, brother left; nor hardly a friend among my
+former favourers of your sex.  Yet, knowing you so well, and having no
+reason to upbraid myself with a faulty will, I was to blame, (even
+although I had doubted the continuance of your good opinion,) to decline
+the trial whether I had forfeited it or not; and if I had, whether I
+could not honourably reinstate myself in it.
+
+But, Sir, it was owing to different causes that I did not; partly to
+shame, to think how high, in my happier days, I stood in your esteem, and
+how much I must be sunk in it, since those so much nearer in relation to
+me gave me up; partly to deep distress, which makes the humbled heart
+diffident; and made mine afraid to claim the kindred mind in your's,
+which would have supplied to me in some measure all the dear and lost
+relations I have named.
+
+Then, so loth, as I sometimes was, to be thought to want to make a party
+against those whom both duty and inclination bid me reverence: so long
+trailed on between hope and doubt: so little my own mistress at one time;
+so fearful of making or causing mischief at another; and not being
+encouraged to hope, by your kind notice, that my application to you would
+be acceptable:--apprehending that my relations had engaged your silence
+at least*--THESE--But why these unavailing retrospections now?--I was to
+be unhappy--in order to be happy; that is my hope!--Resigning therefore
+to that hope, I will, without any further preamble, write a few lines,
+(if writing to you, I can write but a few,) in answer to the subject of
+your kind letter.
+
+
+* The stiff visit this good divine was prevailed upon to make her, as
+mentioned in Vol. II. Letter XXXI. (of which, however, she was too
+generous to remind him) might warrant the lady to think that he had
+rather inclined to their party, as to the parental side, than to her's.
+
+
+Permit me, then, to say, That I believe your arguments would have been
+unanswerable in almost every other case of this nature, but in that of
+the unhappy Clarissa Harlowe.
+
+It is certain that creatures who cannot stand the shock of public shame,
+should be doubly careful how they expose themselves to the danger of
+incurring private guilt, which may possibly bring them to it.  But as to
+myself, suppose there were no objections from the declining way I am in
+as to my health; and supposing I could have prevailed upon myself to
+appear against this man; were there not room to apprehend that the end so
+much wished for by my friends, (to wit, his condign punishment,) would
+not have been obtained, when it came to be seen that I had consented to
+give him a clandestine meeting; and, in consequence of that, had been
+weakly tricked out of living under one roof with him for several weeks;
+which I did, (not only without complaint, but) without cause of
+complaint?
+
+Little advantage in a court, (perhaps, bandied about, and jested
+profligately with,) would some of those pleas in my favour have been,
+which out of court, and to a private and serious audience, would have
+carried the greatest weight against him--Such, particularly, as the
+infamous methods to which he had recourse--
+
+It would, no doubt, have been a ready retort from every mouth, that I
+ought not to have thrown myself into the power of such a man, and that I
+ought to take for my pains what had befallen me.
+
+But had the prosecution been carried on to effect, and had he even been
+sentenced to death, can it be supposed that his family would not have had
+interest enough to obtain his pardon, for a crime thought too lightly of,
+though one of the greatest that can be committed against a creature
+valuing her honour above her life?--While I had been censured as pursuing
+with sanguinary views a man who offered me early all the reparation in
+his power to make?
+
+And had he been pardoned, would he not then have been at liberty to do as
+much mischief as ever?
+
+I dare say, Sir, such is the assurance of the man upon whom my unhappy
+destiny threw me; and such his inveteracy to my family, (which would then
+have appeared to be justified by their known inveteracy to him, and by
+their earnest endeavours to take away his life;) that he would not have
+been sorry to have had an opportunity to confront me, and my father,
+uncles, and brother, at the bar of a court of justice, on such an
+occasion.  In which case, would not (on his acquittal, or pardon)
+resentments have been reciprocally heightened?  And then would my
+brother, or my cousin Morden, have been more secure than now?
+
+How do these conditions aggravate my fault!  My motives, at first, were
+not indeed blamable: but I had forgotten the excellent caution, which yet
+I was not ignorant of, That we ought not to do evil that good may come of
+it.
+
+In full conviction of the purity of my heart, and of the firmness of my
+principles, [Why may I not, thus called upon, say what I am conscious of,
+and yet without the imputation of faulty pride; since all is but a duty,
+and I should be utterly inexcusable, could I not justly say what I do?--
+In this full conviction,] he has offered me marriage.  He has avowed his
+penitence: a sincere penitence I have reason to think it, though perhaps
+not a christian one.  And his noble relations, (kinder to the poor
+sufferer than her own,) on the same conviction, and his own not
+ungenerous acknowledgements, have joined to intercede with me to forgive
+and accept of him.  Although I cannot comply with the latter part of
+their intercession, have not you, Sir, from the best rules, and from the
+divinest example, taught me to forgive injuries?
+
+The injury I have received from him is indeed of the highest nature, and
+it was attended with circumstances of unmanly baseness and premeditation;
+yet, I bless God, it has not tainted my mind; it has not hurt my morals.
+No thanks indeed to the wicked man that it has not.  No vile courses have
+followed it.  My will is unviolated.  The evil, (respecting myself, and
+not my friends,) is merely personal.  No credulity, no weakness, no want
+of vigilance, have I to reproach myself with.  I have, through grace,
+triumphed over the deepest machinations.  I have escaped from him.  I
+have renounced him.  The man whom once I could have loved, I have been
+enabled to despise: And shall not charity complete my triumph? and shall
+I not enjoy it?--And where would be my triumph if he deserved my
+forgiveness?--Poor man! he has had a loss in losing me!  I have the pride
+to think so, because I think I know my own heart.  I have had none in
+losing him.
+
+But I have another plea to make, which alone would have been enough (as I
+presume) to answer the contents of your very kind and friendly letter.
+
+I know, my dear and reverend friend, the spiritual guide and director of
+my happier days! I know, that you will allow of my endeavour to bring
+myself to this charitable disposition, when I tell you how near I think
+myself to that great and awful moment, in which, and even in the ardent
+preparation to which, every sense of indignity or injury that concerns
+not the immortal soul, ought to be absorbed in higher and more important
+contemplations.
+
+Thus much for myself.
+
+And for the satisfaction of my friends and favourers, Miss Howe is
+solicitous to have all those letters and materials preserved, which will
+set my whole story in a true light.  The good Dr. Lewen is one of the
+principal of those friends and favourers.
+
+The warning that may be given from those papers to all such young
+creatures as may have known or heard of me, may be of more efficacy to
+the end wished for, as I humbly presume to think, than my appearance
+could have been in a court of justice, pursuing a doubtful event, under
+the disadvantages I have mentioned.  And if, my dear and good Sir, you
+are now, on considering every thing, of this opinion, and I could know
+it, I should consider it as a particular felicity; being as solicitous
+as ever to be justified in what I may in your eyes.
+
+I am sorry, Sir, that your indisposition has reduced you to the necessity
+of writing upon your pillow.  But how much am I obliged to that kind and
+generous concern for me, which has impelled you, as I may say, to write a
+letter, containing so many paternal lines, with such inconvenience to
+yourself!
+
+May the Almighty bless you, dear and reverend Sir, for all your goodness
+to me of long time past, as well as for that which engaged my present
+gratitude!  Continue to esteem me to the last, as I do and will venerate
+you!  And let me bespeak your prayers, the continuance, I should say, of
+your prayers; for I doubt not, that I have always had them: and to them,
+perhaps, has in part been owing (as well as to your pious precepts
+instilled through my earlier youth) that I have been able to make the
+stand I have made; although every thing that you prayed for has not been
+granted to me by that Divine Wisdom, which knows what is best for its
+poor creatures.
+
+My prayers for you are, that it will please God to restore you to your
+affectionate flock; and after as many years of life as shall be for his
+service, and to your own comfort, give us a happy meeting in those
+regions of blessedness, which you have taught me, as well by example, as
+by precept, to aspire to!
+
+CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXVI
+
+MISS ARAB. HARLOWE, TO MISS CL. HARLOWE
+[IN ANSWER TO HER'S TO HER UNCLE ANTONY OF AUG. 13.*]
+MONDAY, AUG. 21.
+
+
+* See Letter IV. of this volume.
+
+
+SISTER CLARY,
+
+I find by your letters to my uncles, that they, as well as I, are in
+great disgrace with you for writing our minds to you.
+
+We can't help it, sister Clary.
+
+You don't think it worth your while, I find, a second time to press for
+the blessing you pretend to be so earnest about.  You think, no doubt,
+that you have done your duty in asking for it: so you'll sit down
+satisfied with that, I suppose, and leave it to your wounded parents to
+repent hereafter that they have not done theirs, in giving it to you, at
+the first word; and in making such inquiries about you, as you think
+ought to have been made.  Fine encouragement to inquire after a run-away
+daughter! living with her fellow as long as he would live with her!  You
+repent also (with your full mind, as you modestly call it) that you wrote
+to me.
+
+So we are not likely to be applied to any more, I find, in this way.
+
+Well then, since this is the case, sister Clary, let me, with all
+humility, address myself with a proposal or two to you; to which you will
+be graciously pleased to give an answer.
+
+Now you must know, that we have had hints given us, from several
+quarters, that you have been used in such a manner by the villain you ran
+away with, that his life would be answerable for his crime, if it were
+fairly to be proved.  And, by your own hints, something like it appears
+to us.
+
+If, Clary, there be any thing but jingle and affected period in what
+proceeds from your full mind, and your dutiful consciousness; and if
+there be truth in what Mrs. Norton and Mrs. Howe have acquainted us with;
+you may yet justify your character to us, and to the world, in every
+thing but your scandalous elopement; and the law may reach the villain:
+and, could we but bring him to the gallows, what a meritorious revenge
+would that be to our whole injured family, and to the innocents he has
+deluded, as well as the saving from ruin many others!
+
+Let me, therefore, know (if you please) whether you are willing to appear
+to do yourself, and us, and your sex, this justice?  If not, sister
+Clary, we shall know what to think of you; for neither you nor we can
+suffer more than we have done from the scandal of your fall: and, if you
+will, Mr. Ackland and counselor Derham will both attend you to make
+proper inquiries, and to take minutes of your story, to found a process
+upon, if it will bear one with as great a probability of success as we
+are told it may be prosecuted with.
+
+But, by what Mrs. Howe intimates, this is not likely to be complied with;
+for it is what she hinted to you, it seems, by her lively daughter, but
+not without effect;* so prudently in some certain points, as to entitle
+yourself to public justice; which, if true, the Lord have mercy upon you!
+
+
+* See Vol. VI. Letter LXXII.
+
+
+One word only more as to the above proposal:--Your admirer, Dr. Lewen, is
+clear, in his opinion, that you should prosecute the villain.
+
+But if you will not agree to this, I have another proposal to make to
+you, and that in the name of every one in the family; which is, that you
+will think of going to Pensylvania to reside there for some few years
+till all is blown over: and, if it please God to spare you, and your
+unhappy parents, till they can be satisfied that you behave like a true
+and uniform penitent; at least till you are one-and-twenty; you may then
+come back to your own estate, or have the produce of it sent you thither,
+as you shall choose.  A period which my father fixes, because it is the
+custom; and because he thinks your grandfather should have fixed it; and
+because, let me add, you have fully proved by your fine conduct, that you
+were not at years of discretion at eighteen.  Poor doting, though good
+old man!--Your grandfather, he thought--But I would not be too severe.
+
+Mr. Hartley has a widow-sister at Pensylvania, with whom he will
+undertake you may board, and who is a sober, sensible, well-read woman.
+And if you were once well there, it would rid your father and mother of
+a world of cares, and fears, and scandal; and that I think is what you
+should wish for of all things.
+
+Mr. Hartley will engage for all accommodations in your passage suitable
+to your rank and fortune; and he has a concern in a ship, which will sail
+in a month; and you may take your secret-keeping Hannah with you, or whom
+you will of your newer acquaintance.  'Tis presumed that your companions
+will be of your own sex.
+
+These are what I had to communicate to you; and if you'll oblige me with
+an answer, (which the hand that conveys this will call for on Wednesday
+morning,) it will be very condescending.
+
+ARABELLA HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXVII
+
+MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO MISS ARAB. HARLOWE
+TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+
+
+Write to me, my hard-hearted Sister, in what manner you please, I shall
+always be thankful to you for your notice.  But (think what you will of
+me) I cannot see Mr. Ackland and the counselor on such a business as you
+mention.
+
+The Lord have mercy upon me indeed! for none else will.
+
+Surely I am believed to a creature past all shame, or it could not be
+thought of sending two gentlemen to me on such an errand.
+
+Had my mother required of me (or would modesty have permitted you to
+inquire into) the particulars of my sad story, or had Mrs. Norton been
+directed to receive them from me, methinks it had been more fit: and I
+presume to think that it would have been more in every one's character
+too, had they been required of me before such heavy judgment had been
+passed upon me as has been passed.
+
+I know that this is Dr. Lewen's opinion.  He has been so good as to
+enforce it in a kind letter to me.  I have answered his letter; and given
+such reasons as I hope will satisfy him.  I could wish it were thought
+worth while to request of him a sight of my answer.*
+
+
+* Her letter, containing the reasons she refers to, was not asked for;
+and Dr. Lewen's death, which fell out soon after he had received it, was
+the reason that it was not communicated to the family, till it was too
+late to do the service that might have been hoped for from it.
+
+
+To your other proposal, of going to Pensylvania; this is my answer--If
+nothing happen within a month which may full as effectually rid my
+parents and friends of that world of cares, and fears, and scandals,
+which you mention, and if I am then able to be carried on board of ship,
+I will cheerfully obey my father and mother, although I were sure to die
+in the passage.  And, if I may be forgiven for saying so (for indeed it
+proceeds not from a spirit of reprisal) you shall set over me, instead of
+my poor obliging, but really-unculpable, Hannah, your Betty Barnes; to
+whom I will be answerable for all my conduct.  And I will make it worth
+her while to accompany me.
+
+I am equally surprised and concerned at the hints which both you and my
+uncle Antony give of new points of misbehaviour in me!--What can be meant
+by them?
+
+I will not tell you, Miss Harlowe, how much I am afflicted at your
+severity, and how much I suffer by it, and by your hard-hearted levity of
+style, because what I shall say may be construed into jingle and period,
+and because I know it is intended, very possibly for kind ends, to
+mortify me.  All I will therefore say is, that it does not lose its end,
+if that be it.
+
+But, nevertheless, (divesting myself as much as possible of all
+resentment,) I will only pray that Heaven will give you, for your own
+sake, a kinder heart than at present you seem to have; since a kind
+heart, I am convinced, is a greater blessing to its possessor than it can
+be to any other person.  Under this conviction I subscribe myself, my
+dear Bella,
+
+Your ever-affectionate sister,
+CL. HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXVIII
+
+MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+[IN ANSWER TO HER'S OF THURSDAY, AUG. 17.*]
+TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+
+
+* See Letter VI. of this volume.
+
+
+MY DEAREST YOUNG LADY,
+
+The letters you sent me I now return by the hand that brings you this.
+
+It is impossible for me to express how much I have been affected by them,
+and by your last of the 17th.  Indeed, my dear Miss Clary, you are very
+harshly used; indeed you are!  And if you should be taken from us, what
+grief and what punishment are not treasuring up against themselves in the
+heavy reflections which their rash censures and unforgivingness will
+occasion them!
+
+But I find to what your uncle Antony's cruel letter is owing, as well as
+one you will be still more afflicted by, [God help you, my poor dear
+child!] when it comes to your hand, written by your sister, with
+proposals to you.*
+
+
+* See Letter XXVI. ibid.
+
+
+It was finished to send you yesterday, I know; and I apprize you of it,
+that you should fortify your heart against the contents of it.
+
+The motives which incline them all to this severity, if well grounded,
+would authorize any severity they could express, and which, while they
+believe them to be so, both they and you are to be equally pitied.
+
+They are owning to the information of that officious Mr. Brand, who has
+acquainted them (from some enemy of your's in the neighbourhood about
+you) that visits are made you, highly censurable, by a man of a free
+character, and an intimate of Mr. Lovelace; who is often in private with
+you; sometimes twice or thrice a day.
+
+Betty gives herself great liberties of speech upon this occasion, and all
+your friends are too ready to believe that things are not as they should
+be; which makes me wish that, let the gentleman's views be ever so
+honourable, you could entirely drop acquaintance with him.
+
+Something of this nature was hinted at by Betty to me before, but so
+darkly that I could not tell what to make of it; and this made me mention
+to you so generally as I did in my last.
+
+Your cousin Morden has been among them.  He is exceedingly concerned for
+your misfortunes; and as they will not believe Mr. Lovelace would marry
+you, he is determined to go to Lord M.'s, in order to inform himself from
+Mr. Lovelace's own mouth, whether he intends to do you that justice or
+not.
+
+He was extremely caressed by every one at his first arrival; but I am
+told there is some little coldness between them and him at present.
+
+I was in hopes of getting a sight of this letter of Mr. Brand: (a rash
+officious man!) but it seems Mr. Morden had it given him yesterday to
+read, and he took it away with him.
+
+God be your comfort, my dear Miss!  But indeed I am exceedingly disturbed
+at the thoughts of what may still be the issue of all these things.  I
+am, my beloved young lady,
+
+Your most affectionate and faithful
+JUDITH NORTON.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXIX
+
+MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+
+
+After I had sealed up the enclosed, I had the honour of a private visit
+from your aunt Hervey; who has been in a very low-spirited way, and kept
+her chamber for several weeks past; and is but just got abroad.
+
+She longed, she said, to see me, and to weep with me, on the hard fate
+that had befallen her beloved niece.
+
+I will give you a faithful account of what passed between us; as I expect
+that it will, upon the whole, administer hope and comfort to you.
+
+'She pitied very much your good mother, who, she assured me, is obliged
+to act a part entirely contrary to her inclinations; as she herself, she
+owns, had been in a great measure.
+
+'She said, that the poor lady was with great difficulty with-held from
+answering your letter to her; which had (as was your aunt's expression)
+almost broken the heart of every one: that she had reason to think that
+she was neither consenting to your two uncles writing, nor approving of
+what they wrote.
+
+'She is sure they all love you dearly; but have gone so far, that they
+know not how to recede.
+
+'That, but for the abominable league which your brother had got every
+body into (he refusing to set out for Scotland till it was renewed, and
+till they had all promised to take no step towards a reconciliation in
+his absence but by his consent; and to which your sister's resentments
+kept them up); all would before now have happily subsided.
+
+'That nobody knew the pangs which their inflexible behaviour gave them,
+ever since you had begun to write to them in so affecting and humble a
+style.
+
+'That, however, they were not inclined to believe that you were either so
+ill, or so penitent as you really are; and still less, that Mr. Lovelace
+is in earnest in his offers of marriage.
+
+'She is sure, however, she says, that all will soon be well: and the
+sooner for Mr. Morden's arrival: who is very zealous in your behalf.
+
+'She wished to Heaven that you would accept of Mr. Lovelace, wicked as he
+has been, if he were now in earnest.
+
+'It had always,' she said, 'been matter of astonishment to her, that so
+weak a pride in her cousin James, of making himself the whole family,
+should induce them all to refuse an alliance with such a family as Mr.
+Lovelace's was.
+
+'She would have it, that your going off with Mr. Lovelace was the
+unhappiest step for your honour and your interest that could have been
+taken; for that although you would have had a severe trial the next day,
+yet it would probably have been the last; and your pathetic powers must
+have drawn you off some friends--hinting at your mother, at your uncle
+Harlowe, at your uncle Hervey, and herself.'
+
+But here (that the regret that you did not trust to the event of that
+meeting, may not, in your present low way, too much afflict you) I must
+observe, that it seems a little too evident, even from this opinion of
+your aunt's, that it was not absolutely determined that all compulsion
+was designed to be avoided, since your freedom from it must have been
+owing to the party to be made among them by your persuasive eloquence and
+dutiful expostulation.
+
+'She owned, that some of them were as much afraid of meeting you as you
+could be of meeting them:'--But why so, if they designed, in the last
+instance, to give you your way?
+
+Your aunt told me, 'That Mrs. Williams* had been with her, and asked her
+opinion, if it would be taken amiss, if she desired leave to go up, to
+attend her dearest young lady in her calamity.  Your aunt referred her to
+your mother: but had heard no more of it.
+
+
+* The former housekeeper at Harlowe-place.
+
+
+'Her daughter,' (Miss Dolly,) she said, 'had been frequently earnest with
+her on the same subject; and renewed her request with the greatest
+fervour when your first letter came to hand.'
+
+Your aunt says, 'That she then being very ill, wrote to your mother upon
+it, hoping it would not be taken amiss if she permitted Dolly to go; but
+that your sister, as from your mother, answered her, That now you seemed
+to be coming-to, and to have a due sense of your faults, you must be left
+entirely to their own management.
+
+'Miss Dolly,' she said, 'had pined ever since she had heard of Mr.
+Lovelace's baseness, being doubly mortified by it: first, on account of
+your sufferings; next, because she was one who rejoiced in your getting
+off, and vindicated you for it; and had incurred censure and ill-will on
+that account; especially from your brother and sister; so that she seldom
+went to Harlowe-place.'
+
+Make the best use of these intelligences, my dearest young lady, for your
+consolation.
+
+I will only add, that I am, with the most fervent prayers for your
+recovery and restoration to favour,
+
+Your ever-faithful
+JUDITH NORTON.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXX
+
+MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO MRS. JUDITH NORTON
+THURSDAY, AUG. 24.
+
+
+The relation of such a conversation as passed between my aunt and you
+would have given me pleasure, had it come some time ago; because it would
+have met with a spirit more industrious than mine now is, to pick out
+remote comfort in the hope of a favourable turn that might one day have
+rewarded my patient duty.
+
+I did not doubt my aunt's good-will to me.  Her affection I did not
+doubt.  But shall we wonder that kings and princes meet with so little
+controul in their passions, be they every so violent, when, in a private
+family, an aunt, nay, even a mother in that family, shall choose to give
+up a once-favoured child against their own inclinations, rather than
+oppose an aspiring young man, who had armed himself with the authority of
+a father, who, when once determined, never would be expostulated with?
+
+And will you not blame me, if I say, that good sense, that kindred
+indulgence, must be a little offended at the treatment I have met with;
+and if I own, that I think that great rigour has been exercised towards
+me!  And yet I am now authorized to call it rigour by the judgment of two
+excellent sisters, my mother and my aunt, who acknowledge (as you tell me
+from my aunt) that they have been obliged to join against me, contrary to
+their inclinations; and that even in a point which might seem to concern
+my eternal welfare.
+
+But I must not go on at this rate.  For may not the inclination my mother
+has given up be the effect of a too-fond indulgence, rather than that I
+merit the indulgence?  And yet so petulantly perverse am I, that I must
+tear myself from the subject.
+
+All then that I will say further to it, at this time, is, that were the
+intended goodness to be granted to me but a week hence, it would possibly
+be too late--too late I mean to be of the consolation to me that I would
+wish from it: for what an inefficacious preparation must I have been
+making, if it has not, by this time, carried me above--But above what?--
+Poor mistaken creature!  Unhappy self-deluder! that finds herself above
+nothing!  Nor able to subdue her own faulty impatience!
+
+But in-deed, to have done with a subject that I dare not trust myself
+with, if it come in your way, let my aunt Hervey, let my dear cousin
+Dolly, let the worthy Mrs. Williams, know how exceedingly grateful to me
+their kind intentions and concern for me are: and, as the best warrant
+or justification of their good opinions, (since I know that their favour
+for me is founded on the belief that I loved virtue,) tell them, that I
+continued to love virtue to my last hour, as I presume to hope it may be
+said; and assure them that I never made the least wilful deviation,
+however unhappy I became for one faulty step; which nevertheless was not
+owing to unworthy or perverse motives.
+
+I am very sorry that my cousin Morden has taken a resolution to see Mr.
+Lovelace.
+
+My apprehensions on this intelligence are a great abatement to the
+pleasure I have in knowing that he still loves me.
+
+My sister's letter to me is a most affecting one--so needlessly, so
+ludicrously taunting!--But for that part of it that is so, I ought rather
+to pity her, than to be so much concerned at it as I am.
+
+I wonder what I have done to Mr. Brand--I pray God to forgive both him
+and his informants, whoever they be.  But if the scandal arise solely
+from Mr. Belford's visits, a very little time will confute it.  Mean
+while, the packet I shall send you, which I sent to Miss Howe, will, I
+hope, satisfy you, my dear Mrs. Norton, as to my reasons for admitting
+his visits.
+
+My sister's taunting letter, and the inflexibleness of my dearer friends
+--But how do remoter-begun subjects tend to the point which lies nearest
+the heart!--As new-caught bodily disorders all crowd to a fractured or
+distempered part.
+
+I will break off, with requesting your prayers that I may be blessed with
+patience and due resignation; and with assuring you, that I am, and will
+be to the last hour of my life,
+
+Your equally grateful and affectionate
+CL. HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXI
+
+MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+[IN REPLY TO HER'S OF FRIDAY, AUG. 11.*]
+YARMOUTH, ISLE OF WIGHT, AUG. 23.
+
+
+* See Letter II. of this volume.
+
+
+MY DEAREST FRIEND,
+
+I have read the letters and copies of letters you favoured me with: and I
+return them by a particular hand.  I am extremely concerned at your
+indifferent state of health: but I approve of all your proceedings and
+precautions in relation to the appointment of Mr. Belford for an office,
+in which, I hope, neither he nor any body else will be wanted to act, for
+many, very many years.
+
+I admire, and so we do all, that greatness of mind which can make you so
+stedfastly [sic] despise (through such inducements as no other woman
+could resist, and in such desolate circumstances as you have been reduced
+to) the wretch that ought to be so heartily despised and detested.
+
+What must the contents of those letters from your relations be, which you
+will not communicate to me!--Fie upon them!  How my heart rises!--But I
+dare say no more--though you yourself now begin to think they use you
+with great severity.
+
+Every body here is so taken with Mr. Hickman (and the more from the
+horror they conceive at the character of the detestable Lovelace,) that I
+have been teased to death almost to name a day.  This has given him airs:
+and, did I not keep him to it, he would behave as carelessly and as
+insolently as if he were sure of me.  I have been forced to mortify him
+no less than four times since we have been here.
+
+I made him lately undergo a severe penance for some negligences that were
+not to be passed over.  Not designed ones, he said: but that was a poor
+excuse, as I told him: for, had they been designed, he should never have
+come into my presence more: that they were not, showed his want of
+thought and attention; and those were inexcusable in a man only in his
+probatory state.
+
+He hoped he had been more than in a probatory state, he said.
+
+And therefore, Sir, might be more careless!--So you add ingratitude to
+negligence, and make what you plead as accident, that itself wants an
+excuse, design, which deserves none.
+
+I would not see him for two days, and he was so penitent, and so humble,
+that I had like to have lost myself, to make him amends: for, as you have
+said, resentment carried too high, often ends in amends too humble.
+
+I long to be nearer to you: but that must not yet be, it seems.  Pray, my
+dear, let me hear from you as often as you can.
+
+May Heaven increase your comforts, and restore your health, are the
+prayers of
+
+Your ever faithful and affectionate
+ANNA HOWE.
+
+
+P.S. Excuse me that I did not write before: it was owing to a little
+      coasting voyage I was obliged to give into.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXII
+
+MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
+FRIDAY, AUG. 25.
+
+
+You are very obliging, my dear Miss Howe, to account to me for your
+silence.  I was easy in it, as I doubted not that, among such near and
+dear friends as you are with, you was diverted from writing by some such
+agreeable excursion as that you mention.
+
+I was in hopes that you had given over, at this time of day, those very
+sprightly airs, which I have taken the liberty to blame you for, as often
+as you have given me occasion to so do; and that has been very often.
+
+I was always very grave with you upon this subject: and while your own
+and a worthy man's future happiness are in the question, I must enter
+into it, whenever you forget yourself, although I had not a day to live:
+and indeed I am very ill.
+
+I am sure it was not your intention to take your future husband with you
+to the little island to make him look weak and silly among those of your
+relations who never before had seen him.  Yet do you think it possible
+for them (however prepared and resolved they may be to like him) to
+forbear smiling at him, when they see him suffering under your whimsical
+penances?  A modest man should no more be made little in his own eyes,
+than in the eyes of others.  If he be, he will have a diffidence, which
+will give an awkwardness to every thing he says or does; and this will be
+no more to the credit of your choice than to that of the approbation he
+meets with from your friends, or to his own credit.
+
+I love an obliging, and even an humble, deportment in a man to the woman
+he addresses.  It is a mark of his politeness, and tends to give her that
+opinion of herself, which it may be supposed bashful merit wants to be
+inspired with.  But if the woman exacts it with an high hand, she shows
+not either her own politeness or gratitude; although I must confess she
+does her courage.  I gave you expectations that I would be very serious
+with you.
+
+O my dear, that it had been my lot (as I was not permitted to live
+single,) to have met with a man by whom I could have acted generously and
+unreservedly!
+
+Mr. Lovelace, it is now plain, in order to have a pretence against me,
+taxed my behaviour to him with stiffness and distance.  You, at one time,
+thought me guilty of some degree of prudery.  Difficult situations should
+be allowed for: which often make seeming occasions for censure
+unavoidable.  I deserved not blame from him who made mine difficult.  And
+you, my dear, had I any other man to deal with, or had he but half the
+merit which Mr. Hickman has, would have found that my doctrine on this
+subject should have governed my practice.
+
+But to put myself out of the question--I'll tell you what I should think,
+were I an indifferent by-stander, of those high airs of your's, in return
+for Mr. Hickman's humble demeanour.  'The lady thinks of having the
+gentleman, I see plainly, would I say.  But I see as plainly, that she
+has a very great indifference to him.  And to what may this indifference
+be owing?  To one or all of these considerations, no doubt: that she
+receives his addresses rather from motives of convenience than choice:
+that she thinks meanly of his endowments and intellects; at least more
+highly of her own: or, she has not the generosity to use that power with
+moderation, which his great affection for her puts into her hands.'
+
+How would you like, my dear, to have any of these things said?
+
+Then to give but the shadow of a reason for free-livers and free speakers
+to say, or to imagine, that Miss Howe gives her hand to a man who has no
+reason to expect any share in her heart, I am sure you would not wish
+that such a thing should be so much as supposed.  Then all the regard
+from you to come afterwards; none to be shown before; must, should I
+think, be capable of being construed as a compliment to the husband, made
+at the expense of the wife's and even of the sex's delicacy!
+
+There is no fear that attempts could be formed by the most audacious [two
+Lovelaces there cannot be!] upon a character so revered for virtue, and
+so charmingly spirited, as Miss Howe's: yet, to have any man encouraged
+to despise a husband by the example of one who is most concerned to do
+him honour; what, my dear, think you of that?  It is but too natural for
+envious men (and who that knows Miss Howe, will not envy Mr. Hickman!) to
+scoff at, and to jest upon, those who are treated with or will bear
+indignity from a woman.
+
+If a man so treated have a true and ardent love for the woman he
+addresses, he will be easily overawed by her displeasure: and this will
+put him upon acts of submission, which will be called meanness.  And what
+woman of true spirit would like to have it said, that she would impose
+any thing upon the man from whom she one day expects protection and
+defence, that should be capable of being construed as a meanness, or
+unmanly abjectness in his behaviour, even to herself?--Nay, I am not
+sure, and I ask it of you, my dear, to resolve me, whether, in your own
+opinion, it is not likely, that a woman of spirit will despise rather
+than value more, the man who will take patiently an insult at her hands;
+especially before company.
+
+I have always observed, that prejudices in disfavour of a person at his
+first appearance, fix deeper, and are much more difficult to be removed
+when fixed, than that malignant principle so eminently visible in little
+minds, which makes them wish to bring down the more worthy characters to
+their own low level, I pretend not to determine.  When once, therefore, a
+woman of your good sense gives room to the world to think she has not an
+high opinion of the lover, whom nevertheless she entertains, it will be
+very difficult for her afterwards to make that world think so well as she
+would have it of the husband she has chosen.
+
+Give me leave to observe, that to condescend with dignity, and to command
+with such kindness, and sweetness of manners, as should let the
+condescension, while in a single state, be seen and acknowledged, are
+points, which a wise woman, knowing her man, should aim at: and a wise
+woman, I should think, would choose to live single all her life rather
+than give herself to a man whom she thinks unworthy of a treatment so
+noble.
+
+But when a woman lets her lover see that she has the generosity to
+approve of and reward a well-meant service; that she has a mind that
+lifts her above the little captious follies, which some (too
+licentiously, I hope,) attribute to the sex in general: that she resents
+not (if ever she thinks she has reason to be displeased) with petulance,
+or through pride: nor thinks it necessary to insist upon little points,
+to come at or secure great ones, perhaps not proper to be aimed at: nor
+leaves room to suppose she has so much cause to doubt her own merit, as
+to put the love of the man she intends to favour upon disagreeable or
+arrogant trials: but let reason be the principal guide of her actions--
+she will then never fail of that true respect, of that sincere
+veneration, which she wishes to meet with; and which will make her
+judgment after marriage consulted, sometimes with a preference to a man's
+own; at other times as a delightful confirmation of his.
+
+And so much, my beloved Miss Howe, for this subject now, and I dare say,
+for ever!
+
+I will begin another letter by-and-by, and send both together.  Mean
+time, I am, &c.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXIII
+
+MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
+
+
+[In this letter, the Lady acquaints Miss Howe with Mr. Brand's report;
+      with her sister's proposals either that she will go abroad, or
+      prosecute Mr. Lovelace.  She complains of the severe letters of
+      her uncle Antony and her sister; but in milder terms than they
+      deserved.
+
+She sends her Dr. Lewen's letter, and the copy of her answer to it.
+
+She tells her of the difficulties she had been under to avoid seeing Mr.
+      Lovelace.  She gives her the contents of the letter she wrote to
+      him to divert him from his proposed visit: she is afraid, she says,
+      that it is a step that is not strictly right, if allegory or
+      metaphor be not allowable to one in her circumstances.
+
+She informs her of her cousin Morden's arrival and readiness to take her
+      part with her relations; of his designed interview with Mr.
+      Lovelace; and tells her what her apprehensions are upon it.
+
+She gives her the purport of the conversation between her aunt Hervey and
+      Mrs. Norton. And then adds:]
+
+
+But were they ever so favourably inclined to me now, what can they do for
+me?  I wish, and that for their sakes more than for my own, that they
+would yet relent--but I am very ill--I must drop my pen--a sudden
+faintness overspreads my heart--excuse my crooked writing!--Adieu, my
+dear!--Adieu!
+
+
+THREE O'CLOCK, FRIDAY.
+
+Once more I resume my pen.  I thought I had taken my last farewell to
+you.  I never was so very oddly affected: something that seemed totally
+to overwhelm my faculties--I don't know how to describe it--I believe I
+do amiss in writing so much, and taking too much upon me: but an active
+mind, though clouded by bodily illness, cannot be idle.
+
+I'll see if the air, and a discontinued attention, will help me.  But, if
+it will not, don't be concerned for me, my dear.  I shall be happy.  Nay,
+I am more so already than of late I thought I could ever be in this life.
+--Yet how this body clings!--How it encumbers!
+
+
+SEVEN O'CLOCK.
+
+I could not send this letter away with so melancholy an ending, as you
+would have thought it.  So I deferred closing it, till I saw how I should
+be on my return from my airing: and now I must say I am quite another
+thing: so alert! that I could proceed with as much spirit as I began, and
+add more preachment to your lively subject, if I had not written more
+than enough upon it already.
+
+I wish you would let me give you and Mr. Hickman joy.  Do, my dear.  I
+should take some to myself, if you would.
+
+My respectful compliments to all your friends, as well to those I have
+the honour to know, as to those I do not know.
+
+
+***
+
+
+I have just now been surprised with a letter from one whom I long ago
+gave up all thoughts of hearing from.  From Mr. Wyerley.  I will enclose
+it.  You'll be surprised at it as much as I was.  This seems to be a man
+whom I might have reclaimed.  But I could not love him.  Yet I hope I
+never treated him with arrogance.  Indeed, my dear, if I am not too
+partial to myself, I think I refused him with more gentleness, than you
+retain somebody else.  And this recollection gives me less pain than I
+should have had in the other case, on receiving this instance of a
+generosity that affects me.  I will also enclose the rough draught of my
+answer, as soon as I have transcribed it.
+
+If I begin another sheet, I shall write to the end of it: wherefore I
+will only add my prayers for your honour and prosperity, and for a long,
+long, happy life; and that, when it comes to be wound up, you may be as
+calm and as easy at quitting it as I hope in God I shall be.  I am, and
+will be, to the latest moment,
+
+Your truly affectionate and obliged servant,
+CL. HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXIV
+
+MR. WYERLEY, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+WEDNESDAY, AUG. 23.
+
+
+DEAREST MADAM,
+
+You will be surprised to find renewed, at this distance of time, an
+address so positively though so politely discouraged: but, however it be
+received, I must renew it.  Every body has heard that you have been
+vilely treated by a man who, to treat you ill, must be the vilest of men.
+Every body knows your just resentment of his base treatment: that you are
+determined never to be reconciled to him: and that you persist in these
+sentiments against all the entreaties of his noble relations, against all
+the prayers and repentance of his ignoble self.  And all the world that
+have the honour to know you, or have heard of him, applaud your
+resolution, as worthy of yourself; worthy of your virtue, and of that
+strict honour which was always attributed to you by every one who spoke
+of you.
+
+But, Madam, were all the world to have been of a different opinion, it
+could never have altered mine.  I ever loved you; I ever must love you.
+Yet have I endeavoured to resign to my hard fate.  When I had so many
+ways, in vain, sought to move you in my favour, I sat down seemingly
+contented.  I even wrote to you that I would sit down contented.  And I
+endeavoured to make all my friends and companions think I was.  But
+nobody knows what pangs this self-denial cost me!  In vain did the chace,
+in vain did travel, in vain did lively company, offer themselves, and
+were embraced in their turn: with redoubled force did my passion for you
+renew my unhappiness, when I looked into myself, into my own heart; for
+there did your charming image sit enthroned; and you engrossed me all.
+
+I truly deplore those misfortunes, and those sufferings, for your own
+sake; which nevertheless encourage me to renew my old hope.  I know not
+particulars.  I dare not inquire after them; because my sufferings would
+be increased with the knowledge of what your's have been.  I therefore
+desire not to know more than what common report wounds my ears with; and
+what is given me to know, by your absence from your cruel family, and
+from the sacred place, where I, among numbers of your rejected admirers,
+used to be twice a week sure to behold you doing credit to that service
+of which your example gave me the highest notions.  But whatever be those
+misfortunes, of whatsoever nature those sufferings, I shall bless the
+occasion for my own sake (though for your's curse the author of them,) if
+they may give me the happiness to know that this my renewed address may
+not be absolutely rejected.--Only give me hope, that it may one day meet
+with encouragement, if in the interim nothing happen, either in my morals
+or behaviour, to give you fresh offence.  Give me but hope of this--not
+absolutely to reject me is all the hope I ask for; and I will love you,
+if possible, still more than I ever loved you--and that for your
+sufferings; for well you deserve to be loved, even to adoration, who can,
+for honour's and for virtue's sake, subdue a passion which common spirits
+[I speak by cruel experience] find invincible; and this at a time when
+the black offender kneels and supplicates, as I am well assured he does,
+(all his friends likewise supplicating for him,) to be forgiven.
+
+That you cannot forgive him, not forgive him so as to receive him again
+to favour, is no wonder.  His offence is against virtue: this is a part
+of your essence.  What magnanimity is this!  How just to yourself, and to
+your spotless character!  Is it any merit to admire more than ever a lady
+who can so exaltedly distinguish?  It is not.  I cannot plead it.
+
+What hope have I left, may it be said, when my address was before
+rejected, now, that your sufferings, so nobly borne, have, with all the
+good judges, exalted your character?  Yet, Madam, I have to pride myself
+in this, that while your friends (not looking upon you in the just light
+I do) persecute and banish you; while your estate is withheld from you,
+and threatened (as I know,) to be withheld, as long as the chicaning law,
+or rather the chicaneries of its practisers, can keep it from you: while
+you are destitute of protection; every body standing aloof, either
+through fear of the injurer of one family, or of the hard-hearted of the
+other; I pride myself, I say, to stand forth, and offer my fortune, and
+my life, at your devotion.  With a selfish hope indeed: I should be too
+great an hypocrite not to own this! and I know how much you abhor
+insincerity.
+
+But, whether you encourage that hope or not, accept my best services, I
+beseech you, Madam: and be pleased to excuse me for a piece of honest
+art, which the nature of the case (doubting the honour of your notice
+otherwise) makes me choose to conclude with--it is this:
+
+If I am to be still the most unhappy of men, let your pen by one line
+tell me so.  If I am permitted to indulge a hope, however distant, your
+silence shall be deemed, by me, the happiest indication of it that you
+can give--except that still happier--(the happiest than can befall me,)
+a signification that you will accept the tender of that life and fortune,
+which it would be my pride and my glory to sacrifice in your service,
+leaving the reward to yourself.
+
+Be your determination as it may, I must for ever admire and love you.
+Nor will I ever change my condition, while you live, whether you change
+your's or not: for, having once had the presumption to address you, I
+cannot stoop to think of any other woman: and this I solemnly declare in
+the presence of that God, whom I daily pray to bless and protect you, be
+your determination what it will with regard to, dearest Madam,
+
+Your most devoted and ever affectionate
+and faithful servant,
+ALEXANDER WYERLEY.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXV
+
+MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO ALEX. WYERLEY, ESQ.
+SAT. AUG. 26.
+
+
+SIR,
+
+The generosity of your purpose would have commanded not only my notice,
+but my thanks, although you had not given me the alternative you are
+pleased to call artful.  And I do therefore give you my thanks for your
+kind letter.
+
+At the time you distinguished me by your favourable opinion, I told you,
+Sir, that my choice was the single life.  And most truly did I tell you
+so.
+
+When that was not permitted me, and I looked round upon the several
+gentlemen who had been proposed to me, and had reason to believe that
+there was not one of them against whose morals or principles there lay
+not some exception, it would not have been much to be wondered at, if
+FANCY had been allowed to give a preference, where JUDGMENT was at a loss
+to determine.
+
+Far be it from me to say this with a design to upbraid you, Sir, or to
+reflect upon you.  I always wished you well.  You had reason to think I
+did.  You had the generosity to be pleased with the frankness of my
+behaviour to you; as I had with that of your's to me; and I am sorry,
+very sorry, to be now told, that the acquaintance you obliged me with
+gave you so much pain.
+
+Had the option I have mentioned been allowed me afterwards, (as I not
+only wished, but proposed,) things had not happened that did happen.  But
+there was a kind of fatality by which our whole family was impelled, as I
+may say; and which none of us were permitted to avoid.  But this is a
+subject that cannot be dwelt upon.
+
+As matters are, I have only to wish, for your own sake, that you will
+encourage and cultivate those good motions in your mind, to which many
+passages in your kind and generous letter now before me must be owing.
+Depend upon it, Sir, that such motions, wrought into habit, will yield
+you pleasure at a time when nothing else can; and at present, shining out
+in your actions and conversation, will commend you to the worthiest of
+our sex.  For, Sir, the man who is so good upon choice, as well as by
+education, has that quality in himself, which ennobles the human race,
+and without which the most dignified by birth or rank are ignoble.
+
+As to the resolution you solemnly make not to marry while I live, I
+should be concerned at it, were I not morally sure that you may keep it,
+and yet not be detrimented by it: since a few, a very few days, will
+convince you, that I am got above all human dependence; and that there is
+no need of that protection and favour, which you so generously offer to,
+Sir,
+
+Your obliged well-wisher, and humble servant,
+CL. HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXVI
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+MONDAY NOON, AUG. 28.
+
+
+About the time of poor Belton's interment last night, as near as we could
+guess, Lord M., Mowbray, and myself, toasted once, To the memory of
+honest Tom. Belton; and, by a quick transition to the living, Health to
+Miss Harlowe; which Lord M. obligingly began, and, To the happy
+reconciliation; and then we stuck in a remembrance To honest Jack
+Belford, who, of late, we all agreed, is become an useful and humane man;
+and one who prefers his friend's service to his own.
+
+But what is the meaning I hear nothing from thee?*  And why dost thou not
+let me into the grounds of the sudden reconciliation between my beloved
+and her friends, and the cause of the generous invitation which she gives
+me of attending her at her father's some time hence?
+
+
+* Mr. Belford has not yet sent him his last-written letter.  His reason
+for which see Letter XXIII. of this volume.
+
+
+Thou must certainly have been let into the secret by this time; and I can
+tell thee, I shall be plaguy jealous if there is to be any one thing pass
+between my angel and thee that is to be concealed from me.  For either I
+am a principal in this cause, or I am nothing.
+
+I have dispatched Will. to know the reason of thy neglect.
+
+But let me whisper a word or two in thy ear.  I begin to be afraid, after
+all, that this letter was a stratagem to get me out of town, and for
+nothing else: for, in the first place, Tourville, in a letter I received
+this morning, tells me, that the lady is actually very ill!  [I am sorry
+for it with all my soul!].  This, thou'lt say, I may think a reason why
+she cannot set out as yet: but then I have heard, on the other hand, but
+last night, that the family is as implacable as ever; and my Lord and I
+expect this very afternoon a visit from Colonel Morden; who, undertakes,
+it seems, to question me as to my intention with regard to his cousin.
+
+This convinces me, that if she has apprized her friends of my offers to
+her, they will not believe me to be in earnest, till they are assured
+that I am so from my own mouth.  But then I understand, that the intended
+visit is an officiousness of Morden's own, without the desire of any of
+her friends.
+
+Now, Jack, what can a man make of all this?  My intelligence as to the
+continuance of her family's implacableness is not to be doubted; and yet
+when I read her letter, what can one say?--Surely, the dear little rogue
+will not lie!
+
+I never knew her dispense with her word, but once; and that was, when she
+promised to forgive me after the dreadful fire that had like to have
+happened at our mother's, and yet would not see me the next day, and
+afterwards made her escape to Hampstead, in order to avoid forgiving me:
+and as she severely smarted for this departure from her honour given,
+(for it is a sad thing for good people to break their word when it is in
+their power to keep it,) one would not expect that she should set about
+deceiving again; more especially by the premeditation of writing.  Thou,
+perhaps, wilt ask, what honest man is obliged to keep his promise with a
+highwayman? for well I know thy unmannerly way of making comparisons; but
+I say, every honest man is--and I will give thee an illustration.
+
+Here is a marauding varlet, who demands your money, with a pistol at your
+breast.  You have neither money nor valuable effects about you; and
+promise solemnly, if he will spare your life, that you will send him an
+agreed-upon sum, by such a day, to such a place.
+
+The question is, if your life is not in the fellow's power?
+
+How he came by the power is another question; for which he must answer
+with his life when caught--so he runs risque for risque.
+
+Now if he give you your life, does he not give, think you, a valuable
+consideration for the money you engage your honour to send him?  If not,
+the sum must be exorbitant, or your life is a very paltry one, even in
+your own opinion.
+
+I need not make the application; and I am sure that even thou thyself,
+who never sparest me, and thinkest thou knowest my heart by thy own,
+canst not possibly put the case in a stronger light against me.
+
+Then, why do good people take upon themselves to censure, as they do,
+persons less scrupulous than themselves?  Is it not because the latter
+allow themselves in any liberty, in order to carry a point?  And can my
+not doing my duty, warrant another for not doing his?--Thou wilt not say
+it can.
+
+And how would it sound, to put the case as strongly once more, as my
+greatest enemy would put it, both as to fact and in words--here has that
+profligate wretch Lovelace broken his vow with and deceived Miss Clarissa
+Harlowe.--A vile fellow! would an enemy say: but it is like him.  But
+when it comes to be said that the pious Clarissa has broken her word with
+and deceived Lovelace; Good Lord! would every one say; sure it cannot be!
+
+Upon my soul, Jack, such is the veneration I have for this admirable
+woman, that I am shocked barely at putting the case--and so wilt thou, if
+thou respectest her as thou oughtest: for thou knowest that men and
+women, all the world over, form their opinions of one another by each
+person's professions and known practices.  In this lady, therefore, it
+would be unpardonable to tell a wilful untruth, as it would be strange if
+I kept my word.--In love cases, I mean; for, as to the rest, I am an
+honest, moral man, as all who know me can testify.
+
+And what, after all, would this lady deserve, if she has deceived me in
+this case?  For did she not set me prancing away, upon Lord M.'s best
+nag, to Lady Sarah's, and to Lady Betty's, with an erect and triumphing
+countenance, to show them her letter to me?
+
+And let me tell thee, that I have received their congratulations upon it:
+Well, and now, cousin Lovelace, cries one: Well, and now, cousin
+Lovelace, cries t'other; I hope you will make the best of husbands to so
+excellent and so forgiving a lady!--And now we shall soon have the
+pleasure of looking upon you as a reformed man, added one!  And now we
+shall see you in the way we have so long wished you to be in, cried the
+other!
+
+My cousins Montague also have been ever since rejoicing in the new
+relationship.  Their charming cousin, and their lovely cousin, at every
+word!  And how dearly they will love he!  What lessons they will take
+from her!  And yet Charlotte, who pretends to have the eye of an eagle,
+was for finding out some mystery in the style and manner, till I overbore
+her, and laughed her out of it.
+
+As for Lord M. he has been in hourly expectation of being sent to with
+proposals of one sort or other from the Harlowes; and still we have it,
+that such proposals will be made by Colonel Morden when he comes; and
+that the Harlowes only put on a face of irreconcileableness, till they
+know the issue of Morden's visit, in order to make the better terms with
+us.
+
+Indeed, if I had not undoubted reason, as I said, to believe the
+continuance of their antipathy to me, and implacableness to her, I should
+be apt to think there might be some foundation for my Lord's conjecture;
+for there is a cursed deal of low cunning in all that family, except in
+the angel of it; who has so much generosity of soul, that she despises
+cunning, both name and thing.
+
+What I mean by all this is, to let thee see what a stupid figure I shall
+make to all my own family, if my Clarissa has been capable, as Gulliver
+in his abominable Yahoo story phrases it, if it were only that I should
+be outwitted by such a novice at plotting, and that it would make me look
+silly to my kinswomen here, who know I value myself upon my contrivances,
+it would vex me to the heart; and I would instantly clap a featherbed
+into a coach and six, and fetch her away, sick or well, and marry her at
+my leisure.
+
+But Col. Morden is come, and I must break off.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXVII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+MONDAY NIGHT, AUG. 28.
+
+
+I doubt you will be all impatience that you have not heard from me since
+mine of Thursday last.  You would be still more so, if you knew that I
+had by me a letter ready written.
+
+I went early yesterday morning to Epsom; and found every thing disposed
+according to the directions I had left on Friday; and at night the solemn
+office was performed.  Tourville was there; and behaved very decently,
+and with greater concern than I thought he would ever have expressed for
+any body.
+
+Thomasine, they told me, in a kind of disguise, was in an obscure pew,
+out of curiosity (for it seems she was far from showing any tokens of
+grief) to see the last office performed for the man whose heart she had
+so largely contributed to break.
+
+I was obliged to stay till this afternoon, to settle several necessary
+matters, and to direct inventories to be taken, in order for
+appraisement; for every thing is to be turned into money, by his will.
+I presented his sister with the hundred guineas the poor man left me as
+his executor, and desired her to continue in the house, and take the
+direction of every thing, till I could hear from his nephew at Antigua,
+who is heir at law.  He had left her but fifty pounds, although he knew
+her indigence; and that it was owing to a vile husband, and not to
+herself, that she was indigent.
+
+The poor man left about two hundred pounds in money, and two hundred
+pounds in two East-India bonds; and I will contrive, if I can, to make
+up the poor woman's fifty pounds, and my hundred guineas, two hundred
+pounds to her; and then she will have some little matter coming in
+certain, which I will oblige her to keep out of the hands of a son, who
+has completed that ruin which his father had very nearly effected.
+
+I gave Tourville his twenty pounds, and will send you and Mowbray your's
+by the first order.
+
+And so much for poor Belton's affairs till I see you.
+
+I got to town in the evening, and went directly to Smith's.  I found Mrs.
+Lovick and Mrs. Smith in the back shop, and I saw they had been both in
+tears.  They rejoiced to see me, however; and told me, that the Doctor
+and Mr. Goddard were but just gone; as was also the worthy clergyman, who
+often comes to pray by her; and all three were of opinion, that she would
+hardly live to see the entrance of another week.  I was not so much
+surprised as grieved; for I had feared as much when I left her on
+Saturday.
+
+I sent up my compliments; and she returned, that she would take it for a
+favour if I would call upon her in the morning by eight o'clock.  Mrs.
+Lovick told me that she had fainted away on Saturday, while she was
+writing, as she had done likewise the day before; and having received
+benefit then by a little turn in a chair, she was carried abroad again.
+She returned somewhat better; and wrote till late; yet had a pretty good
+night: and went to Covent-garden church in the morning; but came home so
+ill that she was obliged to lie down.
+
+When she arose, seeing how much grieved Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith were
+for her, she made apologies for the trouble she gave them--You were
+happy, said she, before I came hither.  It was a cruel thing in me to
+come amongst honest strangers, and to be sick, and die with you.
+
+When they touched upon the irreconcileableness of her friends, I have had
+ill offices done me to them, said she, and they do not know how ill I am;
+nor will they believe any thing I should write.  But yet I cannot
+sometimes forbear thinking it a little hard, that out of so many near and
+dear friends as I have living, not one of them will vouchsafe to look
+upon me.  No old servant, no old friend, proceeded she, to be permitted
+to come near me, without being sure of incurring displeasure!  And to
+have such a great work to go through by myself, a young creature as I am,
+and to have every thing to think of as to my temporal matters, and to
+order, to my very interment!  No dear mother, said the sweet sufferer, to
+pray by me and bless me!--No kind sister to sooth and comfort me!--But
+come, recollected she, how do I know but all is for the best--if I can
+but make a right use of my discomforts?--Pray for me, Mrs. Lovick--pray
+for me, Mrs. Smith, that I may--I have great need of your prayers.--This
+cruel man has discomposed me.  His persecutions have given me pain just
+here, [putting her hand to her heart.]  What a step has he made me take
+to avoid him!--Who can touch pitch, and not be defiled?  He had made a
+bad spirit take possession of me, I think--broken in upon all my duties
+--and will not yet, I doubt, let me be at rest.  Indeed he is very cruel
+--but this is one of my trials, I believe.  By God's grace, I shall be
+easier to-morrow, and especially if I have no more of his tormentings,
+and if I can get a tolerable night.  And I will sit up till eleven, that
+I may.
+
+She said, that though this was so heavy a day with her, she was at other
+times, within these few days past especially, blessed with bright hours;
+and particularly that she had now and then such joyful assurances, (which
+she hoped were not presumptuous ones,) that God would receive her to his
+mercy, that she could hardly contain herself, and was ready to think
+herself above this earth while she was in it: And what, inferred she to
+Mrs. Lovick, must be the state itself, the very aspirations after which
+have often cast a beamy light through the thickest darkness, and, when I
+have been at the lowest ebb, have dispelled the black clouds of
+despondency?--As I hope they soon will this spirit of repining.
+
+She had a pretty good night, it seems; and this morning went in a chair
+to St. Dunstan's church.
+
+The chairmen told Mrs. Smith, that after prayers (for she did not return
+till between nine and ten) they carried her to a house in Fleet-street,
+whither they never waited on her before.  And where dost think this was?
+--Why to an undertaker's!  Good Heaven! what a woman is this!  She went
+into the back shop, and talked with the master of it about half an hour,
+and came from him with great serenity; he waiting upon her to her chair
+with a respectful countenance, but full of curiosity and seriousness.
+
+'Tis evident that she went to bespeak her house that she talked of*--As
+soon as you can, Sir, were her words to him as she got into the chair.
+Mrs. Smith told me this with the same surprise and grief that I heard it.
+
+
+* See Letter XXIII. of this volume.
+
+
+She was very ill in the afternoon, having got cold either at St.
+Dunstan's, or at chapel, and sent for the clergyman to pray by her; and
+the women, unknown to her, sent both for Dr. H. and Mr. Goddard: who were
+just gone, as I told you, when I came to pay my respects to her this
+evening.
+
+And thus have I recounted from the good women what passed to this night
+since my absence.
+
+I long for to-morrow, that I may see her: and yet it is such a melancholy
+longing as I never experienced, and know not how to describe.
+
+
+TUESDAY, AUG. 29.
+
+I was at Smith's at half an hour after seven.  They told me that the lady
+was gone in a chair to St. Dunstan's: but was better than she had been in
+either of the two preceding days; and that she said she to Mrs. Lovick
+and Mrs. Smith, as she went into the chair, I have a good deal to answer
+for to you, my good friends, for my vapourish conversation of last night.
+
+If, Mrs. Lovick, said she, smiling, I have no new matters to discompose
+me, I believe my spirits will hold out purely.
+
+She returned immediately after prayers.
+
+Mr. Belford, said she, as she entered the back shop where I was, (and
+upon my approaching her,) I am very glad to see you.  You have been
+performing for your poor friend a kind last office.  'Tis not long ago
+since you did the same for a near relation.  Is it not a little hard upon
+you, that these troubles should fall so thick to your lot?  But they are
+charitable offices: and it is a praise to your humanity, that poor dying
+people know not where to choose so well.
+
+I told her I was sorry to hear she had been so ill since I had the honour
+to attend her; but rejoiced to find that now she seemed a good deal
+better.
+
+It will be sometimes better, and sometimes worse, replied she, with poor
+creatures, when they are balancing between life and death.  But no more
+of these matters just now.  I hope, Sir, you'll breakfast with me.  I was
+quite vapourish yesterday.  I had a very bad spirit upon me.  Had I not,
+Mrs. Smith?  But I hope I shall be no more so.  And to-day I am perfectly
+serene.  This day rises upon me as if it would be a bright one.
+
+She desired me to walk up, and invited Mr. Smith and his wife, and Mrs.
+Lovick also, to breakfast with her.  I was better pleased with her
+liveliness than with her looks.
+
+The good people retiring after breakfast, the following conversation
+passed between us:
+
+Pray, Sir, let me ask you, if you think I may promise myself that I shall
+be no more molested by your friend?
+
+I hesitated: For how could I answer for such a man?
+
+What shall I do, if he comes again?--You see how I am.--I cannot fly from
+him now--If he has any pity left for the poor creature whom he has thus
+reduced, let him not come.--But have you heard from him lately?  And will
+he come?
+
+I hope not, Madam.  I have not heard from him since Thursday last, that
+he went out of town, rejoicing in the hopes your letter gave him of a
+reconciliation between your friends and you, and that he might in good
+time see you at your father's; and he is gone down to give all his
+friends joy of the news, and is in high spirits upon it.
+
+Alas! for me: I shall then surely have him come up to persecute me again!
+As soon as he discovers that that was only a stratagem to keep him away,
+he will come up, and who knows but even now he is upon the road?  I
+thought I was so bad that I should have been out of his and every body's
+way before now; for I expected not that this contrivance would serve me
+above two or three days; and by this time he must have found out that I
+am not so happy as to have any hope of a reconciliation with my family;
+and then he will come, if it be only in revenge for what he will think a
+deceit, but is not, I hope, a wicked one.
+
+I believe I looked surprised to hear her confess that her letter was a
+stratagem only; for she said, You wonder, Mr. Belford, I observe, that I
+could be guilty of such an artifice.  I doubt it is not right: it was
+done in a hurry of spirits.  How could I see a man who had so mortally
+injured me; yet pretending a sorrow for his crimes, (and wanting to see
+me,) could behave with so much shocking levity, as he did to the honest
+people of the house?  Yet, 'tis strange too, that neither you nor he
+found out my meaning on perusal of my letter.  You have seen what I
+wrote, no doubt?
+
+I have, Madam.  And then I began to account for it, as an innocent
+artifice.
+
+Thus far indeed, Sir, it is an innocent, that I meant him no hurt, and
+had a right to the effect I hoped for from it; and he had none to invade
+me.  But have you, Sir, that letter of his in which he gives you (as I
+suppose he does) the copy of mine?
+
+I have, Madam.  And pulled it out of my letter-case.  But hesitating--
+Nay, Sir, said she, be pleased to read my letter to yourself--I desire
+not to see his--and see if you can be longer a stranger to a meaning so
+obvious.
+
+I read it to myself--Indeed, Madam, I can find nothing but that you are
+going down to Harlowe-place to be reconciled to your father and other
+friends: and Mr. Lovelace presumed that a letter from your sister, which
+he saw brought when he was at Mr. Smith's, gave you the welcome news of
+it.
+
+She then explained all to me, and that, as I may say, in six words--A
+religious meaning is couched under it, and that's the reason that neither
+you nor I could find it out.
+
+'Read but for my father's house, Heaven, said she, and for the
+interposition of my dear blessed friend, suppose the mediation of my
+Saviour (which I humbly rely upon); and all the rest of the letter will
+be accounted for.'  I hope (repeated she) that it is a pardonable
+artifice.  But I am afraid it is not strictly right.
+
+I read it so, and stood astonished for a minute at her invention, her
+piety, her charity, and at thine and mine own stupidity to be thus taken
+in.
+
+And now, thou vile Lovelace, what hast thou to do (the lady all
+consistent with herself, and no hopes left for thee) but to hang, drown,
+or shoot thyself, for an outwitted boaster?
+
+My surprise being a little over, she proceeded: As to the letter that
+came from my sister while your friend was here, you will soon see, Sir,
+that it is the cruellest letter she ever wrote me.
+
+And then she expressed a deep concern for what might be the consequence
+of Colonel Morden's intended visit to you; and besought me, that if now,
+or at any time hereafter, I had opportunity to prevent any further
+mischief, without detriment or danger to myself, I would do it.
+
+I assured her of the most particular attention to this and to all her
+commands; and that in a manner so agreeable to her, that she invoked a
+blessing upon me for my goodness, as she called it, to a desolate
+creature who suffered under the worst of orphanage; those were her words.
+
+She then went back to her first subject, her uneasiness for fear of your
+molesting her again; and said, If you have any influence over him, Mr.
+Belford, prevail upon him that he will give me the assurance that the
+short remainder of my time shall be all my own.  I have need of it.
+Indeed I have.  Why will he wish to interrupt me in my duty?  Has he not
+punished me enough for my preference of him to all his sex?  Has he not
+destroyed my fame and my fortune?  And will not his causeless vengeance
+upon me be complete, unless he ruin my soul too?--Excuse me, Sir, for
+this vehemence!  But indeed it greatly imports me to know that I shall be
+no more disturbed by him.  And yet, with all this aversion, I would
+sooner give way to his visit, though I were to expire the moment I saw
+him, than to be the cause of any fatal misunderstanding between you and
+him.
+
+I assured her that I would make such a representation of the matter to
+you, and of the state of her health, that I would undertake to answer for
+you, that you would not attempt to come near her.
+
+And for this reason, Lovelace, do I lay the whole matter before you, and
+desire you will authorize me, as soon as this and mine of Saturday last
+come to your hands, to dissipate her fears.
+
+This gave her a little satisfaction; and then she said that had I not
+told her that I could promise for you, she was determined, ill as she is,
+to remove somewhere out of my knowledge as well as out of your's.  And
+yet, to have been obliged to leave people I am but just got acquainted
+with, said the poor lady, and to have died among perfect strangers, would
+have completed my hardships.
+
+This conversation, I found, as well from the length as the nature of it,
+had fatigued her; and seeing her change colour once or twice, I made that
+my excuse, and took leave of her: desiring her permission, however, to
+attend her in the evening; and as often as possible; for I could not help
+telling her that, every time I saw her, I more and more considered her as
+a beatified spirit; and as one sent from Heaven to draw me after her out
+of the miry gulf in which I had been so long immersed.
+
+And laugh at me if thou wilt; but it is true that, every time I approach
+her, I cannot but look upon her as one just entering into a companionship
+with saints and angels.  This thought so wholly possessed me, that I
+could not help begging, as I went away, her prayers and her blessing,
+with the reverence due to an angel.
+
+In the evening, she was so low and weak, that I took my leave of her in
+less than a quarter of an hour.  I went directly home.  Where, to the
+pleasure and wonder of my cousin and her family, I now pass many honest
+evenings: which they impute to your being out of town.
+
+I shall dispatch my packet to-morrow morning early by my own servant, to
+make thee amends for the suspense I must have kept thee in: thou'lt thank
+me for that, I hope; but wilt not, I am sure, for sending thy servant
+back without a letter.
+
+I long for the particulars of the conversation between you and Mr.
+Morden; the lady, as I have hinted, is full of apprehensions about it.
+Send me back this packet when perused; for I have not had either time or
+patience to take a copy of it.  And I beseech you enable me to make good
+my engagements to the poor lady that you will not invade her again.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXVIII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+WEDNESDAY, AUG. 30.
+
+
+I have a conversation to give you that passed between this admirable lady
+and Dr. H. which will furnish a new instance of the calmness and serenity
+with which she can talk of death, and prepare for it, as if it were an
+occurrence as familiar to her as dressing and undressing.
+
+As soon as I had dispatched my servant to you with my letters of the
+26th, 28th, and yesterday the 29th, I went to pay my duty to her, and had
+the pleasure to find her, after a tolerable night, pretty lively and
+cheerful.  She was but just returned from her usual devotions; and Doctor
+H. alighted as she entered the door.
+
+After inquiring how she did, and hearing her complaints of shortness of
+breath, (which she attributed to inward decay, precipitated by her late
+harasses, as well from her friends as from you,) he was for advising her
+to go into the air.
+
+What will that do for me? said she: tell me truly, good Sir, with a
+cheerful aspect, (you know you cannot disturb me by it,) whether now you
+do not put on the true physician; and despairing that any thing in
+medicine will help me, advise me to the air, as the last resource?--Can
+you think the air will avail in such a malady as mine?
+
+He was silent.
+
+I ask, said she, because my friends (who will possibly some time hence
+inquire after the means I used for my recovery) may be satisfied that I
+omitted nothing which so worthy and skilful a physician prescribed?
+
+The air, Madam, may possibly help the difficulty of breathing, which has
+so lately attacked you.
+
+But, Sir, you see how weak I am.  You must see that I have been consuming
+from day to day; and now, if I can judge by what I feel in myself,
+putting her hand to her heart, I cannot continue long.  If the air would
+very probably add to my days, though I am far from being desirous to have
+them lengthened, I would go into it; and the rather, as I know Mrs.
+Lovick would kindly accompany me.  But if I were to be at the trouble of
+removing into new lodgings, (a trouble which I think now would be too
+much for me,) and this only to die in the country, I had rather the scene
+were to shut up here.  For here have I meditated the spot, and the
+manner, and every thing, as well of the minutest as of the highest
+consequence, that can attend the solemn moments.  So, Doctor, tell me
+truly, may I stay here, and be clear of any imputations of curtailing,
+through wilfulness or impatiency, or through resentments which I hope I
+am got above, a life that might otherwise be prolonged?--Tell me, Sir;
+you are not talking to a coward in this respect; indeed you are not!--
+Unaffectedly smiling.
+
+The doctor, turning to me, was at a loss what to say, lifting up his eyes
+only in admiration of her.
+
+Never had any patient, said she, a more indulgent and more humane
+physician.  But since you are loth to answer my question directly, I will
+put it in other words--You don't enjoin me to go into the air, Doctor, do
+you?
+
+I do not, Madam.  Nor do I now visit you as a physician; but as a person
+whose conversation I admire, and whose sufferings I condole.  And, to
+explain myself more directly, as to the occasion of this day's visit in
+particular, I must tell you, Madam, that, understanding how much you
+suffer by the displeasure of your friends; and having no doubt but that,
+if they knew the way you are in, they would alter their conduct to you;
+and believing it must cut them to the heart, when too late, they shall be
+informed of every thing; I have resolved to apprize them by letter
+(stranger as I am to their persons) how necessary it is for some of them
+to attend you very speedily.  For their sakes, Madam, let me press for
+your approbation of this measure.
+
+She paused; and at last said, This is kind, very kind, in you, Sir.  But
+I hope that you do not think me so perverse, and so obstinate, as to have
+left till now any means unessayed which I thought likely to move my
+friends in my favour.  But now, Doctor, said she, I should be too much
+disturbed at their grief, if they were any of them to come or to send to
+me: and perhaps, if I found they still loved me, wish to live; and so
+should quit unwillingly that life, which I am now really fond of
+quitting, and hope to quit as becomes a person who has had such a
+weaning-time as I have been favoured with.
+
+I hope, Madam, said I, we are not so near as you apprehend to that
+deplorable catastrophe you hint at with such an amazing presence of mind.
+And therefore I presume to second the doctor's motion, if it were only
+for the sake of your father and mother, that they may have the
+satisfaction, if they must lose you, to think they were first reconciled
+to you.
+
+It is very kindly, very humanely considered, said she.  But, if you think
+me not so very near my last hour, let me desire this may be postponed
+till I see what effect my cousin Morden's mediation may have.  Perhaps he
+may vouchsafe to make me a visit yet, after his intended interview with
+Mr. Lovelace is over; of which, who knows, Mr. Belford, but your next
+letters may give an account?  I hope it will not be a fatal one to any
+body.  Will you promise me, Doctor, to forbear writing for two days only,
+and I will communicate to you any thing that occurs in that time; and then
+you shall take your own way?  Mean time, I repeat my thanks for your
+goodness to me.--Nay, dear Doctor, hurry not away from me so
+precipitately [for he was going, for fear of an offered fee]: I will no
+more affront you with tenders that have pained you for some time past:
+and since I must now, from this kindly-offered favour, look upon you only
+as a friend, I will assure you henceforth that I will give you no more
+uneasiness on that head: and now, Sir, I know I shall have the pleasure
+of seeing you oftener than heretofore.
+
+The worthy gentleman was pleased with this assurance, telling her that he
+had always come to see her with great pleasure, but parted with her, on
+the account she hinted at, with as much pain; and that he should not have
+forborne to double his visits, could he have had this kind assurance as
+early as he wished for it.
+
+There are few instances of like disinterestedness, I doubt, in this
+tribe.  Till now I always held it for gospel, that friendship and
+physician were incompatible things; and little imagined that a man of
+medicine, when he had given over his patient to death, would think of any
+visits but those of ceremony, that he might stand well with the family,
+against it came to their turns to go through his turnpike.
+
+After the doctor was gone, she fell into a very serious discourse of the
+vanity of life, and the wisdom of preparing for death, while health and
+strength remained, and before the infirmities of body impaired the
+faculties of the mind, and disabled them from acting with the necessary
+efficacy and clearness: the whole calculated for every one's meridian,
+but particularly, as it was easy to observe, for thine and mine.
+
+She was very curious to know farther particulars of the behaviour of poor
+Belton in his last moments.  You must not wonder at my inquiries, Mr.
+Belford, said she; For who is it, that is to undertake a journey into a
+country they never travelled to before, that inquires not into the
+difficulties of the road, and what accommodations are to be expected in
+the way?
+
+I gave her a brief account of the poor man's terrors, and unwillingness
+to die: and, when I had done, Thus, Mr. Belford, said she, must it always
+be with poor souls who have never thought of their long voyage till the
+moment they are to embark for it.
+
+She made other such observations upon this subject as, coming from the
+mouth of a person who will so soon be a companion for angels, I shall
+never forget.  And indeed, when I went home, that I might engraft them
+the better on my memory, I entered them down in writing: but I will not
+let you see them until you are in a frame more proper to benefit by them
+than you are likely to be in one while.
+
+Thus far had I written, when the unexpected early return of my servant
+with your packet (your's and he meeting at Slough, and exchanging
+letters) obliged me to leave off to give its contents a reading.--Here,
+therefore, I close this letter.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXIX
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+TUESDAY MORN. AUG. 29.
+
+
+Now, Jack, will I give thee an account of what passed on occasion of the
+visit made us by Col. Morden.
+
+He came on horseback, attended by one servant; and Lord M. received him
+as a relation of Miss Harlowe's with the highest marks of civility and
+respect.
+
+After some general talk of the times, and of the weather, and such
+nonsense as Englishmen generally make their introductory topics to
+conversation, the Colonel addressed himself to Lord M. and to me, as
+follows:
+
+I need not, my Lord, and Mr. Lovelace, as you know the relation I bear to
+the Harlowe family, make any apology for entering upon a subject, which,
+on account of that relation, you must think is the principal reason of
+the honour I have done myself in this visit.
+
+Miss Harlowe, Miss Clarissa Harlowe's affair, said Lord M. with his usual
+forward bluntness.  That, Sir, is what you mean.  She is, by all
+accounts, the most excellent woman in the world.
+
+I am glad to hear that is your Lordship's opinion of her.  It is every
+one's.
+
+It is not only my opinion, Col. Morden (proceeded the prating Peer), but
+it is the opinion of all my family.  Of my sisters, of my nieces, and of
+Mr. Lovelace himself.
+
+Col.   Would to Heaven it had been always Mr. Lovelace's opinion of her!
+
+Lovel.   You have been out of England, Colonel, a good many years.
+Perhaps you are not yet fully apprized of all the particulars of this
+case.
+
+Col.   I have been out of England, Sir, about seven years.  My cousin
+Clary was then about 12 years of age: but never was there at twenty so
+discreet, so prudent, and so excellent a creature.  All that knew her, or
+saw her, admired her.  Mind and person, never did I see such promises of
+perfection in any young lady: and I am told, nor is it to be wondered at,
+that, as she advanced to maturity, she more than justified and made good
+those promises.--Then as to fortune--what her father, what her uncles,
+and what I myself, intended to do for her, besides what her grandfather
+had done--there is not a finer fortune in the country.
+
+Lovel.   All this, Colonel, and more than this, is Miss Clarissa Harlowe;
+and had it not been for the implacableness and violence of her family
+(all resolved to push her upon a match as unworthy of her as hateful to
+her) she had still been happy.
+
+Col.   I own, Mr. Lovelace, the truth of what you observed just now, that
+I am not thoroughly acquainted with all that has passed between you and
+my cousin.  But permit me to say, that when I first heard that you made
+your addresses to her, I knew but of one objection against you; that,
+indeed, a very great one: and upon a letter sent me, I gave her my free
+opinion upon that subject.*  But had it not been for that, I own, that,
+in my private mind, there could not have been a more suitable match: for
+you are a gallant gentleman, graceful in your person, easy and genteel in
+your deportment, and in your family, fortunes, and expectations, happy as
+a man can wish to be.  Then the knowledge I had of you in Italy
+(although, give me leave to say, your conduct there was not wholly
+unexceptionable) convinces me that you are brave: and few gentlemen come
+up to you in wit and vivacity.  Your education has given you great
+advantages; your manners are engaging, and you have travelled; and I
+know, if you'll excuse me, you make better observations than you are
+governed by.  All these qualifications make it not at all surprising that
+a young lady should love you: and that this love, joined to that
+indiscreet warmth wherewith my cousin's friends would have forced her
+inclinations in favour of men who are far your inferiors in the qualities
+I have named, should throw herself upon your protection.  But then, if
+there were these two strong motives, the one to induce, the other to
+impel, her, let me ask you, Sir, if she were not doubly entitled to
+generous usage from a man whom she chose for her protector; and whom, let
+me take the liberty to say, she could so amply reward for the protection
+he was to afford her?
+
+
+* See Vol. IV. Letter XIX.
+
+
+Lovel.   Miss Clarissa Harlowe was entitled, Sir, to have the best usage
+that man could give her.  I have no scruple to own it.  I will always do
+her the justice she so well deserves. I know what will be your inference;
+and have only to say, that time past cannot be recalled; perhaps I wish
+it could.
+
+The Colonel then, in a very manly strain, set forth the wickedness of
+attempting a woman of virtue and character.  He said, that men had
+generally too many advantages from the weakness, credulity, and
+inexperience of the fair sex: that their early learning, which chiefly
+consisted in inflaming novels, and idle and improbable romances,
+contributed to enervate and weaken their minds: that his cousin, however,
+he was sure, was above the reach of common seduction, and not to be
+influenced to the rashness her parents accused her of, by weaker motives
+than their violence, and the most solemn promises on my part: but,
+nevertheless, having those motives, and her prudence (eminent as it was)
+being rather the effect of constitution than experience, (a fine
+advantage, however, he said, to ground an unblamable future life upon,)
+she might not be apprehensive of bad designs in a man she loved: it was,
+therefore, a very heinous thing to abuse the confidence of such a woman.
+
+He was going on in this trite manner; when, interrupting him, I said,
+These general observations, Colonel, suit not perhaps this particular
+case.  But you yourself are a man of gallantry; and, possibly, were you
+to be put to the question, might not be able to vindicate every action of
+your life, any more than I.
+
+Col.   You are welcome, Sir, to put what questions you please to me.
+And, I thank God, I can both own and be ashamed of my errors.
+
+Lord M. looked at me; but as the Colonel did not by his manner seem to
+intend a reflection, I had no occasion to take it for one; especially as
+I can as readily own my errors, as he, or any man, can his, whether
+ashamed of them or not.
+
+He proceeded.  As you seem to call upon me, Mr. Lovelace, I will tell you
+(without boasting of it) what has been my general practice, till lately,
+that I hope I have reformed it a good deal.
+
+I have taken liberties, which the laws of morality will by no means
+justify; and once I should have thought myself warranted to cut the
+throat of any young fellow who should make as free with a sister of mine
+as I have made with the sisters and daughters of others.  But then I took
+care never to promise any thing I intended not to perform.  A modest ear
+should as soon have heard downright obscenity from my lips, as matrimony,
+if I had not intended it.  Young ladies are generally ready enough to
+believe we mean honourably, if they love us; and it would look lie a
+strange affront to their virtue and charms, that it should be supposed
+needful to put the question whether in your address you mean a wife.  But
+when once a man make a promise, I think it ought to be performed; and a
+woman is well warranted to appeal to every one against the perfidy of a
+deceiver; and is always sure to have the world on her side.
+
+Now, Sir, continued he, I believe you have so much honour as to own, that
+you could not have made way to so eminent a virtue, without promising
+marriage; and that very explicitly and solemnly--
+
+I know very well, Colonel, interrupted I, all you would say.  You will
+excuse me, I am sure, that I break in upon you, when you find it is to
+answer the end you drive at.
+
+I own to you then that I have acted very unworthily by Miss Clarissa
+Harlowe; and I'll tell you farther, that I heartily repent of my
+ingratitude and baseness to her.  Nay, I will say still farther, that I
+am so grossly culpable as to her, that even to plead that the abuses and
+affronts I daily received from her implacable relations were in any
+manner a provocation to me to act vilely by her, would be a mean and low
+attempt to excuse myself--so low and so mean, that it would doubly
+condemn me.  And if you can say worse, speak it.
+
+He looked upon Lord M. and then upon me, two or three times.  And my Lord
+said, My kinsman speaks what he thinks, I'll answer for him.
+
+Lovel.   I do, Sir; and what can I say more?  And what farther, in your
+opinion, can be done?
+
+Col.   Done!  Sir?  Why, Sir, [in a haughty tone he spoke,] I need not
+tell you that reparation follows repentance.  And I hope you make no
+scruple of justifying your sincerity as to the one or the other.
+
+I hesitated, (for I relished not the manner of his speech, and his
+haughty accent,) as undetermined whether to take proper notice of it or
+not.
+
+Col.   Let me put this question to you, Mr. Lovelace: Is it true, as I
+have heard it is, that you would marry my cousin, if she would have you?
+--What say you, Sir?--
+
+This wound me up a peg higher.
+
+Lovel.   Some questions, as they may be put, imply commands, Colonel.  I
+would be glad to know how I am to take your's?  And what is to be the end
+of your interrogatories?
+
+Col.   My questions are not meant by me as commands, Mr. Lovelace.  The
+end is, to prevail upon a gentleman to act like a gentleman, and a man of
+honour.
+
+Lovel. (briskly)   And by what arguments, Sir, do you propose to prevail
+upon me?
+
+Col.   By what arguments, Sir, prevail upon a gentleman to act like a
+gentleman!--I am surprised at that question from Mr. Lovelace.
+
+Lovel.   Why so, Sir?
+
+Col.   WHY so, Sir!  (angrily)--Let me--
+
+Lovel. (interrupting)   I don't choose, Colonel, to be repeated upon, in
+that accent.
+
+Lord M.   Come, come, gentlemen, I beg of you to be willing to understand
+one another.  You young gentlemen are so warm--
+
+Col.   Not I, my Lord--I am neither very young, nor unduly warm.  Your
+nephew, my Lord, can make me be every thing he would have me to be.
+
+Lovel.   And that shall be, whatever you please to be, Colonel.
+
+Col. (fiercely)   The choice be your's, Mr. Lovelace.  Friend or foe! as
+you do or are willing to do justice to one of the finest women in the
+world.
+
+Lord M.   I guessed, from both your characters, what would be the case
+when you met.  Let me interpose, gentlemen, and beg you but to understand
+one another.  You both shoot at one mark; and, if you are patient, will
+both hit it.  Let me beg of you, Colonel, to give no challenges--
+
+Col.   Challenges, my Lord!--They are things I ever was readier to accept
+than to offer.  But does your Lordship think that a man, so nearly
+related as I have the honour to be to the most accomplished woman on
+earth,--
+
+Lord M. (interrupting)   We all allow the excellencies of the lady--and
+we shall all take it as the greatest honour to be allied to her that can
+be conferred upon us.
+
+Col.   So you ought, my Lord!--
+
+A perfect Chamont; thought I.*
+
+
+* See Otway's Orphan.
+
+
+Lord M.   So we ought, Colonel! and so we do!--and pray let every one do
+as he ought!--and no more than he ought; and you, Colonel, let me tell
+you, will not be so hasty.
+
+Lovel. (coolly)   Come, come, Col. Morden, don't let this dispute, whatever
+you intend to make of it, go farther than with you and me.  You
+deliver yourself in very high terms.  Higher than ever I was talked to in
+my life.  But here, beneath this roof, 'twould be inexcusable for me to
+take that notice of it which, perhaps, it would become me to take
+elsewhere.
+
+Col.   That is spoken as I wish the man to speak whom I should be pleased
+to call my friend, if all his actions were of a piece; and as I would
+have the man speak whom I would think it worth my while to call my foe.
+I love a man of spirit, as I love my soul.  But, Mr. Lovelace, as my Lord
+thinks we aim at one mark, let me say, that were we permitted to be alone
+for six minutes, I dare say, we should soon understand one another
+perfectly well.--And he moved to the door.
+
+Lovel.   I am entirely of your opinion, Sir; and will attend you.
+
+My Lord rung, and stept between us: Colonel, return, I beseech you
+return, said he: for he had stept out of the room while my Lord held me--
+Nephew, you shall not go out.
+
+The bell and my Lord's raised voice brought in Mowbray, and Clements, my
+Lord's gentleman; the former in his careless way, with his hands behind
+him, What's the matter, Bobby?  What's the matter, my Lord?
+
+Only, only, only, stammered the agitated peer, these young gentlemen are,
+are, are--are young gentlemen, that's all.--Pray, Colonel Morden, [who
+again entered the room with a sedater aspect,] let this cause have a fair
+trial, I beseech you.
+
+Col.   With all my heart, my Lord.
+
+Mowbray whispered me, What is the cause, Bobby?--Shall I take the
+gentleman to task for thee, my boy?
+
+Not for the world, whispered I.  The Colonel is a gentleman, and I desire
+you'll not say one word.
+
+Well, well, well, Bobby, I have done.  I can turn thee loose to the best
+man upon God's earth; that's all, Bobby; strutting off to the other end
+of the room.
+
+Col.   I am sorry, my Lord, I should give your Lordship the least
+uneasiness.  I came not with such a design.
+
+Lord M.   Indeed, Colonel, I thought you did, by your taking fire so
+quickly.  I am glad to hear you say you did not.  How soon a little spark
+kindles into a flame; especially when it meets with such combustible
+spirits!
+
+Col.   If I had had the least thought of proceeding to extremities, I am
+sure Mr. Lovelace would have given me the honour of a meeting where I
+should have been less an intruder: but I came with an amicable intention;
+to reconcile differences rather than to widen them.
+
+Lovel.   Well then, Colonel Morden, let us enter upon the subject in your
+own way.  I don't know the man I should sooner choose to be upon terms
+with than one whom Miss Clarissa Harlowe so much respects.  But I cannot
+bear to be treated, either in word or accent, in a menacing way.
+
+Lord M.   Well, well, well, well, gentlemen, this is somewhat like.
+Angry men make to themselves beds of nettles, and, when they lie down in
+them, are uneasy with every body.  But I hope you are friends.  Let me
+hear you say you are.  I am persuaded, Colonel, that you don't know all
+this unhappy story.  You don't know how desirous my kinsman is, as well
+as all of us, to have this matter end happily.  You don't know, do you,
+Colonel, that Mr. Lovelace, at all our requests, is disposed to marry the
+lady?
+
+Col.   At all your requests, my Lord?--I should have hoped that Mr.
+Lovelace was disposed to do justice for the sake of justice; and when at
+the same time the doing of justice was doing himself the highest honour.
+
+Mowbray lifted up his before half-closed eyes to the Colonel, and glanced
+them upon me.
+
+Lovel.   This is in very high language, Colonel.
+
+Mowbr.   By my soul, I thought so.
+
+Col.   High language, Mr. Lovelace?  Is it not just language?
+
+Lovel.   It is, Colonel.  And I think, the man that does honour to Miss
+Clarissa Harlowe, does me honour.  But, nevertheless, there is a manner
+in speaking, that may be liable to exception, where the words, without
+that manner, can bear none.
+
+Col.   Your observation in the general is undoubtedly just: but, if you
+have the value for my cousin that you say you have, you must needs think
+--
+
+Lovel.   You must allow me, Sir, to interrupt you--IF I have the value I
+say I have--I hope, Sir, when I say I have that value, there is no room
+for that if, pronounced as you pronounced it with an emphasis.
+
+Col.   You have broken in upon me twice, Mr. Lovelace.  I am as little
+accustomed to be broken in upon, as you are to be repeated upon.
+
+Lord M.   Two barrels of gunpowder, by my conscience!  What a devil will
+it signify talking, if thus you are to blow one another up at every word?
+
+Lovel.   No man of honour, my Lord, will be easy to have his veracity
+called into question, though but by implication.
+
+Col.   Had you heard me out, Mr. Lovelace, you would have found, that my
+if was rather an if of inference, than of doubt.  But 'tis, really a
+strange liberty gentlemen of free principles take; who at the same time
+that they would resent unto death the imputation of being capable of
+telling an untruth to a man, will not scruple to break through the most
+solemn oaths and promises to a woman.  I must assure you, Mr. Lovelace,
+that I always made a conscience of my vows and promises.
+
+Lovel.   You did right, Colonel.  But let me tell you, Sir, that you know
+not the man you talk to, if you imagine he is not able to rise to a
+proper resentment, when he sees his generous confessions taken for a mark
+of base-spiritedness.
+
+Col. (warmly, and with a sneer,)   Far be it from me, Mr. Lovelace, to
+impute to you the baseness of spirit you speak of; for what would that be
+but to imagine that a man, who has done a very flagrant injury, is not
+ready to show his bravery in defending it--
+
+Mowbr.   This is d----d severe, Colonel.  It is, by Jove.  I could not
+take so much at the hands of any man breathing as Mr. Lovelace before
+this took at your's.
+
+Col.   Who are you, Sir?  What pretence have you to interpose in a cause
+where there is an acknowledged guilt on one side, and the honour of a
+considerable family wounded in the tenderest part by that guilt on the
+other?
+
+Mowbr. (whispering to the Colonel)   My dear child, you will oblige me
+highly if you will give me the opportunity of answering your question.
+And was going out.
+
+The Colonel was held in by my Lord.  And I brought in Mowbray.
+
+Col.   Pray, my good Lord, let me attend this officious gentleman, I
+beseech you do.  I will wait upon your Lordship in three minutes, depend
+upon it.
+
+Lovel.   Mowbray, is this acting like a friend by me, to suppose me
+incapable of answering for myself?  And shall a man of honour and
+bravery, as I know Colonel Morden to be, (rash as perhaps in this visit
+he has shown himself,) have it to say, that he comes to my Lord M.'s
+house, in a manner naked as to attendants and friends, and shall not for
+that reason be rather borne with than insulted?  This moment, my dear
+Mowbray, leave us.  You have really no concern in this business; and if
+you are my friend, I desire you'll ask the Colonel pardon for interfering
+in it in the manner you have done.
+
+Mowbr.   Well, well, Bob.; thou shalt be arbiter in this matter; I know I
+have no business in it--and, Colonel, (holding out his hand,) I leave you
+to one who knows how to defend his own cause as well as any man in
+England.
+
+Col. (taking Mowbray's hand, at Lord M.'s request,)   You need not tell
+me that, Mr. Mowbray.  I have no doubt of Mr. Lovelace's ability to
+defend his own cause, were it a cause to be defended.  And let me tell
+you, Mr. Lovelace, that I am astonished to think that a brave man, and a
+generous man, as you have appeared to be in two or three instances that
+you have given in the little knowledge I have of you, should be capable
+of acting as you have done by the most excellent of her sex.
+
+Lord M.   Well, but, gentlemen, now Mr. Mowbray is gone, and you have
+both shown instances of courage and generosity to boot, let me desire you
+to lay your heads together amicably, and think whether there be any thing
+to be done to make all end happily for the lady?
+
+Lovel.   But hold, my Lord, let me say one thing, now Mowbray is gone;
+and that is, that I think a gentleman ought not to put up tamely one or
+two severe things that the Colonel has said.
+
+Lord M.   What the devil canst thou mean?  I thought all had been over.
+Why thou hast nothing to do but to confirm to the Colonel that thou art
+willing to marry Miss Harlowe, if she will have thee.
+
+Col.   Mr. Lovelace will not scruple to say that, I suppose,
+notwithstanding all that has passed: but if you think, Mr. Lovelace, I
+have said any thing I should not have said, I suppose it is this, that
+the man who has shown so little of the thing honour, to a defenceless
+unprotected woman, ought not to stand so nicely upon the empty name of
+it, with a man who is expostulating with him upon it.  I am sorry to have
+cause to say this, Mr. Lovelace; but I would, on the same occasion,
+repeat it to a king upon his throne, and surrounded by all his guards.
+
+Lord M.   But what is all this, but more sacks upon the mill? more coals
+upon the fire?  You have a mind to quarrel both of you, I see that.  Are
+you not willing, Nephew, are you not most willing, to marry this lady, if
+she can be prevailed upon to have you?
+
+Lovel.   D--n me, my Lord, if I'd marry my empress upon such treatment
+as this.
+
+Lord M.   Why now, Bob., thou art more choleric than the Colonel.  It was
+his turn just now.  And now you see he is cool, you are all gunpowder.
+
+Lovel.   I own the Colonel has many advantages over me; but, perhaps,
+there is one advantage he has not, if it were put to the trial.
+
+Col.   I came not hither, as I said before, to seek the occasion: but if
+it were offered me, I won't refuse it--and since we find we disturb my
+good Lord M. I'll take my leave, and will go home by the way of St.
+Alban's.
+
+Lovel.   I'll see you part of the way, with all my heart, Colonel.
+
+Col.   I accept your civility very cheerfully, Mr. Lovelace.
+
+Lord M. (interposing again, as we were both for going out,)   And what
+will this do, gentlemen?  Suppose you kill one another, will the matter
+be bettered or worsted by that?  Will the lady be made happier or
+unhappier, do you think, by either or both of your deaths?  Your
+characters are too well known to make fresh instances of the courage of
+either needful.  And, I think, if the honour of the lady is your view,
+Colonel, it can by no other way so effectually promoted as by marriage.
+And, Sir, if you would use your interest with her, it is very probable
+that you may succeed, though nobody else can.
+
+Lovel.   I think, my Lord, I have said all that a man can say, (since
+what is passed cannot be recalled:) and you see Colonel Morden rises in
+proportion to my coolness, till it is necessary for me to assert myself,
+or even he would despise me.
+
+Lord M.   Let me ask you, Colonel, have you any way, any method, that you
+think reasonable and honourable to propose, to bring about a
+reconciliation with the lady?  That is what we all wish for.  And I can
+tell you, Sir, it is not a little owing to her family, and to their
+implacable usage of her, that her resentments are heightened against my
+kinsman; who, however, has used her vilely; but is willing to repair her
+wrongs.--
+
+Lovel.   Not, my Lord, for the sake of her family; nor for this
+gentleman's haughty behaviour; but for her own sake, and in full sense of
+the wrongs I have done her.
+
+Col.   As to my haughty behaviour, as you call it, Sir, I am mistaken if
+you would not have gone beyond it in the like case of a relation so
+meritorious, and so unworthily injured.  And, Sir, let me tell you, that
+if your motives are not love, honour, and justice, and if they have the
+least tincture of mean compassion for her, or of an uncheerful assent on
+your part, I am sure it will neither be desired or accepted by a person
+of my cousin's merit and sense; nor shall I wish that it should.
+
+Lovel.   Don't think, Colonel, that I am meanly compounding off a debate,
+that I should as willingly go through with you as to eat or drink, if I
+have the occasion given me for it: but thus much I will tell you, that my
+Lord, that Lady Sarah Sadleir, Lady Betty Lawrance, my two cousins
+Montague, and myself, have written to her in the most solemn and sincere
+manner, to offer her such terms as no one but herself would refuse, and
+this long enough before Colonel Morden's arrival was dreamt of.
+
+Col.   What reason, Sir, may I ask, does she give, against listening to
+so powerful a mediation, and to such offers?
+
+Lovel.   It looks like capitulating, or else--
+
+Col.   It looks not like any such thing to me, Mr. Lovelace, who have as
+good an opinion of your spirit as man can have.  And what, pray, is the
+part I act, and my motives for it?  Are they not, in desiring that
+justice may be done to my Cousin Clarissa Harlowe, that I seek to
+establish the honour of Mrs. Lovelace, if matters can once be brought to
+bear?
+
+Lovel.   Were she to honour me with her acceptance of that name, Mr.
+Morden, I should not want you or any man to assert the honour of Mrs.
+Lovelace.
+
+Col.   I believe it.  But still she has honoured you with that
+acceptance, she is nearer to me than to you, Mr. Lovelace.  And I speak
+this, only to show you that, in the part I take, I mean rather to deserve
+your thanks than your displeasure, though against yourself, were there
+occasion.  Nor ought you take it amiss, if you rightly weigh the matter:
+For, Sir, whom does a lady want protection against but her injurers?  And
+who has been her greatest injurer?--Till, therefore, she becomes entitled
+to your protection, as your wife, you yourself cannot refuse me some
+merit in wishing to have justice done my cousin.  But, Sir, you were
+going to say, that if it were not to look like capitulating, you would
+hint the reasons my cousin gives against accepting such an honourable
+mediation?
+
+I then told him of my sincere offers of marriage: 'I made no difficulty,
+I said, to own my apprehensions, that my unhappy behaviour to her had
+greatly affected her: but that it was the implacableness of her friends
+that had thrown her into despair, and given her a contempt for life.'  I
+told him, 'that she had been so good as to send me a letter to divert me
+from a visit my heart was set upon making her: a letter on which I built
+great hopes, because she assured me that in it she was going to her
+father's; and that I might see her there, when she was received, if it
+were not my own fault.
+
+Col.   Is it possible?  And were you, Sir, thus earnest?  And did she
+send you such a letter?
+
+Lord M. confirmed both; and also, that, in obedience to her desires, and
+that intimation, I had come down without the satisfaction I had proposed
+to myself in seeing her.
+
+It is very true, Colonel, said I: and I should have told you this before:
+but your heat made me decline it; for, as I said, it had an appearance of
+meanly capitulating with you.  An abjectness of heart, of which, had I
+been capable, I should have despised myself as much as I might have
+expected you would despise me.
+
+Lord M. proposed to enter into the proof of all this.  He said, in his
+phraseological way, That one story was good till another was heard; and
+that the Harlowe family and I, 'twas true, had behaved like so many
+Orsons to one another; and that they had been very free with all our
+family besides: that nevertheless, for the lady's sake, more than for
+their's, or even for mine, (he could tell me,) he would do greater things
+for me than they could ask, if she could be brought to have me: and that
+this he wanted to declare, and would sooner have declared, if he could
+have brought us sooner to patience, and a good understanding.
+
+The Colonel made excuses for his warmth, on the score of his affection to
+his cousin.
+
+My regard for her made me readily admit them: and so a fresh bottle of
+Burgundy, and another of Champagne, being put upon the table, we sat down
+in good humour, after all this blustering, in order to enter closer into
+the particulars of the case: which I undertook, at both their desires, to
+do.
+
+But these things must be the subject of another letter, which shall
+immediately follow this, if it do not accompany it.
+
+Mean time you will observe that a bad cause gives a man great
+disadvantages: for I myself think that the interrogatories put to me with
+so much spirit by the Colonel made me look cursedly mean; at the same
+time that it gave him a superiority which I know not how to allow to the
+best man in Europe.  So that, literally speaking, as a good man would
+infer, guilt is its own punisher: in that it makes the most lofty spirit
+look like the miscreant he is--a good man, I say: So, Jack, proleptically
+I add, thou hast no right to make the observation.
+
+
+
+LETTER XL
+
+MR. LOVELACE
+[IN CONTINUATION.]
+TUESDAY AFTERNOON, AUG. 29.
+
+
+I went back, in this part of our conversation, to the day that I was
+obliged to come down to attend my Lord in the dangerous illness which
+some feared would have been his last.
+
+I told the Colonel, 'what earnest letters I had written to a particular
+friend, to engage him to prevail upon the lady not to slip a day that had
+been proposed for the private celebration of our nuptials; and of my
+letters* written to her on that subject;' for I had stepped to my closet,
+and fetched down all the letters and draughts and copies of letters
+relating to this affair.
+
+
+* See Vol. VI. Letters XXXVII. XXXVIII. XXXIX. XLIII.
+
+
+I read to him, 'several passages in the copies of those letters, which,
+thou wilt remember, make not a little to my honour.'  And I told him,
+'that I wished I had kept copies of those to my friend on the same
+occasion; by which he would have seen how much in earnest I was in my
+professions to her, although she would not answer one of them;' and thou
+mayest remember, that one of those four letters accounted to herself why
+I was desirous she should remain where I had left her.*
+
+
+* See Vol. VI. Letter XXXVII.
+
+
+I then proceeded to give him an account 'of the visit made by Lady Sarah
+and Lady Betty to Lord M. and me, in order to induce me to do her
+justice: of my readiness to comply with their desires; and of their high
+opinion of her merit: of the visit made to Miss Howe by my cousins
+Montague, in the name of us all, to engage her interest with her friend
+in my behalf: of my conversation with Miss Howe, at a private assembly,
+to whom I gave the same assurances, and besought her interest with her
+friend.'
+
+I then read a copy of the letter (though so much to my disadvantage)
+which was written to her by Miss Charlotte Montague, Aug. 1,* entreating
+her alliance in the names of all our family.
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. Letter LXVI.
+
+
+This made him ready to think that his fair cousin carried her resentment
+against me too far.  He did not imagine, he said, that either myself or
+our family had been so much in earnest.
+
+So thou seest, Belford, that it is but glossing over one part of a story,
+and omitting another, that will make a bad cause a good one at any time.
+What an admirable lawyer should I have made!  And what a poor hand would
+this charming creature, with all her innocence, have made of it in a
+court of justice against a man who had so much to say and to show for
+himself!
+
+I then hinted at the generous annual tender which Lord M. and his sisters
+made to his fair cousin, in apprehension that she might suffer by her
+friends' implacableness.
+
+And this also the Colonel highly applauded, and was pleased to lament the
+unhappy misunderstanding between the two families, which had made the
+Harlowes less fond of an alliance with a family of so much honour as this
+instance showed ours to be.
+
+I then told him, 'That having, by my friend, [meaning thee,] who was
+admitted into her presence, (and who had always been an admirer of her
+virtues, and had given me such advice from time to time in relation to
+her as I wished I had followed,) been assured that a visit from me would
+be very disagreeable to her, I once more resolved to try what a letter
+would do; and that, accordingly, on the seventh of August, I wrote her
+one.
+
+'This, Colonel, is the copy of it.  I was then out of humour with my Lord
+M. and the ladies of my family.  You will, therefore, read it to
+yourself.'*
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXIX.
+
+
+This letter gave him high satisfaction.  You write here, Mr. Lovelace,
+from your heart.  'Tis a letter full of penitence and acknowledgement.
+Your request is reasonable--To be forgiven only as you shall appear to
+deserve it after a time of probation, which you leave to her to fix.
+Pray, Sir, did she return an answer to this letter?
+
+She did, but with reluctance, I own, and not till I had declared by my
+friend, that, if I could not procure one, I would go up to town, and
+throw myself at her feet.
+
+I wish I might be permitted to see it, Sir, or to hear such parts of it
+read as you shall think proper.
+
+Turning over my papers, Here it is, Sir.*  I will make no scruple to put
+it into your hands.
+
+This is very obliging, Mr. Lovelace.
+
+He read it.  My charming cousin!--How strong her resentments!--Yet how
+charitable her wishes!--Good Heaven! that such an excellent creature--
+But, Mr. Lovelace, it is to your regret, as much as to mine, I doubt not
+--
+
+Interrupting him, I swore that it was.
+
+So it ought, said he.  Nor do I wonder that it should be so.  I shall
+tell you by-and-by, proceeded he, how much she suffers with her friends
+by false and villanous reports.  But, Sir, will you permit me to take
+with me these two letters?  I shall make use of them to the advantage of
+you both.
+
+I told him I would oblige him with all my heart.  And this he took very
+kindly (as he had reason); and put them in his pocket-book, promising to
+return hem in a few days.
+
+I then told him, 'That upon this her refusal, I took upon myself to go to
+town, in hopes to move her in my favour; and that, though I went without
+giving her notice of my intention, yet had she got some notion of my
+coming, and so contrived to be out of the way: and at last, when she
+found I was fully determined at all events to see her, before I went
+abroad, (which I shall do, said I, if I cannot prevail upon her,) she
+sent me the letter I have already mentioned to you, desiring me to
+suspend my purposed visit: and that for a reason which amazes and
+confounds me; because I don't find there is any thing in it: and yet I
+never knew her once dispense with her word; for she always made it a
+maxim, that it was not lawful to do evil, that good might come of it: and
+yet in this letter, for no reason in the world but to avoid seeing me (to
+gratify an humour only) has she sent me out of town, depending upon the
+assurance she had given me.'
+
+Col.   This is indeed surprising.  But I cannot believe that my cousin,
+for such an end only, or indeed for any end, according to the character I
+hear of her, should stoop to make use of such an artifice.
+
+Lovel.   This, Colonel, is the thing that astonishes me; and yet, see
+here!--This is the letter she wrote me--Nay, Sir, 'tis her own hand.
+
+Col.   I see it is; and a charming hand it is.
+
+Lovel.   You observe, Colonel, that all her hopes of reconciliation with
+her parents are from you.  You are her dear blessed friend!  She always
+talked of you with delight.
+
+Col.   Would to Heaven I had come to England before she left
+Harlowe-place!--Nothing of this had then happened.  Not a man of those
+whom I have heard that her friends proposed for her should have had her.
+Nor you, Mr. Lovelace, unless I had found you to be the man every one who
+sees you must wish you to be: and if you had been that man, no one living
+should I have preferred to you for such an excellence.
+
+My Lord and I both joined in the wish: and 'faith I wished it most
+cordially.
+
+The Colonel read the letter twice over, and then returned it to me.  'Tis
+all a mystery, said he.  I can make nothing of it.  For, alas! her
+friends are as averse to a reconciliation as ever.
+
+Lord M.   I could not have thought it.  But don't you think there is
+something very favourable to my nephew in this letter--something that
+looks as if the lady would comply at last?
+
+Col.   Let me die if I know what to make of it.  This letter is very
+different from her preceding one!--You returned an answer to it, Mr.
+Lovelace?
+
+Lovel.   An answer, Colonel!  No doubt of it.  And an answer full of
+transport.  I told her, 'I would directly set out for Lord M.'s, in
+obedience to her will.  I told her that I would consent to any thing she
+should command, in order to promote this happy reconciliation.  I told
+her that it should be my hourly study, to the end of my life, to deserve
+a goodness so transcendent.'  But I cannot forbear saying that I am not a
+little shocked and surprised, if nothing more be meant by it than to get
+me into the country without seeing her.
+
+Col.   That can't be the thing, depend upon it, Sir.  There must be more
+in it than that.  For, were that all, she must think you would soon be
+undeceived, and that you would then most probably resume your intention--
+unless, indeed, she depended upon seeing me in the interim, as she knew I
+was arrived.  But I own I know not what to make of it.  Only that she
+does me a great deal of honour, if it be me that she calls her dear
+blessed friend, whom she always loved and honoured.  Indeed I ever loved
+her: and if I die unmarried, and without children, shall be as kind to
+her as her grandfather was: and the rather, as I fear there is too much
+of envy and self-love in the resentments her brother and sister endeavour
+to keep up in her father and mother against her.  But I shall know better
+how to judge of this, when my cousin James comes from Edinburgh; and he
+is every hour expected.
+
+But let me ask you, Mr. Lovelace, what is the name of your friend, who is
+admitted so easily into my cousin's presence?  Is it not Belford, pray?
+
+Lovel.   It is, Sir; and Mr. Belford's a man of honour; and a great
+admirer of your fair cousin.
+
+Was I right, as to the first, Jack?  The last I have such strong proof
+of, that it makes me question the first; since she would not have been
+out of the way of my intended visit but for thee.
+
+Col.   Are you sure, Sir, that Mr. Belford is a man of honour?
+
+Lovel.   I can swear for him, Colonel.  What makes you put this question?
+
+Col.   Only this: that an officious pragmatical novice has been sent up
+to inquire into my cousin's life and conversation: And, would you believe
+it? the frequent visits of this gentlemen have been interpreted basely to
+her disreputation.--Read that letter, Mr. Lovelace; and you will be
+shocked at ever part of it.
+
+This cursed letter, no doubt, is from the young Levite, whom thou, Jack,
+describest as making inquiry of Mrs. Smith about Miss Harlowe's character
+and visiters.*
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI.
+
+
+I believe I was a quarter of an hour in reading it: for I made it, though
+not a short one, six times as long as it is, by the additions of oaths
+and curses to every pedantic line.  Lord M. too helped to lengthen it, by
+the like execrations.  And thou, Jack, wilt have as much reason to curse
+it as we.
+
+You cannot but see, said the Colonel, when I had done reading it, that
+this fellow has been officious in his malevolence; for what he says is
+mere hearsay, and that hearsay conjectural scandal without fact, or the
+appearance of fact, to support it; so that an unprejudiced eye, upon the
+face of the letter, would condemn the writer of it, as I did, and acquit
+my cousin.  But yet, such is the spirit by which the rest of my relations
+are governed, that they run away with the belief of the worst it
+insinuates, and the dear creature has had shocking letters upon it; the
+pedant's hints are taken; and a voyage to one of the colonies has been
+proposed to her, as the only way to avoid Mr. Belford and you.  I have
+not seen these letters indeed; but they took a pride in repeating some of
+their contents, which must have cut the poor soul to the heart; and
+these, joined to her former sufferings,--What have you not, Mr. Lovelace,
+to answer for?
+
+Lovel.   Who the devil could have expected such consequences as these?
+Who could have believe there could be parents so implacable?  Brother and
+sister so immovably fixed against the only means that could be taken to
+put all right with every body?--And what now can be done?
+
+Lord M.   I have great hopes that Col. Morden may yet prevail upon his
+cousin.  And, by her last letter, it runs in my mind that she has some
+thoughts of forgiving all that's past.  Do you think, Colonel, if there
+should not be such a thing as a reconciliation going forward at present,
+that her letter may not imply that, if we could bring such a thing to
+bear with her friends, she would be reconciled with Mr. Lovelace?
+
+Col.   Such an artifice would better become the Italian subtilty than the
+English simplicity.  Your Lordship has been in Italy, I presume?
+
+Lovel.   My Lord has read Boccaccio, perhaps; and that's as well, as to
+the hint he gives, which may be borrowed from one of that author's
+stories.  But Miss Clarissa Harlowe is above all artifice.  She must have
+some meaning I cannot fathom.
+
+Col.   Well, my Lord, I can only say that I will make some use of the
+letters Mr. Lovelace has obliged me with: and after I have had some talk
+with my cousin James, who is hourly expected; and when I have dispatched
+two or three affairs that press upon me; I will pay my respects to my
+dear cousin; and shall then be able to form a better judgment of things.
+Mean time I will write to her; for I have sent to inquire about her, and
+find she wants consolation.
+
+Lovel.   If you favour me, Colonel, with the d----d letter of that fellow
+Brand for a day or two, you will oblige me.
+
+Col.   I will.  But remember, the man is a parson, Mr. Lovelace; an
+innocent one too, they say.  Else I had been at him before now.  And
+these college novices, who think they know every thing in their
+cloisters, and that all learning lies in books, make dismal figures when
+they come into the world among men and women.
+
+Lord M.   Brand!  Brand!  It should have been Firebrand, I think in my
+conscience!
+
+Thus ended this doughty conference.
+
+I cannot say, Jack, but I am greatly taken with Col. Morden.  He is brave
+and generous, and knows the world; and then his contempt of the parsons
+is a certain sign that he is one of us.
+
+We parted with great civility: Lord M. (not a little pleased that we did,
+and as greatly taken with Colonel) repeated his wish, after the Colonel
+was gone, that he had arrived in time to save the lady, if that would
+have done it.
+
+I wish so too.  For by my soul, Jack, I am every day more and more uneasy
+about her.  But I hope she is not so ill as I am told she is.
+
+I have made Charlotte transcribe the letter of this Firebrand, as my Lord
+calls him; and will enclose her copy of it.  All thy phlegm I know will
+be roused into vengeance when thou readest it.
+
+I know not what to advise as to showing it to the lady.  Yet, perhaps,
+she will be able to reap more satisfaction than concern from it, knowing
+her own innocence; in that it will give her to hope that her friends'
+treatment of her is owing as much to misrepresentation as to their own
+natural implacableness.  Such a mind as her's, I know, would be glad to
+find out the shadow of a reason for the shocking letters the Colonel says
+they have sent her, and for their proposal to her of going to some one of
+the colonies [confound them all--but, if I begin to curse, I shall never
+have done]--Then it may put her upon such a defence as she might be glad
+of an opportunity to make, and to shame them for their monstrous
+credulity--but this I leave to thy own fat-headed prudence--Only it vexes
+me to the heart, that even scandal and calumny should dare to surmise the
+bare possibility of any man sharing the favours of a woman, whom now
+methinks I could worship with a veneration due only to a divinity.
+
+Charlotte and her sister could not help weeping at the base aspersion:
+When, when, said Patty, lifting up her hands, will this sweet lady's
+sufferings be at an end?--O cousin Lovelace!--
+
+And thus am I blamed for every one's faults!--When her brutal father
+curses her, it is I.  I upbraid her with her severe mother.  The
+implacableness of her stupid uncles is all mine.  The virulence of her
+brother, and the spite of her sister, are entirely owing to me.  The
+letter of this rascal Brand is of my writing--O Jack, what a wretch is
+thy Lovelace!
+
+
+***
+
+
+Returned without a letter!--This d----d fellow Will. is returned without
+a letter!--Yet the rascal tells me that he hears you have been writing to
+me these two days!
+
+Plague confound thee, who must know my impatience, and the reason for it!
+
+To send a man and horse on purpose; as I did!  My imagination chained me
+to the belly of the beast, in order to keep pace with him!--Now he is got
+to this place; now to that; now to London; now to thee!
+
+Now [a letter given him] whip and spur upon the return.  This town just
+entered, not staying to bait: that village passed by: leaves the wind
+behind him; in a foaming sweat man and horse.
+
+And in this way did he actually enter Lord M.'s courtyard.
+
+The reverberating pavement brought me down--The letter, Will.!  The
+letter, dog!--The letter, Sirrah!
+
+No letter, Sir!--Then wildly staring round me, fists clenched, and
+grinning like a maniac, Confound thee for a dog, and him that sent thee
+without one!--This moment out of my sight, or I'll scatter thy stupid
+brains through the air.  I snatched from his holsters a pistol, while the
+rascal threw himself from the foaming beast, and ran to avoid the fate
+which I wished with all my soul thou hadst been within the reach of me to
+have met with.
+
+But, to be as meek as a lamb to one who has me at his mercy, and can
+wring and torture my soul as he pleases, What canst thou mean to send
+back my varlet without a letter?--I will send away by day-dawn another
+fellow upon another beast for what thou hast written; and I charge thee
+on thy allegiance, that thou dispatch him not back empty-handed.
+
+
+POSTSCRIPT
+
+Charlotte, in a whim of delicacy, is displeased that I send the enclosed
+letter to you--that her handwriting, forsooth! should go into the hands
+of a single man!
+
+There's encouragement for thee, Belford!  This is a certain sign that
+thou may'st have her if thou wilt.  And yet, till she has given me this
+unerring demonstration of her glancing towards thee, I could not have
+thought it.  Indeed I have often in pleasantry told her that I would
+bring such an affair to bear.  But I never intended it; because she
+really is a dainty girl; and thou art such a clumsy fellow in thy person,
+that I should as soon have wished her a rhinoceros for a husband as thee.
+But, poor little dears! they must stay till their time's come!  They
+won't have this man, and they won't have that man, from seventeen to
+twenty-five: but then, afraid, as the saying is, that God has forgot
+them, and finding their bloom departing, they are glad of whom they can
+get, and verify the fable of the parson and the pears.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLI
+
+MR. BRAND, TO JOHN HARLOWE, ESQ.
+[ENCLOSED IN THE PRECEDING.]
+
+
+WORTHY SIR, MY VERY GOOD FRIEND AND PATRON,
+
+I arrived in town yesterday, after a tolerably pleasant journey
+(considering the hot weather and dusty roads).  I put up at the Bull and
+Gate in Holborn, and hastened to Covent-garden.  I soon found the house
+where the unhappy lady lodgeth.  And, in the back shop, had a good deal
+of discourse* with Mrs. Smith, (her landlady,) whom I found to be so
+'highly prepossessed'** in her 'favour,' that I saw it would not answer
+your desires to take my informations 'altogether' from her: and being
+obliged to attend my patron, (who to my sorrow,
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI.
+** Transcriber's note: Mr. Brand's letters are characterized by a style
+that makes excessive use of italics for emphasis. Although in the
+remainder of _Clarissa_ I have largely disregarded italics for the sake
+of plain-text formatting, this style makes such emphatic use of italics
+that I have indicated all such instances in his letters by placing the
+italicized words and phrases in quotations, thus ' '.
+
+
+      'Miserum et aliena vivere quadra,')
+
+I find wanteth much waiting upon, and is 'another' sort of man than he
+was at college: for, Sir, 'inter nos,' 'honours change manners.'  For the
+'aforesaid causes,' I thought it would best answer all the ends of the
+commission with which you honoured me, to engage, in the desired
+scrutiny,  the wife of a 'particular friend,' who liveth almost
+over-against the house where she lodgeth, and who is a gentlewoman of
+'character,' and 'sobriety,' a 'mother of children,' and one who
+'knoweth' the 'world' well.
+
+To her I applied myself, therefore, and gave her a short history of the
+case, and desired she would very particularly inquire into the 'conduct'
+of the unhappy young lady; her 'present way of life' and 'subsistence';
+her 'visiters,' her 'employments,' and such-like: for these, Sir, you
+know, are the things whereof you wished to be informed.
+
+Accordingly, Sir, I waited upon the gentlewoman aforesaid, this day; and,
+to 'my' very great trouble, (because I know it will be to 'your's,' and
+likewise to all your worthy family's,) I must say, that I do find things
+look a little more 'darkly' than I hoped the would.  For, alas! Sir, the
+gentlewoman's report turneth out not so 'favourable' for Miss's
+reputation, as 'I' wished, as 'you' wished, and as 'every one' of her
+friends wished.  But so it is throughout the world, that 'one false step'
+generally brings on 'another'; and peradventure 'a worse,' and 'a still
+worse'; till the poor 'limed soul' (a very fit epithet of the Divine
+Quarles's!) is quite 'entangled,' and (without infinite mercy) lost for
+ever.
+
+It seemeth, Sir, she is, notwithstanding, in a very 'ill state of
+health.'  In this, 'both' gentlewomen (that is to say, Mrs. Smith, her
+landlady, and my friend's wife) agree.  Yet she goeth often out in a
+chair, to 'prayers' (as it is said).  But my friend's wife told me, that
+nothing is more common in London, than that the frequenting of the church
+at morning prayers is made the 'pretence' and 'cover' for 'private
+assignations.'  What a sad thing is this! that what was designed for
+'wholesome nourishment' to the 'poor soul,' should be turned into 'rank
+poison!'  But as Mr. Daniel de Foe (an ingenious man, though a
+'dissenter') observeth (but indeed it is an old proverb; only I think he
+was the first that put it into verse)
+
+      God never had a house of pray'r
+      But Satan had a chapel there.
+
+Yet to do the lady 'justice,' nobody cometh home with her: nor indeed
+'can' they, because she goeth forward and backward in a 'sedan,' or
+'chair,' (as they call it).  But then there is a gentleman of 'no good
+character' (an 'intimado' of Mr. Lovelace) who is a 'constant' visiter
+of her, and of the people of the house, whom he 'regaleth' and
+'treateth,' and hath (of consequence) their 'high good words.'
+
+I have thereupon taken the trouble (for I love to be 'exact' in any
+'commission' I undertake) to inquire 'particularly' about this
+'gentleman,' as he is called (albeit I hold no man so but by his actions:
+for, as Juvenal saith,
+
+      --'Nobilitas sola est, atque unica virtus')
+
+And this I did 'before' I would sit down to write to you.
+
+His name is Belford.  He hath a paternal estate of upwards of one
+thousand pounds by the year; and is now in mourning for an uncle who left
+him very considerably besides.  He beareth a very profligate character as
+to 'women,' (for I inquired particularly about 'that,') and is Mr.
+Lovelace's more especial 'privado,' with whom he holdeth a 'regular
+correspondence'; and hath been often seen with Miss (tête à tête) at the
+'window'--in no 'bad way,' indeed: but my friend's wife is of opinion
+that all is not 'as it should be.'  And, indeed, it is mighty strange to
+me, if Miss be so 'notable a penitent' (as is represented) and if she
+have such an 'aversion' to Mr. Lovelace, that she will admit his
+'privado' into 'her retirements,' and see 'no other company.'
+
+I understand, from Mrs. Smith, that Mr. Hickman was to see her some time
+ago, from Miss Howe; and I am told, by 'another' hand, (you see, Sir, how
+diligent I have been to execute the 'commissions' you gave me,) that he
+had no 'extraordinary opinion' of this Belford at first; though they were
+seen together one morning by the opposite neighbour, at 'breakfast': and
+another time this Belford was observed to 'watch' Mr. Hickman's coming
+from her; so that, as it should seem, he was mighty zealous to
+'ingratiate' himself with Mr. Hickman; no doubt to engage him to make a
+'favourable report to Miss Howe' of the 'intimacy' he was admitted into
+by her unhappy friend; who ('as she is very ill') may 'mean no harm' in
+allowing his visits, (for he, it seemeth, brought to her, or recommended,
+at least, the doctor and apothecary that attend her:) but I think (upon
+the whole) 'it looketh not well.'
+
+I am sorry, Sir, I cannot give you a better account of the young lady's
+'prudence.'  But, what shall we say?
+
+      'Uvaque conspectâ livorem ducit ab uvâ,'
+
+as Juvenal observeth.
+
+One thing I am afraid of; which is, that Miss may be under 'necessities';
+and that this Belford (who, as Mrs. Smith owns, hath 'offered her money,'
+which she, 'at the time,' refused) may find an opportunity to 'take
+advantage' of those 'necessities': and it is well observed by that poet,
+that
+
+      'Ægrè formosam poteris servare puellam:
+         Nunc prece, nunc pretio, forma petita ruit.'
+
+And this Belford (who is a 'bold man,' and hath, as they say, the 'look'
+of one) may make good that of Horace, (with whose writings you are so
+well acquainted; nobody better;)
+
+      'Audax omnia perpeti,
+      Gens humana ruit per vetitum nefas.'
+
+Forgive me, Sir, for what I am going to write: but if you could prevail
+upon the rest of your family to join in the scheme which 'you,' and her
+'virtuous sister,' Miss Arabella, and the Archdeacon, and I, once talked
+of, (which is to persuade the unhappy young lady to go, in some
+'creditable' manner, to some one of the foreign colonies,) it might not
+save only her 'own credit' and 'reputation,' but the 'reputation' and
+'credit' of all her 'family,' and a great deal of 'vexation' moreover.
+For it is my humble opinion, that you will hardly (any of you) enjoy
+yourselves while this ('once' innocent) young lady is in the way of being
+so frequently heard of by you: and this would put her 'out of the way'
+both of 'this Belford' and of 'that Lovelace,' and it might,
+peradventure, prevent as much 'evil' as 'scandal.'
+
+You will forgive me, Sir, for this my 'plainness.'  Ovid pleadeth for me,
+
+      '----Adulator nullus amicus erit.'
+
+And I have no view but that of approving myself a 'zealous well-wisher'
+to 'all' your worthy family, (whereto I owe a great number of
+obligations,) and very particularly, Sir,
+
+Your obliged and humble servant,
+ELIAS BRAND.
+
+WEDN. AUG. 9.
+
+
+P.S. I shall give you 'farther hints' when I come down, (which will be in
+      a few days;) and who my 'informants' were; but by 'these' you will
+      see, that I have been very assiduous (for the time) in the task you
+      set me upon.
+
+The 'length' of my letter you will excuse: for I need not tell you, Sir,
+      what 'narrative,' 'complex,' and 'conversation' letters (such a one
+      as 'mine') require.  Every one to his 'talent.'  'Letter-writing'
+      is mine.  I will be bold to say; and that my 'correspondence' was
+      much coveted in the university, on that account, by 'tyros,' and
+      by 'sophs,' when I was hardly a 'soph' myself.  But this I should
+      not have taken upon myself to mention, but only in defence of the
+      'length' of my letter; for nobody writeth 'shorter' or 'pithier,'
+      when the subject requireth 'common forms' only--but, in apologizing
+      for my 'prolixity,' I am 'adding' to the 'fault,' (if it were one,
+      which, however, I cannot think it to be, the 'subject' considered:
+      but this I have said before in other words:) so, Sir, if you will
+      excuse my 'post-script,' I am sure you will not find fault with my
+      'letter.'
+
+One word more as to a matter of 'erudition,' which you greatly love to
+      hear me 'start' and 'dwell upon.'  Dr. Lewen once, in 'your'
+      presence, (as you, 'my good patron,' cannot but remember,) in a
+      'smartish' kind of debate between 'him' and 'me,' took upon him to
+      censure the 'paranthetical' style, as I call it.  He was a very
+      learned and judicious man, to be sure, and an ornament to 'our
+      function': but yet I must needs say, that it is a style which I
+      greatly like; and the good Doctor was then past his 'youth,' and
+      that time of life, of consequence, when a 'fertile imagination,'
+      and a 'rich fancy,' pour in ideas so fast upon a writer, that
+      parentheses are often wanted (and that for the sake of 'brevity,'
+      as well as 'perspicuity') to save the reader the trouble of reading
+      a passage 'more than once.'  Every man to his talent, (as I said
+      before.)  We are all so apt to set up our 'natural biasses' for
+      'general standards,' that I wondered 'the less' at the worthy
+      Doctor's 'stiffness' on this occasion.  He 'smiled at me,' you may
+      remember, Sir--and, whether I was right or not, I am sure I 'smiled
+      at him.'  And 'you,' my 'worthy patron,' (as I had the satisfaction
+      to observe,) seemed to be of 'my party.'  But was it not strange,
+      that the 'old gentleman' and 'I' should so widely differ, when the
+      'end' with 'both' (that is to say, 'perspicuity' or 'clearness,')
+      was the same?--But what shall we say?--
+
+            'Errare est hominis, sed non persistere.'
+
+I think I have nothing to add until I have the honour of attending you in
+      'person'; but I am, (as above,) &c. &c. &c.
+
+E.B.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+WEDNESDAY NIGHT, AUG. 30.
+
+
+It was lucky enough that our two servants met at Hannah's,* which gave
+them so good an opportunity of exchanging their letters time enough for
+each to return to his master early in the day.
+
+
+* The Windmill, near Slough.
+
+
+Thou dost well to boast of thy capacity for managing servants, and to set
+up for correcting our poets in their characters of this class of people,*
+when, like a madman, thou canst beat their teeth out, and attempt to
+shoot them through the head, for not bringing to thee what they had no
+power to obtain.
+
+
+* See Letter XX. of this volume.
+
+
+You well observe* that you would have made a thorough-paced lawyer.  The
+whole of the conversation-piece between you and the Colonel affords a
+convincing proof that there is a black and a white side to every cause:
+But what must the conscience of a partial whitener of his own cause, or
+blackener of another's, tell him, while he is throwing dust in the eyes
+of his judges, and all the time knows his own guilt?
+
+
+* See Letter XL. of this volume.
+
+
+The Colonel, I see, is far from being a faultless man: but while he
+sought not to carry his point by breach of faith, he has an excuse which
+thou hast not.  But, with respect to him, and to us all, I can now, with
+the detestation of some of my own actions, see, that the taking advantage
+of another person's good opinion of us to injure (perhaps to ruin) that
+other, is the most ungenerous wickedness that can be committed.
+
+Man acting thus by man, we should not be at a loss to give such actions a
+name: But is it not doubly and trebly aggravated, when such advantage is
+taken of an unexperienced and innocent young creature, whom we pretend to
+love above all the women in the world; and when we seal our pretences by
+the most solemn vows and protestations of inviolable honour that we can
+invent?
+
+I see that this gentleman is the best match thou ever couldest have had,
+upon all accounts: his spirit such another impetuous one as thy own; soon
+taking fire; vindictive; and only differing in this, that the cause he
+engages in is a just one.  But commend me to honest brutal Mowbray, who,
+before he knew the cause, offers his sword in thy behalf against a man
+who had taken the injured side, and whom he had never seen before.
+
+As soon as I had run through your letters, and the copy of that of the
+incendiary Brand's, (by the latter of which I saw to what cause a great
+deal of this last implacableness of the Harlowe family is owing,) I took
+coach to Smith's, although I had been come from thence but about an hour,
+and had taken leave of the lady for the night.
+
+I sent up for Mrs. Lovick, and desired her, in the first place, to
+acquaint the lady (who was busied in her closet,) that I had letters from
+Berks: in which I was informed, that the interview between Colonel Morden
+and Mr. Lovelace had ended without ill consequences; that the Colonel
+intended to write to her very soon, and was interesting himself mean
+while, in her favour, with her relations; that I hoped that this
+agreeable news would be means of giving her good rest; and I would wait
+upon her in the morning, by the time she should return from prayers, with
+all the particulars.
+
+She sent me word that she should be glad to see me in the morning; and
+was highly obliged to me for the good news I had sent her up.
+
+I then, in the back shop, read to Mrs. Lovick and to Mrs. Smith the copy
+of Brand's letter, and asked them if they could guess at the man's
+informant?  They were not at a loss; Mrs. Smith having seen the same
+fellow Brand who had talked with her, as I mentioned in the former,* come
+out of a milliner's shop over against them; which milliner, she said, had
+also lately been very inquisitive about the lady.
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI.
+
+
+I wanted no farther hint; but, bidding them take no notice to the lady of
+what I had read, I shot over the way, and, asking for the mistress of the
+house, she came to me.
+
+Retiring with her, at her invitation, into her parlour, I desired to know
+if she were acquainted with a young country clergyman of the name of
+Brand.  She hesitatingly, seeing me in some emotion, owned that she had
+some small knowledge of the gentleman.  Just then came in her husband,
+who is, it seems, a petty officer of excise, (and not an ill-behaved
+man,) who owned a fuller knowledge of him.
+
+I have the copy of a letter, said I, from this Brand, in which he has
+taken great liberties with my character, and with that of the most
+unblamable lady in the world, which he grounds upon information that you,
+Madam, have given him.  And then I read to them several passages in his
+letter, and asked what foundation she had for giving that fellow such
+impressions of either of us?
+
+They knew not what to answer: but at last said, that he had told them how
+wickedly the young lady had run away from her parents: what worthy and
+rich people they were: in what favour he stood with them; and that they
+had employed him to inquire after her behaviour, visiters, &c.
+
+They said, 'That indeed they knew very little of the young lady; but that
+[curse upon their censoriousness!] it was but too natural to think, that,
+where a lady had given way to a delusion, and taken so wrong a step, she
+would not stop there: that the most sacred places and things were but too
+often made clokes for bad actions; that Mr. Brand had been informed
+(perhaps by some enemy of mine) that I was a man of very free principles,
+and an intimado, as he calls it, of the man who had ruined her.  And that
+their cousin Barker, a manteau-maker, who lodged up one pair of stairs,'
+(and who, at their desire, came down and confirmed what they said,) 'had
+often, from her window, seen me with the lady in her chamber, and both
+talking very earnestly together; and that Mr. Brand, being unable to
+account for her admiring my visits, and knowing I was but a new
+acquaintance of her's, and an old one of Mr. Lovelace, thought himself
+obliged to lay these matters before her friends.'
+
+This was the sum and substance of their tale.  O how I cursed the
+censoriousness of this plaguy triumvirate!  A parson, a milliner, and a
+mantua-maker!  The two latter, not more by business led to adorn the
+persons, than generally by scandal to destroy the reputations, of those
+they have a mind to exercise their talents upon!
+
+The two women took great pains to persuade me that they themselves were
+people of conscience;--of consequence, I told them, too much addicted, I
+feared, to censure other people who pretended not to their strictness;
+for that I had ever found censoriousness, with those who affected to be
+thought more pious than their neighbours.
+
+They answered, that that was not their case; and that they had since
+inquired into the lady's character and manner of life, and were very much
+concerned to think any thing they had said should be made use of against
+her: and as they heard from Mrs. Smith that she was not likely to live
+long, they should be sorry she should go out of the world a sufferer by
+their means, or with an ill opinion of them, though strangers to her.
+The husband offered to write, if I pleased, to Mr. Brand, in vindication
+of the lady; and the two women said they should be glad to wait upon her
+in person, to beg her pardon for any thing she had reason to take amiss
+from them; because they were now convinced that there was not such
+another young lady in the world.
+
+I told them that the least said of the affair to the lady, in her present
+circumstances, was best.  That she was a heavenly creature, and fond of
+taking all occasions to find excuses for her relations on their
+implacableness to her: that therefore I should take some notice to her of
+the uncharitable and weak surmises which gave birth to so vile a scandal:
+but that I would have him, Mr. Walton, (for that is the husband's name,)
+write to his acquaintance Brand as soon as possible, as he had offered;
+and so I left them.
+
+As to what thou sayest of thy charming cousin, let me know if thou hast
+any meaning in it.  I have not the vanity to think myself deserving of
+such a lady as Miss Montague; and should not therefore care to expose
+myself to her scorn and to thy derision.  But were I assured I might
+avoid both of these, I would soon acquaint thee that I should think no
+pains nor assiduity too much to obtain a share in the good graces of such
+a lady.
+
+But I know thee too well to depend upon any thing thou sayest on this
+subject.  Thou lovest to make thy friends the objects of ridicule to
+ladies; and imaginest, from the vanity, (and, in this respect, I will say
+littleness,) of thine own heart, that thou shinest the brighter for the
+foil.
+
+Thus didst thou once play off the rough Mowbray with Miss Hatton, till
+the poor fellow knew not how to go either backward or forward.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLIII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+THURSDAY, 11 O'CLOCK, AUG. 31.
+
+
+I am just come from the lady, whom I left cheerful and serene.
+
+She thanked me for my communication of the preceding night.  I read to
+her such parts of your letters as I could read to her; and I thought it
+was a good test to distinguish the froth and whipt-syllabub in them from
+the cream, in what one could and could not read to a woman of so fine a
+mind; since four parts out of six of thy letters, which I thought
+entertaining as I read them to myself, appeared to me, when I should have
+read them to her, most abominable stuff, and gave me a very contemptible
+idea of thy talents, and of my own judgment.
+
+She as far from rejoicing, as I had done, at the disappointment her
+letter gave you when explained.
+
+She said, she meant only an innocent allegory, which might carry
+instruction and warning to you, when the meaning was taken, as well as
+answer her own hopes for the time.  It was run off in a hurry.  She was
+afraid it was not quite right in her.  But hoped the end would excuse (if
+it could not justify) the means.  And then she again expressed a good
+deal of apprehension lest you should still take it into your head to
+molest her, when her time, she said, was so short, that she wanted every
+moment of it; repeating what she had once said before, that, when she
+wrote, she was so ill that she believed she should not have lived till
+now: if she had thought she should, she must have studied for an
+expedient that would have better answered her intentions.  Hinting at a
+removal out of the knowledge of us both.
+
+But she was much pleased that the conference between you and Colonel
+Morden, after two or three such violent sallies, as I acquainted her you
+had had between you, ended so amicably; and said she must absolutely
+depend upon the promise I had given her to use my utmost endeavours to
+prevent farther mischief on her account.
+
+She was pleased with the justice you did her character to her cousin.
+
+She was glad to hear that he had so kind an opinion of her, and that he
+would write to her.
+
+I was under an unnecessary concern, how to break to her that I had the
+copy of Brand's vile letter: unnecessary, I say; for she took it just as
+you thought she would, as an excuse she wished to have for the
+implacableness of her friends; and begged I would let her read it
+herself; for, said she, the contents cannot disturb me, be they what they
+will.
+
+I gave it to her, and she read it to herself; a tear now and then being
+ready to start, and a sigh sometimes interposing.
+
+She gave me back the letter with great and surprising calmness,
+considering the subject.
+
+There was a time, said she, and that not long since, when such a letter
+as this would have greatly pained me.  But I hope I have now go above all
+these things: and I can refer to your kind offices, and to those of Miss
+Howe, the justice that will be done to my memory among my friends.  There
+is a good and a bad light in which every thing that befalls us may be
+taken.  If the human mind will busy itself to make the worst of every
+disagreeable occurrence, it will never want woe.  This letter, affecting
+as the subject of it is to my reputation, gives me more pleasure than
+pain, because I can gather from it, that had not my friends been
+prepossessed by misinformed or rash and officious persons, who are always
+at hand to flatter or soothe the passions of the affluent, they could not
+have been so immovably determined against me.  But now they are
+sufficiently cleared from every imputation of unforgivingness; for, while
+I appeared to them in the character of a vile hypocrite, pretending to
+true penitence, yet giving up myself to profligate courses, how could I
+expect either their pardon or blessing?
+
+But, Madam, said I, you'll see by the date of this letter, that their
+severity, previous to that, cannot be excused by it.
+
+It imports me much, replied she, on account of my present wishes, as to
+the office you are so kind to undertake, that you should not think
+harshly of my friends.  I must own to you, that I have been apt sometimes
+myself to think them not only severe but cruel.  Suffering minds will be
+partial to their own cause and merits.  Knowing their own hearts, if
+sincere, they are apt to murmur when harshly treated: But, if they are
+not believed to be innocent, by persons who have a right to decide upon
+their conduct according to their own judgments, how can it be helped?
+Besides, Sir, how do you know, that there are not about my friends as
+well-meaning misrepresenters as Mr. Brand really seems to be?  But, be
+this as it will, there is no doubt that there are and have been
+multitudes of persons, as innocent as myself, who have suffered upon
+surmises as little probable as those on which Mr. Brand founds his
+judgment.  Your intimacy, Sir, with Mr. Lovelace, and (may I say?) a
+character which, it seems, you have been less solicitous formerly to
+justify than perhaps you will be for the future, and your frequent visits
+to me may well be thought to be questionable circumstances in my conduct.
+
+I could only admire her in silence.
+
+But you see, Sir, proceeded she, how necessary it is for young people of
+our sex to be careful of our company.  And how much, at the same time, it
+behoves young persons of your's to be chary of their own reputation, were
+it only for the sake of such of our's as they may mean honourably by, and
+who otherwise may suffer in their good names for being seen in their
+company.
+
+As to Mr. Brand, continued she, he is to be pitied; and let me enjoin
+you, Mr. Belford, not to take any resentments against him which may be
+detrimental either to his person or his fortunes.  Let his function and
+his good meaning plead for him.  He will have concern enough, when he
+finds every body, whose displeasure I now labour under, acquitting my
+memory of perverse guilt, and joining in a general pity for me.
+
+This, Lovelace, is the woman whose life thou hast curtailed in the
+blossom of it!--How many opportunities must thou have had of admiring her
+inestimable worth, yet couldst have thy senses so much absorbed in the
+WOMAN, in her charming person, as to be blind to the ANGEL, that shines
+out in such full glory in her mind!  Indeed, I have ever thought myself,
+when blest with her conversation, in the company of a real angel: and I
+am sure it would be impossible for me, were she to be as beautiful, and
+as crimsoned over with health, as I have seen her, to have the least
+thought of sex, when I heard her talk.
+
+
+THURSDAY, THREE O'CLOCK, AUG. 31.
+
+On my re-visit to the lady, I found her almost as much a sufferer from
+joy as she had sometimes been from grief; for she had just received a
+very kind letter from her cousin Morden; which she was so good as to
+communicate to me.  As she had already begun to answer it, I begged leave
+to attend her in the evening, that I might not interrupt her in it.
+
+The letter is a very tender one * * * *
+
+[Here Mr. Belford gives the substance of it upon his memory; but that is
+      omitted; as the letter is given at length (see the next letter.)
+      And then adds:]
+
+But, alas! all will be now too late.  For the decree is certainly gone
+out--the world is unworthy of her.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLIV
+
+COLONEL MORDEN, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+TUESDAY, AUG. 29.
+
+
+I should not, my dearest Cousin, have been a fortnight in England,
+without either doing myself the honour of waiting upon you in person, or
+of writing to you; if I had not been busying myself almost all the time
+in your service, in hopes of making my visit or letter still more
+acceptable to you--acceptable as I have reason to presume either will be
+from the unquestionable love I ever bore you, and from the esteem you
+always honoured me with.
+
+Little did I think that so many days would have been required to effect
+my well-intended purpose, where there used to be a love so ardent on one
+side, and where there still is, as I am thoroughly convinced, the most
+exalted merit on the other!
+
+I was yesterday with Mr. Lovelace and Lord M.  I need not tell you, it
+seems, how very desirous the whole family and all the relations of that
+nobleman are of the honour of an alliance with you; nor how exceedingly
+earnest the ungrateful man is to make you all the reparation in his
+power.
+
+I think, my dear Cousin, that you cannot now do better than to give him
+the honour of your hand.  He says just and great things of your virtue,
+and so heartily condemns himself, that I think there is honorable room
+for you to forgive him: and the more room, as it seems you are determined
+against a legal prosecution.
+
+Your effectual forgiveness of Mr. Lovelace, it is evident to me, will
+accelerate a general reconciliation: for, at present, my other cousins
+cannot persuade themselves that he is in earnest to do you justice; or
+that you would refuse him, if you believed he was.
+
+But, my dear Cousin, there may possibly be something in this affair, to
+which I may be a stranger.  If there be, and you will acquaint me with
+it, all that a naturally-warm heart can do in your behalf shall be done.
+
+I hope I shall be able, in my next visits to my several cousins, to set
+all right with them.  Haughty spirits, when convinced that they have
+carried resentments too high, want but a good excuse to condescend: and
+parents must always love the child they once loved.
+
+But if I find them inflexible, I will set out, and attend you without
+delay; for I long to see you, after so many years' absence.
+
+Mean while, I beg the favour of a few lines, to know if you have reason
+to doubt Mr. Lovelace's sincerity.  For my part, I can have none, if I am
+to judge from the conversation that passed between us yesterday, in
+presence of Lord M.
+
+You will be pleased to direct for me at your uncle Antony's.
+
+Permit me, my dearest Cousin, till I can procure a happy reconciliation
+between you and your father, and brother, and uncles, to supply the place
+to you of all those near relations, as well as that of
+
+Your affectionate kinsman, and humble servant,
+WM. MORDEN.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLV
+
+MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO WM. MORDEN, ESQ.
+THURSDAY, AUG. 31.
+
+
+I most heartily congratulate you, dear Sir, on your return to your native
+country.
+
+I heard with much pleasure that you were come; but I was both afraid and
+ashamed, till you encouraged me by a first notice, to address myself to
+you.
+
+How consoling is it to my wounded heart to find that you have not been
+carried away by that tide of resentment and displeasure with which I have
+been so unhappily overwhelmed--but that, while my still nearer relations
+have not thought fit to examine into the truth of vile reports raised
+against me, you have informed yourself of my innocence, and generously
+credited the information!
+
+I have not the least reason to doubt Mr. Lovelace's sincerity in his
+offers of marriage; nor that all his relations are heartily desirous of
+ranking me among them.  I have had noble instances of their esteem for
+me, on their apprehending that my father's displeasure must have had
+absolutely refused their pressing solicitations in their kinsman's favour
+as well as his own.
+
+Nor think me, my dear Cousin, blamable for refusing him.  I had given Mr.
+Lovelace no reason to think me a weak creature.  If I had, a man of his
+character might have thought himself warranted to endeavour to take
+ungenerous advantage of the weakness he had been able to inspire.  The
+consciousness of my own weakness (in that case) might have brought me to
+a composition with his wickedness.
+
+I can indeed forgive him.  But that is, because I think his crimes have
+set me above him.  Can I be above the man, Sir, to whom I shall give my
+hand and my vows, and with them a sanction to the most premeditated
+baseness?  No, Sir, let me say, that your cousin Clarissa, were she
+likely to live many years, and that (if she married not this man) in
+penury or want, despised and forsaken by all her friends, puts not so
+high a value upon the conveniencies of life, nor upon life itself, as to
+seek to re-obtain the one, or to preserve the other, by giving such a
+sanction: a sanction, which (were she to perform her duty,) would reward
+the violator.
+
+Nor is it so much from pride as from principle that I say this.  What,
+Sir! when virtue, when chastity, is the crown of a woman, and
+particularly of a wife, shall form an attempt upon her's but upon a
+presumption that she was capable of receiving his offered hand when he
+had found himself mistaken in the vile opinion he had conceived of her?
+Hitherto he has not had reason to think me weak.  Nor will I give an
+instance so flagrant, that weak I am in a point in which it would be
+criminal to be found weak.
+
+One day, Sir, you will perhaps know all my story.  But, whenever it is
+known, I beg that the author of my calamities may not be vindictively
+sought after.  He could not have been the author of them, but for a
+strange concurrence of unhappy causes.  As the law will not be able to
+reach him when I am gone, the apprehension of any other sort of vengeance
+terrifies me; since, in such a case, should my friends be safe, what
+honour would his death bring to my memory?--If any of them should come to
+misfortune, how would my fault be aggravated!
+
+God long preserve you, my dearest Cousin, and bless you but in proportion
+to the consolation you have given me, in letting me know that you still
+love me; and that I have one near and dear relation who can pity and
+forgive me; (and then you will be greatly blessed;) is the prayer of
+
+Your ever grateful and affectionate
+CL. HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLVI
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+[IN ANSWER TO HIS LETTERS XXIII. XXXVII. OF THIS VOLUME.]
+THURSDAY, AUG. 31.
+
+
+I cannot but own that I am cut to the heart by this Miss Harlowe's
+interpretation of her letter.  She ought never to be forgiven.  She, a
+meek person, and a penitent, and innocent, and pious, and I know not
+what, who can deceive with a foot in the grave!--
+
+'Tis evident, that she sat down to write this letter with a design to
+mislead and deceive.  And if she be capable of that, at such a crisis,
+she has as much need of Heaven's forgiveness, as I have of her's: and,
+with all her cant of charity and charity, if she be not more sure of it
+than I am of her real pardon, and if she take the thing in the light she
+ought to take it in, she will have a few darker moments yet to come than
+she seems to expect.
+
+Lord M. himself, who is not one of those (to speak in his own phrase) who
+can penetrate a millstone, sees the deceit, and thinks it unworthy of
+her; though my cousins Montague vindicate her.  And no wonder this cursed
+partial sex [I hate 'em all--by my soul, I hate 'em all!] will never
+allow any thing against an individual of it, where our's is concerned.
+And why?  Because, if they censure deceit in another, they must condemn
+their own hearts.
+
+She is to send me a letter after she is in Heaven, is she?  The devil
+take such allegories, and the devil take thee for calling this absurdity
+an innocent artifice!
+
+I insist upon it, that if a woman of her character, at such a critical
+time, is to be justified in such a deception, a man in full health and
+vigour of body and mind, as I am, may be excused for all his stratagems
+and attempts against her.  And, thank my stars, I can now sit me down
+with a quiet conscience on that score.  By my soul, I can, Jack.  Nor has
+any body, who can acquit her, a right to blame me.  But with some,
+indeed, every thing she does must be good, every thing I do must be bad--
+And why?  Because she has always taken care to coax the stupid misjudging
+world, like a woman: while I have constantly defied and despised its
+censures, like a man.
+
+But, notwithstanding all, you may let her know from me that I will not
+molest her, since my visits would be so shocking to her: and I hope she
+will take this into her consideration as a piece of generosity which she
+could hardly expect after the deception she has put upon me.  And let her
+farther know, that if there be any thing in my power, that will
+contribute either to her ease or honour, I will obey her, at the very
+first intimation, however disgraceful or detrimental to myself.  All
+this, to make her unapprehensive, and that she may have nothing to pull
+her back.
+
+If her cursed relations could be brought as cheerfully to perform their
+parts, I'd answer life for life for her recovery.
+
+But who, that has so many ludicrous images raised in his mind by the
+awkward penitence, can forbear laughing at thee?  Spare, I beseech thee,
+dear Belford, for the future, all thine own aspirations, if thou wouldst
+not dishonour those of an angel indeed.
+
+When I came to that passage, where thou sayest that thou considerest her*
+as one sent from Heaven to draw thee after her--for the heart of me I
+could not for an hour put thee out of my head, in the attitude of dame
+Elizabeth Carteret, on her monument in Westminster Abbey.  If thou never
+observedst it, go thither on purpose: and there wilt thou see this dame
+in effigy, with uplifted head and hand, the latter taken hold of by a
+cupid every inch of stone, one clumsy foot lifted up also, aiming, as the
+sculptor designed it, to ascend; but so executed, as would rather make
+one imagine that the figure (without shoe or stocking, as it is, though
+the rest of the body is robed) was looking up to its corn-cutter: the
+other riveted to its native earth, bemired, like thee (immersed thou
+callest it) beyond the possibility of unsticking itself.  Both figures,
+thou wilt find, seem to be in a contention, the bigger, whether it should
+pull down the lesser about its ears--the lesser (a chubby fat little
+varlet, of a fourth part of the other's bigness, with wings not much
+larger than those of a butterfly) whether it should raise the larger to a
+Heaven it points to, hardly big enough to contain the great toes of
+either.
+
+
+* See Letter XXXVII. of this volume.
+
+
+Thou wilt say, perhaps, that the dame's figure in stone may do credit, in
+the comparison, to thine, both in grain and shape, wooden as thou art all
+over: but that the lady, who, in every thing but in the trick she has
+played me so lately, is truly an angel, is but sorrily represented by the
+fat-flanked cupid.  This I allow thee.  But yet there is enough in thy
+aspirations to strike my mind with a resemblance of thee and the lady to
+the figures on the wretched monument; for thou oughtest to remember,
+that, prepared as she may be to mount to her native skies, it is
+impossible for her to draw after her a heavy fellow who has so much to
+repent of as thou hast.
+
+But now, to be serious once more, let me tell you, Belford, that, if the
+lady be really so ill as you write she is, it will become you [no Roman
+style here!] in a case so very affecting, to be a little less pointed and
+sarcastic in your reflections.  For, upon my soul, the matter begins to
+grate me most confoundedly.
+
+I am now so impatient to hear oftener of her, that I take the hint
+accidentally given me by our two fellows meeting at Slough, and resolve
+to go to our friend Doleman's at Uxbridge; whose wife and sister, as well
+as he, have so frequently pressed me to give them my company for a week
+or two.  There shall I be within two hours' ride, if any thing should
+happen to induce her to see me: for it will well become her piety, and
+avowed charity, should the worst happen, [the Lord of Heaven and Earth,
+however, avert that worst!] to give me that pardon from her lips, which
+she has not denied to me by pen and ink.  And as she wishes my
+reformation, she knows not what good effects such an interview may have
+upon me.
+
+I shall accordingly be at Doleman's to-morrow morning, by eleven at
+farthest.  My fellow will find me there at his return from you (with a
+letter, I hope).  I shall have Joel with me likewise, that I may send
+the oftener, as matters fall out.  Were I to be still nearer, or in town,
+it would be impossible to withhold myself from seeing her.
+
+But, if the worst happen!--as, by your continual knelling, I know not
+what to think of it!--[Yet, once more, Heaven avert that worst!--How
+natural it is to pray, when once cannot help one's self!]--THEN say not,
+in so many dreadful words, what the event is--Only, that you advise me to
+take a trip to Paris--And that will stab me to the heart.
+
+
+***
+
+
+I so well approve of your generosity to poor Belton's sister, that I have
+made Mowbray give up his legacy, as I do mine, towards her India bonds.
+When I come to town, Tourville shall do the like; and we will buy each a
+ring to wear in memory of the honest fellow, with our own money, that we
+may perform his will, as well as our own.
+
+My fellow rides the rest of the night.  I charge you, Jack, if you would
+save his life, that you send him not back empty-handed.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLVII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+TUESDAY NIGHT, AUG. 30.
+
+
+When I concluded my last, I hoped that my next attendance upon this
+surprising lady would furnish me with some particulars as agreeable as
+now could be hoped for from the declining way she is in, by reason of
+the welcome letter she had received from her cousin Morden.  But it
+proved quite otherwise to me, though not to herself; for I think I was
+never more shocked in my life than on the occasion I shall mention
+presently.
+
+When I attended her about seven in the evening, she told me that she
+found herself in a very petulant way after I had left her.  Strange, said
+she, that the pleasure I received from my cousin's letter should have
+such an effect upon me!  But I could not help giving way to a comparative
+humour, as I may call it, and to think it very hard that my nearer
+relations did not take the methods which my cousin Morden kindly took, by
+inquiring into my merit or demerit, and giving my cause a fair audit
+before they proceeded to condemnation.
+
+She had hardly said this, when she started, and a blush overspread her
+sweet face, on hearing, as I also did, a sort of lumbering noise upon the
+stairs, as if a large trunk were bringing up between two people: and,
+looking upon me with an eye of concern, Blunderers! said she, they have
+brought in something two hours before the time.--Don't be surprised, Sir
+--it is all to save you trouble.
+
+Before I could speak, in came Mrs. Smith: O Madam, said she, what have
+you done?--Mrs. Lovick, entering, made the same exclamation.  Lord have
+mercy upon me, Madam! cried I, what have you done?--For she, stepping at
+the same instant to the door, the women told me it was a coffin.--O
+Lovelace! that thou hadst been there at that moment!--Thou, the causer of
+all these shocking scenes!  Surely thou couldst not have been less
+affected than I, who have no guilt, as to her, to answer for.
+
+With an intrepidity of a piece with the preparation, having directed them
+to carry it to her bed-chamber, she returned to us: they were not to have
+brought it in till after dark, said she--Pray, excuse me, Mr. Belford:
+and don't you, Mrs. Lovick, be concerned: nor you, Mrs. Smith.--Why
+should you?  There is nothing more in it than the unusualness of the
+thing.  Why may we not be as reasonably shocked at going to church where
+are the monuments of our ancestors, with whose dust we even hope our dust
+shall be one day mingled, as to be moved at such a sight as this?
+
+We all remaining silent, the women having their aprons at their eyes, Why
+this concern for nothing at all? said she.  If I am to be blamed for any
+thing, it is for showing too much solicitude, as it may be thought, for
+this earthly part.  I love to do every thing for myself that I can do.  I
+ever did.  Every other material point is so far done, and taken care of,
+that I have had leisure for things of lesser moment.  Minutenesses may be
+observed, where greater articles are not neglected for them.  I might
+have had this to order, perhaps, when less fit to order it.  I have no
+mother, no sister, no Mrs. Norton, no Miss Howe, near me.  Some of you
+must have seen this in a few days, if not now; perhaps have had the
+friendly trouble of directing it.  And what is the difference of a few
+days to you, when I am gratified rather than discomposed by it?  I shall
+not die the sooner for such a preparation.  Should not every body that
+has any thing to bequeath make their will?  And who, that makes a will,
+should be afraid of a coffin?--My dear friends, [to the women] I have
+considered these things; do not, with such an object before you as you
+have had in me for weeks, give me reason to think you have not.
+
+How reasonable was all this!--It showed, indeed, that she herself had
+well considered it.  But yet we could not help being shocked at the
+thoughts of the coffin thus brought in; the lovely person before our
+eyes who is, in all likelihood, so soon to fill it.
+
+We were all silent still, the women in grief; I in a manner stunned.  She
+would not ask me, she said; but would be glad, since it had thus earlier
+than she had intended been brought in, that her two good friends would
+walk in and look upon it.  They would be less shocked when it was made
+more familiar to their eye: don't you lead back, said she, a starting
+steed to the object he is apt to start at, in order to familiarize him to
+it, and cure his starting?  The same reason will hold in this case.  Come,
+my good friends, I will lead you in.
+
+I took my leave; telling her she had done wrong, very wrong; and ought
+not, by any means, to have such an object before her.
+
+The women followed her in.--'Tis a strange sex!  Nothing is too shocking
+for them to look upon, or see acted, that has but novelty and curiosity
+in it.
+
+Down I posted; got a chair; and was carried home, extremely shocked and
+discomposed: yet, weighing the lady's arguments, I know not why I was so
+affected--except, as she said, at the unusualness of the thing.
+
+While I waited for a chair, Mrs. Smith came down, and told me that there
+were devices and inscriptions upon the lid.  Lord bless me! is a coffin a
+proper subject to display fancy upon?--But these great minds cannot avoid
+doing extraordinary things!
+
+
+
+LETTER XLVIII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+FRIDAY MORN. SEPT. 1.
+
+
+It is surprising, that I, a man, should be so much affected as I was, at
+such an object as is the subject of my former letter; who also, in my
+late uncle's case, and poor Belton's had the like before me, and the
+directing of it: when she, a woman, of so weak and tender a frame, who
+was to fill it (so soon perhaps to fill it!) could give orders about it,
+and draw out the devices upon it, and explain them with so little concern
+as the women tell me she did to them last night after I was gone.
+
+I really was ill, and restless all night.  Thou wert the subject of my
+execration, as she was of my admiration, all the time I was quite awake:
+and, when I dozed, I dreamt of nothing but of flying hour-glasses,
+deaths-heads, spades, mattocks, and eternity; the hint of her devices (as
+given me by Mrs. Smith) running in my head.
+
+However, not being able to keep away from Smith's, I went thither about
+seven.  The lady was just gone out: she had slept better, I found, than
+I, though her solemn repository was under her window, not far from her
+bed-side.
+
+I was prevailed upon by Mrs. Smith and her nurse Shelburne (Mrs. Lovick
+being abroad with her) to go up and look at the devices.  Mrs. Lovick has
+since shown me a copy of the draught by which all was ordered; and I will
+give thee a sketch of the symbols.
+
+The principal device, neatly etched on a plate of white metal, is a
+crowned serpent, with its tail in its mouth, forming a ring, the emblem
+of eternity: and in the circle made by it is this inscription:
+
+                          CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+
+                               April x.
+
+                           [Then the year.]
+
+                              ÆTAT. XIX.
+
+For ornaments: at top, an hour-glass, winged.  At bottom, an urn.
+
+Under the hour-glass, on another plate, this inscription:
+
+      HERE the wicked cease from troubling: and HERE the
+        weary be at rest.  Job. iii. 17.
+
+Over the urn, near the bottom:
+
+      Turn again unto thy rest, O my soul! for the Lord hath
+        rewarded thee: And why?  Thou hast delivered my
+        soul from death; mine eyes from tears; and my feet
+        from falling.  Ps. cxvi. 7, 8.
+
+Over this is the head of a white lily snapt short off, and just falling
+from the stalk; and this inscription over that, between the principal
+plate and the lily:
+
+      The days of man are but as grass.  For he flourisheth as a
+        flower of the field: for, as soon as the wind goeth over
+        it, it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no
+        more.  Ps. ciii. 15, 16.
+
+She excused herself to the women, on the score of her youth, and being
+used to draw for her needleworks, for having shown more fancy than would
+perhaps be thought suitable on so solemn an occasion.
+
+The date, April 10, she accounted for, as not being able to tell what her
+closing-day would be; and as that was the fatal day of her leaving her
+father's house.
+
+She discharged the undertaker's bill after I went away, with as much
+cheerfulness as she could ever have paid for the clothes she sold to
+purchase this her palace: for such she called it; reflecting upon herself
+for the expensiveness of it, saying, that they might observe in her, that
+pride left not poor mortals to the last: but indeed she did not know but
+her father would permit it, when furnished, to be carried down to be
+deposited with her ancestors; and, in that case, she ought not to
+discredit those ancestors in her appearance amongst them.
+
+It is covered with fine black cloth, and lined with white satin; soon,
+she said, to be tarnished with viler earth than any it could be covered
+by.
+
+The burial-dress was brought home with it.  The women had curiosity
+enough, I suppose, to see her open that, if she did open it.--And,
+perhaps, thou wouldst have been glad to have been present to have admired
+it too!--
+
+Mrs. Lovick said, she took the liberty to blame her; and wished the
+removal of such an object--from her bed-chamber, at least: and was so
+affected with the noble answer she made upon it, that she entered it down
+the moment she left her.
+
+'To persons in health, said she, this sight may be shocking; and the
+preparation, and my unconcernedness in it, may appear affected: but to
+me, who have had so gradual a weaning-time from the world, and so much
+reason not to love it, I must say, I dwell on, I indulge, (and, strictly
+speaking, I enjoy,) the thoughts of death.  For, believe me,' [looking
+stedfastly at the awful receptacle,] 'believe what at this instant I feel
+to be most true, That there is such a vast superiority of weight and
+importance in the thought of death, and its hoped-for happy consequences,
+that it in a manner annihilates all other considerations and concerns.
+Believe me, my good friends, it does what nothing else can do: it teaches
+me, by strengthening in me the force of the divinest example, to forgive
+the injuries I have received; and shuts out the remembrance of past evils
+from my soul.'
+
+And now let me ask thee, Lovelace, Dost thou think that, when the time
+shall come that thou shalt be obliged to launch into the boundless ocean
+of eternity, thou wilt be able (any more than poor Belton) to act thy
+part with such true heroism, as this sweet and tender blossom of a woman
+has manifested, and continues to manifest!
+
+Oh! no! it cannot be!--And why can't it be?--The reason is evident: she
+has no wilful errors to look back upon with self-reproach--and her mind
+is strengthened by the consolations which flow from that religious
+rectitude which has been the guide of all her actions; and which has
+taught her rather to choose to be a sufferer than an aggressor!
+
+This was the support of the divine Socrates, as thou hast read.  When led
+to execution, his wife lamenting that he should suffer being innocent,
+Thou fool, said he, wouldst thou wish me to be guilty!
+
+
+
+LETTER XLIX
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+FRIDAY, SEPT. 1.
+
+
+How astonishing, in the midst of such affecting scenes, is thy mirth on
+what thou callest my own aspirations!  Never, surely, was there such
+another man in this world, thy talents and thy levity taken together!--
+Surely, what I shall send thee with this will affect thee.  If not,
+nothing can, till thy own hour come: and heavy will then thy reflections
+be!
+
+I am glad, however, that thou enablest me to assure the lady that thou
+wilt no more molest her; that is to say, in other words, that, after
+having ruined her fortunes, and all her worldly prospects, thou wilt be
+so gracious, as to let her lie down and die in peace.
+
+Thy giving up to poor Belton's sister the little legacy, and thy
+undertaking to make Mowbray and Tourville follow thy example, are, I must
+say to thy honour, of a piece with thy generosity to thy Rose-bud and her
+Johnny; and to a number of other good actions in pecuniary matters:
+although thy Rose-bud's is, I believe, the only instance, where a pretty
+woman was concerned, of such a disinterested bounty.
+
+Upon my faith, Lovelace, I love to praise thee; and often and often, as
+thou knowest, have I studied for occasions to do it: insomuch that when,
+for the life of me, I could not think of any thing done by thee that
+deserved praise, I have taken pains to applaud the not ungraceful manner
+in which thou hast performed actions that merited the gallows.
+
+Now thou art so near, I will dispatch my servant to thee, if occasion
+requires.  But, I fear, I shall soon give thee the news thou art
+apprehensive of.  For I am just now sent for by Mrs. Smith; who has
+ordered the messenger to tell me, that she knew not if the lady will be
+alive when I come.
+
+
+FRIDAY, SEPT. 1, TWO O'CLOCK, AT SMITH'S.
+
+I could not close my letter in such an uncertainty as must have added to
+your impatience.  For you have, on several occasions, convinced me, that
+the suspense you love to give would be the greatest torment to you that
+you could receive.  A common case with all aggressive and violent
+spirits, I believe.  I will just mention then (your servant waiting here
+till I have written) that the lady has had two very severe fits: in the
+last of which whilst she lay, they sent to the doctor and Mr. Goddard,
+who both advised that a messenger should be dispatched for me, as her
+executor; being doubtful whether, if she had a third, it would not carry
+her off.
+
+She was tolerably recovered by the time I cane; and the doctor made her
+promise before me, that, while she was so weak, she would not attempt any
+more to go abroad; for, by Mrs. Lovick's description, who attended her,
+the shortness of her breath, her extreme weakness, and the fervour of her
+devotions when at church, were contraries, which, pulling different ways
+(the soul aspiring, the body sinking) tore her tender frame in pieces.
+
+So much for the present.  I shall detain Will. no longer than just to beg
+that you will send me back this packet and the last.  Your memory is so
+good, that once reading is all you ever give, or need to give, to any
+thing.  And who but ourselves can make out our characters, were you
+inclined to let any body see what passes between us?  If I cannot be
+obliged, I shall be tempted to withhold what I write, till I have time to
+take a copy of it.*
+
+
+* It may not be amiss to observe, that Mr. Belford's solicitude to get
+back his letters was owing to his desire of fulfilling the lady's wishes
+that he would furnish Miss Howe with materials to vindicate her memory.
+
+
+A letter from Miss Howe is just now brought by a particular messenger,
+who says he must carry back a few lines in return.  But, as the lady is
+just retired to lie down, the man is to call again by-and-by.
+
+
+
+LETTER L
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+UXBRIDGE, SEPT. 1, TWELVE O'CLOCK AT NIGHT.
+
+
+I send you the papers with this.  You must account to me honestly and
+fairly, when I see you, for the earnestness with which you write for
+them.  And then also will we talk about the contents of your last
+dispatch, and about some of your severe and unfriendly reflections.
+
+Mean time, whatever thou dost, don't let the wonderful creature leave us!
+Set before her the sin of her preparation, as if she thought she could
+depart when she pleased.  She'll persuade herself, at this rate, that she
+has nothing to do, when all is ready, but to lie down, and go to sleep:
+and such a lively fancy as her's will make a reality of a jest at any
+time.
+
+A jest I call all that has passed between her and me; a mere jest to die
+for--For has not her triumph over me, from first to last, been infinitely
+greater than her sufferings from me?
+
+Would the sacred regard I have for her purity, even for her personal as
+well as intellectual purity, permit, I could prove this as clear as the
+sun.  Tell, therefore, the dear creature that she must not be wicked in
+her piety.  There is a too much, as well as too little, even in
+righteousness.  Perhaps she does not think of that.--Oh! that she would
+have permitted my attendance, as obligingly as she does of thine!--The
+dear soul used to love humour.  I remember the time that she knew how to
+smile at a piece of apropos humour.  And, let me tell thee, a smile upon
+the lips, or a sparkling in the eye, must have had its correspondent
+cheerfulness in a heart so sincere as her's.
+
+Tell the doctor I will make over all my possessions, and all my
+reversions, to him, if he will but prolong her life for one twelvemonth
+to come.  But for one twelvemonth, Jack!--He will lose all his reputation
+with me, and I shall treat him as Belton did his doctor, if he cannot do
+this for me, on so young a subject.  But nineteen, Belford!--nineteen
+cannot so soon die of grief, if the doctor deserve that title; and so
+blooming and so fine a constitution as she had but three or four months
+ago!
+
+But what need the doctor to ask her leave to write to her friends?  Could
+he not have done it without letting her know any thing of the matter?
+That was one of the likeliest means that could be thought of to bring
+some of them about her, since she is so desirous to see them.  At least
+it would have induced them to send up her favourite Norton.  But these
+plaguy solemn fellows are great traders in parade.  They'll cram down
+your throat their poisonous drugs by wholesale, without asking you a
+question; and have the assurance to own it to be prescribing: but when
+they are to do good, they are to require your consent.
+
+How the dear creature's character rises in every line of thy letters!
+But it is owing to the uncommon occasions she has met with that she
+blazes out upon us with such a meridian lustre.  How, but for those
+occasions, could her noble sentiments, her prudent consideration, her
+forgiving spirit, her exalted benevolence, and her equanimity in view of
+the most shocking prospects (which set her in a light so superior to all
+her sex, and even to the philosophers of antiquity) have been manifested?
+
+I know thou wilt think I am going to claim some merit to myself, for
+having given her such opportunities of signalizing her virtues.  But I am
+not; for, if I did, I must share that merit with her implacable
+relations, who would justly be entitled to two-thirds of it, at least:
+and my soul disdains a partnership in any thing with such a family.
+
+But this I mention as an answer to thy reproaches, that I could be so
+little edified by perfections, to which, thou supposest, I was for so
+long together daily and hourly a personal witness--when, admirable as she
+was in all she said, and in all she did, occasion had not at that time
+ripened, and called forth, those amazing perfections which now astonish
+and confound me.
+
+Hence it is that I admire her more than ever; and that my love for her is
+less personal, as I may say, more intellectual, than ever I thought it
+could be to a woman.
+
+Hence also it is that I am confident (would it please the Fates to spare
+her, and make her mine) I could love her with a purity that would draw on
+my own FUTURE, as well as ensure her TEMPORAL, happiness.--And hence, by
+necessary consequence, shall I be the most miserable of all men, if I am
+deprived of her.
+
+Thou severely reflectest upon me for my levity: the Abbey instance in
+thine eye, I suppose.  And I will be ingenuous enough to own, that as
+thou seest not my heart, there may be passages, in every one of my
+letters, which (the melancholy occasion considered) deserve thy most
+pointed rebukes.  But faith, Jack, thou art such a tragi-comical mortal,
+with thy leaden aspirations at one time, and thy flying hour-glasses and
+dreaming terrors at another, that, as Prior says, What serious is, thou
+turn'st to farce; and it is impossible to keep within the bounds of
+decorum or gravity when one reads what thou writest.
+
+But to restrain myself (for my constitutional gayety was ready to run
+away with me again) I will repeat, I must ever repeat, that I am most
+egregiously affected with the circumstances of the case: and, were this
+paragon actually to quit the world, should never enjoy myself one hour
+together, though I were to live to the age of Methusalem.
+
+Indeed it is to this deep concern, that my levity is owing: for I
+struggle and struggle, and try to buffet down my cruel reflections as
+they rise; and when I cannot, I am forced, as I have often said, to try
+to make myself laugh, that I may not cry; for one or other I must do: and
+is it not philosophy carried to the highest pitch, for a man to conquer
+such tumults of soul as I am sometimes agitated by, and, in the very
+height of the storm, to be able to quaver out an horse-laugh?
+
+Your Seneca's, your Epictetus's, and the rest of your stoical tribe, with
+all their apathy nonsense, could not come up to this.  They could forbear
+wry faces: bodily pains they could well enough seem to support; and that
+was all: but the pangs of their own smitten-down souls they could not
+laugh over, though they could at the follies of others.  They read grave
+lectures; but they were grave.  This high point of philosophy, to laugh
+and be merry in the midst of the most soul-harrowing woes, when the
+heart-strings are just bursting asunder, was reserved for thy Lovelace.
+
+There is something owing to constitution, I own; and that this is the
+laughing-time of my life.  For what a woe must that be, which for an hour
+together can mortify a man six or seven and twenty, in high blood and
+spirits, of a naturally gay disposition, who can sing, dance, and
+scribble, and take and give delight in them all?--But then my grief, as
+my joy, is sharper-pointed than most other men's; and, like what Dolly
+Welby once told me, describing the parturient throes, if there were not
+lucid intervals, if they did not come and go, there would be no bearing
+them.
+
+
+***
+
+
+After all, as I am so little distant from the dear creature, and as she
+is so very ill, I think I cannot excuse myself from making her one visit.
+Nevertheless, if I thought her so near--[what word shall I use, that my
+soul is not shocked at!] and that she would be too much discomposed by a
+visit, I would not think of it.--Yet how can I bear the recollection,
+that, when she last went from me (her innocence so triumphant over my
+premeditated guilt, as was enough to reconcile her to life, and to set
+her above the sense of injuries so nobly sustained, that) she should then
+depart with an incurable fracture in her heart; and that that should be
+the last time I should ever see her!--How, how, can I bear this
+reflection!
+
+O Jack! how my conscience, that gives edge even to thy blunt reflections,
+tears me!--Even this moment would I give the world to push the cruel
+reproacher from me by one ray of my usual gayety!--Sick of myself!--sick
+of the remembrance of my vile plots; and of my light, my momentary
+ecstacy [villanous burglar, felon, thief, that I was!] which has brought
+on me such durable and such heavy remorse! what would I give that I had
+not been guilty of such barbarous and ungrateful perfidy to the most
+excellent of God's creatures!
+
+I would end, methinks, with one sprightlier line!--but it will not be.--
+Let me tell thee then, and rejoice at it if thou wilt, that I am
+
+Inexpressibly miserable!
+
+
+
+LETTER LI
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+SAT. MORNING, SEPT. 2.
+
+
+I have some little pleasure given me by thine, just now brought me.  I
+see now that thou hast a little humanity left.  Would to Heaven, for the
+dear lady's sake, as well as for thy own, that thou hadst rummaged it up
+from all the dark forgotten corners of thy soul a little sooner!
+
+The lady is alive, and serene, and calm, and has all her noble intellects
+clear and strong: but nineteen will not however save her.  She says she
+will now content herself with her closet duties, and the visits of the
+parish-minister; and will not attempt to go out.  Nor, indeed, will she,
+I am afraid, ever walk up or down a pair of stairs again.
+
+I am sorry at my soul to have this to say: but it would be a folly to
+flatter thee.
+
+As to thy seeing her, I believe the least hint of that sort, now, would
+cut off some hours of her life.
+
+What has contributed to her serenity, it seems, is, that taking the alarm
+her fits gave her, she has entirely finished, and signed and sealed, her
+last will: which she had deferred till this time, in hopes, as she said,
+of some good news from Harlowe-place; which would have induced her to
+alter some passages in it.
+
+Miss Howe's letter was not given her till four in the afternoon,
+yesterday; at which time the messenger returned for an answer.  She
+admitted him into her presence in the dining-room, ill as she then was,
+and she would have written a few lines, as desired by Miss Howe; but, not
+being able to hold a pen, she bid the messenger tell her that she hoped
+to be well enough to write a long letter by the next day's post; and
+would not now detain him.
+
+
+***
+
+
+SATURDAY, SIX IN THE AFTERNOON.
+
+I called just now, and found the lady writing to Miss Howe.  She made me
+a melancholy compliment, that she showed me not Miss Howe's letter,
+because I should soon have that and all her papers before me.  But she
+told me that Miss Howe had very considerably obviated to Colonel Morden
+several things which might have occasioned misapprehensions between him
+and me; and had likewise put a lighter construction, for the sake of
+peace, on some of your actions than they deserved.
+
+She added, that her cousin Morden was warmly engaged in her favour with
+her friends: and one good piece of news Miss Howe's letter contained,
+that her father would give up some matters, which (appertaining to her of
+right) would make my executorship the easier in some particulars that had
+given her a little pain.
+
+She owned she had been obliged to leave off (in the letter she was
+writing) through weakness.
+
+Will. says he shall reach you to-night.  I shall send in the morning;
+and, if I find her not worse, will ride to Edgware, and return in the
+afternoon.
+
+
+
+LETTER LII
+
+MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+TUESDAY, AUG. 29.
+
+
+MY DEAREST FRIEND,
+
+We are at length returned to our own home.  I had intended to wait on you
+in London: but my mother is very ill--Alas! my dear, she is very ill
+indeed--and you are likewise very ill--I see that by your's of the 25th--
+What shall I do, if I lose two such near, and dear, and tender friends?
+She was taken ill yesterday at our last stage in our return home--and has
+a violent surfeit and fever, and the doctors are doubtful about her.
+
+If she should die, how will all my pertnesses to her fly in my face!--
+Why, why, did I ever vex her?  She says I have been all duty and
+obedience!--She kindly forgets all my faults, and remembers every thing I
+have been so happy as to oblige her in.  And this cuts me to the heart.
+
+I see, I see, my dear, that you are very bad--and I cannot bear it.  Do,
+my beloved Miss Harlowe, if you can be better, do, for my sake, be
+better; and send me word of it.  Let the bearer bring me a line.  Be sure
+you send me a line.  If I lose you, my more than sister, and lose my
+mother, I shall distrust my own conduct, and will not marry.  And why
+should I?--Creeping, cringing in courtship!--O my dear, these men are a
+vile race of reptiles in our day, and mere bears in their own.  See in
+Lovelace all that is desirable in figure, in birth, and in fortune: but
+in his heart a devil!--See in Hickman--Indeed, my dear, I cannot tell
+what any body can see in Hickman, to be always preaching in his favour.
+And is it to be expected that I, who could hardly bear control from a
+mother, should take it from a husband?--from one too, who has neither
+more wit, nor more understanding, than myself? yet he to be my
+instructor!--So he will, I suppose; but more by the insolence of his will
+than by the merit of his counsel.  It is in vain to think of it.  I
+cannot be a wife to any man breathing whom I at present know.  This I the
+rather mention now, because, on my mother's danger, I know you will be
+for pressing me the sooner to throw myself into another sort of
+protection, should I be deprived of her.  But no more of this subject, or
+indeed of any other; for I am obliged to attend my mamma, who cannot bear
+me out of her sight.
+
+
+***
+
+
+WEDNESDAY, AUG. 30.
+
+My mother, Heaven be praised! has had a fine night, and is much better.
+Her fever has yielded to medicine! and now I can write once more with
+freedom and ease to you, in hopes that you also are better.  If this be
+granted to my prayers, I shall again be happy, I write with still the
+more alacrity as I have an opportunity given me to touch upon a subject
+in which you are nearly concerned.
+
+You must know then, my dear, that your cousin Morden has been here with
+me.  He told me of an interview he had on Monday at Lord M.'s with
+Lovelace; and asked me abundance of questions about you, and about that
+villanous man.
+
+I could have raised a fine flame between them if I would: but, observing
+that he is a man of very lively passions, and believing you would be
+miserable if any thing should happen to him from a quarrel with a man who
+is known to have so many advantages at his sword, I made not the worst of
+the subjects we talked of.  But, as I could not tell untruths in his
+favour, you must think I said enough to make him curse the wretch.
+
+I don't find, well as they all used to respect Colonel Morden, that he
+has influence enough upon them to bring them to any terms of
+reconciliation.
+
+What can they mean by it!--But your brother is come home, it seems: so,
+the honour of the house, the reputation of the family, is all the cry!
+
+The Colonel is exceedingly out of humour with them all.  Yet has he not
+hitherto, it seems, seen your brutal brother.--I told him how ill you
+were, and communicated to him some of the contents of your letter.  He
+admired you, cursed Lovelace, and raved against all your family.--He
+declared that they were all unworthy of you.
+
+At his earnest request, I permitted him to take some brief notes of such
+of the contents of your letter to me as I thought I could read to him;
+and, particularly, of your melancholy conclusion.*
+
+
+* See Letter XXXII. of this volume.
+
+
+He says that none of your friends think you are so ill as you are; nor
+will believe it.  He is sure they all love you; and that dearly too.
+
+If they do, their present hardness of heart will be the subject of
+everlasting remorse to them should you be taken from us--but now it seems
+[barbarous wretches!] you are to suffer within an inch of your life.
+
+He asked me questions about Mr. Belford: and, when he had heard what I
+had to say of that gentleman, and his disinterested services to you, he
+raved at some villanous surmises thrown out against you by that officious
+pedant, Brand: who, but for his gown, I find, would come off poorly enough
+between your cousin and Lovelace.
+
+He was so uneasy about you himself, that on Thursday, the 24th, he sent
+up an honest serious man,* one Alston, a gentleman farmer, to inquire of
+your condition, your visiters, and the like; who brought him word that
+you was very ill, and was put to great straits to support yourself: but
+as this was told him by the gentlewoman of the house where you lodge,
+who, it seems, mingled it with some tart, though deserved, reflections
+upon your relations' cruelty, it was not credited by them: and I myself
+hope it cannot be true; for surely you could not be so unjust, I will
+say, to my friendship, as to suffer any inconveniencies for want of
+money.  I think I could not forgive you, if it were so.
+
+
+* See Letter XXIII. ibid.
+
+
+The Colonel (as one of your trustees) is resolved to see you put into
+possession of your estate: and, in the mean time, he has actually engaged
+them to remit to him for you the produce of it accrued since your
+grandfather's death, (a very considerable sum;) and proposes himself to
+attend you with it.  But, by a hint he dropt, I find you had disappointed
+some people's littleness, by not writing to them for money and supplies;
+since they were determined to distress you, and to put you at defiance.
+
+Like all the rest!--I hope I may say that without offence.
+
+Your cousin imagines that, before a reconciliation takes place, they will
+insist that you make such a will, as to that estate, as they shall
+approve of: but he declares that he will not go out of England till he
+has seen justice done you by every body; and that you shall not be
+imposed on either by friend or foe--
+
+By relation or foe, should he not have said?--for a friend will not
+impose upon a friend.
+
+So, my dear, you are to buy your peace, if some people are to have their
+wills!
+
+Your cousin [not I, my dear, though it was always my opinion*] says, that
+the whole family is too rich to be either humble, considerate, or
+contented.  And as for himself, he has an ample fortune, he says, and
+thinks of leaving it wholly to you.
+
+
+* See Vol. I. Letter X.
+
+
+Had this villain Lovelace consulted his worldly interest only, what a
+fortune would he have had in you, even although your marrying him had
+deprived you of a paternal share!
+
+I am obliged to leave off here.  But having a good deal still more to
+write, and my mother better, I will pursue the subject in another letter,
+although I send both together.  I need not say how much I am, and will
+ever be,
+
+Your affectionate, &c.
+ANNA HOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER LIII
+
+MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+THURSDAY, AUGUST 31.
+
+
+The Colonel thought fit once, in praise of Lovelace's generosity, to say,
+that (as a man of honour ought) he took to himself all the blame, and
+acquitted you of the consequences of the precipitate step you had taken;
+since he said, as you loved him, and was in his power, he must have had
+advantages which he would not have had, if you had continued at your
+father's, or at any friend's.
+
+Mighty generous, I said, (were it as he supposed,) in such insolent
+reflectors, the best of them; who pretend to clear reputations which
+never had been sullied but by falling into their dirty acquaintance! but
+in this case, I averred, that there was no need of any thing but the
+strictest truth, to demonstrate Lovelace to be the blackest of villains,
+you the brightest of innocents.
+
+This he catched at; and swore, that if any thing uncommon or barbarous in
+the seduction were to come out, as indeed one of the letters you had
+written to your friends, and which had been shown him, very strongly
+implied; that is to say, my dear, if any thing worse than perjury, breach
+of faith, and abuse of a generous confidence, were to appear! [sorry
+fellows!] he would avenge his cousin to the utmost.
+
+I urged your apprehensions on this head from your last letter to me: but
+he seemed capable of taking what I know to be real greatness of soul, in
+an unworthy sense: for he mentioned directly upon it the expectations
+your friends had, that you should (previous to any reconciliation with
+them) appear in a court of justice against the villain--IF you could do
+it with the advantage to yourself that I hinted might be done.
+
+And truly, if I would have heard him, he had indelicacy enough to have
+gone into the nature of the proof of the crime upon which they wanted to
+have Lovelace arraigned.  Yet this is a man improved by travel and
+learning!--Upon my word, my dear, I, who have been accustomed to the most
+delicate conversation ever since I had the honour to know you, despise
+this sex from the gentleman down to the peasant.
+
+Upon the whole, I find that Mr. Morden has a very slender notion of
+women's virtue in particular cases: for which reason I put him down,
+though your favourite, as one who is not entitled to cast the first
+stone.
+
+I never knew a man who deserved to be well thought of himself for his
+morals, who had a slight opinion of the virtue of our sex in general.
+For if, from the difference of temperament and education, modesty,
+chastity, and piety too, are not to be found in our sex preferably to
+the other, I should think it a sign of much worse nature in ours.
+
+He even hinted (as from your relations indeed) that it is impossible
+but there most be some will where there is much love.
+
+These sort of reflections are enough to make a woman, who has at heart
+her own honour and the honour of her sex, to look about her, and consider
+what she is doing when she enters into an intimacy with these wretches;
+since it is plain, that whenever she throws herself into the power of a
+man, and leaves for him her parents or guardians, every body will believe
+it to be owing more to her good luck than to her discretion if there be
+not an end of her virtue: and let the man be ever such a villain to her,
+she must take into her own bosom a share of his guilty baseness.
+
+I am writing to general cases.  You, my dear, are out of the question.
+Your story, as I have heretofore said, will afford a warning as well as
+an example:* For who is it that will not infer, that if a person of your
+fortune, character, and merit, could not escape ruin, after she had put
+herself into the power of her hyæna, what can a thoughtless, fond, giddy
+creature expect?
+
+
+* See Vol. IV. Letter XXIII.
+
+
+Every man, they will say, is not a LOVELACE--True: but then, neither is
+every woman a CLARISSA.  And allow for the one and for the other the
+example must be of general use.
+
+I prepared Mr. Morden to expect your appointment of Mr. Belford for an
+office that we both hope he will have no occasion to act in (nor any body
+else) for many, very many years to come.  He was at first startled at it:
+but, upon hearing such of your reasons as had satisfied me, he only said
+that such an appointment, were it to take place, would exceedingly affect
+his other cousins.
+
+He told me, he had a copy of Lovelace's letter to you, imploring your
+pardon, and offering to undergo any penance to procure it;* and also of
+your answer to it.**
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXIX.
+** Ibid. Letter LXXXIII.
+
+
+I find he is willing to hope that a marriage between you may still take
+place; which, he says, will heal up all breaches.
+
+I would have written much more--on the following particulars especially;
+to wit, of the wretched man's hunting you out of your lodgings: of your
+relations' strange implacableness, [I am in haste, and cannot think of a
+word you would like better just now:] of your last letter to Lovelace, to
+divert him from pursuing you: of your aunt Hervey's penitential
+conversation with Mrs. Norton: of Mr. Wyerley's renewed address: of your
+lessons to me in Hickman's behalf, so approvable, were the man more so
+than he is; but indeed I am offended with him at this instant, and have
+been for these two days: of your sister's transportation-project: and of
+twenty and twenty other things: but am obliged to leave off, to attend my
+two cousins Spilsworth, and my cousin Herbert, who are come to visit us
+on account of my mother's illness--I will therefore dispatch these by
+Rogers; and if my mother gets well soon (as I hope she will) I am
+resolved to see you in town, and tell you every thing that now is upon my
+mind; and particularly, mingling my soul with your's, how much I am, and
+will ever be, my dearest, dear friend,
+
+Your affectionate
+ANNA HOWE.
+
+Let Rogers bring one line, I pray you.  I thought to have sent him this
+      afternoon; but he cannot set out till to-morrow morning early.
+
+I cannot express how much your staggering lines and your conclusion
+      affect me!
+
+
+
+LETTER LIV
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+SUNDAY EVENING, SEPT. 3.
+
+
+I wonder not at the impatience your servant tells me you express to hear
+from me.  I was designing to write you a long letter, and was just
+returned from Smith's for that purpose; but, since you are urgent, you
+must be contented with a short one.
+
+I attended the lady this morning, just before I set out for Edgware.  She
+was so ill over-night, that she was obliged to leave unfinished her
+letter to Miss Howe.  But early this morning she made an end of it, and
+just sealed it up as I came.  She was so fatigued with writing, that she
+told me she would lie down after I was gone, and endeavour to recruit her
+spirits.
+
+They had sent for Mr. Goddard, when she was so ill last night; and not
+being able to see him out of her own chamber, he, for the first time, saw
+her house, as she calls it.  He was extremely shocked and concerned at
+it; and chid Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick for not persuading her to have
+such an object removed form her bed-chamber: and when they excused
+themselves on the little authority it was reasonable to suppose they must
+have with a lady so much their superior, he reflected warmly on those who
+had more authority, and who left her to proceed with such a shocking and
+solemn whimsy, as he called it.
+
+It is placed near the window, like a harpsichord, though covered over to
+the ground: and when she is so ill that she cannot well go to her closet,
+she writes and reads upon it, as others would upon a desk or table.  But
+(only as she was so ill last night) she chooses not to see any body in
+that apartment.
+
+I went to Edgware; and, returning in the evening, attended her again.
+She had a letter brought her from Mrs. Norton (a long one, as it seems by
+its bulk,) just before I came.  But she had not opened it; and said, that
+as she was pretty calm and composed, she was afraid to look into the
+contents, lest she should be ruffled; expecting now to hear of nothing
+that could do her good or give her pleasure from that good woman's dear
+hard-hearted neighbours, as she called her own relations.
+
+Seeing her so weak and ill, I withdrew; nor did she desire me to tarry,
+as sometimes she does, when I make a motion to depart.
+
+I had some hints, as I went away, from Mrs. Smith, that she had
+appropriated that evening to some offices, that were to save trouble, as
+she called it, after her departure; and had been giving orders to her
+nurse, and to Mrs. Lovick, and Mrs. Smith, about what she would have done
+when she was gone; and I believe they were of a very delicate and
+affecting nature; but Mrs. Smith descended not to particulars.
+
+The doctor had been with her, as well as Mr. Goddard; and they both
+joined with great earnestness to persuade her to have her house removed
+out of her sight; but she assured them that it gave her pleasure and
+spirits; and, being a necessary preparation, she wondered they should be
+surprised at it, when she had not any of her family about her, or any old
+acquaintance, on whose care and exactness in these punctilios, as she
+called them, she could rely.
+
+The doctor told Mrs. Smith, that he believed she would hold out long
+enough for any of her friends to have notice of her state, and to see
+her; and hardly longer; and since he could not find that she had any
+certainty of seeing her cousin Morden, (which made it plain that her
+relations continued inflexible,) he would go home, and write a letter to
+her father, take it as she would.
+
+She had spent great part of the day in intense devotions; and to-morrow
+morning she is to have with her the same clergyman who has often attended
+her; from whose hands she will again receive the sacrament.
+
+Thou seest, Lovelace, that all is preparing, that all will be ready; and
+I am to attend her to-morrow afternoon, to take some instructions from
+her in relation to my part in the office to be performed for her.  And
+thus, omitting the particulars of a fine conversation between her and
+Mrs. Lovick, which the latter acquainted me with, as well as another
+between her and the doctor and apothecary, which I had a design this
+evening to give you, they being of a very affecting nature, I have
+yielded to your impatience.
+
+   I shall dispatch Harry to-morrow morning early with her letter to Miss
+      Howe: an offer she took very kindly; as she is extremely
+      solicitous to lessen that young lady's apprehensions for her on
+      not hearing from her by Saturday's post: and yet, if she write
+      truth, as no doubt but she will, how can her apprehensions be
+      lessened?
+
+
+
+LETTER LV
+
+MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
+SATURDAY, SEPT. 2.
+
+
+I write, my beloved Miss Howe, though very ill still: but I could not by
+the return of your messenger; for I was then unable to hold a pen.
+
+Your mother's illness (as mentioned in the first part of your letter,)
+gave me great distress for you, till I read farther.  You bewailed it as
+became a daughter so sensible.  May you be blessed in each other for
+many, very many years to come!  I doubt not, that even this sudden and
+grievous indisposition, by the frame it has put you in, and the
+apprehension it has given you of losing so dear a mother, will contribute
+to the happiness I wish you: for, alas! my dear, we seldom know how to
+value the blessings we enjoy, till we are in danger of losing them, or
+have actually lost them: and then, what would we give to have them
+restored to us!
+
+What, I wonder, has again happened between you and Mr. Hickman?  Although
+I know not, I dare say it is owing to some petty petulance, to some
+half-ungenerous advantage taken of his obligingness and assiduity.  Will
+you never, my dear, give the weight you and all our sex ought to give to
+the qualities of sobriety and regularity of life and manners in that sex?
+Must bold creatures, and forward spirits, for ever, and by the best and
+wisest of us, as well as by the indiscreetest, be the most kindly
+treated?
+
+My dear friends know not that I have actually suffered within less than
+an inch of my life.
+
+Poor Mr. Brand! he meant well, I believe.  I am afraid all will turn
+heavily upon him, when he probably imagined that he was taking the best
+method to oblige.  But were he not to have been so light of belief, and
+so weakly officious; and had given a more favourable, and, it would be
+strange if I could not say, a juster report; things would have been,
+nevertheless, exactly as they are.
+
+I must lay down my pen.  I am very ill.  I believe I shall be better
+by-and-by.  The bad writing would betray me, although I had a mind to
+keep from you what the event must soon--
+
+
+***
+
+
+Now I resume my trembling pen.  Excuse the unsteady writing.  It will
+be so--
+
+I have wanted no money: so don't be angry about such a trifle as money.
+Yet I am glad of what you inclined me to hope, that my friends will give
+up the produce of my grandfather's estate since it has been in their
+hands: because, knowing it to be my right, and that they could not want
+it, I had already disposed of a good part of it; and could only hope they
+would be willing to give it up at my last request.  And now how rich
+shall I think myself in this my last stage!--And yet I did not want
+before--indeed I did not--for who, that has many superfluities, can be
+said to want!
+
+Do not, my dear friend, be concerned that I call it my last stage; For
+what is even the long life which in high health we wish for?  What, but,
+as we go along, a life of apprehension, sometimes for our friends,
+oftener for ourselves?  And at last, when arrived at the old age we
+covet, one heavy loss or deprivation having succeeded another, we see
+ourselves stript, as I may say, of every one we loved; and find ourselves
+exposed, as uncompanionable poor creatures, to the slights, to the
+contempts, of jostling youth, who want to push us off the stage, in hopes
+to possess what we have:--and, superadded to all, our own infirmities
+every day increasing: of themselves enough to make the life we wished for
+the greatest disease of all!  Don't you remember the lines of Howard,
+which once you read to me in my ivy-bower?*
+
+
+* These are the lines the lady refers to:
+
+      From death we rose to life: 'tis but the same,
+      Through life to pass again from whence we came.
+      With shame we see our PASSIONS can prevail,
+      Where reason, certainty, and virtue fail.
+      HONOUR, that empty name, can death despise;    |
+      SCORN'D LOVE to death, as to a refuge, flies;  |
+      And SORROW waits for death with longing eyes.  |
+      HOPE triumphs o'er the thoughts of death; and FATE
+      Cheats fools, and flatters the unfortunate.
+      We fear to lose, what a small time must waste,
+      Till life itself grows the disease at last.
+      Begging for life, we beg for more decay,
+      And to be long a dying only pray.
+
+
+In the disposition of what belongs to me, I have endeavoured to do every
+thing in the justest and best manner I could think of; putting myself in
+my relations' places, and, in the greater points, ordering my matters as
+if no misunderstanding had happened.
+
+I hope they will not think much of some bequests where wanted, and where
+due from my gratitude: but if they should, what is done, is done; and I
+cannot now help it.  Yet I must repeat, that I hope, I hope, I have
+pleased every one of them.  For I would not, on any account, have it
+thought that, in my last disposition, any thing undaughterly, unsisterly,
+or unlike a kinswoman, should have had place in a mind that is a truly
+free (as I will presume to say) from all resentment, that it now
+overflows with gratitude and blessings for the good I have received,
+although it be not all that my heart wished to receive.  Were it even an
+hardship that I was not favoured with more, what is it but an hardship
+of half a year, against the most indulgent goodness of eighteen years and
+an half, that ever was shown to a daughter?
+
+My cousin, you tell me, thinks I was off my guard, and that I was taken
+at some advantage.  Indeed, my dear, I was not.  Indeed I gave no room
+for advantage to be taken of me.  I hope, one day, that will be seen, if
+I have the justice done me which Mr. Belford assures me of.
+
+I should hope that my cousin has not taken the liberties which you (by an
+observation not, in general, unjust) seem to charge him with.  For it is
+sad to think, that the generality of that sex should make so light of
+crimes, which they justly hold so unpardonable in their own most intimate
+relations of our's--yet cannot commit them without doing such injuries to
+other families as they think themselves obliged to resent unto death,
+when offered to their own.
+
+But we women are too often to blame on this head; since the most virtuous
+among us seldom make virtue the test of their approbation of the other
+sex; insomuch that a man may glory in his wickedness of this sort without
+being rejected on that account, even to the faces of women of
+unquestionable virtue.  Hence it is, that a libertine seldom thinks
+himself concerned so much as to save appearances: And what is it not that
+our sex suffers in their opinion on this very score?  And what have I,
+more than many others, to answer for on this account in the world's eye?
+
+May my story be a warning to all, how they prefer a libertine to a man of
+true honour; and how they permit themselves to be misled (where they mean
+the best) by the specious, yet foolish hope of subduing riveted habits,
+and, as I may say, of altering natures!--The more foolish, as constant
+experience might convince us, that there is hardly one in ten, of even
+tolerably happy marriages, in which the wife keeps the hold in the
+husband's affections, which she had in the lover's.  What influence then
+can she hope to have over the morals of an avowed libertine, who marries
+perhaps for conveniency, who despises the tie, and whom, it is too
+probable, nothing but old age, or sickness, or disease, (the consequence
+of ruinous riot,) can reclaim?
+
+I am very glad you gave my cous--
+
+
+SUNDAY MORNING, SEPT. 3, SIX O'CLOCK.
+
+Hither I had written, and was forced to quit my pen.  And so much weaker
+and worse I grew, that had I resumed it, to have closed here, it must
+have been with such trembling unsteadiness, that it would have given you
+more concern for me, than the delay of sending it away by last night's
+post can do.  I deferred it, therefore, to see how it would please God to
+deal with me.  And I find myself, after a better night than I expected,
+lively and clear; and hope to give a proof that I do, in the continuation
+of my letter, which I will pursue as currently as if I had not left off.
+
+I am glad that you so considerately gave my cousin Morden favourable
+impressions of Mr. Belford; since, otherwise, some misunderstanding might
+have happened between them: for although I hope this Mr. Belford is an
+altered man, and in time will be a reformed one, yet is he one of those
+high spirits that has been accustomed to resent imaginary indignities to
+himself, when, I believe, he has not been studious to avoid giving real
+offences to others; men of this cast acting as if they thought all the
+world was made to bar with them, and they with nobody in it.
+
+Mr. Lovelace, you tell me, thought fit to intrust my cousin with the copy
+of his letter of penitence to me, and with my answer to it, rejecting him
+and his suit: and Mr. Belford, moreover, acquaints me, how much concerned
+Mr. Lovelace is for his baseness, and how freely he accused himself to my
+cousin.  This shows, that the true bravery of spirit is to be above doing
+a vile action; and that nothing subjects the human mind to so much
+meanness, as the consciousness of having done wilful wrong to our fellow
+creatures.  How low, how sordid, are the submissions which elaborate
+baseness compels! that that wretch could treat me as he did, and then
+could so poorly creep to me for forgiveness of crimes so wilful, so
+black, and so premeditated! how my soul despised him for his meanness on
+a certain occasion, of which you will one day be informed!* and him whose
+actions one's heart despises, it is far from being difficult to reject,
+had one ever so partially favoured him once.
+
+
+* Meaning his meditated second violence (See Vol. VI. Letter XXXVI.) and
+his succeeding letters to her, supplicating for her pardon.
+
+
+Yet am I glad this violent spirit can thus creep; that, like a poisonous
+serpent, he can thus coil himself, and hide his head in his own narrow
+circlets; because this stooping, this abasement, gives me hope that no
+farther mischief will ensue.
+
+All my apprehension is, what may happen when I am gone; lest then my
+cousin, or any other of my family, should endeavour to avenge me, and
+risk their own more precious lives on that account.
+
+If that part of Cain's curse were Mr. Lovelace's, to be a fugitive and
+vagabond in the earth; that is to say, if it meant no more harm to him
+than that he should be obliged to travel, as it seems he intends, (though
+I wish him no ill in his travels;) and I could know it; then should I be
+easy in the hoped-for safety of my friends from his skilful violence--Oh!
+that I could hear he was a thousand miles off!
+
+When I began this letter, I did not think I could have run to such a
+length.  But 'tis to YOU, my dearest friend, and you have a title to the
+spirits you raise and support; for they are no longer mine, and will
+subside the moment I cease writing to you.
+
+But what do you bid me hope for, when you tell me that, if your mother's
+health will permit, you will see me in town?  I hope your mother's health
+will be perfected as you wish; but I dare not promise myself so great a
+favour; so great a blessing, I will call it--and indeed I know not if I
+should be able to bear it now!
+
+Yet one comfort it is in your power to give me; and that is, let me know,
+and very speedily it must be, if you wish to oblige me, that all matters
+are made up between you and Mr. Hickman; to whom, I see, you are
+resolved, with all your bravery of spirit, to owe a multitude of
+obligations for his patience with your flightiness.  Think of this, my
+dear proud friend! and think, likewise, of what I have often told you,
+that PRIDE, in man or woman, is an extreme that hardly ever fails, sooner
+or later, to bring forth its mortifying CONTRARY.
+
+May you, my dear Miss Howe, have no discomforts but what you make to
+yourself! as it will be in your own power to lessen such as these, they
+ought to be your punishment if you do not.  There is no such thing as
+perfect happiness here, since the busy mind will make to itself evils,
+were it to find none.  You will, therefore, pardon this limited wish,
+strange as it may appear, till you consider it: for to wish you no
+infelicity, either within or without you, were to wish you what can never
+happen in this world; and what perhaps ought not to be wished for, if by
+a wish one could give one's friend such an exemption; since we are not to
+live here always.
+
+We must not, in short, expect that our roses will grow without thorns:
+but then they are useful and instructive thorns: which, by pricking the
+fingers of the too-hasty plucker, teach future caution.  And who knows
+not that difficulty gives poignancy to our enjoyments; which are apt to
+lose their relish with us when they are over easily obtained?
+
+I must conclude--
+
+God for ever bless you, and all you love and honour, and reward you here
+and hereafter for your kindness to
+
+Your ever obliged and affectionate
+CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER LVI
+
+MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+[IN ANSWER TO HER'S OF THURSDAY, AUGUST 24.  SEE LETTER XXX. OF THIS
+VOLUME.]
+THURSDAY, AUG. 31.
+
+
+I had written sooner, my dearest young lady, but that I have been
+endeavouring, ever since the receipt of your last letter, to obtain a
+private audience of your mother, in hopes of leave to communicate it to
+her.  But last night I was surprised by an invitation to breakfast at
+Harlowe-place this morning; and the chariot came early to fetch me--an
+honour I did not expect.
+
+When I came, I found there was to be a meeting of all your family with
+Col. Morden, at Harlowe-place; and it was proposed by your mother, and
+consented to, that I should be present.  Your cousin, I understand, had
+with difficulty brought this meeting to bear; for your brother had before
+industriously avoided all conversation with him on the affecting subject;
+urging that it was not necessary to talk to Mr. Morden upon it, who,
+being a remoter relation than themselves, had no business to make himself
+a judge of their conduct to their daughter, their niece, and their
+sister; especially as he had declared himself in her favour; adding, that
+he should hardly have patience to be questioned by Mr. Morden on that
+head.
+
+I was in hopes that your mother would have given me an opportunity of
+talking with her alone before the company met; but she seemed studiously
+to avoid it; I dare say, however, not with her inclination.
+
+I was ordered in just before Mr. Morden came; and was bid to sit down--
+which I did in the window.
+
+The Colonel, when he came, began the discourse, by renewing, as he called
+it, his solicitations in your favour.  He set before them your penitence;
+your ill health; your virtue, though once betrayed, and basely used; he
+then read to them Mr. Lovelace's letter, a most contrite one indeed,* and
+your high-souled answer;** for that was what he justly called it; and he
+treated as it deserved Mr. Brand's officious information, (of which I had
+before heard he had made them ashamed,) by representations founded upon
+inquiries made by Mr. Alston,*** whom he had procured to go up on purpose
+to acquaint himself with your manner of life, and what was meant by the
+visits of that Mr. Belford.
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. LXXIX.
+** Ibid. Letter LXXXIII.
+*** See Vol. VIII. Letter XXIII.
+
+
+He then told them, that he had the day before waited upon Miss Howe, and
+had been shown a letter from you to her,* and permitted to take some
+memorandums from it, in which you appeared, both by handwriting, and the
+contents, to be so very ill, that it seemed doubtful to him, if it were
+possible for you to get over it.  And when he read to them that passage,
+where you ask Miss Howe, 'What can be done for you now, were your friends
+to be ever so favourable? and wish for their sakes, more than for your
+own, that they would still relent;' and then say, 'You are very ill--you
+must drop your pen--and ask excuse for your crooked writing; and take, as
+it were, a last farewell of Miss Howe;--adieu, my dear, adieu,' are your
+words--
+
+
+* Ibid. Letter XXXIII.
+
+
+O my child! my child! said you mamma, weeping, and clasping her hands.
+
+Dear Madam, said your brother, be so good as to think you have more
+children than this ungrateful one.
+
+Yet your sister seemed affected.
+
+Your uncle Harlowe, wiping his eyes, O cousin, said he, if one thought
+the poor girl was really so ill--
+
+She must, said your uncle Antony.  This is written to her private friend.
+God forbid she should be quite lost!
+
+Your uncle Harlowe wished they did not carry their resentments too far.
+
+I begged for God's sake, wringing my hands, and with a bended knee, that
+they would permit me to go up to you; engaging to give them a faithful
+account of the way you were in.  But I was chidden by your brother; and
+this occasioned some angry words between him and Mr. Morden.
+
+I believe, Sir, I believe, Madam, said your sister to her father and
+mother, we need not trouble my cousin to read any more.  It does but
+grieve and disturb you.  My sister Clary seems to be ill: I think, if
+Mrs. Norton were permitted to go up to her, it would be right; wickedly
+as she has acted, if she be truly penitent--
+
+Here she stopt; and every one being silent, I stood up once more, and
+besought them to let me go; and then I offered to read a passage or two
+in your letter to me of the 24th.  But I was taken up again by your
+brother, and this occasioned still higher words between the Colonel and
+him.
+
+Your mother, hoping to gain upon your inflexible brother, and to divert
+the anger of the two gentlemen from each other, proposed that the Colonel
+should proceed in reading the minutes he had taken from your letter.
+
+He accordingly read, 'of your resuming your pen; that you thought you had
+taken your last farewell; and the rest of that very affecting passage, in
+which you are obliged to break off more than once, and afterwards to take
+an airing in a chair.'  Your brother and sister were affected at this;
+and he had recourse to his snuff-box.  And where you comfort Miss Howe,
+and say, 'You shall be happy;' It is more, said he, than she will let any
+body else be.
+
+Your sister called you sweet soul! but with a low voice: then grew
+hard-hearted again; set said [sic], Nobody could help being affected by
+your pathetic grief--but that it was your talent.
+
+The Colonel then went on to the good effect your airing had upon you; to
+your good wishes to Miss Howe and Mr. Hickman; and to your concluding
+sentence, that when the happy life you wished to her comes to be wound
+up, she may be as calm and as easy at quitting it, as you hope in God you
+shall be.  Your mother could not stand this; but retired to a corner of
+the room, and sobbed, and wept.  Your father for a few minutes could not
+speak, though he seemed inclined to say something.
+
+Your uncles were also both affected; but your brother went round to each,
+and again reminded your mother that she had other children.--What was
+there, he said, in what was read, but the result of the talent you had of
+moving the passions?  And he blamed them for choosing to hear read what
+they knew their abused indulgence could not be a proof against.
+
+This set Mr. Morden up again--Fie upon you, Cousin Harlowe, said he, I
+see plainly to whom it is owing that all relationship and ties of blood,
+with regard to this sweet sufferer, are laid aside.  Such rigours as
+these make it difficult for a sliding virtue ever to recover itself.
+
+Your brother pretended the honour of the family; and declared, that no
+child ought to be forgiven who abandoned the most indulgent of parents
+against warning, against the light of knowledge, as you had done.
+
+But, Sir, and Ladies, said I, rising from the seat in the window, and
+humbly turning round to each, if I may be permitted to speak, my dear
+Miss asks only for a blessing.  She does not beg to be received to
+favour; she is very ill, and asks only for a last blessing.
+
+Come, come, good Norton, [I need not tell you who said this,] you are
+up again with your lamentables!--A good woman, as you are, to forgive
+so readily a crime, that has been as disgraceful to your part in her
+education as to her family, is a weakness that would induce one to
+suspect your virtue, if you were to be encountered by a temptation
+properly adapted.
+
+By some such charitable logic, said Mr. Morden, as this, is my cousin
+Arabella captivated, I doubt not.  If virtue, you, Mr. James Harlowe,
+are the most virtuous young man in the world.
+
+I knew how it would be, replied your brother, in a passion, if I met Mr.
+Morden upon this business.  I would have declined it; but you, Sir, to
+his father, would not permit me to do so.
+
+But, Sir, turning to the Colonel, in no other presence----
+
+Then, Cousin James, interrupted the other gentleman, that which is your
+protection, it seems, is mine.  I am not used to bear defiances thus--
+you are my Cousin, Sir, and the son and nephew of persons as dear as near
+to me--There he paused--
+
+Are we, said your father, to be made still more unhappy among ourselves,
+when the villain lives that ought to be the object of every one's
+resentment who has either a value for the family, or for this ungrateful
+girl?
+
+That's the man, said your cousin, whom last Monday, as you know, I went
+purposely to make the object of mine.  But what could I say, when I found
+him so willing to repair his crime?--And I give it as my opinion, and
+have written accordingly to my poor cousin, that it is best for all round
+that his offer should be accepted; and let me tell you--
+
+Tell me nothing, said your father, quite enraged, or that very vile
+fellow!  I have a rivetted hatred to him.  I would rather see the rebel
+die an hundred deaths, were it possible, than that she should give such a
+villain as him a relation to my family.
+
+Well, but there is no room to think, said you mother, that she will give
+us such a relation, my dear.  The poor girl will lessen, I fear, the
+number of our relations not increase it.  If she be so ill as we are told
+she is, let us send Mrs. Norton up to her.--That's the least we can do--
+let us take her, however, out of the hands of that Belford.
+
+Both your uncles supported this motion; the latter part of it especially.
+
+Your brother observed, in his ill-natured way, what a fine piece of
+consistency it was in you to refuse the vile injurer, and the amends he
+offered; yet to throw yourself upon the protection of his fast friend.
+
+Miss Harlowe was apprehensive, she said, that you would leave all you
+could leave to that pert creature, Miss Howe, [so she called her,] if you
+should die.
+
+O do not, do not suppose that, my Bella, said your poor mother.  I cannot
+think of parting with my Clary--with all her faults, she is my child--her
+reasons for her conduct are not heard--it would break my heart to lose
+her.--I think, my dear, to your father, none so fit as I to go up, if you
+will give me leave, and Mrs. Norton shall accompany me.
+
+This was a sweet motion, and your father paused upon it.  Mr. Morden
+offered his service to escort her; your uncles seemed to approve of it;
+but your brother dashed all.  I hope, Sir, said he, to his father--I
+hope, Madam, to his mother--that you will not endeavour to recover a
+faulty daughter by losing an unculpable son.  I do declare, that if ever
+my sister Clary darkens these doors again, I never will.  I will set out,
+Madam, the same hour you go to London, (on such an errand,) to Edinburgh;
+and there I will reside, and try to forget that I have relations in
+England, so near and so dear as you are now all to me.
+
+Good God, said the Colonel, what a declaration is this!  And suppose,
+Sir, and suppose, Madam, [turning to your father and mother,] this should
+be the case, whether it is better, think you, that you should lose for
+ever such a daughter as my cousin Clary, or that your son should go to
+Edinburgh, and reside there upon an estate which will be the better for
+his residence upon it?--
+
+Your brother's passionate behaviour hereupon is hardly to be described.
+He resented it as promising an alienation of the affection of the family
+to him.  And to such an height were resentments carried, every one siding
+with him, that the Colonel, with hands and eyes lifted up, cried out,
+What hearts of flint am I related to!--O, Cousin Harlowe, to your father,
+are you resolved to have but one daughter?--Are you, Madam, to be taught,
+by a son, who has no bowels, to forget you are a mother?
+
+The Colonel turned from them to draw out his handkerchief, and could not
+for a minute speak.  The eyes of every one, but the hard-hearted brother,
+caught tears from his.
+
+But then turning to them, (with the more indignation, as it seemed, as he
+had been obliged to show a humanity, which, however, no brave heart
+should be ashamed of,) I leave ye all, said he, fit company for one
+another.  I will never open my lips to any of you more upon this subject.
+I will instantly make my will, and in me shall the dear creature have the
+father, uncle, brother, she has lost.  I will prevail upon her to take
+the tour of France and Italy with me; nor shall she return till ye know
+the value of such a daughter.
+
+And saying this, he hurried out of the room, went into the court-yard,
+and ordered his horse.
+
+Mr. Antony Harlowe went to him there, just as he was mounting, and said
+he hoped he should find him cooler in the evening, (for he, till then,
+had lodged at his house,) and that then they would converse calmly, and
+every one, mean time, would weigh all matters well.--But the angry
+gentleman said, Cousin Harlowe, I shall endeavour to discharge the
+obligations I owe to your civility since I have been in England; but I
+have been so treated by that hot-headed young man, (who, as far as I
+know, has done more to ruin his sister than Lovelace himself, and this
+with the approbation of you all,) that I will not again enter into your
+doors, or theirs.  My servants shall have orders whither to bring what
+belongs to me from your house.  I will see my dear cousin Clary as soon
+as I can.  And so God bless you altogether!--only this one word to your
+nephew, if you please--That he wants to be taught the difference between
+courage and bluster; and it is happy for him, perhaps, that I am his
+kinsman; though I am sorry he is mine.
+
+I wondered to hear your uncle, on his return to them all, repeat this;
+because of the consequences it may be attended with, though I hope it
+will not have bad ones; yet it was considered as a sort of challenge, and
+so it confirmed every body in your brother's favour; and Miss Harlowe
+forgot not to inveigh against that error which had brought on all these
+evils.
+
+I took the liberty again, but with fear and trembling, to desire leave to
+attend you.
+
+Before any other person could answer, your brother said, I suppose you
+look upon yourself, Mrs. Norton, to be your own mistress.  Pray do you
+want our consents and courtship to go up?--If I may speak my mind, you
+and my sister Clary are the fittest to be together.--Yet I wish you would
+not trouble your head about our family matters, till you are desired to
+do so.
+
+But don't you know, brother, said Miss Harlowe, that the error of any
+branch of a family splits that family into two parties, and makes not
+only every common friend and acquaintance, but even servants judges over
+both?--This is one of the blessed effects of my sister Clary's fault!
+
+There never was a creature so criminal, said your father, looking with
+displeasure at me, who had not some weak heads to pity and side with her.
+
+I wept.  Your mother was so good as to take me by the hand; come, good
+woman, said she, come along with me.  You have too much reason to be
+afflicted with what afflicts us, to want additions to your grief.
+
+But, my dearest young lady, I was more touched for your sake than for my
+own; for I have been low in the world for a great number of years; and,
+of consequence, have been accustomed to snubs and rebuffs from the
+affluent.  But I hope that patience is written as legibly on my forehead,
+as haughtiness on that of any of my obligers.
+
+Your mother led me to her chamber; and there we sat and wept together for
+several minutes, without being able to speak either of us one word to the
+other.  At last she broke silence, asking me, if you were really and
+indeed so ill as it was said you were?
+
+I answered in the affirmative; and would have shown her your last letter;
+but she declined seeing it.
+
+I would fain have procured from her the favour of a line to you, with her
+blessing.  I asked, what was intended by your brother and sister?  Would
+nothing satisfy them but your final reprobation?--I insinuated, how easy
+it would be, did not your duty and humility govern you, to make yourself
+independent as to circumstances; but that nothing but a blessing, a last
+blessing, was requested by you.  And many other things I urged in your
+behalf.  The following brief repetition of what she was pleased to say in
+answer to my pleas, will give you a notion of it all; and of the present
+situation of things.
+
+She said, 'She was very unhappy!--She had lost the little authority she
+once had over her other children, through one child's failing! and all
+influence over Mr. Harlowe and his brothers.  Your father, she said, had
+besought her to leave it to him to take his own methods with you; and,
+(as she valued him,) to take no step in your favour unknown to him and
+your uncles; yet she owned, that they were too much governed by your
+brother.  They would, however, give way in time, she knew, to a
+reconciliation--they designed no other, for they all still loved you.
+
+'Your brother and sister, she owned, were very jealous of your coming
+into favour again;--yet could but Mr. Morden have kept his temper, and
+stood her son's first sallies, who (having always had the family grandeur
+in view) had carried his resentment so high, that he knew not how to
+descend, the conferences, so abruptly broken off just now, would have
+ended more happily; for that she had reason to think that a few
+concessions on your part, with regard to your grandfather's estate, and
+your cousin's engaging for your submission as from proper motives, would
+have softened them all.
+
+'Mr. Brand's account of your intimacy with the friend of the obnoxious
+man, she said, had, for the time very unhappy effects; for before that
+she had gained some ground: but afterwards dared not, nor indeed had
+inclination, to open her lips in your behalf.  Your continued intimacy
+with that Mr. Belford was wholly unaccountable, and as wholly
+inexcusable.
+
+'What made the wished-for reconciliation, she said, more difficult, was,
+first, that you yourself acknowledged yourself dishonoured; (and it was
+too well known, that it was your own fault that you ever were in the
+power of so great a profligate;) of consequence, that their and your
+disgrace could not be greater than it was; yet, that you refuse to
+prosecute the wretch.  Next, that the pardon and blessing hoped for must
+probably be attended with your marriage to the man they hate, and who
+hates them as much: very disagreeable circumstances, she said, I must
+allow, to found a reconciliation upon.
+
+'As to her own part, she must needs say, that if there were any hope that
+Mr. Lovelace would become a reformed man, the letter her cousin Morden
+had read to them from him to you, and the justice (as she hoped it was)
+he did your character, though to his own condemnation, (his family and
+fortunes being unexceptionable,) and all his relations earnest to be
+related to you, were arguments that would weigh with her, could they have
+any with your father and uncles.'
+
+To my plea of your illness, 'she could not but flatter herself, she
+answered, that it was from lowness of spirits, and temporary dejection.
+A young creature, she said, so very considerate as you naturally were,
+and fallen so low, must have enough of that.  Should they lose you, which
+God forbid! the scene would then indeed be sadly changed; for then those
+who now most resented, would be most grieved; all your fine qualities
+would rise to their remembrance, and your unhappy error would be quite
+forgotten.
+
+'She wished you would put yourself into your cousin's protection
+entirely, and have nothing to more to say to Mr. Belford.
+
+And I would recommend it to your most serious consideration, my dear Miss
+Clary, whether now, as your cousin (who is your trustee for your
+grandfather's estate,) is come, you should not give over all thoughts of
+Mr. Lovelace's intimate friend for your executor; more especially, as
+that gentleman's interfering in the concerns of your family, should the
+sad event take place (which my heart aches but to think of) might be
+attended with those consequences which you are so desirous, in other
+cases, to obviate and prevent.  And suppose, my dear young lady, you were
+to write one letter more to each of your uncles, to let them know how ill
+you are?--And to ask their advice, and offer to be governed by it, in
+relation to the disposition of your estate and effects?--Methinks I wish
+you would.
+
+I find they will send you up a large part of what has been received from
+that estate since it was your's; together with your current cash which
+you left behind you: and this by your cousin Morden, for fear you should
+have contracted debts which may make you uneasy.
+
+They seem to expect, that you will wish to live at your grandfather's
+house, in a private manner, if your cousin prevail not upon you to go
+abroad for a year or two.
+
+
+FRIDAY MORNING.
+
+Betty was with me just now.  She tells me, that your cousin Morden is so
+much displeased with them all, that he has refused to lodge any more at
+your uncle Antony's; and has even taken up with inconvenient lodgings,
+till he is provided with others to his mind.  This very much concerns
+them; and they repent their violent treatment of him: and the more, as he
+is resolved, he says, to make you his sole executrix, and heir to all his
+fortune.
+
+What noble fortunes still, my dearest young lady, await you!  I am
+thoroughly convinced, if it please God to preserve your life and your
+health, that every body will soon be reconciled to you, and that you will
+see many happy days.
+
+Your mother wished me not to attend you as yet, because she hopes that I
+may give myself that pleasure soon with every body's good liking, and
+even at their desire.  Your cousin Morden's reconciliation with them,
+which they are very desirous of, I am ready to hope will include theirs
+with you.
+
+But if that should happen which I so much dread, and I not with you, I
+should never forgive myself.  Let me, therefore, my dearest young lady,
+desire you to command my attendance, if you find any danger, and if you
+wish me peace of mind; and no consideration shall withhold me.
+
+I hear that Miss Howe has obtained leave from her mother to see you; and
+intends next week to go to town for that purpose; and (as it is believed)
+to buy clothes for her approaching nuptials.
+
+Mr. Hickman's mother-in-law is lately dead.  Her jointure of 600£. a-year
+is fallen to him; and she has, moreover, as an acknowledgement of his
+good behaviour to her, left him all she was worth, which was very
+considerable, a few legacies excepted to her own relations.
+
+These good men are uniformly good: indeed could not else be good; and
+never fare the worse for being so.  All the world agrees he will make
+that fine young lady an excellent husband: and I am sorry they are not as
+much agreed in her making him an excellent wife.  But I hope a woman of
+her principles would not encourage his address, if, whether she at
+present love him or not, she thought she could not love him; or if she
+preferred any other man to him.
+
+Mr. Pocock undertakes to deliver this; but fears it will be Saturday
+night first, if not Sunday morning.
+
+May the Almighty protect and bless you!--I long to see you--my dearest
+young lady, I long to see you; and to fold you once more to my fond
+heart.  I dare to say happy days are coming.  Be but cheerful.  Give way
+to hope.
+
+Whether for this world, or the other, you must be happy.  Wish to live,
+however, were it only because you are so well fitted in mind to make
+every one happy who has the honour to know you.  What signifies this
+transitory eclipse?  You are as near perfection, by all I have heard,
+as any creature in this world can be: for here is your glory--you are
+brightened and purified, as I may say, by your sufferings!--How I long to
+hear your whole sad, yet instructive story, from your own lips!
+
+For Miss Howe's sake, who, in her new engagements will so much want you;
+for your cousin Morden's sake, for your mother's sake, if I must go on
+farther in your family; and yet I can say, for all their sakes; and for
+my sake, my dearest Miss Clary; let your resumed and accustomed
+magnanimity bear you up.  You have many things to do which I know not the
+person who will do if you leave us.
+
+Join your prayers then to mine, that God will spare you to a world that
+wants you and your example; and, although your days may seem to have been
+numbered, who knows but that, with the good King Hezekiah, you may have
+them prolonged?  Which God grant, if it be his blessed will, to the
+prayers of
+
+Your
+JUDITH NORTON
+
+
+
+LETTER LVII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+MONDAY, SEPT. 4.
+
+
+The lady would not read the letter she had from Mrs. Norton till she had
+received the Communion, for fear it should contain any thing that might
+disturb that happy calm, which she had been endeavouring to obtain for
+it.  And when that solemn office was over, she was so composed, she said,
+that she thought she could receive any news, however affecting, with
+tranquillity.
+
+Nevertheless, in reading it, she was forced to leave off several times
+through weakness and a dimness in her sight, of which she complained; if
+I may say complained; for so easy and soft were her complaints, that they
+could hardly be called such.
+
+She was very much affected at divers parts of this letter.  She wept
+several times, and sighed often.  Mrs. Lovick told me, that these were
+the gentle exclamations she broke out into, as she read:--Her unkind, her
+cruel brother!--How unsisterly!--Poor dear woman! seeming to speak of
+Mrs. Norton.  Her kind cousin!--O these flaming spirits!  And then
+reflecting upon herself more than once--What a deep error is mine!--What
+evils have I been the occasion of!--
+
+When I was admitted to her presence, I have received, said she, a long
+and not very pleasing letter from my dear Mrs. Norton.  It will soon be
+in your hands.  I am advised against appointing you to the office you
+have so kindly accepted of: but you must resent nothing of these things.
+My choice will have an odd appearance to them: but it is now too late to
+alter it, if I would.
+
+I would fain write an answer to it, continued she: but I have no distinct
+sight, Mr. Belford, no steadiness of fingers.--This mistiness, however,
+will perhaps be gone by-and-by.--Then turning to Mrs. Lovick, I don't
+think I am dying yet--not actually dying, Mrs. Lovick--for I have no
+bodily pain--no numbnesses; no signs of immediate death, I think.--And my
+breath, which used of late to be so short, is now tolerable--my head
+clear, my intellects free--I think I cannot be dying yet--I shall have
+agonies, I doubt--life will not give up so blessedly easy, I fear--yet
+how merciful is the Almighty, to give his poor creature such a sweet
+serenity!--'Tis what I have prayed for!--What encouragement, Mrs. Lovick,
+so near one's dissolution, to have it to hope that one's prayers are
+answered.
+
+Mrs. Smith, as well as Mrs. Lovick, was with her.  They were both in
+tears; nor had I, any more than they, power to say a word in answer: yet
+she spoke all this, as well as what follows, with a surprising composure
+of mind and countenance.
+
+But, Mr. Belford, said she, assuming a still sprightlier air and accent,
+let me talk a little to you, while I am thus able to say what I have to
+say.
+
+Mrs. Lovick, don't leave us, [for the women were rising to go,] pray sit
+down; and do you, Mrs. Smith, sit down too.--Dame Shelbourne, take this
+key, and open the upper drawer.  I will move to it.
+
+She did, with trembling knees.  Here, Mr. Belford, is my will.  It is
+witnessed by three persons of Mr. Smith's acquaintance.
+
+I dare to hope, that my cousin Morden will give you assistance, if you
+request it of him.  My cousin Morden continued his affection for me: but
+as I have not seen him, I leave all the trouble upon you, Mr. Belford.
+This deed may want forms; and it does, no doubt: but the less, as I have
+my grandfather's will almost by heart, and have often enough heard that
+canvassed.  I will lay it by itself in this corner; putting it at the
+further end of the drawer.
+
+She then took up a parcel of letters, enclosed in one cover, sealed with
+three seals of black wax: This, said she, I sealed up last night.  The
+cover, Sir, will let you know what is to be done with what it encloses.
+This is the superscription [holding it close to her eyes, and rubbing
+them]; As soon as I am certainly dead, this to be broke open by Mr.
+Belford.--Here, Sir, I put it [placing it by the will].--These folded
+papers are letters, and copies of letters, disposed according to their
+dates.  Miss Howe will do with those as you and she shall think fit.
+If I receive any more, or more come when I cannot receive them, they may
+be put into this drawer, [pulling out and pushing in the looking-glass
+drawer,] to be given to Mr. Belford, be they from whom they will.  You'll
+be so kind as to observe that, Mrs. Lovick, and dame Shelbourne.
+
+Here, Sir, proceeded she, I put the keys of my apparel [putting them into
+the drawer with her papers].  All is in order, and the inventory upon
+them, and an account of what I have disposed of: so that nobody need to
+ask Mrs. Smith any questions.
+
+There will be no immediate need to open or inspect the trunks which
+contain my wearing apparel.  Mrs. Norton will open them, or order
+somebody to do it for her, in your presence, Mrs. Lovick; for so I have
+directed in my will.  They may be sealed up now: I shall never more have
+occasion to open them.
+
+She then, though I expostulated with her to the contrary, caused me to
+seal them up with my seal.
+
+After this, she locked up the drawer where were her papers; first taking
+out her book of meditations, as she called it; saying, she should,
+perhaps, have use for that; and then desired me to take the key of that
+drawer; for she should have no further occasion for that neither.
+
+All this in so composed and cheerful a manner, that we were equally
+surprised and affected with it.
+
+You can witness for me, Mrs. Smith, and so can you, Mrs. Lovick,
+proceeded she, if any one ask after my life and conversation, since you
+have known me, that I have been very orderly; have kept good hours; and
+never have lain out of your house but when I was in prison; and then you
+know I could not help it.
+
+O, Lovelace! that thou hadst heard her or seen her, unknown to herself,
+on this occasion!--Not one of us could speak a word.
+
+I shall leave the world in perfect charity, proceeded she.  And turning
+towards the women, don't be so much concerned for me, my good friends.
+This is all but needful preparation; and I shall be very happy.
+
+Then again rubbing her eyes, which she said were misty, and looked more
+intently round upon each, particularly on me--God bless you all! said
+she; how kindly are you concerned for me!--Who says I am friendless?  Who
+says I am abandoned, and among strangers?--Good Mr. Belford, don't be so
+generously humane!--Indeed [putting her handkerchief to her charming
+eyes,] you will make me less happy, than I am sure you wish me to be.
+
+While we were thus solemnly engaged, a servant came with a letter from
+her cousin Morden:--Then, said she, he is not come himself!
+
+She broke it open; but every line, she said, appeared two to her: so
+that, being unable to read it herself, she desired I would read it to
+her.  I did so; and wished it were more consolatory to her: but she was
+all patient attention: tears, however, often trickling down her cheeks.
+By the date, it was written yesterday; and this is the substance of it.
+
+He tells her, 'That the Thursday before he had procured a general meeting
+of her principal relations, at her father's; though not without
+difficulty, her haughty brother opposing it, and, when met, rendering all
+his endeavours to reconcile them to her ineffectual.  He censures him, as
+the most ungovernable young man he ever knew: some great sickness, he
+says, some heavy misfortune, is wanted to bring him to a knowledge of
+himself, and of what is due from him to others; and he wishes that he
+were not her brother, and his cousin.  Nor doe he spare her father and
+uncles for being so implicitly led by him.'
+
+He tells her, 'That he parted with them all in high displeasure, and
+thought never more to darken any of their doors: that he declared as much
+to her two uncles, who came to him on Saturday, to try to accommodate
+with him; and who found him preparing to go to London to attend her; and
+that, notwithstanding their pressing entreaties, he determined so to do,
+and not to go with them to Harlowe-place, or to either of their own
+houses; and accordingly dismissed them with such an answer.
+
+'But that her noble letter,' as he calls it, of Aug. 31,* 'being brought
+him about an hour after their departure, he thought it might affect them
+as much as it did him; and give them the exalted opinion of her virtue
+which was so well deserved; he therefore turned his horse's head back
+to her uncle Antony's, instead of forwards toward London.
+
+
+* See Letter XLV. of this volume.
+
+
+'That accordingly arriving there, and finding her two uncles together, he
+read to them the affecting letter; which left none of the three a dry
+eye: that the absent, as is usual in such cases, bearing all the load,
+they accused her brother and sister; and besought him to put off his
+journey to town, till he could carry with him the blessings which she had
+formerly in vain solicited for; and (as they hoped) the happy tidings of
+a general reconciliation.
+
+'That not doubting but his visit would be the more welcome to her, if
+these good ends could be obtained, he the more readily complied with
+their desires.  But not being willing to subject himself to the
+possibility of receiving fresh insult from her brother, he had given her
+uncles a copy of her letter, for the family to assemble upon; and desired
+to know, as soon as possible, the result of their deliberations.
+
+'He tells her, that he shall bring her up the accounts relating to the
+produce of her grandfather's estate, and adjust them with her; having
+actually in his hands the arrears due to her from it.
+
+'He highly applauds the noble manner in which she resents your usage of
+her.  It is impossible, he owns, that you can either deserve her, or to
+be forgiven.  But as you do justice to her virtue, and offer to make her
+all the reparation now in your power; and as she is so very earnest with
+him not to resent that usage; and declares, that you could not have been
+the author of her calamities but through a strange concurrence of unhappy
+causes; and as he is not at a loss to know how to place to a proper
+account that strange concurrence; he desires her not to be apprehensive
+of any vindictive measures from him.'
+
+Nevertheless (as may be expected) 'he inveighs against you; as he finds
+that she gave you no advantage over her.  But he forbears to enter
+further into this subject, he says, till he has the honour to see her;
+and the rather, as she seems so much determined against you.  However, he
+cannot but say, that he thinks you a gallant man, and a man of sense; and
+that you have the reputation of being thought a generous man in every
+instance but where the sex is concerned.  In such, he owns, that you have
+taken inexcusable liberties.  And he is sorry to say, that there are very
+few young men of fortune but who allow themselves in the same.  Both
+sexes, he observes, too much love to have each other in their power: yet
+he hardly ever knew man or woman who was very fond of power make a right
+use of it.
+
+'If she be so absolutely determined against marrying you, as she declares
+she is, he hopes, he says, to prevail upon her to take (as soon as her
+health will permit) a little tour abroad with him, as what will probably
+establish it; since traveling is certainly the best physic for all those
+disorders which owe their rise to grief or disappointment.  An absence of
+two or three years will endear her to every one, on her return, and every
+one to her.
+
+'He expresses his impatience to see her.  He will set out, he says, the
+moment he knows the result of her family's determination; which, he
+doubts not, will be favourable.  Nor will he wait long for that.'
+
+When I had read the letter through to the languishing lady, And so, my
+friends, said she, have I heard of a patient who actually died, while
+five or six principal physicians were in a consultation, and not agreed
+upon what name to give his distemper.  The patient was an emperor, the
+emperor Joseph, I think.
+
+I asked, if I should write to her cousin, as he knew not how ill she was,
+to hasten up?
+
+By no means, she said; since, if he were not already set out, she was
+persuaded that she should be so low by the time he could receive my
+letter, and come, that his presence would but discompose and hurry her,
+and afflict him.
+
+I hope, however, she is not so very near her end.  And without saying any
+more to her, when I retired, I wrote to Colonel Morden, that if he
+expects to see his beloved cousin alive, he must lose no time in setting
+out.  I sent this letter by his own servant.
+
+Dr. H. sent away his letter to her father by a particular hand this
+morning.
+
+Mrs. Walton the milliner has also just now acquainted Mrs. Smith, that
+her husband had a letter brought by a special messenger from Parson
+Brand, within this half hour, enclosing the copy of one he had written to
+Mr. John Harlowe, recanting his officious one.
+
+And as all these, and the copy of the lady's letter to Col. Morden, will
+be with them pretty much at a time, the devil's in the family if they are
+not struck with a remorse that shall burst open the double-barred doors
+of their hearts.
+
+Will. engages to reach you with this (late as it will be) before you go
+to rest.  He begs that I will testify for him the hour and the minute I
+shall give it him.  It is just half an hour after ten.
+
+I pretend to be (now by use) the swiftest short-hand writer in England,
+next to yourself.  But were matter to arise every hour to write upon, and
+I had nothing else to do, I cannot write so fast as you expect.  And let
+it be remembered, that your servants cannot bring letters or messages
+before they are written or sent.
+
+
+
+LETTER LVIII
+
+DR. H. TO JAMES HARLOWE, SENIOR, ESQ.
+LONDON, SEPT. 4.
+
+
+SIR,
+
+If I may judge of the hearts of other parents by my own, I cannot doubt
+but you will take it well to be informed that you have yet an opportunity
+to save yourself and family great future regret, by dispatching hither
+some one of it with your last blessing, and your lady's, to the most
+excellent of her sex.
+
+I have some reason to believe, Sir, that she has been represented to you
+in a very different light from the true one.  And this it is that induces
+me to acquaint you, that I think her, on the best grounds, absolutely
+irreproachable in all her conduct which has passed under my eye, or come
+to my ear; and that her very misfortunes are made glorious to her, and
+honourable to all that are related to her, by the use she has made of
+them; and by the patience and resignation with which she supports herself
+in a painful, lingering, and dispiriting decay! and by the greatness of
+mind with which she views her approaching dissolution.  And all this from
+proper motives; from motives in which a dying saint might glory.
+
+She knows not that I write.  I must indeed acknowledge, that I offered to
+do so some days ago, and that very pressingly: nor did she refuse me from
+obstinacy--she seemed not to know what that is--but desired me to forbear
+for two days only, in hopes that her newly-arrived cousin, who, as she
+heard, was soliciting for her, would be able to succeed in her favour.
+
+I hope I shall not be thought an officious man on this occasion; but, if
+I am, I cannot help it, being driven to write, by a kind of parental and
+irresistible impulse.
+
+But, Sir, whatever you think fit to do, or permit to be done, must be
+speedily done; for she cannot, I verily think, live a week: and how long
+of that short space she may enjoy her admirable intellects to take
+comfort in the favours you may think proper to confer upon her cannot be
+said.  I am, Sir,
+
+Your most humble servant,
+
+R.H.
+
+
+
+LETTER LIX
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO WILLIAM MORDEN, ESQ.
+LONDON, SEPT. 4.
+
+
+SIR,
+
+The urgency of the case, and the opportunity by your servant, will
+sufficiently apologize for this trouble from a stranger to your person,
+who, however, is not a stranger to your merit.
+
+I understand you are employing your good offices with the parents of
+Miss Clarissa Harlowe, and other relations, to reconcile them to the most
+meritorious daughter and kinswoman that ever family had to boast of.
+
+Generously as this is intended by you, we here have too much reason to
+think all your solicitudes on this head will be unnecessary: for it is
+the opinion of every one who has the honour of being admitted to her
+presence, that she cannot live over three days: so that, if you wish to
+see her alive, you must lose no time to come up.
+
+She knows not that I write.  I had done it sooner, if I had had the least
+doubt that before now she would not have received from you some news of
+the happy effects of your kind mediation in her behalf.  I am, Sir,
+
+Your most humble servant,
+J. BELFORD.
+
+
+
+LETTER LX
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+[IN ANSWER TO LETTER LVII.]
+UXBRIDGE, TUESDAY MORN, BETWEEN 4 AND 5.
+
+
+And can it be, that this admirable creature will so soon leave this
+cursed world!  For cursed I shall think it, and more cursed myself, when
+she is gone.  O, Jack! thou who canst sit so cool, and, like Addison's
+Angel, direct, and even enjoy, the storm, that tears up my happiness by
+the roots; blame me not for my impatience, however unreasonable!  If thou
+knowest, that already I feel the torments of the damned, in the remorse
+that wrings my heart, on looking back upon my past actions by her, thou
+wouldst not be the devil thou art, to halloo on a worrying conscience,
+which, without my merciless aggravations, is altogether intolerable.
+
+I know not what to write, nor what I would write.  When the company that
+used to delight me is as uneasy to me as my reflections are painful, and
+I can neither help nor divert myself, must not every servant about me
+partake in a perturbation so sincere!
+
+Shall I give thee a faint picture of the horrible uneasiness with which
+my mind struggles?  And faint indeed it must be; for nothing but
+outrageous madness can exceed it; and that only in the apprehension of
+others; since, as to the sufferer, it is certain, that actual distraction
+(take it out of its lucid intervals) must be an infinitely more happy
+state than the state of suspense and anxiety, which often brings it on.
+
+Forbidden to attend the dear creature, yet longing to see her, I would
+give the world to be admitted once more to her beloved presence.  I ride
+towards London three or four times a day, resolving pro and con, twenty
+times in two or three miles; and at last ride back; and, in view of
+Uxbridge, loathing even the kind friend, and hospitable house, turn my
+horse's head again towards the town, and resolve to gratify my humour,
+let her take it as she will; but, at the very entrance of it, after
+infinite canvassings, once more alter my mind, dreading to offend and
+shock her, lest, by that means, I should curtail a life so precious.
+
+Yesterday, in particular, to give you an idea of the strength of that
+impatience, which I cannot avoid suffering to break out upon my servants,
+I had no sooner dispatched Will., than I took horse to meet him on his
+return.
+
+In order to give him time, I loitered about on the road, riding up this
+lane to the one highway, down that to the other, just as my horse
+pointed; all the way cursing my very being; and though so lately looking
+down upon all the world, wishing to change conditions with the poorest
+beggar that cried to me for charity as I rode by him--and throwing him
+money, in hopes to obtain by his prayers the blessing my heart pants
+after.
+
+After I had sauntered about an hour or two, (which seemed three or four
+tedious ones,) fearing I had slipt the fellow, I inquired at every
+turnpike, whether a servant in such a livery had not passed through in
+his return from London, on a full gallop; for woe had been to the dog,
+had I met him on a sluggish trot!  And lest I should miss him at one end
+of Kensingtohn, as he might take either the Acton or Hammersmith road; or
+at the other, as he might come through the Park, or not; how many score
+times did I ride backwards and forwards from the Palace to the Gore,
+making myself the subject of observation to all passengers whether on
+horseback or on foot; who, no doubt, wondered to see a well-dressed and
+well-mounted man, sometimes ambling, sometimes prancing, (as the beast
+had more fire than his master) backwards and forwards in so short a
+compass!
+
+Yet all this time, though longing to espy the fellow, did I dread to meet
+him, lest he should be charged with fatal tidings.
+
+When at distance I saw any man galloping towards me, my
+resemblance-forming fancy immediately made it to be him; and then my
+heart choked me.  But when the person's nearer approach undeceived me,
+how did I curse the varlet's delay, and thee, by turns!  And how ready
+was I to draw my pistol at the stranger, for having the impudence to
+gallop; which none but my messenger, I thought, had either right or
+reason to do!  For all the business of the world, I am ready to imagine,
+should stand still on an occasion so melancholy and so interesting to me.
+Nay, for this week past, I could cut the throat of any man or woman I see
+laugh, while I am in such dejection of mind.
+
+I am now convinced that the wretches who fly from a heavy scene, labour
+under ten times more distress in the intermediate suspense and
+apprehension, than they could have, were they present at it, and to see
+and know the worst: so capable is fancy or imagination, the more
+immediate offspring of the soul, to outgo fact, let the subject be either
+joyous or grievous.
+
+And hence, as I conceive, it is, that all pleasures are greater in the
+expectation, or in the reflection, than in fruition; as all pains, which
+press heavy upon both parts of that unequal union by which frail
+mortality holds its precarious tenure, are ever most acute in the time of
+suffering: for how easy sit upon the reflection the heaviest misfortunes,
+when surmounted!--But most easy, I confess, those in which body has more
+concern than soul.  This, however, is a point of philosophy I have
+neither time nor head just now to weigh: so take it as it falls from a
+madman's pen.
+
+Woe be to either of the wretches who shall bring me the fatal news that
+she is no more!  For it is but too likely that a shriek-owl so hated will
+never hoot or scream again; unless the shock, that will probably disorder
+my whole frame on so sad an occasion, (by unsteadying my hand,) shall
+divert my aim from his head, heart, or bowels, if it turn not against my
+own.
+
+But, surely, she will not, she cannot yet die!  Such a matchless
+excellence,
+
+            ----whose mind
+      Contains a world, and seems for all things fram'd,
+
+could not be lent to be so soon demanded back again!
+
+But may it not be, that thou, Belford, art in a plot with the dear
+creature, (who will not let me attend her to convince myself,) in order
+to work up my soul to the deepest remorse; and that, when she is
+convinced of the sincerity of my penitence, and when my mind is made such
+wax, as to be fit to take what impression she pleases to give it, she
+will then raise me up with the joyful tidings of her returning health and
+acceptance of me!
+
+What would I give to have it so!  And when the happiness of hundreds, as
+well as the peace and reconciliation of several eminent families, depend
+upon her restoration and happiness, why should it not be so?
+
+But let me presume it will.  Let me indulge my former hope, however
+improbable--I will; and enjoy it too.  And let me tell thee how ecstatic
+my delight would be on the unravelling of such a plot as this!
+
+Do, dear Belford, let it be so!--And, O, my dearest, and ever-dear
+Clarissa, keep me no loner in this cruel suspense; in which I suffer a
+thousand times more than ever I made thee suffer.  Nor fear thou that I
+will resent, or recede, on an ecclaircissement so desirable; for I will
+adore thee for ever, and without reproaching thee for the pangs thou hast
+tortured me with, confess thee as much my superior in virtue and honour!
+
+But once more, should the worst happen--say not what that worst is--and I
+am gone from this hated island--gone for ever--and may eternal--but I am
+crazed already--and will therefore conclude myself,
+
+Thine more than my own,
+(and no great compliment neither)
+R.L.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXI
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+TUES. SEPT. 9 IN THE MORN. AT MR. SMITH'S.
+
+
+When I read yours of this morning, I could not help pitying you for the
+account you give of the dreadful anxiety and suspense you labour under.
+I wish from my heart all were to end as you are so willing to hope: but
+it will not be; and your suspense, if the worst part of your torment, as
+you say it is, will soon be over; but, alas! in a way you wish not.
+
+I attended the lady just now.  She is extremely ill: yet is she aiming
+at an answer to her Norton's letter, which she began yesterday in her own
+chamber, and has written a good deal: but in a hand not like her own fine
+one, as Mrs. Lovick tells me, but larger, and the lines crooked.
+
+I have accepted of the offer of a room adjoining to the widow Lovick's,
+till I see how matters go; but unknown to the lady; and I shall go home
+every night, for a few hours.  I would not lose a sentence that I could
+gain from lips so instructive, nor the opportunity of receiving any
+command from her, for an estate.
+
+In this my new apartment I now write, and shall continue to write, as
+occasions offer, that I may be the more circumstantial: but I depend upon
+the return of my letters, or copies of them, on demand, that I may have
+together all that relates to this affecting story; which I shall
+re-peruse with melancholy pleasure to the end of my life.
+
+I think I will send thee Brand's letter to Mr. John Harlowe, recanting
+his base surmises.  It is a matchless piece of pedantry; and may perhaps
+a little divert thy deep chagrin: some time hence at least it may, if not
+now.
+
+What wretched creatures are there in the world!  What strangely mixed
+creatures!--So sensible and so silly at the same time!  What a various,
+what a foolish creature is man!--
+
+
+THREE O'CLOCK.
+
+The lady has just finished her letter, and has entertained Mrs. Lovick,
+Mrs. Smith, and me, with a noble discourse on the vanity and brevity of
+life, to which I cannot do justice in the repetition: and indeed I am so
+grieved for her, that, ill as she is, my intellects are not half so clear
+as her's.
+
+A few things which made the strongest impression upon me, as well from
+the sentiments themselves as from her manner of uttering them, I
+remember.  She introduced them thus:
+
+I am thinking, said she, what a gradual and happy death God Almighty
+(blessed be his name) affords me!  Who would have thought, that, suffering
+what I have suffered, and abandoned as I have been, with such a
+tender education as I have had, I should be so long a dying!--But see now
+by little and little it had come to this.  I was first take off from the
+power of walking; then I took a coach--a coach grew too violent an
+exercise: then I took up a chair--the prison was a large DEATH-STRIDE
+upon me--I should have suffered longer else!--Next, I was unable to go to
+church; then to go up or down stairs; now hardly can move from one room
+to another: and a less room will soon hold me.--My eyes begin to fail me,
+so that at times I cannot see to read distinctly; and now I can hardly
+write, or hold a pen.--Next, I presume, I shall know nobody, nor be able
+to thank any of you; I therefore now once more thank you, Mrs. Lovick,
+and you, Mrs. Smith, and you, Mr. Belford, while I can thank you, for all
+your kindness to me.  And thus by little and little, in such a gradual
+sensible death as I am blessed with, God dies away in us, as I may say,
+all human satisfaction, in order to subdue his poor creatures to himself.
+
+Thou mayest guess how affected we all were at this moving account of her
+progressive weakness.  We heard it with wet eyes; for what with the
+women's example, and what with her moving eloquence, I could no more help
+it than they.  But we were silent nevertheless; and she went on applying
+herself to me.
+
+O Mr. Belford!  This is a poor transitory life in the best enjoyments.
+We flutter about here and there, with all our vanities about us, like
+painted butterflies, for a gay, but a very short season, till at last we
+lay ourselves down in a quiescent state, and turn into vile worms: And
+who knows in what form, or to what condition we shall rise again?
+
+I wish you would permit me, a young creature, just turned of nineteen
+years of age, blooming and healthy as I was a few months ago, now nipt by
+the cold hand of death, to influence you, in these my last hours, to a
+life of regularity and repentance for any past evils you may have been
+guilty of.  For, believe me, Sir, that now, in this last stage, very few
+things will bear the test, or be passed as laudable, if pardonable, at
+our own bar, much less at a more tremendous one, in all we have done, or
+delighted in, even in a life not very offensive neither, as we may think!
+--Ought we not then to study in our full day, before the dark hours
+approach, so to live, as may afford reflections that will soften the
+agony of the last moments when they come, and let in upon the departing
+soul a ray of Divine mercy to illuminate its passage into an awful
+eternity?
+
+She was ready to faint, and choosing to lie down, I withdrew; I need not
+say with a melancholy heart: and when I got to my new-taken apartment, my
+heart was still more affected by the sight of the solemn letter the
+admirable lady had so lately finished.  It was communicated to me by Mrs.
+Lovick; who had it to copy for me; but it was not to be delivered to me
+till after her departure.  However, I trespassed so far, as to prevail
+upon the widow to let me take a copy of it; which I did directly in
+character.
+
+I send it enclosed.  If thou canst read it, and thy heart not bleed at
+thy eyes, thy remorse can hardly be so deep as thou hast inclined me to
+think it is.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXII
+
+MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MRS. NORTON
+[IN ANSWER TO LETTER LVI.*]
+
+
+* Begun on Monday Sept. 4, and by piecemeal finished on Tuesday; but not
+sent till the Thursday following.
+
+
+MY DEAREST MRS. NORTON,
+
+I am afraid I shall not be able to write all that is upon my mind to say
+to you upon the subject of your last.  Yet I will try.
+
+As to my friends, and as to the sad breakfasting, I cannot help being
+afflicted for them.  What, alas! has not my mother, in particular,
+suffered by my rashness!--Yet to allow so much for a son!--so little for
+a daughter!--But all now will soon be over, as to me.  I hope they will
+bury all their resentments in my grave.
+
+As to your advice, in relation to Mr. Belford, let me only say, that the
+unhappy reprobation I have met with, and my short time, must be my
+apology now.--I wish I could have written to my mother and my uncles as
+you advise.  And yet, favours come so slowly from them.
+
+The granting of one request only now remains as a desirable one from
+them.  Which nevertheless, when granted, I shall not be sensible of.  It
+is that they will be pleased to permit my remains to be laid with those
+of my ancestors--placed at the feet of my dear grandfather, as I have
+mentioned in my will.  This, however, as they please.  For, after all,
+this vile body ought not so much to engage my cares.  It is a weakness--
+but let it be called a natural weakness, and I shall be excused;
+especially when a reverential gratitude shall be known to be the
+foundation of it.   You know, my dear woman, how my grandfather loved me.
+And you know how much I honoured him, and that from my very infancy to
+the hour of his death.  How often since have I wished, that he had not
+loved me so well!
+
+I wish not now,  at the writing of this, to see even my cousin Morden.
+O, my blessed woman!  My dear maternal friend!  I am entering upon a
+better tour than to France or Italy either!--or even than to settle at my
+once-beloved Dairy-house!--All these prospects and pleasures, which used
+to be so agreeable to me in health, how poor seem they to me now!--
+
+Indeed, indeed, my dear Mamma Norton, I shall be happy!  I know I shall!
+--I have charming forebodings of happiness already!--Tell all my dear
+friends, for their comfort, that I shall!--Who would not bear the
+punishments I have borne, to have the prospects and assurances I rejoice
+in!--Assurances I might not have had, were my own wishes to have been
+granted to me!
+
+Neither do I want to see even you, my dear Mrs. Norton.  Nevertheless I
+must, in justice to my own gratitude, declare, that there was a time,
+could you have been permitted to come, without incurring displeasure from
+those whose esteem it is necessary for you to cultivate and preserve,
+that your presence and comfortings would have been balm to my wounded
+mind.  But were you now, even by consent, and with reconciliatory
+tidings, to come, it would but add to your grief; and the sight of one I
+so dearly love, so happily fraught with good news, might but draw me back
+to wishes I have had great struggles to get above.  And let me tell you
+for your comfort, that I have not left undone any thing that ought to be
+done, either respecting mind or person; no, not to the minutest
+preparation: so that nothing is left for you to do for me.  Every one has
+her direction as to the last offices.--And my desk, that I now write upon
+--O my dearest Mrs. Norton, all is provided!--All is ready!  And all will
+be as decent as it should be!
+
+And pray let my Miss Howe know, that by the time you will receive this,
+and she your signification of the contents of it, will, in all
+probability, be too late for her to do me the inestimable favour, as I
+should once have thought it, to see me.  God will have no rivals in the
+hearts of those he sanctifies.  By various methods he deadens all other
+sensations, or rather absorbs them all in the love of him.
+
+I shall nevertheless love you, my Mamma Norton, and my Miss Howe, whose
+love to me has passed the love of woman, to my latest hour!--But yet, I
+am now above the quick sense of those pleasures which once delighted me,
+and once more I say, that I do not wish to see objects so dear to me,
+which might bring me back again into sense, and rival my supreme love.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Twice have I been forced to leave off.  I wished, that my last writing
+might be to you, or to Miss Howe, if it might not be to my dearest Ma----
+
+Mamma, I would have wrote--is the word distinct?--My eyes are so misty!--
+If, when I apply to you, I break off in half-words, do you supply them--
+the kindest are your due.--Be sure take the kindest, to fill up chasms
+with, if any chasms there be--
+
+
+***
+
+
+Another breaking off!--But the new day seems to rise upon me with healing
+in its wings.  I have gotten, I think, a recruit of strength: spirits, I
+bless God, I have not of late wanted.
+
+Let my dearest Miss Howe purchase her wedding-garments--and may all
+temporal blessings attend the charming preparation!--Blessings will, I
+make no question, notwithstanding the little cloudiness that Mr. Hickman
+encounters with now and then, which are but prognostications of a future
+golden day to him: for her heart is good, and her head not wrong.--But
+great merit is coy, and that coyness had not always its foundation in
+pride: but if it should seem to be pride, take off the skin-deep
+covering, and, in her, it is noble diffidence, and a love that wants but
+to be assured!
+
+Tell Mr. Hickman I write this, and write it, as I believe, with my last
+pen; and bid him bear a little at first, and forbear; and all the future
+will be crowning gratitude, and rewarding love: for Miss Howe had great
+sense, fine judgment, and exalted generosity; and can such a one be
+ungrateful or easy under those obligations which his assiduity and
+obligingness (when he shall be so happy as to call her his) will lay her
+under to him?
+
+As for me, never bride was so ready as I am.  My wedding garments are
+bought---and though not fine or gawdy to the sight, though not adorned
+with jewels, and set off with gold and silver, (for I have no beholders'
+eyes to wish to glitter in,) yet will they be the easiest, the happiest
+suit, that ever bridal maiden wore--for they are such as carry with them
+a security against all those anxieties, pains, and perturbations, which
+sometimes succeed to the most promising outsettings.
+
+And now, my dear Mrs. Norton, do I wish for no other.
+
+O hasten, good God, if it be thy blessed will, the happy moment that I am
+to be decked out in his all-quieting garb!  And sustain, comfort, bless,
+and protect with the all-shadowing wing of thy mercy, my dear parents, my
+uncles, my brother, my sister, my cousin Morden, my ever-dear and
+ever-kind Miss Howe, my good Mrs. Norton, and every deserving person to
+whom they wish well! is the ardent prayer, first and last, of every
+beginning hour, as the clock tells it me, (hours now are days, nay,
+years,) of
+
+Your now not sorrowing or afflicted, but happy,
+CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXIII
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+WED. MORN. SEPT. 6, HALF AN HOUR AFTER THREE.
+
+
+I am not the savage which you and my worst enemies think me.  My soul is
+too much penetrated by the contents of the letter which you enclosed in
+your last, to say one word more to it, than that my heart has bled over
+it from every vein!--I will fly from the subject--but what other can I
+choose, that will not be as grievous, and lead into the same?
+
+I could quarrel with all the world; with thee, as well as the rest;
+obliging as thou supposest thyself for writing to me hourly.  How darest
+thou, (though unknown to her,) to presume to take an apartment under the
+sane roof with her?--I cannot bear to think that thou shouldest be seen,
+at all hours passing to and repassing from her apartments, while I, who
+have so much reason to call her mine, and one was preferred by her to all
+the world, am forced to keep aloof, and hardly dare to enter the city
+where she is!
+
+If there be any thing in Brand's letter that will divert me, hasten it to
+me.  But nothing now will ever divert me, will ever again give me joy or
+pleasure!  I can neither eat, drink, nor sleep.  I am sick of all the
+world.
+
+Surely it will be better when all is over--when I know the worst the
+Fates can do against me--yet how shall I bear that worst?--O Belford,
+Belford! write it not to me!--But if it must happen, get somebody else to
+write; for I shall curse the pen, the hand, the head, and the heart,
+employed in communicating to me the fatal tidings.  But what is this
+saying, when already I curse the whole world except her--myself most?
+
+In fine, I am a most miserable being.  Life is a burden to me.  I would
+not bear it upon these terms for one week more, let what would be my 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
+her's. 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 saddle-bow, 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 LXIV
+
+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.  Every one 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 your's 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 any body 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 apprehension of seeing
+him.  I cannot bear to see him!
+
+Just as she had done speaking, the minister, who had so often attended
+her, sent up his name; and was admitted.
+
+Being apprehensive that it would be with difficulty that you could
+prevail upon that impetuous spirit of your's not to invade her in her
+dying hours, and of the agonies into which a surprise of this nature
+would throw her, I thought this gentleman's visit afforded a proper
+opportunity to renew the subject; and, (having asked her leave,)
+acquainted him with the topic we had been upon.
+
+The good man urged that some condescensions were usually expected, on
+these solemn occasions, from pious souls like her's, however satisfied
+with themselves, for the sake of showing the world, and for example-sake,
+that all resentments against those who had most injured them were
+subdued; and if she would vouchsafe to a heart so truly penitent, as I
+had represented Mr. Lovelace's to be, that personal pardon, which I had
+been pleading for there would be no room to suppose the least lurking
+resentment remained; and it might have very happy effects upon the
+gentleman.
+
+I have no lurking resentment, Sir, said she--this is not a time for
+resentment: and you will be the readier to believe me, when I can assure
+you, (looking at me,) that even what I have most rejoiced in, the truly
+friendly love that has so long subsisted between my Miss Howe and her
+Clarissa, although to my last gasp it will be the dearest to me of all
+that is dear in this life, has already abated of its fervour; has already
+given place to supremer fervours; and shall the remembrance of Mr.
+Lovelace's personal insults, which I bless God never corrupted that mind
+which her friendship so much delighted, be stronger in these hours with
+me, then the remembrance of a love as pure as the human heart ever
+boasted?  Tell, therefore, the world, if you please, and (if, Mr.
+Belford, you think what I said to you before not strong enough,) tell the
+poor man, that I not only forgive him, but have such earnest wishes for
+the good of his soul, and that from consideration of its immortality,
+that could my penitence avail for more sins than my own, my last tear
+should fall for him by whom I die!
+
+Our eyes and hands expressed to us both what our lips could not utter.
+
+Say not, then, proceeded she, nor let it be said, that my resentments are
+unsubdued!--And yet these eyes, lifted up to Heaven as witness to the
+truth of what I have said, shall never, if I can help it, behold him
+more!--For do you not consider, Sirs, how short my time is; what much
+more important subjects I have to employ it upon; and how unable I should
+be, (so weak as I am,) to contend even with the avowed penitence of a
+person in strong health, governed by passions unabated, and always
+violent?--And now I hope you will never urge me more on this subject?
+
+The minister said, it were pity ever to urge this plea again.
+
+You see, Lovelace, that I did not forget the office of a friend, in
+endeavouring to prevail upon her to give you her last forgiveness
+personally.  And I hope, as she is so near her end, you will not invade
+her in her last hours; since she must be extremely discomposed at such an
+interview; and it might make her leave the world the sooner for it.
+
+This reminds me of an expression which she used on your barbarous hunting
+of her at Smith's, on her return to her lodgings; and that with a
+serenity unexampled, (as Mrs. Lovick told me, considering the occasion,
+and the trouble given her by it, and her indisposition at the time;) he
+will not let me die decently, said the angelic sufferer!--He will not let
+me enter into my Maker's presence with the composure that is required in
+entering into the drawing-room of an earthly prince!
+
+I cannot, however, forbear to wish, that the heavenly creature could have
+prevailed upon herself, in these her last hours, to see you; and that for
+my sake, as well as yours; for although I am determined never to be
+guilty of the crimes, which, till within these few past weeks have
+blackened my former life; and for which, at present, I most heartily hate
+myself; yet should I be less apprehensive of such a relapse, if wrought
+upon by the solemnity which such an interview must have been attended
+with, you had become a reformed man: for no devil do I fear, but one in
+your shape.
+
+
+***
+
+
+It is now eleven o'clock at night.  The lady who retired to rest an hour
+ago, is, as Mrs. Lovick tells me, in a sweet slumber.
+
+I will close here.  I hope I shall find her the better for it in the
+morning.  Yet, alas! how frail is hope--How frail is life; when we are
+apt to build so much on every shadowy relief; although in such a
+desperate case as this, sitting down to reflect, we must know, that it is
+but shadowy!
+
+I will enclose Brand's horrid pedantry.  And for once am aforehand with
+thy ravenous impatience.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXV
+
+MR. BRAND, TO MR. JOHN WALTON
+SAT. NIGHT, SEPT. 2.
+
+
+DEAR MR. WALTON,
+
+I am obliged to you for the very 'handsomely penned', (and 'elegantly
+written,') letter which you have sent me on purpose to do 'justice' to
+the 'character' of the 'younger' Miss Harlowe; and yet I must tell you
+that I had reason, 'before that came,' to 'think,' (and to 'know'
+indeed,) that we were 'all wrong.'  And so I had employed the 'greatest
+part' of this 'week,' in drawing up an 'apologetical letter' to my worthy
+'patron,' Mr. John Harlowe, in order to set all 'matters right' between
+'me and them,' and, ('as far as I could,') between 'them' and 'Miss.'
+So it required little more than 'connection' and 'transcribing,' when I
+received 'your's'; and it will be with Mr. Harlowe aforesaid, 'to-morrow
+morning'; and this, and the copy of that, will be with you on 'Monday
+morning.'
+
+You cannot imagine how sorry I am that 'you' and Mrs. Walton, and Mrs.
+Barker, and 'I myself,' should have taken matters up so lightly,
+(judging, alas-a-day! by appearance and conjecture,) where 'character'
+and 'reputation' are concerned.  Horace says truly,
+
+      'Et semel emissum volat irrevocabile verbum.'
+
+That is, 'Words one spoken cannot be recalled.'  But, Mr. Walton, they
+may be 'contradicted' by 'other' words; and we may confess ourselves
+guilty of a 'mistake,' and express our 'concern' for being 'mistaken';
+and resolve to make our 'mistake' a 'warning' to us for the 'future': and
+this is all that 'can be done,' and what every 'worthy mind will do'; and
+what nobody can be 'readier to do' than 'we four undesigning offenders,'
+(as I see by 'your letter,' on 'your part,' and as you will see by the
+'enclosed copy,' on 'mine';) which, if it be received as I 'think it
+ought,' (and as I 'believe it will,') must give me a 'speedy' opportunity
+to see you when I 'visit the lady'; to whom, (as you will see in  it,) I
+expect to be sent up with the 'olive-branch.'
+
+The matter in which we all 'erred,' must be owned to be 'very nice'; and
+(Mr. Belford's 'character considered') 'appearances' ran very strong
+'against the lady.'  But all that this serveth to show is, 'that in
+doubtful matters, the wisest people may be mistaken'; for so saith the
+'Poet,'
+
+      'Fallitur in dubiis hominum solertia rebus.'
+
+If you have an 'opportunity,' you may (as if 'from yourself,' and
+'unknown to me') show the enclosed to Mr. Belford, who (you tell me)
+'resenteth' the matter very heinously; but not to let him 'see' or 'hear
+read,' those words 'that relate to him,' in the paragraph at the 'bottom
+of the second page,' beginning, ['But yet I do insist upon it,] to the
+'end' of that paragraph; for one would not make one's self 'enemies,' you
+know; and I have 'reason to think,' that this Mr. 'Belford' is as
+'passionate' and 'fierce' a man as Mr. Lovelace.  What pity it is the
+lady could find no 'worthier a protector!'  You may paste those lines
+over with 'blue' or 'black paper,' before he seeth it: and if he
+insisteth upon taking a copy of my letter, (for he, or any body that
+'seeth it,' or 'heareth it read,' will, no doubt, be glad to have by them
+the copy of a letter so full of the 'sentiments' of the 'noblest writers'
+of 'antiquity,' and 'so well adapted,' as I will be bold to say they are,
+to the 'point in hand'; I say, if he insisteth upon taking a copy,) let
+him give you the 'strongest assurances' not to suffer it to be 'printed'
+on 'any account'; and I make the same request to you, that 'you' will
+not; for if any thing be to be made of a 'man's works,' who, but the
+'author,' should have the 'advantage'?  And if the 'Spectators,' the
+'Tatlers,' the 'Examiners,' the 'Guardians,' and other of our polite
+papers, make such a 'strutting' with a 'single verse,' or so by way of
+'motto,' in the 'front' of 'each day's' paper; and if other 'authors'
+pride themselves in 'finding out' and 'embellishing' the 'title-pages'
+of their 'books' with a 'verse' or 'adage' from the 'classical writers';
+what a figure would 'such a letter as the enclosed make,' so full fraught
+with 'admirable precepts,' and 'à-propos quotations,' from the 'best
+authority'?
+
+I have been told that a 'certain noble Lord,' who once sat himself down
+to write a 'pamphlet' in behalf of a 'great minister,' after taking
+'infinite pains' to 'no purpose' to find a 'Latin motto,' gave commission
+to a friend of 'his' to offer to 'any one,' who could help him to a
+'suitable one,' but of one or two lines, a 'hamper of claret.'
+Accordingly, his lordship had a 'motto found him' from 'Juvenal,' which
+he 'unhappily mistaking,' (not knowing 'Juvenal' was a 'poet,') printed
+as a prose 'sentence' in his 'title-page.'
+
+If, then, 'one' or 'two' lines were of so much worth, (A 'hamper of
+claret'!  No 'less'!) of what 'inestimable value' would 'such a letter as
+mine' be deemed?--And who knoweth but that this noble P--r, (who is now*
+living,) if he should happen to see 'this letter' shining with such a
+'glorious string of jewels,' might give the 'writer a scarf,' in order to
+have him 'always at hand,' or be a 'mean' (some way or other) to bring
+him into 'notice'?  And I would be bold to say ('bad' as the 'world' is)
+a man of 'sound learning' wanteth nothing but an 'initiation' to make his
+'fortune.'
+
+
+* i.e. At the time this Letter was written.
+
+
+I hope, my good friend, that the lady will not 'die': I shall be much
+'grieved,' if she doth; and the more because of mine 'unhappy
+misrepresentation': so will 'you' for the 'same cause'; so will her
+'parents' and 'friends.'  They are very 'rich' and 'very worthy'
+gentlefolks.
+
+But let me tell you, 'by-the-by,' that they had carried the matter
+against her 'so far,' that I believe in my heart they were glad to
+'justify themselves' by 'my report'; and would have been 'less pleased,'
+had I made a 'more favourable one.'  And yet in 'their hearts' they
+'dote' upon her.  But now they are all (as I hear) inclined to be
+'friends with her,' and 'forgive her'; her 'brother,' as well as 'the
+rest.'
+
+But their 'cousin,' Col. Morden, 'a very fine gentleman,' had had such
+'high words' with them, and they with him, that they know not how to
+'stoop,' lest it should look like being frighted into an 'accommodation.'
+Hence it is, that 'I' have taken the greater liberty to 'press the
+reconciliation'; and I hope in 'such good season,' that they will all be
+'pleased' with it: for can they have a 'better handle' to save their
+'pride' all round, than by my 'mediation'?  And let me tell you, (inter
+nos, 'betwixt ourselves,') 'very proud they all are.'
+
+By this 'honest means,' (for by 'dishonest ones' I would not be
+'Archbishop of Canterbury,') I hope to please every body; to be
+'forgiven,' in the 'first place,' by 'the lady,' (whom, being a 'lover of
+learning' and 'learned men,' I shall have great 'opportunities' of
+'obliging'; for, when she departed from her father's house, I had but
+just the honour of her 'notice,' and she seemed 'highly pleased' with my
+'conversation';) and, 'next' to be 'thanked' and 'respected' by her
+'parents,' and 'all her family'; as I am (I bless God for it) by my 'dear
+friend' Mr. John Harlowe: who indeed is a man that professeth a 'great
+esteem' for 'men of erudition'; and who (with 'singular delight,' I know)
+will run over with me the 'authorities' I have 'quoted,' and 'wonder' at
+my 'memory,' and the 'happy knack' I have of recommending 'mine own sense
+of things' in the words of the 'greatest sages of antiquity.'
+
+Excuse me, my good friend, for this 'seeming vanity.'  The great Cicero
+(you must have heard, I suppose) had a 'much greater' spice of it, and
+wrote a 'long letter begging' and 'praying' to be 'flattered.'  But if I
+say 'less of myself' than other people (who know me) 'say of me,' I think
+I keep a 'medium' between 'vanity' and 'false modesty'; the latter of
+which oftentimes gives itself the 'lie,' when it is 'declaring of' the
+'compliments,' that 'every body' gives it as its due: an hypocrisy, as
+well as folly, that, (I hope,) I shall for ever scorn to be guilty of.
+
+I have 'another reason' (as I may tell to you, my 'old school-fellow') to
+make me wish for this 'fine lady's recovery' and 'health'; and that is,
+(by some distant intimations,) I have heard from Mr. John Harlowe, that
+it is 'very likely' (because of the 'slur' she hath received) that she
+will choose to 'live privately' and 'penitently'--and will probably (when
+she cometh into her 'estate') keep a 'chaplain' to direct her in her
+'devotions' and 'penitence'--If she doth, who can stand a 'better chance'
+than 'myself'?--And as I find (by 'your' account, as well as by 'every
+body's') that she is innocent as to 'intention,' and is resolved never to
+think of Mr. 'Lovelace more,' who knoweth 'what' (in time) 'may happen'?
+--And yet it must be after Mr. 'Lovelace's death,' (which may possibly
+sooner happen than he 'thinketh' of, by means of his 'detestable
+courses':) for, after all, a man who is of 'public utility,' ought not
+(for the 'finest woman' in the world) to lay his 'throat' at the 'mercy'
+of a man who boggleth at nothing.
+
+I beseech you, let not this hint 'go farther' than to 'yourself,' your
+'spouse,' and Mrs. 'Barker.'  I know I may trust my 'life' in 'your
+hands' and 'theirs.'  There have been (let me tell ye) 'unlikelier'
+things come to pass, and that with 'rich widows,' (some of 'quality'
+truly!) whose choice, in their 'first marriages' hath (perhaps) been
+guided by 'motives of convenience,' or 'mere corporalities,' as I may
+say; but who by their 'second' have had for their view the 'corporal' and
+'spiritual' mingled; which is the most eligible (no doubt) to 'substance'
+composed 'of both,' as 'men' and 'women' are.
+
+Nor think (Sir) that, should such a thing come to pass, 'either' would be
+'disgraced,' since 'the lady' in 'me' would marry a 'gentleman' and a
+'scholar': and as to 'mine own honour,' as the 'slur' would bring her
+'high fortunes' down to an 'equivalence' with my 'mean ones,' (if
+'fortune' only, and not 'merit,' be considered,) so hath not the 'life'
+of 'this lady' been 'so tainted,' (either by 'length of time,' or
+'naughtiness of practice,') as to put her on a 'foot' with the 'cast
+Abigails,' that too, too often, (God knoweth,) are thought good enough
+for a 'young clergyman,' who, perhaps, is drawn in by a 'poor benefice';
+and (if the 'wicked one' be not 'quite worn out') groweth poorer and
+poorer upon it, by an 'increase of family' he knoweth not whether 'is
+most his,' or his 'noble,' ('ignoble,' I should say,) 'patrons.'
+
+But, all this 'apart,' and 'in confidence.'
+
+I know you made at school but a small progress in 'languages.'  So I have
+restrained myself from 'many illustrations' from the 'classics,' that I
+could have filled this letter with, (as I have done the enclosed one:)
+and, being at a 'distance,' I cannot 'explain' them to you, as I 'do to
+my friend,' Mr. John Harlowe; and who, (after all,) is obliged to 'me'
+for pointing out to 'him' many 'beauties' of the 'authors I quote,' which
+otherwise would lie concealed from 'him,' as they must from every 'common
+observer.'--But this (too) 'inter nos'--for he would not take it well to
+'have it known'--'Jays' (you know, old school-fellow, 'jays,' you know)
+'will strut in peacocks' feathers.'
+
+But whither am I running?  I never know where to end, when I get upon
+'learned topics.'  And albeit I cannot compliment 'you' with the 'name of
+a learned man,' yet are you 'a sensible man'; and ('as such') must have
+'pleasure' in 'learned men,' and in 'their writings.'
+
+In this confidence, (Mr. Walton,) with my 'kind respects' to the good
+ladies, (your 'spouse' and 'sister,') and in hopes, for the 'young lady's
+sake,' soon to follow this long, long epistle, in 'person,' I conclude
+myself,
+
+Your loving and faithful friend,
+ELIAS BRAND.
+
+
+You will perhaps, Mr. Walton, wonder at the meaning of the 'lines drawn
+      under many of the words and sentences,' (UNDERSCORING we call it;)
+      and were my letters to be printed, those would be put in a
+      'different character.'  Now, you must know, Sir, that 'we learned
+      men' do this to point out to the readers, who are not 'so learned,'
+      where the 'jet of our arguments lieth,' and the 'emphasis' they are
+      to lay upon 'those words'; whereby they will take in readily our
+      'sense' and 'cogency.'  Some 'pragmatical' people have said, that
+      an author who doth a 'great deal of this,' either calleth his
+      readers 'fools,' or tacitly condemneth 'his own style,' as
+      supposing his meaning would be 'dark' without it, or that all of
+      his 'force' lay in 'words.'  But all of those with whom I have
+      conversed in a learned way, 'think as I think.'  And to give a very
+      'pretty,' though 'familiar illustration,' I have considered a page
+      distinguished by 'different characters,' as a 'verdant field'
+      overspread with 'butter-flowers' and 'daisies,' and other
+      summer-flowers.  These the poets liken to 'enamelling'--have you
+      not read in the poets of 'enamelled meads,' and so forth?
+
+
+
+LETTER LXVI
+
+MR. BRAND, TO JOHN HARLOWE, ESQ.
+SAT. NIGHT, SEPT. 2.
+
+
+WORTHY SIR,
+
+I am under no 'small concern,' that I should (unhappily) be the
+'occasion' (I am sure I 'intended' nothing like it) of 'widening
+differences' by 'light misreport,' when it is the 'duty' of one of 'my
+function' (and no less consisting with my 'inclination') to 'heal' and
+'reconcile.'
+
+I have received two letter to set me 'right': one from a 'particular
+acquaintance,' (whom I set to inquire of Mr. Belford's character); and
+that came on Tuesday last, informing me, that your 'unhappy niece' was
+greatly injured in the account I had had of her; (for I had told 'him'
+of it, and that with very 'great concern,' I am sure, apprehending it to
+be 'true.')  So I 'then' set about writing to you, to 'acknowledge' the
+'error.'  And had gone a good way in it, when the second letter came (a
+very 'handsome one' it is, both in 'style' and 'penmanship') from my
+friend Mr. Walton, (though I am sure it cannot be 'his inditing,')
+expressing his sorrow, and his wife's, and his sister-in-law's likewise,
+for having been the cause of 'misleading me,' in the account I gave of
+the said 'young lady'; whom they 'now' say (upon 'further inquiry') they
+find to be the 'most unblameable,' and 'most prudent,' and (it seems) the
+most 'pious' young lady, that ever (once) committed a 'great error'; as
+(to be sure) 'her's was,' in leaving such 'worthy parents' and
+'relations' for so 'vile a man' as Mr. Lovelace; but what shall we say?--
+Why, the divine Virgil tells us,
+
+      'Improbe amor, quid non mortalia pectora cogis?'
+
+For 'my part,' I was but too much afraid (for we have 'great
+opportunities,' you are sensible, Sir, at the 'University,' of knowing
+'human nature' from 'books,' the 'calm result' of the 'wise man's
+wisdom,' as I may say,
+
+      '(Haurit aquam cribro, qui discere vult sine libro)'
+
+'uninterrupted' by the 'noise' and 'vanities' that will mingle with
+'personal conversation,' which (in the 'turbulent world') is not to be
+enjoyed but over a 'bottle,' where you have an 'hundred foolish things'
+pass to 'one that deserveth to be remembered'; I was but too much afraid
+'I say') that so 'great a slip' might be attended with 'still greater'
+and 'worse': for 'your' Horace, and 'my' Horace, the most charming writer
+that ever lived among the 'Pagans' (for the 'lyric kind of poetry,' I
+mean; for, the be sure, 'Homer' and 'Virgil' would 'otherwise' be 'first'
+named 'in their way') well observeth (and who understood 'human nature'
+better than he?)
+
+      'Nec vera virtus, cum semel excidit,
+      Curat reponi deterioribus.'
+
+And 'Ovid' no less wisely observeth:
+
+      'Et mala sunt vicina bonis.  Errore sub illo
+         Pro vitio virtus crimina sæpe tulit.'
+
+Who, that can draw 'knowledge' from its 'fountain-head,' the works of the
+'sages of antiquity,' (improved by the 'comments' of the 'moderns,') but
+would 'prefer' to all others the 'silent quiet life,' which
+'contemplative men' lead in the 'seats of learning,' were they not called
+out (according to their 'dedication') to the 'service' and 'instruction'
+of the world?
+
+Now, Sir, 'another' favourite poet of mine (and not the 'less a
+favourite' for being a 'Christian') telleth us, that ill is the custom of
+'some,' when in a 'fault,' to throw the blame upon the backs of 'others,'
+
+      '----Hominum quoque mos est,
+      Quæ nos cunque premunt, alieno imponere tergo.'
+                                         MANT.
+
+But I, though (in this case) 'misled,' ('well intendedly,' nevertheless,
+both in the 'misleaders' and 'misled,' and therefore entitled to lay hold
+of that plea, if 'any body' is so entitled,) will not however, be classed
+among such 'extenuators'; but (contrarily) will always keep in mind that
+verse, which 'comforteth in mistake,' as well as 'instructeth'; and which
+I quoted in my last letter;
+
+      'Errare est hominis, sed non persistere----'
+
+And will own, that I was very 'rash' to take up with 'conjectures' and
+'consequences' drawn from 'probabilites,' where (especially) the
+'character' of so 'fine a lady' was concerned.
+
+      'Credere fallacy gravis est dementia famæ.'      MANT.
+
+Notwithstanding, Miss Clarissa Harlowe (I must be bold to say) is the
+'only young lady,' that ever I heard of (or indeed read of) that, 'having
+made such a false step,' so 'soon' (of 'her own accord,' as I may say)
+'recovered' herself, and conquered her 'love of the deceiver'; (a great
+conquest indeed!) and who flieth him, and resolveth to 'die,' rather than
+to be his; which now, to her never-dying 'honour' (I am well assured) is
+the case--and, in 'justice' to her, I am now ready to take to myself
+(with no small vexation) that of Ovid,
+
+      'Heu! patior telis vulnera facta meis.'
+
+But yet I do insist upon it, that all 'that part' of my 'information,'
+which I took upon mine own 'personal inquiry,' which is what relates to
+Mr. 'Belford' and 'his character,' is 'literally true'; for there is not
+any where to be met with a man of a more 'libertine character' as to
+'women,' Mr. 'Lovelace' excepted, than he beareth.
+
+And so, Sir, I must desire of you, that you will not let 'any blame' lie
+upon my 'intention'; since you see how ready I am to 'accuse myself' of
+too lightly giving ear to a 'rash information' (not knowing it to be so,
+however): for I depended the more upon it, as the 'people I had it from'
+are very 'sober,' and live in the 'fear of God': and indeed when I wait
+upon you, you will see by their letter, that they must be 'conscientious'
+good people: wherefore, Sir, let me be entitled, from 'all your good
+family,' to that of my last-named poet,
+
+      'Aspera confesso verba remitte reo.'
+
+And now, Sir, (what is much more becoming of my 'function,') let me,
+instead of appearing with the 'face of an accuser,' and a 'rash
+censurer,' (which in my 'heart' I have not 'deserved' to be thought,)
+assume the character of a 'reconciler'; and propose (by way of 'penance'
+to myself for my 'fault') to be sent up as a 'messenger of peace' to the
+'pious young lady'; for they write me word 'absolutely' (and, I believe
+in my heart, 'truly') that the 'doctors' have 'given her over,' and that
+she 'cannot live.'  Alas! alas! what a sad thing would that be, if the
+'poor bough,' that was only designed (as I 'very well know,' and am
+'fully assured') 'to be bent, should be broken!'
+
+Let it not, dear Sir, seem to the 'world' that there was any thing in
+your 'resentments' (which, while meant for 'reclaiming,' were just and
+fit) that hath the 'appearance' of 'violence,' and 'fierce wrath,' and
+'inexorability'; (as it would look to some, if carried to extremity,
+after 'repentance' and 'contrition,' and 'humiliation,' on the 'fair
+offender's' side:) for all this while (it seemeth) she hath been a 'second
+Magdalen' in her 'penitence,' and yet not so bad as a 'Magdalen' in her
+'faults'; (faulty, nevertheless, as she hath been once, the Lord knoweth!
+
+      'Nam vitiis nemo sine nascitur: optimus ille est,
+      Qui minimis urgentur'----saith Horace).
+
+Now, Sir, if I may be named for this 'blessed' employment, (for, 'Blessed
+is the peace-maker!') I will hasten to London; and (as I know Miss had
+always a 'great regard' to the 'function' I have the honour to be of) I
+have no doubt of making myself acceptable to her, and to bring her, by
+'sound arguments,' and 'good advice,' into a 'liking of life,' which must
+be the 'first step' to her 'recovery': for, when the 'mind' is 'made
+easy,' the 'body' will not 'long suffer'; and the 'love of life' is a
+'natural passion,' that is soon 'revived,' when fortune turneth about,
+and smileth:
+
+      'Vivere quisque diu, quamvis & egenus & ager,
+      Optat.---- ---- ----' OVID.
+
+And the sweet Lucan truly observeth,
+
+      '---- ---- Fatis debentibus annos
+      Mors invita subit.---- ----'
+
+And now, Sir, let me tell you what shall be the 'tenor' of my 'pleadings'
+with her, and 'comfortings' of her, as she is, as I may say, a 'learned
+lady'; and as I can 'explain' to her 'those sentences,' which she cannot
+so readily 'construe herself': and this in order to convince 'you' (did
+you not already 'know' my 'qualifications') how well qualified I 'am' for
+the 'christian office' to which I commend myself.
+
+I will, IN THE FIRST PLACE, put her in mind of the 'common course of
+things' in this 'sublunary world,' in which 'joy' and 'sorrow, sorrow'
+and joy,' succeed one another by turns'; in order to convince her, that
+her griefs have been but according to 'that' common course of things:
+
+      'Gaudia post luctus veniunt, post gaudia luctus.'
+
+SECONDLY, I will remind her of her own notable description of 'sorrow,'
+whence she was once called upon to distinguish wherein 'sorrow, grief,'
+and 'melancholy,' differed from each other; which she did 'impromptu,' by
+their 'effects,' in a truly admirable manner, to the high satisfaction of
+every one: I myself could not, by 'study,' have distinguished 'better,'
+nor more 'concisely'--SORROW, said she, 'wears'; GRIEF 'tears'; but
+MELANCHOLY 'sooths.'
+
+My inference to her shall be, that since a happy reconciliation will take
+place, 'grief' will be banished; 'sorrow' dismissed; and only sweet
+'melancholy' remain to 'sooth' and 'indulge' her contrite 'heart,' and
+show to all the world the penitent sense she hath of her great error.
+
+THIRDLY, That her 'joys,'* when restored to health and favour, will be
+the greater, the deeper her griefs were.
+
+
+* 'Joy,' let me here observe, my dear Sir, by way of note, is not
+absolutely inconsistent with 'melancholy'; a 'soft gentle joy,' not a
+'rapid,' not a 'rampant joy,' however; but such a 'joy,' as shall lift
+her 'temporarily' out of her 'soothing melancholy,' and then 'let her
+down gently' into it again; for 'melancholy,' to be sure, her
+'reflection' will generally make to be her state.
+
+
+      'Gaudia, quæ multo parta labore, placent.'
+
+FOURTHLY, That having 'really' been guilty of a 'great error,' she should
+not take 'impatiently' the 'correction' and 'anger' with which she hath
+been treated.
+
+      'Leniter, ex merito quicquid patiare ferundum est.'
+
+FIFTHLY, That 'virtue' must be established by 'patience'; as saith
+Prudentius:
+
+      'Hæc virtus vidua est, quam non patientia firmat.'
+
+SIXTHLY, That in the words of Horace, she may 'expect better times,' than
+(of late) she had 'reason' to look for.
+
+      'Grata superveniet, quæ non sperabitur, hora.'
+
+SEVENTHLY, That she is really now in 'a way' to be 'happy,' since,
+according to 'Ovid,' she 'can count up all her woe':
+
+      'Felix, qui patitur quæ numerare potest.'
+
+And those comforting lines,
+
+      'Estque serena dies post longos gratior imbres,
+          Et post triste malum gratior ipsa salus.'
+
+EIGHTHLY, That, in the words of Mantuan, her 'parents' and 'uncles' could
+not 'help loving her' all the time they were 'angry at her':
+
+      'Æqua tamen mens est, & amica voluntas,
+      Sit licet in natos austere parentum.'
+
+NINTHLY, That the 'ills she hath met with' may be turned (by the 'good
+use' to be made of them) to her 'everlasting benefit'; for that,
+
+      'Cum furit atque ferit, Deus olim parcere quærit.'
+
+TENTHLY, That she will be able to give a 'fine lesson' (a 'very' fine
+lesson) to all the 'young ladies' of her 'acquaintance,' of the 'vanity'
+of being 'lifted up' in 'prosperity,' and the 'weakness' of being 'cast
+down' in 'adversity'; since no one is so 'high,' as to be above being
+'humbled'; so 'low,' as to 'need to despair': for which purpose the
+advice of 'Ausonius,'
+
+      'Dum fortuna juvat, caveto tolli:
+      Dum fortuna tonat, caveto mergi.'
+
+I shall tell her, that Lucan saith well, when he calleth 'adversity the
+element of patience';
+
+      '----Gaudet patientia duris:'
+
+That
+
+      'Fortunam superat virtus, prudential famam.'
+
+That while weak souls are 'crushed by fortune,' the 'brave mind' maketh
+the fickle deity afraid of it:
+
+      'Fortuna fortes metuit, ignavos permit.'
+
+ELEVENTHLY, That if she take the advice of 'Horace,'
+
+      'Fortiaque adversis opponite pectora rebus,'
+
+it will delight her 'hereafter' (as 'Virgil' saith) to 'revoke her past
+troubles':
+
+      '----Forsan & hæc olim meminisse juvabit.'
+
+And, to the same purpose, 'Juvenal' speaking of the 'prating joy' of
+mariners, after all their 'dangers are over':
+
+      'Gaudent securi narrare pericula nautæ.'
+
+Which suiting the case so well, you'll forgive me, Sir, for 'popping
+down' in 'English metre,' as the 'translative impulse' (pardon a new
+word, and yet we 'scholars' are not fond of 'authenticating new' words)
+came upon me 'uncalled for':
+
+      The seaman, safe on shore, with joy doth tell
+      What cruel dangers him at sea befell.
+
+With 'these,' Sir, and an 'hundred more' wise 'adages,' which I have
+always at my 'fingers' end,' will I (when reduced to 'form' and 'method')
+entertain Miss; and as she is a 'well-read,' and (I might say, but for
+this 'one' great error) a 'wise' young lady, I make no doubt but I shall
+'prevail' upon her, if not by 'mine own arguments,' by those of 'wits'
+and 'capacities' that have a 'congeniality' (as I may say) to 'her own,'
+to take to heart,
+
+      ----Nor of the laws of fate complain,
+      Since, though it has been cloudy, now't clears up again.----
+
+Oh! what 'wisdom' is there in these 'noble classical authors!'  A 'wise
+man' will (upon searching into them,) always find that they speak 'his'
+sense of 'men' and 'things.'  Hence it is, that they so readily occur to
+my 'memory' on every occasion--though this may look like 'vanity,' it is
+too true to be omitted; and I see not why a man may not 'know these
+things of himself,' which 'every body' seeth and 'saith of him'; who,
+nevertheless, perhaps know not 'half so much as he,' in other matters.
+
+I know but of 'one objection,' Sir, that can lie against my going; and
+that will arise from your kind 'care' and 'concern' for the 'safety of my
+person,' in case that 'fierce' and 'terrible man,' the wicked Mr.
+Lovelace, (of whom every one standeth in fear,) should come cross me, as
+he may be resolved to try once more to 'gain a footing in Miss's
+affections': but I will trust in 'Providence' for 'my safety,' while I
+shall be engaged in a 'cause so worthy of my function'; and the 'more'
+trust in it, as he is a 'learned man' as I am told.
+
+Strange too, that so 'vile a rake' (I hope he will never see this!)
+should be a 'learned man'; that is to say, that a 'learned man' may be a
+'sly sinner,' and take opportunities, 'as they come in his way'--which,
+however, I do assure you, 'I never did,'
+
+I repeat, that as he is a 'learned man,' I shall 'vest myself,' as I may
+say, in 'classical armour'; beginning 'meekly' with him (for, Sir,
+'bravery' and 'meekness' are qualities 'very consistent with each other,'
+and in no persons so shiningly 'exert' themselves, as in the 'Christian
+priesthood'; beginning 'meekly' with him, I say) from Ovid,
+
+      'Corpora magnanimo satis est protrasse leoni:'
+
+So that, if I should not be safe behind the 'shield of mine own
+prudence,' I certainly should be behind the 'shields' of the
+'ever-admirable classics': of 'Horace' particularly; who, being a 'rake'
+(and a 'jovial rake' too,) himself, must have great weight with all
+'learned rakes.'
+
+And who knoweth but I may be able to bring even this 'Goliath in
+wickedness,' although in 'person' but a 'little David' myself, (armed
+with the 'slings' and 'stones' of the 'ancient sages,') to a due sense of
+his errors?  And what a victory would that be!
+
+I could here, Sir, pursuing the allegory of David and Goliath, give you
+some of the 'stones' ('hard arguments' may be called 'stones,' since they
+'knock down a pertinacious opponent') which I could 'pelt him with,' were
+he to be wroth with me; and this in order to take from you, Sir, all
+apprehensions for my 'life,' or my 'bones'; but I forbear them till you
+demand them of me, when I have the honour to attend you in person.
+
+And now, (my dear Sir,) what remaineth, but that having shown you (what
+yet, I believe, you did not doubt) how 'well qualified' I am to attend
+the lady with the 'olive-branch,' I beg of you to dispatch me with it
+'out of hand'?  For if she be so 'very ill,' and if she should not live
+to receive the grace, which (to my knowledge) all the 'worthy family'
+design her, how much will that grieve you all!  And then, Sir, of what
+avail will be the 'eulogies' you shall all, peradventure, join to give to
+her memory?  For, as Martial wisely observeth,
+
+      '---- Post cineres gloria sera venit.'
+
+Then, as 'Ausonius' layeth it down with 'equal propriety,' that 'those
+favours which are speedily conferred are the most grateful and obliging'
+----
+
+And to the same purpose Ovid:
+
+      'Gratia ab officio, quod mora tar dat, abest.'
+
+And, Sir, whatever you do, let the 'lady's pardon' be as 'ample,' and as
+'cheerfully given,' as she can 'wish for it': that I may be able to tell
+her, that it hath your 'hands,' your 'countenances,' and your 'whole
+hearts,' with it--for, as the Latin verse hath it, (and I presume to
+think I have not weakened its sense by my humble advice),
+
+      'Dat bene, dat multum, qui dat cum munere vultum.'
+
+And now, Sir, when I survey this long letter,* (albeit I see it
+enamelled, as a  'beautiful meadow' is enamelled by the 'spring' or
+'summer' flowers, very glorious to behold!) I begin to be afraid that I
+may have tired you; and the more likely, as I have written without that
+'method' or 'order,' which I think constituteth the 'beauty' of 'good
+writing': which 'method' or 'order,' nevertheless, may be the 'better
+excused' in a 'familiar epistle,' (as this may be called,) you pardoning,
+Sir, the 'familiarity' of the 'word'; but yet not altogether 'here,' I
+must needs own; because this is 'a letter' and 'not a letter,' as I may
+say; but a kind of 'short' and 'pithy discourse,' touching upon 'various'
+and 'sundry topics,' every one of which might be a 'fit theme' to enlarge
+upon of volumes; if this 'epistolary discourse' (then let me call it)
+should be pleasing to you, (as I am inclined to think it will, because of
+the 'sentiments' and 'aphorisms' of the 'wisest of the antients,' which
+'glitter through it' like so many dazzling 'sunbeams,') I will (at my
+leisure) work it up into a 'methodical discourse'; and perhaps may one
+day print it, with a 'dedication' to my 'honoured patron,' (if, Sir, I
+have 'your' leave,) 'singly' at first, (but not till I have thrown out
+'anonymously,' two or three 'smaller things,' by the success of which I
+shall have made myself of 'some account' in the 'commonwealth of
+letters,') and afterwards in my 'works'--not for the 'vanity' of the
+thing (however) I will say, but for the 'use' it may be of to the
+'public'; for, (as one well observeth,) 'though glory always followeth
+virtue, yet it should be considered only as its shadow.'
+
+
+* And here, by way of note, permit me to say, that no 'sermon' I ever
+composed cost me half the 'pains' that this letter hath done--but I knew
+your great 'appetite' after, as well as 'admiration' of, the 'antient
+wisdom,' which you so justly prefer to the 'modern'--and indeed I join
+with you to think, that the 'modern' is only 'borrowed,' (as the 'moon'
+doth its light from the 'sun,') at least, that we 'excel' them in
+nothing; and that our 'best cogitations' may be found, generally
+speaking, more 'elegantly' dressed and expressed by them.
+
+
+      'Contemnit laudem virtus, licet usque sequatur
+          Gloria virtutem, corpus ut umbra suum.'
+
+A very pretty saying, and worthy of all men's admiration.
+
+And now, ('most worthy Sir,' my very good friend and patron,) referring
+the whole to 'your's,' and to your 'two brothers,' and to 'young Mr.
+Harlowe's' consideration, and to the wise consideration of good 'Madam
+Harlowe,' and her excellent daughter, 'Miss Arabella Harlowe'; I take the
+liberty to subscribe myself, what I 'truly am,' and 'every shall delight
+to be,' in 'all cases,' and at 'all times,'
+
+Your and their most ready and obedient
+as well as faithful servant,
+ELIAS BRAND.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXVII
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+[IN ANSWER TO LETTER LXIV. OF THIS VOLUME.]
+WEDN. MORN. SEPT. 6.
+
+
+And is she somewhat better?--Blessings upon thee without number or
+measure!  Let her still be better and better!  Tell me so at least, if
+she be not so: for thou knowest not what a joy that poor temporary
+reprieve, that she will hold out yet a day or two, gave me.
+
+But who told this hard-hearted and death-pronouncing doctor that she will
+hold it no longer?  By what warrant says he this?  What presumption in
+these parading solemn fellows of a college, which will be my contempt to
+the latest hour of my life, if this brother of it (eminent as he is
+deemed to be) cannot work an ordinary miracle in her favour, or rather in
+mine!
+
+Let me tell thee, Belford, that already he deserves the utmost contempt,
+for suffering this charming clock to run down so low.  What must be his
+art, if it could not wind it up in a quarter of the time he has attended
+her, when, at his first visits, the springs and wheels of life and motion
+were so god, that they seemed only to want common care and oiling!
+
+I am obliged to you for endeavouring to engage her to see me.  'Twas
+acting like a friend.  If she had vouchsafed me that favour, she should
+have seen at her feet the most abject adorer that ever kneeled to
+justly-offended beauty.
+
+What she bid you, and what she forbid you, to tell me, (the latter for
+tender considerations:) that she forgives me; and that, could she have
+made me a good man, she would have made me a happy one!  That she even
+loved me!  At such a moment to own that she once loved me!  Never before
+loved any man!  That she prays for me!  That her last tear should be shed
+for me, could she by it save a soul, doomed, without her, to perdition!--
+O Belford! Belford! I cannot bear it!--What a dog, what a devil have I
+been to a goodness so superlative!--Why does she not inveigh against me?
+--Why does she not execrate me?--O the triumphant subduer!  Ever above
+me!--And now to leave me so infinitely below her!
+
+Marry and repair, at any time; this, wretch that I was, was my plea to
+myself.  To give her a lowering sensibility; to bring her down from among
+the stars which her beamy head was surrounded by, that my wife, so
+greatly above me, might not despise me; this was one of my reptile
+motives, owing to my more reptile envy, and to my consciousness of
+inferiority to her!--Yet she, from step to step, from distress to
+distress, to maintain her superiority; and, like the sun, to break out
+upon me with the greater refulgence for the clouds that I had contrived
+to cast about her!--And now to escape me thus!--No power left me to
+repair her wrongs!--No alleviation to my self-reproach!--No dividing of
+blame with her!--
+
+Tell her, O tell her, Belford, that her prayers and wishes, her
+superlatively-generous prayers and wishes, shall not be vain: that I can,
+and do repent--and long have repented.--Tell her of my frequent deep
+remorses--it was impossible that such remorses should not at last produce
+effectual remorse--yet she must not leave me--she must live, if she would
+wish to have my contrition perfect--For what can despair produce?
+
+
+***
+
+
+I will do every thing you would have me do, in the return of your
+letters.  You have infinitely obliged me by this last, and by pressing
+for an admission for me, though it succeeded not.
+
+Once more, how could I be such a villain to so divine a creature!  Yet
+love her all the time, as never man loved woman!--Curse upon my
+contriving genius!--Curse upon my intriguing head, and upon my seconding
+heart!--To sport with the fame, with the honour, with the life, of such
+an angel of a woman!--O my d----d incredulity!  That, believing her to be
+a woman, I must hope to find her a woman!  On my incredulity, that there
+could be such virtue (virtue for virtue's sake) in the sex, founded I my
+hope of succeeding with her.
+
+But say not, Jack, that she must leave us yet.  If she recover, and if I
+can but re-obtain her favour, then, indeed, will life be life to me.  The
+world never saw such an husband as I will make.  I will have no will but
+her's.  She shall conduct me in all my steps.  She shall open and direct
+my prospects, and turn every motion of my heart as she pleases.
+
+You tell me, in your letter, that at eleven o'clock she had sweet rest;
+and my servant acquaints me, from Mrs. Smith, that she has had a good
+night.  What hopes does this fill me with!  I have given the fellow five
+guineas for his good news, to be divided between him and his
+fellow-servant.
+
+Dear, dear Jack! confirm this to me in thy next--for Heaven's sake, do!--
+Tell the doctor I'll make a present of a thousand guineas if he recover
+her.  Ask if a consultation then be necessary.
+
+Adieu, dear Belford!  Confirm, I beseech thee, the hopes that now, with
+sovereign gladness, have taken possession of a heart, that, next to
+her's, is
+
+Thine.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXVIII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+WEDN. MORN. EIGHT O'CLOCK, (6 SEPT.)
+
+
+Your servant arrived here before I was stirring.  I sent him to Smith's
+to inquire how the lady was; and ordered him to call upon me when he came
+back.  I was pleased to hear she had tolerable rest.  As soon as I had
+dispatched him with the letter I had written over night, I went to attend
+her.
+
+I found her up, and dressed; in a white satin night-gown.  Ever elegant;
+but now more so than I had seen her for a week past: her aspect serenely
+cheerful.
+
+She mentioned the increased dimness of her eyes, and the tremor which had
+invaded her limbs.  If this be dying, said she, there is nothing at all
+shocking in it.  My body hardly sensible of pain, my mind at ease, my
+intellects clear and perfect as ever.  What a good and gracious God have
+I!--For this is what I always prayed for.
+
+I told her it was not so serene with you.
+
+There is not the same reason for it, replied she.  'Tis a choice comfort,
+Mr. Belford, at the winding up of our short story, to be able to say, I
+have rather suffered injuries myself, than offered them to others.  I
+bless God, though I have been unhappy, as the world deems it, and once I
+thought more so than at present I think I ought to have done, since my
+calamities were to work out for me my everlasting happiness; yet have I
+not wilfully made any one creature so.  I have no reason to grieve for
+any thing but for the sorrow I have given my friends.
+
+But pray, Mr. Belford, remember me in the best manner to my cousin
+Morden; and desire him to comfort them, and to tell them, that all would
+have been the same, had they accepted of my true penitence, as I wish and
+as I trust the Almighty has done.
+
+I was called down: it was to Harry, who was just returned from Miss
+Howe's, to whom he carried the lady's letter.  The stupid fellow being
+bid to make haste with it, and return as soon as possible, staid not
+until Miss Howe had it, she being at the distance of five minutes,
+although Mrs. Howe would have had him stay, and sent a man and horse
+purposely with it to her daughter.
+
+
+WEDNESDAY MORNING, TEN O'CLOCK.
+
+The poor lady is just recovered from a fainting fit, which has left her
+at death's door.  Her late tranquillity and freedom from pain seemed but
+a lightening, as Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith call it.
+
+By my faith, Lovelace, I had rather part with all the friends I have in
+the world, than with this lady.  I never knew what a virtuous, a holy
+friendship, as I may call mine to her, was before.  But to be so new to
+it, and to be obliged to forego it so soon, what an affliction!  Yet,
+thank Heaven, I lose her not by my own fault!--But 'twould be barbarous
+not to spare thee now.
+
+She has sent for the divine who visited her before, to pray with her.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXIX
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+KENSINGTON, WEDNESDAY NOON.
+
+
+Like Æsop's traveller, thou blowest hot and cold, life and death, in the
+same breath, with a view, no doubt, to distract me.  How familiarly dost
+thou use the words, dying, dimness, tremor?  Never did any mortal ring so
+many changes on so few bells.  Thy true father, I dare swear, was a
+butcher, or an undertaker, by the delight thou seemest to take in scenes
+of death and horror.  Thy barbarous reflection, that thou losest her not
+by thy own fault, is never to be forgiven.  Thou hast but one way to
+atone for the torments thou hast given me, and that is, by sending me
+word that she is better, and will recover.  Whether it be true or not,
+let me be told so, and I will go abroad rejoicing and believing it, and
+my wishes and imaginations shall make out all the rest.
+
+If she live but one year, that I may acquit myself to myself (no matter
+for the world!) that her death is not owing to me, I will compound for
+the rest.
+
+Will neither vows nor prayers save her?  I never prayed in my life, put
+all the years of it together, as I have done for this fortnight past: and
+I have most sincerely repented of all my baseness to her--And will
+nothing do?
+
+But after all, if she recovers not, this reflection must be my comfort;
+and it is truth; that her departure will be owing rather to wilfulness,
+to downright female wilfulness, than to any other cause.
+
+It is difficult for people, who pursue the dictates of a violent
+resentment, to stop where first they designed to stop.
+
+I have the charity to believe, that even James and Arabella Harlowe, at
+first, intended no more by the confederacy they formed against this their
+angel sister, than to disgrace and keep her down, lest (sordid wretches!)
+their uncles should follow the example their grandfather had set, to
+their detriment.
+
+So this lady, as I suppose, intended only at first to vex and plague me;
+and, finding she could do it to purpose, her desire of revenge insensibly
+became stronger in her than the desire of life; and now she is willing to
+die, as an event which she thinks will cut my heart-strings asunder.  And
+still, the more to be revenged, puts on the Christian, and forgives me.
+
+But I'll have none of her forgiveness!  My own heart tells me I do not
+deserve it; and I cannot bear it!--And what is it but a mere verbal
+forgiveness, as ostentatiously as cruelly given with a view to magnify
+herself, and wound me deeper!  A little, dear, specious--but let me stop
+--lest I blaspheme!
+
+
+***
+
+
+Reading over the above, I am ashamed of my ramblings; but what wouldest
+have me do?--Seest thou not that I am but seeking to run out of myself,
+in hope to lose myself; yet, that I am unable to do either?
+
+If ever thou lovedst but half so fervently as I love--but of that thy
+heavy soul is not capable.
+
+Send me word by the next, I conjure thee, in the names of all her kindred
+saints and angels, that she is living, and likely to live!--If thou
+sendest ill news, thou wilt be answerable for the consequences, whether
+it be fatal to the messenger, or to
+
+Thy
+LOVELACE.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXX
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+WEDNESDAY, ELEVEN O'CLOCK.
+
+
+Dr. H. has just been here.  He tarried with me till the minister had done
+praying by the lady; and then we were both admitted.  Mr. Goddard, who
+came while the doctor and the clergyman were with her, went away with
+them when they went.  They took a solemn and everlasting leave of her, as
+I have no scruple to say; blessing her, and being blessed by her; and
+wishing (when it came to be their lot) for an exit as happy as her's is
+likely to be.
+
+She had again earnestly requested of the doctor his opinion how long it
+was now probable that she could continue; and he told her, that he
+apprehended she would hardly see to-morrow night.  She said, she should
+number the hours with greater pleasure than ever she numbered any in her
+life on the most joyful occasion.
+
+How unlike poor Belton's last hours her's!  See the infinite differences
+in the effects, on the same awful and affecting occasion, between a good
+and a bad conscience!
+
+This moment a man is come from Miss Howe with a letter.  Perhaps I shall
+be able to send you the contents.
+
+
+***
+
+
+She endeavoured several times with earnestness, but in vain, to read the
+letter of her dear friend.  The writing, she said, was too fine for her
+grosser sight, and the lines staggered under her eye.  And indeed she
+trembled so, she could not hold the paper; and at last desired Mrs.
+Lovick to read it to her, the messenger waiting for an answer.
+
+Thou wilt see in Miss Howe's letter, how different the expression of the
+same impatience, and passionate love, is, when dictated by the gentler
+mind of a woman, from that which results from a mind so boisterous and
+knotty as thine.  For Mrs. Lovick will transcribe it, and I shall send
+it--to be read in this place, if thou wilt.
+
+
+MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+TUESDAY, SEPT. 5.
+
+
+O MY DEAREST FRIEND!
+
+What will become of your poor Anna Howe!  I see by your writing, as well
+as read by your own account, (which, were you not very, very ill, you
+would have touched more tenderly,) how it is with you!  Why have I thus
+long delayed to attend you!  Could I think, that the comfortings of a
+faithful friend were as nothing to a gentle mind in distress, that I
+could be prevailed upon to forbear visiting you so much as once in all
+this time!  I, as well as every body else, to desert and abandon my dear
+creature to strangers!  What will become of you, if you be as bad as my
+apprehensions make you!
+
+I will set out this moment, little as the encouragement is that you give
+me to do so!  My mother is willing I should!  Why, O why was she not
+before willing?
+
+Yet she persuades me too, (lest I should be fatally affected were I to
+find my fears too well justified,) to wait the return of this messenger,
+who rides our swiftest horse.--God speed him with good news to me--One
+line from your hand by him!--Send me but one line to bid me attend you!
+I will set out the moment, the very moment I receive it.  I am now
+actually ready to do so!  And if you love me, as I love you, the sight
+of me will revive you to my hopes.--But why, why, when I can think this,
+did I not go up sooner!
+
+Blessed Heaven! deny not to my prayers, my friend, my admonisher, my
+adviser, at a time so critical to myself.
+
+But methinks, your style and sentiments are too well connected, too
+full of life and vigour, to give cause for so much despair as thy
+staggering pen seems to forbode.
+
+I am sorry I was not at home, [I must add thus much, though the servant
+is ready mounted at the door,] when Mr. Belford's servant came with your
+affecting letter.  I was at Miss Lloyd's.  My mamma sent it to me--and I
+came home that instant.  But he was gone: he would not stay, it seems.
+Yet I wanted to ask him an hundred thousand questions.  But why delay I
+thus my messenger?  I have a multitude of things to say to you--to advise
+with you about!--You shall direct me in every thing.  I will obey the
+holding up of your finger.  But, if you leave me--what is the world, or
+any thing in it, to your
+
+ANNA HOWE?
+
+
+The effect this letter had on the lady, who is so near the end which the
+fair writer so much apprehends and deplores, obliged Mrs. Lovick to make
+many breaks in reading it, and many changes of voice.
+
+This is a friend, said the divine lady, (taking the letter in her hand,
+and kissing it,) worth wishing to live for.--O my dear Anna Howe! how
+uninterruptedly sweet and noble has been our friendship!--But we shall
+one day meet, (and this hope must comfort us both,) never to part again!
+Then, divested of the shades of body, shall be all light and all mind!--
+Then how unalloyed, how perfect, will be our friendship!  Our love then
+will have one and the same adorable object, and we shall enjoy it and
+each other to all eternity!
+
+She said, her dear friend was so earnest for a line or two, that she fain
+would write, if she could: and she tried--but to no purpose.  She could
+dictate, however, she believed; and desired Mrs. Lovick would take pen
+and paper.  Which she did, and then she dictated to her.  I would have
+withdrawn; but at her desire staid.
+
+She wandered a good deal at first.  She took notice that she did.  And
+when she got into a little train, not pleasing herself, she apologized to
+Mrs. Lovick for making her begin again and again; and said, that the
+third time should go, let it be as it would.
+
+She dictated the farewell part without hesitation; and when she came to
+blessing and subscription, she took the pen, and dropping on her knees,
+supported by Mrs. Lovick, wrote the conclusion; but Mrs. Lovick was
+forced to guide her hand.
+
+You will find the sense surprisingly entire, her weakness considered.
+
+I made the messenger wait while I transcribed it.  I have endeavoured to
+imitate the subscriptive part; and in the letter made pauses where, to
+the best of my remembrance, she paused.  In nothing that relates to this
+admirable lady can I be too minute.
+
+
+WEDN. NEAR THREE O'CLOCK.
+
+
+MY DEAREST MISS HOWE,
+
+You must not be surprised--nor grieved--that Mrs. Lovick writes for me.
+Although I cannot obey you, and write with my pen, yet my heart writes
+by her's--accept it so--it is the nearest to obedience I can!
+
+And now, what ought I to say?  What can I say?--But why should not you
+know the truth? since soon you must--very soon.
+
+Know then, and let your tears be those, if of pity, of joyful pity! for
+I permit you to shed a few, to embalm, as I may say, a fallen blossom--
+know then, that the good doctor, and the pious clergyman, and the worthy
+apothecary, have just now--with joint benedictions--taken their last
+leave of me; and the former bids me hope--do, my dearest, let me say hope
+--hope for my enlargement before to-morrow sun-set.
+
+Adieu, therefore, my dearest friend!--Be this your consolation, as it is
+mine, that in God's good time we shall meet in a blessed eternity, never
+more to part!--Once more, then, adieu!--and be happy!--Which a generous
+nature cannot be, unless--to its power--it makes others so too.
+
+God for ever bless you!--prays, dropt on my bended knees, although
+supported upon them,
+
+Your obliged, grateful, affectionate,
+CL. HARLOWE.
+
+
+***
+
+
+When I had transcribed and sealed this letter, by her direction, I gave
+it to the messenger myself, who told me that Miss Howe waited for nothing
+but his return to set out for London.
+
+Thy servant is just come; so I will close here.  Thou art a merciless
+master.  These two fellows are battered to death by thee, to use a female
+word; and all female words, though we are not sure of their derivation,
+have very significant meanings.  I believe, in their hearts, they wish
+the angel in the Heaven that is ready to receive her, and thee at the
+proper place, that there might be an end of their flurries--another word
+of the same gender.
+
+What a letter hast thou sent me!--Poor Lovelace!--is all the answer I
+will return.
+
+
+FIVE O'CLOCK.] Col. Morden is this moment arrived.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXXI
+
+MR. BELFORD
+[IN CONTINUATION.]
+EIGHT IN THE EVENING.
+
+
+I had but just time, in my former, to tell you that Col. Morden was
+arrived.  He was on horseback, attended by two servants, and alighted
+at the door just as the clock struck five.  Mrs. Smith was then below in
+her back-shop, weeping, her husband with her, who was as much affected as
+she; Mrs. Lovick having left them a little before, in tears likewise; for
+they had been bemoaning one another; joining in opinion that the
+admirable lady would not live the night over.  She had told them, it was
+her opinion too, from some numbnesses, which she called the forerunners
+of death, and from an increased inclination to doze.
+
+The Colonel, as Mrs. Smith told me afterwards, asked with great
+impatience, the moment he alighted, how Miss Harlowe was?  She answered--
+Alive!--but, she feared, drawing on apace.--Good God! said he, with his
+hands and eyes lifted up, can I see her?  My name is Morden.  I have the
+honour to be nearly related to her.--Step up, pray, and let her know,
+(she is sensible, I hope,) that I am here--Who is with her?
+
+Nobody but her nurse, and Mrs. Lovick, a widow gentlewoman, who is as
+careful of her as if she were her mother.
+
+And more careful too, interrupted he, or she is not careful at all----
+
+Except a gentleman be with her, one Mr. Belford, continued Mrs. Smith,
+who has been the best friend she has had.
+
+If Mr. Belford be with her, surely I may--but pray step up, and let Mr.
+Belford know that I shall take it for a favour to speak with him first.
+
+Mrs. Smith came up to me in my new apartment.  I had but just dispatched
+your servant, and was asking her nurse if I might be again admitted?  Who
+answered, that she was dozing in the elbow chair, having refused to lie
+down, saying, she should soon, she hoped, lie down for good.
+
+The Colonel, who is really a fine gentleman, received me with great
+politeness.  After the first compliments--My kinswoman, Sir, said he, is
+more obliged to you than to any of her own family.  For my part, I have
+been endeavouring to move so many rocks in her favour; and, little
+thinking the dear creature so very bad, have neglected to attend her, as
+I ought to have done the moment I arrived; and would, had I known how ill
+she was, and what a task I should have had with the family.  But, Sir,
+your friend has been excessively to blame; and you being so intimately
+his friend, has made her fare the worse for your civilities to her.  But
+are there no hopes of her recovery?
+
+The doctors have left her, with the melancholy declaration that there are
+none.
+
+Has she had good attendance, Sir?  A skilful physician?  I hear these
+good folks have been very civil and obliging to her.
+
+Who could be otherwise? said Mrs. Smith, weeping.--She is the sweetest
+lady in the world!
+
+The character, said the Colonel, lifting up his eyes and one hand, that
+she has from every living creature!--Good God!  How could your accursed
+friend--
+
+And how could her cruel parents? interrupted I.--We may as easily account
+for him, as for them.
+
+Too true! returned me, the vileness of the profligates of our sex
+considered, whenever they can get any of the other into their power.
+
+I satisfied him about the care that had been taken of her, and told him
+of the friendly and even paternal attendance she had had from Dr. H. and
+Mr. Goddard.
+
+He was impatient to attend her, having not seen her, as he said, since
+she was twelve years old; and that then she gave promises of being one of
+the finest women in England.
+
+She was so, replied I, a very few months ago: and, though emaciated, she
+will appear to you to have confirmed those promises; for her features are
+so regular and exact, her proportions so fine, and her manner so
+inimitably graceful, that, were she only skin and bone, she must be a
+beauty.
+
+Mrs. Smith, at his request, stept up, and brought us down word that Mrs.
+Lovick and her nurse were with her; and that she was in so sound a sleep,
+leaning upon the former in her elbow-chair, that she had neither heard
+her enter the room, nor go out.  The Colonel begged, if not improper,
+that he might see her, though sleeping.  He said, that his impatience
+would not let him stay till he awaked.  Yet he would not have her
+disturbed; and should be glad to contemplate her sweet features, when she
+saw not him; and asked, if she thought he could not go in, and come out,
+without disturbing her?
+
+She believed he might, she answered; for her chair's back was towards the
+door.
+
+He said he would take care to withdraw, if she awoke, that his sudden
+appearance might not surprise her.
+
+Mrs. Smith, stepping up before us, bid Mrs. Lovick and nurse not stir,
+when we entered; and then we went up softly together.
+
+We beheld the lady in a charming attitude.  Dressed, as I told you
+before, in her virgin white.  She was sitting in her elbow-chair, Mrs.
+Lovick close by her, in another chair, with her left arm round her neck,
+supporting it, as it were; for, it seems, the lady had bid her do so,
+saying, she had been a mother to her, and she would delight herself in
+thinking she was in her mamma's arms; for she found herself drowsy;
+perhaps, she said, for the last time she should be so.
+
+One faded cheek rested upon the good woman's bosom, the kindly warmth of
+which had overspread it with a faint, but charming flush; the other paler
+and hollow, as if already iced over by death.  Her hands white as the
+lily, with her meandering veins more transparently blue than ever I had
+seen even her's, (veins so soon, alas! to be choked up by the congealment
+of that purple stream, which already so languidly creeps, rather than
+flows, through them!) her hands hanging lifelessly, one before her, the
+other grasped by the right-hand of the kind widow, whose tears bedewed
+the sweet face which her motherly boson supported, though unfelt by the
+fair sleeper; and either insensibly to the good woman, or what she would
+not disturb her to wipe off, or to change her posture: her aspect was
+sweetly calm and serene: and though she started now and then, yet her
+sleep seemed easy; her breath, indeed short and quick; but tolerably
+free, and not like that of a dying person.
+
+In this heart-moving attitude she appeared to us when we approached her,
+and came to have her lovely face before us.
+
+The Colonel, sighing often, gazed upon her with his arms folded, and with
+the most profound and affectionate attention; till at last, on her
+starting, and fetching her breath with greater difficulty than before, he
+retired to a screen, that was drawn before her house, as she calls it,
+which, as I have heretofore observed, stands under one of the windows.
+This screen was placed there at the time she found herself obliged to
+take to her chamber; and in the depth of our concern, and the fulness of
+other discourse at our first interview, I had forgotten to apprize the
+Colonel of what he would probably see.
+
+Retiring thither, he drew out his handkerchief, and, overwhelmed with
+grief, seemed unable to speak; but, on casting his eye behind the screen,
+he soon broke silence; for, struck with the shape of the coffin, he
+lifted up a purplish-coloured cloth that was spread over it, and,
+starting back, Good God! said he, what's here?
+
+Mrs. Smith standing next him, Why, said he, with great emotion, is my
+cousin suffered to indulge her sad reflections with such an object before
+her?
+
+Alas! Sir, replied the good woman, who should controul her?  We are all
+strangers about her, in a manner: and yet we have expostulated with her
+upon this sad occasion.
+
+I ought, said I, (stepping softly up to him, the lady again falling into
+a doze,) to have apprized you of this.  I was here when it was brought
+in, and never was so shocked in my life.  But she had none of her friends
+about her, and no reason to hope for any of them to come near her; and,
+assured she should not recover, she was resolved to leave as little as
+possible, especially as to what related to her person, to her executor.
+But it is not a shocking object to her, though it be to every body else.
+
+Curse upon the hard-heartedness of those, said he, who occasioned her to
+make so sad a provision for herself!--What must her reflections have been
+all the time she was thinking of it, and giving orders about it?  And
+what must they be every time she turns her head towards it?  These
+uncommon genius's--but indeed she should have been controuled in it, had
+I been here.
+
+The lady fetched a profound sigh, and, starting, it broke off our talk;
+and the Colonel then withdrew farther behind the screen, that his sudden
+appearance might not surprise her.
+
+Where am I?--said she.  How drowsy I am!  How long have I dozed?  Don't
+go, Sir, (for I was retiring,) I am very stupid, and shall be more and
+more so, I suppose.
+
+She then offered to raise herself; but being ready to faint through
+weakness, was forced to sit down again, reclining her head on her chair
+back; and, after a few moments, I believe now, my good friends, said she,
+all your kind trouble will soon be over.  I have slept, but am not
+refreshed, and my fingers' ends seem numbed--have no feeling! (holding
+them up,)--'tis time to send the letter to my good Norton.
+
+Shall I, Madam, send my servant post with it?
+
+O no, Sir, I thank you.  It will reach the dear woman too soon, (as she
+will think,) by the post.
+
+I told her this was not post-day.
+
+Is it Wednesday still, said she; bless me!  I know not how the time goes
+--but very tediously, 'tis plain.  And now I think I must soon take to my
+bed.  All will be most conveniently, and with least trouble, over there--
+will it not, Mrs. Lovick?--I think, Sir, turning to me, I have left
+nothing to these last incapacitating hours.  Nothing either to say, or to
+do--I bless God, I have not.  If I had, how unhappy should I be!  Can
+you, Sir, remind me of any thing necessary to be done or said to make
+your office easy?
+
+If, Madam, your cousin Morden should come, you would be glad to see him,
+I presume?
+
+I am too weak to wish to see my cousin now.  It would but discompose me,
+and him too.  Yet, if he come while I can see him, I will see him, were
+it but to thank him for former favours, and for his present kind
+intentions to me.  Has any body been here from him?
+
+He has called, and will be here, Madam, in half an hour; but he feared to
+surprise you.
+
+Nothing can surprise me now, except my mamma were to favour me with her
+last blessing in person.  That would be a welcome surprise to me, even
+yet.  But did my cousin come purposely to town to see me?
+
+Yes, Madam, I took the liberty to let him know, by a line last Monday,
+how ill you were.
+
+You are very kind, Sir.  I am, and have been greatly obliged to you.  But
+I think I shall be pained to see him now, because he will be concerned to
+see me.  And yet, as I am not so ill as I shall presently be--the sooner
+he comes the better.  But if he come, what shall I do about the screen?
+He will chide me, very probably, and I cannot bear chiding now.  Perhaps,
+[leaning upon Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith,] I can walk into the next
+apartment to receive him.
+
+She motioned to rise, but was ready to faint again, and forced to sit
+still.
+
+The Colonel was in a perfect agitation behind the screen to hear this
+discourse; and twice, unseen by his cousin, was coming from it towards
+her; but retreated for fear of surprising her too much.
+
+I stept to him, and favoured his retreat; she only saying, Are you going,
+Mr. Belford?  Are you sent for down?  Is my cousin come?  For she heard
+somebody step softly across the room, and thought it to be me; her
+hearing being more perfect than her sight.
+
+I told her, I believed he was; and she said, We must make the best of it,
+Mrs. Lovick, and Mrs. Smith.  I shall otherwise most grievously shock my
+poor cousin: for he loved me dearly once.--Pray give me a few of the
+doctor's last drops in water, to keep up my spirits for this one
+interview; and that is all, I believe, that can concern me now.
+
+The Colonel, (who heard all this,) sent in his name; and I, pretending to
+go down to him, introduced the afflicted gentleman; she having first
+ordered the screen to be put as close to the window as possible, that he
+might not see what was behind it; while he, having heard what she had
+said about it, was determined to take no notice of it.
+
+He folded the angel in his arms as she sat, dropping down on one knee;
+for, supporting herself upon the two elbows of the chair, she attempted
+to rise, but could not.  Excuse, my dear Cousin, said she, excuse me,
+that I cannot stand up--I did not expect this favour now.  But I am glad
+of this opportunity to thank you for all your generous goodness to me.
+
+I never, my best-beloved and dearest Cousin, said he, (with eyes running
+over,) shall forgive myself, that I did not attend you sooner.  Little
+did I think you were so ill; nor do any of your friends believe it.  If
+they did--
+
+If they did, repeated she, interrupting him, I should have had more
+compassion from them.  I am sure I should--But pray, Sir, how did you
+leave them?  Are you reconciled to them?  If you are not, I beg, if you
+love your poor Clarissa, that you will; for every widened difference
+augments but my fault; since that is the foundation of all.
+
+I had been expecting to hear from them in your favour, my dear Cousin,
+said he, for some hours, when this gentleman's letter arrived, which
+hastened me up; but I have the account of your grandfather's estate to
+make up with you, and have bills and drafts upon their banker for the
+sums due to you; which they desire you may receive, lest you should have
+occasion for money.  And this is such an earnest of an approaching
+reconciliation, that I dare to answer for all the rest being according to
+your wishes, if----
+
+Ah! Sir, interrupted she, with frequent breaks and pauses--I wish--I wish
+this does not rather show that, were I to live, they would have nothing
+more to say to me.  I never had any pride in being independent of them;
+all my actions, when I might have made myself more independent, show this
+--But what avail these reflections now?--I only beg, Sir, that you, and
+this gentleman--to whom I am exceedingly obliged--will adjust those
+matters--according to the will I have written.  Mr. Belford will excuse
+me; but it was in truth more necessity than choice that made me think of
+giving him the trouble he so kindly accepts.  Had I the happiness to see
+you, my Cousin, sooner--or to know that you still honoured me with your
+regard--I should not have had the assurance to ask this favour of him.--
+But, though the friend of Mr. Lovelace, he is a man of honour, and he
+will make peace rather than break it.  And, my dear Cousin, let me beg
+of you while I have nearer relations than my Cousin Morden, dear as you
+are, and always were to me, you have no title to avenge my wrongs upon
+him who has been the occasion of them.  But I wrote to you my mind on
+this subject, and my reasons--and I hope I need not further urge them.
+
+I must do Mr. Lovelace so much justice, answered he, wiping his eyes, as
+to witness how sincerely he repents him of his ungrateful baseness to
+you, and how ready he is to make you all the amends in his power.  He
+owns his wickedness, and your merit.  If he did not, I could not pass it
+over, though you have nearer relations; for, my dear Cousin, did not your
+grandfather leave me in trust for you?  And should I think myself
+concerned for your fortune, and not for your honour?  But since he is so
+desirous to do you justice, I have the less to say; and you may make
+yourself entirely easy on that account.
+
+I thank you, thank you, Sir, said she;--all is now as I wished.--But I am
+very faint, very weak.  I am sorry I cannot hold up; that I cannot better
+deserve the honour of this visit--but it will not be--and saying this, she
+sunk down in her chair, and was silent.
+
+Hereupon we both withdrew, leaving word that we would be at the Bedford
+Head, if any thing extraordinary happened.
+
+We bespoke a little repast, having neither of us dined; and, while it was
+getting ready, you may guess at the subject of our discourse.  Both
+joined in lamentation for the lady's desperate state; admired her
+manifold excellencies; severely condemned you and her friends.  Yet, to
+bring him into better opinion of you, I read to him some passages from
+your last letters, which showed your concern for the wrongs you had done
+her, and your deep remorse: and he said it was a dreadful thing to labour
+under the sense of a guilt so irredeemable.
+
+We procured Mr. Goddard, (Dr. H. not being at home,) once more to visit
+her, and to call upon us in his return.  He was so good as to do so; but
+he tarried with her not five minutes; and told us, that she was drawing
+on apace; that he feared she would not live till morning; and that she
+wished to see Colonel Morden directly.
+
+The Colonel made excuses where none were needed; and though our little
+refection was just brought in, he went away immediately.
+
+I could not touch a morsel; and took pen and ink to amuse myself, and
+oblige you; knowing how impatient you would be for a few lines: for, from
+what I have recited, you see it was impossible I could withdraw to write
+when your servant came at half an hour after five, or have an opportunity
+for it till now; and this is accidental; and yet your poor fellow was
+afraid to go away with the verbal message I sent; importing, as no doubt
+he told you, that the Colonel was with us, the lady excessively ill, and
+that I could not stir to write a line.
+
+
+TEN O'CLOCK.
+
+The Colonel sent to me afterwards, to tell me that the lady having been
+in convulsions, he was so much disordered that he could not possibly
+attend me.
+
+I have sent every half hour to know how she does--and just now I have the
+pleasure to hear that her convulsions have left her; and that she is gone
+to rest in a much quieter way than could be expected.
+
+Her poor cousin is very much indisposed; yet will not stir out of the
+house while she is in such a way; but intends to lie down on a couch,
+having refused any other accommodation.
+
+END OF VOL. 8.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young
+Lady, Volume 8, by Samuel Richardson
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diff --git a/old/12180-8.zip b/old/12180-8.zip
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+++ b/old/12180-h/12180-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,14650 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Clarissa Harlowe, Volue 8 (of 9) by Samuel Richardson
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+    
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+    
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady,
+Volume 8, by Samuel Richardson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8
+
+Author: Samuel Richardson
+
+Release Date: April 27, 2004 [EBook #12180]
+[Last updated: October 15, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLARISSA, VOL. 8 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Julie C. Sparks and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      CLARISSA HARLOWE
+    </h1>
+    <h3>
+      or the
+    </h3>
+    <h2>
+      HISTORY OF A YOUNG LADY
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Samuel Richardson
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      Volume VIII. (of Nine Volumes)
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> DETAILED CONTENTS </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> THE HISTORY OF CLARISSA HARLOWE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> LETTER I </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> LETTER II </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> LETTER III </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> LETTER IV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> LETTER V </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> LETTER VI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> LETTER VII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> LETTER VIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> LETTER IX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> LETTER X </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> LETTER XI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> LETTER XII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> LETTER XIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> LETTER XIV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> LETTER XV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> LETTER XVI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> LETTER XVII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> LETTER XVIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> LETTER XIX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> LETTER XX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> LETTER XXI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> LETTER XXII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> LETTER XXIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> LETTER XXIV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> LETTER XXV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> LETTER XXVI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> LETTER XXVII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> LETTER XXVIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0032"> LETTER XXIX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0033"> LETTER XXX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0034"> LETTER XXXI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0035"> LETTER XXXII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0036"> LETTER XXXIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0037"> LETTER XXXIV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0038"> LETTER XXXV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0039"> LETTER XXXVI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0040"> LETTER XXXVII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0041"> LETTER XXXVIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0042"> LETTER XXXIX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0043"> LETTER XL </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0044"> LETTER XLI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0045"> LETTER XLII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0046"> LETTER XLIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0047"> LETTER XLIV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0048"> LETTER XLV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0049"> LETTER XLVI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0050"> LETTER XLVII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0051"> LETTER XLVIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0052"> LETTER XLIX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0053"> LETTER L </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0054"> LETTER LI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0055"> LETTER LII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0056"> LETTER LIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0057"> LETTER LIV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0058"> LETTER LV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0059"> LETTER LVI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0060"> LETTER LVII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0061"> LETTER LVIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0062"> LETTER LIX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0063"> LETTER LX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0064"> LETTER LXI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0065"> LETTER LXII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0066"> LETTER LXIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0067"> LETTER LXIV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0068"> LETTER LXV </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0069"> LETTER LXVI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0070"> LETTER LXVII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0071"> LETTER LXVIII </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0072"> LETTER LXIX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0073"> LETTER LXX </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0074"> LETTER LXXI </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p>
+        <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+        <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>DETAILED CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br /> <br />
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER I. Miss Howe, from the Isle of Wight.&mdash; In answer to her's,
+        No. LXI. of Vol. VII. Approves not of her choice of Belford for her
+        executor; yet thinks she cannot appoint for that office any of her own
+        family. Hopes she will live many years.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER II. Clarissa to Miss Howe.&mdash; Sends her a large packet of
+        letters; but (for her relations' sake) not all she has received. Must
+        now abide by the choice of Mr. Belford for executor; but farther refers
+        to the papers she sends her, for her justification on this head.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER III. Antony Harlowe to Clarissa.&mdash; A letter more taunting
+        and reproachful than that of her other uncle. To what owing.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER IV. Clarissa. In answer.&mdash; Wishes that the circumstances of
+        her case had been inquired into. Concludes with a solemn and pathetic
+        prayer for the happiness of the whole family.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER V. Mrs. Norton to Clarissa.&mdash; Her friends, through Brand's
+        reports, as she imagines, intent upon her going to the plantations.
+        Wishes her to discourage improper visiters. Difficult situations the
+        tests of prudence as well as virtue. Dr. Lewen's solicitude for her
+        welfare. Her cousin Morden arrived in England. Farther pious
+        consolations.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER VI. Clarissa. In answer.&mdash; Sends her a packet of letters,
+        which, for her relations' sake, she cannot communicate to Miss Howe.
+        From these she will collect a good deal of her story. Defends, yet
+        gently blames her mother. Afraid that her cousin Morden will be set
+        against her; or, what is worse, that he will seek to avenge her. Her
+        affecting conclusion on her Norton's divine consolations.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER VII. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; Is very ill. The lady, if he
+        die, will repent her refusal of him. One of the greatest felicities that
+        can befal a woman, what. Extremely ill. His ludicrous behaviour on
+        awaking, and finding a clergyman and his friends praying for him by his
+        bedside.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER VIII. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; Concerned at his illness.
+        Wishes that he had died before last April. The lady, he tells him,
+        generously pities him; and prays that he may meet with the mercy he has
+        not shown.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER IX. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; In raptures on her goodness to
+        him. His deep regrets for his treatment of her. Blesses her.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER X. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; Congratulates him on his
+        amendment. The lady's exalted charity to him. Her story a fine subject
+        for tragedy. Compares with it, and censures, the play of the Fair
+        Penitent. She is very ill; the worse for some new instances of the
+        implacableness of her relations. A meditation on the subject. Poor
+        Belton, he tells him, is at death's door; and desirous to see him.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XI. Belford to Clarissa.&mdash; Acquaints her with the obligation
+        he is under to go to Belton, and (lest she should be surprised) with
+        Lovelace's resolution (as signified in the next letter) to visit her.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XII. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; Resolves to throw himself at the
+        lady's feet. Lord M. of opinion that she ought to admit of one
+        interview.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XIII. From the same.&mdash; Arrived in London, he finds the lady
+        gone abroad. Suspects Belford. His unaccountable freaks at Smith's. His
+        motives for behaving so ludicrously there. The vile Sally Martin
+        entertains him with her mimicry of the divine lady.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XIV. From the same.&mdash; His frightful dream. How affected by
+        it. Sleeping or waking, his Clarissa always present with him. Hears she
+        is returned to her lodgings. Is hastening to her.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XV. From the same.&mdash; Disappointed again. Is affected by Mrs.
+        Lovick's expostulations. Is shown a meditation on being hunted after by
+        the enemy of her soul, as it is entitled. His light comments upon it.
+        Leaves word that he resolves to see her. Makes several other efforts for
+        that purpose.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XVI. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; Reproaches him that he has not
+        kept his honour with him. Inveighs against, and severely censures him
+        for his light behaviour at Smith's. Belton's terrors and despondency.
+        Mowbray's impenetrable behaviour.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XVII. From the same.&mdash; Mowbray's impatience to run from a
+        dying Belton to a too-lively Lovelace. Mowbray abuses Mr. Belton's
+        servant in the language of a rake of the common class. Reflection on the
+        brevity of life.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XVIII. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; Receives a letter from
+        Clarissa, written by way of allegory to induce him to forbear hunting
+        after her. Copy of it. He takes it in a literal sense. Exults upon it.
+        Will now hasten down to Lord M. and receive the gratulations of all his
+        family on her returning favour. Gives an interpretation of his frightful
+        dream to his own liking.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XIX. XX. From the same.&mdash; Pities Belton. Rakishly defends
+        him on the issue of a duel, which now adds to the poor man's terrors.
+        His opinion of death, and the fear of it. Reflections upon the conduct
+        of play-writers with regard servants. He cannot account for the turn his
+        Clarissa has taken in his favour. Hints at one hopeful cause of it. Now
+        matrimony seems to be in his power, he has some retrograde motions.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXI. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; Continuation of his narrative of
+        Belton's last illness and impatience. The poor man abuses the gentlemen
+        of the faculty. Belford censures some of them for their greediness after
+        fees. Belton dies. Serious reflections on the occasion.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXII. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; Hopes Belton is happy; and why.
+        He is setting out for Berks.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXIII. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; Attends the lady. She is
+        extremely ill, and receives the sacrament. Complains of the harasses his
+        friend had given her. Two different persons (from her relations, he
+        supposes) inquire after her. Her affecting address to the doctor,
+        apothecary, and himself. Disposes of some more of her apparel for a very
+        affecting purpose.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXIV. Dr. Lewen to Clarissa.&mdash; Writes on his pillow, to
+        prevail upon her to prosecute Lovelace for his life.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXV. Her pathetic and noble answer.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXVI. Miss Arabella Harlowe to Clarissa.&mdash; Proposes, in a
+        most taunting and cruel manner, the prosecution of Lovelace; or, if not,
+        her going to Pensylvania.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXVII. Clarissa's affecting answer.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXVIII. XXIX. Mrs. Norton to Clarissa.&mdash; Her uncle's cruel
+        letter to what owing. Colonel Morden resolved on a visit to Lovelace.&mdash;Mrs.
+        Hervey, in a private conversation with her, accounts for, yet blames,
+        the cruelty of her family. Miss Dolly Hervey wishes to attend her.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXX. Clarissa. In answer.&mdash; Thinks she has been treated with
+        great rigour by her relations. Expresses more warmth than usual on this
+        subject. Yet soon checks herself. Grieves that Colonel Morden resolves
+        on a visit to Lovelace. Touches upon her sister's taunting letter.
+        Requests Mrs. Norton's prayers for patience and resignation.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXXI. Miss Howe to Clarissa.&mdash; Approves now of her
+        appointment of Belford for an executor. Admires her greatness of mind in
+        despising Lovelace. Every body she is with taken with Hickman; yet she
+        cannot help wantoning with the power his obsequious love gives her over
+        him.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXXII. XXXIII. Clarissa to Miss Howe.&mdash; Instructive lessons
+        and observations on her treatment of Hickman.&mdash; Acquaints her with
+        all that has happened since her last. Fears that all her allegorical
+        letter is not strictly right. Is forced by illness to break off.
+        Resumes. Wishes her married.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXXIV. Mr. Wyerley to Clarissa.&mdash; A generous renewal of his
+        address to her now in her calamity; and a tender of his best services.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXXV. Her open, kind, and instructive answer.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXXVI. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; Uneasy, on a suspicion that
+        her letter to him was a stratagem only. What he will do, if he find it
+        so.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXXVII. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; Brief account of his
+        proceedings in Belton's affairs. The lady extremely ill. Thought to be
+        near her end. Has a low-spirited day. Recovers her spirits; and thinks
+        herself above this world. She bespeaks her coffin. Confesses that her
+        letter to Lovelace was allegorical only. The light in which Belford
+        beholds her.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXXVIII. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; An affecting conversation
+        that passed between the lady and Dr. H. She talks of death, he says, and
+        prepares for it, as if it were an occurrence as familiar to her as
+        dressing and undressing. Worthy behaviour of the doctor. She makes
+        observations on the vanity of life, on the wisdom of an early
+        preparation for death, and on the last behaviour of Belton.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XXXIX. XL. XLI. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; Particulars of what
+        passed between himself, Colonel Morden, Lord M., and Mowbray, on the
+        visit made him by the Colonel. Proposes Belford to Miss Charlotte
+        Montague, by way of raillery, for an husband.&mdash;He encloses Brand's
+        letter, which misrepresents (from credulity and officiousness, rather
+        than ill-will) the lady's conduct.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XLII. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; Expatiates on the baseness of
+        deluding young creatures, whose confidence has been obtained by oaths,
+        vows, promises. Evil of censoriousness. People deemed good too much
+        addicted to it. Desires to know what he means my his ridicule with
+        regard to his charming cousin.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XLIII. From the same.&mdash; A proper test of the purity of
+        writing. The lady again makes excuses for her allegorical letter. Her
+        calm behaviour, and generous and useful reflections, on his
+        communicating to her Brand's misrepresentations of her conduct.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XLIV. Colonel Morden to Clarissa.&mdash; Offers his assistance
+        and service to make the best of what has happened. Advises her to marry
+        Lovelace, as the only means to bring about a general reconciliation. Has
+        no doubt of his resolution to do her justice. Desires to know if she
+        has.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XLV. Clarissa. In answer.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XLVI. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; His reasonings and ravings on
+        finding the lady's letter to him only an allegorical one. In the midst
+        of these, the natural gayety of his heart runs him into ridicule on
+        Belford. His ludicrous image drawn from a monument in Westminster Abbey.
+        Resumes his serious disposition. If the worst happen, (the Lord of
+        Heaven and Earth, says he, avert that worst!) he bids him only write
+        that he advises him to take a trip to Paris; and that will stab him to
+        the heart.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XLVII. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; The lady's coffin brought up
+        stairs. He is extremely shocked and discomposed at it. Her intrepidity.
+        Great minds, he observes, cannot avoid doing uncommon things.
+        Reflections on the curiosity of women.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XLVIII. From the same.&mdash; Description of the coffin, and
+        devices on the lid. It is placed in her bed-chamber. His serious
+        application to Lovelace on her great behaviour.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER XLIX. From the same.&mdash; Astonished at his levity in the
+        Abbey-instance. The lady extremely ill.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER L. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; All he has done to the lady a jest
+        to die for; since her triumph has ever been greater than her sufferings.
+        He will make over all his possessions and all his reversions to the
+        doctor, if he will but prolong her life for one twelvemonth. How, but
+        for her calamities, could her equanimity blaze out as it does! He would
+        now love her with an intellectual flame. He cannot bear to think that
+        the last time she so triumphantly left him should be the last. His
+        conscience, he says, tears him. He is sick of the remembrance of his
+        vile plots.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LI. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; The lady alive, serene, and calm.
+        The more serene for having finished, signed, and sealed her last will;
+        deferred till now for reasons of filial duty.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LII. Miss Howe to Clarissa.&mdash; Pathetically laments the
+        illness of her own mother, and of her dear friend. Now all her pertness
+        to the former, she says, fly in her face. She lays down her pen; and
+        resumes it, to tell her, with great joy, that her mother is better. She
+        has had a visit form her cousin Morden. What passed in it.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LIII. From the same.&mdash; Displeased with the Colonel for
+        thinking too freely of the sex. Never knew a man that had a slight
+        notion of the virtue of women in general, who deserved to be valued for
+        his morals. Why women must either be more or less virtuous than men.
+        Useful hints to young ladies. Is out of humour with Mr. Hickman.
+        Resolves to see her soon in town.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LIV. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; The lady writes and reads upon
+        her coffin, as upon a desk. The doctor resolves to write to her father.
+        Her intense, yet cheerful devotion.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LV. Clarissa to Miss Howe.&mdash; A letter full of pious
+        reflections, and good advice, both general and particular; and breathing
+        the true spirit of charity, forgiveness, patience, and resignation. A
+        just reflection, to her dear friend, upon the mortifying nature of
+        pride.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LVI. Mrs. Norton to Clarissa.&mdash; Her account of an
+        interesting conversation at Harlowe-place between the family and Colonel
+        Morden; and of another between her mother and self. The Colonel incensed
+        against them all. Her advice concerning Belford, and other matters. Miss
+        Howe has obtained leave, she hears, to visit her. Praises Mr. Hickman.
+        Gently censures Miss Howe on his account. Her truly maternal and pious
+        comfortings.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LVII. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; The lady's sight begins to fail
+        her. She blesses God for the serenity she enjoys. It is what, she says,
+        she had prayed for. What a blessing, so near to her dissolution, to have
+        her prayers answered! Gives particular directions to him about her
+        papers, about her last will and apparel. Comforts the women and him on
+        their concern for her. Another letter brought her from Colonel Morden.
+        The substance of it. Belford writes to hasten up the Colonel. Dr. H. has
+        also written to her father; and Brand to Mr. John Harlowe a letter
+        recanting his officious one.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LVIII. Dr. H. to James Harlowe, Senior, Esq.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LIX. Copy of Mr. Belford's letter to Colonel Morden, to hasten
+        him up.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LX. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; He feels the torments of the
+        damned, in the remorse that wrings his heart, on looking back on his
+        past actions by this lady. Gives him what he calls a faint picture of
+        his horrible uneasiness, riding up and down, expecting the return of his
+        servant as soon as he had dispatched him. Woe be to the man who brings
+        him the fatal news!
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXI. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; Farther particulars of the
+        lady's pious and exemplary behaviour. She rejoices in the gradual death
+        afforded her. Her thankful acknowledgments to Mr. Belford, Mrs. Smith,
+        and Mrs. Lovick, for their kindness to her. Her edifying address to Mr.
+        Belford.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXII. Clarissa to Mrs. Norton. In answer to her's, No. LVI.&mdash;
+        Afflicted only for her friends. Desires not now to see her cousin
+        Morden, nor even herself, or Miss Howe. God will have no rivals, she
+        says, in the hearts of those whom HE sanctifies. Advice to Miss Howe. To
+        Mr. Hickman. Blesses all her relations and friends.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXIII. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; A letter of deep distress,
+        remorse, and impatience. Yet would he fain lighten his own guilt by
+        reflections on the cruelty of her relations.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXIV. Belford to Lovelace The lady is disappointed at the
+        Doctor's telling her that she may yet live two or three days. Death from
+        grief the slowest of deaths. Her solemn forgiveness of Lovelace, and
+        prayer for him. Owns that once she could have loved him. Her generous
+        concern for his future happiness. Belford's good resolutions.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXV. Mr. Brand to Mr. John Walton.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXVI. Mr. Brand to John Harlowe, Esq.; in excuse of his
+        credulity, and of the misreports founded upon it.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXVII. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; Blesses him for sending him
+        word the lady is better. Her charity towards him cuts him to the heart.
+        He cannot bear it. His vehement self reproaches. Curses his contriving
+        genius, and his disbelief that there could be such virtue in woman. The
+        world never saw such an husband as he will make, if she recover, and
+        will be his.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXVIII. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; The lady's pious frame. The
+        approaches of death how supportable to her; and why. She has no reason,
+        she says, to grieve for any thing but the sorrow she has given to her
+        friends.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXIX. Lovelace to Belford.&mdash; Never prayed in his life, put
+        all the years of it together, as he has done for this fortnight. Has
+        repented of all his baseness: And will nothing do? Conjures him to send
+        him good news in his next, as he would not be answerable for
+        consequences.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXX. Belford to Lovelace.&mdash; Solemn leave taken of her by the
+        doctor and apothecary; who tell her she will hardly see the next night.
+        The pleasure with which she receives the intimation. How unlike poor
+        Belton's behaviour her's! A letter from Miss Howe. Copy of it. She
+        cannot see to read it. Her exalted expressions on hearing it read. Tries
+        to write an answer to it; but cannot. Dictates to Mrs. Lovick. Writes
+        the superscriptive part herself on her knees. Colonel Morden arrives in
+        town.
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        LETTER LXXI. From the same.&mdash; What passes on Colonel Morden's visit
+        to his cousin. She enjoins the Colonel not to avenge her.
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE HISTORY OF CLARISSA HARLOWE
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /> <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE YARMOUTH, ISLE OF WIGHT, MONDAY, AUG.
+      7.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MY DEAREST CREATURE,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I can write but just now a few lines. I cannot tell how to bear the sound
+      of that Mr. Belford for your executor, cogent as your reasons for that
+      measure are: and yet I am firmly of opinion, that none of your relations
+      should be named for the trust. But I dwell the less on this subject, as I
+      hope (and cannot bear to apprehend the contrary) that you will still live
+      many, many years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Hickman, indeed, speaks very handsomely of Mr. Belford. But he, poor
+      man! has not much penetration.&mdash;If he had, he would hardly think so
+      well of me as he does.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have a particular opportunity of sending this by a friend of my aunt
+      Harman's; who is ready to set out for London, (and this occasions my
+      hurry,) and is to return out of hand. I expect therefore, by him a large
+      packet from you; and hope and long for news of your amended health: which
+      Heaven grant to the prayers of
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your ever-affectionate ANNA HOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE FRIDAY, AUG. 11.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will send you a large packet, as you desire and expect; since I can do
+      it by so safe a conveyance: but not all that is come to my hand&mdash;for
+      I must own that my friends are very severe; too severe for any body, who
+      loves them not, to see their letters. You, my dear, would not call them my
+      friends, you said, long ago; but my relations: indeed I cannot call them
+      my relations, I think!&mdash;&mdash;But I am ill; and therefore perhaps
+      more peevish than I should be. It is difficult to go out of ourselves to
+      give a judgment against ourselves; and yet, oftentimes, to pass a just
+      judgment, we ought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought I should alarm you in the choice of my executor. But the sad
+      necessity I am reduced to must excuse me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall not repeat any thing I have said before on that subject: but if
+      your objections will not be answered to your satisfaction by the papers
+      and letters I shall enclose, marked 1, 2, 3, 4, to 9, I must think myself
+      in another instance unhappy; since I am engaged too far (and with my own
+      judgment too) to recede.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Mr. Belford has transcribed for me, in confidence, from his friend's
+      letters, the passages which accompany this, I must insist that you suffer
+      no soul but yourself to peruse them; and that you return them by the very
+      first opportunity; that so no use may be made of them that may do hurt
+      either to the original writer or to the communicator. You'll observe I am
+      bound by promise to this care. If through my means any mischief should
+      arise, between this humane and that inhuman libertine, I should think
+      myself utterly inexcusable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I subjoin a list of the papers or letters I shall enclose. You must return
+      them all when perused.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+* 1. A letter from Miss Montague, dated . . . .  Aug. 1.
+  2. A copy of my answer  . . . . . . . . . . .  Aug. 3.
+  3. Mr. Belford's Letter to me, which will show
+      you what my request was to him, and his
+      compliance with it; and the desired ex-
+      tracts from his friend's letters  . . . .  Aug. 3, 4.
+  4. A copy of my answer, with thanks; and re-
+      questing him to undertake the executor-
+      ship  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Aug. 4.
+  5. Mr. Belford's acceptance of the trust  . .  Aug. 4.
+  6. Miss Montague's letter, with a generous
+      offer from Lord M. and the Ladies of that
+      family  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Aug. 7.
+  7. Mr. Lovelace's to me . . . . . . . . . . .  Aug. 7.
+  8. Copy of mine to Miss Montague, in answer
+      to her's of the day before  . . . . . . .  Aug. 8.
+  9. Copy of my answer to Mr. Lovelace  . . . .  Aug. 11.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      You will see by these several Letters, written and received in so little a
+      space of time (to say nothing of what I have received and written which I
+      cannot show you,) how little opportunity or leisure I can have for writing
+      my own story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am very much tired and fatigued&mdash;with&mdash;I don't know what&mdash;with
+      writing, I think&mdash;but most with myself, and with a situation I cannot
+      help aspiring to get out of, and above!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O my dear, the world we live in is a sad, a very sad world!&mdash;&mdash;While
+      under our parents' protecting wings, we know nothing at all of it.
+      Book-learned and a scribbler, and looking at people as I saw them as
+      visiters or visiting, I thought I knew a great deal of it. Pitiable
+      ignorance!&mdash;Alas! I knew nothing at all!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With zealous wishes for your happiness, and the happiness of every one
+      dear to you, I am, and will ever be,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your gratefully-affectionate CL. HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER III
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. ANTONY HARLOWE, TO MISS CL. HARLOWE [IN REPLY TO HER'S TO HER UNCLE
+      HARLOWE, OF THURSDAY, AUG. 10.] AUG. 12.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      UNHAPPY GIRL!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As your uncle Harlowe chooses not to answer your pert letter to him; and
+      as mine, written to you before,* was written as if it were in the spirit
+      of prophecy, as you have found to your sorrow; and as you are now making
+      yourself worse than you are in your health, and better than you are in
+      your penitence, as we are very well assured, in order to move compassion;
+      which you do not deserve, having had so much warning: for all these
+      reasons, I take up my pen once more; though I had told your brother, at
+      his going to Edinburgh, that I would not write to you, even were you to
+      write to me, without letting him know. So indeed had we all; for he
+      prognosticated what would happen, as to your applying to us, when you knew
+      not how to help it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. I. Letter XXXII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Brother John has hurt your niceness, it seems, by asking you a plain
+      question, which your mother's heart is too full of grief to let her ask;
+      and modesty will not let your sister ask; though but the consequence of
+      your actions&mdash;and yet it must be answered, before you'll obtain from
+      your father and mother, and us, the notice you hope for, I can tell you
+      that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You lived several guilty weeks with one of the vilest fellows that ever
+      drew breath, at bed, as well as at board, no doubt, (for is not his
+      character known?) and pray don't be ashamed to be asked after what may
+      naturally come of such free living. This modesty indeed would have become
+      you for eighteen years of your life&mdash;you'll be pleased to mark that&mdash;but
+      makes no good figure compared with your behaviour since the beginning of
+      April last. So pray don't take it up, and wipe your mouth upon it, as if
+      nothing had happened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, may be, I likewise am to shocking to your niceness!&mdash;O girl,
+      girl! your modesty had better been shown at the right time and place&mdash;Every
+      body but you believed what the rake was: but you would believe nothing bad
+      of him&mdash;What think you now?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your folly has ruined all our peace. And who knows where it may yet end?
+      &mdash;Your poor father but yesterday showed me this text: With bitter
+      grief he showed it me, poor man! and do you lay it to your heart:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'A father waketh for his daughter, when no man knoweth; and the care for
+      her taketh away his sleep&mdash;When she is young, lest she pass away the
+      flower of her age&mdash;[and you know what proposals were made to you at
+      different times.] And, being married, lest she should be hated. In her
+      virginity, lest she should be defiled, and gotten with child in her
+      father's house&mdash;[and I don't make the words, mind that.] And, having
+      an husband, lest she should misbehave herself.' And what follows? 'Keep a
+      sure watch over a shameless daughter&mdash;[yet no watch could hold you!]
+      lest she make thee a laughing stock to thine enemies&mdash;[as you have
+      made us all to this cursed Lovelace,] and a bye-word in the city, and a
+      reproach among the people, and make thee ashamed before the multitude.'
+      Eccles. xlii. 9, 10, &amp;c.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now will you wish you had not written pertly. Your sister's severities!
+      &mdash;Never, girl, say that is severe that is deserved. You know the
+      meaning of words. No body better. Would to the Lord you had acted up but
+      to one half of what you know! then had we not been disappointed and
+      grieved, as we all have been: and nobody more than him who was
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your loving uncle, ANTONY HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+This will be with you to-morrow.  Perhaps you may be suffered to have
+      some part of your estate, after you have smarted a little more.
+      Your pertly-answered uncle John, who is your trustee, will not have
+      you be destitute.  But we hope all is not true that we hear of you.
+      &mdash;Only take care, I advise you, that, bad as you have acted, you
+      act not still worse, if it be possible to act worse.  Improve upon
+      the hint.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER IV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO ANTONY HARLOWE, ESQ. SUNDAY, AUG. 13.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      HONOURED SIR,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am very sorry for my pert letter to my uncle Harlowe. Yet I did not
+      intend it to be pert. People new to misfortune may be too easily moved to
+      impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fall of a regular person, no doubt, is dreadful and inexcusable. It is
+      like the sin of apostacy. Would to Heaven, however, that I had had the
+      circumstances of mine inquired into!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If, Sir, I make myself worse than I am in my health, and better than I am
+      in my penitence, it is fit I should be punished for my double
+      dissimulation: and you have the pleasure of being one of my punishers. My
+      sincerity in both respects will, however, be best justified by the event.
+      To that I refer.&mdash;May Heaven give you always as much comfort in
+      reflecting upon the reprobation I have met with, as you seem to have
+      pleasure in mortifying a young creature, extremely mortified; and that
+      from a right sense, as she presumes to hope, of her own fault!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What you heard of me I cannot tell. When the nearest and dearest relations
+      give up an unhappy wretch, it is not to be wondered at that those who are
+      not related to her are ready to take up and propagate slanders against
+      her. Yet I think I may defy calumny itself, and (excepting the fatal,
+      though involuntary step of April 10) wrap myself in my own innocence, and
+      be easy. I thank you, Sir, nevertheless, for your caution, mean it what it
+      will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to the question required of me to answer, and which is allowed to be
+      too shocking either for a mother to put to a daughter, or a sister to a
+      sister; and which, however, you say I must answer;&mdash;O Sir!&mdash;And
+      must I answer?&mdash;This then be my answer:&mdash;'A little time, a much
+      less time than is imagined, will afford a more satisfactory answer to my
+      whole family, and even to my brother and sister, than I can give in
+      words.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, be pleased to let it be remembered, that I did not petition
+      for a restoration to favour. I could not hope for that. Nor yet to be put
+      in possession of any part of my own estate. Nor even for means of
+      necessary subsistence from the produce of that estate&mdash;but only for a
+      blessing; for a last blessing!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And this I will farther add, because it is true, that I have no wilful
+      crime to charge against myself: no free living at bed and at board, as you
+      phrase it!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why, why, Sir, were not other inquiries made of me, as well as this
+      shocking one?&mdash;inquiries that modesty would have permitted a mother
+      or sister to make; and which, if I may be excused to say so, would have
+      been still less improper, and more charitable, to have been made by
+      uncles, (were the mother forbidden, or the sister not inclined, to make
+      them,) than those they have made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although my humble application has brought upon me so much severe
+      reproach, I repent not that I have written to my mother, (although I
+      cannot but wish that I had not written to my sister;) because I have
+      satisfied a dutiful consciousness by it, however unanswered by the
+      wished-for success. Nevertheless, I cannot help saying, that mine is
+      indeed a hard fate, that I cannot beg pardon for my capital errors without
+      doing it in such terms as shall be an aggravation of the offence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I had best leave off, lest, as my full mind, I find, is rising to my
+      pen, I have other pardons to beg as I multiply lines, where none at all
+      will be given.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      God Almighty bless, preserve, and comfort my dear sorrowing and grievously
+      offended father and mother!&mdash;and continue in honour, favour, and
+      merit, my happy sister!&mdash;May God forgive my brother, and protect him
+      from the violence of his own temper, as well as from the destroyer of his
+      sister's honour!&mdash;And may you, my dear uncle, and your no less now
+      than ever dear brother, my second papa, as he used to bid me call him, be
+      blessed and happy in them, and in each other!&mdash;And, in order to this,
+      may you all speedily banish from your remembrance, for ever,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The unhappy CLARISSA HARLOWE!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER V
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE MONDAY, AUG. 14.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All your friends here, my dear young lady, now seem set upon proposing to
+      you to go to one of the plantations. This, I believe, is owing to some
+      misrepresentations of Mr. Brand; from whom they have received a letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish, with all my heart, that you could, consistently with your own
+      notions of honour, yield to the pressing requests of all Mr. Lovelace's
+      family in his behalf. This, I think, would stop every mouth; and, in time,
+      reconcile every body to you. For your own friends will not believe that he
+      is in earnest to marry you; and the hatred between the families is such,
+      that they will not condescend to inform themselves better; nor would
+      believe him, if he were ever so solemnly to avow that he is.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I should be very glad to have in readiness, upon occasion, some brief
+      particulars of your sad story under your own hand. But let me tell you, at
+      the same time, that no misrepresentations, nor even your own confession,
+      shall lessen my opinion either of your piety, or of your prudence in
+      essential points; because I know it was always your humble way to make
+      light faults heavy against yourself: and well might you, my dearest young
+      lady, aggravate your own failings, who have ever had so few; and those few
+      so slight, that your ingenuousness has turned most of them into
+      excellencies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, let me advise you, my dear Miss Clary, to discountenance any
+      visits, which, with the censorious, may affect your character. As that has
+      not hitherto suffered by your wilful default, I hope you will not, in a
+      desponding negligence (satisfying yourself with a consciousness of your
+      own innocence) permit it to suffer. Difficult situations, you know, my
+      dear young lady, are the tests not only of prudence but of virtue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I think, I must own to you, that, since Mr. Brand's letter has been
+      received, I have a renewed prohibition to attend you. However, if you will
+      give me leave, that shall not detain me from you. Nor would I stay for
+      that leave, if I were not in hopes that, in this critical situation, I may
+      be able to do you service here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have often had messages and inquiries after your health from the
+      truly-reverend Dr. Lewen, who has always expressed, and still expresses,
+      infinite concern for you. He entirely disapproves of the measures of the
+      family with regard to you. He is too much indisposed to go abroad. But,
+      were he in good health, he would not, as I understand, visit at
+      Harlowe-place, having some time since been unhandsomely treated by your
+      brother, on his offering to mediate for you with your family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am just now informed that your cousin Morden is arrived in England. He
+      is at Canterbury, it seems, looking after some concerns he has there; and
+      is soon expected in these parts. Who knows what may arise from his
+      arrival? God be with you, my dearest Miss Clary, and be your comforter and
+      sustainer. And never fear but He will; for I am sure, I am very sure, that
+      you put your whole trust in Him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And what, after all, is this world, on which we so much depend for durable
+      good, poor creatures that we are!&mdash;When all the joys of it, and (what
+      is a balancing comfort) all the troubles of it, are but momentary, and
+      vanish like a morning dream!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And be this remembered, my dearest young lady, that worldly joy claims no
+      kindred with the joys we are bid to aspire after. These latter we must be
+      fitted for by affliction and disappointment. You are therefore in the
+      direct road to glory, however thorny the path you are in. And I had almost
+      said, that it depends upon yourself, by your patience, and by your
+      resignedness to the dispensation, (God enabling you, who never fails the
+      true penitent, and sincere invoker,) to be an heir of a blessed
+      immortality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this glory, I humbly pray, that you may not be permitted to enter
+      into, ripe as you are so soon to be for it, till, with your gentle hand,
+      (a pleasure I have so often, as you now, promised to myself,) you have
+      closed the eyes of
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your maternally-affectionate JUDITH NORTON.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER VI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MRS. NORTON THURSDAY, AUG. 27.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What Mr. Brand, or any body, can have written or said to my prejudice, I
+      cannot imagine; and yet some evil reports have gone out against me; as I
+      find by some hints in a very severe letter written to me by my uncle
+      Antony. Such a letter as I believe was never written to any poor creature,
+      who, by ill health of body, as well as of mind, was before tottering on
+      the brink of the grave. But my friends may possibly be better justified
+      than the reporters&mdash;For who knows what they may have heard?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You give me a kind caution, which seems to imply more than you express,
+      when you advise me against countenancing visiters that may discredit me.
+      You have spoken quite out. Surely, I have had afflictions enow to
+      strengthen my mind, and to enable it to bear the worst that can now
+      happen. But I will not puzzle myself by conjectural evils; as I might
+      perhaps do, if I had not enow that were certain. I shall hear all, when it
+      is thought proper that I should. Mean time, let me say, for your
+      satisfaction, that I know not that I have any thing criminal or
+      disreputable to answer for either in word or deed, since the fatal 10th of
+      April last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You desire an account of what passes between me and my friends; and also
+      particulars or brief heads of my sad story, in order to serve me as
+      occasion shall offer. My dear good Mrs. Norton, you shall have a whole
+      packet of papers, which I have sent to my Miss Howe, when she returns
+      them; and you shall have likewise another packet, (and that with this
+      letter,) which I cannot at present think of sending to that dear friend
+      for the sake of my own relations; whom, without seeing that packet, she is
+      but too ready to censure heavily. From these you will be able to collect a
+      great deal of my story. But for what is previous to these papers, and
+      which more particularly relates to what I have suffered from Mr. Lovelace,
+      you must have patience; for at present I have neither head nor heart for
+      such subjects. The papers I send you with this will be those mentioned in
+      the margin.* You must restore them to me as soon as perused; and upon your
+      honour make no use of them, or of any intelligence you have from me, but
+      by my previous consent.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+* 1. A copy of mine to my sister, begging
+      off my father's malediction . . . . . .  dated July 21.
+  2. My sister's answer . . . . . . . . . . .  dated July 27.
+  3. Copy of my second letter to my sister. .  dated July 29.
+  4. My sister's answer . . . . . . . . . . .  dated Aug. 3.
+  5. Copy of my Letter to my mother . . . . .  dated Aug. 5.
+  6. My uncle Harlowe's letter  . . . . . . .  dated Aug. 7.
+  7. Copy of my answer to it  . . . . . . . .  dated the 10th.
+  8. Letter from my uncle Antony  . . . . . .  dated the 12th.
+  9. And lastly, the copy of my answer to it.  dated the 13th.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      These communications you must not, my good Mrs. Norton, look upon as
+      appeals against my relations. On the contrary, I am heartily sorry that
+      they have incurred the displeasure of so excellent a divine as Dr. Lewen.
+      But you desire to have every thing before you: and I think you ought; for
+      who knows, as you say, but you may be applied to at last to administer
+      comfort from their conceding hearts, to one that wants it; and who
+      sometimes, judging by what she knows of her own heart, thinks herself
+      entitled to it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know that I have a most indulgent and sweet-tempered mother; but, having
+      to deal with violent spirits, she has too often forfeited that peace of
+      mind which she so much prefers, by her over concern to preserve it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sure she would not have turned me over for an answer to a letter
+      written with so contrite and fervent a spirit, as was mine to her, to a
+      masculine spirit, had she been left to herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, my dear Mrs. Norton, might not, think you, the revered lady have
+      favoured me with one private line?&mdash;&mdash;If not, might not you have
+      written by her order, or connivance, one softening, one motherly line,
+      when she saw her poor girl, whom once she dearly loved, borne so hard
+      upon?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O no, she might not!&mdash;because her heart, to be sure, is in their
+      measures! and if she think them right, perhaps they must be right!&mdash;at
+      least, knowing only what they know, they must!&mdash;and yet they might
+      know all, if they would!&mdash;and possibly, in their own good time, they
+      think to make proper inquiry.&mdash;My application was made to them but
+      lately.&mdash;Yet how deeply will it afflict them, if their time should be
+      out of time!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When you have before you the letters I have sent to Miss Howe, you will
+      see that Lord M. and the Ladies of his family, jealous as they are of the
+      honour of their house, (to express myself in their language,) think better
+      of me than my own relations do. You will see an instance of their
+      generosity to me, which at the time extremely affected me, and indeed
+      still affects me. Unhappy man! gay, inconsiderate, and cruel! what has
+      been his gain by making unhappy a creature who hoped to make him happy!
+      and who was determined to deserve the love of all to whom he is related!
+      &mdash;Poor man!&mdash;but you will mistake a compassionate and placable
+      nature for love!&mdash;he took care, great care, that I should rein-in
+      betimes any passion that I might have had for him, had he known how to be
+      but commonly grateful or generous!&mdash;But the Almighty knows what is
+      best for his poor creatures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some of the letters in the same packet will also let you into the
+      knowledge of a strange step which I have taken, (strange you will think
+      it); and, at the same time, give you my reasons for taking it.*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * She means that of making Mr. Belford her executor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It must be expected, that situations uncommonly difficult will make
+      necessary some extraordinary steps, which, but for those situations, would
+      be hardly excusable. It will be very happy indeed, and somewhat wonderful,
+      if all the measures I have been driven to take should be right. A pure
+      intention, void of all undutiful resentment, is what must be my
+      consolation, whatever others may think of those measures, when they come
+      to know them: which, however, will hardly be till it is out of my power to
+      justify them, or to answer for myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am glad to hear of my cousin Morden's safe arrival. I should wish to see
+      him methinks: but I am afraid that he will sail with the stream; as it
+      must be expected, that he will hear what they have to say first.&mdash;But
+      what I most fear is, that he will take upon himself to avenge me. Rather
+      than he should do so, I would have him look upon me as a creature utterly
+      unworthy of his concern; at least of his vindictive concern.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How soothing to the wounded heart of your Clarissa, how balmy are the
+      assurances of your continued love and favour;&mdash;love me, my dear mamma
+      Norton, continue to love me, to the end!&mdash;I now think that I may,
+      without presumption, promise to deserve your love to the end. And, when I
+      am gone, cherish my memory in your worthy heart; for in so doing you will
+      cherish the memory of one who loves and honours you more than she can
+      express.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when I am no more, I charge you, as soon as you can, the smarting
+      pangs of grief that will attend a recent loss; and let all be early turned
+      into that sweetly melancholy regard to MEMORY, which, engaging us to
+      forget all faults, and to remember nothing but what was thought amiable,
+      gives more pleasure than pain to survivors&mdash;especially if they can
+      comfort themselves with the humble hope, that the Divine mercy has taken
+      the dear departed to itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And what is the space of time to look backward upon, between an early
+      departure and the longest survivance!&mdash;and what the consolation
+      attending the sweet hope of meeting again, never more to be separated,
+      never more to be pained, grieved, or aspersed;&mdash;but mutually
+      blessing, and being blessed, to all eternity!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the contemplation of this happy state, in which I hope, in God's good
+      time, to rejoice with you, my beloved Mrs. Norton, and also with my dear
+      relations, all reconciled to, and blessing the child against whom they are
+      now so much incensed, I conclude myself
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your ever dutiful and affectionate CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER VII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. SUNDAY, AUG. 13.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I don't know what a devil ails me; but I never was so much indisposed in
+      my life. At first, I thought some of my blessed relations here had got a
+      dose administered to me, in order to get the whole house to themselves.
+      But, as I am the hopes of the family, I believe they would not be so
+      wicked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must lay down my pen. I cannot write with any spirit at all. What a
+      plague can be the matter with me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. paid me just now a cursed gloomy visit, to ask how I do after
+      bleeding. His sisters both drove away yesterday, God be thanked. But they
+      asked not my leave; and hardly bid me good-bye. My Lord was more tender,
+      and more dutiful, than I expected. Men are less unforgiving than women. I
+      have reason to say so, I am sure. For, besides implacable Miss Harlowe,
+      and the old Ladies, the two Montague apes han't been near me yet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither eat, drink, nor sleep!&mdash;a piteous case, Jack! If I should die
+      like a fool now, people would say Miss Harlowe had broken my heart.&mdash;That
+      she vexes me to the heart, is certain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Confounded squeamish! I would fain write it off. But must lay down my pen
+      again. It won't do. Poor Lovelace!&mdash;&mdash;What a devil ails thee?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, but now let's try for't&mdash;Hoy&mdash;Hoy&mdash;Hoy! Confound me
+      for a gaping puppy, how I yawn!&mdash;Where shall I begin? at thy
+      executorship&mdash;thou shalt have a double office of it: for I really
+      think thou mayest send me a coffin and a shroud. I shall be ready for them
+      by the time they can come down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a little fool is this Miss Harlowe! I warrant she'll now repent that
+      she refused me. Such a lovely young widow&mdash;What a charming widow
+      would she have made! how would she have adorned the weeds! to be a widow
+      in the first twelve months is one of the greatest felicities that can
+      befal a fine woman. Such pretty employment in new dismals, when she had
+      hardly worn round her blazing joyfuls! Such lights, and such shades! how
+      would they set off one another, and be adorned by the wearer!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Go to the devil!&mdash;I will write!&mdash;Can I do anything else?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They would not have me write, Belford.&mdash;I must be ill indeed, when I
+      can't write.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But thou seemest nettled, Jack! Is it because I was stung? It is not for
+      two friends, any more than for man and wife, to be out of patience at one
+      time.&mdash;What must be the consequence if they are?&mdash;I am in no
+      fighting mood just now: but as patient and passive as the chickens that
+      are brought me in broth&mdash;for I am come to that already.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I can tell thee, for all this, be thy own man, if thou wilt, as to the
+      executorship, I will never suffer thee to expose my letters. They are too
+      ingenuous by half to be seen. And I absolutely insist upon it, that, on
+      receipt of this, thou burn them all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will never forgive thee that impudent and unfriendly reflection, of my
+      cavaliering it here over half a dozen persons of distinction: remember,
+      too, thy words poor helpless orphan&mdash;these reflections are too
+      serious, and thou art also too serious, for me to let these things go off
+      as jesting; notwithstanding the Roman style* is preserved; and, indeed,
+      but just preserved. By my soul, Jack, if I had not been taken thus
+      egregiously cropsick, I would have been up with thee, and the lady too,
+      before now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * For what these gentlemen mean by the Roman style, see Vol. I. Letter
+      XXXI. in the first note.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But write on, however: and send me copies, if thou canst, of all that
+      passes between our Charlotte and Miss Harlowe. I'll take no notice of what
+      thou communicatest of that sort. I like not the people here the worse for
+      their generous offer to the lady. But you see she is as proud as
+      implacable. There's no obliging her. She'd rather sell her clothes than be
+      beholden to any body, although she would oblige by permitting the
+      obligation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O Lord! O Lord!&mdash;Mortal ill!&mdash;Adieu, Jack!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was forced to leave off, I was so ill, at this place. And what dost
+      think! why Lord M. brought the parson of the parish to pray by me; for his
+      chaplain is at Oxford. I was lain down in my night-gown over my waistcoat,
+      and in a doze: and, when I opened my eyes, who should I see, but the
+      parson kneeling on one side the bed; Lord M. on the other; Mrs. Greme, who
+      had been sent for to tend me, as they call it, at the feet! God be
+      thanked, my Lord, said I in an ecstasy!&mdash;Where's Miss?&mdash;for I
+      supposed they were going to marry me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They thought me delirious at first; and prayed louder and louder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This roused me: off the bed I started; slid my feet into my slippers; put
+      my hand in my waistcoat pocket, and pulled out thy letter with my
+      beloved's meditation in it! My Lord, Dr. Wright, Mrs. Greme, you have
+      thought me a very wicked fellow: but, see! I can read you as good as you
+      can read me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They stared at one another. I gaped, and read, Poor mo&mdash;or&mdash;tals
+      the cau&mdash;o&mdash;ause of their own&mdash;their own mi&mdash;ser&mdash;ry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is as suitable to my case, as to the lady's, as thou'lt observe, if
+      thou readest it again.* At the passage where it is said, That when a man
+      is chastened for sin, his beauty consumes away, I stept to the glass: A
+      poor figure, by Jupiter, cried I!&mdash;And they all praised and admired
+      me; lifted up their hands and their eyes; and the doctor said, he always
+      thought it impossible, that a man of my sense could be so wild as the
+      world said I was. My Lord chuckled for joy; congratulated me; and, thank
+      my dear Miss Harlowe, I got high reputation among good, bad, and
+      indifferent. In short, I have established myself for ever with all here.
+      &mdash;But, O Belford, even this will not do&mdash;I must leave off again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A visit from the Montague sisters, led in by the hobbling Peer, to
+      congratulate my amendment and reformation both in one. What a lucky event
+      this illness with this meditation in my pocket; for we were all to pieces
+      before! Thus, when a boy, have I joined with a crowd coming out of church,
+      and have been thought to have been there myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am incensed at the insolence of the young Levite. Thou wilt highly
+      oblige me, if thou'lt find him out, and send me his ears in the next
+      letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My beloved mistakes me, if she thinks I proposed her writing to me as an
+      alternative that should dispense with my attendance upon her. That it
+      shall not do, nor did I intend it should, unless she pleased me better in
+      the contents of her letter than she has done. Bid her read again. I gave
+      no such hopes. I would have been with her in spite of you both, by
+      to-morrow, at farthest, had I not been laid by the heels thus, like a
+      helpless miscreant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I grow better and better every hour, I say: the doctor says not: but I
+      am sure I know best: and I will soon be in London, depend on't. But say
+      nothing of this to my dear, cruel, and implacable Miss Harlowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A&mdash;dieu&mdash;u, Ja&mdash;aack&mdash;What a gaping puppy (yaw&mdash;n!
+      yaw&mdash;n! yaw&mdash;n!)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thy LOVELACE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER VIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. MONDAY, AUG. 15.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am extremely concerned for thy illness. I should be very sorry to lose
+      thee. Yet, if thou diest so soon, I could wish, from my soul, it had been
+      before the beginning of last April: and this as well for thy sake, as for
+      the sake of the most excellent woman in the world: for then thou wouldst
+      not have had the most crying sin of thy life to answer for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was told on Saturday that thou wert very much out of order; and this
+      made me forbear writing till I heard farther. Harry, on his return from
+      thee, confirmed the bad way thou art in. But I hope Lord M. in his
+      unmerited tenderness for thee, thinks the worst of thee. What can it be,
+      Bob.? A violent fever, they say; but attended with odd and severe
+      symptoms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will not trouble thee in the way thou art in, with what passes here with
+      Miss Harlowe. I wish thy repentance as swift as thy illness; and as
+      efficacious, if thou diest; for it is else to be feared, that she and you
+      will never meet in one place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her how ill you are. Poor man! said she. Dangerously ill, say you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dangerously indeed, Madam!&mdash;So Lord M. sends me word!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      God be merciful to him, if he die!&mdash;said the admirable creature.&mdash;Then,
+      after a pause, Poor wretch!&mdash;may he meet with the mercy he has not
+      shown!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I send this by a special messenger: for I am impatient to hear how it goes
+      with thee.&mdash;If I have received thy last letter, what melancholy
+      reflections will that last, so full of shocking levity, give to
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thy true friend, JOHN BELFORD.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER IX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. TUESDAY, AUG. 15.*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * Text error: should be Aug. 16.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thank thee, Jack; most heartily I thank thee, for the sober conclusion of
+      thy last!&mdash;I have a good mind, for the sake of it, to forgive thy
+      till now absolutely unpardonable extracts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But dost think I will lose such an angel, such a forgiving angel, as this?&mdash;By
+      my soul, I will not!&mdash;To pray for mercy for such an ungrateful
+      miscreant!&mdash;how she wounds me, how she cuts me to the soul, by her
+      exalted generosity!&mdash;But SHE must have mercy upon me first!&mdash;then
+      will she teach me a reliance for the sake of which her prayer for me will
+      be answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But hasten, hasten to me particulars of her health, of her employments, of
+      her conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sick only of love! Oh! that I could have called her mine!&mdash;it
+      would then have been worth while to be sick!&mdash;to have sent for her
+      down to me from town; and to have had her, with healing in her dove-like
+      wings, flying to my comfort; her duty and her choice to pray for me, and
+      to bid me live for her sake!&mdash;O Jack! what an angel have I&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I have not lost her!&mdash;I will not lose her! I am almost well;
+      should be quite well but for these prescribing rascals, who, to do credit
+      to their skill, will make the disease of importance.&mdash;And I will make
+      her mine!&mdash;and be sick again, to entitle myself to her dutiful
+      tenderness, and pious as well as personal concern!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      God for ever bless her!&mdash;Hasten, hasten particulars of her!&mdash;I
+      am sick of love!&mdash;such generous goodness!&mdash;By all that's great
+      and good, I will not lose her!&mdash;so tell her!&mdash;She says, that she
+      could not pity me, if she thought of being mine! This, according to Miss
+      Howe's transcriptions to Charlotte.&mdash;But bid her hate me, and have
+      me: and my behaviour to her shall soon turn that hate to love! for, body
+      and mind, I will be wholly her's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER X
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. THURSDAY, AUG. 17.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sincerely rejoiced to hear that thou art already so much amended, as
+      thy servant tells me thou art. Thy letter looks as if thy morals were
+      mending with thy health. This was a letter I could show, as I did, to the
+      lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She is very ill: (cursed letters received from her implacable family!) so
+      I could not have much conversation with her, in thy favour, upon it.&mdash;But
+      what passed will make thee more and more adore her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was very attentive to me, as I read it; and, when I had done, Poor
+      man! said she; what a letter is this! He had timely instances that my
+      temper was not ungenerous, if generosity could have obliged him! But his
+      remorse, and that for his own sake, is all the punishment I wish him.&mdash;
+      Yet I must be more reserved, if you write to him every thing I say!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I extolled her unbounded goodness&mdash;how could I help it, though to her
+      face!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No goodness in it! she said&mdash;it was a frame of mind she had
+      endeavoured after for her own sake. She suffered too much in want of
+      mercy, not to wish it to a penitent heart. He seems to be penitent, said
+      she; and it is not for me to judge beyond appearances.&mdash;If he be not,
+      he deceives himself more than any body else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was so ill that this was all that passed on the occasion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a fine subject for tragedy, would the injuries of this lady, and her
+      behaviour under them, both with regard to her implacable friends, and to
+      her persecutor, make! With a grand objection as to the moral,
+      nevertheless;* for here virtue is punished! Except indeed we look forward
+      to the rewards of HEREAFTER, which, morally, she must be sure of, or who
+      can? Yet, after all, I know not, so sad a fellow art thou, and so vile an
+      husband mightest thou have made, whether her virtue is not rewarded in
+      missing thee: for things the most grievous to human nature, when they
+      happen, as this charming creature once observed, are often the happiest
+      for us in the event.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * Mr. Belford's objections, That virtue ought not to suffer in a tragedy,
+      is not well considered: Monimia in the Orphean, Belvidera in Venice
+      Preserved, Athenais in Theodosius, Cordelia in Shakespeare's King Lear,
+      Desdemona in Othello, Hamlet, (to name no more,) are instances that a
+      tragedy could hardly be justly called a tragedy, if virtue did not
+      temporarily suffer, and vice for a while triumph. But he recovers himself
+      in the same paragraph; and leads us to look up to the FUTURE for the
+      reward of virtue, and for the punishment of guilt: and observes not amiss,
+      when he says, He knows not but that the virtue of such a woman as Clarissa
+      is rewarded in missing such a man as Lovelace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have frequently thought, in my attendance on this lady, that if Belton's
+      admired author, Nic. Rowe, had had such a character before him, he would
+      have drawn another sort of penitent than he has done, or given his play,
+      which he calls The Fair Penitent, a fitter title. Miss Harlowe is a
+      penitent indeed! I think, if I am not guilty of a contradiction in terms;
+      a penitent without a fault; her parents' conduct towards her from the
+      first considered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole story of the other is a pack of d&mdash;&mdash;d stuff.
+      Lothario, 'tis true, seems such another wicked ungenerous varlet as thou
+      knowest who: the author knew how to draw a rake; but not to paint a
+      penitent. Calista is a desiring luscious wench, and her penitence is
+      nothing else but rage, insolence, and scorn. Her passions are all storm
+      and tumult; nothing of the finer passions of the sex, which, if naturally
+      drawn, will distinguish themselves from the masculine passions, by a
+      softness that will even shine through rage and despair. Her character is
+      made up of deceit and disguise. She has no virtue; is all pride; and her
+      devil is as much within her, as without her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How then can the fall of such a one create a proper distress, when all the
+      circumstances of it are considered? For does she not brazen out her crime,
+      even after detection? Knowing her own guilt, she calls for Altamont's
+      vengeance on his best friend, as if he had traduced her; yields to marry
+      Altamont, though criminal with another; and actually beds that whining
+      puppy, when she had given up herself, body and soul, to Lothario; who,
+      nevertheless, refused to marry her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her penitence, when begun, she justly styles the phrensy of her soul; and,
+      as I said, after having, as long as she could, most audaciously brazened
+      out her crime, and done all the mischief she could do, (occasioning the
+      death of Lothario, of her father, and others,) she stabs herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And can this be the act of penitence?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, indeed, our poets hardly know how to create a distress without
+      horror, murder, and suicide; and must shock your soul, to bring tears from
+      your eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Altamont indeed, who is an amorous blockhead, a credulous cuckold, and,
+      (though painted as a brave fellow, and a soldier,) a mere Tom. Essence,
+      and a quarreler with his best friend, dies like a fool, (as we are led to
+      suppose at the conclusion of the play,) without either sword or pop-gun,
+      of mere grief and nonsense for one of the vilest of her sex: but the Fair
+      Penitent, as she is called, perishes by her own hand; and, having no title
+      by her past crimes to laudable pity, forfeits all claim to true penitence,
+      and, in all probability, to future mercy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But here is Miss CLARISSA HARLOWE, a virtuous, noble, wise, and pious
+      young lady; who being ill used by her friends, and unhappily ensnared by a
+      vile libertine, whom she believes to be a man of honour, is in a manner
+      forced to throw herself upon his protection. And he, in order to obtain
+      her confidence, never scruples the deepest and most solemn protestations
+      of honour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a series of plots and contrivances, all baffled by her virtue and
+      vigilance, he basely has recourse to the vilest of arts, and, to rob her
+      of her honour, is forced first to rob her of her senses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unable to bring her, notwithstanding, to his ungenerous views of
+      cohabitation, she over-awes him in the very entrance of a fresh act of
+      premeditated guilt, in presence of the most abandoned of women assembled
+      to assist his devilish purpose; triumphs over them all, by virtue only of
+      her innocence; and escapes from the vile hands he had put her into.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She nobly, not franticly, resents: refuses to see or to marry the wretch;
+      who, repenting his usage of so divine a creature, would fain move her to
+      forgive his baseness, and make him her husband: and this, though
+      persecuted by all her friends, and abandoned to the deepest distress,
+      being obliged, from ample fortunes, to make away with her apparel for
+      subsistence; surrounded also by strangers, and forced (in want of others)
+      to make a friend of the friend of her seducer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though longing for death, and making all proper preparations for it,
+      convinced that grief and ill usage have broken her noble heart, she abhors
+      the impious thought of shortening her allotted period; and, as much a
+      stranger to revenge as despair, is able to forgive the author of her ruin;
+      wishes his repentance, and that she may be the last victim to his
+      barbarous perfidy: and is solicitous for nothing so much in this life, as
+      to prevent vindictive mischief to and from the man who used her so basely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is penitence! This is piety! And hence distress naturally arises,
+      that must worthily effect every heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whatever the ill usage of this excellent woman is from her relations, she
+      breaks not out into excesses: she strives, on the contrary, to find reason
+      to justify them at her own expense; and seems more concerned for their
+      cruelty to her for their sakes hereafter, when she shall be no more, than
+      for her own: for, as to herself, she is sure, she says, God will forgive
+      her, though no one on earth will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On every extraordinary provocation she has recourse to the Scriptures, and
+      endeavours to regulate her vehemence by sacred precedents. 'Better people,
+      she says, have been more afflicted than she, grievous as she sometimes
+      thinks her afflictions: and shall she not bear what less faulty persons
+      have borne?' On the very occasion I have mentioned, (some new instances of
+      implacableness from her friends,) the enclosed meditation will show how
+      mildly, and yet how forcibly, she complains. See if thou, in the wicked
+      levity of thy heart, canst apply it to thy cause, as thou didst the other.
+      If thou canst not, give way to thy conscience, and that will make the
+      properest application.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MEDITATION
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Be it indeed that I have erred, mine error remaineth with myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To her that is afflicted, pity should be shown from her friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she that is ready to slip with her feet, is as a lamp despised in the
+      thought of them that are at ease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a shame which bringeth sin, and there is a shame which bringeth
+      glory and grace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye, my friends! for the hand of
+      God hath touched me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If your soul were in my soul's stead, I also could speak as ye do: I could
+      heap up words against you&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should
+      assuage your grief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why will ye break a leaf driven to and fro? Why will ye pursue the dry
+      stubble? Why will ye write bitter words against me, and make me possess
+      the iniquities of my youth?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mercy is seasonable in the time of affliction, as clouds of rain in the
+      time of drought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Are not my days few? Cease then, and let me alone, that I may take comfort
+      a little&mdash;before I go whence I shall not return; even to the land of
+      darkness, and shadow of death!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let me add, that the excellent lady is informed, by a letter from Mrs.
+      Norton, that Colonel Morden is just arrived in England. He is now the only
+      person she wishes to see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I expressed some jealousy upon it, lest he should have place given over me
+      in the executorship. She said, That she had no thoughts to do so now;
+      because such a trust, were he to accept of it, (which she doubted,) might,
+      from the nature of some of the papers which in that case would necessarily
+      pass through his hands, occasion mischiefs between my friend and him, that
+      would be worse than death for her to think of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Belton, I hear, is at death's door. A messenger is just come from
+      him, who tells me he cannot die till he sees me. I hope the poor fellow
+      will not go off yet; since neither his affairs of this world, nor for the
+      other, are in tolerable order. I cannot avoid going to the poor man. Yet
+      am unwilling to stir, till I have an assurance from you that you will not
+      disturb the lady: for I know he will be very loth to part with me, when he
+      gets me to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tourville tells me how fast thou mendest: let me conjure thee not to think
+      of molesting this incomparable woman. For thy own sake I request this, as
+      well as for her's, and for the sake of thy given promise: for, should she
+      die within a few weeks, as I fear she will, it will be said, and perhaps
+      too justly, that thy visit has hastened her end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In hopes thou wilt not, I wish thy perfect recovery: else that thou mayest
+      relapse, and be confined to thy bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE SAT. MORN. AUG. 19.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MADAM,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I think myself obliged in honour to acquaint you that I am afraid Mr.
+      Lovelace will try his fate by an interview with you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish to Heaven you could prevail upon yourself to receive his visit. All
+      that is respectful, even to veneration, and all that is penitent, will you
+      see in his behaviour, if you can admit of it. But as I am obliged to set
+      out directly for Epsom, (to perform, as I apprehend, the last friendly
+      offices for poor Mr. Belton, whom once you saw,) and as I think it more
+      likely that Mr. Lovelace will not be prevailed upon, than that he will, I
+      thought fit to give you this intimation, lest, if he should come, you
+      should be too much surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He flatters himself that you are not so ill as I represent you to be. When
+      he sees you, he will be convinced that the most obliging things he can do,
+      will be as proper to be done for the sake of his own future peace of mind,
+      as for your health-sake; and, I dare say, in fear of hurting the latter,
+      he will forbear the thoughts of any farther intrusion; at least while you
+      are so much indisposed: so that one half-hour's shock, if it will be a
+      shock to see the unhappy man, (but just got up himself from a dangerous
+      fever,) will be all you will have occasion to stand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I beg you will not too much hurry and discompose yourself. It is
+      impossible he can be in town till Monday, at soonest. And if he resolve to
+      come, I hope to be at Mr. Smith's before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am, Madam, with the profoundest veneration,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your most faithful and most obedient servant, J. BELFORD.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. [IN ANSWER TO HIS OF AUG. 17. SEE
+      LETTER X. OF THIS VOLUME.] SUNDAY, AUG. 20.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What an unmerciful fellow art thou! A man has no need of a conscience, who
+      has such an impertinent monitor. But if Nic. Rowe wrote a play that
+      answers not his title, am I to be reflected upon for that?&mdash;I have
+      sinned; I repent; I would repair&mdash;she forgives my sin: she accepts my
+      repentance: but she won't let me repair&mdash;What wouldst thou have me
+      do?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But get thee gone to Belton, as soon as thou canst. Yet whether thou goest
+      or not, up I must go, and see what I can do with the sweet oddity myself.
+      The moment these prescribing varlets will let me, depend upon it, I go.
+      Nay, Lord M. thinks she ought to permit me one interview. His opinion has
+      great authority with me&mdash;when it squares with my own: and I have
+      assured him, and my two cousins, that I will behave with all the decency
+      and respect that man can behave with to the person whom he most respects.
+      And so I will. Of this, if thou choosest not to go to Belton mean time,
+      thou shalt be witness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Colonel Morden, thou hast heard me say, is a man of honour and bravery:&mdash;
+      but Colonel Morden has had his girls, as well as you or I. And indeed,
+      either openly or secretly, who has not? The devil always baits with a
+      pretty wench, when he angles for a man, be his age, rank, or degree, what
+      it will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have often heard my beloved speak of the Colonel with great distinction
+      and esteem. I wish he could make matters a little easier, for her mind's
+      sake, between the rest of the implacables and herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Methinks I am sorry for honest Belton. But a man cannot be ill, or
+      vapourish, but thou liftest up thy shriek-owl note, and killest him
+      immediately. None but a fellow, who is for a drummer in death's
+      forlorn-hope, could take so much delight, as thou dost, in beating a
+      dead-march with thy goose-quills. Whereas, didst thou but know thine own
+      talents, thou art formed to give mirth by thy very appearance; and wouldst
+      make a better figure by half, leading up thy brother-bears at Hockley in
+      the Hole, to the music of a Scot's bagpipe. Methinks I see thy clumsy
+      sides shaking, (and shaking the sides of all beholders,) in these
+      attitudes; thy fat head archly beating time on thy porterly shoulders,
+      right and left by turns, as I once beheld thee practising to the horn-pipe
+      at Preston. Thou remembrest the frolick, as I have done an hundred times;
+      for I never before saw thee appear so much in character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I know what I shall get by this&mdash;only that notable observation
+      repeated, That thy outside is the worst of thee, and mine the best of me.
+      And so let it be. Nothing thou writest of this sort can I take amiss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I shall call thee seriously to account, when I see thee, for the
+      extracts thou hast given the lady from my letters, notwithstanding what I
+      said in my last; especially if she continue to refuse me. An hundred times
+      have I myself known a woman deny, yet comply at last: but, by these
+      extracts, thou hast, I doubt, made her bar up the door of her heart, as
+      she used to do her chamber-door, against me.&mdash;This therefore is a
+      disloyalty that friendship cannot bear, nor honour allow me to forgive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. LONDON, AUG. 21, MONDAY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe I am bound to curse thee, Jack. Nevertheless I won't anticipate,
+      but proceed to write thee a longer letter than thou hast had from me for
+      some time past. So here goes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That thou mightest have as little notice as possible of the time I was
+      resolved to be in town, I set out in my Lord's chariot-and-six yesterday,
+      as soon as I had dispatched my letter to thee, and arrived in town last
+      night: for I knew I could have no dependence on thy friendship where Miss
+      Harlowe's humour was concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had no other place so ready, and so was forced to go to my old lodgings,
+      where also my wardrobe is; and there I poured out millions of curses upon
+      the whole crew, and refused to see either Sally or Polly; and this not
+      only for suffering the lady to escape, but for the villanous arrest, and
+      for their detestable insolence to her at the officer's house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I dressed myself in a never-worn suit, which I had intended for one of my
+      wedding-suits; and liked myself so well, that I began to think, with thee,
+      that my outside was the best of me:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took a chair to Smith's, my heart bounding in almost audible thumps to
+      my throat, with the assured expectations of seeing my beloved. I clasped
+      my fingers, as I was danced along: I charged my eyes to languish and
+      sparkle by turns: I talked to my knees, telling them how they must bend;
+      and, in the language of a charming describer, acted my part in fancy, as
+      well as spoke it to myself.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      Tenderly kneeling, thus will I complain:
+      Thus court her pity; and thus plead my pain:
+      Thus sigh for fancy'd frowns, if frowns should rise;
+      And thus meet favour in her soft'ning eyes.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In this manner entertained I myself till I arrived at Smith's; and there
+      the fellows set down their gay burden. Off went their hats; Will. ready at
+      hand in a new livery; up went the head; out rushed my honour; the woman
+      behind the counter all in flutters, respect and fear giving due solemnity
+      to her features, and her knees, I doubt not, knocking against the inside
+      of her wainscot-fence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your servant, Madam&mdash;Will. let the fellows move to some distance, and
+      wait.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You have a young lady lodges here; Miss Harlowe, Madam: Is she above?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir, Sir, and please your Honour: [the woman is struck with my figure,
+      thought I:] Miss Harlowe, Sir! There is, indeed, such a young lady lodges
+      here&mdash;But, but&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, what, Madam?&mdash;I must see her.&mdash;One pair of stairs; is it
+      not?&mdash; Don't trouble yourself&mdash;I shall find her apartment. And
+      was making towards the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir, Sir, the lady, the lady is not at home&mdash;she is abroad&mdash;she
+      is in the country&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the country! Not at home!&mdash;Impossible! You will not pass this
+      story upon me, good woman. I must see her. I have business of life and
+      death with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, Sir, the lady is not at home! Indeed, Sir, she is abroad!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She then rung a bell: John, cried she, pray step down!&mdash;Indeed, Sir,
+      the lady is not at home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Down came John, the good man of the house, when I expected one of his
+      journeymen, by her saucy familiarity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My dear, said she, the gentleman will not believe Miss Harlowe is abroad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John bowed to my fine clothes: Your servant, Sir,&mdash;indeed the lady is
+      abroad. She went out of town this morning by six o'clock&mdash;into the
+      country&mdash;by the doctor's advice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still I would not believe either John or his wife. I am sure, said I, she
+      cannot be abroad. I heard she was very ill&mdash;she is not able to go out
+      in a coach. Do you know Mr. Belford, friend?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, Sir; I have the honour to know 'Squire Belford. He is gone into the
+      country to visit a sick friend. He went on Saturday, Sir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This had also been told from thy lodgings to Will. whom I sent to desire
+      to see thee on my first coming to town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, and Mr. Belford wrote me word that she was exceeding ill. How then
+      can she be gone out?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O Sir, she is very ill; very ill, indeed&mdash;she could hardly walk to
+      the coach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Belford, thought I, himself knew nothing of the time of my coming; neither
+      can he have received my letter of yesterday: and so ill, 'tis impossible
+      she would go out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where is her servant? Call her servant to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her servant, Sir, is her nurse: she has no other. And she is gone with
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, friend, I must not believe you. You'll excuse me; but I must go up
+      stairs myself. And was stepping up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John hereupon put on a serious, and a less respectful face&mdash;Sir, this
+      house is mine; and&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And what, friend? not doubting then but she was above.&mdash;I must and
+      will see her. I have authority for it. I am a justice of the peace. I have
+      a search warrant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And up I went; they following me, muttering, and in a plaguy flutter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first door I came to was locked. I tapped at it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady, Sir, has the key of her own apartment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the inside, I question not, my honest friend; tapping again. And being
+      assured, if she heard my voice, that her timorous and soft temper would
+      make her betray herself, by some flutters, to my listning ear, I said
+      aloud, I am confident Miss Harlowe is here: dearest Madam, open the door:
+      admit me but for one moment to your presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But neither answer nor fluttering saluted my ear; and, the people being
+      very quiet, I led on to the next apartment; and, the key being on the
+      outside, I opened it, and looked all around it, and into the closet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man said he never saw so uncivil a gentleman in his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hark thee, friend, said I; let me advise thee to be a little decent; or I
+      shall teach thee a lesson thou never learnedst in all thy life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir, said he, 'tis not like a gentleman, to affront a man in his own
+      house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then prythee, man, replied I, don't crow upon thine own dunghil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stept back to the locked door: My dear Miss Harlowe, I beg of you to
+      open the door, or I'll break it open;&mdash;pushing hard against it, that
+      it cracked again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man looked pale: and, trembling with his fright, made a plaguy long
+      face; and called to one of his bodice-makers above, Joseph, come down
+      quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joseph came down: a lion's-face grinning fellow; thick, and short, and
+      bushy-headed, like an old oak-pollard. Then did master John put on a
+      sturdier look. But I only hummed a tune, traversed all the other
+      apartments, sounded the passages with my knuckles, to find whether there
+      were private doors, and walked up the next pair of stairs, singing all the
+      way; John and Joseph, and Mrs. Smith, following me up, trembling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked round me there, and went into two open-door bed-chambers;
+      searched the closets, and the passages, and peeped through the key-hole of
+      another: no Miss Harlowe, by Jupiter! What shall I do!&mdash;what shall I
+      do! as the girls say.&mdash;Now will she be grieved that she is out of the
+      way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I said this on purpose to find out whether these people knew the lady's
+      story; and had the answer I expected from Mrs. Smith&mdash;I believe not,
+      Sir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why so, Mrs. Smith? Do you know who I am?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I can guess, Sir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whom do you guess me to be?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your name is Mr. Lovelace, Sir, I make no doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The very same. But how came you to guess so well, dame Smith! You never
+      saw me before, did you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, Jack, I laid out for a compliment, and missed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Tis easy to guess, Sir; for there cannot be two such gentlemen as you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well said, dame Smith&mdash;but mean you good or bad?&mdash;Handsome was
+      the least I thought she would have said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I leave you to guess, Sir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Condemned, thought I, by myself, on this appeal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why, father Smith, thy wife is a wit, man!&mdash;Didst thou ever find that
+      out before?&mdash;But where is widow Lovick, dame Smith? My cousin John
+      Belford says she is a very good woman. Is she within? or is she gone with
+      Miss Harlowe too?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She will be within by-and-by, Sir. She is not with the lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, but my good dear Mrs. Smith, where is the lady gone? and when will
+      she return?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I can't tell, Sir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Don't tell fibs, dame Smith; don't tell fibs, chucking her under the chin:
+      which made John's upper-lip, with chin shortened, rise to his nose.
+      &mdash;I am sure you know!&mdash;But here's another pair of stairs: let us
+      see: Who lives up there?&mdash;but hold, here's another room locked up,
+      tapping at the door&mdash;Who's at home? cried I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That's Mrs. Lovick's apartment. She is gone out, and has the key with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Widow Lovick! rapping again, I believe you are at home: pray open the
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John and Joseph muttered and whispered together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No whispering, honest friends: 'tis not manners to whisper. Joseph, what
+      said John to thee?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      JOHN! Sir, disdainfully repeated the good woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I beg pardon, Mrs. Smith: but you see the force of example. Had you showed
+      your honest man more respect, I should. Let me give you a piece of advice&mdash;women
+      who treat their husbands irreverently, teach strangers to use them with
+      contempt. There, honest master John; why dost not pull off thy hat to me?&mdash;Oh!
+      so thou wouldst, if thou hadst it on: but thou never wearest thy hat in
+      thy wife's presence, I believe; dost thou?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      None of your fleers and your jeers, Sir, cried John. I wish every married
+      pair lived as happily as we do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish so too, honest friend. But I'll be hanged if thou hast any
+      children.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why so, Sir?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hast thou?&mdash;Answer me, man: Hast thou, or not?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps not, Sir. But what of that?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What of that?&mdash;Why I'll tell thee: The man who has no children by his
+      wife must put up with plain John. Hadst thou a child or two, thou'dst be
+      called Mr. Smith, with a courtesy, or a smile at least, at every word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You are very pleasant, Sir, replied my dame. I fancy, if either my husband
+      or I had as much to answer for as I know whom, we should not be so merry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why then, dame Smith, so much the worse for those who were obliged to keep
+      you company. But I am not merry&mdash;I am sad!&mdash;Hey-ho!&mdash;Where
+      shall I find my dear Miss Harlowe?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My beloved Miss Harlowe! [calling at the foot of the third pair of
+      stairs,] if you are above, for Heaven's sake answer me. I am coming up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir, said the good man, I wish you'd walk down. The servants' rooms, and
+      the working-rooms, are up those stairs, and another pair; and nobody's
+      there that you want.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shall I go up, and see if Miss Harlowe be there, Mrs. Smith?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You may, Sir, if you please.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I won't; for, if she was, you would not be so obliging.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am ashamed to give you all this attendance: you are the politest traders
+      I ever knew. Honest Joseph, slapping him upon the shoulders on a sudden,
+      which made him jump, didst ever grin for a wager, man?&mdash;for the
+      rascal seemed not displeased with me; and, cracking his flat face from ear
+      to ear, with a distended mouth, showed his teeth, as broad and as black as
+      his thumb-nails.&mdash;But don't I hinder thee? What canst earn a-day,
+      man?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Half-a-crown I can earn a-day; with an air of pride and petulance, at
+      being startled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There then is a day's wages for thee. But thou needest not attend me
+      farther.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Come, Mrs. Smith, come John, (Master Smith I should say,) let's walk down,
+      and give me an account where the lady is gone, and when she will return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So down stairs led I. John and Joseph (though I had discharged the
+      latter,) and my dame, following me, to show their complaisance to a
+      stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I re-entered one of the first-floor rooms. I have a great mind to be your
+      lodger: for I never saw such obliging folks in my life. What rooms have
+      you to let?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      None at all, Sir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sorry for that. But whose is this?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mine, Sir, chuffily said John.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thine, man! why then I will take it of thee. This, and a bed-chamber, and
+      a garret for one servant, will content me. I will give thee thine own
+      price, and half a guinea a day over, for those conveniencies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For ten guineas a day, Sir&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hold, John! (Master Smith I should say)&mdash;Before thou speakest,
+      consider&mdash; I won't be affronted, man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir, I wish you'd walk down, said the good woman. Really, Sir, you take&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Great liberties I hope you would not say, Mrs. Smith?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, Sir, I was going to say something like it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, then, I am glad I prevented you; for such words better become my
+      mouth than yours. But I must lodge with you till the lady returns. I
+      believe I must. However, you may be wanted in the shop; so we'll talk that
+      over there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Down I went, they paying diligent attendance on my steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I came into the shop, seeing no chair or stool, I went behind the
+      compter, and sat down under an arched kind of canopy of carved work, which
+      these proud traders, emulating the royal niche-fillers, often give
+      themselves, while a joint-stool, perhaps, serves those by whom they get
+      their bread: such is the dignity of trade in this mercantile nation!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked about me, and above me; and told them I was very proud of my
+      seat; asking, if John were ever permitted to fill this superb niche?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps he was, he said, very surlily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That is it that makes thee looks so like a statue, man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John looked plaguy glum upon me. But his man Joseph and my man Will.
+      turned round with their backs to us, to hide their grinning, with each his
+      fist in his mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I asked, what it was they sold?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Powder, and wash-balls, and snuff, they said; and gloves and stockings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O come, I'll be your customer. Will. do I want wash-balls?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, and please your Honour, you can dispense with one or two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Give him half a dozen, dame Smith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She told me she must come where I was, to serve them. Pray, Sir, walk from
+      behind the compter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed but I won't. The shop shall be mine. Where are they, if a customer
+      shall come in?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She pointed over my head, with a purse mouth, as if she would not have
+      simpered, could she have helped it. I reached down the glass, and gave
+      Will. six. There&mdash;put 'em up, Sirrah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did, grinning with his teeth out before; which touching my conscience,
+      as the loss of them was owing to me, Joseph, said I, come hither. Come
+      hither, man, when I bid thee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stalked towards me, his hands behind him, half willing, and half
+      unwilling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I suddenly wrapt my arm round his neck. Will. thy penknife, this moment. D&mdash;&mdash;n
+      the fellow, where's thy penknife?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O Lord! said the pollard-headed dog, struggling to get his head loose from
+      under my arm, while my other hand was muzzling about his cursed chaps, as
+      if I would take his teeth out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will pay thee a good price, man: don't struggle thus? The penknife,
+      Will.!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O Lord, cried Joseph, struggling still more and more: and out comes
+      Will.'s pruning-knife; for the rascal is a gardener in the country. I have
+      only this, Sir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The best in the world to launch a gum. D&mdash;&mdash;n the fellow, why
+      dost struggle thus?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Master and Mistress Smith being afraid, I suppose, that I had a design
+      upon Joseph's throat, because he was their champion, (and this, indeed,
+      made me take the more notice of him,) coming towards me with countenances
+      tragic-comical, I let him go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I only wanted, said I, to take out two or three of this rascal's broad
+      teeth, to put them into my servant's jaws&mdash;and I would have paid him
+      his price for them.&mdash;I would by my soul, Joseph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joseph shook his ears; and with both hands stroked down, smooth as it
+      would lie, his bushy hair; and looked at me as if he knew not whether he
+      should laugh or be angry: but, after a stupid stare or two, stalked off to
+      the other end of the shop, nodding his head at me as he went, still
+      stroking down his hair; and took his stand by his master, facing about and
+      muttering, that I was plaguy strong in the arms, and he thought would have
+      throttled him. Then folding his arms, and shaking his bristled head,
+      added, 'twas well I was a gentleman, or he would not have taken such an
+      affront.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I demanded where their rappee was? the good woman pointed to the place;
+      and I took up a scollop-shell of it, refusing to let her weight it, and
+      filled my box. And now, Mrs. Smith, said I, where are your gloves?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She showed me; and I chose four pair of them, and set Joseph, who looked
+      as if he wanted to be taken notice of again, to open the fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A female customer, who had been gaping at the door, came in for some Scots
+      sniff; and I would serve her. The wench was plaguy homely; and I told her
+      so; or else, I said, I would have treated her. She, in anger, [no woman is
+      homely in her own opinion,] threw down her penny; and I put it in my
+      pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just then, turning my eye to the door, I saw a pretty, genteel lady, with
+      a footman after her, peeping in with a What's the matter, good folks? to
+      the starers; and I ran to her from behind the compter, and, as she was
+      making off, took her hand, and drew her into the shop; begging that she
+      would be my customer; for that I had but just begun trade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What do you sell, Sir? said she, smiling; but a little surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tapes, ribbands, silk laces, pins, and needles; for I am a pedlar: powder,
+      patches, wash-balls, stockings, garters, snuffs, and pin cushions&mdash;Don't
+      we, goody Smith?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So in I gently drew her to the compter, running behind it myself, with an
+      air of great dilingence and obligingness. I have excellent gloves and
+      wash-balls, Madam: rappee, Scots, Portugal, and all sorts of snuff.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, said she, in a very good humour, I'll encourage a young beginner for
+      once. Here, Andrew, [to her footman,] you want a pair of gloves, don't
+      you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took down a parcel of gloves, which Mrs. Smith pointed to, and came
+      round to the fellow to fit them on myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No matter for opening them, said I: thy fingers, friend, are as stiff as
+      drum-sticks. Push!&mdash;Thou'rt an awkward dog! I wonder such a pretty
+      lady will be followed by such a clumsy varlet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fellow had no strength for laughing: and Joseph was mightily pleased,
+      in hopes, I suppose, I would borrow a few of Andrew's teeth, to keep him
+      in countenance: and, father and mother Smith, like all the world, as the
+      jest was turned from themselves, seemed diverted with the humour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fellow said the gloves were too little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thrust, and be d&mdash;&mdash;d to thee, said I: why, fellow, thou hast
+      not the strength of a cat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir, Sir, said he, laughing, I shall hurt your Honour's side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      D&mdash;&mdash;n thee, thrust I say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did; and burst out the sides of the glove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Will. said I, where's thy pruning-knife? By my soul, friend, I had a good
+      mind to pare thy cursed paws. But come, here's a larger pair: try them,
+      when thou gettest home; and let thy sweetheart, if thou hast one, mend the
+      other, so take both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady laughed at the humour; as did my fellow, and Mrs. Smith, and
+      Joseph: even John laughed, though he seemed by the force put upon his
+      countenance to be but half pleased with me neither.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madam, said I, and stepped behind the compter, bowing over it, now I hope
+      you will buy something for yourself. Nobody shall use you better, nor sell
+      you cheaper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Come, said she, give me six-penny worth of Portugal snuff.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They showed me where it was, and I served her; and said, when she would
+      have paid me, I took nothing at my opening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If I treated her footman, she told me, I should not treat her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, with all my heart, said I: 'tis not for us tradesmen to be saucy&mdash;
+      Is it, Mrs. Smith?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I put her sixpence in my pocket; and, seizing her hand, took notice to her
+      of the crowd that had gathered about the door, and besought her to walk
+      into the back-shop with me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She struggled her hand out of mine, and would stay no longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So I bowed, and bid her kindly welcome, and thanked her, and hoped I
+      should have her custom another time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She went away smiling; and Andrew after her; who made me a fine bow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I began to be out of countenance at the crowd, which thickened apace; and
+      bid Will. order the chair to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, Mrs. Smith, with a grave air, I am heartily sorry Miss Harlowe is
+      abroad. You don't tell me where she is?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, Sir, I cannot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You will not, you mean.&mdash;She could have no notion of my coming. I
+      came to town but last night. I have been very ill. She has almost broken
+      my heart by her cruelty. You know my story, I doubt not. Tell her, I must
+      go out of town to-morrow morning. But I will send my servant, to know if
+      she will favour me with one half-hour's conversation; for, as soon as I
+      get down, I shall set out for Dover, in my way to France, if I have not a
+      countermand from her, who has the sole disposal of my fate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so flinging down a Portugal six-and-thirty, I took Mr. Smith by the
+      hand, telling him, I was sorry we had not more time to be better
+      acquainted; and bidding farewell to honest Joseph, (who pursed up his
+      mouth as I passed by him, as if he thought his teeth still in jeopardy,)
+      and Mrs. Smith adieu, and to recommend me to her fair lodger, hummed an
+      air, and, the chair being come, whipt into it; the people about the door
+      seeming to be in good humour with me; one crying, a pleasant gentleman, I
+      warrant him! and away I was carried to White's, according to direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as I came thither, I ordered Will. to go and change his clothes,
+      and to disguise himself by putting on his black wig, and keeping his mouth
+      shut; and then to dodge about Smith's, to inform himself of the lady's
+      motions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I give thee this impudent account of myself, that thou mayest rave at me,
+      and call me hardened, and what thou wilt. For, in the first place, I, who
+      had been so lately ill, was glad I was alive; and then I was so balked by
+      my charmer's unexpected absence, and so ruffled by that, and by the bluff
+      treatment of father John, that I had no other way to avoid being out of
+      humour with all I met with. Moreover I was rejoiced to find, by the lady's
+      absence, and by her going out at six in the morning, that it was
+      impossible she should be so ill as thou representest her to be; and this
+      gave me still higher spirits. Then I know the sex always love cheerful and
+      humourous fellows. The dear creature herself used to be pleased with my
+      gay temper and lively manner; and had she been told that I was blubbering
+      for her in the back-shop, she would have despised me still more than she
+      does.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Furthermore, I was sensible that the people of the house must needs have a
+      terrible notion of me, as a savage, bloody-minded, obdurate fellow; a
+      perfect woman-eater; and, no doubt, expected to see me with the claws of a
+      lion, and the fangs of a tiger; and it was but policy to show them what a
+      harmless pleasant fellow I am, in order to familiarize the Johns and the
+      Josephs to me. For it was evident to me, by the good woman's calling them
+      down, that she thought me a dangerous man. Whereas now, John and I have
+      shaken hands together, and dame Smith having seen that I have the face,
+      and hands, and looks of a man, and walk upright, and prate, and laugh, and
+      joke, like other people; and Joseph, that I can talk of taking his teeth
+      out of his head, without doing him the least hurt; they will all, at my
+      next visit, be much more easy and pleasant to me than Andrew's gloves were
+      to him; and we shall be as thoroughly acquainted, as if we had known one
+      another a twelvemonth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I returned to our mother's, I again cursed her and all her nymphs
+      together; and still refused to see either Sally or Polly! I raved at the
+      horrid arrest; and told the old dragon that it was owing to her and her's
+      that the fairest virtue in the world was ruined; my reputation for ever
+      blasted; and that I was not married and perfectly happy in the love of the
+      most excellent of her sex.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She, to pacify me, said she would show me a new face that would please me;
+      since I would not see my Sally, who was dying with grief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where is this new face? cried I: let me see her, though I shall never see
+      any face with pleasure but Miss Harlowe's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She won't come down, replied she. She will not be at the word of command
+      yet. She is but just in the trammels; and must be waited upon, I'll assure
+      you; and courted much besides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ay! said I, that looks well. Lead me to her this instant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I followed her up: and who should she be, but that little toad Sally!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O curse you, said I, for a devil! Is it you? is your's the new face?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O my dear, dear Mr. Lovelace! cried she, I am glad any thing will bring
+      you to me!&mdash;and so the little beast threw herself about my neck, and
+      there clung like a cat. Come, said she, what will you give me, and I'll be
+      as virtuous for a quarter of an hour, and mimic your Clarissa to the life?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was Belforded all over. I could not bear such an insult upon the dear
+      creature, (for I have a soft and generous nature in the main, whatever
+      thou thinkest;) and cursed her most devoutly, for taking my beloved's name
+      in her mouth in such a way. But the little devil was not to be balked; but
+      fell a crying, sobbing, praying, begging, exclaiming, fainting, that I
+      never saw my lovely girl so well aped. Indeed I was almost taken in; for I
+      could have fancied I had her before me once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O this sex! this artful sex! there's no minding them. At first, indeed,
+      their grief and their concern may be real: but, give way to the hurricane,
+      and it will soon die away in soft murmurs, thrilling upon your ears like
+      the notes of a well-tuned viol. And, by Sally, one sees that art will
+      generally so well supply the place of nature, that you shall not easily
+      know the difference. Miss Clarisa Harlowe, indeed, is the only woman in
+      the world I believe that can say, in the words of her favourite Job, (for
+      I can quote a text as well as she,) But it is not so with me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were very inquisitive about my fair-one. They told me that you seldom
+      came near them; that, when you did, you put on plaguy grave airs; would
+      hardly stay five minutes; and did nothing but praise Miss Harlowe, and
+      lament her hard fate. In short, that you despised them; was full of
+      sentences; and they doubted not, in a little while, would be a lost man,
+      and marry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A pretty character for thee, is it not? thou art in a blessed way; yet
+      hast nothing to do but to go on in it: and then what work hast thou to go
+      through! If thou turnest back, these sorceresses will be like the czar's
+      cossacks, [at Pultowa, I think it was,] who were planted with ready primed
+      and cocked pieces behind the regulars, in order to shoot them dead, if
+      they did not push on and conquer; and then wilt thou be most lamentably
+      despised by every harlot thou hast made&mdash;and, O Jack, how formidable,
+      in that case, will be the number of thy enemies!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I intend to regulate my motions by Will.'s intelligence; for see this dear
+      creature I must and will. Yet I have promised Lord M. to be down in two or
+      three days at farthest; for he is grown plaguy fond of me since I was ill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am in hopes that the word I left, that I am to go out of town to-morrow
+      morning, will soon bring the lady back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mean time, I thought I would write to divert thee, while thou art of such
+      importance about the dying; and as thy servant, it seems, comes backward
+      and forward every day, perhaps I may send thee another letter to-morrow,
+      with the particulars of the interview between the dear creature and me;
+      after which my soul thirsteth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must write on, to divert myself: for I can get no rest; no refreshing
+      rest. I awaked just now in a cursed fright. How a man may be affected by
+      dreams!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Methought I had an interview with my beloved. I found her all goodness,
+      condescension, and forgiveness. She suffered herself to be overcome in my
+      favour by the joint intercessions of Lord M., Lady Sarah, Lady Betty, and
+      my two cousins Montague, who waited upon her in deep mourning; the ladies
+      in long trains sweeping after them; Lord M. in a long black mantle
+      trailing after him. They told her they came in these robs to express their
+      sorrow for my sins against her, and to implore her to forgive me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I myself, I thought, was upon my knees, with a sword in my hand, offering
+      either to put it up in the scabbard, or to thrust it into my heart, as she
+      should command the one or the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'At that moment her cousin Morden, I thought, all of a sudden, flashed in
+      through a window, with his drawn sword&mdash;Die, Lovelace! said he; this
+      instant die, and be d&mdash;&mdash;d, if in earnest thou repairest not by
+      marriage my cousin's wrongs!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I was rising to resent this insult, I thought, when Lord M. ran between
+      us with his great black mantle, and threw it over my face: and instantly
+      my charmer, with that sweet voice which has so often played upon my
+      ravished ears, wrapped her arms around me, muffled as I was in my Lord's
+      mantle: O spare, spare my Lovelace! and spare, O Lovelace, my beloved
+      cousin Morden! Let me not have my distresses augmented by the fall of
+      either or both of those who are so dear to me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'At this, charmed with her sweet mediation, I thought I would have clasped
+      her in my arms: when immediately the most angelic form I had ever beheld,
+      all clad in transparent white, descended in a cloud, which, opening,
+      discovered a firmament above it, crowded with golden cherubs and
+      glittering seraphs, all addressing her with Welcome, welcome, welcome!
+      and, encircling my charmer, ascended with her to the region of seraphims;
+      and instantly, the opened cloud closing, I lost sight of her, and of the
+      bright form together, and found wrapt in my arms her azure robe (all stuck
+      thick with stars of embossed silver) which I had caught hold of in hopes
+      of detaining her; but was all that was left me of my beloved Clarissa. And
+      then, (horrid to relate!) the floor sinking under me, as the firmament had
+      opened for her, I dropt into a hole more frightful than that of Elden;
+      and, tumbling over and over down it, without view of a bottom, I awaked in
+      a panic; and was as effectually disordered for half an hour, as if my
+      dream had been a reality.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilt thou forgive my troubling thee with such visionary stuff? Thou wilt
+      see by it only that, sleeping or waking, my Clarissa is always present
+      with me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But here this moment is Will. come running hither to tell me that his lady
+      actually returned to her lodgings last night between eleven and twelve;
+      and is now there, though very ill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hasten to her. But, that I may not add to her indisposition, by any
+      rough or boisterous behaviour, I will be as soft and gentle as the dove
+      herself in my addresses to her.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      That I do love her, I all ye host of Heaven,
+      Be witness.&mdash;That she is dear to me!
+      Dearer than day, to one whom sight must leave;
+      Dearer than life, to one who fears to die!
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The chair is come. I fly to my beloved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Curse upon my stars!&mdash;Disappointed again! It was about eight when I
+      arrived at Smith's.&mdash;The woman was in the shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, old acquaintance, how do you now? I know my love is above.&mdash;Let
+      her be acquainted that I am here, waiting for admission to her presence,
+      and can take no denial. Tell her, that I will approach her with the most
+      respectful duty, and in whose company she pleases; and I will not touch
+      the hem of her garment, without her leave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, Sir, you are mistaken. The lady is not in this house, nor near it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I'll see that.&mdash;Will.! beckoning him to me, and whispering, see if
+      thou canst any way find out (without losing sight of the door, lest she
+      should be below stairs) if she be in the neighbourhood, if not within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Will. bowed, and went off. Up went I, without further ceremony; attended
+      now only by the good woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went into each apartment, except that which was locked before, and was
+      now also locked: and I called to my Clarissa in the voice of love; but, by
+      the still silence, was convinced she was not there. Yet, on the strength
+      of my intelligence, I doubted not but she was in the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I then went up two pairs of stairs, and looked round the first room: but
+      no Miss Harlowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And who, pray, is in this room? stopping at the door of another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A widow gentlewoman, Sir.&mdash;Mrs. Lovick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O my dear Mrs. Lovick! said I.&mdash;I am intimately acquainted with Mrs.
+      Lovick's character, from my cousin John Belford. I must see Mrs. Lovick by
+      all means.&mdash;Good Mrs. Lovick, open the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your servant, Madam. Be so good as to excuse me.&mdash;You have heard my
+      story. You are an admirer of the most excellent woman in the world. Dear
+      Mrs. Lovick, tell me what is become of her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor lady, Sir, went out yesterday, on purpose to avoid you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How so? she knew not that I would be here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was afraid you would come, when she heard you were recovered from your
+      illness. Ah! Sir, what pity it is that so fine a gentleman should make
+      such ill returns for God's goodness to him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You are an excellent woman, Mrs. Lovick: I know that, by my cousin John
+      Belford's account of you: and Miss Clarissa Harlowe is an angel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Harlowe is indeed an angel, replied she; and soon will be company for
+      angels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No jesting with such a woman as this, Jack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tell me of a truth, good Mrs. Lovick, where I may see this dear lady. Upon
+      my soul, I will neither fright for offend her. I will only beg of her to
+      hear me speak for one half-quarter of an hour; and, if she will have it
+      so, I will never trouble her more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir, said the widow, it would be death for her to see you. She was at home
+      last night; I'll tell you truth: but fitter to be in bed all day. She came
+      home, she said, to die; and, if she could not avoid your visit, she was
+      unable to fly from you; and believed she should die in your presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet go out again this morning early? How can that be, widow?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why, Sir, she rested not two hours, for fear of you. Her fear gave her
+      strength, which she'll suffer for, when that fear is over. And finding
+      herself, the more she thought of your visit, the less able to stay to
+      receive it, she took chair, and is gone nobody knows whither. But, I
+      believe, she intended to be carried to the waterside, in order to take
+      boat; for she cannot bear a coach. It extremely incommoded her yesterday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But before we talk any further, said I, if she be gone abroad, you can
+      have no objection to my looking into every apartment above and below;
+      because I am told she is actually in the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, Sir, she is not. You may satisfy yourself, if you please: but Mrs.
+      Smith and I waited on her to her chair. We were forced to support her, she
+      was so weak. She said, Whither can I go, Mrs. Lovick? whither can I go,
+      Mrs. Smith?&mdash;Cruel, cruel man!&mdash;tell him I called him so, if he
+      come again!&mdash;God give him that peace which he denies me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sweet creature! cried I; and looked down, and took out my handkerchief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The widow wept. I wish, said she, I had never known so excellent a lady,
+      and so great a sufferer! I love her as my own child!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Smith wept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I then gave over the hope of seeing her for this time, I was extremely
+      chagrined at my disappointment, and at the account they gave of her ill
+      health.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Would to Heaven, said I, she would put it in my power to repair her
+      wrongs! I have been an ungrateful wretch to her. I need not tell you, Mrs.
+      Lovick, how much I have injured her, nor how much she suffers by her
+      relations' implacableness, Mrs. Smith, that cuts her to the heart. Her
+      family is the most implacable family on earth; and the dear creature, in
+      refusing to see me, and to be reconciled to me, shows her relation to them
+      a little too plainly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O Sir, said the widow, not one syllable of what you say belongs to this
+      lady. I never saw so sweet a temper! she is always accusing herself, and
+      excusing her relations. And, as to you, Sir, she forgives you: she wishes
+      you well; and happier than you will let her die in peace? 'tis all she
+      wishes for. You don't look like a hard-hearted gentleman!&mdash;How can
+      you thus hunt and persecute a poor lady, whom none of her relations will
+      look upon? It makes my heart bleed for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then she wept again. Mrs. Smith wept also. My seat grew uneasy to me.
+      I shifted to another several times; and what Mrs. Lovick farther said, and
+      showed me, made me still more uneasy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bad as the poor lady was last night, said she, she transcribed into her
+      book a meditation on your persecuting her thus. I have a copy of it. If I
+      thought it would have any effect, I would read it to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let me read it myself, Mrs. Lovick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave it to me. It has an Harlowe-spirited title: and, from a forgiving
+      spirit, intolerable. I desired to take it with me. She consented, on
+      condition that I showed it to 'Squire Belford. So here, Mr. 'Squire
+      Belford, thou mayest read it, if thou wilt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ON BEING HUNTED AFTER BY THE ENEMY OF MY SOUL. MONDAY, AUG. 21.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Preserve me from the violent man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who imagines mischief in his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He hath sharpened his tongue like a serpent. Adders' poison is under his
+      lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked. Preserve me from the
+      violent man, who hath purposed to overthrow my goings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He hath hid a snare for me. He hath spread a net by the way-side. He hath
+      set gins for me in the way wherein I walked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Keep me from the snares which he hath laid for me, and the gins of this
+      worker of iniquity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The enemy hath persecuted my soul. He hath smitten my life down to the
+      ground. He hath made me dwell in darkness, as those that have been long
+      dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me. My heart within me is
+      desolate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For my days are consumed like smoke: and my bones are burnt as the hearth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My heart is smitten and withered like grass: so that I forget to eat my
+      bread.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my skin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am like a pelican of the wilderness. I am like an owl of the desert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I watch; and am as a sparrow alone upon the house-top.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have eaten ashes like bread; and mingled my drink with weeping:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Because of thine indignation, and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up,
+      and cast me down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My days are like a shadow that declineth, and I am withered like grass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grant not, O Lord, the desires of the wicked: further not his devices,
+      lest he exalt himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why now, Mrs. Lovick, said I, when I had read this meditation, as she
+      called it, I think I am very severely treated by the lady, if she mean me
+      in all this. For how is it that I am the enemy of her soul, when I love
+      her both soul and body?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She says, that I am a violent man, and a wicked man.&mdash;That I have
+      been so, I own: but I repent, and only wish to have it in my power to
+      repair the injuries I have done her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gin, the snare, the net, mean matrimony, I suppose&mdash;But is it a
+      crime in me to wish to marry her? Would any other woman think it so? and
+      choose to become a pelican in the wilderness, or a lonely sparrow on the
+      house-top, rather than have a mate that would chirp about her all day and
+      all night?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She says, she has eaten ashes like bread&mdash;A sad mistake to be sure!&mdash;And
+      mingled her drink with weeping&mdash;Sweet maudlin soul! should I say of
+      any body confessing this, but Miss Harlowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She concludes with praying, that the desires of the wicked (meaning poor
+      me, I doubt) may not be granted; that my devices may not be furthered,
+      lest I exalt myself. I should undoubtedly exalt myself, and with reason,
+      could I have the honour and the blessing of such a wife. And if my desires
+      have so honourable an end, I know not why I should be called wicked, and
+      why I should not be allowed to hope, that my honest devices may be
+      furthered, that I MAY exalt myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But here, Mrs. Lovick, let me ask, as something is undoubtedly meant by
+      the lonely sparrow on the house-top, is not the dear creature at this very
+      instant (tell me truly) concealed in Mrs. Smith's cockloft?&mdash;What say
+      you, Mrs. Lovick? What say you, Mrs. Smith, to this?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They assured me to the contrary; and that she was actually abroad, and
+      they knew not where.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou seest, Jack, that I would fain have diverted the chagrin given me not
+      only by the women's talk, but by this collection of Scripture-texts drawn
+      up in array against me. Several other whimsical and light things I said
+      [all I had for it!] with the same view. But the widow would not let me
+      come off so. She stuck to me; and gave me, as I told thee, a good deal of
+      uneasiness, by her sensible and serious expostulations. Mrs. Smith put in
+      now-and-then; and the two Jack-pudding fellows, John and Joseph, not being
+      present, I had no provocation to turn the conversation into a farce; and,
+      at last, they both joined warmly to endeavour to prevail upon me to give
+      up all thoughts of seeing the lady. But I could not hear of that. On the
+      contrary, I besought Mrs. Smith to let me have one of her rooms but till I
+      could see her; and were it but for one, two, or three days, I would pay a
+      year's rent for it; and quit it the moment the interview was over. But
+      they desired to be excused; and were sure the lady would not come to the
+      house till I was gone, were it for a month.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This pleased me; for I found they did not think her so very ill as they
+      would have me believe her to be; but I took no notice of the slip, because
+      I would not guard them against more of the like.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In short, I told them, I must and would see her: but that it should be
+      with all the respect and veneration that heart could pay to excellence
+      like her's: and that I would go round to all the churches in London and
+      Westminster, where there were prayers or service, from sun-rise to
+      sun-set, and haunt their house like a ghost, till I had the opportunity my
+      soul panted after.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This I bid them tell her. And thus ended our serious conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took leave of them; and went down; and, stepping into my chair, caused
+      myself to be carried to Lincoln's-Inn; and walked in the gardens till the
+      chapel was opened; and then I went in, and said prayers, in hopes of
+      seeing the dear creature enter: but to no purpose; and yet I prayed most
+      devoutly that she might be conducted thither, either by my good angel, or
+      her own. And indeed I burn more than ever with impatience to be once more
+      permitted to kneel at the feet of this adorable woman. And had I met her,
+      or espied her in the chapel, it is my firm belief that I should not have
+      been able (though it had been in the midst of the sacred office, and in
+      the presence of thousands) to have forborne prostration to her, and even
+      clamorous supplication for her forgiveness: a christian act; the exercise
+      of it therefore worthy of the place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After service was over, I stept into my chair again, and once more was
+      carried to Smith's, in hopes I might have surprised her there: but no such
+      happiness for thy friend. I staid in the back-shop an hour and an half, by
+      my watch; and again underwent a good deal of preachment from the women.
+      John was mainly civil to me now; won over a little by my serious talk, and
+      the honour I professed for the lady. They all three wished matters could
+      be made up between us: but still insisted that she could never get over
+      her illness; and that her heart was broken. A cue, I suppose, they had
+      from you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While I was there a letter was brought by a particular hand. They seemed
+      very solicitous to hide it from me; which made me suspect it was for her.
+      I desired to be suffered to cast an eye upon the seal, and the
+      superscription; promising to give it back to them unopened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Looking upon it, I told them I knew the hand and seal. It was from her
+      sister.* And I hoped it would bring her news that she would be pleased
+      with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter XXVI. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They joined most heartily in the same hope: and, giving the letter to them
+      again, I civilly took leave, and went away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I will be there again presently; for I fancy my courteous behaviour to
+      these women will, on their report of it, procure me the favour I so
+      earnestly covet. And so I will leave my letter unsealed, to tell thee the
+      event of my next visit at Smith's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thy servant just calling, I sent thee this: and will soon follow it by
+      another. Mean time, I long to hear how poor Belton is: to whom my best
+      wishes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have been under such concern for the poor man, whose exit I almost
+      hourly expect, and at the shocking scenes his illness and his agonies
+      exhibit, that I have been only able to make memoranda of the melancholy
+      passages, from which to draw up a more perfect account, for the
+      instruction of us all, when the writing appetite shall return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is returned! Indignation has revived it, on receipt of thy letters of
+      Sunday and yesterday; by which I have reason to reproach thee in very
+      serious terms, that thou hast not kept thy honour with me: and if thy
+      breach of it be attended with such effects as I fear it will be, I shall
+      let thee know more of my mind on this head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If thou wouldst be thought in earnest in thy wishes to move the poor lady
+      in thy favour, thy ludicrous behaviour at Smith's, when it comes to be
+      represented to her, will have a very consistent appearance; will it not?&mdash;I
+      will, indeed, confirm in her opinion, that the grave is more to be
+      wished-for, by one of her serious and pious turn, than a husband incapable
+      either of reflection or remorse; just recovered, as thou art, from a
+      dangerous, at least a sharp turn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am extremely concerned for the poor unprotected lady. She was so
+      excessively low and weak on Saturday, that I could not be admitted to her
+      speech: and to be driven out of her lodgings, when it was fitter for her
+      to be in bed, is such a piece of cruelty, as he only could be guilty of
+      who could act as thou hast done by such an angel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Canst thou thyself say, on reflection, that it has not the look of a
+      wicked and hardened sportiveness, in thee, for the sake of a wanton humour
+      only, (since it can answer no end that thou proposest to thyself, but the
+      direct contrary,) to hunt from place to place a poor lady, who, like a
+      harmless deer, that has already a barbed shaft in her breast, seeks only a
+      refuge from thee in the shades of death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I will leave this matter upon thy own conscience, to paint thee such a
+      scene from my memoranda, as thou perhaps wilt be moved by more effectually
+      than by any other: because it is such a one as thou thyself must one day
+      be a principal actor in, and, as I thought, hadst very lately in
+      apprehension: and is the last scene of one of thy more intimate friends,
+      who has been for the four past days labouring in the agonies of death.
+      For, Lovelace, let this truth, this undoubted truth, be engraved on thy
+      memory, in all thy gaieties, That the life we are so fond of is hardly
+      life; a mere breathing space only; and that, at the end of its longest
+      date,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      Thou must die, as well as Belton.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Thou knowest, by Tourville, what we had done as to the poor man's worldly
+      affairs; and that we had got his unhappy sister to come and live with him
+      (little did we think him so very near to his end): and so I will proceed
+      to tell thee, that when I arrived at his house on Saturday night, I found
+      him excessively ill: but just raised, and in his elbow-chair, held up by
+      his nurse and Mowbray (the roughest and most untouched creature that ever
+      entered a sick man's chamber); while the maid-servants were trying to make
+      that bed easier for him which he was to return to; his mind ten times
+      uneasier than that could be, and the true cause that the down was no
+      softer to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had so much longed to see me, as I was told by his sister, (whom I sent
+      for down to inquire how he was,) that they all rejoiced when I entered:
+      Here, said Mowbray, here, Tommy, is honest Jack Belford!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where, where? said the poor man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hear his voice, cried Mowbray: he is coming up stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a transport of joy, he would have raised himself at my entrance, but
+      had like to have pitched out of the chair: and when recovered, called me
+      his best friend! his kindest friend! but burst into a flood of tears: O
+      Jack! O Belford! said he, see the way I am in! See how weak! So much, and
+      so soon reduced! Do you know me? Do you know your poor friend Belton?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You are not so much altered, my dear Belton, as you think you are. But I
+      see you are weak; very weak&mdash;and I am sorry for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Weak, weak, indeed, my dearest Belford, said he, and weaker in mind, if
+      possible, than in body; and wept bitterly&mdash;or I should not thus unman
+      myself. I, who never feared any thing, to be forced to show myself such a
+      nursling!&mdash;I am quite ashamed of myself!&mdash;But don't despise me;
+      dear Belford, don't despise me, I beseech thee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I ever honoured a man that could weep for the distresses of others; and
+      ever shall, said I; and such a one cannot be insensible of his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, I could not help being visibly moved at the poor fellow's
+      emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, said the brutal Mowbray, do I think thee insufferable, Jack. Our poor
+      friend is already a peg too low; and here thou art letting him down lower
+      and lower still. This soothing of him in his dejected moments, and joining
+      thy womanish tears with his, is not the way; I am sure it is not. If our
+      Lovelace were here, he'd tell thee so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou art an impenetrable creature, replied I; unfit to be present at a
+      scene, the terrors of which thou wilt not be able to feel till thou
+      feelest them in thyself; and then, if thou hadst time for feeling, my life
+      for thine, thou behavest as pitifully as those thou thinkest most pitiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then turning to the poor sick man, Tears, my dear Belton, are no signs of
+      an unmanly, but, contrarily of a humane nature; they ease the over-charged
+      heart, which would burst but for that kindly and natural relief.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      Give sorrow words (says Shakspeare)
+      &mdash;The grief that does not speak,
+      Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I know, my dear Belton, thou usedst to take pleasure in repetitions from
+      the poets; but thou must be tasteless of their beauties now: yet be not
+      discountenanced by this uncouth and unreflecting Mowbray, for, as Juvenal
+      says, Tears are the prerogative of manhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Tis at least seasonably said, my dear Belford. It is kind to keep me in
+      countenance for this womanish weakness, as Mowbray has been upbraidingly
+      calling it, ever since he has been with me: and in so doing, (whatever I
+      might have thought in such high health as he enjoys,) has convinced me,
+      that bottle-friends feel nothing but what moves in that little circle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, well, proceed in your own way, Jack. I love my friend Belton as well
+      as you can do; yet for the blood of me, I cannot but think, that soothing
+      a man's weakness is increasing it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If it be a weakness, to be touched at great and concerning events, in
+      which our humanity is concerned, said I, thou mayest be right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have seen many a man, said the rough creature, going up Holborn-hill,
+      that has behaved more like a man than either of you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ay, but, Mowbray, replied the poor man, those wretches have not had their
+      minds enervated by such infirmities of body as I have long laboured under.
+      Thou art a shocking fellow, and ever wert.&mdash;But to be able to
+      remember nothing in these moments but what reproaches me, and to know that
+      I cannot hold it long, and what may then be my lot, if&mdash;but
+      interrupting himself, and turning to me, Give me thy pity, Jack; 'tis balm
+      to my wounded soul; and let Mowbray sit indifferent enough to the pangs of
+      a dying friend, to laugh at us both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hardened fellow then retired, with the air of a Lovelace; only more
+      stupid; yawning and stretching, instead of humming a tune as thou didst at
+      Smith's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I assisted to get the poor man into bed. He was so weak and low, that he
+      could not bear the fatigue, and fainted away; and I verily thought was
+      quite gone. But recovering, and his doctor coming, and advising to keep
+      him quiet, I retired, and joined Mowbray in the garden; who took more
+      delight to talk of the living Lovelace and levities, than of the dying
+      Belton and his repentance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I just saw him again on Saturday night before I went to bed; which I did
+      early; for I was surfeited with Mowbray's frothy insensibility, and could
+      not bear him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is such a horrid thing to think of, that a man who had lived in such
+      strict terms of&mdash;what shall I call it? with another; the proof does
+      not come out so, as to say, friendship; who had pretended so much love for
+      him; could not bear to be out of his company; would ride an hundred miles
+      on end to enjoy it; and would fight for him, be the cause right or wrong:
+      yet now, could be so little moved to see him in such misery of body and
+      mind, as to be able to rebuke him, and rather ridicule than pity him,
+      because he was more affected by what he felt, than he had seen a
+      malefactor, (hardened perhaps by liquor, and not softened by previous
+      sickness,) on his going to execution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This put me strongly in mind of what the divine Miss HARLOWE once said to
+      me, talking of friendship, and what my friendship to you required of me:
+      'Depend upon it, Mr. Belford,' said she, 'that one day you will be
+      convinced, that what you call friendship, is chaff and stubble; and that
+      nothing is worthy of that sacred name,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'That has not virtue for its base.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Sunday morning, I was called up at six o'clock, at the poor man's earnest
+      request, and found him in a terrible agony. O Jack! Jack! said he, looking
+      wildly, as if he had seen a spectre&mdash;Come nearer me!&mdash;Dear, dear
+      Belford, save me! Then clasping my arm with both his hands, and rearing up
+      his head towards me, his eyes strangely rolling, Save me! dear Belford,
+      save me! repeated he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I put my other arm about him&mdash;Save you from what, my dear Belton!
+      said I; save you from what? Nothing shall hurt you. What must I save you
+      from?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Recovering from his terror, he sunk down again, O save me from myself!
+      said he; save me from my own reflections. O dear Jack! what a thing it is
+      to die; and not to have one comfortable reflection to revolve! What would
+      I give for one year of my past life?&mdash;only one year&mdash;and to have
+      the same sense of things that I now have?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I tried to comfort him as well as I could: but free-livers to free-livers
+      are sorry death-bed comforters. And he broke in upon me: O my dear
+      Belford, said he, I am told, (and I have heard you ridiculed for it,) that
+      the excellent Miss Harlowe has wrought a conversion in you. May it be so!
+      You are a man of sense: O may it be so! Now is your time! Now, that you
+      are in full vigour of mind and body!&mdash;But your poor Belton, alas!
+      your poor Belton kept his vices, till they left him&mdash;and see the
+      miserable effects in debility of mind and despondency! Were Mowbray here,
+      and were he to laugh at me, I would own that this is the cause of my
+      despair&mdash;that God's justice cannot let his mercy operate for my
+      comfort: for, Oh! I have been very, very wicked; and have despised the
+      offers of his grace, till he has withdrawn it from me for ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I used all the arguments I could think of to give him consolation: and
+      what I said had such an effect upon him, as to quiet his mind for the
+      greatest part of the day; and in a lucid hour his memory served him to
+      repeat these lines of Dryden, grasping my hand, and looking wistfully upon
+      me:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      O that I less could fear to lose this being,
+      Which, like a snow-ball, in my coward hand,
+      The more 'tis grasped, the faster melts away!
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In the afternoon of Sunday, he was inquisitive after you, and your present
+      behaviour to Miss Harlowe. I told him how you had been, and how light you
+      made of it. Mowbray was pleased with your impenetrable hardness of heart,
+      and said, Bob. Lovelace was a good edge-tool, and steel to the back: and
+      such coarse but hearty praises he gave you, as an abandoned man might
+      give, and only an abandoned man could wish to deserve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But hadst thou heard what the poor dying Belton said on this occasion,
+      perhaps it would have made thee serious an hour or two, at least.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'When poor Lovelace is brought,' said he, 'to a sick-bed, as I am now, and
+      his mind forebodes that it is impossible he should recover, (which his
+      could not do in his late illness: if it had, he could not have behaved so
+      lightly in it;) when he revolves his past mis-spent life; his actions of
+      offence to helpless innocents; in Miss Harlowe's case particularly; what
+      then will he think of himself, or of his past actions? his mind
+      debilitated; his strength turned into weakness; unable to stir or to move
+      without help; not one ray of hope darting in upon his benighted soul; his
+      conscience standing in the place of a thousand witnesses; his pains
+      excruciating; weary of the poor remnant of life he drags, yet dreading,
+      that, in a few short hours, his bad will be changed to worse, nay, to
+      worst of all; and that worst of all, to last beyond time and to all
+      eternity; O Jack! what will he then think of the poor transitory
+      gratifications of sense, which now engage all his attention? Tell him,
+      dear Belford, tell him, how happy he is if he know his own dying
+      happiness; how happy, compared to his poor dying friend, that he has
+      recovered from his illness, and has still an opportunity lent him, for
+      which I would give a thousand worlds, had I them to give!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I approved exceedingly of his reflections, as suited to his present
+      circumstances; and inferred consolations to him from a mind so properly
+      touched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He proceeded in the like penitent strain. I have lived a very wicked life;
+      so have we all. We have never made a conscience of doing whatever mischief
+      either force or fraud enabled us to do. We have laid snares for the
+      innocent heart; and have not scrupled by the too-ready sword to extend, as
+      occasions offered, the wrongs we did to the persons whom we had before
+      injured in their dearest relations. But yet, I flatter myself, sometimes,
+      that I have less to answer for than either Lovelace or Mowbray; for I, by
+      taking to myself that accursed deceiver from whom thou hast freed me, (and
+      who, for years, unknown to me, was retaliating upon my own head some of
+      the evils I had brought upon others,) and retiring, and living with her as
+      a wife, was not party to half the mischiefs, that I doubt they, and
+      Tourville, and even you, Belford, committed. As to the ungrateful
+      Thomasine, I hope I have met with my punishment in her. But
+      notwithstanding this, dost thou not think, that such an action&mdash;and
+      such an action&mdash;and such an action; [and then he recapitulated
+      several enormities, in the perpetration of which (led on by false bravery,
+      and the heat of youth and wine) we have all been concerned;] dost thou not
+      think that these villanies, (let me call them now by their proper name,)
+      joined to the wilful and gloried-in neglect of every duty that our better
+      sense and education gave us to know were required of us as men and
+      christians, are not enough to weigh down my soul into despondency?&mdash;
+      Indeed, indeed, they are! and now to hope for mercy; and to depend upon
+      the efficacy of that gracious attribute, when that no less shining one of
+      justice forbids me to hope; how can I!&mdash;I, who have despised all
+      warnings, and taken no advantage of the benefit I might have reaped from
+      the lingering consumptive illness I have laboured under, but left all to
+      the last stake; hoping for recovery against hope, and driving off
+      repentance, till that grace is denied me; for, oh! my dear Belford! I can
+      now neither repent, nor pray, as I ought; my heart is hardened, and I can
+      do nothing but despair!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More he would have said; but, overwhelmed with grief and infirmity, he
+      bowed his head upon his pangful bosom, endeavouring to hide from the sight
+      of the hardened Mowbray, who just then entered the room, those tears which
+      he could not restrain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Prefaced by a phlegmatic hem; sad, very sad, truly! cried Mowbray; who sat
+      himself down on one side of the bed, as I sat on the other: his eyes half
+      closed, and his lips pouting out to his turned-up nose, his chin curdled
+      [to use one of thy descriptions]; leaving one at a loss to know whether
+      stupid drowsiness or intense contemplation had got most hold of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An excellent, however uneasy lesson, Mowbray! said I.&mdash;By my faith it
+      is! It may one day, who knows how soon? be our own case!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought of thy yawning-fit, as described in thy letter of Aug. 13. For
+      up started Mowbray, writhing and shaking himself as in an ague-fit; his
+      hands stretched over his head&mdash;with thy hoy! hoy! hoy! yawning. And
+      then recovering himself, with another stretch and a shake, What's o'clock?
+      cried he; pulling out his watch&mdash;and stalking by long tip-toe strides
+      through the room, down stairs he went; and meeting the maid in the
+      passage, I heard him say&mdash;Betty, bring me a bumper of claret; thy
+      poor master, and this d&mdash;&mdash;d Belford, are enough to throw a
+      Hercules into the vapours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbray, after this, assuming himself in our friend's library, which is,
+      as thou knowest, chiefly classical and dramatical, found out a passage in
+      Lee's Oedipus, which he would needs have to be extremely apt; and in he
+      came full fraught with the notion of the courage it would give the dying
+      man, and read it to him. 'Tis poetical and pretty. This is it:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      When the sun sets, shadows that show'd at noon
+      But small, appear most long and terrible:
+      So when we think fate hovers o'er our heads,
+      Our apprehensions shoot beyond all bounds:
+      Owls, ravens, crickets, seem the watch of death;
+      Nature's worst vermin scare her godlike sons:
+      Echoes, the very leavings of a voice,
+      Grow babbling ghosts, and call us to our graves.
+      Each mole-hill thought swells to a huge Olympus;
+      While we, fantastic dreamers, heave and puff,
+      And sweat with our imagination's weight.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He expected praises for finding this out. But Belton turning his head from
+      him, Ah, Dick! (said he,) these are not the reflections of a dying man!&mdash;What
+      thou wilt one day feel, if it be what I now feel, will convince thee that
+      the evils before thee, and with thee, are more than the effects of
+      imagination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was called twice on Sunday night to him; for the poor fellow, when his
+      reflections on his past life annoy him most, is afraid of being left with
+      the women; and his eyes, they tell me, hunt and roll about for me. Where's
+      Mr. Belford?&mdash;But I shall tire him out, cries he&mdash;yet beg of him
+      to step to me&mdash;yet don't&mdash;yet do; were once the doubting and
+      changeful orders he gave: and they called me accordingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, alas! What could Belford do for him? Belford, who had been but too
+      often the companion of his guilty hours; who wants mercy as much as he
+      does; and is unable to promise it to himself, though 'tis all he can bid
+      his poor friend rely upon!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What miscreants are we! What figures shall we make in these terrible
+      hours!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If Miss HARLOWE'S glorious example, on one hand, and the terrors of this
+      poor man's last scene on the other, affect me not, I must be abandoned to
+      perdition; as I fear thou wilt be, if thou benefittest not thyself from
+      both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the consolatory things I urged, when I was called up the last time
+      on Sunday night, I told him, that he must not absolutely give himself up
+      to despair: that many of the apprehensions he was under, were such as the
+      best men must have, on the dreadful uncertainty of what was to succeed to
+      this life. 'Tis well observed, said I, by a poetical divine, who was an
+      excellent christian,* That
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        Death could not a more sad retinue find,
+      Sickness and pain before, and darkness all behind.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      * The Rev Mr. Norris, of Bremerton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About eight o'clock yesterday (Monday) morning, I found him a little
+      calmer. He asked me who was the author of the two lines I had repeated to
+      him; and made me speak them over again. A sad retinue, indeed! said the
+      poor man. And then expressing his hopelessness of life, and his terrors at
+      the thoughts of dying; and drawing from thence terrible conclusions with
+      regard to his future state; There is, said I, such a natural aversion to
+      death in human nature, that you are not to imagine, that you, my dear
+      Belton, are singular in the fear of it, and in the apprehensions that fill
+      the thoughtful mind upon its approach; but you ought, as much as possible,
+      to separate those natural fears which all men must have on so solemn an
+      occasion, from those particular ones which your justly-apprehended
+      unfitness fills you with. Mr. Pomfret, in his Prospect of Death, which I
+      dipped into last night from a collection in your closet, which I put into
+      my pocket, says, [and I turned to the place]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      Merely to die, no man of reason fears;
+            For certainly we must,
+            As we are born, return to dust;
+      'Tis the last point of many ling-ring years;
+            But whither then we go,
+            Whither, we fain would know;
+      But human understanding cannot show.
+            This makes US tremble&mdash;&mdash;
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Pomfret, therefore, proceeded I, had such apprehensions of this dark
+      state as you have: and the excellent divine I hinted at last night, who
+      had very little else but human frailties to reproach himself with, and
+      whose miscellanies fell into my hands among my uncle's books in my
+      attendance upon him in his last hours, says,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      It must be done, my soul: but 'tis a strange,
+         A dismal, and mysterious change,
+      When thou shalt leave this tenement of clay,
+         And to an unknown&mdash;somewhere&mdash;wing away;
+      When time shall be eternity, and thou
+         Shalt be&mdash;thou know'st not what&mdash;and live&mdash;
+            thou know'st not how!
+      Amazing state! no wonder that we dread
+         To think of death, or view the dead;
+      Thou'rt all wrapt up in clouds, as if to thee
+            Our very knowledge had antipathy.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Then follows, what I repeated,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        Death could not a more sad retinue find,
+      Sickness and pain before, and darkness all behind.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Alas! my dear Belford [inferred the unhappy deep-thinker] what poor
+      creatures does this convince me we mortals are at best!&mdash;But what
+      then must be the case of such a profligate as I, who by a past wicked life
+      have added greater force to these natural terrors? If death be so
+      repugnant a thing to human nature, that good men will be startled at it,
+      what must it be to one who has lived a life of sense and appetite; nor
+      ever reflected upon the end which I now am within view of?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What could I say to an inference so fairly drawn? Mercy, mercy, unbounded
+      mercy, was still my plea, though his repeated opposition of justice to it,
+      in a manner silenced that plea: and what would I have given to have had
+      rise in my mind, one good, eminently good action to have remembered him
+      of, in order to combat his fears with it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe, Lovelace, I shall tire thee, and that more with the subject of
+      my letter, than even with the length of it. But really, I think thy
+      spirits are so offensively up since thy recovery, that I ought, as the
+      melancholy subjects offer, to endeavour to reduce thee to the standard of
+      humanity, by expatiating upon them. And then thou canst not but be curious
+      to know every thing that concerns the poor man, for whom thou hast always
+      expressed a great regard. I will therefore proceed as I have begun. If
+      thou likest not to read it now, lay it by, if thou wilt, till the like
+      circumstances befall thee, till like reflections from those circumstances
+      seize thee; and then take it up, and compare the two cases together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At his earnest request, I sat up with him last night; and, poor man! it is
+      impossible to tell thee, how easy and safe he thought himself in my
+      company, for the first part of the night: A drowning man will catch at a
+      straw, the proverb well says: and a straw was I, with respect to any real
+      help I could give him. He often awaked in terrors; and once calling out
+      for me, Dear Belford, said he, Where are you!&mdash;Oh! There you are!&mdash;Give
+      me your friendly hand!&mdash;Then grasping it, and putting his clammy,
+      half-cold lips to it&mdash;How kind! I fear every thing when you are
+      absent. But the presence of a friend, a sympathising friend&mdash;Oh! how
+      comfortable!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, about four in the morning, he frighted me much: he waked with three
+      terrible groans; and endeavoured to speak, but could not presently&mdash;and
+      when he did,&mdash;Jack, Jack, Jack, five or six times repeated he as
+      quick as thought, now, now, now, save me, save me, save me&mdash;I am
+      going&mdash;going indeed!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I threw my arms about him, and raised him upon his pillow, as he was
+      sinking (as if to hide himself) in the bed-clothes&mdash;And staring
+      wildly, Where am I? said he, a little recovering. Did you not see him?
+      turning his head this way and that; horror in his countenance; Did you not
+      see him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      See whom, see what, my dear Belton!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O lay me upon the bed again, cried he!&mdash;Let me not die upon the
+      floor!&mdash; Lay me down gently; and stand by me!&mdash;Leave me not!&mdash;All,
+      all will soon be over!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You are already, my dear Belton, upon the bed. You have not been upon the
+      floor. This is a strong delirium; you are faint for want of refreshment
+      [for he had refused several times to take any thing]: let me persuade you
+      to take some of this cordial julap. I will leave you, if you will not
+      oblige me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He then readily took it; but said he could have sworn that Tom. Metcalfe
+      had been in the room, and had drawn him out of bed by the throat,
+      upbraiding him with the injuries he had first done his sister, and then
+      him, in the duel to which he owed that fever which cost him his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou knowest the story, Lovelace, too well, to need my repeating it: but,
+      mercy on us, if in these terrible moments all the evils we do rise to our
+      frighted imaginations!&mdash;If so, what shocking scenes have I, but still
+      what more shocking ones hast thou, to go through, if, as the noble poet
+      says,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      If any sense at that sad time remains!
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The doctor ordered him an opiate this morning early, which operated so
+      well, that he dosed and slept several hours more quietly than he had done
+      for the two past days and nights, though he had sleeping-draughts given
+      him before. But it is more and more evident every hour that nature is
+      almost worn out in him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbray, quite tired with this house of mourning, intends to set out in
+      the morning to find you. He was not a little rejoiced to hear you were in
+      town; I believe to have a pretence to leave us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He has just taken leave of his poor friend, intending to go away early: an
+      everlasting leave, I may venture to say; for I think he will hardly live
+      till to-morrow night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe the poor man would not have been sorry had he left him when I
+      arrived; for 'tis a shocking creature, and enjoys too strong health to
+      know how to pity the sick. Then (to borrow an observation from thee) he
+      has, by nature, strong bodily organs, which those of his soul are not
+      likely to whet out; and he, as well as the wicked friend he is going to,
+      may last a great while from the strength of their constitutions, though so
+      greatly different in their talents, if neither the sword nor the halter
+      interpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must repeat, That I cannot but be very uneasy for the poor lady whom you
+      so cruelly persecute; and that I do not think that you have kept your
+      honour with me. I was apprehensive, indeed, that you would attempt to see
+      her, as soon as you got well enough to come up; and I told her as much,
+      making use of it as an argument to prepare her for your visit, and to
+      induce her to stand it. But she could not, it is plain, bear the shock of
+      it: and indeed she told me that she would not see you, though but for one
+      half-hour, for the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Could she have prevailed upon herself, I know that the sight of her would
+      have been as affecting to you, as your visit could have been to her; when
+      you had seen to what a lovely skeleton (for she is really lovely still,
+      nor can she, with such a form and features, be otherwise) you have, in a
+      few weeks, reduced one of the most charming women in the world; and that
+      in the full bloom of her youth and beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbray undertakes to carry this, that he may be more welcome to you, he
+      says. Were it to be sent unsealed, the characters we write in would be
+      Hebrew to the dunce. I desire you to return it; and I'll give you a copy
+      of it upon demand; for I intend to keep it by me, as a guard against the
+      infection of your company, which might otherwise, perhaps, some time
+      hence, be apt to weaken the impressions I always desire to have of the
+      awful scene before me. God convert us both!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. WEDNESDAY MORN. 11 O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe no man has two such servants as I have. Because I treat them
+      with kindness, and do not lord it over my inferiors, and d&mdash;n and
+      curse them by looks and words like Mowbray; or beat their teeth out like
+      Lovelace; but cry, Pr'ythee, Harry, do this, and, Pr'ythee, Jonathan, do
+      that; the fellows pursue their own devices, and regard nothing I say, but
+      what falls in with these.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, this vile Harry, who might have brought your letter of yesterday in
+      good time, came not in with it till past eleven at night (drunk, I
+      suppose); and concluding that I was in bed, as he pretends (because he was
+      told I sat up the preceding night) brought it not to me; and having
+      overslept himself, just as I had sealed up my letter, in comes the villain
+      with the forgotten one, shaking his ears, and looking as if he himself did
+      not believe the excuses he was going to make. I questioned him about it,
+      and heard his pitiful pleas; and though I never think it becomes a
+      gentleman to treat people insolently who by their stations are humbled
+      beneath his feet, yet could I not forbear to Lovelace and Mowbray him most
+      cordially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And this detaining Mowbray (who was ready to set out to you before) while
+      I write a few lines upon it, the fierce fellow, who is impatient to
+      exchange the company of a dying Belton for that of a too-lively Lovelace,
+      affixed a supplement of curses upon the staring fellow, that was larger
+      than my book&mdash;nor did I offer to take off the bear from such a
+      mongrel, since, on this occasion, he deserved not of me the protection
+      which every master owes to a good servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He has not done cursing him yet; for stalking about the court-yard with
+      his boots on, (the poor fellow dressing his horse, and unable to get from
+      him,) he is at him without mercy; and I will heighten his impatience,
+      (since being just under the window where I am writing, he will not let me
+      attend to my pen,) by telling you how he fills my ears as well as the
+      fellow's, with his&mdash;Hay, Sir! And G&mdash;d d&mdash;n ye, Sir! And
+      were ye my servant, ye dog ye! And must I stay here till the mid-day sun
+      scorches me to a parchment, for such a mangy dog's drunken neglect?&mdash;Ye
+      lie, Sirrah!&mdash;Ye lie, I tell you&mdash;[I hear the fellow's voice in
+      an humble excusatory tone, though not articulately] Ye lie, ye dog!&mdash;I'd
+      a good mind to thrust my whip down your drunken throat: d&mdash;n me, if I
+      would not flay the skin from the back of such a rascal, if thou wert mine,
+      and have dog's-skin gloves made of it, for thy brother scoundrels to wear
+      in remembrance of thy abuses of such a master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor horse suffers for this, I doubt not; for, What now! and, Stand
+      still, and be d&mdash;d to ye, cries the fellow, with a kick, I suppose,
+      which he better deserves himself; for these varlets, where they can, are
+      Mowbrays and Lovelaces to man or beast; and not daring to answer him, is
+      flaying the poor horse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hear the fellow is just escaped, the horse, (better curried than
+      ordinary, I suppose, in half the usual time,) by his clanking shoes, and
+      Mowbray's silence, letting me know, that I may now write on: and so, I
+      will tell thee that, in the first place, (little as I, as well as you,
+      regard dreams,) I would have thee lay thine to heart; for I could give
+      thee such an interpretation of it, as would shock thee, perhaps; and if
+      thou askest me for it, I will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbray calls to me from the court-yard, that 'tis a cursed hot day, and
+      he shall be fried by riding in the noon of it: and that poor Belton longs
+      to see me. So I will only add my earnest desire, that you will give over
+      all thoughts of seeing the lady, if, when this comes to your hand, you
+      have not seen her: and, that it would be kind, if you'd come, and, for the
+      last time you will ever see your poor friend, share my concern for him;
+      and, in him, see what, in a little time, will be your fate and mine, and
+      that of Mowbray, Tourville, and the rest of us&mdash;For what are ten,
+      fifteen, twenty, or thirty years, to look back to; in the longest of which
+      periods forward we shall all perhaps be mingled with the dust from which
+      we sprung?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. WEDNESDAY MORN. AUG. 23.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All alive, dear Jack, and in ecstacy!&mdash;Likely to be once more a happy
+      man! For I have received a letter from my beloved Miss HARLOWE; in
+      consequence, I suppose, of that which I mentioned in my last to be left
+      for her from her sister. And I am setting out for Berks directly, to show
+      the contents to my Lord M. and to receive the congratulations of all my
+      kindred upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went, last night, as I intended, to Smith's: but the dear creature was
+      not returned at near ten o'clock. And, lighting upon Tourville, I took him
+      home with me, and made him sing me out of my megrims. I went to bed
+      tolerably easy at two; had bright and pleasant dreams; (not such of a
+      frightful one as that I gave thee an account of;) and at eight this
+      morning, as I was dressing, to be in readiness against the return of my
+      fellow, whom I had sent to inquire after the lady, I had the following
+      letter brought to me by a chairman:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. TUESDAY NIGHT, 11 O'CLOCK (AUG. 22.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SIR,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have good news to tell you. I am setting out with all diligence for my
+      father's house, I am bid to hope that he will receive his poor penitent
+      with a goodness peculiar to himself; for I am overjoyed with the assurance
+      of a thorough reconciliation, through the interposition of a dear, blessed
+      friend, whom I always loved and honoured. I am so taken up with my
+      preparation for this joyful and long-wished-for journey, that I cannot
+      spare one moment for any other business, having several matters of the
+      last importance to settle first. So, pray, Sir, don't disturb or interrupt
+      me&mdash;I beseech you don't. You may possibly in time see me at my
+      father's; at least if it be not your own fault.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will write a letter, which shall be sent you when I am got thither and
+      received: till when, I am, &amp;c.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CLARISSA HARLOWE. ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I dispatched instantly a letter to the dear creature, assuring her, with
+      the most thankful joy, 'That I would directly set out for Berks, and wait
+      the issue of the happy reconciliation, and the charming hopes she had
+      filled me with. I poured out upon her a thousand blessings. I declared
+      that it should be the study of my whole life to merit such transcendent
+      goodness: and that there was nothing which her father or friends should
+      require at my hands, that I would not for her sake comply with, in order
+      to promote and complete so desirable a reconciliation.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hurried it away without taking a copy of it; and I have ordered the
+      chariot-and-six to be got ready; and hey for M. Hall! Let me but know how
+      Belton does. I hope a letter from thee is on the road. And if the poor
+      fellow can spare thee, make haste, I command thee, to attend this truly
+      divine lady. Thou mayest not else see her of months perhaps; at least, not
+      while she is Miss HARLOWE. And oblige me, if possible, with one letter
+      before she sets out, confirming to me and accounting for this generous
+      change.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what accounting for it is necessary? The dear creature cannot receive
+      consolation herself but she must communicate it to others. How noble! She
+      would not see me in her adversity; but no sooner does the sun of
+      prosperity begin to shine upon her than she forgives me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know to whose mediation all this is owing. It is to Colonel Morden's.
+      She always, as she says, loved and honoured him! And he loved her above
+      all his relations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall now be convinced that there is something in dreams. The opening
+      cloud is the reconciliation in view. The bright form, lifting up my
+      charmer through it to a firmament stuck round with golden cherubims and
+      seraphims, indicates the charming little boys and girls, that will be the
+      fruits of this happy reconciliation. The welcomes, thrice repeated, are
+      those of her family, now no more to be deemed implacable. Yet are they
+      family, too, that my soul cannot mingle with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But then what is my tumbling over and over through the floor into a
+      frightful hole, descending as she ascends? Ho! only this! it alludes to my
+      disrelish to matrimony: Which is a bottomless pit, a gulph, and I know not
+      what. And I suppose, had I not awoke in such a plaguy fright, I had been
+      soused into some river at the bottom of the hole, and then been carried
+      (mundified or purified from my past iniquities,) by the same bright form
+      (waiting for me upon the mossy banks,) to my beloved girl; and we should
+      have gone on cherubiming of it and caroling to the end of the chapter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what are the black sweeping mantles and robes of Lord M. thrown over
+      my face? And what are those of the ladies? O Jack! I have these too: They
+      indicate nothing in the world but that my Lord will be so good as to die,
+      and leave me all he has. So, rest to thy good-natured soul, honest Lord M.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Sarah Sadleir and Lady Betty Lawrance, will also die, and leave me
+      swinging legacies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Charlotte and her sister&mdash;what will become of the?&mdash;Oh!
+      they will be in mourning, of course, for their uncle and aunts&mdash;that's
+      right!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to Morden's flashing through the window, and crying, Die, Lovelace, and
+      be d&mdash;&mdash;d, if thou wilt not repair my cousin's wrong! That is
+      only, that he would have sent me a challenge, had I not been disposed to
+      do the lady justice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All I dislike is this part of the dream: for, even in a dream, I would not
+      be thought to be threatened into any measure, though I liked it ever so
+      well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so much for my prophetic dream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dear charming creature! What a meeting will there be between her and her
+      father and mother and uncles! What transports, what pleasure, will this
+      happy, long-wished-for reconciliation give her dutiful heart! And indeed
+      now methinks I am glad she is so dutiful to them; for her duty to her
+      parents is a conviction to me that she will be as dutiful to her husband:
+      since duty upon principle is an uniform thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why pr'ythee, now, Jack, I have not been so much to blame as thou
+      thinkest: for had it not been for me, who have led her into so much
+      distress, she could neither have received nor given the joy that will now
+      overwhelm them all. So here rises great and durable good out of temporary
+      evil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know they loved her (the pride and glory of their family,) too well to
+      hold out long!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish I could have seen Arabella's letter. She has always been so much
+      eclipsed by her sister, that I dare say she has signified this
+      reconciliation to her with intermingled phlegm and wormwood; and her
+      invitation must certainly runs all in the rock-water style.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall long to see the promised letter too when she is got to her
+      father's, which I hope will give an account of the reception she will meet
+      with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a solemnity, however, I think, in the style of her letter, which
+      pleases and affects me at the same time. But as it is evident she loves me
+      still, and hopes soon to see me at her father's, she could not help being
+      a little solemn, and half-ashamed, [dear blushing pretty rogue!] to own
+      her love, after my usage of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then her subscription: Till when, I am, CLARISSA HARLOWE: as much as
+      to say, after that, I shall be, if not to your own fault, CLARISSA
+      LOVELACE!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O my best love! My ever-generous and adorable creature! How much does this
+      thy forgiving goodness exalt us both!&mdash;Me, for the occasion given
+      thee! Thee, for turning it so gloriously to thy advantage, and to the
+      honour of both!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And if, my beloved creature, you will but connive at the imperfections of
+      your adorer, and not play the wife with me: if, while the charms of
+      novelty have their force with me, I should happen to be drawn aside by the
+      love of intrigue, and of plots that my soul delights to form and pursue;
+      and if thou wilt not be open-eyed to the follies of my youth, [a
+      transitory state;] every excursion shall serve but the more to endear thee
+      to me, till in time, and in a very little time too, I shall get above
+      sense; and then, charmed by thy soul-attracting converse; and brought to
+      despise my former courses; what I now, at distance, consider as a painful
+      duty, will be my joyful choice, and all my delight will centre in thee!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbray is just arrived with thy letters. I therefore close my agreeable
+      subject, to attend to one which I doubt will be very shocking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have engaged the rough varlet to bear me company in the morning to
+      Berks; where I shall file off the rust he has contracted in his attendance
+      upon the poor fellow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He tells me that, between the dying Belton and the preaching Belford, he
+      shan't be his own man these three days: and says that thou addest to the
+      unhappy fellow's weakness, instead of giving him courage to help him to
+      bear his destiny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sorry he takes the unavoidable lot so heavily. But he has been long
+      ill; and sickness enervates the mind as well as the body; as he himself
+      very significantly observed to thee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. WEDN. EVENING.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have been reading thy shocking letter&mdash;Poor Belton! what a
+      multitude of lively hours have we passed together! He was a fearless,
+      cheerful fellow: who'd have thought all that should end in such dejected
+      whimpering and terror?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But why didst thou not comfort the poor man about the rencounter between
+      him and that poltroon Metcalfe? He acted in that affair like a man of true
+      honour, and as I should have acted in the same circumstances. Tell him I
+      say so; and that what happened he could neither help nor foresee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some people are as sensible of a scratch from a pin's point, as others
+      from a push of a sword: and who can say any thing for the sensibility of
+      such fellows? Metcalfe would resent for his sister, when his sister
+      resented not for herself. Had she demanded her brother's protection and
+      resentment, that would have been another man's matte, to speak in Lord
+      M.'s phrase: but she herself thought her brother a coxcomb to busy himself
+      undesired in her affairs, and wished for nothing but to be provided for
+      decently and privately in her lying-in; and was willing to take the chance
+      of Maintenon-ing his conscience in her favour,* and getting him to marry
+      when the little stranger came; for she knew what an easy, good-natured
+      fellow he was. And indeed if she had prevailed upon him, it might have
+      been happy for both; as then he would not have fallen in with his cursed
+      Thomasine. But truly this officious brother of her's must interpose. This
+      made a trifling affair important: And what was the issue? Metcalfe
+      challenged; Belton met him; disarmed him; gave him his life: but the
+      fellow, more sensible in his skin than in his head, having received a
+      scratch, was frighted: it gave him first a puke, then a fever, and then he
+      died, that was all. And how could Belton help that? &mdash;But sickness, a
+      long tedious sickness, will make a bugbear of any thing to a languishing
+      heart, I see that. And so far was Mowbray à-propos in the verses from Nat.
+      Lee, which thou hast described.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * Madam Maintenon was reported to have prevailed upon Lewis XIV. of
+      France, in his old age, (sunk, as he was, by ill success in the field,) to
+      marry her, by way of compounding with his conscience for the freedoms of
+      his past life, to which she attributed his public losses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Merely to die, no man of reason fears, is a mistake, say thou, or say thy
+      author, what ye will. And thy solemn parading about the natural repugnance
+      between life and death, is a proof that it is.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let me tell thee, Jack, that so much am I pleased with this world, in the
+      main; though, in some points too, the world (to make a person of it,) has
+      been a rascal to me; so delighted am I with the joys of youth; with my
+      worldly prospects as to fortune; and now, newly, with the charming hopes
+      given me by my dear, thrice dear, and for ever dear CLARISSA; that were I
+      even sure that nothing bad would come hereafter, I should be very loth
+      (very much afraid, if thou wilt have it so,) to lay down my life and them
+      together; and yet, upon a call of honour, no man fears death less than
+      myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I have not either inclination or leisure to weigh thy leaden
+      arguments, except in the pig, or, as thou wouldst say, in the lump.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If I return thy letters, let me have them again some time hence, that is
+      to say, when I am married, or when poor Belton is half forgotten; or when
+      time has enrolled the honest fellow among those whom we have so long lost,
+      that we may remember them with more pleasure than pain; and then I may
+      give them a serious perusal, and enter with thee as deeply as thou wilt
+      into the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I am married, said I?&mdash;What a sound has that!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must wait with patience for a sight of this charming creature, till she
+      is at her father's. And yet, as the but blossoming beauty, as thou tellest
+      me, is reduced to a shadow, I should have been exceedingly delighted to
+      see her now, and every day till the happy one; that I might have the
+      pleasure of observing how sweetly, hour by hour, she will rise to her
+      pristine glories, by means of that state of ease and contentment, which
+      will take place of the stormy past, upon her reconciliation with her
+      friends, and our happy nuptials.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XX
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Well, but now my heart is a little at ease, I will condescend to take
+      brief notice of some other passages in thy letters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I find I am to thank thee, that the dear creature has avoided my visit.
+      Things are now in so good a train that I must forgive thee; else thou
+      shouldst have heard more of this new instance of disloyalty to thy
+      general.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou art continually giving thyself high praise, by way of opposition, as
+      I may say, to others; gently and artfully blaming thyself for qualities
+      thou wouldst at the same time have to be thought, and which generally are
+      thought, praise-worthy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus, in the airs thou assumest about thy servants, thou wouldst pass for
+      a mighty humane mortal; and that at the expense of Mowbray and me, whom
+      thou representest as kings and emperors to our menials. Yet art thou
+      always unhappy in thy attempts of this kind, and never canst make us, who
+      know thee, believe that to be a virtue in thee, which is but the effect of
+      constitutional phlegm and absurdity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Knowest thou not, that some men have a native dignity in their manner,
+      that makes them more regarded by a look, than either thou canst be in thy
+      low style, or Mowbray in his high?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am fit to be a prince, I can tell thee, for I reward well, and I punish
+      seasonably and properly; and I am generally as well served by any man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The art of governing these underbred varlets lies more in the dignity of
+      looks than in words; and thou art a sorry fellow, to think humanity
+      consists in acting by thy servants, as men must act who are not able to
+      pay them their wages; or had made them masters of secrets, which, if
+      divulged, would lay them at the mercy of such wretches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now to me, who never did any thing I was ashamed to own, and who have more
+      ingenuousness than ever man had; who can call a villany by its own right
+      name, though practised by myself, and (by my own readiness to reproach
+      myself) anticipate all reproach from others; who am not such a hypocrite,
+      as to wish the world to think me other or better than I am&mdash; it is my
+      part, to look a servant into his duty, if I can; nor will I keep one who
+      knows not how to take me by a nod, or a wink; and who, when I smile, shall
+      not be all transport; when I frown, all terror. If, indeed, I am out of
+      the way a little, I always take care to reward the varlets for patiently
+      bearing my displeasure. But this I hardly ever am but when a fellow is
+      egregiously stupid in any plain point of duty, or will be wiser than his
+      master; and when he shall tell me, that he thought acting contrary to my
+      orders was the way to serve me best.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One time or other I will enter the lists with thee upon thy conduct and
+      mine to servants; and I will convince thee, that what thou wouldst have
+      pass for humanity, if it be indiscriminately practised to all tempers,
+      will perpetually subject thee to the evils thou complainest of; and justly
+      too; and that he only is fit to be a master of servants, who can command
+      their attention as much by a nod, as if he were to pr'ythee a fellow to do
+      his duty, on one hand, or to talk of flaying, and horse-whipping, like
+      Mowbray, on the other: for the servant who being used to expect thy
+      creeping style, will always be master of his master, and he who deserves
+      to be treated as the other, is not fit to be any man's servant; nor would
+      I keep such a fellow to rub my horse's heels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall be the readier to enter the lists with thee upon this argument,
+      because I have presumption enough to think that we have not in any of our
+      dramatic poets, that I can at present call to mind, one character of a
+      servant of either sex, that is justly hit off. So absurdly wise some, and
+      so sottishly foolish others; and both sometime in the same person. Foils
+      drawn from lees or dregs of the people to set off the characters of their
+      masters and mistresses; nay, sometimes, which is still more absurd,
+      introduced with more wit than the poet has to bestow upon their
+      principals.&mdash;Mere flints and steels to strike fire with&mdash;or, to
+      vary the metaphor, to serve for whetstones to wit, which, otherwise, could
+      not be made apparent; or, for engines to be made use of like the machinery
+      of the antient poets, (or the still more unnatural soliloquy,) to help on
+      a sorry plot, or to bring about a necessary eclaircissement, to save the
+      poet the trouble of thinking deeply for a better way to wind up his
+      bottoms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of this I am persuaded, (whatever my practice be to my own servants,) that
+      thou wilt be benefited by my theory, when we come to controvert the point.
+      For then I shall convince thee, that the dramatic as well as natural
+      characteristics of a good servant ought to be fidelity, common sense,
+      cheerful obedience, and silent respect; that wit in his station, except to
+      his companions, would be sauciness; that he should never presume to give
+      his advice; that if he venture to expostulate upon any unreasonable
+      command, or such a one a appeared to him to be so, he should do it with
+      humility and respect, and take a proper season for it. But such lessons do
+      most of the dramatic performances I have seen give, where servants are
+      introduced as characters essential to the play, or to act very significant
+      or long parts in it, (which, of itself, I think a fault;) such lessons, I
+      say, do they give to the footmen's gallery, that I have not wondered we
+      have so few modest or good men-servants among those who often attend their
+      masters or mistresses to plays. Then how miserably evident must that
+      poet's conscious want of genius be, who can stoop to raise or give force
+      to a clap by the indiscriminate roar of the party-coloured gallery!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this subject I will suspend to a better opportunity; that is to say,
+      to the happy one, when my nuptials with my Clarissa will oblige me to
+      increase the number of my servants, and of consequence to enter more
+      nicely into their qualifications.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although I have the highest opinion that man can have of the generosity of
+      my dear Miss Harlowe, yet I cannot for the heart of me account for this
+      agreeable change in her temper but one way. Faith and troth, Belford, I
+      verily believe, laying all circumstances together, that the dear creature
+      unexpectedly finds herself in the way I have so ardently wished her to be
+      in; and that this makes her, at last, incline to favour me, that she may
+      set the better face upon her gestation, when at her father's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If this be the case, all her falling away, and her fainting fits, are
+      charmingly accounted for. Nor is it surprising, that such a sweet novice
+      in these matters should not, for some time, have known to what to
+      attribute her frequent indispositions. If this should be the case, how I
+      shall laugh at thee! and (when I am sure of her) at the dear novice
+      herself, that all her grievous distresses shall end in a man-child; which
+      I shall love better than all the cherubims and seraphims that may come
+      after; though there were to be as many of them as I beheld in my dream; in
+      which a vast expanse of firmament was stuck as full of them as it could
+      hold!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall be afraid to open thy next, lest it bring me the account of poor
+      Belton's death. Yet, as there are no hopes of his recovery&mdash;but what
+      should I say, unless the poor man were better fitted&mdash;but thy heavy
+      sermon shall not affect me too much neither.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I enclose thy papers; and do thou transcribe them for me, or return them;
+      for there are some things in them, which, at a proper season, a mortal man
+      should not avoid attending to; and thou seemest to have entered deeply
+      into the shocking subject.&mdash;But here I will end, lest I grow too
+      serious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thy servant called here about an hour ago, to know if I had any commands;
+      I therefore hope that thou wilt have this early in the morning. And if
+      thou canst let me hear from thee, do. I'll stretch an hour or two in
+      expectation of it. Yet I must be at Lord M.'s to-morrow night, if
+      possible, though ever so late.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thy fellow tells me the poor man is much as he was when Mowbray left him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wouldst thou think that this varlet Mowbray is sorry that I am so near
+      being happy with Miss Harlowe? And, 'egad, Jack, I know not what to say to
+      it, now the fruit seems to be within my reach&mdash;but let what will
+      come, I'll stand to't: for I find I can't live without her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. WEDNESDAY, THREE O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will proceed where I left off in my last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as I had seen Mowbray mounted, I went to attend upon poor Belton;
+      whom I found in dreadful agonies, in which he awoke, after he generally
+      does.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor came in presently after, and I was concerned at the scene that
+      passed between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It opened with the dying man's asking him, with melancholy earnestness, if
+      nothing&mdash;if nothing at all could be done for him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor shook his head, and told him, he doubted not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I cannot die, said the poor man&mdash;I cannot think of dying. I am very
+      desirous of living a little longer, if I could but be free from these
+      horrible pains in my stomach and head. Can you give me nothing to make me
+      pass one week&mdash;but one week, in tolerable ease, that I may die like a
+      man, if I must die!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, Doctor, I am yet a young man; in the prime of my years&mdash;youth is
+      a good subject for a physician to work upon&mdash;Can you do nothing&mdash;nothing
+      at all for me, Doctor?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alas! Sir, replied his physician, you have been long in a bad way. I fear,
+      I fear, nothing in physic can help you!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was then out of all patience: What, then, is your art, Sir?&mdash;I
+      have been a passive machine for a whole twelvemonth, to be wrought upon at
+      the pleasure of you people of the faculty.&mdash;I verily believe, had I
+      not taken such doses of nasty stuff, I had been now a well man&mdash;But
+      who the plague would regard physicians, whose art is to cheat us with
+      hopes while they help to destroy us?&mdash;And who, not one of you, know
+      any thing but by guess?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir, continued he, fiercely, (and with more strength of voice and
+      coherence, than he had shown for several hours before,) if you give me
+      over, I give you over.&mdash;The only honest and certain part of the art
+      of healing is surgery. A good surgeon is worth a thousand of you. I have
+      been in surgeons' hands often, and have always found reason to depend upon
+      their skill; but your art, Sir, what is it?&mdash;but to daub, daub, daub;
+      load, load, load; plaster, plaster, plaster; till ye utterly destroy the
+      appetite first, and the constitution afterwards, which you are called in
+      to help. I had a companion once, my dear Belford, thou knewest honest
+      Blomer, as pretty a physician he would have made as any in England, had he
+      kept himself from excess in wine and women; and he always used to say,
+      there was nothing at all but the pick-pocket parade in the physician's
+      art; and that the best guesser was the best physician. And I used to
+      believe him too&mdash;and yet, fond of life, and fearful of death, what do
+      we do, when we are taken ill, but call ye in? And what do ye do, when
+      called in, but nurse our distempers, till from pigmies you make giants of
+      them? and then ye come creeping with solemn faces, when ye are ashamed to
+      prescribe, or when the stomach won't bear its natural food, by reason of
+      your poisonous potions,&mdash;Alas, I am afraid physic can do no more for
+      him!&mdash;Nor need it, when it has brought to the brink of the grave the
+      poor wretch who placed all his reliance in your cursed slops, and the
+      flattering hopes you gave him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor was out of countenance; but said, if we could make mortal men
+      immortal, and would not, all this might be just.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I blamed the poor man; yet excused him to the physician. To die, dear
+      Doctor, when, like my poor friend, we are so desirous of life, is a
+      melancholy thing. We are apt to hope too much, not considering that the
+      seeds of death are sown in us when we begin to live, and grow up, till,
+      like rampant weeds, they choke the tender flower of life; which declines
+      in us as those weeds flourish. We ought, therefore, to begin early to
+      study what our constitutions will bear, in order to root out, by
+      temperance, the weeds which the soil is most apt to produce; or, at least,
+      to keep them down as they rise; and not, when the flower or plant is
+      withered at the root, and the weed in its full vigour, expect, that the
+      medical art will restore the one, or destroy the other; when that other,
+      as I hinted, has been rooting itself in the habit from the time of our
+      birth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This speech, Bob., thou wilt call a prettiness; but the allegory is just;
+      and thou hast not quite cured me of the metaphorical.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Very true, said the doctor; you have brought a good metaphor to illustrate
+      the thing. I am sorry I can do nothing for the gentleman; and can only
+      recommend patience, and a better frame of mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, Sir, said the poor angry man, vexed at the doctor, but more at
+      death, you will perhaps recommend the next succession to the physician,
+      when he can do no more; and, I suppose, will send your brother to pray by
+      me for those virtues which you wish me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seems the physician's brother is a clergyman in the neighbourhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was greatly concerned to see the gentleman thus treated; and so I told
+      poor Belton when he was gone; but he continued impatient, and would not be
+      denied, he said, the liberty of talking to a man, who had taken so many
+      guineas of him for doing nothing, or worse than nothing, and never
+      declined one, though he know all the time he could do him no good.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seems the gentleman, though rich, is noted for being greedy after fees!
+      and poor Belton went on raving at the extravagant fees of English
+      physicians, compared with those of the most eminent foreign ones. But,
+      poor man! he, like the Turks, who judge of a general by his success, (out
+      of patience to think he must die,) would have worshipped the doctor, and
+      not grudged thee times the sum, could he have given him hopes of recovery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, nevertheless, I must needs say, that gentlemen of the faculty should
+      be more moderate in their fees, or take more pains to deserve them; for,
+      generally, they only come into a room, feel the sick man's pulse, ask the
+      nurse a few questions, inspect the patient's tongue, and, perhaps, his
+      water; then sit down, look plaguy wise, and write. The golden fee finds
+      the ready hand, and they hurry away, as if the sick man's room were
+      infectious. So to the next they troll, and to the next, if men of great
+      practice; valuing themselves upon the number of visits they make in a
+      morning, and the little time they make them in. They go to dinner and
+      unload their pockets; and sally out again to refill them. And thus, in a
+      little time, they raise vast estates; for, as Ratcliffe said, when first
+      told of a great loss which befell him, It was only going up and down one
+      hundred pairs of stairs to fetch it up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Sambre (Belton's sister) had several times proposed to him a minister
+      to pray by him, but the poor man could not, he said, bear the thoughts of
+      one; for that he should certainly die in an hour or two after; and he was
+      willing to hope still, against all probability, that he might recover; and
+      was often asking his sister if she had not seen people as bad as he was,
+      who, almost to a miracle, when every body gave them over, had got up
+      again?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She, shaking her head, told him she had; but, once saying, that their
+      disorders were of an acute kind, and such as had a crisis in them, he
+      called her Small-hopes, and Job's comforter; and bid her say nothing, if
+      she could not say more to the purpose, and what was fitter for a sick man
+      to hear. And yet, poor fellow, he has no hopes himself, as is plain by his
+      desponding terrors; one of which he fell into, and a very dreadful one,
+      soon after the doctor went.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      *** WEDNESDAY, NINE O'CLOCK AT NIGHT.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor man had been in convulsions, terrible convulsions! for an hour
+      past. O Lord! Lovelace, death is a shocking thing! by my faith it is!&mdash;
+      I wish thou wert present on this occasion. It is not merely the concern a
+      man has for his friend; but, as death is the common lot, we see, in his
+      agonies, how it will be one day with ourselves. I am all over as if cold
+      water were poured down my back, or as if I had a strong ague-fit upon me.
+      I was obliged to come away. And I write, hardly knowing what.&mdash;I wish
+      thou wert here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though I left him, because I could stay no longer, I can't be easy by
+      myself, but must go to him again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ELEVEN O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Belton!&mdash;Drawing on apace! Yet was he sensible when I went in&mdash;too
+      sensible, poor man! He has something upon his mind to reveal, he tells me,
+      that is the worst action of his life; worse than ever you or I knew of
+      him, he says. It must then be very bad!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He ordered every body out; but was seized with another convulsion-fit,
+      before he could reveal it; and in it he lies struggling between life and
+      death&mdash;but I'll go in again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ONE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All now must soon be over with him: Poor, poor fellow! He has given me
+      some hints of what he wanted to say; but all incoherent, interrupted by
+      dying hiccoughs and convulsions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bad enough it must be, Heaven knows, by what I can gather!&mdash;Alas!
+      Lovelace, I fear, I fear, he came too soon into his uncle's estate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If a man were to live always, he might have some temptation to do base
+      things, in order to procure to himself, as it would then be, everlasting
+      ease, plenty, or affluence; but, for the sake of ten, twenty, thirty years
+      of poor life to be a villain&mdash;Can that be worth while? with a
+      conscience stinging him all the time too! And when he comes to wind up
+      all, such agonizing reflections upon his past guilt! All then appearing as
+      nothing! What he most valued, most disgustful! and not one thing to think
+      of, as the poor fellow says twenty and twenty times over, but what is
+      attended with anguish and reproach!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To hear the poor man wish he had never been born!&mdash;To hear him pray
+      to be nothing after death! Good God! how shocking!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By his incoherent hints, I am afraid 'tis very bad with him. No pardon, no
+      mercy, he repeats, can lie for him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope I shall make a proper use of this lesson. Laugh at me if thou wilt;
+      but never, never more, will I take the liberties I have taken; but
+      whenever I am tempted, will think of Belton's dying agonies, and what my
+      own may be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      *** THURSDAY, THREE IN THE MORNING.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He is now at the last gasp&mdash;rattles in the throat&mdash;has a new
+      convulsion every minute almost! What horror is he in! His eyes look like
+      breath-stained glass! They roll ghastly no more; are quite set; his face
+      distorted, and drawn out, by his sinking jaws, and erected staring
+      eyebrows, with his lengthened furrowed forehead, to double its usual
+      length, as it seems. It is not, it cannot be the face of Belton, thy
+      Belton, and my Belton, whom we have beheld with so much delight over the
+      social bottle, comparing notes, that one day may be brought against us,
+      and make us groan, as they very lately did him&mdash;that is to say, while
+      he had strength to groan; for now his voice is not to be heard; all
+      inward, lost; not so much as speaking by his eyes; yet, strange! how can
+      it be? the bed rocking under him like a cradle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FOUR O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      Alas: he's gone! that groan, that dreadful groan,
+      Was the last farewell of the parting mind!
+      The struggling soul has bid a long adieu
+      To its late mansion&mdash;Fled!  Ah! whither fled?
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Now is all indeed over!&mdash;Poor, poor Belton! by this time thou knowest
+      if thy crimes were above the size of God's mercies! Now are every one's
+      cares and attendance at an end! now do we, thy friends,&mdash;poor Belton!&mdash;
+      know the worst of thee, as to this life! Thou art released from
+      insufferable tortures both of body and mind! may those tortures, and thy
+      repentance, expiate for thy offences, and mayest thou be happy to all
+      eternity!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We are told, that God desires not the death, the spiritual death of a
+      sinner: And 'tis certain, that thou didst deeply repent! I hope,
+      therefore, as thou wert not cut off in the midst of thy sins by the sword
+      of injured friendship, which more than once thou hadst braved, [the
+      dreadfullest of all deaths, next to suicide, because it gives no
+      opportunity for repentance] that this is a merciful earnest that thy
+      penitence is accepted; and that thy long illness, and dreadful agonies in
+      the last stages of it, were thy only punishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish indeed, I heartily wish, we could have seen one ray of comfort
+      darting in upon his benighted mind, before he departed. But all, alas! to
+      the very last gasp, was horror and confusion. And my only fear arises from
+      this, that, till within the four last days of his life, he could not be
+      brought to think he should die, though in a visible decline for months;
+      and, in that presumption, was too little inclined to set about a serious
+      preparation for a journey, which he hoped he should not be obliged to
+      take; and when he began to apprehend that he could not put it off, his
+      impatience, and terror, and apprehension, showed too little of that
+      reliance and resignation, which afford the most comfortable reflections to
+      the friends of the dying, as well as to the dying themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But we must leave poor Belton to that mercy, of which we have all so much
+      need; and, for my own part (do you, Lovelace, and the rest of the
+      fraternity, as ye will) I am resolved, I will endeavour to begin to repent
+      of my follies while my health is sound, my intellects untouched, and while
+      it is in my power to make some atonement, as near to restitution or
+      reparation, as is possible, to those I have wronged or misled. And do ye
+      outwardly, and from a point of false bravery, make as light as ye will of
+      my resolution, as ye are none of ye of the class of abandoned and stupid
+      sots who endeavour to disbelieve the future existence of which ye are
+      afraid, I am sure you will justify me in your hearts, if not by your
+      practices; and one day you will wish you had joined with me in the same
+      resolution, and will confess there is more good sense in it, than now
+      perhaps you will own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SEVEN O'CLOCK, THURSDAY MORNING.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You are very earnest, by your last letter, (just given me) to hear again
+      from me, before you set out for Berks. I will therefore close with a few
+      words upon the only subject in your letter which I can at present touch
+      upon: and this is the letter of which you give me a copy from the lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Want of rest, and the sad scene I have before my eyes, have rendered me
+      altogether incapable of accounting for the contents of it in any shape.
+      You are in ecstacies upon it. You have reason to be so, if it be as you
+      think. Nor would I rob you of your joy: but I must say I am amazed at it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Surely, Lovelace, this surprising letter cannot be a forgery of thy own,
+      in order to carry on some view, and to impose upon me. Yet, by the style
+      of it, it cannot though thou art a perfect Proteus too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will not, however, add another word, after I have desired the return of
+      this, and have told you that I am
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your true friend, and well-wisher, J. BELFORD.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. AUG. 24, THURSDAY MORNING.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I received thy letter in such good time, by thy fellow's dispatch, that it
+      gives me an opportunity of throwing in a few paragraphs upon it. I read a
+      passage or two of it to Mowbray; and we both agree that thou art an
+      absolute master of the lamentable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Belton! what terrible conflicts were thy last conflicts!&mdash;I
+      hope, however, that he is happy: and I have the more hope, because the
+      hardness of his death is likely to be such a warning to thee. If it have
+      the effect thou declarest it shall have, what a world of mischief will it
+      prevent! how much good will it do! how many poor wretches will rejoice at
+      the occasion, (if they know it,) however melancholy in itself, which shall
+      bring them in a compensation for injuries they had been forced to sit down
+      contented with! But, Jack, though thy uncle's death has made thee a rich
+      fellow, art thou sure that the making good of such a vow will not totally
+      bankrupt thee?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou sayest I may laugh at thee, if I will. Not I, Jack: I do not take it
+      to be a laughing subject: and I am heartily concerned at the loss we all
+      have in poor Belton: and when I get a little settled, and have leisure to
+      contemplate the vanity of all sublunary things (a subject that will
+      now-and-then, in my gayest hours, obtrude itself upon me) it is very
+      likely that I may talk seriously with thee upon these topics; and, if thou
+      hast not got too much the start of me in the repentance thou art entering
+      upon, will go hand-in-hand with thee in it. If thou hast, thou wilt let me
+      just keep thee in my eye; for it is an up-hill work; and I shall see thee,
+      at setting out, at a great distance; but as thou art a much heavier and
+      clumsier fellow than myself, I hope that without much puffing and
+      sweating, only keeping on a good round dog-trot, I shall be able to
+      overtake thee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mean time, take back thy letter, as thou desirest. I would not have it in
+      my pocket upon any account at present; nor read it once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am going down without seeing my beloved. I was a hasty fool to write her
+      a letter, promising that I would not come near her till I saw her at her
+      father's. For as she is now actually at Smith's, and I so near her, one
+      short visit could have done no harm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sent Will., two hours ago, with my grateful compliments, and to know how
+      she does.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How must I adore this charming creature! for I am ready to think my
+      servant a happier fellow than myself, for having been within a pair of
+      stairs and an apartment of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbray and I will drop a tear a-piece, as we ride along, to the memory of
+      poor Belton:&mdash;as we ride along, said I: for we shall have so much joy
+      when we arrive at Lord M.'s, and when I communicate to him and my cousins
+      the dear creature's letter, that we shall forget every thing grievous:
+      since now their family-hopes in my reformation (the point which lies so
+      near their hearts) will all revive; it being an article of their faith,
+      that if I marry, repentance and mortification will follow of course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither Mowbray nor I shall accept of thy verbal invitation to the
+      funeral. We like not these dismal formalities. And as to the respect that
+      is supposed to be shown to the memory of a deceased friend in such an
+      attendance, why should we do any thing to reflect upon those who have made
+      it a fashion to leave this parade to people whom they hire for that
+      purpose?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adieu, and be cheerful. Thou canst now do no more for poor Belton, wert
+      thou to howl for him to the end of thy life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. SAT. AUG. 26.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Thursday afternoon I assisted at the opening of poor Belton's will, in
+      which he has left me his sole executor, and bequeathed me a legacy of an
+      hundred guineas; which I shall present to his unfortunate sister, to whom
+      he has not been so kind as I think he ought to have been. He has also left
+      twenty pounds a-piece to Mowbray, Tourville, thyself, and me, for a ring
+      to be worn in remembrance of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After I had given some particular orders about the preparations to be made
+      for his funeral, I went to town; but having made it late before I got in
+      on Thursday night, and being fatigued for want of rest several nights
+      before, and now in my spirits, [I could not help it, Lovelace!] I
+      contented myself to send my compliments to the innocent sufferer, to
+      inquire after her health.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My servant saw Mrs. Smith, who told him, she was very glad I was come to
+      town; for that lady was worse than she had yet been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is impossible to account for the contents of her letter to you; or to
+      reconcile those contents to the facts I have to communicate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was at Smith's by seven yesterday (Friday) morning; and found that the
+      lady was just gone in a chair to St. Dunstan's to prayers: she was too ill
+      to get out by six to Covent-garden church; and was forced to be supported
+      to her chair by Mrs. Lovick. They would have persuaded her against going;
+      but she said she knew not but it would be her last opportunity. Mrs.
+      Lovick, dreading that she would be taken worse at church, walked thither
+      before her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Smith told me she was so ill on Wednesday night, that she had desired
+      to receive the sacrament; and accordingly it was administered to her, by
+      the parson of the parish: whom she besought to take all opportunities of
+      assisting her in her solemn preparation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This the gentleman promised: and called in the morning to inquire after
+      her health; and was admitted at the first word. He staid with her about
+      half an hour; and when he came down, with his face turned aside, and a
+      faltering accent, 'Mrs. Smith,' said he, 'you have an angel in your house.&mdash;I
+      will attend her again in the evening, as she desires, and as often as I
+      think it will be agreeable to her.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her increased weakness she attributed to the fatigues she had undergone by
+      your means; and to a letter she had received from her sister, which she
+      answered the same day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Smith told me that two different persons had called there, one on
+      Thursday morning, one in the evening, to inquire after her state of
+      health; and seemed as if commissioned from her relations for that purpose;
+      but asked not to see her, only were very inquisitive after her visiters:
+      (particularly, it seems, after me: What could they mean by that?) after
+      her way of life, and expenses; and one of them inquired after her manner
+      of supporting them; to the latter of which, Mrs. Smith said, she had
+      answered, as the truth was, that she had been obliged to sell some of her
+      clothes, and was actually about parting with more; at which the inquirist
+      (a grave old farmer-looking man) held up his hands, and said, Good God!&mdash;this
+      will be sad, sad news to somebody! I believe I must not mention it. But
+      Mrs. Smith says she desired he would, let him come from whom he would. He
+      shook his head, and said if she died, the flower of the world would be
+      gone, and the family she belonged to would be no more than a common
+      family.* I was pleased with the man's expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * This man came from her cousin Morden; as will be seen hereafter, Letters
+      LII. and LVI. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You may be curious to know how she passed her time, when she was obliged
+      to leave her lodging to avoid you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Smith tells me 'that she was very ill when she went out on Monday
+      morning, and sighed as if her heart would break as she came down stairs,
+      and as she went through the shop into the coach, her nurse with her, as
+      you had informed me before: that she ordered the coachman (whom she hired
+      for the day) to drive any where, so it was into the air: he accordingly
+      drove her to Hampstead, and thence to Highgate. There at the Bowling-green
+      House, she alighted, extremely ill, and having breakfasted, ordered the
+      coachman to drive very slowly any where. He crept along to Muswell-hill,
+      and put up at a public house there; where she employed herself two hours
+      in writing, though exceedingly weak and low, till the dinner she had
+      ordered was brought in: she endeavoured to eat, but could not: her
+      appetite was gone, quite gone, she said. And then she wrote on for three
+      hours more: after which, being heavy, she dozed a little in an
+      elbow-chair. When she awoke, she ordered the coachman to drive her very
+      slowly to town, to the house of a friend of Mrs. Lovick; whom, as agreed
+      upon, she met there: but, being extremely ill, she would venture home at a
+      late hour, although she heard from the widow that you had been there; and
+      had reason to be shocked at your behaviour. She said she found there was
+      no avoiding you: she was apprehensive she should not live many hours, and
+      it was not impossible but the shock the sight of you must give her would
+      determine her fate in your presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She accordingly went home. She heard the relation of your astonishing
+      vagaries, with hands and eyes often lifted up; and with these words
+      intermingled, Shocking creature! incorrigible wretch! And will nothing
+      make him serious? And not being able to bear the thoughts of an interview
+      with a man so hardened, she took to her usual chair early in the morning,
+      and was carried to the Temple-stairs, where she had ordered her nurse
+      before her, to get a pair of oars in readiness (for her fatigues the day
+      before made her unable to bear a coach;) and then she was rowed to
+      Chelsea, where she breakfasted; and after rowing about, put in at the Swan
+      at Brentford-ait, where she dined; and would have written, but had no
+      conveniency either of tolerable pens, or ink, or private room; and then
+      proceeding to Richmond, they rowed her back to Mort-lake; where she put
+      in, and drank tea at a house her waterman recommended to her. She wrote
+      there for an hour; and returned to the Temple; and, when she landed, made
+      one of the watermen get her a chair, and so was carried to the widow's
+      friend, as the night before; where she again met the widow, who informed
+      her that you had been after her twice that day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mrs. Lovick gave her there her sister's letter;* and she was so much
+      affected with the contents of it, that she was twice very nigh fainting
+      away; and wept bitterly, as Mrs. Lovick told Mrs. Smith; dropping some
+      warmer expressions than ever they had heard proceed from her lips, in
+      relation to her friends; calling them cruel, and complaining of ill
+      offices done her, and of vile reports raised against her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter XXVI. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'While she was thus disturbed, Mrs. Smith came to her, and told her, that
+      you had been there a third time, and was just gone, (at half an hour after
+      nine,) having left word how civil and respectful you would be; but that
+      you was determined to see her at all events.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She said it was hard she could not be permitted to die in peace: that her
+      lot was a severe one: that she began to be afraid she should not forbear
+      repining, and to think her punishment greater than her fault: but,
+      recalling herself immediately, she comforted herself, that her life would
+      be short, and with the assurance of a better.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By what I have mentioned, you will conclude with me, that the letter
+      brought her by Mrs. Lovick (the superscription of which you saw to be
+      written in her sister's hand) could not be the letter on the contents of
+      which she grounded that she wrote to you, on her return home. And yet
+      neither Mrs. Lovick, nor Mrs. Smith, nor the servant of the latter, know
+      of any other brought her. But as the women assured me, that she actually
+      did write to you, I was eased of a suspicion which I had begun to
+      entertain, that you (for some purpose I could not guess at) had forged the
+      letter from her of which you sent me a copy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Wednesday morning, when she received your letter, in answer to her's,
+      she said, Necessity may well be called the mother of invention&mdash;but
+      calamity is the test of integrity.&mdash;I hope I have not taken an
+      inexcusable step&mdash;And there she stopt a minute or two; and then said,
+      I shall now, perhaps, be allowed to die in peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I staid till she came in. She was glad to see me; but, being very weak,
+      said, she must sit down before she could go up stairs: and so went into
+      the back-shop; leaning upon Mrs. Lovick: and when she had sat down, 'I am
+      glad to see you, Mr. Belford, said she; I must say so&mdash;let
+      mis-reporters say what they will.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wondered at this expression;* but would not interrupt her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * Explained in Letter XXVIII. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O Sir, said she, I have been grievously harassed. Your friend, who would
+      not let me live with reputation, will not permit me to die in peace. You
+      see how I am. Is there not a great alteration in me within this week! but
+      'tis all for the better. Yet were I to wish for life, I must say that your
+      friend, your barbarous friend, has hurt me greatly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was so weak, so short breathed, and her words and actions so very
+      moving, that I was forced to walk from her; the two women and her nurse
+      turning away their faces also, weeping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have had, Madam, said I, since I saw you, a most shocking scene before
+      my eyes for days together. My poor friend Belton is no more. He quitted
+      the world yesterday morning in such dreadful agonies, that the impression
+      they have left upon me have so weakened my mind&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was loth to have her think that my grief was owing to the weak state I
+      saw her in, for fear of dispiriting her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That is only, Mr. Belford, interrupted she, in order to strengthen it, if
+      a proper use be made of the impression. But I should be glad, since you
+      are so humanely affected with the solemn circumstance, that you could have
+      written an account of it to your gay friend, in the style and manner you
+      are master of. Who knows, as it would have come from an associate, and of
+      an associate, it might have affected him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That I had done, I told her, in such a manner as had, I believed, some
+      effect upon you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His behaviour in this honest family so lately, said she, and his cruel
+      pursuit of me, give me but little hope that any thing serious or solemn
+      will affect him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had some talk about Belton's dying behaviour, and I gave her several
+      particulars of the poor man's impatience and despair; to which she was
+      very attentive; and made fine observations upon the subject of
+      procrastination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A letter and packet were brought her by a man on horseback from Miss Howe,
+      while we were talking. She retired up stairs to read it; and while I was
+      in discourse with Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick, the doctor and apothecary
+      both came in together. They confirmed to me my fears, as to the dangerous
+      way she is in. They had both been apprized of the new instances of
+      implacableness in her friends, and of your persecutions: and the doctor
+      said he would not for the world be either the unforgiving father of that
+      lady, or the man who had brought her to this distress. Her heart's broken:
+      she'll die, said he: there is no saving her. But how, were I either the
+      one or the other of the people I have named, I should support myself
+      afterwards, I cannot tell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she was told we were all three together, she desired us to walk up.
+      She arose to receive us, and after answering two or three general
+      questions relating to her health, she addressed herself to us, to the
+      following effect:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I may not, said she, see you three gentlemen together again, let me
+      take this opportunity to acknowledge my obligations to you all. I am
+      inexpressibly obliged to you, Sir, and to you, Sir, [courtesying to the
+      doctor and to Mr. Goddard] for your more than friendly, your paternal care
+      and concern for me. Humanity in your profession, I dare say, is far from
+      being a rare qualification, because you are gentlemen by your profession:
+      but so much kindness, so much humanity, did never desolate creature meet
+      with, as I have met with from you both. But indeed I have always observed,
+      that where a person relies upon Providence, it never fails to raise up a
+      new friend for every old one that falls off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This gentleman, [bowing to me,] who, some people think, should have been
+      one of the last I should have thought of for my executor&mdash;is,
+      nevertheless, (such is the strange turn that things have taken!) the only
+      one I can choose; and therefore I have chosen him for that charitable
+      office, and he has been so good as to accept of it: for, rich as I may
+      boast myself to be, I am rather so in right than in fact, at this present.
+      I repeat, therefore, my humble thanks to you all three, and beg of God to
+      return to you and yours [looking to each] an hundred-fold, the kindness
+      and favour you have shown me; and that it may be in the power of you and
+      of yours, to the end of time, to confer benefits, rather than to be
+      obliged to receive them. This is a godlike power, gentlemen: I once
+      rejoiced in it some little degree; and much more in the prospect I had of
+      its being enlarged to me; though I have had the mortification to
+      experience the reverse, and to be obliged almost to every body I have seen
+      or met with: but all, originally, through my own fault; so I ought to bear
+      the punishment without repining: and I hope I do. Forgive these
+      impertinencies: a grateful heart, that wants the power it wishes for, to
+      express itself suitably to its own impulses, will be at a loss what
+      properly to dictate to the tongue; and yet, unable to restrain its
+      overflowings, will force the tongue to say weak and silly things, rather
+      than appear ungratefully silent. Once more, then, I thank ye all three for
+      your kindness to me: and God Almighty make you that amends which at
+      present I cannot!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She retired from us to her closet with her eyes full; and left us looking
+      upon one another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had hardly recovered ourselves, when she, quite easy, cheerful, and
+      smiling, returned to us: Doctor, said she (seeing we had been moved) you
+      will excuse me for the concern I give you; and so will you, Mr. Goddard,
+      and you, Mr. Belford; for 'tis a concern that only generous natures can
+      show: and to such natures sweet is the pain, if I may say so, that attends
+      such a concern. But as I have some few preparations still to make, and
+      would not (though in ease of Mr. Belford's future cares, which is, and
+      ought to be, part of my study) undertake more than it is likely I shall
+      have time lent me to perform, I would beg of you to give me your opinions
+      [you see my way of living, and you may be assured that I will do nothing
+      wilfully to shorten my life] how long it may possibly be, before I may
+      hope to be released from all my troubles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They both hesitated, and looked upon each other. Don't be afraid to answer
+      me, said she, each sweet hand pressing upon the arm of each gentleman,
+      with that mingled freedom and reserve, which virgin modesty, mixed with
+      conscious dignity, can only express, and with a look serenely earnest,
+      tell me how long you think I may hold it! and believe me, gentlemen, the
+      shorter you tell me my time is likely to be, the more comfort you will
+      give me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With what pleasing woe, said the Doctor, do you fill the minds of those
+      who have the happiness to converse with you, and see the happy frame you
+      are in! what you have undergone within a few days past has much hurt you:
+      and should you have fresh troubles of those kinds, I could not be
+      answerable for your holding it&mdash;And there he paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How long, Doctor?&mdash;I believe I shall have a little more ruffling&mdash;I
+      am afraid I shall&mdash;but there can happen only one thing that I shall
+      not be tolerably easy under&mdash;How long then, Sir?&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A fortnight, Sir?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was still silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ten days?&mdash;A week?&mdash;How long, Sir? with smiling earnestness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If I must speak, Madam, if you have not better treatment than you have
+      lately met with, I am afraid&mdash;There again he stopt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Afraid of what, Doctor? don't be afraid&mdash;How long, Sir?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That a fortnight or three weeks may deprive the world of the finest flower
+      in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A fortnight or three weeks yet, Doctor?&mdash;But God's will be done! I
+      shall, however, by this means, have full time, if I have but strength and
+      intellect, to do all that is now upon my mind to do. And so, Sirs, I can
+      but once more thank you [turning to each of us] for all your goodness to
+      me; and, having letters to write, will take up no more of your time&mdash;Only,
+      Doctor, be pleased to order me some more of those drops: they cheer me a
+      little, when I am low; and putting a fee into his unwilling hand&mdash;You
+      know the terms, Sir!&mdash;Then, turning to Mr. Goddard, you'll be so
+      good, Sir, as to look in upon me to-night or to-morrow, as you have
+      opportunity: and you, Mr. Belford, I know, will be desirous to set out to
+      prepare for the last office for your late friend: so I wish you a good
+      journey, and hope to see you when that is performed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She then retired with a cheerful and serene air. The two gentlemen went
+      away together. I went down to the women, and, inquiring, found, that Mrs.
+      Lovick was this day to bring her twenty guineas more, for some other of
+      her apparel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The widow told me that she had taken the liberty to expostulate with her
+      upon the occasion she had for raising this money, to such great
+      disadvantage; and it produced the following short and affecting
+      conversation between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      None of my friends will wear any thing of mine, said she. I shall leave a
+      great many good things behind me.&mdash;And as to what I want the money
+      for &mdash;don't be surprised:&mdash;But suppose I want it to purchase a
+      house?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You are all mystery, Madam. I don't comprehend you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why, then, Mrs. Lovick, I will explain myself.&mdash;I have a man, not a
+      woman, for my executor: and think you that I will leave to his care any
+      thing that concerns my own person?&mdash;Now, Mrs. Lovick, smiling, do you
+      comprehend me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lovick wept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O fie! proceeded the Lady, drying up her tears with her own handkerchief,
+      and giving her a kiss&mdash;Why this kind weakness for one with whom you
+      have been so little while acquainted? Dear, good Mrs. Lovick, don't be
+      concerned for me on a prospect with which I have occasion to be pleased;
+      but go to-morrow to your friends, and bring me the money they have agreed
+      to give you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus, Lovelace, it is plain she means to bespeak her last house! Here's
+      presence of mind; here's tranquillity of heart, on the most affecting
+      occasion&mdash;This is magnanimity indeed!&mdash;Couldst thou, or could I,
+      with all our boisterous bravery, and offensive false courage, act thus?&mdash;Poor
+      Belton! how unlike was thy behaviour!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lovick tells me that the lady spoke of a letter she had received from
+      her favourite divine Dr. Lewen, in the time of my absence; and of an
+      letter she had returned to it. But Mrs. Lovick knows not the contents of
+      either.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When thou receivest the letter I am now writing, thou wilt see what will
+      soon be the end of all thy injuries to this divine lady. I say when thou
+      receivest it; for I will delay it for some little time, lest thou
+      shouldest take it into thy head (under pretence of resenting the
+      disappointment her letter must give thee) to molest her again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This letter having detained me by its length, I shall not now set out for
+      Epsom till to-morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I should have mentioned that the lady explained to me what the one thing
+      was that she was afraid might happen to ruffle her. It was the
+      apprehension of what may result from a visit which Col. Morden, as she is
+      informed, designs to make you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      THE REV. DR. LEWEN, TO MISS CL. HARLOWE FRIDAY, AUG. 18.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presuming, dearest and ever-respectable young lady, upon your former
+      favour, and upon your opinion of my judgment and sincerity, I cannot help
+      addressing you by a few lines on your present unhappy situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will not look back upon the measures into which you have either been led
+      or driven. But will only say as to those, that I think you are the least
+      to blame of any young lady that was ever reduced from happy to unhappy
+      circumstances; and I have not been wanting to say as much, where I hoped
+      my freedom would have been better received than I have had the
+      mortification to find it to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What I principally write for now is, to put you upon doing a piece of
+      justice to yourself, and to your sex, in the prosecuting for his life (I
+      am assured his life is in your power) the most profligate and abandoned of
+      men, as he must be, who could act so basely, as I understand Mr. Lovelace
+      has acted by you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am very ill; and am now forced to write upon my pillow; my thoughts
+      confused; and incapable of method: I shall not therefore aim at method:
+      but to give you in general my opinion&mdash;and that is, that your
+      religion, your duty to your family, the duty you owe to your honour, and
+      even charity to your sex, oblige you to give public evidence against this
+      very wicked man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And let me add another consideration: The prevention, by this means, of
+      the mischiefs that may otherwise happen between your brother and Mr.
+      Lovelace, or between the latter and your cousin Morden, who is now, I
+      hear, arrived, and resolves to have justice done you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A consideration which ought to affect your conscience, [forgive me,
+      dearest young lady, I think I am now in the way of my duty;] and to be of
+      more concern to you, than that hard pressure upon your modesty which I
+      know the appearance against him in an open court must be of to such a lady
+      as you; and which, I conceive, will be your great difficulty. But I know,
+      Madam, that you have dignity enough to become the blushes of the most
+      naked truth, when necessity, justice, and honour, exact it from you. Rakes
+      and ravishers would meet with encouragement indeed, and most from those
+      who had the greatest abhorrence of their actions, if violated modesty were
+      never to complain of the injury it received from the villanous attempters
+      of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a word, the reparation of your family dishonour now rests in your own
+      bosom: and which only one of these two alternatives can repair; to wit,
+      either to marry the offender, or to prosecute him at law. Bitter
+      expedients for a soul so delicate as your's!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He, and all his friends, I understand, solicit you to the first: and it is
+      certainly, now, all the amends within his power to make. But I am assured
+      that you have rejected their solicitations, and his, with the indignation
+      and contempt that his foul actions have deserved: but yet, that you refuse
+      not to extend to him the christian forgiveness he has so little reason to
+      expect, provided he will not disturb you farther.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, Madam, the prosecution I advise, will not let your present and future
+      exemption from fresh disturbance from so vile a molester depend upon his
+      courtesy: I should think so noble and so rightly-guided a spirit as your's
+      would not permit that it should, if you could help it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And can indignities of any kind be properly pardoned till we have it in
+      our power to punish them? To pretend to pardon, while we are labouring
+      under the pain or dishonour of them, will be thought by some to be but the
+      vaunted mercy of a pusillanimous heart, trembling to resent them. The
+      remedy I propose is a severe one: But what pain can be more severe than
+      the injury? Or how will injuries be believed to grieve us, that are never
+      honourably complained of?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sure Miss Clarissa Harlowe, however injured and oppressed, remains
+      unshaken in her sentiments of honour and virtue: and although she would
+      sooner die than deserve that her modesty should be drawn into question;
+      yet she will think no truth immodest that is to be uttered in the
+      vindicated cause of innocence and chastity. Little, very little difference
+      is there, my dear young lady, between a suppressed evidence, and a false
+      one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a terrible circumstance, I once more own, for a young lady of your
+      delicacy to be under the obligation of telling so shocking a story in
+      public court: but it is still a worse imputation, that she should pass
+      over so mortal an injury unresented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Conscience, honour, justice, are on your side: and modesty would, by some,
+      be thought but an empty name, should you refuse to obey their dictates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have been consulted, I own, on this subject. I have given it as my
+      opinion, that you ought to prosecute the abandoned man&mdash;but without
+      my reasons. These I reserved, with a resolution to lay them before you
+      unknown to any body, that the result, if what I wish, may be your own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will only add that the misfortunes which have befallen you, had they
+      been the lot of a child of my own, could not have affected me more than
+      your's have done. My own child I love: but I both love and honour you:
+      since to love you, is to love virtue, good sense, prudence, and every
+      thing that is good and noble in woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wounded as I think all these are by the injuries you have received, you
+      will believe that the knowledge of your distresses must have afflicted,
+      beyond what I am able to express,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your sincere admirer, and humble servant, ARTHUR LEWEN.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+I just now understand that your sister will, by proper authority, propose
+      this prosecution to you.  I humbly presume that the reason why you
+      resolved not upon this step from the first, was, that you did not
+      know that it would have the countenance and support of your
+      relations.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO THE REV. DR. LEWEN SAT. AUG. 19.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought, till I received your affectionate and welcome letter, that I
+      had neither father, uncle, brother left; nor hardly a friend among my
+      former favourers of your sex. Yet, knowing you so well, and having no
+      reason to upbraid myself with a faulty will, I was to blame, (even
+      although I had doubted the continuance of your good opinion,) to decline
+      the trial whether I had forfeited it or not; and if I had, whether I could
+      not honourably reinstate myself in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, Sir, it was owing to different causes that I did not; partly to
+      shame, to think how high, in my happier days, I stood in your esteem, and
+      how much I must be sunk in it, since those so much nearer in relation to
+      me gave me up; partly to deep distress, which makes the humbled heart
+      diffident; and made mine afraid to claim the kindred mind in your's, which
+      would have supplied to me in some measure all the dear and lost relations
+      I have named.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, so loth, as I sometimes was, to be thought to want to make a party
+      against those whom both duty and inclination bid me reverence: so long
+      trailed on between hope and doubt: so little my own mistress at one time;
+      so fearful of making or causing mischief at another; and not being
+      encouraged to hope, by your kind notice, that my application to you would
+      be acceptable:&mdash;apprehending that my relations had engaged your
+      silence at least*&mdash;THESE&mdash;But why these unavailing
+      retrospections now?&mdash;I was to be unhappy&mdash;in order to be happy;
+      that is my hope!&mdash;Resigning therefore to that hope, I will, without
+      any further preamble, write a few lines, (if writing to you, I can write
+      but a few,) in answer to the subject of your kind letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * The stiff visit this good divine was prevailed upon to make her, as
+      mentioned in Vol. II. Letter XXXI. (of which, however, she was too
+      generous to remind him) might warrant the lady to think that he had rather
+      inclined to their party, as to the parental side, than to her's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Permit me, then, to say, That I believe your arguments would have been
+      unanswerable in almost every other case of this nature, but in that of the
+      unhappy Clarissa Harlowe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is certain that creatures who cannot stand the shock of public shame,
+      should be doubly careful how they expose themselves to the danger of
+      incurring private guilt, which may possibly bring them to it. But as to
+      myself, suppose there were no objections from the declining way I am in as
+      to my health; and supposing I could have prevailed upon myself to appear
+      against this man; were there not room to apprehend that the end so much
+      wished for by my friends, (to wit, his condign punishment,) would not have
+      been obtained, when it came to be seen that I had consented to give him a
+      clandestine meeting; and, in consequence of that, had been weakly tricked
+      out of living under one roof with him for several weeks; which I did, (not
+      only without complaint, but) without cause of complaint?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little advantage in a court, (perhaps, bandied about, and jested
+      profligately with,) would some of those pleas in my favour have been,
+      which out of court, and to a private and serious audience, would have
+      carried the greatest weight against him&mdash;Such, particularly, as the
+      infamous methods to which he had recourse&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would, no doubt, have been a ready retort from every mouth, that I
+      ought not to have thrown myself into the power of such a man, and that I
+      ought to take for my pains what had befallen me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But had the prosecution been carried on to effect, and had he even been
+      sentenced to death, can it be supposed that his family would not have had
+      interest enough to obtain his pardon, for a crime thought too lightly of,
+      though one of the greatest that can be committed against a creature
+      valuing her honour above her life?&mdash;While I had been censured as
+      pursuing with sanguinary views a man who offered me early all the
+      reparation in his power to make?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And had he been pardoned, would he not then have been at liberty to do as
+      much mischief as ever?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I dare say, Sir, such is the assurance of the man upon whom my unhappy
+      destiny threw me; and such his inveteracy to my family, (which would then
+      have appeared to be justified by their known inveteracy to him, and by
+      their earnest endeavours to take away his life;) that he would not have
+      been sorry to have had an opportunity to confront me, and my father,
+      uncles, and brother, at the bar of a court of justice, on such an
+      occasion. In which case, would not (on his acquittal, or pardon)
+      resentments have been reciprocally heightened? And then would my brother,
+      or my cousin Morden, have been more secure than now?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How do these conditions aggravate my fault! My motives, at first, were not
+      indeed blamable: but I had forgotten the excellent caution, which yet I
+      was not ignorant of, That we ought not to do evil that good may come of
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In full conviction of the purity of my heart, and of the firmness of my
+      principles, [Why may I not, thus called upon, say what I am conscious of,
+      and yet without the imputation of faulty pride; since all is but a duty,
+      and I should be utterly inexcusable, could I not justly say what I do?&mdash;
+      In this full conviction,] he has offered me marriage. He has avowed his
+      penitence: a sincere penitence I have reason to think it, though perhaps
+      not a christian one. And his noble relations, (kinder to the poor sufferer
+      than her own,) on the same conviction, and his own not ungenerous
+      acknowledgements, have joined to intercede with me to forgive and accept
+      of him. Although I cannot comply with the latter part of their
+      intercession, have not you, Sir, from the best rules, and from the
+      divinest example, taught me to forgive injuries?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The injury I have received from him is indeed of the highest nature, and
+      it was attended with circumstances of unmanly baseness and premeditation;
+      yet, I bless God, it has not tainted my mind; it has not hurt my morals.
+      No thanks indeed to the wicked man that it has not. No vile courses have
+      followed it. My will is unviolated. The evil, (respecting myself, and not
+      my friends,) is merely personal. No credulity, no weakness, no want of
+      vigilance, have I to reproach myself with. I have, through grace,
+      triumphed over the deepest machinations. I have escaped from him. I have
+      renounced him. The man whom once I could have loved, I have been enabled
+      to despise: And shall not charity complete my triumph? and shall I not
+      enjoy it?&mdash;And where would be my triumph if he deserved my
+      forgiveness?&mdash;Poor man! he has had a loss in losing me! I have the
+      pride to think so, because I think I know my own heart. I have had none in
+      losing him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I have another plea to make, which alone would have been enough (as I
+      presume) to answer the contents of your very kind and friendly letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know, my dear and reverend friend, the spiritual guide and director of
+      my happier days! I know, that you will allow of my endeavour to bring
+      myself to this charitable disposition, when I tell you how near I think
+      myself to that great and awful moment, in which, and even in the ardent
+      preparation to which, every sense of indignity or injury that concerns not
+      the immortal soul, ought to be absorbed in higher and more important
+      contemplations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus much for myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And for the satisfaction of my friends and favourers, Miss Howe is
+      solicitous to have all those letters and materials preserved, which will
+      set my whole story in a true light. The good Dr. Lewen is one of the
+      principal of those friends and favourers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The warning that may be given from those papers to all such young
+      creatures as may have known or heard of me, may be of more efficacy to the
+      end wished for, as I humbly presume to think, than my appearance could
+      have been in a court of justice, pursuing a doubtful event, under the
+      disadvantages I have mentioned. And if, my dear and good Sir, you are now,
+      on considering every thing, of this opinion, and I could know it, I should
+      consider it as a particular felicity; being as solicitous as ever to be
+      justified in what I may in your eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sorry, Sir, that your indisposition has reduced you to the necessity
+      of writing upon your pillow. But how much am I obliged to that kind and
+      generous concern for me, which has impelled you, as I may say, to write a
+      letter, containing so many paternal lines, with such inconvenience to
+      yourself!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      May the Almighty bless you, dear and reverend Sir, for all your goodness
+      to me of long time past, as well as for that which engaged my present
+      gratitude! Continue to esteem me to the last, as I do and will venerate
+      you! And let me bespeak your prayers, the continuance, I should say, of
+      your prayers; for I doubt not, that I have always had them: and to them,
+      perhaps, has in part been owing (as well as to your pious precepts
+      instilled through my earlier youth) that I have been able to make the
+      stand I have made; although every thing that you prayed for has not been
+      granted to me by that Divine Wisdom, which knows what is best for its poor
+      creatures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My prayers for you are, that it will please God to restore you to your
+      affectionate flock; and after as many years of life as shall be for his
+      service, and to your own comfort, give us a happy meeting in those regions
+      of blessedness, which you have taught me, as well by example, as by
+      precept, to aspire to!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CLARISSA HARLOWE. <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS ARAB. HARLOWE, TO MISS CL. HARLOWE [IN ANSWER TO HER'S TO HER UNCLE
+      ANTONY OF AUG. 13.*] MONDAY, AUG. 21.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter IV. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SISTER CLARY,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I find by your letters to my uncles, that they, as well as I, are in great
+      disgrace with you for writing our minds to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We can't help it, sister Clary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You don't think it worth your while, I find, a second time to press for
+      the blessing you pretend to be so earnest about. You think, no doubt, that
+      you have done your duty in asking for it: so you'll sit down satisfied
+      with that, I suppose, and leave it to your wounded parents to repent
+      hereafter that they have not done theirs, in giving it to you, at the
+      first word; and in making such inquiries about you, as you think ought to
+      have been made. Fine encouragement to inquire after a run-away daughter!
+      living with her fellow as long as he would live with her! You repent also
+      (with your full mind, as you modestly call it) that you wrote to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So we are not likely to be applied to any more, I find, in this way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well then, since this is the case, sister Clary, let me, with all
+      humility, address myself with a proposal or two to you; to which you will
+      be graciously pleased to give an answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now you must know, that we have had hints given us, from several quarters,
+      that you have been used in such a manner by the villain you ran away with,
+      that his life would be answerable for his crime, if it were fairly to be
+      proved. And, by your own hints, something like it appears to us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If, Clary, there be any thing but jingle and affected period in what
+      proceeds from your full mind, and your dutiful consciousness; and if there
+      be truth in what Mrs. Norton and Mrs. Howe have acquainted us with; you
+      may yet justify your character to us, and to the world, in every thing but
+      your scandalous elopement; and the law may reach the villain: and, could
+      we but bring him to the gallows, what a meritorious revenge would that be
+      to our whole injured family, and to the innocents he has deluded, as well
+      as the saving from ruin many others!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let me, therefore, know (if you please) whether you are willing to appear
+      to do yourself, and us, and your sex, this justice? If not, sister Clary,
+      we shall know what to think of you; for neither you nor we can suffer more
+      than we have done from the scandal of your fall: and, if you will, Mr.
+      Ackland and counselor Derham will both attend you to make proper
+      inquiries, and to take minutes of your story, to found a process upon, if
+      it will bear one with as great a probability of success as we are told it
+      may be prosecuted with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, by what Mrs. Howe intimates, this is not likely to be complied with;
+      for it is what she hinted to you, it seems, by her lively daughter, but
+      not without effect;* so prudently in some certain points, as to entitle
+      yourself to public justice; which, if true, the Lord have mercy upon you!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VI. Letter LXXII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One word only more as to the above proposal:&mdash;Your admirer, Dr.
+      Lewen, is clear, in his opinion, that you should prosecute the villain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if you will not agree to this, I have another proposal to make to you,
+      and that in the name of every one in the family; which is, that you will
+      think of going to Pensylvania to reside there for some few years till all
+      is blown over: and, if it please God to spare you, and your unhappy
+      parents, till they can be satisfied that you behave like a true and
+      uniform penitent; at least till you are one-and-twenty; you may then come
+      back to your own estate, or have the produce of it sent you thither, as
+      you shall choose. A period which my father fixes, because it is the
+      custom; and because he thinks your grandfather should have fixed it; and
+      because, let me add, you have fully proved by your fine conduct, that you
+      were not at years of discretion at eighteen. Poor doting, though good old
+      man!&mdash;Your grandfather, he thought&mdash;But I would not be too
+      severe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Hartley has a widow-sister at Pensylvania, with whom he will undertake
+      you may board, and who is a sober, sensible, well-read woman. And if you
+      were once well there, it would rid your father and mother of a world of
+      cares, and fears, and scandal; and that I think is what you should wish
+      for of all things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Hartley will engage for all accommodations in your passage suitable to
+      your rank and fortune; and he has a concern in a ship, which will sail in
+      a month; and you may take your secret-keeping Hannah with you, or whom you
+      will of your newer acquaintance. 'Tis presumed that your companions will
+      be of your own sex.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These are what I had to communicate to you; and if you'll oblige me with
+      an answer, (which the hand that conveys this will call for on Wednesday
+      morning,) it will be very condescending.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ARABELLA HARLOWE. <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO MISS ARAB. HARLOWE TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Write to me, my hard-hearted Sister, in what manner you please, I shall
+      always be thankful to you for your notice. But (think what you will of me)
+      I cannot see Mr. Ackland and the counselor on such a business as you
+      mention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lord have mercy upon me indeed! for none else will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Surely I am believed to a creature past all shame, or it could not be
+      thought of sending two gentlemen to me on such an errand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had my mother required of me (or would modesty have permitted you to
+      inquire into) the particulars of my sad story, or had Mrs. Norton been
+      directed to receive them from me, methinks it had been more fit: and I
+      presume to think that it would have been more in every one's character
+      too, had they been required of me before such heavy judgment had been
+      passed upon me as has been passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know that this is Dr. Lewen's opinion. He has been so good as to enforce
+      it in a kind letter to me. I have answered his letter; and given such
+      reasons as I hope will satisfy him. I could wish it were thought worth
+      while to request of him a sight of my answer.*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * Her letter, containing the reasons she refers to, was not asked for; and
+      Dr. Lewen's death, which fell out soon after he had received it, was the
+      reason that it was not communicated to the family, till it was too late to
+      do the service that might have been hoped for from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To your other proposal, of going to Pensylvania; this is my answer&mdash;If
+      nothing happen within a month which may full as effectually rid my parents
+      and friends of that world of cares, and fears, and scandals, which you
+      mention, and if I am then able to be carried on board of ship, I will
+      cheerfully obey my father and mother, although I were sure to die in the
+      passage. And, if I may be forgiven for saying so (for indeed it proceeds
+      not from a spirit of reprisal) you shall set over me, instead of my poor
+      obliging, but really-unculpable, Hannah, your Betty Barnes; to whom I will
+      be answerable for all my conduct. And I will make it worth her while to
+      accompany me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am equally surprised and concerned at the hints which both you and my
+      uncle Antony give of new points of misbehaviour in me!&mdash;What can be
+      meant by them?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will not tell you, Miss Harlowe, how much I am afflicted at your
+      severity, and how much I suffer by it, and by your hard-hearted levity of
+      style, because what I shall say may be construed into jingle and period,
+      and because I know it is intended, very possibly for kind ends, to mortify
+      me. All I will therefore say is, that it does not lose its end, if that be
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, nevertheless, (divesting myself as much as possible of all
+      resentment,) I will only pray that Heaven will give you, for your own
+      sake, a kinder heart than at present you seem to have; since a kind heart,
+      I am convinced, is a greater blessing to its possessor than it can be to
+      any other person. Under this conviction I subscribe myself, my dear Bella,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your ever-affectionate sister, CL. HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE [IN ANSWER TO HER'S OF THURSDAY,
+      AUG. 17.*] TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter VI. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MY DEAREST YOUNG LADY,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letters you sent me I now return by the hand that brings you this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is impossible for me to express how much I have been affected by them,
+      and by your last of the 17th. Indeed, my dear Miss Clary, you are very
+      harshly used; indeed you are! And if you should be taken from us, what
+      grief and what punishment are not treasuring up against themselves in the
+      heavy reflections which their rash censures and unforgivingness will
+      occasion them!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I find to what your uncle Antony's cruel letter is owing, as well as
+      one you will be still more afflicted by, [God help you, my poor dear
+      child!] when it comes to your hand, written by your sister, with proposals
+      to you.*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter XXVI. ibid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was finished to send you yesterday, I know; and I apprize you of it,
+      that you should fortify your heart against the contents of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The motives which incline them all to this severity, if well grounded,
+      would authorize any severity they could express, and which, while they
+      believe them to be so, both they and you are to be equally pitied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They are owning to the information of that officious Mr. Brand, who has
+      acquainted them (from some enemy of your's in the neighbourhood about you)
+      that visits are made you, highly censurable, by a man of a free character,
+      and an intimate of Mr. Lovelace; who is often in private with you;
+      sometimes twice or thrice a day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Betty gives herself great liberties of speech upon this occasion, and all
+      your friends are too ready to believe that things are not as they should
+      be; which makes me wish that, let the gentleman's views be ever so
+      honourable, you could entirely drop acquaintance with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something of this nature was hinted at by Betty to me before, but so
+      darkly that I could not tell what to make of it; and this made me mention
+      to you so generally as I did in my last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your cousin Morden has been among them. He is exceedingly concerned for
+      your misfortunes; and as they will not believe Mr. Lovelace would marry
+      you, he is determined to go to Lord M.'s, in order to inform himself from
+      Mr. Lovelace's own mouth, whether he intends to do you that justice or
+      not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was extremely caressed by every one at his first arrival; but I am told
+      there is some little coldness between them and him at present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was in hopes of getting a sight of this letter of Mr. Brand: (a rash
+      officious man!) but it seems Mr. Morden had it given him yesterday to
+      read, and he took it away with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      God be your comfort, my dear Miss! But indeed I am exceedingly disturbed
+      at the thoughts of what may still be the issue of all these things. I am,
+      my beloved young lady,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your most affectionate and faithful JUDITH NORTON.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After I had sealed up the enclosed, I had the honour of a private visit
+      from your aunt Hervey; who has been in a very low-spirited way, and kept
+      her chamber for several weeks past; and is but just got abroad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She longed, she said, to see me, and to weep with me, on the hard fate
+      that had befallen her beloved niece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will give you a faithful account of what passed between us; as I expect
+      that it will, upon the whole, administer hope and comfort to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She pitied very much your good mother, who, she assured me, is obliged to
+      act a part entirely contrary to her inclinations; as she herself, she
+      owns, had been in a great measure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She said, that the poor lady was with great difficulty with-held from
+      answering your letter to her; which had (as was your aunt's expression)
+      almost broken the heart of every one: that she had reason to think that
+      she was neither consenting to your two uncles writing, nor approving of
+      what they wrote.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She is sure they all love you dearly; but have gone so far, that they
+      know not how to recede.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That, but for the abominable league which your brother had got every body
+      into (he refusing to set out for Scotland till it was renewed, and till
+      they had all promised to take no step towards a reconciliation in his
+      absence but by his consent; and to which your sister's resentments kept
+      them up); all would before now have happily subsided.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That nobody knew the pangs which their inflexible behaviour gave them,
+      ever since you had begun to write to them in so affecting and humble a
+      style.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That, however, they were not inclined to believe that you were either so
+      ill, or so penitent as you really are; and still less, that Mr. Lovelace
+      is in earnest in his offers of marriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She is sure, however, she says, that all will soon be well: and the
+      sooner for Mr. Morden's arrival: who is very zealous in your behalf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She wished to Heaven that you would accept of Mr. Lovelace, wicked as he
+      has been, if he were now in earnest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'It had always,' she said, 'been matter of astonishment to her, that so
+      weak a pride in her cousin James, of making himself the whole family,
+      should induce them all to refuse an alliance with such a family as Mr.
+      Lovelace's was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She would have it, that your going off with Mr. Lovelace was the
+      unhappiest step for your honour and your interest that could have been
+      taken; for that although you would have had a severe trial the next day,
+      yet it would probably have been the last; and your pathetic powers must
+      have drawn you off some friends&mdash;hinting at your mother, at your
+      uncle Harlowe, at your uncle Hervey, and herself.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But here (that the regret that you did not trust to the event of that
+      meeting, may not, in your present low way, too much afflict you) I must
+      observe, that it seems a little too evident, even from this opinion of
+      your aunt's, that it was not absolutely determined that all compulsion was
+      designed to be avoided, since your freedom from it must have been owing to
+      the party to be made among them by your persuasive eloquence and dutiful
+      expostulation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She owned, that some of them were as much afraid of meeting you as you
+      could be of meeting them:'&mdash;But why so, if they designed, in the last
+      instance, to give you your way?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your aunt told me, 'That Mrs. Williams* had been with her, and asked her
+      opinion, if it would be taken amiss, if she desired leave to go up, to
+      attend her dearest young lady in her calamity. Your aunt referred her to
+      your mother: but had heard no more of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * The former housekeeper at Harlowe-place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Her daughter,' (Miss Dolly,) she said, 'had been frequently earnest with
+      her on the same subject; and renewed her request with the greatest fervour
+      when your first letter came to hand.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your aunt says, 'That she then being very ill, wrote to your mother upon
+      it, hoping it would not be taken amiss if she permitted Dolly to go; but
+      that your sister, as from your mother, answered her, That now you seemed
+      to be coming-to, and to have a due sense of your faults, you must be left
+      entirely to their own management.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Miss Dolly,' she said, 'had pined ever since she had heard of Mr.
+      Lovelace's baseness, being doubly mortified by it: first, on account of
+      your sufferings; next, because she was one who rejoiced in your getting
+      off, and vindicated you for it; and had incurred censure and ill-will on
+      that account; especially from your brother and sister; so that she seldom
+      went to Harlowe-place.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Make the best use of these intelligences, my dearest young lady, for your
+      consolation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will only add, that I am, with the most fervent prayers for your
+      recovery and restoration to favour,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your ever-faithful JUDITH NORTON.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO MRS. JUDITH NORTON THURSDAY, AUG. 24.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The relation of such a conversation as passed between my aunt and you
+      would have given me pleasure, had it come some time ago; because it would
+      have met with a spirit more industrious than mine now is, to pick out
+      remote comfort in the hope of a favourable turn that might one day have
+      rewarded my patient duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not doubt my aunt's good-will to me. Her affection I did not doubt.
+      But shall we wonder that kings and princes meet with so little controul in
+      their passions, be they every so violent, when, in a private family, an
+      aunt, nay, even a mother in that family, shall choose to give up a
+      once-favoured child against their own inclinations, rather than oppose an
+      aspiring young man, who had armed himself with the authority of a father,
+      who, when once determined, never would be expostulated with?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And will you not blame me, if I say, that good sense, that kindred
+      indulgence, must be a little offended at the treatment I have met with;
+      and if I own, that I think that great rigour has been exercised towards
+      me! And yet I am now authorized to call it rigour by the judgment of two
+      excellent sisters, my mother and my aunt, who acknowledge (as you tell me
+      from my aunt) that they have been obliged to join against me, contrary to
+      their inclinations; and that even in a point which might seem to concern
+      my eternal welfare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I must not go on at this rate. For may not the inclination my mother
+      has given up be the effect of a too-fond indulgence, rather than that I
+      merit the indulgence? And yet so petulantly perverse am I, that I must
+      tear myself from the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All then that I will say further to it, at this time, is, that were the
+      intended goodness to be granted to me but a week hence, it would possibly
+      be too late&mdash;too late I mean to be of the consolation to me that I
+      would wish from it: for what an inefficacious preparation must I have been
+      making, if it has not, by this time, carried me above&mdash;But above
+      what?&mdash; Poor mistaken creature! Unhappy self-deluder! that finds
+      herself above nothing! Nor able to subdue her own faulty impatience!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in-deed, to have done with a subject that I dare not trust myself
+      with, if it come in your way, let my aunt Hervey, let my dear cousin
+      Dolly, let the worthy Mrs. Williams, know how exceedingly grateful to me
+      their kind intentions and concern for me are: and, as the best warrant or
+      justification of their good opinions, (since I know that their favour for
+      me is founded on the belief that I loved virtue,) tell them, that I
+      continued to love virtue to my last hour, as I presume to hope it may be
+      said; and assure them that I never made the least wilful deviation,
+      however unhappy I became for one faulty step; which nevertheless was not
+      owing to unworthy or perverse motives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am very sorry that my cousin Morden has taken a resolution to see Mr.
+      Lovelace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My apprehensions on this intelligence are a great abatement to the
+      pleasure I have in knowing that he still loves me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My sister's letter to me is a most affecting one&mdash;so needlessly, so
+      ludicrously taunting!&mdash;But for that part of it that is so, I ought
+      rather to pity her, than to be so much concerned at it as I am.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wonder what I have done to Mr. Brand&mdash;I pray God to forgive both
+      him and his informants, whoever they be. But if the scandal arise solely
+      from Mr. Belford's visits, a very little time will confute it. Mean while,
+      the packet I shall send you, which I sent to Miss Howe, will, I hope,
+      satisfy you, my dear Mrs. Norton, as to my reasons for admitting his
+      visits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My sister's taunting letter, and the inflexibleness of my dearer friends
+      &mdash;But how do remoter-begun subjects tend to the point which lies
+      nearest the heart!&mdash;As new-caught bodily disorders all crowd to a
+      fractured or distempered part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will break off, with requesting your prayers that I may be blessed with
+      patience and due resignation; and with assuring you, that I am, and will
+      be to the last hour of my life,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your equally grateful and affectionate CL. HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXXI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE [IN REPLY TO HER'S OF FRIDAY, AUG.
+      11.*] YARMOUTH, ISLE OF WIGHT, AUG. 23.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter II. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MY DEAREST FRIEND,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have read the letters and copies of letters you favoured me with: and I
+      return them by a particular hand. I am extremely concerned at your
+      indifferent state of health: but I approve of all your proceedings and
+      precautions in relation to the appointment of Mr. Belford for an office,
+      in which, I hope, neither he nor any body else will be wanted to act, for
+      many, very many years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I admire, and so we do all, that greatness of mind which can make you so
+      stedfastly [sic] despise (through such inducements as no other woman could
+      resist, and in such desolate circumstances as you have been reduced to)
+      the wretch that ought to be so heartily despised and detested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What must the contents of those letters from your relations be, which you
+      will not communicate to me!&mdash;Fie upon them! How my heart rises!&mdash;But
+      I dare say no more&mdash;though you yourself now begin to think they use
+      you with great severity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every body here is so taken with Mr. Hickman (and the more from the horror
+      they conceive at the character of the detestable Lovelace,) that I have
+      been teased to death almost to name a day. This has given him airs: and,
+      did I not keep him to it, he would behave as carelessly and as insolently
+      as if he were sure of me. I have been forced to mortify him no less than
+      four times since we have been here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I made him lately undergo a severe penance for some negligences that were
+      not to be passed over. Not designed ones, he said: but that was a poor
+      excuse, as I told him: for, had they been designed, he should never have
+      come into my presence more: that they were not, showed his want of thought
+      and attention; and those were inexcusable in a man only in his probatory
+      state.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He hoped he had been more than in a probatory state, he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And therefore, Sir, might be more careless!&mdash;So you add ingratitude
+      to negligence, and make what you plead as accident, that itself wants an
+      excuse, design, which deserves none.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I would not see him for two days, and he was so penitent, and so humble,
+      that I had like to have lost myself, to make him amends: for, as you have
+      said, resentment carried too high, often ends in amends too humble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I long to be nearer to you: but that must not yet be, it seems. Pray, my
+      dear, let me hear from you as often as you can.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      May Heaven increase your comforts, and restore your health, are the
+      prayers of
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your ever faithful and affectionate ANNA HOWE.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+P.S. Excuse me that I did not write before: it was owing to a little
+      coasting voyage I was obliged to give into.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0035" id="link2H_4_0035">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXXII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE FRIDAY, AUG. 25.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You are very obliging, my dear Miss Howe, to account to me for your
+      silence. I was easy in it, as I doubted not that, among such near and dear
+      friends as you are with, you was diverted from writing by some such
+      agreeable excursion as that you mention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was in hopes that you had given over, at this time of day, those very
+      sprightly airs, which I have taken the liberty to blame you for, as often
+      as you have given me occasion to so do; and that has been very often.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was always very grave with you upon this subject: and while your own and
+      a worthy man's future happiness are in the question, I must enter into it,
+      whenever you forget yourself, although I had not a day to live: and indeed
+      I am very ill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sure it was not your intention to take your future husband with you
+      to the little island to make him look weak and silly among those of your
+      relations who never before had seen him. Yet do you think it possible for
+      them (however prepared and resolved they may be to like him) to forbear
+      smiling at him, when they see him suffering under your whimsical penances?
+      A modest man should no more be made little in his own eyes, than in the
+      eyes of others. If he be, he will have a diffidence, which will give an
+      awkwardness to every thing he says or does; and this will be no more to
+      the credit of your choice than to that of the approbation he meets with
+      from your friends, or to his own credit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I love an obliging, and even an humble, deportment in a man to the woman
+      he addresses. It is a mark of his politeness, and tends to give her that
+      opinion of herself, which it may be supposed bashful merit wants to be
+      inspired with. But if the woman exacts it with an high hand, she shows not
+      either her own politeness or gratitude; although I must confess she does
+      her courage. I gave you expectations that I would be very serious with
+      you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O my dear, that it had been my lot (as I was not permitted to live
+      single,) to have met with a man by whom I could have acted generously and
+      unreservedly!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Lovelace, it is now plain, in order to have a pretence against me,
+      taxed my behaviour to him with stiffness and distance. You, at one time,
+      thought me guilty of some degree of prudery. Difficult situations should
+      be allowed for: which often make seeming occasions for censure
+      unavoidable. I deserved not blame from him who made mine difficult. And
+      you, my dear, had I any other man to deal with, or had he but half the
+      merit which Mr. Hickman has, would have found that my doctrine on this
+      subject should have governed my practice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But to put myself out of the question&mdash;I'll tell you what I should
+      think, were I an indifferent by-stander, of those high airs of your's, in
+      return for Mr. Hickman's humble demeanour. 'The lady thinks of having the
+      gentleman, I see plainly, would I say. But I see as plainly, that she has
+      a very great indifference to him. And to what may this indifference be
+      owing? To one or all of these considerations, no doubt: that she receives
+      his addresses rather from motives of convenience than choice: that she
+      thinks meanly of his endowments and intellects; at least more highly of
+      her own: or, she has not the generosity to use that power with moderation,
+      which his great affection for her puts into her hands.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How would you like, my dear, to have any of these things said?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then to give but the shadow of a reason for free-livers and free speakers
+      to say, or to imagine, that Miss Howe gives her hand to a man who has no
+      reason to expect any share in her heart, I am sure you would not wish that
+      such a thing should be so much as supposed. Then all the regard from you
+      to come afterwards; none to be shown before; must, should I think, be
+      capable of being construed as a compliment to the husband, made at the
+      expense of the wife's and even of the sex's delicacy!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no fear that attempts could be formed by the most audacious [two
+      Lovelaces there cannot be!] upon a character so revered for virtue, and so
+      charmingly spirited, as Miss Howe's: yet, to have any man encouraged to
+      despise a husband by the example of one who is most concerned to do him
+      honour; what, my dear, think you of that? It is but too natural for
+      envious men (and who that knows Miss Howe, will not envy Mr. Hickman!) to
+      scoff at, and to jest upon, those who are treated with or will bear
+      indignity from a woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If a man so treated have a true and ardent love for the woman he
+      addresses, he will be easily overawed by her displeasure: and this will
+      put him upon acts of submission, which will be called meanness. And what
+      woman of true spirit would like to have it said, that she would impose any
+      thing upon the man from whom she one day expects protection and defence,
+      that should be capable of being construed as a meanness, or unmanly
+      abjectness in his behaviour, even to herself?&mdash;Nay, I am not sure,
+      and I ask it of you, my dear, to resolve me, whether, in your own opinion,
+      it is not likely, that a woman of spirit will despise rather than value
+      more, the man who will take patiently an insult at her hands; especially
+      before company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have always observed, that prejudices in disfavour of a person at his
+      first appearance, fix deeper, and are much more difficult to be removed
+      when fixed, than that malignant principle so eminently visible in little
+      minds, which makes them wish to bring down the more worthy characters to
+      their own low level, I pretend not to determine. When once, therefore, a
+      woman of your good sense gives room to the world to think she has not an
+      high opinion of the lover, whom nevertheless she entertains, it will be
+      very difficult for her afterwards to make that world think so well as she
+      would have it of the husband she has chosen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Give me leave to observe, that to condescend with dignity, and to command
+      with such kindness, and sweetness of manners, as should let the
+      condescension, while in a single state, be seen and acknowledged, are
+      points, which a wise woman, knowing her man, should aim at: and a wise
+      woman, I should think, would choose to live single all her life rather
+      than give herself to a man whom she thinks unworthy of a treatment so
+      noble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when a woman lets her lover see that she has the generosity to approve
+      of and reward a well-meant service; that she has a mind that lifts her
+      above the little captious follies, which some (too licentiously, I hope,)
+      attribute to the sex in general: that she resents not (if ever she thinks
+      she has reason to be displeased) with petulance, or through pride: nor
+      thinks it necessary to insist upon little points, to come at or secure
+      great ones, perhaps not proper to be aimed at: nor leaves room to suppose
+      she has so much cause to doubt her own merit, as to put the love of the
+      man she intends to favour upon disagreeable or arrogant trials: but let
+      reason be the principal guide of her actions&mdash; she will then never
+      fail of that true respect, of that sincere veneration, which she wishes to
+      meet with; and which will make her judgment after marriage consulted,
+      sometimes with a preference to a man's own; at other times as a delightful
+      confirmation of his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so much, my beloved Miss Howe, for this subject now, and I dare say,
+      for ever!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will begin another letter by-and-by, and send both together. Mean time,
+      I am, &amp;c.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0036" id="link2H_4_0036">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXXIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
+    </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+[In this letter, the Lady acquaints Miss Howe with Mr. Brand's report;
+      with her sister's proposals either that she will go abroad, or
+      prosecute Mr. Lovelace.  She complains of the severe letters of
+      her uncle Antony and her sister; but in milder terms than they
+      deserved.
+
+      She sends her Dr. Lewen's letter, and the copy of her answer to it.
+ 
+She tells her of the difficulties she had been under to avoid seeing Mr.
+      Lovelace.  She gives her the contents of the letter she wrote to
+      him to divert him from his proposed visit: she is afraid, she says,
+      that it is a step that is not strictly right, if allegory or
+      metaphor be not allowable to one in her circumstances.
+ 
+She informs her of her cousin Morden's arrival and readiness to take her
+      part with her relations; of his designed interview with Mr.
+      Lovelace; and tells her what her apprehensions are upon it.
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+She gives her the purport of the conversation between her aunt Hervey and
+      Mrs. Norton. And then adds:]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But were they ever so favourably inclined to me now, what can they do for
+      me? I wish, and that for their sakes more than for my own, that they would
+      yet relent&mdash;but I am very ill&mdash;I must drop my pen&mdash;a sudden
+      faintness overspreads my heart&mdash;excuse my crooked writing!&mdash;Adieu,
+      my dear!&mdash;Adieu!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THREE O'CLOCK, FRIDAY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more I resume my pen. I thought I had taken my last farewell to you.
+      I never was so very oddly affected: something that seemed totally to
+      overwhelm my faculties&mdash;I don't know how to describe it&mdash;I
+      believe I do amiss in writing so much, and taking too much upon me: but an
+      active mind, though clouded by bodily illness, cannot be idle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I'll see if the air, and a discontinued attention, will help me. But, if
+      it will not, don't be concerned for me, my dear. I shall be happy. Nay, I
+      am more so already than of late I thought I could ever be in this life.
+      &mdash;Yet how this body clings!&mdash;How it encumbers!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SEVEN O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not send this letter away with so melancholy an ending, as you
+      would have thought it. So I deferred closing it, till I saw how I should
+      be on my return from my airing: and now I must say I am quite another
+      thing: so alert! that I could proceed with as much spirit as I began, and
+      add more preachment to your lively subject, if I had not written more than
+      enough upon it already.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish you would let me give you and Mr. Hickman joy. Do, my dear. I
+      should take some to myself, if you would.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My respectful compliments to all your friends, as well to those I have the
+      honour to know, as to those I do not know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have just now been surprised with a letter from one whom I long ago gave
+      up all thoughts of hearing from. From Mr. Wyerley. I will enclose it.
+      You'll be surprised at it as much as I was. This seems to be a man whom I
+      might have reclaimed. But I could not love him. Yet I hope I never treated
+      him with arrogance. Indeed, my dear, if I am not too partial to myself, I
+      think I refused him with more gentleness, than you retain somebody else.
+      And this recollection gives me less pain than I should have had in the
+      other case, on receiving this instance of a generosity that affects me. I
+      will also enclose the rough draught of my answer, as soon as I have
+      transcribed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If I begin another sheet, I shall write to the end of it: wherefore I will
+      only add my prayers for your honour and prosperity, and for a long, long,
+      happy life; and that, when it comes to be wound up, you may be as calm and
+      as easy at quitting it as I hope in God I shall be. I am, and will be, to
+      the latest moment,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your truly affectionate and obliged servant, CL. HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0037" id="link2H_4_0037">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXXIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. WYERLEY, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE WEDNESDAY, AUG. 23.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DEAREST MADAM,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You will be surprised to find renewed, at this distance of time, an
+      address so positively though so politely discouraged: but, however it be
+      received, I must renew it. Every body has heard that you have been vilely
+      treated by a man who, to treat you ill, must be the vilest of men. Every
+      body knows your just resentment of his base treatment: that you are
+      determined never to be reconciled to him: and that you persist in these
+      sentiments against all the entreaties of his noble relations, against all
+      the prayers and repentance of his ignoble self. And all the world that
+      have the honour to know you, or have heard of him, applaud your
+      resolution, as worthy of yourself; worthy of your virtue, and of that
+      strict honour which was always attributed to you by every one who spoke of
+      you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, Madam, were all the world to have been of a different opinion, it
+      could never have altered mine. I ever loved you; I ever must love you. Yet
+      have I endeavoured to resign to my hard fate. When I had so many ways, in
+      vain, sought to move you in my favour, I sat down seemingly contented. I
+      even wrote to you that I would sit down contented. And I endeavoured to
+      make all my friends and companions think I was. But nobody knows what
+      pangs this self-denial cost me! In vain did the chace, in vain did travel,
+      in vain did lively company, offer themselves, and were embraced in their
+      turn: with redoubled force did my passion for you renew my unhappiness,
+      when I looked into myself, into my own heart; for there did your charming
+      image sit enthroned; and you engrossed me all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I truly deplore those misfortunes, and those sufferings, for your own
+      sake; which nevertheless encourage me to renew my old hope. I know not
+      particulars. I dare not inquire after them; because my sufferings would be
+      increased with the knowledge of what your's have been. I therefore desire
+      not to know more than what common report wounds my ears with; and what is
+      given me to know, by your absence from your cruel family, and from the
+      sacred place, where I, among numbers of your rejected admirers, used to be
+      twice a week sure to behold you doing credit to that service of which your
+      example gave me the highest notions. But whatever be those misfortunes, of
+      whatsoever nature those sufferings, I shall bless the occasion for my own
+      sake (though for your's curse the author of them,) if they may give me the
+      happiness to know that this my renewed address may not be absolutely
+      rejected.&mdash;Only give me hope, that it may one day meet with
+      encouragement, if in the interim nothing happen, either in my morals or
+      behaviour, to give you fresh offence. Give me but hope of this&mdash;not
+      absolutely to reject me is all the hope I ask for; and I will love you, if
+      possible, still more than I ever loved you&mdash;and that for your
+      sufferings; for well you deserve to be loved, even to adoration, who can,
+      for honour's and for virtue's sake, subdue a passion which common spirits
+      [I speak by cruel experience] find invincible; and this at a time when the
+      black offender kneels and supplicates, as I am well assured he does, (all
+      his friends likewise supplicating for him,) to be forgiven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That you cannot forgive him, not forgive him so as to receive him again to
+      favour, is no wonder. His offence is against virtue: this is a part of
+      your essence. What magnanimity is this! How just to yourself, and to your
+      spotless character! Is it any merit to admire more than ever a lady who
+      can so exaltedly distinguish? It is not. I cannot plead it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What hope have I left, may it be said, when my address was before
+      rejected, now, that your sufferings, so nobly borne, have, with all the
+      good judges, exalted your character? Yet, Madam, I have to pride myself in
+      this, that while your friends (not looking upon you in the just light I
+      do) persecute and banish you; while your estate is withheld from you, and
+      threatened (as I know,) to be withheld, as long as the chicaning law, or
+      rather the chicaneries of its practisers, can keep it from you: while you
+      are destitute of protection; every body standing aloof, either through
+      fear of the injurer of one family, or of the hard-hearted of the other; I
+      pride myself, I say, to stand forth, and offer my fortune, and my life, at
+      your devotion. With a selfish hope indeed: I should be too great an
+      hypocrite not to own this! and I know how much you abhor insincerity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, whether you encourage that hope or not, accept my best services, I
+      beseech you, Madam: and be pleased to excuse me for a piece of honest art,
+      which the nature of the case (doubting the honour of your notice
+      otherwise) makes me choose to conclude with&mdash;it is this:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If I am to be still the most unhappy of men, let your pen by one line tell
+      me so. If I am permitted to indulge a hope, however distant, your silence
+      shall be deemed, by me, the happiest indication of it that you can give&mdash;except
+      that still happier&mdash;(the happiest than can befall me,) a
+      signification that you will accept the tender of that life and fortune,
+      which it would be my pride and my glory to sacrifice in your service,
+      leaving the reward to yourself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Be your determination as it may, I must for ever admire and love you. Nor
+      will I ever change my condition, while you live, whether you change your's
+      or not: for, having once had the presumption to address you, I cannot
+      stoop to think of any other woman: and this I solemnly declare in the
+      presence of that God, whom I daily pray to bless and protect you, be your
+      determination what it will with regard to, dearest Madam,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your most devoted and ever affectionate and faithful servant, ALEXANDER
+      WYERLEY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0038" id="link2H_4_0038">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXXV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO ALEX. WYERLEY, ESQ. SAT. AUG. 26.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SIR,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The generosity of your purpose would have commanded not only my notice,
+      but my thanks, although you had not given me the alternative you are
+      pleased to call artful. And I do therefore give you my thanks for your
+      kind letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the time you distinguished me by your favourable opinion, I told you,
+      Sir, that my choice was the single life. And most truly did I tell you so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When that was not permitted me, and I looked round upon the several
+      gentlemen who had been proposed to me, and had reason to believe that
+      there was not one of them against whose morals or principles there lay not
+      some exception, it would not have been much to be wondered at, if FANCY
+      had been allowed to give a preference, where JUDGMENT was at a loss to
+      determine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Far be it from me to say this with a design to upbraid you, Sir, or to
+      reflect upon you. I always wished you well. You had reason to think I did.
+      You had the generosity to be pleased with the frankness of my behaviour to
+      you; as I had with that of your's to me; and I am sorry, very sorry, to be
+      now told, that the acquaintance you obliged me with gave you so much pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had the option I have mentioned been allowed me afterwards, (as I not only
+      wished, but proposed,) things had not happened that did happen. But there
+      was a kind of fatality by which our whole family was impelled, as I may
+      say; and which none of us were permitted to avoid. But this is a subject
+      that cannot be dwelt upon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As matters are, I have only to wish, for your own sake, that you will
+      encourage and cultivate those good motions in your mind, to which many
+      passages in your kind and generous letter now before me must be owing.
+      Depend upon it, Sir, that such motions, wrought into habit, will yield you
+      pleasure at a time when nothing else can; and at present, shining out in
+      your actions and conversation, will commend you to the worthiest of our
+      sex. For, Sir, the man who is so good upon choice, as well as by
+      education, has that quality in himself, which ennobles the human race, and
+      without which the most dignified by birth or rank are ignoble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to the resolution you solemnly make not to marry while I live, I should
+      be concerned at it, were I not morally sure that you may keep it, and yet
+      not be detrimented by it: since a few, a very few days, will convince you,
+      that I am got above all human dependence; and that there is no need of
+      that protection and favour, which you so generously offer to, Sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your obliged well-wisher, and humble servant, CL. HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0039" id="link2H_4_0039">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXXVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. MONDAY NOON, AUG. 28.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About the time of poor Belton's interment last night, as near as we could
+      guess, Lord M., Mowbray, and myself, toasted once, To the memory of honest
+      Tom. Belton; and, by a quick transition to the living, Health to Miss
+      Harlowe; which Lord M. obligingly began, and, To the happy reconciliation;
+      and then we stuck in a remembrance To honest Jack Belford, who, of late,
+      we all agreed, is become an useful and humane man; and one who prefers his
+      friend's service to his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what is the meaning I hear nothing from thee?* And why dost thou not
+      let me into the grounds of the sudden reconciliation between my beloved
+      and her friends, and the cause of the generous invitation which she gives
+      me of attending her at her father's some time hence?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * Mr. Belford has not yet sent him his last-written letter. His reason for
+      which see Letter XXIII. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou must certainly have been let into the secret by this time; and I can
+      tell thee, I shall be plaguy jealous if there is to be any one thing pass
+      between my angel and thee that is to be concealed from me. For either I am
+      a principal in this cause, or I am nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have dispatched Will. to know the reason of thy neglect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But let me whisper a word or two in thy ear. I begin to be afraid, after
+      all, that this letter was a stratagem to get me out of town, and for
+      nothing else: for, in the first place, Tourville, in a letter I received
+      this morning, tells me, that the lady is actually very ill! [I am sorry
+      for it with all my soul!]. This, thou'lt say, I may think a reason why she
+      cannot set out as yet: but then I have heard, on the other hand, but last
+      night, that the family is as implacable as ever; and my Lord and I expect
+      this very afternoon a visit from Colonel Morden; who, undertakes, it
+      seems, to question me as to my intention with regard to his cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This convinces me, that if she has apprized her friends of my offers to
+      her, they will not believe me to be in earnest, till they are assured that
+      I am so from my own mouth. But then I understand, that the intended visit
+      is an officiousness of Morden's own, without the desire of any of her
+      friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, Jack, what can a man make of all this? My intelligence as to the
+      continuance of her family's implacableness is not to be doubted; and yet
+      when I read her letter, what can one say?&mdash;Surely, the dear little
+      rogue will not lie!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I never knew her dispense with her word, but once; and that was, when she
+      promised to forgive me after the dreadful fire that had like to have
+      happened at our mother's, and yet would not see me the next day, and
+      afterwards made her escape to Hampstead, in order to avoid forgiving me:
+      and as she severely smarted for this departure from her honour given, (for
+      it is a sad thing for good people to break their word when it is in their
+      power to keep it,) one would not expect that she should set about
+      deceiving again; more especially by the premeditation of writing. Thou,
+      perhaps, wilt ask, what honest man is obliged to keep his promise with a
+      highwayman? for well I know thy unmannerly way of making comparisons; but
+      I say, every honest man is&mdash;and I will give thee an illustration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here is a marauding varlet, who demands your money, with a pistol at your
+      breast. You have neither money nor valuable effects about you; and promise
+      solemnly, if he will spare your life, that you will send him an
+      agreed-upon sum, by such a day, to such a place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The question is, if your life is not in the fellow's power?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How he came by the power is another question; for which he must answer
+      with his life when caught&mdash;so he runs risque for risque.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now if he give you your life, does he not give, think you, a valuable
+      consideration for the money you engage your honour to send him? If not,
+      the sum must be exorbitant, or your life is a very paltry one, even in
+      your own opinion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I need not make the application; and I am sure that even thou thyself, who
+      never sparest me, and thinkest thou knowest my heart by thy own, canst not
+      possibly put the case in a stronger light against me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, why do good people take upon themselves to censure, as they do,
+      persons less scrupulous than themselves? Is it not because the latter
+      allow themselves in any liberty, in order to carry a point? And can my not
+      doing my duty, warrant another for not doing his?&mdash;Thou wilt not say
+      it can.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And how would it sound, to put the case as strongly once more, as my
+      greatest enemy would put it, both as to fact and in words&mdash;here has
+      that profligate wretch Lovelace broken his vow with and deceived Miss
+      Clarissa Harlowe.&mdash;A vile fellow! would an enemy say: but it is like
+      him. But when it comes to be said that the pious Clarissa has broken her
+      word with and deceived Lovelace; Good Lord! would every one say; sure it
+      cannot be!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon my soul, Jack, such is the veneration I have for this admirable
+      woman, that I am shocked barely at putting the case&mdash;and so wilt
+      thou, if thou respectest her as thou oughtest: for thou knowest that men
+      and women, all the world over, form their opinions of one another by each
+      person's professions and known practices. In this lady, therefore, it
+      would be unpardonable to tell a wilful untruth, as it would be strange if
+      I kept my word.&mdash;In love cases, I mean; for, as to the rest, I am an
+      honest, moral man, as all who know me can testify.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And what, after all, would this lady deserve, if she has deceived me in
+      this case? For did she not set me prancing away, upon Lord M.'s best nag,
+      to Lady Sarah's, and to Lady Betty's, with an erect and triumphing
+      countenance, to show them her letter to me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And let me tell thee, that I have received their congratulations upon it:
+      Well, and now, cousin Lovelace, cries one: Well, and now, cousin Lovelace,
+      cries t'other; I hope you will make the best of husbands to so excellent
+      and so forgiving a lady!&mdash;And now we shall soon have the pleasure of
+      looking upon you as a reformed man, added one! And now we shall see you in
+      the way we have so long wished you to be in, cried the other!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My cousins Montague also have been ever since rejoicing in the new
+      relationship. Their charming cousin, and their lovely cousin, at every
+      word! And how dearly they will love he! What lessons they will take from
+      her! And yet Charlotte, who pretends to have the eye of an eagle, was for
+      finding out some mystery in the style and manner, till I overbore her, and
+      laughed her out of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for Lord M. he has been in hourly expectation of being sent to with
+      proposals of one sort or other from the Harlowes; and still we have it,
+      that such proposals will be made by Colonel Morden when he comes; and that
+      the Harlowes only put on a face of irreconcileableness, till they know the
+      issue of Morden's visit, in order to make the better terms with us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, if I had not undoubted reason, as I said, to believe the
+      continuance of their antipathy to me, and implacableness to her, I should
+      be apt to think there might be some foundation for my Lord's conjecture;
+      for there is a cursed deal of low cunning in all that family, except in
+      the angel of it; who has so much generosity of soul, that she despises
+      cunning, both name and thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What I mean by all this is, to let thee see what a stupid figure I shall
+      make to all my own family, if my Clarissa has been capable, as Gulliver in
+      his abominable Yahoo story phrases it, if it were only that I should be
+      outwitted by such a novice at plotting, and that it would make me look
+      silly to my kinswomen here, who know I value myself upon my contrivances,
+      it would vex me to the heart; and I would instantly clap a featherbed into
+      a coach and six, and fetch her away, sick or well, and marry her at my
+      leisure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Col. Morden is come, and I must break off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0040" id="link2H_4_0040">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXXVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. MONDAY NIGHT, AUG. 28.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I doubt you will be all impatience that you have not heard from me since
+      mine of Thursday last. You would be still more so, if you knew that I had
+      by me a letter ready written.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went early yesterday morning to Epsom; and found every thing disposed
+      according to the directions I had left on Friday; and at night the solemn
+      office was performed. Tourville was there; and behaved very decently, and
+      with greater concern than I thought he would ever have expressed for any
+      body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomasine, they told me, in a kind of disguise, was in an obscure pew, out
+      of curiosity (for it seems she was far from showing any tokens of grief)
+      to see the last office performed for the man whose heart she had so
+      largely contributed to break.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was obliged to stay till this afternoon, to settle several necessary
+      matters, and to direct inventories to be taken, in order for appraisement;
+      for every thing is to be turned into money, by his will. I presented his
+      sister with the hundred guineas the poor man left me as his executor, and
+      desired her to continue in the house, and take the direction of every
+      thing, till I could hear from his nephew at Antigua, who is heir at law.
+      He had left her but fifty pounds, although he knew her indigence; and that
+      it was owing to a vile husband, and not to herself, that she was indigent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor man left about two hundred pounds in money, and two hundred
+      pounds in two East-India bonds; and I will contrive, if I can, to make up
+      the poor woman's fifty pounds, and my hundred guineas, two hundred pounds
+      to her; and then she will have some little matter coming in certain, which
+      I will oblige her to keep out of the hands of a son, who has completed
+      that ruin which his father had very nearly effected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave Tourville his twenty pounds, and will send you and Mowbray your's
+      by the first order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so much for poor Belton's affairs till I see you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I got to town in the evening, and went directly to Smith's. I found Mrs.
+      Lovick and Mrs. Smith in the back shop, and I saw they had been both in
+      tears. They rejoiced to see me, however; and told me, that the Doctor and
+      Mr. Goddard were but just gone; as was also the worthy clergyman, who
+      often comes to pray by her; and all three were of opinion, that she would
+      hardly live to see the entrance of another week. I was not so much
+      surprised as grieved; for I had feared as much when I left her on
+      Saturday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sent up my compliments; and she returned, that she would take it for a
+      favour if I would call upon her in the morning by eight o'clock. Mrs.
+      Lovick told me that she had fainted away on Saturday, while she was
+      writing, as she had done likewise the day before; and having received
+      benefit then by a little turn in a chair, she was carried abroad again.
+      She returned somewhat better; and wrote till late; yet had a pretty good
+      night: and went to Covent-garden church in the morning; but came home so
+      ill that she was obliged to lie down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she arose, seeing how much grieved Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith were
+      for her, she made apologies for the trouble she gave them&mdash;You were
+      happy, said she, before I came hither. It was a cruel thing in me to come
+      amongst honest strangers, and to be sick, and die with you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they touched upon the irreconcileableness of her friends, I have had
+      ill offices done me to them, said she, and they do not know how ill I am;
+      nor will they believe any thing I should write. But yet I cannot sometimes
+      forbear thinking it a little hard, that out of so many near and dear
+      friends as I have living, not one of them will vouchsafe to look upon me.
+      No old servant, no old friend, proceeded she, to be permitted to come near
+      me, without being sure of incurring displeasure! And to have such a great
+      work to go through by myself, a young creature as I am, and to have every
+      thing to think of as to my temporal matters, and to order, to my very
+      interment! No dear mother, said the sweet sufferer, to pray by me and
+      bless me!&mdash;No kind sister to sooth and comfort me!&mdash;But come,
+      recollected she, how do I know but all is for the best&mdash;if I can but
+      make a right use of my discomforts?&mdash;Pray for me, Mrs. Lovick&mdash;pray
+      for me, Mrs. Smith, that I may&mdash;I have great need of your prayers.&mdash;This
+      cruel man has discomposed me. His persecutions have given me pain just
+      here, [putting her hand to her heart.] What a step has he made me take to
+      avoid him!&mdash;Who can touch pitch, and not be defiled? He had made a
+      bad spirit take possession of me, I think&mdash;broken in upon all my
+      duties &mdash;and will not yet, I doubt, let me be at rest. Indeed he is
+      very cruel &mdash;but this is one of my trials, I believe. By God's grace,
+      I shall be easier to-morrow, and especially if I have no more of his
+      tormentings, and if I can get a tolerable night. And I will sit up till
+      eleven, that I may.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She said, that though this was so heavy a day with her, she was at other
+      times, within these few days past especially, blessed with bright hours;
+      and particularly that she had now and then such joyful assurances, (which
+      she hoped were not presumptuous ones,) that God would receive her to his
+      mercy, that she could hardly contain herself, and was ready to think
+      herself above this earth while she was in it: And what, inferred she to
+      Mrs. Lovick, must be the state itself, the very aspirations after which
+      have often cast a beamy light through the thickest darkness, and, when I
+      have been at the lowest ebb, have dispelled the black clouds of
+      despondency?&mdash;As I hope they soon will this spirit of repining.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had a pretty good night, it seems; and this morning went in a chair to
+      St. Dunstan's church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chairmen told Mrs. Smith, that after prayers (for she did not return
+      till between nine and ten) they carried her to a house in Fleet-street,
+      whither they never waited on her before. And where dost think this was?
+      &mdash;Why to an undertaker's! Good Heaven! what a woman is this! She went
+      into the back shop, and talked with the master of it about half an hour,
+      and came from him with great serenity; he waiting upon her to her chair
+      with a respectful countenance, but full of curiosity and seriousness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Tis evident that she went to bespeak her house that she talked of*&mdash;As
+      soon as you can, Sir, were her words to him as she got into the chair.
+      Mrs. Smith told me this with the same surprise and grief that I heard it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter XXIII. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was very ill in the afternoon, having got cold either at St.
+      Dunstan's, or at chapel, and sent for the clergyman to pray by her; and
+      the women, unknown to her, sent both for Dr. H. and Mr. Goddard: who were
+      just gone, as I told you, when I came to pay my respects to her this
+      evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And thus have I recounted from the good women what passed to this night
+      since my absence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I long for to-morrow, that I may see her: and yet it is such a melancholy
+      longing as I never experienced, and know not how to describe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TUESDAY, AUG. 29.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was at Smith's at half an hour after seven. They told me that the lady
+      was gone in a chair to St. Dunstan's: but was better than she had been in
+      either of the two preceding days; and that she said she to Mrs. Lovick and
+      Mrs. Smith, as she went into the chair, I have a good deal to answer for
+      to you, my good friends, for my vapourish conversation of last night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If, Mrs. Lovick, said she, smiling, I have no new matters to discompose
+      me, I believe my spirits will hold out purely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She returned immediately after prayers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Belford, said she, as she entered the back shop where I was, (and upon
+      my approaching her,) I am very glad to see you. You have been performing
+      for your poor friend a kind last office. 'Tis not long ago since you did
+      the same for a near relation. Is it not a little hard upon you, that these
+      troubles should fall so thick to your lot? But they are charitable
+      offices: and it is a praise to your humanity, that poor dying people know
+      not where to choose so well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her I was sorry to hear she had been so ill since I had the honour
+      to attend her; but rejoiced to find that now she seemed a good deal
+      better.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It will be sometimes better, and sometimes worse, replied she, with poor
+      creatures, when they are balancing between life and death. But no more of
+      these matters just now. I hope, Sir, you'll breakfast with me. I was quite
+      vapourish yesterday. I had a very bad spirit upon me. Had I not, Mrs.
+      Smith? But I hope I shall be no more so. And to-day I am perfectly serene.
+      This day rises upon me as if it would be a bright one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She desired me to walk up, and invited Mr. Smith and his wife, and Mrs.
+      Lovick also, to breakfast with her. I was better pleased with her
+      liveliness than with her looks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The good people retiring after breakfast, the following conversation
+      passed between us:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pray, Sir, let me ask you, if you think I may promise myself that I shall
+      be no more molested by your friend?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated: For how could I answer for such a man?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What shall I do, if he comes again?&mdash;You see how I am.&mdash;I cannot
+      fly from him now&mdash;If he has any pity left for the poor creature whom
+      he has thus reduced, let him not come.&mdash;But have you heard from him
+      lately? And will he come?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope not, Madam. I have not heard from him since Thursday last, that he
+      went out of town, rejoicing in the hopes your letter gave him of a
+      reconciliation between your friends and you, and that he might in good
+      time see you at your father's; and he is gone down to give all his friends
+      joy of the news, and is in high spirits upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alas! for me: I shall then surely have him come up to persecute me again!
+      As soon as he discovers that that was only a stratagem to keep him away,
+      he will come up, and who knows but even now he is upon the road? I thought
+      I was so bad that I should have been out of his and every body's way
+      before now; for I expected not that this contrivance would serve me above
+      two or three days; and by this time he must have found out that I am not
+      so happy as to have any hope of a reconciliation with my family; and then
+      he will come, if it be only in revenge for what he will think a deceit,
+      but is not, I hope, a wicked one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe I looked surprised to hear her confess that her letter was a
+      stratagem only; for she said, You wonder, Mr. Belford, I observe, that I
+      could be guilty of such an artifice. I doubt it is not right: it was done
+      in a hurry of spirits. How could I see a man who had so mortally injured
+      me; yet pretending a sorrow for his crimes, (and wanting to see me,) could
+      behave with so much shocking levity, as he did to the honest people of the
+      house? Yet, 'tis strange too, that neither you nor he found out my meaning
+      on perusal of my letter. You have seen what I wrote, no doubt?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have, Madam. And then I began to account for it, as an innocent
+      artifice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus far indeed, Sir, it is an innocent, that I meant him no hurt, and had
+      a right to the effect I hoped for from it; and he had none to invade me.
+      But have you, Sir, that letter of his in which he gives you (as I suppose
+      he does) the copy of mine?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have, Madam. And pulled it out of my letter-case. But hesitating&mdash;
+      Nay, Sir, said she, be pleased to read my letter to yourself&mdash;I
+      desire not to see his&mdash;and see if you can be longer a stranger to a
+      meaning so obvious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I read it to myself&mdash;Indeed, Madam, I can find nothing but that you
+      are going down to Harlowe-place to be reconciled to your father and other
+      friends: and Mr. Lovelace presumed that a letter from your sister, which
+      he saw brought when he was at Mr. Smith's, gave you the welcome news of
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She then explained all to me, and that, as I may say, in six words&mdash;A
+      religious meaning is couched under it, and that's the reason that neither
+      you nor I could find it out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Read but for my father's house, Heaven, said she, and for the
+      interposition of my dear blessed friend, suppose the mediation of my
+      Saviour (which I humbly rely upon); and all the rest of the letter will be
+      accounted for.' I hope (repeated she) that it is a pardonable artifice.
+      But I am afraid it is not strictly right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I read it so, and stood astonished for a minute at her invention, her
+      piety, her charity, and at thine and mine own stupidity to be thus taken
+      in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, thou vile Lovelace, what hast thou to do (the lady all consistent
+      with herself, and no hopes left for thee) but to hang, drown, or shoot
+      thyself, for an outwitted boaster?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My surprise being a little over, she proceeded: As to the letter that came
+      from my sister while your friend was here, you will soon see, Sir, that it
+      is the cruellest letter she ever wrote me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then she expressed a deep concern for what might be the consequence of
+      Colonel Morden's intended visit to you; and besought me, that if now, or
+      at any time hereafter, I had opportunity to prevent any further mischief,
+      without detriment or danger to myself, I would do it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I assured her of the most particular attention to this and to all her
+      commands; and that in a manner so agreeable to her, that she invoked a
+      blessing upon me for my goodness, as she called it, to a desolate creature
+      who suffered under the worst of orphanage; those were her words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She then went back to her first subject, her uneasiness for fear of your
+      molesting her again; and said, If you have any influence over him, Mr.
+      Belford, prevail upon him that he will give me the assurance that the
+      short remainder of my time shall be all my own. I have need of it. Indeed
+      I have. Why will he wish to interrupt me in my duty? Has he not punished
+      me enough for my preference of him to all his sex? Has he not destroyed my
+      fame and my fortune? And will not his causeless vengeance upon me be
+      complete, unless he ruin my soul too?&mdash;Excuse me, Sir, for this
+      vehemence! But indeed it greatly imports me to know that I shall be no
+      more disturbed by him. And yet, with all this aversion, I would sooner
+      give way to his visit, though I were to expire the moment I saw him, than
+      to be the cause of any fatal misunderstanding between you and him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I assured her that I would make such a representation of the matter to
+      you, and of the state of her health, that I would undertake to answer for
+      you, that you would not attempt to come near her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And for this reason, Lovelace, do I lay the whole matter before you, and
+      desire you will authorize me, as soon as this and mine of Saturday last
+      come to your hands, to dissipate her fears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This gave her a little satisfaction; and then she said that had I not told
+      her that I could promise for you, she was determined, ill as she is, to
+      remove somewhere out of my knowledge as well as out of your's. And yet, to
+      have been obliged to leave people I am but just got acquainted with, said
+      the poor lady, and to have died among perfect strangers, would have
+      completed my hardships.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This conversation, I found, as well from the length as the nature of it,
+      had fatigued her; and seeing her change colour once or twice, I made that
+      my excuse, and took leave of her: desiring her permission, however, to
+      attend her in the evening; and as often as possible; for I could not help
+      telling her that, every time I saw her, I more and more considered her as
+      a beatified spirit; and as one sent from Heaven to draw me after her out
+      of the miry gulf in which I had been so long immersed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And laugh at me if thou wilt; but it is true that, every time I approach
+      her, I cannot but look upon her as one just entering into a companionship
+      with saints and angels. This thought so wholly possessed me, that I could
+      not help begging, as I went away, her prayers and her blessing, with the
+      reverence due to an angel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the evening, she was so low and weak, that I took my leave of her in
+      less than a quarter of an hour. I went directly home. Where, to the
+      pleasure and wonder of my cousin and her family, I now pass many honest
+      evenings: which they impute to your being out of town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall dispatch my packet to-morrow morning early by my own servant, to
+      make thee amends for the suspense I must have kept thee in: thou'lt thank
+      me for that, I hope; but wilt not, I am sure, for sending thy servant back
+      without a letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I long for the particulars of the conversation between you and Mr. Morden;
+      the lady, as I have hinted, is full of apprehensions about it. Send me
+      back this packet when perused; for I have not had either time or patience
+      to take a copy of it. And I beseech you enable me to make good my
+      engagements to the poor lady that you will not invade her again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0041" id="link2H_4_0041">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXXVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. WEDNESDAY, AUG. 30.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have a conversation to give you that passed between this admirable lady
+      and Dr. H. which will furnish a new instance of the calmness and serenity
+      with which she can talk of death, and prepare for it, as if it were an
+      occurrence as familiar to her as dressing and undressing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as I had dispatched my servant to you with my letters of the 26th,
+      28th, and yesterday the 29th, I went to pay my duty to her, and had the
+      pleasure to find her, after a tolerable night, pretty lively and cheerful.
+      She was but just returned from her usual devotions; and Doctor H. alighted
+      as she entered the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After inquiring how she did, and hearing her complaints of shortness of
+      breath, (which she attributed to inward decay, precipitated by her late
+      harasses, as well from her friends as from you,) he was for advising her
+      to go into the air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What will that do for me? said she: tell me truly, good Sir, with a
+      cheerful aspect, (you know you cannot disturb me by it,) whether now you
+      do not put on the true physician; and despairing that any thing in
+      medicine will help me, advise me to the air, as the last resource?&mdash;Can
+      you think the air will avail in such a malady as mine?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I ask, said she, because my friends (who will possibly some time hence
+      inquire after the means I used for my recovery) may be satisfied that I
+      omitted nothing which so worthy and skilful a physician prescribed?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The air, Madam, may possibly help the difficulty of breathing, which has
+      so lately attacked you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, Sir, you see how weak I am. You must see that I have been consuming
+      from day to day; and now, if I can judge by what I feel in myself, putting
+      her hand to her heart, I cannot continue long. If the air would very
+      probably add to my days, though I am far from being desirous to have them
+      lengthened, I would go into it; and the rather, as I know Mrs. Lovick
+      would kindly accompany me. But if I were to be at the trouble of removing
+      into new lodgings, (a trouble which I think now would be too much for me,)
+      and this only to die in the country, I had rather the scene were to shut
+      up here. For here have I meditated the spot, and the manner, and every
+      thing, as well of the minutest as of the highest consequence, that can
+      attend the solemn moments. So, Doctor, tell me truly, may I stay here, and
+      be clear of any imputations of curtailing, through wilfulness or
+      impatiency, or through resentments which I hope I am got above, a life
+      that might otherwise be prolonged?&mdash;Tell me, Sir; you are not talking
+      to a coward in this respect; indeed you are not!&mdash; Unaffectedly
+      smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor, turning to me, was at a loss what to say, lifting up his eyes
+      only in admiration of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never had any patient, said she, a more indulgent and more humane
+      physician. But since you are loth to answer my question directly, I will
+      put it in other words&mdash;You don't enjoin me to go into the air,
+      Doctor, do you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I do not, Madam. Nor do I now visit you as a physician; but as a person
+      whose conversation I admire, and whose sufferings I condole. And, to
+      explain myself more directly, as to the occasion of this day's visit in
+      particular, I must tell you, Madam, that, understanding how much you
+      suffer by the displeasure of your friends; and having no doubt but that,
+      if they knew the way you are in, they would alter their conduct to you;
+      and believing it must cut them to the heart, when too late, they shall be
+      informed of every thing; I have resolved to apprize them by letter
+      (stranger as I am to their persons) how necessary it is for some of them
+      to attend you very speedily. For their sakes, Madam, let me press for your
+      approbation of this measure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused; and at last said, This is kind, very kind, in you, Sir. But I
+      hope that you do not think me so perverse, and so obstinate, as to have
+      left till now any means unessayed which I thought likely to move my
+      friends in my favour. But now, Doctor, said she, I should be too much
+      disturbed at their grief, if they were any of them to come or to send to
+      me: and perhaps, if I found they still loved me, wish to live; and so
+      should quit unwillingly that life, which I am now really fond of quitting,
+      and hope to quit as becomes a person who has had such a weaning-time as I
+      have been favoured with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope, Madam, said I, we are not so near as you apprehend to that
+      deplorable catastrophe you hint at with such an amazing presence of mind.
+      And therefore I presume to second the doctor's motion, if it were only for
+      the sake of your father and mother, that they may have the satisfaction,
+      if they must lose you, to think they were first reconciled to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is very kindly, very humanely considered, said she. But, if you think
+      me not so very near my last hour, let me desire this may be postponed till
+      I see what effect my cousin Morden's mediation may have. Perhaps he may
+      vouchsafe to make me a visit yet, after his intended interview with Mr.
+      Lovelace is over; of which, who knows, Mr. Belford, but your next letters
+      may give an account? I hope it will not be a fatal one to any body. Will
+      you promise me, Doctor, to forbear writing for two days only, and I will
+      communicate to you any thing that occurs in that time; and then you shall
+      take your own way? Mean time, I repeat my thanks for your goodness to me.&mdash;Nay,
+      dear Doctor, hurry not away from me so precipitately [for he was going,
+      for fear of an offered fee]: I will no more affront you with tenders that
+      have pained you for some time past: and since I must now, from this
+      kindly-offered favour, look upon you only as a friend, I will assure you
+      henceforth that I will give you no more uneasiness on that head: and now,
+      Sir, I know I shall have the pleasure of seeing you oftener than
+      heretofore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The worthy gentleman was pleased with this assurance, telling her that he
+      had always come to see her with great pleasure, but parted with her, on
+      the account she hinted at, with as much pain; and that he should not have
+      forborne to double his visits, could he have had this kind assurance as
+      early as he wished for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are few instances of like disinterestedness, I doubt, in this tribe.
+      Till now I always held it for gospel, that friendship and physician were
+      incompatible things; and little imagined that a man of medicine, when he
+      had given over his patient to death, would think of any visits but those
+      of ceremony, that he might stand well with the family, against it came to
+      their turns to go through his turnpike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the doctor was gone, she fell into a very serious discourse of the
+      vanity of life, and the wisdom of preparing for death, while health and
+      strength remained, and before the infirmities of body impaired the
+      faculties of the mind, and disabled them from acting with the necessary
+      efficacy and clearness: the whole calculated for every one's meridian, but
+      particularly, as it was easy to observe, for thine and mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was very curious to know farther particulars of the behaviour of poor
+      Belton in his last moments. You must not wonder at my inquiries, Mr.
+      Belford, said she; For who is it, that is to undertake a journey into a
+      country they never travelled to before, that inquires not into the
+      difficulties of the road, and what accommodations are to be expected in
+      the way?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave her a brief account of the poor man's terrors, and unwillingness to
+      die: and, when I had done, Thus, Mr. Belford, said she, must it always be
+      with poor souls who have never thought of their long voyage till the
+      moment they are to embark for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She made other such observations upon this subject as, coming from the
+      mouth of a person who will so soon be a companion for angels, I shall
+      never forget. And indeed, when I went home, that I might engraft them the
+      better on my memory, I entered them down in writing: but I will not let
+      you see them until you are in a frame more proper to benefit by them than
+      you are likely to be in one while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus far had I written, when the unexpected early return of my servant
+      with your packet (your's and he meeting at Slough, and exchanging letters)
+      obliged me to leave off to give its contents a reading.&mdash;Here,
+      therefore, I close this letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0042" id="link2H_4_0042">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XXXIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. TUESDAY MORN. AUG. 29.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, Jack, will I give thee an account of what passed on occasion of the
+      visit made us by Col. Morden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came on horseback, attended by one servant; and Lord M. received him as
+      a relation of Miss Harlowe's with the highest marks of civility and
+      respect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After some general talk of the times, and of the weather, and such
+      nonsense as Englishmen generally make their introductory topics to
+      conversation, the Colonel addressed himself to Lord M. and to me, as
+      follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I need not, my Lord, and Mr. Lovelace, as you know the relation I bear to
+      the Harlowe family, make any apology for entering upon a subject, which,
+      on account of that relation, you must think is the principal reason of the
+      honour I have done myself in this visit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Harlowe, Miss Clarissa Harlowe's affair, said Lord M. with his usual
+      forward bluntness. That, Sir, is what you mean. She is, by all accounts,
+      the most excellent woman in the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am glad to hear that is your Lordship's opinion of her. It is every
+      one's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not only my opinion, Col. Morden (proceeded the prating Peer), but
+      it is the opinion of all my family. Of my sisters, of my nieces, and of
+      Mr. Lovelace himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Would to Heaven it had been always Mr. Lovelace's opinion of her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. You have been out of England, Colonel, a good many years. Perhaps
+      you are not yet fully apprized of all the particulars of this case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. I have been out of England, Sir, about seven years. My cousin Clary
+      was then about 12 years of age: but never was there at twenty so discreet,
+      so prudent, and so excellent a creature. All that knew her, or saw her,
+      admired her. Mind and person, never did I see such promises of perfection
+      in any young lady: and I am told, nor is it to be wondered at, that, as
+      she advanced to maturity, she more than justified and made good those
+      promises.&mdash;Then as to fortune&mdash;what her father, what her uncles,
+      and what I myself, intended to do for her, besides what her grandfather
+      had done&mdash;there is not a finer fortune in the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. All this, Colonel, and more than this, is Miss Clarissa Harlowe;
+      and had it not been for the implacableness and violence of her family (all
+      resolved to push her upon a match as unworthy of her as hateful to her)
+      she had still been happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. I own, Mr. Lovelace, the truth of what you observed just now, that I
+      am not thoroughly acquainted with all that has passed between you and my
+      cousin. But permit me to say, that when I first heard that you made your
+      addresses to her, I knew but of one objection against you; that, indeed, a
+      very great one: and upon a letter sent me, I gave her my free opinion upon
+      that subject.* But had it not been for that, I own, that, in my private
+      mind, there could not have been a more suitable match: for you are a
+      gallant gentleman, graceful in your person, easy and genteel in your
+      deportment, and in your family, fortunes, and expectations, happy as a man
+      can wish to be. Then the knowledge I had of you in Italy (although, give
+      me leave to say, your conduct there was not wholly unexceptionable)
+      convinces me that you are brave: and few gentlemen come up to you in wit
+      and vivacity. Your education has given you great advantages; your manners
+      are engaging, and you have travelled; and I know, if you'll excuse me, you
+      make better observations than you are governed by. All these
+      qualifications make it not at all surprising that a young lady should love
+      you: and that this love, joined to that indiscreet warmth wherewith my
+      cousin's friends would have forced her inclinations in favour of men who
+      are far your inferiors in the qualities I have named, should throw herself
+      upon your protection. But then, if there were these two strong motives,
+      the one to induce, the other to impel, her, let me ask you, Sir, if she
+      were not doubly entitled to generous usage from a man whom she chose for
+      her protector; and whom, let me take the liberty to say, she could so
+      amply reward for the protection he was to afford her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. IV. Letter XIX.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. Miss Clarissa Harlowe was entitled, Sir, to have the best usage
+      that man could give her. I have no scruple to own it. I will always do her
+      the justice she so well deserves. I know what will be your inference; and
+      have only to say, that time past cannot be recalled; perhaps I wish it
+      could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel then, in a very manly strain, set forth the wickedness of
+      attempting a woman of virtue and character. He said, that men had
+      generally too many advantages from the weakness, credulity, and
+      inexperience of the fair sex: that their early learning, which chiefly
+      consisted in inflaming novels, and idle and improbable romances,
+      contributed to enervate and weaken their minds: that his cousin, however,
+      he was sure, was above the reach of common seduction, and not to be
+      influenced to the rashness her parents accused her of, by weaker motives
+      than their violence, and the most solemn promises on my part: but,
+      nevertheless, having those motives, and her prudence (eminent as it was)
+      being rather the effect of constitution than experience, (a fine
+      advantage, however, he said, to ground an unblamable future life upon,)
+      she might not be apprehensive of bad designs in a man she loved: it was,
+      therefore, a very heinous thing to abuse the confidence of such a woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was going on in this trite manner; when, interrupting him, I said,
+      These general observations, Colonel, suit not perhaps this particular
+      case. But you yourself are a man of gallantry; and, possibly, were you to
+      be put to the question, might not be able to vindicate every action of
+      your life, any more than I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. You are welcome, Sir, to put what questions you please to me. And, I
+      thank God, I can both own and be ashamed of my errors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. looked at me; but as the Colonel did not by his manner seem to
+      intend a reflection, I had no occasion to take it for one; especially as I
+      can as readily own my errors, as he, or any man, can his, whether ashamed
+      of them or not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He proceeded. As you seem to call upon me, Mr. Lovelace, I will tell you
+      (without boasting of it) what has been my general practice, till lately,
+      that I hope I have reformed it a good deal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have taken liberties, which the laws of morality will by no means
+      justify; and once I should have thought myself warranted to cut the throat
+      of any young fellow who should make as free with a sister of mine as I
+      have made with the sisters and daughters of others. But then I took care
+      never to promise any thing I intended not to perform. A modest ear should
+      as soon have heard downright obscenity from my lips, as matrimony, if I
+      had not intended it. Young ladies are generally ready enough to believe we
+      mean honourably, if they love us; and it would look like a strange affront
+      to their virtue and charms, that it should be supposed needful to put the
+      question whether in your address you mean a wife. But when once a man make
+      a promise, I think it ought to be performed; and a woman is well warranted
+      to appeal to every one against the perfidy of a deceiver; and is always
+      sure to have the world on her side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, Sir, continued he, I believe you have so much honour as to own, that
+      you could not have made way to so eminent a virtue, without promising
+      marriage; and that very explicitly and solemnly&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know very well, Colonel, interrupted I, all you would say. You will
+      excuse me, I am sure, that I break in upon you, when you find it is to
+      answer the end you drive at.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I own to you then that I have acted very unworthily by Miss Clarissa
+      Harlowe; and I'll tell you farther, that I heartily repent of my
+      ingratitude and baseness to her. Nay, I will say still farther, that I am
+      so grossly culpable as to her, that even to plead that the abuses and
+      affronts I daily received from her implacable relations were in any manner
+      a provocation to me to act vilely by her, would be a mean and low attempt
+      to excuse myself&mdash;so low and so mean, that it would doubly condemn
+      me. And if you can say worse, speak it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked upon Lord M. and then upon me, two or three times. And my Lord
+      said, My kinsman speaks what he thinks, I'll answer for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. I do, Sir; and what can I say more? And what farther, in your
+      opinion, can be done?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Done! Sir? Why, Sir, [in a haughty tone he spoke,] I need not tell
+      you that reparation follows repentance. And I hope you make no scruple of
+      justifying your sincerity as to the one or the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated, (for I relished not the manner of his speech, and his haughty
+      accent,) as undetermined whether to take proper notice of it or not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Let me put this question to you, Mr. Lovelace: Is it true, as I have
+      heard it is, that you would marry my cousin, if she would have you?
+      &mdash;What say you, Sir?&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This wound me up a peg higher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. Some questions, as they may be put, imply commands, Colonel. I
+      would be glad to know how I am to take your's? And what is to be the end
+      of your interrogatories?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. My questions are not meant by me as commands, Mr. Lovelace. The end
+      is, to prevail upon a gentleman to act like a gentleman, and a man of
+      honour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. (briskly) And by what arguments, Sir, do you propose to prevail
+      upon me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. By what arguments, Sir, prevail upon a gentleman to act like a
+      gentleman!&mdash;I am surprised at that question from Mr. Lovelace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. Why so, Sir?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. WHY so, Sir! (angrily)&mdash;Let me&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. (interrupting) I don't choose, Colonel, to be repeated upon, in
+      that accent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. Come, come, gentlemen, I beg of you to be willing to understand
+      one another. You young gentlemen are so warm&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Not I, my Lord&mdash;I am neither very young, nor unduly warm. Your
+      nephew, my Lord, can make me be every thing he would have me to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. And that shall be, whatever you please to be, Colonel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. (fiercely) The choice be your's, Mr. Lovelace. Friend or foe! as you
+      do or are willing to do justice to one of the finest women in the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. I guessed, from both your characters, what would be the case when
+      you met. Let me interpose, gentlemen, and beg you but to understand one
+      another. You both shoot at one mark; and, if you are patient, will both
+      hit it. Let me beg of you, Colonel, to give no challenges&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Challenges, my Lord!&mdash;They are things I ever was readier to
+      accept than to offer. But does your Lordship think that a man, so nearly
+      related as I have the honour to be to the most accomplished woman on
+      earth,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. (interrupting) We all allow the excellencies of the lady&mdash;and
+      we shall all take it as the greatest honour to be allied to her that can
+      be conferred upon us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. So you ought, my Lord!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A perfect Chamont; thought I.*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Otway's Orphan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. So we ought, Colonel! and so we do!&mdash;and pray let every one
+      do as he ought!&mdash;and no more than he ought; and you, Colonel, let me
+      tell you, will not be so hasty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. (coolly) Come, come, Col. Morden, don't let this dispute, whatever
+      you intend to make of it, go farther than with you and me. You deliver
+      yourself in very high terms. Higher than ever I was talked to in my life.
+      But here, beneath this roof, 'twould be inexcusable for me to take that
+      notice of it which, perhaps, it would become me to take elsewhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. That is spoken as I wish the man to speak whom I should be pleased to
+      call my friend, if all his actions were of a piece; and as I would have
+      the man speak whom I would think it worth my while to call my foe. I love
+      a man of spirit, as I love my soul. But, Mr. Lovelace, as my Lord thinks
+      we aim at one mark, let me say, that were we permitted to be alone for six
+      minutes, I dare say, we should soon understand one another perfectly well.&mdash;And
+      he moved to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. I am entirely of your opinion, Sir; and will attend you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My Lord rung, and stept between us: Colonel, return, I beseech you return,
+      said he: for he had stept out of the room while my Lord held me&mdash;
+      Nephew, you shall not go out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bell and my Lord's raised voice brought in Mowbray, and Clements, my
+      Lord's gentleman; the former in his careless way, with his hands behind
+      him, What's the matter, Bobby? What's the matter, my Lord?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Only, only, only, stammered the agitated peer, these young gentlemen are,
+      are, are&mdash;are young gentlemen, that's all.&mdash;Pray, Colonel
+      Morden, [who again entered the room with a sedater aspect,] let this cause
+      have a fair trial, I beseech you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. With all my heart, my Lord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbray whispered me, What is the cause, Bobby?&mdash;Shall I take the
+      gentleman to task for thee, my boy?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not for the world, whispered I. The Colonel is a gentleman, and I desire
+      you'll not say one word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, well, well, Bobby, I have done. I can turn thee loose to the best
+      man upon God's earth; that's all, Bobby; strutting off to the other end of
+      the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. I am sorry, my Lord, I should give your Lordship the least
+      uneasiness. I came not with such a design.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. Indeed, Colonel, I thought you did, by your taking fire so
+      quickly. I am glad to hear you say you did not. How soon a little spark
+      kindles into a flame; especially when it meets with such combustible
+      spirits!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. If I had had the least thought of proceeding to extremities, I am
+      sure Mr. Lovelace would have given me the honour of a meeting where I
+      should have been less an intruder: but I came with an amicable intention;
+      to reconcile differences rather than to widen them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. Well then, Colonel Morden, let us enter upon the subject in your
+      own way. I don't know the man I should sooner choose to be upon terms with
+      than one whom Miss Clarissa Harlowe so much respects. But I cannot bear to
+      be treated, either in word or accent, in a menacing way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. Well, well, well, well, gentlemen, this is somewhat like. Angry
+      men make to themselves beds of nettles, and, when they lie down in them,
+      are uneasy with every body. But I hope you are friends. Let me hear you
+      say you are. I am persuaded, Colonel, that you don't know all this unhappy
+      story. You don't know how desirous my kinsman is, as well as all of us, to
+      have this matter end happily. You don't know, do you, Colonel, that Mr.
+      Lovelace, at all our requests, is disposed to marry the lady?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. At all your requests, my Lord?&mdash;I should have hoped that Mr.
+      Lovelace was disposed to do justice for the sake of justice; and when at
+      the same time the doing of justice was doing himself the highest honour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbray lifted up his before half-closed eyes to the Colonel, and glanced
+      them upon me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. This is in very high language, Colonel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbr. By my soul, I thought so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. High language, Mr. Lovelace? Is it not just language?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. It is, Colonel. And I think, the man that does honour to Miss
+      Clarissa Harlowe, does me honour. But, nevertheless, there is a manner in
+      speaking, that may be liable to exception, where the words, without that
+      manner, can bear none.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Your observation in the general is undoubtedly just: but, if you have
+      the value for my cousin that you say you have, you must needs think
+      &mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. You must allow me, Sir, to interrupt you&mdash;IF I have the value
+      I say I have&mdash;I hope, Sir, when I say I have that value, there is no
+      room for that if, pronounced as you pronounced it with an emphasis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. You have broken in upon me twice, Mr. Lovelace. I am as little
+      accustomed to be broken in upon, as you are to be repeated upon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. Two barrels of gunpowder, by my conscience! What a devil will it
+      signify talking, if thus you are to blow one another up at every word?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. No man of honour, my Lord, will be easy to have his veracity called
+      into question, though but by implication.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Had you heard me out, Mr. Lovelace, you would have found, that my if
+      was rather an if of inference, than of doubt. But 'tis, really a strange
+      liberty gentlemen of free principles take; who at the same time that they
+      would resent unto death the imputation of being capable of telling an
+      untruth to a man, will not scruple to break through the most solemn oaths
+      and promises to a woman. I must assure you, Mr. Lovelace, that I always
+      made a conscience of my vows and promises.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. You did right, Colonel. But let me tell you, Sir, that you know not
+      the man you talk to, if you imagine he is not able to rise to a proper
+      resentment, when he sees his generous confessions taken for a mark of
+      base-spiritedness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. (warmly, and with a sneer,) Far be it from me, Mr. Lovelace, to
+      impute to you the baseness of spirit you speak of; for what would that be
+      but to imagine that a man, who has done a very flagrant injury, is not
+      ready to show his bravery in defending it&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbr. This is d&mdash;&mdash;d severe, Colonel. It is, by Jove. I could
+      not take so much at the hands of any man breathing as Mr. Lovelace before
+      this took at your's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Who are you, Sir? What pretence have you to interpose in a cause
+      where there is an acknowledged guilt on one side, and the honour of a
+      considerable family wounded in the tenderest part by that guilt on the
+      other?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbr. (whispering to the Colonel) My dear child, you will oblige me
+      highly if you will give me the opportunity of answering your question. And
+      was going out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel was held in by my Lord. And I brought in Mowbray.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Pray, my good Lord, let me attend this officious gentleman, I beseech
+      you do. I will wait upon your Lordship in three minutes, depend upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. Mowbray, is this acting like a friend by me, to suppose me
+      incapable of answering for myself? And shall a man of honour and bravery,
+      as I know Colonel Morden to be, (rash as perhaps in this visit he has
+      shown himself,) have it to say, that he comes to my Lord M.'s house, in a
+      manner naked as to attendants and friends, and shall not for that reason
+      be rather borne with than insulted? This moment, my dear Mowbray, leave
+      us. You have really no concern in this business; and if you are my friend,
+      I desire you'll ask the Colonel pardon for interfering in it in the manner
+      you have done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mowbr. Well, well, Bob.; thou shalt be arbiter in this matter; I know I
+      have no business in it&mdash;and, Colonel, (holding out his hand,) I leave
+      you to one who knows how to defend his own cause as well as any man in
+      England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. (taking Mowbray's hand, at Lord M.'s request,) You need not tell me
+      that, Mr. Mowbray. I have no doubt of Mr. Lovelace's ability to defend his
+      own cause, were it a cause to be defended. And let me tell you, Mr.
+      Lovelace, that I am astonished to think that a brave man, and a generous
+      man, as you have appeared to be in two or three instances that you have
+      given in the little knowledge I have of you, should be capable of acting
+      as you have done by the most excellent of her sex.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. Well, but, gentlemen, now Mr. Mowbray is gone, and you have both
+      shown instances of courage and generosity to boot, let me desire you to
+      lay your heads together amicably, and think whether there be any thing to
+      be done to make all end happily for the lady?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. But hold, my Lord, let me say one thing, now Mowbray is gone; and
+      that is, that I think a gentleman ought not to put up tamely one or two
+      severe things that the Colonel has said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. What the devil canst thou mean? I thought all had been over. Why
+      thou hast nothing to do but to confirm to the Colonel that thou art
+      willing to marry Miss Harlowe, if she will have thee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Mr. Lovelace will not scruple to say that, I suppose, notwithstanding
+      all that has passed: but if you think, Mr. Lovelace, I have said any thing
+      I should not have said, I suppose it is this, that the man who has shown
+      so little of the thing honour, to a defenceless unprotected woman, ought
+      not to stand so nicely upon the empty name of it, with a man who is
+      expostulating with him upon it. I am sorry to have cause to say this, Mr.
+      Lovelace; but I would, on the same occasion, repeat it to a king upon his
+      throne, and surrounded by all his guards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. But what is all this, but more sacks upon the mill? more coals
+      upon the fire? You have a mind to quarrel both of you, I see that. Are you
+      not willing, Nephew, are you not most willing, to marry this lady, if she
+      can be prevailed upon to have you?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. D&mdash;n me, my Lord, if I'd marry my empress upon such treatment
+      as this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. Why now, Bob., thou art more choleric than the Colonel. It was his
+      turn just now. And now you see he is cool, you are all gunpowder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. I own the Colonel has many advantages over me; but, perhaps, there
+      is one advantage he has not, if it were put to the trial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. I came not hither, as I said before, to seek the occasion: but if it
+      were offered me, I won't refuse it&mdash;and since we find we disturb my
+      good Lord M. I'll take my leave, and will go home by the way of St.
+      Alban's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. I'll see you part of the way, with all my heart, Colonel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. I accept your civility very cheerfully, Mr. Lovelace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. (interposing again, as we were both for going out,) And what will
+      this do, gentlemen? Suppose you kill one another, will the matter be
+      bettered or worsted by that? Will the lady be made happier or unhappier,
+      do you think, by either or both of your deaths? Your characters are too
+      well known to make fresh instances of the courage of either needful. And,
+      I think, if the honour of the lady is your view, Colonel, it can by no
+      other way so effectually promoted as by marriage. And, Sir, if you would
+      use your interest with her, it is very probable that you may succeed,
+      though nobody else can.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. I think, my Lord, I have said all that a man can say, (since what
+      is passed cannot be recalled:) and you see Colonel Morden rises in
+      proportion to my coolness, till it is necessary for me to assert myself,
+      or even he would despise me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. Let me ask you, Colonel, have you any way, any method, that you
+      think reasonable and honourable to propose, to bring about a
+      reconciliation with the lady? That is what we all wish for. And I can tell
+      you, Sir, it is not a little owing to her family, and to their implacable
+      usage of her, that her resentments are heightened against my kinsman; who,
+      however, has used her vilely; but is willing to repair her wrongs.&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. Not, my Lord, for the sake of her family; nor for this gentleman's
+      haughty behaviour; but for her own sake, and in full sense of the wrongs I
+      have done her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. As to my haughty behaviour, as you call it, Sir, I am mistaken if you
+      would not have gone beyond it in the like case of a relation so
+      meritorious, and so unworthily injured. And, Sir, let me tell you, that if
+      your motives are not love, honour, and justice, and if they have the least
+      tincture of mean compassion for her, or of an uncheerful assent on your
+      part, I am sure it will neither be desired or accepted by a person of my
+      cousin's merit and sense; nor shall I wish that it should.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. Don't think, Colonel, that I am meanly compounding off a debate,
+      that I should as willingly go through with you as to eat or drink, if I
+      have the occasion given me for it: but thus much I will tell you, that my
+      Lord, that Lady Sarah Sadleir, Lady Betty Lawrance, my two cousins
+      Montague, and myself, have written to her in the most solemn and sincere
+      manner, to offer her such terms as no one but herself would refuse, and
+      this long enough before Colonel Morden's arrival was dreamt of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. What reason, Sir, may I ask, does she give, against listening to so
+      powerful a mediation, and to such offers?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. It looks like capitulating, or else&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. It looks not like any such thing to me, Mr. Lovelace, who have as
+      good an opinion of your spirit as man can have. And what, pray, is the
+      part I act, and my motives for it? Are they not, in desiring that justice
+      may be done to my Cousin Clarissa Harlowe, that I seek to establish the
+      honour of Mrs. Lovelace, if matters can once be brought to bear?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. Were she to honour me with her acceptance of that name, Mr. Morden,
+      I should not want you or any man to assert the honour of Mrs. Lovelace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. I believe it. But still she has honoured you with that acceptance,
+      she is nearer to me than to you, Mr. Lovelace. And I speak this, only to
+      show you that, in the part I take, I mean rather to deserve your thanks
+      than your displeasure, though against yourself, were there occasion. Nor
+      ought you take it amiss, if you rightly weigh the matter: For, Sir, whom
+      does a lady want protection against but her injurers? And who has been her
+      greatest injurer?&mdash;Till, therefore, she becomes entitled to your
+      protection, as your wife, you yourself cannot refuse me some merit in
+      wishing to have justice done my cousin. But, Sir, you were going to say,
+      that if it were not to look like capitulating, you would hint the reasons
+      my cousin gives against accepting such an honourable mediation?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I then told him of my sincere offers of marriage: 'I made no difficulty, I
+      said, to own my apprehensions, that my unhappy behaviour to her had
+      greatly affected her: but that it was the implacableness of her friends
+      that had thrown her into despair, and given her a contempt for life.' I
+      told him, 'that she had been so good as to send me a letter to divert me
+      from a visit my heart was set upon making her: a letter on which I built
+      great hopes, because she assured me that in it she was going to her
+      father's; and that I might see her there, when she was received, if it
+      were not my own fault.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Is it possible? And were you, Sir, thus earnest? And did she send you
+      such a letter?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. confirmed both; and also, that, in obedience to her desires, and
+      that intimation, I had come down without the satisfaction I had proposed
+      to myself in seeing her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is very true, Colonel, said I: and I should have told you this before:
+      but your heat made me decline it; for, as I said, it had an appearance of
+      meanly capitulating with you. An abjectness of heart, of which, had I been
+      capable, I should have despised myself as much as I might have expected
+      you would despise me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. proposed to enter into the proof of all this. He said, in his
+      phraseological way, That one story was good till another was heard; and
+      that the Harlowe family and I, 'twas true, had behaved like so many Orsons
+      to one another; and that they had been very free with all our family
+      besides: that nevertheless, for the lady's sake, more than for their's, or
+      even for mine, (he could tell me,) he would do greater things for me than
+      they could ask, if she could be brought to have me: and that this he
+      wanted to declare, and would sooner have declared, if he could have
+      brought us sooner to patience, and a good understanding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel made excuses for his warmth, on the score of his affection to
+      his cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My regard for her made me readily admit them: and so a fresh bottle of
+      Burgundy, and another of Champagne, being put upon the table, we sat down
+      in good humour, after all this blustering, in order to enter closer into
+      the particulars of the case: which I undertook, at both their desires, to
+      do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But these things must be the subject of another letter, which shall
+      immediately follow this, if it do not accompany it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mean time you will observe that a bad cause gives a man great
+      disadvantages: for I myself think that the interrogatories put to me with
+      so much spirit by the Colonel made me look cursedly mean; at the same time
+      that it gave him a superiority which I know not how to allow to the best
+      man in Europe. So that, literally speaking, as a good man would infer,
+      guilt is its own punisher: in that it makes the most lofty spirit look
+      like the miscreant he is&mdash;a good man, I say: So, Jack, proleptically
+      I add, thou hast no right to make the observation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0043" id="link2H_4_0043">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XL
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE [IN CONTINUATION.] TUESDAY AFTERNOON, AUG. 29.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went back, in this part of our conversation, to the day that I was
+      obliged to come down to attend my Lord in the dangerous illness which some
+      feared would have been his last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told the Colonel, 'what earnest letters I had written to a particular
+      friend, to engage him to prevail upon the lady not to slip a day that had
+      been proposed for the private celebration of our nuptials; and of my
+      letters* written to her on that subject;' for I had stepped to my closet,
+      and fetched down all the letters and draughts and copies of letters
+      relating to this affair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VI. Letters XXXVII. XXXVIII. XXXIX. XLIII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I read to him, 'several passages in the copies of those letters, which,
+      thou wilt remember, make not a little to my honour.' And I told him, 'that
+      I wished I had kept copies of those to my friend on the same occasion; by
+      which he would have seen how much in earnest I was in my professions to
+      her, although she would not answer one of them;' and thou mayest remember,
+      that one of those four letters accounted to herself why I was desirous she
+      should remain where I had left her.*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VI. Letter XXXVII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I then proceeded to give him an account 'of the visit made by Lady Sarah
+      and Lady Betty to Lord M. and me, in order to induce me to do her justice:
+      of my readiness to comply with their desires; and of their high opinion of
+      her merit: of the visit made to Miss Howe by my cousins Montague, in the
+      name of us all, to engage her interest with her friend in my behalf: of my
+      conversation with Miss Howe, at a private assembly, to whom I gave the
+      same assurances, and besought her interest with her friend.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I then read a copy of the letter (though so much to my disadvantage) which
+      was written to her by Miss Charlotte Montague, Aug. 1,* entreating her
+      alliance in the names of all our family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VII. Letter LXVI.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This made him ready to think that his fair cousin carried her resentment
+      against me too far. He did not imagine, he said, that either myself or our
+      family had been so much in earnest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So thou seest, Belford, that it is but glossing over one part of a story,
+      and omitting another, that will make a bad cause a good one at any time.
+      What an admirable lawyer should I have made! And what a poor hand would
+      this charming creature, with all her innocence, have made of it in a court
+      of justice against a man who had so much to say and to show for himself!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I then hinted at the generous annual tender which Lord M. and his sisters
+      made to his fair cousin, in apprehension that she might suffer by her
+      friends' implacableness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And this also the Colonel highly applauded, and was pleased to lament the
+      unhappy misunderstanding between the two families, which had made the
+      Harlowes less fond of an alliance with a family of so much honour as this
+      instance showed ours to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I then told him, 'That having, by my friend, [meaning thee,] who was
+      admitted into her presence, (and who had always been an admirer of her
+      virtues, and had given me such advice from time to time in relation to her
+      as I wished I had followed,) been assured that a visit from me would be
+      very disagreeable to her, I once more resolved to try what a letter would
+      do; and that, accordingly, on the seventh of August, I wrote her one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'This, Colonel, is the copy of it. I was then out of humour with my Lord
+      M. and the ladies of my family. You will, therefore, read it to
+      yourself.'*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VII. Letter LXXIX.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This letter gave him high satisfaction. You write here, Mr. Lovelace, from
+      your heart. 'Tis a letter full of penitence and acknowledgement. Your
+      request is reasonable&mdash;To be forgiven only as you shall appear to
+      deserve it after a time of probation, which you leave to her to fix. Pray,
+      Sir, did she return an answer to this letter?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did, but with reluctance, I own, and not till I had declared by my
+      friend, that, if I could not procure one, I would go up to town, and throw
+      myself at her feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish I might be permitted to see it, Sir, or to hear such parts of it
+      read as you shall think proper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Turning over my papers, Here it is, Sir.* I will make no scruple to put it
+      into your hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is very obliging, Mr. Lovelace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He read it. My charming cousin!&mdash;How strong her resentments!&mdash;Yet
+      how charitable her wishes!&mdash;Good Heaven! that such an excellent
+      creature&mdash; But, Mr. Lovelace, it is to your regret, as much as to
+      mine, I doubt not &mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Interrupting him, I swore that it was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So it ought, said he. Nor do I wonder that it should be so. I shall tell
+      you by-and-by, proceeded he, how much she suffers with her friends by
+      false and villanous reports. But, Sir, will you permit me to take with me
+      these two letters? I shall make use of them to the advantage of you both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told him I would oblige him with all my heart. And this he took very
+      kindly (as he had reason); and put them in his pocket-book, promising to
+      return hem in a few days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I then told him, 'That upon this her refusal, I took upon myself to go to
+      town, in hopes to move her in my favour; and that, though I went without
+      giving her notice of my intention, yet had she got some notion of my
+      coming, and so contrived to be out of the way: and at last, when she found
+      I was fully determined at all events to see her, before I went abroad,
+      (which I shall do, said I, if I cannot prevail upon her,) she sent me the
+      letter I have already mentioned to you, desiring me to suspend my purposed
+      visit: and that for a reason which amazes and confounds me; because I
+      don't find there is any thing in it: and yet I never knew her once
+      dispense with her word; for she always made it a maxim, that it was not
+      lawful to do evil, that good might come of it: and yet in this letter, for
+      no reason in the world but to avoid seeing me (to gratify an humour only)
+      has she sent me out of town, depending upon the assurance she had given
+      me.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. This is indeed surprising. But I cannot believe that my cousin, for
+      such an end only, or indeed for any end, according to the character I hear
+      of her, should stoop to make use of such an artifice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. This, Colonel, is the thing that astonishes me; and yet, see here!&mdash;This
+      is the letter she wrote me&mdash;Nay, Sir, 'tis her own hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. I see it is; and a charming hand it is.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. You observe, Colonel, that all her hopes of reconciliation with her
+      parents are from you. You are her dear blessed friend! She always talked
+      of you with delight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Would to Heaven I had come to England before she left Harlowe-place!&mdash;Nothing
+      of this had then happened. Not a man of those whom I have heard that her
+      friends proposed for her should have had her. Nor you, Mr. Lovelace,
+      unless I had found you to be the man every one who sees you must wish you
+      to be: and if you had been that man, no one living should I have preferred
+      to you for such an excellence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My Lord and I both joined in the wish: and 'faith I wished it most
+      cordially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel read the letter twice over, and then returned it to me. 'Tis
+      all a mystery, said he. I can make nothing of it. For, alas! her friends
+      are as averse to a reconciliation as ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. I could not have thought it. But don't you think there is
+      something very favourable to my nephew in this letter&mdash;something that
+      looks as if the lady would comply at last?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Let me die if I know what to make of it. This letter is very
+      different from her preceding one!&mdash;You returned an answer to it, Mr.
+      Lovelace?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. An answer, Colonel! No doubt of it. And an answer full of
+      transport. I told her, 'I would directly set out for Lord M.'s, in
+      obedience to her will. I told her that I would consent to any thing she
+      should command, in order to promote this happy reconciliation. I told her
+      that it should be my hourly study, to the end of my life, to deserve a
+      goodness so transcendent.' But I cannot forbear saying that I am not a
+      little shocked and surprised, if nothing more be meant by it than to get
+      me into the country without seeing her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. That can't be the thing, depend upon it, Sir. There must be more in
+      it than that. For, were that all, she must think you would soon be
+      undeceived, and that you would then most probably resume your intention&mdash;
+      unless, indeed, she depended upon seeing me in the interim, as she knew I
+      was arrived. But I own I know not what to make of it. Only that she does
+      me a great deal of honour, if it be me that she calls her dear blessed
+      friend, whom she always loved and honoured. Indeed I ever loved her: and
+      if I die unmarried, and without children, shall be as kind to her as her
+      grandfather was: and the rather, as I fear there is too much of envy and
+      self-love in the resentments her brother and sister endeavour to keep up
+      in her father and mother against her. But I shall know better how to judge
+      of this, when my cousin James comes from Edinburgh; and he is every hour
+      expected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But let me ask you, Mr. Lovelace, what is the name of your friend, who is
+      admitted so easily into my cousin's presence? Is it not Belford, pray?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. It is, Sir; and Mr. Belford's a man of honour; and a great admirer
+      of your fair cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was I right, as to the first, Jack? The last I have such strong proof of,
+      that it makes me question the first; since she would not have been out of
+      the way of my intended visit but for thee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Are you sure, Sir, that Mr. Belford is a man of honour?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. I can swear for him, Colonel. What makes you put this question?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Only this: that an officious pragmatical novice has been sent up to
+      inquire into my cousin's life and conversation: And, would you believe it?
+      the frequent visits of this gentlemen have been interpreted basely to her
+      disreputation.&mdash;Read that letter, Mr. Lovelace; and you will be
+      shocked at ever part of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This cursed letter, no doubt, is from the young Levite, whom thou, Jack,
+      describest as making inquiry of Mrs. Smith about Miss Harlowe's character
+      and visiters.*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe I was a quarter of an hour in reading it: for I made it, though
+      not a short one, six times as long as it is, by the additions of oaths and
+      curses to every pedantic line. Lord M. too helped to lengthen it, by the
+      like execrations. And thou, Jack, wilt have as much reason to curse it as
+      we.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You cannot but see, said the Colonel, when I had done reading it, that
+      this fellow has been officious in his malevolence; for what he says is
+      mere hearsay, and that hearsay conjectural scandal without fact, or the
+      appearance of fact, to support it; so that an unprejudiced eye, upon the
+      face of the letter, would condemn the writer of it, as I did, and acquit
+      my cousin. But yet, such is the spirit by which the rest of my relations
+      are governed, that they run away with the belief of the worst it
+      insinuates, and the dear creature has had shocking letters upon it; the
+      pedant's hints are taken; and a voyage to one of the colonies has been
+      proposed to her, as the only way to avoid Mr. Belford and you. I have not
+      seen these letters indeed; but they took a pride in repeating some of
+      their contents, which must have cut the poor soul to the heart; and these,
+      joined to her former sufferings,&mdash;What have you not, Mr. Lovelace, to
+      answer for?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. Who the devil could have expected such consequences as these? Who
+      could have believe there could be parents so implacable? Brother and
+      sister so immovably fixed against the only means that could be taken to
+      put all right with every body?&mdash;And what now can be done?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. I have great hopes that Col. Morden may yet prevail upon his
+      cousin. And, by her last letter, it runs in my mind that she has some
+      thoughts of forgiving all that's past. Do you think, Colonel, if there
+      should not be such a thing as a reconciliation going forward at present,
+      that her letter may not imply that, if we could bring such a thing to bear
+      with her friends, she would be reconciled with Mr. Lovelace?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Such an artifice would better become the Italian subtilty than the
+      English simplicity. Your Lordship has been in Italy, I presume?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. My Lord has read Boccaccio, perhaps; and that's as well, as to the
+      hint he gives, which may be borrowed from one of that author's stories.
+      But Miss Clarissa Harlowe is above all artifice. She must have some
+      meaning I cannot fathom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. Well, my Lord, I can only say that I will make some use of the
+      letters Mr. Lovelace has obliged me with: and after I have had some talk
+      with my cousin James, who is hourly expected; and when I have dispatched
+      two or three affairs that press upon me; I will pay my respects to my dear
+      cousin; and shall then be able to form a better judgment of things. Mean
+      time I will write to her; for I have sent to inquire about her, and find
+      she wants consolation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lovel. If you favour me, Colonel, with the d&mdash;&mdash;d letter of that
+      fellow Brand for a day or two, you will oblige me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Col. I will. But remember, the man is a parson, Mr. Lovelace; an innocent
+      one too, they say. Else I had been at him before now. And these college
+      novices, who think they know every thing in their cloisters, and that all
+      learning lies in books, make dismal figures when they come into the world
+      among men and women.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. Brand! Brand! It should have been Firebrand, I think in my
+      conscience!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus ended this doughty conference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I cannot say, Jack, but I am greatly taken with Col. Morden. He is brave
+      and generous, and knows the world; and then his contempt of the parsons is
+      a certain sign that he is one of us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We parted with great civility: Lord M. (not a little pleased that we did,
+      and as greatly taken with Colonel) repeated his wish, after the Colonel
+      was gone, that he had arrived in time to save the lady, if that would have
+      done it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish so too. For by my soul, Jack, I am every day more and more uneasy
+      about her. But I hope she is not so ill as I am told she is.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have made Charlotte transcribe the letter of this Firebrand, as my Lord
+      calls him; and will enclose her copy of it. All thy phlegm I know will be
+      roused into vengeance when thou readest it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know not what to advise as to showing it to the lady. Yet, perhaps, she
+      will be able to reap more satisfaction than concern from it, knowing her
+      own innocence; in that it will give her to hope that her friends'
+      treatment of her is owing as much to misrepresentation as to their own
+      natural implacableness. Such a mind as her's, I know, would be glad to
+      find out the shadow of a reason for the shocking letters the Colonel says
+      they have sent her, and for their proposal to her of going to some one of
+      the colonies [confound them all&mdash;but, if I begin to curse, I shall
+      never have done]&mdash;Then it may put her upon such a defence as she
+      might be glad of an opportunity to make, and to shame them for their
+      monstrous credulity&mdash;but this I leave to thy own fat-headed prudence&mdash;Only
+      it vexes me to the heart, that even scandal and calumny should dare to
+      surmise the bare possibility of any man sharing the favours of a woman,
+      whom now methinks I could worship with a veneration due only to a
+      divinity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte and her sister could not help weeping at the base aspersion:
+      When, when, said Patty, lifting up her hands, will this sweet lady's
+      sufferings be at an end?&mdash;O cousin Lovelace!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And thus am I blamed for every one's faults!&mdash;When her brutal father
+      curses her, it is I. I upbraid her with her severe mother. The
+      implacableness of her stupid uncles is all mine. The virulence of her
+      brother, and the spite of her sister, are entirely owing to me. The letter
+      of this rascal Brand is of my writing&mdash;O Jack, what a wretch is thy
+      Lovelace!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Returned without a letter!&mdash;This d&mdash;&mdash;d fellow Will. is
+      returned without a letter!&mdash;Yet the rascal tells me that he hears you
+      have been writing to me these two days!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Plague confound thee, who must know my impatience, and the reason for it!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To send a man and horse on purpose; as I did! My imagination chained me to
+      the belly of the beast, in order to keep pace with him!&mdash;Now he is
+      got to this place; now to that; now to London; now to thee!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now [a letter given him] whip and spur upon the return. This town just
+      entered, not staying to bait: that village passed by: leaves the wind
+      behind him; in a foaming sweat man and horse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And in this way did he actually enter Lord M.'s courtyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reverberating pavement brought me down&mdash;The letter, Will.! The
+      letter, dog!&mdash;The letter, Sirrah!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No letter, Sir!&mdash;Then wildly staring round me, fists clenched, and
+      grinning like a maniac, Confound thee for a dog, and him that sent thee
+      without one!&mdash;This moment out of my sight, or I'll scatter thy stupid
+      brains through the air. I snatched from his holsters a pistol, while the
+      rascal threw himself from the foaming beast, and ran to avoid the fate
+      which I wished with all my soul thou hadst been within the reach of me to
+      have met with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, to be as meek as a lamb to one who has me at his mercy, and can wring
+      and torture my soul as he pleases, What canst thou mean to send back my
+      varlet without a letter?&mdash;I will send away by day-dawn another fellow
+      upon another beast for what thou hast written; and I charge thee on thy
+      allegiance, that thou dispatch him not back empty-handed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      POSTSCRIPT
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte, in a whim of delicacy, is displeased that I send the enclosed
+      letter to you&mdash;that her handwriting, forsooth! should go into the
+      hands of a single man!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There's encouragement for thee, Belford! This is a certain sign that thou
+      may'st have her if thou wilt. And yet, till she has given me this unerring
+      demonstration of her glancing towards thee, I could not have thought it.
+      Indeed I have often in pleasantry told her that I would bring such an
+      affair to bear. But I never intended it; because she really is a dainty
+      girl; and thou art such a clumsy fellow in thy person, that I should as
+      soon have wished her a rhinoceros for a husband as thee. But, poor little
+      dears! they must stay till their time's come! They won't have this man,
+      and they won't have that man, from seventeen to twenty-five: but then,
+      afraid, as the saying is, that God has forgot them, and finding their
+      bloom departing, they are glad of whom they can get, and verify the fable
+      of the parson and the pears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0044" id="link2H_4_0044">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XLI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BRAND, TO JOHN HARLOWE, ESQ. [ENCLOSED IN THE PRECEDING.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WORTHY SIR, MY VERY GOOD FRIEND AND PATRON,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I arrived in town yesterday, after a tolerably pleasant journey
+      (considering the hot weather and dusty roads). I put up at the Bull and
+      Gate in Holborn, and hastened to Covent-garden. I soon found the house
+      where the unhappy lady lodgeth. And, in the back shop, had a good deal of
+      discourse* with Mrs. Smith, (her landlady,) whom I found to be so 'highly
+      prepossessed'** in her 'favour,' that I saw it would not answer your
+      desires to take my informations 'altogether' from her: and being obliged
+      to attend my patron, (who to my sorrow,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI. ** Transcriber's note: Mr. Brand's letters
+      are characterized by a style that makes excessive use of italics for
+      emphasis. Although in the remainder of <i>Clarissa</i> I have largely
+      disregarded italics for the sake of plain-text formatting, this style
+      makes such emphatic use of italics that I have indicated all such
+      instances in his letters by placing the italicized words and phrases in
+      quotations, thus ' '.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Miserum et aliena vivere quadra,')
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I find wanteth much waiting upon, and is 'another' sort of man than he was
+      at college: for, Sir, 'inter nos,' 'honours change manners.' For the
+      'aforesaid causes,' I thought it would best answer all the ends of the
+      commission with which you honoured me, to engage, in the desired scrutiny,
+      the wife of a 'particular friend,' who liveth almost over-against the
+      house where she lodgeth, and who is a gentlewoman of 'character,' and
+      'sobriety,' a 'mother of children,' and one who 'knoweth' the 'world'
+      well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To her I applied myself, therefore, and gave her a short history of the
+      case, and desired she would very particularly inquire into the 'conduct'
+      of the unhappy young lady; her 'present way of life' and 'subsistence';
+      her 'visiters,' her 'employments,' and such-like: for these, Sir, you
+      know, are the things whereof you wished to be informed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Accordingly, Sir, I waited upon the gentlewoman aforesaid, this day; and,
+      to 'my' very great trouble, (because I know it will be to 'your's,' and
+      likewise to all your worthy family's,) I must say, that I do find things
+      look a little more 'darkly' than I hoped the would. For, alas! Sir, the
+      gentlewoman's report turneth out not so 'favourable' for Miss's
+      reputation, as 'I' wished, as 'you' wished, and as 'every one' of her
+      friends wished. But so it is throughout the world, that 'one false step'
+      generally brings on 'another'; and peradventure 'a worse,' and 'a still
+      worse'; till the poor 'limed soul' (a very fit epithet of the Divine
+      Quarles's!) is quite 'entangled,' and (without infinite mercy) lost for
+      ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemeth, Sir, she is, notwithstanding, in a very 'ill state of health.'
+      In this, 'both' gentlewomen (that is to say, Mrs. Smith, her landlady, and
+      my friend's wife) agree. Yet she goeth often out in a chair, to 'prayers'
+      (as it is said). But my friend's wife told me, that nothing is more common
+      in London, than that the frequenting of the church at morning prayers is
+      made the 'pretence' and 'cover' for 'private assignations.' What a sad
+      thing is this! that what was designed for 'wholesome nourishment' to the
+      'poor soul,' should be turned into 'rank poison!' But as Mr. Daniel de Foe
+      (an ingenious man, though a 'dissenter') observeth (but indeed it is an
+      old proverb; only I think he was the first that put it into verse)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      God never had a house of pray'r
+      But Satan had a chapel there.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Yet to do the lady 'justice,' nobody cometh home with her: nor indeed
+      'can' they, because she goeth forward and backward in a 'sedan,' or
+      'chair,' (as they call it). But then there is a gentleman of 'no good
+      character' (an 'intimado' of Mr. Lovelace) who is a 'constant' visiter of
+      her, and of the people of the house, whom he 'regaleth' and 'treateth,'
+      and hath (of consequence) their 'high good words.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have thereupon taken the trouble (for I love to be 'exact' in any
+      'commission' I undertake) to inquire 'particularly' about this
+      'gentleman,' as he is called (albeit I hold no man so but by his actions:
+      for, as Juvenal saith,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      &mdash;'Nobilitas sola est, atque unica virtus')
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And this I did 'before' I would sit down to write to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His name is Belford. He hath a paternal estate of upwards of one thousand
+      pounds by the year; and is now in mourning for an uncle who left him very
+      considerably besides. He beareth a very profligate character as to
+      'women,' (for I inquired particularly about 'that,') and is Mr. Lovelace's
+      more especial 'privado,' with whom he holdeth a 'regular correspondence';
+      and hath been often seen with Miss (tête à tête) at the 'window'&mdash;in
+      no 'bad way,' indeed: but my friend's wife is of opinion that all is not
+      'as it should be.' And, indeed, it is mighty strange to me, if Miss be so
+      'notable a penitent' (as is represented) and if she have such an
+      'aversion' to Mr. Lovelace, that she will admit his 'privado' into 'her
+      retirements,' and see 'no other company.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I understand, from Mrs. Smith, that Mr. Hickman was to see her some time
+      ago, from Miss Howe; and I am told, by 'another' hand, (you see, Sir, how
+      diligent I have been to execute the 'commissions' you gave me,) that he
+      had no 'extraordinary opinion' of this Belford at first; though they were
+      seen together one morning by the opposite neighbour, at 'breakfast': and
+      another time this Belford was observed to 'watch' Mr. Hickman's coming
+      from her; so that, as it should seem, he was mighty zealous to
+      'ingratiate' himself with Mr. Hickman; no doubt to engage him to make a
+      'favourable report to Miss Howe' of the 'intimacy' he was admitted into by
+      her unhappy friend; who ('as she is very ill') may 'mean no harm' in
+      allowing his visits, (for he, it seemeth, brought to her, or recommended,
+      at least, the doctor and apothecary that attend her:) but I think (upon
+      the whole) 'it looketh not well.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sorry, Sir, I cannot give you a better account of the young lady's
+      'prudence.' But, what shall we say?
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Uvaque conspectâ livorem ducit ab uvâ,'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      as Juvenal observeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One thing I am afraid of; which is, that Miss may be under 'necessities';
+      and that this Belford (who, as Mrs. Smith owns, hath 'offered her money,'
+      which she, 'at the time,' refused) may find an opportunity to 'take
+      advantage' of those 'necessities': and it is well observed by that poet,
+      that
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Ægrè formosam poteris servare puellam:
+         Nunc prece, nunc pretio, forma petita ruit.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And this Belford (who is a 'bold man,' and hath, as they say, the 'look'
+      of one) may make good that of Horace, (with whose writings you are so well
+      acquainted; nobody better;)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Audax omnia perpeti,
+      Gens humana ruit per vetitum nefas.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Forgive me, Sir, for what I am going to write: but if you could prevail
+      upon the rest of your family to join in the scheme which 'you,' and her
+      'virtuous sister,' Miss Arabella, and the Archdeacon, and I, once talked
+      of, (which is to persuade the unhappy young lady to go, in some
+      'creditable' manner, to some one of the foreign colonies,) it might not
+      save only her 'own credit' and 'reputation,' but the 'reputation' and
+      'credit' of all her 'family,' and a great deal of 'vexation' moreover. For
+      it is my humble opinion, that you will hardly (any of you) enjoy
+      yourselves while this ('once' innocent) young lady is in the way of being
+      so frequently heard of by you: and this would put her 'out of the way'
+      both of 'this Belford' and of 'that Lovelace,' and it might, peradventure,
+      prevent as much 'evil' as 'scandal.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You will forgive me, Sir, for this my 'plainness.' Ovid pleadeth for me,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      '&mdash;&mdash;Adulator nullus amicus erit.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And I have no view but that of approving myself a 'zealous well-wisher' to
+      'all' your worthy family, (whereto I owe a great number of obligations,)
+      and very particularly, Sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your obliged and humble servant, ELIAS BRAND.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WEDN. AUG. 9.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+P.S. I shall give you 'farther hints' when I come down, (which will be in
+      a few days;) and who my 'informants' were; but by 'these' you will
+      see, that I have been very assiduous (for the time) in the task you
+      set me upon.
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+The 'length' of my letter you will excuse: for I need not tell you, Sir,
+      what 'narrative,' 'complex,' and 'conversation' letters (such a one
+      as 'mine') require.  Every one to his 'talent.'  'Letter-writing'
+      is mine.  I will be bold to say; and that my 'correspondence' was
+      much coveted in the university, on that account, by 'tyros,' and
+      by 'sophs,' when I was hardly a 'soph' myself.  But this I should
+      not have taken upon myself to mention, but only in defence of the
+      'length' of my letter; for nobody writeth 'shorter' or 'pithier,'
+      when the subject requireth 'common forms' only&mdash;but, in apologizing
+      for my 'prolixity,' I am 'adding' to the 'fault,' (if it were one,
+      which, however, I cannot think it to be, the 'subject' considered:
+      but this I have said before in other words:) so, Sir, if you will
+      excuse my 'post-script,' I am sure you will not find fault with my
+      'letter.'
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+One word more as to a matter of 'erudition,' which you greatly love to
+      hear me 'start' and 'dwell upon.'  Dr. Lewen once, in 'your'
+      presence, (as you, 'my good patron,' cannot but remember,) in a
+      'smartish' kind of debate between 'him' and 'me,' took upon him to
+      censure the 'paranthetical' style, as I call it.  He was a very
+      learned and judicious man, to be sure, and an ornament to 'our
+      function': but yet I must needs say, that it is a style which I
+      greatly like; and the good Doctor was then past his 'youth,' and
+      that time of life, of consequence, when a 'fertile imagination,'
+      and a 'rich fancy,' pour in ideas so fast upon a writer, that
+      parentheses are often wanted (and that for the sake of 'brevity,'
+      as well as 'perspicuity') to save the reader the trouble of reading
+      a passage 'more than once.'  Every man to his talent, (as I said
+      before.)  We are all so apt to set up our 'natural biasses' for
+      'general standards,' that I wondered 'the less' at the worthy
+      Doctor's 'stiffness' on this occasion.  He 'smiled at me,' you may
+      remember, Sir&mdash;and, whether I was right or not, I am sure I 'smiled
+      at him.'  And 'you,' my 'worthy patron,' (as I had the satisfaction
+      to observe,) seemed to be of 'my party.'  But was it not strange,
+      that the 'old gentleman' and 'I' should so widely differ, when the
+      'end' with 'both' (that is to say, 'perspicuity' or 'clearness,')
+      was the same?&mdash;But what shall we say?&mdash;
+
+            'Errare est hominis, sed non persistere.'
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+I think I have nothing to add until I have the honour of attending you in
+      'person'; but I am, (as above,) &amp;c. &amp;c. &amp;c.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      E.B. <a name="link2H_4_0045" id="link2H_4_0045">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XLII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. WEDNESDAY NIGHT, AUG. 30.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was lucky enough that our two servants met at Hannah's,* which gave
+      them so good an opportunity of exchanging their letters time enough for
+      each to return to his master early in the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * The Windmill, near Slough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou dost well to boast of thy capacity for managing servants, and to set
+      up for correcting our poets in their characters of this class of people,*
+      when, like a madman, thou canst beat their teeth out, and attempt to shoot
+      them through the head, for not bringing to thee what they had no power to
+      obtain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter XX. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You well observe* that you would have made a thorough-paced lawyer. The
+      whole of the conversation-piece between you and the Colonel affords a
+      convincing proof that there is a black and a white side to every cause:
+      But what must the conscience of a partial whitener of his own cause, or
+      blackener of another's, tell him, while he is throwing dust in the eyes of
+      his judges, and all the time knows his own guilt?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter XL. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel, I see, is far from being a faultless man: but while he sought
+      not to carry his point by breach of faith, he has an excuse which thou
+      hast not. But, with respect to him, and to us all, I can now, with the
+      detestation of some of my own actions, see, that the taking advantage of
+      another person's good opinion of us to injure (perhaps to ruin) that
+      other, is the most ungenerous wickedness that can be committed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Man acting thus by man, we should not be at a loss to give such actions a
+      name: But is it not doubly and trebly aggravated, when such advantage is
+      taken of an unexperienced and innocent young creature, whom we pretend to
+      love above all the women in the world; and when we seal our pretences by
+      the most solemn vows and protestations of inviolable honour that we can
+      invent?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I see that this gentleman is the best match thou ever couldest have had,
+      upon all accounts: his spirit such another impetuous one as thy own; soon
+      taking fire; vindictive; and only differing in this, that the cause he
+      engages in is a just one. But commend me to honest brutal Mowbray, who,
+      before he knew the cause, offers his sword in thy behalf against a man who
+      had taken the injured side, and whom he had never seen before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as I had run through your letters, and the copy of that of the
+      incendiary Brand's, (by the latter of which I saw to what cause a great
+      deal of this last implacableness of the Harlowe family is owing,) I took
+      coach to Smith's, although I had been come from thence but about an hour,
+      and had taken leave of the lady for the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sent up for Mrs. Lovick, and desired her, in the first place, to
+      acquaint the lady (who was busied in her closet,) that I had letters from
+      Berks: in which I was informed, that the interview between Colonel Morden
+      and Mr. Lovelace had ended without ill consequences; that the Colonel
+      intended to write to her very soon, and was interesting himself mean
+      while, in her favour, with her relations; that I hoped that this agreeable
+      news would be means of giving her good rest; and I would wait upon her in
+      the morning, by the time she should return from prayers, with all the
+      particulars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sent me word that she should be glad to see me in the morning; and was
+      highly obliged to me for the good news I had sent her up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I then, in the back shop, read to Mrs. Lovick and to Mrs. Smith the copy
+      of Brand's letter, and asked them if they could guess at the man's
+      informant? They were not at a loss; Mrs. Smith having seen the same fellow
+      Brand who had talked with her, as I mentioned in the former,* come out of
+      a milliner's shop over against them; which milliner, she said, had also
+      lately been very inquisitive about the lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wanted no farther hint; but, bidding them take no notice to the lady of
+      what I had read, I shot over the way, and, asking for the mistress of the
+      house, she came to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Retiring with her, at her invitation, into her parlour, I desired to know
+      if she were acquainted with a young country clergyman of the name of
+      Brand. She hesitatingly, seeing me in some emotion, owned that she had
+      some small knowledge of the gentleman. Just then came in her husband, who
+      is, it seems, a petty officer of excise, (and not an ill-behaved man,) who
+      owned a fuller knowledge of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have the copy of a letter, said I, from this Brand, in which he has
+      taken great liberties with my character, and with that of the most
+      unblamable lady in the world, which he grounds upon information that you,
+      Madam, have given him. And then I read to them several passages in his
+      letter, and asked what foundation she had for giving that fellow such
+      impressions of either of us?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They knew not what to answer: but at last said, that he had told them how
+      wickedly the young lady had run away from her parents: what worthy and
+      rich people they were: in what favour he stood with them; and that they
+      had employed him to inquire after her behaviour, visiters, &amp;c.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They said, 'That indeed they knew very little of the young lady; but that
+      [curse upon their censoriousness!] it was but too natural to think, that,
+      where a lady had given way to a delusion, and taken so wrong a step, she
+      would not stop there: that the most sacred places and things were but too
+      often made clokes for bad actions; that Mr. Brand had been informed
+      (perhaps by some enemy of mine) that I was a man of very free principles,
+      and an intimado, as he calls it, of the man who had ruined her. And that
+      their cousin Barker, a manteau-maker, who lodged up one pair of stairs,'
+      (and who, at their desire, came down and confirmed what they said,) 'had
+      often, from her window, seen me with the lady in her chamber, and both
+      talking very earnestly together; and that Mr. Brand, being unable to
+      account for her admiring my visits, and knowing I was but a new
+      acquaintance of her's, and an old one of Mr. Lovelace, thought himself
+      obliged to lay these matters before her friends.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the sum and substance of their tale. O how I cursed the
+      censoriousness of this plaguy triumvirate! A parson, a milliner, and a
+      mantua-maker! The two latter, not more by business led to adorn the
+      persons, than generally by scandal to destroy the reputations, of those
+      they have a mind to exercise their talents upon!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two women took great pains to persuade me that they themselves were
+      people of conscience;&mdash;of consequence, I told them, too much
+      addicted, I feared, to censure other people who pretended not to their
+      strictness; for that I had ever found censoriousness, with those who
+      affected to be thought more pious than their neighbours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They answered, that that was not their case; and that they had since
+      inquired into the lady's character and manner of life, and were very much
+      concerned to think any thing they had said should be made use of against
+      her: and as they heard from Mrs. Smith that she was not likely to live
+      long, they should be sorry she should go out of the world a sufferer by
+      their means, or with an ill opinion of them, though strangers to her. The
+      husband offered to write, if I pleased, to Mr. Brand, in vindication of
+      the lady; and the two women said they should be glad to wait upon her in
+      person, to beg her pardon for any thing she had reason to take amiss from
+      them; because they were now convinced that there was not such another
+      young lady in the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told them that the least said of the affair to the lady, in her present
+      circumstances, was best. That she was a heavenly creature, and fond of
+      taking all occasions to find excuses for her relations on their
+      implacableness to her: that therefore I should take some notice to her of
+      the uncharitable and weak surmises which gave birth to so vile a scandal:
+      but that I would have him, Mr. Walton, (for that is the husband's name,)
+      write to his acquaintance Brand as soon as possible, as he had offered;
+      and so I left them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to what thou sayest of thy charming cousin, let me know if thou hast
+      any meaning in it. I have not the vanity to think myself deserving of such
+      a lady as Miss Montague; and should not therefore care to expose myself to
+      her scorn and to thy derision. But were I assured I might avoid both of
+      these, I would soon acquaint thee that I should think no pains nor
+      assiduity too much to obtain a share in the good graces of such a lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I know thee too well to depend upon any thing thou sayest on this
+      subject. Thou lovest to make thy friends the objects of ridicule to
+      ladies; and imaginest, from the vanity, (and, in this respect, I will say
+      littleness,) of thine own heart, that thou shinest the brighter for the
+      foil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus didst thou once play off the rough Mowbray with Miss Hatton, till the
+      poor fellow knew not how to go either backward or forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0046" id="link2H_4_0046">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XLIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. THURSDAY, 11 O'CLOCK, AUG. 31.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am just come from the lady, whom I left cheerful and serene.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She thanked me for my communication of the preceding night. I read to her
+      such parts of your letters as I could read to her; and I thought it was a
+      good test to distinguish the froth and whipt-syllabub in them from the
+      cream, in what one could and could not read to a woman of so fine a mind;
+      since four parts out of six of thy letters, which I thought entertaining
+      as I read them to myself, appeared to me, when I should have read them to
+      her, most abominable stuff, and gave me a very contemptible idea of thy
+      talents, and of my own judgment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She as far from rejoicing, as I had done, at the disappointment her letter
+      gave you when explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She said, she meant only an innocent allegory, which might carry
+      instruction and warning to you, when the meaning was taken, as well as
+      answer her own hopes for the time. It was run off in a hurry. She was
+      afraid it was not quite right in her. But hoped the end would excuse (if
+      it could not justify) the means. And then she again expressed a good deal
+      of apprehension lest you should still take it into your head to molest
+      her, when her time, she said, was so short, that she wanted every moment
+      of it; repeating what she had once said before, that, when she wrote, she
+      was so ill that she believed she should not have lived till now: if she
+      had thought she should, she must have studied for an expedient that would
+      have better answered her intentions. Hinting at a removal out of the
+      knowledge of us both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she was much pleased that the conference between you and Colonel
+      Morden, after two or three such violent sallies, as I acquainted her you
+      had had between you, ended so amicably; and said she must absolutely
+      depend upon the promise I had given her to use my utmost endeavours to
+      prevent farther mischief on her account.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was pleased with the justice you did her character to her cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was glad to hear that he had so kind an opinion of her, and that he
+      would write to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was under an unnecessary concern, how to break to her that I had the
+      copy of Brand's vile letter: unnecessary, I say; for she took it just as
+      you thought she would, as an excuse she wished to have for the
+      implacableness of her friends; and begged I would let her read it herself;
+      for, said she, the contents cannot disturb me, be they what they will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave it to her, and she read it to herself; a tear now and then being
+      ready to start, and a sigh sometimes interposing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave me back the letter with great and surprising calmness,
+      considering the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a time, said she, and that not long since, when such a letter as
+      this would have greatly pained me. But I hope I have now go above all
+      these things: and I can refer to your kind offices, and to those of Miss
+      Howe, the justice that will be done to my memory among my friends. There
+      is a good and a bad light in which every thing that befalls us may be
+      taken. If the human mind will busy itself to make the worst of every
+      disagreeable occurrence, it will never want woe. This letter, affecting as
+      the subject of it is to my reputation, gives me more pleasure than pain,
+      because I can gather from it, that had not my friends been prepossessed by
+      misinformed or rash and officious persons, who are always at hand to
+      flatter or soothe the passions of the affluent, they could not have been
+      so immovably determined against me. But now they are sufficiently cleared
+      from every imputation of unforgivingness; for, while I appeared to them in
+      the character of a vile hypocrite, pretending to true penitence, yet
+      giving up myself to profligate courses, how could I expect either their
+      pardon or blessing?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, Madam, said I, you'll see by the date of this letter, that their
+      severity, previous to that, cannot be excused by it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It imports me much, replied she, on account of my present wishes, as to
+      the office you are so kind to undertake, that you should not think harshly
+      of my friends. I must own to you, that I have been apt sometimes myself to
+      think them not only severe but cruel. Suffering minds will be partial to
+      their own cause and merits. Knowing their own hearts, if sincere, they are
+      apt to murmur when harshly treated: But, if they are not believed to be
+      innocent, by persons who have a right to decide upon their conduct
+      according to their own judgments, how can it be helped? Besides, Sir, how
+      do you know, that there are not about my friends as well-meaning
+      misrepresenters as Mr. Brand really seems to be? But, be this as it will,
+      there is no doubt that there are and have been multitudes of persons, as
+      innocent as myself, who have suffered upon surmises as little probable as
+      those on which Mr. Brand founds his judgment. Your intimacy, Sir, with Mr.
+      Lovelace, and (may I say?) a character which, it seems, you have been less
+      solicitous formerly to justify than perhaps you will be for the future,
+      and your frequent visits to me may well be thought to be questionable
+      circumstances in my conduct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could only admire her in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But you see, Sir, proceeded she, how necessary it is for young people of
+      our sex to be careful of our company. And how much, at the same time, it
+      behoves young persons of your's to be chary of their own reputation, were
+      it only for the sake of such of our's as they may mean honourably by, and
+      who otherwise may suffer in their good names for being seen in their
+      company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to Mr. Brand, continued she, he is to be pitied; and let me enjoin you,
+      Mr. Belford, not to take any resentments against him which may be
+      detrimental either to his person or his fortunes. Let his function and his
+      good meaning plead for him. He will have concern enough, when he finds
+      every body, whose displeasure I now labour under, acquitting my memory of
+      perverse guilt, and joining in a general pity for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This, Lovelace, is the woman whose life thou hast curtailed in the blossom
+      of it!&mdash;How many opportunities must thou have had of admiring her
+      inestimable worth, yet couldst have thy senses so much absorbed in the
+      WOMAN, in her charming person, as to be blind to the ANGEL, that shines
+      out in such full glory in her mind! Indeed, I have ever thought myself,
+      when blest with her conversation, in the company of a real angel: and I am
+      sure it would be impossible for me, were she to be as beautiful, and as
+      crimsoned over with health, as I have seen her, to have the least thought
+      of sex, when I heard her talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THURSDAY, THREE O'CLOCK, AUG. 31.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On my re-visit to the lady, I found her almost as much a sufferer from joy
+      as she had sometimes been from grief; for she had just received a very
+      kind letter from her cousin Morden; which she was so good as to
+      communicate to me. As she had already begun to answer it, I begged leave
+      to attend her in the evening, that I might not interrupt her in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter is a very tender one * * * *
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+[Here Mr. Belford gives the substance of it upon his memory; but that is
+      omitted; as the letter is given at length (see the next letter.)
+      And then adds:]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But, alas! all will be now too late. For the decree is certainly gone out&mdash;the
+      world is unworthy of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0047" id="link2H_4_0047">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XLIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      COLONEL MORDEN, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TUESDAY, AUG. 29.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I should not, my dearest Cousin, have been a fortnight in England, without
+      either doing myself the honour of waiting upon you in person, or of
+      writing to you; if I had not been busying myself almost all the time in
+      your service, in hopes of making my visit or letter still more acceptable
+      to you&mdash;acceptable as I have reason to presume either will be from
+      the unquestionable love I ever bore you, and from the esteem you always
+      honoured me with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little did I think that so many days would have been required to effect my
+      well-intended purpose, where there used to be a love so ardent on one
+      side, and where there still is, as I am thoroughly convinced, the most
+      exalted merit on the other!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was yesterday with Mr. Lovelace and Lord M. I need not tell you, it
+      seems, how very desirous the whole family and all the relations of that
+      nobleman are of the honour of an alliance with you; nor how exceedingly
+      earnest the ungrateful man is to make you all the reparation in his power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I think, my dear Cousin, that you cannot now do better than to give him
+      the honour of your hand. He says just and great things of your virtue, and
+      so heartily condemns himself, that I think there is honorable room for you
+      to forgive him: and the more room, as it seems you are determined against
+      a legal prosecution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your effectual forgiveness of Mr. Lovelace, it is evident to me, will
+      accelerate a general reconciliation: for, at present, my other cousins
+      cannot persuade themselves that he is in earnest to do you justice; or
+      that you would refuse him, if you believed he was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, my dear Cousin, there may possibly be something in this affair, to
+      which I may be a stranger. If there be, and you will acquaint me with it,
+      all that a naturally-warm heart can do in your behalf shall be done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope I shall be able, in my next visits to my several cousins, to set
+      all right with them. Haughty spirits, when convinced that they have
+      carried resentments too high, want but a good excuse to condescend: and
+      parents must always love the child they once loved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if I find them inflexible, I will set out, and attend you without
+      delay; for I long to see you, after so many years' absence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mean while, I beg the favour of a few lines, to know if you have reason to
+      doubt Mr. Lovelace's sincerity. For my part, I can have none, if I am to
+      judge from the conversation that passed between us yesterday, in presence
+      of Lord M.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You will be pleased to direct for me at your uncle Antony's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Permit me, my dearest Cousin, till I can procure a happy reconciliation
+      between you and your father, and brother, and uncles, to supply the place
+      to you of all those near relations, as well as that of
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your affectionate kinsman, and humble servant, WM. MORDEN.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0048" id="link2H_4_0048">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XLV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO WM. MORDEN, ESQ. THURSDAY, AUG. 31.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I most heartily congratulate you, dear Sir, on your return to your native
+      country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I heard with much pleasure that you were come; but I was both afraid and
+      ashamed, till you encouraged me by a first notice, to address myself to
+      you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How consoling is it to my wounded heart to find that you have not been
+      carried away by that tide of resentment and displeasure with which I have
+      been so unhappily overwhelmed&mdash;but that, while my still nearer
+      relations have not thought fit to examine into the truth of vile reports
+      raised against me, you have informed yourself of my innocence, and
+      generously credited the information!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have not the least reason to doubt Mr. Lovelace's sincerity in his
+      offers of marriage; nor that all his relations are heartily desirous of
+      ranking me among them. I have had noble instances of their esteem for me,
+      on their apprehending that my father's displeasure must have had
+      absolutely refused their pressing solicitations in their kinsman's favour
+      as well as his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor think me, my dear Cousin, blamable for refusing him. I had given Mr.
+      Lovelace no reason to think me a weak creature. If I had, a man of his
+      character might have thought himself warranted to endeavour to take
+      ungenerous advantage of the weakness he had been able to inspire. The
+      consciousness of my own weakness (in that case) might have brought me to a
+      composition with his wickedness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I can indeed forgive him. But that is, because I think his crimes have set
+      me above him. Can I be above the man, Sir, to whom I shall give my hand
+      and my vows, and with them a sanction to the most premeditated baseness?
+      No, Sir, let me say, that your cousin Clarissa, were she likely to live
+      many years, and that (if she married not this man) in penury or want,
+      despised and forsaken by all her friends, puts not so high a value upon
+      the conveniencies of life, nor upon life itself, as to seek to re-obtain
+      the one, or to preserve the other, by giving such a sanction: a sanction,
+      which (were she to perform her duty,) would reward the violator.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor is it so much from pride as from principle that I say this. What, Sir!
+      when virtue, when chastity, is the crown of a woman, and particularly of a
+      wife, shall form an attempt upon her's but upon a presumption that she was
+      capable of receiving his offered hand when he had found himself mistaken
+      in the vile opinion he had conceived of her? Hitherto he has not had
+      reason to think me weak. Nor will I give an instance so flagrant, that
+      weak I am in a point in which it would be criminal to be found weak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day, Sir, you will perhaps know all my story. But, whenever it is
+      known, I beg that the author of my calamities may not be vindictively
+      sought after. He could not have been the author of them, but for a strange
+      concurrence of unhappy causes. As the law will not be able to reach him
+      when I am gone, the apprehension of any other sort of vengeance terrifies
+      me; since, in such a case, should my friends be safe, what honour would
+      his death bring to my memory?&mdash;If any of them should come to
+      misfortune, how would my fault be aggravated!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      God long preserve you, my dearest Cousin, and bless you but in proportion
+      to the consolation you have given me, in letting me know that you still
+      love me; and that I have one near and dear relation who can pity and
+      forgive me; (and then you will be greatly blessed;) is the prayer of
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your ever grateful and affectionate CL. HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0049" id="link2H_4_0049">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XLVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. [IN ANSWER TO HIS LETTERS XXIII.
+      XXXVII. OF THIS VOLUME.] THURSDAY, AUG. 31.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I cannot but own that I am cut to the heart by this Miss Harlowe's
+      interpretation of her letter. She ought never to be forgiven. She, a meek
+      person, and a penitent, and innocent, and pious, and I know not what, who
+      can deceive with a foot in the grave!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Tis evident, that she sat down to write this letter with a design to
+      mislead and deceive. And if she be capable of that, at such a crisis, she
+      has as much need of Heaven's forgiveness, as I have of her's: and, with
+      all her cant of charity and charity, if she be not more sure of it than I
+      am of her real pardon, and if she take the thing in the light she ought to
+      take it in, she will have a few darker moments yet to come than she seems
+      to expect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord M. himself, who is not one of those (to speak in his own phrase) who
+      can penetrate a millstone, sees the deceit, and thinks it unworthy of her;
+      though my cousins Montague vindicate her. And no wonder this cursed
+      partial sex [I hate 'em all&mdash;by my soul, I hate 'em all!] will never
+      allow any thing against an individual of it, where our's is concerned. And
+      why? Because, if they censure deceit in another, they must condemn their
+      own hearts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She is to send me a letter after she is in Heaven, is she? The devil take
+      such allegories, and the devil take thee for calling this absurdity an
+      innocent artifice!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I insist upon it, that if a woman of her character, at such a critical
+      time, is to be justified in such a deception, a man in full health and
+      vigour of body and mind, as I am, may be excused for all his stratagems
+      and attempts against her. And, thank my stars, I can now sit me down with
+      a quiet conscience on that score. By my soul, I can, Jack. Nor has any
+      body, who can acquit her, a right to blame me. But with some, indeed,
+      every thing she does must be good, every thing I do must be bad&mdash; And
+      why? Because she has always taken care to coax the stupid misjudging
+      world, like a woman: while I have constantly defied and despised its
+      censures, like a man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, notwithstanding all, you may let her know from me that I will not
+      molest her, since my visits would be so shocking to her: and I hope she
+      will take this into her consideration as a piece of generosity which she
+      could hardly expect after the deception she has put upon me. And let her
+      farther know, that if there be any thing in my power, that will contribute
+      either to her ease or honour, I will obey her, at the very first
+      intimation, however disgraceful or detrimental to myself. All this, to
+      make her unapprehensive, and that she may have nothing to pull her back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If her cursed relations could be brought as cheerfully to perform their
+      parts, I'd answer life for life for her recovery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But who, that has so many ludicrous images raised in his mind by the
+      awkward penitence, can forbear laughing at thee? Spare, I beseech thee,
+      dear Belford, for the future, all thine own aspirations, if thou wouldst
+      not dishonour those of an angel indeed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I came to that passage, where thou sayest that thou considerest her*
+      as one sent from Heaven to draw thee after her&mdash;for the heart of me I
+      could not for an hour put thee out of my head, in the attitude of dame
+      Elizabeth Carteret, on her monument in Westminster Abbey. If thou never
+      observedst it, go thither on purpose: and there wilt thou see this dame in
+      effigy, with uplifted head and hand, the latter taken hold of by a cupid
+      every inch of stone, one clumsy foot lifted up also, aiming, as the
+      sculptor designed it, to ascend; but so executed, as would rather make one
+      imagine that the figure (without shoe or stocking, as it is, though the
+      rest of the body is robed) was looking up to its corn-cutter: the other
+      riveted to its native earth, bemired, like thee (immersed thou callest it)
+      beyond the possibility of unsticking itself. Both figures, thou wilt find,
+      seem to be in a contention, the bigger, whether it should pull down the
+      lesser about its ears&mdash;the lesser (a chubby fat little varlet, of a
+      fourth part of the other's bigness, with wings not much larger than those
+      of a butterfly) whether it should raise the larger to a Heaven it points
+      to, hardly big enough to contain the great toes of either.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter XXXVII. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou wilt say, perhaps, that the dame's figure in stone may do credit, in
+      the comparison, to thine, both in grain and shape, wooden as thou art all
+      over: but that the lady, who, in every thing but in the trick she has
+      played me so lately, is truly an angel, is but sorrily represented by the
+      fat-flanked cupid. This I allow thee. But yet there is enough in thy
+      aspirations to strike my mind with a resemblance of thee and the lady to
+      the figures on the wretched monument; for thou oughtest to remember, that,
+      prepared as she may be to mount to her native skies, it is impossible for
+      her to draw after her a heavy fellow who has so much to repent of as thou
+      hast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now, to be serious once more, let me tell you, Belford, that, if the
+      lady be really so ill as you write she is, it will become you [no Roman
+      style here!] in a case so very affecting, to be a little less pointed and
+      sarcastic in your reflections. For, upon my soul, the matter begins to
+      grate me most confoundedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am now so impatient to hear oftener of her, that I take the hint
+      accidentally given me by our two fellows meeting at Slough, and resolve to
+      go to our friend Doleman's at Uxbridge; whose wife and sister, as well as
+      he, have so frequently pressed me to give them my company for a week or
+      two. There shall I be within two hours' ride, if any thing should happen
+      to induce her to see me: for it will well become her piety, and avowed
+      charity, should the worst happen, [the Lord of Heaven and Earth, however,
+      avert that worst!] to give me that pardon from her lips, which she has not
+      denied to me by pen and ink. And as she wishes my reformation, she knows
+      not what good effects such an interview may have upon me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall accordingly be at Doleman's to-morrow morning, by eleven at
+      farthest. My fellow will find me there at his return from you (with a
+      letter, I hope). I shall have Joel with me likewise, that I may send the
+      oftener, as matters fall out. Were I to be still nearer, or in town, it
+      would be impossible to withhold myself from seeing her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, if the worst happen!&mdash;as, by your continual knelling, I know not
+      what to think of it!&mdash;[Yet, once more, Heaven avert that worst!&mdash;How
+      natural it is to pray, when once cannot help one's self!]&mdash;THEN say
+      not, in so many dreadful words, what the event is&mdash;Only, that you
+      advise me to take a trip to Paris&mdash;And that will stab me to the
+      heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I so well approve of your generosity to poor Belton's sister, that I have
+      made Mowbray give up his legacy, as I do mine, towards her India bonds.
+      When I come to town, Tourville shall do the like; and we will buy each a
+      ring to wear in memory of the honest fellow, with our own money, that we
+      may perform his will, as well as our own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My fellow rides the rest of the night. I charge you, Jack, if you would
+      save his life, that you send him not back empty-handed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0050" id="link2H_4_0050">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XLVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. TUESDAY NIGHT, AUG. 30.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I concluded my last, I hoped that my next attendance upon this
+      surprising lady would furnish me with some particulars as agreeable as now
+      could be hoped for from the declining way she is in, by reason of the
+      welcome letter she had received from her cousin Morden. But it proved
+      quite otherwise to me, though not to herself; for I think I was never more
+      shocked in my life than on the occasion I shall mention presently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I attended her about seven in the evening, she told me that she found
+      herself in a very petulant way after I had left her. Strange, said she,
+      that the pleasure I received from my cousin's letter should have such an
+      effect upon me! But I could not help giving way to a comparative humour,
+      as I may call it, and to think it very hard that my nearer relations did
+      not take the methods which my cousin Morden kindly took, by inquiring into
+      my merit or demerit, and giving my cause a fair audit before they
+      proceeded to condemnation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had hardly said this, when she started, and a blush overspread her
+      sweet face, on hearing, as I also did, a sort of lumbering noise upon the
+      stairs, as if a large trunk were bringing up between two people: and,
+      looking upon me with an eye of concern, Blunderers! said she, they have
+      brought in something two hours before the time.&mdash;Don't be surprised,
+      Sir &mdash;it is all to save you trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before I could speak, in came Mrs. Smith: O Madam, said she, what have you
+      done?&mdash;Mrs. Lovick, entering, made the same exclamation. Lord have
+      mercy upon me, Madam! cried I, what have you done?&mdash;For she, stepping
+      at the same instant to the door, the women told me it was a coffin.&mdash;O
+      Lovelace! that thou hadst been there at that moment!&mdash;Thou, the
+      causer of all these shocking scenes! Surely thou couldst not have been
+      less affected than I, who have no guilt, as to her, to answer for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With an intrepidity of a piece with the preparation, having directed them
+      to carry it to her bed-chamber, she returned to us: they were not to have
+      brought it in till after dark, said she&mdash;Pray, excuse me, Mr.
+      Belford: and don't you, Mrs. Lovick, be concerned: nor you, Mrs. Smith.&mdash;Why
+      should you? There is nothing more in it than the unusualness of the thing.
+      Why may we not be as reasonably shocked at going to church where are the
+      monuments of our ancestors, with whose dust we even hope our dust shall be
+      one day mingled, as to be moved at such a sight as this?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We all remaining silent, the women having their aprons at their eyes, Why
+      this concern for nothing at all? said she. If I am to be blamed for any
+      thing, it is for showing too much solicitude, as it may be thought, for
+      this earthly part. I love to do every thing for myself that I can do. I
+      ever did. Every other material point is so far done, and taken care of,
+      that I have had leisure for things of lesser moment. Minutenesses may be
+      observed, where greater articles are not neglected for them. I might have
+      had this to order, perhaps, when less fit to order it. I have no mother,
+      no sister, no Mrs. Norton, no Miss Howe, near me. Some of you must have
+      seen this in a few days, if not now; perhaps have had the friendly trouble
+      of directing it. And what is the difference of a few days to you, when I
+      am gratified rather than discomposed by it? I shall not die the sooner for
+      such a preparation. Should not every body that has any thing to bequeath
+      make their will? And who, that makes a will, should be afraid of a coffin?&mdash;My
+      dear friends, [to the women] I have considered these things; do not, with
+      such an object before you as you have had in me for weeks, give me reason
+      to think you have not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How reasonable was all this!&mdash;It showed, indeed, that she herself had
+      well considered it. But yet we could not help being shocked at the
+      thoughts of the coffin thus brought in; the lovely person before our eyes
+      who is, in all likelihood, so soon to fill it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were all silent still, the women in grief; I in a manner stunned. She
+      would not ask me, she said; but would be glad, since it had thus earlier
+      than she had intended been brought in, that her two good friends would
+      walk in and look upon it. They would be less shocked when it was made more
+      familiar to their eye: don't you lead back, said she, a starting steed to
+      the object he is apt to start at, in order to familiarize him to it, and
+      cure his starting? The same reason will hold in this case. Come, my good
+      friends, I will lead you in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took my leave; telling her she had done wrong, very wrong; and ought
+      not, by any means, to have such an object before her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The women followed her in.&mdash;'Tis a strange sex! Nothing is too
+      shocking for them to look upon, or see acted, that has but novelty and
+      curiosity in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Down I posted; got a chair; and was carried home, extremely shocked and
+      discomposed: yet, weighing the lady's arguments, I know not why I was so
+      affected&mdash;except, as she said, at the unusualness of the thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While I waited for a chair, Mrs. Smith came down, and told me that there
+      were devices and inscriptions upon the lid. Lord bless me! is a coffin a
+      proper subject to display fancy upon?&mdash;But these great minds cannot
+      avoid doing extraordinary things!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0051" id="link2H_4_0051">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XLVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. FRIDAY MORN. SEPT. 1.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is surprising, that I, a man, should be so much affected as I was, at
+      such an object as is the subject of my former letter; who also, in my late
+      uncle's case, and poor Belton's had the like before me, and the directing
+      of it: when she, a woman, of so weak and tender a frame, who was to fill
+      it (so soon perhaps to fill it!) could give orders about it, and draw out
+      the devices upon it, and explain them with so little concern as the women
+      tell me she did to them last night after I was gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I really was ill, and restless all night. Thou wert the subject of my
+      execration, as she was of my admiration, all the time I was quite awake:
+      and, when I dozed, I dreamt of nothing but of flying hour-glasses,
+      deaths-heads, spades, mattocks, and eternity; the hint of her devices (as
+      given me by Mrs. Smith) running in my head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, not being able to keep away from Smith's, I went thither about
+      seven. The lady was just gone out: she had slept better, I found, than I,
+      though her solemn repository was under her window, not far from her
+      bed-side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was prevailed upon by Mrs. Smith and her nurse Shelburne (Mrs. Lovick
+      being abroad with her) to go up and look at the devices. Mrs. Lovick has
+      since shown me a copy of the draught by which all was ordered; and I will
+      give thee a sketch of the symbols.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The principal device, neatly etched on a plate of white metal, is a
+      crowned serpent, with its tail in its mouth, forming a ring, the emblem of
+      eternity: and in the circle made by it is this inscription:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                          CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+
+                               April x.
+
+                           [Then the year.]
+
+                              ÆTAT. XIX.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      For ornaments: at top, an hour-glass, winged. At bottom, an urn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under the hour-glass, on another plate, this inscription:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      HERE the wicked cease from troubling: and HERE the
+        weary be at rest.  Job. iii. 17.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Over the urn, near the bottom:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      Turn again unto thy rest, O my soul! for the Lord hath
+        rewarded thee: And why?  Thou hast delivered my
+        soul from death; mine eyes from tears; and my feet
+        from falling.  Ps. cxvi. 7, 8.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Over this is the head of a white lily snapt short off, and just falling
+      from the stalk; and this inscription over that, between the principal
+      plate and the lily:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      The days of man are but as grass.  For he flourisheth as a
+        flower of the field: for, as soon as the wind goeth over
+        it, it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no
+        more.  Ps. ciii. 15, 16.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      She excused herself to the women, on the score of her youth, and being
+      used to draw for her needleworks, for having shown more fancy than would
+      perhaps be thought suitable on so solemn an occasion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The date, April 10, she accounted for, as not being able to tell what her
+      closing-day would be; and as that was the fatal day of her leaving her
+      father's house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She discharged the undertaker's bill after I went away, with as much
+      cheerfulness as she could ever have paid for the clothes she sold to
+      purchase this her palace: for such she called it; reflecting upon herself
+      for the expensiveness of it, saying, that they might observe in her, that
+      pride left not poor mortals to the last: but indeed she did not know but
+      her father would permit it, when furnished, to be carried down to be
+      deposited with her ancestors; and, in that case, she ought not to
+      discredit those ancestors in her appearance amongst them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is covered with fine black cloth, and lined with white satin; soon, she
+      said, to be tarnished with viler earth than any it could be covered by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The burial-dress was brought home with it. The women had curiosity enough,
+      I suppose, to see her open that, if she did open it.&mdash;And, perhaps,
+      thou wouldst have been glad to have been present to have admired it too!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lovick said, she took the liberty to blame her; and wished the
+      removal of such an object&mdash;from her bed-chamber, at least: and was so
+      affected with the noble answer she made upon it, that she entered it down
+      the moment she left her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'To persons in health, said she, this sight may be shocking; and the
+      preparation, and my unconcernedness in it, may appear affected: but to me,
+      who have had so gradual a weaning-time from the world, and so much reason
+      not to love it, I must say, I dwell on, I indulge, (and, strictly
+      speaking, I enjoy,) the thoughts of death. For, believe me,' [looking
+      stedfastly at the awful receptacle,] 'believe what at this instant I feel
+      to be most true, That there is such a vast superiority of weight and
+      importance in the thought of death, and its hoped-for happy consequences,
+      that it in a manner annihilates all other considerations and concerns.
+      Believe me, my good friends, it does what nothing else can do: it teaches
+      me, by strengthening in me the force of the divinest example, to forgive
+      the injuries I have received; and shuts out the remembrance of past evils
+      from my soul.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now let me ask thee, Lovelace, Dost thou think that, when the time
+      shall come that thou shalt be obliged to launch into the boundless ocean
+      of eternity, thou wilt be able (any more than poor Belton) to act thy part
+      with such true heroism, as this sweet and tender blossom of a woman has
+      manifested, and continues to manifest!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh! no! it cannot be!&mdash;And why can't it be?&mdash;The reason is
+      evident: she has no wilful errors to look back upon with self-reproach&mdash;and
+      her mind is strengthened by the consolations which flow from that
+      religious rectitude which has been the guide of all her actions; and which
+      has taught her rather to choose to be a sufferer than an aggressor!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the support of the divine Socrates, as thou hast read. When led
+      to execution, his wife lamenting that he should suffer being innocent,
+      Thou fool, said he, wouldst thou wish me to be guilty!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0052" id="link2H_4_0052">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER XLIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. FRIDAY, SEPT. 1.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How astonishing, in the midst of such affecting scenes, is thy mirth on
+      what thou callest my own aspirations! Never, surely, was there such
+      another man in this world, thy talents and thy levity taken together!&mdash;
+      Surely, what I shall send thee with this will affect thee. If not, nothing
+      can, till thy own hour come: and heavy will then thy reflections be!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am glad, however, that thou enablest me to assure the lady that thou
+      wilt no more molest her; that is to say, in other words, that, after
+      having ruined her fortunes, and all her worldly prospects, thou wilt be so
+      gracious, as to let her lie down and die in peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thy giving up to poor Belton's sister the little legacy, and thy
+      undertaking to make Mowbray and Tourville follow thy example, are, I must
+      say to thy honour, of a piece with thy generosity to thy Rose-bud and her
+      Johnny; and to a number of other good actions in pecuniary matters:
+      although thy Rose-bud's is, I believe, the only instance, where a pretty
+      woman was concerned, of such a disinterested bounty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon my faith, Lovelace, I love to praise thee; and often and often, as
+      thou knowest, have I studied for occasions to do it: insomuch that when,
+      for the life of me, I could not think of any thing done by thee that
+      deserved praise, I have taken pains to applaud the not ungraceful manner
+      in which thou hast performed actions that merited the gallows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now thou art so near, I will dispatch my servant to thee, if occasion
+      requires. But, I fear, I shall soon give thee the news thou art
+      apprehensive of. For I am just now sent for by Mrs. Smith; who has ordered
+      the messenger to tell me, that she knew not if the lady will be alive when
+      I come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FRIDAY, SEPT. 1, TWO O'CLOCK, AT SMITH'S.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not close my letter in such an uncertainty as must have added to
+      your impatience. For you have, on several occasions, convinced me, that
+      the suspense you love to give would be the greatest torment to you that
+      you could receive. A common case with all aggressive and violent spirits,
+      I believe. I will just mention then (your servant waiting here till I have
+      written) that the lady has had two very severe fits: in the last of which
+      whilst she lay, they sent to the doctor and Mr. Goddard, who both advised
+      that a messenger should be dispatched for me, as her executor; being
+      doubtful whether, if she had a third, it would not carry her off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was tolerably recovered by the time I cane; and the doctor made her
+      promise before me, that, while she was so weak, she would not attempt any
+      more to go abroad; for, by Mrs. Lovick's description, who attended her,
+      the shortness of her breath, her extreme weakness, and the fervour of her
+      devotions when at church, were contraries, which, pulling different ways
+      (the soul aspiring, the body sinking) tore her tender frame in pieces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So much for the present. I shall detain Will. no longer than just to beg
+      that you will send me back this packet and the last. Your memory is so
+      good, that once reading is all you ever give, or need to give, to any
+      thing. And who but ourselves can make out our characters, were you
+      inclined to let any body see what passes between us? If I cannot be
+      obliged, I shall be tempted to withhold what I write, till I have time to
+      take a copy of it.*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * It may not be amiss to observe, that Mr. Belford's solicitude to get
+      back his letters was owing to his desire of fulfilling the lady's wishes
+      that he would furnish Miss Howe with materials to vindicate her memory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A letter from Miss Howe is just now brought by a particular messenger, who
+      says he must carry back a few lines in return. But, as the lady is just
+      retired to lie down, the man is to call again by-and-by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0053" id="link2H_4_0053">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER L
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. UXBRIDGE, SEPT. 1, TWELVE O'CLOCK AT
+      NIGHT.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I send you the papers with this. You must account to me honestly and
+      fairly, when I see you, for the earnestness with which you write for them.
+      And then also will we talk about the contents of your last dispatch, and
+      about some of your severe and unfriendly reflections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mean time, whatever thou dost, don't let the wonderful creature leave us!
+      Set before her the sin of her preparation, as if she thought she could
+      depart when she pleased. She'll persuade herself, at this rate, that she
+      has nothing to do, when all is ready, but to lie down, and go to sleep:
+      and such a lively fancy as her's will make a reality of a jest at any
+      time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A jest I call all that has passed between her and me; a mere jest to die
+      for&mdash;For has not her triumph over me, from first to last, been
+      infinitely greater than her sufferings from me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Would the sacred regard I have for her purity, even for her personal as
+      well as intellectual purity, permit, I could prove this as clear as the
+      sun. Tell, therefore, the dear creature that she must not be wicked in her
+      piety. There is a too much, as well as too little, even in righteousness.
+      Perhaps she does not think of that.&mdash;Oh! that she would have
+      permitted my attendance, as obligingly as she does of thine!&mdash;The
+      dear soul used to love humour. I remember the time that she knew how to
+      smile at a piece of apropos humour. And, let me tell thee, a smile upon
+      the lips, or a sparkling in the eye, must have had its correspondent
+      cheerfulness in a heart so sincere as her's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tell the doctor I will make over all my possessions, and all my
+      reversions, to him, if he will but prolong her life for one twelvemonth to
+      come. But for one twelvemonth, Jack!&mdash;He will lose all his reputation
+      with me, and I shall treat him as Belton did his doctor, if he cannot do
+      this for me, on so young a subject. But nineteen, Belford!&mdash;nineteen
+      cannot so soon die of grief, if the doctor deserve that title; and so
+      blooming and so fine a constitution as she had but three or four months
+      ago!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what need the doctor to ask her leave to write to her friends? Could
+      he not have done it without letting her know any thing of the matter? That
+      was one of the likeliest means that could be thought of to bring some of
+      them about her, since she is so desirous to see them. At least it would
+      have induced them to send up her favourite Norton. But these plaguy solemn
+      fellows are great traders in parade. They'll cram down your throat their
+      poisonous drugs by wholesale, without asking you a question; and have the
+      assurance to own it to be prescribing: but when they are to do good, they
+      are to require your consent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How the dear creature's character rises in every line of thy letters! But
+      it is owing to the uncommon occasions she has met with that she blazes out
+      upon us with such a meridian lustre. How, but for those occasions, could
+      her noble sentiments, her prudent consideration, her forgiving spirit, her
+      exalted benevolence, and her equanimity in view of the most shocking
+      prospects (which set her in a light so superior to all her sex, and even
+      to the philosophers of antiquity) have been manifested?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know thou wilt think I am going to claim some merit to myself, for
+      having given her such opportunities of signalizing her virtues. But I am
+      not; for, if I did, I must share that merit with her implacable relations,
+      who would justly be entitled to two-thirds of it, at least: and my soul
+      disdains a partnership in any thing with such a family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this I mention as an answer to thy reproaches, that I could be so
+      little edified by perfections, to which, thou supposest, I was for so long
+      together daily and hourly a personal witness&mdash;when, admirable as she
+      was in all she said, and in all she did, occasion had not at that time
+      ripened, and called forth, those amazing perfections which now astonish
+      and confound me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hence it is that I admire her more than ever; and that my love for her is
+      less personal, as I may say, more intellectual, than ever I thought it
+      could be to a woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hence also it is that I am confident (would it please the Fates to spare
+      her, and make her mine) I could love her with a purity that would draw on
+      my own FUTURE, as well as ensure her TEMPORAL, happiness.&mdash;And hence,
+      by necessary consequence, shall I be the most miserable of all men, if I
+      am deprived of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou severely reflectest upon me for my levity: the Abbey instance in
+      thine eye, I suppose. And I will be ingenuous enough to own, that as thou
+      seest not my heart, there may be passages, in every one of my letters,
+      which (the melancholy occasion considered) deserve thy most pointed
+      rebukes. But faith, Jack, thou art such a tragi-comical mortal, with thy
+      leaden aspirations at one time, and thy flying hour-glasses and dreaming
+      terrors at another, that, as Prior says, What serious is, thou turn'st to
+      farce; and it is impossible to keep within the bounds of decorum or
+      gravity when one reads what thou writest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But to restrain myself (for my constitutional gayety was ready to run away
+      with me again) I will repeat, I must ever repeat, that I am most
+      egregiously affected with the circumstances of the case: and, were this
+      paragon actually to quit the world, should never enjoy myself one hour
+      together, though I were to live to the age of Methusalem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed it is to this deep concern, that my levity is owing: for I struggle
+      and struggle, and try to buffet down my cruel reflections as they rise;
+      and when I cannot, I am forced, as I have often said, to try to make
+      myself laugh, that I may not cry; for one or other I must do: and is it
+      not philosophy carried to the highest pitch, for a man to conquer such
+      tumults of soul as I am sometimes agitated by, and, in the very height of
+      the storm, to be able to quaver out an horse-laugh?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your Seneca's, your Epictetus's, and the rest of your stoical tribe, with
+      all their apathy nonsense, could not come up to this. They could forbear
+      wry faces: bodily pains they could well enough seem to support; and that
+      was all: but the pangs of their own smitten-down souls they could not
+      laugh over, though they could at the follies of others. They read grave
+      lectures; but they were grave. This high point of philosophy, to laugh and
+      be merry in the midst of the most soul-harrowing woes, when the
+      heart-strings are just bursting asunder, was reserved for thy Lovelace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is something owing to constitution, I own; and that this is the
+      laughing-time of my life. For what a woe must that be, which for an hour
+      together can mortify a man six or seven and twenty, in high blood and
+      spirits, of a naturally gay disposition, who can sing, dance, and
+      scribble, and take and give delight in them all?&mdash;But then my grief,
+      as my joy, is sharper-pointed than most other men's; and, like what Dolly
+      Welby once told me, describing the parturient throes, if there were not
+      lucid intervals, if they did not come and go, there would be no bearing
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After all, as I am so little distant from the dear creature, and as she is
+      so very ill, I think I cannot excuse myself from making her one visit.
+      Nevertheless, if I thought her so near&mdash;[what word shall I use, that
+      my soul is not shocked at!] and that she would be too much discomposed by
+      a visit, I would not think of it.&mdash;Yet how can I bear the
+      recollection, that, when she last went from me (her innocence so
+      triumphant over my premeditated guilt, as was enough to reconcile her to
+      life, and to set her above the sense of injuries so nobly sustained, that)
+      she should then depart with an incurable fracture in her heart; and that
+      that should be the last time I should ever see her!&mdash;How, how, can I
+      bear this reflection!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O Jack! how my conscience, that gives edge even to thy blunt reflections,
+      tears me!&mdash;Even this moment would I give the world to push the cruel
+      reproacher from me by one ray of my usual gayety!&mdash;Sick of myself!&mdash;sick
+      of the remembrance of my vile plots; and of my light, my momentary ecstacy
+      [villanous burglar, felon, thief, that I was!] which has brought on me
+      such durable and such heavy remorse! what would I give that I had not been
+      guilty of such barbarous and ungrateful perfidy to the most excellent of
+      God's creatures!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I would end, methinks, with one sprightlier line!&mdash;but it will not
+      be.&mdash; Let me tell thee then, and rejoice at it if thou wilt, that I
+      am
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Inexpressibly miserable!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0054" id="link2H_4_0054">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. SAT. MORNING, SEPT. 2.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have some little pleasure given me by thine, just now brought me. I see
+      now that thou hast a little humanity left. Would to Heaven, for the dear
+      lady's sake, as well as for thy own, that thou hadst rummaged it up from
+      all the dark forgotten corners of thy soul a little sooner!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady is alive, and serene, and calm, and has all her noble intellects
+      clear and strong: but nineteen will not however save her. She says she
+      will now content herself with her closet duties, and the visits of the
+      parish-minister; and will not attempt to go out. Nor, indeed, will she, I
+      am afraid, ever walk up or down a pair of stairs again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sorry at my soul to have this to say: but it would be a folly to
+      flatter thee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to thy seeing her, I believe the least hint of that sort, now, would
+      cut off some hours of her life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What has contributed to her serenity, it seems, is, that taking the alarm
+      her fits gave her, she has entirely finished, and signed and sealed, her
+      last will: which she had deferred till this time, in hopes, as she said,
+      of some good news from Harlowe-place; which would have induced her to
+      alter some passages in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Howe's letter was not given her till four in the afternoon,
+      yesterday; at which time the messenger returned for an answer. She
+      admitted him into her presence in the dining-room, ill as she then was,
+      and she would have written a few lines, as desired by Miss Howe; but, not
+      being able to hold a pen, she bid the messenger tell her that she hoped to
+      be well enough to write a long letter by the next day's post; and would
+      not now detain him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      *** SATURDAY, SIX IN THE AFTERNOON.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I called just now, and found the lady writing to Miss Howe. She made me a
+      melancholy compliment, that she showed me not Miss Howe's letter, because
+      I should soon have that and all her papers before me. But she told me that
+      Miss Howe had very considerably obviated to Colonel Morden several things
+      which might have occasioned misapprehensions between him and me; and had
+      likewise put a lighter construction, for the sake of peace, on some of
+      your actions than they deserved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She added, that her cousin Morden was warmly engaged in her favour with
+      her friends: and one good piece of news Miss Howe's letter contained, that
+      her father would give up some matters, which (appertaining to her of
+      right) would make my executorship the easier in some particulars that had
+      given her a little pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She owned she had been obliged to leave off (in the letter she was
+      writing) through weakness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Will. says he shall reach you to-night. I shall send in the morning; and,
+      if I find her not worse, will ride to Edgware, and return in the
+      afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0055" id="link2H_4_0055">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TUESDAY, AUG. 29.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MY DEAREST FRIEND,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We are at length returned to our own home. I had intended to wait on you
+      in London: but my mother is very ill&mdash;Alas! my dear, she is very ill
+      indeed&mdash;and you are likewise very ill&mdash;I see that by your's of
+      the 25th&mdash; What shall I do, if I lose two such near, and dear, and
+      tender friends? She was taken ill yesterday at our last stage in our
+      return home&mdash;and has a violent surfeit and fever, and the doctors are
+      doubtful about her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If she should die, how will all my pertnesses to her fly in my face!&mdash;
+      Why, why, did I ever vex her? She says I have been all duty and obedience!&mdash;She
+      kindly forgets all my faults, and remembers every thing I have been so
+      happy as to oblige her in. And this cuts me to the heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I see, I see, my dear, that you are very bad&mdash;and I cannot bear it.
+      Do, my beloved Miss Harlowe, if you can be better, do, for my sake, be
+      better; and send me word of it. Let the bearer bring me a line. Be sure
+      you send me a line. If I lose you, my more than sister, and lose my
+      mother, I shall distrust my own conduct, and will not marry. And why
+      should I?&mdash;Creeping, cringing in courtship!&mdash;O my dear, these
+      men are a vile race of reptiles in our day, and mere bears in their own.
+      See in Lovelace all that is desirable in figure, in birth, and in fortune:
+      but in his heart a devil!&mdash;See in Hickman&mdash;Indeed, my dear, I
+      cannot tell what any body can see in Hickman, to be always preaching in
+      his favour. And is it to be expected that I, who could hardly bear control
+      from a mother, should take it from a husband?&mdash;from one too, who has
+      neither more wit, nor more understanding, than myself? yet he to be my
+      instructor!&mdash;So he will, I suppose; but more by the insolence of his
+      will than by the merit of his counsel. It is in vain to think of it. I
+      cannot be a wife to any man breathing whom I at present know. This I the
+      rather mention now, because, on my mother's danger, I know you will be for
+      pressing me the sooner to throw myself into another sort of protection,
+      should I be deprived of her. But no more of this subject, or indeed of any
+      other; for I am obliged to attend my mamma, who cannot bear me out of her
+      sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      *** WEDNESDAY, AUG. 30.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My mother, Heaven be praised! has had a fine night, and is much better.
+      Her fever has yielded to medicine! and now I can write once more with
+      freedom and ease to you, in hopes that you also are better. If this be
+      granted to my prayers, I shall again be happy, I write with still the
+      more alacrity as I have an opportunity given me to touch upon a subject in
+      which you are nearly concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You must know then, my dear, that your cousin Morden has been here with
+      me. He told me of an interview he had on Monday at Lord M.'s with
+      Lovelace; and asked me abundance of questions about you, and about that
+      villanous man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could have raised a fine flame between them if I would: but, observing
+      that he is a man of very lively passions, and believing you would be
+      miserable if any thing should happen to him from a quarrel with a man who
+      is known to have so many advantages at his sword, I made not the worst of
+      the subjects we talked of. But, as I could not tell untruths in his
+      favour, you must think I said enough to make him curse the wretch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I don't find, well as they all used to respect Colonel Morden, that he has
+      influence enough upon them to bring them to any terms of reconciliation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What can they mean by it!&mdash;But your brother is come home, it seems:
+      so, the honour of the house, the reputation of the family, is all the cry!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel is exceedingly out of humour with them all. Yet has he not
+      hitherto, it seems, seen your brutal brother.&mdash;I told him how ill you
+      were, and communicated to him some of the contents of your letter. He
+      admired you, cursed Lovelace, and raved against all your family.&mdash;He
+      declared that they were all unworthy of you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At his earnest request, I permitted him to take some brief notes of such
+      of the contents of your letter to me as I thought I could read to him;
+      and, particularly, of your melancholy conclusion.*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter XXXII. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He says that none of your friends think you are so ill as you are; nor
+      will believe it. He is sure they all love you; and that dearly too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If they do, their present hardness of heart will be the subject of
+      everlasting remorse to them should you be taken from us&mdash;but now it
+      seems [barbarous wretches!] you are to suffer within an inch of your life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He asked me questions about Mr. Belford: and, when he had heard what I had
+      to say of that gentleman, and his disinterested services to you, he raved
+      at some villanous surmises thrown out against you by that officious
+      pedant, Brand: who, but for his gown, I find, would come off poorly enough
+      between your cousin and Lovelace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was so uneasy about you himself, that on Thursday, the 24th, he sent up
+      an honest serious man,* one Alston, a gentleman farmer, to inquire of your
+      condition, your visiters, and the like; who brought him word that you was
+      very ill, and was put to great straits to support yourself: but as this
+      was told him by the gentlewoman of the house where you lodge, who, it
+      seems, mingled it with some tart, though deserved, reflections upon your
+      relations' cruelty, it was not credited by them: and I myself hope it
+      cannot be true; for surely you could not be so unjust, I will say, to my
+      friendship, as to suffer any inconveniencies for want of money. I think I
+      could not forgive you, if it were so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter XXIII. ibid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel (as one of your trustees) is resolved to see you put into
+      possession of your estate: and, in the mean time, he has actually engaged
+      them to remit to him for you the produce of it accrued since your
+      grandfather's death, (a very considerable sum;) and proposes himself to
+      attend you with it. But, by a hint he dropt, I find you had disappointed
+      some people's littleness, by not writing to them for money and supplies;
+      since they were determined to distress you, and to put you at defiance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like all the rest!&mdash;I hope I may say that without offence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your cousin imagines that, before a reconciliation takes place, they will
+      insist that you make such a will, as to that estate, as they shall approve
+      of: but he declares that he will not go out of England till he has seen
+      justice done you by every body; and that you shall not be imposed on
+      either by friend or foe&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By relation or foe, should he not have said?&mdash;for a friend will not
+      impose upon a friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, my dear, you are to buy your peace, if some people are to have their
+      wills!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your cousin [not I, my dear, though it was always my opinion*] says, that
+      the whole family is too rich to be either humble, considerate, or
+      contented. And as for himself, he has an ample fortune, he says, and
+      thinks of leaving it wholly to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. I. Letter X.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had this villain Lovelace consulted his worldly interest only, what a
+      fortune would he have had in you, even although your marrying him had
+      deprived you of a paternal share!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am obliged to leave off here. But having a good deal still more to
+      write, and my mother better, I will pursue the subject in another letter,
+      although I send both together. I need not say how much I am, and will ever
+      be,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your affectionate, &amp;c. ANNA HOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0056" id="link2H_4_0056">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE THURSDAY, AUGUST 31.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel thought fit once, in praise of Lovelace's generosity, to say,
+      that (as a man of honour ought) he took to himself all the blame, and
+      acquitted you of the consequences of the precipitate step you had taken;
+      since he said, as you loved him, and was in his power, he must have had
+      advantages which he would not have had, if you had continued at your
+      father's, or at any friend's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mighty generous, I said, (were it as he supposed,) in such insolent
+      reflectors, the best of them; who pretend to clear reputations which never
+      had been sullied but by falling into their dirty acquaintance! but in this
+      case, I averred, that there was no need of any thing but the strictest
+      truth, to demonstrate Lovelace to be the blackest of villains, you the
+      brightest of innocents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This he catched at; and swore, that if any thing uncommon or barbarous in
+      the seduction were to come out, as indeed one of the letters you had
+      written to your friends, and which had been shown him, very strongly
+      implied; that is to say, my dear, if any thing worse than perjury, breach
+      of faith, and abuse of a generous confidence, were to appear! [sorry
+      fellows!] he would avenge his cousin to the utmost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I urged your apprehensions on this head from your last letter to me: but
+      he seemed capable of taking what I know to be real greatness of soul, in
+      an unworthy sense: for he mentioned directly upon it the expectations your
+      friends had, that you should (previous to any reconciliation with them)
+      appear in a court of justice against the villain&mdash;IF you could do it
+      with the advantage to yourself that I hinted might be done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And truly, if I would have heard him, he had indelicacy enough to have
+      gone into the nature of the proof of the crime upon which they wanted to
+      have Lovelace arraigned. Yet this is a man improved by travel and
+      learning!&mdash;Upon my word, my dear, I, who have been accustomed to the
+      most delicate conversation ever since I had the honour to know you,
+      despise this sex from the gentleman down to the peasant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon the whole, I find that Mr. Morden has a very slender notion of
+      women's virtue in particular cases: for which reason I put him down,
+      though your favourite, as one who is not entitled to cast the first stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I never knew a man who deserved to be well thought of himself for his
+      morals, who had a slight opinion of the virtue of our sex in general. For
+      if, from the difference of temperament and education, modesty, chastity,
+      and piety too, are not to be found in our sex preferably to the other, I
+      should think it a sign of much worse nature in ours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He even hinted (as from your relations indeed) that it is impossible but
+      there most be some will where there is much love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These sort of reflections are enough to make a woman, who has at heart her
+      own honour and the honour of her sex, to look about her, and consider what
+      she is doing when she enters into an intimacy with these wretches; since
+      it is plain, that whenever she throws herself into the power of a man, and
+      leaves for him her parents or guardians, every body will believe it to be
+      owing more to her good luck than to her discretion if there be not an end
+      of her virtue: and let the man be ever such a villain to her, she must
+      take into her own bosom a share of his guilty baseness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am writing to general cases. You, my dear, are out of the question. Your
+      story, as I have heretofore said, will afford a warning as well as an
+      example:* For who is it that will not infer, that if a person of your
+      fortune, character, and merit, could not escape ruin, after she had put
+      herself into the power of her hyæna, what can a thoughtless, fond, giddy
+      creature expect?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. IV. Letter XXIII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every man, they will say, is not a LOVELACE&mdash;True: but then, neither
+      is every woman a CLARISSA. And allow for the one and for the other the
+      example must be of general use.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I prepared Mr. Morden to expect your appointment of Mr. Belford for an
+      office that we both hope he will have no occasion to act in (nor any body
+      else) for many, very many years to come. He was at first startled at it:
+      but, upon hearing such of your reasons as had satisfied me, he only said
+      that such an appointment, were it to take place, would exceedingly affect
+      his other cousins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He told me, he had a copy of Lovelace's letter to you, imploring your
+      pardon, and offering to undergo any penance to procure it;* and also of
+      your answer to it.**
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VII. Letter LXXIX. ** Ibid. Letter LXXXIII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I find he is willing to hope that a marriage between you may still take
+      place; which, he says, will heal up all breaches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I would have written much more&mdash;on the following particulars
+      especially; to wit, of the wretched man's hunting you out of your
+      lodgings: of your relations' strange implacableness, [I am in haste, and
+      cannot think of a word you would like better just now:] of your last
+      letter to Lovelace, to divert him from pursuing you: of your aunt Hervey's
+      penitential conversation with Mrs. Norton: of Mr. Wyerley's renewed
+      address: of your lessons to me in Hickman's behalf, so approvable, were
+      the man more so than he is; but indeed I am offended with him at this
+      instant, and have been for these two days: of your sister's
+      transportation-project: and of twenty and twenty other things: but am
+      obliged to leave off, to attend my two cousins Spilsworth, and my cousin
+      Herbert, who are come to visit us on account of my mother's illness&mdash;I
+      will therefore dispatch these by Rogers; and if my mother gets well soon
+      (as I hope she will) I am resolved to see you in town, and tell you every
+      thing that now is upon my mind; and particularly, mingling my soul with
+      your's, how much I am, and will ever be, my dearest, dear friend,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your affectionate ANNA HOWE.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Let Rogers bring one line, I pray you.  I thought to have sent him this
+      afternoon; but he cannot set out till to-morrow morning early.
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+I cannot express how much your staggering lines and your conclusion
+      affect me!
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0057" id="link2H_4_0057">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. SUNDAY EVENING, SEPT. 3.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wonder not at the impatience your servant tells me you express to hear
+      from me. I was designing to write you a long letter, and was just returned
+      from Smith's for that purpose; but, since you are urgent, you must be
+      contented with a short one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I attended the lady this morning, just before I set out for Edgware. She
+      was so ill over-night, that she was obliged to leave unfinished her letter
+      to Miss Howe. But early this morning she made an end of it, and just
+      sealed it up as I came. She was so fatigued with writing, that she told me
+      she would lie down after I was gone, and endeavour to recruit her spirits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had sent for Mr. Goddard, when she was so ill last night; and not
+      being able to see him out of her own chamber, he, for the first time, saw
+      her house, as she calls it. He was extremely shocked and concerned at it;
+      and chid Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick for not persuading her to have such an
+      object removed form her bed-chamber: and when they excused themselves on
+      the little authority it was reasonable to suppose they must have with a
+      lady so much their superior, he reflected warmly on those who had more
+      authority, and who left her to proceed with such a shocking and solemn
+      whimsy, as he called it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is placed near the window, like a harpsichord, though covered over to
+      the ground: and when she is so ill that she cannot well go to her closet,
+      she writes and reads upon it, as others would upon a desk or table. But
+      (only as she was so ill last night) she chooses not to see any body in
+      that apartment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went to Edgware; and, returning in the evening, attended her again. She
+      had a letter brought her from Mrs. Norton (a long one, as it seems by its
+      bulk,) just before I came. But she had not opened it; and said, that as
+      she was pretty calm and composed, she was afraid to look into the
+      contents, lest she should be ruffled; expecting now to hear of nothing
+      that could do her good or give her pleasure from that good woman's dear
+      hard-hearted neighbours, as she called her own relations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing her so weak and ill, I withdrew; nor did she desire me to tarry, as
+      sometimes she does, when I make a motion to depart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had some hints, as I went away, from Mrs. Smith, that she had
+      appropriated that evening to some offices, that were to save trouble, as
+      she called it, after her departure; and had been giving orders to her
+      nurse, and to Mrs. Lovick, and Mrs. Smith, about what she would have done
+      when she was gone; and I believe they were of a very delicate and
+      affecting nature; but Mrs. Smith descended not to particulars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor had been with her, as well as Mr. Goddard; and they both joined
+      with great earnestness to persuade her to have her house removed out of
+      her sight; but she assured them that it gave her pleasure and spirits;
+      and, being a necessary preparation, she wondered they should be surprised
+      at it, when she had not any of her family about her, or any old
+      acquaintance, on whose care and exactness in these punctilios, as she
+      called them, she could rely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor told Mrs. Smith, that he believed she would hold out long
+      enough for any of her friends to have notice of her state, and to see her;
+      and hardly longer; and since he could not find that she had any certainty
+      of seeing her cousin Morden, (which made it plain that her relations
+      continued inflexible,) he would go home, and write a letter to her father,
+      take it as she would.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had spent great part of the day in intense devotions; and to-morrow
+      morning she is to have with her the same clergyman who has often attended
+      her; from whose hands she will again receive the sacrament.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou seest, Lovelace, that all is preparing, that all will be ready; and I
+      am to attend her to-morrow afternoon, to take some instructions from her
+      in relation to my part in the office to be performed for her. And thus,
+      omitting the particulars of a fine conversation between her and Mrs.
+      Lovick, which the latter acquainted me with, as well as another between
+      her and the doctor and apothecary, which I had a design this evening to
+      give you, they being of a very affecting nature, I have yielded to your
+      impatience.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   I shall dispatch Harry to-morrow morning early with her letter to Miss
+      Howe: an offer she took very kindly; as she is extremely
+      solicitous to lessen that young lady's apprehensions for her on
+      not hearing from her by Saturday's post: and yet, if she write
+      truth, as no doubt but she will, how can her apprehensions be
+      lessened?
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0058" id="link2H_4_0058">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE SATURDAY, SEPT. 2.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I write, my beloved Miss Howe, though very ill still: but I could not by
+      the return of your messenger; for I was then unable to hold a pen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your mother's illness (as mentioned in the first part of your letter,)
+      gave me great distress for you, till I read farther. You bewailed it as
+      became a daughter so sensible. May you be blessed in each other for many,
+      very many years to come! I doubt not, that even this sudden and grievous
+      indisposition, by the frame it has put you in, and the apprehension it has
+      given you of losing so dear a mother, will contribute to the happiness I
+      wish you: for, alas! my dear, we seldom know how to value the blessings we
+      enjoy, till we are in danger of losing them, or have actually lost them:
+      and then, what would we give to have them restored to us!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What, I wonder, has again happened between you and Mr. Hickman? Although I
+      know not, I dare say it is owing to some petty petulance, to some
+      half-ungenerous advantage taken of his obligingness and assiduity. Will
+      you never, my dear, give the weight you and all our sex ought to give to
+      the qualities of sobriety and regularity of life and manners in that sex?
+      Must bold creatures, and forward spirits, for ever, and by the best and
+      wisest of us, as well as by the indiscreetest, be the most kindly treated?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My dear friends know not that I have actually suffered within less than an
+      inch of my life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Mr. Brand! he meant well, I believe. I am afraid all will turn
+      heavily upon him, when he probably imagined that he was taking the best
+      method to oblige. But were he not to have been so light of belief, and so
+      weakly officious; and had given a more favourable, and, it would be
+      strange if I could not say, a juster report; things would have been,
+      nevertheless, exactly as they are.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must lay down my pen. I am very ill. I believe I shall be better
+      by-and-by. The bad writing would betray me, although I had a mind to keep
+      from you what the event must soon&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now I resume my trembling pen. Excuse the unsteady writing. It will be so&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have wanted no money: so don't be angry about such a trifle as money.
+      Yet I am glad of what you inclined me to hope, that my friends will give
+      up the produce of my grandfather's estate since it has been in their
+      hands: because, knowing it to be my right, and that they could not want
+      it, I had already disposed of a good part of it; and could only hope they
+      would be willing to give it up at my last request. And now how rich shall
+      I think myself in this my last stage!&mdash;And yet I did not want before&mdash;indeed
+      I did not&mdash;for who, that has many superfluities, can be said to want!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Do not, my dear friend, be concerned that I call it my last stage; For
+      what is even the long life which in high health we wish for? What, but, as
+      we go along, a life of apprehension, sometimes for our friends, oftener
+      for ourselves? And at last, when arrived at the old age we covet, one
+      heavy loss or deprivation having succeeded another, we see ourselves
+      stript, as I may say, of every one we loved; and find ourselves exposed,
+      as uncompanionable poor creatures, to the slights, to the contempts, of
+      jostling youth, who want to push us off the stage, in hopes to possess
+      what we have:&mdash;and, superadded to all, our own infirmities every day
+      increasing: of themselves enough to make the life we wished for the
+      greatest disease of all! Don't you remember the lines of Howard, which
+      once you read to me in my ivy-bower?*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * These are the lines the lady refers to:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      From death we rose to life: 'tis but the same,
+      Through life to pass again from whence we came.
+      With shame we see our PASSIONS can prevail,
+      Where reason, certainty, and virtue fail.
+      HONOUR, that empty name, can death despise;    |
+      SCORN'D LOVE to death, as to a refuge, flies;  |
+      And SORROW waits for death with longing eyes.  |
+      HOPE triumphs o'er the thoughts of death; and FATE
+      Cheats fools, and flatters the unfortunate.
+      We fear to lose, what a small time must waste,
+      Till life itself grows the disease at last.
+      Begging for life, we beg for more decay,
+      And to be long a dying only pray.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In the disposition of what belongs to me, I have endeavoured to do every
+      thing in the justest and best manner I could think of; putting myself in
+      my relations' places, and, in the greater points, ordering my matters as
+      if no misunderstanding had happened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope they will not think much of some bequests where wanted, and where
+      due from my gratitude: but if they should, what is done, is done; and I
+      cannot now help it. Yet I must repeat, that I hope, I hope, I have pleased
+      every one of them. For I would not, on any account, have it thought that,
+      in my last disposition, any thing undaughterly, unsisterly, or unlike a
+      kinswoman, should have had place in a mind that is a truly free (as I will
+      presume to say) from all resentment, that it now overflows with gratitude
+      and blessings for the good I have received, although it be not all that my
+      heart wished to receive. Were it even an hardship that I was not favoured
+      with more, what is it but an hardship of half a year, against the most
+      indulgent goodness of eighteen years and an half, that ever was shown to a
+      daughter?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My cousin, you tell me, thinks I was off my guard, and that I was taken at
+      some advantage. Indeed, my dear, I was not. Indeed I gave no room for
+      advantage to be taken of me. I hope, one day, that will be seen, if I have
+      the justice done me which Mr. Belford assures me of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I should hope that my cousin has not taken the liberties which you (by an
+      observation not, in general, unjust) seem to charge him with. For it is
+      sad to think, that the generality of that sex should make so light of
+      crimes, which they justly hold so unpardonable in their own most intimate
+      relations of our's&mdash;yet cannot commit them without doing such
+      injuries to other families as they think themselves obliged to resent unto
+      death, when offered to their own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But we women are too often to blame on this head; since the most virtuous
+      among us seldom make virtue the test of their approbation of the other
+      sex; insomuch that a man may glory in his wickedness of this sort without
+      being rejected on that account, even to the faces of women of
+      unquestionable virtue. Hence it is, that a libertine seldom thinks himself
+      concerned so much as to save appearances: And what is it not that our sex
+      suffers in their opinion on this very score? And what have I, more than
+      many others, to answer for on this account in the world's eye?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      May my story be a warning to all, how they prefer a libertine to a man of
+      true honour; and how they permit themselves to be misled (where they mean
+      the best) by the specious, yet foolish hope of subduing riveted habits,
+      and, as I may say, of altering natures!&mdash;The more foolish, as
+      constant experience might convince us, that there is hardly one in ten, of
+      even tolerably happy marriages, in which the wife keeps the hold in the
+      husband's affections, which she had in the lover's. What influence then
+      can she hope to have over the morals of an avowed libertine, who marries
+      perhaps for conveniency, who despises the tie, and whom, it is too
+      probable, nothing but old age, or sickness, or disease, (the consequence
+      of ruinous riot,) can reclaim?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am very glad you gave my cous&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SUNDAY MORNING, SEPT. 3, SIX O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hither I had written, and was forced to quit my pen. And so much weaker
+      and worse I grew, that had I resumed it, to have closed here, it must have
+      been with such trembling unsteadiness, that it would have given you more
+      concern for me, than the delay of sending it away by last night's post can
+      do. I deferred it, therefore, to see how it would please God to deal with
+      me. And I find myself, after a better night than I expected, lively and
+      clear; and hope to give a proof that I do, in the continuation of my
+      letter, which I will pursue as currently as if I had not left off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am glad that you so considerately gave my cousin Morden favourable
+      impressions of Mr. Belford; since, otherwise, some misunderstanding might
+      have happened between them: for although I hope this Mr. Belford is an
+      altered man, and in time will be a reformed one, yet is he one of those
+      high spirits that has been accustomed to resent imaginary indignities to
+      himself, when, I believe, he has not been studious to avoid giving real
+      offences to others; men of this cast acting as if they thought all the
+      world was made to bar with them, and they with nobody in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Lovelace, you tell me, thought fit to intrust my cousin with the copy
+      of his letter of penitence to me, and with my answer to it, rejecting him
+      and his suit: and Mr. Belford, moreover, acquaints me, how much concerned
+      Mr. Lovelace is for his baseness, and how freely he accused himself to my
+      cousin. This shows, that the true bravery of spirit is to be above doing a
+      vile action; and that nothing subjects the human mind to so much meanness,
+      as the consciousness of having done wilful wrong to our fellow creatures.
+      How low, how sordid, are the submissions which elaborate baseness compels!
+      that that wretch could treat me as he did, and then could so poorly creep
+      to me for forgiveness of crimes so wilful, so black, and so premeditated!
+      how my soul despised him for his meanness on a certain occasion, of which
+      you will one day be informed!* and him whose actions one's heart despises,
+      it is far from being difficult to reject, had one ever so partially
+      favoured him once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * Meaning his meditated second violence (See Vol. VI. Letter XXXVI.) and
+      his succeeding letters to her, supplicating for her pardon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet am I glad this violent spirit can thus creep; that, like a poisonous
+      serpent, he can thus coil himself, and hide his head in his own narrow
+      circlets; because this stooping, this abasement, gives me hope that no
+      farther mischief will ensue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All my apprehension is, what may happen when I am gone; lest then my
+      cousin, or any other of my family, should endeavour to avenge me, and risk
+      their own more precious lives on that account.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If that part of Cain's curse were Mr. Lovelace's, to be a fugitive and
+      vagabond in the earth; that is to say, if it meant no more harm to him
+      than that he should be obliged to travel, as it seems he intends, (though
+      I wish him no ill in his travels;) and I could know it; then should I be
+      easy in the hoped-for safety of my friends from his skilful violence&mdash;Oh!
+      that I could hear he was a thousand miles off!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I began this letter, I did not think I could have run to such a
+      length. But 'tis to YOU, my dearest friend, and you have a title to the
+      spirits you raise and support; for they are no longer mine, and will
+      subside the moment I cease writing to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what do you bid me hope for, when you tell me that, if your mother's
+      health will permit, you will see me in town? I hope your mother's health
+      will be perfected as you wish; but I dare not promise myself so great a
+      favour; so great a blessing, I will call it&mdash;and indeed I know not if
+      I should be able to bear it now!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet one comfort it is in your power to give me; and that is, let me know,
+      and very speedily it must be, if you wish to oblige me, that all matters
+      are made up between you and Mr. Hickman; to whom, I see, you are resolved,
+      with all your bravery of spirit, to owe a multitude of obligations for his
+      patience with your flightiness. Think of this, my dear proud friend! and
+      think, likewise, of what I have often told you, that PRIDE, in man or
+      woman, is an extreme that hardly ever fails, sooner or later, to bring
+      forth its mortifying CONTRARY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      May you, my dear Miss Howe, have no discomforts but what you make to
+      yourself! as it will be in your own power to lessen such as these, they
+      ought to be your punishment if you do not. There is no such thing as
+      perfect happiness here, since the busy mind will make to itself evils,
+      were it to find none. You will, therefore, pardon this limited wish,
+      strange as it may appear, till you consider it: for to wish you no
+      infelicity, either within or without you, were to wish you what can never
+      happen in this world; and what perhaps ought not to be wished for, if by a
+      wish one could give one's friend such an exemption; since we are not to
+      live here always.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We must not, in short, expect that our roses will grow without thorns: but
+      then they are useful and instructive thorns: which, by pricking the
+      fingers of the too-hasty plucker, teach future caution. And who knows not
+      that difficulty gives poignancy to our enjoyments; which are apt to lose
+      their relish with us when they are over easily obtained?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must conclude&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      God for ever bless you, and all you love and honour, and reward you here
+      and hereafter for your kindness to
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your ever obliged and affectionate CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0059" id="link2H_4_0059">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE [IN ANSWER TO HER'S OF THURSDAY,
+      AUGUST 24. SEE LETTER XXX. OF THIS VOLUME.] THURSDAY, AUG. 31.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had written sooner, my dearest young lady, but that I have been
+      endeavouring, ever since the receipt of your last letter, to obtain a
+      private audience of your mother, in hopes of leave to communicate it to
+      her. But last night I was surprised by an invitation to breakfast at
+      Harlowe-place this morning; and the chariot came early to fetch me&mdash;an
+      honour I did not expect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I came, I found there was to be a meeting of all your family with
+      Col. Morden, at Harlowe-place; and it was proposed by your mother, and
+      consented to, that I should be present. Your cousin, I understand, had
+      with difficulty brought this meeting to bear; for your brother had before
+      industriously avoided all conversation with him on the affecting subject;
+      urging that it was not necessary to talk to Mr. Morden upon it, who, being
+      a remoter relation than themselves, had no business to make himself a
+      judge of their conduct to their daughter, their niece, and their sister;
+      especially as he had declared himself in her favour; adding, that he
+      should hardly have patience to be questioned by Mr. Morden on that head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was in hopes that your mother would have given me an opportunity of
+      talking with her alone before the company met; but she seemed studiously
+      to avoid it; I dare say, however, not with her inclination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was ordered in just before Mr. Morden came; and was bid to sit down&mdash;
+      which I did in the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel, when he came, began the discourse, by renewing, as he called
+      it, his solicitations in your favour. He set before them your penitence;
+      your ill health; your virtue, though once betrayed, and basely used; he
+      then read to them Mr. Lovelace's letter, a most contrite one indeed,* and
+      your high-souled answer;** for that was what he justly called it; and he
+      treated as it deserved Mr. Brand's officious information, (of which I had
+      before heard he had made them ashamed,) by representations founded upon
+      inquiries made by Mr. Alston,*** whom he had procured to go up on purpose
+      to acquaint himself with your manner of life, and what was meant by the
+      visits of that Mr. Belford.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Vol. VII. LXXIX. ** Ibid. Letter LXXXIII. *** See Vol. VIII. Letter
+      XXIII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He then told them, that he had the day before waited upon Miss Howe, and
+      had been shown a letter from you to her,* and permitted to take some
+      memorandums from it, in which you appeared, both by handwriting, and the
+      contents, to be so very ill, that it seemed doubtful to him, if it were
+      possible for you to get over it. And when he read to them that passage,
+      where you ask Miss Howe, 'What can be done for you now, were your friends
+      to be ever so favourable? and wish for their sakes, more than for your
+      own, that they would still relent;' and then say, 'You are very ill&mdash;you
+      must drop your pen&mdash;and ask excuse for your crooked writing; and
+      take, as it were, a last farewell of Miss Howe;&mdash;adieu, my dear,
+      adieu,' are your words&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * Ibid. Letter XXXIII.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O my child! my child! said you mamma, weeping, and clasping her hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dear Madam, said your brother, be so good as to think you have more
+      children than this ungrateful one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet your sister seemed affected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your uncle Harlowe, wiping his eyes, O cousin, said he, if one thought the
+      poor girl was really so ill&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She must, said your uncle Antony. This is written to her private friend.
+      God forbid she should be quite lost!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your uncle Harlowe wished they did not carry their resentments too far.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I begged for God's sake, wringing my hands, and with a bended knee, that
+      they would permit me to go up to you; engaging to give them a faithful
+      account of the way you were in. But I was chidden by your brother; and
+      this occasioned some angry words between him and Mr. Morden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe, Sir, I believe, Madam, said your sister to her father and
+      mother, we need not trouble my cousin to read any more. It does but grieve
+      and disturb you. My sister Clary seems to be ill: I think, if Mrs. Norton
+      were permitted to go up to her, it would be right; wickedly as she has
+      acted, if she be truly penitent&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here she stopt; and every one being silent, I stood up once more, and
+      besought them to let me go; and then I offered to read a passage or two in
+      your letter to me of the 24th. But I was taken up again by your brother,
+      and this occasioned still higher words between the Colonel and him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your mother, hoping to gain upon your inflexible brother, and to divert
+      the anger of the two gentlemen from each other, proposed that the Colonel
+      should proceed in reading the minutes he had taken from your letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He accordingly read, 'of your resuming your pen; that you thought you had
+      taken your last farewell; and the rest of that very affecting passage, in
+      which you are obliged to break off more than once, and afterwards to take
+      an airing in a chair.' Your brother and sister were affected at this; and
+      he had recourse to his snuff-box. And where you comfort Miss Howe, and
+      say, 'You shall be happy;' It is more, said he, than she will let any body
+      else be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your sister called you sweet soul! but with a low voice: then grew
+      hard-hearted again; set said [sic], Nobody could help being affected by
+      your pathetic grief&mdash;but that it was your talent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel then went on to the good effect your airing had upon you; to
+      your good wishes to Miss Howe and Mr. Hickman; and to your concluding
+      sentence, that when the happy life you wished to her comes to be wound up,
+      she may be as calm and as easy at quitting it, as you hope in God you
+      shall be. Your mother could not stand this; but retired to a corner of the
+      room, and sobbed, and wept. Your father for a few minutes could not speak,
+      though he seemed inclined to say something.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your uncles were also both affected; but your brother went round to each,
+      and again reminded your mother that she had other children.&mdash;What was
+      there, he said, in what was read, but the result of the talent you had of
+      moving the passions? And he blamed them for choosing to hear read what
+      they knew their abused indulgence could not be a proof against.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This set Mr. Morden up again&mdash;Fie upon you, Cousin Harlowe, said he,
+      I see plainly to whom it is owing that all relationship and ties of blood,
+      with regard to this sweet sufferer, are laid aside. Such rigours as these
+      make it difficult for a sliding virtue ever to recover itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your brother pretended the honour of the family; and declared, that no
+      child ought to be forgiven who abandoned the most indulgent of parents
+      against warning, against the light of knowledge, as you had done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, Sir, and Ladies, said I, rising from the seat in the window, and
+      humbly turning round to each, if I may be permitted to speak, my dear Miss
+      asks only for a blessing. She does not beg to be received to favour; she
+      is very ill, and asks only for a last blessing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Come, come, good Norton, [I need not tell you who said this,] you are up
+      again with your lamentables!&mdash;A good woman, as you are, to forgive so
+      readily a crime, that has been as disgraceful to your part in her
+      education as to her family, is a weakness that would induce one to suspect
+      your virtue, if you were to be encountered by a temptation properly
+      adapted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By some such charitable logic, said Mr. Morden, as this, is my cousin
+      Arabella captivated, I doubt not. If virtue, you, Mr. James Harlowe, are
+      the most virtuous young man in the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I knew how it would be, replied your brother, in a passion, if I met Mr.
+      Morden upon this business. I would have declined it; but you, Sir, to his
+      father, would not permit me to do so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, Sir, turning to the Colonel, in no other presence&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, Cousin James, interrupted the other gentleman, that which is your
+      protection, it seems, is mine. I am not used to bear defiances thus&mdash;
+      you are my Cousin, Sir, and the son and nephew of persons as dear as near
+      to me&mdash;There he paused&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Are we, said your father, to be made still more unhappy among ourselves,
+      when the villain lives that ought to be the object of every one's
+      resentment who has either a value for the family, or for this ungrateful
+      girl?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That's the man, said your cousin, whom last Monday, as you know, I went
+      purposely to make the object of mine. But what could I say, when I found
+      him so willing to repair his crime?&mdash;And I give it as my opinion, and
+      have written accordingly to my poor cousin, that it is best for all round
+      that his offer should be accepted; and let me tell you&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tell me nothing, said your father, quite enraged, or that very vile
+      fellow! I have a rivetted hatred to him. I would rather see the rebel die
+      an hundred deaths, were it possible, than that she should give such a
+      villain as him a relation to my family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, but there is no room to think, said you mother, that she will give
+      us such a relation, my dear. The poor girl will lessen, I fear, the number
+      of our relations not increase it. If she be so ill as we are told she is,
+      let us send Mrs. Norton up to her.&mdash;That's the least we can do&mdash;
+      let us take her, however, out of the hands of that Belford.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both your uncles supported this motion; the latter part of it especially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your brother observed, in his ill-natured way, what a fine piece of
+      consistency it was in you to refuse the vile injurer, and the amends he
+      offered; yet to throw yourself upon the protection of his fast friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Harlowe was apprehensive, she said, that you would leave all you
+      could leave to that pert creature, Miss Howe, [so she called her,] if you
+      should die.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O do not, do not suppose that, my Bella, said your poor mother. I cannot
+      think of parting with my Clary&mdash;with all her faults, she is my child&mdash;her
+      reasons for her conduct are not heard&mdash;it would break my heart to
+      lose her.&mdash;I think, my dear, to your father, none so fit as I to go
+      up, if you will give me leave, and Mrs. Norton shall accompany me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a sweet motion, and your father paused upon it. Mr. Morden
+      offered his service to escort her; your uncles seemed to approve of it;
+      but your brother dashed all. I hope, Sir, said he, to his father&mdash;I
+      hope, Madam, to his mother&mdash;that you will not endeavour to recover a
+      faulty daughter by losing an unculpable son. I do declare, that if ever my
+      sister Clary darkens these doors again, I never will. I will set out,
+      Madam, the same hour you go to London, (on such an errand,) to Edinburgh;
+      and there I will reside, and try to forget that I have relations in
+      England, so near and so dear as you are now all to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Good God, said the Colonel, what a declaration is this! And suppose, Sir,
+      and suppose, Madam, [turning to your father and mother,] this should be
+      the case, whether it is better, think you, that you should lose for ever
+      such a daughter as my cousin Clary, or that your son should go to
+      Edinburgh, and reside there upon an estate which will be the better for
+      his residence upon it?&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your brother's passionate behaviour hereupon is hardly to be described. He
+      resented it as promising an alienation of the affection of the family to
+      him. And to such an height were resentments carried, every one siding with
+      him, that the Colonel, with hands and eyes lifted up, cried out, What
+      hearts of flint am I related to!&mdash;O, Cousin Harlowe, to your father,
+      are you resolved to have but one daughter?&mdash;Are you, Madam, to be
+      taught, by a son, who has no bowels, to forget you are a mother?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel turned from them to draw out his handkerchief, and could not
+      for a minute speak. The eyes of every one, but the hard-hearted brother,
+      caught tears from his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But then turning to them, (with the more indignation, as it seemed, as he
+      had been obliged to show a humanity, which, however, no brave heart should
+      be ashamed of,) I leave ye all, said he, fit company for one another. I
+      will never open my lips to any of you more upon this subject. I will
+      instantly make my will, and in me shall the dear creature have the father,
+      uncle, brother, she has lost. I will prevail upon her to take the tour of
+      France and Italy with me; nor shall she return till ye know the value of
+      such a daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And saying this, he hurried out of the room, went into the court-yard, and
+      ordered his horse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Antony Harlowe went to him there, just as he was mounting, and said he
+      hoped he should find him cooler in the evening, (for he, till then, had
+      lodged at his house,) and that then they would converse calmly, and every
+      one, mean time, would weigh all matters well.&mdash;But the angry
+      gentleman said, Cousin Harlowe, I shall endeavour to discharge the
+      obligations I owe to your civility since I have been in England; but I
+      have been so treated by that hot-headed young man, (who, as far as I know,
+      has done more to ruin his sister than Lovelace himself, and this with the
+      approbation of you all,) that I will not again enter into your doors, or
+      theirs. My servants shall have orders whither to bring what belongs to me
+      from your house. I will see my dear cousin Clary as soon as I can. And so
+      God bless you altogether!&mdash;only this one word to your nephew, if you
+      please&mdash;That he wants to be taught the difference between courage and
+      bluster; and it is happy for him, perhaps, that I am his kinsman; though I
+      am sorry he is mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wondered to hear your uncle, on his return to them all, repeat this;
+      because of the consequences it may be attended with, though I hope it will
+      not have bad ones; yet it was considered as a sort of challenge, and so it
+      confirmed every body in your brother's favour; and Miss Harlowe forgot not
+      to inveigh against that error which had brought on all these evils.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took the liberty again, but with fear and trembling, to desire leave to
+      attend you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before any other person could answer, your brother said, I suppose you
+      look upon yourself, Mrs. Norton, to be your own mistress. Pray do you want
+      our consents and courtship to go up?&mdash;If I may speak my mind, you and
+      my sister Clary are the fittest to be together.&mdash;Yet I wish you would
+      not trouble your head about our family matters, till you are desired to do
+      so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But don't you know, brother, said Miss Harlowe, that the error of any
+      branch of a family splits that family into two parties, and makes not only
+      every common friend and acquaintance, but even servants judges over both?&mdash;This
+      is one of the blessed effects of my sister Clary's fault!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There never was a creature so criminal, said your father, looking with
+      displeasure at me, who had not some weak heads to pity and side with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wept. Your mother was so good as to take me by the hand; come, good
+      woman, said she, come along with me. You have too much reason to be
+      afflicted with what afflicts us, to want additions to your grief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, my dearest young lady, I was more touched for your sake than for my
+      own; for I have been low in the world for a great number of years; and, of
+      consequence, have been accustomed to snubs and rebuffs from the affluent.
+      But I hope that patience is written as legibly on my forehead, as
+      haughtiness on that of any of my obligers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your mother led me to her chamber; and there we sat and wept together for
+      several minutes, without being able to speak either of us one word to the
+      other. At last she broke silence, asking me, if you were really and indeed
+      so ill as it was said you were?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I answered in the affirmative; and would have shown her your last letter;
+      but she declined seeing it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I would fain have procured from her the favour of a line to you, with her
+      blessing. I asked, what was intended by your brother and sister? Would
+      nothing satisfy them but your final reprobation?&mdash;I insinuated, how
+      easy it would be, did not your duty and humility govern you, to make
+      yourself independent as to circumstances; but that nothing but a blessing,
+      a last blessing, was requested by you. And many other things I urged in
+      your behalf. The following brief repetition of what she was pleased to say
+      in answer to my pleas, will give you a notion of it all; and of the
+      present situation of things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She said, 'She was very unhappy!&mdash;She had lost the little authority
+      she once had over her other children, through one child's failing! and all
+      influence over Mr. Harlowe and his brothers. Your father, she said, had
+      besought her to leave it to him to take his own methods with you; and, (as
+      she valued him,) to take no step in your favour unknown to him and your
+      uncles; yet she owned, that they were too much governed by your brother.
+      They would, however, give way in time, she knew, to a reconciliation&mdash;they
+      designed no other, for they all still loved you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Your brother and sister, she owned, were very jealous of your coming into
+      favour again;&mdash;yet could but Mr. Morden have kept his temper, and
+      stood her son's first sallies, who (having always had the family grandeur
+      in view) had carried his resentment so high, that he knew not how to
+      descend, the conferences, so abruptly broken off just now, would have
+      ended more happily; for that she had reason to think that a few
+      concessions on your part, with regard to your grandfather's estate, and
+      your cousin's engaging for your submission as from proper motives, would
+      have softened them all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Mr. Brand's account of your intimacy with the friend of the obnoxious
+      man, she said, had, for the time very unhappy effects; for before that she
+      had gained some ground: but afterwards dared not, nor indeed had
+      inclination, to open her lips in your behalf. Your continued intimacy with
+      that Mr. Belford was wholly unaccountable, and as wholly inexcusable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'What made the wished-for reconciliation, she said, more difficult, was,
+      first, that you yourself acknowledged yourself dishonoured; (and it was
+      too well known, that it was your own fault that you ever were in the power
+      of so great a profligate;) of consequence, that their and your disgrace
+      could not be greater than it was; yet, that you refuse to prosecute the
+      wretch. Next, that the pardon and blessing hoped for must probably be
+      attended with your marriage to the man they hate, and who hates them as
+      much: very disagreeable circumstances, she said, I must allow, to found a
+      reconciliation upon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'As to her own part, she must needs say, that if there were any hope that
+      Mr. Lovelace would become a reformed man, the letter her cousin Morden had
+      read to them from him to you, and the justice (as she hoped it was) he did
+      your character, though to his own condemnation, (his family and fortunes
+      being unexceptionable,) and all his relations earnest to be related to
+      you, were arguments that would weigh with her, could they have any with
+      your father and uncles.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To my plea of your illness, 'she could not but flatter herself, she
+      answered, that it was from lowness of spirits, and temporary dejection. A
+      young creature, she said, so very considerate as you naturally were, and
+      fallen so low, must have enough of that. Should they lose you, which God
+      forbid! the scene would then indeed be sadly changed; for then those who
+      now most resented, would be most grieved; all your fine qualities would
+      rise to their remembrance, and your unhappy error would be quite
+      forgotten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'She wished you would put yourself into your cousin's protection entirely,
+      and have nothing to more to say to Mr. Belford.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And I would recommend it to your most serious consideration, my dear Miss
+      Clary, whether now, as your cousin (who is your trustee for your
+      grandfather's estate,) is come, you should not give over all thoughts of
+      Mr. Lovelace's intimate friend for your executor; more especially, as that
+      gentleman's interfering in the concerns of your family, should the sad
+      event take place (which my heart aches but to think of) might be attended
+      with those consequences which you are so desirous, in other cases, to
+      obviate and prevent. And suppose, my dear young lady, you were to write
+      one letter more to each of your uncles, to let them know how ill you are?&mdash;And
+      to ask their advice, and offer to be governed by it, in relation to the
+      disposition of your estate and effects?&mdash;Methinks I wish you would.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I find they will send you up a large part of what has been received from
+      that estate since it was your's; together with your current cash which you
+      left behind you: and this by your cousin Morden, for fear you should have
+      contracted debts which may make you uneasy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They seem to expect, that you will wish to live at your grandfather's
+      house, in a private manner, if your cousin prevail not upon you to go
+      abroad for a year or two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FRIDAY MORNING.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Betty was with me just now. She tells me, that your cousin Morden is so
+      much displeased with them all, that he has refused to lodge any more at
+      your uncle Antony's; and has even taken up with inconvenient lodgings,
+      till he is provided with others to his mind. This very much concerns them;
+      and they repent their violent treatment of him: and the more, as he is
+      resolved, he says, to make you his sole executrix, and heir to all his
+      fortune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What noble fortunes still, my dearest young lady, await you! I am
+      thoroughly convinced, if it please God to preserve your life and your
+      health, that every body will soon be reconciled to you, and that you will
+      see many happy days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your mother wished me not to attend you as yet, because she hopes that I
+      may give myself that pleasure soon with every body's good liking, and even
+      at their desire. Your cousin Morden's reconciliation with them, which they
+      are very desirous of, I am ready to hope will include theirs with you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if that should happen which I so much dread, and I not with you, I
+      should never forgive myself. Let me, therefore, my dearest young lady,
+      desire you to command my attendance, if you find any danger, and if you
+      wish me peace of mind; and no consideration shall withhold me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hear that Miss Howe has obtained leave from her mother to see you; and
+      intends next week to go to town for that purpose; and (as it is believed)
+      to buy clothes for her approaching nuptials.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Hickman's mother-in-law is lately dead. Her jointure of 600£. a-year
+      is fallen to him; and she has, moreover, as an acknowledgement of his good
+      behaviour to her, left him all she was worth, which was very considerable,
+      a few legacies excepted to her own relations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These good men are uniformly good: indeed could not else be good; and
+      never fare the worse for being so. All the world agrees he will make that
+      fine young lady an excellent husband: and I am sorry they are not as much
+      agreed in her making him an excellent wife. But I hope a woman of her
+      principles would not encourage his address, if, whether she at present
+      love him or not, she thought she could not love him; or if she preferred
+      any other man to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Pocock undertakes to deliver this; but fears it will be Saturday night
+      first, if not Sunday morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      May the Almighty protect and bless you!&mdash;I long to see you&mdash;my
+      dearest young lady, I long to see you; and to fold you once more to my
+      fond heart. I dare to say happy days are coming. Be but cheerful. Give way
+      to hope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether for this world, or the other, you must be happy. Wish to live,
+      however, were it only because you are so well fitted in mind to make every
+      one happy who has the honour to know you. What signifies this transitory
+      eclipse? You are as near perfection, by all I have heard, as any creature
+      in this world can be: for here is your glory&mdash;you are brightened and
+      purified, as I may say, by your sufferings!&mdash;How I long to hear your
+      whole sad, yet instructive story, from your own lips!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For Miss Howe's sake, who, in her new engagements will so much want you;
+      for your cousin Morden's sake, for your mother's sake, if I must go on
+      farther in your family; and yet I can say, for all their sakes; and for my
+      sake, my dearest Miss Clary; let your resumed and accustomed magnanimity
+      bear you up. You have many things to do which I know not the person who
+      will do if you leave us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Join your prayers then to mine, that God will spare you to a world that
+      wants you and your example; and, although your days may seem to have been
+      numbered, who knows but that, with the good King Hezekiah, you may have
+      them prolonged? Which God grant, if it be his blessed will, to the prayers
+      of
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your JUDITH NORTON
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0060" id="link2H_4_0060">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. MONDAY, SEPT. 4.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady would not read the letter she had from Mrs. Norton till she had
+      received the Communion, for fear it should contain any thing that might
+      disturb that happy calm, which she had been endeavouring to obtain for it.
+      And when that solemn office was over, she was so composed, she said, that
+      she thought she could receive any news, however affecting, with
+      tranquillity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, in reading it, she was forced to leave off several times
+      through weakness and a dimness in her sight, of which she complained; if I
+      may say complained; for so easy and soft were her complaints, that they
+      could hardly be called such.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was very much affected at divers parts of this letter. She wept
+      several times, and sighed often. Mrs. Lovick told me, that these were the
+      gentle exclamations she broke out into, as she read:&mdash;Her unkind, her
+      cruel brother!&mdash;How unsisterly!&mdash;Poor dear woman! seeming to
+      speak of Mrs. Norton. Her kind cousin!&mdash;O these flaming spirits! And
+      then reflecting upon herself more than once&mdash;What a deep error is
+      mine!&mdash;What evils have I been the occasion of!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I was admitted to her presence, I have received, said she, a long and
+      not very pleasing letter from my dear Mrs. Norton. It will soon be in your
+      hands. I am advised against appointing you to the office you have so
+      kindly accepted of: but you must resent nothing of these things. My choice
+      will have an odd appearance to them: but it is now too late to alter it,
+      if I would.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I would fain write an answer to it, continued she: but I have no distinct
+      sight, Mr. Belford, no steadiness of fingers.&mdash;This mistiness,
+      however, will perhaps be gone by-and-by.&mdash;Then turning to Mrs.
+      Lovick, I don't think I am dying yet&mdash;not actually dying, Mrs. Lovick&mdash;for
+      I have no bodily pain&mdash;no numbnesses; no signs of immediate death, I
+      think.&mdash;And my breath, which used of late to be so short, is now
+      tolerable&mdash;my head clear, my intellects free&mdash;I think I cannot
+      be dying yet&mdash;I shall have agonies, I doubt&mdash;life will not give
+      up so blessedly easy, I fear&mdash;yet how merciful is the Almighty, to
+      give his poor creature such a sweet serenity!&mdash;'Tis what I have
+      prayed for!&mdash;What encouragement, Mrs. Lovick, so near one's
+      dissolution, to have it to hope that one's prayers are answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Smith, as well as Mrs. Lovick, was with her. They were both in tears;
+      nor had I, any more than they, power to say a word in answer: yet she
+      spoke all this, as well as what follows, with a surprising composure of
+      mind and countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, Mr. Belford, said she, assuming a still sprightlier air and accent,
+      let me talk a little to you, while I am thus able to say what I have to
+      say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Lovick, don't leave us, [for the women were rising to go,] pray sit
+      down; and do you, Mrs. Smith, sit down too.&mdash;Dame Shelbourne, take
+      this key, and open the upper drawer. I will move to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did, with trembling knees. Here, Mr. Belford, is my will. It is
+      witnessed by three persons of Mr. Smith's acquaintance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I dare to hope, that my cousin Morden will give you assistance, if you
+      request it of him. My cousin Morden continued his affection for me: but as
+      I have not seen him, I leave all the trouble upon you, Mr. Belford. This
+      deed may want forms; and it does, no doubt: but the less, as I have my
+      grandfather's will almost by heart, and have often enough heard that
+      canvassed. I will lay it by itself in this corner; putting it at the
+      further end of the drawer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She then took up a parcel of letters, enclosed in one cover, sealed with
+      three seals of black wax: This, said she, I sealed up last night. The
+      cover, Sir, will let you know what is to be done with what it encloses.
+      This is the superscription [holding it close to her eyes, and rubbing
+      them]; As soon as I am certainly dead, this to be broke open by Mr.
+      Belford.&mdash;Here, Sir, I put it [placing it by the will].&mdash;These
+      folded papers are letters, and copies of letters, disposed according to
+      their dates. Miss Howe will do with those as you and she shall think fit.
+      If I receive any more, or more come when I cannot receive them, they may
+      be put into this drawer, [pulling out and pushing in the looking-glass
+      drawer,] to be given to Mr. Belford, be they from whom they will. You'll
+      be so kind as to observe that, Mrs. Lovick, and dame Shelbourne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, Sir, proceeded she, I put the keys of my apparel [putting them into
+      the drawer with her papers]. All is in order, and the inventory upon them,
+      and an account of what I have disposed of: so that nobody need to ask Mrs.
+      Smith any questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There will be no immediate need to open or inspect the trunks which
+      contain my wearing apparel. Mrs. Norton will open them, or order somebody
+      to do it for her, in your presence, Mrs. Lovick; for so I have directed in
+      my will. They may be sealed up now: I shall never more have occasion to
+      open them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She then, though I expostulated with her to the contrary, caused me to
+      seal them up with my seal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After this, she locked up the drawer where were her papers; first taking
+      out her book of meditations, as she called it; saying, she should,
+      perhaps, have use for that; and then desired me to take the key of that
+      drawer; for she should have no further occasion for that neither.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this in so composed and cheerful a manner, that we were equally
+      surprised and affected with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You can witness for me, Mrs. Smith, and so can you, Mrs. Lovick, proceeded
+      she, if any one ask after my life and conversation, since you have known
+      me, that I have been very orderly; have kept good hours; and never have
+      lain out of your house but when I was in prison; and then you know I could
+      not help it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O, Lovelace! that thou hadst heard her or seen her, unknown to herself, on
+      this occasion!&mdash;Not one of us could speak a word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall leave the world in perfect charity, proceeded she. And turning
+      towards the women, don't be so much concerned for me, my good friends.
+      This is all but needful preparation; and I shall be very happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then again rubbing her eyes, which she said were misty, and looked more
+      intently round upon each, particularly on me&mdash;God bless you all! said
+      she; how kindly are you concerned for me!&mdash;Who says I am friendless?
+      Who says I am abandoned, and among strangers?&mdash;Good Mr. Belford,
+      don't be so generously humane!&mdash;Indeed [putting her handkerchief to
+      her charming eyes,] you will make me less happy, than I am sure you wish
+      me to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While we were thus solemnly engaged, a servant came with a letter from her
+      cousin Morden:&mdash;Then, said she, he is not come himself!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She broke it open; but every line, she said, appeared two to her: so that,
+      being unable to read it herself, she desired I would read it to her. I did
+      so; and wished it were more consolatory to her: but she was all patient
+      attention: tears, however, often trickling down her cheeks. By the date,
+      it was written yesterday; and this is the substance of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He tells her, 'That the Thursday before he had procured a general meeting
+      of her principal relations, at her father's; though not without
+      difficulty, her haughty brother opposing it, and, when met, rendering all
+      his endeavours to reconcile them to her ineffectual. He censures him, as
+      the most ungovernable young man he ever knew: some great sickness, he
+      says, some heavy misfortune, is wanted to bring him to a knowledge of
+      himself, and of what is due from him to others; and he wishes that he were
+      not her brother, and his cousin. Nor doe he spare her father and uncles
+      for being so implicitly led by him.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He tells her, 'That he parted with them all in high displeasure, and
+      thought never more to darken any of their doors: that he declared as much
+      to her two uncles, who came to him on Saturday, to try to accommodate with
+      him; and who found him preparing to go to London to attend her; and that,
+      notwithstanding their pressing entreaties, he determined so to do, and not
+      to go with them to Harlowe-place, or to either of their own houses; and
+      accordingly dismissed them with such an answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But that her noble letter,' as he calls it, of Aug. 31,* 'being brought
+      him about an hour after their departure, he thought it might affect them
+      as much as it did him; and give them the exalted opinion of her virtue
+      which was so well deserved; he therefore turned his horse's head back to
+      her uncle Antony's, instead of forwards toward London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * See Letter XLV. of this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That accordingly arriving there, and finding her two uncles together, he
+      read to them the affecting letter; which left none of the three a dry eye:
+      that the absent, as is usual in such cases, bearing all the load, they
+      accused her brother and sister; and besought him to put off his journey to
+      town, till he could carry with him the blessings which she had formerly in
+      vain solicited for; and (as they hoped) the happy tidings of a general
+      reconciliation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That not doubting but his visit would be the more welcome to her, if
+      these good ends could be obtained, he the more readily complied with their
+      desires. But not being willing to subject himself to the possibility of
+      receiving fresh insult from her brother, he had given her uncles a copy of
+      her letter, for the family to assemble upon; and desired to know, as soon
+      as possible, the result of their deliberations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He tells her, that he shall bring her up the accounts relating to the
+      produce of her grandfather's estate, and adjust them with her; having
+      actually in his hands the arrears due to her from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He highly applauds the noble manner in which she resents your usage of
+      her. It is impossible, he owns, that you can either deserve her, or to be
+      forgiven. But as you do justice to her virtue, and offer to make her all
+      the reparation now in your power; and as she is so very earnest with him
+      not to resent that usage; and declares, that you could not have been the
+      author of her calamities but through a strange concurrence of unhappy
+      causes; and as he is not at a loss to know how to place to a proper
+      account that strange concurrence; he desires her not to be apprehensive of
+      any vindictive measures from him.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless (as may be expected) 'he inveighs against you; as he finds
+      that she gave you no advantage over her. But he forbears to enter further
+      into this subject, he says, till he has the honour to see her; and the
+      rather, as she seems so much determined against you. However, he cannot
+      but say, that he thinks you a gallant man, and a man of sense; and that
+      you have the reputation of being thought a generous man in every instance
+      but where the sex is concerned. In such, he owns, that you have taken
+      inexcusable liberties. And he is sorry to say, that there are very few
+      young men of fortune but who allow themselves in the same. Both sexes, he
+      observes, too much love to have each other in their power: yet he hardly
+      ever knew man or woman who was very fond of power make a right use of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'If she be so absolutely determined against marrying you, as she declares
+      she is, he hopes, he says, to prevail upon her to take (as soon as her
+      health will permit) a little tour abroad with him, as what will probably
+      establish it; since traveling is certainly the best physic for all those
+      disorders which owe their rise to grief or disappointment. An absence of
+      two or three years will endear her to every one, on her return, and every
+      one to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'He expresses his impatience to see her. He will set out, he says, the
+      moment he knows the result of her family's determination; which, he doubts
+      not, will be favourable. Nor will he wait long for that.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I had read the letter through to the languishing lady, And so, my
+      friends, said she, have I heard of a patient who actually died, while five
+      or six principal physicians were in a consultation, and not agreed upon
+      what name to give his distemper. The patient was an emperor, the emperor
+      Joseph, I think.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I asked, if I should write to her cousin, as he knew not how ill she was,
+      to hasten up?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By no means, she said; since, if he were not already set out, she was
+      persuaded that she should be so low by the time he could receive my
+      letter, and come, that his presence would but discompose and hurry her,
+      and afflict him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope, however, she is not so very near her end. And without saying any
+      more to her, when I retired, I wrote to Colonel Morden, that if he expects
+      to see his beloved cousin alive, he must lose no time in setting out. I
+      sent this letter by his own servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. H. sent away his letter to her father by a particular hand this
+      morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Walton the milliner has also just now acquainted Mrs. Smith, that her
+      husband had a letter brought by a special messenger from Parson Brand,
+      within this half hour, enclosing the copy of one he had written to Mr.
+      John Harlowe, recanting his officious one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And as all these, and the copy of the lady's letter to Col. Morden, will
+      be with them pretty much at a time, the devil's in the family if they are
+      not struck with a remorse that shall burst open the double-barred doors of
+      their hearts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Will. engages to reach you with this (late as it will be) before you go to
+      rest. He begs that I will testify for him the hour and the minute I shall
+      give it him. It is just half an hour after ten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I pretend to be (now by use) the swiftest short-hand writer in England,
+      next to yourself. But were matter to arise every hour to write upon, and I
+      had nothing else to do, I cannot write so fast as you expect. And let it
+      be remembered, that your servants cannot bring letters or messages before
+      they are written or sent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0061" id="link2H_4_0061">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      DR. H. TO JAMES HARLOWE, SENIOR, ESQ. LONDON, SEPT. 4.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SIR,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If I may judge of the hearts of other parents by my own, I cannot doubt
+      but you will take it well to be informed that you have yet an opportunity
+      to save yourself and family great future regret, by dispatching hither
+      some one of it with your last blessing, and your lady's, to the most
+      excellent of her sex.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have some reason to believe, Sir, that she has been represented to you
+      in a very different light from the true one. And this it is that induces
+      me to acquaint you, that I think her, on the best grounds, absolutely
+      irreproachable in all her conduct which has passed under my eye, or come
+      to my ear; and that her very misfortunes are made glorious to her, and
+      honourable to all that are related to her, by the use she has made of
+      them; and by the patience and resignation with which she supports herself
+      in a painful, lingering, and dispiriting decay! and by the greatness of
+      mind with which she views her approaching dissolution. And all this from
+      proper motives; from motives in which a dying saint might glory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She knows not that I write. I must indeed acknowledge, that I offered to
+      do so some days ago, and that very pressingly: nor did she refuse me from
+      obstinacy&mdash;she seemed not to know what that is&mdash;but desired me
+      to forbear for two days only, in hopes that her newly-arrived cousin, who,
+      as she heard, was soliciting for her, would be able to succeed in her
+      favour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope I shall not be thought an officious man on this occasion; but, if I
+      am, I cannot help it, being driven to write, by a kind of parental and
+      irresistible impulse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, Sir, whatever you think fit to do, or permit to be done, must be
+      speedily done; for she cannot, I verily think, live a week: and how long
+      of that short space she may enjoy her admirable intellects to take comfort
+      in the favours you may think proper to confer upon her cannot be said. I
+      am, Sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your most humble servant,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      R.H. <a name="link2H_4_0062" id="link2H_4_0062">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO WILLIAM MORDEN, ESQ. LONDON, SEPT. 4.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SIR,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The urgency of the case, and the opportunity by your servant, will
+      sufficiently apologize for this trouble from a stranger to your person,
+      who, however, is not a stranger to your merit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I understand you are employing your good offices with the parents of Miss
+      Clarissa Harlowe, and other relations, to reconcile them to the most
+      meritorious daughter and kinswoman that ever family had to boast of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Generously as this is intended by you, we here have too much reason to
+      think all your solicitudes on this head will be unnecessary: for it is the
+      opinion of every one who has the honour of being admitted to her presence,
+      that she cannot live over three days: so that, if you wish to see her
+      alive, you must lose no time to come up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She knows not that I write. I had done it sooner, if I had had the least
+      doubt that before now she would not have received from you some news of
+      the happy effects of your kind mediation in her behalf. I am, Sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your most humble servant, J. BELFORD.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0063" id="link2H_4_0063">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. [IN ANSWER TO LETTER LVII.] UXBRIDGE,
+      TUESDAY MORN, BETWEEN 4 AND 5.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And can it be, that this admirable creature will so soon leave this cursed
+      world! For cursed I shall think it, and more cursed myself, when she is
+      gone. O, Jack! thou who canst sit so cool, and, like Addison's Angel,
+      direct, and even enjoy, the storm, that tears up my happiness by the
+      roots; blame me not for my impatience, however unreasonable! If thou
+      knowest, that already I feel the torments of the damned, in the remorse
+      that wrings my heart, on looking back upon my past actions by her, thou
+      wouldst not be the devil thou art, to halloo on a worrying conscience,
+      which, without my merciless aggravations, is altogether intolerable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know not what to write, nor what I would write. When the company that
+      used to delight me is as uneasy to me as my reflections are painful, and I
+      can neither help nor divert myself, must not every servant about me
+      partake in a perturbation so sincere!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shall I give thee a faint picture of the horrible uneasiness with which my
+      mind struggles? And faint indeed it must be; for nothing but outrageous
+      madness can exceed it; and that only in the apprehension of others; since,
+      as to the sufferer, it is certain, that actual distraction (take it out of
+      its lucid intervals) must be an infinitely more happy state than the state
+      of suspense and anxiety, which often brings it on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Forbidden to attend the dear creature, yet longing to see her, I would
+      give the world to be admitted once more to her beloved presence. I ride
+      towards London three or four times a day, resolving pro and con, twenty
+      times in two or three miles; and at last ride back; and, in view of
+      Uxbridge, loathing even the kind friend, and hospitable house, turn my
+      horse's head again towards the town, and resolve to gratify my humour, let
+      her take it as she will; but, at the very entrance of it, after infinite
+      canvassings, once more alter my mind, dreading to offend and shock her,
+      lest, by that means, I should curtail a life so precious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yesterday, in particular, to give you an idea of the strength of that
+      impatience, which I cannot avoid suffering to break out upon my servants,
+      I had no sooner dispatched Will., than I took horse to meet him on his
+      return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In order to give him time, I loitered about on the road, riding up this
+      lane to the one highway, down that to the other, just as my horse pointed;
+      all the way cursing my very being; and though so lately looking down upon
+      all the world, wishing to change conditions with the poorest beggar that
+      cried to me for charity as I rode by him&mdash;and throwing him money, in
+      hopes to obtain by his prayers the blessing my heart pants after.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After I had sauntered about an hour or two, (which seemed three or four
+      tedious ones,) fearing I had slipt the fellow, I inquired at every
+      turnpike, whether a servant in such a livery had not passed through in his
+      return from London, on a full gallop; for woe had been to the dog, had I
+      met him on a sluggish trot! And lest I should miss him at one end of
+      Kensingtohn, as he might take either the Acton or Hammersmith road; or at
+      the other, as he might come through the Park, or not; how many score times
+      did I ride backwards and forwards from the Palace to the Gore, making
+      myself the subject of observation to all passengers whether on horseback
+      or on foot; who, no doubt, wondered to see a well-dressed and well-mounted
+      man, sometimes ambling, sometimes prancing, (as the beast had more fire
+      than his master) backwards and forwards in so short a compass!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet all this time, though longing to espy the fellow, did I dread to meet
+      him, lest he should be charged with fatal tidings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When at distance I saw any man galloping towards me, my
+      resemblance-forming fancy immediately made it to be him; and then my heart
+      choked me. But when the person's nearer approach undeceived me, how did I
+      curse the varlet's delay, and thee, by turns! And how ready was I to draw
+      my pistol at the stranger, for having the impudence to gallop; which none
+      but my messenger, I thought, had either right or reason to do! For all the
+      business of the world, I am ready to imagine, should stand still on an
+      occasion so melancholy and so interesting to me. Nay, for this week past,
+      I could cut the throat of any man or woman I see laugh, while I am in such
+      dejection of mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am now convinced that the wretches who fly from a heavy scene, labour
+      under ten times more distress in the intermediate suspense and
+      apprehension, than they could have, were they present at it, and to see
+      and know the worst: so capable is fancy or imagination, the more immediate
+      offspring of the soul, to outgo fact, let the subject be either joyous or
+      grievous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And hence, as I conceive, it is, that all pleasures are greater in the
+      expectation, or in the reflection, than in fruition; as all pains, which
+      press heavy upon both parts of that unequal union by which frail mortality
+      holds its precarious tenure, are ever most acute in the time of suffering:
+      for how easy sit upon the reflection the heaviest misfortunes, when
+      surmounted!&mdash;But most easy, I confess, those in which body has more
+      concern than soul. This, however, is a point of philosophy I have neither
+      time nor head just now to weigh: so take it as it falls from a madman's
+      pen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Woe be to either of the wretches who shall bring me the fatal news that
+      she is no more! For it is but too likely that a shriek-owl so hated will
+      never hoot or scream again; unless the shock, that will probably disorder
+      my whole frame on so sad an occasion, (by unsteadying my hand,) shall
+      divert my aim from his head, heart, or bowels, if it turn not against my
+      own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, surely, she will not, she cannot yet die! Such a matchless
+      excellence,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+            &mdash;&mdash;whose mind
+      Contains a world, and seems for all things fram'd,
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      could not be lent to be so soon demanded back again!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But may it not be, that thou, Belford, art in a plot with the dear
+      creature, (who will not let me attend her to convince myself,) in order to
+      work up my soul to the deepest remorse; and that, when she is convinced of
+      the sincerity of my penitence, and when my mind is made such wax, as to be
+      fit to take what impression she pleases to give it, she will then raise me
+      up with the joyful tidings of her returning health and acceptance of me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What would I give to have it so! And when the happiness of hundreds, as
+      well as the peace and reconciliation of several eminent families, depend
+      upon her restoration and happiness, why should it not be so?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But let me presume it will. Let me indulge my former hope, however
+      improbable&mdash;I will; and enjoy it too. And let me tell thee how
+      ecstatic my delight would be on the unravelling of such a plot as this!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Do, dear Belford, let it be so!&mdash;And, O, my dearest, and ever-dear
+      Clarissa, keep me no loner in this cruel suspense; in which I suffer a
+      thousand times more than ever I made thee suffer. Nor fear thou that I
+      will resent, or recede, on an ecclaircissement so desirable; for I will
+      adore thee for ever, and without reproaching thee for the pangs thou hast
+      tortured me with, confess thee as much my superior in virtue and honour!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But once more, should the worst happen&mdash;say not what that worst is&mdash;and
+      I am gone from this hated island&mdash;gone for ever&mdash;and may eternal&mdash;but
+      I am crazed already&mdash;and will therefore conclude myself,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thine more than my own, (and no great compliment neither) R.L.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0064" id="link2H_4_0064">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. TUES. SEPT. 9 IN THE MORN. AT MR.
+      SMITH'S.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I read yours of this morning, I could not help pitying you for the
+      account you give of the dreadful anxiety and suspense you labour under. I
+      wish from my heart all were to end as you are so willing to hope: but it
+      will not be; and your suspense, if the worst part of your torment, as you
+      say it is, will soon be over; but, alas! in a way you wish not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I attended the lady just now. She is extremely ill: yet is she aiming at
+      an answer to her Norton's letter, which she began yesterday in her own
+      chamber, and has written a good deal: but in a hand not like her own fine
+      one, as Mrs. Lovick tells me, but larger, and the lines crooked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have accepted of the offer of a room adjoining to the widow Lovick's,
+      till I see how matters go; but unknown to the lady; and I shall go home
+      every night, for a few hours. I would not lose a sentence that I could
+      gain from lips so instructive, nor the opportunity of receiving any
+      command from her, for an estate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this my new apartment I now write, and shall continue to write, as
+      occasions offer, that I may be the more circumstantial: but I depend upon
+      the return of my letters, or copies of them, on demand, that I may have
+      together all that relates to this affecting story; which I shall re-peruse
+      with melancholy pleasure to the end of my life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I think I will send thee Brand's letter to Mr. John Harlowe, recanting his
+      base surmises. It is a matchless piece of pedantry; and may perhaps a
+      little divert thy deep chagrin: some time hence at least it may, if not
+      now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What wretched creatures are there in the world! What strangely mixed
+      creatures!&mdash;So sensible and so silly at the same time! What a
+      various, what a foolish creature is man!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THREE O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady has just finished her letter, and has entertained Mrs. Lovick,
+      Mrs. Smith, and me, with a noble discourse on the vanity and brevity of
+      life, to which I cannot do justice in the repetition: and indeed I am so
+      grieved for her, that, ill as she is, my intellects are not half so clear
+      as her's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few things which made the strongest impression upon me, as well from the
+      sentiments themselves as from her manner of uttering them, I remember. She
+      introduced them thus:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am thinking, said she, what a gradual and happy death God Almighty
+      (blessed be his name) affords me! Who would have thought, that, suffering
+      what I have suffered, and abandoned as I have been, with such a tender
+      education as I have had, I should be so long a dying!&mdash;But see now by
+      little and little it had come to this. I was first take off from the power
+      of walking; then I took a coach&mdash;a coach grew too violent an
+      exercise: then I took up a chair&mdash;the prison was a large DEATH-STRIDE
+      upon me&mdash;I should have suffered longer else!&mdash;Next, I was unable
+      to go to church; then to go up or down stairs; now hardly can move from
+      one room to another: and a less room will soon hold me.&mdash;My eyes
+      begin to fail me, so that at times I cannot see to read distinctly; and
+      now I can hardly write, or hold a pen.&mdash;Next, I presume, I shall know
+      nobody, nor be able to thank any of you; I therefore now once more thank
+      you, Mrs. Lovick, and you, Mrs. Smith, and you, Mr. Belford, while I can
+      thank you, for all your kindness to me. And thus by little and little, in
+      such a gradual sensible death as I am blessed with, God dies away in us,
+      as I may say, all human satisfaction, in order to subdue his poor
+      creatures to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou mayest guess how affected we all were at this moving account of her
+      progressive weakness. We heard it with wet eyes; for what with the women's
+      example, and what with her moving eloquence, I could no more help it than
+      they. But we were silent nevertheless; and she went on applying herself to
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O Mr. Belford! This is a poor transitory life in the best enjoyments. We
+      flutter about here and there, with all our vanities about us, like painted
+      butterflies, for a gay, but a very short season, till at last we lay
+      ourselves down in a quiescent state, and turn into vile worms: And who
+      knows in what form, or to what condition we shall rise again?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish you would permit me, a young creature, just turned of nineteen
+      years of age, blooming and healthy as I was a few months ago, now nipt by
+      the cold hand of death, to influence you, in these my last hours, to a
+      life of regularity and repentance for any past evils you may have been
+      guilty of. For, believe me, Sir, that now, in this last stage, very few
+      things will bear the test, or be passed as laudable, if pardonable, at our
+      own bar, much less at a more tremendous one, in all we have done, or
+      delighted in, even in a life not very offensive neither, as we may think!
+      &mdash;Ought we not then to study in our full day, before the dark hours
+      approach, so to live, as may afford reflections that will soften the agony
+      of the last moments when they come, and let in upon the departing soul a
+      ray of Divine mercy to illuminate its passage into an awful eternity?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was ready to faint, and choosing to lie down, I withdrew; I need not
+      say with a melancholy heart: and when I got to my new-taken apartment, my
+      heart was still more affected by the sight of the solemn letter the
+      admirable lady had so lately finished. It was communicated to me by Mrs.
+      Lovick; who had it to copy for me; but it was not to be delivered to me
+      till after her departure. However, I trespassed so far, as to prevail upon
+      the widow to let me take a copy of it; which I did directly in character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I send it enclosed. If thou canst read it, and thy heart not bleed at thy
+      eyes, thy remorse can hardly be so deep as thou hast inclined me to think
+      it is.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0065" id="link2H_4_0065">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MRS. NORTON [IN ANSWER TO LETTER LVI.*]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * Begun on Monday Sept. 4, and by piecemeal finished on Tuesday; but not
+      sent till the Thursday following.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MY DEAREST MRS. NORTON,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am afraid I shall not be able to write all that is upon my mind to say
+      to you upon the subject of your last. Yet I will try.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to my friends, and as to the sad breakfasting, I cannot help being
+      afflicted for them. What, alas! has not my mother, in particular, suffered
+      by my rashness!&mdash;Yet to allow so much for a son!&mdash;so little for
+      a daughter!&mdash;But all now will soon be over, as to me. I hope they
+      will bury all their resentments in my grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to your advice, in relation to Mr. Belford, let me only say, that the
+      unhappy reprobation I have met with, and my short time, must be my apology
+      now.&mdash;I wish I could have written to my mother and my uncles as you
+      advise. And yet, favours come so slowly from them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The granting of one request only now remains as a desirable one from them.
+      Which nevertheless, when granted, I shall not be sensible of. It is that
+      they will be pleased to permit my remains to be laid with those of my
+      ancestors&mdash;placed at the feet of my dear grandfather, as I have
+      mentioned in my will. This, however, as they please. For, after all, this
+      vile body ought not so much to engage my cares. It is a weakness&mdash;
+      but let it be called a natural weakness, and I shall be excused;
+      especially when a reverential gratitude shall be known to be the
+      foundation of it. You know, my dear woman, how my grandfather loved me.
+      And you know how much I honoured him, and that from my very infancy to the
+      hour of his death. How often since have I wished, that he had not loved me
+      so well!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish not now, at the writing of this, to see even my cousin Morden. O,
+      my blessed woman! My dear maternal friend! I am entering upon a better
+      tour than to France or Italy either!&mdash;or even than to settle at my
+      once-beloved Dairy-house!&mdash;All these prospects and pleasures, which
+      used to be so agreeable to me in health, how poor seem they to me now!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed, indeed, my dear Mamma Norton, I shall be happy! I know I shall!
+      &mdash;I have charming forebodings of happiness already!&mdash;Tell all my
+      dear friends, for their comfort, that I shall!&mdash;Who would not bear
+      the punishments I have borne, to have the prospects and assurances I
+      rejoice in!&mdash;Assurances I might not have had, were my own wishes to
+      have been granted to me!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither do I want to see even you, my dear Mrs. Norton. Nevertheless I
+      must, in justice to my own gratitude, declare, that there was a time,
+      could you have been permitted to come, without incurring displeasure from
+      those whose esteem it is necessary for you to cultivate and preserve, that
+      your presence and comfortings would have been balm to my wounded mind. But
+      were you now, even by consent, and with reconciliatory tidings, to come,
+      it would but add to your grief; and the sight of one I so dearly love, so
+      happily fraught with good news, might but draw me back to wishes I have
+      had great struggles to get above. And let me tell you for your comfort,
+      that I have not left undone any thing that ought to be done, either
+      respecting mind or person; no, not to the minutest preparation: so that
+      nothing is left for you to do for me. Every one has her direction as to
+      the last offices.&mdash;And my desk, that I now write upon &mdash;O my
+      dearest Mrs. Norton, all is provided!&mdash;All is ready! And all will be
+      as decent as it should be!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And pray let my Miss Howe know, that by the time you will receive this,
+      and she your signification of the contents of it, will, in all
+      probability, be too late for her to do me the inestimable favour, as I
+      should once have thought it, to see me. God will have no rivals in the
+      hearts of those he sanctifies. By various methods he deadens all other
+      sensations, or rather absorbs them all in the love of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall nevertheless love you, my Mamma Norton, and my Miss Howe, whose
+      love to me has passed the love of woman, to my latest hour!&mdash;But yet,
+      I am now above the quick sense of those pleasures which once delighted me,
+      and once more I say, that I do not wish to see objects so dear to me,
+      which might bring me back again into sense, and rival my supreme love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Twice have I been forced to leave off. I wished, that my last writing
+      might be to you, or to Miss Howe, if it might not be to my dearest Ma&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mamma, I would have wrote&mdash;is the word distinct?&mdash;My eyes are so
+      misty!&mdash; If, when I apply to you, I break off in half-words, do you
+      supply them&mdash; the kindest are your due.&mdash;Be sure take the
+      kindest, to fill up chasms with, if any chasms there be&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another breaking off!&mdash;But the new day seems to rise upon me with
+      healing in its wings. I have gotten, I think, a recruit of strength:
+      spirits, I bless God, I have not of late wanted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let my dearest Miss Howe purchase her wedding-garments&mdash;and may all
+      temporal blessings attend the charming preparation!&mdash;Blessings will,
+      I make no question, notwithstanding the little cloudiness that Mr. Hickman
+      encounters with now and then, which are but prognostications of a future
+      golden day to him: for her heart is good, and her head not wrong.&mdash;But
+      great merit is coy, and that coyness had not always its foundation in
+      pride: but if it should seem to be pride, take off the skin-deep covering,
+      and, in her, it is noble diffidence, and a love that wants but to be
+      assured!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tell Mr. Hickman I write this, and write it, as I believe, with my last
+      pen; and bid him bear a little at first, and forbear; and all the future
+      will be crowning gratitude, and rewarding love: for Miss Howe had great
+      sense, fine judgment, and exalted generosity; and can such a one be
+      ungrateful or easy under those obligations which his assiduity and
+      obligingness (when he shall be so happy as to call her his) will lay her
+      under to him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for me, never bride was so ready as I am. My wedding garments are
+      bought&mdash;-and though not fine or gawdy to the sight, though not
+      adorned with jewels, and set off with gold and silver, (for I have no
+      beholders' eyes to wish to glitter in,) yet will they be the easiest, the
+      happiest suit, that ever bridal maiden wore&mdash;for they are such as
+      carry with them a security against all those anxieties, pains, and
+      perturbations, which sometimes succeed to the most promising outsettings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, my dear Mrs. Norton, do I wish for no other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O hasten, good God, if it be thy blessed will, the happy moment that I am
+      to be decked out in his all-quieting garb! And sustain, comfort, bless,
+      and protect with the all-shadowing wing of thy mercy, my dear parents, my
+      uncles, my brother, my sister, my cousin Morden, my ever-dear and
+      ever-kind Miss Howe, my good Mrs. Norton, and every deserving person to
+      whom they wish well! is the ardent prayer, first and last, of every
+      beginning hour, as the clock tells it me, (hours now are days, nay,
+      years,) of
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your now not sorrowing or afflicted, but happy, CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0066" id="link2H_4_0066">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. WED. MORN. SEPT. 6, HALF AN HOUR AFTER
+      THREE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am not the savage which you and my worst enemies think me. My soul is
+      too much penetrated by the contents of the letter which you enclosed in
+      your last, to say one word more to it, than that my heart has bled over it
+      from every vein!&mdash;I will fly from the subject&mdash;but what other
+      can I choose, that will not be as grievous, and lead into the same?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could quarrel with all the world; with thee, as well as the rest;
+      obliging as thou supposest thyself for writing to me hourly. How darest
+      thou, (though unknown to her,) to presume to take an apartment under the
+      sane roof with her?&mdash;I cannot bear to think that thou shouldest be
+      seen, at all hours passing to and repassing from her apartments, while I,
+      who have so much reason to call her mine, and one was preferred by her to
+      all the world, am forced to keep aloof, and hardly dare to enter the city
+      where she is!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If there be any thing in Brand's letter that will divert me, hasten it to
+      me. But nothing now will ever divert me, will ever again give me joy or
+      pleasure! I can neither eat, drink, nor sleep. I am sick of all the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Surely it will be better when all is over&mdash;when I know the worst the
+      Fates can do against me&mdash;yet how shall I bear that worst?&mdash;O
+      Belford, Belford! write it not to me!&mdash;But if it must happen, get
+      somebody else to write; for I shall curse the pen, the hand, the head, and
+      the heart, employed in communicating to me the fatal tidings. But what is
+      this saying, when already I curse the whole world except her&mdash;myself
+      most?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In fine, I am a most miserable being. Life is a burden to me. I would not
+      bear it upon these terms for one week more, let what would be my 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&mdash;I cannot bear it&mdash;May d&mdash;&mdash;n&mdash;&mdash;n
+      seize quick the cursed woman, who could set death upon taking that large
+      stride, as the dear creature calls it!&mdash;I had no hand in it!&mdash;
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unable to rest, though I went not to bed till two, I dispatch this ere the
+      day dawn&mdash;who knows what this night, this dismal night, may have
+      produced!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;for pistols are too
+      ready a mischief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope thou hast a letter ready for him. He goes to thy lodgings first&mdash;
+      for surely thou wilt not presume to take thy rest in an apartment near
+      her's. If he miss thee there, he flies to Smith's, and brings me word
+      whether in being, or not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 saddle-bow, with
+      the tidings that my heart pants after.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      LOVELACE. <a name="link2H_4_0067" id="link2H_4_0067">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. TUEDAY, SEPT. 5, SIX O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady remains exceedingly weak and ill. Her intellects, nevertheless,
+      continue clear and strong, and her piety and patience are without example.
+      Every one 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.&mdash;She has, I fear, written and read her last!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      EIGHT O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!&mdash;Life was not so easily
+      extinguished, she saw, as some imagined.&mdash;Death from grief, was, she
+      believed, the slowest of deaths. But God's will must be done!&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of her own accord she mentioned you; which, till then, she had avoided to
+      do. She asked, with great serenity, where you were?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her where, and your motives for being so near; and read to her a
+      few lines of your's 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I would have read more; but she said, Enough, Mr. Belford, enough!&mdash;Poor
+      man, does his conscience begin to find him!&mdash;Then need not any body
+      to wish him a greater punishment!&mdash;May it work upon him to an happy
+      purpose!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.&mdash;And may God Almighty,
+      clasping her fingers, and lifting up her eyes, forgive him too; and
+      perfect repentance, and sanctify it to him!&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The divine creature then turning aside her head&mdash;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&mdash;it may too
+      much affect him!&mdash;There she paused.&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Admirable creature!&mdash;Heavenly forgiver!&mdash;Then resuming&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But let me not, however, be made uneasy with the apprehension of seeing
+      him. I cannot bear to see him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just as she had done speaking, the minister, who had so often attended
+      her, sent up his name; and was admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Being apprehensive that it would be with difficulty that you could prevail
+      upon that impetuous spirit of your's not to invade her in her dying hours,
+      and of the agonies into which a surprise of this nature would throw her, I
+      thought this gentleman's visit afforded a proper opportunity to renew the
+      subject; and, (having asked her leave,) acquainted him with the topic we
+      had been upon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The good man urged that some condescensions were usually expected, on
+      these solemn occasions, from pious souls like her's, however satisfied
+      with themselves, for the sake of showing the world, and for example-sake,
+      that all resentments against those who had most injured them were subdued;
+      and if she would vouchsafe to a heart so truly penitent, as I had
+      represented Mr. Lovelace's to be, that personal pardon, which I had been
+      pleading for there would be no room to suppose the least lurking
+      resentment remained; and it might have very happy effects upon the
+      gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have no lurking resentment, Sir, said she&mdash;this is not a time for
+      resentment: and you will be the readier to believe me, when I can assure
+      you, (looking at me,) that even what I have most rejoiced in, the truly
+      friendly love that has so long subsisted between my Miss Howe and her
+      Clarissa, although to my last gasp it will be the dearest to me of all
+      that is dear in this life, has already abated of its fervour; has already
+      given place to supremer fervours; and shall the remembrance of Mr.
+      Lovelace's personal insults, which I bless God never corrupted that mind
+      which her friendship so much delighted, be stronger in these hours with
+      me, then the remembrance of a love as pure as the human heart ever
+      boasted? Tell, therefore, the world, if you please, and (if, Mr. Belford,
+      you think what I said to you before not strong enough,) tell the poor man,
+      that I not only forgive him, but have such earnest wishes for the good of
+      his soul, and that from consideration of its immortality, that could my
+      penitence avail for more sins than my own, my last tear should fall for
+      him by whom I die!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our eyes and hands expressed to us both what our lips could not utter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Say not, then, proceeded she, nor let it be said, that my resentments are
+      unsubdued!&mdash;And yet these eyes, lifted up to Heaven as witness to the
+      truth of what I have said, shall never, if I can help it, behold him more!&mdash;For
+      do you not consider, Sirs, how short my time is; what much more important
+      subjects I have to employ it upon; and how unable I should be, (so weak as
+      I am,) to contend even with the avowed penitence of a person in strong
+      health, governed by passions unabated, and always violent?&mdash;And now I
+      hope you will never urge me more on this subject?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The minister said, it were pity ever to urge this plea again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You see, Lovelace, that I did not forget the office of a friend, in
+      endeavouring to prevail upon her to give you her last forgiveness
+      personally. And I hope, as she is so near her end, you will not invade her
+      in her last hours; since she must be extremely discomposed at such an
+      interview; and it might make her leave the world the sooner for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This reminds me of an expression which she used on your barbarous hunting
+      of her at Smith's, on her return to her lodgings; and that with a serenity
+      unexampled, (as Mrs. Lovick told me, considering the occasion, and the
+      trouble given her by it, and her indisposition at the time;) he will not
+      let me die decently, said the angelic sufferer!&mdash;He will not let me
+      enter into my Maker's presence with the composure that is required in
+      entering into the drawing-room of an earthly prince!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I cannot, however, forbear to wish, that the heavenly creature could have
+      prevailed upon herself, in these her last hours, to see you; and that for
+      my sake, as well as yours; for although I am determined never to be guilty
+      of the crimes, which, till within these few past weeks have blackened my
+      former life; and for which, at present, I most heartily hate myself; yet
+      should I be less apprehensive of such a relapse, if wrought upon by the
+      solemnity which such an interview must have been attended with, you had
+      become a reformed man: for no devil do I fear, but one in your shape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is now eleven o'clock at night. The lady who retired to rest an hour
+      ago, is, as Mrs. Lovick tells me, in a sweet slumber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will close here. I hope I shall find her the better for it in the
+      morning. Yet, alas! how frail is hope&mdash;How frail is life; when we are
+      apt to build so much on every shadowy relief; although in such a desperate
+      case as this, sitting down to reflect, we must know, that it is but
+      shadowy!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will enclose Brand's horrid pedantry. And for once am aforehand with thy
+      ravenous impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0068" id="link2H_4_0068">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BRAND, TO MR. JOHN WALTON SAT. NIGHT, SEPT. 2.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DEAR MR. WALTON,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am obliged to you for the very 'handsomely penned', (and 'elegantly
+      written,') letter which you have sent me on purpose to do 'justice' to the
+      'character' of the 'younger' Miss Harlowe; and yet I must tell you that I
+      had reason, 'before that came,' to 'think,' (and to 'know' indeed,) that
+      we were 'all wrong.' And so I had employed the 'greatest part' of this
+      'week,' in drawing up an 'apologetical letter' to my worthy 'patron,' Mr.
+      John Harlowe, in order to set all 'matters right' between 'me and them,'
+      and, ('as far as I could,') between 'them' and 'Miss.' So it required
+      little more than 'connection' and 'transcribing,' when I received
+      'your's'; and it will be with Mr. Harlowe aforesaid, 'to-morrow morning';
+      and this, and the copy of that, will be with you on 'Monday morning.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You cannot imagine how sorry I am that 'you' and Mrs. Walton, and Mrs.
+      Barker, and 'I myself,' should have taken matters up so lightly, (judging,
+      alas-a-day! by appearance and conjecture,) where 'character' and
+      'reputation' are concerned. Horace says truly,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Et semel emissum volat irrevocabile verbum.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      That is, 'Words one spoken cannot be recalled.' But, Mr. Walton, they may
+      be 'contradicted' by 'other' words; and we may confess ourselves guilty of
+      a 'mistake,' and express our 'concern' for being 'mistaken'; and resolve
+      to make our 'mistake' a 'warning' to us for the 'future': and this is all
+      that 'can be done,' and what every 'worthy mind will do'; and what nobody
+      can be 'readier to do' than 'we four undesigning offenders,' (as I see by
+      'your letter,' on 'your part,' and as you will see by the 'enclosed copy,'
+      on 'mine';) which, if it be received as I 'think it ought,' (and as I
+      'believe it will,') must give me a 'speedy' opportunity to see you when I
+      'visit the lady'; to whom, (as you will see in it,) I expect to be sent up
+      with the 'olive-branch.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The matter in which we all 'erred,' must be owned to be 'very nice'; and
+      (Mr. Belford's 'character considered') 'appearances' ran very strong
+      'against the lady.' But all that this serveth to show is, 'that in
+      doubtful matters, the wisest people may be mistaken'; for so saith the
+      'Poet,'
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Fallitur in dubiis hominum solertia rebus.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      If you have an 'opportunity,' you may (as if 'from yourself,' and 'unknown
+      to me') show the enclosed to Mr. Belford, who (you tell me) 'resenteth'
+      the matter very heinously; but not to let him 'see' or 'hear read,' those
+      words 'that relate to him,' in the paragraph at the 'bottom of the second
+      page,' beginning, ['But yet I do insist upon it,] to the 'end' of that
+      paragraph; for one would not make one's self 'enemies,' you know; and I
+      have 'reason to think,' that this Mr. 'Belford' is as 'passionate' and
+      'fierce' a man as Mr. Lovelace. What pity it is the lady could find no
+      'worthier a protector!' You may paste those lines over with 'blue' or
+      'black paper,' before he seeth it: and if he insisteth upon taking a copy
+      of my letter, (for he, or any body that 'seeth it,' or 'heareth it read,'
+      will, no doubt, be glad to have by them the copy of a letter so full of
+      the 'sentiments' of the 'noblest writers' of 'antiquity,' and 'so well
+      adapted,' as I will be bold to say they are, to the 'point in hand'; I
+      say, if he insisteth upon taking a copy,) let him give you the 'strongest
+      assurances' not to suffer it to be 'printed' on 'any account'; and I make
+      the same request to you, that 'you' will not; for if any thing be to be
+      made of a 'man's works,' who, but the 'author,' should have the
+      'advantage'? And if the 'Spectators,' the 'Tatlers,' the 'Examiners,' the
+      'Guardians,' and other of our polite papers, make such a 'strutting' with
+      a 'single verse,' or so by way of 'motto,' in the 'front' of 'each day's'
+      paper; and if other 'authors' pride themselves in 'finding out' and
+      'embellishing' the 'title-pages' of their 'books' with a 'verse' or
+      'adage' from the 'classical writers'; what a figure would 'such a letter
+      as the enclosed make,' so full fraught with 'admirable precepts,' and
+      'à-propos quotations,' from the 'best authority'?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have been told that a 'certain noble Lord,' who once sat himself down to
+      write a 'pamphlet' in behalf of a 'great minister,' after taking 'infinite
+      pains' to 'no purpose' to find a 'Latin motto,' gave commission to a
+      friend of 'his' to offer to 'any one,' who could help him to a 'suitable
+      one,' but of one or two lines, a 'hamper of claret.' Accordingly, his
+      lordship had a 'motto found him' from 'Juvenal,' which he 'unhappily
+      mistaking,' (not knowing 'Juvenal' was a 'poet,') printed as a prose
+      'sentence' in his 'title-page.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If, then, 'one' or 'two' lines were of so much worth, (A 'hamper of
+      claret'! No 'less'!) of what 'inestimable value' would 'such a letter as
+      mine' be deemed?&mdash;And who knoweth but that this noble P&mdash;r, (who
+      is now* living,) if he should happen to see 'this letter' shining with
+      such a 'glorious string of jewels,' might give the 'writer a scarf,' in
+      order to have him 'always at hand,' or be a 'mean' (some way or other) to
+      bring him into 'notice'? And I would be bold to say ('bad' as the 'world'
+      is) a man of 'sound learning' wanteth nothing but an 'initiation' to make
+      his 'fortune.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * i.e. At the time this Letter was written.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope, my good friend, that the lady will not 'die': I shall be much
+      'grieved,' if she doth; and the more because of mine 'unhappy
+      misrepresentation': so will 'you' for the 'same cause'; so will her
+      'parents' and 'friends.' They are very 'rich' and 'very worthy'
+      gentlefolks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But let me tell you, 'by-the-by,' that they had carried the matter against
+      her 'so far,' that I believe in my heart they were glad to 'justify
+      themselves' by 'my report'; and would have been 'less pleased,' had I made
+      a 'more favourable one.' And yet in 'their hearts' they 'dote' upon her.
+      But now they are all (as I hear) inclined to be 'friends with her,' and
+      'forgive her'; her 'brother,' as well as 'the rest.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But their 'cousin,' Col. Morden, 'a very fine gentleman,' had had such
+      'high words' with them, and they with him, that they know not how to
+      'stoop,' lest it should look like being frighted into an 'accommodation.'
+      Hence it is, that 'I' have taken the greater liberty to 'press the
+      reconciliation'; and I hope in 'such good season,' that they will all be
+      'pleased' with it: for can they have a 'better handle' to save their
+      'pride' all round, than by my 'mediation'? And let me tell you, (inter
+      nos, 'betwixt ourselves,') 'very proud they all are.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this 'honest means,' (for by 'dishonest ones' I would not be
+      'Archbishop of Canterbury,') I hope to please every body; to be
+      'forgiven,' in the 'first place,' by 'the lady,' (whom, being a 'lover of
+      learning' and 'learned men,' I shall have great 'opportunities' of
+      'obliging'; for, when she departed from her father's house, I had but just
+      the honour of her 'notice,' and she seemed 'highly pleased' with my
+      'conversation';) and, 'next' to be 'thanked' and 'respected' by her
+      'parents,' and 'all her family'; as I am (I bless God for it) by my 'dear
+      friend' Mr. John Harlowe: who indeed is a man that professeth a 'great
+      esteem' for 'men of erudition'; and who (with 'singular delight,' I know)
+      will run over with me the 'authorities' I have 'quoted,' and 'wonder' at
+      my 'memory,' and the 'happy knack' I have of recommending 'mine own sense
+      of things' in the words of the 'greatest sages of antiquity.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Excuse me, my good friend, for this 'seeming vanity.' The great Cicero
+      (you must have heard, I suppose) had a 'much greater' spice of it, and
+      wrote a 'long letter begging' and 'praying' to be 'flattered.' But if I
+      say 'less of myself' than other people (who know me) 'say of me,' I think
+      I keep a 'medium' between 'vanity' and 'false modesty'; the latter of
+      which oftentimes gives itself the 'lie,' when it is 'declaring of' the
+      'compliments,' that 'every body' gives it as its due: an hypocrisy, as
+      well as folly, that, (I hope,) I shall for ever scorn to be guilty of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have 'another reason' (as I may tell to you, my 'old school-fellow') to
+      make me wish for this 'fine lady's recovery' and 'health'; and that is,
+      (by some distant intimations,) I have heard from Mr. John Harlowe, that it
+      is 'very likely' (because of the 'slur' she hath received) that she will
+      choose to 'live privately' and 'penitently'&mdash;and will probably (when
+      she cometh into her 'estate') keep a 'chaplain' to direct her in her
+      'devotions' and 'penitence'&mdash;If she doth, who can stand a 'better
+      chance' than 'myself'?&mdash;And as I find (by 'your' account, as well as
+      by 'every body's') that she is innocent as to 'intention,' and is resolved
+      never to think of Mr. 'Lovelace more,' who knoweth 'what' (in time) 'may
+      happen'? &mdash;And yet it must be after Mr. 'Lovelace's death,' (which
+      may possibly sooner happen than he 'thinketh' of, by means of his
+      'detestable courses':) for, after all, a man who is of 'public utility,'
+      ought not (for the 'finest woman' in the world) to lay his 'throat' at the
+      'mercy' of a man who boggleth at nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I beseech you, let not this hint 'go farther' than to 'yourself,' your
+      'spouse,' and Mrs. 'Barker.' I know I may trust my 'life' in 'your hands'
+      and 'theirs.' There have been (let me tell ye) 'unlikelier' things come to
+      pass, and that with 'rich widows,' (some of 'quality' truly!) whose
+      choice, in their 'first marriages' hath (perhaps) been guided by 'motives
+      of convenience,' or 'mere corporalities,' as I may say; but who by their
+      'second' have had for their view the 'corporal' and 'spiritual' mingled;
+      which is the most eligible (no doubt) to 'substance' composed 'of both,'
+      as 'men' and 'women' are.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor think (Sir) that, should such a thing come to pass, 'either' would be
+      'disgraced,' since 'the lady' in 'me' would marry a 'gentleman' and a
+      'scholar': and as to 'mine own honour,' as the 'slur' would bring her
+      'high fortunes' down to an 'equivalence' with my 'mean ones,' (if
+      'fortune' only, and not 'merit,' be considered,) so hath not the 'life' of
+      'this lady' been 'so tainted,' (either by 'length of time,' or
+      'naughtiness of practice,') as to put her on a 'foot' with the 'cast
+      Abigails,' that too, too often, (God knoweth,) are thought good enough for
+      a 'young clergyman,' who, perhaps, is drawn in by a 'poor benefice'; and
+      (if the 'wicked one' be not 'quite worn out') groweth poorer and poorer
+      upon it, by an 'increase of family' he knoweth not whether 'is most his,'
+      or his 'noble,' ('ignoble,' I should say,) 'patrons.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, all this 'apart,' and 'in confidence.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know you made at school but a small progress in 'languages.' So I have
+      restrained myself from 'many illustrations' from the 'classics,' that I
+      could have filled this letter with, (as I have done the enclosed one:)
+      and, being at a 'distance,' I cannot 'explain' them to you, as I 'do to my
+      friend,' Mr. John Harlowe; and who, (after all,) is obliged to 'me' for
+      pointing out to 'him' many 'beauties' of the 'authors I quote,' which
+      otherwise would lie concealed from 'him,' as they must from every 'common
+      observer.'&mdash;But this (too) 'inter nos'&mdash;for he would not take it
+      well to 'have it known'&mdash;'Jays' (you know, old school-fellow, 'jays,'
+      you know) 'will strut in peacocks' feathers.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But whither am I running? I never know where to end, when I get upon
+      'learned topics.' And albeit I cannot compliment 'you' with the 'name of a
+      learned man,' yet are you 'a sensible man'; and ('as such') must have
+      'pleasure' in 'learned men,' and in 'their writings.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this confidence, (Mr. Walton,) with my 'kind respects' to the good
+      ladies, (your 'spouse' and 'sister,') and in hopes, for the 'young lady's
+      sake,' soon to follow this long, long epistle, in 'person,' I conclude
+      myself,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your loving and faithful friend, ELIAS BRAND.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+You will perhaps, Mr. Walton, wonder at the meaning of the 'lines drawn
+      under many of the words and sentences,' (UNDERSCORING we call it;)
+      and were my letters to be printed, those would be put in a
+      'different character.'  Now, you must know, Sir, that 'we learned
+      men' do this to point out to the readers, who are not 'so learned,'
+      where the 'jet of our arguments lieth,' and the 'emphasis' they are
+      to lay upon 'those words'; whereby they will take in readily our
+      'sense' and 'cogency.'  Some 'pragmatical' people have said, that
+      an author who doth a 'great deal of this,' either calleth his
+      readers 'fools,' or tacitly condemneth 'his own style,' as
+      supposing his meaning would be 'dark' without it, or that all of
+      his 'force' lay in 'words.'  But all of those with whom I have
+      conversed in a learned way, 'think as I think.'  And to give a very
+      'pretty,' though 'familiar illustration,' I have considered a page
+      distinguished by 'different characters,' as a 'verdant field'
+      overspread with 'butter-flowers' and 'daisies,' and other
+      summer-flowers.  These the poets liken to 'enamelling'&mdash;have you
+      not read in the poets of 'enamelled meads,' and so forth?
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0069" id="link2H_4_0069">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BRAND, TO JOHN HARLOWE, ESQ. SAT. NIGHT, SEPT. 2.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WORTHY SIR,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am under no 'small concern,' that I should (unhappily) be the 'occasion'
+      (I am sure I 'intended' nothing like it) of 'widening differences' by
+      'light misreport,' when it is the 'duty' of one of 'my function' (and no
+      less consisting with my 'inclination') to 'heal' and 'reconcile.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have received two letter to set me 'right': one from a 'particular
+      acquaintance,' (whom I set to inquire of Mr. Belford's character); and
+      that came on Tuesday last, informing me, that your 'unhappy niece' was
+      greatly injured in the account I had had of her; (for I had told 'him' of
+      it, and that with very 'great concern,' I am sure, apprehending it to be
+      'true.') So I 'then' set about writing to you, to 'acknowledge' the
+      'error.' And had gone a good way in it, when the second letter came (a
+      very 'handsome one' it is, both in 'style' and 'penmanship') from my
+      friend Mr. Walton, (though I am sure it cannot be 'his inditing,')
+      expressing his sorrow, and his wife's, and his sister-in-law's likewise,
+      for having been the cause of 'misleading me,' in the account I gave of the
+      said 'young lady'; whom they 'now' say (upon 'further inquiry') they find
+      to be the 'most unblameable,' and 'most prudent,' and (it seems) the most
+      'pious' young lady, that ever (once) committed a 'great error'; as (to be
+      sure) 'her's was,' in leaving such 'worthy parents' and 'relations' for so
+      'vile a man' as Mr. Lovelace; but what shall we say?&mdash; Why, the
+      divine Virgil tells us,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Improbe amor, quid non mortalia pectora cogis?'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      For 'my part,' I was but too much afraid (for we have 'great
+      opportunities),' you are sensible, Sir, at the 'University,' of knowing
+      'human nature' from 'books,' the 'calm result' of the 'wise man's wisdom,'
+      as I may say,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      '(Haurit aquam cribro, qui discere vult sine libro)'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      'uninterrupted' by the 'noise' and 'vanities' that will mingle with
+      'personal conversation,' which (in the 'turbulent world') is not to be
+      enjoyed but over a 'bottle,' where you have an 'hundred foolish things'
+      pass to 'one that deserveth to be remembered'; I was but too much afraid
+      'I say', that so 'great a slip' might be attended with 'still greater' and
+      'worse': for 'your' Horace, and 'my' Horace, the most charming writer that
+      ever lived among the 'Pagans' (for the 'lyric kind of poetry,' I mean;
+      for, the be sure, 'Homer' and 'Virgil' would 'otherwise' be 'first' named
+      'in their way') well observeth (and who understood 'human nature' better
+      than he?)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Nec vera virtus, cum semel excidit,
+      Curat reponi deterioribus.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And 'Ovid' no less wisely observeth:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Et mala sunt vicina bonis.  Errore sub illo
+         Pro vitio virtus crimina sæpe tulit.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Who, that can draw 'knowledge' from its 'fountain-head,' the works of the
+      'sages of antiquity,' (improved by the 'comments' of the 'moderns,') but
+      would 'prefer' to all others the 'silent quiet life,' which 'contemplative
+      men' lead in the 'seats of learning,' were they not called out (according
+      to their 'dedication') to the 'service' and 'instruction' of the world?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, Sir, 'another' favourite poet of mine (and not the 'less a favourite'
+      for being a 'Christian') telleth us, that ill is the custom of 'some,'
+      when in a 'fault,' to throw the blame upon the backs of 'others,'
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      '&mdash;&mdash;Hominum quoque mos est,
+      Quæ nos cunque premunt, alieno imponere tergo.'
+                                         MANT.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But I, though (in this case) 'misled,' ('well intendedly,' nevertheless,
+      both in the 'misleaders' and 'misled,' and therefore entitled to lay hold
+      of that plea, if 'any body' is so entitled,) will not however, be classed
+      among such 'extenuators'; but (contrarily) will always keep in mind that
+      verse, which 'comforteth in mistake,' as well as 'instructeth'; and which
+      I quoted in my last letter;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Errare est hominis, sed non persistere&mdash;&mdash;'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And will own, that I was very 'rash' to take up with 'conjectures' and
+      'consequences' drawn from 'probabilites,' where (especially) the
+      'character' of so 'fine a lady' was concerned.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Credere fallacy gravis est dementia famæ.'      MANT.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Notwithstanding, Miss Clarissa Harlowe (I must be bold to say) is the
+      'only young lady,' that ever I heard of (or indeed read of) that, 'having
+      made such a false step,' so 'soon' (of 'her own accord,' as I may say)
+      'recovered' herself, and conquered her 'love of the deceiver'; (a great
+      conquest indeed!) and who flieth him, and resolveth to 'die,' rather than
+      to be his; which now, to her never-dying 'honour' (I am well assured) is
+      the case&mdash;and, in 'justice' to her, I am now ready to take to myself
+      (with no small vexation) that of Ovid,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Heu! patior telis vulnera facta meis.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But yet I do insist upon it, that all 'that part' of my 'information,'
+      which I took upon mine own 'personal inquiry,' which is what relates to
+      Mr. 'Belford' and 'his character,' is 'literally true'; for there is not
+      any where to be met with a man of a more 'libertine character' as to
+      'women,' Mr. 'Lovelace' excepted, than he beareth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so, Sir, I must desire of you, that you will not let 'any blame' lie
+      upon my 'intention'; since you see how ready I am to 'accuse myself' of
+      too lightly giving ear to a 'rash information' (not knowing it to be so,
+      however): for I depended the more upon it, as the 'people I had it from'
+      are very 'sober,' and live in the 'fear of God': and indeed when I wait
+      upon you, you will see by their letter, that they must be 'conscientious'
+      good people: wherefore, Sir, let me be entitled, from 'all your good
+      family,' to that of my last-named poet,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Aspera confesso verba remitte reo.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And now, Sir, (what is much more becoming of my 'function,') let me,
+      instead of appearing with the 'face of an accuser,' and a 'rash censurer,'
+      (which in my 'heart' I have not 'deserved' to be thought,) assume the
+      character of a 'reconciler'; and propose (by way of 'penance' to myself
+      for my 'fault') to be sent up as a 'messenger of peace' to the 'pious
+      young lady'; for they write me word 'absolutely' (and, I believe in my
+      heart, 'truly') that the 'doctors' have 'given her over,' and that she
+      'cannot live.' Alas! alas! what a sad thing would that be, if the 'poor
+      bough,' that was only designed (as I 'very well know,' and am 'fully
+      assured') 'to be bent, should be broken!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let it not, dear Sir, seem to the 'world' that there was any thing in your
+      'resentments' (which, while meant for 'reclaiming,' were just and fit)
+      that hath the 'appearance' of 'violence,' and 'fierce wrath,' and
+      'inexorability'; (as it would look to some, if carried to extremity, after
+      'repentance' and 'contrition,' and 'humiliation,' on the 'fair offender's'
+      side:) for all this while (it seemeth) she hath been a 'second Magdalen' in
+      her 'penitence,' and yet not so bad as a 'Magdalen' in her 'faults';
+      (faulty, nevertheless, as she hath been once, the Lord knoweth!
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Nam vitiis nemo sine nascitur: optimus ille est,
+      Qui minimis urgentur'&mdash;&mdash;saith Horace).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Now, Sir, if I may be named for this 'blessed' employment, (for, 'Blessed
+      is the peace-maker!') I will hasten to London; and (as I know Miss had
+      always a 'great regard' to the 'function' I have the honour to be of) I
+      have no doubt of making myself acceptable to her, and to bring her, by
+      'sound arguments,' and 'good advice,' into a 'liking of life,' which must
+      be the 'first step' to her 'recovery': for, when the 'mind' is 'made
+      easy,' the 'body' will not 'long suffer'; and the 'love of life' is a
+      'natural passion,' that is soon 'revived,' when fortune turneth about, and
+      smileth:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Vivere quisque diu, quamvis &amp; egenus &amp; ager,
+      Optat.&mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash;' OVID.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And the sweet Lucan truly observeth,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      '&mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash; Fatis debentibus annos
+      Mors invita subit.&mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash;'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And now, Sir, let me tell you what shall be the 'tenor' of my 'pleadings'
+      with her, and 'comfortings' of her, as she is, as I may say, a 'learned
+      lady'; and as I can 'explain' to her 'those sentences,' which she cannot
+      so readily 'construe herself': and this in order to convince 'you' (did
+      you not already 'know' my 'qualifications') how well qualified I 'am' for
+      the 'christian office' to which I commend myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will, IN THE FIRST PLACE, put her in mind of the 'common course of
+      things' in this 'sublunary world,' in which 'joy' and 'sorrow, sorrow' and
+      joy,' succeed one another by turns'; in order to convince her, that her
+      griefs have been but according to 'that' common course of things:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Gaudia post luctus veniunt, post gaudia luctus.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SECONDLY, I will remind her of her own notable description of 'sorrow,'
+      whence she was once called upon to distinguish wherein 'sorrow, grief,'
+      and 'melancholy,' differed from each other; which she did 'impromptu,' by
+      their 'effects,' in a truly admirable manner, to the high satisfaction of
+      every one: I myself could not, by 'study,' have distinguished 'better,'
+      nor more 'concisely'&mdash;SORROW, said she, 'wears'; GRIEF 'tears'; but
+      MELANCHOLY 'sooths.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My inference to her shall be, that since a happy reconciliation will take
+      place, 'grief' will be banished; 'sorrow' dismissed; and only sweet
+      'melancholy' remain to 'sooth' and 'indulge' her contrite 'heart,' and
+      show to all the world the penitent sense she hath of her great error.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THIRDLY, That her 'joys,'* when restored to health and favour, will be the
+      greater, the deeper her griefs were.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * 'Joy,' let me here observe, my dear Sir, by way of note, is not
+      absolutely inconsistent with 'melancholy'; a 'soft gentle joy,' not a
+      'rapid,' not a 'rampant joy,' however; but such a 'joy,' as shall lift her
+      'temporarily' out of her 'soothing melancholy,' and then 'let her down
+      gently' into it again; for 'melancholy,' to be sure, her 'reflection' will
+      generally make to be her state.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Gaudia, quæ multo parta labore, placent.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      FOURTHLY, That having 'really' been guilty of a 'great error,' she should
+      not take 'impatiently' the 'correction' and 'anger' with which she hath
+      been treated.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Leniter, ex merito quicquid patiare ferundum est.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      FIFTHLY, That 'virtue' must be established by 'patience'; as saith
+      Prudentius:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Hæc virtus vidua est, quam non patientia firmat.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SIXTHLY, That in the words of Horace, she may 'expect better times,' than
+      (of late) she had 'reason' to look for.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Grata superveniet, quæ non sperabitur, hora.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      SEVENTHLY, That she is really now in 'a way' to be 'happy,' since,
+      according to 'Ovid,' she 'can count up all her woe':
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Felix, qui patitur quæ numerare potest.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And those comforting lines,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Estque serena dies post longos gratior imbres,
+          Et post triste malum gratior ipsa salus.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      EIGHTHLY, That, in the words of Mantuan, her 'parents' and 'uncles' could
+      not 'help loving her' all the time they were 'angry at her':
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Æqua tamen mens est, &amp; amica voluntas,
+      Sit licet in natos austere parentum.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      NINTHLY, That the 'ills she hath met with' may be turned (by the 'good
+      use' to be made of them) to her 'everlasting benefit'; for that,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Cum furit atque ferit, Deus olim parcere quærit.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      TENTHLY, That she will be able to give a 'fine lesson' (a 'very' fine
+      lesson) to all the 'young ladies' of her 'acquaintance,' of the 'vanity'
+      of being 'lifted up' in 'prosperity,' and the 'weakness' of being 'cast
+      down' in 'adversity'; since no one is so 'high,' as to be above being
+      'humbled'; so 'low,' as to 'need to despair': for which purpose the advice
+      of 'Ausonius,'
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Dum fortuna juvat, caveto tolli:
+      Dum fortuna tonat, caveto mergi.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I shall tell her, that Lucan saith well, when he calleth 'adversity the
+      element of patience';
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      '&mdash;&mdash;Gaudet patientia duris:'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      That
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Fortunam superat virtus, prudential famam.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      That while weak souls are 'crushed by fortune,' the 'brave mind' maketh
+      the fickle deity afraid of it:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Fortuna fortes metuit, ignavos permit.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      ELEVENTHLY, That if she take the advice of 'Horace,'
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Fortiaque adversis opponite pectora rebus,'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      it will delight her 'hereafter' (as 'Virgil' saith) to 'revoke her past
+      troubles':
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      '&mdash;&mdash;Forsan &amp; hæc olim meminisse juvabit.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And, to the same purpose, 'Juvenal' speaking of the 'prating joy' of
+      mariners, after all their 'dangers are over':
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Gaudent securi narrare pericula nautæ.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Which suiting the case so well, you'll forgive me, Sir, for 'popping down'
+      in 'English metre,' as the 'translative impulse' (pardon a new word, and
+      yet we 'scholars' are not fond of 'authenticating new' words) came upon me
+      'uncalled for':
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      The seaman, safe on shore, with joy doth tell
+      What cruel dangers him at sea befell.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      With 'these,' Sir, and an 'hundred more' wise 'adages,' which I have
+      always at my 'fingers' end,' will I (when reduced to 'form' and 'method')
+      entertain Miss; and as she is a 'well-read,' and (I might say, but for
+      this 'one' great error) a 'wise' young lady, I make no doubt but I shall
+      'prevail' upon her, if not by 'mine own arguments,' by those of 'wits' and
+      'capacities' that have a 'congeniality' (as I may say) to 'her own,' to
+      take to heart,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      &mdash;&mdash;Nor of the laws of fate complain,
+      Since, though it has been cloudy, now't clears up again.&mdash;&mdash;
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Oh! what 'wisdom' is there in these 'noble classical authors!' A 'wise
+      man' will (upon searching into them,) always find that they speak 'his'
+      sense of 'men' and 'things.' Hence it is, that they so readily occur to my
+      'memory' on every occasion&mdash;though this may look like 'vanity,' it is
+      too true to be omitted; and I see not why a man may not 'know these things
+      of himself,' which 'every body' seeth and 'saith of him'; who,
+      nevertheless, perhaps know not 'half so much as he,' in other matters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know but of 'one objection,' Sir, that can lie against my going; and
+      that will arise from your kind 'care' and 'concern' for the 'safety of my
+      person,' in case that 'fierce' and 'terrible man,' the wicked Mr.
+      Lovelace, (of whom every one standeth in fear,) should come cross me, as
+      he may be resolved to try once more to 'gain a footing in Miss's
+      affections': but I will trust in 'Providence' for 'my safety,' while I
+      shall be engaged in a 'cause so worthy of my function'; and the 'more'
+      trust in it, as he is a 'learned man' as I am told.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Strange too, that so 'vile a rake' (I hope he will never see this!) should
+      be a 'learned man'; that is to say, that a 'learned man' may be a 'sly
+      sinner,' and take opportunities, 'as they come in his way'&mdash;which,
+      however, I do assure you, 'I never did,'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I repeat, that as he is a 'learned man,' I shall 'vest myself,' as I may
+      say, in 'classical armour'; beginning 'meekly' with him (for, Sir,
+      'bravery' and 'meekness' are qualities 'very consistent with each other,'
+      and in no persons so shiningly 'exert' themselves, as in the 'Christian
+      priesthood'; beginning 'meekly' with him, I say) from Ovid,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Corpora magnanimo satis est protrasse leoni:'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      So that, if I should not be safe behind the 'shield of mine own prudence,'
+      I certainly should be behind the 'shields' of the 'ever-admirable
+      classics': of 'Horace' particularly; who, being a 'rake' (and a 'jovial
+      rake' too,) himself, must have great weight with all 'learned rakes.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And who knoweth but I may be able to bring even this 'Goliath in
+      wickedness,' although in 'person' but a 'little David' myself, (armed with
+      the 'slings' and 'stones' of the 'ancient sages,') to a due sense of his
+      errors? And what a victory would that be!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could here, Sir, pursuing the allegory of David and Goliath, give you
+      some of the 'stones' ('hard arguments' may be called 'stones,' since they
+      'knock down a pertinacious opponent') which I could 'pelt him with,' were
+      he to be wroth with me; and this in order to take from you, Sir, all
+      apprehensions for my 'life,' or my 'bones'; but I forbear them till you
+      demand them of me, when I have the honour to attend you in person.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, (my dear Sir,) what remaineth, but that having shown you (what
+      yet, I believe, you did not doubt) how 'well qualified' I am to attend the
+      lady with the 'olive-branch,' I beg of you to dispatch me with it 'out of
+      hand'? For if she be so 'very ill,' and if she should not live to receive
+      the grace, which (to my knowledge) all the 'worthy family' design her, how
+      much will that grieve you all! And then, Sir, of what avail will be the
+      'eulogies' you shall all, peradventure, join to give to her memory? For,
+      as Martial wisely observeth,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      '&mdash;&mdash; Post cineres gloria sera venit.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Then, as 'Ausonius' layeth it down with 'equal propriety,' that 'those
+      favours which are speedily conferred are the most grateful and obliging'
+      &mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And to the same purpose Ovid:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Gratia ab officio, quod mora tar dat, abest.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And, Sir, whatever you do, let the 'lady's pardon' be as 'ample,' and as
+      'cheerfully given,' as she can 'wish for it': that I may be able to tell
+      her, that it hath your 'hands,' your 'countenances,' and your 'whole
+      hearts,' with it&mdash;for, as the Latin verse hath it, (and I presume to
+      think I have not weakened its sense by my humble advice),
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Dat bene, dat multum, qui dat cum munere vultum.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And now, Sir, when I survey this long letter,* (albeit I see it enamelled,
+      as a 'beautiful meadow' is enamelled by the 'spring' or 'summer' flowers,
+      very glorious to behold!) I begin to be afraid that I may have tired you;
+      and the more likely, as I have written without that 'method' or 'order,'
+      which I think constituteth the 'beauty' of 'good writing': which 'method'
+      or 'order,' nevertheless, may be the 'better excused' in a 'familiar
+      epistle,' (as this may be called,) you pardoning, Sir, the 'familiarity'
+      of the 'word'; but yet not altogether 'here,' I must needs own; because
+      this is 'a letter' and 'not a letter,' as I may say; but a kind of 'short'
+      and 'pithy discourse,' touching upon 'various' and 'sundry topics,' every
+      one of which might be a 'fit theme' to enlarge upon of volumes; if this
+      'epistolary discourse' (then let me call it) should be pleasing to you,
+      (as I am inclined to think it will, because of the 'sentiments' and
+      'aphorisms' of the 'wisest of the antients,' which 'glitter through it'
+      like so many dazzling 'sunbeams,') I will (at my leisure) work it up into
+      a 'methodical discourse'; and perhaps may one day print it, with a
+      'dedication' to my 'honoured patron,' (if, Sir, I have 'your' leave,)
+      'singly' at first, (but not till I have thrown out 'anonymously,' two or
+      three 'smaller things,' by the success of which I shall have made myself
+      of 'some account' in the 'commonwealth of letters,') and afterwards in my
+      'works'&mdash;not for the 'vanity' of the thing (however) I will say, but
+      for the 'use' it may be of to the 'public'; for, (as one well observeth,)
+      'though glory always followeth virtue, yet it should be considered only as
+      its shadow.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * And here, by way of note, permit me to say, that no 'sermon' I ever
+      composed cost me half the 'pains' that this letter hath done&mdash;but I
+      knew your great 'appetite' after, as well as 'admiration' of, the 'antient
+      wisdom,' which you so justly prefer to the 'modern'&mdash;and indeed I
+      join with you to think, that the 'modern' is only 'borrowed,' (as the
+      'moon' doth its light from the 'sun,') at least, that we 'excel' them in
+      nothing; and that our 'best cogitations' may be found, generally speaking,
+      more 'elegantly' dressed and expressed by them.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      'Contemnit laudem virtus, licet usque sequatur
+          Gloria virtutem, corpus ut umbra suum.'
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A very pretty saying, and worthy of all men's admiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, ('most worthy Sir,' my very good friend and patron,) referring
+      the whole to 'your's,' and to your 'two brothers,' and to 'young Mr.
+      Harlowe's' consideration, and to the wise consideration of good 'Madam
+      Harlowe,' and her excellent daughter, 'Miss Arabella Harlowe'; I take the
+      liberty to subscribe myself, what I 'truly am,' and 'every shall delight
+      to be,' in 'all cases,' and at 'all times,'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your and their most ready and obedient as well as faithful servant, ELIAS
+      BRAND.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0070" id="link2H_4_0070">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. [IN ANSWER TO LETTER LXIV. OF THIS
+      VOLUME.] WEDN. MORN. SEPT. 6.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And is she somewhat better?&mdash;Blessings upon thee without number or
+      measure! Let her still be better and better! Tell me so at least, if she
+      be not so: for thou knowest not what a joy that poor temporary reprieve,
+      that she will hold out yet a day or two, gave me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But who told this hard-hearted and death-pronouncing doctor that she will
+      hold it no longer? By what warrant says he this? What presumption in these
+      parading solemn fellows of a college, which will be my contempt to the
+      latest hour of my life, if this brother of it (eminent as he is deemed to
+      be) cannot work an ordinary miracle in her favour, or rather in mine!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let me tell thee, Belford, that already he deserves the utmost contempt,
+      for suffering this charming clock to run down so low. What must be his
+      art, if it could not wind it up in a quarter of the time he has attended
+      her, when, at his first visits, the springs and wheels of life and motion
+      were so god, that they seemed only to want common care and oiling!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am obliged to you for endeavouring to engage her to see me. 'Twas acting
+      like a friend. If she had vouchsafed me that favour, she should have seen
+      at her feet the most abject adorer that ever kneeled to justly-offended
+      beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What she bid you, and what she forbid you, to tell me, (the latter for
+      tender considerations:) that she forgives me; and that, could she have
+      made me a good man, she would have made me a happy one! That she even
+      loved me! At such a moment to own that she once loved me! Never before
+      loved any man! That she prays for me! That her last tear should be shed
+      for me, could she by it save a soul, doomed, without her, to perdition!&mdash;
+      O Belford! Belford! I cannot bear it!&mdash;What a dog, what a devil have
+      I been to a goodness so superlative!&mdash;Why does she not inveigh
+      against me? &mdash;Why does she not execrate me?&mdash;O the triumphant
+      subduer! Ever above me!&mdash;And now to leave me so infinitely below her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marry and repair, at any time; this, wretch that I was, was my plea to
+      myself. To give her a lowering sensibility; to bring her down from among
+      the stars which her beamy head was surrounded by, that my wife, so greatly
+      above me, might not despise me; this was one of my reptile motives, owing
+      to my more reptile envy, and to my consciousness of inferiority to her!&mdash;Yet
+      she, from step to step, from distress to distress, to maintain her
+      superiority; and, like the sun, to break out upon me with the greater
+      refulgence for the clouds that I had contrived to cast about her!&mdash;And
+      now to escape me thus!&mdash;No power left me to repair her wrongs!&mdash;No
+      alleviation to my self-reproach!&mdash;No dividing of blame with her!&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tell her, O tell her, Belford, that her prayers and wishes, her
+      superlatively-generous prayers and wishes, shall not be vain: that I can,
+      and do repent&mdash;and long have repented.&mdash;Tell her of my frequent
+      deep remorses&mdash;it was impossible that such remorses should not at
+      last produce effectual remorse&mdash;yet she must not leave me&mdash;she
+      must live, if she would wish to have my contrition perfect&mdash;For what
+      can despair produce?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will do every thing you would have me do, in the return of your letters.
+      You have infinitely obliged me by this last, and by pressing for an
+      admission for me, though it succeeded not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more, how could I be such a villain to so divine a creature! Yet love
+      her all the time, as never man loved woman!&mdash;Curse upon my contriving
+      genius!&mdash;Curse upon my intriguing head, and upon my seconding heart!&mdash;To
+      sport with the fame, with the honour, with the life, of such an angel of a
+      woman!&mdash;O my d&mdash;&mdash;d incredulity! That, believing her to be
+      a woman, I must hope to find her a woman! On my incredulity, that there
+      could be such virtue (virtue for virtue's sake) in the sex, founded I my
+      hope of succeeding with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But say not, Jack, that she must leave us yet. If she recover, and if I
+      can but re-obtain her favour, then, indeed, will life be life to me. The
+      world never saw such an husband as I will make. I will have no will but
+      her's. She shall conduct me in all my steps. She shall open and direct my
+      prospects, and turn every motion of my heart as she pleases.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You tell me, in your letter, that at eleven o'clock she had sweet rest;
+      and my servant acquaints me, from Mrs. Smith, that she has had a good
+      night. What hopes does this fill me with! I have given the fellow five
+      guineas for his good news, to be divided between him and his
+      fellow-servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dear, dear Jack! confirm this to me in thy next&mdash;for Heaven's sake,
+      do!&mdash; Tell the doctor I'll make a present of a thousand guineas if he
+      recover her. Ask if a consultation then be necessary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adieu, dear Belford! Confirm, I beseech thee, the hopes that now, with
+      sovereign gladness, have taken possession of a heart, that, next to her's,
+      is
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0071" id="link2H_4_0071">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. WEDN. MORN. EIGHT O'CLOCK, (6 SEPT.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your servant arrived here before I was stirring. I sent him to Smith's to
+      inquire how the lady was; and ordered him to call upon me when he came
+      back. I was pleased to hear she had tolerable rest. As soon as I had
+      dispatched him with the letter I had written over night, I went to attend
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I found her up, and dressed; in a white satin night-gown. Ever elegant;
+      but now more so than I had seen her for a week past: her aspect serenely
+      cheerful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She mentioned the increased dimness of her eyes, and the tremor which had
+      invaded her limbs. If this be dying, said she, there is nothing at all
+      shocking in it. My body hardly sensible of pain, my mind at ease, my
+      intellects clear and perfect as ever. What a good and gracious God have I!&mdash;For
+      this is what I always prayed for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her it was not so serene with you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is not the same reason for it, replied she. 'Tis a choice comfort,
+      Mr. Belford, at the winding up of our short story, to be able to say, I
+      have rather suffered injuries myself, than offered them to others. I bless
+      God, though I have been unhappy, as the world deems it, and once I thought
+      more so than at present I think I ought to have done, since my calamities
+      were to work out for me my everlasting happiness; yet have I not wilfully
+      made any one creature so. I have no reason to grieve for any thing but for
+      the sorrow I have given my friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But pray, Mr. Belford, remember me in the best manner to my cousin Morden;
+      and desire him to comfort them, and to tell them, that all would have been
+      the same, had they accepted of my true penitence, as I wish and as I trust
+      the Almighty has done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was called down: it was to Harry, who was just returned from Miss
+      Howe's, to whom he carried the lady's letter. The stupid fellow being bid
+      to make haste with it, and return as soon as possible, staid not until
+      Miss Howe had it, she being at the distance of five minutes, although Mrs.
+      Howe would have had him stay, and sent a man and horse purposely with it
+      to her daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WEDNESDAY MORNING, TEN O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor lady is just recovered from a fainting fit, which has left her at
+      death's door. Her late tranquillity and freedom from pain seemed but a
+      lightening, as Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith call it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By my faith, Lovelace, I had rather part with all the friends I have in
+      the world, than with this lady. I never knew what a virtuous, a holy
+      friendship, as I may call mine to her, was before. But to be so new to it,
+      and to be obliged to forego it so soon, what an affliction! Yet, thank
+      Heaven, I lose her not by my own fault!&mdash;But 'twould be barbarous not
+      to spare thee now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She has sent for the divine who visited her before, to pray with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0072" id="link2H_4_0072">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. KENSINGTON, WEDNESDAY NOON.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like Æsop's traveller, thou blowest hot and cold, life and death, in the
+      same breath, with a view, no doubt, to distract me. How familiarly dost
+      thou use the words, dying, dimness, tremor? Never did any mortal ring so
+      many changes on so few bells. Thy true father, I dare swear, was a
+      butcher, or an undertaker, by the delight thou seemest to take in scenes
+      of death and horror. Thy barbarous reflection, that thou losest her not by
+      thy own fault, is never to be forgiven. Thou hast but one way to atone for
+      the torments thou hast given me, and that is, by sending me word that she
+      is better, and will recover. Whether it be true or not, let me be told so,
+      and I will go abroad rejoicing and believing it, and my wishes and
+      imaginations shall make out all the rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If she live but one year, that I may acquit myself to myself (no matter
+      for the world!) that her death is not owing to me, I will compound for the
+      rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Will neither vows nor prayers save her? I never prayed in my life, put all
+      the years of it together, as I have done for this fortnight past: and I
+      have most sincerely repented of all my baseness to her&mdash;And will
+      nothing do?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But after all, if she recovers not, this reflection must be my comfort;
+      and it is truth; that her departure will be owing rather to wilfulness, to
+      downright female wilfulness, than to any other cause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is difficult for people, who pursue the dictates of a violent
+      resentment, to stop where first they designed to stop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have the charity to believe, that even James and Arabella Harlowe, at
+      first, intended no more by the confederacy they formed against this their
+      angel sister, than to disgrace and keep her down, lest (sordid wretches!)
+      their uncles should follow the example their grandfather had set, to their
+      detriment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So this lady, as I suppose, intended only at first to vex and plague me;
+      and, finding she could do it to purpose, her desire of revenge insensibly
+      became stronger in her than the desire of life; and now she is willing to
+      die, as an event which she thinks will cut my heart-strings asunder. And
+      still, the more to be revenged, puts on the Christian, and forgives me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I'll have none of her forgiveness! My own heart tells me I do not
+      deserve it; and I cannot bear it!&mdash;And what is it but a mere verbal
+      forgiveness, as ostentatiously as cruelly given with a view to magnify
+      herself, and wound me deeper! A little, dear, specious&mdash;but let me
+      stop &mdash;lest I blaspheme!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Reading over the above, I am ashamed of my ramblings; but what wouldest
+      have me do?&mdash;Seest thou not that I am but seeking to run out of
+      myself, in hope to lose myself; yet, that I am unable to do either?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If ever thou lovedst but half so fervently as I love&mdash;but of that thy
+      heavy soul is not capable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Send me word by the next, I conjure thee, in the names of all her kindred
+      saints and angels, that she is living, and likely to live!&mdash;If thou
+      sendest ill news, thou wilt be answerable for the consequences, whether it
+      be fatal to the messenger, or to
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thy LOVELACE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0073" id="link2H_4_0073">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. WEDNESDAY, ELEVEN O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. H. has just been here. He tarried with me till the minister had done
+      praying by the lady; and then we were both admitted. Mr. Goddard, who came
+      while the doctor and the clergyman were with her, went away with them when
+      they went. They took a solemn and everlasting leave of her, as I have no
+      scruple to say; blessing her, and being blessed by her; and wishing (when
+      it came to be their lot) for an exit as happy as her's is likely to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had again earnestly requested of the doctor his opinion how long it
+      was now probable that she could continue; and he told her, that he
+      apprehended she would hardly see to-morrow night. She said, she should
+      number the hours with greater pleasure than ever she numbered any in her
+      life on the most joyful occasion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How unlike poor Belton's last hours her's! See the infinite differences in
+      the effects, on the same awful and affecting occasion, between a good and
+      a bad conscience!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This moment a man is come from Miss Howe with a letter. Perhaps I shall be
+      able to send you the contents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She endeavoured several times with earnestness, but in vain, to read the
+      letter of her dear friend. The writing, she said, was too fine for her
+      grosser sight, and the lines staggered under her eye. And indeed she
+      trembled so, she could not hold the paper; and at last desired Mrs. Lovick
+      to read it to her, the messenger waiting for an answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thou wilt see in Miss Howe's letter, how different the expression of the
+      same impatience, and passionate love, is, when dictated by the gentler
+      mind of a woman, from that which results from a mind so boisterous and
+      knotty as thine. For Mrs. Lovick will transcribe it, and I shall send it&mdash;to
+      be read in this place, if thou wilt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TUESDAY, SEPT. 5.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O MY DEAREST FRIEND!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What will become of your poor Anna Howe! I see by your writing, as well as
+      read by your own account, (which, were you not very, very ill, you would
+      have touched more tenderly,) how it is with you! Why have I thus long
+      delayed to attend you! Could I think, that the comfortings of a faithful
+      friend were as nothing to a gentle mind in distress, that I could be
+      prevailed upon to forbear visiting you so much as once in all this time!
+      I, as well as every body else, to desert and abandon my dear creature to
+      strangers! What will become of you, if you be as bad as my apprehensions
+      make you!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will set out this moment, little as the encouragement is that you give
+      me to do so! My mother is willing I should! Why, O why was she not before
+      willing?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet she persuades me too, (lest I should be fatally affected were I to
+      find my fears too well justified,) to wait the return of this messenger,
+      who rides our swiftest horse.&mdash;God speed him with good news to me&mdash;One
+      line from your hand by him!&mdash;Send me but one line to bid me attend
+      you! I will set out the moment, the very moment I receive it. I am now
+      actually ready to do so! And if you love me, as I love you, the sight of
+      me will revive you to my hopes.&mdash;But why, why, when I can think this,
+      did I not go up sooner!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blessed Heaven! deny not to my prayers, my friend, my admonisher, my
+      adviser, at a time so critical to myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But methinks, your style and sentiments are too well connected, too full
+      of life and vigour, to give cause for so much despair as thy staggering
+      pen seems to forbode.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am sorry I was not at home, [I must add thus much, though the servant is
+      ready mounted at the door,] when Mr. Belford's servant came with your
+      affecting letter. I was at Miss Lloyd's. My mamma sent it to me&mdash;and
+      I came home that instant. But he was gone: he would not stay, it seems.
+      Yet I wanted to ask him an hundred thousand questions. But why delay I
+      thus my messenger? I have a multitude of things to say to you&mdash;to
+      advise with you about!&mdash;You shall direct me in every thing. I will
+      obey the holding up of your finger. But, if you leave me&mdash;what is the
+      world, or any thing in it, to your
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ANNA HOWE?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The effect this letter had on the lady, who is so near the end which the
+      fair writer so much apprehends and deplores, obliged Mrs. Lovick to make
+      many breaks in reading it, and many changes of voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is a friend, said the divine lady, (taking the letter in her hand,
+      and kissing it,) worth wishing to live for.&mdash;O my dear Anna Howe! how
+      uninterruptedly sweet and noble has been our friendship!&mdash;But we
+      shall one day meet, (and this hope must comfort us both,) never to part
+      again! Then, divested of the shades of body, shall be all light and all
+      mind!&mdash; Then how unalloyed, how perfect, will be our friendship! Our
+      love then will have one and the same adorable object, and we shall enjoy
+      it and each other to all eternity!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She said, her dear friend was so earnest for a line or two, that she fain
+      would write, if she could: and she tried&mdash;but to no purpose. She
+      could dictate, however, she believed; and desired Mrs. Lovick would take
+      pen and paper. Which she did, and then she dictated to her. I would have
+      withdrawn; but at her desire staid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She wandered a good deal at first. She took notice that she did. And when
+      she got into a little train, not pleasing herself, she apologized to Mrs.
+      Lovick for making her begin again and again; and said, that the third time
+      should go, let it be as it would.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She dictated the farewell part without hesitation; and when she came to
+      blessing and subscription, she took the pen, and dropping on her knees,
+      supported by Mrs. Lovick, wrote the conclusion; but Mrs. Lovick was forced
+      to guide her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You will find the sense surprisingly entire, her weakness considered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I made the messenger wait while I transcribed it. I have endeavoured to
+      imitate the subscriptive part; and in the letter made pauses where, to the
+      best of my remembrance, she paused. In nothing that relates to this
+      admirable lady can I be too minute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WEDN. NEAR THREE O'CLOCK. MY DEAREST MISS HOWE,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You must not be surprised&mdash;nor grieved&mdash;that Mrs. Lovick writes
+      for me. Although I cannot obey you, and write with my pen, yet my heart
+      writes by her's&mdash;accept it so&mdash;it is the nearest to obedience I
+      can!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, what ought I to say? What can I say?&mdash;But why should not you
+      know the truth? since soon you must&mdash;very soon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Know then, and let your tears be those, if of pity, of joyful pity! for I
+      permit you to shed a few, to embalm, as I may say, a fallen blossom&mdash;
+      know then, that the good doctor, and the pious clergyman, and the worthy
+      apothecary, have just now&mdash;with joint benedictions&mdash;taken their
+      last leave of me; and the former bids me hope&mdash;do, my dearest, let me
+      say hope &mdash;hope for my enlargement before to-morrow sun-set.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adieu, therefore, my dearest friend!&mdash;Be this your consolation, as it
+      is mine, that in God's good time we shall meet in a blessed eternity,
+      never more to part!&mdash;Once more, then, adieu!&mdash;and be happy!&mdash;Which
+      a generous nature cannot be, unless&mdash;to its power&mdash;it makes
+      others so too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      God for ever bless you!&mdash;prays, dropt on my bended knees, although
+      supported upon them,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your obliged, grateful, affectionate, CL. HARLOWE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ***
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I had transcribed and sealed this letter, by her direction, I gave it
+      to the messenger myself, who told me that Miss Howe waited for nothing but
+      his return to set out for London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thy servant is just come; so I will close here. Thou art a merciless
+      master. These two fellows are battered to death by thee, to use a female
+      word; and all female words, though we are not sure of their derivation,
+      have very significant meanings. I believe, in their hearts, they wish the
+      angel in the Heaven that is ready to receive her, and thee at the proper
+      place, that there might be an end of their flurries&mdash;another word of
+      the same gender.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What a letter hast thou sent me!&mdash;Poor Lovelace!&mdash;is all the
+      answer I will return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [FIVE O'CLOCK.] Col. Morden is this moment arrived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0074" id="link2H_4_0074">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      LETTER LXXI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      MR. BELFORD [IN CONTINUATION.] EIGHT IN THE EVENING.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had but just time, in my former, to tell you that Col. Morden was
+      arrived. He was on horseback, attended by two servants, and alighted at
+      the door just as the clock struck five. Mrs. Smith was then below in her
+      back-shop, weeping, her husband with her, who was as much affected as she;
+      Mrs. Lovick having left them a little before, in tears likewise; for they
+      had been bemoaning one another; joining in opinion that the admirable lady
+      would not live the night over. She had told them, it was her opinion too,
+      from some numbnesses, which she called the forerunners of death, and from
+      an increased inclination to doze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel, as Mrs. Smith told me afterwards, asked with great
+      impatience, the moment he alighted, how Miss Harlowe was? She answered&mdash;
+      Alive!&mdash;but, she feared, drawing on apace.&mdash;Good God! said he,
+      with his hands and eyes lifted up, can I see her? My name is Morden. I
+      have the honour to be nearly related to her.&mdash;Step up, pray, and let
+      her know, (she is sensible, I hope,) that I am here&mdash;Who is with her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nobody but her nurse, and Mrs. Lovick, a widow gentlewoman, who is as
+      careful of her as if she were her mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And more careful too, interrupted he, or she is not careful at all&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Except a gentleman be with her, one Mr. Belford, continued Mrs. Smith, who
+      has been the best friend she has had.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If Mr. Belford be with her, surely I may&mdash;but pray step up, and let
+      Mr. Belford know that I shall take it for a favour to speak with him
+      first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Smith came up to me in my new apartment. I had but just dispatched
+      your servant, and was asking her nurse if I might be again admitted? Who
+      answered, that she was dozing in the elbow chair, having refused to lie
+      down, saying, she should soon, she hoped, lie down for good.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel, who is really a fine gentleman, received me with great
+      politeness. After the first compliments&mdash;My kinswoman, Sir, said he,
+      is more obliged to you than to any of her own family. For my part, I have
+      been endeavouring to move so many rocks in her favour; and, little
+      thinking the dear creature so very bad, have neglected to attend her, as I
+      ought to have done the moment I arrived; and would, had I known how ill
+      she was, and what a task I should have had with the family. But, Sir, your
+      friend has been excessively to blame; and you being so intimately his
+      friend, has made her fare the worse for your civilities to her. But are
+      there no hopes of her recovery?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctors have left her, with the melancholy declaration that there are
+      none.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Has she had good attendance, Sir? A skilful physician? I hear these good
+      folks have been very civil and obliging to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who could be otherwise? said Mrs. Smith, weeping.&mdash;She is the
+      sweetest lady in the world!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The character, said the Colonel, lifting up his eyes and one hand, that
+      she has from every living creature!&mdash;Good God! How could your
+      accursed friend&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And how could her cruel parents? interrupted I.&mdash;We may as easily
+      account for him, as for them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Too true! returned me, the vileness of the profligates of our sex
+      considered, whenever they can get any of the other into their power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I satisfied him about the care that had been taken of her, and told him of
+      the friendly and even paternal attendance she had had from Dr. H. and Mr.
+      Goddard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was impatient to attend her, having not seen her, as he said, since she
+      was twelve years old; and that then she gave promises of being one of the
+      finest women in England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was so, replied I, a very few months ago: and, though emaciated, she
+      will appear to you to have confirmed those promises; for her features are
+      so regular and exact, her proportions so fine, and her manner so
+      inimitably graceful, that, were she only skin and bone, she must be a
+      beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Smith, at his request, stept up, and brought us down word that Mrs.
+      Lovick and her nurse were with her; and that she was in so sound a sleep,
+      leaning upon the former in her elbow-chair, that she had neither heard her
+      enter the room, nor go out. The Colonel begged, if not improper, that he
+      might see her, though sleeping. He said, that his impatience would not let
+      him stay till he awaked. Yet he would not have her disturbed; and should
+      be glad to contemplate her sweet features, when she saw not him; and
+      asked, if she thought he could not go in, and come out, without disturbing
+      her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She believed he might, she answered; for her chair's back was towards the
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He said he would take care to withdraw, if she awoke, that his sudden
+      appearance might not surprise her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Smith, stepping up before us, bid Mrs. Lovick and nurse not stir,
+      when we entered; and then we went up softly together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We beheld the lady in a charming attitude. Dressed, as I told you before,
+      in her virgin white. She was sitting in her elbow-chair, Mrs. Lovick close
+      by her, in another chair, with her left arm round her neck, supporting it,
+      as it were; for, it seems, the lady had bid her do so, saying, she had
+      been a mother to her, and she would delight herself in thinking she was in
+      her mamma's arms; for she found herself drowsy; perhaps, she said, for the
+      last time she should be so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One faded cheek rested upon the good woman's bosom, the kindly warmth of
+      which had overspread it with a faint, but charming flush; the other paler
+      and hollow, as if already iced over by death. Her hands white as the lily,
+      with her meandering veins more transparently blue than ever I had seen
+      even her's, (veins so soon, alas! to be choked up by the congealment of
+      that purple stream, which already so languidly creeps, rather than flows,
+      through them!) her hands hanging lifelessly, one before her, the other
+      grasped by the right-hand of the kind widow, whose tears bedewed the sweet
+      face which her motherly boson supported, though unfelt by the fair
+      sleeper; and either insensibly to the good woman, or what she would not
+      disturb her to wipe off, or to change her posture: her aspect was sweetly
+      calm and serene: and though she started now and then, yet her sleep seemed
+      easy; her breath, indeed short and quick; but tolerably free, and not like
+      that of a dying person.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this heart-moving attitude she appeared to us when we approached her,
+      and came to have her lovely face before us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel, sighing often, gazed upon her with his arms folded, and with
+      the most profound and affectionate attention; till at last, on her
+      starting, and fetching her breath with greater difficulty than before, he
+      retired to a screen, that was drawn before her house, as she calls it,
+      which, as I have heretofore observed, stands under one of the windows.
+      This screen was placed there at the time she found herself obliged to take
+      to her chamber; and in the depth of our concern, and the fulness of other
+      discourse at our first interview, I had forgotten to apprize the Colonel
+      of what he would probably see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Retiring thither, he drew out his handkerchief, and, overwhelmed with
+      grief, seemed unable to speak; but, on casting his eye behind the screen,
+      he soon broke silence; for, struck with the shape of the coffin, he lifted
+      up a purplish-coloured cloth that was spread over it, and, starting back,
+      Good God! said he, what's here?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Smith standing next him, Why, said he, with great emotion, is my
+      cousin suffered to indulge her sad reflections with such an object before
+      her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alas! Sir, replied the good woman, who should controul her? We are all
+      strangers about her, in a manner: and yet we have expostulated with her
+      upon this sad occasion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I ought, said I, (stepping softly up to him, the lady again falling into a
+      doze,) to have apprized you of this. I was here when it was brought in,
+      and never was so shocked in my life. But she had none of her friends about
+      her, and no reason to hope for any of them to come near her; and, assured
+      she should not recover, she was resolved to leave as little as possible,
+      especially as to what related to her person, to her executor. But it is
+      not a shocking object to her, though it be to every body else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Curse upon the hard-heartedness of those, said he, who occasioned her to
+      make so sad a provision for herself!&mdash;What must her reflections have
+      been all the time she was thinking of it, and giving orders about it? And
+      what must they be every time she turns her head towards it? These uncommon
+      genius's&mdash;but indeed she should have been controuled in it, had I
+      been here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady fetched a profound sigh, and, starting, it broke off our talk;
+      and the Colonel then withdrew farther behind the screen, that his sudden
+      appearance might not surprise her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where am I?&mdash;said she. How drowsy I am! How long have I dozed? Don't
+      go, Sir, (for I was retiring,) I am very stupid, and shall be more and
+      more so, I suppose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She then offered to raise herself; but being ready to faint through
+      weakness, was forced to sit down again, reclining her head on her chair
+      back; and, after a few moments, I believe now, my good friends, said she,
+      all your kind trouble will soon be over. I have slept, but am not
+      refreshed, and my fingers' ends seem numbed&mdash;have no feeling!
+      (holding them up,)&mdash;'tis time to send the letter to my good Norton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shall I, Madam, send my servant post with it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      O no, Sir, I thank you. It will reach the dear woman too soon, (as she
+      will think,) by the post.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her this was not post-day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Is it Wednesday still, said she; bless me! I know not how the time goes
+      &mdash;but very tediously, 'tis plain. And now I think I must soon take to
+      my bed. All will be most conveniently, and with least trouble, over there&mdash;
+      will it not, Mrs. Lovick?&mdash;I think, Sir, turning to me, I have left
+      nothing to these last incapacitating hours. Nothing either to say, or to
+      do&mdash;I bless God, I have not. If I had, how unhappy should I be! Can
+      you, Sir, remind me of any thing necessary to be done or said to make your
+      office easy?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If, Madam, your cousin Morden should come, you would be glad to see him, I
+      presume?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am too weak to wish to see my cousin now. It would but discompose me,
+      and him too. Yet, if he come while I can see him, I will see him, were it
+      but to thank him for former favours, and for his present kind intentions
+      to me. Has any body been here from him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He has called, and will be here, Madam, in half an hour; but he feared to
+      surprise you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing can surprise me now, except my mamma were to favour me with her
+      last blessing in person. That would be a welcome surprise to me, even yet.
+      But did my cousin come purposely to town to see me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, Madam, I took the liberty to let him know, by a line last Monday, how
+      ill you were.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You are very kind, Sir. I am, and have been greatly obliged to you. But I
+      think I shall be pained to see him now, because he will be concerned to
+      see me. And yet, as I am not so ill as I shall presently be&mdash;the
+      sooner he comes the better. But if he come, what shall I do about the
+      screen? He will chide me, very probably, and I cannot bear chiding now.
+      Perhaps, [leaning upon Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith,] I can walk into the
+      next apartment to receive him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She motioned to rise, but was ready to faint again, and forced to sit
+      still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel was in a perfect agitation behind the screen to hear this
+      discourse; and twice, unseen by his cousin, was coming from it towards
+      her; but retreated for fear of surprising her too much.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stept to him, and favoured his retreat; she only saying, Are you going,
+      Mr. Belford? Are you sent for down? Is my cousin come? For she heard
+      somebody step softly across the room, and thought it to be me; her hearing
+      being more perfect than her sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her, I believed he was; and she said, We must make the best of it,
+      Mrs. Lovick, and Mrs. Smith. I shall otherwise most grievously shock my
+      poor cousin: for he loved me dearly once.&mdash;Pray give me a few of the
+      doctor's last drops in water, to keep up my spirits for this one
+      interview; and that is all, I believe, that can concern me now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel, (who heard all this,) sent in his name; and I, pretending to
+      go down to him, introduced the afflicted gentleman; she having first
+      ordered the screen to be put as close to the window as possible, that he
+      might not see what was behind it; while he, having heard what she had said
+      about it, was determined to take no notice of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He folded the angel in his arms as she sat, dropping down on one knee;
+      for, supporting herself upon the two elbows of the chair, she attempted to
+      rise, but could not. Excuse, my dear Cousin, said she, excuse me, that I
+      cannot stand up&mdash;I did not expect this favour now. But I am glad of
+      this opportunity to thank you for all your generous goodness to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I never, my best-beloved and dearest Cousin, said he, (with eyes running
+      over,) shall forgive myself, that I did not attend you sooner. Little did
+      I think you were so ill; nor do any of your friends believe it. If they
+      did&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If they did, repeated she, interrupting him, I should have had more
+      compassion from them. I am sure I should&mdash;But pray, Sir, how did you
+      leave them? Are you reconciled to them? If you are not, I beg, if you love
+      your poor Clarissa, that you will; for every widened difference augments
+      but my fault; since that is the foundation of all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had been expecting to hear from them in your favour, my dear Cousin,
+      said he, for some hours, when this gentleman's letter arrived, which
+      hastened me up; but I have the account of your grandfather's estate to
+      make up with you, and have bills and drafts upon their banker for the sums
+      due to you; which they desire you may receive, lest you should have
+      occasion for money. And this is such an earnest of an approaching
+      reconciliation, that I dare to answer for all the rest being according to
+      your wishes, if&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah! Sir, interrupted she, with frequent breaks and pauses&mdash;I wish&mdash;I
+      wish this does not rather show that, were I to live, they would have
+      nothing more to say to me. I never had any pride in being independent of
+      them; all my actions, when I might have made myself more independent, show
+      this &mdash;But what avail these reflections now?&mdash;I only beg, Sir,
+      that you, and this gentleman&mdash;to whom I am exceedingly obliged&mdash;will
+      adjust those matters&mdash;according to the will I have written. Mr.
+      Belford will excuse me; but it was in truth more necessity than choice
+      that made me think of giving him the trouble he so kindly accepts. Had I
+      the happiness to see you, my Cousin, sooner&mdash;or to know that you
+      still honoured me with your regard&mdash;I should not have had the
+      assurance to ask this favour of him.&mdash; But, though the friend of Mr.
+      Lovelace, he is a man of honour, and he will make peace rather than break
+      it. And, my dear Cousin, let me beg of you while I have nearer relations
+      than my Cousin Morden, dear as you are, and always were to me, you have no
+      title to avenge my wrongs upon him who has been the occasion of them. But
+      I wrote to you my mind on this subject, and my reasons&mdash;and I hope I
+      need not further urge them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must do Mr. Lovelace so much justice, answered he, wiping his eyes, as
+      to witness how sincerely he repents him of his ungrateful baseness to you,
+      and how ready he is to make you all the amends in his power. He owns his
+      wickedness, and your merit. If he did not, I could not pass it over,
+      though you have nearer relations; for, my dear Cousin, did not your
+      grandfather leave me in trust for you? And should I think myself concerned
+      for your fortune, and not for your honour? But since he is so desirous to
+      do you justice, I have the less to say; and you may make yourself entirely
+      easy on that account.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thank you, thank you, Sir, said she;&mdash;all is now as I wished.&mdash;But
+      I am very faint, very weak. I am sorry I cannot hold up; that I cannot
+      better deserve the honour of this visit&mdash;but it will not be&mdash;and
+      saying this, she sunk down in her chair, and was silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hereupon we both withdrew, leaving word that we would be at the Bedford
+      Head, if any thing extraordinary happened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We bespoke a little repast, having neither of us dined; and, while it was
+      getting ready, you may guess at the subject of our discourse. Both joined
+      in lamentation for the lady's desperate state; admired her manifold
+      excellencies; severely condemned you and her friends. Yet, to bring him
+      into better opinion of you, I read to him some passages from your last
+      letters, which showed your concern for the wrongs you had done her, and
+      your deep remorse: and he said it was a dreadful thing to labour under the
+      sense of a guilt so irredeemable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We procured Mr. Goddard, (Dr. H. not being at home,) once more to visit
+      her, and to call upon us in his return. He was so good as to do so; but he
+      tarried with her not five minutes; and told us, that she was drawing on
+      apace; that he feared she would not live till morning; and that she wished
+      to see Colonel Morden directly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel made excuses where none were needed; and though our little
+      refection was just brought in, he went away immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not touch a morsel; and took pen and ink to amuse myself, and
+      oblige you; knowing how impatient you would be for a few lines: for, from
+      what I have recited, you see it was impossible I could withdraw to write
+      when your servant came at half an hour after five, or have an opportunity
+      for it till now; and this is accidental; and yet your poor fellow was
+      afraid to go away with the verbal message I sent; importing, as no doubt
+      he told you, that the Colonel was with us, the lady excessively ill, and
+      that I could not stir to write a line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TEN O'CLOCK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel sent to me afterwards, to tell me that the lady having been in
+      convulsions, he was so much disordered that he could not possibly attend
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have sent every half hour to know how she does&mdash;and just now I have
+      the pleasure to hear that her convulsions have left her; and that she is
+      gone to rest in a much quieter way than could be expected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her poor cousin is very much indisposed; yet will not stir out of the
+      house while she is in such a way; but intends to lie down on a couch,
+      having refused any other accommodation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      END OF VOL. 8.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
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diff --git a/old/12180.txt b/old/12180.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady,
+Volume 8, by Samuel Richardson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8
+
+Author: Samuel Richardson
+
+Release Date: April 27, 2004 [EBook #12180]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLARISSA, VOL. 8 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Julie C. Sparks.
+
+
+
+
+CLARISSA HARLOWE
+
+or the
+
+HISTORY OF A YOUNG LADY
+
+Nine Volumes
+Volume VIII.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOLUME VIII
+
+
+LETTER I.  Miss Howe, from the Isle of Wight.--
+In answer to her's, No. LXI. of Vol. VII.  Approves not of her choice of
+Belford for her executor; yet thinks she cannot appoint for that office
+any of her own family.  Hopes she will live any years.
+
+LETTER II.  Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
+Sends her a large packet of letters; but (for her relations' sake) not
+all she has received.  Must now abide by the choice of Mr. Belford for
+executor; but farther refers to the papers she sends her, for her
+justification on this head.
+
+LETTER III.  Antony Harlowe to Clarissa.--
+A letter more taunting and reproachful than that of her other uncle.  To
+what owing.
+
+LETTER IV.  Clarissa.  In answer.--
+Wishes that the circumstances of her case had been inquired into.
+Concludes with a solemn and pathetic prayer for the happiness of the
+whole family.
+
+LETTER V.  Mrs. Norton to Clarissa.--
+Her friends, through Brand's reports, as she imagines, intent upon her
+going to the plantations.  Wishes her to discourage improper visiters.
+Difficult situations the tests of prudence as well as virtue.  Dr.
+Lewen's solicitude for her welfare.  Her cousin Morden arrived in
+England.  Farther pious consolations.
+
+LETTER VI.  Clarissa.  In answer.--
+Sends her a packet of letters, which, for her relations' sake, she cannot
+communicate to Miss Howe.  From these she will collect a good deal of her
+story.  Defends, yet gently blames her mother.  Afraid that her cousin
+Morden will be set against her; or, what is worse, that he will seek to
+avenge her.  Her affecting conclusion on her Norton's divine
+consolations.
+
+LETTER VII.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Is very ill.  The lady, if he die, will repent her refusal of him.  One
+of the greatest felicities that can befal a woman, what.  Extremely ill.
+His ludicrous behaviour on awaking, and finding a clergyman and his
+friends praying for him by his bedside.
+
+LETTER VIII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Concerned at his illness.  Wishes that he had died before last April.
+The lady, he tells him, generously pities him; and prays that he may meet
+with the mercy he has not shown.
+
+LETTER IX.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+In raptures on her goodness to him.  His deep regrets for his treatment
+of her.  Blesses her.
+
+LETTER X.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Congratulates him on his amendment.  The lady's exalted charity to him.
+Her story a fine subject for tragedy.  Compares with it, and censures,
+the play of the Fair Penitent.  She is very ill; the worse for some new
+instances of the implacableness of her relations.  A meditation on the
+subject.  Poor Belton, he tells him, is at death's door; and desirous to
+see him.
+
+LETTER XI.  Belford to Clarissa.--
+Acquaints her with the obligation he is under to go to Belton, and (lest
+she should be surprised) with Lovelace's resolution (as signified in the
+next letter) to visit her.
+
+LETTER XII.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Resolves to throw himself at the lady's feet.  Lord M. of opinion that
+she ought to admit of one interview.
+
+LETTER XIII.  From the same.--
+Arrived in London, he finds the lady gone abroad.  Suspects Belford.  His
+unaccountable freaks at Smith's.  His motives for behaving so ludicrously
+there.  The vile Sally Martin entertains him with her mimicry of the
+divine lady.
+
+LETTER XIV.  From the same.--
+His frightful dream.  How affected by it.  Sleeping or waking, his
+Clarissa always present with him.  Hears she is returned to her lodgings.
+Is hastening to her.
+
+LETTER XV.  From the same.--
+Disappointed again.  Is affected by Mrs. Lovick's expostulations.  Is
+shown a meditation on being hunted after by the enemy of her soul, as it
+is entitled.  His light comments upon it.  Leaves word that he resolves
+to see her.  Makes several other efforts for that purpose.
+
+LETTER XVI.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Reproaches him that he has not kept his honour with him.  Inveighs
+against, and severely censures him for his light behaviour at Smith's.
+Belton's terrors and despondency.  Mowbray's impenetrable behaviour.
+
+LETTER XVII.  From the same.--
+Mowbray's impatience to run from a dying Belton to a too-lively Lovelace.
+Mowbray abuses Mr. Belton's servant in the language of a rake of the
+common class.  Reflection on the brevity of life.
+
+LETTER XVIII.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Receives a letter from Clarissa, written by way of allegory to induce him
+to forbear hunting after her.  Copy of it.  He takes it in a literal
+sense.  Exults upon it.  Will now hasten down to Lord M. and receive the
+gratulations of all his family on her returning favour.  Gives an
+interpretation of his frightful dream to his own liking.
+
+LETTER XIX. XX.  From the same.--
+Pities Belton.  Rakishly defends him on the issue of a duel, which now
+adds to the poor man's terrors.  His opinion of death, and the fear of
+it.  Reflections upon the conduct of play-writers with regard
+servants.  He cannot account for the turn his Clarissa has taken in his
+favour.  Hints at one hopeful cause of it.  Now matrimony seems to be in
+his power, he has some retrograde motions.
+
+LETTER XXI.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Continuation of his narrative of Belton's last illness and impatience.
+The poor man abuses the gentlemen of the faculty.  Belford censures some
+of them for their greediness after fees.  Belton dies.  Serious
+reflections on the occasion.
+
+LETTER XXII.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Hopes Belton is happy; and why.  He is setting out for Berks.
+
+LETTER XXIII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Attends the lady.  She is extremely ill, and receives the sacrament.
+Complains of the harasses his friend had given her.  Two different
+persons (from her relations, he supposes) inquire after her.  Her
+affecting address to the doctor, apothecary, and himself.  Disposes of
+some more of her apparel for a very affecting purpose.
+
+LETTER XXIV.  Dr. Lewen to Clarissa.--
+Writes on his pillow, to prevail upon her to prosecute Lovelace for his
+life.
+
+LETTER XXV.  Her pathetic and noble answer.
+
+LETTER XXVI.  Miss Arabella Harlowe to Clarissa.--
+Proposes, in a most taunting and cruel manner, the prosecution of
+Lovelace; or, if not, her going to Pensylvania.
+
+LETTER XXVII.  Clarissa's affecting answer.
+
+LETTER XXVIII. XXIX.  Mrs. Norton to Clarissa.--
+Her uncle's cruel letter to what owing.  Colonel Morden resolved on a
+visit to Lovelace.--Mrs. Hervey, in a private conversation with her,
+accounts for, yet blames, the cruelty of her family.  Miss Dolly Hervey
+wishes to attend her.
+
+LETTER XXX. Clarissa.  In answer.--
+Thinks she has been treated with great rigour by her relations.
+Expresses more warmth than usual on this subject.  Yet soon checks
+herself.  Grieves that Colonel Morden resolves on a visit to Lovelace.
+Touches upon her sister's taunting letter.  Requests Mrs. Norton's
+prayers for patience and resignation.
+
+LETTER XXXI.  Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
+Approves now of her appointment of Belford for an executor.  Admires her
+greatness of mind in despising Lovelace.  Every body she is with taken
+with Hickman; yet she cannot help wantoning with the power his obsequious
+love gives her over him.
+
+LETTER XXXII. XXXIII.  Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
+Instructive lessons and observations on her treatment of Hickman.--
+Acquaints her with all that has happened since her last.  Fears that all
+her allegorical letter is not strictly right.  Is forced by illness to
+break off.  Resumes.  Wishes her married.
+
+LETTER XXXIV.  Mr. Wyerley to Clarissa.--
+A generous renewal of his address to her now in her calamity; and a
+tender of his best services.
+
+LETTER XXXV.  Her open, kind, and instructive answer.
+
+LETTER XXXVI.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Uneasy, on a suspicion that her letter to him was a stratagem only.  What
+he will do, if he find it so.
+
+LETTER XXXVII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Brief account of his proceedings in Belton's affairs.  The lady extremely
+ill.  Thought to be near her end.  Has a low-spirited day.  Recovers her
+spirits; and thinks herself above this world.  She bespeaks her coffin.
+Confesses that her letter to Lovelace was allegorical only.  The light in
+which Belford beholds her.
+
+LETTER XXXVIII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+An affecting conversation that passed between the lady and Dr. H.  She
+talks of death, he says, and prepares for it, as if it were an occurrence
+as familiar to her as dressing and undressing.  Worthy behaviour of the
+doctor.  She makes observations on the vanity of life, on the wisdom of
+an early preparation for death, and on the last behaviour of Belton.
+
+LETTER XXXIX. XL. XLI.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Particulars of what passed between himself, Colonel Morden, Lord M., and
+Mowbray, on the visit made him by the Colonel.  Proposes Belford to Miss
+Charlotte Montague, by way of raillery, for an husband.--He encloses
+Brand's letter, which misrepresents (from credulity and officiousness,
+rather than ill-will) the lady's conduct.
+
+LETTER XLII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Expatiates on the baseness of deluding young creatures, whose confidence
+has been obtained by oaths, vows, promises.  Evil of censoriousness.
+People deemed good too much addicted to it.  Desires to know what he
+means my his ridicule with regard to his charming cousin.
+
+LETTER XLIII.  From the same.--
+A proper test of the purity of writing.  The lady again makes excuses for
+her allegorical letter.  Her calm behaviour, and generous and useful
+reflections, on his communicating to her Brand's misrepresentations of
+her conduct.
+
+LETTER XLIV.  Colonel Morden to Clarissa.--
+Offers his assistance and service to make the best of what has happened.
+Advises her to marry Lovelace, as the only means to bring about a general
+reconciliation.  Has no doubt of his resolution to do her justice.
+Desires to know if she has.
+
+LETTER XLV.  Clarissa.  In answer.
+
+LETTER XLVI.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+His reasonings and ravings on finding the lady's letter to him only an
+allegorical one.  In the midst of these, the natural gayety of his heart
+runs him into ridicule on Belford.  His ludicrous image drawn from a
+monument in Westminster Abbey.  Resumes his serious disposition.  If the
+worst happen, (the Lord of Heaven and Earth, says he, avert that worst!)
+he bids him only write that he advises him to take a trip to Paris; and
+that will stab him to the heart.
+
+LETTER XLVII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+The lady's coffin brought up stairs.  He is extremely shocked and
+discomposed at it.  Her intrepidity.  Great minds, he observes, cannot
+avoid doing uncommon things.  Reflections on the curiosity of women.
+
+LETTER XLVIII.  From the same.--
+Description of the coffin, and devices on the lid.  It is placed in her
+bed-chamber.  His serious application to Lovelace on her great behaviour.
+
+LETTER XLIX.  From the same.--
+Astonished at his levity in the Abbey-instance.  The lady extremely ill.
+
+LETTER L.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+All he has done to the lady a jest to die for; since her triumph has ever
+been greater than her sufferings.  He will make over all his possessions
+and all his reversions to the doctor, if he will but prolong her life for
+one twelvemonth.  How, but for her calamities, could her equanimity blaze
+out as it does!  He would now love her with an intellectual flame.  He
+cannot bear to think that the last time she so triumphantly left him
+should be the last.  His conscience, he says, tears him.  He is sick of
+the remembrance of his vile plots.
+
+LETTER LI.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+The lady alive, serene, and calm.  The more serene for having finished,
+signed, and sealed her last will; deferred till now for reasons of filial
+duty.
+
+LETTER LII.  Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
+Pathetically laments the illness of her own mother, and of her dear
+friend.  Now all her pertness to the former, she says, fly in her face.
+She lays down her pen; and resumes it, to tell her, with great joy, that
+her mother is better.  She has had a visit form her cousin Morden.  What
+passed in it.
+
+LETTER LIII.  From the same.--
+Displeased with the Colonel for thinking too freely of the sex.  Never
+knew a man that had a slight notion of the virtue of women in general,
+who deserved to be valued for his morals.  Why women must either be more
+or less virtuous than men.  Useful hints to young ladies.  Is out of
+humour with Mr. Hickman.  Resolves to see her soon in town.
+
+LETTER LIV.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+The lady writes and reads upon her coffin, as upon a desk.  The doctor
+resolves to write to her father.  Her intense, yet cheerful devotion.
+
+LETTER LV.  Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
+A letter full of pious reflections, and good advice, both general and
+particular; and breathing the true spirit of charity, forgiveness,
+patience, and resignation.  A just reflection, to her dear friend, upon
+the mortifying nature of pride.
+
+LETTER LVI.  Mrs. Norton to Clarissa.--
+Her account of an interesting conversation at Harlowe-place between the
+family and Colonel Morden; and of another between her mother and self.
+The Colonel incensed against them all.  Her advice concerning Belford,
+and other matters.  Miss Howe has obtained leave, she hears, to visit
+her.  Praises Mr. Hickman.  Gently censures Miss Howe on his account.
+Her truly maternal and pious comfortings.
+
+LETTER LVII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+The lady's sight begins to fail her.  She blesses God for the serenity
+she enjoys.  It is what, she says, she had prayed for.  What a blessing,
+so near to her dissolution, to have her prayers answered!  Gives
+particular directions to him about her papers, about her last will and
+apparel.  Comforts the women and him on their concern for her.  Another
+letter brought her from Colonel Morden.  The substance of it.  Belford
+writes to hasten up the Colonel.  Dr. H. has also written to her father;
+and Brand to Mr. John Harlowe a letter recanting his officious one.
+
+LETTER LVIII.  Dr. H. to James Harlowe, Senior, Esq.
+
+LETTER LIX.  Copy of Mr. Belford's letter to Colonel Morden,
+to hasten him up.
+
+LETTER LX.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+He feels the torments of the damned, in the remorse that wrings his
+heart, on looking back on his past actions by this lady.  Gives him what
+he calls a faint picture of his horrible uneasiness, riding up and down,
+expecting the return of his servant as soon as he had dispatched him.
+Woe be to the man who brings him the fatal news!
+
+LETTER LXI.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Farther particulars of the lady's pious and exemplary behaviour.  She
+rejoices in the gradual death afforded her.  Her thankful acknowledgments
+to Mr. Belford, Mrs. Smith, and Mrs. Lovick, for their kindness to her.
+Her edifying address to Mr. Belford.
+
+LETTER LXII.  Clarissa to Mrs. Norton.  In answer to her's, No. LVI.--
+Afflicted only for her friends.  Desires not now to see her cousin
+Morden, nor even herself, or Miss Howe.  God will have no rivals, she
+says, in the hearts of those whom HE sanctifies.  Advice to Miss Howe.
+To Mr. Hickman.  Blesses all her relations and friends.
+
+LETTER LXIII.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+A letter of deep distress, remorse, and impatience.  Yet would he fain
+lighten his own guilt by reflections on the cruelty of her relations.
+
+LETTER LXIV.  Belford to Lovelace
+The lady is disappointed at the Doctor's telling her that she may yet
+live two or three days.  Death from grief the slowest of deaths.  Her
+solemn forgiveness of Lovelace, and prayer for him.  Owns that once she
+could have loved him.  Her generous concern for his future happiness.
+Belford's good resolutions.
+
+LETTER LXV.  Mr. Brand to Mr. John Walton.
+
+LETTER LXVI.  Mr. Brand to John Harlowe, Esq.;
+in excuse of his credulity, and of the misreports founded upon it.
+
+LETTER LXVII.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Blesses him for sending him word the lady is better.  Her charity towards
+him cuts him to the heart.  He cannot bear it.  His vehement self
+reproaches.  Curses his contriving genius, and his disbelief that there
+could be such virtue in woman.  The world never saw such an husband as he
+will make, if she recover, and will be his.
+
+LETTER LXVIII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+The lady's pious frame.  The approaches of death how supportable to her;
+and why.  She has no reason, she says, to grieve for any thing but the
+sorrow she has given to her friends.
+
+LETTER LXIX.  Lovelace to Belford.--
+Never prayed in his life, put all the years of it together, as he has
+done for this fortnight.  Has repented of all his baseness: And will
+nothing do?  Conjures him to send him good news in his next, as he would
+not be answerable for consequences.
+
+LETTER LXX.  Belford to Lovelace.--
+Solemn leave taken of her by the doctor and apothecary; who tell her she
+will hardly see the next night.  The pleasure with which she receives the
+intimation.  How unlike poor Belton's behaviour her's!  A letter from
+Miss Howe.  Copy of it.  She cannot see to read it.  Her exalted
+expressions on hearing it read.  Tries to write an answer to it; but
+cannot.  Dictates to Mrs. Lovick.  Writes the superscriptive part herself
+on her knees.  Colonel Morden arrives in town.
+
+LETTER LXXI.  From the same.--
+What passes on Colonel Morden's visit to his cousin.  She enjoins the
+Colonel not to avenge her.
+
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY
+
+OF
+
+CLARISSA HARLOWE
+
+
+
+LETTER I
+
+MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+YARMOUTH, ISLE OF WIGHT, MONDAY, AUG. 7.
+
+
+MY DEAREST CREATURE,
+
+I can write but just now a few lines.  I cannot tell how to bear the
+sound of that Mr. Belford for your executor, cogent as your reasons for
+that measure are: and yet I am firmly of opinion, that none of your
+relations should be named for the trust.  But I dwell the less on this
+subject, as I hope (and cannot bear to apprehend the contrary) that you
+will still live many, many years.
+
+Mr. Hickman, indeed, speaks very handsomely of Mr. Belford.  But he, poor
+man! has not much penetration.--If he had, he would hardly think so well
+of me as he does.
+
+I have a particular opportunity of sending this by a friend of my aunt
+Harman's; who is ready to set out for London, (and this occasions my
+hurry,) and is to return out of hand.  I expect therefore, by him a large
+packet from you; and hope and long for news of your amended health: which
+Heaven grant to the prayers of
+
+Your ever-affectionate
+ANNA HOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER II
+
+MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
+FRIDAY, AUG. 11.
+
+
+I will send you a large packet, as you desire and expect; since I can do
+it by so safe a conveyance: but not all that is come to my hand--for I
+must own that my friends are very severe; too severe for any body, who
+loves them not, to see their letters.  You, my dear, would not call them
+my friends, you said, long ago; but my relations: indeed I cannot call
+them my relations, I think!----But I am ill; and therefore perhaps more
+peevish than I should be.  It is difficult to go out of ourselves to give
+a judgment against ourselves; and yet, oftentimes, to pass a just
+judgment, we ought.
+
+I thought I should alarm you in the choice of my executor.  But the sad
+necessity I am reduced to must excuse me.
+
+I shall not repeat any thing I have said before on that subject: but if
+your objections will not be answered to your satisfaction by the papers
+and letters I shall enclose, marked 1, 2, 3, 4, to 9, I must think myself
+in another instance unhappy; since I am engaged too far (and with my own
+judgment too) to recede.
+
+As Mr. Belford has transcribed for me, in confidence, from his friend's
+letters, the passages which accompany this, I must insist that you suffer
+no soul but yourself to peruse them; and that you return them by the very
+first opportunity; that so no use may be made of them that may do hurt
+either to the original writer or to the communicator.  You'll observe I
+am bound by promise to this care.  If through my means any mischief
+should arise, between this humane and that inhuman libertine, I should
+think myself utterly inexcusable.
+
+I subjoin a list of the papers or letters I shall enclose.  You must
+return them all when perused.*
+
+
+* 1. A letter from Miss Montague, dated . . . .  Aug. 1.
+  2. A copy of my answer  . . . . . . . . . . .  Aug. 3.
+  3. Mr. Belford's Letter to me, which will show
+      you what my request was to him, and his
+      compliance with it; and the desired ex-
+      tracts from his friend's letters  . . . .  Aug. 3, 4.
+  4. A copy of my answer, with thanks; and re-
+      questing him to undertake the executor-
+      ship  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Aug. 4.
+  5. Mr. Belford's acceptance of the trust  . .  Aug. 4.
+  6. Miss Montague's letter, with a generous
+      offer from Lord M. and the Ladies of that
+      family  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Aug. 7.
+  7. Mr. Lovelace's to me . . . . . . . . . . .  Aug. 7.
+  8. Copy of mine to Miss Montague, in answer
+      to her's of the day before  . . . . . . .  Aug. 8.
+  9. Copy of my answer to Mr. Lovelace  . . . .  Aug. 11.
+
+You will see by these several Letters, written and received in so little
+a space of time (to say nothing of what I have received and written which
+I cannot show you,) how little opportunity or leisure I can have for
+writing my own story.
+
+
+I am very much tired and fatigued--with--I don't know what--with writing,
+I think--but most with myself, and with a situation I cannot help
+aspiring to get out of, and above!
+
+O my dear, the world we live in is a sad, a very sad world!----While
+under our parents' protecting wings, we know nothing at all of it.
+Book-learned and a scribbler, and looking at people as I saw them as
+visiters or visiting, I thought I knew a great deal of it.  Pitiable
+ignorance!--Alas! I knew nothing at all!
+
+With zealous wishes for your happiness, and the happiness of every one
+dear to you, I am, and will ever be,
+
+Your gratefully-affectionate
+CL. HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER III
+
+MR. ANTONY HARLOWE, TO MISS CL. HARLOWE
+[IN REPLY TO HER'S TO HER UNCLE HARLOWE, OF THURSDAY, AUG. 10.]
+AUG. 12.
+
+
+UNHAPPY GIRL!
+
+As your uncle Harlowe chooses not to answer your pert letter to him;
+and as mine, written to you before,* was written as if it were in the
+spirit of prophecy, as you have found to your sorrow; and as you are now
+making yourself worse than you are in your health, and better than you
+are in your penitence, as we are very well assured, in order to move
+compassion; which you do not deserve, having had so much warning: for all
+these reasons, I take up my pen once more; though I had told your
+brother, at his going to Edinburgh, that I would not write to you, even
+were you to write to me, without letting him know.  So indeed had we all;
+for he prognosticated what would happen, as to your applying to us, when
+you knew not how to help it.
+
+
+* See Vol. I. Letter XXXII.
+
+
+Brother John has hurt your niceness, it seems, by asking you a plain
+question, which your mother's heart is too full of grief to let her ask;
+and modesty will not let your sister ask; though but the consequence of
+your actions--and yet it must be answered, before you'll obtain from your
+father and mother, and us, the notice you hope for, I can tell you that.
+
+You lived several guilty weeks with one of the vilest fellows that ever
+drew breath, at bed, as well as at board, no doubt, (for is not his
+character known?) and pray don't be ashamed to be asked after what may
+naturally come of such free living.  This modesty indeed would have
+become you for eighteen years of your life--you'll be pleased to mark
+that--but makes no good figure compared with your behaviour since the
+beginning of April last.  So pray don't take it up, and wipe your mouth
+upon it, as if nothing had happened.
+
+But, may be, I likewise am to shocking to your niceness!--O girl, girl!
+your modesty had better been shown at the right time and place--Every
+body but you believed what the rake was: but you would believe nothing
+bad of him--What think you now?
+
+Your folly has ruined all our peace.  And who knows where it may yet end?
+--Your poor father but yesterday showed me this text: With bitter grief
+he showed it me, poor man! and do you lay it to your heart:
+
+'A father waketh for his daughter, when no man knoweth; and the care for
+her taketh away his sleep--When she is young, lest she pass away the
+flower of her age--[and you know what proposals were made to you at
+different times.]  And, being married, lest she should be hated.  In her
+virginity, lest she should be defiled, and gotten with child in her
+father's house--[and I don't make the words, mind that.]  And, having an
+husband, lest she should misbehave herself.'  And what follows?  'Keep
+a sure watch over a shameless daughter--[yet no watch could hold you!]
+lest she make thee a laughing stock to thine enemies--[as you have made
+us all to this cursed Lovelace,] and a bye-word in the city, and a
+reproach among the people, and make thee ashamed before the multitude.'
+Ecclus. xlii. 9, 10, &c.
+
+Now will you wish you had not written pertly.  Your sister's severities!
+--Never, girl, say that is severe that is deserved.  You know the meaning
+of words.  No body better.  Would to the Lord you had acted up but to one
+half of what you know! then had we not been disappointed and grieved, as
+we all have been: and nobody more than him who was
+
+Your loving uncle,
+ANTONY HARLOWE.
+
+This will be with you to-morrow.  Perhaps you may be suffered to have
+      some part of your estate, after you have smarted a little more.
+      Your pertly-answered uncle John, who is your trustee, will not have
+      you be destitute.  But we hope all is not true that we hear of you.
+      --Only take care, I advise you, that, bad as you have acted, you
+      act not still worse, if it be possible to act worse.  Improve upon
+      the hint.
+
+
+
+LETTER IV
+
+MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO ANTONY HARLOWE, ESQ.
+SUNDAY, AUG. 13.
+
+
+HONOURED SIR,
+
+I am very sorry for my pert letter to my uncle Harlowe.  Yet I did not
+intend it to be pert.  People new to misfortune may be too easily moved
+to impatience.
+
+The fall of a regular person, no doubt, is dreadful and inexcusable.
+is like the sin of apostacy.  Would to Heaven, however, that I had had
+the circumstances of mine inquired into!
+
+If, Sir, I make myself worse than I am in my health, and better than I am
+in my penitence, it is fit I should be punished for my double
+dissimulation: and you have the pleasure of being one of my punishers.
+My sincerity in both respects will, however, be best justified by the
+event.  To that I refer.--May Heaven give you always as much comfort in
+reflecting upon the reprobation I have met with, as you seem to have
+pleasure in mortifying a young creature, extremely mortified; and that
+from a right sense, as she presumes to hope, of her own fault!
+
+What you heard of me I cannot tell.  When the nearest and dearest
+relations give up an unhappy wretch, it is not to be wondered at that
+those who are not related to her are ready to take up and propagate
+slanders against her.  Yet I think I may defy calumny itself, and
+(excepting the fatal, though involuntary step of April 10) wrap myself in
+my own innocence, and be easy.  I thank you, Sir, nevertheless, for your
+caution, mean it what it will.
+
+As to the question required of me to answer, and which is allowed to be
+too shocking either for a mother to put to a daughter, or a sister to a
+sister; and which, however, you say I must answer;--O Sir!--And must I
+answer?--This then be my answer:--'A little time, a much less time than
+is imagined, will afford a more satisfactory answer to my whole family,
+and even to my brother and sister, than I can give in words.'
+
+Nevertheless, be pleased to let it be remembered, that I did not petition
+for a restoration to favour.  I could not hope for that.  Nor yet to be
+put in possession of any part of my own estate.  Nor even for means of
+necessary subsistence from the produce of that estate--but only for a
+blessing; for a last blessing!
+
+And this I will farther add, because it is true, that I have no wilful
+crime to charge against myself: no free living at bed and at board, as
+you phrase it!
+
+Why, why, Sir, were not other inquiries made of me, as well as this
+shocking one?--inquiries that modesty would have permitted a mother or
+sister to make; and which, if I may be excused to say so, would have been
+still less improper, and more charitable, to have been made by uncles,
+(were the mother forbidden, or the sister not inclined, to make them,)
+than those they have made.
+
+Although my humble application has brought upon me so much severe
+reproach, I repent not that I have written to my mother, (although I
+cannot but wish that I had not written to my sister;) because I have
+satisfied a dutiful consciousness by it, however unanswered by the
+wished-for success.  Nevertheless, I cannot help saying, that mine is
+indeed a hard fate, that I cannot beg pardon for my capital errors
+without doing it in such terms as shall be an aggravation of the offence.
+
+But I had best leave off, lest, as my full mind, I find, is rising to my
+pen, I have other pardons to beg as I multiply lines, where none at all
+will be given.
+
+God Almighty bless, preserve, and comfort my dear sorrowing and
+grievously offended father and mother!--and continue in honour, favour,
+and merit, my happy sister!--May God forgive my brother, and protect him
+from the violence of his own temper, as well as from the destroyer of his
+sister's honour!--And may you, my dear uncle, and your no less now than
+ever dear brother, my second papa, as he used to bid me call him, be
+blessed and happy in them, and in each other!--And, in order to this, may
+you all speedily banish from your remembrance, for ever,
+
+The unhappy
+CLARISSA HARLOWE!
+
+
+
+LETTER V
+
+MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+MONDAY, AUG. 14.
+
+
+All your friends here, my dear young lady, now seem set upon proposing to
+you to go to one of the plantations.  This, I believe, is owing to some
+misrepresentations of Mr. Brand; from whom they have received a letter.
+
+I wish, with all my heart, that you could, consistently with your own
+notions of honour, yield to the pressing requests of all Mr. Lovelace's
+family in his behalf.  This, I think, would stop every mouth; and, in
+time, reconcile every body to you.  For your own friends will not believe
+that he is in earnest to marry you; and the hatred between the families
+is such, that they will not condescend to inform themselves better; nor
+would believe him, if he were ever so solemnly to avow that he is.
+
+I should be very glad to have in readiness, upon occasion, some brief
+particulars of your sad story under your own hand.  But let me tell you,
+at the same time, that no misrepresentations, nor even your own
+confession, shall lessen my opinion either of your piety, or of your
+prudence in essential points; because I know it was always your humble
+way to make light faults heavy against yourself: and well might you, my
+dearest young lady, aggravate your own failings, who have ever had so
+few; and those few so slight, that your ingenuousness has turned most of
+them into excellencies.
+
+Nevertheless, let me advise you, my dear Miss Clary, to discountenance
+any visits, which, with the censorious, may affect your character.  As
+that has not hitherto suffered by your wilful default, I hope you will
+not, in a desponding negligence (satisfying yourself with a consciousness
+of your own innocence) permit it to suffer.  Difficult situations, you
+know, my dear young lady, are the tests not only of prudence but of
+virtue.
+
+I think, I must own to you, that, since Mr. Brand's letter has been
+received, I have a renewed prohibition to attend you.  However, if you
+will give me leave, that shall not detain me from you.  Nor would I stay
+for that leave, if I were not in hopes that, in this critical situation,
+I may be able to do you service here.
+
+I have often had messages and inquiries after your health from the
+truly-reverend Dr. Lewen, who has always expressed, and still expresses,
+infinite concern for you.  He entirely disapproves of the measures of the
+family with regard to you.  He is too much indisposed to go abroad.  But,
+were he in good health, he would not, as I understand, visit at
+Harlowe-place, having some time since been unhandsomely treated by your
+brother, on his offering to mediate for you with your family.
+
+
+***
+
+
+I am just now informed that your cousin Morden is arrived in England.  He
+is at Canterbury, it seems, looking after some concerns he has there; and
+is soon expected in these parts.  Who knows what may arise from his
+arrival?  God be with you, my dearest Miss Clary, and be your comforter
+and sustainer.  And never fear but He will; for I am sure, I am very
+sure, that you put your whole trust in Him.
+
+And what, after all, is this world, on which we so much depend for
+durable good, poor creatures that we are!--When all the joys of it, and
+(what is a balancing comfort) all the troubles of it, are but momentary,
+and vanish like a morning dream!
+
+And be this remembered, my dearest young lady, that worldly joy claims no
+kindred with the joys we are bid to aspire after.  These latter we must
+be fitted for by affliction and disappointment.  You are therefore in the
+direct road to glory, however thorny the path you are in.  And I had
+almost said, that it depends upon yourself, by your patience, and by your
+resignedness to the dispensation, (God enabling you, who never fails the
+true penitent, and sincere invoker,) to be an heir of a blessed
+immortality.
+
+But this glory, I humbly pray, that you may not be permitted to enter
+into, ripe as you are so soon to be for it, till, with your gentle hand,
+(a pleasure I have so often, as you now, promised to myself,) you have
+closed the eyes of
+
+Your maternally-affectionate
+JUDITH NORTON.
+
+
+
+LETTER VI
+
+MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MRS. NORTON
+THURSDAY, AUG. 27.
+
+
+What Mr. Brand, or any body, can have written or said to my prejudice, I
+cannot imagine; and yet some evil reports have gone out against me; as I
+find by some hints in a very severe letter written to me by my uncle
+Antony.  Such a letter as I believe was never written to any poor
+creature, who, by ill health of body, as well as of mind, was before
+tottering on the brink of the grave.  But my friends may possibly be
+better justified than the reporters--For who knows what they may have
+heard?
+
+You give me a kind caution, which seems to imply more than you express,
+when you advise me against countenancing visiters that may discredit me.
+You have spoken quite out.  Surely, I have had afflictions enow to
+strengthen my mind, and to enable it to bear the worst that can now
+happen.  But I will not puzzle myself by conjectural evils; as I might
+perhaps do, if I had not enow that were certain.  I shall hear all, when
+it is thought proper that I should.  Mean time, let me say, for your
+satisfaction, that I know not that I have any thing criminal or
+disreputable to answer for either in word or deed, since the fatal 10th
+of April last.
+
+You desire an account of what passes between me and my friends; and also
+particulars or brief heads of my sad story, in order to serve me as
+occasion shall offer.  My dear good Mrs. Norton, you shall have a whole
+packet of papers, which I have sent to my Miss Howe, when she returns
+them; and you shall have likewise another packet, (and that with this
+letter,) which I cannot at present think of sending to that dear friend
+for the sake of my own relations; whom, without seeing that packet, she
+is but too ready to censure heavily.  From these you will be able to
+collect a great deal of my story.  But for what is previous to these
+papers, and which more particularly relates to what I have suffered from
+Mr. Lovelace, you must have patience; for at present I have neither head
+nor heart for such subjects.  The papers I send you with this will be
+those mentioned in the margin.*  You must restore them to me as soon as
+perused; and upon your honour make no use of them, or of any intelligence
+you have from me, but by my previous consent.
+
+
+* 1. A copy of mine to my sister, begging
+      off my father's malediction . . . . . .  dated July 21.
+  2. My sister's answer . . . . . . . . . . .  dated July 27.
+  3. Copy of my second letter to my sister. .  dated July 29.
+  4. My sister's answer . . . . . . . . . . .  dated Aug. 3.
+  5. Copy of my Letter to my mother . . . . .  dated Aug. 5.
+  6. My uncle Harlowe's letter  . . . . . . .  dated Aug. 7.
+  7. Copy of my answer to it  . . . . . . . .  dated the 1oth.
+  8. Letter from my uncle Antony  . . . . . .  dated the 12th.
+  9. And lastly, the copy of my answer to it.  dated the 13th.
+
+
+These communications you must not, my good Mrs. Norton, look upon as
+appeals against my relations.  On the contrary, I am heartily sorry that
+they have incurred the displeasure of so excellent a divine as Dr. Lewen.
+But you desire to have every thing before you: and I think you ought; for
+who knows, as you say, but you may be applied to at last to administer
+comfort from their conceding hearts, to one that wants it; and who
+sometimes, judging by what she knows of her own heart, thinks herself
+entitled to it?
+
+I know that I have a most indulgent and sweet-tempered mother; but,
+having to deal with violent spirits, she has too often forfeited that
+peace of mind which she so much prefers, by her over concern to preserve
+it.
+
+I am sure she would not have turned me over for an answer to a letter
+written with so contrite and fervent a spirit, as was mine to her, to a
+masculine spirit, had she been left to herself.
+
+But, my dear Mrs. Norton, might not, think you, the revered lady have
+favoured me with one private line?----If not, might not you have written
+by her order, or connivance, one softening, one motherly line, when she
+saw her poor girl, whom once she dearly loved, borne so hard upon?
+
+O no, she might not!--because her heart, to be sure, is in their
+measures! and if she think them right, perhaps they must be right!--at
+least, knowing only what they know, they must!--and yet they might know
+all, if they would!--and possibly, in their own good time, they think to
+make proper inquiry.--My application was made to them but lately.--Yet
+how deeply will it afflict them, if their time should be out of time!
+
+When you have before you the letters I have sent to Miss Howe, you will
+see that Lord M. and the Ladies of his family, jealous as they are of the
+honour of their house, (to express myself in their language,) think
+better of me than my own relations do.  You will see an instance of their
+generosity to me, which at the time extremely affected me, and indeed
+still affects me.  Unhappy man! gay, inconsiderate, and cruel! what has
+been his gain by making unhappy a creature who hoped to make him happy!
+and who was determined to deserve the love of all to whom he is related!
+--Poor man!--but you will mistake a compassionate and placable nature for
+love!--he took care, great care, that I should rein-in betimes any
+passion that I might have had for him, had he known how to be but
+commonly grateful or generous!--But the Almighty knows what is best for
+his poor creatures.
+
+Some of the letters in the same packet will also let you into the
+knowledge of a strange step which I have taken, (strange you will think
+it); and, at the same time, give you my reasons for taking it.*
+
+
+* She means that of making Mr. Belford her executor.
+
+
+It must be expected, that situations uncommonly difficult will make
+necessary some extraordinary steps, which, but for those situations,
+would be hardly excusable.  It will be very happy indeed, and somewhat
+wonderful, if all the measures I have been driven to take should be
+right.  A pure intention, void of all undutiful resentment, is what must
+be my consolation, whatever others may think of those measures, when they
+come to know them: which, however, will hardly be till it is out of my
+power to justify them, or to answer for myself.
+
+I am glad to hear of my cousin Morden's safe arrival.  I should wish to
+see him methinks: but I am afraid that he will sail with the stream; as
+it must be expected, that he will hear what they have to say first.--But
+what I most fear is, that he will take upon himself to avenge me.  Rather
+than he should do so, I would have him look upon me as a creature utterly
+unworthy of his concern; at least of his vindictive concern.
+
+How soothing to the wounded heart of your Clarissa, how balmy are the
+assurances of your continued love and favour;--love me, my dear mamma
+Norton, continue to love me, to the end!--I now think that I may, without
+presumption, promise to deserve your love to the end.  And, when I am
+gone, cherish my memory in your worthy heart; for in so doing you will
+cherish the memory of one who loves and honours you more than she can
+express.
+
+But when I am no more, I charge you, as soon as you can, the smarting
+pangs of grief that will attend a recent loss; and let all be early
+turned into that sweetly melancholy regard to MEMORY, which, engaging us
+to forget all faults, and to remember nothing but what was thought
+amiable, gives more pleasure than pain to survivors--especially if they
+can comfort themselves with the humble hope, that the Divine mercy has
+taken the dear departed to itself.
+
+And what is the space of time to look backward upon, between an early
+departure and the longest survivance!--and what the consolation attending
+the sweet hope of meeting again, never more to be separated, never more
+to be pained, grieved, or aspersed;--but mutually blessing, and being
+blessed, to all eternity!
+
+In the contemplation of this happy state, in which I hope, in God's good
+time, to rejoice with you, my beloved Mrs. Norton, and also with my dear
+relations, all reconciled to, and blessing the child against whom they
+are now so much incensed, I conclude myself
+
+Your ever dutiful and affectionate
+CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER VII
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+SUNDAY, AUG. 13.
+
+
+I don't know what a devil ails me; but I never was so much indisposed in
+my life.  At first, I thought some of my blessed relations here had got a
+dose administered to me, in order to get the whole house to themselves.
+But, as I am the hopes of the family, I believe they would not be so
+wicked.
+
+I must lay down my pen.  I cannot write with any spirit at all.  What a
+plague can be the matter with me!
+
+
+***
+
+
+Lord M. paid me just now a cursed gloomy visit, to ask how I do after
+bleeding.  His sisters both drove away yesterday, God be thanked.  But
+they asked not my leave; and hardly bid me good-bye.  My Lord was more
+tender, and more dutiful, than I expected.  Men are less unforgiving than
+women.  I have reason to say so, I am sure.  For, besides implacable Miss
+Harlowe, and the old Ladies, the two Montague apes han't been near me
+yet.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Neither eat, drink, nor sleep!--a piteous case, Jack!  If I should die
+like a fool now, people would say Miss Harlowe had broken my heart.--That
+she vexes me to the heart, is certain.
+
+Confounded squeamish!  I would fain write it off.  But must lay down my
+pen again.  It won't do.  Poor Lovelace!----What a devil ails thee?
+
+
+***
+
+
+Well, but now let's try for't--Hoy--Hoy--Hoy!  Confound me for a gaping
+puppy, how I yawn!--Where shall I begin? at thy executorship--thou shalt
+have a double office of it: for I really think thou mayest send me a
+coffin and a shroud.  I shall be ready for them by the time they can come
+down.
+
+What a little fool is this Miss Harlowe!  I warrant she'll now repent
+that she refused me.  Such a lovely young widow--What a charming widow
+would she have made! how would she have adorned the weeds! to be a widow
+in the first twelve months is one of the greatest felicities that can
+befal a fine woman.  Such pretty employment in new dismals, when she had
+hardly worn round her blazing joyfuls!  Such lights, and such shades! how
+would they set off one another, and be adorned by the wearer!--
+
+Go to the devil!--I will write!--Can I do anything else?
+
+They would not have me write, Belford.--I must be ill indeed, when I
+can't write.
+
+
+***
+
+
+But thou seemest nettled, Jack!  Is it because I was stung?  It is not
+for two friends, any more than for man and wife, to be out of patience
+at one time.--What must be the consequence if they are?--I am in no
+fighting mood just now: but as patient and passive as the chickens that
+are brought me in broth--for I am come to that already.
+
+But I can tell thee, for all this, be thy own man, if thou wilt, as to
+the executorship, I will never suffer thee to expose my letters.  They
+are too ingenuous by half to be seen.  And I absolutely insist upon it,
+that, on receipt of this, thou burn them all.
+
+I will never forgive thee that impudent and unfriendly reflection, of my
+cavaliering it here over half a dozen persons of distinction: remember,
+too, thy words poor helpless orphan--these reflections are too serious,
+and thou art also too serious, for me to let these things go off as
+jesting; notwithstanding the Roman style* is preserved; and, indeed, but
+just preserved.  By my soul, Jack, if I had not been taken thus
+egregiously cropsick, I would have been up with thee, and the lady too,
+before now.
+
+
+* For what these gentlemen mean by the Roman style, see Vol. I. Letter
+XXXI. in the first note.
+
+
+But write on, however: and send me copies, if thou canst, of all that
+passes between our Charlotte and Miss Harlowe.  I'll take no notice of
+what thou communicatest of that sort.  I like not the people here the
+worse for their generous offer to the lady.  But you see she is as proud
+as implacable.  There's no obliging her.  She'd rather sell her clothes
+than be beholden to any body, although she would oblige by permitting the
+obligation.
+
+O Lord! O Lord!--Mortal ill!--Adieu, Jack!
+
+
+***
+
+
+I was forced to leave off, I was so ill, at this place.  And what dost
+think! why Lord M. brought the parson of the parish to pray by me; for
+his chaplain is at Oxford.  I was lain down in my night-gown over my
+waistcoat, and in a doze: and, when I opened my eyes, who should I see,
+but the parson kneeling on one side the bed; Lord M. on the other; Mrs.
+Greme, who had been sent for to tend me, as they call it, at the feet!
+God be thanked, my Lord, said I in an ecstasy!--Where's Miss?--for I
+supposed they were going to marry me.
+
+They thought me delirious at first; and prayed louder and louder.
+
+This roused me: off the bed I started; slid my feet into my slippers;
+put my hand in my waistcoat pocket, and pulled out thy letter with my
+beloved's meditation in it!  My Lord, Dr. Wright, Mrs. Greme, you have
+thought me a very wicked fellow: but, see! I can read you as good as you
+can read me.
+
+They stared at one another.  I gaped, and read, Poor mo--or--tals the
+cau--o--ause of their own--their own mi--ser--ry.
+
+It is as suitable to my case, as to the lady's, as thou'lt observe, if
+thou readest it again.*  At the passage where it is said, That when a man
+is chastened for sin, his beauty consumes away, I stept to the glass: A
+poor figure, by Jupiter, cried I!--And they all praised and admired me;
+lifted up their hands and their eyes; and the doctor said, he always
+thought it impossible, that a man of my sense could be so wild as the
+world said I was.  My Lord chuckled for joy; congratulated me; and, thank
+my dear Miss Harlowe, I got high reputation among good, bad, and
+indifferent.  In short, I have established myself for ever with all here.
+--But, O Belford, even this will not do--I must leave off again.
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI.
+
+
+***
+
+
+A visit from the Montague sisters, led in by the hobbling Peer, to
+congratulate my amendment and reformation both in one.  What a lucky
+event this illness with this meditation in my pocket; for we were all to
+pieces before!  Thus, when a boy, have I joined with a crowd coming out
+of church, and have been thought to have been there myself.
+
+I am incensed at the insolence of the young Levite.  Thou wilt highly
+oblige me, if thou'lt find him out, and send me his ears in the next
+letter.
+
+My beloved mistakes me, if she thinks I proposed her writing to me as an
+alternative that should dispense with my attendance upon her.  That it
+shall not do, nor did I intend it should, unless she pleased me better in
+the contents of her letter than she has done.  Bid her read again.  I
+gave no such hopes.  I would have been with her in spite of you both, by
+to-morrow, at farthest, had I not been laid by the heels thus, like a
+helpless miscreant.
+
+But I grow better and better every hour, I say: the doctor says not: but
+I am sure I know best: and I will soon be in London, depend on't.  But
+say nothing of this to my dear, cruel, and implacable Miss Harlowe.
+
+A--dieu--u, Ja--aack--What a gaping puppy (yaw--n! yaw--n! yaw--n!)
+
+Thy
+LOVELACE.
+
+
+
+LETTER VIII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+MONDAY, AUG. 15.
+
+
+I am extremely concerned for thy illness.  I should be very sorry to lose
+thee.  Yet, if thou diest so soon, I could wish, from my soul, it had
+been before the beginning of last April: and this as well for thy sake,
+as for the sake of the most excellent woman in the world: for then thou
+wouldst not have had the most crying sin of thy life to answer for.
+
+I was told on Saturday that thou wert very much out of order; and this
+made me forbear writing till I heard farther.  Harry, on his return from
+thee, confirmed the bad way thou art in.  But I hope Lord M. in his
+unmerited tenderness for thee, thinks the worst of thee.  What can it be,
+Bob.?  A violent fever, they say; but attended with odd and severe
+symptoms.
+
+I will not trouble thee in the way thou art in, with what passes here
+with Miss Harlowe.  I wish thy repentance as swift as thy illness; and as
+efficacious, if thou diest; for it is else to be feared, that she and you
+will never meet in one place.
+
+I told her how ill you are.  Poor man! said she.  Dangerously ill, say
+you?
+
+Dangerously indeed, Madam!--So Lord M. sends me word!
+
+God be merciful to him, if he die!--said the admirable creature.--Then,
+after a pause, Poor wretch!--may he meet with the mercy he has not shown!
+
+I send this by a special messenger: for I am impatient to hear how it
+goes with thee.--If I have received thy last letter, what melancholy
+reflections will that last, so full of shocking levity, give to
+
+Thy true friend,
+JOHN BELFORD.
+
+
+
+LETTER IX
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+TUESDAY, AUG. 15.*
+
+
+* Text error: should be Aug. 16.
+
+
+Thank thee, Jack; most heartily I thank thee, for the sober conclusion of
+thy last!--I have a good mind, for the sake of it, to forgive thy till
+now absolutely unpardonable extracts.
+
+But dost think I will lose such an angel, such a forgiving angel, as
+this?--By my soul, I will not!--To pray for mercy for such an ungrateful
+miscreant!--how she wounds me, how she cuts me to the soul, by her
+exalted generosity!--But SHE must have mercy upon me first!--then will
+she teach me a reliance for the sake of which her prayer for me will be
+answered.
+
+But hasten, hasten to me particulars of her health, of her employments,
+of her conversation.
+
+I am sick only of love!  Oh! that I could have called her mine!--it would
+then have been worth while to be sick!--to have sent for her down to me
+from town; and to have had her, with healing in her dove-like wings,
+flying to my comfort; her duty and her choice to pray for me, and to bid
+me live for her sake!--O Jack! what an angel have I--
+
+But I have not lost her!--I will not lose her!  I am almost well; should
+be quite well but for these prescribing rascals, who, to do credit to
+their skill, will make the disease of importance.--And I will make her
+mine!--and be sick again, to entitle myself to her dutiful tenderness,
+and pious as well as personal concern!
+
+God for ever bless her!--Hasten, hasten particulars of her!--I am sick
+of love!--such generous goodness!--By all that's great and good, I will
+not lose her!--so tell her!--She says, that she could not pity me, if she
+thought of being mine!  This, according to Miss Howe's transcriptions to
+Charlotte.--But bid her hate me, and have me: and my behaviour to her
+shall soon turn that hate to love! for, body and mind, I will be wholly
+her's.
+
+
+
+LETTER X
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+THURSDAY, AUG. 17.
+
+
+I am sincerely rejoiced to hear that thou art already so much amended, as
+thy servant tells me thou art.  Thy letter looks as if thy morals were
+mending with thy health.  This was a letter I could show, as I did, to
+the lady.
+
+She is very ill: (cursed letters received from her implacable family!) so
+I could not have much conversation with her, in thy favour, upon it.--But
+what passed will make thee more and more adore her.
+
+She was very attentive to me, as I read it; and, when I had done, Poor
+man! said she; what a letter is this!  He had timely instances that my
+temper was not ungenerous, if generosity could have obliged him!  But his
+remorse, and that for his own sake, is all the punishment I wish him.--
+Yet I must be more reserved, if you write to him every thing I say!
+
+I extolled her unbounded goodness--how could I help it, though to her
+face!
+
+No goodness in it! she said--it was a frame of mind she had endeavoured
+after for her own sake.  She suffered too much in want of mercy, not to
+wish it to a penitent heart.  He seems to be penitent, said she; and it
+is not for me to judge beyond appearances.--If he be not, he deceives
+himself more than any body else.
+
+She was so ill that this was all that passed on the occasion.
+
+What a fine subject for tragedy, would the injuries of this lady, and her
+behaviour under them, both with regard to her implacable friends, and to
+her persecutor, make!  With a grand objection as to the moral,
+nevertheless;* for here virtue is punished!  Except indeed we look
+forward to the rewards of HEREAFTER, which, morally, she must be sure of,
+or who can?  Yet, after all, I know not, so sad a fellow art thou, and so
+vile an husband mightest thou have made, whether her virtue is not
+rewarded in missing thee: for things the most grievous to human nature,
+when they happen, as this charming creature once observed, are often the
+happiest for us in the event.
+
+
+* Mr. Belford's objections, That virtue ought not to suffer in a tragedy,
+is not well considered: Monimia in the Orphean, Belvidera in Venice
+Preserved, Athenais in Theodosius, Cordelia in Shakespeare's King Lear,
+Desdemona in Othello, Hamlet, (to name no more,) are instances that a
+tragedy could hardly be justly called a tragedy, if virtue did not
+temporarily suffer, and vice for a while triumph.  But he recovers
+himself in the same paragraph; and leads us to look up to the FUTURE for
+the reward of virtue, and for the punishment of guilt: and observes not
+amiss, when he says, He knows not but that the virtue of such a woman as
+Clarissa is rewarded in missing such a man as Lovelace.
+
+
+I have frequently thought, in my attendance on this lady, that if
+Belton's admired author, Nic. Rowe, had had such a character before him,
+he would have drawn another sort of penitent than he has done, or given
+his play, which he calls The Fair Penitent, a fitter title.  Miss Harlowe
+is a penitent indeed!  I think, if I am not guilty of a contradiction in
+terms; a penitent without a fault; her parents' conduct towards her from
+the first considered.
+
+The whole story of the other is a pack of d----d stuff.  Lothario, 'tis
+true, seems such another wicked ungenerous varlet as thou knowest who:
+the author knew how to draw a rake; but not to paint a penitent.  Calista
+is a desiring luscious wench, and her penitence is nothing else but rage,
+insolence, and scorn.  Her passions are all storm and tumult; nothing of
+the finer passions of the sex, which, if naturally drawn, will
+distinguish themselves from the masculine passions, by a softness that
+will even shine through rage and despair.  Her character is made up of
+deceit and disguise.  She has no virtue; is all pride; and her devil is
+as much within her, as without her.
+
+How then can the fall of such a one create a proper distress, when all
+the circumstances of it are considered?  For does she not brazen out her
+crime, even after detection?  Knowing her own guilt, she calls for
+Altamont's vengeance on his best friend, as if he had traduced her;
+yields to marry Altamont, though criminal with another; and actually beds
+that whining puppy, when she had given up herself, body and soul, to
+Lothario; who, nevertheless, refused to marry her.
+
+Her penitence, when begun, she justly styles the phrensy of her soul;
+and, as I said, after having, as long as she could, most audaciously
+brazened out her crime, and done all the mischief she could do,
+(occasioning the death of Lothario, of her father, and others,) she stabs
+herself.
+
+And can this be the act of penitence?
+
+But, indeed, our poets hardly know how to create a distress without
+horror, murder, and suicide; and must shock your soul, to bring tears
+from your eyes.
+
+Altamont indeed, who is an amorous blockhead, a credulous cuckold, and,
+(though painted as a brave fellow, and a soldier,) a mere Tom. Essence,
+and a quarreler with his best friend, dies like a fool, (as we are led to
+suppose at the conclusion of the play,) without either sword or pop-gun,
+of mere grief and nonsense for one of the vilest of her sex: but the Fair
+Penitent, as she is called, perishes by her own hand; and, having no
+title by her past crimes to laudable pity, forfeits all claim to true
+penitence, and, in all probability, to future mercy.
+
+But here is Miss CLARISSA HARLOWE, a virtuous, noble, wise, and pious
+young lady; who being ill used by her friends, and unhappily ensnared by
+a vile libertine, whom she believes to be a man of honour, is in a manner
+forced to throw herself upon his protection.  And he, in order to obtain
+her confidence, never scruples the deepest and most solemn protestations
+of honour.
+
+After a series of plots and contrivances, al baffled by her virtue and
+vigilance, he basely has recourse to the vilest of arts, and, to rob her
+of her honour, is forced first to rob her of her senses.
+
+Unable to bring her, notwithstanding, to his ungenerous views of
+cohabitation, she over-awes him in the very entrance of a fresh act of
+premeditated guilt, in presence of the most abandoned of women assembled
+to assist his devilish purpose; triumphs over them all, by virtue only of
+her innocence; and escapes from the vile hands he had put her into.
+
+She nobly, not franticly, resents: refuses to see or to marry the wretch;
+who, repenting his usage of so divine a creature, would fain move her to
+forgive his baseness, and make him her husband: and this, though
+persecuted by all her friends, and abandoned to the deepest distress,
+being obliged, from ample fortunes, to make away with her apparel for
+subsistence; surrounded also by strangers, and forced (in want of others)
+to make a friend of the friend of her seducer.
+
+Though longing for death, and making all proper preparations for it,
+convinced that grief and ill usage have broken her noble heart, she
+abhors the impious thought of shortening her allotted period; and, as
+much a stranger to revenge as despair, is able to forgive the author of
+her ruin; wishes his repentance, and that she may be the last victim to
+his barbarous perfidy: and is solicitous for nothing so much in this
+life, as to prevent vindictive mischief to and from the man who used her
+so basely.
+
+This is penitence!  This is piety!  And hence distress naturally arises,
+that must worthily effect every heart.
+
+Whatever the ill usage of this excellent woman is from her relations, she
+breaks not out into excesses: she strives, on the contrary, to find
+reason to justify them at her own expense; and seems more concerned for
+their cruelty to her for their sakes hereafter, when she shall be no
+more, than for her own: for, as to herself, she is sure, she says, God
+will forgive her, though no one on earth will.
+
+On every extraordinary provocation she has recourse to the Scriptures,
+and endeavours to regulate her vehemence by sacred precedents.  'Better
+people, she says, have been more afflicted than she, grievous as she
+sometimes thinks her afflictions: and shall she not bear what less faulty
+persons have borne?'  On the very occasion I have mentioned, (some new
+instances of implacableness from her friends,) the enclosed meditation
+will show how mildly, and yet how forcibly, she complains.  See if thou,
+in the wicked levity of thy heart, canst apply it to thy cause, as thou
+didst the other.  If thou canst not, give way to thy conscience, and that
+will make the properest application.
+
+
+MEDITATION
+
+How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words!
+
+Be it indeed that I have erred, mine error remaineth with myself.
+
+To her that is afflicted, pity should be shown from her friend.
+
+But she that is ready to slip with her feet, is as a lamp despised in the
+thought of them that are at ease.
+
+There is a shame which bringeth sin, and there is a shame which bringeth
+glory and grace.
+
+Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye, my friends! for the hand of
+God hath touched me.
+
+If your soul were in my soul's stead, I also could speak as ye do: I
+could heap up words against you--
+
+But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips
+should assuage your grief.
+
+Why will ye break a leaf driven to and fro?  Why will ye pursue the dry
+stubble?  Why will ye write bitter words against me, and make me possess
+the iniquities of my youth?
+
+Mercy is seasonable in the time of affliction, as clouds of rain in the
+time of drought.
+
+Are not my days few?  Cease then, and let me alone, that I may take
+comfort a little--before I go whence I shall not return; even to the land
+of darkness, and shadow of death!
+
+
+Let me add, that the excellent lady is informed, by a letter from Mrs.
+Norton, that Colonel Morden is just arrived in England.  He is now the
+only person she wishes to see.
+
+I expressed some jealousy upon it, lest he should have place given over
+me in the executorship.  She said, That she had no thoughts to do so now;
+because such a trust, were he to accept of it, (which she doubted,)
+might, from the nature of some of the papers which in that case would
+necessarily pass through his hands, occasion mischiefs between my friend
+and him, that would be worse than death for her to think of.
+
+Poor Belton, I hear, is at death's door.  A messenger is just come from
+him, who tells me he cannot die till he sees me.  I hope the poor fellow
+will not go off yet; since neither his affairs of this world, nor for the
+other, are in tolerable order.  I cannot avoid going to the poor man.
+Yet am unwilling to stir, till I have an assurance from you that you will
+not disturb the lady: for I know he will be very loth to part with me,
+when he gets me to him.
+
+Tourville tells me how fast thou mendest: let me conjure thee not to
+think of molesting this incomparable woman.  For thy own sake I request
+this, as well as for her's, and for the sake of thy given promise: for,
+should she die within a few weeks, as I fear she will, it will be said,
+and perhaps too justly, that thy visit has hastened her end.
+
+In hopes thou wilt not, I wish thy perfect recovery: else that thou
+mayest relapse, and be confined to thy bed.
+
+
+
+LETTER XI
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+SAT. MORN. AUG. 19.
+
+
+MADAM,
+
+I think myself obliged in honour to acquaint you that I am afraid Mr.
+Lovelace will try his fate by an interview with you.
+
+I wish to Heaven you could prevail upon yourself to receive his visit.
+All that is respectful, even to veneration, and all that is penitent,
+will you see in his behaviour, if you can admit of it.  But as I am
+obliged to set out directly for Epsom, (to perform, as I apprehend, the
+last friendly offices for poor Mr. Belton, whom once you saw,) and as I
+think it more likely that Mr. Lovelace will not be prevailed upon, than
+that he will, I thought fit to give you this intimation, lest, if he
+should come, you should be too much surprised.
+
+He flatters himself that you are not so ill as I represent you to be.
+When he sees you, he will be convinced that the most obliging things he
+can do, will be as proper to be done for the sake of his own future peace
+of mind, as for your health-sake; and, I dare say, in fear of hurting the
+latter, he will forbear the thoughts of any farther intrusion; at least
+while you are so much indisposed: so that one half-hour's shock, if it
+will be a shock to see the unhappy man, (but just got up himself from a
+dangerous fever,) will be all you will have occasion to stand.
+
+I beg you will not too much hurry and discompose yourself.  It is
+impossible he can be in town till Monday, at soonest.  And if he resolve
+to come, I hope to be at Mr. Smith's before him.
+
+I am, Madam, with the profoundest veneration,
+
+Your most faithful and most obedient servant,
+J. BELFORD.
+
+
+
+LETTER XII
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+[IN ANSWER TO HIS OF AUG. 17.  SEE LETTER X. OF THIS VOLUME.]
+SUNDAY, AUG. 20.
+
+
+What an unmerciful fellow art thou!  A man has no need of a conscience,
+who has such an impertinent monitor.  But if Nic. Rowe wrote a play that
+answers not his title, am I to be reflected upon for that?--I have
+sinned; I repent; I would repair--she forgives my sin: she accepts my
+repentance: but she won't let me repair--What wouldst thou have me do?
+
+But get thee gone to Belton, as soon as thou canst.  Yet whether thou
+goest or not, up I must go, and see what I can do with the sweet oddity
+myself.  The moment these prescribing varlets will let me, depend
+upon it, I go.  Nay, Lord M. thinks she ought to permit me one interview.
+His opinion has great authority with me--when it squares with my own: and
+I have assured him, and my two cousins, that I will behave with all the
+decency and respect that man can behave with to the person whom he most
+respects.  And so I will.  Of this, if thou choosest not to go to Belton
+mean time, thou shalt be witness.
+
+Colonel Morden, thou hast heard me say, is a man of honour and bravery:--
+but Colonel Morden has had his girls, as well as you or I.  And indeed,
+either openly or secretly, who has not?  The devil always baits with a
+pretty wench, when he angles for a man, be his age, rank, or degree, what
+it will.
+
+I have often heard my beloved speak of the Colonel with great distinction
+and esteem.  I wish he could make matters a little easier, for her mind's
+sake, between the rest of the implacables and herself.
+
+Methinks I am sorry for honest Belton.  But a man cannot be ill, or
+vapourish, but thou liftest up thy shriek-owl note, and killest him
+immediately.  None but a fellow, who is for a drummer in death's
+forlorn-hope, could take so much delight, as thou dost, in beating a
+dead-march with thy goose-quills.  Whereas, didst thou but know thine own
+talents, thou art formed to give mirth by thy very appearance; and
+wouldst make a better figure by half, leading up thy brother-bears at
+Hockley in the Hole, to the music of a Scot's bagpipe.  Methinks I see
+thy clumsy sides shaking, (and shaking the sides of all beholders,) in
+these attitudes; thy fat head archly beating time on thy porterly
+shoulders, right and left by turns, as I once beheld thee practising to
+the horn-pipe at Preston.  Thou remembrest the frolick, as I have done
+an hundred times; for I never before saw thee appear so much in
+character.
+
+But I know what I shall get by this--only that notable observation
+repeated, That thy outside is the worst of thee, and mine the best of me.
+And so let it be.  Nothing thou writest of this sort can I take amiss.
+
+But I shall call thee seriously to account, when I see thee, for the
+extracts thou hast given the lady from my letters, notwithstanding what I
+said in my last; especially if she continue to refuse me.  An hundred
+times have I myself known a woman deny, yet comply at last: but, by these
+extracts, thou hast, I doubt, made her bar up the door of her heart, as
+she used to do her chamber-door, against me.--This therefore is a
+disloyalty that friendship cannot bear, nor honour allow me to forgive.
+
+
+
+LETTER XIII
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+LONDON, AUG. 21, MONDAY.
+
+
+I believe I am bound to curse thee, Jack.  Nevertheless I won't
+anticipate, but proceed to write thee a longer letter than thou hast had
+from me for some time past.  So here goes.
+
+That thou mightest have as little notice as possible of the time I was
+resolved to be in town, I set out in my Lord's chariot-and-six yesterday,
+as soon as I had dispatched my letter to thee, and arrived in town last
+night: for I knew I could have no dependence on thy friendship where Miss
+Harlowe's humour was concerned.
+
+I had no other place so ready, and so was forced to go to my old
+lodgings, where also my wardrobe is; and there I poured out millions of
+curses upon the whole crew, and refused to see either Sally or Polly; and
+this not only for suffering the lady to escape, but for the villanous
+arrest, and for their detestable insolence to her at the officer's house.
+
+I dressed myself in a never-worn suit, which I had intended for one of my
+wedding-suits; and liked myself so well, that I began to think, with
+thee, that my outside was the best of me:
+
+I took a chair to Smith's, my heart bounding in almost audible thumps to
+my throat, with the assured expectations of seeing my beloved.  I clasped
+my fingers, as I was danced along: I charged my eyes to languish and
+sparkle by turns: I talked to my knees, telling them how they must bend;
+and, in the language of a charming describer, acted my part in fancy, as
+well as spoke it to myself.
+
+      Tenderly kneeling, thus will I complain:
+      Thus court her pity; and thus plead my pain:
+      Thus sigh for fancy'd frowns, if frowns should rise;
+      And thus meet favour in her soft'ning eyes.
+
+In this manner entertained I myself till I arrived at Smith's; and there
+the fellows set down their gay burden.  Off went their hats; Will. ready
+at hand in a new livery; up went the head; out rushed my honour; the
+woman behind the counter all in flutters, respect and fear giving due
+solemnity to her features, and her knees, I doubt not, knocking against
+the inside of her wainscot-fence.
+
+Your servant, Madam--Will. let the fellows move to some distance, and
+wait.
+
+You have a young lady lodges here; Miss Harlowe, Madam: Is she above?
+
+Sir, Sir, and please your Honour: [the woman is struck with my figure,
+thought I:] Miss Harlowe, Sir!  There is, indeed, such a young lady
+lodges here--But, but--
+
+But, what, Madam?--I must see her.--One pair of stairs; is it not?--
+Don't trouble yourself--I shall find her apartment.  And was making
+towards the stairs.
+
+Sir, Sir, the lady, the lady is not at home--she is abroad--she is in the
+country--
+
+In the country!  Not at home!--Impossible!  You will not pass this story
+upon me, good woman.  I must see her.  I have business of life and death
+with her.
+
+Indeed, Sir, the lady is not at home!  Indeed, Sir, she is abroad!--
+
+She then rung a bell: John, cried she, pray step down!--Indeed, Sir, the
+lady is not at home.
+
+Down came John, the good man of the house, when I expected one of his
+journeymen, by her saucy familiarity.
+
+My dear, said she, the gentleman will not believe Miss Harlowe is abroad.
+
+John bowed to my fine clothes: Your servant, Sir,--indeed the lady is
+abroad.  She went out of town this morning by six o'clock--into the
+country--by the doctor's advice.
+
+Still I would not believe either John or his wife.  I am sure, said I,
+she cannot be abroad.  I heard she was very ill--she is not able to go
+out in a coach.  Do you know Mr. Belford, friend?
+
+Yes, Sir; I have the honour to know 'Squire Belford.  He is gone into the
+country to visit a sick friend.  He went on Saturday, Sir.
+
+This had also been told from thy lodgings to Will. whom I sent to desire
+to see thee on my first coming to town.
+
+Well, and Mr. Belford wrote me word that she was exceeding ill.  How then
+can she be gone out?
+
+O Sir, she is very ill; very ill, indeed--she could hardly walk to the
+coach.
+
+Belford, thought I, himself knew nothing of the time of my coming;
+neither can he have received my letter of yesterday: and so ill, 'tis
+impossible she would go out.
+
+Where is her servant?  Call her servant to me.
+
+Her servant, Sir, is her nurse: she has no other.  And she is gone with
+her.
+
+Well, friend, I must not believe you.  You'll excuse me; but I must go up
+stairs myself.  And was stepping up.
+
+John hereupon put on a serious, and a less respectful face--Sir, this
+house is mine; and--
+
+And what, friend? not doubting then but she was above.--I must and will
+see her.  I have authority for it.  I am a justice of the peace.  I have
+a search warrant.
+
+And up I went; they following me, muttering, and in a plaguy flutter.
+
+The first door I came to was locked.  I tapped at it.
+
+The lady, Sir, has the key of her own apartment.
+
+On the inside, I question not, my honest friend; tapping again.  And
+being assured, if she heard my voice, that her timorous and soft temper
+would make her betray herself, by some flutters, to my listning ear, I
+said aloud, I am confident Miss Harlowe is here: dearest Madam, open the
+door: admit me but for one moment to your presence.
+
+But neither answer nor fluttering saluted my ear; and, the people being
+very quiet, I led on to the next apartment; and, the key being on the
+outside, I opened it, and looked all around it, and into the closet.
+
+The mans said he never saw so uncivil a gentleman in his life.
+
+Hark thee, friend, said I; let me advise thee to be a little decent; or
+I shall teach thee a lesson thou never learnedst in all thy life.
+
+Sir, said he, 'tis not like a gentleman, to affront a man in his own
+house.
+
+Then prythee, man, replied I, don't crow upon thine own dunghil.
+
+I stept back to the locked door: My dear Miss Harlowe, I beg of you to
+open the door, or I'll break it open;--pushing hard against it, that it
+cracked again.
+
+The man looked pale: and, trembling with his fright, made a plaguy long
+face; and called to one of his bodice-makers above, Joseph, come down
+quickly.
+
+Joseph came down: a lion's-face grinning fellow; thick, and short, and
+bushy-headed, like an old oak-pollard.  Then did master John put on a
+sturdier look.  But I only hummed a tune, traversed all the other
+apartments, sounded the passages with my knuckles, to find whether there
+were private doors, and walked up the next pair of stairs, singing all
+the way; John and Joseph, and Mrs. Smith, following me up, trembling.
+
+I looked round me there, and went into two open-door bed-chambers;
+searched the closets, and the passages, and peeped through the key-hole
+of another: no Miss Harlowe, by Jupiter!  What shall I do!--what shall I
+do! as the girls say.--Now will she be grieved that she is out of the
+way.
+
+I said this on purpose to find out whether these people knew the lady's
+story; and had the answer I expected from Mrs. Smith--I believe not, Sir.
+
+Why so, Mrs. Smith?  Do you know who I am?
+
+I can guess, Sir.
+
+Whom do you guess me to be?
+
+Your name is Mr. Lovelace, Sir, I make no doubt.
+
+The very same.  But how came you to guess so well, dame Smith!  You never
+saw me before, did you?
+
+Here, Jack, I laid out for a compliment, and missed it.
+
+'Tis easy to guess, Sir; for there cannot be two such gentlemen as you.
+
+Well said, dame Smith--but mean you good or bad?--Handsome was the least
+I thought she would have said.
+
+I leave you to guess, Sir.
+
+Condemned, thought I, by myself, on this appeal.
+
+Why, father Smith, thy wife is a wit, man!--Didst thou ever find that out
+before?--But where is widow Lovick, dame Smith?  My cousin John Belford
+says she is a very good woman.  Is she within? or is she gone with Miss
+Harlowe too?
+
+She will be within by-and-by, Sir.  She is not with the lady.
+
+Well, but my good dear Mrs. Smith, where is the lady gone? and when will
+she return?
+
+I can't tell, Sir.
+
+Don't tell fibs, dame Smith; don't tell fibs, chucking her under the
+chin: which made John's upper-lip, with chin shortened, rise to his nose.
+--I am sure you know!--But here's another pair of stairs: let us see: Who
+lives up there?--but hold, here's another room locked up, tapping at the
+door--Who's at home? cried I.
+
+That's Mrs. Lovick's apartment.  She is gone out, and has the key with
+her.
+
+Widow Lovick! rapping again, I believe you are at home: pray open the
+door.
+
+John and Joseph muttered and whispered together.
+
+No whispering, honest friends: 'tis not manners to whisper.  Joseph, what
+said John to thee?
+
+JOHN! Sir, disdainfully repeated the good woman.
+
+I beg pardon, Mrs. Smith: but you see the force of example.  Had you
+showed your honest man more respect, I should.  Let me give you a piece
+of advice--women who treat their husbands irreverently, teach strangers
+to use them with contempt.  There, honest master John; why dost not pull
+off thy hat to me?--Oh! so thou wouldst, if thou hadst it on: but thou
+never wearest thy hat in thy wife's presence, I believe; dost thou?
+
+None of your fleers and your jeers, Sir, cried John.  I wish every
+married pair lived as happily as we do.
+
+I wish so too, honest friend.  But I'll be hanged if thou hast any
+children.
+
+Why so, Sir?
+
+Hast thou?--Answer me, man: Hast thou, or not?
+
+Perhaps not, Sir.  But what of that?
+
+What of that?--Why I'll tell thee: The man who has no children by his
+wife must put up with plain John.  Hadst thou a child or two, thou'dst be
+called Mr. Smith, with a courtesy, or a smile at least, at every word.
+
+You are very pleasant, Sir, replied my dame.  I fancy, if either my
+husband or I had as much to answer for as I know whom, we should not be
+so merry.
+
+Why then, dame Smith, so much the worse for those who were obliged to
+keep you company.  But I am not merry--I am sad!--Hey-ho!--Where shall I
+find my dear Miss Harlowe?
+
+My beloved Miss Harlowe! [calling at the foot of the third pair of
+stairs,] if you are above, for Heaven's sake answer me.  I am coming up.
+
+Sir, said the good man, I wish you'd walk down.  The servants' rooms, and
+the working-rooms, are up those stairs, and another pair; and nobody's
+there that you want.
+
+Shall I go up, and see if Miss Harlowe be there, Mrs. Smith?
+
+You may, Sir, if you please.
+
+Then I won't; for, if she was, you would not be so obliging.
+
+I am ashamed to give you all this attendance: you are the politest
+traders I ever knew.  Honest Joseph, slapping him upon the shoulders on
+a sudden, which made him jump, didst ever grin for a wager, man?--for the
+rascal seemed not displeased with me; and, cracking his flat face from
+ear to ear, with a distended mouth, showed his teeth, as broad and as
+black as his thumb-nails.--But don't I hinder thee?  What canst earn
+a-day, man?
+
+Half-a-crown I can earn a-day; with an air of pride and petulance, at
+being startled.
+
+There then is a day's wages for thee.  But thou needest not attend me
+farther.
+
+Come, Mrs. Smith, come John, (Master Smith I should say,) let's walk
+down, and give me an account where the lady is gone, and when she will
+return.
+
+So down stairs led I.  John and Joseph (thought I had discharged the
+latter,) and my dame, following me, to show their complaisance to a
+stranger.
+
+I re-entered one of the first-floor rooms.  I have a great mind to be
+your lodger: for I never saw such obliging folks in my life.  What rooms
+have you to let?
+
+None at all, Sir.
+
+I am sorry for that.  But whose is this?
+
+Mine, Sir, chuffily said John.
+
+Thine, man! why then I will take it of thee.  This, and a bed-chamber,
+and a garret for one servant, will content me.  I will give thee thine
+own price, and half a guinea a day over, for those conveniencies.
+
+For ten guineas a day, Sir--
+
+Hold, John! (Master Smith I should say)--Before thou speakest, consider--
+I won't be affronted, man.
+
+Sir, I wish you'd walk down, said the good woman.  Really, Sir, you
+take--
+
+Great liberties I hope you would not say, Mrs. Smith?
+
+Indeed, Sir, I was going to say something like it.
+
+Well, then, I am glad I prevented you; for such words better become my
+mouth than yours.  But I must lodge with you till the lady returns.  I
+believe I must.  However, you may be wanted in the shop; so we'll talk
+that over there.
+
+Down I went, they paying diligent attendance on my steps.
+
+When I came into the shop, seeing no chair or stool, I went behind the
+compter, and sat down under an arched kind of canopy of carved work,
+which these proud traders, emulating the royal niche-fillers, often give
+themselves, while a joint-stool, perhaps, serves those by whom they get
+their bread: such is the dignity of trade in this mercantile nation!
+
+I looked about me, and above me; and told them I was very proud of my
+seat; asking, if John were ever permitted to fill this superb niche?
+
+Perhaps he was, he said, very surlily.
+
+That is it that makes thee looks so like a statue, man.
+
+John looked plaguy glum upon me.  But his man Joseph and my man Will.
+turned round with their backs to us, to hide their grinning, with each
+his fist in his mouth.
+
+I asked, what it was they sold?
+
+Powder, and wash-balls, and snuff, they said; and gloves and stockings.
+
+O come, I'll be your customer.  Will. do I want wash-balls?
+
+Yes, and please your Honour, you can dispense with one or two.
+
+Give him half a dozen, dame Smith.
+
+She told me she must come where I was, to serve them.  Pray, Sir, walk
+from behind the compter.
+
+Indeed but I won't.  The shop shall be mine.  Where are they, if a
+customer shall come in?
+
+She pointed over my head, with a purse mouth, as if she would not have
+simpered, could she have helped it.  I reached down the glass, and gave
+Will. six.  There--put 'em up, Sirrah.
+
+He did, grinning with his teeth out before; which touching my conscience,
+as the loss of them was owing to me, Joseph, said I, come hither.  Come
+hither, man, when I bid thee.
+
+He stalked towards me, his hands behind him, half willing, and half
+unwilling.
+
+I suddenly wrapt my arm round his neck.  Will. thy penknife, this moment.
+D----n the fellow, where's thy penknife?
+
+O Lord! said the pollard-headed dog, struggling to get his head loose
+from under my arm, while my other hand was muzzling about his cursed
+chaps, as if I would take his teeth out.
+
+I will pay thee a good price, man: don't struggle thus?  The penknife,
+Will.!
+
+O Lord, cried Joseph, struggling still more and more: and out comes
+Will.'s pruning-knife; for the rascal is a gardener in the country.  I
+have only this, Sir.
+
+The best in the world to launch a gum.  D----n the fellow, why dost
+struggle thus?
+
+Master and Mistress Smith being afraid, I suppose, that I had a design
+upon Joseph's throat, because he was their champion, (and this, indeed,
+made me take the more notice of him,) coming towards me with countenances
+tragic-comical, I let him go.
+
+I only wanted, said I, to take out two or three of this rascal's broad
+teeth, to put them into my servant's jaws--and I would have paid him his
+price for them.--I would by my soul, Joseph.
+
+Joseph shook his ears; and with both hands stroked down, smooth as it
+would lie, his bushy hair; and looked at me as if he knew not whether he
+should laugh or be angry: but, after a stupid stare or two, stalked off
+to the other end of the shop, nodding his head at me as he went, still
+stroking down his hair; and took his stand by his master, facing about
+and muttering, that I was plaguy strong in the arms, and he thought would
+have throttled him.  Then folding his arms, and shaking his bristled
+head, added, 'twas well I was a gentleman, or he would not have taken
+such an affront.
+
+I demanded where their rappee was? the good woman pointed to the place;
+and I took up a scollop-shell of it, refusing to let her weight it, and
+filled my box.  And now, Mrs. Smith, said I, where are your gloves?
+
+She showed me; and I chose four pair of them, and set Joseph, who looked
+as if he wanted to be taken notice of again, to open the fingers.
+
+A female customer, who had been gaping at the door, came in for some
+Scots sniff; and I would serve her.  The wench was plaguy homely; and I
+told her so; or else, I said, I would have treated her.  She, in anger,
+[no woman is homely in her own opinion,] threw down her penny; and I put
+it in my pocket.
+
+Just then, turning my eye to the door, I saw a pretty, genteel lady, with
+a footman after her, peeping in with a What's the matter, good folks? to
+the starers; and I ran to her from behind the compter, and, as she was
+making off, took her hand, and drew her into the shop; begging that she
+would be my customer; for that I had but just begun trade.
+
+What do you sell, Sir? said she, smiling; but a little surprised.
+
+Tapes, ribbands, silk laces, pins, and needles; for I am a pedlar:
+powder, patches, wash-balls, stockings, garters, snuffs, and pin
+cushions--Don't we, goody Smith?
+
+So in I gently drew her to the compter, running behind it myself, with an
+air of great dilingence and obligingness.  I have excellent gloves and
+wash-balls, Madam: rappee, Scots, Portugal, and all sorts of snuff.
+
+Well, said she, in a very good humour, I'll encourage a young beginner
+for once.  Here, Andrew, [to her footman,] you want a pair of gloves,
+don't you?
+
+I took down a parcel of gloves, which Mrs. Smith pointed to, and came
+round to the fellow to fit them on myself.
+
+No matter for opening them, said I: thy fingers, friend, are as stiff as
+drum-sticks.  Push!--Thou'rt an awkward dog!  I wonder such a pretty lady
+will be followed by such a clumsy varlet.
+
+The fellow had no strength for laughing: and Joseph was mightily pleased,
+in hopes, I suppose, I would borrow a few of Andrew's teeth, to keep him
+in countenance: and, father and mother Smith, like all the world, as the
+jest was turned from themselves, seemed diverted with the humour.
+
+The fellow said the gloves were too little.
+
+Thrust, and be d----d to thee, said I: why, fellow, thou hast not the
+strength of a cat.
+
+Sir, Sir, said he, laughing, I shall hurt your Honour's side.
+
+D----n thee, thrust I say.
+
+He did; and burst out the sides of the glove.
+
+Will. said I, where's thy pruning-knife?  By my soul, friend, I had a
+good mind to pare thy cursed paws.  But come, here's a larger pair: try
+them, when thou gettest home; and let thy sweetheart, if thou hast one,
+mend the other, so take both.
+
+The lady laughed at the humour; as did my fellow, and Mrs. Smith, and
+Joseph: even John laughed, though he seemed by the force put upon his
+countenance to be but half pleased with me neither.
+
+Madam, said I, and stepped behind the compter, bowing over it, now I hope
+you will buy something for yourself.  Nobody shall use you better, nor
+sell you cheaper.
+
+Come, said she, give me six-penny worth of Portugal snuff.
+
+They showed me where it was, and I served her; and said, when she would
+have paid me, I took nothing at my opening.
+
+If I treated her footman, she told me, I should not treat her.
+
+Well, with all my heart, said I: 'tis not for us tradesmen to be saucy--
+Is it, Mrs. Smith?
+
+I put her sixpence in my pocket; and, seizing her hand, took notice to
+her of the crowd that had gathered about the door, and besought her to
+walk into the back-shop with me.
+
+She struggled her hand out of mine, and would stay no longer.
+
+So I bowed, and bid her kindly welcome, and thanked her, and hoped I
+should have her custom another time.
+
+She went away smiling; and Andrew after her; who made me a fine bow.
+
+I began to be out of countenance at the crowd, which thickened apace; and
+bid Will. order the chair to the door.
+
+Well, Mrs. Smith, with a grave air, I am heartily sorry Miss Harlowe is
+abroad.  You don't tell me where she is?
+
+Indeed, Sir, I cannot.
+
+You will not, you mean.--She could have no notion of my coming.  I came
+to town but last night.  I have been very ill.  She has almost broken my
+heart by her cruelty.  You know my story, I doubt not.  Tell her, I must
+go out of town to-morrow morning.  But I will send my servant, to know if
+she will favour me with one half-hour's conversation; for, as soon as I
+get down, I shall set out for Dover, in my way to France, if I have not a
+countermand from her, who has the sole disposal of my fate.
+
+And so flinging down a Portugal six-and-thirty, I took Mr. Smith by the
+hand, telling him, I was sorry we had not more time to be better
+acquainted; and bidding farewell to honest Joseph, (who pursed up his
+mouth as I passed by him, as if he thought his teeth still in jeopardy,)
+and Mrs. Smith adieu, and to recommend me to her fair lodger, hummed an
+air, and, the chair being come, whipt into it; the people about the door
+seeming to be in good humour with me; one crying, a pleasant gentleman, I
+warrant him! and away I was carried to White's, according to direction.
+
+As soon as I came thither, I ordered Will. to go and change his clothes,
+and to disguise himself by putting on his black wig, and keeping his
+mouth shut; and then to dodge about Smith's, to inform himself of the
+lady's motions.
+
+
+***
+
+
+I give thee this impudent account of myself, that thou mayest rave at me,
+and call me hardened, and what thou wilt.  For, in the first place, I,
+who had been so lately ill, was glad I was alive; and then I was so
+balked by my charmer's unexpected absence, and so ruffled by that, and by
+the bluff treatment of father John, that I had no other way to avoid
+being out of humour with all I met with.  Moreover I was rejoiced to
+find, by the lady's absence, and by her going out at six in the morning,
+that it was impossible she should be so ill as thou representest her to
+be; and this gave me still higher spirits.  Then I know the sex always
+love cheerful and humourous fellows.  The dear creature herself used to
+be pleased with my gay temper and lively manner; and had she been told
+that I was blubbering for her in the back-shop, she would have despised
+me still more than she does.
+
+Furthermore, I was sensible that the people of the house must needs have
+a terrible notion of me, as a savage, bloody-minded, obdurate fellow; a
+perfect woman-eater; and, no doubt, expected to see me with the claws of
+a lion, and the fangs of a tiger; and it was but policy to show them what
+a harmless pleasant fellow I am, in order to familiarize the Johns and
+the Josephs to me.  For it was evident to me, by the good woman's calling
+them down, that she thought me a dangerous man.  Whereas now, John and I
+have shaken hands together, and dame Smith having seen that I have the
+face, and hands, and looks of a man, and walk upright, and prate, and
+laugh, and joke, like other people; and Joseph, that I can talk of taking
+his teeth out of his head, without doing him the least hurt; they will
+all, at my next visit, be much more easy and pleasant to me than Andrew's
+gloves were to him; and we shall be as thoroughly acquainted, as if we
+had known one another a twelvemonth.
+
+When I returned to our mother's, I again cursed her and all her nymphs
+together; and still refused to see either Sally or Polly!  I raved at the
+horrid arrest; and told the old dragon that it was owing to her and her's
+that the fairest virtue in the world was ruined; my reputation for ever
+blasted; and that I was not married and perfectly happy in the love of
+the most excellent of her sex.
+
+She, to pacify me, said she would show me a new face that would please
+me; since I would not see my Sally, who was dying with grief.
+
+Where is this new face? cried I: let me see her, though I shall never see
+any face with pleasure but Miss Harlowe's.
+
+She won't come down, replied she.  She will not be at the word of command
+yet.  She is but just in the trammels; and must be waited upon, I'll
+assure you; and courted much besides.
+
+Ay! said I, that looks well.  Lead me to her this instant.
+
+I followed her up: and who should she be, but that little toad Sally!
+
+O curse you, said I, for a devil!  Is it you? is your's the new face?
+
+O my dear, dear Mr. Lovelace! cried she, I am glad any thing will bring
+you to me!--and so the little beast threw herself about my neck, and
+there clung like a cat.  Come, said she, what will you give me, and I'll
+be as virtuous for a quarter of an hour, and mimic your Clarissa to the
+life?
+
+I was Belforded all over.  I could not bear such an insult upon the dear
+creature, (for I have a soft and generous nature in the main, whatever
+thou thinkest;) and cursed her most devoutly, for taking my beloved's
+name in her mouth in such a way.  But the little devil was not to be
+balked; but fell a crying, sobbing, praying, begging, exclaiming,
+fainting, that I never saw my lovely girl so well aped.  Indeed I was
+almost taken in; for I could have fancied I had her before me once more.
+
+O this sex! this artful sex! there's no minding them.  At first, indeed,
+their grief and their concern may be real: but, give way to the
+hurricane, and it will soon die away in soft murmurs, thrilling upon your
+ears like the notes of a well-tuned viol.  And, by Sally, one sees that
+art will generally so well supply the place of nature, that you shall not
+easily know the difference.  Miss Clarisa Harlowe, indeed, is the only
+woman in the world I believe that can say, in the words of her favourite
+Job, (for I can quote a text as well as she,) But it is not so with me.
+
+They were very inquisitive about my fair-one.  They told me that you
+seldom came near them; that, when you did, you put on plaguy grave airs;
+would hardly stay five minutes; and did nothing but praise Miss Harlowe,
+and lament her hard fate.  In short, that you despised them; was full of
+sentences; and they doubted not, in a little while, would be a lost man,
+and marry.
+
+A pretty character for thee, is it not? thou art in a blessed way; yet
+hast nothing to do but to go on in it: and then what work hast thou to go
+through!  If thou turnest back, these sorceresses will be like the czar's
+cossacks, [at Pultowa, I think it was,] who were planted with ready
+primed and cocked pieces behind the regulars, in order to shoot them
+dead, if they did not push on and conquer; and then wilt thou be most
+lamentably despised by every harlot thou hast made--and, O Jack, how
+formidable, in that case, will be the number of thy enemies!
+
+I intend to regulate my motions by Will.'s intelligence; for see this
+dear creature I must and will.  Yet I have promised Lord M. to be down in
+two or three days at farthest; for he is grown plaguy fond of me since I
+was ill.
+
+I am in hopes that the word I left, that I am to go out of town to-morrow
+morning, will soon bring the lady back again.
+
+Mean time, I thought I would write to divert thee, while thou art of such
+importance about the dying; and as thy servant, it seems, comes backward
+and forward every day, perhaps I may send thee another letter to-morrow,
+with the particulars of the interview between the dear creature and me;
+after which my soul thirsteth.
+
+
+
+LETTER XIV
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+
+
+I must write on, to divert myself: for I can get no rest; no refreshing
+rest.  I awaked just now in a cursed fright.  How a man may be affected
+by dreams!
+
+'Methought I had an interview with my beloved.  I found her all goodness,
+condescension, and forgiveness.  She suffered herself to be overcome in
+my favour by the joint intercessions of Lord M., Lady Sarah, Lady Betty,
+and my two cousins Montague, who waited upon her in deep mourning; the
+ladies in long trains sweeping after them; Lord M. in a long black mantle
+trailing after him.  They told her they came in these robs to express
+their sorrow for my sins against her, and to implore her to forgive me.
+
+'I myself, I thought, was upon my knees, with a sword in my hand,
+offering either to put it up in the scabbard, or to thrust it into my
+heart, as she should command the one or the other.
+
+'At that moment her cousin Morden, I thought, all of a sudden, flashed in
+through a window, with his drawn sword--Die, Lovelace! said he; this
+instant die, and be d----d, if in earnest thou repairest not by marriage
+my cousin's wrongs!
+
+'I was rising to resent this insult, I thought, when Lord M. ran between
+us with his great black mantle, and threw it over my face: and instantly
+my charmer, with that sweet voice which has so often played upon my
+ravished ears, wrapped her arms around me, muffled as I was in my Lord's
+mantle: O spare, spare my Lovelace! and spare, O Lovelace, my beloved
+cousin Morden!  Let me not have my distresses augmented by the fall of
+either or both of those who are so dear to me!
+
+'At this, charmed with her sweet mediation, I thought I would have
+clasped her in my arms: when immediately the most angelic form I had ever
+beheld, all clad in transparent white, descended in a cloud, which,
+opening, discovered a firmament above it, crowded with golden cherubs and
+glittering seraphs, all addressing her with Welcome, welcome, welcome!
+and, encircling my charmer, ascended with her to the region of seraphims;
+and instantly, the opened cloud closing, I lost sight of her, and of the
+bright form together, and found wrapt in my arms her azure robe (all
+stuck thick with stars of embossed silver) which I had caught hold of in
+hopes of detaining her; but was all that was left me of my beloved
+Clarissa.  And then, (horrid to relate!) the floor sinking under me, as
+the firmament had opened for her, I dropt into a hole more frightful than
+that of Elden; and, tumbling over and over down it, without view of a
+bottom, I awaked in a panic; and was as effectually disordered for half
+an hour, as if my dream had been a reality.'
+
+Wilt thou forgive my troubling thee with such visionary stuff?  Thou wilt
+see by it only that, sleeping or waking, my Clarissa is always present
+with me.
+
+But here this moment is Will. come running hither to tell me that his
+lady actually returned to her lodgings last night between eleven and
+twelve; and is now there, though very ill.
+
+I hasten to her.  But, that I may not add to her indisposition, by any
+rough or boisterous behaviour, I will be as soft and gentle as the dove
+herself in my addresses to her.
+
+      That I do love her, I all ye host of Heaven,
+      Be witness.--That she is dear to me!
+      Dearer than day, to one whom sight must leave;
+      Dearer than life, to one who fears to die!
+
+The chair is come.  I fly to my beloved.
+
+
+
+LETTER XV
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+
+
+Curse upon my stars!--Disappointed again!  It was about eight when I
+arrived at Smith's.--The woman was in the shop.
+
+So, old acquaintance, how do you now?  I know my love is above.--Let her
+be acquainted that I am here, waiting for admission to her presence, and
+can take no denial.  Tell her, that I will approach her with the most
+respectful duty, and in whose company she pleases; and I will not touch
+the hem of her garment, without her leave.
+
+Indeed, Sir, you are mistaken.  The lady is not in this house, nor near
+it.
+
+I'll see that.--Will.! beckoning him to me, and whispering, see if thou
+canst any way find out (without losing sight of the door, lest she should
+be below stairs) if she be in the neighbourhood, if not within.
+
+Will. bowed, and went off.  Up went I, without further ceremony; attended
+now only by the good woman.
+
+I went into each apartment, except that which was locked before, and was
+now also locked: and I called to my Clarissa in the voice of love; but,
+by the still silence, was convinced she was not there.  Yet, on the
+strength of my intelligence, I doubted not but she was in the house.
+
+I then went up two pairs of stairs, and looked round the first room: but
+no Miss Harlowe.
+
+And who, pray, is in this room? stopping at the door of another.
+
+A widow gentlewoman, Sir.--Mrs. Lovick.
+
+O my dear Mrs. Lovick! said I.--I am intimately acquainted with Mrs.
+Lovick's character, from my cousin John Belford.  I must see Mrs. Lovick
+by all means.--Good Mrs. Lovick, open the door.
+
+She did.
+
+Your servant, Madam.  Be so good as to excuse me.--You have heard my
+story.  You are an admirer of the most excellent woman in the world.
+Dear Mrs. Lovick, tell me what is become of her?
+
+The poor lady, Sir, went out yesterday, on purpose to avoid you.
+
+How so? she knew not that I would be here.
+
+She was afraid you would come, when she heard you were recovered from
+your illness.  Ah! Sir, what pity it is that so fine a gentleman should
+make such ill returns for God's goodness to him!
+
+You are an excellent woman, Mrs. Lovick: I know that, by my cousin John
+Belford's account of you: and Miss Clarissa Harlowe is an angel.
+
+Miss Harlowe is indeed an angel, replied she; and soon will be company
+for angels.
+
+No jesting with such a woman as this, Jack.
+
+Tell me of a truth, good Mrs. Lovick, where I may see this dear lady.
+Upon my soul, I will neither fright for offend her.  I will only beg of
+her to hear me speak for one half-quarter of an hour; and, if she will
+have it so, I will never trouble her more.
+
+Sir, said the widow, it would be death for her to see you.  She was at
+home last night; I'll tell you truth: but fitter to be in bed all day.
+She came home, she said, to die; and, if she could not avoid your visit,
+she was unable to fly from you; and believed she should die in your
+presence.
+
+And yet go out again this morning early?  How can that be, widow?
+
+Why, Sir, she rested not two hours, for fear of you.  Her fear gave her
+strength, which she'll suffer for, when that fear is over.  And finding
+herself, the more she thought of your visit, the less able to stay to
+receive it, she took chair, and is gone nobody knows whither.  But, I
+believe, she intended to be carried to the waterside, in order to take
+boat; for she cannot bear a coach.  It extremely incommoded her
+yesterday.
+
+But before we talk any further, said I, if she be gone abroad, you can
+have no objection to my looking into every apartment above and below;
+because I am told she is actually in the house.
+
+Indeed, Sir, she is not.  You may satisfy yourself, if you please: but
+Mrs. Smith and I waited on her to her chair.  We were forced to support
+her, she was so weak.  She said, Whither can I go, Mrs. Lovick?  whither
+can I go, Mrs. Smith?--Cruel, cruel man!--tell him I called him so, if he
+come again!--God give him that peace which he denies me!
+
+Sweet creature! cried I; and looked down, and took out my handkerchief.
+
+The widow wept.  I wish, said she, I had never known so excellent a lady,
+and so great a sufferer!  I love her as my own child!
+
+Mrs. Smith wept.
+
+I then gave over the hope of seeing her for this time, I was extremely
+chagrined at my disappointment, and at the account they gave of her ill
+health.
+
+Would to Heaven, said I, she would put it in my power to repair her
+wrongs!  I have been an ungrateful wretch to her.  I need not tell you,
+Mrs. Lovick, how much I have injured her, nor how much she suffers by her
+relations' implacableness, Mrs. Smith, that cuts her to the heart.  Her
+family is the most implacable family on earth; and the dear creature, in
+refusing to see me, and to be reconciled to me, shows her relation to
+them a little too plainly.
+
+O Sir, said the widow, not one syllable of what you say belongs to this
+lady.  I never saw so sweet a temper! she is always accusing herself, and
+excusing her relations.  And, as to you, Sir, she forgives you: she
+wishes you well; and happier than you will let her die in peace? 'tis all
+she wishes for.  You don't look like a hard-hearted gentleman!--How can
+you thus hunt and persecute a poor lady, whom none of her relations will
+look upon?  It makes my heart bleed for her.
+
+And then she wept again.  Mrs. Smith wept also.  My seat grew uneasy to
+me. I shifted to another several times; and what Mrs. Lovick farther
+said, and showed me, made me still more uneasy.
+
+Bad as the poor lady was last night, said she, she transcribed into her
+book a meditation on your persecuting her thus.  I have a copy of it.  If
+I thought it would have any effect, I would read it to you.
+
+Let me read it myself, Mrs. Lovick.
+
+She gave it to me.  It has an Harlowe-spirited title: and, from a
+forgiving spirit, intolerable.  I desired to take it with me.  She
+consented, on condition  that I showed it to 'Squire Belford.  So here,
+Mr. 'Squire Belford, thou mayest read it, if thou wilt.
+
+
+ON BEING HUNTED AFTER BY THE ENEMY OF MY SOUL.
+
+MONDAY, AUG. 21.
+
+Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man.
+
+Preserve me from the violent man.
+
+Who imagines mischief in his heart.
+
+He hath sharpened his tongue like a serpent.  Adders' poison is under his
+lips.
+
+Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked.  Preserve me from the
+violent man, who hath purposed to overthrow my goings.
+
+He hath hid a snare for me.  He hath spread a net by the way-side.  He
+hath set gins for me in the way wherein I walked.
+
+Keep me from the snares which he hath laid for me, and the gins of this
+worker of iniquity.
+
+The enemy hath persecuted my soul.  He hath smitten my life down to the
+ground.  He hath made me dwell in darkness, as those that have been long
+dead.
+
+Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me.  My heart within me is
+desolate.
+
+Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble.
+
+For my days are consumed like smoke: and my bones are burnt as the
+hearth.
+
+My heart is smitten and withered like grass: so that I forget to eat my
+bread.
+
+By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my skin.
+
+I am like a pelican of the wilderness.  I am like an owl of the desart.
+
+I watch; and am as a sparrow alone upon the house-top.
+
+I have eaten ashes like bread; and mingled my drink with weeping:
+
+Because of thine indignation, and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up,
+and cast me down.
+
+My days are like a shadow that declineth, and I am withered like grass.
+
+Grant not, O Lord, the desires of the wicked: further not his devices,
+lest he exalt himself.
+
+
+Why now, Mrs. Lovick, said I, when I had read this meditation, as she
+called it, I think I am very severely treated by the lady, if she mean me
+in all this.  For how is it that I am the enemy of her soul, when I love
+her both soul and body?
+
+She says, that I am a violent man, and a wicked man.--That I have been
+so, I own: but I repent, and only wish to have it in my power to repair
+the injuries I have done her.
+
+The gin, the snare, the net, mean matrimony, I suppose--But is it a crime
+in me to wish to marry her?  Would any other woman think it so? and
+choose to become a pelican in the wilderness, or a lonely sparrow on the
+house-top, rather than have a mate that would chirp about her all day and
+all night?
+
+She says, she has eaten ashes like bread--A sad mistake to be sure!--And
+mingled her drink with weeping--Sweet maudlin soul! should I say of any
+body confessing this, but Miss Harlowe.
+
+She concludes with praying, that the desires of the wicked (meaning poor
+me, I doubt) may not be granted; that my devices may not be furthered,
+lest I exalt myself.  I should undoubtedly exalt myself, and with reason,
+could I have the honour and the blessing of such a wife.  And if my
+desires have so honourable an end, I know not why I should be called
+wicked, and why I should not be allowed to hope, that my honest devices
+may be furthered, that I MAY exalt myself.
+
+But here, Mrs. Lovick, let me ask, as something is undoubtedly meant by
+the lonely sparrow on the house-top, is not the dear creature at this
+very instant (tell me truly) concealed in Mrs. Smith's cockloft?--What
+say you, Mrs. Lovick?  What say you, Mrs. Smith, to this?
+
+They assured me to the contrary; and that shew as actually abroad, and
+they knew not where.
+
+Thou seest, Jack, that I would fain have diverted the chagrin given me
+not only by the women's talk, but by this collection of Scripture-texts
+drawn up in array against me.  Several other whimsical and light things I
+said [all I had for it!] with the same view.  But the widow would not let
+me come off so.  She stuck to me; and gave me, as I told thee, a good
+deal of uneasiness, by her sensible and serious expostulations.  Mrs.
+Smith put in now-and-then; and the two Jack-pudding fellows, John and
+Joseph, not being present, I had no provocation to turn the conversation
+into a farce; and, at last, they both joined warmly to endeavour to
+prevail upon me to give up all thoughts of seeing the lady.  But I could
+not hear of that.  On the contrary, I besought Mrs. Smith to let me have
+one of her rooms but till I could see her; and were it but for one, two,
+or three days, I would pay a year's rent for it; and quit it the moment
+the interview was over.  But they desired to be excused; and were sure
+the lady would not come to the house till I was gone, were it for a
+month.
+
+This pleased me; for I found they did not think her so very ill as they
+would have me believe her to be; but I took no notice of the slip,
+because I would not guard them against more of the like.
+
+In short, I told them, I must and would see her: but that it should be
+with all the respect and veneration that heart could pay to excellence
+like her's: and that I would go round to all the churches in London and
+Westminster, where there were prayers or service, from sun-rise to
+sun-set, and haunt their house like a ghost, till I had the opportunity
+my soul panted after.
+
+This I bid them tell her.  And thus ended our serious conversation.
+
+I took leave of them; and went down; and, stepping into my chair, caused
+myself to be carried to Lincoln's-Inn; and walked in the gardens till the
+chapel was opened; and then I went in, and staid prayers, in hopes of
+seeing the dear creature enter: but to no purpose; and yet I prayed most
+devoutly that she might be conducted thither, either by my good angel, or
+her own.  And indeed I burn more than ever with impatience to be once
+more permitted to kneel at the feet of this adorable woman.  And had I
+met her, or espied her in the chapel, it is my firm belief that I should
+not have been able (though it had been in the midst of the sacred office,
+and in the presence of thousands) to have forborne prostration to her,
+and even clamorous supplication for her forgiveness: a christian act; the
+exercise of it therefore worthy of the place.
+
+After service was over, I stept into my chair again, and once more was
+carried to Smith's, in hopes I might have surprised her there: but no
+such happiness for thy friend.  I staid in the back-shop an hour and an
+half, by my watch; and again underwent a good deal of preachment from the
+women.  John was mainly civil to me now; won over a little by my serious
+talk, and the honour I professed for the lady.  They all three wished
+matters could be made up between us: but still insisted that she could
+never get over her illness; and that her heart was broken.  A cue, I
+suppose, they had from you.
+
+While I was there a letter was brought by a particular hand.  They seemed
+very solicitous to hide it from me; which made me suspect it was for her.
+I desired to be suffered to cast an eye upon the seal, and the
+superscription; promising to give it back to them unopened.
+
+Looking upon it, I told them I knew the hand and seal.  It was from her
+sister.*  And I hoped it would bring her news that she would be pleased
+with.
+
+
+* See Letter XXVI. of this volume.
+
+
+They joined most heartily in the same hope: and, giving the letter to
+them again, I civilly took leave, and went away.
+
+But I will be there again presently; for I fancy my courteous behaviour
+to these women will, on their report of it, procure me the favour I so
+earnestly covet.  And so I will leave my letter unsealed, to tell thee
+the event of my next visit at Smith's.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Thy servant just calling, I sent thee this: and will soon follow it by
+another.  Mean time, I long to hear how poor Belton is: to whom my best
+wishes.
+
+
+
+LETTER XVI
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+
+
+I have been under such concern for the poor man, whose exit I almost
+hourly expect, and at the shocking scenes his illness and his agonies
+exhibit, that I have been only able to make memoranda of the melancholy
+passages, from which to draw up a more perfect account, for the
+instruction of us all, when the writing appetite shall return.
+
+
+***
+
+
+It is returned!  Indignation has revived it, on receipt of thy letters of
+Sunday and yesterday; by which I have reason to reproach thee in very
+serious terms, that thou hast not kept thy honour with me: and if thy
+breach of it be attended with such effects as I fear it will be, I shall
+let thee know more of my mind on this head.
+
+If thou wouldst be thought in earnest in thy wishes to move the poor lady
+in thy favour, thy ludicrous behaviour at Smith's, when it comes to be
+represented to her, will have a very consistent appearance; will it
+not?--I will, indeed, confirm in her opinion, that the grave is more to
+be wished-for, by one of her serious and pious turn, than a husband
+incapable either of reflection or remorse; just recovered, as thou art,
+from a dangerous, at least a sharp turn.
+
+I am extremely concerned for the poor unprotected lady.  She was so
+excessively low and weak on Saturday, that I could not be admitted to her
+speech: and to be driven out of her lodgings, when it was fitter for her
+to be in bed, is such a piece of cruelty, as he only could be guilty of
+who could act as thou hast done by such an angel.
+
+Canst thou thyself say, on reflection, that it has not the look of a
+wicked and hardened sportiveness, in thee, for the sake of a wanton
+humour only, (since it can answer no end that thou proposest to thyself,
+but the direct contrary,) to hunt from place to place a poor lady, who,
+like a harmless deer, that has already a barbed shaft in her breast,
+seeks only a refuge from thee in the shades of death.
+
+But I will leave this matter upon thy own conscience, to paint thee such
+a scene from my memoranda, as thou perhaps wilt be moved by more
+effectually than by any other: because it is such a one as thou thyself
+must one day be a principal actor in, and, as I thought, hadst very
+lately in apprehension: and is the last scene of one of thy more intimate
+friends, who has been for the four past days labouring in the agonies of
+death.  For, Lovelace, let this truth, this undoubted truth, be engraved
+on thy memory, in all thy gaieties, That the life we are so fond of is
+hardly life; a mere breathing space only; and that, at the end of its
+longest date,
+
+      Thou must die, as well as Belton.
+
+Thou knowest, by Tourville, what we had done as to the poor man's worldly
+affairs; and that we had got his unhappy sister to come and live with him
+(little did we think him so very near to his end): and so I will proceed
+to tell thee, that when I arrived at his house on Saturday night, I found
+him excessively ill: but just raised, and in his elbow-chair, held up by
+his nurse and Mowbray (the roughest and most untouched creature that ever
+entered a sick man's chamber); while the maid-servants were trying to
+make that bed easier for him which he was to return to; his mind ten
+times uneasier than that could be, and the true cause that the down was
+no softer to him.
+
+He had so much longed to see me, as I was told by his sister, (whom I
+sent for down to inquire how he was,) that they all rejoiced when I
+entered: Here, said Mowbray, here, Tommy, is honest Jack Belford!
+
+Where, where? said the poor man.
+
+I hear his voice, cried Mowbray: he is coming up stairs.
+
+In a transport of joy, he would have raised himself at my entrance, but
+had like to have pitched out of the chair: and when recovered, called me
+his best friend! his kindest friend! but burst into a flood of tears: O
+Jack! O Belford! said he, see the way I am in!  See how weak!  So much,
+and so soon reduced!  Do you know me?  Do you know your poor friend
+Belton?
+
+You are not so much altered, my dear Belton, as you think you are.  But I
+see you are weak; very weak--and I am sorry for it.
+
+Weak, weak, indeed, my dearest Belford, said he, and weaker in mind, if
+possible, than in body; and wept bitterly--or I should not thus unman
+myself.  I, who never feared any thing, to be forced to show myself such
+a nursling!--I am quite ashamed of myself!--But don't despise me; dear
+Belford, don't despise me, I beseech thee.
+
+I ever honoured a man that could weep for the distresses of others; and
+ever shall, said I; and such a one cannot be insensible of his own.
+
+However, I could not help being visibly moved at the poor fellow's emotion.
+
+Now, said the brutal Mowbray, do I think thee insufferable, Jack.  Our
+poor friend is already a peg too low; and here thou art letting him down
+lower and lower still.  This soothing of him in his dejected moments, and
+joining thy womanish tears with his, is not the way; I am sure it is not.
+If our Lovelace were here, he'd tell thee so.
+
+Thou art an impenetrable creature, replied I; unfit to be present at a
+scene, the terrors of which thou wilt not be able to feel till thou
+feelest them in thyself; and then, if thou hadst time for feeling, my
+life for thine, thou behavest as pitifully as those thou thinkest most
+pitiful.
+
+Then turning to the poor sick man, Tears, my dear Belton, are no signs of
+an unmanly, but, contrarily of a humane nature; they ease the
+over-charged heart, which would burst but for that kindly and natural
+relief.
+
+      Give sorrow words (says Shakspeare)
+      --The grief that does not speak,
+      Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.
+
+I know, my dear Belton, thou usedst to take pleasure in repetitions from
+the poets; but thou must be tasteless of their beauties now: yet be not
+discountenanced by this uncouth and unreflecting Mowbray, for, as Juvenal
+says, Tears are the prerogative of manhood.
+
+'Tis at least seasonably said, my dear Belford.  It is kind to keep me in
+countenance for this womanish weakness, as Mowbray has been upbraidingly
+calling it, ever since he has been with me: and in so doing, (whatever I
+might have thought in such high health as he enjoys,) has convinced me,
+that bottle-friends feel nothing but what moves in that little circle.
+
+Well, well, proceed in your own way, Jack.  I love my friend Belton as
+well as you can do; yet for the blood of me, I cannot but think, that
+soothing a man's weakness is increasing it.
+
+If it be a weakness, to be touched at great and concerning events, in
+which our humanity is concerned, said I, thou mayest be right.
+
+I have seen many a man, said the rough creature, going up Holborn-hill,
+that has behaved more like a man than either of you.
+
+Ay, but, Mowbray, replied the poor man, those wretches have not had their
+minds enervated by such infirmities of body as I have long laboured
+under.  Thou art a shocking fellow, and ever wert.--But to be able to
+remember nothing in these moments but what reproaches me, and to know
+that I cannot hold it long, and what may then be my lot, if--but
+interrupting himself, and turning to me, Give me thy pity, Jack; 'tis
+balm to my wounded soul; and let Mowbray sit indifferent enough to the
+pangs of a dying friend, to laugh at us both.
+
+The hardened fellow then retired, with the air of a Lovelace; only more
+stupid; yawning and stretching, instead of humming a tune as thou didst
+at Smith's.
+
+I assisted to get the poor man into bed.  He was so weak and low, that he
+could not bear the fatigue, and fainted away; and I verily thought was
+quite gone.  But recovering, and his doctor coming, and advising to keep
+him quiet, I retired, and joined Mowbray in the garden; who took more
+delight to talk of the living Lovelace and levities, than of the dying
+Belton and his repentance.
+
+I just saw him again on Saturday night before I went to bed; which I did
+early; for I was surfeited with Mowbray's frothy insensibility, and could
+not bear him.
+
+It is such a horrid thing to think of, that a man who had lived in such
+strict terms of--what shall I call it? with another; the proof does not
+come out so, as to say, friendship; who had pretended so much love for
+him; could not bear to be out of his company; would ride an hundred miles
+on end to enjoy it; and would fight for him, be the cause right or wrong:
+yet now, could be so little moved to see him in such misery of body and
+mind, as to be able to rebuke him, and rather ridicule than pity him,
+because he was more affected by what he felt, than he had seen a
+malefactor, (hardened perhaps by liquor, and not softened by previous
+sickness,) on his going to execution.
+
+This put me strongly in mind of what the divine Miss HARLOWE once said to
+me, talking of friendship, and what my friendship to you required of me:
+'Depend upon it, Mr. Belford,' said she, 'that one day you will be
+convinced, that what you call friendship, is chaff and stubble; and that
+nothing is worthy of that sacred name,
+
+      'That has not virtue for its base.'
+
+
+Sunday morning, I was called up at six o'clock, at the poor man's earnest
+request, and found him in a terrible agony.  O Jack! Jack! said he,
+looking wildly, as if he had seen a spectre--Come nearer me!--Dear, dear
+Belford, save me!  Then clasping my arm with both his hands, and rearing
+up his head towards me, his eyes strangely rolling, Save me! dear
+Belford, save me! repeated he.
+
+I put my other arm about him--Save you from what, my dear Belton! said I;
+save you from what?  Nothing shall hurt you.  What must I save you from?
+
+Recovering from his terror, he sunk down again, O save me from myself!
+said he; save me from my own reflections.  O dear Jack! what a thing it
+is to die; and not to have one comfortable reflection to revolve!  What
+would I give for one year of my past life?--only one year--and to have
+the same sense of things that I now have?
+
+I tried to comfort him as well as I could: but free-livers to free-livers
+are sorry death-bed comforters.  And he broke in upon me: O my dear
+Belford, said he, I am told, (and I have heard you ridiculed for it,)
+that the excellent Miss Harlowe has wrought a conversion in you.  May it
+be so!  You are a man of sense: O may it be so!  Now is your time!  Now,
+that you are in full vigour of mind and body!--But your poor Belton,
+alas! your poor Belton kept his vices, till they left him--and see the
+miserable effects in debility of mind and despondency!  Were Mowbray
+here, and were he to laugh at me, I would own that this is the cause of
+my despair--that God's justice cannot let his mercy operate for my
+comfort: for, Oh! I have been very, very wicked; and have despised the
+offers of his grace, till he has withdrawn it from me for ever.
+
+I used all the arguments I could think of to give him consolation: and
+what I said had such an effect upon him, as to quiet his mind for the
+greatest part of the day; and in a lucid hour his memory served him to
+repeat these lines of Dryden, grasping my hand, and looking wistfully
+upon me:
+
+      O that I less could fear to lose this being,
+      Which, like a snow-ball, in my coward hand,
+      The more 'tis grasped, the faster melts away!
+
+In the afternoon of Sunday, he was inquisitive after you, and your
+present behaviour to Miss Harlowe.  I told him how you had been, and how
+light you made of it.  Mowbray was pleased with your impenetrable
+hardness of heart, and said, Bob. Lovelace was a good edge-tool, and
+steel to the back: and such coarse but hearty praises he gave you, as an
+abandoned man might give, and only an abandoned man could wish to
+deserve.
+
+But hadst thou heard what the poor dying Belton said on this occasion,
+perhaps it would have made thee serious an hour or two, at least.
+
+'When poor Lovelace is brought,' said he, 'to a sick-bed, as I am now,
+and his mind forebodes that it is impossible he should recover, (which
+his could not do in his late illness: if it had, he could not have
+behaved so lightly in it;) when he revolves his past mis-spent life; his
+actions of offence to helpless innocents; in Miss Harlowe's case
+particularly; what then will he think of himself, or of his past actions?
+his mind debilitated; his strength turned into weakness; unable to stir
+or to move without help; not one ray of hope darting in upon his
+benighted soul; his conscience standing in the place of a thousand
+witnesses; his pains excruciating; weary of the poor remnant of life he
+drags, yet dreading, that, in a few short hours, his bad will be changed
+to worse, nay, to worst of all; and that worst of all, to last beyond
+time and to all eternity; O Jack! what will he then think of the poor
+transitory gratifications of sense, which now engage all his attention?
+Tell him, dear Belford, tell him, how happy he is if he know his own
+dying happiness; how happy, compared to his poor dying friend, that he
+has recovered from his illness, and has still an opportunity lent him,
+for which I would give a thousand worlds, had I them to give!'
+
+I approved exceedingly of his reflections, as suited to his present
+circumstances; and inferred consolations to him from a mind so properly
+touched.
+
+He proceeded in the like penitent strain.  I have lived a very wicked
+life; so have we all.  We have never made a conscience of doing whatever
+mischief either force or fraud enabled us to do.  We have laid snares for
+the innocent heart; and have not scrupled by the too-ready sword to
+extend, as occasions offered, the wrongs we did to the persons whom we
+had before injured in their dearest relations.  But yet, I flatter
+myself, sometimes, that I have less to answer for than either Lovelace or
+Mowbray; for I, by taking to myself that accursed deceiver from whom thou
+hast freed me, (and who, for years, unknown to me, was retaliating upon
+my own head some of the evils I had brought upon others,) and retiring,
+and living with her as a wife, was not party to half the mischiefs, that
+I doubt they, and Tourville, and even you, Belford, committed.  As to the
+ungrateful Thomasine, I hope I have met with my punishment in her.  But
+notwithstanding this, dost thou not think, that such an action--and such
+an action--and such an action; [and then he recapitulated several
+enormities, in the perpetration of which (led on by false bravery, and
+the heat of youth and wine) we have all been concerned;] dost thou not
+think that these villanies, (let me call them now by their proper name,)
+joined to the wilful and gloried-in neglect of every duty that our better
+sense and education gave us to know were required of us as men and
+christians, are not enough to weigh down my soul into despondency?--
+Indeed, indeed, they are! and now to hope for mercy; and to depend upon
+the efficacy of that gracious attribute, when that no less shining one of
+justice forbids me to hope; how can I!--I, who have despised all
+warnings, and taken no advantage of the benefit I might have reaped from
+the lingering consumptive illness I have laboured under, but left all to
+the last stake; hoping for recovery against hope, and driving off
+repentance, till that grace is denied me; for, oh! my dear Belford! I can
+now neither repent, nor pray, as I ought; my heart is hardened, and I can
+do nothing but despair!--
+
+More he would have said; but, overwhelmed with grief and infirmity, he
+bowed his head upon his pangful bosom, endeavouring to hide from the
+sight of the hardened Mowbray, who just then entered the room, those
+tears which he could not restrain.
+
+Prefaced by a phlegmatic hem; sad, very sad, truly! cried Mowbray; who
+sat himself down on one side of the bed, as I sat on the other: his eyes
+half closed, and his lips pouting out to his turned-up nose, his chin
+curdled [to use one of thy descriptions]; leaving one at a loss to know
+whether stupid drowsiness or intense contemplation had got most hold of
+him.
+
+An excellent, however uneasy lesson, Mowbray! said I.--By my faith it is!
+It may one day, who knows how soon? be our own case!
+
+I thought of thy yawning-fit, as described in thy letter of Aug. 13.  For
+up started Mowbray, writhing and shaking himself as in an ague-fit; his
+hands stretched over his head--with thy hoy! hoy! hoy! yawning.  And then
+recovering himself, with another stretch and a shake, What's o'clock?
+cried he; pulling out his watch--and stalking by long tip-toe strides
+through the room, down stairs he went; and meeting the maid in the
+passage, I heard him say--Betty, bring me a bumper of claret; thy poor
+master, and this d----d Belford, are enough to throw a Hercules into the
+vapours.
+
+Mowbray, after this, assuming himself in our friend's library, which is,
+as thou knowest, chiefly classical and dramatical, found out a passage in
+Lee's Oedipus, which he would needs have to be extremely apt; and in he
+came full fraught with the notion of the courage it would give the dying
+man, and read it to him.  'Tis poetical and pretty.  This is it:
+
+      When the sun sets, shadows that show'd at noon
+      But small, appear most long and terrible:
+      So when we think fate hovers o'er our heads,
+      Our apprehensions shoot beyond all bounds:
+      Owls, ravens, crickets, seem the watch of death;
+      Nature's worst vermin scare her godlike sons:
+      Echoes, the very leavings of a voice,
+      Grow babbling ghosts, and call us to our graves.
+      Each mole-hill thought swells to a huge Olympus;
+      While we, fantastic dreamers, heave and puff,
+      And sweat with our imagination's weight.
+
+He expected praises for finding this out.  But Belton turning his head
+from him, Ah, Dick! (said he,) these are not the reflections of a dying
+man!--What thou wilt one day feel, if it be what I now feel, will
+convince thee that the evils before thee, and with thee, are more than
+the effects of imagination.
+
+I was called twice on Sunday night to him; for the poor fellow, when his
+reflections on his past life annoy him most, is afraid of being left with
+the women; and his eyes, they tell me, hunt and roll about for me.
+Where's Mr. Belford?--But I shall tire him out, cries he--yet beg of him
+to step to me--yet don't--yet do; were once the doubting and changeful
+orders he gave: and they called me accordingly.
+
+But, alas!  What could Belford do for him?  Belford, who had been but too
+often the companion of his guilty hours; who wants mercy as much as he
+does; and is unable to promise it to himself, though 'tis all he can bid
+his poor friend rely upon!
+
+What miscreants are we!  What figures shall we make in these terrible
+hours!
+
+If Miss HARLOWE'S glorious example, on one hand, and the terrors of this
+poor man's last scene on the other, affect me not, I must be abandoned to
+perdition; as I fear thou wilt be, if thou benefittest not thyself from
+both.
+
+Among the consolatory things I urged, when I was called up the last time
+on Sunday night, I told him, that he must not absolutely give himself up
+to despair: that many of the apprehensions he was under, were such as the
+best men must have, on the dreadful uncertainty of what was to succeed to
+this life.  'Tis well observed, said I, by a poetical divine, who was an
+excellent christian,* That
+
+        Death could not a more sad retinue find,
+      Sickness and pain before, and darkness all behind.
+
+
+* The Rev Mr. Norris, of Bremerton.
+
+
+About eight o'clock yesterday (Monday) morning, I found him a little
+calmer.  He asked me who was the author of the two lines I had repeated
+to him; and made me speak them over again.  A sad retinue, indeed! said
+the poor man.  And then expressing his hopelessness of life, and his
+terrors at the thoughts of dying; and drawing from thence terrible
+conclusions with regard to his future state; There is, said I, such a
+natural aversion to death in human nature, that you are not to imagine,
+that you, my dear Belton, are singular in the fear of it, and in the
+apprehensions that fill the thoughtful mind upon its approach; but you
+ought, as much as possible, to separate those natural fears which all men
+must have on so solemn an occasion, from those particular ones which your
+justly-apprehended unfitness fills you with.  Mr. Pomfret, in his
+Prospect of Death, which I dipped into last night from a collection in
+your closet, which I put into my pocket, says, [and I turned to the
+place]
+
+      Merely to die, no man of reason fears;
+            For certainly we must,
+            As we are born, return to dust;
+      'Tis the last point of many ling-ring years;
+            But whither then we go,
+            Whither, we fain would know;
+      But human understanding cannot show.
+            This makes US tremble----
+
+Mr. Pomfret, therefore, proceeded I, had such apprehensions of this dark
+state as you have: and the excellent divine I hinted at last night, who
+had very little else but human frailties to reproach himself with, and
+whose miscellanies fell into my hands among my uncle's books in my
+attendance upon him in his last hours, says,
+
+      It must be done, my soul: but 'tis a strange,
+         A dismal, and mysterious change,
+      When thou shalt leave this tenement of clay,
+         And to an unknown--somewhere--wing away;
+      When time shall be eternity, and thou
+         Shalt be--thou know'st not what--and live--
+            thou know'st not how!
+      Amazing state! no wonder that we dread
+         To think of death, or view the dead;
+      Thou'rt all wrapt up in clouds, as if to thee
+            Our very knowledge had antipathy.
+
+Then follows, what I repeated,
+
+        Death could not a more sad retinue find,
+      Sickness and pain before, and darkness all behind.
+
+Alas! my dear Belford [inferred the unhappy deep-thinker] what poor
+creatures does this convince me we mortals are at best!--But what then
+must be the case of such a profligate as I, who by a past wicked life
+have added greater force to these natural terrors?  If death be so
+repugnant a thing to human nature, that good men will be startled at it,
+what must it be to one who has lived a life of sense and appetite; nor
+ever reflected upon the end which I now am within view of?
+
+What could I say to an inference so fairly drawn?  Mercy, mercy,
+unbounded mercy, was still my plea, though his repeated opposition of
+justice to it, in a manner silenced that plea: and what would I have
+given to have had rise in my mind, one good, eminently good action to
+have remembered him of, in order to combat his fears with it?
+
+I believe, Lovelace, I shall tire thee, and that more with the subject
+of my letter, than even with the length of it.  But really, I think thy
+spirits are so offensively up since thy recovery, that I ought, as the
+melancholy subjects offer, to endeavour to reduce thee to the standard
+of humanity, by expatiating upon them.  And then thou canst not but be
+curious to know every thing that concerns the poor man, for whom thou
+hast always expressed a great regard.  I will therefore proceed as I have
+begun.  If thou likest not to read it now, lay it by, if thou wilt, till
+the like circumstances befall thee, till like reflections from those
+circumstances seize thee; and then take it up, and compare the two cases
+together.
+
+
+***
+
+
+At his earnest request, I sat up with him last night; and, poor man! it
+is impossible to tell thee, how easy and safe he thought himself in my
+company, for the first part of the night: A drowning man will catch at a
+straw, the proverb well says: and a straw was I, with respect to any real
+help I could give him.  He often awaked in terrors; and once calling out
+for me, Dear Belford, said he, Where are you!--Oh!  There you are!--Give
+me your friendly hand!--Then grasping it, and putting his clammy,
+half-cold lips to it--How kind!  I fear every thing when you are absent.
+But the presence of a friend, a sympathising friend--Oh! how comfortable!
+
+But, about four in the morning, he frighted me much: he waked with three
+terrible groans; and endeavoured to speak, but could not presently--and
+when he did,--Jack, Jack, Jack, five or six times repeated he as quick as
+thought, now, now, now, save me, save me, save me--I am going--going
+indeed!
+
+I threw my arms about him, and raised him upon his pillow, as he was
+sinking (as if to hide himself) in the bed-clothes--And staring wildly,
+Where am I? said he, a little recovering.  Did you not see him? turning
+his head this way and that; horror in his countenance; Did you not see
+him?
+
+See whom, see what, my dear Belton!
+
+O lay me upon the bed again, cried he!--Let me not die upon the floor!--
+Lay me down gently; and stand by me!--Leave me not!--All, all will soon
+be over!
+
+You are already, my dear Belton, upon the bed.  You have not been upon
+the floor.  This is a strong delirium; you are faint for want of
+refreshment [for he had refused several times to take any thing]: let me
+persuade you to take some of this cordial julap.  I will leave you, if
+you will not oblige me.
+
+He then readily took it; but said he could have sworn that Tom. Metcalfe
+had been in the room, and had drawn him out of bed by the throat,
+upbraiding him with the injuries he had first done his sister, and then
+him, in the duel to which he owed that fever which cost him his life.
+
+Thou knowest the story, Lovelace, too well, to need my repeating it: but,
+mercy on us, if in these terrible moments all the evils we do rise to our
+frighted imaginations!--If so, what shocking scenes have I, but still
+what more shocking ones hast thou, to go through, if, as the noble poet
+says,
+
+      If any sense at that sad time remains!
+
+The doctor ordered him an opiate this morning early, which operated so
+well, that he dosed and slept several hours more quietly than he had done
+for the two past days and nights, though he had sleeping-draughts given
+him before.  But it is more and more evident every hour that nature is
+almost worn out in him.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Mowbray, quite tired with this house of mourning, intends to set out in
+the morning to find you.  He was not a little rejoiced to hear you were
+in town; I believe to have a pretence to leave us.
+
+
+***
+
+
+He has just taken leave of his poor friend, intending to go away early:
+an everlasting leave, I may venture to say; for I think he will hardly
+live till to-morrow night.
+
+I believe the poor man would not have been sorry had he left him when I
+arrived; for 'tis a shocking creature, and enjoys too strong health to
+know how to pity the sick.  Then (to borrow an observation from thee) he
+has, by nature, strong bodily organs, which those of his soul are not
+likely to whet out; and he, as well as the wicked friend he is going to,
+may last a great while from the strength of their constitutions, though
+so greatly different in their talents, if neither the sword nor the
+halter interpose.
+
+I must repeat, That I cannot but be very uneasy for the poor lady whom
+you so cruelly persecute; and that I do not think that you have kept your
+honour with me.  I was apprehensive, indeed, that you would attempt to
+see her, as soon as you got well enough to come up; and I told her as
+much, making use of it as an argument to prepare her for your visit, and
+to induce her to stand it.  But she could not, it is plain, bear the
+shock of it: and indeed she told me that she would not see you, though
+but for one half-hour, for the world.
+
+Could she have prevailed upon herself, I know that the sight of her would
+have been as affecting to you, as your visit could have been to her; when
+you had seen to what a lovely skeleton (for she is really lovely still,
+nor can she, with such a form and features, be otherwise) you have, in a
+few weeks, reduced one of the most charming women in the world; and that
+in the full bloom of her youth and beauty.
+
+Mowbray undertakes to carry this, that he may be more welcome to you, he
+says.  Were it to be sent unsealed, the characters we write in would be
+Hebrew to the dunce.  I desire you to return it; and I'll give you a copy
+of it upon demand; for I intend to keep it by me, as a guard against the
+infection of your company, which might otherwise, perhaps, some time
+hence, be apt to weaken the impressions I always desire to have of the
+awful scene before me.  God convert us both!
+
+
+
+LETTER XVII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+WEDNESDAY MORN. 11 O'CLOCK.
+
+
+I believe no man has two such servants as I have.  Because I treat them
+with kindness, and do not lord it over my inferiors, and d--n and curse
+them by looks and words like Mowbray; or beat their teeth out like
+Lovelace; but cry, Pr'ythee, Harry, do this, and, Pr'ythee, Jonathan, do
+that; the fellows pursue their own devices, and regard nothing I say, but
+what falls in with these.
+
+Here, this vile Harry, who might have brought your letter of yesterday in
+good time, came not in with it till past eleven at night (drunk, I
+suppose); and concluding that I was in bed, as he pretends (because he
+was told I sat up the preceding night) brought it not to me; and having
+overslept himself, just as I had sealed up my letter, in comes the
+villain with the forgotten one, shaking his ears, and looking as if he
+himself did not believe the excuses he was going to make.  I questioned
+him about it, and heard his pitiful pleas; and though I never think it
+becomes a gentleman to treat people insolently who by their stations are
+humbled beneath his feet, yet could I not forbear to Lovelace and Mowbray
+him most cordially.
+
+And this detaining Mowbray (who was ready to set out to you before) while
+I write a few lines upon it, the fierce fellow, who is impatient to
+exchange the company of a dying Belton for that of a too-lively Lovelace,
+affixed a supplement of curses upon the staring fellow, that was larger
+than my book--nor did I offer to take off the bear from such a mongrel,
+since, on this occasion, he deserved not of me the protection which every
+master owes to a good servant.
+
+He has not done cursing him yet; for stalking about the court-yard with
+his boots on, (the poor fellow dressing his horse, and unable to get from
+him,) he is at him without mercy; and I will heighten his impatience,
+(since being just under the window where I am writing, he will not let me
+attend to my pen,) by telling you how he fills my ears as well as the
+fellow's, with his--Hay, Sir!  And G--d d--n ye, Sir!  And were ye my
+servant, ye dog ye!  And must I stay here till the mid-day sun scorches
+me to a parchment, for such a mangy dog's drunken neglect?--Ye lie,
+Sirrah!--Ye lie, I tell you--[I hear the fellow's voice in an humble
+excusatory tone, though not articulately] Ye lie, ye dog!--I'd a good
+mind to thrust my whip down your drunken throat: d--n me, if I would not
+flay the skin from the back of such a rascal, if thou wert mine, and have
+dog's-skin gloves made of it, for thy brother scoundrels to wear in
+remembrance of thy abuses of such a master.
+
+The poor horse suffers for this, I doubt not; for, What now! and, Stand
+still, and be d--d to ye, cries the fellow, with a kick, I suppose, which
+he better deserves himself; for these varlets, where they can, are
+Mowbrays and Lovelaces to man or beast; and not daring to answer him, is
+flaying the poor horse.
+
+I hear the fellow is just escaped, the horse, (better curried than
+ordinary, I suppose, in half the usual time,) by his clanking shoes, and
+Mowbray's silence, letting me know, that I may now write on: and so, I
+will tell thee that, in the first place, (little as I, as well as you,
+regard dreams,) I would have thee lay thine to heart; for I could give
+thee such an interpretation of it, as would shock thee, perhaps; and if
+thou askest me for it, I will.
+
+Mowbray calls to me from the court-yard, that 'tis a cursed hot day, and
+he shall be fried by riding in the noon of it: and that poor Belton longs
+to see me.  So I will only add my earnest desire, that you will give over
+all thoughts of seeing the lady, if, when this comes to your hand, you
+have not seen her: and, that it would be kind, if you'd come, and, for
+the last time you will ever see your poor friend, share my concern for
+him; and, in him, see what, in a little time, will be your fate and mine,
+and that of Mowbray, Tourville, and the rest of us--For what are ten,
+fifteen, twenty, or thirty years, to look back to; in the longest of
+which periods forward we shall all perhaps be mingled with the dust from
+which we sprung?
+
+
+
+LETTER XVIII
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+WEDNESDAY MORN. AUG. 23.
+
+
+All alive, dear Jack, and in ecstacy!--Likely to be once more a happy
+man!  For I have received a letter from my beloved Miss HARLOWE; in
+consequence, I suppose, of that which I mentioned in my last to be left
+for her from her sister.  And I am setting out for Berks directly, to
+show the contents to my Lord M. and to receive the congratulations of all
+my kindred upon it.
+
+I went, last night, as I intended, to Smith's: but the dear creature was
+not returned at near ten o'clock.  And, lighting upon Tourville, I took
+him home with me, and made him sing me out of my megrims.  I went to bed
+tolerably easy at two; had bright and pleasant dreams; (not such of a
+frightful one as that I gave thee an account of;) and at eight this
+morning, as I was dressing, to be in readiness against the return of my
+fellow, whom I had sent to inquire after the lady, I had the following
+letter brought to me by a chairman:
+
+
+TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+TUESDAY NIGHT, 11 O'CLOCK (AUG. 22.)
+
+
+SIR,
+
+I have good news to tell you.  I am setting out with all diligence for my
+father's house, I am bid to hope that he will receive his poor penitent
+with a goodness peculiar to himself; for I am overjoyed with the
+assurance of a thorough reconciliation, through the interposition of a
+dear, blessed friend, whom I always loved and honoured.  I am so taken up
+with my preparation for this joyful and long-wished-for journey, that I
+cannot spare one moment for any other business, having several matters of
+the last importance to settle first.  So, pray, Sir, don't disturb or
+interrupt me--I beseech you don't.  You may possibly in time see me at my
+father's; at least if it be not your own fault.
+
+I will write a letter, which shall be sent you when I am got thither and
+received: till when, I am, &c.
+
+CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+
+
+***
+
+
+I dispatched instantly a letter to the dear creature, assuring her, with
+the most thankful joy, 'That I would directly set out for Berks, and wait
+the issue of the happy reconciliation, and the charming hopes she had
+filled me with.  I poured out upon her a thousand blessings.  I declared
+that it should be the study of my whole life to merit such transcendent
+goodness: and that there was nothing which her father or friends should
+require at my hands, that I would not for her sake comply with, in order
+to promote and complete so desirable a reconciliation.'
+
+I hurried it away without taking a copy of it; and I have ordered the
+chariot-and-six to be got ready; and hey for M. Hall!  Let me but know
+how Belton does.  I hope a letter from thee is on the road.  And if the
+poor fellow can spare thee, make haste, I command thee, to attend this
+truly divine lady.  Thou mayest not else see her of months perhaps; at
+least, not while she is Miss HARLOWE.  And oblige me, if possible, with
+one letter before she sets out, confirming to me and accounting for this
+generous change.
+
+But what accounting for it is necessary?  The dear creature cannot
+receive consolation herself but she must communicate it to others.  How
+noble!  She would not see me in her adversity; but no sooner does the sun
+of prosperity begin to shine upon her than she forgives me.
+
+I know to whose mediation all this is owing.  It is to Colonel Morden's.
+She always, as she says, loved and honoured him!  And he loved her above
+all his relations.
+
+I shall now be convinced that there is something in dreams.  The opening
+cloud is the reconciliation in view.  The bright form, lifting up my
+charmer through it to a firmament stuck round with golden cherubims and
+seraphims, indicates the charming little boys and girls, that will be the
+fruits of this happy reconciliation.  The welcomes, thrice repeated, are
+those of her family, now no more to be deemed implacable.  Yet are they
+family, too, that my soul cannot mingle with.
+
+But then what is my tumbling over and over through the floor into a
+frightful hole, descending as she ascends?  Ho! only this! it alludes to
+my disrelish to matrimony: Which is a bottomless pit, a gulph, and I know
+not what.  And I suppose, had I not awoke in such a plaguy fright, I had
+been soused into some river at the bottom of the hole, and then been
+carried (mundified or purified from my past iniquities,) by the same
+bright form (waiting for me upon the mossy banks,) to my beloved girl;
+and we should have gone on cherubiming of it and caroling to the end of
+the chapter.
+
+But what are the black sweeping mantles and robes of Lord M. thrown over
+my face?  And what are those of the ladies?  O Jack!  I have these too:
+They indicate nothing in the world but that my Lord will be so good as to
+die, and leave me all he has.  So, rest to thy good-natured soul, honest
+Lord M.
+
+Lady Sarah Sadleir and Lady Betty Lawrance, will also die, and leave me
+swinging legacies.
+
+Miss Charlotte and her sister--what will become of the?--Oh! they will be
+in mourning, of course, for their uncle and aunts--that's right!
+
+As to Morden's flashing through the window, and crying, Die, Lovelace,
+and be d----d, if thou wilt not repair my cousin's wrong!  That is only,
+that he would have sent me a challenge, had I not been disposed to do the
+lady justice.
+
+All I dislike is this part of the dream: for, even in a dream, I would
+not be thought to be threatened into any measure, though I liked it ever
+so well.
+
+And so much for my prophetic dream.
+
+Dear charming creature!  What a meeting will there be between her and her
+father and mother and uncles!  What transports, what pleasure, will this
+happy, long-wished-for reconciliation give her dutiful heart!  And indeed
+now methinks I am glad she is so dutiful to them; for her duty to her
+parents is a conviction to me that she will be as dutiful to her husband:
+since duty upon principle is an uniform thing.
+
+Why pr'ythee, now, Jack, I have not been so much to blame as thou
+thinkest: for had it not been for me, who have led her into so much
+distress, she could neither have received nor given the joy that will now
+overwhelm them all.  So here rises great and durable good out of
+temporary evil.
+
+I know they loved her (the pride and glory of their family,) too well to
+hold out long!
+
+I wish I could have seen Arabella's letter.  She has always been so much
+eclipsed by her sister, that I dare say she has signified this
+reconciliation to her with intermingled phlegm and wormwood; and her
+invitation must certainly runs all in the rock-water style.
+
+I shall long to see the promised letter too when she is got to her
+father's, which I hope will give an account of the reception she will
+meet with.
+
+There is a solemnity, however, I think, in the style of her letter, which
+pleases and affects me at the same time.  But as it is evident she loves
+me still, and hopes soon to see me at her father's, she could not help
+being a little solemn, and half-ashamed, [dear blushing pretty rogue!] to
+own her love, after my usage of her.
+
+And then her subscription: Till when, I am, CLARISSA HARLOWE: as much as
+to say, after that, I shall be, if not to your own fault,
+CLARISSA LOVELACE!
+
+O my best love!  My ever-generous and adorable creature!  How much does
+this thy forgiving goodness exalt us both!--Me, for the occasion given
+thee!  Thee, for turning it so gloriously to thy advantage, and to the
+honour of both!
+
+And if, my beloved creature, you will but connive at the imperfections of
+your adorer, and not play the wife with me: if, while the charms of
+novelty have their force with me, I should happen to be drawn aside by
+the love of intrigue, and of plots that my soul delights to form and
+pursue; and if thou wilt not be open-eyed to the follies of my youth, [a
+transitory state;] every excursion shall serve but the more to endear
+thee to me, till in time, and in a very little time too, I shall get
+above sense; and then, charmed by thy soul-attracting converse; and
+brought to despise my former courses;  what I now, at distance, consider
+as a painful duty, will be my joyful choice, and all my delight will
+centre in thee!
+
+
+***
+
+
+Mowbray is just arrived with thy letters.  I therefore close my agreeable
+subject, to attend to one which I doubt will be very shocking.
+
+I have engaged the rough varlet to bear me company in the morning to
+Berks; where I shall file off the rust he has contracted in his
+attendance upon the poor fellow.
+
+He tells me that, between the dying Belton and the preaching Belford, he
+shan't be his own man these three days: and says that thou addest to the
+unhappy fellow's weakness, instead of giving him courage to help him to
+bear his destiny.
+
+I am sorry he takes the unavoidable lot so heavily.  But he has been long
+ill; and sickness enervates the mind as well as the body; as he himself
+very significantly observed to thee.
+
+
+
+LETTER XIX
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+WEDN. EVENING.
+
+
+I have been reading thy shocking letter--Poor Belton! what a multitude of
+lively hours have we passed together!  He was a fearless, cheerful
+fellow: who'd have thought all that should end in such dejected
+whimpering and terror?
+
+But why didst thou not comfort the poor man about the rencounter between
+him and that poltroon Metcalfe?  He acted in that affair like a man of
+true honour, and as I should have acted in the same circumstances.  Tell
+him I say so; and that what happened he could neither help nor foresee.
+
+Some people are as sensible of a scratch from a pin's point, as others
+from a push of a sword: and who can say any thing for the sensibility of
+such fellows?  Metcalfe would resent for his sister, when his sister
+resented not for herself.  Had she demanded her brother's protection and
+resentment, that would have been another man's matte, to speak in Lord
+M.'s phrase: but she herself thought her brother a coxcomb to busy
+himself undesired in her affairs, and wished for nothing but to be
+provided for decently and privately in her lying-in; and was willing to
+take the chance of Maintenon-ing his conscience in her favour,* and
+getting him to marry when the little stranger came; for she knew what
+an easy, good-natured fellow he was.  And indeed if she had prevailed
+upon him, it might have been happy for both; as then he would not have
+fallen in with his cursed Thomasine.  But truly this officious brother of
+her's must interpose.  This made a trifling affair important: And what
+was the issue?  Metcalfe challenged; Belton met him; disarmed him; gave
+him his life: but the fellow, more sensible in his skin than in his head,
+having received a scratch, was frighted: it gave him first a puke, then
+a fever, and then he died, that was all.  And how could Belton help that?
+--But sickness, a long tedious sickness, will make a bugbear of any thing
+to a languishing heart, I see that.  And so far was Mowbray a-propos in
+the verses from Nat. Lee, which thou hast described.
+
+
+* Madam Maintenon was reported to have prevailed upon Lewis XIV. of
+France, in his old age, (sunk, as he was, by ill success in the field,)
+to marry her, by way of compounding with his conscience for the freedoms
+of his past life, to which she attributed his public losses.
+
+
+Merely to die, no man of reason fears, is a mistake, say thou, or say
+thy author, what ye will.  And thy solemn parading about the natural
+repugnance between life and death, is a proof that it is.
+
+Let me tell thee, Jack, that so much am I pleased with this world, in
+the main; though, in some points too, the world (to make a person of it,)
+has been a rascal to me; so delighted am I with the joys of youth; with
+my worldly prospects as to fortune; and now, newly, with the charming
+hopes given me by my dear, thrice dear, and for ever dear CLARISSA; that
+were I even sure that nothing bad would come hereafter, I should be very
+loth (very much afraid, if thou wilt have it so,) to lay down my life
+and them together; and yet, upon a call of honour, no man fears death
+less than myself.
+
+But I have not either inclination or leisure to weigh thy leaden
+arguments, except in the pig, or, as thou wouldst say, in the lump.
+
+If I return thy letters, let me have them again some time hence, that is
+to say, when I am married, or when poor Belton is half forgotten; or when
+time has enrolled the honest fellow among those whom we have so long
+lost, that we may remember them with more pleasure than pain; and then I
+may give them a serious perusal, and enter with thee as deeply as thou
+wilt into the subject.
+
+When I am married, said I?--What a sound has that!
+
+I must wait with patience for a sight of this charming creature, till she
+is at her father's.  And yet, as the but blossoming beauty, as thou
+tellest me, is reduced to a shadow, I should have been exceedingly
+delighted to see her now, and every day till the happy one; that I might
+have the pleasure of observing how sweetly, hour by hour, she will rise
+to her pristine glories, by means of that state of ease and contentment,
+which will take place of the stormy past, upon her reconciliation with
+her friends, and our happy nuptials.
+
+
+
+LETTER XX
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+
+
+Well, but now my heart is a little at ease, I will condescend to take
+brief notice of some other passages in thy letters.
+
+I find I am to thank thee, that the dear creature has avoided my visit.
+Things are now in so good a train that I must forgive thee; else thou
+shouldst have heard more of this new instance of disloyalty to thy
+general.
+
+Thou art continually giving thyself high praise, by way of opposition, as
+I may say, to others; gently and artfully blaming thyself for qualities
+thou wouldst at the same time have to be thought, and which generally are
+thought, praise-worthy.
+
+Thus, in the airs thou assumest about thy servants, thou wouldst pass for
+a mighty humane mortal; and that at the expense of Mowbray and me, whom
+thou representest as kings and emperors to our menials.  Yet art thou
+always unhappy in thy attempts of this kind, and never canst make us, who
+know thee, believe that to be a virtue in thee, which is but the effect
+of constitutional phlegm and absurdity.
+
+Knowest thou not, that some men have a native dignity in their manner,
+that makes them more regarded by a look, than either thou canst be in thy
+low style, or Mowbray in his high?
+
+I am fit to be a prince, I can tell thee, for I reward well, and I punish
+seasonably and properly; and I am generally as well served by any man.
+
+The art of governing these underbred varlets lies more in the dignity of
+looks than in words; and thou art a sorry fellow, to think humanity
+consists in acting by thy servants, as men must act who are not able to
+pay them their wages; or had made them masters of secrets, which, if
+divulged, would lay them at the mercy of such wretches.
+
+Now to me, who never did any thing I was ashamed to own, and who have
+more ingenuousness than ever man had; who can call a villany by its own
+right name, though practised by myself, and (by my own readiness to
+reproach myself) anticipate all reproach from others; who am not such a
+hypocrite, as to wish the world to think me other or better than I am--
+it is my part, to look a servant into his duty, if I can; nor will I keep
+one who knows not how to take me by a nod, or a wink; and who, when I
+smile, shall not be all transport; when I frown, all terror.  If, indeed,
+I am out of the way a little, I always take care to rewards the varlets
+for patiently bearing my displeasure.  But this I hardly ever am but when
+a fellow is egregiously stupid in any plain point of duty, or will be
+wiser than his master; and when he shall tell me, that he thought acting
+contrary to my orders was the way to serve me best.
+
+One time or other I will enter the lists with thee upon thy conduct and
+mine to servants; and I will convince thee, that what thou wouldst have
+pass for humanity, if it be indiscriminately practised to all tempers,
+will perpetually subject thee to the evils thou complainest of; and
+justly too; and that he only is fit to be a master of servants, who can
+command their attention as much by a nod, as if he were to pr'ythee a
+fellow to do his duty, on one hand, or to talk of flaying, and
+horse-whipping, like Mowbray, on the other: for the servant who being
+used to expect thy creeping style, will always be master of his master,
+and he who deserves to be treated as the other, is not fit to be any
+man's servant; nor would I keep such a fellow to rub my horse's heels.
+
+I shall be the readier to enter the lists with thee upon this argument,
+because I have presumption enough to think that we have not in any of our
+dramatic poets, that I can at present call to mind, one character of a
+servant of either sex, that is justly hit off.  So absurdly wise some,
+and so sottishly foolish others; and both sometime in the same person.
+Foils drawn from lees or dregs of the people to set off the characters of
+their masters and mistresses; nay, sometimes, which is still more absurd,
+introduced with more wit than the poet has to bestow upon their
+principals.--Mere flints and steels to strike fire with--or, to vary the
+metaphor, to serve for whetstones to wit, which, otherwise, could not be
+made apparent; or, for engines to be made use of like the machinery of
+the antient poets, (or the still more unnatural soliloquy,) to help on a
+sorry plot, or to bring about a necessary eclaircissement, to save the
+poet the trouble of thinking deeply for a better way to wind up his
+bottoms.
+
+Of this I am persuaded, (whatever my practice be to my own servants,)
+that thou wilt be benefited by my theory, when we come to controvert the
+point.  For then I shall convince thee, that the dramatic as well as
+natural characteristics of a good servant ought to be fidelity, common
+sense, cheerful obedience, and silent respect; that wit in his station,
+except to his companions, would be sauciness; that he should never
+presume to give his advice; that if he venture to expostulate upon any
+unreasonable command, or such a one a appeared to him to be so, he should
+do it with humility and respect, and take a proper season for it.  But
+such lessons do most of the dramatic performances I have seen give, where
+servants are introduced as characters essential to the play, or to act
+very significant or long parts in it, (which, of itself, I think a
+fault;) such lessons, I say, do they give to the footmen's gallery, that
+I have not wondered we have so few modest or good men-servants among
+those who often attend their masters or mistresses to plays.  Then how
+miserably evident must that poet's conscious want of genius be, who can
+stoop to raise or give force to a clap by the indiscriminate roar of the
+party-coloured gallery!
+
+But this subject I will suspend to a better opportunity; that is to say,
+to the happy one, when my nuptials with my Clarissa will oblige me to
+increase the number of my servants, and of consequence to enter more
+nicely into their qualifications.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Although I have the highest opinion that man can have of the generosity
+of my dear Miss Harlowe, yet I cannot for the heart of me account for
+this agreeable change in her temper but one way.  Faith and troth,
+Belford, I verily believe, laying all circumstances together, that the
+dear creature unexpectedly finds herself in the way I have so ardently
+wished her to be in; and that this makes her, at last, incline to favour
+me, that she may set the better face upon her gestation, when at her
+father's.
+
+If this be the case, all her falling away, and her fainting fits, are
+charmingly accounted for.  Nor is it surprising, that such a sweet novice
+in these matters should not, for some time, have known to what to
+attribute her frequent indispositions.  If this should be the case, how I
+shall laugh at thee! and (when I am sure of her) at the dear novice
+herself, that all her grievous distresses shall end in a man-child; which
+I shall love better than all the cherubims and seraphims that may come
+after; though there were to be as many of them as I beheld in my dream;
+in which a vast expanse of firmament was stuck as full of them as it
+could hold!
+
+I shall be afraid to open thy next, lest it bring me the account of poor
+Belton's death.  Yet, as there are no hopes of his recovery--but what
+should I say, unless the poor man were better fitted--but thy heavy
+sermon shall not affect me too much neither.
+
+I enclose thy papers; and do thou transcribe them for me, or return them;
+for there are some things in them, which, at a proper season, a mortal
+man should not avoid attending to; and thou seemest to have entered
+deeply into the shocking subject.--But here I will end, lest I grow too
+serious.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Thy servant called here about an hour ago, to know if I had any commands;
+I therefore hope that thou wilt have this early in the morning.  And if
+thou canst let me hear from thee, do.  I'll stretch an hour or two in
+expectation of it.  Yet I must be at Lord M.'s to-morrow night, if
+possible, though ever so late.
+
+Thy fellow tells me the poor man is much as he was when Mowbray left him.
+
+Wouldst thou think that this varlet Mowbray is sorry that I am so near
+being happy with Miss Harlowe?  And, 'egad, Jack, I know not what to say
+to it, now the fruit seems to be within my reach--but let what will come,
+I'll stand to't: for I find I can't live without her.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXI
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+WEDNESDAY, THREE O'CLOCK.
+
+
+I will proceed where I left off in my last.
+
+As soon as I had seen Mowbray mounted, I went to attend upon poor Belton;
+whom I found in dreadful agonies, in which he awoke, after he generally
+does.
+
+The doctor came in presently after, and I was concerned at the scene that
+passed between them.
+
+It opened with the dying man's asking him, with melancholy earnestness,
+if nothing--if nothing at all could be done for him?
+
+The doctor shook his head, and told him, he doubted not.
+
+I cannot die, said the poor man--I cannot think of dying.  I am very
+desirous of living a little longer, if I could but be free from these
+horrible pains in my stomach and head.  Can you give me nothing to make
+me pass one week--but one week, in tolerable ease, that I may die like a
+man, if I must die!
+
+But, Doctor, I am yet a young man; in the prime of my years--youth is a
+good subject for a physician to work upon--Can you do nothing--nothing at
+all for me, Doctor?
+
+Alas! Sir, replied his physician, you have been long in a bad way.  I
+fear, I fear, nothing in physic can help you!
+
+He was then out of all patience: What, then, is your art, Sir?--I have
+been a passive machine for a whole twelvemonth, to be wrought upon at the
+pleasure of you people of the faculty.--I verily believe, had I not taken
+such doses of nasty stuff, I had been now a well man--But who the plague
+would regard physicians, whose art is to cheat us with hopes while they
+help to destroy us?--And who, not one of you, know any thing but by
+guess?
+
+Sir, continued he, fiercely, (and with more strength of voice and
+coherence, than he had shown for several hours before,) if you give me
+over, I give you over.--The only honest and certain part of the art of
+healing is surgery.  A good surgeon is worth a thousand of you.  I have
+been in surgeons' hands often, and have always found reason to depend
+upon their skill; but your art, Sir, what is it?--but to daub, daub,
+daub; load, load, load; plaster, plaster, plaster; till ye utterly
+destroy the appetite first, and the constitution afterwards, which you
+are called in to help.  I had a companion once, my dear Belford, thou
+knewest honest Blomer, as pretty a physician he would have made as any
+in England, had he kept himself from excess in wine and women; and he
+always used to say, there was nothing at all but the pick-pocket parade
+in the physician's art; and that the best guesser was the best physician.
+And I used to believe him too--and yet, fond of life, and fearful of
+death, what do we do, when we are taken ill, but call ye in?  And what
+do ye do, when called in, but nurse our distempers, till from pigmies you
+make giants of them? and then ye come creeping with solemn faces, when ye
+are ashamed to prescribe, or when the stomach won't bear its natural
+food, by reason of your poisonous potions,--Alas, I am afraid physic can
+do no more for him!--Nor need it, when it has brought to the brink of the
+grave the poor wretch who placed all his reliance in your cursed slops,
+and the flattering hopes you gave him.
+
+The doctor was out of countenance; but said, if we could make mortal men
+immortal, and would not, all this might be just.
+
+I blamed the poor man; yet excused him to the physician.  To die, dear
+Doctor, when, like my poor friend, we are so desirous of life, is a
+melancholy thing.  We are apt to hope too much, not considering that the
+seeds of death are sown in us when we begin to live, and grow up, till,
+like rampant weeds, they choke the tender flower of life; which declines
+in us as those weeds flourish.  We ought, therefore, to begin early to
+study what our constitutions will bear, in order to root out, by
+temperance, the weeds which the soil is most apt to produce; or, at
+least, to keep them down as they rise; and not, when the flower or plant
+is withered at the root, and the weed in its full vigour, expect, that
+the medical art will restore the one, or destroy the other; when that
+other, as I hinted, has been rooting itself in the habit from the time of
+our birth.
+
+This speech, Bob., thou wilt call a prettiness; but the allegory is just;
+and thou hast not quite cured me of the metaphorical.
+
+Very true, said the doctor; you have brought a good metaphor to
+illustrate the thing.  I am sorry I can do nothing for the gentleman; and
+can only recommend patience, and a better frame of mind.
+
+Well, Sir, said the poor angry man, vexed at the doctor, but more at
+death, you will perhaps recommend the next succession to the physician,
+when he can do no more; and, I suppose, will send your brother to pray by
+me for those virtues which you wish me.
+
+It seems the physician's brother is a clergyman in the neighbourhood.
+
+I was greatly concerned to see the gentleman thus treated; and so I told
+poor Belton when he was gone; but he continued impatient, and would not
+be denied, he said, the liberty of talking to a man, who had taken so
+many guineas of him for doing nothing, or worse than nothing, and never
+declined one, though he know all the time he could do him no good.
+
+It seems the gentleman, though rich, is noted for being greedy after
+fees! and poor Belton went on raving at the extravagant fees of English
+physicians, compared with those of the most eminent foreign ones.  But,
+poor man! he, like the Turks, who judge of a general by his success, (out
+of patience to think he must die,) would have worshipped the doctor, and
+not grudged thee times the sum, could he have given him hopes of
+recovery.
+
+But, nevertheless, I must needs say, that gentlemen of the faculty should
+be more moderate in their fees, or take more pains to deserve them; for,
+generally, they only come into a room, feel the sick man's pulse, ask the
+nurse a few questions, inspect the patient's tongue, and, perhaps, his
+water; then sit down, look plaguy wise, and write.  The golden fee finds
+the ready hand, and they hurry away, as if the sick man's room were
+infectious.  So to the next they troll, and to the next, if men of great
+practice; valuing themselves upon the number of visits they make in a
+morning, and the little time they make them in.  They go to dinner and
+unload their pockets; and sally out again to refill them.  And thus, in a
+little time, they raise vast estates; for, as Ratcliffe said, when first
+told of a great loss which befell him, It was only going up and down one
+hundred pairs of stairs to fetch it up.
+
+Mrs. Sambre (Belton's sister) had several times proposed to him a
+minister to pray by him, but the poor man could not, he said, bear the
+thoughts of one; for that he should certainly die in an hour or two
+after; and he was willing to hope still, against all probability, that he
+might recover; and was often asking his sister if she had not seen people
+as bad as he was, who, almost to a miracle, when every body gave them
+over, had got up again?
+
+She, shaking her head, told him she had; but, once saying, that their
+disorders were of an acute kind, and such as had a crisis in them, he
+called her Small-hopes, and Job's comforter; and bid her say nothing, if
+she could not say more to the purpose, and what was fitter for a sick man
+to hear.  And yet, poor fellow, he has no hopes himself, as is plain by
+his desponding terrors; one of which he fell into, and a very dreadful
+one, soon after the doctor went.
+
+
+***
+
+
+WEDNESDAY, NINE O'CLOCK AT NIGHT.
+
+The poor man had been in convulsions, terrible convulsions! for an hour
+past.  O Lord! Lovelace, death is a shocking thing! by my faith it is!--
+I wish thou wert present on this occasion.  It is not merely the concern
+a man has for his friend; but, as death is the common lot, we see, in his
+agonies, how it will be one day with ourselves.  I am all over as if cold
+water were poured down my back, or as if I had a strong ague-fit upon me.
+I was obliged to come away.  And I write, hardly knowing what.--I wish
+thou wert here.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Though I left him, because I could stay no longer, I can't be easy by
+myself, but must go to him again.
+
+
+ELEVEN O'CLOCK.
+
+Poor Belton!--Drawing on apace!  Yet was he sensible when I went in--too
+sensible, poor man!  He has something upon his mind to reveal, he tells
+me, that is the worst action of his life; worse than ever you or I knew
+of him, he says.  It must then be very bad!
+
+He ordered every body out; but was seized with another convulsion-fit,
+before he could reveal it; and in it he lies struggling between life and
+death--but I'll go in again.
+
+
+ONE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING.
+
+All now must soon be over with him: Poor, poor fellow!  He has given me
+some hints of what he wanted to say; but all incoherent, interrupted by
+dying hiccoughs and convulsions.
+
+Bad enough it must be, Heaven knows, by what I can gather!--Alas!
+Lovelace, I fear, I fear, he came too soon into his uncle's estate.
+
+If a man were to live always, he might have some temptation to do base
+things, in order to procure to himself, as it would then be, everlasting
+ease, plenty, or affluence; but, for the sake of ten, twenty, thirty
+years of poor life to be a villain--Can that be worth while? with a
+conscience stinging him all the time too!  And when he comes to wind up
+all, such agonizing reflections upon his past guilt!  All then appearing
+as nothing!  What he most valued, most disgustful! and not one thing to
+think of, as the poor fellow says twenty and twenty times over, but what
+is attended with anguish and reproach!--
+
+To hear the poor man wish he had never been born!--To hear him pray to be
+nothing after death!  Good God! how shocking!
+
+By his incoherent hints, I am afraid 'tis very bad with him.  No pardon,
+no mercy, he repeats, can lie for him!
+
+I hope I shall make a proper use of this lesson.  Laugh at me if thou
+wilt; but never, never more, will I take the liberties I have taken; but
+whenever I am tempted, will think of Belton's dying agonies, and what my
+own may be.
+
+
+***
+
+
+THURSDAY, THREE IN THE MORNING.
+
+He is now at the last gasp--rattles in the throat--has a new convulsion
+every minute almost!  What horror is he in!  His eyes look like
+breath-stained glass!  They roll ghastly no more; are quite set; his face
+distorted, and drawn out, by his sinking jaws, and erected staring
+eyebrows, with his lengthened furrowed forehead, to double its usual
+length, as it seems.  It is not, it cannot be the face of Belton, thy
+Belton, and my Belton, whom we have beheld with so much delight over the
+social bottle, comparing notes, that one day may be brought against us,
+and make us groan, as they very lately did him--that is to say, while he
+had strength to groan; for now his voice is not to be heard; all inward,
+lost; not so much as speaking by his eyes; yet, strange! how can it be?
+the bed rocking under him like a cradle.
+
+FOUR O'CLOCK.
+
+      Alas: he's gone! that groan, that dreadful groan,
+      Was the last farewell of the parting mind!
+      The struggling soul has bid a long adieu
+      To its late mansion--Fled!  Ah! whither fled?
+
+Now is all indeed over!--Poor, poor Belton! by this time thou knowest if
+thy crimes were above the size of God's mercies!  Now are every one's
+cares and attendance at an end! now do we, thy friends,--poor Belton!--
+know the worst of thee, as to this life!  Thou art released from
+insufferable tortures both of body and mind! may those tortures, and thy
+repentance, expiate for thy offences, and mayest thou be happy to all
+eternity!
+
+We are told, that God desires not the death, the spiritual death of a
+sinner: And 'tis certain, that thou didst deeply repent!  I hope,
+therefore, as thou wert not cut off in the midst of thy sins by the sword
+of injured friendship, which more than once thou hadst braved, [the
+dreadfullest of all deaths, next to suicide, because it gives no
+opportunity for repentance] that this is a merciful earnest that thy
+penitence is accepted; and that thy long illness, and dreadful agonies in
+the last stages of it, were thy only punishment.
+
+I wish indeed, I heartily wish, we could have seen one ray of comfort
+darting in upon his benighted mind, before he departed.  But all, alas!
+to the very last gasp, was horror and confusion.  And my only fear arises
+from this, that, till within the four last days of his life, he could not
+be brought to think he should die, though in a visible decline for
+months; and, in that presumption, was too little inclined to set about a
+serious preparation for a journey, which he hoped he should not be
+obliged to take; and when he began to apprehend that he could not put it
+off, his impatience, and terror, and apprehension, showed too little of
+that reliance and resignation, which afford the most comfortable
+reflections to the friends of the dying, as well as to the dying
+themselves.
+
+But we must leave poor Belton to that mercy, of which we have all so much
+need; and, for my own part (do you, Lovelace, and the rest of the
+fraternity, as ye will) I am resolved, I will endeavour to begin to
+repent of my follies while my health is sound, my intellects untouched,
+and while it is in my power to make some atonement, as near to
+restitution or reparation, as is possible, to those I have wronged or
+misled.  And do ye outwardly, and from a point of false bravery, make as
+light as ye will of my resolution, as ye are none of ye of the class of
+abandoned and stupid sots who endeavour to disbelieve the future
+existence of which ye are afraid, I am sure you will justify me in your
+hearts, if not by your practices; and one day you will wish you had
+joined with me in the same resolution, and will confess there is more
+good sense in it, than now perhaps you will own.
+
+
+SEVEN O'CLOCK, THURSDAY MORNING.
+
+You are very earnest, by your last letter, (just given me) to hear again
+from me, before you set out for Berks.  I will therefore close with a few
+words upon the only subject in your letter which I can at present touch
+upon: and this is the letter of which you give me a copy from the lady.
+
+Want of rest, and the sad scene I have before my eyes, have rendered me
+altogether incapable of accounting for the contents of it in any shape.
+You are in ecstacies upon it.  You have reason to be so, if it be as you
+think.  Nor would I rob you of your joy: but I must say I am amazed at
+it.
+
+Surely, Lovelace, this surprising letter cannot be a forgery of thy own,
+in order to carry on some view, and to impose upon me.  Yet, by the style
+of it, it cannot though thou art a perfect Proteus too.
+
+I will not, however, add another word, after I have desired the return of
+this, and have told you that I am
+
+Your true friend, and well-wisher,
+J. BELFORD.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXII
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+AUG. 24, THURSDAY MORNING.
+
+
+I received thy letter in such good time, by thy fellow's dispatch, that
+it gives me an opportunity of throwing in a few paragraphs upon it.  I
+read a passage or two of it to Mowbray; and we both agree that thou art
+an absolute master of the lamentable.
+
+Poor Belton! what terrible conflicts were thy last conflicts!--I hope,
+however, that he is happy: and I have the more hope, because the hardness
+of his death is likely to be such a warning to thee.  If it have the
+effect thou declarest it shall have, what a world of mischief will it
+prevent! how much good will it do! how many poor wretches will rejoice at
+the occasion, (if they know it,) however melancholy in itself, which
+shall bring them in a compensation for injuries they had been forced to
+sit down contented with!  But, Jack, though thy uncle's death has made
+thee a rich fellow, art thou sure that the making good of such a vow will
+not totally bankrupt thee?
+
+Thou sayest I may laugh at thee, if I will.  Not I, Jack: I do not take
+it to be a laughing subject: and I am heartily concerned at the loss we
+all have in poor Belton: and when I get a little settled, and have
+leisure to contemplate the vanity of all sublunary things (a subject that
+will now-and-then, in my gayest hours, obtrude itself upon me) it is very
+likely that I may talk seriously with thee upon these topics; and, if
+thou hast not got too much the start of me in the repentance thou art
+entering upon, will go hand-in-hand with thee in it.  If thou hast, thou
+wilt let me just keep thee in my eye; for it is an up-hill work; and I
+shall see thee, at setting out, at a great distance; but as thou art a
+much heavier and clumsier fellow than myself, I hope that without much
+puffing and sweating, only keeping on a good round dog-trot, I shall be
+able to overtake thee.
+
+Mean time, take back thy letter, as thou desirest.  I would not have it
+in my pocket upon any account at present; nor read it once more.
+
+I am going down without seeing my beloved.  I was a hasty fool to write
+her a letter, promising that I would not come near her till I saw her at
+her father's.  For as she is now actually at Smith's, and I so near her,
+one short visit could have done no harm.
+
+I sent Will., two hours ago, with my grateful compliments, and to know
+how she does.
+
+How must I adore this charming creature! for I am ready to think my
+servant a happier fellow than myself, for having been within a pair of
+stairs and an apartment of her.
+
+Mowbray and I will drop a tear a-piece, as we ride along, to the memory
+of poor Belton:--as we ride along, said I: for we shall have so much joy
+when we arrive at Lord M.'s, and when I communicate to him and my cousins
+the dear creature's letter, that we shall forget every thing grievous:
+since now their family-hopes in my reformation (the point which lies so
+near their hearts) will all revive; it being an article of their faith,
+that if I marry, repentance and mortification will follow of course.
+
+Neither Mowbray nor I shall accept of thy verbal invitation to the
+funeral.  We like not these dismal formalities.  And as to the respect
+that is supposed to be shown to the memory of a deceased friend in such
+an attendance, why should we do any thing to reflect upon those who have
+made it a fashion to leave this parade to people whom they hire for that
+purpose?
+
+Adieu, and be cheerful.  Thou canst now do no more for poor Belton, wert
+thou to howl for him to the end of thy life.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXIII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+SAT. AUG. 26.
+
+
+On Thursday afternoon I assisted at the opening of poor Belton's will, in
+which he has left me his sole executor, and bequeathed me a legacy of an
+hundred guineas; which I shall present to his unfortunate sister, to whom
+he has not been so kind as I think he ought to have been.  He has also
+left twenty pounds a-piece to Mowbray, Tourville, thyself, and me, for a
+ring to be worn in remembrance of him.
+
+After I had given some particular orders about the preparations to be
+made for his funeral, I went to town; but having made it late before I
+got in on Thursday night, and being fatigued for want of rest several
+nights before, and now in my spirits, [I could not help it, Lovelace!] I
+contented myself to send my compliments to the innocent sufferer, to
+inquire after her health.
+
+My servant saw Mrs. Smith, who told him, she was very glad I was come to
+town; for that lady was worse than she had yet been.
+
+It is impossible to account for the contents of her letter to you; or to
+reconcile those contents to the facts I have to communicate.
+
+I was at Smith's by seven yesterday (Friday) morning; and found that the
+lady was just gone in a chair to St. Dunstan's to prayers: she was too
+ill to get out by six to Covent-garden church; and was forced to be
+supported to her chair by Mrs. Lovick.  They would have persuaded her
+against going; but she said she knew not but it would be her last
+opportunity.  Mrs. Lovick, dreading that she would be taken worse at
+church, walked thither before her.
+
+Mrs. Smith told me she was so ill on Wednesday night, that she had
+desired to receive the sacrament; and accordingly it was administered to
+her, by the parson of the parish: whom she besought to take all
+opportunities of assisting her in her solemn preparation.
+
+This the gentleman promised: and called in the morning to inquire after
+her health; and was admitted at the first word.  He staid with her about
+half an hour; and when he came down, with his face turned aside, and a
+faltering accent, 'Mrs. Smith,' said he, 'you have an angel in your
+house.--I will attend her again in the evening, as she desires, and as
+often as I think it will be agreeable to her.'
+
+Her increased weakness she attributed to the fatigues she had undergone
+by your means; and to a letter she had received from her sister, which
+she answered the same day.
+
+Mrs. Smith told me that two different persons had called there, one on
+Thursday morning, one in the evening, to inquire after her state of
+health; and seemed as if commissioned from her relations for that
+purpose; but asked not to see her, only were very inquisitive after her
+visiters: (particularly, it seems, after me: What could they mean by
+that?) after her way of life, and expenses; and one of them inquired
+after her manner of supporting them; to the latter of which, Mrs. Smith
+said, she had answered, as the truth was, that she had been obliged to
+sell some of her clothes, and was actually about parting with more; at
+which the inquirist (a grave old farmer-looking man) held up his hands,
+and said, Good God!--this will be sad, sad news to somebody!  I believe
+I must not mention it.  But Mrs. Smith says she desired he would, let him
+come from whom he would.  He shook his head, and said if she died, the
+flower of the world would be gone, and the family she belonged to would
+be no more than a common family.*  I was pleased with the man's
+expression.
+
+
+* This man came from her cousin Morden; as will be seen hereafter,
+Letters LII. and LVI. of this volume.
+
+
+You may be curious to know how she passed her time, when she was obliged
+to leave her lodging to avoid you.
+
+Mrs. Smith tells me 'that she was very ill when she went out on Monday
+morning, and sighed as if her heart would break as she came down stairs,
+and as she went through the shop into the coach, her nurse with her, as
+you had informed me before: that she ordered the coachman (whom she hired
+for the day) to drive any where, so it was into the air: he accordingly
+drove her to Hampstead, and thence to Highgate.  There at the
+Bowling-green House, she alighted, extremely ill, and having breakfasted,
+ordered the coachman to drive very slowly any where.  He crept along to
+Muswell-hill, and put up at a public house there; where she employed
+herself two hours in writing, though exceedingly weak and low, till the
+dinner she had ordered was brought in: she endeavoured to eat, but could
+not: her appetite was gone, quite gone, she said.  And then she wrote on
+for three hours more: after which, being heavy, she dozed a little in an
+elbow-chair.  When she awoke, she ordered the coachman to drive her very
+slowly to town, to the house of a friend of Mrs. Lovick; whom, as agreed
+upon, she met there: but, being extremely ill, she would venture home at
+a late hour, although she heard from the widow that you had been there;
+and had reason to be shocked at your behaviour.  She said she found there
+was no avoiding you: she was apprehensive she should not live many hours,
+and it was not impossible but the shock the sight of you must give her
+would determine her fate in your presence.
+
+'She accordingly went home.  She heard the relation of your astonishing
+vagaries, with hands and eyes often lifted up; and with these words
+intermingled, Shocking creature! incorrigible wretch!  And will nothing
+make him serious?  And not being able to bear the thoughts of an
+interview with a man so hardened, she took to her usual chair early in
+the morning, and was carried to the Temple-stairs, where she had ordered
+her nurse before her, to get a pair of oars in readiness (for her
+fatigues the day before made her unable to bear a coach;) and then she
+was rowed to Chelsea, where she breakfasted; and after rowing about, put
+in at the Swan at Brentford-ait, where she dined; and would have written,
+but had no conveniency either of tolerable pens, or ink, or private room;
+and then proceeding to Richmond, they rowed her back to Mort-lake; where
+she put in, and drank tea at a house her waterman recommended to her.
+She wrote there for an hour; and returned to the Temple; and, when she
+landed, made one of the watermen get her a chair, and so was carried to
+the widow's friend, as the night before; where she again met the widow,
+who informed her that you had been after her twice that day.
+
+'Mrs. Lovick gave her there her sister's letter;* and she was so much
+affected with the contents of it, that she was twice very nigh fainting
+away; and wept bitterly, as Mrs. Lovick told Mrs. Smith; dropping some
+warmer expressions than ever they had heard proceed from her lips, in
+relation to her friends; calling them cruel, and complaining of ill
+offices done her, and of vile reports raised against her.
+
+
+* See Letter XXVI. of this volume.
+
+
+'While she was thus disturbed, Mrs. Smith came to her, and told her, that
+you had been there a third time, and was just gone, (at half an hour
+after nine,) having left word how civil and respectful you would be; but
+that you was determined to see her at all events.
+
+'She said it was hard she could not be permitted to die in peace: that
+her lot was a severe one: that she began to be afraid she should not
+forbear repining, and to think her punishment greater than her fault:
+but, recalling herself immediately, she comforted herself, that her life
+would be short, and with the assurance of a better.'
+
+By what I have mentioned, you will conclude with me, that the letter
+brought her by Mrs. Lovick (the superscription of which you saw to be
+written in her sister's hand) could not be the letter on the contents of
+which she grounded that she wrote to you, on her return home.  And yet
+neither Mrs. Lovick, nor Mrs. Smith, nor the servant of the latter, know
+of any other brought her.  But as the women assured me, that she actually
+did write to you, I was eased of a suspicion which I had begun to
+entertain, that you (for some purpose I could not guess at) had forged
+the letter from her of which you sent me a copy.
+
+On Wednesday morning, when she received your letter, in answer to her's,
+she said, Necessity may well be called the mother of invention--but
+calamity is the test of integrity.--I hope I have not taken an
+inexcusable step--And there she stopt a minute or two; and then said, I
+shall now, perhaps, be allowed to die in peace.
+
+I staid till she came in.  She was glad to see me; but, being very weak,
+said, she must sit down before she could go up stairs: and so went into
+the back-shop; leaning upon Mrs. Lovick: and when she had sat down, 'I am
+glad to see you, Mr. Belford, said she; I must say so--let mis-reporters
+say what they will.'
+
+I wondered at this expression;* but would not interrupt her.
+
+
+* Explained in Letter XXVIII. of this volume.
+
+
+O Sir, said she, I have been grievously harassed.  Your friend, who would
+not let me live with reputation, will not permit me to die in peace.  You
+see how I am.  Is there not a great alteration in me within this week!
+but 'tis all for the better.  Yet were I to wish for life, I must say
+that your friend, your barbarous friend, has hurt me greatly.
+
+She was so weak, so short breathed, and her words and actions so very
+moving, that I was forced to walk from her; the two women and her nurse
+turning away their faces also, weeping.
+
+I have had, Madam, said I, since I saw you, a most shocking scene before
+my eyes for days together.  My poor friend Belton is no more.  He quitted
+the world yesterday morning in such dreadful agonies, that the impression
+they have left upon me have so weakened my mind--
+
+I was loth to have her think that my grief was owing to the weak state I
+saw her in, for fear of dispiriting her.
+
+That is only, Mr. Belford, interrupted she, in order to strengthen it, if
+a proper use be made of the impression.  But I should be glad, since you
+are so humanely affected with the solemn circumstance, that you could
+have written an account of it to your gay friend, in the style and manner
+you are master of.  Who knows, as it would have come from an associate,
+and of an associate, it might have affected him?
+
+That I had done, I told her, in such a manner as had, I believed, some
+effect upon you.
+
+His behaviour in this honest family so lately, said she, and his cruel
+pursuit of me, give me but little hope that any thing serious or solemn
+will affect him.
+
+We had some talk about Belton's dying behaviour, and I gave her several
+particulars of the poor man's impatience and despair; to which she was
+very attentive; and made fine observations upon the subject of
+procrastination.
+
+A letter and packet were brought her by a man on horseback from Miss
+Howe, while we were talking.  She retired up stairs to read it; and while
+I was in discourse with Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick, the doctor and
+apothecary both came in together.  They confirmed to me my fears, as to
+the dangerous way she is in.  They had both been apprized of the new
+instances of implacableness in her friends, and of your persecutions: and
+the doctor said he would not for the world be either the unforgiving
+father of that lady, or the man who had brought her to this distress.
+Her heart's broken: she'll die, said he: there is no saving her.  But
+how, were I either the one or the other of the people I have named, I
+should support myself afterwards, I cannot tell.
+
+When she was told we were all three together, she desired us to walk up.
+She arose to receive us, and after answering two or three general
+questions relating to her health, she addressed herself to us, to the
+following effect:
+
+As I may not, said she, see you three gentlemen together again, let me
+take this opportunity to acknowledge my obligations to you all.  I am
+inexpressibly obliged to you, Sir, and to you, Sir, [courtesying to the
+doctor and to Mr. Goddard] for your more than friendly, your paternal
+care and concern for me.  Humanity in your profession, I dare say, is far
+from being a rare qualification, because you are gentlemen by your
+profession: but so much kindness, so much humanity, did never desolate
+creature meet with, as I have met with from you both.  But indeed I have
+always observed, that where a person relies upon Providence, it never
+fails to raise up a new friend for every old one that falls off.
+
+This gentleman, [bowing to me,] who, some people think, should have been
+one of the last I should have thought of for my executor--is,
+nevertheless, (such is the strange turn that things have taken!) the only
+one I can choose; and therefore I have chosen him for that charitable
+office, and he has been so good as to accept of it: for, rich as I may
+boast myself to be, I am rather so in right than in fact, at this
+present.  I repeat, therefore, my humble thanks to you all three, and beg
+of God to return to you and yours [looking to each] an hundred-fold, the
+kindness and favour you have shown me; and that it may be in the power of
+you and of yours, to the end of time, to confer benefits, rather than to
+be obliged to receive them.  This is a godlike power, gentlemen: I once
+rejoiced in it some little degree; and much more in the prospect I had of
+its being enlarged to me; though I have had the mortification to
+experience the reverse, and to be obliged almost to every body I have
+seen or met with: but all, originally, through my own fault; so I ought
+to bear the punishment without repining: and I hope I do.  Forgive these
+impertinencies: a grateful heart, that wants the power it wishes for, to
+express itself suitably to its own impulses, will be at a loss what
+properly to dictate to the tongue; and yet, unable to restrain its
+overflowings, will force the tongue to say weak and silly things, rather
+than appear ungratefully silent.  Once more, then, I thank ye all three
+for your kindness to me: and God Almighty make you that amends which at
+present I cannot!
+
+She retired from us to her closet with her eyes full; and left us looking
+upon one another.
+
+We had hardly recovered ourselves, when she, quite easy, cheerful, and
+smiling, returned to us: Doctor, said she (seeing we had been moved) you
+will excuse me for the concern I give you; and so will you, Mr. Goddard,
+and you, Mr. Belford; for 'tis a concern that only generous natures can
+show: and to such natures sweet is the pain, if I may say so, that
+attends such a concern.  But as I have some few preparations still to
+make, and would not (though in ease of Mr. Belford's future cares, which
+is, and ought to be, part of my study) undertake more than it is likely I
+shall have time lent me to perform, I would beg of you to give me your
+opinions [you see my way of living, and you may be assured that I will do
+nothing wilfully to shorten my life] how long it may possibly be, before
+I may hope to be released from all my troubles.
+
+They both hesitated, and looked upon each other.  Don't be afraid to
+answer me, said she, each sweet hand pressing upon the arm of each
+gentleman, with that mingled freedom and reserve, which virgin modesty,
+mixed with conscious dignity, can only express, and with a look serenely
+earnest, tell me how long you think I may hold it! and believe me,
+gentlemen, the shorter you tell me my time is likely to be, the more
+comfort you will give me.
+
+With what pleasing woe, said the Doctor, do you fill the minds of those
+who have the happiness to converse with you, and see the happy frame you
+are in! what you have undergone within a few days past has much hurt you:
+and should you have fresh troubles of those kinds, I could not be
+answerable for your holding it--And there he paused.
+
+How long, Doctor?--I believe I shall have a little more ruffling--I am
+afraid I shall--but there can happen only one thing that I shall not be
+tolerably easy under--How long then, Sir?--
+
+He was silent.
+
+A fortnight, Sir?
+
+He was still silent.
+
+Ten days?--A week?--How long, Sir? with smiling earnestness.
+
+If I must speak, Madam, if you have not better treatment than you have
+lately met with, I am afraid--There again he stopt.
+
+Afraid of what, Doctor? don't be afraid--How long, Sir?
+
+That a fortnight or three weeks may deprive the world of the finest
+flower in it.
+
+A fortnight or three weeks yet, Doctor?--But God's will be done!  I
+shall, however, by this means, have full time, if I have but strength
+and intellect, to do all that is now upon my mind to do.  And so, Sirs,
+I can but once more thank you [turning to each of us] for all your
+goodness to me; and, having letters to write, will take up no more of
+your time--Only, Doctor, be pleased to order me some more of those drops:
+they cheer me a little, when I am low; and putting a fee into his
+unwilling hand--You know the terms, Sir!--Then, turning to Mr. Goddard,
+you'll be so good, Sir, as to look in upon me to-night or to-morrow, as
+you have opportunity: and you, Mr. Belford, I know, will be desirous to
+set out to prepare for the last office for your late friend: so I wish
+you a good journey, and hope to see you when that is performed.
+
+She then retired with a cheerful and serene air.  The two gentlemen
+went away together.  I went down to the women, and, inquiring, found,
+that Mrs. Lovick was this day to bring her twenty guineas more, for some
+other of her apparel.
+
+The widow told me that she had taken the liberty to expostulate with her
+upon the occasion she had for raising this money, to such great
+disadvantage; and it produced the following short and affecting
+conversation between them.
+
+None of my friends will wear any thing of mine, said she.  I shall leave
+a great many good things behind me.--And as to what I want the money for
+--don't be surprised:--But suppose I want it to purchase a house?
+
+You are all mystery, Madam.  I don't comprehend you.
+
+Why, then, Mrs. Lovick, I will explain myself.--I have a man, not a
+woman, for my executor: and think you that I will leave to his care any
+thing that concerns my own person?--Now, Mrs. Lovick, smiling, do you
+comprehend me?
+
+Mrs. Lovick wept.
+
+O fie! proceeded the Lady, drying up her tears with her own handkerchief,
+and giving her a kiss--Why this kind weakness for one with whom you have
+been so little while acquainted?  Dear, good Mrs. Lovick, don't be
+concerned for me on a prospect with which I have occasion to be pleased;
+but go to-morrow to your friends, and bring me the money they have agreed
+to give you.
+
+Thus, Lovelace, it is plain she means to bespeak her last house!  Here's
+presence of mind; here's tranquillity of heart, on the most affecting
+occasion--This is magnanimity indeed!--Couldst thou, or could I, with all
+our boisterous bravery, and offensive false courage, act thus?--Poor
+Belton! how unlike was thy behaviour!
+
+Mrs. Lovick tells me that the lady spoke of a letter she had received
+from her favourite divine Dr. Lewen, in the time of my absence; and of an
+letter she had returned to it.  But Mrs. Lovick knows not the contents of
+either.
+
+When thou receivest the letter I am now writing, thou wilt see what will
+soon be the end of all thy injuries to this divine lady.  I say when thou
+receivest it; for I will delay it for some little time, lest thou
+shouldest take it into thy head (under pretence of resenting the
+disappointment her letter must give thee) to molest her again.
+
+This letter having detained me by its length, I shall not now set out for
+Epsom till to-morrow.
+
+I should have mentioned that the lady explained to me what the one thing
+was that she was afraid might happen to ruffle her.  It was the
+apprehension of what may result from a visit which Col. Morden, as she is
+informed, designs to make you.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXIV
+
+THE REV. DR. LEWEN, TO MISS CL. HARLOWE
+FRIDAY, AUG. 18.
+
+
+Presuming, dearest and ever-respectable young lady, upon your former
+favour, and upon your opinion of my judgment and sincerity, I cannot help
+addressing you by a few lines on your present unhappy situation.
+
+I will not look back upon the measures into which you have either been
+led or driven.  But will only say as to those, that I think you are the
+least to blame of any young lady that was ever reduced from happy to
+unhappy circumstances; and I have not been wanting to say as much, where
+I hoped my freedom would have been better received than I have had the
+mortification to find it to be.
+
+What I principally write for now is, to put you upon doing a piece of
+justice to yourself, and to your sex, in the prosecuting for his life (I
+am assured his life is in your power) the most profligate and abandoned
+of men, as he must be, who could act so basely, as I understand Mr.
+Lovelace has acted by you.
+
+I am very ill; and am now forced to write upon my pillow; my thoughts
+confused; and incapable of method: I shall not therefore aim at method:
+but to give you in general my opinion--and that is, that your religion,
+your duty to your family, the duty you owe to your honour, and even
+charity to your sex, oblige you to give public evidence against this very
+wicked man.
+
+And let me add another consideration: The prevention, by this means, of
+the mischiefs that may otherwise happen between your brother and Mr.
+Lovelace, or between the latter and your cousin Morden, who is now, I
+hear, arrived, and resolves to have justice done you.
+
+A consideration which ought to affect your conscience, [forgive me,
+dearest young lady, I think I am now in the way of my duty;] and to be
+of more concern to you, than that hard pressure upon your modesty which
+I know the appearance against him in an open court must be of to such a
+lady as you; and which, I conceive, will be your great difficulty.  But I
+know, Madam, that you have dignity enough to become the blushes of the
+most naked truth, when necessity, justice, and honour, exact it from you.
+Rakes and ravishers would meet with encouragement indeed, and most from
+those who had the greatest abhorrence of their actions, if violated
+modesty were never to complain of the injury it received from the
+villanous attempters of it.
+
+In a word, the reparation of your family dishonour now rests in your own
+bosom: and which only one of these two alternatives can repair; to wit,
+either to marry the offender, or to prosecute him at law.  Bitter
+expedients for a soul so delicate as your's!
+
+He, and all his friends, I understand, solicit you to the first: and it
+is certainly, now, all the amends within his power to make.  But I am
+assured that you have rejected their solicitations, and his, with the
+indignation and contempt that his foul actions have deserved: but yet,
+that you refuse not to extend to him the christian forgiveness he has so
+little reason to expect, provided he will not disturb you farther.
+
+But, Madam, the prosecution I advise, will not let your present and
+future exemption from fresh disturbance from so vile a molester depend
+upon his courtesy: I should think so noble and so rightly-guided a spirit
+as your's would not permit that it should, if you could help it.
+
+And can indignities of any kind be properly pardoned till we have it in
+our power to punish them?  To pretend to pardon, while we are labouring
+under the pain or dishonour of them, will be thought by some to be but
+the vaunted mercy of a pusillanimous heart, trembling to resent them.
+The remedy I propose is a severe one: But what pain can be more severe
+than the injury?  Or how will injuries be believed to grieve us, that are
+never honourably complained of?
+
+I am sure Miss Clarissa Harlowe, however injured and oppressed, remains
+unshaken in her sentiments of honour and virtue: and although she would
+sooner die than deserve that her modesty should be drawn into question;
+yet she will think no truth immodest that is to be uttered in the
+vindicated cause of innocence and chastity.  Little, very little
+difference is there, my dear young lady, between a suppressed evidence,
+and a false one.
+
+It is a terrible circumstance, I once more own, for a young lady of your
+delicacy to be under the obligation of telling so shocking a story in
+public court: but it is still a worse imputation, that she should pass
+over so mortal an injury unresented.
+
+Conscience, honour, justice, are on your side: and modesty would, by
+some, be thought but an empty name, should you refuse to obey their
+dictates.
+
+I have been consulted, I own, on this subject.  I have given it as my
+opinion, that you ought to prosecute the abandoned man--but without my
+reasons.  These I reserved, with a resolution to lay them before you
+unknown to any body, that the result, if what I wish, may be your own.
+
+I will only add that the misfortunes which have befallen you, had they
+been the lot of a child of my own, could not have affected me more than
+your's have done.  My own child I love: but I both love and honour you:
+since to love you, is to love virtue, good sense, prudence, and every
+thing that is good and noble in woman.
+
+Wounded as I think all these are by the injuries you have received, you
+will believe that the knowledge of your distresses must have afflicted,
+beyond what I am able to express,
+
+Your sincere admirer, and humble servant,
+ARTHUR LEWEN.
+
+
+I just now understand that your sister will, by proper authority, propose
+      this prosecution to you.  I humbly presume that the reason why you
+      resolved not upon this step from the first, was, that you did not
+      know that it would have the countenance and support of your
+      relations.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXV
+
+MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO THE REV. DR. LEWEN
+SAT. AUG. 19.
+
+
+REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,
+
+I thought, till I received your affectionate and welcome letter, that I
+had neither father, uncle, brother left; nor hardly a friend among my
+former favourers of your sex.  Yet, knowing you so well, and having no
+reason to upbraid myself with a faulty will, I was to blame, (even
+although I had doubted the continuance of your good opinion,) to decline
+the trial whether I had forfeited it or not; and if I had, whether I
+could not honourably reinstate myself in it.
+
+But, Sir, it was owing to different causes that I did not; partly to
+shame, to think how high, in my happier days, I stood in your esteem, and
+how much I must be sunk in it, since those so much nearer in relation to
+me gave me up; partly to deep distress, which makes the humbled heart
+diffident; and made mine afraid to claim the kindred mind in your's,
+which would have supplied to me in some measure all the dear and lost
+relations I have named.
+
+Then, so loth, as I sometimes was, to be thought to want to make a party
+against those whom both duty and inclination bid me reverence: so long
+trailed on between hope and doubt: so little my own mistress at one time;
+so fearful of making or causing mischief at another; and not being
+encouraged to hope, by your kind notice, that my application to you would
+be acceptable:--apprehending that my relations had engaged your silence
+at least*--THESE--But why these unavailing retrospections now?--I was to
+be unhappy--in order to be happy; that is my hope!--Resigning therefore
+to that hope, I will, without any further preamble, write a few lines,
+(if writing to you, I can write but a few,) in answer to the subject of
+your kind letter.
+
+
+* The stiff visit this good divine was prevailed upon to make her, as
+mentioned in Vol. II. Letter XXXI. (of which, however, she was too
+generous to remind him) might warrant the lady to think that he had
+rather inclined to their party, as to the parental side, than to her's.
+
+
+Permit me, then, to say, That I believe your arguments would have been
+unanswerable in almost every other case of this nature, but in that of
+the unhappy Clarissa Harlowe.
+
+It is certain that creatures who cannot stand the shock of public shame,
+should be doubly careful how they expose themselves to the danger of
+incurring private guilt, which may possibly bring them to it.  But as to
+myself, suppose there were no objections from the declining way I am in
+as to my health; and supposing I could have prevailed upon myself to
+appear against this man; were there not room to apprehend that the end so
+much wished for by my friends, (to wit, his condign punishment,) would
+not have been obtained, when it came to be seen that I had consented to
+give him a clandestine meeting; and, in consequence of that, had been
+weakly tricked out of living under one roof with him for several weeks;
+which I did, (not only without complaint, but) without cause of
+complaint?
+
+Little advantage in a court, (perhaps, bandied about, and jested
+profligately with,) would some of those pleas in my favour have been,
+which out of court, and to a private and serious audience, would have
+carried the greatest weight against him--Such, particularly, as the
+infamous methods to which he had recourse--
+
+It would, no doubt, have been a ready retort from every mouth, that I
+ought not to have thrown myself into the power of such a man, and that I
+ought to take for my pains what had befallen me.
+
+But had the prosecution been carried on to effect, and had he even been
+sentenced to death, can it be supposed that his family would not have had
+interest enough to obtain his pardon, for a crime thought too lightly of,
+though one of the greatest that can be committed against a creature
+valuing her honour above her life?--While I had been censured as pursuing
+with sanguinary views a man who offered me early all the reparation in
+his power to make?
+
+And had he been pardoned, would he not then have been at liberty to do as
+much mischief as ever?
+
+I dare say, Sir, such is the assurance of the man upon whom my unhappy
+destiny threw me; and such his inveteracy to my family, (which would then
+have appeared to be justified by their known inveteracy to him, and by
+their earnest endeavours to take away his life;) that he would not have
+been sorry to have had an opportunity to confront me, and my father,
+uncles, and brother, at the bar of a court of justice, on such an
+occasion.  In which case, would not (on his acquittal, or pardon)
+resentments have been reciprocally heightened?  And then would my
+brother, or my cousin Morden, have been more secure than now?
+
+How do these conditions aggravate my fault!  My motives, at first, were
+not indeed blamable: but I had forgotten the excellent caution, which yet
+I was not ignorant of, That we ought not to do evil that good may come of
+it.
+
+In full conviction of the purity of my heart, and of the firmness of my
+principles, [Why may I not, thus called upon, say what I am conscious of,
+and yet without the imputation of faulty pride; since all is but a duty,
+and I should be utterly inexcusable, could I not justly say what I do?--
+In this full conviction,] he has offered me marriage.  He has avowed his
+penitence: a sincere penitence I have reason to think it, though perhaps
+not a christian one.  And his noble relations, (kinder to the poor
+sufferer than her own,) on the same conviction, and his own not
+ungenerous acknowledgements, have joined to intercede with me to forgive
+and accept of him.  Although I cannot comply with the latter part of
+their intercession, have not you, Sir, from the best rules, and from the
+divinest example, taught me to forgive injuries?
+
+The injury I have received from him is indeed of the highest nature, and
+it was attended with circumstances of unmanly baseness and premeditation;
+yet, I bless God, it has not tainted my mind; it has not hurt my morals.
+No thanks indeed to the wicked man that it has not.  No vile courses have
+followed it.  My will is unviolated.  The evil, (respecting myself, and
+not my friends,) is merely personal.  No credulity, no weakness, no want
+of vigilance, have I to reproach myself with.  I have, through grace,
+triumphed over the deepest machinations.  I have escaped from him.  I
+have renounced him.  The man whom once I could have loved, I have been
+enabled to despise: And shall not charity complete my triumph? and shall
+I not enjoy it?--And where would be my triumph if he deserved my
+forgiveness?--Poor man! he has had a loss in losing me!  I have the pride
+to think so, because I think I know my own heart.  I have had none in
+losing him.
+
+But I have another plea to make, which alone would have been enough (as I
+presume) to answer the contents of your very kind and friendly letter.
+
+I know, my dear and reverend friend, the spiritual guide and director of
+my happier days! I know, that you will allow of my endeavour to bring
+myself to this charitable disposition, when I tell you how near I think
+myself to that great and awful moment, in which, and even in the ardent
+preparation to which, every sense of indignity or injury that concerns
+not the immortal soul, ought to be absorbed in higher and more important
+contemplations.
+
+Thus much for myself.
+
+And for the satisfaction of my friends and favourers, Miss Howe is
+solicitous to have all those letters and materials preserved, which will
+set my whole story in a true light.  The good Dr. Lewen is one of the
+principal of those friends and favourers.
+
+The warning that may be given from those papers to all such young
+creatures as may have known or heard of me, may be of more efficacy to
+the end wished for, as I humbly presume to think, than my appearance
+could have been in a court of justice, pursuing a doubtful event, under
+the disadvantages I have mentioned.  And if, my dear and good Sir, you
+are now, on considering every thing, of this opinion, and I could know
+it, I should consider it as a particular felicity; being as solicitous
+as ever to be justified in what I may in your eyes.
+
+I am sorry, Sir, that your indisposition has reduced you to the necessity
+of writing upon your pillow.  But how much am I obliged to that kind and
+generous concern for me, which has impelled you, as I may say, to write a
+letter, containing so many paternal lines, with such inconvenience to
+yourself!
+
+May the Almighty bless you, dear and reverend Sir, for all your goodness
+to me of long time past, as well as for that which engaged my present
+gratitude!  Continue to esteem me to the last, as I do and will venerate
+you!  And let me bespeak your prayers, the continuance, I should say, of
+your prayers; for I doubt not, that I have always had them: and to them,
+perhaps, has in part been owing (as well as to your pious precepts
+instilled through my earlier youth) that I have been able to make the
+stand I have made; although every thing that you prayed for has not been
+granted to me by that Divine Wisdom, which knows what is best for its
+poor creatures.
+
+My prayers for you are, that it will please God to restore you to your
+affectionate flock; and after as many years of life as shall be for his
+service, and to your own comfort, give us a happy meeting in those
+regions of blessedness, which you have taught me, as well by example, as
+by precept, to aspire to!
+
+CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXVI
+
+MISS ARAB. HARLOWE, TO MISS CL. HARLOWE
+[IN ANSWER TO HER'S TO HER UNCLE ANTONY OF AUG. 13.*]
+MONDAY, AUG. 21.
+
+
+* See Letter IV. of this volume.
+
+
+SISTER CLARY,
+
+I find by your letters to my uncles, that they, as well as I, are in
+great disgrace with you for writing our minds to you.
+
+We can't help it, sister Clary.
+
+You don't think it worth your while, I find, a second time to press for
+the blessing you pretend to be so earnest about.  You think, no doubt,
+that you have done your duty in asking for it: so you'll sit down
+satisfied with that, I suppose, and leave it to your wounded parents to
+repent hereafter that they have not done theirs, in giving it to you, at
+the first word; and in making such inquiries about you, as you think
+ought to have been made.  Fine encouragement to inquire after a run-away
+daughter! living with her fellow as long as he would live with her!  You
+repent also (with your full mind, as you modestly call it) that you wrote
+to me.
+
+So we are not likely to be applied to any more, I find, in this way.
+
+Well then, since this is the case, sister Clary, let me, with all
+humility, address myself with a proposal or two to you; to which you will
+be graciously pleased to give an answer.
+
+Now you must know, that we have had hints given us, from several
+quarters, that you have been used in such a manner by the villain you ran
+away with, that his life would be answerable for his crime, if it were
+fairly to be proved.  And, by your own hints, something like it appears
+to us.
+
+If, Clary, there be any thing but jingle and affected period in what
+proceeds from your full mind, and your dutiful consciousness; and if
+there be truth in what Mrs. Norton and Mrs. Howe have acquainted us with;
+you may yet justify your character to us, and to the world, in every
+thing but your scandalous elopement; and the law may reach the villain:
+and, could we but bring him to the gallows, what a meritorious revenge
+would that be to our whole injured family, and to the innocents he has
+deluded, as well as the saving from ruin many others!
+
+Let me, therefore, know (if you please) whether you are willing to appear
+to do yourself, and us, and your sex, this justice?  If not, sister
+Clary, we shall know what to think of you; for neither you nor we can
+suffer more than we have done from the scandal of your fall: and, if you
+will, Mr. Ackland and counselor Derham will both attend you to make
+proper inquiries, and to take minutes of your story, to found a process
+upon, if it will bear one with as great a probability of success as we
+are told it may be prosecuted with.
+
+But, by what Mrs. Howe intimates, this is not likely to be complied with;
+for it is what she hinted to you, it seems, by her lively daughter, but
+not without effect;* so prudently in some certain points, as to entitle
+yourself to public justice; which, if true, the Lord have mercy upon you!
+
+
+* See Vol. VI. Letter LXXII.
+
+
+One word only more as to the above proposal:--Your admirer, Dr. Lewen, is
+clear, in his opinion, that you should prosecute the villain.
+
+But if you will not agree to this, I have another proposal to make to
+you, and that in the name of every one in the family; which is, that you
+will think of going to Pensylvania to reside there for some few years
+till all is blown over: and, if it please God to spare you, and your
+unhappy parents, till they can be satisfied that you behave like a true
+and uniform penitent; at least till you are one-and-twenty; you may then
+come back to your own estate, or have the produce of it sent you thither,
+as you shall choose.  A period which my father fixes, because it is the
+custom; and because he thinks your grandfather should have fixed it; and
+because, let me add, you have fully proved by your fine conduct, that you
+were not at years of discretion at eighteen.  Poor doting, though good
+old man!--Your grandfather, he thought--But I would not be too severe.
+
+Mr. Hartley has a widow-sister at Pensylvania, with whom he will
+undertake you may board, and who is a sober, sensible, well-read woman.
+And if you were once well there, it would rid your father and mother of
+a world of cares, and fears, and scandal; and that I think is what you
+should wish for of all things.
+
+Mr. Hartley will engage for all accommodations in your passage suitable
+to your rank and fortune; and he has a concern in a ship, which will sail
+in a month; and you may take your secret-keeping Hannah with you, or whom
+you will of your newer acquaintance.  'Tis presumed that your companions
+will be of your own sex.
+
+These are what I had to communicate to you; and if you'll oblige me with
+an answer, (which the hand that conveys this will call for on Wednesday
+morning,) it will be very condescending.
+
+ARABELLA HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXVII
+
+MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO MISS ARAB. HARLOWE
+TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+
+
+Write to me, my hard-hearted Sister, in what manner you please, I shall
+always be thankful to you for your notice.  But (think what you will of
+me) I cannot see Mr. Ackland and the counselor on such a business as you
+mention.
+
+The Lord have mercy upon me indeed! for none else will.
+
+Surely I am believed to a creature past all shame, or it could not be
+thought of sending two gentlemen to me on such an errand.
+
+Had my mother required of me (or would modesty have permitted you to
+inquire into) the particulars of my sad story, or had Mrs. Norton been
+directed to receive them from me, methinks it had been more fit: and I
+presume to think that it would have been more in every one's character
+too, had they been required of me before such heavy judgment had been
+passed upon me as has been passed.
+
+I know that this is Dr. Lewen's opinion.  He has been so good as to
+enforce it in a kind letter to me.  I have answered his letter; and given
+such reasons as I hope will satisfy him.  I could wish it were thought
+worth while to request of him a sight of my answer.*
+
+
+* Her letter, containing the reasons she refers to, was not asked for;
+and Dr. Lewen's death, which fell out soon after he had received it, was
+the reason that it was not communicated to the family, till it was too
+late to do the service that might have been hoped for from it.
+
+
+To your other proposal, of going to Pensylvania; this is my answer--If
+nothing happen within a month which may full as effectually rid my
+parents and friends of that world of cares, and fears, and scandals,
+which you mention, and if I am then able to be carried on board of ship,
+I will cheerfully obey my father and mother, although I were sure to die
+in the passage.  And, if I may be forgiven for saying so (for indeed it
+proceeds not from a spirit of reprisal) you shall set over me, instead of
+my poor obliging, but really-unculpable, Hannah, your Betty Barnes; to
+whom I will be answerable for all my conduct.  And I will make it worth
+her while to accompany me.
+
+I am equally surprised and concerned at the hints which both you and my
+uncle Antony give of new points of misbehaviour in me!--What can be meant
+by them?
+
+I will not tell you, Miss Harlowe, how much I am afflicted at your
+severity, and how much I suffer by it, and by your hard-hearted levity of
+style, because what I shall say may be construed into jingle and period,
+and because I know it is intended, very possibly for kind ends, to
+mortify me.  All I will therefore say is, that it does not lose its end,
+if that be it.
+
+But, nevertheless, (divesting myself as much as possible of all
+resentment,) I will only pray that Heaven will give you, for your own
+sake, a kinder heart than at present you seem to have; since a kind
+heart, I am convinced, is a greater blessing to its possessor than it can
+be to any other person.  Under this conviction I subscribe myself, my
+dear Bella,
+
+Your ever-affectionate sister,
+CL. HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXVIII
+
+MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+[IN ANSWER TO HER'S OF THURSDAY, AUG. 17.*]
+TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+
+
+* See Letter VI. of this volume.
+
+
+MY DEAREST YOUNG LADY,
+
+The letters you sent me I now return by the hand that brings you this.
+
+It is impossible for me to express how much I have been affected by them,
+and by your last of the 17th.  Indeed, my dear Miss Clary, you are very
+harshly used; indeed you are!  And if you should be taken from us, what
+grief and what punishment are not treasuring up against themselves in the
+heavy reflections which their rash censures and unforgivingness will
+occasion them!
+
+But I find to what your uncle Antony's cruel letter is owing, as well as
+one you will be still more afflicted by, [God help you, my poor dear
+child!] when it comes to your hand, written by your sister, with
+proposals to you.*
+
+
+* See Letter XXVI. ibid.
+
+
+It was finished to send you yesterday, I know; and I apprize you of it,
+that you should fortify your heart against the contents of it.
+
+The motives which incline them all to this severity, if well grounded,
+would authorize any severity they could express, and which, while they
+believe them to be so, both they and you are to be equally pitied.
+
+They are owning to the information of that officious Mr. Brand, who has
+acquainted them (from some enemy of your's in the neighbourhood about
+you) that visits are made you, highly censurable, by a man of a free
+character, and an intimate of Mr. Lovelace; who is often in private with
+you; sometimes twice or thrice a day.
+
+Betty gives herself great liberties of speech upon this occasion, and all
+your friends are too ready to believe that things are not as they should
+be; which makes me wish that, let the gentleman's views be ever so
+honourable, you could entirely drop acquaintance with him.
+
+Something of this nature was hinted at by Betty to me before, but so
+darkly that I could not tell what to make of it; and this made me mention
+to you so generally as I did in my last.
+
+Your cousin Morden has been among them.  He is exceedingly concerned for
+your misfortunes; and as they will not believe Mr. Lovelace would marry
+you, he is determined to go to Lord M.'s, in order to inform himself from
+Mr. Lovelace's own mouth, whether he intends to do you that justice or
+not.
+
+He was extremely caressed by every one at his first arrival; but I am
+told there is some little coldness between them and him at present.
+
+I was in hopes of getting a sight of this letter of Mr. Brand: (a rash
+officious man!) but it seems Mr. Morden had it given him yesterday to
+read, and he took it away with him.
+
+God be your comfort, my dear Miss!  But indeed I am exceedingly disturbed
+at the thoughts of what may still be the issue of all these things.  I
+am, my beloved young lady,
+
+Your most affectionate and faithful
+JUDITH NORTON.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXIX
+
+MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+TUESDAY, AUG. 22.
+
+
+After I had sealed up the enclosed, I had the honour of a private visit
+from your aunt Hervey; who has been in a very low-spirited way, and kept
+her chamber for several weeks past; and is but just got abroad.
+
+She longed, she said, to see me, and to weep with me, on the hard fate
+that had befallen her beloved niece.
+
+I will give you a faithful account of what passed between us; as I expect
+that it will, upon the whole, administer hope and comfort to you.
+
+'She pitied very much your good mother, who, she assured me, is obliged
+to act a part entirely contrary to her inclinations; as she herself, she
+owns, had been in a great measure.
+
+'She said, that the poor lady was with great difficulty with-held from
+answering your letter to her; which had (as was your aunt's expression)
+almost broken the heart of every one: that she had reason to think that
+she was neither consenting to your two uncles writing, nor approving of
+what they wrote.
+
+'She is sure they all love you dearly; but have gone so far, that they
+know not how to recede.
+
+'That, but for the abominable league which your brother had got every
+body into (he refusing to set out for Scotland till it was renewed, and
+till they had all promised to take no step towards a reconciliation in
+his absence but by his consent; and to which your sister's resentments
+kept them up); all would before now have happily subsided.
+
+'That nobody knew the pangs which their inflexible behaviour gave them,
+ever since you had begun to write to them in so affecting and humble a
+style.
+
+'That, however, they were not inclined to believe that you were either so
+ill, or so penitent as you really are; and still less, that Mr. Lovelace
+is in earnest in his offers of marriage.
+
+'She is sure, however, she says, that all will soon be well: and the
+sooner for Mr. Morden's arrival: who is very zealous in your behalf.
+
+'She wished to Heaven that you would accept of Mr. Lovelace, wicked as he
+has been, if he were now in earnest.
+
+'It had always,' she said, 'been matter of astonishment to her, that so
+weak a pride in her cousin James, of making himself the whole family,
+should induce them all to refuse an alliance with such a family as Mr.
+Lovelace's was.
+
+'She would have it, that your going off with Mr. Lovelace was the
+unhappiest step for your honour and your interest that could have been
+taken; for that although you would have had a severe trial the next day,
+yet it would probably have been the last; and your pathetic powers must
+have drawn you off some friends--hinting at your mother, at your uncle
+Harlowe, at your uncle Hervey, and herself.'
+
+But here (that the regret that you did not trust to the event of that
+meeting, may not, in your present low way, too much afflict you) I must
+observe, that it seems a little too evident, even from this opinion of
+your aunt's, that it was not absolutely determined that all compulsion
+was designed to be avoided, since your freedom from it must have been
+owing to the party to be made among them by your persuasive eloquence and
+dutiful expostulation.
+
+'She owned, that some of them were as much afraid of meeting you as you
+could be of meeting them:'--But why so, if they designed, in the last
+instance, to give you your way?
+
+Your aunt told me, 'That Mrs. Williams* had been with her, and asked her
+opinion, if it would be taken amiss, if she desired leave to go up, to
+attend her dearest young lady in her calamity.  Your aunt referred her to
+your mother: but had heard no more of it.
+
+
+* The former housekeeper at Harlowe-place.
+
+
+'Her daughter,' (Miss Dolly,) she said, 'had been frequently earnest with
+her on the same subject; and renewed her request with the greatest
+fervour when your first letter came to hand.'
+
+Your aunt says, 'That she then being very ill, wrote to your mother upon
+it, hoping it would not be taken amiss if she permitted Dolly to go; but
+that your sister, as from your mother, answered her, That now you seemed
+to be coming-to, and to have a due sense of your faults, you must be left
+entirely to their own management.
+
+'Miss Dolly,' she said, 'had pined ever since she had heard of Mr.
+Lovelace's baseness, being doubly mortified by it: first, on account of
+your sufferings; next, because she was one who rejoiced in your getting
+off, and vindicated you for it; and had incurred censure and ill-will on
+that account; especially from your brother and sister; so that she seldom
+went to Harlowe-place.'
+
+Make the best use of these intelligences, my dearest young lady, for your
+consolation.
+
+I will only add, that I am, with the most fervent prayers for your
+recovery and restoration to favour,
+
+Your ever-faitful
+JUDITH NORTON.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXX
+
+MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO MRS. JUDITH NORTON
+THURSDAY, AUG. 24.
+
+
+The relation of such a conversation as passed between my aunt and you
+would have given me pleasure, had it come some time ago; because it would
+have met with a spirit more industrious than mine now is, to pick out
+remote comfort in the hope of a favourable turn that might one day have
+rewarded my patient duty.
+
+I did not doubt my aunt't good-will to me.  Her affection I did not
+doubt.  But shall we wonder that kings and princes meet with so little
+controul in their passions, be they every so violent, when, in a private
+family, an aunt, nay, even a mother in that family, shall choose to give
+up a once-favoured child against their own inclinations, rather than
+oppose an aspiring young man, who had armed himself with the authority of
+a father, who, when once determined, never would be expostulated with?
+
+And will you not blame me, if I say, that good sense, that kindred
+indulgence, must be a little offended at the treatment I have met with;
+and if I own, that I think that great rigour has been exercised towards
+me!  And yet I am now authorized to call it rigour by the judgment of two
+excellent sisters, my mother and my aunt, who acknowledge (as you tell me
+from my aunt) that they have been obliged to join against me, contrary to
+their inclinations; and that even in a point which might seem to concern
+my eternal welfare.
+
+But I must not go on at this rate.  For may not the inclination my mother
+has given up be the effect of a too-fond indulgence, rather than that I
+merit the indulgence?  And yet so petulantly perverse am I, that I must
+tear myself from the subject.
+
+All then that I will say further to it, at this time, is, that were the
+intended goodness to be granted to me but a week hence, it would possibly
+be too late--too late I mean to be of the consolation to me that I would
+wish from it: for what an inefficacious preparation must I have been
+making, if it has not, by this time, carried me above--But above what?--
+Poor mistaken creature!  Unhappy self-deluder! that finds herself above
+nothing!  Nor able to subdue her own faulty impatience!
+
+But in-deed, to have done with a subject that I dare not trust myself
+with, if it come in your way, let my aunt Hervey, let my dear cousin
+Dolly, let the worthy Mrs. Williams, know how exceedingly grateful to me
+their kind intentions and concern for me are: and, as the best warrant
+or justification of their good opinions, (since I know that their favour
+for me is founded on the belief that I loved virtue,) tell them, that I
+continued to love virtue to my last hour, as I presume to hope it may be
+said; and assure them that I never made the least wilful deviation,
+however unhappy I became for one faulty step; which nevertheless was not
+owing to unworthy or perverse motives.
+
+I am very sorry that my cousin Morden has taken a resolution to see Mr.
+Lovelace.
+
+My apprehensions on this intelligence are a great abatement to the
+pleasure I have in knowing that he still loves me.
+
+My sister's letter to me is a most affecting one--so needlessly, so
+ludicrously taunting!--But for that part of it that is so, I ought rather
+to pity her, than to be so much concerned at it as I am.
+
+I wonder what I have done to Mr. Brand--I pray God to forgive both him
+and his informants, whoever they be.  But if the scandal arise solely
+from Mr. Belford's visits, a very little time will confute it.  Mean
+while, the packet I shall send you, which I sent to Miss Howe, will, I
+hope, satisfy you, my dear Mrs. Norton, as to my reasons for admitting
+his visits.
+
+My sister's taunting letter, and the inflexibleness of my dearer friends
+--But how do remoter-begun subjects tend to the point which lies nearest
+the heart!--As new-caught bodily disorders all crowd to a fractured or
+distempered part.
+
+I will break off, with requesting your prayers that I may be blessed with
+patience and due resignation; and with assuring you, that I am, and will
+be to the last hour of my life,
+
+Your equally grateful and affectionate
+CL. HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXI
+
+MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+[IN REPLY TO HER'S OF FRIDAY, AUG. 11.*]
+YARMOUTH, ISLE OF WIGHT, AUG. 23.
+
+
+* See Letter II. of this volume.
+
+
+MY DEAREST FRIEND,
+
+I have read the letters and copies of letters you favoured me with: and I
+return them by a particular hand.  I am extremely concerned at your
+indifferent state of health: but I approve of all your proceedings and
+precautions in relation to the appointment of Mr. Belford for an office,
+in which, I hope, neither he nor any body else will be wanted to act, for
+many, very many years.
+
+I admire, and so we do all, that greatness of mind which can make you so
+stedfastly [sic] despise (through such inducements as no other woman
+could resist, and in such desolate circumstances as you have been reduced
+to) the wretch that ought to be so heartily despised and detested.
+
+What must the contents of those letters from your relations be, which you
+will not communicate to me!--Fie upon them!  How my heart rises!--But I
+dare say no more--though you yourself now begin to think they use you
+with great severity.
+
+Every body here is so taken with Mr. Hickman (and the more from the
+horror they conceive at the character of the detestable Lovelace,) that I
+have been teased to death almost to name a day.  This has given him airs:
+and, did I not keep him to it, he would behave as carelessly and as
+insolently as if he were sure of me.  I have been forced to mortify him
+no less than four times since we have been here.
+
+I made him lately undergo a severe penance for some negligences that were
+not to be passed over.  Not designed ones, he said: but that was a poor
+excuse, as I told him: for, had they been designed, he should never have
+come into my presence more: that they were not, showed his want of
+thought and attention; and those were inexcusable in a man only in his
+probatory state.
+
+He hoped he had been more than in a probatory state, he said.
+
+And therefore, Sir, might be more careless!--So you add ingratitude to
+negligence, and make what you plead as accident, that itself wants an
+excuse, design, which deserves none.
+
+I would not see him for two days, and he was so penitent, and so humble,
+that I had like to have lost myself, to make him amends: for, as you have
+said, resentment carried too high, often ends in amends too humble.
+
+I long to be nearer to you: but that must not yet be, it seems.  Pray, my
+dear, let me hear from you as often as you can.
+
+May Heaven increase your comforts, and restore your health, are the
+prayers of
+
+Your ever faithful and affectionate
+ANNA HOWE.
+
+
+P.S. Excuse me that I did not write before: it was owing to a little
+      coasting voyage I was obliged to give into.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXII
+
+MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
+FRIDAY, AUG. 25.
+
+
+You are very obliging, my dear Miss Howe, to account to me for your
+silence.  I was easy in it, as I doubted not that, among such near and
+dear friends as you are with, you was diverted from writing by some such
+agreeable excursion as that you mention.
+
+I was in hopes that you had given over, at this time of day, those very
+sprightly airs, which I have taken the liberty to blame you for, as often
+as you have given me occasion to so do; and that has been very often.
+
+I was always very grave with you upon this subject: and while your own
+and a worthy man's future happiness are in the question, I must enter
+into it, whenever you forget yourself, although I had not a day to live:
+and indeed I am very ill.
+
+I am sure it was not your intention to take your future husband with you
+to the little island to make him look weak and silly among those of your
+relations who never before had seen him.  Yet do you think it possible
+for them (however prepared and resolved they may be to like him) to
+forbear smiling at him, when they see him suffering under your whimsical
+penances?  A modest man should no more be made little in his own eyes,
+than in the eyes of others.  If he be, he will have a diffidence, which
+will give an awkwardness to every thing he says or does; and this will be
+no more to the credit of your choice than to that of the approbation he
+meets with from your friends, or to his own credit.
+
+I love an obliging, and even an humble, deportment in a man to the woman
+he addresses.  It is a mark of his politeness, and tends to give her that
+opinion of herself, which it may be supposed bashful merit wants to be
+inspired with.  But if the woman exacts it with an high hand, she shows
+not either her own politeness or gratitude; although I must confess she
+does her courage.  I gave you expectations that I would be very serious
+with you.
+
+O my dear, that it had been my lot (as I was not permitted to live
+single,) to have met with a man by whom I could have acted generously and
+unreservedly!
+
+Mr. Lovelace, it is now plain, in order to have a pretence against me,
+taxed my behaviour to him with stiffness and distance.  You, at one time,
+thought me guilty of some degree of prudery.  Difficult situations should
+be allowed for: which often make seeming occasions for censure
+unavoidable.  I deserved not blame from him who made mine difficult.  And
+you, my dear, had I any other man to deal with, or had he but half the
+merit which Mr. Hickman has, would have found that my doctrine on this
+subject should have governed my practice.
+
+But to put myself out of the question--I'll tell you what I should think,
+were I an indifferent by-stander, of those high airs of your's, in return
+for Mr. Hickman's humble demeanour.  'The lady thinks of having the
+gentleman, I see plainly, would I say.  But I see as plainly, that she
+has a very great indifference to him.  And to what may this indifference
+be owing?  To one or all of these considerations, no doubt: that she
+receives his addresses rather from motives of convenience than choice:
+that she thinks meanly of his endowments and intellects; at least more
+highly of her own: or, she has not the generosity to use that power with
+moderation, which his great affection for her puts into her hands.'
+
+How would you like, my dear, to have any of these things said?
+
+Then to give but the shadow of a reason for free-livers and free speakers
+to say, or to imagine, that Miss Howe gives her hand to a man who has no
+reason to expect any share in her heart, I am sure you would not wish
+that such a thing should be so much as supposed.  Then all the regard
+from you to come afterwards; none to be shown before; must, should I
+think, be capable of being construed as a compliment to the husband, made
+at the expense of the wife's and even of the sex's delicacy!
+
+There is no fear that attempts could be formed by the most audacious [two
+Lovelaces there cannot be!] upon a character so revered for virtue, and
+so charmingly spirited, as Miss Howe's: yet, to have any man encouraged
+to despise a husband by the example of one who is most concerned to do
+him honour; what, my dear, think you of that?  It is but too natural for
+envious men (and who that knows Miss Howe, will not envy Mr. Hickman!) to
+scoff at, and to jest upon, those who are treated with or will bear
+indignity from a woman.
+
+If a man so treated have a true and ardent love for the woman he
+addresses, he will be easily overawed by her displeasure: and this will
+put him upon acts of submission, which will be called meanness.  And what
+woman of true spirit would like to have it said, that she would impose
+any thing upon the man from whom she one day expects protection and
+defence, that should be capable of being construed as a meanness, or
+unmanly abjectness in his behaviour, even to herself?--Nay, I am not
+sure, and I ask it of you, my dear, to resolve me, whether, in your own
+opinion, it is not likely, that a woman of spirit will despise rather
+than value more, the man who will take patiently an insult at her hands;
+especially before company.
+
+I have always observed, that prejudices in disfavour of a person at his
+first appearance, fix deeper, and are much more difficult to be removed
+when fixed, than that malignant principle so eminently visible in little
+minds, which makes them wish to bring down the more worthy characters to
+their own low level, I pretend not to determine.  When once, therefore, a
+woman of your good sense gives room to the world to think she has not an
+high opinion of the lover, whom nevertheless she entertains, it will be
+very difficult for her afterwards to make that world think so well as she
+would have it of the husband she has chosen.
+
+Give me leave to observe, that to condescend with dignity, and to command
+with such kindness, and sweetness of manners, as should let the
+condescension, while in a single state, be seen and acknowledged, are
+points, which a wise woman, knowing her man, should aim at: and a wise
+woman, I should think, would choose to live single all her life rather
+than give herself to a man whom she thinks unworthy of a treatment so
+noble.
+
+But when a woman lets her lover see that she has the generosity to
+approve of and reward a well-meant service; that she has a mind that
+lifts her above the little captious follies, which some (too
+licentiously, I hope,) attribute to the sex in general: that she resents
+not (if ever she thinks she has reason to be displeased) with petulance,
+or through pride: nor thinks it necessary to insist upon little points,
+to come at or secure great ones, perhaps not proper to be aimed at: nor
+leaves room to suppose she has so much cause to doubt her own merit, as
+to put the love of the man she intends to favour upon disagreeable or
+arrogant trials: but let reason be the principal guide of her actions--
+she will then never fail of that true respect, of that sincere
+veneration, which she wishes to meet with; and which will make her
+judgment after marriage consulted, sometimes with a preference to a man's
+own; at other times as a delightful confirmation of his.
+
+And so much, my beloved Miss Howe, for this subject now, and I dare say,
+for ever!
+
+I will begin another letter by-and-by, and send both together.  Mean
+time, I am, &c.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXIII
+
+MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
+
+
+[In this letter, the Lady acquaints Miss Howe with Mr. Brand's report;
+      with her sister's proposals either that she will go abroad, or
+      prosecute Mr. Lovelace.  She complains of the severe letters of
+      her uncle Antony and her sister; but in milder terms than they
+      deserved.
+
+She sends her Dr. Lewen's letter, and the copy of her answer to it.
+
+She tells her of the difficulties she had been under to avoid seeing Mr.
+      Lovelace.  She gives her the contents of the letter she wrote to
+      him to divert him from his proposed visit: she is afraid, she says,
+      that it is a step that is not strictly right, if allegory or
+      metaphor be not allowable to one in her circumstances.
+
+She informs her of her cousin Morden's arrival and readiness to take her
+      part with her relations; of his designed interview with Mr.
+      Lovelace; and tells her what her apprehensions are upon it.
+
+She gives her the purport of the conversation between her aunt Hervey and
+      Mrs. Norton. And then add:]
+
+
+But were they ever so favourably inclined to me now, what can they do for
+me?  I wish, and that for their sakes more than for my own, that they
+would yet relent--but I am very ill--I must drop my pen--a sudden
+faintness overspreads my heart--excuse my crooked writing!--Adieu, my
+dear!--Adieu!
+
+
+THREE O'CLOCK, FRIDAY.
+
+Once more I resume my pen.  I thought I had taken my last farewell to
+you.  I never was so very oddly affected: something that seemed totally
+to overwhelm my faculties--I don't know how to describe it--I believe I
+do amiss in writing so much, and taking too much upon me: but an active
+mind, though clouded by bodily illness, cannot be idle.
+
+I'll see if the air, and a discontinued attention, will help me.  But, if
+it will not, don't be concerned for me, my dear.  I shall be happy.  Nay,
+I am more so already than of late I thought I could ever be in this life.
+--Yet how this body clings!--How it encumbers!
+
+
+SEVEN O'CLOCK.
+
+I could not send this letter away with so melancholy an ending, as you
+would have thought it.  So I deferred closing it, till I saw how I should
+be on my return from my airing: and now I must say I am quite another
+thing: so alert! that I could proceed with as much spirit as I began, and
+add more preachment to your lively subject, if I had not written more
+than enough upon it already.
+
+I wish you would let me give you and Mr. Hickman joy.  Do, my dear.  I
+should take some to myself, if you would.
+
+My respectful compliments to all your friends, as well to those I have
+the honour to know, as to those I do not know.
+
+
+***
+
+
+I have just now been surprised with a letter from one whom I long ago
+gave up all thoughts of hearing from.  From Mr. Wyerley.  I will enclose
+it.  You'll be surprised at it as much as I was.  This seems to be a man
+whom I might have reclaimed.  But I could not love him.  Yet I hope I
+never treated him with arrogance.  Indeed, my dear, if I am not too
+partial to myself, I think I refused him with more gentleness, than you
+retain somebody else.  And this recollection gives me less pain than I
+should have had in the other case, on receiving this instance of a
+generosity that affects me.  I will also enclose the rough draught of my
+answer, as soon as I have transcribed it.
+
+If I begin another sheet, I shall write to the end of it: wherefore I
+will only add my prayers for your honour and prosperity, and for a long,
+long, happy life; and that, when it comes to be wound up, you may be as
+calm and as easy at quitting it as I hope in God I shall be.  I am, and
+will be, to the latest moment,
+
+Your truly affectionate and obliged servant,
+CL. HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXIV
+
+MR. WYERLEY, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+WEDNESDAY, AUG. 23.
+
+
+DEAREST MADAM,
+
+You will be surprised to find renewed, at this distance of time, an
+address so positively though so politely discouraged: but, however it be
+received, I must renew it.  Every body has heard that you have been
+vilely treated by a man who, to treat you ill, must be the vilest of men.
+Every body knows your just resentment of his base treatment: that you are
+determined never to be reconciled to him: and that you persist in these
+sentiments against all the entreaties of his noble relations, against all
+the prayers and repentance of his ignoble self.  And all the world that
+have the honour to know you, or have heard of him, applaud your
+resolution, as worthy of yourself; worthy of your virtue, and of that
+strict honour which was always attributed to you by every one who spoke
+of you.
+
+But, Madam, were all the world to have been of a different opinion, it
+could never have altered mine.  I ever loved you; I ever must love you.
+Yet have I endeavoured to resign to my hard fate.  When I had so many
+ways, in vain, sought to move you in my favour, I sat down seemingly
+contented.  I even wrote to you that I would sit down contented.  And I
+endeavoured to make all my friends and companions think I was.  But
+nobody knows what pangs this self-denial cost me!  In vain did the chace,
+in vain did travel, in vain did lively company, offer themselves, and
+were embraced in their turn: with redoubled force did my passion for you
+renew my unhappiness, when I looked into myself, into my own heart; for
+there did your charming image sit enthroned; and you engrossed me all.
+
+I truly deplore those misfortunes, and those sufferings, for your own
+sake; which nevertheless encourage me to renew my old hope.  I know not
+particulars.  I dare not inquire after them; because my sufferings would
+be increased with the knowledge of what your's have been.  I therefore
+desire not the know more than what common report wounds my ears with; and
+what is given me to know, by your absence from your cruel family, and
+from the sacred place, where I, among numbers of your rejected admirers,
+used to be twice a week sure to behold you doing credit to that service
+of which your example gave me the highest notions.  But whatever be those
+misfortunes, of whatsoever nature those sufferings, I shall bless the
+occasion for my own sake (though for your's curse the author of them,) if
+they may give me the happiness to know that this my renewed address may
+not be absolutely rejected.--Only give me hope, that it may one day meet
+with encouragement, if in the interim nothing happen, either in my morals
+or behaviour, to give you fresh offence.  Give me but hope of this--not
+absolutely to reject me is all the hope I ask for; and I will love you,
+if possible, still more than I ever loved you--and that for your
+sufferings; for well you deserve to be loved, even to adoration, who can,
+for honour's and for virtue's sake, subdue a passion which common spirits
+[I speak by cruel experience] find invincible; and this at a time when
+the black offender kneels and supplicates, as I am well assured he does,
+(all his friends likewise supplicating for him,) to be forgiven.
+
+That you cannot forgive him, not forgive him so as to receive him again
+to favour, is no wonder.  His offence is against virtue: this is a part
+of your essence.  What magnanimity is this!  How just to yourself, and to
+your spotless character!  Is it any merit to admire more than ever a lady
+who can so exaltedly distinguish?  It is not.  I cannot plead it.
+
+What hope have I left, may it be said, when my address was before
+rejected, now, that your sufferings, so nobly borne, have, with all the
+good judges, exalted your character?  Yet, Madam, I have to pride myself
+in this, that while your friends (not looking upon you in the just light
+I do) persecute and banish you; while your estate is withheld from you,
+and threatened (as I know,) to be withheld, as long as the chicaning law,
+or rather the chicaneries of its practisers, can keep it from you: while
+you are destitute of protection; every body standing aloof, either
+through fear of the injurer of one family, or of the hard-hearted of the
+other; I pride myself, I say, to stand forth, and offer my fortune, and
+my life, at your devotion.  With a selfish hope indeed: I should be too
+great an hypocrite not to own this! and I know how much you abhor
+insincerity.
+
+But, whether you encourage that hope or not, accept my best services, I
+beseech you, Madam: and be pleased to excuse me for a piece of honest
+art, which the nature of the case (doubting the honour of your notice
+otherwise) makes me choose to conclude with--it is this:
+
+If I am to be still the most unhappy of men, let your pen by one line
+tell me so.  If I am permitted to indulge a hope, however distant, your
+silence shall be deemed, by me, the happiest indication of it that you
+can give--except that still happier--(the happiest than can befall me,)
+a signification that you will accept the tender of that life and fortune,
+which it would be my pride and my glory to sacrifice in your service,
+leaving the reward to yourself.
+
+Be your determination as it may, I must for ever admire and love you.
+Nor will I ever change my condition, while you live, whether you change
+your's or not: for, having once had the presumption to address you, I
+cannot stoop to think of any other woman: and this I solemnly declare in
+the presence of that God, whom I daily pray to bless and protect you, be
+your determination what it will with regard to, dearest Madam,
+
+Your most devoted and ever affectionate
+and faithful servant,
+ALEXANDER WYERLEY.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXV
+
+MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO ALEX. WYERLEY, ESQ.
+SAT. AUG. 26.
+
+
+SIR,
+
+The generosity of your purpose would have commanded not only my notice,
+but my thanks, although you had not given me the alternative you are
+pleased to call artful.  And I do therefore give you my thanks for your
+kind letter.
+
+At the time you distinguished me by your favourable opinion, I told you,
+Sir, that my choice was the single life.  And most truly did I tell you
+so.
+
+When that was not permitted me, and I looked round upon the several
+gentlemen who had been proposed to me, and had reason to believe that
+there was not one of them against whose morals or principles there lay
+not some exception, it would not have been much to be wondered at, if
+FANCY had been allowed to give a preference, where JUDGMENT was at a loss
+to determine.
+
+Far be it from me to say this with a design to upbraid you, Sir, or to
+reflect upon you.  I always wished you well.  You had reason to think I
+did.  You had the generosity to be pleased with the frankness of my
+behaviour to you; as I had with that of your's to me; and I am sorry,
+very sorry, to be now told, that the acquaintance you obliged me with
+gave you so much pain.
+
+Had the option I have mentioned been allowed me afterwards, (as I not
+only wished, but proposed,) things had not happened that did happen.  But
+there was a kind of fatality by which our whole family was impelled, as I
+may say; and which none of us were permitted to avoid.  But this is a
+subject that cannot be dwelt upon.
+
+As matters are, I have only to wish, for your own sake, that you will
+encourage and cultivate those good motions in your mind, to which many
+passages in your kind and generous letter now before me must be owing.
+Depend upon it, Sir, that such motions, wrought into habit, will yield
+you pleasure at a time when nothing else can; and at present, shining out
+in your actions and conversation, will commend you to the worthiest of
+our sex.  For, Sir, the man who is so good upon choice, as well as by
+education, has that quality in himself, which ennobles the human race,
+and without which the most dignified by birth or rank or ignoble.
+
+As to the resolution you solemnly make not to marry while I live, I
+should be concerned at it, were I not morally sure that you may keep it,
+and yet not be detrimented by it: since a few, a very few days, will
+convince you, that I am got above all human dependence; and that there is
+no need of that protection and favour, which you so generously offer to,
+Sir,
+
+Your obliged well-wisher, and humble servant,
+CL. HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXVI
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+MONDAY NOON, AUG. 28.
+
+
+About the time of poor Belton's interment last night, as near as we could
+guess, Lord M., Mowbray, and myself, toasted once, To the memory of
+honest Tom. Belton; and, by a quick transition to the living, Health to
+Miss Harlowe; which Lord M. obligingly began, and, To the happy
+reconciliation; and then we stuck in a remembrance To honest Jack
+Belford, who, of late, we all agreed, is become an useful and humane man;
+and one who prefers his friend's service to his own.
+
+But what is the meaning I hear nothing from thee?*  And why dost thou not
+let me into the grounds of the sudden reconciliation between my beloved
+and her friends, and the cause of the generous invitation which she gives
+me of attending her at her father's some time hence?
+
+
+* Mr. Belford has not yet sent him his last-written letter.  His reason
+for which see Letter XXIII. of this volume.
+
+
+Thou must certainly have been let into the secret by this time; and I can
+tell thee, I shall be plaguy jealous if there is to be any one thing pass
+between my angel and thee that is to be concealed from me.  For either I
+am a principal in this cause, or I am nothing.
+
+I have dispatched Will. to know the reason of thy neglect.
+
+But let me whisper a word or two in thy ear.  I begin to be afraid, after
+all, that this letter was a stratagem to get me out of town, and for
+nothing else: for, in the first place, Tourville, in a letter I received
+this morning, tells me, that the lady is actually very ill!  [I am sorry
+for it with all my soul!].  This, thou'lt say, I may think a reason why
+she cannot set out as yet: but then I have heard, on the other hand, but
+last night, that the family is as implacable as ever; and my Lord and I
+expect this very afternoon a visit from Colonel Morden; who, undertakes,
+it seems, to question me as to my intention with regard to his cousin.
+
+This convinces me, that if she has apprized her friends of my offers to
+her, they will not believe me to be in earnest, till they are assured
+that I am so from my own mouth.  But then I understand, that the intended
+visit is an officiousness of Morden's own, without the desire of any of
+her friends.
+
+Now, Jack, what can a man make of all this?  My intelligence as to the
+continuance of her family's implacableness is not to be doubted; and yet
+when I read her letter, what can one say?--Surely, the dear little rogue
+will not lie!
+
+I never knew her dispense with her word, but once; and that was, when she
+promised to forgive me after the dreadful fire that had like to have
+happened at our mother's, and yet would not see me the next day, and
+afterwards made her escape to Hampstead, in order to avoid forgiving me:
+and as she severely smarted for this departure from her honour given,
+(for it is a sad thing for good people to break their word when it is in
+their power to keep it,) one would not expect that she should set about
+deceiving again; more especially by the premeditation of writing.  Thou,
+perhaps, wilt ask, what honest man is obliged to keep his promise with a
+highwayman? for well I know thy unmannerly way of making comparisons; but
+I say, every honest man is--and I will give thee an illustration.
+
+Here is a marauding varlet, who demands your money, with a pistol at your
+breast.  You have neither money nor valuable effects about you; and
+promise solemnly, if he will spare your life, that you will send him an
+agreed-upon sum, by such a day, to such a place.
+
+The question is, if your life is not in the fellow's power?
+
+How he came by the power is another question; for which he must answer
+with his life when caught--so he runs risque for risque.
+
+Now if he give you your life, does he not give, think you, a valuable
+consideration for the money you engage your honour to send him?  If not,
+the sum must be exorbitant, or your life is a very paltry one, even in
+your own opinion.
+
+I need not make the application; and I am sure that even thou thyself,
+who never sparest me, and thinkest thou knowest my heart by thy own,
+canst not possibly put the case in a stronger light against me.
+
+Then, why do good people take upon themselves to censure, as they do,
+persons less scrupulous than themselves?  Is it not because the latter
+allow themselves in any liberty, in order to carry a point?  And can my
+not doing my duty, warrant another for not doing his?--Thou wilt not say
+it can.
+
+And how would it sound, to put the case as strongly once more, as my
+greatest enemy would put it, both as to fact and in words--here has that
+profligate wretch Lovelace broken his vow with and deceived Miss Clarissa
+Harlowe.--A vile fellow! would an enemy say: but it is like him.  But
+when it comes to be said that the pious Clarissa has broken her word with
+and deceived Lovelace; Good Lord! would every one say; sure it cannot be!
+
+Upon my soul, Jack, such is the veneration I have for this admirable
+woman, that I am shocked barely at putting the case--and so wilt thou, if
+thou respectest her as thou oughtest: for thou knowest that men and
+women, all the world over, form their opinions of one another by each
+person's professions and known practices.  In this lady, therefore, it
+would be unpardonable to tell a wilful untruth, as it would be strange if
+I kept my word.--In love cases, I mean; for, as to the rest, I am an
+honest, moral man, as all who know me can testify.
+
+And what, after all, would this lady deserve, if she has deceived me in
+this case?  For did she not set me prancing away, upon Lord M.'s best
+nag, to Lady Sarah's, and to Lady Betty's, with an erect and triumphing
+countenance, to show them her letter to me?
+
+And let me tell thee, that I have received their congratulations upon it:
+Well, and now, cousin Lovelace, cries one: Well, and now, cousin
+Lovelace, cries t'other; I hope you will make the best of husbands to so
+excellent and so forgiving a lady!--And now we shall soon have the
+pleasure of looking upon you as a reformed man, added one!  And now we
+shall see you in the way we have so long wished you to be in, cried the
+other!
+
+My cousins Montague also have been ever since rejoicing in the new
+relationship.  Their charming cousin, and their lovely cousin, at every
+word!  And how dearly they will love he!  What lessons they will take
+from her!  And yet Charlotte, who pretends to have the eye of an eagle,
+was for finding out some mystery in the style and manner, till I overbore
+her, and laughed her out of it.
+
+As for Lord M. he has been in hourly expectation of being sent to with
+proposals of one sort or other from the Harlowes; and still we have it,
+that such proposals will be made by Colonel Morden when he comes; and
+that the Harlowes only put on a fae of irreconcileableness, till they
+know the issue of Morden's visit, in order to make the better terms with
+us.
+
+Indeed, if I had not undoubted reason, as I said, to believe the
+continuance of their antipathy to me, and implacableness to her, I should
+be apt to think there might be some foundation for my Lord's conjecture;
+for there is a cursed deal of low cunning in all that family, except in
+the angel of it; who has so much generosity of soul, that she despises
+cunning, both name and thing.
+
+What I mean by all this is, to let thee see what a stupid figure I shall
+make to all my own family, if my Clarissa has been capable, as Gulliver
+in his abominable Yahoo story phrases it, if it were only that I should
+be outwitted by such a novice at plotting, and that it would make me look
+silly to my kinswomen here, who know I value myself upon my contrivances,
+it would vex me to the heart; and I would instantly clap a featherbed
+into a coach and six, and fetch her away, sick or well, and marry her at
+my leisure.
+
+But Col. Morden is come, and I must break off.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXVII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+MONDAY NIGHT, AUG. 28.
+
+
+I doubt you will be all impatience that you have not heard from me since
+mine of Thursday last.  You would be still more so, if you knew that I
+had by me a letter ready written.
+
+I went early yesterday morning to Epsom; and found every thing disposed
+according to the directions I had left on Friday; and at night the solemn
+office was performed.  Tourville was there; and behaved very decently,
+and with greater concern than I thought he would every have expressed for
+any body.
+
+Thomasine, they told me, in a kind of disguise, was in an obscure pew,
+out of curiosity (for it seems she was far from showing any tokens of
+grief) to see the last office performed for the man whose heart she had
+so largely contributed to break.
+
+I was obliged to stay till this afternoon, to settle several necessary
+matters, and to direct inventories to be taken, in order for
+appraisement; for every thing is to be turned into money, by his will.
+I presented his sister with the hundred guineas the poor man left me as
+his executor, and desired her to continue in the house, and take the
+direction of every thing, till I could hear from his nephew at Antigua,
+who is heir at law.  He had left her but fifty pounds, although he knew
+her indigence; and that it was owing to a vile husband, and not to
+herself, that she was indigent.
+
+The poor man left about two hundred pounds in money, and two hundred
+pounds in two East-India bonds; and I will contrive, if I can, to make
+up the poor woman's fifty pounds, and my hundred guineas, two hundred
+pounds to her; and then she will have some little matter coming in
+certain, which I will oblige her to keep out of the hands of a son, who
+has completed that ruin which his father had very nearly effected.
+
+I gave Tourville his twenty pounds, and will send you and Mowbray your's
+by the first order.
+
+And so much for poor Belton's affairs till I see you.
+
+I got to town in the evening, and went directly to Smith's.  I found Mrs.
+Lovick and Mrs. Smith in the back shop, and I saw they had been both in
+tears.  They rejoiced to see me, however; and told me, that the Doctor
+and Mr. Goddard were but just gone; as was also the worthy clergyman, who
+often comes to pray by her; and all three were of opinion, that she would
+hardly live to see the entrance of another week.  I was not so much
+surprised as grieved; for I had feared as much when I left her on
+Saturday.
+
+I sent up my compliments; and she returned, that she would take it for a
+favour if I would call upon her in the morning by eight o'clock.  Mrs.
+Lovick told me that she had fainted away on Saturday, while she was
+writing, as she had done likewise the day before; and having received
+benefit then by a little turn in a chair, she was carried abroad again.
+She returned somewhat better; and wrote till late; yet had a pretty good
+night: and went to Covent-garden church in the morning; but came home so
+ill that she was obliged to lie down.
+
+When she arose, seeing how much grieved Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith were
+for her, she made apologies for the trouble she gave them--You were
+happy, said she, before I came hither.  It was a cruel thing in me to
+come amongst honest strangers, and to be sick, and die with you.
+
+When they touched upon the irreconcileableness of her friends, I have had
+ill offices done me to them, said she, and they do not know how ill I am;
+nor will they believe any thing I should write.  But yet I cannot
+sometimes forbear thinking it a little hard, that out of so many near and
+dear friends as I have living, not one of them will vouchsafe to look
+upon me.  No old servant, no old friend, proceeded she, to be permitted
+to come near me, without being sure of incurring displeasure!  And to
+have such a great work to go through by myself, a young creature as I am,
+and to have every thing to think of as to my temporal matters, and to
+order, to my very interment!  No dear mother, said the sweet sufferer, to
+pray by me and bless me!--No kind sister to sooth and comfort me!--But
+come, recollected she, how do I know but all is for the best--if I can
+but make a right use of my discomforts?--Pray for me, Mrs. Lovick--pray
+for me, Mrs. Smith, that I may--I have great need of your prayers.--This
+cruel man has discomposed me.  His persecutions have given mea pain just
+here, [putting her hand to her heart.]  What a step has he made me take
+to avoid him!--Who can touch pitch, and not be defiled?  He had made a
+bad spirit take possession of me, I think--broken in upon all my duties
+--and will not yet, I doubt, let me be at rest.  Indeed he is very cruel
+--but this is one of my trials, I believe.  By God's grace, I shall be
+easier to-morrow, and especially if I have no more of his tormentings,
+and if I can get a tolerable night.  And I will sit up till eleven, that
+I may.
+
+She said, that though this was so heavy a day with her, she was at other
+times, within these few days past especially, blessed with bright hours;
+and particularly that she had now and then such joyful assurances, (which
+she hoped were not presumptuous ones,) that God would receive her to his
+mercy, that she could hardly contain herself, and was ready to think
+herself above this earth while she was in it: And what, inferred she to
+Mrs. Lovick, must be the state itself, the very aspirations after which
+have often cast a beamy light through the thickest darkness, and, when I
+have been at the lowest ebb, have dispelled the black clouds of
+despondency?--As I hope they soon will this spirit of repining.
+
+She had a pretty good night, it seems; and this morning went in a chair
+to St. Dunstan's church.
+
+The chairmen told Mrs. Smith, that after prayers (for she did not return
+till between nine and ten) they carried her to a house in Fleet-street,
+whither they never waited on her before.  And where dost think this was?
+--Why to an undertaker's!  Good Heaven! what a woman is this!  She went
+into the back shop, and talked with the master of it about half an hour,
+and came from him with great serenity; he waiting upon her to her chair
+with a respectful countenance, but full of curiosity and seriousness.
+
+'Tis evident that she went to bespeak her house that she talked of*--As
+soon as you can, Sir, were her words to him as she got into the chair.
+Mrs. Smith told me this with the same surprise and grief that I heard it.
+
+
+* See Letter XXIII. of this volume.
+
+
+She was very ill in the afternoon, having got cold either at St.
+Dunstan's, or at chapel, and sent for the clergyman to pray by her; and
+the women, unknown to her, sent both for Dr. H. and Mr. Goddard: who were
+just gone, as I told you, when I came to pay my respects to her this
+evening.
+
+And thus have I recounted from the good women what passed to this night
+since my absence.
+
+I long for to-morrow, that I may see her: and yet it is such a melancholy
+longing as I never experienced, and know not how to describe.
+
+
+TUESDAY, AUG. 29.
+
+I was at Smith's at half an hour after seven.  They told me that the lady
+was gone in a chair to St. Dunstan's: but was better than she had been in
+either of the two preceding days; and that she said she to Mrs. Lovick
+and Mrs. Smith, as she went into the chair, I have a good deal to answer
+for to you, my good friends, for my vapourish conversation of last night.
+
+If, Mrs. Lovick, said she, smiling, I have no new matters to discompose
+me, I believe my spirits will hold out purely.
+
+She returned immediately after prayers.
+
+Mr. Belford, said she, as she entered the back shop where I was, (and
+upon my approaching her,) I am very glad to see you.  You have been
+performing for your poor friend a kind last office.  'Tis not long ago
+since you did the same for a near relation.  Is it not a little hard upon
+you, that these troubles should fall so thick to your lot?  But they are
+charitable offices: and it is a praise to your humanity, that poor dying
+people know not where to choose so well.
+
+I told her I was sorry to hear she had been so ill since I had the honour
+to attend her; but rejoiced to find that now she seemed a good deal
+better.
+
+It will be sometimes better, and sometimes worse, replied she, with poor
+creatures, when they are balancing between life and death.  But no more
+of these matters just now.  I hope, Sir, you'll breakfast with me.  I was
+quite vapourish yesterday.  I had a very bad spirit upon me.  Had I not,
+Mrs. Smith?  But I hope I shall be no more so.  And to-day I am perfectly
+serene.  This day rises upon me as if it would be a bright one.
+
+She desired me to walk up, and invited Mr. Smith and his wife, and Mrs.
+Lovick also, to breakfast with her.  I was better pleased with her
+liveliness than with her looks.
+
+The good people retiring after breakfast, the following conversation
+passed between us:
+
+Pray, Sir, let me ask you, if you think I may promise myself that I shall
+be no more molested by your friend?
+
+I hesitated: For how could I answer for such a man?
+
+What shall I do, if he comes again?--You see how I am.--I cannot fly from
+him now--If he has any pity left for the poor creature whom he has thus
+reduced, let him not come.--But have you heard from him lately?  And will
+he come?
+
+I hope not, Madam.  I have not heard from him since Thursday last, that
+he went out of town, rejoicing in the hopes your letter gave him of a
+reconciliation between your friends and you, and that he might in good
+time see you at your father's; and he is gone down to give all his
+friends joy of the news, and is in high spirits upon it.
+
+Alas! for me: I shall then surely have him come up to persecute me again!
+As soon as he discovers that that was only a stratagem to keep him away,
+he will come up, and who knows but even now he is upon the road?  I
+thought I was so bad that I should have been out of his and every body's
+way before now; for I expected not that this contrivance would serve me
+above two or three days; and by this time he must have found out that I
+am not so happy as to have any hope of a reconciliation with my family;
+and then he will come, if it be only in revenge for what he will think a
+deceit, but is not, I hope, a wicked one.
+
+I believe I looked surprised to hear her confess that her letter was a
+stratagem only; for she said, You wonder, Mr. Belford, I observe, that I
+could be guilty of such an artifice.  I doubt it is not right: it was
+done in a hurry of spirits.  How could I see a man who had so mortally
+injured me; yet pretending a sorrow for his crimes, (and wanting to see
+me,) could behave with so much shocking levity, as he did to the honest
+people of the house?  Yet, 'tis strange too, that neither you nor he
+found out my meaning on perusal of my letter.  You have seen what I
+wrote, no doubt?
+
+I have, Madam.  And then I began to account for it, as an innocent
+artifice.
+
+Thus far indeed, Sir, it is an innocent, that I meant him no hurt, and
+had a right to the effect I hoped for from it; and he had none to invade
+me.  But have you, Sir, that letter of his in which he gives you (as I
+suppose he does) the copy of mine?
+
+I have, Madam.  And pulled it out of my letter-case.  But hesitating--
+Nay, Sir, said she, be pleased to read my letter to yourself--I desire
+not to see his--and see if you can be longer a stranger to a meaning so
+obvious.
+
+I read it to myself--Indeed, Madam, I can find nothing but that you are
+going down to Harlowe-place to be reconciled to your father and other
+friends: and Mr. Lovelace presumed that a letter from your sister, which
+he saw brought when he was at Mr. Smith's, gave you the welcome news of
+it.
+
+She then explained all to me, and that, as I may say, in six words--A
+religious meaning is couched under it, and that's the reason that neither
+you nor I could find it out.
+
+'Read but for my father's house, Heaven, said she, and for the
+interposition of my dear blessed friend, suppose the mediation of my
+Saviour (which I humbly rely upon); and all the rest of the letter will
+be accounted for.'  I hope (repeated she) that it is a pardonable
+artifice.  But I am afraid it is not strictly right.
+
+I read it so, and stood astonished for a minute at her invention, her
+piety, her charity, and at thine and mine own stupidity to be thus taken
+in.
+
+And now, thou vile Lovelace, what hast thou to do (the lady all
+consistent with herself, and no hopes left for thee) but to hang, drown,
+or shoot thyself, for an outwitted boaster?
+
+My surprise being a little over, she proceeded: As to the letter that
+came from my sister while your friend was here, you will soon see, Sir,
+that it is the cruellest letter she ever wrote me.
+
+And then she expressed a deep concern for what might be the consequence
+of Colonel Morden's intended visit to you; and besought me, that if now,
+or at any time hereafter, I had opportunity to prevent any further
+mischief, without detriment or danger to myself, I would do it.
+
+I assured her of the most particular attention to this and to all her
+commands; and that in a manner so agreeable to her, that she invoked a
+blessing upon me for my goodness, as she called it, to a desolate
+creature who suffered under the worst of orphanage; those were her words.
+
+She then went back to her first subject, her uneasiness for fear of your
+molesting her again; and said, If you have any influence over him, Mr.
+Belford, prevail upon him that he will give me the assurance that the
+short remainder of my time shall be all my own.  I have need of it.
+Indeed I have.  Why will he wish to interrupt me in my duty?  Has he not
+punished me enough for my preference of him to all his sex?  Has he not
+destroyed my fame and my fortune?  And will not his causeless vengeance
+upon me be complete, unless he ruin my soul too?--Excuse me, Sir, for
+this vehemence!  But indeed it greatly imports me to know that I shall be
+no more disturbed by him.  And yet, with all this aversion, I would
+sooner give way to his visit, though I were to expire the moment I saw
+him, than to be the cause of any fatal misunderstanding between you and
+him.
+
+I assured her that I would make such a representation of the matter to
+you, and of the state of her health, that I would undertake to answer for
+you, that you would not attempt to come near her.
+
+And for this reason, Lovelace, do I lay the whole matter before you, and
+desire you will authorize me, as soon as this and mine of Saturday last
+come to your hands, to dissipate her fears.
+
+This gave her a little satisfaction; and then she said that had I not
+told her that I could promise for you, she was determined, ill as she is,
+to remove somewhere out of my knowledge as well as out of your's.  And
+yet, to have been obliged to leave people I am but just got acquainted
+with, said the poor lady, and to have died among perfect strangers, would
+have completed my hardships.
+
+This conversation, I found, as well from the length as the nature of it,
+had fatigued her; and seeing her change colour once or twice, I made that
+my excuse, and took leave of her: desiring her permission, however, to
+attend her in the evening; and as often as possible; for I could not help
+telling her that, every time I saw her, I more and more considered her as
+a beatified spirit; and as one sent from Heaven to draw me after her out
+of the miry gulf in which I had been so long immersed.
+
+And laugh at me if thou wilt; but it is true that, every time I approach
+her, I cannot but look upon her as one just entering into a companionship
+with saints and angels.  This thought so wholly possessed me, that I
+could not help begging, as I went away, her prayers and her blessing,
+with the reverence due to an angel.
+
+In the evening, she was so low and weak, that I took my leave of her in
+less than a quarter of an hour.  I went directly home.  Where, to the
+pleasure and wonder of my cousin and her family, I now pass many honest
+evenings: which they impute to your being out of town.
+
+I shall dispatch my packet to-morrow morning early by my own servant, to
+make thee amends for the suspense I must have kept thee in: thou'lt thank
+me for that, I hope; but wilt not, I am sure, for sending thy servant
+back without a letter.
+
+I long for the particulars of the conversation between you and Mr.
+Morden; the lady, as I have hinted, is full of apprehensions about it.
+Send me back this packet when perused; for I have not had either time or
+patience to take a copy of it.  And I beseech you enable me to make good
+my engagements to the poor lady that you will not invade her again.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXVIII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+WEDNESDAY, AUG. 30.
+
+
+I have a conversation to give you that passed between this admirable lady
+and Dr. H. which will furnish a new instance of the calmness and serenity
+with which she can talk of death, and prepare for it, as if it were an
+occurrence as familiar to her as dressing and undressing.
+
+As soon as I had dispatched my servant to you with my letters of the
+26th, 28th, and yesterday the 29th, I went to pay my duty to her, and had
+the pleasure to find her, after a tolerable night, pretty lively and
+cheerful.  She was but just returned from her usual devotions; and Doctor
+H. alighted as she entered the door.
+
+After inquiring how she did, and hearing her complaints of shortness of
+breath, (which she attributed to inward decay, precipitated by her late
+harasses, as well from her friends as from you,) he was for advising her
+to go into the air.
+
+What will that do for me? said she: tell me truly, good Sir, with a
+cheerful aspect, (you know you cannot disturb me by it,) whether now you
+do not put on the true physician; and despairing that any thing in
+medicine will help me, advise me to the air, as the last resource?--Can
+you think the air will avail in such a malady as mine?
+
+He was silent.
+
+I ask, said she, because my friends (who will possibly some time hence
+inquire after the means I used for my recovery) may be satisfied that I
+omitted nothing which so worthy and skilful a physician prescribed?
+
+The air, Madam, may possibly help the difficulty of breathing, which has
+so lately attacked you.
+
+But, Sir, you see how weak I am.  You must see that I have been consuming
+from day to day; and now, if I can judge by what I feel in myself,
+putting her hand to her heart, I cannot continue long.  If the air would
+very probably add to my days, though I am far from being desirous to have
+them lengthened, I would go into it; and the rather, as I know Mrs.
+Lovick would kindly accompany me.  But if I were to be at the trouble of
+removing into new lodgings, (a trouble which I think now would be too
+much for me,) and this only to die in the country, I had rather the scene
+were to shut up here.  For here have I meditated the spot, and the
+manner, and every thing, as well of the minutest as of the highest
+consequence, that can attend the solemn moments.  So, Doctor, tell me
+truly, may I stay here, and be clear of any imputations of curtailing,
+through wilfulness or impatiency, or through resentments which I hope I
+am got above, a life that might otherwise be prolonged?--Tell me, Sir;
+you are not talking to a coward in this respect; indeed you are not!--
+Unaffectedly smiling.
+
+The doctor, turning to me, was at a loss what to say, lifting up his eyes
+only in admiration of her.
+
+Never had any patient, said she, a more indulgent and more humane
+physician.  But since you are loth to answer my question directly, I will
+put it in other words--You don't enjoin me to go into the air, Doctor, do
+you?
+
+I do not, Madam.  Nor do I now visit you as a physician; but as a person
+whose conversation I admire, and whose sufferings I condole.  And, to
+explain myself more directly, as to the occasion of this day's visit in
+particular, I must tell you, Madam, that, understanding how much you
+suffer by the displeasure of your friends; and having no doubt but that,
+if they knew the way you are in, they would alter their conduct to you;
+and believing it must cut them to the heart, when too late, they shall be
+informed of every thing; I have resolved to apprize them by letter
+(stranger as I am to their persons) how necessary it is for some of them
+to attend you very speedily.  For their sakes, Madam, let me press for
+your approbation of this measure.
+
+She paused; and at last said, This is kind, very kind, in you, Sir.  But
+I hope that you do not think me so perverse, and so obstinate, as to have
+left till now any means unessayed which I thought likely to move my
+friends in my favour.  But now, Doctor, said she, I should be too much
+disturbed at their grief, if they were any of them to come or to send to
+me: and perhaps, if I found they still loved me, wish to live; and so
+should quit unwillingly that life, which I am now really fond of
+quitting, and hope to quit as becomes a person who has had such a
+weaning-time as I have been favoured with.
+
+I hope, Madam, said I, we are not so near as you apprehend to that
+deplorable catastrophe you hint at with such an amazing presence of mind.
+And therefore I presume to second the doctor's motion, if it were only
+for the sake of your father and mother, that they may have the
+satisfaction, if they must lose you, to think they were first reconciled
+to you.
+
+It is very kindly, very humanely considered, said she.  But, if you think
+me not so very near my last hour, let me desire this may be postponed
+till I see what effect my cousin Morden's mediation may have.  Perhaps he
+may vouchsafe to make me a visit yet, after his intended interview with
+Mr. Lovelace is over; of which, who knows, Mr. Belford, but your next
+letters may give an account?  I hope it will not be a fatal one to any
+body.  Will you promise me, Doctor, to forbear writing for two days only,
+and I will communicate to you any thing that occurs in that time; and then
+you shall take your own way?  Mean time, I repeat my thanks for your
+goodness to me.--Nay, dear Doctor, hurry not away from me so
+precipitately [for he was going, for fear of an offered fee]: I will no
+more affront you with tenders that have pained you for some time past:
+and since I must now, from this kindly-offered favour, look upon you only
+as a friend, I will assure you henceforth that I will give you no more
+uneasiness on that head: and now, Sir, I know I shall have the pleasure
+of seeing you oftener than heretofore.
+
+The worthy gentleman was pleased with this assurance, telling her that he
+had always come to see her with great pleasure, but parted with her, on
+the account she hinted at, with as much pain; and that he should not have
+forborne to double his visits, could he have had this kind assurance as
+early as he wished for it.
+
+There are few instances of like disinterestedness, I doubt, in this
+tribe.  Till now I always held it for gospel, that friendship and
+physician were incompatible things; and little imagined that a man of
+medicine, when he had given over his patient to death, would think of any
+visits but those of ceremony, that he might stand well with the family,
+against it came to their turns to go through his turnpike.
+
+After the doctor was gone, she fell into a very serious discourse of the
+vanity of life, and the wisdom of preparing for death, while health and
+strength remained, and before the infirmities of body impaired the
+faculties of the mind, and disabled them from acting with the necessary
+efficacy and clearness: the whole calculated for every one's meridian,
+but particularly, as it was easy to observe, for thine and mine.
+
+She was very curious to know farther particulars of the behaviour of poor
+Belton in his last moments.  You must not wonder at my inquiries, Mr.
+Belford, said she; For who is it, that is to undertake a journey into a
+country they never travelled to before, that inquires not into the
+difficulties of the road, and what accommodations are to be expected in
+the way?
+
+I gave her a brief account of the poor man's terrors, and unwillingness
+to die: and, when I had done, Thus, Mr. Belford, said she, must it always
+be with poor souls who have never thought of their long voyage till the
+moment they are to embark for it.
+
+She made other such observations upon this subject as, coming from the
+mouth of a person who will so soon be a companion for angels, I shall
+never forget.  And indeed, when I went home, that I might engraft them
+the better on my memory, I entered them down in writing: but I will not
+let you see them until you are in a frame more proper to benefit by them
+than you are likely to be in one while.
+
+Thus far had I written, when the unexpected early return of my servant
+with your packet (your's and he meeting at Slough, and exchanging
+letters) obliged me to leave off to give its contents a reading.--Here,
+therefore, I close this letter.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXIX
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+TUESDAY MORN. AUG. 29.
+
+
+Now, Jack, will I give thee an account of what passed on occasion of the
+visit made us by Col. Morden.
+
+He came on horseback, attended by one servant; and Lord M. received him
+as a relation of Miss Harlowe's with the highest marks of civility and
+respect.
+
+After some general talk of the times, and of the weather, and such
+nonsense as Englishmen generally make their introductory topics to
+conversation, the Colonel addressed himself to Lord M. and to me, as
+follows:
+
+I need not, my Lord, and Mr. Lovelace, as you know the relation I bear to
+the Harlowe family, make any apology for entering upon a subject, which,
+on account of that relation, you must think is the principal reason of
+the honour I have done myself in this visit.
+
+Miss Harlowe, Miss Clarissa Harlowe's affair, said Lord M. with his usual
+forward bluntness.  That, Sir, is what you mean.  She is, by all
+accounts, the most excellent woman in the world.
+
+I am glad to hear that is your Lordship's opinion of her.  It is every
+one's.
+
+It is not only my opinion, Col. Morden (proceeded the prating Peer), but
+it is the opinion of all my family.  Of my sisters, of my nieces, and of
+Mr. Lovelace himself.
+
+Col.   Would to Heaven it had been always Mr. Lovelace's opinion of her!
+
+Lovel.   You have been out of England, Colonel, a good many years.
+Perhaps you are not yet fully apprized of all the particulars of this
+case.
+
+Col.   I have been out of England, Sir, about seven years.  My cousin
+Clary was then about 12 years of age: but never was there at twenty so
+discreet, so prudent, and so excellent a creature.  All that knew her, or
+saw her, admired her.  Mind and person, never did I see such promises of
+perfection in any young lady: and I am told, nor is it to be wondered at,
+that, as she advanced to maturity, she more than justified and made good
+those promises.--Then as to fortune--what her father, what her uncles,
+and what I myself, intended to do for her, besides what her grandfather
+had done--there is not a finer fortune in the country.
+
+Lovel.   All this, Colonel, and more than this, is Miss Clarissa Harlowe;
+and had it not been for the implacableness and violence of her family
+(all resolved to push her upon a match as unworthy of her as hateful to
+her) she had still been happy.
+
+Col.   I own, Mr. Lovelace, the truth of what you observed just now, that
+I am not thoroughly acquainted with all that has passed between you and
+my cousin.  But permit me to say, that when I first heard that you made
+your addresses to her, I knew but of one objection against you; that,
+indeed, a very great one: and upon a letter sent me, I gave her my free
+opinion upon that subject.*  But had it not been for that, I own, that,
+in my private mind, there could not have been a more suitable match: for
+you are a gallant gentleman, graceful in your person, easy and genteel in
+your deportment, and in your family, fortunes, and expectations, happy as
+a man can wish to be.  Then the knowledge I had of you in Italy
+(although, give me leave to say, your conduct there was not wholly
+unexceptionable) convinces me that you are brave: and few gentlemen come
+up to you in wit and vivacity.  Your education has given you great
+advantages; your manners are engaging, and you have travelled; and I
+know, if you'll excuse me, you make better observations than you are
+governed by.  All these qualifications make it not at all surprising that
+a young lady should love you: and that this love, joined to that
+indiscreet warmth wherewith my cousin's friends would have forced her
+inclinations in favour of men who are far your inferiors in the qualities
+I have named, should throw herself upon your protection.  But then, if
+there were these two strong motives, the one to induce, the other to
+impel, her, let me ask you, Sir, if she were not doubly entitled to
+generous usage from a man whom she chose for her protector; and whom, let
+me take the liberty to say, she could so amply reward for the protection
+he was to afford her?
+
+
+* See Vol. IV. Letter XIX.
+
+
+Lovel.   Miss Clarissa Harlowe was entitled, Sir, to have the best usage
+that man could give her.  I have no scruple to own it.  I will always do
+her the justice she so well deserves. I know what will be your inference;
+and have only to say, that time past cannot be recalled; perhaps I wish
+it could.
+
+The Colonel then, in a very manly strain, set forth the wickedness of
+attempting a woman of virtue and character.  He said, that men had
+generally too many advantages from the weakness, credulity, and
+inexperience of the fair sex: that their early learning, which chiefly
+consisted in inflaming novels, and idle and improbable romances,
+contributed to enervate and weaken their minds: that his cousin, however,
+he was sure, was above the reach of common seduction, and not to be
+influenced to the rashness her parents accused her of, by weaker motives
+than their violence, and the most solemn promises on my part: but,
+nevertheless, having those motives, and her prudence (eminent as it was)
+being rather the effect of constitution than experience, (a fine
+advantage, however, he said, to ground an unblamable future life upon,)
+she might not be apprehensive of bad designs in a man she loved: it was,
+therefore, a very heinous thing to abuse the confidence of such a woman.
+
+He was going on in this trite manner; when, interrupting him, I said,
+These general observations, Colonel, suit not perhaps this particular
+case.  But you yourself are a man of gallantry; and, possibly, were you
+to be put to the question, might not be able to vindicate every action of
+your life, any more than I.
+
+Col.   You are welcome, Sir, to put what questions you please to me.
+And, I thank God, I can both own an be ashamed of my errors.
+
+Lord M. looked at me; but as the Colonel did not by his manner seem to
+intend a reflection, I had no occasion to take it for one; especially as
+I can as readily own my errors, as he, or any man, can his, whether
+ashamed of them or not.
+
+He proceeded.  As you seem to call upon me, Mr. Lovelace, I will tell you
+(without boasting of it) what has been my general practice, till lately,
+that I hope I have reformed it a good deal.
+
+I have taken liberties, which the laws of morality will by no means
+justify; and once I should have thought myself warranted to cut the
+throat of any young fellow who should make as free with a sister of mine
+as I have made with the sisters and daughters of others.  But then I took
+care never to promise any thing I intended not to perform.  A modest ear
+should as soon have heard downright obscenity from my lips, as matrimony,
+if I had not intended it.  Young ladies are generally ready enough to
+believe we mean honourably, if they love us; and it would look lie a
+strange affront to their virtue and charms, that it should be supposed
+needful to put the question whether in your address you mean a wife.  But
+when once a man make a promise, I think it ought to be performed; and a
+woman is well warranted to appeal to every one against the perfidy of a
+deceiver; and is always sure to have the world on her side.
+
+Now, Sir, continued he, I believe you have so much honour as to own, that
+you could not have made way to so eminent a virtue, without promising
+marriage; and that very explicitly and solemnly--
+
+I know very well, Colonel, interrupted I, all you would say.  You will
+excuse me, I am sure, that I break in upon you, when you find it is to
+answer the end you drive at.
+
+I own to you then that I have acted very unworthily by Miss Clarissa
+Harlowe; and I'll tell you farther, that I heartily repent of my
+ingratitude and baseness to her.  Nay, I will say still farther, that I
+am so grossly culpable as to her, that even to plead that the abuses and
+affronts I daily received from her implacable relations were in any
+manner a provocation to me to act vilely by her, would be a mean and low
+attempt to excuse myself--so low and so mean, that it would doubly
+condemn me.  And if you can say worse, speak it.
+
+He looked upon Lord M. and then upon me, two or three times.  And my Lord
+said, My kinsman speaks what he thinks, I'll answer for him.
+
+Lovel.   I do, Sir; and what can I say more?  And what farther, in your
+opinion, can be done?
+
+Col.   Done!  Sir?  Why, Sir, [in a haughty tone he spoke,] I need not
+tell you that reparation follows repentance.  And I hope you make no
+scruple of justifying your sincerity as to the one or the other.
+
+I hesitated, (for I relished not the manner of his speech, and his
+haughty accent,) as undetermined whether to take proper notice of it or
+not.
+
+Col.   Let me put this question to you, Mr. Lovelace: Is it true, as I
+have heard it is, that you would marry my cousin, if she would have you?
+--What say you, Sir?--
+
+This wound me up a peg higher.
+
+Lovel.   Some questions, as they may be put, imply commands, Colonel.  I
+would be glad to know how I am to take your's?  And what is to be the end
+of your interrogatories?
+
+Col.   My questions are not meant by me as commands, Mr. Lovelace.  The
+end is, to prevail upon a gentleman to act like a gentleman, and a man of
+honour.
+
+Lovel. (briskly)   And by what arguments, Sir, do you propose to prevail
+upon me?
+
+Col.   By what arguments, Sir, prevail upon a gentleman to act like a
+gentleman!--I am surprised at that question from Mr. Lovelace.
+
+Lovel.   Why so, Sir?
+
+Col.   WHY so, Sir!  (angrily)--Let me--
+
+Lovel. (interrupting)   I don't choose, Colonel, to be repeated upon, in
+that accent.
+
+Lord M.   Come, come, gentlemen, I beg of you to be willing to understand
+one another.  You young gentlemen are so warm--
+
+Col.   Not I, my Lord--I am neither very young, nor unduly warm.  Your
+nephew, my Lord, can make me be every thing he would have me to be.
+
+Lovel.   And that shall be, whatever you please to be, Colonel.
+
+Col. (fiercely)   The choice be your's, Mr. Lovelace.  Friend or foe! as
+you do or are willing to do justice to one of the finest women in the
+world.
+
+Lord M.   I guessed, from both your characters, what would be the case
+when you met.  Let me interpose, gentlemen, and beg you but to understand
+one another.  You both shoot at one mark; and, if you are patient, will
+both hit it.  Let me beg of you, Colonel, to give no challenges--
+
+Col.   Challenges, my Lord!--They are things I ever was readier to accept
+than to offer.  But does your Lordship think that a man, so nearly
+related as I have the honour to be to the most accomplished woman on
+earth,--
+
+Lord M. (interrupting)   We all allow the excellencies of the lady--and
+we shall all take it as the greatest honour to be allied to her that can
+be conferred upon us.
+
+Col.   So you ought, my Lord!--
+
+A perfect Chamont; thought I.*
+
+
+* See Otway's Orphan.
+
+
+Lord M.   So we ought, Colonel! and so we do!--and pray let every one do
+as he ought!--and no more than he ought; and you, Colonel, let me tell
+you, will not be so hasty.
+
+Lovel. (coolly)   Come, come, Col. Morden, don't let this dispute, whatever
+you intend to make of it, go farther than with you and me.  You
+deliver yourself in very high terms.  Higher than ever I was talked to in
+my life.  But here, beneath this roof, 'twould be inexcusable for me to
+take that notice of it which, perhaps, it would become me to take
+elsewhere.
+
+Col.   That is spoken as I wish the man to speak whom I should be pleased
+to call my friend, if all his actions were of a piece; and as I would
+have the man speak whom I would think it worth my while to call my foe.
+I love a man of spirit, as I love my soul.  But, Mr. Lovelace, as my Lord
+thinks we aim at one mark, let me say, that were we permitted to be alone
+for six minutes, I dare say, we should soon understand one another
+perfectly well.--And he moved to the door.
+
+Lovel.   I am entirely of your opinion, Sir; and will attend you.
+
+My Lord rung, and stept between us: Colonel, return, I beseech you
+return, said he: for he had stept out of the room while my Lord held me--
+Nephew, you shall not go out.
+
+The bell and my Lord's raised voice brought in Mowbray, and Clements, my
+Lord's gentleman; the former in his careless way, with his hands behind
+him, What's the matter, Bobby?  What's the matter, my Lord?
+
+Only, only, only, stammered the agitated peer, these young gentlemen are,
+are, are--are young gentlemen, that's all.--Pray, Colonel Morden, [who
+again entered the room with a sedater aspect,] let this cause have a fair
+trial, I beseech you.
+
+Col.   With all my heart, my Lord.
+
+Mowbray whispered me, What is the cause, Bobby?--Shall I take the
+gentleman to task for thee, my boy?
+
+Not for the world, whispered I.  The Colonel is a gentleman, and I desire
+you'll not say one word.
+
+Well, well, well, Bobby, I have done.  I can turn thee loose to the best
+man upon God's earth; that's all, Bobby; strutting off to the other end
+of the room.
+
+Col.   I am sorry, my Lord, I should give your Lordship the least
+uneasiness.  I came not with such a design.
+
+Lord M.   Indeed, Colonel, I thought you did, by your taking fire so
+quickly.  I am glad to hear you say you did not.  How soon a little spark
+kindles into a flame; especially when it meets with such combustible
+spirits!
+
+Col.   If I had had the least thought of proceeding to extremities, I am
+sure Mr. Lovelace would have given me the honour of a meeting where I
+should have been less an intruder: but I came with an amicable intention;
+to reconcile differences rather than to widen them.
+
+Lovel.   Well then, Colonel Morden, let us enter upon the subject in your
+own way.  I don't know the man I should sooner choose to be upon terms
+with than one whom Miss Clarissa Harlowe so much respects.  But I cannot
+bear to be treated, either in word or accent, in a menacing way.
+
+Lord M.   Well, well, well, well, gentlemen, this is somewhat like.
+Angry men make to themselves beds of nettles, and, when they lie down in
+them, are uneasy with every body.  But I hope you are friends.  Let me
+hear you say you are.  I am persuaded, Colonel, that you don't know all
+this unhappy story.  You don't know how desirous my kinsman is, as well
+as all of us, to have this matter end happily.  You don't know, do you,
+Colonel, that Mr. Lovelace, at all our requests, is disposed to marry the
+lady?
+
+Col.   At all your requests, my Lord?--I should have hoped that Mr.
+Lovelace was disposed to do justice for the sake of justice; and when at
+the same time the doing of justice was doing himself the highest honour.
+
+Mowbray lifted up his before half-closed eyes to the Colonel, and glanced
+them upon me.
+
+Lovel.   This is in very high language, Colonel.
+
+Mowbr.   By my soul, I thought so.
+
+Col.   High language, Mr. Lovelace?  Is it not just language?
+
+Lovel.   It is, Colonel.  And I think, the man that does honour to Miss
+Clarissa Harlowe, does me honour.  But, nevertheless, there is a manner
+in speaking, that may be liable to exception, where the words, without
+that manner, can bear none.
+
+Col.   Your observation in the general is undoubtedly just: but, if you
+have the value for my cousin that you say you have, you must needs think
+--
+
+Lovel.   You must allow me, Sir, to interrupt you--IF I have the value I
+say I have--I hope, Sir, when I say I have that value, there is no room
+for that if, pronounced as you pronounced it with an emphasis.
+
+Col.   You have broken in upon me twice, Mr. Lovelace.  I am as little
+accustomed to be broken in upon, as you are to be repeated upon.
+
+Lord M.   Two barrels of gunpowder, by my conscience!  What a devil will
+it signify talking, if thus you are to blow one another up at every word?
+
+Lovel.   No man of honour, my Lord, will be easy to have his veracity
+called into question, though but by implication.
+
+Col.   Had you heard me out, Mr. Lovelace, you would have found, that my
+if was rather an if of inference, than of doubt.  But 'tis, really a
+strange liberty gentlemen of free principles take; who at the same time
+that they would resent unto death the imputation of being capable of
+telling an untruth to a man, will not scruple to break through the most
+solemn oaths and promises to a woman.  I must assure you, Mr. Lovelace,
+that I always made a conscience of my vows and promises.
+
+Lovel.   You did right, Colonel.  But let me tell you, Sir, that you know
+not the man you talk to, if you imagine he is not able to rise to a
+proper resentment, when he sees his generous confessions taken for a mark
+of base-spiritedness.
+
+Col. (warmly, and with a sneer,)   Far be it from me, Mr. Lovelace, to
+impute to you the baseness of spirit you speak of; for what would that be
+but to imagine that a man, who has done a very flagrant injury, is not
+ready to show his bravery in defending it--
+
+Mowbr.   This is d----d severe, Colonel.  It is, by Jove.  I could not
+take so much at the hands of any man breathing as Mr. Lovelace before
+this took at your's.
+
+Col.   Who are you, Sir?  What pretence have you to interpose in a cause
+where there is an acknowledged guilt on one side, and the honour of a
+considerable family wounded in the tenderest part by that guilt on the
+other?
+
+Mowbr. (whispering to the Colonel)   My dear child, you will oblige me
+highly if you will give me the opportunity of answering your question.
+And was going out.
+
+The Colonel was held in by my Lord.  And I brought in Mowbray.
+
+Col.   Pray, my good Lord, let me attend this officious gentleman, I
+beseech you do.  I will wait upon your Lordship in three minutes, depend
+upon it.
+
+Lovel.   Mowbray, is this acting like a friend by me, to suppose me
+incapable of answering for myself?  And shall a man of honour and
+bravery, as I know Colonel Morden to be, (rash as perhaps in this visit
+he has shown himself,) have it to say, that he comes to my Lord M.'s
+house, in a manner naked as to attendants and friends, and shall not for
+that reason be rather borne with than insulted?  This moment, my dear
+Mowbray, leave us.  You have really no concern in this business; and if
+you are my friend, I desire you'll ask the Colonel pardon for interfering
+in it in the manner you have done.
+
+Mowbr.   Well, well, Bob.; thou shalt be arbiter in this matter; I know I
+have no business in it--and, Colonel, (holding out his hand,) I leave you
+to one who knows how to defend his own cause as well as any man in
+England.
+
+Col. (taking Mowbray's hand, at Lord M.'s request,)   You need not tell
+me that, Mr. Mowbray.  I have no doubt of Mr. Lovelace's ability to
+defend his own cause, were it a cause to be defended.  And let me tell
+you, Mr. Lovelace, that I am astonished to think that a brave man, and a
+generous man, as you have appeared to be in two or three instances that
+you have given in the little knowledge I have of you, should be capable
+of acting as you have done by the most excellent of her sex.
+
+Lord M.   Well, but, gentlemen, now Mr. Mowbray is gone, and you have
+both shown instances of courage and generosity to boot, let me desire you
+to lay your heads together amicably, and think whether there be any thing
+to be done to make all end happily for the lady?
+
+Lovel.   But hold, my Lord, let me say one thing, now Mowbray is gone;
+and that is, that I think a gentleman ought not to put up tamely one or
+two severe things that the Colonel has said.
+
+Lord M.   What the devil canst thou mean?  I thought all had been over.
+Why thou hast nothing to do but to confirm to the Colonel that thou art
+willing to marry Miss Harlowe, if she will have thee.
+
+Col.   Mr. Lovelace will not scruple to say that, I suppose,
+notwithstanding all that has passed: but if you think, Mr. Lovelace, I
+have said any thing I should not have said, I suppose it is this, that
+the man who has shown so little of the thing honour, to a defenceless
+unprotected woman, ought not to stand so nicely upon the empty name of
+it, with a man who is expostulating with him upon it.  I am sorry to have
+cause to say this, Mr. Lovelace; but I would, on the same occasion,
+repeat it to a king upon his throne, and surrounded by all his guards.
+
+Lord M.   But what is all this, but more sacks upon the mill? more coals
+upon the fire?  You have a mind to quarrel both of you, I see that.  Are
+you not willing, Nephew, are you not most willing, to marry this lady, if
+she can be prevailed upon to have you?
+
+Lovel.   D---n me, my Lord, if I'd marry my empress upon such treatment
+as this.
+
+Lord M.   Why now, Bob., thou art more choleric than the Colonel.  It was
+his turn just now.  And now you see he is cool, you are all gunpowder.
+
+Lovel.   I own the Colonel has many advantages over me; but, perhaps,
+there is one advantage he has not, if it were put to the trial.
+
+Col.   I came not hither, as I said before, to seek the occasion: but if
+it were offered me, I won't refuse it--and since we find we disturb my
+good Lord M. I'll take my leave, and will go home by the way of St.
+Alban's.
+
+Lovel.   I'll see you part of the way, with all my heart, Colonel.
+
+Col.   I accept your civility very cheerfully, Mr. Lovelace.
+
+Lord M. (interposing again, as we were both for going out,)   And what
+will this do, gentlemen?  Suppose you kill one another, will the matter
+be bettered or worsted by that?  Will the lady be made happier or
+unhappier, do you think, by either or both of your deaths?  Your
+characters are too well known to make fresh instances of the courage of
+either needful.  And, I think, if the honour of the lady is your view,
+Colonel, it can by no other way so effectually promoted as by marriage.
+And, Sir, if you would use your interest with her, it is very probable
+that you may succeed, though nobody else can.
+
+Lovel.   I think, my Lord, I have said all that a man can say, (since
+what is passed cannot be recalled:) and you see Colonel Morden rises in
+proportion to my coolness, till it is necessary for me to assert myself,
+or even he would despise me.
+
+Lord M.   Let me ask you, Colonel, have you any way, any method, that you
+think reasonable and honourable to propose, to bring about a
+reconciliation with the lady?  That is what we all wish for.  And I can
+tell you, Sir, it is not a little owing to her family, and to their
+implacable usage of her, that her resentments are heightened against my
+kinsman; who, however, has used her vilely; but is willing to repair her
+wrongs.--
+
+Lovel.   Not, my Lord, for the sake of her family; nor for this
+gentleman's haughty behaviour; but for her own sake, and in full sense of
+the wrongs I have done her.
+
+Col.   As to my haughty behaviour, as you call it, Sir, I am mistaken if
+you would not have gone beyond it in the like case of a relation so
+meritorious, and so unworthily injured.  And, Sir, let me tell you, that
+if your motives are not love, honour, and justice, and if they have the
+least tincture of mean compassion for her, or of an uncheerful assent on
+your part, I am sure it will neither be desired or accepted by a person
+of my cousin's merit and sense; nor shall I wish that it should.
+
+Lovel.   Don't think, Colonel, that I am meanly compounding off a debate,
+that I should as willingly go through with you as to eat or drink, if I
+have the occasion given me for it: but thus much I will tell you, that my
+Lord, that Lady Sarah Sadleir, Lady Betty Lawrance, my two cousins
+Montague, and myself, have written to her in the most solemn and sincere
+manner, to offer her such terms as no one but herself would refuse, and
+this long enough before Colonel Morden's arrival was dreamt of.
+
+Col.   What reason, Sir, may I ask, does she give, against listening to
+so powerful a mediation, and to such offers?
+
+Lovel.   It looks like capitulating, or else--
+
+Col.   It looks not like any such thing to me, Mr. Lovelace, who have as
+good an opinion of your spirit as man can have.  And what, pray, is the
+part I act, and my motives for it?  Are they not, in desiring that
+justice may be done to my Cousin Clarissa Harlowe, that I seek to
+establish the honour of Mrs. Lovelace, if matters can once be brought to
+bear?
+
+Lovel.   Were she to honour me with her acceptance of that name, Mr.
+Morden, I should not want you or any man to assert the honour of Mrs.
+Lovelace.
+
+Col.   I believe it.  But still she has honoured you with that
+acceptance, she is nearer to me than to you, Mr. Lovelace.  And I speak
+this, only to show you that, in the part I take, I mean rather to deserve
+your thanks than your displeasure, though against yourself, were there
+occasion.  Nor ought you take it amiss, if you rightly weigh the matter:
+For, Sir, whom does a lady want protection against but her injurers?  And
+who has been her greatest injurer?--Till, therefore, she becomes entitled
+to your protection, as your wife, you yourself cannot refuse me some
+merit in wishing to have justice done my cousin.  But, Sir, you were
+going to say, that if it were not to look like capitulating, you would
+hint the reasons my cousin gives against accepting such an honourable
+mediation?
+
+I then told him of my sincere offers of marriage: 'I made no difficulty,
+I said, to own my apprehensions, that my unhappy behaviour to her had
+greatly affected her: but that it was the implacableness of her friends
+that had thrown her into despair, and given her a contempt for life.'  I
+told him, 'that she had been so good as to send me a letter to divert me
+from a visit my heart was set upon making her: a letter on which I built
+great hopes, because she assured me that in it she was going to her
+father's; and that I might see her there, when she was received, if it
+were not my own fault.
+
+Col.   Is it possible?  And were you, Sir, thus earnest?  And did she
+send you such a letter?
+
+Lord M. confirmed both; and also, that, in obedience to her desires, and
+that intimation, I had come down without the satisfaction I had proposed
+to myself in seeing her.
+
+It is very true, Colonel, said I: and I should have told you this before:
+but your heat made me decline it; for, as I said, it had an appearance of
+meanly capitulating with you.  An abjectness of heart, of which, had I
+been capable, I should have despised myself as much as I might have
+expected you would despise me.
+
+Lord M. proposed to enter into the proof of all this.  He said, in his
+phraseological way, That one story was good till another was heard; and
+that the Harlowe family and I, 'twas true, had behaved like so many
+Orsons to one another; and that they had been very free with all our
+family besides: that nevertheless, for the lady's sake, more than for
+their's, or even for mine, (he could tell me,) he would do greater things
+for me than they could ask, if she could be brought to have me: and that
+this he wanted to declare, and would sooner have declared, if he could
+have brought us sooner to patience, and a good understanding.
+
+The Colonel made excuses for his warmth, on the score of his affection to
+his cousin.
+
+My regard for her made me readily admit them: and so a fresh bottle of
+Burgundy, and another of Champagne, being put upon the table, we sat down
+in good humour, after all this blustering, in order to enter closer into
+the particulars of the case: which I undertook, at both their desires, to
+do.
+
+But these things must be the subject of another letter, which shall
+immediately follow this, if it do not accompany it.
+
+Mean time you will observe that a bad cause gives a man great
+disadvantages: for I myself thing that the interrogatories put to me with
+so much spirit by the Colonel made me look cursedly mean; at the same
+time that it gave him a superiority which I know not how to allow to the
+best man in Europe.  So that, literally speaking, as a good man would
+infer, guilt is its own punisher: in that it makes the most lofty spirit
+look like the miscreant he is--a good man, I say: So, Jack, proleptically
+I add, thou hast no right to make the observation.
+
+
+
+LETTER XL
+
+MR. LOVELACE
+[IN CONTINUATION.]
+TUESDAY AFTERNOON, AUG. 29.
+
+
+I went back, in this part of our conversation, to the day that I was
+obliged to come down to attend my Lord in the dangerous illness which
+some feared would have been his last.
+
+I told the Colonel, 'what earnest letters I had written to a particular
+friend, to engage him to prevail upon the lady not to slip a day that had
+been proposed for the private celebration of our nuptials; and of my
+letters* written to her on that subject;' for I had stepped to my closet,
+and fetched down all the letters and draughts and copies of letters
+relating to this affair.
+
+
+* See Vol. VI. Letters XXXVII. XXXVIII. XXXIX. XLIII.
+
+
+I read to him, 'several passages in the copies of those letters, which,
+thou wilt remember, make not a little to my honour.'  And I told him,
+'that I wished I had kept copies of those to my friend on the same
+occasion; by which he would have seen how much in earnest I was in my
+professions to her, although she would not answer one of them;' and thou
+mayest remember, that one of those four letters accounted to herself why
+I was desirous she should remain where I had left her.*
+
+
+* See Vol. VI. Letter XXXVII.
+
+
+I then proceeded to give him an account 'of the visit made by Lady Sarah
+and Lady Betty to Lord M. and me, in order to induce me to do her
+justice: of my readiness to comply with their desires; and of their high
+opinion of her merit: of the visit made to Miss Howe by my cousins
+Montague, in the name of us all, to engage her interest with her friend
+in my behalf: of my conversation with Miss Howe, at a private assembly,
+to whom I gave the same assurances, and besought her interest with her
+friend.'
+
+I then read a copy of the letter (though so much to my disadvantage)
+which was written to her by Miss Charlotte Montague, Aug. 1,* entreating
+her alliance in the names of all our family.
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. Letter LXVI.
+
+
+This made him ready to think that his fair cousin carried her resentment
+against me too far.  He did not imagine, he said, that either myself or
+our family had been so much in earnest.
+
+So thou seest, Belford, that it is but glossing over one part of a story,
+and omitting another, that will make a bad cause a good one at any time.
+What an admirable lawyer should I have made!  And what a poor hand would
+this charming creature, with all her innocence, have made of it in a
+court of justice against a man who had so much to say and to show for
+himself!
+
+I then hinted at the generous annual tender which Lord M. and his sisters
+made to his fair cousin, in apprehension that she might suffer by her
+friends' implacableness.
+
+And this also the Colonel highly applauded, and was pleased to lament the
+unhappy misunderstanding between the two families, which had made the
+Harlowes less fond of an alliance with a family of so much honour as this
+instance showed ours to be.
+
+I then told him, 'That having, by my friend, [meaning thee,] who was
+admitted into her presence, (and who had always been an admirer of her
+virtues, and had given me such advice from time to time in relation to
+her as I wished I had followed,) been assured that a visit from me would
+be very disagreeable to her, I once more resolved to try what a letter
+would do; and that, accordingly, on the seventh of August, I wrote her
+one.
+
+'This, Colonel, is the copy of it.  I was then out of humour with my Lord
+M. and the ladies of my family.  You will, therefore, read it to
+yourself.'*
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXIX.
+
+
+This letter gave him high satisfaction.  You write here, Mr. Lovelace,
+from your heart.  'Tis a letter full of penitence and acknowledgement.
+Your request is reasonable--To be forgiven only as you shall appear to
+deserve it after a time of probation, which you leave to her to fix.
+Pray, Sir, did she return an answer to this letter?
+
+She did, but with reluctance, I own, and not till I had declared by my
+friend, that, if I could not procure one, I would go up to town, and
+throw myself at her feet.
+
+I wish I might be permitted to see it, Sir, or to hear such parts of it
+read as you shall think proper.
+
+Turning over my papers, Here it is, Sir.*  I will make no scruple to put
+it into your hands.
+
+This is very obliging, Mr. Lovelace.
+
+He read it.  My charming cousin!--How strong her resentments!--Yet how
+charitable her wishes!--Good Heaven! that such an excellent creature--
+But, Mr. Lovelace, it is to your regret, as much as to mine, I doubt not
+--
+
+Interrupting him, I swore that it was.
+
+So it ought, said he.  Nor do I wonder that it should be so.  I shall
+tell you by-and-by, proceeded he, how much she suffers with her friends
+by false and villanous reports.  But, Sir, will you permit me to take
+with me these two letters?  I shall make use of them to the advantage of
+you both.
+
+I told him I would oblige him with all my heart.  And this he took very
+kindly (as he had reason); and put them in his pocket-book, promising to
+return hem in a few days.
+
+I then told him, 'That upon this her refusal, I took upon myself to go to
+town, in hopes to move her in my favour; and that, though I went without
+giving her notice of my intention, yet had she got some notion of my
+coming, and so contrived to be out of the way: and at last, when she
+found I was fully determined at all events to see her, before I went
+abroad, (which I shall do, said I, if I cannot prevail upon her,) she
+sent me the letter I have already mentioned to you, desiring me to
+suspend my purposed visit: and that for a reason which amazes and
+confounds me; because I don't find there is any thing in it: and yet I
+never knew her once dispense with her word; for she always made it a
+maxim, that it was not lawful to do evil, that good might come of it: and
+yet in this letter, for no reason in the world but to avoid seeing me (to
+gratify an humour only) has she sent me out of town, depending upon the
+assurance she had given me.'
+
+Col.   This is indeed surprising.  But I cannot believe that my cousin,
+for such an end only, or indeed for any end, according to the character I
+hear of her, should stoop to make use of such an artifice.
+
+Lovel.   This, Colonel, is the thing that astonishes me; and yet, see
+here!--This is the letter she wrote me--Nay, Sir, 'tis her own hand.
+
+Col.   I see it is; and a charming hand it is.
+
+Lovel.   You observe, Colonel, that all her hopes of reconciliation with
+her parents are from you.  You are her dear blessed friend!  She always
+talked of you with delight.
+
+Col.   Would to Heaven I had come to England before she left
+Harlowe-place!--Nothing of this had then happened.  Not a man of those
+whom I have heard that her friends proposed for her should have had her.
+Nor you, Mr. Lovelace, unless I had found you to be the man every one who
+sees you must wish you to be: and if you had been that man, no one living
+should I have preferred to you for such an excellence.
+
+My Lord and I both joined in the wish: and 'faith I wished it most
+cordially.
+
+The Colonel read the letter twice over, and then returned it to me.  'Tis
+all a mystery, said he.  I can make nothing of it.  For, alas! her
+friends are as averse to a reconciliation as ever.
+
+Lord M.   I could not have thought it.  But don't you think there is
+something very favourable to my nephew in this letter--something that
+looks as if the lady would comply at last?
+
+Col.   Let me die if I know what to make of it.  This letter is very
+different from her preceding one!--You returned an answer to it, Mr.
+Lovelace?
+
+Lovel.   An answer, Colonel!  No doubt of it.  And an answer full of
+transport.  I told her, 'I would directly set out for Lord M.'s, in
+obedience to her will.  I told her that I would consent to any thing she
+should command, in order to promote this happy reconciliation.  I told
+her that it should be my hourly study, to the end of my life, to deserve
+a goodness so transcendent.'  But I cannot forbear saying that I am not a
+little shocked and surprised, if nothing more be meant by it than to get
+me into the country without seeing her.
+
+Col.   That can't be the thing, depend upon it, Sir.  There must be more
+in it than that.  For, were that all, she must think you would soon be
+undeceived, and that you would then most probably resume your intention--
+unless, indeed, she depended upon seeing me in the interim, as she knew I
+was arrived.  But I own I know not what to make of it.  Only that she
+does me a great deal of honour, if it be me that she calls her dear
+blessed friend, whom she always loved and honoured.  Indeed I ever loved
+her: and if I die unmarried, and without children, shall be as kind to
+her as her grandfather was: and the rather, as I fear there is too much
+of envy and self-love in the resentments her brother and sister endeavour
+to keep up in her father and mother against her.  But I shall know better
+how to judge of this, when my cousin James comes from Edinburgh; and he
+is every hour expected.
+
+But let me ask you, Mr. Lovelace, what is the name of your friend, who is
+admitted so easily into my cousin's presence?  Is it not Belford, pray?
+
+Lovel.   It is, Sir; and Mr. Belford's a man of honour; and a great
+admirer of your fair cousin.
+
+Was I right, as to the first, Jack?  The last I have such strong proof
+of, that it makes me question the first; since she would not have been
+out of the way of my intended visit but for thee.
+
+Col.   Are you sure, Sir, that Mr. Belford is a man of honour?
+
+Lovel.   I can swear for him, Colonel.  What makes you put this question?
+
+Col.   Only this: that an officious pragmatical novice has been sent up
+to inquire into my cousin's life and conversation: And, would you believe
+it? the frequent visits of this gentlemen have been interpreted basely to
+her disreputation.--Read that letter, Mr. Lovelace; and you will be
+shocked at ever part of it.
+
+This cursed letter, no doubt, is from the young Levite, whom thou, Jack,
+describest as making inquiry of Mrs. Smith about Miss Harlowe's character
+and visiters.*
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI.
+
+
+I believe I was a quarter of an hour in reading it: for I made it, though
+not a short one, six times as long as it is, by the additions of oaths
+and curses to every pedantic line.  Lord M. too helped to lengthen it, by
+the like execrations.  And thou, Jack, wilt have as much reason to curse
+it as we.
+
+You cannot but see, said the Colonel, when I had done reading it, that
+this fellow has been officious in his malevolence; for what he says is
+mere hearsay, and that hearsay conjectural scandal without fact, or the
+appearance of fact, to support it; so that an unprejudiced eye, upon the
+face of the letter, would condemn the writer of it, as I did, and acquit
+my cousin.  But yet, such is the spirit by which the rest of my relations
+are governed, that they run away with the belief of the worst it
+insinuates, and the dear creature has had shocking letters upon it; the
+pedant's hints are taken; and a voyage to one of the colonies has been
+proposed to her, as the only way to avoid Mr. Belford and you.  I have
+not seen these letters indeed; but they took a pride in repeating some of
+their contents, which must have cut the poor soul to the heart; and
+these, joined to her former sufferings,--What have you not, Mr. Lovelace,
+to answer for?
+
+Lovel.   Who the devil could have expected such consequences as these?
+Who could have believe there could be parents so implacable?  Brother and
+sister so immovably fixed against the only means that could be taken to
+put all right with every body?--And what now can be done?
+
+Lord M.   I have great hopes that Col. Morden may yet prevail upon his
+cousin.  And, by her last letter, it runs in my mind that she has some
+thoughts of forgiving all that's past.  Do you think, Colonel, if there
+should not be such a thing as a reconciliation going forward at present,
+that her letter may not imply that, if we could bring such a thing to
+bear with her friends, she would be reconciled with Mr. Lovelace?
+
+Col.   Such an artifice would better become the Italian subtilty than the
+English simplicity.  Your Lordship has been in Italy, I presume?
+
+Lovel.   My Lord has read Boccaccio, perhaps; and that's as well, as to
+the hint he gives, which may be borrowed from one of that author's
+stories.  But Miss Clarissa Harlowe is above all artifice.  She must have
+some meaning I cannot fathom.
+
+Col.   Well, my Lord, I can only say that I will make some use of the
+letters Mr. Lovelace has obliged me with: and after I have had some talk
+with my cousin James, who is hourly expected; and when I have dispatched
+two or three affairs that press upon me; I will pay my respects to my
+dear cousin; and shall then be able to form a better judgment of things.
+Mean time I will write to her; for I have sent to inquire about her, and
+find she wants consolation.
+
+Lovel.   If you favour me, Colonel, with the d----d letter of that fellow
+Brand for a day or two, you will oblige me.
+
+Col.   I will.  But remember, the man is a parson, Mr. Lovelace; an
+innocent one too, they say.  Else I had been at him before now.  And
+these college novices, who think they know every thing in their
+cloisters, and that all learning lies in books, make dismal figures when
+they come into the world among men and women.
+
+Lord M.   Brand!  Brand!  It should have been Firebrand, I think in my
+conscience!
+
+Thus ended this doughty conference.
+
+I cannot say, Jack, but I am greatly taken with Col. Morden.  He is brave
+and generous, and knows the world; and then his contempt of the parsons
+is a certain sign that he is one of us.
+
+We parted with great civility: Lord M. (not a little pleased that we did,
+and as greatly taken with Colonel) repeated his wish, after the Colonel
+was gone, that he had arrived in time to save the lady, if that would
+have done it.
+
+I wish so too.  For by my soul, Jack, I am every day more and more uneasy
+about her.  But I hope she is not so ill as I am told she is.
+
+I have made Charlotte transcribe the letter of this Firebrand, as my Lord
+calls him; and will enclose her copy of it.  All thy phlegm I know will
+be roused into vengeance when thou readest it.
+
+I know not what to advise as to showing it to the lady.  Yet, perhaps,
+she will be able to reap more satisfaction than concern from it, knowing
+her own innocence; in that it will give her to hope that her friends'
+treatment of her is owing as much to misrepresentation as to their own
+natural implacableness.  Such a mind as her's, I know, would be glad to
+find out the shadow of a reason for the shocking letters the Colonel says
+they have sent her, and for their proposal to her of going to some one of
+the colonies [confound them all--but, if I begin to curse, I shall never
+have done]--Then it may put her upon such a defence as she might be glad
+of an opportunity to make, and to shame them for their monstrous
+credulity--but this I leave to thy own fat-headed prudence--Only it vexes
+me to the heart, that even scandal and calumny should dare to surmise the
+bare possibility of any man sharing the favours of a woman, whom now
+methinks I could worship with a veneration due only to a divinity.
+
+Charlotte and her sister could not help weeping at the base aspersion:
+When, when, said Patty, lifting up her hands, will this sweet lady's
+sufferings be at an end?--O cousin Lovelace!--
+
+And thus am I blamed for every one's faults!--When her brutal father
+curses her, it is I.  I upbraid her with her severe mother.  The
+implacableness of her stupid uncles is all mine.  The virulence of her
+brother, and the spite of her sister, are entirely owing to me.  The
+letter of this rascal Brand is of my writing--O Jack, what a wretch is
+thy Lovelace!
+
+
+***
+
+
+Returned without a letter!--This d----d fellow Will. is returned without
+a letter!--Yet the rascal tells me that he hears you have been writing to
+me these two days!
+
+Plague confound thee, who must know my impatience, and the reason for it!
+
+To send a man and horse on purpose; as I did!  My imagination chained me
+to the belly of the beast, in order to keep pace with him!--Now he is got
+to this place; now to that; now to London; now to thee!
+
+Now [a letter given him] whip and spur upon the return.  This town just
+entered, not staying to bait: that village passed by: leaves the wind
+behind him; in a foaming sweat man and horse.
+
+And in this way did he actually enter Lord M.'s courtyard.
+
+The reverberating pavement brought me down--The letter, Will.!  The
+letter, dog!--The letter, Sirrah!
+
+No letter, Sir!--Then wildly staring round me, fists clenched, and
+grinning like a maniac, Confound thee for a dog, and him that sent thee
+without one!--This moment out of my sight, or I'll scatter thy stupid
+brains through the air.  I snatched from his holsters a pistol, while the
+rascal threw himself from the foaming beast, and ran to avoid the fate
+which I wished with all my soul thou hadst been within the reach of me to
+have met with.
+
+But, to be as meek as a lamb to one who has me at his mercy, and can
+wring and torture my soul as he pleases, What canst thou mean to send
+back my varlet without a letter?--I will send away by day-dawn another
+fellow upon another beast for what thou hast written; and I charge thee
+on thy allegiance, that thou dispatch him not back empty-handed.
+
+
+POSTSCRIPT
+
+Charlotte, in a whim of delicacy, is displeased that I send the enclosed
+letter to you--that her handwriting, forsooth! should go into the hands
+of a single man!
+
+There's encouragement for thee, Belford!  This is a certain sign that
+thou may'st have her if thou wilt.  And yet, till she has given me this
+unerring demonstration of her glancing towards thee, I could not have
+thought it.  Indeed I have often in pleasantry told her that I would
+bring such an affair to bear.  But I never intended it; because she
+really is a dainty girl; and thou art such a clumsy fellow in thy person,
+that I should as soon have wished her a rhinoceros for a husband as thee.
+But, poor little dears! they must stay till their time's come!  They
+won't have this man, and they won't have that man, from seventeen to
+twenty-five: but then, afraid, as the saying is, that God has forgot
+them, and finding their bloom departing, they are glad of whom they can
+get, and verify the fable of the parson and the pears.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLI
+
+MR. BRAND, TO JOHN HARLOWE, ESQ.
+[ENCLOSED IN THE PRECEDING.]
+
+
+WORTHY SIR, MY VERY GOOD FRIEND AND PATRON,
+
+I arrived in town yesterday, after a tolerably pleasant journey
+(considering the hot weather and dusty roads).  I put up at the Bull and
+Gate in Holborn, and hastened to Covent-garden.  I soon found the house
+where the unhappy lady lodgeth.  And, in the back shop, had a good deal
+of discourse* with Mrs. Smith, (her landlady,) whom I found to be so
+'highly prepossessed'** in her 'favour,' that I saw it would not answer
+your desires to take my informations 'altogether' from her: and being
+obliged to attend my patron, (who to my sorrow,
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI.
+** Transcriber's note: Mr. Brand's letters are characterized by a style
+that makes excessive use of italics for emphasis. Although in the
+remainder of _Clarissa_ I have largely disregarded italics for the sake
+of plain-text formatting, this style makes such emphatic use of italics
+that I have indicated all such instances in his letters by placing the
+italicized words and phrases in quotations, thus ' '.
+
+
+      'Miserum et aliena vivere quadra,')
+
+I find wanteth much waiting upon, and is 'another' sort of man than he
+was at college: for, Sir, 'inter nos,' 'honours change manners.'  For the
+'aforesaid causes,' I thought it would best answer all the ends of the
+commission with which you honoured me, to engage, in the desired
+scrutiny,  the wife of a 'particular friend,' who liveth almost
+over-against the house where she lodgeth, and who is a gentlewoman of
+'character,' and 'sobriety,' a 'mother of children,' and one who
+'knoweth' the 'world' well.
+
+To her I applied myself, therefore, and gave her a short history of the
+case, and desired she would very particularly inquire into the 'conduct'
+of the unhappy young lady; her 'present way of life' and 'subsistence';
+her 'visiters,' her 'employments,' and such-like: for these, Sir, you
+know, are the things whereof you wished to be informed.
+
+Accordingly, Sir, I waited upon the gentlewoman aforesaid, this day; and,
+to 'my' very great trouble, (because I know it will be to 'your's,' and
+likewise to all your worthy family's,) I must say, that I do find things
+look a little more 'darkly' than I hoped the would.  For, alas! Sir, the
+gentlewoman's report turneth out not so 'favourable' for Miss's
+reputation, as 'I' wished, as 'you' wished, and as 'every one' of her
+friends wished.  But so it is throughout the world, that 'one false step'
+generally brings on 'another'; and peradventure 'a worse,' and 'a still
+worse'; till the poor 'limed soul' (a very fit epithet of the Divine
+Quarles's!) is quite 'entangled,' and (without infinite mercy) lost for
+ever.
+
+It seemeth, Sir, she is, notwithstanding, in a very 'ill state of
+health.'  In this, 'both' gentlewomen (that is to say, Mrs. Smith, her
+landlady, and my friend's wife) agree.  Yet she goeth often out in a
+chair, to 'prayers' (as it is said).  But my friend's wife told me, that
+nothing is more common in London, than that the frequenting of the church
+at morning prayers is made the 'pretence' and 'cover' for 'private
+assignations.'  What a sad thing is this! that what was designed for
+'wholesome nourishment' to the 'poor soul,' should be turned into 'rank
+poison!'  But as Mr. Daniel de Foe (an ingenious man, though a
+'dissenter') observeth (but indeed it is an old proverb; only I think he
+was the first that put it into verse)
+
+      God never had a house of pray'r
+      But Satan had a chapel there.
+
+Yet to do the lady 'justice,' nobody cometh home with her: nor indeed
+'can' they, because she goeth forward and backward in a 'sedan,' or
+'chair,' (as they call it).  But then there is a gentleman of 'no good
+character' (an 'intimado' of Mr. Lovelace) who is a 'constant' visiter
+of her, and of the people of the house, whom he 'regaleth' and
+'treateth,' and hath (of consequence) their 'high good words.'
+
+I have thereupon taken the trouble (for I love to be 'exact' in any
+'commission' I undertake) to inquire 'particularly' about this
+'gentleman,' as he is called (albeit I hold no man so but by his actions:
+for, as Juvenal saith,
+
+      --'Nobilitas sola est, atque unica virtus')
+
+And this I did 'before' I would sit down to write to you.
+
+His name is Belford.  He hath a paternal estate of upwards of one
+thousand pounds by the year; and is now in mourning for an uncle who left
+him very considerably besides.  He beareth a very profligate character as
+to 'women,' (for I inquired particularly about 'that,') and is Mr.
+Lovelace's more especial 'privado,' with whom he holdeth a 'regular
+correspondence'; and hath been often seen with Miss (tete a tete) at the
+'window'--in no 'bad way,' indeed: but my friend's wife is of opinion
+that all is not 'as it should be.'  And, indeed, it is mighty strange to
+me, if Miss be so 'notable a penitent' (as is represented) and if she
+have such an 'aversion' to Mr. Lovelace, that she will admit his
+'privado' into 'her retirements,' and see 'no other company.'
+
+I understand, from Mrs. Smith, that Mr. Hickman was to see her some time
+ago, from Miss Howe; and I am told, by 'another' hand, (you see, Sir, how
+diligent I have been to execute the 'commissions' you gave me,) that he
+had no 'extraordinary opinion' of this Belford at first; though they were
+seen together one morning by the opposite neighbour, at 'breakfast': and
+another time this Belford was observed to 'watch' Mr. Hickman's coming
+from her; so that, as it should seem, he was mighty zealous to
+'ingratiate' himself with Mr. Hickman; no doubt to engage him to make a
+'favourable report to Miss Howe' of the 'intimacy' he was admitted into
+by her unhappy friend; who ('as she is very ill') may 'mean no harm' in
+allowing his visits, (for he, it seemeth, brought to her, or recommended,
+at least, the doctor and apothecary that attend her:) but I think (upon
+the whole) 'it looketh not well.'
+
+I am sorry, Sir, I cannot give you a better account of the young lady's
+'prudence.'  But, what shall we say?
+
+      'Uvaque conspecta livorem ducit ab uva,'
+
+as Juvenal observeth.
+
+One thing I am afraid of; which is, that Miss may be under 'necessities';
+and that this Belford (who, as Mrs. Smith owns, hath 'offered her money,'
+which she, 'at the time,' refused) may find an opportunity to 'take
+advantage' of those 'necessities': and it is well observed by that poet,
+that
+
+      'AEgre formosam poteris servare puellam:
+         Nunc prece, nunc pretio, forma petita ruit.'
+
+And this Belford (who is a 'bold man,' and hath, as they say, the 'look'
+of one) may make good that of Horace, (with whose writings you are so
+well acquainted; nobody better;)
+
+      'Audax omnia perpeti,
+      Gens humana ruit per vetitum nefas.'
+
+Forgive me, Sir, for what I am going to write: but if you could prevail
+upon the rest of your family to join in the scheme which 'you,' and her
+'virtuous sister,' Miss Arabella, and the Archdeacon, and I, once talked
+of, (which is to persuade the unhappy young lady to go, in some
+'creditable' manner, to some one of the foreign colonies,) it might not
+save only her 'own credit' and 'reputation,' but the 'reputation' and
+'credit' of all her 'family,' and a great deal of 'vexation' moreover.
+For it is my humble opinion, that you will hardly (any of you) enjoy
+yourselves while this ('once' innocent) young lady is in the way of being
+so frequently heard of by you: and this would put her 'out of the way'
+both of 'this Belford' and of 'that Lovelace,' and it might,
+peradventure, prevent as much 'evil' as 'scandal.'
+
+You will forgive me, Sir, for this my 'plainness.'  Ovid pleadeth for me,
+
+      '----Adulator nullus amicus erit.'
+
+And I have no view but that of approving myself a 'zealous well-wisher'
+to 'all' your worthy family, (whereto I owe a great number of
+obligations,) and very particularly, Sir,
+
+Your obliged and humble servant,
+ELIAS BRAND.
+
+WEDN. AUG. 9.
+
+
+P.S. I shall give you 'farther hints' when I come down, (which will be in
+      a few days;) and who my 'informants' were; but by 'these' you will
+      see, that I have been very assiduous (for the time) in the task you
+      set me upon.
+
+The 'length' of my letter you will excuse: for I need not tell you, Sir,
+      what 'narrative,' 'complex,' and 'conversation' letters (such a one
+      as 'mine') require.  Every one to his 'talent.'  'Letter-writing'
+      is mine.  I will be bold to say; and that my 'correspondence' was
+      much coveted in the university, on that account, by 'tyros,' and
+      by 'sophs,' when I was hardly a 'soph' myself.  But this I should
+      not have taken upon myself to mention, but only in defence of the
+      'length' of my letter; for nobody writeth 'shorter' or 'pithier,'
+      when the subject requireth 'common forms' only--but, in apologizing
+      for my 'prolixity,' I am 'adding' to the 'fault,' (if it were one,
+      which, however, I cannot think it to be, the 'subject' considered:
+      but this I have said before in other words:) so, Sir, if you will
+      excuse my 'post-script,' I am sure you will not find fault with my
+      'letter.'
+
+One word more as to a matter of 'erudition,' which you greatly love to
+      hear me 'start' and 'dwell upon.'  Dr. Lewen once, in 'your'
+      presence, (as you, 'my good patron,' cannot but remember,) in a
+      'smartish' kind of debate between 'him' and 'me,' took upon him to
+      censure the 'paranthetical' style, as I call it.  He was a very
+      learned and judicious man, to be sure, and an ornament to 'our
+      function': but yet I must needs say, that it is a style which I
+      greatly like; and the good Doctor was then past his 'youth,' and
+      that time of life, of consequence, when a 'fertile imagination,'
+      and a 'rich fancy,' pour in ideas so fast upon a writer, that
+      parentheses are often wanted (and that for the sake of 'brevity,'
+      as well as 'perspicuity') to save the reader the trouble of reading
+      a passage 'more than once.'  Every man to his talent, (as I said
+      before.)  We are all so apt to set up our 'natural biasses' for
+      'general standards,' that I wondered 'the less' at the worthy
+      Doctor's 'stiffness' on this occasion.  He 'smiled at me,' you may
+      remember, Sir--and, whether I was right or not, I am sure I 'smiled
+      at him.'  And 'you,' my 'worthy patron,' (as I had the satisfaction
+      to observe,) seemed to be of 'my party.'  But was it not strange,
+      that the 'old gentleman' and 'I' should so widely differ, when the
+      'end' with 'both' (that is to say, 'perspicuity' or 'clearness,')
+      was the same?--But what shall we say?--
+
+            'Errare est hominis, sed non persistere.'
+
+I think I have nothing to add until I have the honour of attending you in
+      'person'; but I am, (as above,) &c. &c. &c.
+
+E.B.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+WEDNESDAY NIGHT, AUG. 30.
+
+
+It was lucky enough that our two servants met at Hannah's,* which gave
+them so good an opportunity of exchanging their letters time enough for
+each to return to his master early in the day.
+
+
+* The Windmill, near Slough.
+
+
+Thou dost well to boast of thy capacity for managing servants, and to set
+up for correcting our poets in their characters of this class of people,*
+when, like a madman, thou canst beat their teeth out, and attempt to
+shoot them through the head, for not bringing to thee what they had no
+power to obtain.
+
+
+* See Letter XX. of this volume.
+
+
+You well observe* that you would have made a thorough-paced lawyer.  The
+whole of the conversation-piece between you and the Colonel affords a
+convincing proof that there is a black and a white side to every cause:
+But what must the conscience of a partial whitener of his own cause, or
+blackener of another's, tell him, while he is throwing dust in the eyes
+of his judges, and all the time knows his own guilt?
+
+
+* See Letter XL. of this volume.
+
+
+The Colonel, I see, is far from being a faultless man: but while he
+sought not to carry his point by breach of faith, he has an excuse which
+thou hast not.  But, with respect to him, and to us all, I can now, with
+the detestation of some of my own actions, see, that the taking advantage
+of another person's good opinion of us to injure (perhaps to ruin) that
+other, is the most ungenerous wickedness that can be committed.
+
+Man acting thus by man, we should not be at a loss to give such actions a
+name: But is it not doubly and trebly aggravated, when such advantage is
+taken of an unexperienced and innocent young creature, whom we pretend to
+love above all the women in the world; and when we seal our pretences by
+the most solemn vows and protestations of inviolable honour that we can
+invent?
+
+I see that this gentleman is the best match thou ever couldest have had,
+upon all accounts: his spirit such another impetuous one as thy own; soon
+taking fire; vindictive; and only differing in this, that the cause he
+engages in is a just one.  But commend me to honest brutal Mowbray, who,
+before he knew the cause, offers his sword in thy behalf against a man
+who had taken the injured side, and whom he had never seen before.
+
+As soon as I had run through your letters, and the copy of that of the
+incendiary Brand's, (by the latter of which I saw to what cause a great
+deal of this last implacableness of the Harlowe family is owing,) I took
+coach to Smith's, although I had been come from thence but about an hour,
+and had taken leave of the lady for the night.
+
+I sent up for Mrs. Lovick, and desired her, in the first place, to
+acquaint the lady (who was busied in her closet,) that I had letters from
+Berks: in which I was informed, that the interview between Colonel Morden
+and Mr. Lovelace had ended without ill consequences; that the Colonel
+intended to write to her very soon, and was interesting himself mean
+while, in her favour, with her relations; that I hoped that this
+agreeable news would be means of giving her good rest; and I would wait
+upon her in the morning, by the time she should return from prayers, with
+all the particulars.
+
+She sent me word that she should be glad to see me in the morning; and
+was highly obliged to me for the good news I had sent her up.
+
+I then, in the back shop, read to Mrs. Lovick and to Mrs. Smith the copy
+of Brand's letter, and asked them if they could guess at the man's
+informant?  They were not at a loss; Mrs. Smith having seen the same
+fellow Brand who had talked with her, as I mentioned in the former,* come
+out of a milliner's shop over against them; which milliner, she said, had
+also lately been very inquisitive about the lady.
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI.
+
+
+I wanted no farther hint; but, bidding them take no notice to the lady of
+what I had read, I shot over the way, and, asking for the mistress of the
+house, she came to me.
+
+Retiring with her, at her invitation, into her parlour, I desired to know
+if she were acquainted with a young country clergyman of the name of
+Brand.  She hesitatingly, seeing me in some emotion, owned that she had
+some small knowledge of the gentleman.  Just then came in her husband,
+who is, it seems, a petty officer of excise, (and not an ill-behaved
+man,) who owned a fuller knowledge of him.
+
+I have the copy of a letter, said I, from this Brand, in which he has
+taken great liberties with my character, and with that of the most
+unblamable lady in the world, which he grounds upon information that you,
+Madam, have given him.  And then I read to them several passages in his
+letter, and asked what foundation she had for giving that fellow such
+impressions of either of us?
+
+They knew not what to answer: but at last said, that he had told them how
+wickedly the young lady had run away from her parents: what worthy and
+rich people they were: in what favour he stood with them; and that they
+had employed him to inquire after her behaviour, visiters, &c.
+
+They said, 'That indeed they knew very little of the young lady; but that
+[curse upon their censoriousness!] it was but too natural to think, that,
+where a lady had given way to a delusion, and taken so wrong a step, she
+would not stop there: that the most sacred places and things were but too
+often made clokes for bad actions; that Mr. Brand had been informed
+(perhaps by some enemy of mine) that I was a man of very free principles,
+and an intimado, as he calls it, of the man who had ruined her.  And that
+their cousin Barker, a manteau-maker, who lodged up one pair of stairs,'
+(and who, at their desire, came down and confirmed what they said,) 'had
+often, from her window, seen me with the lady in her chamber, and both
+talking very earnestly together; and that Mr. Brand, being unable to
+account for her admiring my visits, and knowing I was but a new
+acquaintance of her's, and an old one of Mr. Lovelace, thought himself
+obliged to lay these matters before her friends.'
+
+This was the sum and substance of their tale.  O how I cursed the
+censoriousness of this plaguy triumvirate!  A parson, a milliner, and a
+mantua-maker!  The two latter, not more by business led to adorn the
+persons, than generally by scandal to destroy the reputations, of those
+they have a mind to exercise their talents upon!
+
+The two women took great pains to persuade me that they themselves were
+people of conscience;--of consequence, I told them, too much addicted, I
+feared, to censure other people who pretended not to their strictness;
+for that I had ever found censoriousness, with those who affected to be
+thought more pious than their neighbours.
+
+They answered, that that was not their case; and that they had since
+inquired into the lady's character and manner of life, and were very much
+concerned to think any thing they had said should be made use of against
+her: and as they heard from Mrs. Smith that she was not likely to live
+long, they should be sorry she should go out of the world a sufferer by
+their means, or with an ill opinion of them, though strangers to her.
+The husband offered to write, if I pleased, to Mr. Brand, in vindication
+of the lady; and the two women said they should be glad to wait upon her
+in person, to beg her pardon for any thing she had reason to take amiss
+from them; because they were now convinced that there was not such
+another young lady in the world.
+
+I told them that the least said of the affair to the lady, in her present
+circumstances, was best.  That she was a heavenly creature, and fond of
+taking all occasions to find excuses for her relations on their
+implacableness to her: that therefore I should take some notice to her of
+the uncharitable and weak surmises which gave birth to so vile a scandal:
+but that I would have him, Mr. Walton, (for that is the husband's name,)
+write to his acquaintance Brand as soon as possible, as he had offered;
+and so I left them.
+
+As to what thou sayest of thy charming cousin, let me know if thou hast
+any meaning in it.  I have not the vanity to think myself deserving of
+such a lady as Miss Montague; and should not therefore care to expose
+myself to her scorn and to thy derision.  But were I assured I might
+avoid both of these, I would soon acquaint thee that I should think no
+pains nor assiduity too much to obtain a share in the good graces of such
+a lady.
+
+But I know thee too well to depend upon any thing thou sayest on this
+subject.  Thou lovest to make thy friends the objects of ridicule to
+ladies; and imaginest, from the vanity, (and, in this respect, I will say
+littleness,) of thine own heart, that thou shinest the brighter for the
+foil.
+
+Thus didst thou once play off the rough Mowbray with Miss Hatton, till
+the poor fellow knew not how to go either backward or forward.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLIII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+THURSDAY, 11 O'CLOCK, AUG. 31.
+
+
+I am just come from the lady, whom I left cheerful and serene.
+
+She thanked me for my communication of the preceding night.  I read to
+her such parts of your letters as I could read to her; and I thought it
+was a good test to distinguish the froth and whipt-syllabub in them from
+the cream, in what one could and could not read to a woman of so fine a
+mind; since four parts out of six of thy letters, which I thought
+entertaining as I read them to myself, appeared to me, when I should have
+read them to her, most abominable stuff, and gave me a very contemptible
+idea of thy talents, and of my own judgment.
+
+She as far from rejoicing, as I had done, at the disappointment her
+letter gave you when explained.
+
+She said, she meant only an innocent allegory, which might carry
+instruction and warning to you, when the meaning was taken, as well as
+answer her own hopes for the time.  It was run off in a hurry.  She was
+afraid it was not quite right in her.  But hoped the end would excuse (if
+it could not justify) the means.  And then she again expressed a good
+deal of apprehension lest you should still take it into your head to
+molest her, when her time, she said, was so short, that she wanted every
+moment of it; repeating what she had once said before, that, when she
+wrote, she was so ill that she believed she should not have lived till
+now: if she had thought she should, she must have studied for an
+expedient that would have better answered her intentions.  Hinting at a
+removal out of the knowledge of us both.
+
+But she was much pleased that the conference between you and Colonel
+Morden, after two or three such violent sallies, as I acquainted her you
+had had between you, ended so amicably; and said she must absolutely
+depend upon the promise I had given her to use my utmost endeavours to
+prevent farther mischief on her account.
+
+She was pleased with the justice you did her character to her cousin.
+
+She was glad to hear that he had so kind an opinion of her, and that he
+would write to her.
+
+I was under an unnecessary concern, how to break to her that I had the
+copy of Brand's vile letter: unnecessary, I say; for she took it just as
+you thought she would, as an excuse she wished to have for the
+implacableness of her friends; and begged I would let her read it
+herself; for, said she, the contents cannot disturb me, be they what they
+will.
+
+I gave it to her, and she read it to herself; a tear now and then being
+ready to start, and a sigh sometimes interposing.
+
+She gave me back the letter with great and surprising calmness,
+considering the subject.
+
+There was a time, said she, and that not long since, when such a letter
+as this would have greatly pained me.  But I hope I have now go above all
+these things: and I can refer to your kind offices, and to those of Miss
+Howe, the justice that will be done to my memory among my friends.  There
+is a good and a bad light in which every thing that befalls us may be
+taken.  If the human mind will busy itself to make the worst of every
+disagreeable occurrence, it will never want woe.  This letter, affecting
+as the subject of it is to my reputation, gives me more pleasure than
+pain, because I can gather from it, that had not my friends been
+prepossessed by misinformed or rash and officious persons, who are always
+at hand to flatter or soothe the passions of the affluent, they could not
+have been so immovably determined against me.  But now they are
+sufficiently cleared from every imputation of unforgivingness; for, while
+I appeared to them in the character of a vile hypocrite, pretending to
+true penitence, yet giving up myself to profligate courses, how could I
+expect either their pardon or blessing?
+
+But, Madam, said I, you'll see by the date of this letter, that their
+severity, previous to that, cannot be excused by it.
+
+It imports me much, replied she, on account of my present wishes, as to
+the office you are so kind to undertake, that you should not think
+harshly of my friends.  I must own to you, that I have been apt sometimes
+myself to think them not only severe but cruel.  Suffering minds will be
+partial to their own cause and merits.  Knowing their own hearts, if
+sincere, they are apt to murmur when harshly treated: But, if they are
+not believed to be innocent, by persons who have a right to decide upon
+their conduct according to their own judgments, how can it be helped?
+Besides, Sir, how do you know, that there are not about my friends as
+well-meaning misrepresenters as Mr. Brand really seems to be?  But, be
+this as it will, there is no doubt that there are and have been
+multitudes of persons, as innocent as myself, who have suffered upon
+surmises as little probable as those on which Mr. Brand founds his
+judgment.  Your intimacy, Sir, with Mr. Lovelace, and (may I say?) a
+character which, it seems, you have been less solicitous formerly to
+justify than perhaps you will be for the future, and your frequent visits
+to me may well be thought to be questionable circumstances in my conduct.
+
+I could only admire her in silence.
+
+But you see, Sir, proceeded she, how necessary it is for young people of
+our sex to be careful of our company.  And how much, at the same time, it
+behoves young persons of your's to be chary of their own reputation, were
+it only for the sake of such of our's as they may mean honourably by, and
+who otherwise may suffer in their good names for being seen in their
+company.
+
+As to Mr. Brand, continued she, he is to be pitied; and let me enjoin
+you, Mr. Belford, not to take any resentments against him which may be
+detrimental either to his person or his fortunes.  Let his function and
+his good meaning plead for him.  He will have concern enough, when he
+finds every body, whose displeasure I now labour under, acquitting my
+memory of perverse guilt, and joining in a general pity for me.
+
+This, Lovelace, is the woman whose life thou hast curtailed in the
+blossom of it!--How many opportunities must thou have had of admiring her
+inestimable worth, yet couldst have thy senses so much absorbed in the
+WOMAN, in her charming person, as to be blind to the ANGEL, that shines
+out in such full glory in her mind!  Indeed, I have ever thought myself,
+when blest with her conversation, in the company of a real angel: and I
+am sure it would be impossible for me, were she to be as beautiful, and
+as crimsoned over with health, as I have seen her, to have the least
+thought of sex, when I heard her talk.
+
+
+THURSDAY, THREE O'CLOCK, AUG. 31.
+
+On my re-visit to the lady, I found her almost as much a sufferer from
+joy as she had sometimes been from grief; for she had just received a
+very kind letter from her cousin Morden; which she was so good as to
+communicate to me.  As she had already begun to answer it, I begged leave
+to attend her in the evening, that I might not interrupt her in it.
+
+The letter is a very tender one * * * *
+
+[Here Mr. Belford gives the substance of it upon his memory; but that is
+      omitted; as the letter is given at length (see the next letter.)
+      And then adds:]
+
+But, alas! all will be now too late.  For the decree is certainly gone
+out--the world is unworthy of her.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLIV
+
+COLONEL MORDEN, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+TUESDAY, AUG. 29.
+
+
+I should not, my dearest Cousin, have been a fortnight in England,
+without either doing myself the honour of waiting upon you in person, or
+of writing to you; if I had not been busying myself almost all the time
+in your service, in hopes of making my visit or letter still more
+acceptable to you--acceptable as I have reason to presume either will be
+from the unquestionable love I ever bore you, and from the esteem you
+always honoured me with.
+
+Little did I think that so many days would have been required to effect
+my well-intended purpose, where there used to be a love so ardent on one
+side, and where there still is, as I am thoroughly convinced, the most
+exalted merit on the other!
+
+I was yesterday with Mr. Lovelace and Lord M.  I need not tell you, it
+seems, how very desirous the whole family and all the relations of that
+nobleman are of the honour of an alliance with you; nor how exceedingly
+earnest the ungrateful man is to make you all the reparation in his
+power.
+
+I think, my dear Cousin, that you cannot now do better than to give him
+the honour of your hand.  He says just and great things of your virtue,
+and so heartily condemns himself, that I think there is honorable room
+for you to forgive him: and the more room, as it seems you are determined
+against a legal prosecution.
+
+Your effectual forgiveness of Mr. Lovelace, it is evident to me, will
+accelerate a general reconciliation: for, at present, my other cousins
+cannot persuade themselves that he is in earnest to do you justice; or
+that you would refuse him, if you believed he was.
+
+But, my dear Cousin, there may possibly be something in this affair, to
+which I may be a stranger.  If there be, and you will acquaint me with
+it, all that a naturally-warm heart can do in your behalf shall be done.
+
+I hope I shall be able, in my next visits to my several cousins, to set
+all right with them.  Haughty spirits, when convinced that they have
+carried resentments too high, want but a good excuse to condescend: and
+parents must always love the child they once loved.
+
+But if I find them inflexible, I will set out, and attend you without
+delay; for I long to see you, after so many years' absence.
+
+Mean while, I beg the favour of a few lines, to know if you have reason
+to doubt Mr. Lovelace's sincerity.  For my part, I can have none, if I am
+to judge from the conversation that passed between us yesterday, in
+presence of Lord M.
+
+You will be pleased to direct for me at your uncle Antony's.
+
+Permit me, my dearest Cousin, till I can procure a happy reconciliation
+between you and your father, and brother, and uncles, to supply the place
+to you of all those near relations, as well as that of
+
+Your affectionate kinsman, and humble servant,
+WM. MORDEN.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLV
+
+MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO WM. MORDEN, ESQ.
+THURSDAY, AUG. 31.
+
+
+I most heartily congratulate you, dear Sir, on your return to your native
+country.
+
+I heard with much pleasure that you were come; but I was both afraid and
+ashamed, till you encouraged me by a first notice, to address myself to
+you.
+
+How consoling is it to my wounded heart to find that you have not been
+carried away by that tide of resentment and displeasure with which I have
+been so unhappily overwhelmed--but that, while my still nearer relations
+have not thought fit to examine into the truth of vile reports raised
+against me, you have informed yourself of my innocence, and generously
+credited the information!
+
+I have not the least reason to doubt Mr. Lovelace's sincerity in his
+offers of marriage; nor that all his relations are heartily desirous of
+ranking me among them.  I have had noble instances of their esteem for
+me, on their apprehending that my father's displeasure must have had
+absolutely refused their pressing solicitations in their kinsman's favour
+as well as his own.
+
+Nor think me, my dear Cousin, blamable for refusing him.  I had given Mr.
+Lovelace no reason to think me a weak creature.  If I had, a man of his
+character might have thought himself warranted to endeavour to take
+ungenerous advantage of the weakness he had been able to inspire.  The
+consciousness of my own weakness (in that case) might have brought me to
+a composition with his wickedness.
+
+I can indeed forgive him.  But that is, because I think his crimes have
+set me above him.  Can I be above the man, Sir, to whom I shall give my
+hand and my vows, and with them a sanction to the most premeditated
+baseness?  No, Sir, let me say, that your cousin Clarissa, were she
+likely to live many years, and that (if she married not this man) in
+penury or want, despised and forsaken by all her friends, puts not so
+high a value upon the conveniencies of life, nor upon life itself, as to
+seek to re-obtain the one, or to preserve the other, by giving such a
+sanction: a sanction, which (were she to perform her duty,) would reward
+the violator.
+
+Nor is it so much from pride as from principle that I say this.  What,
+Sir! when virtue, when chastity, is the crown of a woman, and
+particularly of a wife, shall form an attempt upon her's but upon a
+presumption that she was capable of receiving his offered hand when he
+had found himself mistaken in the vile opinion he had conceived of her?
+Hitherto he has not had reason to think me weak.  Nor will I give an
+instance so flagrant, that weak I am in a point in which it would be
+criminal to be found weak.
+
+One day, Sir, you will perhaps know all my story.  But, whenever it is
+known, I beg that the author of my calamities may not be vindictively
+sought after.  He could not have been the author of them, but for a
+strange concurrence of unhappy causes.  As the law will not be able to
+reach him when I am gone, the apprehension of any other sort of vengeance
+terrifies me; since, in such a case, should my friends be safe, what
+honour would his death bring to my memory?--If any of them should come to
+misfortune, how would my fault be aggravated!
+
+God long preserve you, my dearest Cousin, and bless you but in proportion
+to the consolation you have given me, in letting me know that you still
+love me; and that I have one near and dear relation who can pity and
+forgive me; (and then you will be greatly blessed;) is the prayer of
+
+Your ever grateful and affectionate
+CL. HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLVI
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+[IN ANSWER TO HIS LETTERS XXIII. XXXVII. OF THIS VOLUME.]
+THURSDAY, AUG. 31.
+
+
+I cannot but own that I am cut to the heart by this Miss Harlowe's
+interpretation of her letter.  She ought never to be forgiven.  She, a
+meek person, and a penitent, and innocent, and pious, and I know not
+what, who can deceive with a foot in the grave!--
+
+'Tis evident, that she sat down to write this letter with a design to
+mislead and deceive.  And if she be capable of that, at such a crisis,
+she has as much need of Heaven's forgiveness, as I have of her's: and,
+with all her cant of charity and charity, if she be not more sure of it
+than I am of her real pardon, and if she take the thing in the light she
+ought to take it in, she will have a few darker moments yet to come than
+she seems to expect.
+
+Lord M. himself, who is not one of those (to speak in his own phrase) who
+can penetrate a millstone, sees the deceit, and thinks it unworthy of
+her; though my cousins Montague vindicate her.  And no wonder this cursed
+partial sex [I hate 'em all--by my soul, I hate 'em all!] will never
+allow any thing against an individual of it, where our's is concerned.
+And why?  Because, if they censure deceit in another, they must condemn
+their own hearts.
+
+She is to send me a letter after she is in Heaven, is she?  The devil
+take such allegories, and the devil take thee for calling this absurdity
+an innocent artifice!
+
+I insist upon it, that if a woman of her character, at such a critical
+time, is to be justified in such a deception, a man in full health and
+vigour of body and mind, as I am, may be excused for all his stratagems
+and attempts against her.  And, thank my stars, I can now sit me down
+with a quiet conscience on that score.  By my soul, I can, Jack.  Nor has
+any body, who can acquit her, a right to blame me.  But with some,
+indeed, every thing she does must be good, every thing I do must be bad--
+And why?  Because she has always taken care to coax the stupid misjudging
+world, like a woman: while I have constantly defied and despised its
+censures, like a man.
+
+But, notwithstanding all, you may let her know from me that I will not
+molest her, since my visits would be so shocking to her: and I hope she
+will take this into her consideration as a piece of generosity which she
+could hardly expect after the deception she has put upon me.  And let her
+farther know, that if there be any thing in my power, that will
+contribute either to her ease or honour, I will obey her, at the very
+first intimation, however disgraceful or detrimental to myself.  All
+this, to make her unapprehensive, and that she may have nothing to pull
+her back.
+
+If her cursed relations could be brought as cheerfully to perform their
+parts, I'd answer life for life for her recovery.
+
+But who, that has so many ludicrous images raised in his mind by the
+awkward penitence, can forbear laughing at thee?  Spare, I beseech thee,
+dear Belford, for the future, all thine own aspirations, if thou wouldst
+not dishonour those of an angel indeed.
+
+When I came to that passage, where thou sayest that thou considerest her*
+as one sent from Heaven to draw thee after her--for the heart of me I
+could not for an hour put thee out of my head, in the attitude of dame
+Elizabeth Carteret, on her monument in Westminster Abbey.  If thou never
+observedst it, go thither on purpose: and there wilt thou see this dame
+in effigy, with uplifted head and hand, the latter taken hold of by a
+cupid every inch of stone, one clumsy foot lifted up also, aiming, as the
+sculptor designed it, to ascend; but so executed, as would rather make
+one imagine that the figure (without shoe or stocking, as it is, though
+the rest of the body is robed) was looking up to its corn-cutter: the
+other riveted to its native earth, bemired, like thee (immersed thou
+callest it) beyond the possibility of unsticking itself.  Both figures,
+thou wilt find, seem to be in a contention, the bigger, whether it should
+pull down the lesser about its ears--the lesser (a chubby fat little
+varlet, of a fourth part of the other's bigness, with wings not much
+larger than those of a butterfly) whether it should raise the larger to a
+Heaven it points to, hardly big enough to contain the great toes of
+either.
+
+
+* See Letter XXXVII. of this volume.
+
+
+Thou wilt say, perhaps, that the dame's figure in stone may do credit, in
+the comparison, to thine, both in grain and shape, wooden as thou art all
+over: but that the lady, who, in every thing but in the trick she has
+played me so lately, is truly an angel, is but sorrily represented by the
+fat-flanked cupid.  This I allow thee.  But yet there is enough in thy
+aspirations to strike my mind with a resemblance of thee and the lady to
+the figures on the wretched monument; for thou oughtest to remember,
+that, prepared as she may be to mount to her native skies, it is
+impossible for her to draw after her a heavy fellow who has so much to
+repent of as thou hast.
+
+But now, to be serious once more, let me tell you, Belford, that, if the
+lady be really so ill as you write she is, it will become you [no Roman
+style here!] in a case so very affecting, to be a little less pointed and
+sarcastic in your reflections.  For, upon my soul, the matter begins to
+grate me most confoundedly.
+
+I am now so impatient to hear oftener of her, that I take the hint
+accidentally given me by our two fellows meeting at Slough, and resolve
+to go to our friend Doleman's at Uxbridge; whose wife and sister, as well
+as he, have so frequently pressed me to give them my company for a week
+or two.  There shall I be within two hours' ride, if any thing should
+happen to induce her to see me: for it will well become her piety, and
+avowed charity, should the worst happen, [the Lord of Heaven and Earth,
+however, avert that worst!] to give me that pardon from her lips, which
+she has not denied to me by pen and ink.  And as she wishes my
+reformation, she knows not what good effects such an interview may have
+upon me.
+
+I shall accordingly be at Doleman's to-morrow morning, by eleven at
+farthest.  My fellow will find me there at his return from you (with a
+letter, I hope).  I shall have Joel with me likewise, that I may send
+the oftener, as matters fall out.  Were I to be still nearer, or in town,
+it would be impossible to withhold myself from seeing her.
+
+But, if the worst happen!--as, by your continual knelling, I know not
+what to think of it!--[Yet, once more, Heaven avert that worst!--How
+natural it is to pray, when once cannot help one's self!]--THEN say not,
+in so many dreadful words, what the event is--Only, that you advise me to
+take a trip to Paris--And that will stab me to the heart.
+
+
+***
+
+
+I so well approve of your generosity to poor Belton's sister, that I have
+made Mowbray give up his legacy, as I do mine, towards her India bonds.
+When I come to town, Tourville shall do the like; and we will buy each a
+ring to wear in memory of the honest fellow, with our own money, that we
+may perform his will, as well as our own.
+
+My fellow rides the rest of the night.  I charge you, Jack, if you would
+save his life, that you send him not back empty-handed.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLVII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+TUESDAY NIGHT, AUG. 30.
+
+
+When I concluded my last, I hoped that my next attendance upon this
+surprising lady would furnish me with some particulars as agreeable as
+now could be hoped for from the declining way she is in, by reason of
+the welcome letter she had received from her cousin Morden.  But it
+proved quite otherwise to me, though not to herself; for I think I was
+never more shocked in my life than on the occasion I shall mention
+presently.
+
+When I attended her about seven in the evening, she told me that she
+found herself in a very petulant way after I had left her.  Strange, said
+she, that the pleasure I received from my cousin's letter should have
+such an effect upon me!  But I could not help giving way to a comparative
+humour, as I may call it, and to think it very hard that my nearer
+relations did not take the methods which my cousin Morden kindly took, by
+inquiring into my merit or demerit, and giving my cause a fair audit
+before they proceeded to condemnation.
+
+She had hardly said this, when she started, and a blush overspread her
+sweet face, on hearing, as I also did, a sort of lumbering noise upon the
+stairs, as if a large trunk were bringing up between two people: and,
+looking upon me with an eye of concern, Blunderers! said she, they have
+brought in something two hours before the time.--Don't be surprised, Sir
+--it is all to save you trouble.
+
+Before I could speak, in came Mrs. Smith: O Madam, said she, what have
+you done?--Mrs. Lovick, entering, made the same exclamation.  Lord have
+mercy upon me, Madam! cried I, what have you done?--For she, stepping at
+the same instant to the door, the women told me it was a coffin.--O
+Lovelace! that thou hadst been there at that moment!--Thou, the causer of
+all these shocking scenes!  Surely thou couldst not have been less
+affected than I, who have no guilt, as to her, to answer for.
+
+With an intrepidity of a piece with the preparation, having directed them
+to carry it to her bed-chamber, she returned to us: they were not to have
+brought it in till after dark, said she--Pray, excuse me, Mr. Belford:
+and don't you, Mrs. Lovick, be concerned: nor you, Mrs. Smith.--Why
+should you?  There is nothing more in it than the unusualness of the
+thing.  Why may we not be as reasonably shocked at going to church where
+are the monuments of our ancestors, with whose dust we even hope our dust
+shall be one day mingled, as to be moved at such a sight as this?
+
+We all remaining silent, the women having their aprons at their eyes, Why
+this concern for nothing at all? said she.  If I am to be blamed for any
+thing, it is for showing too much solicitude, as it may be thought, for
+this earthly part.  I love to do every thing for myself that I can do.  I
+ever did.  Every other material point is so far done, and taken care of,
+that I have had leisure for things of lesser moment.  Minutenesses may be
+observed, where greater articles are not neglected for them.  I might
+have had this to order, perhaps, when less fit to order it.  I have no
+mother, no sister, no Mrs. Norton, no Miss Howe, near me.  Some of you
+must have seen this in a few days, if not now; perhaps have had the
+friendly trouble of directing it.  And what is the difference of a few
+days to you, when I am gratified rather than discomposed by it?  I shall
+not die the sooner for such a preparation.  Should not every body that
+has any thing to bequeath make their will?  And who, that makes a will,
+should be afraid of a coffin?--My dear friends, [to the women] I have
+considered these things; do not, with such an object before you as you
+have had in me for weeks, give me reason to think you have not.
+
+How reasonable was all this!--It showed, indeed, that she herself had
+well considered it.  But yet we could not help being shocked at the
+thoughts of the coffin thus brought in; the lovely person before our
+eyes who is, in all likelihood, so soon to fill it.
+
+We were all silent still, the women in grief; I in a manner stunned.  She
+would not ask me, she said; but would be glad, since it had thus earlier
+than she had intended been brought in, that her two good friends would
+walk in and look upon it.  They would be less shocked when it was made
+more familiar to their eye: don't you lead back, said she, a starting
+steed to the object he is apt to start at, in order to familiarize him to
+it, and cure his starting?  The same reason will hold in this case.  Come,
+my good friends, I will lead you in.
+
+I took my leave; telling her she had done wrong, very wrong; and ought
+not, by any means, to have such an object before her.
+
+The women followed her in.--'Tis a strange sex!  Nothing is too shocking
+for them to look upon, or see acted, that has but novelty and curiosity
+in it.
+
+Down I posted; got a chair; and was carried home, extremely shocked and
+discomposed: yet, weighing the lady's arguments, I know not why I was so
+affected--except, as she said, at the unusualness of the thing.
+
+While I waited for a chair, Mrs. Smith came down, and told me that there
+were devices and inscriptions upon the lid.  Lord bless me! is a coffin a
+proper subject to display fancy upon?--But these great minds cannot avoid
+doing extraordinary things!
+
+
+
+LETTER XLVIII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+FRIDAY MORN. SEPT. 1.
+
+
+It is surprising, that I, a man, should be so much affected as I was, at
+such an object as is the subject of my former letter; who also, in my
+late uncle's case, and poor Belton's had the like before me, and the
+directing of it: when she, a woman, of so weak and tender a frame, who
+was to fill it (so soon perhaps to fill it!) could give orders about it,
+and draw out the devices upon it, and explain them with so little concern
+as the women tell me she did to them last night after I was gone.
+
+I really was ill, and restless all night.  Thou wert the subject of my
+execration, as she was of my admiration, all the time I was quite awake:
+and, when I dozed, I dreamt of nothing but of flying hour-glasses,
+deaths-heads, spades, mattocks, and eternity; the hint of her devices (as
+given me by Mrs. Smith) running in my head.
+
+However, not being able to keep away from Smith's, I went thither about
+seven.  The lady was just gone out: she had slept better, I found, than
+I, though her solemn repository was under her window, not far from her
+bed-side.
+
+I was prevailed upon by Mrs. Smith and her nurse Shelburne (Mrs. Lovick
+being abroad with her) to go up and look at the devices.  Mrs. Lovick has
+since shown me a copy of the draught by which all was ordered; and I will
+give thee a sketch of the symbols.
+
+The principal device, neatly etched on a plate of white metal, is a
+crowned serpent, with its tail in its mouth, forming a ring, the emblem
+of eternity: and in the circle made by it is this inscription:
+
+                          CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+
+                               April x.
+
+                           [Then the year.]
+
+                              AETAT. XIX.
+
+For ornaments: at top, an hour-glass, winged.  At bottom, an urn.
+
+Under the hour-glass, on another plate, this inscription:
+
+      HERE the wicked cease from troubling: and HERE the
+        weary be at rest.  Job. iii. 17.
+
+Over the urn, near the bottom:
+
+      Turn again unto thy rest, O my soul! for the Lord hath
+        rewarded thee: And why?  Thou hast delivered my
+        soul from death; mine eyes from tears; and my feet
+        from falling.  Ps. cxvi. 7, 8.
+
+Over this is the head of a white lily snapt short off, and just falling
+from the stalk; and this inscription over that, between the principal
+plate and the lily:
+
+      The days of man are but as grass.  For he flourisheth as a
+        flower of the field: for, as soon as the wind goeth over
+        it, it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no
+        more.  Ps. ciii. 15, 16.
+
+She excused herself to the women, on the score of her youth, and being
+used to draw for her needleworks, for having shown more fancy than would
+perhaps be thought suitable on so solemn an occasion.
+
+The date, April 10, she accounted for, as not being able to tell what her
+closing-day would be; and as that was the fatal day of her leaving her
+father's house.
+
+She discharged the undertaker's bill after I went away, with as much
+cheerfulness as she could ever have paid for the clothes she sold to
+purchase this her palace: for such she called it; reflecting upon herself
+for the expensiveness of it, saying, that they might observe in her, that
+pride left not poor mortals to the last: but indeed she did not know but
+her father would permit it, when furnished, to be carried down to be
+deposited with her ancestors; and, in that case, she ought not to
+discredit those ancestors in her appearance amongst them.
+
+It is covered with fine black cloth, and lined with white satin; soon,
+she said, to be tarnished with viler earth than any it could be covered
+by.
+
+The burial-dress was brought home with it.  The women had curiosity
+enough, I suppose, to see her open that, if she did open it.--And,
+perhaps, thou wouldst have been glad to have been present to have admired
+it too!--
+
+Mrs. Lovick said, she took the liberty to blame her; and wished the
+removal of such an object--from her bed-chamber, at least: and was so
+affected with the noble answer she made upon it, that she entered it down
+the moment she left her.
+
+'To persons in health, said she, this sight may be shocking; and the
+preparation, and my unconcernedness in it, may appear affected: but to
+me, who have had so gradual a weaning-time from the world, and so much
+reason not to love it, I must say, I dwell on, I indulge, (and, strictly
+speaking, I enjoy,) the thoughts of death.  For, believe me,' [looking
+stedfastly at the awful receptacle,] 'believe what at this instant I feel
+to be most true, That there is such a vast superiority of weight and
+importance in the thought of death, and its hoped-for happy consequences,
+that it in a manner annihilates all other considerations and concerns.
+Believe me, my good friends, it does what nothing else can do: it teaches
+me, by strengthening in me the force of the divinest example, to forgive
+the injuries I have received; and shuts out the remembrance of past evils
+from my soul.'
+
+And now let me ask thee, Lovelace, Dost thou think that, when the time
+shall come that thou shalt be obliged to launch into the boundless ocean
+of eternity, thou wilt be able (any more than poor Belton) to act thy
+part with such true heroism, as this sweet and tender blossom of a woman
+has manifested, and continues to manifest!
+
+Oh! no! it cannot be!--And why can't it be?--The reason is evident: she
+has no wilful errors to look back upon with self-reproach--and her mind
+is strengthened by the consolations which flow from that religious
+rectitude which has been the guide of all her actions; and which has
+taught her rather to choose to be a sufferer than an aggressor!
+
+This was the support of the divine Socrates, as thou hast read.  When led
+to execution, his wife lamenting that he should suffer being innocent,
+Thou fool, said he, wouldst thou wish me to be guilty!
+
+
+
+LETTER XLIX
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+FRIDAY, SEPT. 1.
+
+
+How astonishing, in the midst of such affecting scenes, is thy mirth on
+what thou callest my own aspirations!  Never, surely, was there such
+another man in this world, thy talents and thy levity taken together!--
+Surely, what I shall send thee with this will affect thee.  If not,
+nothing can, till thy own hour come: and heavy will then thy reflections
+be!
+
+I am glad, however, that thou enablest me to assure the lady that thou
+wilt no more molest her; that is to say, in other words, that, after
+having ruined her fortunes, and all her worldly prospects, thou wilt be
+so gracious, as to let her lie down and die in peace.
+
+Thy giving up to poor Belton's sister the little legacy, and thy
+undertaking to make Mowbray and Tourville follow thy example, are, I must
+say to thy honour, of a piece with thy generosity to thy Rose-bud and her
+Johnny; and to a number of other good actions in pecuniary matters:
+although thy Rose-bud's is, I believe, the only instance, where a pretty
+woman was concerned, of such a disinterested bounty.
+
+Upon my faith, Lovelace, I love to praise thee; and often and often, as
+thou knowest, have I studied for occasions to do it: insomuch that when,
+for the life of me, I could not think of any thing done by thee that
+deserved praise, I have taken pains to applaud the not ungraceful manner
+in which thou hast performed actions that merited the gallows.
+
+Now thou art so near, I will dispatch my servant to thee, if occasion
+requires.  But, I fear, I shall soon give thee the news thou art
+apprehensive of.  For I am just now sent for by Mrs. Smith; who has
+ordered the messenger to tell me, that she knew not if the lady will be
+alive when I come.
+
+
+FRIDAY, SEPT. 1, TWO O'CLOCK, AT SMITH'S.
+
+I could not close my letter in such an uncertainty as must have added to
+your impatience.  For you have, on several occasions, convinced me, that
+the suspense you love to give would be the greatest torment to you that
+you could receive.  A common case with all aggressive and violent
+spirits, I believe.  I will just mention then (your servant waiting here
+till I have written) that the lady has had two very severe fits: in the
+last of which whilst she lay, they sent to the doctor and Mr. Goddard,
+who both advised that a messenger should be dispatched for me, as her
+executor; being doubtful whether, if she had a third, it would not carry
+her off.
+
+She was tolerably recovered by the time I cane; and the doctor made her
+promise before me, that, while she was so weak, she would not attempt any
+more to go abroad; for, by Mrs. Lovick's description, who attended her,
+the shortness of her breath, her extreme weakness, and the fervour of her
+devotions when at church, were contraries, which, pulling different ways
+(the soul aspiring, the body sinking) tore her tender frame in pieces.
+
+So much for the present.  I shall detain Will. no longer than just to beg
+that you will send me back this packet and the last.  Your memory is so
+good, that once reading is all you ever give, or need to give, to any
+thing.  And who but ourselves can make out our characters, were you
+inclined to let any body see what passes between us?  If I cannot be
+obliged, I shall be tempted to withhold what I write, till I have time to
+take a copy of it.*
+
+
+* It may not be amiss to observe, that Mr. Belford's solicitude to get
+back his letters was owing to his desire of fulfilling the lady's wishes
+that he would furnish Miss Howe with materials to vindicate her memory.
+
+
+A letter from Miss Howe is just now brought by a particular messenger,
+who says he must carry back a few lines in return.  But, as the lady is
+just retired to lie down, the man is to call again by-and-by.
+
+
+
+LETTER L
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+UXBRIDGE, SEPT. 1, TWELVE O'CLOCK AT NIGHT.
+
+
+I send you the papers with this.  You must account to me honestly and
+fairly, when I see you, for the earnestness with which you write for
+them.  And then also will we talk about the contents of your last
+dispatch, and about some of your severe and unfriendly reflections.
+
+Mean time, whatever thou dost, don't let the wonderful creature leave us!
+Set before her the sin of her preparation, as if she thought she could
+depart when she pleased.  She'll persuade herself, at this rate, that she
+has nothing to do, when all is ready, but to lie down, and go to sleep:
+and such a lively fancy as her's will make a reality of a jest at any
+time.
+
+A jest I call all that has passed between her and me; a mere jest to die
+for--For has not her triumph over me, from first to last, been infinitely
+greater than her sufferings from me?
+
+Would the sacred regard I have for her purity, even for her personal as
+well as intellectual purity, permit, I could prove this as clear as the
+sun.  Tell, therefore, the dear creature that she must not be wicked in
+her piety.  There is a too much, as well as too little, even in
+righteousness.  Perhaps she does not think of that.--Oh! that she would
+have permitted my attendance, as obligingly as she does of thine!--The
+dear soul used to love humour.  I remember the time that she knew how to
+smile at a piece of apropos humour.  And, let me tell thee, a smile upon
+the lips, or a sparkling in the eye, must have had its correspondent
+cheerfulness in a heart so sincere as her's.
+
+Tell the doctor I will make over all my possessions, and all my
+reversions, to him, if he will but prolong her life for one twelvemonth
+to come.  But for one twelvemonth, Jack!--He will lose all his reputation
+with me, and I shall treat him as Belton did his doctor, if he cannot do
+this for me, on so young a subject.  But nineteen, Belford!--nineteen
+cannot so soon die of grief, if the doctor deserve that title; and so
+blooming and so fine a constitution as she had but three or four months
+ago!
+
+But what need the doctor to ask her leave to write to her friends?  Could
+he not have done it without letting her know any thing of the matter?
+That was one of the likeliest means that could be thought of to bring
+some of them about her, since she is so desirous to see them.  At least
+it would have induced them to send up her favourite Norton.  But these
+plaguy solemn fellows are great traders in parade.  They'll cram down
+your throat their poisonous drugs by wholesale, without asking you a
+question; and have the assurance to own it to be prescribing: but when
+they are to do good, they are to require your consent.
+
+How the dear creature's character rises in every line of thy letters!
+But it is owing to the uncommon occasions she has met with that she
+blazes out upon us with such a meridian lustre.  How, but for those
+occasions, could her noble sentiments, her prudent consideration, her
+forgiving spirit, her exalted benevolence, and her equanimity in view of
+the most shocking prospects (which set her in a light so superior to all
+her sex, and even to the philosophers of antiquity) have been manifested?
+
+I know thou wilt think I am going to claim some merit to myself, for
+having given her such opportunities of signalizing her virtues.  But I am
+not; for, if I did, I must share that merit with her implacable
+relations, who would justly be entitled to two-thirds of it, at least:
+and my soul disdains a partnership in any thing with such a family.
+
+But this I mention as an answer to thy reproaches, that I could be so
+little edified by perfections, to which, thou supposest, I was for so
+long together daily and hourly a personal witness--when, admirable as she
+was in all she said, and in all she did, occasion had not at that time
+ripened, and called forth, those amazing perfections which now astonish
+and confound me.
+
+Hence it is that I admire her more than ever; and that my love for her is
+less personal, as I may say, more intellectual, than ever I thought it
+could be to a woman.
+
+Hence also it is that I am confident (would it please the Fates to spare
+her, and make her mine) I could love her with a purity that would draw on
+my own FUTURE, as well as ensure her TEMPORAL, happiness.--And hence, by
+necessary consequence, shall I be the most miserable of all men, if I am
+deprived of her.
+
+Thou severely reflectest upon me for my levity: the Abbey instance in
+thine eye, I suppose.  And I will be ingenuous enough to own, that as
+thou seest not my heart, there may be passages, in every one of my
+letters, which (the melancholy occasion considered) deserve thy most
+pointed rebukes.  But faith, Jack, thou art such a tragi-comical mortal,
+with thy leaden aspirations at one time, and thy flying hour-glasses and
+dreaming terrors at another, that, as Prior says, What serious is, thou
+turn'st to farce; and it is impossible to keep within the bounds of
+decorum or gravity when one reads what thou writest.
+
+But to restrain myself (for my constitutional gayety was ready to run
+away with me again) I will repeat, I must ever repeat, that I am most
+egregiously affected with the circumstances of the case: and, were this
+paragon actually to quit the world, should never enjoy myself one hour
+together, though I were to live to the age of Methusalem.
+
+Indeed it is to this deep concern, that my levity is owing: for I
+struggle and struggle, and try to buffet down my cruel reflections as
+they rise; and when I cannot, I am forced, as I have often said, to try
+to make myself laugh, that I may not cry; for one or other I must do: and
+is it not philosophy carried to the highest pitch, for a man to conquer
+such tumults of soul as I am sometimes agitated by, and, in the very
+height of the storm, to be able to quaver out an horse-laugh?
+
+Your Seneca's, your Epictetus's, and the rest of your stoical tribe, with
+all their apathy nonsense, could not come up to this.  They could forbear
+wry faces: bodily pains they could well enough seem to support; and that
+was all: but the pangs of their own smitten-down souls they could not
+laugh over, though they could at the follies of others.  They read grave
+lectures; but they were grave.  This high point of philosophy, to laugh
+and be merry in the midst of the most soul-harrowing woes, when the
+heart-strings are just bursting asunder, was reserved for thy Lovelace.
+
+There is something owing to constitution, I own; and that this is the
+laughing-time of my life.  For what a woe must that be, which for an hour
+together can mortify a man six or seven and twenty, in high blood and
+spirits, of a naturally gay disposition, who can sing, dance, and
+scribble, and take and give delight in them all?--But then my grief, as
+my joy, is sharper-pointed than most other men's; and, like what Dolly
+Welby once told me, describing the parturient throes, if there were not
+lucid intervals, if they did not come and go, there would be no bearing
+them.
+
+
+***
+
+
+After all, as I am so little distant from the dear creature, and as she
+is so very ill, I think I cannot excuse myself from making her one visit.
+Nevertheless, if I thought her so near--[what word shall I use, that my
+soul is not shocked at!] and that she would be too much discomposed by a
+visit, I would not think of it.--Yet how can I bear the recollection,
+that, when she last went from me (her innocence so triumphant over my
+premeditated guilt, as was enough to reconcile her to life, and to set
+her above the sense of injuries so nobly sustained, that) she should then
+depart with an incurable fracture in her heart; and that that should be
+the last time I should ever see her!--How, how, can I bear this
+reflection!
+
+O Jack! how my conscience, that gives edge even to thy blunt reflections,
+tears me!--Even this moment would I give the world to push the cruel
+reproacher from me by one ray of my usual gayety!--Sick of myself!--sick
+of the remembrance of my vile plots; and of my light, my momentary
+ecstacy [villanous burglar, felon, thief, that I was!] which has brought
+on me such durable and such heavy remorse! what would I give that I had
+not been guilty of such barbarous and ungrateful perfidy to the most
+excellent of God's creatures!
+
+I would end, methinks, with one sprightlier line!--but it will not be.--
+Let me tell thee then, and rejoice at it if thou wilt, that I am
+
+Inexpressibly miserable!
+
+
+
+LETTER LI
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+SAT. MORNING, SEPT. 2.
+
+
+I have some little pleasure given me by thine, just now brought me.  I
+see now that thou hast a little humanity left.  Would to Heaven, for the
+dear lady's sake, as well as for thy own, that thou hadst rummaged it up
+from all the dark forgotten corners of thy soul a little sooner!
+
+The lady is alive, and serene, and calm, and has all her noble intellects
+clear and strong: but nineteen will not however save her.  She says she
+will now content herself with her closet duties, and the visits of the
+parish-minister; and will not attempt to go out.  Nor, indeed, will she,
+I am afraid, ever walk up or down a pair of stairs again.
+
+I am sorry at my soul to have this to say: but it would be a folly to
+flatter thee.
+
+As to thy seeing her, I believe the least hint of that sort, now, would
+cut off some hours of her life.
+
+What has contributed to her serenity, it seems, is, that taking the alarm
+her fits gave her, she has entirely finished, and signed and sealed, her
+last will: which she had deferred till this time, in hopes, as she said,
+of some good news from Harlowe-place; which would have induced her to
+alter some passages in it.
+
+Miss Howe's letter was not given her till four in the afternoon,
+yesterday; at which time the messenger returned for an answer.  She
+admitted him into her presence in the dining-room, ill as she then was,
+and she would have written a few lines, as desired by Miss Howe; but, not
+being able to hold a pen, she bid the messenger tell her that she hoped
+to be well enough to write a long letter by the next day's post; and
+would not now detain him.
+
+
+***
+
+
+SATURDAY, SIX IN THE AFTERNOON.
+
+I called just now, and found the lady writing to Miss Howe.  She made me
+a melancholy compliment, that she showed me not Miss Howe's letter,
+because I should soon have that and all her papers before me.  But she
+told me that Miss Howe had very considerably obviated to Colonel Morden
+several things which might have occasioned misapprehensions between him
+and me; and had likewise put a lighter construction, for the sake of
+peace, on some of your actions than they deserved.
+
+She added, that her cousin Morden was warmly engaged in her favour with
+her friends: and one good piece of news Miss Howe's letter contained,
+that her father would give up some matters, which (appertaining to her of
+right) would make my executorship the easier in some particulars that had
+given her a little pain.
+
+She owned she had been obliged to leave off (in the letter she was
+writing) through weakness.
+
+Will. says he shall reach you to-night.  I shall send in the morning;
+and, if I find her not worse, will ride to Edgware, and return in the
+afternoon.
+
+
+
+LETTER LII
+
+MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+TUESDAY, AUG. 29.
+
+
+MY DEAREST FRIEND,
+
+We are at length returned to our own home.  I had intended to wait on you
+in London: but my mother is very ill--Alas! my dear, she is very ill
+indeed--and you are likewise very ill--I see that by your's of the 25th--
+What shall I do, if I lose two such near, and dear, and tender friends?
+She was taken ill yesterday at our last stage in our return home--and has
+a violent surfeit and fever, and the doctors are doubtful about her.
+
+If she should die, how will all my pertnesses to her fly in my face!--
+Why, why, did I ever vex her?  She says I have been all duty and
+obedience!--She kindly forgets all my faults, and remembers every thing I
+have been so happy as to oblige her in.  And this cuts me to the heart.
+
+I see, I see, my dear, that you are very bad--and I cannot bear it.  Do,
+my beloved Miss Harlowe, if you can be better, do, for my sake, be
+better; and send me word of it.  Let the bearer bring me a line.  Be sure
+you send me a line.  If I lose you, my more than sister, and lose my
+mother, I shall distrust my own conduct, and will not marry.  And why
+should I?--Creeping, cringing in courtship!--O my dear, these men are a
+vile race of reptiles in our day, and mere bears in their own.  See in
+Lovelace all that is desirable in figure, in birth, and in fortune: but
+in his heart a devil!--See in Hickman--Indeed, my dear, I cannot tell
+what any body can see in Hickman, to be always preaching in his favour.
+And is it to be expected that I, who could hardly bear control from a
+mother, should take it from a husband?--from one too, who has neither
+more wit, nor more understanding, than myself? yet he to be my
+instructor!--So he will, I suppose; but more by the insolence of his will
+than by the merit of his counsel.  It is in vain to think of it.  I
+cannot be a wife to any man breathing whom I at present know.  This I the
+rather mention now, because, on my mother's danger, I know you will be
+for pressing me the sooner to throw myself into another sort of
+protection, should I be deprived of her.  But no more of this subject, or
+indeed of any other; for I am obliged to attend my mamma, who cannot bear
+me out of her sight.
+
+
+***
+
+
+WEDNESDAY, AUG. 30.
+
+My mother, Heaven be praised! has had a fine night, and is much better.
+Her fever has yielded to medicine! and now I can write once more with
+freedom and ease to you, in hopes that you also are better.  If this be
+granted to my prayers, I shall again be happy, I writhe with still the
+more alacrity as I have an opportunity given me to touch upon a subject
+in which you are nearly concerned.
+
+You must know then, my dear, that your cousin Morden has been here with
+me.  He told me of an interview he had on Monday at Lord M.'s with
+Lovelace; and asked me abundance of questions about you, and about that
+villanous man.
+
+I could have raised a fine flame between them if I would: but, observing
+that he is a man of very lively passions, and believing you would be
+miserable if any thing should happen to him from a quarrel with a man who
+is known to have so many advantages at his sword, I made not the worst of
+the subjects we talked of.  But, as I could not tell untruths in his
+favour, you must think I said enough to make him curse the wretch.
+
+I don't find, well as they all used to respect Colonel Morden, that he
+has influence enough upon them to bring them to any terms of
+reconciliation.
+
+What can they mean by it!--But your brother is come home, it seems: so,
+the honour of the house, the reputation of the family, is all the cry!
+
+The Colonel is exceedingly out of humour with them all.  Yet has he not
+hitherto, it seems, seen your brutal brother.--I told him how ill you
+were, and communicated to him some of the contents of your letter.  He
+admired you, cursed Lovelace, and raved against all your family.--He
+declared that they were all unworthy of you.
+
+At his earnest request, I permitted him to take some brief notes of such
+of the contents of your letter to me as I thought I could read to him;
+and, particularly, of your melancholy conclusion.*
+
+
+* See Letter XXXII. of this volume.
+
+
+He says that none of your friends think you are so ill as you are; nor
+will believe it.  He is sure they all love you; and that dearly too.
+
+If they do, their present hardness of heart will be the subject of
+everlasting remorse to them should you be taken from us--but now it seems
+[barbarous wretches!] you are to suffer within an inch of your life.
+
+He asked me questions about Mr. Belford: and, when he had heard what I
+had to say of that gentleman, and his disinterested services to you, he
+raved at some villanous surmises thrown out against you by that officious
+pedant, Brand: who, but for his gown, I find, would come off poorly enough
+between your cousin and Lovelace.
+
+He was so uneasy about you himself, that on Thursday, the 24th, he sent
+up an honest serious man,* one Alston, a gentleman farmer, to inquire of
+your condition, your visiters, and the like; who brought him word that
+you was very ill, and was put to great straits to support yourself: but
+as this was told him by the gentlewoman of the house where you lodge,
+who, it seems, mingled it with some tart, though deserved, reflections
+upon your relations' cruelty, it was not credited by them: and I myself
+hope it cannot be true; for surely you could not be so unjust, I will
+say, to my friendship, as to suffer any inconveniencies for want of
+money.  I think I could not forgive you, if it were so.
+
+
+* See Letter XXIII. ibid.
+
+
+The Colonel (as one of your trustees) is resolved to see you put into
+possession of your estate: and, in the mean time, he has actually engaged
+them to remit to him for you the produce of it accrued since your
+grandfather's death, (a very considerable sum;) and proposes himself to
+attend you with it.  But, by a hint he dropt, I find you had disappointed
+some people's littleness, by not writing to them for money and supplies;
+since they were determined to distress you, and to put you at defiance.
+
+Like all the rest!--I hope I may say that without offence.
+
+Your cousin imagines that, before a reconciliation takes place, they will
+insist that you make such a will, as to that estate, as they shall
+approve of: but he declares that he will not go out of England till he
+has seen justice done you by every body; and that you shall not be
+imposed on either by friend or foe--
+
+By relation or foe, should he not have said?--for a friend will not
+impose upon a friend.
+
+So, my dear, you are to buy your peace, if some people are to have their
+wills!
+
+Your cousin [not I, my dear, though it was always my opinion*] says, that
+the whole family is too rich to be either humble, considerate, or
+contented.  And as for himself, he has an ample fortune, he says, and
+thinks of leaving it wholly to you.
+
+
+* See Vol. I. Letter X.
+
+
+Had this villain Lovelace consulted his worldly interest only, what a
+fortune would he have had in you, even although your marrying him had
+deprived you of a paternal share!
+
+I am obliged to leave off here.  But having a good deal still more to
+write, and my mother better, I will pursue the subject in another letter,
+although I send both together.  I need not say how much I am, and will
+ever be,
+
+Your affectionate, &c.
+ANNA HOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER LIII
+
+MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+THURSDAY, AUGUST 31.
+
+
+The Colonel thought fit once, in praise of Lovelace's generosity, to say,
+that (as a man of honour ought) he took to himself all the blame, and
+acquitted you of the consequences of the precipitate step you had taken;
+since he said, as you loved him, and was in his power, he must have had
+advantages which he would not have had, if you had continued at your
+father's, or at any friend's.
+
+Mighty generous, I said, (were it as he supposed,) in such insolent
+reflectors, the best of them; who pretend to clear reputations which
+never had been sullied but by falling into their dirty acquaintance! but
+in this case, I averred, that there was no need of any thing but the
+strictest truth, to demonstrate Lovelace to be the blackest of villains,
+you the brightest of innocents.
+
+This he catched at; and swore, that if any thing uncommon or barbarous in
+the seduction were to come out, as indeed one of the letters you had
+written to your friends, and which had been shown him, very strongly
+implied; that is to say, my dear, if any thing worse than perjury, breach
+of faith, and abuse of a generous confidence, were to appear! [sorry
+fellows!] he would avenge his cousin to the utmost.
+
+I urged your apprehensions on this head from your last letter to me: but
+he seemed capable of taking what I know to be real greatness of soul, in
+an unworthy sense: for he mentioned directly upon it the expectations
+your friends had, that you should (previous to any reconciliation with
+them) appear in a court of justice against the villain--IF you could do
+it with the advantage to yourself that I hinted might be done.
+
+And truly, if I would have heard him, he had indelicacy enough to have
+gone into the nature of the proof of the crime upon which they wanted to
+have Lovelace arraigned.  Yet this is a man improved by travel and
+learning!--Upon my word, my dear, I, who have been accustomed to the most
+delicate conversation ever since I had the honour to know you, despise
+this sex from the gentleman down to the peasant.
+
+Upon the whole, I find that Mr. Morden has a very slender notion of
+women's virtue in particular cases: for which reason I put him down,
+though your favourite, as one who is not entitled to cast the first
+stone.
+
+I never knew a man who deserved to be well thought of himself for his
+morals, who had a slight opinion of the virtue of our sex in general.
+For if, from the difference of temperament and education, modesty,
+chastity, and piety too, are not to be found in our sex preferably to
+the other, I should think it a sign of much worse nature in ours.
+
+He even hinted (as from your relations indeed) that it is impossible
+but there most be some will where there is much love.
+
+These sort of reflections are enough to make a woman, who has at heart
+her own honour and the honour of her sex, to look about her, and consider
+what she is doing when she enters into an intimacy with these wretches;
+since it is plain, that whenever she throws herself into the power of a
+man, and leaves for him her parents or guardians, every body will believe
+it to be owing more to her good luck than to her discretion if there be
+not an end of her virtue: and let the man be ever such a villain to her,
+she must take into her own bosom a share of his guilty baseness.
+
+I am writing to general cases.  You, my dear, are out of the question.
+Your story, as I have heretofore said, will afford a warning as well as
+an example:* For who is it that will not infer, that if a person of your
+fortune, character, and merit, could not escape ruin, after she had put
+herself into the power of her hyaena, what can a thoughtless, fond, giddy
+creature expect?
+
+
+* See Vol. IV. Letter XXIII.
+
+
+Every man, they will say, is not a LOVELACE--True: but then, neither is
+every woman a CLARISSA.  And allow for the one and for the other the
+example must be of general use.
+
+I prepared Mr. Morden to expect your appointment of Mr. Belford for an
+office that we both hope he will have no occasion to act in (nor any body
+else) for many, very many years to come.  He was at first startled at it:
+but, upon hearing such of your reasons as had satisfied me, he only said
+that such an appointment, were it to take place, would exceedingly affect
+his other cousins.
+
+He told me, he had a copy of Lovelace's letter to you, imploring your
+pardon, and offering to undergo any penance to procure it;* and also of
+your answer to it.**
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXIX.
+** Ibid. Letter LXXXIII.
+
+
+I find he is willing to hope that a marriage between you may still take
+place; which, he says, will heal up all breaches.
+
+I would have written much more--on the following particulars especially;
+to wit, of the wretched man's hunting you out of your lodgings: of your
+relations' strange implacableness, [I am in haste, and cannot think of a
+word you would like better just now:] of your last letter to Lovelace, to
+divert him from pursuing you: of your aunt Hervey's penitential
+conversation with Mrs. Norton: of Mr. Wyerley's renewed address: of your
+lessons to me in Hickman's behalf, so approvable, were the man more so
+than he is; but indeed I am offended with him at this instant, and have
+been for these two days: of your sister's transportation-project: and of
+twenty and twenty other things: but am obliged to leave off, to attend my
+two cousins Spilsworth, and my cousin Herbert, who are come to visit us
+on account of my mother's illness--I will therefore dispatch these by
+Rogers; and if my mother gets well soon (as I hope she will) I am
+resolved to see you in town, and tell you every thing that now is upon my
+mind; and particularly, mingling my soul with your's, how much I am, and
+will ever be, my dearest, dear friend,
+
+Your affectionate
+ANNA HOWE.
+
+Let Rogers bring one line, I pray you.  I thought to have sent him this
+      afternoon; but he cannot set out till to-morrow morning early.
+
+I cannot express how much your staggering lines and your conclusion
+      affect me!
+
+
+
+LETTER LIV
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+SUNDAY EVENING, SEPT. 3.
+
+
+I wonder not at the impatience your servant tells me you express to hear
+from me.  I was designing to write you a long letter, and was just
+returned from Smith's for that purpose; but, since you are urgent, you
+must be contented with a short one.
+
+I attended the lady this morning, just before I set out for Edgware.  She
+was so ill over-night, that she was obliged to leave unfinished her
+letter to Miss Howe.  But early this morning she made an end of it, and
+just sealed it up as I came.  She was so fatigued with writing, that she
+told me she would lie down after I was gone, and endeavour to recruit her
+spirits.
+
+They had sent for Mr. Goddard, when she was so ill last night; and not
+being able to see him out of her own chamber, he, for the first time, saw
+her house, as she calls it.  He was extremely shocked and concerned at
+it; and chid Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick for not persuading her to have
+such an object removed form her bed-chamber: and when they excused
+themselves on the little authority it was reasonable to suppose they must
+have with a lady so much their superior, he reflected warmly on those who
+had more authority, and who left her to proceed with such a shocking and
+solemn whimsy, as he called it.
+
+It is placed near the window, like a harpsichord, though covered over to
+the ground: and when she is so ill that she cannot well go to her closet,
+she writes and reads upon it, as others would upon a desk or table.  But
+(only as she was so ill last night) she chooses not to see any body in
+that apartment.
+
+I went to Edgware; and, returning in the evening, attended her again.
+She had a letter brought her from Mrs. Norton (a long one, as it seems by
+its bulk,) just before I came.  But she had not opened it; and said, that
+as she was pretty calm and composed, she was afraid to look into the
+contents, lest she should be ruffled; expecting now to hear of nothing
+that could do her good or give her pleasure from that good woman's dear
+hard-hearted neighbours, as she called her own relations.
+
+Seeing her so weak and ill, I withdrew; nor did she desire me to tarry,
+as sometimes she does, when I make a motion to depart.
+
+I had some hints, as I went away, from Mrs. Smith, that she had
+appropriated that evening to some offices, that were to save trouble, as
+she called it, after her departure; and had been giving orders to her
+nurse, and to Mrs. Lovick, and Mrs. Smith, about what she would have done
+when she was gone; and I believe they were of a very delicate and
+affecting nature; but Mrs. Smith descended not to particulars.
+
+The doctor had been with her, as well as Mr. Goddard; and they both
+joined with great earnestness to persuade her to have her house removed
+out of her sight; but she assured them that it gave her pleasure and
+spirits; and, being a necessary preparation, she wondered they should be
+surprised at it, when she had not any of her family about her, or any old
+acquaintance, on whose care and exactness in these punctilios, as she
+called them, she could rely.
+
+The doctor told Mrs. Smith, that he believed she would hold out long
+enough for any of her friends to have notice of her state, and to see
+her; and hardly longer; and since he could not find that she had any
+certainty of seeing her cousin Morden, (which made it plain that her
+relations continued inflexible,) he would go home, and write a letter to
+her father, take it as she would.
+
+She had spent great part of the day in intense devotions; and to-morrow
+morning she is to have with her the same clergyman who has often attended
+her; from whose hands she will again receive the sacrament.
+
+Thou seest, Lovelace, that all is preparing, that all will be ready; and
+I am to attend her to-morrow afternoon, to take some instructions from
+her in relation to my part in the office to be performed for her.  And
+thus, omitting the particulars of a fine conversation between her and
+Mrs. Lovick, which the latter acquainted me with, as well as another
+between her and the doctor and apothecary, which I had a design this
+evening to give you, they being of a very affecting nature, I have
+yielded to your impatience.
+
+   I shall dispatch Harry to-morrow morning early with her letter to Miss
+      Howe: an offer she took very kindly; as she is extremely
+      solicitous to lessen that young lady's apprehensions for her on
+      not hearing from her by Saturday's post: and yet, if she write
+      truth, as no doubt but she will, how can her apprehensions be
+      lessened?
+
+
+
+LETTER LV
+
+MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
+SATURDAY, SEPT. 2.
+
+
+I write, my beloved Miss Howe, though very ill still: but I could not by
+the return of your messenger; for I was then unable to hold a pen.
+
+Your mother's illness (as mentioned in the first part of your letter,)
+gave me great distress for you, till I read farther.  You bewailed it as
+became a daughter so sensible.  May you be blessed in each other for
+many, very many years to come!  I doubt not, that even this sudden and
+grievous indisposition, by the frame it has put you in, and the
+apprehension it has given you of losing so dear a mother, will contribute
+to the happiness I wish you: for, alas! my dear, we seldom know how to
+value the blessings we enjoy, till we are in danger of losing them, or
+have actually lost them: and then, what would we give to have them
+restored to us!
+
+What, I wonder, has again happened between you and Mr. Hickman?  Although
+I know not, I dare say it is owing to some petty petulance, to some
+half-ungenerous advantage taken of his obligingness and assiduity.  Will
+you never, my dear, give the weight you and all our sex ought to give to
+the qualities of sobriety and regularity of life and manners in that sex?
+Must bold creatures, and forward spirits, for ever, and by the best and
+wisest of us, as well as by the indiscreetest, be the most kindly
+treated?
+
+My dear friends know not that I have actually suffered within less than
+an inch of my life.
+
+Poor Mr. Brand! he meant well, I believe.  I am afraid all will turn
+heavily upon him, when he probably imagined that he was taking the best
+method to oblige.  But were he not to have been so light of belief, and
+so weakly officious; and had given a more favourable, and, it would be
+strange if I could not say, a juster report; things would have been,
+nevertheless, exactly as they are.
+
+I must lay down my pen.  I am very ill.  I believe I shall be better
+by-and-by.  The bad writing would betray me, although I had a mind to
+keep from you what the event must soon--
+
+
+***
+
+
+Now I resume my trembling pen.  Excuse the unsteady writing.  It will
+be so--
+
+I have wanted no money: so don't be angry about such a trifle as money.
+Yet I am glad of what you inclined me to hope, that my friends will give
+up the produce of my grandfather's estate since it has been in their
+hands: because, knowing it to be my right, and that they could not want
+it, I had already disposed of a good part of it; and could only hope they
+would be willing to give it up at my last request.  And now how rich
+shall I think myself in this my last stage!--And yet I did not want
+before--indeed I did not--for who, that has many superfluities, can be
+said to want!
+
+Do not, my dear friend, be concerned that I call it my last stage; For
+what is even the long life which in high health we wish for?  What, but,
+as we go along, a life of apprehension, sometimes for our friends,
+oftener for ourselves?  And at last, when arrived at the old age we
+covet, one heavy loss or deprivation having succeeded another, we see
+ourselves stript, as I may say, of every one we loved; and find ourselves
+exposed, as uncompanionable poor creatures, to the slights, to the
+contempts, of jostling youth, who want to push us off the stage, in hopes
+to possess what we have:--and, superadded to all, our own infirmities
+every day increasing: of themselves enough to make the life we wished for
+the greatest disease of all!  Don't you remember the lines of Howard,
+which once you read to me in my ivy-bower?*
+
+
+* These are the lines the lady refers to:
+
+      From death we rose to life: 'tis but the same,
+      Through life to pass again from whence we came.
+      With shame we see our PASSIONS can prevail,
+      Where reason, certainty, and virtue fail.
+      HONOUR, that empty name, can death despise;    |
+      SCORN'D LOVE to death, as to a refuge, flies;  |
+      And SORROW waits for death with longing eyes.  |
+      HOPE triumphs o'er the thoughts of death; and FATE
+      Cheats fools, and flatters the unfortunate.
+      We fear to lose, what a small time must waste,
+      Till life itself grows the disease at last.
+      Begging for life, we beg for more decay,
+      And to be long a dying only pray.
+
+
+In the disposition of what belongs to me, I have endeavoured to do every
+thing in the justest and best manner I could think of; putting myself in
+my relations' places, and, in the greater points, ordering my matters as
+if no misunderstanding had happened.
+
+I hope they will not think much of some bequests where wanted, and where
+due from my gratitude: but if they should, what is done, is done; and I
+cannot now help it.  Yet I must repeat, that I hope, I hope, I have
+pleased every one of them.  For I would not, on any account, have it
+thought that, in my last disposition, any thing undaughterly, unsisterly,
+or unlike a kinswoman, should have had place in a mind that is a truly
+free (as I will presume to say) from all resentment, that it now
+overflows with gratitude and blessings for the good I have received,
+although it be not all that my heart wished to receive.  Were it even an
+hardship that I was not favoured with more, what is it but an hardship
+of half a year, against the most indulgent goodness of eighteen years and
+an half, that ever was shown to a daughter?
+
+My cousin, you tell me, thinks I was off my guard, and that I was taken
+at some advantage.  Indeed, my dear, I was not.  Indeed I gave no room
+for advantage to be taken of me.  I hope, one day, that will be seen, if
+I have the justice done me which Mr. Belford assures me of.
+
+I should hope that my cousin has not taken the liberties which you (by an
+observation not, in general, unjust) seem to charge him with.  For it is
+sad to think, that the generality of that sex should make so light of
+crimes, which they justly hold so unpardonable in their own most intimate
+relations of our's--yet cannot commit them without doing such injuries to
+other families as they think themselves obliged to resent unto death,
+when offered to their own.
+
+But we women are to often to blame on this head; since the most virtuous
+among us seldom make virtue the test of their approbation of the other
+sex; insomuch that a man may glory in his wickedness of this sort without
+being rejected on that account, even to the faces of women of
+unquestionable virtue.  Hence it is, that a libertine seldom thinks
+himself concerned so much as to save appearances: And what is it not that
+our sex suffers in their opinion on this very score?  And what have I,
+more than many others, to answer for on this account in the world's eye?
+
+May my story be a warning to all, how they prefer a libertine to a man of
+true honour; and how they permit themselves to be misled (where they mean
+the best) by the specious, yet foolish hope of subduing riveted habits,
+and, as I may say, of altering natures!--The more foolish, as constant
+experience might convince us, that there is hardly one in ten, of even
+tolerably happy marriages, in which the wife keeps the hold in the
+husband's affections, which she had in the lover's.  What influence then
+can she hope to have over the morals of an avowed libertine, who marries
+perhaps for conveniency, who despises the tie, and whom, it is too
+probable, nothing but old age, or sickness, or disease, (the consequence
+of ruinous riot,) can reclaim?
+
+I am very glad you gave my cous--
+
+
+SUNDAY MORNING, SEPT. 3, SIX O'CLOCK.
+
+Hither I had written, and was forced to quit my pen.  And so much weaker
+and worse I grew, that had I resumed it, to have closed here, it must
+have been with such trembling unsteadiness, that it would have given you
+more concern for me, than the delay of sending it away by last night's
+post can do.  I deferred it, therefore, to see how it would please God to
+deal with me.  And I find myself, after a better night than I expected,
+lively and clear; and hope to give a proof that I do, in the continuation
+of my letter, which I will pursue as currently as if I had not left off.
+
+I am glad that you so considerately gave my cousin Morden favourable
+impressions of Mr. Belford; since, otherwise, some misunderstanding might
+have happened between them: for although I hope this Mr. Belford is an
+altered man, and in time will be a reformed one, yet is he one of those
+high spirits that has been accustomed to resent imaginary indignities to
+himself, when, I believe, he has not been studious to avoid giving real
+offences to others; men of this cast acting as if they thought all the
+world was made to bar with them, and they with nobody in it.
+
+Mr. Lovelace, you tell me, thought fit to intrust my cousin with the copy
+of his letter of penitence to me, and with my answer to it, rejecting him
+and his suit: and Mr. Belford, moreover, acquaints me, how much concerned
+Mr. Lovelace is for his baseness, and how freely he accused himself to my
+cousin.  This shows, that the true bravery of spirit is to be above doing
+a vile action; and that nothing subjects the human mind to so much
+meanness, as the consciousness of having done wilful wrong to our fellow
+creatures.  How low, how sordid, are the submissions which elaborate
+baseness compels! that that wretch could treat me as he did, and then
+could so poorly creep to me for forgiveness of crimes so wilful, so
+black, and so premeditated! how my soul despised him for his meanness on
+a certain occasion, of which you will one day be informed!* and him whose
+actions one's heart despises, it is far from being difficult to reject,
+had one ever so partially favoured him once.
+
+
+* Meaning his meditated second violence (See Vol. VI. Letter XXXVI.) and
+his succeeding letters to her, supplicating for her pardon.
+
+
+Yet am I glad this violent spirit can thus creep; that, like a poisonous
+serpent, he can thus coil himself, and hide his head in his own narrow
+circlets; because this stooping, this abasement, gives me hope that no
+farther mischief will ensue.
+
+All my apprehension is, what may happen when I am gone; lest then my
+cousin, or any other of my family, should endeavour to avenge me, and
+risk their own more precious lives on that account.
+
+If that part of Cain's curse were Mr. Lovelace's, to be a fugitive and
+vagabond in the earth; that is to say, if it meant no more harm to him
+than that he should be obliged to travel, as it seems he intends, (though
+I wish him no ill in his travels;) and I could know it; then should I be
+easy in the hoped-for safety of my friends from his skilful violence--Oh!
+that I could hear he was a thousand miles off!
+
+When I began this letter, I did not think I could have run to such a
+length.  But 'tis to YOU, my dearest friend, and you have a title to the
+spirits you raise and support; for they are no longer mine, and will
+subside the moment I cease writing to you.
+
+But what do you bid me hope for, when you tell me that, if your mother's
+health will permit, you will see me in town?  I hope your mother's health
+will be perfected as you wish; but I dare not promise myself so great a
+favour; so great a blessing, I will call it--and indeed I know not if I
+should be able to bear it now!
+
+Yet one comfort it is in your power to give me; and that is, let me know,
+and very speedily it must be, if you wish to oblige me, that all matters
+are made up between you and Mr. Hickman; to whom, I see, you are
+resolved, with all your bravery of spirit, to owe a multitude of
+obligations for his patience with your flightiness.  Think of this, my
+dear proud friend! and think, likewise, of what I have often told you,
+that PRIDE, in man or woman, is an extreme that hardly ever fails, sooner
+or later, to bring forth its mortifying CONTRARY.
+
+May you, my dear Miss Howe, have no discomforts but what you make to
+yourself! as it will be in your own power to lessen such as these, they
+ought to be your punishment if you do not.  There is no such thing as
+perfect happiness here, since the busy mind will make to itself evils,
+were it to find none.  You will, therefore, pardon this limited wish,
+strange as it may appear, till you consider it: for to wish you no
+infelicity, either within or without you, were to wish you what can never
+happen in this world; and what perhaps ought not to be wished for, if by
+a wish one could give one's friend such an exemption; since we are not to
+live here always.
+
+We must not, in short, expect that our roses will grow without thorns:
+but then they are useful and instructive thorns: which, by pricking the
+fingers of the too-hasty plucker, teach future caution.  And who knows
+not that difficulty gives poignancy to our enjoyments; which are apt to
+lose their relish with us when they are over easily obtained?
+
+I must conclude--
+
+God for ever bless you, and all you love and honour, and reward you here
+and hereafter for your kindness to
+
+Your ever obliged and affectionate
+CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER LVI
+
+MRS. NORTON, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+[IN ANSWER TO HER'S OF THURSDAY, AUGUST 24.  SEE LETTER XXX. OF THIS
+VOLUME.]
+THURSDAY, AUG. 31.
+
+
+I had written sooner, my dearest young lady, but that I have been
+endeavouring, ever since the receipt of your last letter, to obtain a
+private audience of your mother, in hopes of leave to communicate it to
+her.  But last night I was surprised by an invitation to breakfast at
+Harlowe-place this morning; and the chariot came early to fetch me--an
+honour I did not expect.
+
+When I came, I found there was to be a meeting of all your family with
+Col. Morden, at Harlowe-place; and it was proposed by your mother, and
+consented to, that I should be present.  Your cousin, I understand, had
+with difficulty brought this meeting to bear; for your brother had before
+industriously avoided all conversation with him on the affecting subject;
+urging that it was not necessary to talk to Mr. Morden upon it, who,
+being a remoter relation than themselves, had no business to make himself
+a judge of their conduct to their daughter, their niece, and their
+sister; especially as he had declared himself in her favour; adding, that
+he should hardly have patience to be questioned by Mr. Morden on that
+head.
+
+I was in hopes that your mother would have given me an opportunity of
+talking with her alone before the company met; but she seemed studiously
+to avoid it; I dare say, however, not with her inclination.
+
+I was ordered in just before Mr. Morden came; and was bid to sit down--
+which I did in the window.
+
+The Colonel, when he came, began the discourse, by renewing, as he called
+it, his solicitations in your favour.  He set before them your penitence;
+your ill health; your virtue, though once betrayed, and basely used; he
+then read to them Mr. Lovelace's letter, a most contrite one indeed,* and
+your high-souled answer;** for that was what he justly called it; and he
+treated as it deserved Mr. Brand's officious information, (of which I had
+before heard he had made them ashamed,) by representations founded upon
+inquiries made by Mr. Alston,*** whom he had procured to go up on purpose
+to acquaint himself with your manner of life, and what was meant by the
+visits of that Mr. Belford.
+
+
+* See Vol. VII. LXXIX.
+** Ibid. Letter LXXXIII.
+*** See Vol. VIII. Letter XXIII.
+
+
+He then told them, that he had the day before waited upon Miss Howe, and
+had been shown a letter from you to her,* and permitted to take some
+memorandums from it, in which you appeared, both by handwriting, and the
+contents, to be so very ill, that it seemed doubtful to him, if it were
+possible for you to get over it.  And when he read to them that passage,
+where you ask Miss Howe, 'What can be done for you now, were your friends
+to be ever so favourable? and wish for their sakes, more than for your
+own, that they would still relent;' and then say, 'You are very ill--you
+must drop your pen--and ask excuse for your crooked writing; and take, as
+it were, a last farewell of Miss Howe;--adieu, my dear, adieu,' are your
+words--
+
+
+* Ibid. Letter XXXIII.
+
+
+O my child! my child! said you mamma, weeping, and clasping her hands.
+
+Dear Madam, said your brother, be so good as to think you have more
+children than this ungrateful one.
+
+Yet your sister seemed affected.
+
+Your uncle Harlowe, wiping his eyes, O cousin, said he, if one thought
+the poor girl was really so ill--
+
+She must, said your uncle Antony.  This is written to her private friend.
+God forbid she should be quite lost!
+
+Your uncle Harlowe wished they did not carry their resentments too far.
+
+I begged for God's sake, wringing my hands, and with a bended knee, that
+they would permit me to go up to you; engaging to give them a faithful
+account of the way you were in.  But I was chidden by your brother; and
+this occasioned some angry words between him and Mr. Morden.
+
+I believe, Sir, I believe, Madam, said your sister to her father and
+mother, we need not trouble my cousin to read any more.  It does but
+grieve and disturb you.  My sister Clary seems to be ill: I think, if
+Mrs. Norton were permitted to go up to her, it would be right; wickedly
+as she has acted, if she be truly penitent--
+
+Here she stopt; and every one being silent, I stood up once more, and
+besought them to let me go; and then I offered to read a passage or two
+in your letter to me of the 24th.  But I was taken up again by your
+brother, and this occasioned still higher words between the Colonel and
+him.
+
+Your mother, hoping to gain upon your inflexible brother, and to divert
+the anger of the two gentlemen from each other, proposed that the Colonel
+should proceed in reading the minutes he had taken from your letter.
+
+He accordingly read, 'of your resuming your pen; that you thought you had
+taken your last farewell; and the rest of that very affecting passage, in
+which you are obliged to break off more than once, and afterwards to take
+an airing in a chair.'  Your brother and sister were affected at this;
+and he had recourse to his snuff-box.  And where you comfort Miss Howe,
+and say, 'You shall be happy;' It is more, said he, than she will let any
+body else be.
+
+Your sister called you sweet soul! but with a low voice: then grew
+hard-hearted again; set said [sic], Nobody could help being affected by
+your pathetic grief--but that it was your talent.
+
+The Colonel then went on to the good effect your airing had upon you; to
+your good wishes to Miss Howe and Mr. Hickman; and to your concluding
+sentence, that when the happy life you wished to her comes to be wound
+up, she may be as calm and as easy at quitting it, as you hope in God you
+shall be.  Your mother could not stand this; but retired to a corner of
+the room, and sobbed, and wept.  Your father for a few minutes could not
+speak, though he seemed inclined to say something.
+
+Your uncles were also both affected; but your brother went round to each,
+and again reminded your mother that she had other children.--What was
+there, he said, in what was read, but the result of the talent you had of
+moving the passions?  And he blamed them for choosing to hear read what
+they knew their abused indulgence could not be a proof against.
+
+This set Mr. Morden up again--Fie upon you, Cousin Harlowe, said he, I
+see plainly to whom it is owing that all relationship and ties of blood,
+with regard to this sweet sufferer, are laid aside.  Such rigours as
+these make it difficult for a sliding virtue ever to recover itself.
+
+Your brother pretended the honour of the family; and declared, that no
+child ought to be forgiven who abandoned the most indulgent of parents
+against warning, against the light of knowledge, as you had done.
+
+But, Sir, and Ladies, said I, rising from the seat in the window, and
+humbly turning round to each, if I may be permitted to speak, my dear
+Miss asks only for a blessing.  She does not beg to be received to
+favour; she is very ill, and asks only for a last blessing.
+
+Come, come, good Norton, [I need not tell you who said this,] you are
+up again with your lamentables!--A good woman, as you are, to forgive
+so readily a crime, that has been as disgraceful to your part in her
+education as to her family, is a weakness that would induce one to
+suspect your virtue, if you were to be encountered by a temptation
+properly adapted.
+
+By some such charitable logic, said Mr. Morden, as this, is my cousin
+Arabella captivated, I doubt not.  If virtue, you, Mr. James Harlowe,
+are the most virtuous young man in the world.
+
+I knew how it would be, replied your brother, in a passion, if I met Mr.
+Morden upon this business.  I would have declined it; but you, Sir, to
+his father, would not permit me to do so.
+
+But, Sir, turning to the Colonel, in no other presence----
+
+Then, Cousin James, interrupted the other gentleman, that which is your
+protection, it seems, is mine.  I am not used to bear defiances thus--
+you are my Cousin, Sir, and the son and nephew of persons as dear as near
+to me--There he paused--
+
+Are we, said your father, to be made still more unhappy among ourselves,
+when the villain lives that ought to be the object of every one's
+resentment who has either a value for the family, or for this ungrateful
+girl?
+
+That's the man, said your cousin, whom last Monday, as you know, I went
+purposely to make the object of mine.  But what could I say, when I found
+him so willing to repair his crime?--And I give it as my opinion, and
+have written accordingly to my poor cousin, that it is best for all round
+that his offer should be accepted; and let me tell you--
+
+Tell me nothing, said your father, quite enraged, or that very vile
+fellow!  I have a rivetted hatred to him.  I would rather see the rebel
+die an hundred deaths, were it possible, than that she should give such a
+villain as him a relation to my family.
+
+Well, but there is no room to think, said you mother, that she will give
+us such a relation, my dear.  The poor girl will lessen, I fear, the
+number of our relations not increase it.  If she be so ill as we are told
+she is, let us send Mrs. Norton up to her.--That's the least we can do--
+let us take her, however, out of the hands of that Belford.
+
+Both your uncles supported this motion; the latter part of it especially.
+
+Your brother observed, in his ill-natured way, what a fine piece of
+consistency it was in you to refuse the vile injurer, and the amends he
+offered; yet to throw yourself upon the protection of his fast friend.
+
+Miss Harlowe was apprehensive, she said, that you would leave all you
+could leave to that pert creature, Miss Howe, [so she called her,] if you
+should die.
+
+O do not, do not suppose that, my Bella, said your poor mother.  I cannot
+think of parting with my Clary--with all her faults, she is my child--her
+reasons for her conduct are not heard--it would break my heart to lose
+her.--I think, my dear, to your father, none so fit as I to go up, if you
+will give me leave, and Mrs. Norton shall accompany me.
+
+This was a sweet motion, and your father paused upon it.  Mr. Morden
+offered his service to escort her; your uncles seemed to approve of it;
+but your brother dashed all.  I hope, Sir, said he, to his father--I
+hope, Madam, to his mother--that you will not endeavour to recover a
+faulty daughter by losing an unculpable son.  I do declare, that if ever
+my sister Clary darkens these doors again, I never will.  I will set out,
+Madam, the same hour you go to London, (on such an errand,) to Edinburgh;
+and there I will reside, and try to forget that I have relations in
+England, so near and so dear as you are now all to me.
+
+Good God, said the Colonel, what a declaration is this!  And suppose,
+Sir, and suppose, Madam, [turning to your father and mother,] this should
+be the case, whether it is better, think you, that you should lose for
+ever such a daughter as my cousin Clary, or that your son should go to
+Edinburgh, and reside there upon an estate which will be the better for
+his residence upon it?--
+
+Your brother's passionate behaviour hereupon is hardly to be described.
+He resented it as promising an alienation of the affection of the family
+to him.  And to such an height were resentments carried, every one siding
+with him, that the Colonel, with hands and eyes lifted up, cried out,
+What hearts of flint am I related to!--O, Cousin Harlowe, to your father,
+are you resolved to have but one daughter?--Are you, Madam, to be taught,
+by a son, who has no bowels, to forget you are a mother?
+
+The Colonel turned from them to draw out his handkerchief, and could not
+for a minute speak.  The eyes of every one, but the hard-hearted brother,
+caught tears from his.
+
+But then turning to them, (with the more indignation, as it seemed, as he
+had been obliged to show a humanity, which, however, no brave heart
+should be ashamed of,) I leave ye all, said he, fit company for one
+another.  I will never open my lips to any of you more upon this subject.
+I will instantly make my will, and in me shall the dear creature have the
+father, uncle, brother, she has lost.  I will prevail upon her to take
+the tour of France and Italy with me; nor shall she return till ye know
+the value of such a daughter.
+
+And saying this, he hurried out of the room, went into the court-yard,
+and ordered his horse.
+
+Mr. Antony Harlowe went to him there, just as he was mounting, and said
+he hoped he should find him cooler in the evening, (for he, till then,
+had lodged at his house,) and that then they would converse calmly, and
+every one, mean time, would weigh all matters well.--But the angry
+gentleman said, Cousin Harlowe, I shall endeavour to discharge the
+obligations I owe to your civility since I have been in England; but I
+have been so treated by that hot-headed young man, (who, as far as I
+know, has done more to ruin his sister than Lovelace himself, and this
+with the approbation of you all,) that I will not again enter into your
+doors, or theirs.  My servants shall have orders whither to bring what
+belongs to me from your house.  I will see my dear cousin Clary as soon
+as I can.  And so God bless you altogether!--only this one word to your
+nephew, if you please--That he wants to be taught the difference between
+courage and bluster; and it is happy for him, perhaps, that I am his
+kinsman; though I am sorry he is mine.
+
+I wondered to hear your uncle, on his return to them all, repeat this;
+because of the consequences it may be attended with, though I hope it
+will not have bad ones; yet it was considered as a sort of challenge, and
+so it confirmed every body in your brother's favour; and Miss Harlowe
+forgot not to inveigh against that error which had brought on all these
+evils.
+
+I took the liberty again, but with fear and trembling, to desire leave to
+attend you.
+
+Before any other person could answer, your brother said, I suppose you
+look upon yourself, Mrs. Norton, to be your own mistress.  Pray do you
+want our consents and courtship to go up?--If I may speak my mind, you
+and my sister Clary are the fittest to be together.--Yet I wish you would
+not trouble your head about our family matters, till you are desired to
+do so.
+
+But don't you know, brother, said Miss Harlowe, that the error of any
+branch of a family splits that family into two parties, and makes not
+only every common friend and acquaintance, but even servants judges over
+both?--This is one of the blessed effects of my sister Clary's fault!
+
+There never was a creature so criminal, said your father, looking with
+displeasure at me, who had not some weak heads to pity and side with her.
+
+I wept.  Your mother was so good as to take me by the hand; come, good
+woman, said she, come along with me.  You have too much reason to be
+afflicted with what afflicts us, to want additions to your grief.
+
+But, my dearest young lady, I was more touched for your sake than for my
+own; for I have been low in the world for a great number of years; and,
+of consequence, have been accustomed to snubs and rebuffs from the
+affluent.  But I hope that patience is written as legibly on my forehead,
+as haughtiness on that of any of my obligers.
+
+Your mother led me to her chamber; and there we sat and wept together for
+several minutes, without being able to speak either of us one word to the
+other.  At last she broke silence, asking me, if you were really and
+indeed so ill as it was said you were?
+
+I answered in the affirmative; and would have shown her your last letter;
+but she declined seeing it.
+
+I would fain have procured from her the favour of a line to you, with her
+blessing.  I asked, what was intended by your brother and sister?  Would
+nothing satisfy them but your final reprobation?--I insinuated, how easy
+it would be, did not your duty and humility govern you, to make yourself
+independent as to circumstances; but that nothing but a blessing, a last
+blessing, was requested by you.  And many other thins I urged in your
+behalf.  The following brief repetition of what she was pleased to say in
+answer to my pleas, will give you a notion of it all; and of the present
+situation of things.
+
+She said, 'She was very unhappy!--She had lost the little authority she
+once had over her other children, through one child's failing! and all
+influence over Mr. Harlowe and his brothers.  Your father, she said, had
+besought her to leave it to him to take his own methods with you; and,
+(as she valued him,) to take no step in your favour unknown to him and
+your uncles; yet she owned, that they were too much governed by your
+brother.  They would, however, give way in time, she knew, to a
+reconciliation--they designed no other, for they all still loved you.
+
+'Your brother and sister, she owned, were very jealous of your coming
+into favour again;--yet could but Mr. Morden have kept his temper, and
+stood her son's first sallies, who (having always had the family grandeur
+in view) had carried his resentment so high, that he knew not how to
+descend, the conferences, so abruptly broken off just now, would have
+ended more happily; for that she had reason to think that a few
+concessions on your part, with regard to your grandfather's estate, and
+your cousin's engaging for your submission as from proper motives, would
+have softened them all.
+
+'Mr. Brand's account of your intimacy with the friend of the obnoxious
+man, she said, had, for the time very unhappy effects; for before that
+she had gained some ground: but afterwards dared not, nor indeed had
+inclination, to open her lips in your behalf.  Your continued intimacy
+with that Mr. Belford was wholly unaccountable, and as wholly
+inexcusable.
+
+'What made the wished-for reconciliation, she said, more difficult, was,
+first, that you yourself acknowledged yourself dishonoured; (and it was
+too well known, that it was your own fault that you ever were in the
+power of so great a profligate;) of consequence, that their and your
+disgrace could not be greater than it was; yet, that you refuse to
+prosecute the wretch.  Next, that the pardon and blessing hoped for must
+probably be attended with your marriage to the man they hate, and who
+hates them as much: very disagreeable circumstances, she said, I must
+allow, to found a reconciliation upon.
+
+'As to her own part, she must needs say, that if there were any hope that
+Mr. Lovelace would become a reformed man, the letter her cousin Morden
+had read to them from him to you, and the justice (as she hoped it was)
+he did your character, though to his own condemnation, (his family and
+fortunes being unexceptionable,) and all his relations earnest to be
+related to you, were arguments that would weigh with her, could they have
+any with your father and uncles.'
+
+To my plea of your illness, 'she could not but flatter herself, she
+answered, that it was from lowness of spirits, and temporary dejection.
+A young creature, she said, so very considerate as you naturally were,
+and fallen so low, must have enough of that.  Should they lose you, which
+God forbid! the scene would then indeed be sadly changed; for then those
+who now most resented, would be most grieved; all your fine qualities
+would rise to their remembrance, and your unhappy error would be quite
+forgotten.
+
+'She wished you would put yourself into your cousin's protection
+entirely, and have nothing to more to say to Mr. Belford.
+
+And I would recommend it to your most serious consideration, my dear Miss
+Clary, whether now, as your cousin (who is your trustee for your
+grandfather's estate,) is come, you should not give over all thoughts of
+Mr. Lovelace's intimate friend for your executor; more especially, as
+that gentleman's interfering in the concerns of your family, should the
+sad event take place (which my heart aches but to think of) might be
+attended with those consequences which you are so desirous, in other
+cases, to obviate and prevent.  And suppose, my dear young lady, you were
+to write one letter more to each of your uncles, to let them know how ill
+you are?--And to ask their advice, and offer to be governed by it, in
+relation to the disposition of your estate and effects?--Methinks I wish
+you would.
+
+I find they will send you up a large part of what has been received from
+that estate since it was your's; together with your current cash which
+you left behind you: and this by your cousin Morden, for fear you should
+have contracted debts which may make you uneasy.
+
+They seem to expect, that you will wish to live at your grandfather's
+house, in a private manner, if your cousin prevail not upon you to go
+abroad for a year or two.
+
+
+FRIDAY MORNING.
+
+Betty was with me just now.  She tells me, that your cousin Morden is so
+much displeased with them all, that he has refused to lodge any more at
+your uncle Antony's; and has even taken up with inconvenient lodgings,
+till he is provided with others to his mind.  This very much concerns
+them; and they repent their violent treatment of him: and the more, as he
+is resolved, he says, to make you his sole executrix, and heir to all his
+fortune.
+
+What noble fortunes still, my dearest young lady, await you!  I am
+thoroughly convinced, if it please God to preserve your life and your
+health, that every body will soon be reconciled to you, and that you will
+see many happy days.
+
+Your mother wished me not to attend you as yet, because she hopes that I
+may give myself that pleasure soon with every body's good liking, and
+even at their desire.  Your cousin Morden's reconciliation with them,
+which they are very desirous of, I am ready to hope will include theirs
+with you.
+
+But if that should happen which I so much dread, and I not with you, I
+should never forgive myself.  Let me, therefore, my dearest young lady,
+desire you to command my attendance, if you find any danger, and if you
+wish me peace of mind; and no consideration shall withhold me.
+
+I hear that Miss Howe has obtained leave from her mother to see you; and
+intends next week to go to town for that purpose; and (as it is believed)
+to buy clothes for her approaching nuptials.
+
+Mr. Hickman's mother-in-law is lately dead.  Her jointure of 600L. a-year
+is fallen to him; and she has, moreover, as an acknowledgement of his
+good behaviour to her, left him all she was worth, which was very
+considerable, a few legacies excepted to her own relations.
+
+These good men are uniformly good: indeed could not else be good; and
+never fare the worse for being so.  All the world agrees he will make
+that fine young lady an excellent husband: and I am sorry they are not as
+much agreed in her making him an excellent wife.  But I hope a woman of
+her principles would not encourage his address, if, whether she at
+present love him or not, she thought she could not love him; or if she
+preferred any other man to him.
+
+Mr. Pocock undertakes to deliver this; but fears it will be Saturday
+night first, if not Sunday morning.
+
+May the Almighty protect and bless you!--I long to see you--my dearest
+young lady, I long to see you; and to fold you once more to my fond
+heart.  I dare to say happy days are coming.  Be but cheerful.  Give way
+to hope.
+
+Whether for this world, or the other, you must be happy.  Wish to live,
+however, were it only because you are so well fitted in mind to make
+every one happy who has the honour to know you.  What signifies this
+transitory eclipse?  You are as near perfection, by all I have heard,
+as any creature in this world can be: for here is your glory--you are
+brightened and purified, as I may say, by your sufferings!--How I long to
+hear your whole sad, yet instructive story, from your own lips!
+
+For Miss Howe's sake, who, in her new engagements will so much want you;
+for your cousin Morden's sake, for your mother's sake, if I must go on
+farther in your family; and yet I can say, for all their sakes; and for
+my sake, my dearest Miss Clary; let your resumed and accustomed
+magnanimity bear you up.  You have many things to do which I know not the
+person who will do if you leave us.
+
+Join your prayers then to mine, that God will spare you to a world that
+wants you and your example; and, although your days may seem to have been
+numbered, who knows but that, with the good King Hezekiah, you may have
+them prolonged?  Which God grant, if it be his blessed will, to the
+prayers of
+
+Your
+JUDITH NORTON
+
+
+
+LETTER LVII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+MONDAY, SEPT. 4.
+
+
+The lady would not read the letter she had from Mrs. Norton till she had
+received the Communion, for fear it should contain any thing that might
+disturb that happy calm, which she had been endeavouring to obtain for
+it.  And when that solemn office was over, she was so composed, she said,
+that she thought she could receive any news, however affecting, with
+tranquillity.
+
+Nevertheless, in reading it, she was forced to leave off several times
+through weakness and a dimness in her sight, of which she complained; if
+I may say complained; for so easy and soft were her complaints, that they
+could hardly be called such.
+
+She was very much affected at divers parts of this letter.  She wept
+several times, and sighed often.  Mrs. Lovick told me, that these were
+the gentle exclamations she broke out into, as she read:--Her unkind, her
+cruel brother!--How unsisterly!--Poor dear woman! seeming to speak of
+Mrs. Norton.  Her kind cousin!--O these flaming spirits!  And then
+reflecting upon herself more than once--What a deep error is mine!--What
+evils have I been the occasion of!--
+
+When I was admitted to her presence, I have received, said she, a long
+and not very pleasing letter from my dear Mrs. Norton.  It will soon be
+in your hands.  I am advised against appointing you to the office you
+have so kindly accepted of: but you must resent nothing of these things.
+My choice will have an odd appearance to them: but it is now too late to
+alter it, if I would.
+
+I would fain write an answer to it, continued she: but I have no distinct
+sight, Mr. Belford, no steadiness of fingers.--This mistiness, however,
+will perhaps be gone by-and-by.--Then turning to Mrs. Lovick, I don't
+think I am dying yet--not actually dying, Mrs. Lovick--for I have no
+bodily pain--no numbnesses; no signs of immediate death, I think.--And my
+breath, which used of late to be so short, is now tolerable--my head
+clear, my intellects free--I think I cannot be dying yet--I shall have
+agonies, I doubt--life will not give up so blessedly easy, I fear--yet
+how merciful is the Almighty, to give his poor creature such a sweet
+serenity!--'Tis what I have prayed for!--What encouragement, Mrs. Lovick,
+so near one's dissolution, to have it to hope that one's prayers are
+answered.
+
+Mrs. Smith, as well as Mrs. Lovick, was with her.  They were both in
+tears; nor had I, any more than they, power to say a word in answer: yet
+she spoke all this, as well as what follows, with a surprising composure
+of mind and countenance.
+
+But, Mr. Belford, said she, assuming a still sprightlier air and accent,
+let me talk a little to you, while I am thus able to say what I have to
+say.
+
+Mrs. Lovick, don't leave us, [for the women were rising to go,] pray sit
+down; and do you, Mrs. Smith, sit down too.--Dame Shelbourne, take this
+key, and open the upper drawer.  I will move to it.
+
+She did, with trembling knees.  Here, Mr. Belford, is my will.  It is
+witnessed by three persons of Mr. Smith's acquaintance.
+
+I dare to hope, that my cousin Morden will give you assistance, if you
+request it of him.  My cousin Morden continued his affection for me: but
+as I have not seen him, I leave all the trouble upon you, Mr. Belford.
+This deed may want forms; and it does, no doubt: but the less, as I have
+my grandfather's will almost by heart, and have often enough heard that
+canvassed.  I will lay it by itself in this corner; putting it at the
+further end of the drawer.
+
+She then took up a parcel of letters, enclosed in one cover, sealed with
+three seals of black wax: This, said she, I sealed up last night.  The
+cover, Sir, will let you know what is to be done with what it encloses.
+This is the superscription [holding it close to her eyes, and rubbing
+them]; As soon as I am certainly dead, this to be broke open by Mr.
+Belford.--Here, Sir, I put it [placing it by the will].--These folded
+papers are letters, and copies of letters, disposed according to their
+dates.  Miss Howe will do with those as you and she shall think fit.
+If I receive any more, or more come when I cannot receive them, they may
+be put into this drawer, [pulling out and pushing in the looking-glass
+drawer,] to be given to Mr. Belford, be they from whom they will.  You'll
+be so kind as to observe that, Mrs. Lovick, and dame Shelbourne.
+
+Here, Sir, proceeded she, I put the keys of my apparel [putting them into
+the drawer with her papers].  All is in order, and the inventory upon
+them, and an account of what I have disposed of: so that nobody need to
+ask Mrs. Smith any questions.
+
+There will be no immediate need to open or inspect the trunks which
+contain my wearing apparel.  Mrs. Norton will open them, or order
+somebody to do it for her, in your presence, Mrs. Lovick; for so I have
+directed in my will.  They may be sealed up now: I shall never more have
+occasion to open them.
+
+She then, though I expostulated with her to the contrary, caused me to
+seal them up with my seal.
+
+After this, she locked up the drawer where were her papers; first taking
+out her book of meditations, as she called it; saying, she should,
+perhaps, have use for that; and then desired me to take the key of that
+drawer; for she should have no further occasion for that neither.
+
+All this in so composed and cheerful a manner, that we were equally
+surprised and affected with it.
+
+You can witness for me, Mrs. Smith, and so can you, Mrs. Lovick,
+proceeded she, if any one ask after my life and conversation, since you
+have known me, that I have been very orderly; have kept good hours; and
+never have lain out of your house but when I was in prison; and then you
+know I could not help it.
+
+O, Lovelace! that thou hadst heard her or seen her, unknown to herself,
+on this occasion!--Not one of us could speak a word.
+
+I shall leave the world in perfect charity, proceeded she.  And turning
+towards the women, don't be so much concerned for me, my good friends.
+This is all but needful preparation; and I shall be very happy.
+
+Then again rubbing her eyes, which she said were misty, and looked more
+intently round upon each, particularly on me--God bless you all! said
+she; how kindly are you concerned for me!--Who says I am friendless?  Who
+says I am abandoned, and among strangers?--Good Mr. Belford, don't be so
+generously humane!--Indeed [putting her handkerchief to her charming
+eyes,] you will make me less happy, than I am sure you wish me to be.
+
+While we were thus solemnly engaged, a servant came with a letter from
+her cousin Morden:--Then, said she, he is not come himself!
+
+She broke it open; but every line, she said, appeared two to her: so
+that, being unable to read it herself, she desired I would read it to
+her.  I did so; and wished it were more consolatory to her: but she was
+all patient attention: tears, however, often trickling down her cheeks.
+By the date, it was written yesterday; and this is the substance of it.
+
+He tells her, 'That the Thursday before he had procured a general meeting
+of her principal relations, at her father's; though not without
+difficulty, her haughty brother opposing it, and, when met, rendering all
+his endeavours to reconcile them to her ineffectual.  He censures him, as
+the most ungovernable young man he ever knew: some great sickness, he
+says, some heavy misfortune, is wanted to bring him to a knowledge of
+himself, and of what is due from him to others; and he wishes that he
+were not her brother, and his cousin.  Nor doe he spare her father and
+uncles for being so implicitly led by him.'
+
+He tells her, 'That he parted with them all in high displeasure, and
+thought never more to darken any of their doors: that he declared as much
+to her two uncles, who came to him on Saturday, to try to accommodate
+with him; and who found him preparing to go to London to attend her; and
+that, notwithstanding their pressing entreaties, he determined so to do,
+and not to go with them to Harlowe-place, or to either of their own
+houses; and accordingly dismissed them with such an answer.
+
+'But that her noble letter,' as he calls it, of Aug. 31,* 'being brought
+him about an hour after their departure, he thought it might affect them
+as much as it did him; and give them the exalted opinion of her virtue
+which was so well deserved; he therefore turned his horse's head back
+to her uncle Antony's, instead of forwards toward London.
+
+
+* See Letter XLV. of this volume.
+
+
+'That accordingly arriving there, and finding her two uncles together, he
+read to them the affecting letter; which left none of the three a dry
+eye: that the absent, as is usual in such cases, bearing all the load,
+they accused her brother and sister; and besought him to put off his
+journey to town, till he could carry with him the blessings which she had
+formerly in vain solicited for; and (as they hoped) the happy tidings of
+a general reconciliation.
+
+'That not doubting but his visit would be the more welcome to her, if
+these good ends could be obtained, he the more readily complied with
+their desires.  But not being willing to subject himself to the
+possibility of receiving fresh insult from her brother, he had given her
+uncles a copy of her letter, for the family to assemble upon; and desired
+to know, as soon as possible, the result of their deliberations.
+
+'He tells her, that he shall bring her up the accounts relating to the
+produce of her grandfather's estate, and adjust them with her; having
+actually in his hands the arrears due to her from it.
+
+'He highly applauds the noble manner in which she resents your usage of
+her.  It is impossible, he owns, that you can either deserve her, or to
+be forgiven.  But as you do justice to her virtue, and offer to make her
+all the reparation now in your power; and as she is so very earnest with
+him not to resent that usage; and declares, that you could not have been
+the author of her calamities but through a strange concurrence of unhappy
+causes; and as he is not at a loss to know how to place to a proper
+account that strange concurrence; he desires her not to be apprehensive
+of any vindictive measures from him.'
+
+Nevertheless (as may be expected) 'he inveighs against you; as he finds
+that she gave you no advantage over her.  But he forbears to enter
+further into this subject, he says, till he has the honour to see her;
+and the rather, as she seems so much determined against you.  However, he
+cannot but say, that he thinks you a gallant man, and a man of sense; and
+that you have the reputation of being thought a generous man in every
+instance but where the sex is concerned.  In such, he owns, that you have
+taken inexcusable liberties.  And he is sorry to say, that there are very
+few young men of fortune but who allow themselves in the same.  Both
+sexes, he observes, too much love to have each other in their power: yet
+he hardly ever knew man or woman who was very fond of power make a right
+use of it.
+
+'If she be so absolutely determined against marrying you, as she declares
+she is, he hopes, he says, to prevail upon her to take (as soon as her
+health will permit) a little tour abroad with him, as what will probably
+establish it; since traveling is certainly the best physic for all those
+disorders which owe their rise to grief or disappointment.  An absence of
+two or three years will endear her to every one, on her return, and every
+one to her.
+
+'He expresses his impatience to see her.  He will set out, he says, the
+moment he knows the result of her family's determination; which, he
+doubts not, will be favourable.  Nor will he wait long for that.'
+
+When I had read the letter through to the languishing lady, And so, my
+friends, said she, have I heard of a patient who actually died, while
+five or six principal physicians were in a consultation, and not agreed
+upon what name to give his distemper.  The patient was an emperor, the
+emperor Joseph, I think.
+
+I asked, if I should write to her cousin, as he knew not how ill she was,
+to hasten up?
+
+By no means, she said; since, if he were not already set out, she was
+persuaded that she should be so low by the time he could receive my
+letter, and come, that his presence would but discompose and hurry her,
+and afflict him.
+
+I hope, however, she is not so very near her end.  And without saying any
+more to her, when I retired, I wrote to Colonel Morden, that if he
+expects to see his beloved cousin alive, he must lose no time in setting
+out.  I sent this letter by his own servant.
+
+Dr. H. sent away his letter to her father by a particular hand this
+morning.
+
+Mrs. Walton the milliner has also just now acquainted Mrs. Smith, that
+her husband had a letter brought by a special messenger from Parson
+Brand, within this half hour, enclosing the copy of one he had written to
+Mr. John Harlowe, recanting his officious one.
+
+And as all these, and the copy of the lady's letter to Col. Morden, will
+be with them pretty much at a time, the devil's in the family if they are
+not struck with a remorse that shall burst open the double-barred doors
+of their hearts.
+
+Will. engages to reach you with this (late as it will be) before you go
+to rest.  He begs that I will testify for him the hour and the minute I
+shall give it him.  It is just half an hour after ten.
+
+I pretend to be (now by use) the swiftest short-hand writer in England,
+next to yourself.  But were matter to arise every hour to write upon, and
+I had nothing else to do, I cannot write so fast as you expect.  And let
+it be remembered, that your servants cannot bring letters or messages
+before they are written or sent.
+
+
+
+LETTER LVIII
+
+DR. H. TO JAMES HARLOWE, SENIOR, ESQ.
+LONDON, SEPT. 4.
+
+
+SIR,
+
+If I may judge of the hearts of other parents by my own, I cannot doubt
+but you will take it well to be informed that you have yet an opportunity
+to save yourself and family great future regret, by dispatching hither
+some one of it with your last blessing, and your lady's, to the most
+excellent of her sex.
+
+I have some reason to believe, Sir, that she has been represented to you
+in a very different light from the true one.  And this it is that induces
+me to acquaint you, that I think her, on the best grounds, absolutely
+irreproachable in all her conduct which has passed under my eye, or come
+to my ear; and that her very misfortunes are made glorious to her, and
+honourable to all that are related to her, by the use she has made of
+them; and by the patience and resignation with which she supports herself
+in a painful, lingering, and dispiriting decay! and by the greatness of
+mind with which she views her approaching dissolution.  And all this from
+proper motives; from motives in which a dying saint might glory.
+
+She knows not that I write.  I must indeed acknowledge, that I offered to
+do so some days ago, and that very pressingly: nor did she refuse me from
+obstinacy--she seemed not to know what that is--but desired me to forbear
+for two days only, in hopes that her newly-arrived cousin, who, as she
+heard, was soliciting for her, would be able to succeed in her favour.
+
+I hope I shall not be thought an officious man on this occasion; but, if
+I am, I cannot help it, being driven to write, by a kind of parental and
+irresistible impulse.
+
+But, Sir, whatever you think fit to do, or permit to be done, must be
+speedily done; for she cannot, I verily think, live a week: and how long
+of that short space she may enjoy her admirable intellects to take
+comfort in the favours you may think proper to confer upon her cannot be
+said.  I am, Sir,
+
+Your most humble servant,
+
+R.H.
+
+
+
+LETTER LIX
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO WILLIAM MORDEN, ESQ.
+LONDON, SEPT. 4.
+
+
+SIR,
+
+The urgency of the case, and the opportunity by your servant, will
+sufficiently apologize for this trouble from a stranger to your person,
+who, however, is not a stranger to your merit.
+
+I understand you are employing your good offices with the parents of
+Miss Clarissa Harlowe, and other relations, to reconcile them to the most
+meritorious daughter and kinswoman that ever family had to boast of.
+
+Generously as this is intended by you, we here have too much reason to
+think all your solicitudes on this head will be unnecessary: for it is
+the opinion of every one who has the honour of being admitted to her
+presence, that she cannot lie over three days: so that, if you wish to
+see her alive, you must lose no time to come up.
+
+She knows not that I write.  I had done it sooner, if I had had the least
+doubt that before now she would not have received from you some news of
+the happy effects of your kind mediation in her behalf.  I am, Sir,
+
+Your most humble servant,
+J. BELFORD.
+
+
+
+LETTER LX
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+[IN ANSWER TO LETTER LVII.]
+UXBRIDGE, TUESDAY MORN, BETWEEN 4 AND 5.
+
+
+And can it be, that this admirable creature will so soon leave this
+cursed world!  For cursed I shall think it, and more cursed myself, when
+she is gone.  O, Jack! thou who canst sit so cool, and, like Addison's
+Angel, direct, and even enjoy, the storm, that tears up my happiness by
+the roots; blame me not for my impatience, however unreasonable!  If thou
+knowest, that already I feel the torments of the damned, in the remorse
+that wrings my heart, on looking back upon my past actions by her, thou
+wouldst not be the devil thou art, to halloo on a worrying conscience,
+which, without my merciless aggravations, is altogether intolerable.
+
+I know not what to write, nor what I would write.  When the company that
+used to delight me is as uneasy to me as my reflections are painful, and
+I can neither help nor divert myself, must not every servant about me
+partake in a perturbation so sincere!
+
+Shall I give thee a faint picture of the horrible uneasiness with which
+my mind struggles?  And faint indeed it must be; for nothing but
+outrageous madness can exceed it; and that only in the apprehension of
+others; since, as to the sufferer, it is certain, that actual distraction
+(take it out of its lucid intervals) must be an infinitely more happy
+state than the state of suspense and anxiety, which often brings it on.
+
+Forbidden to attend the dear creature, yet longing to see her, I would
+give the world to be admitted once more to her beloved presence.  I ride
+towards London three or four times a day, resolving pro and con, twenty
+times in two or three miles; and at last ride back; and, in view of
+Uxbridge, loathing even the kind friend, and hospitable house, turn my
+horse's head again towards the town, and resolve to gratify my humour,
+let her take it as she will; but, at the very entrance of it, after
+infinite canvassings, once more alter my mind, dreading to offend and
+shock her, lest, by that means, I should curtail a life so precious.
+
+Yesterday, in particular, to give you an idea of the strength of that
+impatience, which I cannot avoid suffering to break out upon my servants,
+I had no sooner dispatched Will., than I took horse to meet him on his
+return.
+
+In order to give him time, I loitered about on the road, riding up this
+lane to the one highway, down that to the other, just as my horse
+pointed; all the way cursing my very being; and though so lately looking
+down upon all the world, wishing to change conditions with the poorest
+beggar that cried to me for charity as I rode by him--and throwing him
+money, in hopes to obtain by his prayers the blessing my heart pants
+after.
+
+After I had sauntered about an hour or two, (which seemed three or four
+tedious ones,) fearing I had slipt the fellow, I inquired at every
+turnpike, whether a servant in such a livery had not passed through in
+his return from London, on a full gallop; for woe had been to the dog,
+had I met him on a sluggish trot!  And lest I should miss him at one end
+of Kensingtohn, as he might take either the Acton or Hammersmith road; or
+at the other, as he might come through the Park, or not; how many score
+times did I ride backwards and forwards from the Palace to the Gore,
+making myself the subject of observation to all passengers whether on
+horseback or on foot; who, no doubt, wondered to see a well-dressed and
+well-mounted man, sometimes ambling, sometimes prancing, (as the beast
+had more fire than his master) backwards and forwards in so short a
+compass!
+
+Yet all this time, though longing to espy the fellow, did I dread to meet
+him, lest he should be charged with fatal tidings.
+
+When at distance I saw any man galloping towards me, my
+resemblance-forming fancy immediately made it to be him; and then my
+heart choked me.  But when the person's nearer approach undeceived me,
+how did I curse the varlet's delay, and thee, by turns!  And how ready
+was I to draw my pistol at the stranger, for having the impudence to
+gallop; which none but my messenger, I thought, had either right or
+reason to do!  For all the business of the world, I am ready to imagine,
+should stand still on an occasion so melancholy and so interesting to me.
+Nay, for this week past, I could cut the throat of any man or woman I see
+laugh, while I am in such dejection of mind.
+
+I am now convinced that the wretches who fly from a heavy scene, labour
+under ten times more distress in the intermediate suspense and
+apprehension, than they could have, were they present at it, and to see
+and know the worst: so capable is fancy or imagination, the more
+immediate offspring of the soul, to outgo fact, let the subject be either
+joyous or grievous.
+
+And hence, as I conceive, it is, that all pleasures are greater in the
+expectation, or in the reflection, than in fruition; as all pains, which
+press heavy upon both parts of that unequal union by which frail
+mortality holds its precarious tenure, are ever most acute in the time of
+suffering: for how easy sit upon the reflection the heaviest misfortunes,
+when surmounted!--But most easy, I confess, those in which body has more
+concern than soul.  This, however, is a point of philosophy I have
+neither time nor head just now to weigh: so take it as it falls from a
+madman's pen.
+
+Woe be to either of the wretches who shall bring me the fatal news that
+she is no more!  For it is but too likely that a shriek-owl so hated will
+never hoot or scream again; unless the shock, that will probably disorder
+my whole frame on so sad an occasion, (by unsteadying my hand,) shall
+divert my aim from his head, heart, or bowels, if it turn not against my
+own.
+
+But, surely, she will not, she cannot yet die!  Such a matchless
+excellence,
+
+            ----whose mind
+      Contains a world, and seems for all things fram'd,
+
+could not be lent to be so soon demanded back again!
+
+But may it not be, that thou, Belford, art in a plot with the dear
+creature, (who will not let me attend her to convince myself,) in order
+to work up my soul to the deepest remorse; and that, when she is
+convinced of the sincerity of my penitence, and when my mind is made such
+wax, as to be fit to take what impression she pleases to give it, she
+will then raise me up with the joyful tidings of her returning health and
+acceptance of me!
+
+What would I give to have it so!  And when the happiness of hundreds, as
+well as the peace and reconciliation of several eminent families, depend
+upon her restoration and happiness, why should it not be so?
+
+But let me presume it will.  Let me indulge my former hope, however
+improbable--I will; and enjoy it too.  And let me tell thee how ecstatic
+my delight would be on the unravelling of such a plot as this!
+
+Do, dear Belford, let it be so!--And, O, my dearest, and ever-dear
+Clarissa, keep me no loner in this cruel suspense; in which I suffer a
+thousand times more than ever I made thee suffer.  Nor fear thou that I
+will resent, or recede, on an ecclaircissement so desirable; for I will
+adore thee for ever, and without reproaching thee for the pangs thou hast
+tortured me with, confess thee as much my superior in virtue and honour!
+
+But once more, should the worst happen--say not what that worst is--and I
+am gone from this hated island--gone for ever--and may eternal--but I am
+crazed already--and will therefore conclude myself,
+
+Thine more than my own,
+(and no great compliment neither)
+R.L.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXI
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+TUES. SEPT. 9 IN THE MORN. AT MR. SMITH'S.
+
+
+When I read yours of this morning, I could not help pitying you for the
+account you give of the dreadful anxiety and suspense you labour under.
+I wish from my heart all were to end as you are so willing to hope: but
+it will not be; and your suspense, if the worst part of your torment, as
+you say it is, will soon be over; but, alas! in a way you wish not.
+
+I attended the lady just now.  She is extremely ill: yet is she aiming
+at an answer to her Norton's letter, which she began yesterday in her own
+chamber, and has written a good deal: but in a hand not like her own fine
+one, as Mrs. Lovick tells me, but larger, and the lines crooked.
+
+I have accepted of the offer of a room adjoining to the widow Lovick's,
+till I see how matters go; but unknown to the lady; and I shall go home
+every night, for a few hours.  I would not lose a sentence that I could
+gain from lips so instructive, nor the opportunity of receiving any
+command from her, for an estate.
+
+In this my new apartment I now write, and shall continue to write, as
+occasions offer, that I may be the more circumstantial: but I depend upon
+the return of my letters, or copies of them, on demand, that I may have
+together all that relates to this affecting story; which I shall
+re-peruse with melancholy pleasure to the end of my life.
+
+I think I will send thee Brand's letter to Mr. John Harlowe, recanting
+his base surmises.  It is a matchless piece of pedantry; and may perhaps
+a little divert thy deep chagrin: some time hence at least it may, if not
+now.
+
+What wretched creatures are there in the world!  What strangely mixed
+creatures!--So sensible and so silly at the same time!  What a various,
+what a foolish creature is man!--
+
+
+THREE O'CLOCK.
+
+The lady has just finished her letter, and has entertained Mrs. Lovick,
+Mrs. Smith, and me, with a noble discourse on the vanity and brevity of
+life, to which I cannot do justice in the repetition: and indeed I am so
+grieved for her, that, ill as she is, my intellects are not half so clear
+as her's.
+
+A few things which made the strongest impression upon me, as well from
+the sentiments themselves as from her manner of uttering them, I
+remember.  She introduced them thus:
+
+I am thinking, said she, what a gradual and happy death God Almighty
+(blessed be his name) affords me!  Who would have thought, that, suffering
+what I have suffered, and abandoned as I have been, with such a
+tender education as I have had, I should be so long a dying!--But see now
+by little and little it had come to this.  I was first take off from the
+power of walking; then I took a coach--a coach grew too violent an
+exercise: then I took up a chair--the prison was a large DEATH-STRIDE
+upon me--I should have suffered longer else!--Next, I was unable to go to
+church; then to go up or down stairs; now hardly can move from one room
+to another: and a less room will soon hold me.--My eyes begin to fail me,
+so that at times I cannot see to read distinctly; and now I can hardly
+write, or hold a pen.--Next, I presume, I shall know nobody, nor be able
+to thank any of you; I therefore now once more thank you, Mrs. Lovick,
+and you, Mrs. Smith, and you, Mr. Belford, while I can thank you, for all
+your kindness to me.  And thus by little and little, in such a gradual
+sensible death as I am blessed with, God dies away in us, as I may say,
+all human satisfaction, in order to subdue his poor creatures to himself.
+
+Thou mayest guess how affected we all were at this moving account of her
+progressive weakness.  We heard it with wet eyes; for what with the
+women's example, and what with her moving eloquence, I could no more help
+it than they.  But we were silent nevertheless; and she went on applying
+herself to me.
+
+O Mr. Belford!  This is a poor transitory life in the best enjoyments.
+We flutter about here and there, with all our vanities about us, like
+painted butterflies, for a gay, but a very short season, till at last we
+lay ourselves down in a quiescent state, and turn into vile worms: And
+who knows in what form, or to what condition we shall rise again?
+
+I wish you would permit me, a young creature, just turned of nineteen
+years of age, blooming and healthy as I was a few months ago, now nipt by
+the cold hand of death, to influence you, in these my last hours, to a
+life of regularity and repentance for any past evils you may have been
+guilty of.  For, believe me, Sir, that now, in this last stage, very few
+things will bear the test, or be passed as laudable, if pardonable, at
+our own bar, much less at a more tremendous one, in all we have done, or
+delighted in, even in a life not very offensive neither, as we may think!
+--Ought we not then to study in our full day, before the dark hours
+approach, so to live, as may afford reflections that will soften the
+agony of the last moments when they come, and let in upon the departing
+soul a ray of Divine mercy to illuminate its passage into an awful
+eternity?
+
+She was ready to faint, and choosing to lie down, I withdrew; I need not
+say with a melancholy heart: and when I got to my new-taken apartment, my
+heart was still more affected by the sight of the solemn letter the
+admirable lady had so lately finished.  It was communicated to me by Mrs.
+Lovick; who had it to copy for me; but it was not to be delivered to me
+till after her departure.  However, I trespassed so far, as to prevail
+upon the widow to let me take a copy of it; which I did directly in
+character.
+
+I send it enclosed.  If thou canst read it, and thy heart not bleed at
+thy eyes, thy remorse can hardly be so deep as thou hast inclined me to
+think it is.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXII
+
+MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MRS. NORTON
+[IN ANSWER TO LETTER LVI.*]
+
+
+* Begun on Monday Sept. 4, and by piecemeal finished on Tuesday; but not
+sent till the Thursday following.
+
+
+MY DEAREST MRS. NORTON,
+
+I am afraid I shall not be able to write all that is upon my mind to say
+to you upon the subject of your last.  Yet I will try.
+
+As to my friends, and as to the sad breakfasting, I cannot help being
+afflicted for them.  What, alas! has not my mother, in particular,
+suffered by my rashness!--Yet to allow so much for a son!--so little for
+a daughter!--But all now will soon be over, as to me.  I hope they will
+bury all their resentments in my grave.
+
+As to your advice, in relation to Mr. Belford, let me only say, that the
+unhappy reprobation I have met with, and my short time, must be my
+apology now.--I wish I could have written to my mother and my uncles as
+you advise.  And yet, favours come so slowly from them.
+
+The granting of one request only now remains as a desirable one from
+them.  Which nevertheless, when granted, I shall not be sensible of.  It
+is that they will be pleased to permit my remains to be laid with those
+of my ancestors--placed at the feet of my dear grandfather, as I have
+mentioned in my will.  This, however, as they please.  For, after all,
+this vile body ought not so much to engage my cares.  It is a weakness--
+but let it be called a natural weakness, and I shall be excused;
+especially when a reverential gratitude shall be known to be the
+foundation of it.   You know, my dear woman, how my grandfather loved me.
+And you know how much I honoured him, and that from my very infancy to
+the hour of his death.  How often since have I wished, that he had not
+loved me so well!
+
+I wish not now,  at the writing of this, to see even my cousin Morden.
+O, my blessed woman!  My dear maternal friend!  I am entering upon a
+better tour than to France or Italy either!--or even than to settle at my
+once-beloved Dairy-house!--All these prospects and pleasures, which used
+to be so agreeable to me in health, how poor seem they to me now!--
+
+Indeed, indeed, my dear Mamma Norton, I shall be happy!  I know I shall!
+--I have charming forebodings of happiness already!--Tell all my dear
+friends, for their comfort, that I shall!--Who would not bear the
+punishments I have borne, to have the prospects and assurances I rejoice
+in!--Assurances I might not have had, were my own wishes to have been
+granted to me!
+
+Neither do I want to see even you, my dear Mrs. Norton.  Nevertheless I
+must, in justice to my own gratitude, declare, that there was a time,
+could you have been permitted to come, without incurring displeasure from
+those whose esteem it is necessary for you to cultivate and preserve,
+that your presence and comfortings would have been balm to my wounded
+mind.  But were you now, even by consent, and with reconciliatory
+tidings, to come, it would but add to your grief; and the sight of one I
+so dearly love, so happily fraught with good news, might but draw me back
+to wishes I have had great struggles to get above.  And let me tell you
+for your comfort, that I have not left undone any thing that ought to be
+done, either respecting mind or person; no, not to the minutest
+preparation: so that nothing is left for you to do for me.  Every one has
+her direction as to the last offices.--And my desk, that I now write upon
+--O my dearest Mrs. Norton, all is provided!--All is ready!  And all will
+be as decent as it should be!
+
+And pray let my Miss Howe know, that by the time you will receive this,
+and she your signification of the contents of it, will, in all
+probability, be too late for her to do me the inestimable favour, as I
+should once have thought it, to see me.  God will have no rivals in the
+hearts of those he sanctifies.  By various methods he deadens all other
+sensations, or rather absorbs them all in the love of him.
+
+I shall nevertheless love you, my Mamma Norton, and my Miss Howe, whose
+love to me has passed the love of woman, to my latest hour!--But yet, I
+am now above the quick sense of those pleasures which once delighted me,
+and once more I say, that I do not wish to see objects so dear to me,
+which might bring me back again into sense, and rival my supreme love.
+
+
+***
+
+
+Twice have I been forced to leave off.  I wished, that my last writing
+might be to you, or to Miss Howe, if it might not be to my dearest Ma----
+
+Mamma, I would have wrote--is the word distinct?--My eyes are so misty!--
+If, when I apply to you, I break off in half-words, do you supply them--
+the kindest are your due.--Be sure take the kindest, to fill up chasms
+with, if any chasms there be--
+
+
+***
+
+
+Another breaking off!--But the new day seems to rise upon me with healing
+in its wings.  I have gotten, I think, a recruit of strength: spirits, I
+bless God, I have not of late wanted.
+
+Let my dearest Miss Howe purchase her wedding-garments--and may all
+temporal blessings attend the charming preparation!--Blessings will, I
+make no question, notwithstanding the little cloudiness that Mr. Hickman
+encounters with now and then, which are but prognostications of a future
+golden day to him: for her heart is good, and her head not wrong.--But
+great merit is coy, and that coyness had not always its foundation in
+pride: but if it should seem to be pride, take off the skin-deep
+covering, and, in her, it is noble diffidence, and a love that wants but
+to be assured!
+
+Tell Mr. Hickman I write this, and write it, as I believe, with my last
+pen; and bid him bear a little at first, and forbear; and all the future
+will be crowning gratitude, and rewarding love: for Miss Howe had great
+sense, fine judgment, and exalted generosity; and can such a one be
+ungrateful or easy under those obligations which his assiduity and
+obligingness (when he shall be so happy as to call her his) will lay her
+under to him?
+
+As for me, never bride was so ready as I am.  My wedding garments are
+bought---and though not fine or gawdy to the sight, though not adorned
+with jewels, and set off with gold and silver, (for I have no beholders'
+eyes to wish to glitter in,) yet will they be the easiest, the happiest
+suit, that ever bridal maiden wore--for they are such as carry with them
+a security against all those anxieties, pains, and perturbations, which
+sometimes succeed to the most promising outsettings.
+
+And now, my dear Mrs. Norton, do I wish for no other.
+
+O hasten, good God, if it be thy blessed will, the happy moment that I am
+to be decked out in his all-quieting garb!  And sustain, comfort, bless,
+and protect with the all-shadowing wing of thy mercy, my dear parents, my
+uncles, my brother, my sister, my cousin Morden, my ever-dear and
+ever-kind Miss Howe, my good Mrs. Norton, and every deserving person to
+whom they wish well! is the ardent prayer, first and last, of every
+beginning hour, as the clock tells it me, (hours now are days, nay,
+years,) of
+
+Your now not sorrowing or afflicted, but happy,
+CLARISSA HARLOWE.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXIII
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+WED. MORN. SEPT. 6, HALF AN HOUR AFTER THREE.
+
+
+I am not the savage which you and my worst enemies think me.  My soul is
+too much penetrated by the contents of the letter which you enclosed in
+your last, to say one word more to it, than that my heart has bled over
+it from every vein!--I will fly from the subject--but what other can I
+choose, that will not be as grievous, and lead into the same?
+
+I could quarrel with all the world; with thee, as well as the rest;
+obliging as thou supposest thyself for writing to me hourly.  How darest
+thou, (though unknown to her,) to presume to take an apartment under the
+sane roof with her?--I cannot bear to think that thou shouldest be seen,
+at all hours passing to and repassing from her apartments, while I, who
+have so much reason to call her mine, and one was preferred by her to all
+the world, am forced to keep aloof, and hardly dare to enter the city
+where she is!
+
+If there be any thing in Brand's letter that will divert me, hasten it to
+me.  But nothing now will ever divert me, will ever again give me joy or
+pleasure!  I can neither eat, drink, nor sleep.  I am sick of all the
+world.
+
+Surely it will be better when all is over--when I know the worst the
+Fates can do against me--yet how shall I bear that worst?--O Belford,
+Belford! write it not to me!--But if it must happen, get somebody else to
+write; for I shall curse the pen, the hand, the head, and the heart,
+employed in communicating to me the fatal tidings.  But what is this
+saying, when already I curse the whole world except her--myself most?
+
+In fine, I am a most miserable being.  Life is a burden to me.  I would
+not bear it upon these terms for one week more, let what would be my 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
+her's. 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 saddle-bow, 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 LXIV
+
+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.  Every one 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 your's 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 any body 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 apprehension of seeing
+him.  I cannot bear to see him!
+
+Just as she had done speaking, the minister, who had so often attended
+her, sent up his name; and was admitted.
+
+Being apprehensive that it would be with difficulty that you could
+prevail upon that impetuous spirit of your's not to invade her in her
+dying hours, and of the agonies into which a surprise of this nature
+would throw her, I thought this gentleman's visit afforded a proper
+opportunity to renew the subject; and, (having asked her leave,)
+acquainted him with the topic we had been upon.
+
+The good man urged that some condescensions were usually expected, on
+these solemn occasions, from pious souls like her's, however satisfied
+with themselves, for the sake of showing the world, and for example-sake,
+that all resentments against those who had most injured them were
+subdued; and if she would vouchsafe to a heart so truly penitent, as I
+had represented Mr. Lovelace's to be, that personal pardon, which I had
+been pleading for there would be no room to suppose the least lurking
+resentment remained; and it might have very happy effects upon the
+gentleman.
+
+I have no lurking resentment, Sir, said she--this is not a time for
+resentment: and you will be the readier to believe me, when I can assure
+you, (looking at me,) that even what I have most rejoiced in, the truly
+friendly love that has so long subsisted between my Miss Howe and her
+Clarissa, although to my last gasp it will be the dearest to me of all
+that is dear in this life, has already abated of its fervour; has already
+given place to supremer fervours; and shall the remembrance of Mr.
+Lovelace's personal insults, which I bless God never corrupted that mind
+which her friendship so much delighted, be stronger in these hours with
+me, then the remembrance of a love as pure as the human heart ever
+boasted?  Tell, therefore, the world, if you please, and (if, Mr.
+Belford, you think what I said to you before not strong enough,) tell the
+poor man, that I not only forgive him, but have such earnest wishes for
+the good of his soul, and that from consideration of its immortality,
+that could my penitence avail for more sins than my own, my last tear
+should fall for him by whom I die!
+
+Our eyes and hands expressed to us both what our lips could not utter.
+
+Say not, then, proceeded she, nor let it be said, that my resentments are
+unsubdued!--And yet these eyes, lifted up to Heaven as witness to the
+truth of what I have said, shall never, if I can help it, behold him
+more!--For do you not consider, Sirs, how short my time is; what much
+more important subjects I have to employ it upon; and how unable I should
+be, (so weak as I am,) to contend even with the avowed penitence of a
+person in strong health, governed by passions unabated, and always
+violent?--And now I hope you will never urge me more on this subject?
+
+The minister said, it were pity ever to urge this plea again.
+
+You see, Lovelace, that I did not forget the office of a friend, in
+endeavouring to prevail upon her to give you her last forgiveness
+personally.  And I hope, as she is so near her end, you will not invade
+her in her last hours; since she must be extremely discomposed at such an
+interview; and it might make her leave the world the sooner for it.
+
+This reminds me of an expression which she used on your barbarous hunting
+of her at Smith's, on her return to her lodgings; and that with a
+serenity unexampled, (as Mrs. Lovick told me, considering the occasion,
+and the trouble given her by it, and her indisposition at the time;) he
+will not let me die decently, said the angelic sufferer!--He will not let
+me enter into my Maker's presence with the composure that is required in
+entering into the drawing-room of an earthly prince!
+
+I cannot, however, forbear to wish, that the heavenly creature could have
+prevailed upon herself, in these her last hours, to see you; and that for
+my sake, as well as yours; for although I am determined never to be
+guilty of the crimes, which, till within these few past weeks have
+blackened my former life; and for which, at present, I most heartily hate
+myself; yet should I be less apprehensive of such a relapse, if wrought
+upon by the solemnity which such an interview must have been attended
+with, you had become a reformed man: for no devil do I fear, but one in
+your shape.
+
+
+***
+
+
+It is now eleven o'clock at night.  The lady who retired to rest an hour
+ago, is, as Mrs. Lovick tells me, in a sweet slumber.
+
+I will close here.  I hope I shall find her the better for it in the
+morning.  Yet, alas! how frail is hope--How frail is life; when we are
+apt to build so much on every shadowy relief; although in such a
+desperate case as this, sitting down to reflect, we must know, that it is
+but shadowy!
+
+I will enclose Brand's horrid pedantry.  And for once am aforehand with
+thy ravenous impatience.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXV
+
+MR. BRAND, TO MR. JOHN WALTON
+SAT. NIGHT, SEPT. 2.
+
+
+DEAR MR. WALTON,
+
+I am obliged to you for the very 'handsomely penned', (and 'elegantly
+written,') letter which you have sent me on purpose to do 'justice' to
+the 'character' of the 'younger' Miss Harlowe; and yet I must tell you
+that I had reason, 'before that came,' to 'think,' (and to 'know'
+indeed,) that we were 'all wrong.'  And so I had employed the 'greatest
+part' of this 'week,' in drawing up an 'apologetical letter' to my worthy
+'patron,' Mr. John Harlowe, in order to set all 'matters right' between
+'me and them,' and, ('as far as I could,') between 'them' and 'Miss.'
+So it required little more than 'connection' and 'transcribing,' when I
+received 'your's'; and it will be with Mr. Harlowe aforesaid, 'to-morrow
+morning'; and this, and the copy of that, will be with you on 'Monday
+morning.'
+
+You cannot imagine how sorry I am that 'you' and Mrs. Walton, and Mrs.
+Barker, and 'I myself,' should have taken matters up so lightly,
+(judging, alas-a-day! by appearance and conjecture,) where 'character'
+and 'reputation' are concerned.  Horace says truly,
+
+      'Et semel emissum volat irrevocabile verbum.'
+
+That is, 'Words one spoken cannot be recalled.'  But, Mr. Walton, they
+may be 'contradicted' by 'other' words; and we may confess ourselves
+guilty of a 'mistake,' and express our 'concern' for being 'mistaken';
+and resolve to make our 'mistake' a 'warning' to us for the 'future': and
+this is all that 'can be done,' and what every 'worthy mind will do'; and
+what nobody can be 'readier to do' than 'we four undesigning offenders,'
+(as I see by 'your letter,' on 'your part,' and as you will see by the
+'enclosed copy,' on 'mine';) which, if it be received as I 'think it
+ought,' (and as I 'believe it will,') must give me a 'speedy' opportunity
+to see you when I 'visit the lady'; to whom, (as you will see in  it,) I
+expect to be sent up with the 'olive-branch.'
+
+The matter in which we all 'erred,' must be owned to be 'very nice'; and
+(Mr. Belford's 'character considered') 'appearances' ran very strong
+'against the lady.'  But all that this serveth to show is, 'that in
+doubtful matters, the wisest people may be mistaken'; for so saith the
+'Poet,'
+
+      'Fallitur in dubiis hominum solertia rebus.'
+
+If you have an 'opportunity,' you may (as if 'from yourself,' and
+'unknown to me') show the enclosed to Mr. Belford, who (you tell me)
+'resenteth' the matter very heinously; but not to let him 'see' or 'hear
+read,' those words 'that relate to him,' in the paragraph at the 'bottom
+of the second page,' beginning, ['But yet I do insist upon it,] to the
+'end' of that paragraph; for one would not make one's self 'enemies,' you
+know; and I have 'reason to think,' that this Mr. 'Belford' is as
+'passionate' and 'fierce' a man as Mr. Lovelace.  What pity it is the
+lady could find no 'worthier a protector!'  You may paste those lines
+over with 'blue' or 'black paper,' before he seeth it: and if he
+insisteth upon taking a copy of my letter, (for he, or any body that
+'seeth it,' or 'heareth it read,' will, no doubt, be glad to have by them
+the copy of a letter so full of the 'sentiments' of the 'noblest writers'
+of 'antiquity,' and 'so well adapted,' as I will be bold to say they are,
+to the 'point in hand'; I say, if he insisteth upon taking a copy,) let
+him give you the 'strongest assurances' not to suffer it to be 'printed'
+on 'any account'; and I make the same request to you, that 'you' will
+not; for if any thing be to be made of a 'man's works,' who, but the
+'author,' should have the 'advantage'?  And if the 'Spectators,' the
+'Tatlers,' the 'Examiners,' the 'Guardians,' and other of our polite
+papers, make such a 'strutting' with a 'single verse,' or so by way of
+'motto,' in the 'front' of 'each day's' paper; and if other 'authors'
+pride themselves in 'finding out' and 'embellishing' the 'title-pages'
+of their 'books' with a 'verse' or 'adage' from the 'classical writers';
+what a figure would 'such a letter as the enclosed make,' so full fraught
+with 'admirable precepts,' and 'a-propos quotations,' from the 'best
+authority'?
+
+I have been told that a 'certain noble Lord,' who once sat himself down
+to write a 'pamphlet' in behalf of a 'great minister,' after taking
+'infinite pains' to 'no purpose' to find a 'Latin motto,' gave commission
+to a friend of 'his' to offer to 'any one,' who could help him to a
+'suitable one,' but of one or two lines, a 'hamper of claret.'
+Accordingly, his lordship had a 'motto found him' from 'Juvenal,' which
+he 'unhappily mistaking,' (not knowing 'Juvenal' was a 'poet,') printed
+as a prose 'sentence' in his 'title-page.'
+
+If, then, 'one' or 'two' lines were of so much worth, (A 'hamper of
+claret'!  No 'less'!) of what 'inestimable value' would 'such a letter as
+mine' be deemed?--And who knoweth but that this noble P--r, (who is now*
+living,) if he should happen to see 'this letter' shining with such a
+'glorious string of jewels,' might give the 'writer a scarf,' in order to
+have him 'always at hand,' or be a 'mean' (some way or other) to bring
+him into 'notice'?  And I would be bold to say ('bad' as the 'world' is)
+a man of 'sound learning' wanteth nothing but an 'initiation' to make his
+'fortune.'
+
+
+* i.e. At the time this Letter was written.
+
+
+I hope, my good friend, that the lady will not 'die': I shall be much
+'grieved,' if she doth; and the more because of mine 'unhappy
+misrepresentation': so will 'you' for the 'same cause'; so will her
+'parents' and 'friends.'  They are very 'rich' and 'very worthy'
+gentlefolks.
+
+But let me tell you, 'by-the-by,' that they had carried the matter
+against her 'so far,' that I believe in my heart they were glad to
+'justify themselves' by 'my report'; and would have been 'less pleased,'
+had I made a 'more favourable one.'  And yet in 'their hearts' they
+'dote' upon her.  But now they are all (as I hear) inclined to be
+'friends with her,' and 'forgive her'; her 'brother,' as well as 'the
+rest.'
+
+But their 'cousin,' Col. Morden, 'a very fine gentleman,' had had such
+'high words' with them, and they with him, that they know not how to
+'stoop,' lest it should look like being frighted into an 'accommodation.'
+Hence it is, that 'I' have taken the greater liberty to 'press the
+reconciliation'; and I hope in 'such good season,' that they will all be
+'pleased' with it: for can they have a 'better handle' to save their
+'pride' all round, than by my 'mediation'?  And let me tell you, (inter
+nos, 'betwixt ourselves,') 'very proud they all are.'
+
+By this 'honest means,' (for by 'dishonest ones' I would not be
+'Archbishop of Canterbury,') I hope to please every body; to be
+'forgiven,' in the 'first place,' by 'the lady,' (whom, being a 'lover of
+learning' and 'learned men,' I shall have great 'opportunities' of
+'obliging'; for, when she departed from her father's house, I had but
+just the honour of her 'notice,' and she seemed 'highly pleased' with my
+'conversation';) and, 'next' to be 'thanked' and 'respected' by her
+'parents,' and 'all her family'; as I am (I bless God for it) by my 'dear
+friend' Mr. John Harlowe: who indeed is a man that professeth a 'great
+esteem' for 'men of erudition'; and who (with 'singular delight,' I know)
+will run over with me the 'authorities' I have 'quoted,' and 'wonder' at
+my 'memory,' and the 'happy knack' I have of recommending 'mine own sense
+of things' in the words of the 'greatest sages of antiquity.'
+
+Excuse me, my good friend, for this 'seeming vanity.'  The great Cicero
+(you must have heard, I suppose) had a 'much greater' spice of it, and
+wrote a 'long letter begging' and 'praying' to be 'flattered.'  But if I
+say 'less of myself' than other people (who know me) 'say of me,' I think
+I keep a 'medium' between 'vanity' and 'false modesty'; the latter of
+which oftentimes gives itself the 'lie,' when it is 'declaring of' the
+'compliments,' that 'every body' gives it as its due: an hypocrisy, as
+well as folly, that, (I hope,) I shall for ever scorn to be guilty of.
+
+I have 'another reason' (as I may tell to you, my 'old school-fellow') to
+make me wish for this 'fine lady's recovery' and 'health'; and that is,
+(by some distant intimations,) I have heard from Mr. John Harlowe, that
+it is 'very likely' (because of the 'slur' she hath received) that she
+will choose to 'live privately' and 'penitently'--and will probably (when
+she cometh into her 'estate') keep a 'chaplain' to direct her in her
+'devotions' and 'penitence'--If she doth, who can stand a 'better chance'
+than 'myself'?--And as I find (by 'your' account, as well as by 'every
+body's') that she is innocent as to 'intention,' and is resolved never to
+think of Mr. 'Lovelace more,' who knoweth 'what' (in time) 'may happen'?
+--And yet it must be after Mr. 'Lovelace's death,' (which may possibly
+sooner happen than he 'thinketh' of, by means of his 'detestable
+courses':) for, after all, a man who is of 'public utility,' ought not
+(for the 'finest woman' in the world) to lay his 'throat' at the 'mercy'
+of a man who boggleth at nothing.
+
+I beseech you, let not this hint 'go farther' than to 'yourself,' your
+'spouse,' and Mrs. 'Barker.'  I know I may trust my 'life' in 'your
+hands' and 'theirs.'  There have been (let me tell ye) 'unlikelier'
+things come to pass, and that with 'rich widows,' (some of 'quality'
+truly!) whose choice, in their 'first marriages' hath (perhaps) been
+guided by 'motives of convenience,' or 'mere corporalities,' as I may
+say; but who by their 'second' have had for their view the 'corporal' and
+'spiritual' mingled; which is the most eligible (no doubt) to 'substance'
+composed 'of both,' as 'men' and 'women' are.
+
+Nor think (Sir) that, should such a thing come to pass, 'either' would be
+'disgraced,' since 'the lady' in 'me' would marry a 'gentleman' and a
+'scholar': and as to 'mine own honour,' as the 'slur' would bring her
+'high fortunes' down to an 'equivalence' with my 'mean ones,' (if
+'fortune' only, and not 'merit,' be considered,) so hath not the 'life'
+of 'this lady' been 'so tainted,' (either by 'length of time,' or
+'naughtiness of practice,') as to put her on a 'foot' with the 'cast
+Abigails,' that too, too often, (God knoweth,) are thought good enough
+for a 'young clergyman,' who, perhaps, is drawn in by a 'poor benefice';
+and (if the 'wicked one' be not 'quite worn out') groweth poorer and
+poorer upon it, by an 'increase of family' he knoweth not whether 'is
+most his,' or his 'noble,' ('ignoble,' I should say,) 'patrons.'
+
+But, all this 'apart,' and 'in confidence.'
+
+I know you made at school but a small progress in 'languages.'  So I have
+restrained myself from 'many illustrations' from the 'classics,' that I
+could have filled this letter with, (as I have done the enclosed one:)
+and, being at a 'distance,' I cannot 'explain' them to you, as I 'do to
+my friend,' Mr. John Harlowe; and who, (after all,) is obliged to 'me'
+for pointing out to 'him' many 'beauties' of the 'authors I quote,' which
+otherwise would lie concealed from 'him,' as they must from every 'common
+observer.'--But this (too) 'inter nos'--for he would not take it well to
+'have it known'--'Jays' (you know, old school-fellow, 'jays,' you know)
+'will strut in peacocks' feathers.'
+
+But whither am I running?  I never know where to end, when I get upon
+'learned topics.'  And albeit I cannot compliment 'you' with the 'name of
+a learned man,' yet are you 'a sensible man'; and ('as such') must have
+'pleasure' in 'learned men,' and in 'their writings.'
+
+In this confidence, (Mr. Walton,) with my 'kind respects' to the good
+ladies, (your 'spouse' and 'sister,') and in hopes, for the 'young lady's
+sake,' soon to follow this long, long epistle, in 'person,' I conclude
+myself,
+
+Your loving and faithful friend,
+ELIAS BRAND.
+
+
+You will perhaps, Mr. Walton, wonder at the meaning of the 'lines drawn
+      under many of the words and sentences,' (UNDERSCORING we call it;)
+      and were my letters to be printed, those would be put in a
+      'different character.'  Now, you must know, Sir, that 'we learned
+      men' do this to point out to the readers, who are not 'so learned,'
+      where the 'jet of our arguments lieth,' and the 'emphasis' they are
+      to lay upon 'those words'; whereby they will take in readily our
+      'sense' and 'cogency.'  Some 'pragmatical' people have said, that
+      an author who doth a 'great deal of this,' either calleth his
+      readers 'fools,' or tacitly condemneth 'his own style,' as
+      supposing his meaning would be 'dark' without it, or that all of
+      his 'force' lay in 'words.'  But all of those with whom I have
+      conversed in a learned way, 'think as I think.'  And to give a very
+      'pretty,' though 'familiar illustration,' I have considered a page
+      distinguished by 'different characters,' as a 'verdant field'
+      overspread with 'butter-flowers' and 'daisies,' and other
+      summer-flowers.  These the poets liken to 'enamelling'--have you
+      not read in the poets of 'enamelled meads,' and so forth?
+
+
+
+LETTER LXVI
+
+MR. BRAND, TO JOHN HARLOWE, ESQ.
+SAT. NIGHT, SEPT. 2.
+
+
+WORTHY SIR,
+
+I am under no 'small concern,' that I should (unhappily) be the
+'occasion' (I am sure I 'intended' nothing like it) of 'widening
+differences' by 'light misreport,' when it is the 'duty' of one of 'my
+function' (and no less consisting with my 'inclination') to 'heal' and
+'reconcile.'
+
+I have received two letter to set me 'right': one from a 'particular
+acquaintance,' (whom I set to inquire of Mr. Belford's character); and
+that came on Tuesday last, informing me, that your 'unhappy niece' was
+greatly injured in the account I had had of her; (for I had told 'him'
+of it, and that with very 'great concern,' I am sure, apprehending it to
+be 'true.')  So I 'then' set about writing to you, to 'acknowledge' the
+'error.'  And had gone a good way in it, when the second letter came (a
+very 'handsome one' it is, both in 'style' and 'penmanship') from my
+friend Mr. Walton, (though I am sure it cannot be 'his inditing,')
+expressing his sorrow, and his wife's, and his sister-in-law's likewise,
+for having been the cause of 'misleading me,' in the account I gave of
+the said 'young lady'; whom they 'now' say (upon 'further inquiry') they
+find to be the 'most unblameable,' and 'most prudent,' and (it seems) the
+most 'pious' young lady, that ever (once) committed a 'great error'; as
+(to be sure) 'her's was,' in leaving such 'worthy parents' and
+'relations' for so 'vile a man' as Mr. Lovelace; but what shall we say?--
+Why, the divine Virgil tells us,
+
+      'Improbe amor, quid non mortalia pectora cogis?'
+
+For 'my part,' I was but too much afraid (for we have 'great
+opportunities,' you are sensible, Sir, at the 'University,' of knowing
+'human nature' from 'books,' the 'calm result' of the 'wise man's
+wisdom,' as I may say,
+
+      '(Haurit aquam cribro, qui discere vult sine libro)'
+
+'uninterrupted' by the 'noise' and 'vanities' that will mingle with
+'personal conversation,' which (in the 'turbulent world') is not to be
+enjoyed but over a 'bottle,' where you have an 'hundred foolish things'
+pass to 'one that deserveth to be remembered'; I was but too much afraid
+'I say') that so 'great a slip' might be attended with 'still greater'
+and 'worse': for 'your' Horace, and 'my' Horace, the most charming writer
+that ever lived among the 'Pagans' (for the 'lyric kind of poetry,' I
+mean; for, the be sure, 'Homer' and 'Virgil' would 'otherwise' be 'first'
+named 'in their way') well observeth (and who understood 'human nature'
+better than he?)
+
+      'Nec vera virtus, cum semel excidit,
+      Curat reponi deterioribus.'
+
+And 'Ovid' no less wisely observeth:
+
+      'Et mala sunt vicina bonis.  Errore sub illo
+         Pro vitio virtus crimina saepe tulit.'
+
+Who, that can draw 'knowledge' from its 'fountain-head,' the works of the
+'sages of antiquity,' (improved by the 'comments' of the 'moderns,') but
+would 'prefer' to all others the 'silent quiet life,' which
+'contemplative men' lead in the 'seats of learning,' were they not called
+out (according to their 'dedication') to the 'service' and 'instruction'
+of the world?
+
+Now, Sir, 'another' favourite poet of mine (and not the 'less a
+favourite' for being a 'Christian') telleth us, that ill is the custom of
+'some,' when in a 'fault,' to throw the blame upon the backs of 'others,'
+
+      '----Hominum quoque mos est,
+      Quae nos cunque premunt, alieno imponere tergo.'
+                                         MANT.
+
+But I, though (in this case) 'misled,' ('well intendedly,' nevertheless,
+both in the 'misleaders' and 'misled,' and therefore entitled to lay hold
+of that plea, if 'any body' is so entitled,) will not however, be classed
+among such 'extenuators'; but (contrarily) will always keep in mind that
+verse, which 'comforteth in mistake,' as well as 'instructeth'; and which
+I quoted in my last letter;
+
+      'Errare est hominis, sed non persistere----'
+
+And will own, that I was very 'rash' to take up with 'conjectures' and
+'consequences' drawn from 'probabilites,' where (especially) the
+'character' of so 'fine a lady' was concerned.
+
+      'Credere fallacy gravis est dementia famae.'      MANT.
+
+Notwithstanding, Miss Clarissa Harlowe (I must be bold to say) is the
+'only young lady,' that ever I heard of (or indeed read of) that, 'having
+made such a false step,' so 'soon' (of 'her own accord,' as I may say)
+'recovered' herself, and conquered her 'love of the deceiver'; (a great
+conquest indeed!) and who flieth him, and resolveth to 'die,' rather than
+to be his; which now, to her never-dying 'honour' (I am well assured) is
+the case--and, in 'justice' to her, I am now ready to take to myself
+(with no small vexation) that of Ovid,
+
+      'Heu! patior telis vulnera facta meis.'
+
+But yet I do insist upon it, that all 'that part' of my 'information,'
+which I took upon mine own 'personal inquiry,' which is what relates to
+Mr. 'Belford' and 'his character,' is 'literally true'; for there is not
+any where to be met with a man of a more 'libertine character' as to
+'women,' Mr. 'Lovelace' excepted, than he beareth.
+
+And so, Sir, I must desire of you, that you will not let 'any blame' lie
+upon my 'intention'; since you see how ready I am to 'accuse myself' of
+too lightly giving ear to a 'rash information' (not knowing it to be so,
+however): for I depended the more upon it, as the 'people I had it from'
+are very 'sober,' and live in the 'fear of God': and indeed when I wait
+upon you, you will see by their letter, that they must be 'conscientious'
+good people: wherefore, Sir, let me be entitled, from 'all your good
+family,' to that of my last-named poet,
+
+      'Aspera confesso verba remitte reo.'
+
+And now, Sir, (what is much more becoming of my 'function,') let me,
+instead of appearing with the 'face of an accuser,' and a 'rash
+censurer,' (which in my 'heart' I have not 'deserved' to be thought,)
+assume the character of a 'reconciler'; and propose (by way of 'penance'
+to myself for my 'fault') to be sent up as a 'messenger of peace' to the
+'pious young lady'; for they write me word 'absolutely' (and, I believe
+in my heart, 'truly') that the 'doctors' have 'given her over,' and that
+she 'cannot live.'  Alas! alas! what a sad thing would that be, if the
+'poor bough,' that was only designed (as I 'very well know,' and am
+'fully assured') 'to be bent, should be broken!'
+
+Let it not, dear Sir, seem to the 'world' that there was any thing in
+your 'resentments' (which, while meant for 'reclaiming,' were just and
+fit) that hath the 'appearance' of 'violence,' and 'fierce wrath,' and
+'inexorability'; (as it would look to some, if carried to extremity,
+after 'repentance' and 'contrition,' and 'humiliation,' on the 'fair
+offender's' side:) for all this while (it seemeth) she hat been a 'second
+Magdalen' in her 'penitence,' and yet not so bad as a 'Magdalen' in her
+'faults'; (faulty, nevertheless, as she hath been once, the Lord knoweth!
+
+      'Nam vitiis nemo sine nascitur: optimus ille est,
+      Qui minimis urgentur'----saith Horace).
+
+Now, Sir, if I may be named for this 'blessed' employment, (for, 'Blessed
+is the peace-maker!') I will hasten to London; and (as I know Miss had
+always a 'great regard' to the 'function' I have the honour to be of) I
+have no doubt of making myself acceptable to her, and to bring her, by
+'sound arguments,' and 'good advice,' into a 'liking of life,' which must
+be the 'first step' to her 'recovery': for, when the 'mind' is 'made
+easy,' the 'body' will not 'long suffer'; and the 'love of life' is a
+'natural passion,' that is soon 'revived,' when fortune turneth about,
+and smileth:
+
+      'Vivere quisque diu, quamvis & egenus & ager,
+      Optat.---- ---- ----' OVID.
+
+And the sweet Lucan truly observeth,
+
+      '---- ---- Fatis debentibus annos
+      Mors invita subit.---- ----'
+
+And now, Sir, let me tell you what shall be the 'tenor' of my 'pleadings'
+with her, and 'comfortings' of her, as she is, as I may say, a 'learned
+lady'; and as I can 'explain' to her 'those sentences,' which she cannot
+so readily 'construe herself': and this in order to convince 'you' (did
+you not already 'know' my 'qualifications') how well qualified I 'am' for
+the 'christian office' to which I commend myself.
+
+I will, IN THE FIRST PLACE, put her in mind of the 'common course of
+things' in this 'sublunary world,' in which 'joy' and 'sorrow, sorrow'
+and joy,' succeed one another by turns'; in order to convince her, that
+her griefs have been but according to 'that' common course of things:
+
+      'Gaudia post luctus veniunt, post gaudia luctus.'
+
+SECONDLY, I will remind her of her own notable description of 'sorrow,'
+whence she was once called upon to distinguish wherein 'sorrow, grief,'
+and 'melancholy,' differed from each other; which she did 'impromptu,' by
+their 'effects,' in a truly admirable manner, to the high satisfaction of
+every one: I myself could not, by 'study,' have distinguished 'better,'
+nor more 'concisely'--SORROW, said she, 'wears'; GRIEF 'tears'; but
+MELANCHOLY 'sooths.'
+
+My inference to her shall be, that since a happy reconciliation will take
+place, 'grief' will be banished; 'sorrow' dismissed; and only sweet
+'melancholy' remain to 'sooth' and 'indulge' her contrite 'heart,' and
+show to all the world the penitent sense she hath of her great error.
+
+THIRDLY, That her 'joys,'* when restored to health and favour, will be
+the greater, the deeper her griefs were.
+
+
+* 'Joy,' let me here observe, my dear Sir, by way of note, is not
+absolutely inconsistent with 'melancholy'; a 'soft gentle joy,' not a
+'rapid,' not a 'rampant joy,' however; but such a 'joy,' as shall lift
+her 'temporarily' out of her 'soothing melancholy,' and then 'let her
+down gently' into it again; for 'melancholy,' to be sure, her
+'reflection' will generally make to be her state.
+
+
+      'Gaudia, quae multo parta labore, placent.'
+
+FOURTHLY, That having 'really' been guilty of a 'great error,' she should
+not take 'impatiently' the 'correction' and 'anger' with which she hath
+been treated.
+
+      'Leniter, ex merito quicquid patiare ferundum est.'
+
+FIFTHLY, That 'virtue' must be established by 'patience'; as saith
+Prudentius:
+
+      'Haec virtus vidua est, quam non patientia firmat.'
+
+SIXTHLY, That in the words of Horace, she may 'expect better times,' than
+(of late) she had 'reason' to look for.
+
+      'Grata superveniet, quae non sperabitur, hora.'
+
+SEVENTHLY, That she is really now in 'a way' to be 'happy,' since,
+according to 'Ovid,' she 'can count up all her woe':
+
+      'Felix, qui patitur quae numerare potest.'
+
+And those comforting lines,
+
+      'Estque serena dies post longos gratior imbres,
+          Et post triste malum gratior ipsa salus.'
+
+EIGHTHLY, That, in the words of Mantuan, her 'parents' and 'uncles' could
+not 'help loving her' all the time they were 'angry at her':
+
+      'AEqua tamen mens est, & amica voluntas,
+      Sit licet in natos austere parentum.'
+
+NINTHLY, That the 'ills she hath met with' may be turned (by the 'good
+use' to be made of them) to her 'everlasting benefit'; for that,
+
+      'Cum furit atque ferit, Deus olim parcere quaerit.'
+
+TENTHLY, That she will be able to give a 'fine lesson' (a 'very' fine
+lesson) to all the 'young ladies' of her 'acquaintance,' of the 'vanity'
+of being 'lifted up' in 'prosperity,' and the 'weakness' of being 'cast
+down' in 'adversity'; since no one is so 'high,' as to be above being
+'humbled'; so 'low,' as to 'need to despair': for which purpose the
+advice of 'Ausonius,'
+
+      'Dum fortuna juvat, caveto tolli:
+      Dum fortuna tonat, caveto mergi.'
+
+I shall tell her, that Lucan saith well, when he calleth 'adversity the
+element of patience';
+
+      '----Gaudet patientia duris:'
+
+That
+
+      'Fortunam superat virtus, prudential famam.'
+
+That while weak souls are 'crushed by fortune,' the 'brave mind' maketh
+the fickle deity afraid of it:
+
+      'Fortuna fortes metuit, ignavos permit.'
+
+ELEVENTHLY, That if she take the advice of 'Horace,'
+
+      'Fortiaque adversis opponite pectora rebus,'
+
+it will delight her 'hereafter' (as 'Virgil' saith) to 'revoke her past
+troubles':
+
+      '----Forsan & haec olim meminisse juvabit.'
+
+And, to the same purpose, 'Juvenal' speaking of the 'prating joy' of
+mariners, after all their 'dangers are over':
+
+      'Gaudent securi narrare pericula nautae.'
+
+Which suiting the case so well, you'll forgive me, Sir, for 'popping
+down' in 'English metre,' as the 'translative impulse' (pardon a new
+word, and yet we 'scholars' are not fond of 'authenticating new' words)
+came upon me 'uncalled for':
+
+      The seaman, safe on shore, with joy doth tell
+      What cruel dangers him at sea befell.
+
+With 'these,' Sir, and an 'hundred more' wise 'adages,' which I have
+always at my 'fingers' end,' will I (when reduced to 'form' and 'method')
+entertain Miss; and as she is a 'well-read,' and (I might say, but for
+this 'one' great error) a 'wise' young lady, I make no doubt but I shall
+'prevail' upon her, if not by 'mine own arguments,' by those of 'wits'
+and 'capacities' that have a 'congeniality' (as I may say) to 'her own,'
+to take to heart,
+
+      ----Nor of the laws of fate complain,
+      Since, though it has been cloudy, now't clears up again.----
+
+Oh! what 'wisdom' is there in these 'noble classical authors!'  A 'wise
+man' will (upon searching into them,) always find that they speak 'his'
+sense of 'men' and 'things.'  Hence it is, that they so readily occur to
+my 'memory' on every occasion--though this may look like 'vanity,' it is
+too true to be omitted; and I see not why a man may not 'know these
+things of himself,' which 'every body' seeth and 'saith of him'; who,
+nevertheless, perhaps know not 'half so much as he,' in other matters.
+
+I know but of 'one objection,' Sir, that can lie against my going; and
+that will arise from your kind 'care' and 'concern' for the 'safety of my
+person,' in case that 'fierce' and 'terrible man,' the wicked Mr.
+Lovelace, (of whom every one standeth in fear,) should come cross me, as
+he may be resolved to try once more to 'gain a footing in Miss's
+affections': but I will trust in 'Providence' for 'my safety,' while I
+shall be engaged in a 'cause so worthy of my function'; and the 'more'
+trust in it, as he is a 'learned man' as I am told.
+
+Strange too, that so 'vile a rake' (I hope he will never see this!)
+should be a 'learned man'; that is to say, that a 'learned man' may be a
+'sly sinner,' and take opportunities, 'as they come in his way'--which,
+however, I do assure you, 'I never did,'
+
+I repeat, that as he is a 'learned man,' I shall 'vest myself,' as I may
+say, in 'classical armour'; beginning 'meekly' with him (for, Sir,
+'bravery' and 'meekness' are qualities 'very consistent with each other,'
+and in no persons so shiningly 'exert' themselves, as in the 'Christian
+priesthood'; beginning 'meekly' with him, I say) from Ovid,
+
+      'Corpora magnanimo satis est protrasse leoni:'
+
+So that, if I should not be safe behind the 'shield of mine own
+prudence,' I certainly should be behind the 'shields' of the
+'ever-admirable classics': of 'Horace' particularly; who, being a 'rake'
+(and a 'jovial rake' too,) himself, must have great weight with all
+'learned rakes.'
+
+And who knoweth but I may be able to bring even this 'Goliath in
+wickedness,' although in 'person' but a 'little David' myself, (armed
+with the 'slings' and 'stones' of the 'ancient sages,') to a due sense of
+his errors?  And what a victory would that be!
+
+I could here, Sir, pursuing the allegory of David and Goliath, give you
+some of the 'stones' ('hard arguments' may be called 'stones,' since they
+'knock down a pertinacious opponent') which I could 'pelt him with,' were
+he to be wroth with me; and this in order to take from you, Sir, all
+apprehensions for my 'life,' or my 'bones'; but I forbear them till you
+demand them of me, when I have the honour to attend you in person.
+
+And now, (my dear Sir,) what remaineth, but that having shown you (what
+yet, I believe, you did not doubt) how 'well qualified' I am to attend
+the lady with the 'olive-branch,' I beg of you to dispatch me with it
+'out of hand'?  For if she be so 'very ill,' and if she should not live
+to receive the grace, which (to my knowledge) all the 'worthy family'
+design her, how much will that grieve you all!  And then, Sir, of what
+avail will be the 'eulogies' you shall all, peradventure, join to give to
+her memory?  For, as Martial wisely observeth,
+
+      '---- Post cineres gloria sera venit.'
+
+Then, as 'Ausonius' layeth it down with 'equal propriety,' that 'those
+favours which are speedily conferred are the most grateful and obliging'
+----
+
+And to the same purpose Ovid:
+
+      'Gratia ab officio, quod mora tar dat, abest.'
+
+And, Sir, whatever you do, let the 'lady's pardon' be as 'ample,' and as
+'cheerfully given,' as she can 'wish for it': that I may be able to tell
+her, that it hath your 'hands,' your 'countenances,' and your 'whole
+hearts,' with it--for, as the Latin verse hath it, (and I presume to
+think I have not weakened its sense by my humble advice),
+
+      'Dat bene, dat multum, qui dat cum munere vultum.'
+
+And now, Sir, when I survey this long letter,* (albeit I see it
+enamelled, as a  'beautiful meadow' is enamelled by the 'spring' or
+'summer' flowers, very glorious to behold!) I begin to be afraid that I
+may have tired you; and the more likely, as I have written without that
+'method' or 'order,' which I think constituteth the 'beauty' of 'good
+writing': which 'method' or 'order,' nevertheless, may be the 'better
+excused' in a 'familiar epistle,' (as this may be called,) you pardoning,
+Sir, the 'familiarity' of the 'word'; but yet not altogether 'here,' I
+must needs own; because this is 'a letter' and 'not a letter,' as I may
+say; but a kind of 'short' and 'pithy discourse,' touching upon 'various'
+and 'sundry topics,' every one of which might be a 'fit theme' to enlarge
+upon of volumes; if this 'epistolary discourse' (then let me call it)
+should be pleasing to you, (as I am inclined to think it will, because of
+the 'sentiments' and 'aphorisms' of the 'wisest of the antients,' which
+'glitter through it' like so many dazzling 'sunbeams,') I will (at my
+leisure) work it up into a 'methodical discourse'; and perhaps may one
+day print it, with a 'dedication' to my 'honoured patron,' (if, Sir, I
+have 'your' leave,) 'singly' at first, (but not till I have thrown out
+'anonymously,' two or three 'smaller things,' by the success of which I
+shall have made myself of 'some account' in the 'commonwealth of
+letters,') and afterwards in my 'works'--not for the 'vanity' of the
+thing (however) I will say, but for the 'use' it may be of to the
+'public'; for, (as one well observeth,) 'though glory always followeth
+virtue, yet it should be considered only as its shadow.'
+
+
+* And here, by way of note, permit me to say, that no 'sermon' I ever
+composed cost me half the 'pains' that this letter hath done--but I knew
+your great 'appetite' after, as well as 'admiration' of, the 'antient
+wisdom,' which you so justly prefer to the 'modern'--and indeed I join
+with you to think, that the 'modern' is only 'borrowed,' (as the 'moon'
+doth its light from the 'sun,') at least, that we 'excel' them in
+nothing; and that our 'best cogitations' may be found, generally
+speaking, more 'elegantly' dressed and expressed by them.
+
+
+      'Contemnit laudem virtus, licet usque sequatur
+          Gloria virtutem, corpus ut umbra suum.'
+
+A very pretty saying, and worthy of all men's admiration.
+
+And now, ('most worthy Sir,' my very good friend and patron,) referring
+the whole to 'your's,' and to your 'two brothers,' and to 'young Mr.
+Harlowe's' consideration, and to the wise consideration of good 'Madam
+Harlowe,' and her excellent daughter, 'Miss Arabella Harlowe'; I take the
+liberty to subscribe myself, what I 'truly am,' and 'every shall delight
+to be,' in 'all cases,' and at 'all times,'
+
+Your and their most ready and obedient
+as well as faithful servant,
+ELIAS BRAND.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXVII
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+[IN ANSWER TO LETTER LXIV. OF THIS VOLUME.]
+WEDN. MORN. SEPT. 6.
+
+
+And is she somewhat better?--Blessings upon thee without number or
+measure!  Let her still be better and better!  Tell me so at least, if
+she be not so: for thou knowest not what a joy that poor temporary
+reprieve, that she will hold out yet a day or two, gave me.
+
+But who told this hard-hearted and death-pronouncing doctor that she will
+hold it no longer?  By what warrant says he this?  What presumption in
+these parading solemn fellows of a college, which will be my contempt to
+the latest hour of my life, if this brother of it (eminent as he is
+deemed to be) cannot work an ordinary miracle in her favour, or rather in
+mine!
+
+Let me tell thee, Belford, that already he deserves the utmost contempt,
+for suffering this charming clock to run down so low.  What must be his
+art, if it could not wind it up in a quarter of the time he has attended
+her, when, at his first visits, the springs and wheels of life and motion
+were so god, that they seemed only to want common care and oiling!
+
+I am obliged to you for endeavouring to engage her to see me.  'Twas
+acting like a friend.  If she had vouchsafed me that favour, she should
+have seen at her feet the most abject adorer that ever kneeled to
+justly-offended beauty.
+
+What she bid you, and what she forbid you, to tell me, (the latter for
+tender considerations:) that she forgives me; and that, could she have
+made me a good man, she would have made me a happy one!  That she even
+loved me!  At such a moment to own that she once loved me!  Never before
+loved any man!  That she prays for me!  That her last tear should be shed
+for me, could she by it save a soul, doomed, without her, to perdition!--
+O Belford! Belford! I cannot bear it!--What a dog, what a devil have I
+been to a goodness so superlative!--Why does she not inveigh against me?
+--Why does she not execrate me?--O the triumphant subduer!  Ever above
+me!--And now to leave me so infinitely below her!
+
+Marry and repair, at any time; this, wretch that I was, was my plea to
+myself.  To give her a lowering sensibility; to bring her down from among
+the stars which her beamy head was surrounded by, that my wife, so
+greatly above me, might not despise me; this was one of my reptile
+motives, owing to my more reptile envy, and to my consciousness of
+inferiority to her!--Yet she, from step to step, from distress to
+distress, to maintain her superiority; and, like the sun, to break out
+upon me with the greater refulgence for the clouds that I had contrived
+to cast about her!--And now to escape me thus!--No power left me to
+repair her wrongs!--No alleviation to my self-reproach!--No dividing of
+blame with her!--
+
+Tell her, O tell her, Belford, that her prayers and wishes, her
+superlatively-generous prayers and wishes, shall not be vain: that I can,
+and do repent--and long have repented.--Tell her of my frequent deep
+remorses--it was impossible that such remorses should not at last produce
+effectual remorse--yet she must not leave me--she must live, if she would
+wish to have my contrition perfect--For what can despair produce?
+
+
+***
+
+
+I will do every thing you would have me do, in the return of your
+letters.  You have infinitely obliged me by this last, and by pressing
+for an admission for me, though it succeeded not.
+
+Once more, how could I be such a villain to so divine a creature!  Yet
+love her all the time, as never man loved woman!--Curse upon my
+contriving genius!--Curse upon my intriguing head, and upon my seconding
+heart!--To sport with the fame, with the honour, with the life, of such
+an angel of a woman!--O my d----d incredulity!  That, believing her to be
+a woman, I must hope to find her a woman!  On my incredulity, that there
+could be such virtue (virtue for virtue's sake) in the sex, founded I my
+hope of succeeding with her.
+
+But say not, Jack, that she must leave us yet.  If she recover, and if I
+can but re-obtain her favour, then, indeed, will life be life to me.  The
+world never saw such an husband as I will make.  I will have no will but
+her's.  She shall conduct me in all my steps.  She shall open and direct
+my prospects, and turn every motion of my heart as she pleases.
+
+You tell me, in your letter, that at eleven o'clock she had sweet rest;
+and my servant acquaints me, from Mrs. Smith, that she has had a good
+night.  What hopes does this fill me with!  I have given the fellow five
+guineas for his good news, to be divided between him and his
+fellow-servant.
+
+Dear, dear Jack! confirm this to me in thy next--for Heaven's sake, do!--
+Tell the doctor I'll make a present of a thousand guineas if he recover
+her.  Ask if a consultation then be necessary.
+
+Adieu, dear Belford!  Confirm, I beseech thee, the hopes that now, with
+sovereign gladness, have taken possession of a heart, that, next to
+her's, is
+
+Thine.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXVIII
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+WEDN. MORN. EIGHT O'CLOCK, (6 SEPT.)
+
+
+Your servant arrived here before I was stirring.  I sent him to Smith's
+to inquire how the lady was; and ordered him to call upon me when he came
+back.  I was pleased to hear she had tolerable rest.  As soon as I had
+dispatched him with the letter I had written over night, I went to attend
+her.
+
+I found hr up, and dressed; in a white sattin night-gown.  Ever elegant;
+but now more so than I had seen her for a week past: her aspect serenely
+cheerful.
+
+She mentioned the increased dimness of her eyes, and the tremor which had
+invaded her limbs.  If this be dying, said she, there is nothing at all
+shocking in it.  My body hardly sensible of pain, my mind at ease, my
+intellects clear and perfect as ever.  What a good and gracious God have
+I!--For this is what I always prayed for.
+
+I told her it was not so serene with you.
+
+There is not the same reason for it, replied she.  'Tis a choice comfort,
+Mr. Belford, at the winding up of our short story, to be able to say, I
+have rather suffered injuries myself, than offered them to others.  I
+bless God, though I have bee unhappy, as the world deems it, and once I
+thought more so than at present I think I ought to have done, since my
+calamities were to work out for me my everlasting happiness; yet have I
+not wilfully made any one creature so.  I have no reason to grieve for
+any thing but for the sorrow I have given my friends.
+
+But pray, Mr. Belford, remember me in the best manner to my cousin
+Morden; and desire him to comfort them, and to tell them, that all would
+have been the same, had they accepted of my true penitence, as I wish and
+as I trust the Almighty has done.
+
+I was called down: it was to Harry, who was just returned from Miss
+Howe's, to whom he carried the lady's letter.  The stupid fellow being
+bid to make haste with it, and return as soon as possible, staid not
+until Miss Howe had it, she being at the distance of five minutes,
+although Mrs. Howe would have had him stay, and sent a man and horse
+purposely with it to her daughter.
+
+
+WEDNESDAY MORNING, TEN O'CLOCK.
+
+The poor lady is just recovered from a fainting fit, which has left her
+at death's door.  Her late tranquillity and freedom from pain seemed but
+a lightening, as Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith call it.
+
+By my faith, Lovelace, I had rather part with all the friends I have in
+the world, than with this lady.  I never knew what a virtuous, a holy
+friendship, as I may call mine to her, was before.  But to be so new to
+it, and to be obliged to forego it so soon, what an affliction!  Yet,
+thank Heaven, I lose her not by my own fault!--But 'twould be barbarous
+not to spare thee now.
+
+She has sent for the divine who visited her before, to pray with her.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXIX
+
+MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
+KENSINGTON, WEDNESDAY NOON.
+
+
+Like AEsop's traveller, thou blowest hot and cold, life and death, in the
+same breath, with a view, no doubt, to distract me.  How familiarly dost
+thou use the words, dying, dimness, tremor?  Never did any mortal ring so
+many changes on so few bells.  Thy true father, I dare swear, was a
+butcher, or an undertaker, by the delight thou seemest to take in scenes
+of death and horror.  Thy barbarous reflection, that thou losest her not
+by thy own fault, is never to be forgiven.  Thou hast but one way to
+atone for the torments thou hast given me, and that is, by sending me
+word that she is better, and will recover.  Whether it be true or not,
+let me be told so, and I will go abroad rejoicing and believing it, and
+my wishes and imaginations shall make out all the rest.
+
+If she live but one year, that I may acquit myself to myself (no matter
+for the world!) that her death is not owing to me, I will compound for
+the rest.
+
+Will neither vows nor prayers save her?  I never prayed in my life, put
+all the years of it together, as I have done for this fortnight past: and
+I have most sincerely repented of all my baseness to her--And will
+nothing do?
+
+But after all, if she recovers not, this reflection must be my comfort;
+and it is truth; that her departure will be owing rather to wilfulness,
+to downright female wilfulness, than to any other cause.
+
+It is difficult for people, who pursue the dictates of a violent
+resentment, to stop where first they designed to stop.
+
+I have the charity to believe, that even James and Arabella Harlowe, at
+first, intended no more by the confederacy they formed against this their
+angel sister, than to disgrace and keep her down, lest (sordid wretches!)
+their uncles should follow the example their grandfather had set, to
+their detriment.
+
+So this lady, as I suppose, intended only at first to vex and plague me;
+and, finding she could do it to purpose, her desire of revenge insensibly
+became stronger in her than the desire of life; and now she is willing to
+die, as an event which she thinks will cut my heart-strings asunder.  And
+still, the more to be revenged, puts on the Christian, and forgives me.
+
+But I'll have none of her forgiveness!  My own heart tells me I do not
+deserve it; and I cannot bear it!--And what is it but a mere verbal
+forgiveness, as ostentatiously as cruelly given with a view to magnify
+herself, and wound me deeper!  A little, dear, specious--but let me stop
+--lest I blaspheme!
+
+
+***
+
+
+Reading over the above, I am ashamed of my ramblings; but what wouldest
+have me do?--Seest thou not that I am but seeking to run out of myself,
+in hope to lose myself; yet, that I am unable to do either?
+
+If ever thou lovedst but half so fervently as I love--but of that thy
+heavy soul is not capable.
+
+Send me word by the next, I conjure thee, in the names of all her kindred
+saints and angels, that she is living, and likely to live!--If thou
+sendest ill news, thou wilt be answerable for the consequences, whether
+it be fatal to the messenger, or to
+
+Thy
+LOVELACE.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXX
+
+MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
+WEDNESDAY, ELEVEN O'CLOCK.
+
+
+Dr. H. has just been here.  He tarried with me till the minister had done
+praying by the lady; and then we were both admitted.  Mr. Goddard, who
+came while the doctor and the clergyman were with her, went away with
+them when they went.  They took a solemn and everlasting leave of her, as
+I have no scruple to say; blessing her, and being blessed by her; and
+wishing (when it came to be their lot) for an exit as happy as her's is
+likely to be.
+
+She had again earnestly requested of the doctor his opinion how long it
+was now probable that she could continue; and he told her, that he
+apprehended she would hardly see to-morrow night.  She said, she should
+number the hours with greater pleasure than ever she numbered any in her
+life on the most joyful occasion.
+
+How unlike poor Belton's last hours her's!  See the infinite differences
+in the effects, on the same awful and affecting occasion, between a good
+and a bad conscience!
+
+This moment a man is come from Miss Howe with a letter.  Perhaps I shall
+be able to send you the contents.
+
+
+***
+
+
+She endeavoured several times with earnestness, but in vain, to read the
+letter of her dear friend.  The writing, she said, was too fine for her
+grosser sight, and the lines staggered under her eye.  And indeed she
+trembled so, she could not hold the paper; and at last desired Mrs.
+Lovick to read it to her, the messenger waiting for an answer.
+
+Thou wilt see in Miss Howe's letter, how different the expression of the
+same impatience, and passionate love, is, when dictated by the gentler
+mind of a woman, from that which results from a mind so boisterous and
+knotty as thine.  For Mrs. Lovick will transcribe it, and I shall send
+it--to be read in this place, if thou wilt.
+
+
+MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
+TUESDAY, SEPT. 5.
+
+
+O MY DEAREST FRIEND!
+
+What will become of your poor Anna Howe!  I see by your writing, as well
+as read by your own account, (which, were you not very, very ill, you
+would have touched more tenderly,) how it is with you!  Why have I thus
+long delayed to attend you!  Could I think, that the comfortings of a
+faithful friend were as nothing to a gentle mind in distress, that I
+could be prevailed upon to forbear visiting you so much as once in all
+this time!  I, as well as every body else, to desert and abandon my dear
+creature to strangers!  What will become of you, if you be as bad as my
+apprehensions make you!
+
+I will set out this moment, little as the encouragement is that you give
+me to do so!  My mother is willing I should!  Why, O why was she not
+before willing?
+
+Yet she persuades me too, (lest I should be fatally affected were I to
+find my fears too well justified,) to wait the return of this messenger,
+who rides our swiftest horse.--God speed him with good news to me--One
+line from your hand by him!--Send me but one line to bid me attend you!
+I will set out the moment, the very moment I receive it.  I am now
+actually ready to do so!  And if you love me, as I love you, the sight
+of me will revive you to my hopes.--But why, why, when I can think this,
+did I not go up sooner!
+
+Blessed Heaven! deny not to my prayers, my friend, my admonisher, my
+adviser, at a time so critical to myself.
+
+But methinks, your style and sentiments are too well connected, too
+full of life and vigour, to give cause for so much despair as thy
+staggering pen seems to forbode.
+
+I am sorry I was not at home, [I must add thus much, though the servant
+is ready mounted at the door,] when Mr. Belford's servant came with your
+affecting letter.  I was at Miss Lloyd's.  My mamma sent it to me--and I
+came home that instant.  But he was gone: he would not stay, it seems.
+Yet I wanted to ask him an hundred thousand questions.  But why delay I
+thus my messenger?  I have a multitude of things to say to you--to advise
+with you about!--You shall direct me in every thing.  I will obey the
+holding up of your finger.  But, if you leave me--what is the world, or
+any thing in it, to your
+
+ANNA HOWE?
+
+
+The effect this letter had on the lady, who is so near the end which the
+fair writer so much apprehends and deplores, obliged Mrs. Lovick to make
+many breaks in reading it, and many changes of voice.
+
+This is a friend, said the divine lady, (taking the letter in her hand,
+and kissing it,) worth wishing to live for.--O my dear Anna Howe! how
+uninterruptedly sweet and noble has been our friendship!--But we shall
+one day meet, (and this hope must comfort us both,) never to part again!
+Then, divested of the shades of body, shall be all light and all mind!--
+Then how unalloyed, how perfect, will be our friendship!  Our love then
+will have one and the same adorable object, and we shall enjoy it and
+each other to all eternity!
+
+She said, her dear friend was so earnest for a line or two, that she fain
+would write, if she could: and she tried--but to no purpose.  She could
+dictate, however, she believed; and desired Mrs. Lovick would take pen
+and paper.  Which she did, and then she dictated to her.  I would have
+withdrawn; but at her desire staid.
+
+She wandered a good deal at first.  She took notice that she did.  And
+when she got into a little train, not pleasing herself, she apologized to
+Mrs. Lovick for making her begin again and again; and said, that the
+third time should go, let it be as it would.
+
+She dictated the farewell part without hesitation; and when she came to
+blessing and subscription, she took the pen, and dropping on her knees,
+supported by Mrs. Lovick, wrote the conclusion; but Mrs. Lovick was
+forced to guide her hand.
+
+You will find the sense surprisingly entire, her weakness considered.
+
+I made the messenger wait while I transcribed it.  I have endeavoured to
+imitate the subscriptive part; and in the letter made pauses where, to
+the best of my remembrance, she paused.  In nothing that relates to this
+admirable lady can I be too minute.
+
+
+WEDN. NEAR THREE O'CLOCK.
+
+
+MY DEAREST MISS HOWE,
+
+You must not be surprised--nor grieved--that Mrs. Lovick writes for me.
+Although I cannot obey you, and write with my pen, yet my heart writes
+by her's--accept it so--it is the nearest to obedience I can!
+
+And now, what ought I to say?  What can I say?--But why should not you
+know the truth? since soon you must--very soon.
+
+Know then, and let your tears be those, if of pity, of joyful pity! for
+I permit you to shed a few, to embalm, as I may say, a fallen blossom--
+know then, that the good doctor, and the pious clergyman, and the worthy
+apothecary, have just now--with joint benedictions--taken their last
+leave of me; and the former bids me hope--do, my dearest, let me say hope
+--hope for my enlargement before to-morrow sun-set.
+
+Adieu, therefore, my dearest friend!--Be this your consolation, as it is
+mine, that in God's good time we shall meet in a blessed eternity, never
+more to part!--Once more, then, adieu!--and be happy!--Which a generous
+nature cannot be, unless--to its power--it makes others so too.
+
+God for ever bless you!--prays, dropt on my bended knees, although
+supported upon them,
+
+Your obliged, grateful, affectionate,
+CL. HARLOWE.
+
+
+***
+
+
+When I had transcribed and sealed this letter, by her direction, I gave
+it to the messenger myself, who told me that Miss Howe waited for nothing
+but his return to set out for London.
+
+Thy servant is just come; so I will close here.  Thou art a merciless
+master.  These two fellows are battered to death by thee, to use a female
+word; and all female words, though we are not sure of their derivation,
+have very significant meanings.  I believe, in their hearts, they wish
+the angel in the Heaven that is ready to receive her, and thee at the
+proper place, that there might be an end of their flurries--another word
+of the same gender.
+
+What a letter hast thou sent me!--Poor Lovelace!--is all the answer I
+will return.
+
+
+FIVE O'CLOCK.] Col. Morden is this moment arrived.
+
+
+
+LETTER LXXI
+
+MR. BELFORD
+[IN CONTINUATION.]
+EIGHT IN THE EVENING.
+
+
+I had but just time, in my former, to tell you that Col. Morden was
+arrived.  He was on horseback, attended by two servants, and alighted
+at the door just as the clock struck five.  Mrs. Smith was then below in
+her back-shop, weeping, her husband with her, who was as much affected as
+she; Mrs. Lovick having left them a little before, in tears likewise; for
+they had been bemoaning one another; joining in opinion that the
+admirable lady would not live the night over.  She had told them, it was
+her opinion too, from some numbnesses, which she called the forerunners
+of death, and from an increased inclination to doze.
+
+The Colonel, as Mrs. Smith told me afterwards, asked with great
+impatience, the moment he alighted, how Miss Harlowe was?  She answered--
+Alive!--but, she feared, drawing on apace.--Good God! said he, with his
+hands and eyes lifted up, can I see her?  My name is Morden.  I have the
+honour to be nearly related to her.--Step up, pray, and let her know,
+(she is sensible, I hope,) that I am here--Who is with her?
+
+Nobody but her nurse, and Mrs. Lovick, a widow gentlewoman, who is as
+careful of her as if she were her mother.
+
+And more careful too, interrupted he, or she is not careful at all----
+
+Except a gentleman be with her, one Mr. Belford, continued Mrs. Smith,
+who has been the best friend she has had.
+
+If Mr. Belford be with her, surely I may--but pray step up, and let Mr.
+Belford know that I shall take it for a favour to speak with him first.
+
+Mrs. Smith came up to me in my new apartment.  I had but just dispatched
+your servant, and was asking her nurse if I might be again admitted?  Who
+answered, that she was dozing in the elbow chair, having refused to lie
+down, saying, she should soon, she hoped, lie down for good.
+
+The Colonel, who is really a fine gentleman, received me with great
+politeness.  After the first compliments--My kinswoman, Sir, said he, is
+more obliged to you than to any of her own family.  For my part, I have
+been endeavouring to move so many rocks in her favour; and, little
+thinking the dear creature so very bad, have neglected to attend her, as
+I ought to have done the moment I arrived; and would, had I known how ill
+she was, and what a task I should have had with the family.  But, Sir,
+your friend has been excessively to blame; and you being so intimately
+his friend, has made her fare the worse for your civilities to her.  But
+are there no hopes of her recovery?
+
+The doctors have left her, with the melancholy declaration that there are
+none.
+
+Has she had good attendance, Sir?  A skilful physician?  I hear these
+good folks have been very civil and obliging to her.
+
+Who could be otherwise? said Mrs. Smith, weeping.--She is the sweetest
+lady in the world!
+
+The character, said the Colonel, lifting up his eyes and one hand, that
+she has from every living creature!--Good God!  How could your accursed
+friend--
+
+And how could her cruel parents? interrupted I.--We may as easily account
+for him, as for them.
+
+Too true! returned me, the vileness of the profligates of our sex
+considered, whenever they can get any of the other into their power.
+
+I satisfied him about the care that had been taken of her, and told him
+of the friendly and even paternal attendance she had had from Dr. H. and
+Mr. Goddard.
+
+He was impatient to attend her, having not seen her, as he said, since
+she was twelve years old; and that then she gave promises of being one of
+the finest women in England.
+
+She was so, replied I, a very few months ago: and, though emaciated, she
+will appear to you to have confirmed those promises; for her features are
+so regular and exact, her proportions so fine, and her manner so
+inimitably graceful, that, were she only skin and bone, she must be a
+beauty.
+
+Mrs. Smith, at his request, stept up, and brought us down word that Mrs.
+Lovick and her nurse were with her; and that she was in so sound a sleep,
+leaning upon the former in her elbow-chair, that she had neither heard
+her enter the room, nor go out.  The Colonel begged, if not improper,
+that he might see her, though sleeping.  He said, that his impatience
+would not let him stay till he awaked.  Yet he would not have her
+disturbed; and should be glad to contemplate her sweet features, when she
+saw not him; and asked, if she thought he could not go in, and come out,
+without disturbing her?
+
+She believed he might, she answered; for her chair's back was towards the
+door.
+
+He said he would take care to withdraw, if she awoke, that his sudden
+appearance might not surprise her.
+
+Mrs. Smith, stepping up before us, bid Mrs. Lovick and nurse not stir,
+when we entered; and then we went up softly together.
+
+We beheld the lady in a charming attitude.  Dressed, as I told you
+before, in her virgin white.  She was sitting in her elbow-chair, Mrs.
+Lovick close by her, in another chair, with her left arm round her neck,
+supporting it, as it were; for, it seems, the lady had bid her do so,
+saying, she had been a mother to her, and she would delight herself in
+thinking she was in her mamma's arms; for she found herself drowsy;
+perhaps, she said, for the last time she should be so.
+
+One faded cheek rested upon the good woman's bosom, the kindly warmth of
+which had overspread it with a faint, but charming flush; the other paler
+and hollow, as if already iced over by death.  Her hands white as the
+lily, with her meandering veins more transparently blue than ever I had
+seen even her's, (veins so soon, alas! to be choked up by the congealment
+of that purple stream, which already so languidly creeps, rather than
+flows, through them!) her hands hanging lifelessly, one before her, the
+other grasped by the right-hand of the kind widow, whose tears bedewed
+the sweet face which her motherly boson supported, though unfelt by the
+fair sleeper; and either insensibly to the good woman, or what she would
+not disturb her to wipe off, or to change her posture: her aspect was
+sweetly calm and serene: and though she started now and then, yet her
+sleep seemed easy; her breath, indeed short and quick; but tolerably
+free, and not like that of a dying person.
+
+In this heart-moving attitude she appeared to us when we approached her,
+and came to have her lovely face before us.
+
+The Colonel, sighing often, gazed upon her with his arms folded, and with
+the most profound and affectionate attention; till at last, on her
+starting, and fetching her breath with greater difficulty than before, he
+retired to a screen, that was drawn before her house, as she calls it,
+which, as I have heretofore observed, stands under one of the windows.
+This screen was placed there at the time she found herself obliged to
+take to her chamber; and in the depth of our concern, and the fulness of
+other discourse at our first interview, I had forgotten to apprize the
+Colonel of what he would probably see.
+
+Retiring thither, he drew out his handkerchief, and, overwhelmed with
+grief, seemed unable to speak; but, on casting his eye behind the screen,
+he soon broke silence; for, struck with the shape of the coffin, he
+lifted up a purplish-coloured cloth that was spread over it, and,
+starting back, Good God! said he, what's here?
+
+Mrs. Smith standing next him, Why, said he, with great emotion, is my
+cousin suffered to indulge her sad reflections with such an object before
+her?
+
+Alas! Sir, replied the good woman, who should controul her?  We are all
+strangers about her, in a manner: and yet we have expostulated with her
+upon this sad occasion.
+
+I ought, said I, (stepping softly up to him, the lady again falling into
+a doze,) to have apprized you of this.  I was here when it was brought
+in, and never was so shocked in my life.  But she had none of her friends
+about her, and no reason to hope for any of them to come near her; and,
+assured she should not recover, she was resolved to leave as little as
+possible, especially as to what related to her person, to her executor.
+But it is not a shocking object to her, though it be to every body else.
+
+Curse upon the hard-heartedness of those, said he, who occasioned her to
+make so sad a provision for herself!--What must her reflections have been
+all the time she was thinking of it, and giving orders about it?  And
+what must they be every time she turns her head towards it?  These
+uncommon genius's--but indeed she should have been controuled in it, had
+I been here.
+
+The lady fetched a profound sigh, and, starting, it broke off our talk;
+and the Colonel then withdrew farther behind the screen, that his sudden
+appearance might not surprise her.
+
+Where am I?--said she.  How drowsy I am!  How long have I dozed?  Don't
+go, Sir, (for I was retiring,) I am very stupid, and shall be more and
+more so, I suppose.
+
+She then offered to raise herself; but being ready to faint through
+weakness, was forced to sit down again, reclining her head on her chair
+back; and, after a few moments, I believe now, my good friends, said she,
+all your kind trouble will soon be over.  I have slept, but am not
+refreshed, and my fingers' ends seem numbed--have no feeling! (holding
+them up,)--'tis time to send the letter to my good Norton.
+
+Shall I, Madam, send my servant post with it?
+
+O no, Sir, I thank you.  It will reach the dear woman too soon, (as she
+will think,) by the post.
+
+I told her this was not post-day.
+
+Is it Wednesday still, said she; bless me!  I know not how the time goes
+--but very tediously, 'tis plain.  And now I think I must soon take to my
+bed.  All will be most conveniently, and with least trouble, over there--
+will it not, Mrs. Lovick?--I think, Sir, turning to me, I have left
+nothing to these last incapacitating hours.  Nothing either to say, or to
+do--I bless God, I have not.  If I had, how unhappy should I be!  Can
+you, Sir, remind me of any thing necessary to be done or said to make
+your office easy?
+
+If, Madam, your cousin Morden should come, you would be glad to see him,
+I presume?
+
+I am too weak to wish to see my cousin now.  It would but discompose me,
+and him too.  Yet, if he come while I can see him, I will see him, were
+it but to thank him for former favours, and for his present kind
+intentions to me.  Has any body been here from him?
+
+He has called, and will be here, Madam, in half an hour; but he feared to
+surprise you.
+
+Nothing can surprise me now, except my mamma were to favour me with her
+last blessing in person.  That would be a welcome surprise to me, even
+yet.  But did my cousin come purposely to town to see me?
+
+Yes, Madam, I took the liberty to let him know, by a line last Monday,
+how ill you were.
+
+You are very kind, Sir.  I am, and have been greatly obliged to you.  But
+I think I shall be pained to see him now, because he will be concerned to
+see me.  And yet, as I am not so ill as I shall presently be--the sooner
+he comes the better.  But if he come, what shall I do about the screen?
+He will chide me, very probably, and I cannot bear chiding now.  Perhaps,
+[leaning upon Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith,] I can walk into the next
+apartment to receive him.
+
+She motioned to rise, but was ready to faint again, and forced to sit
+still.
+
+The Colonel was in a perfect agitation behind the screen to hear this
+discourse; and twice, unseen by his cousin, was coming from it towards
+her; but retreated for fear of surprising her too much.
+
+I stept to him, and favoured his retreat; she only saying, Are you going,
+Mr. Belford?  Are you sent for down?  Is my cousin come?  For she heard
+somebody step softly across the room, and thought it to be me; her
+hearing being more perfect than her sight.
+
+I told her, I believed he was; and she said, We must make the best of it,
+Mrs. Lovick, and Mrs. Smith.  I shall otherwise most grievously shock my
+poor cousin: for he loved me dearly once.--Pray give me a few of the
+doctor's last drops in water, to keep up my spirits for this one
+interview; and that is all, I believe, that can concern me now.
+
+The Colonel, (who heard all this,) sent in his name; and I, pretending to
+go down to him, introduced the afflicted gentleman; she having first
+ordered the screen to be put as close to the window as possible, that he
+might not see what was behind it; while he, having heard what she had
+said about it, was determined to take no notice of it.
+
+He folded the angel in his arms as she sat, dropping down on one knee;
+for, supporting herself upon the two elbows of the chair, she attempted
+to rise, but could not.  Excuse, my dear Cousin, said she, excuse me,
+that I cannot stand up--I did not expect this favour now.  But I am glad
+of this opportunity to thank you for all your generous goodness to me.
+
+I never, my best-beloved and dearest Cousin, said he, (with eyes running
+over,) shall forgive myself, that I did not attend you sooner.  Little
+did I think you were so ill; nor do any of your friends believe it.  If
+they did--
+
+If they did, repeated she, interrupting him, I should have had more
+compassion from them.  I am sure I should--But pray, Sir, how did you
+leave them?  Are you reconciled to them?  If you are not, I beg, if you
+love your poor Clarissa, that you will; for every widened difference
+augments but my fault; since that is the foundation of all.
+
+I had been expecting to hear from them in your favour, my dear Cousin,
+said he, for some hours, when this gentleman's letter arrived, which
+hastened me up; but I have the account of your grandfather's estate to
+make up with you, and have bills and drafts upon their banker for the
+sums due to you; which they desire you may receive, lest you should have
+occasion for money.  And this is such an earnest of an approaching
+reconciliation, that I dare to answer for all the rest being according to
+your wishes, if----
+
+Ah! Sir, interrupted she, with frequent breaks and pauses--I wish--I wish
+this does not rather show that, were I to live, they would have nothing
+more to say to me.  I never had any pride in being independent of them;
+all my actions, when I might have made myself more independent, show this
+--But what avail these reflections now?--I only beg, Sir, that you, and
+this gentleman--to whom I am exceedingly obliged--will adjust those
+matters--according to the will I have written.  Mr. Belford will excuse
+me; but it was in truth more necessity than choice that made me think of
+giving him the trouble he so kindly accepts.  Had I the happiness to see
+you, my Cousin, sooner--or to know that you still honoured me with your
+regard--I should not have had the assurance to ask this favour of him.--
+But, though the friend of Mr. Lovelace, he is a man of honour, and he
+will make peace rather than break it.  And, my dear Cousin, let me beg
+of you while I have nearer relations than my Cousin Morden, dear as you
+are, and always were to me, you have no title to avenge my wrongs upon
+him who has been the occasion of them.  But I wrote to you my mind on
+this subject, and my reasons--and I hope I need not further urge them.
+
+I must do Mr. Lovelace so much justice, answered he, wiping his eyes, as
+to witness how sincerely he repents him of his ungrateful baseness to
+you, and how ready he is to make you all the amends in his power.  He
+owns his wickedness, and your merit.  If he did not, I could not pass it
+over, though you have nearer relations; for, my dear Cousin, did not your
+grandfather leave me in trust for you?  And should I think myself
+concerned for your fortune, and not for your honour?  But since he is so
+desirous to do you justice, I have the less to say; and you may make
+yourself entirely easy on that account.
+
+I thank you, thank you, Sir, said she;--all is now as I wished.--But I am
+very faint, very weak.  I am sorry I cannot hold up; that I cannot better
+deserve the honour of this visit--but it will not be--and saying this, she
+sunk down in her chair, and was silent.
+
+Hereupon we both withdrew, leaving word that we would be at the Bedford
+Head, if any thing extraordinary happened.
+
+We bespoke a little repast, having neither of us dined; and, while it was
+getting ready, you may guess at the subject of our discourse.  Both
+joined in lamentation for the lady's desperate state; admired her
+manifold excellencies; severely condemned you and her friends.  Yet, to
+bring him into better opinion of you, I read to him some passages from
+your last letters, which showed your concern for the wrongs you had done
+her, and your deep remorse: and he said it was a dreadful thing to labour
+under the sense of a guilt so irredeemable.
+
+We procured Mr. Goddard, (Dr. H. not being at home,) once more to visit
+her, and to call upon us in his return.  He was so good as to do so; but
+he tarried with her not five minutes; and told us, that she was drawing
+on apace; that he feared she would not live till morning; and that she
+wished to see Colonel Morden directly.
+
+The Colonel made excuses where none were needed; and though our little
+refection was just brought in, he went away immediately.
+
+I could not touch a morsel; and took pen and ink to amuse myself, and
+oblige you; knowing how impatient you would be for a few lines: for, from
+what I have recited, you see it was impossible I could withdraw to write
+when your servant came at half an hour after five, or have an opportunity
+for it till now; and this is accidental; and yet your poor fellow was
+afraid to go away with the verbal message I sent; importing, as no doubt
+he told you, that the Colonel was with us, the lady excessively ill, and
+that I could not stir to write a line.
+
+
+TEN O'CLOCK.
+
+The Colonel sent to me afterwards, to tell me that the lady having been
+in convulsions, he was so much disordered that he could not possibly
+attend me.
+
+I have sent every half hour to know how she does--and just now I have the
+pleasure to hear that her convulsions have left her; and that she is gone
+to rest in a much quieter way than could be expected.
+
+Her poor cousin is very much indisposed; yet will not stir out of the
+house while she is in such a way; but intends to lie down on a couch,
+having refused any other accommodation.
+
+END OF VOL. 8.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young
+Lady, Volume 8, by Samuel Richardson
+
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