Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 9

I mention not this with a thought that it can affect Col. Morden; who, if he be not withheld by SUPERIOR MOTIVES, as well as influenced by those I have reminded him of, will tell me, that this skill, and this bravery, will make him the more worthy of being called upon by him.

To these SUPERIOR MOTIVES then I refer myself: and with the greater confidence; as a pursuit ending in blood would not, at this time, have the plea lie for it with any body, which sudden passion might have with some: but would be construed by all to be a cool and deliberate act of revenge for an evil absolutely irretrievable: an act of which a brave and noble spirit (such as is the gentleman's to whom I now write) is not capable.

Excuse me, Sir, for the sake of my executorial duty and promise, keeping in eye the dear lady's personal injunctions, as well as written will, enforced by letters posthumous. Every article of which (solicitous as we both are to see it duly performed) she would have dispensed with, rather than farther mischief should happen on her account. I am, dear Sir,

Your affectionate and faithful friend, J. BELFORD.

LETTER XLIV

[THIS IS THE POSTHUMOUS LETTER TO COL. MORDEN, REFERRED TO IN THE ABOVE.]

Superscribed,

TO MY BELOVED COUSIN WILLIAM MORDEN, ESQ. TO BE DELIVERED AFTER MY DEATH.

MY DEAREST COUSIN,

As it is uncertain, from my present weak state, whether, if living, I may be in a condition to receive as I ought the favour you intend me of a visit, when you come to London, I take this opportunity to return you, while able, the humble acknowledgments of a grateful heart, for all your goodness to me from childhood till now: and more particularly for your present kind interposition in my favour—God Almighty for ever bless you, dear Sir, for the kindness you endeavoured to procure for me!

One principal end of my writing to you, in this solemn manner, is, to beg of you, which I do with the utmost earnestness, that when you come to hear the particulars of my story, you will not suffer active resentment to take place in your generous breast on my account.

Remember, my dear Cousin, that vengeance is God's province, and he has undertaken to repay it; nor will you, I hope, invade that province:— especially as there is no necessity for you to attempt to vindicate my fame; since the offender himself (before he is called upon) has stood forth, and offered to do me all the justice that you could have extorted from him, had I lived: and when your own person may be endangered by running an equal risque with a guilty man.

Duelling, Sir, I need not tell you, who have adorned a public character, is not only an usurpation of the Divine prerogative; but it is an insult upon magistracy and good government. 'Tis an impious act. 'Tis an attempt to take away a life that ought not to depend upon a private sword; an act, the consequence of which is to hurry a soul (all its sins upon its had) into perdition; endangering that of the poor triumpher— since neither intend to give to the other that chance, as I may call it, for the Divine mercy, in an opportunity for repentance, which each presumes to hope for himself.

Seek not then, I beseech you, Sir, to aggravate my fault, by a pursuit of blood, which must necessarily be deemed a consequence of that fault. Give not the unhappy man the merit (were you assuredly to be the victor) of falling by your hand. At present he is the perfidious, the ungrateful deceiver; but will not the forfeiture of his life, and the probable loss of his soul, be a dreadful expiation for having made me miserable for a few months only, and through that misery, by the Divine favour, happy to all eternity?

In such a case, my Cousin, where shall the evil stop?—And who shall avenge on you?—And who on your avenger?

Let the poor man's conscience, then, dear Sir, avenge me. He will one day find punishment more than enough from that. Leave him to the chance of repentance. If the Almighty will give him time for it, who should you deny it him?—Let him still be the guilty aggressor; and let no one say, Clarissa Harlowe is now amply revenged in his fall; or, in the case of your's, (which Heaven avert!) that her fault, instead of being buried in her grave, is perpetuated, and aggravated, by a loss far greater than that of herself.

Often, Sir, has the more guilty been the vanquisher of the less. An Earl of Shrewsbury, in the reign of Charles II. as I have read, endeavouring to revenge the greatest injury that man can do to man, met with his death at Barn-Elms, from the hand of the ignoble Duke who had vilely dishonoured him. Nor can it be thought an unequal dispensation, were it generally to happen that the usurper of the Divine prerogative should be punished for his presumption by the man whom he sought to destroy, and who, however previously criminal, is put, in this case, upon a necessary act of self-defence.

May Heaven protect you, Sir, in all your ways; and, once more, I pray, reward you for all your kindness to me! A kindness so worthy of your heart, and so exceedingly grateful to mine: that of seeking to make peace, and to reconcile parents to a once-beloved child; uncles to a niece late their favourite; and a brother and sister to a sister whom once they thought not unworthy of that tender relation. A kindness so greatly preferable to the vengeance of a murdering sword.

Be a comforter, dear Sir, to my honoured parents, as you have been to me; and may we, through the Divine goodness to us both, meet in that blessed eternity, into which, as I humbly trust, I shall have entered when you will read this.

So prays, and to her latest hour will pray, my dear Cousin Morden, my friend, my guardian, but not my avenger—[dear Sir! remember that!—]

Your ever-affectionate and obliged CLARISSA HARLOWE.

LETTER XLV

COLONEL MORDEN, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. SATURDAY, SEPT. 23

DEAR SIR,

I am very sorry that any thing you have heard I have said should give you uneasiness.

I am obliged to you for the letters you have communicated to me; and still further for your promise to favour me with others occasionally.

All that relates to my dear cousin I shall be glad to see, be it from whom it will.

I leave to your own discretion, what may or may not be proper for Miss Howe to see from a pen so free as mine.

I admire her spirit. Were she a man, do you think, Sir, she, at this time, would have your advice to take upon such a subject as that upon which you write?

Fear not, however, that your communications shall put me upon any measures that otherwise I should not have taken. The wickedness, Sir, is of such a nature, as admits not of aggravation.

Yet I do assure you, that I have not made any resolutions that will be a tie upon me.

I have indeed expressed myself with vehemence upon the occasion. Who could forbear to do so? But it is not my way to resolve in matters of moment, till opportunity brings the execution of my purposes within my reach. We shall see by what manner of spirit this young man will be actuated on his recovery. If he continue to brave and defy a family, which he has so irreparably injured—if—but resolutions depending upon future contingencies are best left to future determination, as I just now hinted.

Mean time, I will own that I think my cousin's arguments unanswerable. No good man but must be influenced by them.—But, alas! Sir, who is good?

As to your arguments; I hope you will believe me, when I assure you, as I now do, that your opinion and your reasonings have, and will always have, great and deserved weight with me; and that I respect you still more than I did, if possible, for your expostulations in support of my cousin's pious injunctions to me. They come from you, Sir, with the greatest propriety, as her executor and representative; and likewise as you are a man of humanity, and a well-wisher to both parties.

I am not exempt from violent passions, Sir, any more than your friend; but then I hope they are only capable of being raised by other people's insolence, and not by my own arrogance. If ever I am stimulated by my imperfections and my resentments to act against my judgment and my cousin's injunctions, some such reflections as these that follow will run away with my reason. Indeed they are always present with me.

In the first place; my own disappointment: who came over with the hope of passing the remainder of my days in the conversation of a kinswoman so beloved; and to whom I have a double relation as her cousin and trustee.

Then I reflect, too, too often perhaps for my engagements to her in her last hours, that the dear creature could only forgive for herself. She, no doubt, is happy: but who shall forgive for a whole family, in all its branches made miserable for their lives?

That the more faulty her friends were as to her, the more enormous his ingratitude, and the more inexcusable—What! Sir, was it not enough that she suffered what she did for him, but the barbarian must make her suffer for her sufferings for his sake?—Passion makes me express this weakly; passion refuses the aid of expression sometimes, where the propriety of a resentment prima facie declares expression to be needless.  I leave it to you, Sir, to give this reflection its due force.

That the author of this diffusive mischief perpetuated it premeditatedly, wantonly, in the gaiety of his heart.  To try my cousin, say you, Sir!  To try the virtue of a Clarissa, Sir!—Has she then given him any cause to doubt her virtue?—It could not be.—If he avers that she did, I am indeed called upon—but I will have patience. That he carried her, as now appears, to a vile brothel, purposely to put her out of all human resource; himself out of the reach of all human remorse: and that, finding her proof against all the common arts of delusion, base and unmanly arts were there used to effect his wicked purposes.  Once dead, the injured saint, in her will, says, he has seen her.

That I could not know this, when I saw him at M. Hall: that, the object of his attempts considered, I could not suppose there was such a monster breathing as he: that it was natural for me to impute her refusal of him rather to transitory resentment, to consciousness of human frailty, and mingled doubts of the sincerity of his offers, than to villanies, which had given the irreversible blow, and had at that instant brought her down to the gates of death, which in a very few days enclosed her.

That he is a man of defiance: a man who thinks to awe every one by his insolent darings, and by his pretensions to superior courage and skill.

That, disgrace as he is to his name, and to the character of a gentleman, the man would not want merit, who, in vindication of the dishonoured distincion, should expunge and blot him out of the worthy list.

That the injured family has a son, who, however unworthy of such a sister, is of a temper vehement, unbridled, fierce; unequal, therefore, (as he has once indeed been found,) to a contention with this man: the loss of which son, by a violent death on such an occasion, and by a hand so justly hated, would complete the misery of the whole family; and who, nevertheless, resolves to call him to account, if I do not; his very misbehaviour, perhaps, to such a sister, stimulating his perverse heart to do her memory the more signal justice; though the attempt might be fatal to himself.

Then, Sir, to be a witness, as I am every hour, to the calamity and distress of a family to which I am related; every one of whom, however averse to an alliance with him while it had not place, would no doubt have been soon reconciled to the admirable creature, had the man (to whom, for his family and fortunes, it was not a disgrace to be allied) done her but common justice! To see them hang their pensive heads; mope about, shunning one another; though formerly never used to meet but to rejoice in each other; afflicting themselves with reflections, that the last time they respectively saw the dear creature, it was here or there, at such a place, in such an attitude; and could they have thought that it would have been the last?—Every one of them reviving instances of her excellencies that will for a long time make their very blessings a curse to them!

Her closet, her chamber, her cabinet, given up to me to disfurnish, in order to answer (now too late obliging!) the legacies bequeathed; unable themselves to enter them; and even making use of less convenient back stairs, that they may avoid passing by the doors of her apartment!

Her parlour locked up; the walks, the retirements, the summer-house in which she delighted, and in which she used to pursue her charming works; that in particular, from which she went to the fatal interview, shunned, or hurried by, or over!

Her perfections, nevertheless, called up to remembrance, and enumerated; incidents and graces, unheeded before, or passed over in the group of her numberless perfections, now brought back into notice, and dwelt upon!

The very servants allowed to expatiate upon these praiseful topics to their principals!  Even eloquent in their praises!  The distressed principals listening and weeping!  Then to see them break in upon the zealous applauders, by their impatience and remorse, and throw abroad their helpless hands, and exclaim; then again to see them listen to hear more of her praises, and weep again—they even encouraging the servants to repeat how they used to be stopt by strangers to ask after her, and by those who knew her, to be told of some new instances to her honour—how aggravating all this! In dreams they see her, and desire to see her; always an angle, and accompanied by angels; always clad in robes of light; always endeavouring to comfort them, who declare, that they shall never more know comfort!

What an example she set!  How she indited!  How she drew!  How she wrought!  How she talked!  How she sung!  How she played!  Her voice music!  Her accent harmony!

Her conversation how instructive! how sought after!  The delight of persons of all ages, of both sexes, of all ranks!  Yet how humble, how condescending!  Never were dignity and humility so illustriously mingled!

At other times, how generous, how noble, how charitable, how judicious in her charities!  In every action laudable!  In every attitude attractive!  In every appearance, whether full-dressed, or in the housewife's more humble garb, equally elegant, and equally lovely! Like, or resembling, Miss Clarissa Harlowe, they now remember to be a praise denoting the highest degree of excellence, with every one, whatever person, action, or rank, spoken of.—The desirable daughter; the obliging kinswoman; the affectionate sister, (all envy now subsided!) the faithful, the warm friend; the affable, the kind, the benevolent mistress!—Not one fault remembered!  All their severities called cruelties: mutually accusing each other; each him and herself; and all to raise her character, and torment themselves.

Such, Sir, was the angel, of whom the vilest of men has deprived the world! You, Sir, who know more of the barbarous machinations and practices of this strange man, can help me to still more inflaming reasons, were they needed, why a man, not perfect, may stand excused to the generality of the world, if he should pursue his vengeance; and the rather, as through an absence of six years, (high as just report, and the promises of her early youth from childhood, had raised her in his esteem,) he could not till now know one half of her excellencies—till now! that we have lost, for ever lost, the admirable creature!—

But I will force myself from the subject, after I have repeated that I have not yet made any resolutions that can bind me. Whenever I do, I shall be glad they may be such as may merit the honour of your approbation.

I send you back the copies of the posthumous letters. I see the humanity of your purpose, in the transmission of them to me; and I thank you most heartily for it. I presume, that it is owing to the same laudable consideration, that you kept back the copy of that to the wicked man himself.

I intend to wait upon Miss Howe in person with the diamond ring, and such other of the effects bequeathed to her as are here. I am, Sir,

Your most faithful and obliged servant, WM. MORDEN.

[Mr. Belford, in his answer to this letter, farther enforces the lady's dying injunctions; and rejoices that the Colonel has made no vindictive resolutions; and hopes every thing from his prudence and consideration, and from his promise given to the dying lady. He refers to the seeing him in town on account of the dreadful ends of two of the greatest criminals in his cousin's affair.  'This, says he, together with Mr. Lovelace's disorder of mind, looks as if Providence had already taken the punishment of these unhappy wretches into its own hands.'

He desires the Colonel will give him a day's notice of his coming to town, lest otherwise he may be absent at the time—this he does, though he tells him not the reason, with a view to prevent a meeting between him and Mr. Lovelace; who might be in town (as he apprehends,) about the same time, in his way to go abroad.]

LETTER XLVI

COLONEL MORDEN, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. TUESDAY, SEPT. 26

DEAR SIR,

I cannot help congratulating myself as well as you that we have already got through with the family every article of the will where they have any concern.

You left me a discretional power in many instances; and, in pursuance of it, I have had my dear cousin's personal jewels, and will account to you for them, at the highest price, when I come to town, as well as for other matters that you were pleased to intrust to my management.

These jewels I have presented to my cousin Dolly Hervey, in acknowledgement of her love to the dear departed. I have told Miss Howe of this; and she is as well pleased with what I have done as if she had been the purchaser of them herself. As that young lady has jewels of her own, she could only have wished to purchase these because they were her beloved friend's.—The grandmother's jewels are also valued; and the money will be paid me for you, to be carried to the uses of the will.

Mrs. Norton is preparing, by general consent, to enter upon her office as housekeeper at The Grove. But it is my opinion that she will not be long on this side Heaven.

I waited upon Miss Howe myself, as I told you I would, with what was bequeathed to her and her mother. You will not be displeased, perhaps, if I make a few observations with regard to that young lady, so dear to my beloved cousin, as you have not a personal acquaintance with her.

There never was a firmer or nobler friendship in women, than between my dear cousin and Miss Howe, to which this wretched man had given a period.

Friendship, generally speaking, Mr. Belford, is too fervent a flame for female minds to manage: a light that but in few of their hands burns steady, and often hurries the sex into flight and absurdity. Like other extremes, it is hardly ever durable. Marriage, which is the highest state of friendship, generally absorbs the most vehement friendships of female to female; and that whether the wedlock be happy, or not.

What female mind is capable of two fervent female friendships at the same time?—This I mention as a general observation; but the friendship that subsisted between these two ladies affords a remarkable exception to it: which I account for from those qualities and attainments in both, which, were they more common, would furnish more exceptions still in favour of the sex.

Both had an enlarged, and even a liberal education: both had minds thirsting after virtuous knowledge; great readers both; great writers— [and early familiar writing I take to be one of the greatest openers and improvers of the mind that man or woman can be employed in.] Both generous. High in fortune, therefore above that dependence each on the other that frequently destroys that familiarity which is the cement of friendship. Both excelling in different ways, in which neither sought to envy the other. Both blessed with clear and distinguishing faculties; with solid sense; and, from their first intimacy, [I have many of my lights, Sir, from Mrs. Norton,] each seeing something in the other to fear, as well as to love; yet making it an indispensable condition of their friendship, each to tell the other of her failings; and to be thankful for the freedom taken. One by nature gentle; the other made so by her love and admiration of her exalted friend—impossible that there could be a friendship better calculated for duration.

I must, however, take the liberty to blame Miss Howe for her behaviour to Mr. Hickman. And I infer from it, that even women of sense are not to be trusted with power.

By the way, I am sure I need not desire you not to communicate to this fervent young lady the liberties I have taken with her character.

I dare say my cousin could not approve of Miss Howe's behaviour to this gentleman; a behaviour which is talked of by as many as know Mr. Hickman and her. Can a wise young lady be easy under such censure? She must know it.

Mr. Hickman is really a very worthy man. Every body speaks well of him. But he is gentle-dispositioned, and he adores Miss Howe; and love admits not of an air of even due dignity to the object of it. Yet will Mr. Hickman hardly ever get back the reins he has yielded up; unless she, by carrying too far the power of which she seems at present too sensible, should, when she has no favours to confer which he has not a right to demand, provoke him to throw off the too-heavy yoke. And should he do so, and then treat her with negligence, Miss Howe, of all the women I know, will be the least able to support herself under it. She will then be more unhappy than she ever made him; for a man who is uneasy at home, can divert himself abroad; which a woman cannot so easily do, without scandal.—Permit me to take farther notice, as to Miss Howe, that it is very obvious to me, that she has, by her haughty behaviour to this worthy man, involved herself in one difficulty, from which she knows not how to extricate herself with that grace which accompanies all her actions. She intends to have Mr. Hickman. I believe she does not dislike him. And it will cost her no small pains to descend from the elevation she has climbed to.

Another inconvenience she will suffer from her having taught every body (for she is above disguise) to think, by her treatment of Mr. Hickman, much more meanly of him than he deserves to be thought of. And must she not suffer dishonour in his dishonour?

Mrs. Howe is much disturbed at her daughter's behaviour to the gentleman. He is very deservedly a favourite of her's. But [another failing in Miss Howe] her mother has not all the authority with her that a mother ought to have. Miss Howe is indeed a woman of fine sense; but it requires a high degree of good understanding, as well as a sweet and gentle disposition of mind, and great discretion, in a child, when grown up, to let it be seen, that she mingles reverence with her love, to a parent, who has talents visibly inferior to her own.

Miss Howe is open, generous, noble. The mother has not any of her fine qualities. Parents, in order to preserve their children's veneration for them, should take great care not to let them see any thing in their conduct, or behaviour, or principles, which they themselves would not approve of in others.

Mr. Hickman has, however, this consideration to comfort himself with, that the same vivacity by which he suffers, makes Miss Howe's own mother, at times, equally sensible. And as he sees enough of this beforehand, he will have more reason to blame himself than the lady, should she prove as lively a wife as she was a mistress, for having continued his addresses, and married her, against such threatening appearances.

There is also another circumstance which good-natured men, who engage with even lively women, may look forward to with pleasure; a circumstance which generally lowers the spirits of the ladies, and domesticates them, as I may call it; and which, as it will bring those of Mr. Hickman and Miss Howe nearer to a par, that worthy gentleman will have double reason, when it happens, to congratulate himself upon it.