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

How, indeed, can it be, if this point be duly weighed, that a man who thinks alike of all the sex, and knows it to be in the power of a wife to do him the greatest dishonour man can receive, and doubts not her will to do it, if opportunity offer, and importunity be not wanting: that such a one, from principle, should be a good husband to any woman? And, indeed, little do innocents think, what a total revolution of manners, what a change of fixed habits, nay, what a conquest of a bad nature, and what a portion of Divine GRACE, is required, to make a man a good husband, a worthy father, and true friend, from principle; especially when it is considered, that it is not in a man's own power to reform when he will. This, (to say nothing of my own experience,) thou, Lovelace, hast found in the progress of thy attempts upon the divine Miss Harlowe. For whose remorses could be deeper, or more frequent, yet more transient than thine!

Now, Lovelace, let me know if the word grace can be read from my pen without a sneer from thee and thy associates? I own that once it sounded oddly in my ears. But I shall never forget what a grave man once said on this very word—that with him it was a rake's sibboleth.7 He had always hopes of one who could bear the mention of it without ridiculing it; and ever gave him up for an abandoned man, who made a jest of it, or of him who used it.

Don't be disgusted, that I mingle such grave reflections as these with my narratives. It becomes me, in my present way of thinking, to do so, when I see, in Miss Harlowe, how all human excellence, and in poor Belton, how all inhuman libertinism, and am near seeing in this abandoned woman, how all diabolical profligacy, end. And glad should I be for your own sake, for your splendid family's sake, and for the sake of all your intimates and acquaintance, that you were labouring under the same impressions, that so we who have been companions in (and promoters of one another's) wickedness, might join in a general atonement to the utmost of our power.

I came home reflecting upon all these things, more edifying to me than any sermon I could have heard preached: and I shall conclude this long letter with observing, that although I left the wretched howler in a high phrensy-fit, which was excessively shocking to the by-standers; yet her phrensy must be the happiest part of her dreadful condition: for when she is herself, as it is called, what must be her reflections upon her past profligate life, throughout which it has been her constant delight and business, devil-like, to make others as wicked as herself! What must her terrors be (a hell already begun in her mind!) on looking forward to the dreadful state she is now upon the verge of!—But I drop my trembling pen.

To have done with so shocking a subject at once, we shall take notice, that Mr. Belford, in a future letter, writes, that the miserable woman, to the surprise of the operators themselves, (through hourly increasing tortures of body and mind,) held out so long as till Thursday, Sept. 21; and then died in such agonies as terrified into a transitory penitence all the wretches about her.

LETTER XXVI

COLONEL MORDEN, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. SUNDAY NIGHT, SEPT. 10

DEAR SIR,

According to my promise, I send you an account of matters here. Poor Mrs. Norton was so very ill upon the road, that, slowly as the hearse moved, and the chariot followed, I was afraid we should not have got her to St. Albans. We put up there as I had intended. I was in hopes that she would have been better for the stop: but I was forced to leave her behind me. I ordered the maid-servant you were so considerately kind as to send down with her, to be very careful of her; and left the chariot to attend her. She deserves all the regard that can be paid her; not only upon my cousin's account, but on her own—she is an excellent woman.

When we were within five miles of Harlowe-place, I put on a hand-gallop. I ordered the hearse to proceed more slowly still, the cross-road we were in being rough; and having more time before us than I wanted; for I wished not the hearse to be in till near dusk. I got to Harlowe-place about four o'clock. You may believe I found a mournful house. You desire me to be very minute.

At my entrance into the court, they were all in motion. Every servant whom I saw had swelled eyes, and looked with so much concern, that at first I apprehended some new disaster had happened in the family. Mr. John and Mr. Antony Harlowe and Mrs. Hervey were there. They all helped on one another's grief, as they had before done each other's hardness of heart.

My cousin James met me at the entrance of the hall. His countenance expressed a fixed concern; and he desired me to excuse his behaviour the last time I was there.

My cousin Arabella came to me full of tears and grief.

O Cousin! said she, hanging upon my arm, I dare not ask you any questions!—About the approach of the hearse, I suppose she meant.

I myself was full of grief; and, without going farther or speaking, sat down in the hall in the first chair.

The brother sat on one hand of me, the sister on the other. Both were silent. The latter in tears.

Mr. Antony Harlowe came to me soon after. His face was overspread with all the appearance of woe. He requested me to walk into the parlour; where, as he said, were all his fellow-mourners.

I attended him in. My cousins James and Arabella followed me.

A perfect concert of grief, as I may say, broke out the moment I entered the parlour.

My cousin Harlowe, the dear creature's father, as soon as he saw me, said, O Cousin, Cousin, of all our family, you are the only one who have nothing to reproach yourself with!—You are a happy man!

The poor mother, bowing her head to me in speechless grief, sat with her handkerchief held to her eyes with one hand. The other hand was held by her sister Hervey, between both her's; Mrs. Hervey weeping upon it.

Near the window sat Mr. John Harlowe, his face and his body turned from the sorrowing company; his eyes red and swelled.

My cousin Antony, at his re-entering the parlour, went towards Mrs. Harlowe—Don't—dear Sister, said he!—Then towards my cousin Harlowe— Don't—dear Brother!—Don't thus give way—And, without being able to say another word, went to a corner of the parlour, and, wanting himself the comfort he would fain have given, sunk into a chair, and audibly sobbed.

Miss Arabella followed her uncle Antony, as he walked in before me, and seemed as if she would have spoken to the pierced mother some words of comfort. But she was unable to utter them, and got behind her mother's chair; and, inclining her face over it, on the unhappy lady's shoulder, seemed to claim the consolation that indulgent parent used, but then was unable, to afford her.

Young Mr. Harlowe, with all his vehemence of spirit, was now subdued. His self-reproaching conscience, no doubt, was the cause of it.

And what, Sir, must their thoughts be, which, at that moment, in a manner, deprived them of all motion, and turned their speech into sighs and groans!—How to be pitied, how greatly to be pitied! all of them! But how much to be cursed that abhorred Lovelace, who, as it seems, by arts uncommon, and a villany without example, has been the sole author of a woe so complicated and extensive!—God judge me, as—But I stop— the man (the man can I say?) is your friend!—He already suffers, you tell me, in his intellect.—Restore him, Heaven, to that—If I find the matter come out, as I apprehend it will—indeed her own hint of his usage of her, as in her will, is enough—nor think, my beloved cousin, thou darling of my heart! that thy gentle spirit, breathing charity and forgiveness to the vilest of men, shall avail him!—But once more I stop —forgive me, Sir!—Who could behold such a scene, who could recollect it in order to describe it, (as minutely as you wished me to relate how this unhappy family were affected on this sad occasion,) every one of the mourners nearly related to himself, and not to be exasperated against the author of all?

As I was the only person (grieved as I was myself) from whom any of them, at that instant, could derive comfort; Let us not, said I, my dear Cousin, approaching the inconsolable mother, give way to a grief, which, however just, can now avail us nothing. We hurt ourselves, and cannot recall the dear creature for whom we mourn. Nor would you wish it, if you know with what assurance of eternal happiness she left the world—She is happy, Madam!—depend upon it, she is happy! And comfort yourselves with that assurance!

O Cousin, Cousin! cried the unhappy mother, withdrawing her hand from that of her sister Hervey, and pressing mine with it, you know not what a child I have lost!—Then in a low voice, and how lost!—That it is that makes the loss insupportable.

They all joined in a kind of melancholy chorus, and each accused him and herself, and some of them one another. But the eyes of all, in turn, were cast upon my cousin James, as the person who had kept up the general resentment against so sweet a creature. While he was hardly able to bear his own remorse: nor Miss Harlowe her's; she breaking out into words, How tauntingly did I write to her! How barbarously did I insult her! Yet how patiently did she take it!—Who would have thought that she had been so near her end!—O Brother, Brother! but for you!—But for you!—Double not upon me, said he, my own woes! I have every thing before me that has passed! I thought only to reclaim a dear creature that had erred! I intended not to break her tender heart! But it was the villanous Lovelace who did that—not any of us!—Yet, Cousin, did she not attribute all to me?—I fear she did!—Tell me only, did she name me, did she speak of me, in her last hours? I hope she, who could forgive the greatest villain on earth, and plead that he may be safe from our vengeance, I hope she could forgive me.

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1

See Letter I. of this volume.

2

See Vol. VIII. Letter LXII.

3

See Vol. VIII. Letter LVII.

4

See the beginning of Letter II.

5

The words thus enclosed (' ') were omitted in the transcript to Mr. Lovelace.

6

Whoever has seen Dean Swift's Lady's Dressing room, will think this description of Mr. Belford's not only more natural, but more decent painting, as well as better justified by the design, and by the use that may be made of it.

7

See Judges xii. 6.