Heavy, d--n--y heavy and sick at soul, by Jupiter! I must come into
their expedient. I must see what change of climate will do.
You tell these fellows, and you tell me, of repenting and reforming; but
I can do neither. He who can, must not have the extinction of a Clarissa
Harlowe to answer for.--Harlowe!--Curse upon the name!--and curse upon
myself for not changing it, as I might have done!--Yet I have no need of
urging a curse upon myself--I have it effectually.
'To say I once respected you with a preference!'*--In what stiff language
does maidenly modesty on these nice occasion express itself!--To say I
once loved you, is the English; and there is truth and ease in the
expression.--'To say I once loved you,' then let it be, 'is what I ought
to blush to own.'
* See Letter XXXVI. of this volume.
And dost thou own it, excellent creature?--and dost thou then own it?--
What music in these words from such an angel!--What would I give that my
Clarissa were in being, and could and would own that she loved me?
'But, indeed, Sir, I have been long greatly above you.' Long, my blessed
charmer!--Long, indeed, for you have been ever greatly above me, and
above your sex, and above all the world.
'That preference was not grounded on ignoble motives.'
What a wretch was I, to be so distinguished by her, and yet to be so
unworthy of her hope to reclaim me!
Then, how generous her motives! Not for her own sake merely, not
altogether for mine, did she hope to reclaim me; but equally for the sake
of innocents who might otherwise be ruined by me.
And now, why did she write this letter, and why direct it to be given me
when an event the most deplorable had taken place, but for my good, and
with a view to the safety of innocents she knew not?--And when was this
letter written? Was it not at the time, at the very time, that I had
been pursuing her, as I may say, from place to place; when her soul was
bowed down by calamity and persecution; and herself was denied all
forgiveness from relations the most implacable?
Exalted creature!--And couldst thou, at such a time, and so early, and in
such circumstances, have so far subdued thy own just resentments, as to
wish happiness to the principal author of all thy distresses?--Wish
happiness to him who had robbed thee 'of all thy favourite expectations
in this life?' To him who had been the cause that thou wert cut off in
the bloom of youth?'
Heavenly aspirer!--What a frame must thou be in, to be able to use the
word ONLY, in mentioning these important deprivations!--And as this was
before thou puttest off immortalily, may I not presume that thou now,
---- with pitying eye,
Not derogating from thy perfect bliss,
Survey'st all Heav'n around, and wishest for me?
'Consider my ways.'--Dear life of my life! Of what avail is
consideration now, when I have lost the dear creature, for whose sake
alone it was worth while to have consideration?--Lost her beyond
retrieving--swallowed up by the greedy grave--for ever lost her--that,
that's the thing--matchless woman, how does this reflection wound me!
'Your golden dream cannot long last.'--Divine prophetess! my golden dream
is already over. 'Thought and reflection are no longer to be kept off.'
--No longer continues that 'hardened insensibility' thou chargest upon
me. 'Remorse has broken in upon me. Dreadful is my condition;--it is
all reproach and horror with me!'--A thousand vultures in turn are
preying upon my heart!
But no more of these fruitless reflections--since I am incapable of
writing any thing else; since my pen will slide into this gloomy subject,
whether I will or not; I will once more quit it; nor will I again resume
it, till I can be more its master, and my own.
All I took pen to write for is however unwritten. It was, in few words,
to wish you to proceed with your communications, as usual. And why
should you not;--since, in her ever-to-be-lamented death, I know every
thing shocking and grievous--acquaint me, then, with all thou knowest,
which I do not know; how her relations, her cruel relations, take it; and
whether now the barbed dart of after-reflection sticks not in their
hearts, as in mine, up to the very feathers.
***
I will soon quit this kingdom. For now my Clarissa is no more, what is
there in it (in the world indeed) worth living for?--But shall I not
first, by some masterly mischief, avenge her and myself upon her cursed
family?
The accursed woman, they tell me, has broken her leg. Why was it not her
neck?--All, all, but what is owing to her relations, is the fault of that
woman, and of her hell-born nymphs. The greater the virtue, the nobler
the triumph, was a sentence for ever in their mouths.--I have had it
several times in my head to set fire to the execrable house; and to watch
at the doors and windows, that not a devil in it escape the consuming
flames. Had the house stood by itself, I had certainly done it.
But, it seems, the old wretch is in the way to be rewarded, without my
help. A shocking letter is received of somebody's in relation to her--
your's, I suppose--too shocking for me, they say, to see at present.*
* See Letter XXV. of this volume.
They govern me as a child in strings; yet did I suffer so much in my
fever, that I am willing to bear with them, till I can get tolerably
well.
At present I can neither eat, drink, nor sleep. Yet are my disorders
nothing to what they were; for, Jack, my brain was on fire day and night;
and had it not been of the asbestos kind, it had all been consumed.
I had no distinct ideas, but of dark and confused misery; it was all
remorse and horror indeed!--Thoughts of hanging, drowning, shooting--then
rage, violence, mischief, and despair, took their turns with me. My
lucid intervals still worse, giving me to reflect upon what I was the
hour before, and what I was likely to be the next, and perhaps for life--
the sport of enemies!--the laughter of fools!--and the hanging-sleeved,
go-carted property of hired slaves; who were, perhaps, to find their
account in manacling, and (abhorred thought!) in personally abusing me by
blows and stripes!
Who can bear such reflections as these? TO be made to fear only, to such
a one as me, and to fear such wretches too?--What a thing was this, but
remotely to apprehend! And yet for a man to be in such a state as to
render it necessary for his dearest friends to suffer this to be done for
his own sake, and in order to prevent further mischief!--There is no
thinking of these things!
I will not think of them, therefore; but will either get a train of
cheerful ideas, or hang myself by to-morrow morning.
---- To be a dog, and dead,
Were paradise, to such a life as mine.