I little thought I ever could have owed so much obligation to any man as
you have laid me under. And yet what you have sent me has almost broken
my heart, and ruined my eyes.
I am surprised, though agreeably, that you have so soon, and so well, got
over that part of the trust you have engaged in, which relates to the
family.
It may be presumed, from the exits you mention of two of the infernal
man's accomplices, that the thunderbolt will not stop short of the
principal. Indeed I have some pleasure to think it seems rolling along
towards the devoted head that has plotted all the mischief. But let me,
however, say, that although I think Mr. Morden not altogether in the
wrong in his reasons for resentment, as he is the dear creature's kinsman
and trustee, yet I think you very much in the right in endeavouring to
dissuade him from it, as you are her executor, and act in pursuance of
her earnest request.
But what a letter is that of the infernal man's! I cannot observe upon
it. Neither can I, for very different reasons, upon my dear creature's
posthumous letters; particularly on that to him. O Mr. Belford! what
numberless perfections died, when my Clarissa drew her last breath!
If decency be observed in his letters, for I have not yet had patience
to read above two or three of them, (besides this horrid one, which I
return to you enclosed,) I may some time hence be curious to look, by
their means, into the hearts of wretches, which, though they must be the
abhorrence of virtuous minds, will, when they are laid open, (as I
presume they are in them,) afford a proper warning to those who read
them, and teach them to detest men of such profligate characters.
If your reformation be sincere, you will not be offended that I do not
except you on this occasion.--And thus have I helped you to a criterion
to try yourself by.
By this letter of the wicked man it is apparent that there are still
wickeder women. But see what a guilty commerce with the devils of your
sex will bring those to whose morals ye have ruined!--For these women
were once innocent: it was man that made them otherwise. The first bad
man, perhaps, threw them upon worse men; those upon still worse; till
they commenced devils incarnate--the height of wickedness or of shame
is not arrived at all at once, as I have somewhere heard observed.
But this man, this monster rather, for him to curse these women, and to
curse the dear creature's family (implacable as the latter were,) in
order to lighten a burden he voluntarily took up, and groans under, is
meanness added to wickedness: and in vain will he one day find his low
plea of sharing with her friends, and with those common wretches, a guilt
which will be adjudged him as all his own; though they too may meet their
punishment; as it is evidently begun; in the first, in their ineffectual
reproaches of one another; in the second--as you have told me.
This letter of the abandoned wretch I have not shown to any body; not
even to Mr. Hickman: for, Sir, I must tell you, I do not as yet think it
the same thing as only seeing it myself.
Mr. Hickman, like the rest of his sex, would grow upon indulgence. One
distinction from me would make him pay two to himself. Insolent
creepers, or encroachers all of you! To show any of you a favour to-day,
you would expect it as a right to-morrow.
I am, as you see, very open and sincere with you; and design in another
letter to be still more so, in answer to your call, and Colonel Morden's
call, upon me, in a point that concerns me to explain myself upon to my
beloved creature's executor, and to the Colonel, as her only tender and
only worthy relation.
I cannot but highly applaud Colonel Morden for his generosity to Miss
Dolly Hervey.
O that he had arrived time enough to save my inimitable friend from the
machinations of the vilest of men, and from the envy and malice of the
most selfish and implacable of brothers and sisters!