What would I say!—I forget what I was going to say.
O Lovelace, you are Satan himself; or he helps you out in every thing;
and that’s as bad!
But have you really and truly sold yourself to him? And for how long?
What duration is your reign to have?
Poor man! The contract will be out: and then what will be your fate!
O Lovelace! if you could be sorry for yourself, I would be sorry
too—but when all my doors are fast, and nothing but the key-hole open,
and the key of late put into that, to be where you are, in a manner
without opening any of them—O wretched, wretched Clarissa Harlowe!
For I never will be Lovelace—let my uncle take it as he pleases.
Well, but now I remember what I was going to say—it is for your
good—not mine—for nothing can do me good now!—O thou villanous man!
thou hated Lovelace!
But Mrs. Sinclair may be a good woman—if you love me—but that you
don’t—but don’t let her bluster up with her worse than mannish airs to
me again! O she is a frightful woman! If she be a woman! She needed not
to put on that fearful mask to scare me out of my poor wits. But don’t
tell her what I say—I have no hatred to her—it is only fright, and
foolish fear, that’s all.—She may not be a bad woman—but neither are
all men, any more than all women alike—God forbid they should be like
you!
Alas! you have killed my head among you—I don’t say who did it!—God
forgive you all!—But had it not been better to have put me out of all
your ways at once? You might safely have done it! For nobody would
require me at your hands—no, not a soul—except, indeed, Miss Howe would
have said, when she should see you, What, Lovelace, have you done with
Clarissa Harlowe?—And then you could have given any slight, gay
answer—sent her beyond sea; or, she has run away from me, as she did
from her parents. And this would have been easily credited; for you
know, Lovelace, she that could run away from them, might very well run
away from you.
But this is nothing to what I wanted to say. Now I have it.
I have lost it again—This foolish wench comes teasing me—for what
purpose should I eat? For what end should I wish to live?—I tell thee,
Dorcas, I will neither eat nor drink. I cannot be worse than I am.
I will do as you’d have me—good Dorcas, look not upon me so
fiercely—but thou canst not look so bad as I have seen somebody look.
Mr. Lovelace, now that I remember what I took pen in hand to say, let
me hurry off my thoughts, lest I lose them again—here I am sensible—and
yet I am hardly sensible neither—but I know my head is not as it should
be, for all that—therefore let me propose one thing to you: it is for
your good—not mine; and this is it:
I must needs be both a trouble and an expense to you. And here my uncle
Harlowe, when he knows how I am, will never wish any man to have me:
no, not even you, who have been the occasion of it—barbarous and
ungrateful!—A less complicated villany cost a Tarquin—but I forget what
I would say again—
Then this is it—I never shall be myself again: I have been a very
wicked creature—a vain, proud, poor creature, full of secret
pride—which I carried off under an humble guise, and deceived every
body—my sister says so—and now I am punished—so let me be carried out
of this house, and out of your sight; and let me be put into that
Bedlam privately, which once I saw: but it was a sad sight to me then!
Little as I thought what I should come to myself!—That is all I would
say: this is all I have to wish for—then I shall be out of all your
ways; and I shall be taken care of; and bread and water without your
tormentings, will be dainties: and my straw-bed the easiest I have lain
in—for—I cannot tell how long!
My clothes will sell for what will keep me there, perhaps as long as I
shall live. But, Lovelace, dear Lovelace, I will call you; for you have
cost me enough, I’m sure!—don’t let me be made a show of, for my
family’s sake; nay, for your own sake, don’t do that—for when I know
all I have suffered, which yet I do not, and no matter if I never do—I
may be apt to rave against you by name, and tell of all your baseness
to a poor humbled creature, that once was as proud as any body—but of
what I can’t tell—except of my own folly and vanity—but let that
pass—since I am punished enough for it—
So, suppose, instead of Bedlam, it were a private mad-house, where
nobody comes!—That will be better a great deal.
But, another thing, Lovelace: don’t let them use me cruelly when I am
there—you have used me cruelly enough, you know!—Don’t let them use me
cruelly; for I will be very tractable; and do as any body would have me
to do—except what you would have me do—for that I never will.—Another
thing, Lovelace: don’t let this good woman, I was going to say vile
woman; but don’t tell her that—because she won’t let you send me to
this happy refuge, perhaps, if she were to know it—
Another thing, Lovelace: and let me have pen, and ink, and paper,
allowed me—it will be all my amusement—but they need not send to any
body I shall write to, what I write, because it will but trouble them:
and somebody may do you a mischief, may be—I wish not that any body do
any body a mischief upon my account.
You tell me, that Lady Betty Lawrance, and your cousin Montague, were
here to take leave of me; but that I was asleep, and could not be
waked. So you told me at first I was married, you know, and that you
were my husband—Ah! Lovelace! look to what you say.—But let not them,
(for they will sport with my misery,) let not that Lady Betty, let not
that Miss Montague, whatever the real ones may do; nor Mrs. Sinclair
neither, nor any of her lodgers, nor her nieces, come to see me in my
place—real ones, I say; for, Lovelace, I shall find out all your
villanies in time—indeed I shall—so put me there as soon as you can—it
is for your good—then all will pass for ravings that I can say, as, I
doubt no many poor creatures’ exclamations do pass, though there may be
too much truth in them for all that—and you know I began to be mad at
Hampstead—so you said.—Ah! villanous man! what have you not to answer
for!
A little interval seems to be lent me. I had begun to look over what I
have written. It is not fit for any one to see, so far as I have been
able to re-peruse it: but my head will not hold, I doubt, to go through
it all. If therefore I have not already mentioned my earnest desire,
let me tell you it is this: that I be sent out of this abominable house
without delay, and locked up in some private mad-house about this town;
for such, it seems, there are; never more to be seen, or to be produced
to any body, except in your own vindication, if you should be charged
with the murder of my person; a much lighter crime than that of honour,
which the greatest villain on earth has robbed me of. And deny me not
this my last request, I beseech you; and one other, and that is, never
to let me see you more! This surely may be granted to
The miserably abused CLARISSA HARLOWE.
I will not bear thy heavy preachments, Belford, upon this affecting
letter. So, not a word of that sort! The paper, thou’lt see, is
blistered with the tears even of the hardened transcriber; which has
made her ink run here and there.
Mrs. Sinclair is a true heroine, and, I think, shames us all. And she
is a woman too! Thou’lt say, the beset things corrupted become the
worst. But this is certain, that whatever the sex set their hearts
upon, they make thorough work of it. And hence it is, that a mischief
which would end in simple robbery among men rogues, becomes murder, if
a woman be in it.
I know thou wilt blame me for having had recourse to art. But do not
physicians prescribe opiates in acute cases, where the violence of the
disorder would be apt to throw the patient into a fever or delirium? I
aver, that my motive for this expedient was mercy; nor could it be any
thing else. For a rape, thou knowest, to us rakes, is far from being an
undesirable thing. Nothing but the law stands in our way, upon that
account; and the opinion of what a modest woman will suffer rather than
become a _viva voce_ accuser, lessens much an honest fellow’s
apprehensions on that score. Then, if these somnivolencies [I hate the
word opiates on this occasion,] have turned her head, that is an effect
they frequently have upon some constitutions; and in this case was
rather the fault of the dose than the design of the giver.
But is not wine itself an opiate in degree?—How many women have been
taken advantage of by wine, and other still more intoxicating
viands?—Let me tell thee, Jack, that the experience of many of the
passive sex, and the consciences of many more of the active, appealed
to, will testify that thy Lovelace is not the worst of villains. Nor
would I have thee put me upon clearing myself by comparisons.
If she escape a settled delirium when my plots unravel, I think it is
all I ought to be concerned about. What therefore I desire of thee, is,
that, if two constructions may be made of my actions, thou wilt afford
me the most favourable. For this, not only friendship, but my own
ingenuousness, which has furnished thee with the knowledge of the facts
against which thou art so ready to inveigh, require of thee.
Will. is just returned from an errand to Hampstead; and acquaints me,
that Mrs. Townsend was yesterday at Mrs. Moore’s, accompanied by three
or four rough fellows; a greater number (as supposed) at a distance.
She was strangely surprised at the news that my spouse and I are
entirely reconciled; and that two fine ladies, my relations, came to
visit her, and went to town with her: where she is very happy with me.
She was sure we were not married, she said, unless it was while we were
at Hampstead: and they were sure the ceremony was not performed there.
But that the lady is happy and easy, is unquestionable: and a fling was
thrown out by Mrs. Moore and Mrs. Bevis at mischief-makers, as they
knew Mrs. Townsend to be acquainted with Miss Howe.
Now, since my fair-one can neither receive, nor send away letters, I am
pretty easy as to this Mrs. Townsend and her employer. And I fancy Miss
Howe will be puzzled to know what to think of the matter, and afraid of
sending by Wilson’s conveyance; and perhaps suppose that her friend
slights her; or has changed her mind in my favour, and is ashamed to
own it; as she has not had an answer to what she wrote; and will
believe that the rustic delivered her last letter into her own hand.
Mean time I have a little project come into my head, of a new kind;
just for amusement-sake, that’s all: variety has irresistible charms. I
cannot live without intrigue. My charmer has no passions; that is to
say, none of the passions that I want her to have. She engages all my
reverence. I am at present more inclined to regret what I have done,
than to proceed to new offences: and shall regret it till I see how she
takes it when recovered.
Shall I tell thee my project? ’Tis not a high one.—’Tis this—to get
hither to Mrs. Moore, Miss Rawlins, and my widow Bevis; for they are
desirous to make a visit to my spouse, now we are so happy together.
And, if I can order it right, Belton, Mowbray, Tourville, and I, will
show them a little more of the ways of this wicked town, than they at
present know. Why should they be acquainted with a man of my character,
and not be the better and wiser for it?—I would have every body rail
against rakes with judgment and knowledge, if they will rail. Two of
these women gave me a great deal of trouble: and the third, I am
confident, will forgive a merry evening.
Thou wilt be curious to know what the persons of these women are, to
whom I intend so much distinction. I think I have not heretofore
mentioned any thing characteristic of their persons.
Mrs. Moore is a widow of about thirty-eight; a little mortified by
misfortunes; but those are often the merriest folks, when warmed. She
has good features still; and is what they call much of a gentlewoman,
and very neat in her person and dress. She has given over, I believe,
all thoughts of our sex: but when the dying embers are raked up about
the half-consumed stump, there will be fuel enough left, I dare say, to
blaze out, and give a comfortable warmth to a half-starved by-stander.
Mrs. Bevis is comely; that is to say, plump; a lover of mirth, and one
whom no grief ever dwelt with, I dare say, for a week together; about
twenty-five years of age: Mowbray will have very little difficulty with
her, I believe; for one cannot do every thing one’s self. And yet
sometimes women of this free cast, when it comes to the point, answer
not the promises their cheerful forwardness gives a man who has a view
upon them.
Miss Rawlins is an agreeable young lady enough; but not beautiful. She
has sense, and would be thought to know the world, as it is called;
but, for her knowledge, is more indebted to theory than experience. A
mere whipt-syllabub knowledge this, Jack, that always fails the person
who trusts to it, when it should hold to do her service. For such young
ladies have so much dependence upon their own understanding and
wariness, are so much above the cautions that the less opinionative may
be benefited by, that their presumption is generally their overthrow,
when attempted by a man of experience, who knows how to flatter their
vanity, and to magnify their wisdom, in order to take advantage of
their folly. But, for Miss Rawlins, if I can add experience to her
theory, what an accomplished person will she be!—And how much will she
be obliged to me; and not only she, but all those who may be the better
for the precepts she thinks herself already so well qualified to give!
Dearly, Jack, do I love to engage with these precept-givers, and
example-setters.
Now, Belford, although there is nothing striking in any of these
characters; yet may we, at a pinch, make a good frolicky half-day with
them, if, after we have softened their wax at table by encouraging
viands, we can set our women and them into dancing: dancing, which all
women love, and all men should therefore promote, for both their sakes.
And thus, when Tourville sings, Belton fiddles, Mowbray makes rough
love, and I smooth; and thou, Jack, wilt be by that time well enough to
join in the chorus; the devil’s in’t if we don’t mould them into what
shape we please—our own women, by their laughing freedoms, encouraging
them to break through all their customary reserves. For women to women,
thou knowest, are great darers and incentives: not one of them loving
to be outdone or outdared, when their hearts are thoroughly warmed.
I know, at first, the difficulty will be the accidental absence of my
dear Mrs. Lovelace, to whom principally they will design their visit:
but if we can exhilarate them, they won’t then wish to see her; and I
can form twenty accidents and excuses, from one hour to another, for
her absence, till each shall have a subject to take up all her
thoughts.
I am really sick at heart for a frolic, and have no doubt but this will
be an agreeable one. These women already think me a wild fellow; nor do
they like me the less for it, as I can perceive; and I shall take care,
that they shall be treated with so much freedom before one another’s
faces, that in policy they shall keep each other’s counsel. And won’t
this be doing a kind thing by them? since it will knit an indissoluble
band of union and friendship between three women who are neighbours,
and at present have only common obligations to one another: for thou
wantest not to be told, that secrets of love, and secrets of this
nature, are generally the strongest cement of female friendships.
But, after all, if my beloved should be happily restored to her
intellects, we may have scenes arise between us that will be
sufficiently busy to employ all the faculties of thy friend, without
looking out for new occasions. Already, as I have often observed, has
she been the means of saving scores of her sex, yet without her own
knowledge.