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Файл:Clarissa V. The history of a young lady
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CLARISSA • V
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 fi re to the execrable house; and to
watch at the doors and windows, that not a devil in it escape
the consuming fl ames. 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.
22
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
fi re 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 refl ect 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 fi nd
22
See Letter XXV. of this volume.
191
SAMUEL RICHARDSON
their account in manacling, and (abhorred thought!) in personally abusing me by blows and stripes!
Who can bear such refl ections 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 tomorrow morning.
– To be a dog, and dead,
Were paradise, to such a life as mine.
LETTER XXXVIII
Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq.
Wednesday, Sept. 20.
I write to demand back again my last letter. I own it was my
mind at the different times I wrote it; and, whatever ailed me,
I could not help writing it. Such a gloomy impulse came upon
me, and increased as I wrote, that, for my soul, I could not forbear running into the miserable.
’Tis strange, very strange, that a man’s conscience should
be able to force his fi ngers to write whether he will or not;
and to run him into a subject he more than once, at the very
time, resolved not to think of.
Nor is it less strange, that (no new reason occurring) he
should, in a day or two more, so totally change his mind;
have his mind, I should rather say, so wholly illuminated by
gay hopes and rising prospects, as to be ashamed of what he
had written.
For, on reperusal of a copy of my letter, which fell into my
hands by accident, in the hand-writing of my cousin Charlotte, who, unknown to me, had transcribed it, I fi nd it to be
such a letter as an enemy would rejoice to see.
193
SAMUEL RICHARDSON
This I know, that were I to have continued but one week
more in the way I was in when I wrote the latter part of
it, I should have been confi ned, and in straw, the next; for
I now recollect, that all my distemper was returning upon
me with irresistible violence – and that in spite of watergruel and soup-meagre.
I own I am still excessively grieved at the disappointment this admirable woman made it so much her whimsical
choice to give me.
But, since it has thus fallen out; since she was determined to
leave the world; and since she actually ceases to be; ought I,
who have such a share of life and health in hand, to indulge
gloomy refl ections upon an event that is passed; and being
passed, cannot be recalled? – Have I not had a specimen of
what will be my case, if I do.
For, Belford, (’tis a folly to deny it,) I have been, to use
an old word, quite bestraught.
Why, why did my mother bring me up to bear no controul?
Why was I so enabled, as that to my very tutors it was a request
that I should not know what contradiction or disappointment was? – Ought she not to have known what cruelty there
was in her kindness?
What a punishment, to have my fi rst very great disappointment touch my intellect! – And intellects, once touched – but
that I cannot bear to think of – only thus far; the very repentance and amendment, wished me so heartily by my kind
and cross dear, have been invalidated and postponed, and who
knows for how long? – the amendment at least; can a madman
be capable of either?
194
CLARISSA • V
Once touched, therefore, I must endeavour to banish those
gloomy refl ections, which might otherwise have brought on
the right turn of mind: and this, to express myself in Lord M.“s
style, that my wits may not be sent a wool-gathering.
For, let me moreover own to thee, that Dr. Hale, who was
my good Astolfo, [you read Ariosto, Jack,] and has brought me
back my wit-jar, had much ado, by starving, diet, by profuse
phlebotomy, by fl aying-blisters, eyelet-hole-cupping, a dark
room, a midnight solitude in a midday sun, to effect my recovery. And now, for my comfort, he tells me, that I may still have
returns upon full moons – horrible! most horrible! – and
must be as careful of myself at both equinoctials, as Cæsar was
warned to be of the Ides of March.
How my heart sickens at looking back upon what I was!
Denied the sun, and all comfort: all my visiters low-born, tiptoe attendants: even those tip-toe slaves never approaching me
but periodically, armed with gallipots, boluses, and cephalic
draughts; delivering their orders to me in hated whispers; and
answering other curtain-holding impertinents, inquiring how
I was, and how I took their execrable potions, whisperingly
too! What a cursed still life was this! – Nothing active in me,
or about me, but the worm that never dies.
Again I hasten from the recollection of scenes, which
will, at times, obtrude themselves upon me.
Adieu, Belford!
But return me my last letter – and build nothing upon its
contents. I must, I will, I have already, overcome these fruitless gloominess. Every hour my constitution rises stronger and
stronger to befriend me; and, except a tributary sigh now-and-
195
SAMUEL RICHARDSON
then to the memory of my heart’s beloved, it gives me hope
that I shall quickly be what I was – life, spirit, gaiety, and once
more the plague of a sex that has been my plague, and will be
every man’s plague at one time or other of his life. I repeat my
desire, however, that you will write to me as usual. I hope you
have good store of particulars by you to communicate, when
I can better bear to hear of the dispositions that were made for
all that was mortal of my beloved Clarissa.
But it will be the joy of my heart to be told that her implacable friends are plagued with remorse. Such things as those
you may now send me: for company in misery is some relief;
especially when a man can think those he hates as miserable
as himself.
One more adieu, Jack!
LETTER XXXIX
Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq.
I am preparing to leave this kingdom. Mowbray and Tourville promise to give me their company in a month or two.
I’ll give thee my route.
I shall fi rst to Paris; and, for some amusement and diversion sake, try to renew some of my old friendships: thence to
some of the German courts: thence, perhaps, to Vienna: thence
descend through Bavaria and the Tyrol to Venice, where I shall
keep the carnival: thence to Florence and Turin: thence again
over Mount Cenis to France: and, when I return again to Paris,
shall expect to see my friend Belford, who, by that time, I doubt
not, will be all crusted and bearded over with penitence, selfdenial, and mortifi cation; a very anchoret, only an itinerant
one, journeying over in hope to cover a multitude of his own
sins, by proselyting his old companions.
But let me tell thee, Jack, if stock rises on, as it has done
since I wrote my last letter, I am afraid thou wilt fi nd a diffi cult
task in succeeding, should such be thy purpose.
Nor, I verily think, can thy own penitence and reformation
hold. Strong habits are not so easily rooted out. Old Satan has
had too much benefi t from thy faithful services, for a series of
197
SAMUEL RICHARDSON
years, to let thee so easily get out of his clutches. He knows what
will do with thee. A fi ne strapping Bona Roba, in the Charterstaste, but well-limbed, clear-complexioned, and Turkish-eyed;
thou the fi rst man with her, or made to believe so, which is
the same thing; how will thy frosty face be illuminated by
it! A composition will be made between thee and the grand
tempter: thou wilt promise to do him suit and service till old
age and inability come. And then will he, in all probability,
be sure of thee for ever. For, wert thou to outlive thy present
reigning appetites, he will trump up some other darling sin, or
make a now secondary one darling, in order to keep thee fi rmly attached to his infernal interests. Thou wilt continue resolving to amend, but never amending, till, grown old before thou
art aware, (a dozen years after thou art old with every body
else,) thy for-time-built tenement having lasted its allotted
period, he claps down upon thy grizzled head the universal
trap-door: and then all will be over with thee in his own way.
Thou wilt think these hints uncharacteristic from me. But
yet I cannot help warning thee of the danger thou art actually
in; which is the greater, as thou seemst not to know it. A few
words more, therefore, on this subject.
Thou hast made good resolutions. If thou keepest them
not, thou wilt never be able to keep any. But, nevertheless,
the devil and thy time of life are against thee: and six to one
thou failest. Were it only that thou hast resolved, six to one
thou failest. And if thou dost, thou wilt become the scoff of
men, and the triumph of devils. – Then how will I laugh at
thee! For this warning is not from principle. Perhaps I wish
it were: but I never lied to man, and hardly ever said truth to
198
CLARISSA • V
woman. The fi rs is what all free-livers cannot say: the second
what every one can.
I am mad again, by Jupiter! – But, thank my stars, not
gloomily so! – Farewell, farewell, farewell, for the third or
fourth time, concludes
Thy LOVELACE.
I believe Charlotte and you are in private league together.
Letters, I fi nd, have passed between her and you, and Lord M.
I have been kept strangely in the dark of late; but will soon
break upon you all, as the sun upon a midnight thief.
Remember that you never sent me the copy of my
beloved’s will.
LETTER XL
Mr. Belford, to Robert Lovelace, Esq.
Friday, Sept. 22.
Just as I was sitting down to answer your’s of the 14th to
the 18th, in order to give you all the consolation in my power,
came your revoking letter of Wednesday.
I am really concerned and disappointed that your fi rst was
so soon followed by one so contrary to it.
The shocking letter you mention, which your friends withhold from you, is indeed from me. They may now, I see, show
you any thing. Ask them, then, for that letter, if you think it
worth while to read aught about the true mother of your mind.
* * *
I will suppose that thou hast just read the letter thou callest shocking, and which I intended to be so. And let me ask
what thou thinkest of it? Dost thou not tremble at the horrors the vilest of women labours with, on the apprehensions of
death, and future judgment? – How sit the refl ections that
must have been raised by the perusal of this letter upon thy
yet unclosed eyelet-holes? Will not some serious thoughts
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