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Файл:Clarissa V. The history of a young lady
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CLARISSA • V
Let me, therefore, (and through me all your friends,)
have the satisfaction to hear that you are resolved to avoid
this gentleman. Time will subdue all things. Nobody doubts
your bravery; nor will it be known that your plan is changed
through persuasion.
Young Harlowe talks of calling you to account. This is
a plain evidence, that Mr. Morden has not taken the quarrel
upon himself for their family.
I am in no apprehension of any body but Colonel Morden.
I know it will not be a mean to prevail upon you to oblige me,
if I say that I am well assured that this gentleman is a skillful
swordsman; and that he is as cool and sedate as skillful. But
yet I will add, that, if I had a value for my life, he should be
the last man, except yourself, with whom I would choose to
have a contention.
I have, as you required, been very candid and sincere with
you. I have not aimed at palliation. If you seek not Colonel
Morden, it is my opinion he will not seek you: for he is a man of
principle. But if you seek him, I believe he will not shun you.
Let me re-urge, [it is the effect of my love for you!] that you
know your own guilt in this affair, and should not be again
an aggressor. It would be pity that so brave a man as the Colonel should drop, were you and he to meet: and, on the other
hand, it would be dreadful that you should be sent to your
account unprepared for it, and pursuing a fresh violence.
Moreover, seest thou not, in the deaths of two of thy principal
agents, the hand-writing upon the wall against thee.
My zeal on this occasion may make me guilty of repetition.
Indeed I know not how to quit the subject. But if what I have
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SAMUEL RICHARDSON
written, added to your own remorse and consciousness, cannot
prevail, all that I might further urge would be ineffectual.
Adieu, therefore! Mayst thou repent of the past! and may
no new violences add to thy heavy refl ections, and overwhelm
thy future hopes! are the wishes of
Thy true friend, JOHN BELFORD.
LETTER LX
MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
MUNICH, NOV. 11 – 22.
I received your’s this moment, just as I was setting out for
Vienna.
As to going to Madrid, or one single step out of the way to
avoid Colonel Morden, let me perish if I do! – You cannot
think me so mean a wretch.
And so you own that he has threatened me; but not in
gross and ungentlemanly terms, you say. If he has threatened
me like a gentleman, I will resent his threats like a gentleman. But he has not done as a man of honour, if he has threatened at all behind my back. I would scorn to threaten any
man to whom I knew how to address myself either personally
or by pen and ink.
As to what you mention of my guilt; of the hand-writing on
the wall; of a legal prosecution, if he meet his fate from my
hand; of his skill, coolness, courage, and such-like poltroon
stuff; what can you mean by it? Surely you cannot believe that
such insinuations as those will weaken either my hands or my
heart. – No more of this sort of nonsense, I beseech you, in
any of your future letters.
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SAMUEL RICHARDSON
He had not taken any resolutions, you say, when you saw
him. He must and will take resolutions, one way or other, very
quickly; for I wrote to him yesterday, without waiting for this
or your answer to my last. I could not avoid it. I could not (as
I told you in that) live in suspense. I have directed my letter to
Florence. Nor could I suffer my friends to live in suspense as to
my safety. But I have couched it in such moderate terms, that
he has fairly his option. He will be the challenger, if he take
it in the sense in which he may so handsomely avoid taking
it. And if he does, it will demonstrate that malice and revenge
were the predominant passions with him; and that he was determined but to settle his affairs, and then take his resolutions,
as you phrase it. – Yet, if we are to meet [for I know what my
option would be, in his case, on such a letter, complaisant as it
is] I wish he had a worse, I a better cause. It would be a sweet
revenge to him, were I to fall by his hand. But what should I be
the better for killing him?
I will enclose a copy of the letter I sent him.
* * *
On re-perusing your’s in a cooler moment, I cannot but
thank you for your friendly love, and good intentions. My value
for you, from the fi rst hour of our acquaintance till now, I have
never found misplaced; regarding at least your intention: thou
must, however, own a good deal of blunder of the over-do and
under-do kind, with respect to the part thou actest between
me and the beloved of my heart. But thou art really an honest fellow, and a sincere and warm friend. I could almost wish
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CLARISSA • V
I had not written to Florence till I had received thy letter now
before me. But it is gone. Let it go. If he wish peace, and to avoid
violence, he will have a fair opportunity to embrace the one,
and shun the other. – If not – he must take his fate.
But be this as it may, you may contrive to let young Harlowe know [he is a menacer, too!] that I shall be in England in
March next, at farthest.
This of Bavaria is a gallant and polite court. Nevertheless,
being uncertain whether my letter may meet with the Colonel at Florence, I shall quit it, and set out, as I intended, for
Vienna; taking care to have any letter or message from him
conveyed to me there: which will soon bring me back hither,
or to any other place to which I shall be invited.
As I write to Charlotte I have nothing more to add, after
compliments to all friends, than that I am
Wholly your’s, LOVELACE.
* * *
MR. LOVELACE, TO WILLIAM MORDEN, ESQ.
[ENCLOSED IN THE ABOVE.] MUNICH, NOV. 10 – 21.
SIR,
I have heard, with a great deal of surprise, that you have
thought fi t to throw out some menacing expressions against me.
I should have been very glad that you had thought I had
punishment enough in my own mind for the wrongs I have
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SAMUEL RICHARDSON
done to the most excellent of women; and that it had been
possible for two persons, so ardently joining in one love, (especially as I was desirous to the utmost of my power, to repair
those wrongs,) to have lived, if not on amicable terms, in such
a way as not to put either to the pain of hearing of threatenings thrown out in absence, which either ought to be despised
for, if he had not spirit to take notice of them.
Now, Sir, if what I have heard be owing only to warmth of
temper, or to sudden passion, while the loss of all other losses
the most deplorable to me was recent, I not only excuse, but
commend you for it. But if you are really determined to meet
me on any other account, [which, I own to you, is not however
what I wish,] it would be very blamable, and very unworthy of
the character I desire to maintain, as well with you as with every other gentleman, to give you a diffi culty in doing it.
Being uncertain when this letter may meet you, I shall set
out tomorrow for Vienna; where any letter directed to the posthouse in the city, or to Baron Windisgrat’s (at the Favorita) to
whom I have commendations, will come to hand.
Mean time, believing you to be a man too generous to
make a wrong construction of what I am going to declare, and
knowing the value which the dearest of all creatures had for
you, and your relation to her, I will not scruple to assure you,
that the most acceptable return will be, that Colonel Morden
chooses to be upon an amicable, rather than upon any other
footing, with
His sincere admirer, and humble servant, R. LOVELACE.
LETTER LXI
Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq.
Lintz, | Nov. 28.
| DEC. 9.
I am now on my way to Trent, in order to meet Colonel
Morden, in pursuance of his answer to my letter enclosed in
my last. I had been at Presburgh, and had intended to visit
some other cities of Hungary: but having obliged myself to return fi rst to Vienna, I there met with his letter, which follows:
MUNICH, | NOV. 21.
| DEC. 2.
SIR,
Your letter was at Florence four days before I arrived there.
That I might not appear unworthy of your favour, I set out
for this city the very next morning. I knew not but that the politeness of this court might have engaged, beyond his intention, a gentleman who has only his pleasure to pursue.
But being disappointed in my hope of fi nding you here,
it becomes me to acquaint you, that I have such a desire to
stand well in the opinion of a man of your spirit, that I can-
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SAMUEL RICHARDSON
not hesitate a moment upon the option, which I am sure Mr.
Lovelace in my situation (thus called upon) would make.
I own, Sir, that I have on all occasions, spoken of your treatment of my ever-dear cousin as it deserved. It would have been
very surprising if I had not And it behoves me (now you have
given me so noble an opportunity of explaining myself) to
convince you, that no words fell from my lips, of you, merely
because you were absent. I acquaint you, therefore, that I will
attend your appointment; and would, were it to the farthest
part of the globe.
I shall stay some days at this court; and if you please to
direct for me at M. Klienfurt’s in this city, whether I remain
here or not, your commands will come safely and speedily to
the hands of, Sir,
Your most humble servant, WM. MORDEN.
* * *
So you see, Belford, that the Colonel by his ready, his even
eagerly-expressed acceptance of the offered interview, was determined. And is it not much better to bring such a point as
this to an issue, than to give pain to friends for my safety, or
continue in suspense myself; as I must do, if I imagined that
another had aught against me?
This was my reply:
VIENNA, | NOV. 25.
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CLARISSA • V
| DEC. 6.
SIR,
I have this moment the favour of your’s. I will suspend
a tour I was going to take into Hungary, and instantly set out
for Munich; and, if I can fi nd you not there, will proceed on to
Trent. This city, being on the confi nes of Italy, will be most
convenient, as I presume, to you, in your return to Tuscany;
and I shall hope to meet you in it on the 3/14th of December.
I shall bring with me only a French valet and an English footman. Other particulars may be adjusted when I have
the honour to see you. Till when, I am, Sir,
Your most obedient servant, R. LOVELACE.
* * *
Now, Jack, I have no manner of apprehension of the event of
this meeting. And I think I must say he seeks me out; not I him.
And so let him take the consequence.
What is infi nitely nearer to my heart, is, my ingratitude to
the most excellent of women – My premeditated ingratitude! – Yet all the while enabled to distinguish and to adore
her excellencies, in spite of the mean opinion of the sex which
I had imbibed from early manhood.
But this lady has asserted the worthiness of her sex, and
most gloriously has she exalted it with me now. Yet, surely,
as I have said and written an hundred times, there cannot be
such another woman.
But as my loss in her departure is the greatest of any man’s,
and as she was dearer to me than to any other person in
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SAMUEL RICHARDSON
the world, and once she herself wished to be so, what an insolence in any man breathing to pretend to avenge her on
me! – Happy! happy! thrice happy! had I known how to value,
as I ought to have valued, the glory of such a preference!
I will not aggravate to myself this aggravation of the Colonel’s pretending to call me to account for my treatment of
a lady so much my own, lest, in the approaching interview,
my heart should relent for one so nearly related to her, and
who means honour and justice to her memory; and I should
thereby give him advantages which otherwise he cannot have.
For I know that I shall be inclined to trust to my skill, to save
a man who was so much and so justly valued by her; and shall
be loath to give way to my resentment, as a threatened man.
And in this respect only I am sorry for his skill, and his courage,
lest I should be obliged, in my own defence, to add a chalk to
a score that is already too long.
* * *
Indeed, indeed, Belford, I am, and shall be, to my latest hour,
the most miserable of beings. Such exalted generosity! – Why
didst thou put into my craving hands the copy of her will?
Why sentest thou to me the posthumous letter? – What thou
I was earnest to see the will? thou knewest what they both
were [I did not]; and that it would be cruel to oblige me.
The meeting of twenty Colonel Mordens, were there
twenty to meet in turn, would be nothing to me, would not
give me a moment’s concern, as to my own safety: but my re-
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