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Файл:Clarissa V. The history of a young lady
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CLARISSA • V
and myself. They had given orders over night, and now repeated them in each other’s presence, that we should observe a strict impartiality between them: and that, if one fell,
each of us should look upon himself, as to any needful help
or retreat, as the servant of the survivor, and take his commands accordingly.
After a few compliments, both the gentlemen, with
the greatest presence of mind that I ever beheld in men,
stript to their shirts, and drew.
They parried with equal judgment several passes. My chevalier drew the fi rst blood, making a desperate push, which, by
a sudden turn of his antagonist, missed going clear through
him, and wounded him on the fl eshy part of the ribs of his
right side; which part the sword tore out, being on the extremity of the body; but, before my chevalier could recover himself,
the Colonel, in return, pushed him into the inside of the left
arm, near the shoulder; and the sword (raking his breast as it
passed,) being followed by a great effusion of blood, the Colonel said, Sir, I believe you have enough.
My chevalier swore by G – d he was not hurt; ’twas a pin’s
point; and so made another pass at his antagonist; which he,
with a surprising dexterity, received under his arm, and run
my dear chevalier into the body; who immediately fell; saying, The luck is your’s, Sir – O my beloved Clarissa! – Now
art thou – inwardly he spoke three or four words more. His
sword dropt from his hand. Mr. Morden threw his down, and
ran to him, saying in French – Ah, Monsieur! you are a dead
man! – Call to God for mercy!
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SAMUEL RICHARDSON
We gave the signal agreed upon to the footmen; and they to
the surgeons; who instantly came up.
Colonel Morden, I found, was too well used to the bloody
work; for he was as cool as if nothing extraordinary had happened, assisting the surgeons, though his own wound bled
much. But my dear chevalier fainted away two or three times
running, and vomited blood besides.
However, they stopped the bleeding for the present; and
we helped him into the voiture; and then the Colonel suffered
his own wound to be dressed; and appeared concerned that
my chevalier was between whiles (when he could speak, and
struggle,) extremely outrageous. – Poor gentleman! he had
made quite sure of victory!
The Colonel, against the surgeons’ advice, would mount on
horseback to pass into the Venetian territories; and generously gave me a purse of gold to pay the surgeons; desiring me to
make a present to the footman; and to accept of the remainder,
as a mark of his satisfaction in my conduct, and in my care and
tenderness of my master.
The surgeons told him that my chevalier could not live
over the day.
When the Colonel took leave of him, Mr. Lovelace said,
You have well revenged the dear creature.
I have, Sir, said Mr. Morden; and perhaps shall be sorry that
you called upon me to this work, while I was balancing whether to obey, or disobey, the dear angel.
There is a fate in it! replied my chevalier – a cursed
fate! – or this could not have been! – But be ye all witness-
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CLARISSA • V
es, that I have provoked my destiny, and acknowledge that
I fall by a man of honour.
Sir, said the Colonel, with the piety of a confessor, (wringing Mr. Lovelace’s hand,) snatch these few fl eeting moments,
and commend yourself to God.
And so he rode off.
The voiture proceeded slowly with my chevalier; yet
the motion set both his wounds bleeding afresh; and it was
with diffi culty they again stopped the blood.
We brought him alive to the nearest cottage; and he gave
orders to me to dispatch to you the packet I herewith send
sealed up; and bid me write to you the particulars of this most
unhappy affair: and give you thanks, in his name, for all your
favours and friendship to him.
Contrary to all expectation, he lived over the night: but
suffered much, as well from his impatience and disappointment, as from his wounds; for he seemed very unwilling to die.
He was delirious, at times, in the two last hours: and then
several times cried out, as if he had seen some frightful spectre,
Take her away! Take her away! but named nobody. And sometimes praised some lady, (that Clarissa, I suppose, whom he
had invoked when he received his death’s wound,) calling her
Sweet Excellence! Divine Creature! Fair Sufferer! – And once
he said, Look down, Blessed Spirit, look down! – And there
stopt; – his lips, however, moving.
At nine in the morning he was seized with convulsions,
and fainted away; and it was a quarter of an hour before he
came out of them.
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SAMUEL RICHARDSON
His few last words I must not omit, as they show an ultimate composure; which may administer some consolation to
his honourable friends.
Blessed – said he, addressing himself no doubt to Heaven;
for his dying eyes were lifted up – a strong convulsion prevented him for a few moments saying more – but recovering,
he again, with great fervour, (lifting up his eyes, and his spread
hands,) pronounced the word blessed: Then, in a seeming ejaculation, he spoke inwardly, so as not to be understood: at last,
he distinctly pronounced these three words,
LET THIS EXPIATE!
And then, his head sinking on his pillow, he expired, at
about half an hour after ten.
He little thought, poor gentleman! his end so near: so had
given no direction about his body. I have caused it to be embowelled, and deposited in a vault, till I have orders from
England.
This is a favour that was procured with diffi culty; and
would have been refused, had he not been an Englishman of
rank: a nation with reason respected in every Austrian
government – for he had refused ghostly attendance, and
the sacraments in the Catholic way. – May his soul be happy,
I pray God!
I have had some trouble also, on account of the manner of
his death, from the magistracy here: who have taken the requisite informations in the affair. And it has cost some money.
Of which, and of the dear chevalier’s effects, I will give you
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CLARISSA • V
a faithful account in my next. And so, waiting at this place
your commands, I am, Sir,
Your most faithful and obedient servant, F.J. DE LA TOUR.
CONCLUSION
SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY MR. BELFORD
What remains to be mentioned for the satisfaction of
such of the readers as may be presumed to have interested
themselves in the fortunes of those other principals in the story, who survived Mr. Lovelace, will be found summarily related as follows:
The news of Mr. LOVELACE’s unhappy end was received
with as much grief by his own relations, as it was with exultation by the Harlowe family, and by Miss Howe. His own family were most to be pitied, because, being sincere admirers of
the inimitable lady, they were greatly grieved for the injustice
done her; and now had the additional mortifi cation of losing
the only male of it, by a violent death.
That his fate was deserved, was still a heightening of their
calamity, as they had, for that very reason, and his unpreparedness for it, but too much ground for apprehension with
regard to his future happiness. While the other family, from
their unforgiving spirit, and even the noble young lady above
mentioned, from her lively resentments, found his death some
little, some temporary, alleviation of the heavy loss they had
sustained, principally through his means.
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SAMUEL RICHARDSON
Temporary alleviation, we repeat, as to the Harlowe
family; for THEY were far from being happy or easy in their
reflections upon their own conduct. – And still the less, as
the inconsolable mother rested not till she had procured, by
means of Colonel Morden, large extracts from some of
the letters that compose this history, which convinced them
all that the very correspondence which Clarissa, while with
them, renewed with Mr. Lovelace, was renewed for their
sakes, more than for her own: that she had given him no
encouragement contrary to her duty and to that prudence
for which she was so early noted: that had they trusted to
a discretion which they owned she had never brought into
question, she would have extricated them and herself (as
she once proposed
as to Lovelace: that she, if any woman ever could, would
have given a glorious instance of a passion conquered, or at
least kept under by reason and by piety; the man being too
immoral to be implicitly beloved.
The unhappy parents and uncles, from the perusal of
these extracts, too evidently for their peace, saw that it was
entirely owing to the avarice, the ambition, the envy, of her
implacable brother and sister, and to the senseless confederacy entered into by the whole family, to compel her to give
her hand to a man she must despise, or she had not been
a CLARISSA, and to their consequent persecution of her,
that she ever thought of quitting her father’s house: and that
even when she fi rst entertained such a thought, it was with
42
to her mother) from all difficulties
42
See Vol. I. Letter XVII.
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CLARISSA • V
intent, if possible, to procure for herself a private asylum
with Mrs. Howe, or at some other place of safety, (but not
with Mr. Lovelace, nor with any of the ladies of his family,
though invited by the latter,) from whence she might propose terms which ought to have been complied with, and
which were entirely consistent with her duty – that though
she found herself disappointed of the hoped-for refuge and
protection, she intended not, by meeting Mr. Lovelace, to put
herself into his power; all that she aimed at by taking that
step being to endeavour to pacify so fi erce a spirit, lest he
should (as he indeed was determined to do) pay a visit to her
friends, which might have been attended with fatal consequences; but was spirited away by him in such a manner, as
made her an object of pity rather than of blame.
These extracts further convinced them all that it was to
her unaffected regret that she found that marriage was not in
her power afterwards for a long time; and at last, but on one
occasion, when their unnatural cruelty to her (on a new application she had made to her aunt Hervey, to procure mercy
and pardon) rendered her incapable of receiving his proffered
hand; and so obliged her to suspend the day: intending only to
suspend it till recovered.
They saw with equal abhorrence of Lovelace, and of their
own cruelty, and with the highest admiration of her, that
the majesty of her virtue had awed the most daring spirit in
the world, so that he durst not attempt to carry his base designs into execution, till, by wicked potions, he had made her
senses the previous sacrifi ce.
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SAMUEL RICHARDSON
But how did they in a manner adore her memory! How
did they recriminate upon each other! when they found,
that she had not only preserved herself from repeated outrage, by the most glorious and intrepid behaviour, in defi ance, and to the utter confusion of all his libertine notions,
but had the fortitude, constantly, and with a noble disdain, to
reject him. – Whom? – Why, the man she once could have
loved, kneeling for pardon, and begging to be permitted to
make her the best reparation then in his power to make her;
that is to say, by marriage. His fortunes high and unbroken.
She his prisoner at the time in a vile house: rejected by all
her friends; upon repeated application to them, for mercy
and forgiveness, rejected – mercy and forgiveness, and a last
blessing, afterwards imploring; and that as much to lighten
their future remorses, as for the comfort of her own pious
heart – yet, though savagely refused, on a supposition that
she was not so near her end as she was represented departed,
forgiving and blessing them all!
Then they recollected that her posthumous letters, instead of reproaches, were fi lled with comfortings: that she
had in her last will, in their own way, laid obligations upon
them all; obligations which they neither deserved nor expected; as if she thought to repair the injustice which self-partiality
made some of them conclude done to them by her grandfather in his will.
These intelligences and recollections were perpetual subjects of recrimination to them: heightened their anguish for
the loss of a child who was the glory of their family; and not
seldom made them shun each other, (at the times they were
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CLARISSA • V
accustomed to meet together,) that they might avoid the mutual reproaches of eyes that spoke, when tongues were silent – their stings also sharpened by time! What an unhappy
family was this! Well might Colonel Morden, in the words of
Juvenal, challenge all other miserable families to produce
such a growing distress as that of the Harlowes (a few months
before so happy!) was able to produce.
Humani generis mores tibi nôsse volenti
Suffi cit una domus: paucos consume dies, &
Dicere te miserum, postquam illinc veneris, aude.
Mrs. HARLOWE lived about two years and an half after
the lamented death of her CLARISSA.
Mr. HARLOWE had the additional affl iction to survive his
lady about half a year; her death, by new pointing his former
anguish and remorse, hastening his own.
Both, in their last hours, however, comforted themselves,
that they should be restored to their BLESSED daughter, as they
always (from the time they were acquainted with the above
particulars of her story, and with her happy exit) called her.
They both lived, however, to see their son James, and their
daughter Arabella, married: but not to take joy in either of
their nuptials.
Mr. JAMES HARLOWE married a woman of family, an orphan; and is obliged, at a very great expense, to support his
claim to estates, which were his principal inducement to make
his addresses to her; but which, to this day, he has not recovered; nor is likely to recover; having powerful adversaries to
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SAMUEL RICHARDSON
contend with, and a title to assert, which admits of litigation;
and he not blessed with so much patience as is necessary to
persons embarrassed in law.
What is further observable, with regard to him, is, that
the match was entirely of his own head, against the advice of
his father, mother, and uncles, who warned him of marrying in this lady a law-suit for life. His ungenerous behaviour to
his wife, for what she cannot help, and for what is as much her
misfortune as his, has occasioned such estrangements between
them (she being a woman of spirit) as, were the law-suits determined, even more favourably than probably they will be,
must make him unhappy to the end of his life. He attributes
all his misfortunes, when he opens himself to the few friends
he has, to his vile and cruel treatment of his angelic sister.
He confesses these misfortunes to be just, without having temper to acquiesce in the acknowledged justice. One month in
every year he puts on mourning, and that month commences with him on the 7th of September, during which he shuts
himself up from all company. Finally, he is looked upon, and
often calls himself,
THE MOST MISERABLE OF BEINGS.
ARABELLA’S fortune became a temptation to a man of
quality to make his addresses to her: his title an inducement
with her to approve of him. Brothers and sisters, when they
are not friends, are generally the sharpest enemies to each
other. He thought too much was done for in the settlements.
She thought not enough. And for some years past, they have
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