Clarissa Harlowe Samuel Richardson (most important books to read TXT) 📖

of thy furious letter.283 Her remarks upon the different parts of it, which I read to her, were to the following effect:

Upon the last two lines, All undone! undone, by Jupiter! Zounds, Jack, what shall I do now? a curse upon all my plots and contrivances! thus she expressed herself:

“O how light, how unaffected with the sense of its own crimes, is the heart that could dictate to the pen this libertine froth?”

The paragraph which mentions the vile arrest affected her a good deal.

In the next I omitted thy curse upon thy relations, whom thou wert gallanting: and read on the seven subsequent paragraphs down to thy execrable wish; which was too shocking to read to her. What I read produced the following reflections from her:

“The plots and contrivances which he curses, and the exultings of the wicked wretches on finding me out, show me that all his guilt was premeditated: nor doubt I that his dreadful perjuries, and inhuman arts, as he went along, were to pass for fine stratagems; for witty sport; and to demonstrate a superiority of inventive talents!⁠—O my cruel, cruel brother! had it not been for thee, I had not been thrown upon so pernicious and so despicable a plotter!⁠—But proceed, Sir; pray proceed.”

At that part, Canst thou, O fatal prognosticator! tell me where my punishment will end?⁠—she sighed. And when I came to that sentence, praying for my reformation, perhaps⁠—Is that there? said she, sighing again. Wretched man!⁠—and shed a tear for thee.⁠—By my faith, Lovelace, I believe she hates thee not! she has at least a concern, a generous concern for thy future happiness⁠—What a noble creature hast thou injured!

She made a very severe reflection upon me, on reading the words⁠—On your knees, for me, beg her pardon⁠—“You had all your lessons, Sir, said she, when you came to redeem me⁠—You was so condescending as to kneel: I thought it was the effect of your own humanity, and good-natured earnestness to serve me⁠—excuse me, Sir, I knew not that it was in consequence of a prescribed lesson.”

This concerned me not a little; I could not bear to be thought such a wretched puppet, such a Joseph Leman, such a Tomlinson. I endeavoured, therefore, with some warmth, to clear myself of this reflection; and she again asked my excuse: “I was avowedly, she said, the friend of a man, whose friendship, she had reason to be sorry to say, was no credit to anybody.”⁠—And desired me to proceed.

I did; but fared not much better afterwards: for on that passage where you say, I had always been her friend and advocate, this was her unanswerable remark: “I find, Sir, by this expression, that he had always designs against me; and that you all along knew that he had. Would to Heaven, you had had the goodness to have contrived some way, that might not have endangered your own safety, to give me notice of his baseness, since you approved not of it! But you gentlemen, I suppose, had rather see an innocent fellow-creature ruined, than be thought capable of an action, which, however generous, might be likely to loosen the bands of a wicked friendship!”

After this severe, but just reflection, I would have avoided reading the following, although I had unawares begun the sentence, (but she held me to it): What would I now give, had I permitted you to have been a successful advocate! And this was her remark upon it⁠—“So, Sir, you see, if you had been the happy means of preventing the evils designed me, you would have had your friend’s thanks for it when he came to his consideration. This satisfaction, I am persuaded everyone, in the long run, will enjoy, who has the virtue to withstand, or prevent, a wicked purpose. I was obliged, I see, to your kind wishes⁠—but it was a point of honour with you to keep his secret; the more indispensable with you, perhaps, the viler the secret. Yet permit me to wish, Mr. Belford, that you were capable of relishing the pleasures that arise to a benevolent mind from virtuous friendship!⁠—none other is worthy of the sacred name. You seem an humane man: I hope, for your own sake, you will one day experience the difference: and, when you do, think of Miss Howe and Clarissa Harlowe, (I find you know much of my sad story), who were the happiest creatures on earth in each other’s friendship till this friend of yours”⁠—And there she stopped, and turned from me.

Where thou callest thyself a villanous plotter; “To take a crime to himself, said she, without shame, O what a hardened wretch is this man!”

On that passage, where thou sayest, Let me know how she has been treated: if roughly, woe be to the guilty! this was her remark, with an air of indignation: “What a man is your friend, Sir!⁠—Is such a one as he to set himself up to punish the guilty?⁠—All the rough usage I could receive from them, was infinitely less”⁠—And there she stopped a moment or two: then proceeding⁠—“And who shall punish him? what an assuming wretch!⁠—Nobody but himself is entitled to injure the innocent;⁠—he is, I suppose, on the earth, to act the part which the malignant fiend is supposed to act below⁠—dealing out punishments, at his pleasure, to every inferior instrument of mischief!”

What, thought I, have I been doing! I shall have this savage fellow think I have been playing him booty, in reading part of his letter to this sagacious lady!⁠—Yet, if thou art angry, it can only, in reason, be at thyself; for who would think I might not communicate to her some of thy sincerity in exculpating thyself from a criminal charge, which thou wrotest to thy friend, to convince him of thy innocence? But a bad heart, and a bad cause are confounded things: and so let us put it to its proper account.

I passed over thy charge to me, to curse them by