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

of good writing: which method or order, nevertheless, may be the better excused in a familiar epistle, (as this may be called), you pardoning, Sir, the familiarity of the word; but yet not altogether here, I must needs own; because this is a letter and not a letter, as I may say; but a kind of short and pithy discourse, touching upon various and sundry topics, every one of which might be a fit theme to enlarge upon of volumes; if this epistolary discourse (then let me call it) should be pleasing to you, (as I am inclined to think it will, because of the sentiments and aphorisms of the wisest of the ancients, which glitter through it like so many dazzling sunbeams), I will (at my leisure) work it up into a methodical discourse; and perhaps may one day print it, with a dedication to my honoured patron, (if, Sir, I have your leave), singly at first, (but not till I have thrown out anonymously, two or three smaller things, by the success of which I shall have made myself of some account in the commonwealth of letters), and afterwards in my works⁠—not for the vanity of the thing (however) I will say, but for the use it may be of to the public; for, (as one well observeth), though glory always followeth virtue, yet it should be considered only as its shadow.

Contemnit laudem virtus, licet usque sequatur
Gloria virtutem, corpus ut umbra suum.

A very pretty saying, and worthy of all men’s admiration.

And now, (most worthy Sir, my very good friend and patron), referring the whole to yours, and to your two brothers, and to young Mr. Harlowe’s consideration, and to the wise consideration of good Madam Harlowe, and her excellent daughter, Miss Arabella Harlowe; I take the liberty to subscribe myself, what I truly am, and every shall delight to be, in all cases, and at all times,

Your and their most ready and obedient as well as faithful servant,

Elias Brand.

Letter 470 Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq.

[In answer to Letter 467]

Wedn. Morn. Sept. 6

And is she somewhat better?⁠—Blessings upon thee without number or measure! Let her still be better and better! Tell me so at least, if she be not so: for thou knowest not what a joy that poor temporary reprieve, that she will hold out yet a day or two, gave me.

But who told this hardhearted and death-pronouncing doctor that she will hold it no longer? By what warrant says he this? What presumption in these parading solemn fellows of a college, which will be my contempt to the latest hour of my life, if this brother of it (eminent as he is deemed to be) cannot work an ordinary miracle in her favour, or rather in mine!

Let me tell thee, Belford, that already he deserves the utmost contempt, for suffering this charming clock to run down so low. What must be his art, if it could not wind it up in a quarter of the time he has attended her, when, at his first visits, the springs and wheels of life and motion were so good, that they seemed only to want common care and oiling!

I am obliged to you for endeavouring to engage her to see me. ’Twas acting like a friend. If she had vouchsafed me that favour, she should have seen at her feet the most abject adorer that ever kneeled to justly-offended beauty.

What she bid you, and what she forbid you, to tell me, (the latter for tender considerations): that she forgives me; and that, could she have made me a good man, she would have made me a happy one! That she even loved me! At such a moment to own that she once loved me! Never before loved any man! That she prays for me! That her last tear should be shed for me, could she by it save a soul, doomed, without her, to perdition!⁠—O Belford! Belford! I cannot bear it!⁠—What a dog, what a devil have I been to a goodness so superlative!⁠—Why does she not inveigh against me?⁠—Why does she not execrate me?⁠—O the triumphant subduer! Ever above me!⁠—And now to leave me so infinitely below her!

Marry and repair, at any time; this, wretch that I was, was my plea to myself. To give her a lowering sensibility; to bring her down from among the stars which her beamy head was surrounded by, that my wife, so greatly above me, might not despise me; this was one of my reptile motives, owing to my more reptile envy, and to my consciousness of inferiority to her!⁠—Yet she, from step to step, from distress to distress, to maintain her superiority; and, like the sun, to break out upon me with the greater refulgence for the clouds that I had contrived to cast about her!⁠—And now to escape me thus!⁠—No power left me to repair her wrongs!⁠—No alleviation to my self-reproach!⁠—No dividing of blame with her!⁠—

Tell her, O tell her, Belford, that her prayers and wishes, her superlatively-generous prayers and wishes, shall not be vain: that I can, and do repent⁠—and long have repented.⁠—Tell her of my frequent deep remorses⁠—it was impossible that such remorses should not at last produce effectual remorse⁠—yet she must not leave me⁠—she must live, if she would wish to have my contrition perfect⁠—For what can despair produce?

I will do everything you would have me do, in the return of your letters. You have infinitely obliged me by this last, and by pressing for an admission for me, though it succeeded not.

Once more, how could I be such a villain to so divine a creature! Yet love her all the time, as never man loved woman!⁠—Curse upon my contriving genius!⁠—Curse upon my intriguing head, and upon my seconding heart!⁠—To sport with the fame, with the honour, with the life, of such an angel of a woman!⁠—O my d⁠—d incredulity! That, believing