Clarissa Harlowe Samuel Richardson (most important books to read TXT) 📖
- Author: Samuel Richardson
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I accompanied it down, that I might not only satisfy myself, but you, Sir, her executor, that it was deposited, as she had directed, at the feet of her grandfather.
Mr. Melvill came down, contemplated the lid, and shed a few tears over it. I was so well satisfied with his discourse and behaviour, that I presented him on the solemn spot with a ring of some value; and thanked him for his performance.
And here I left the remains of my beloved cousin; having bespoken my own place by the side of her coffin.
On my return to Harlowe-place, I contented myself with sending my compliments to the sorrowing parents, and retired to my chamber. Nor am I ashamed to own, that I could not help giving way to a repeated fit of humanity, as soon as I entered it. I am, Sir,
Your most faithful and obedient servant,
Wm. Morden.
P.S.: You will have a letter from my cousin James, who hopes to prevail upon you to relinquish the executorship. It has not my encouragement.
Letter 505 Mr. Belford, to William Morden, Esq.Saturday, Sept. 16
Dear Sir,
I once had thoughts to go down privately, in order, disguised, to see the last solemnity performed. But there was no need to give myself this melancholy trouble, since your last letter so naturally describes all that passed, that I have every scene before my eyes.
You crowd me, Sir, methinks, into the silent slow procession—now with the sacred bier, do I enter the awful porch; now measure I, with solemn paces, the venerable aisle; now, ambitious of a relationship to her, placed in a pew near to the eye-attracting coffin, do I listen to the moving eulogy; now, through the buzz of gaping, eye-swollen crowds, do I descend into the clammy vault, as a true executor, to see that part of her will performed with my own eyes. There, with a soul filled with musing, do I number the surrounding monuments of mortality, and contemplate the present stillness of so many once busy vanities, crowded all into one poor vaulted nook, as if the living grudged room for the corpse of those for which, when animated, the earth, the air, and the waters, could hardly find room. Then seeing her placed at the feet of him whose earthly delight she was; and who, as I find, ascribes to the pleasure she gave him the prolongation of his own life;392 sighing, and with averted face, I quit the solemn mansion, the symbolic coffin, and, forever, the glory of her sex; and ascend with those, who, in a few years, after a very short blaze of life, will fill up other spaces of the same vault, which now (while they mourn only for her, whom they jointly persecuted) they press with their feet.
Nor do your affecting descriptions permit me here to stop; but, ascended, I mingle my tears and my praises with those of the numerous spectators. I accompany the afflicted mourners back to their uncomfortable mansion; and make one in the general concert of unavailing woe; till retiring as I imagine, as they retire, like them, in reality, I give up to new scenes of solitary and sleepless grief; reflecting upon the perfections I have seen the end of; and having no relief but from an indignation, which makes me approve of the resentments of others against the unhappy man, and those equally unhappy relations of hers, to whom the irreparable loss is owing.
Forgive me, Sir, these reflections, and permit me, with this, to send you what you declined receiving till the funeral was over.
[He gives him then an account of the money and effects, which he sends him down by this opportunity, for the legatees at Harlowe-place, and in its neighbourhood; which he desires him to dispose of according to the will.
He also sends him an account of other steps he has taken in pursuance of the will; and desires to know if Mr. Harlowe expects the discharge of the funeral-expenses from the effects in his hands; and the reimbursement of the sums advanced to the testatrix since her grandfather’s death.]
These expeditious proceedings, says he, will convince Mr. James Harlowe that I am resolved to see the will completely executed; and yet, by my manner of doing it, that I desire not to give unnecessary mortification to the family, since everything that relates to them shall pass through your hands.
Letter 506 Mr. James Harlowe, to John Belford, Esq. Harlowe-Place,Friday Night, Sept. 15
Sir,
I hope, from the character my worthy cousin Morden gives you, that you will excuse the application I make to you, to oblige a whole family in an affair that much concerns their peace, and cannot equally concern anybody else. You will immediately judge, Sir, that this is the executorship of which my sister has given you the trouble by her last will.
We shall all think ourselves extremely obliged to you, if you please to relinquish this trust to our own family; the reasons which follow pleading for our own expectation of this favour from you:
First, because she never would have had the thought of troubling you, Sir, if she had believed any of her near relations would have taken it upon themselves.
Secondly, I understand that she recommends to you in the will to trust to the honour of any of our family, for the performance of such of the articles as are of a domestic nature. We are, any of us, and all of us, if you request it, willing to stake our honours upon this occasion; and all you can desire, as a man of honour, is, that the trust be executed.
We are the more concerned, Sir, to wish you to decline this office, because of your
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