LETTER X
MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.THURSDAY, AUG. 17.
I am sincerely rejoiced to hear that thou art already so much amended, asthy servant tells me thou art. Thy letter looks as if thy morals weremending with thy health. This was a letter I could show, as I did, tothe lady.
She is very ill: (cursed letters received from her implacable family!) soI could not have much conversation with her, in thy favour, upon it.--Butwhat passed will make thee more and more adore her.
She was very attentive to me, as I read it; and, when I had done, Poorman! said she; what a letter is this! He had timely instances that mytemper was not ungenerous, if generosity could have obliged him! But hisremorse, and that for his own sake, is all the punishment I wish him.--Yet I must be more reserved, if you write to him every thing I say!
I extolled her unbounded goodness--how could I help it, though to herface!
No goodness in it! she said--it was a frame of mind she had endeavouredafter for her own sake. She suffered too much in want of mercy, not towish it to a penitent heart. He seems to be penitent, said she; and itis not for me to judge beyond appearances.--If he be not, he deceiveshimself more than any body else.
She was so ill that this was all that passed on the occasion.
What a fine subject for tragedy, would the injuries of this lady, and herbehaviour under them, both with regard to her implacable friends, and toher persecutor, make! With a grand objection as to the moral,nevertheless;* for here virtue is punished! Except indeed we lookforward to the rewards of HEREAFTER, which, morally, she must be sure of,or who can? Yet, after all, I know not, so sad a fellow art thou, and sovile an husband mightest thou have made, whether her virtue is notrewarded in missing thee: for things the most grievous to human nature,when they happen, as this charming creature once observed, are often thehappiest for us in the event.
* Mr. Belford's objections, That virtue ought not to suffer in a tragedy,is not well considered: Monimia in the Orphean, Belvidera in VenicePreserved, Athenais in Theodosius, Cordelia in Shakespeare's King Lear,Desdemona in Othello, Hamlet, (to name no more,) are instances that atragedy could hardly be justly called a tragedy, if virtue did nottemporarily suffer, and vice for a while triumph. But he recovershimself in the same paragraph; and leads us to look up to the FUTURE forthe reward of virtue, and for the punishment of guilt: and observes notamiss, when he says, He knows not but that the virtue of such a woman asClarissa is rewarded in missing such a man as Lovelace.
I have frequently thought, in my attendance on this lady, that ifBelton's admired author, Nic. Rowe, had had such a character before him,he would have drawn another sort of penitent than he has done, or givenhis play, which he calls The Fair Penitent, a fitter title. Miss Harloweis a penitent indeed! I think, if I am not guilty of a contradiction interms; a penitent without a fault; her parents' conduct towards her fromthe first considered.
The whole story of the other is a pack of d----d stuff. Lothario, 'tistrue, seems such another wicked ungenerous varlet as thou knowest who:the author knew how to draw a rake; but not to paint a penitent. Calistais a desiring luscious wench, and her penitence is nothing else but rage,insolence, and scorn. Her passions are all storm and tumult; nothing ofthe finer passions of the sex, which, if naturally drawn, willdistinguish themselves from the masculine passions, by a softness thatwill even shine through rage and despair. Her character is made up ofdeceit and disguise. She has no virtue; is all pride; and her devil isas much within her, as without her.
How then can the fall of such a one create a proper distress, when allthe circumstances of it are considered? For does she not brazen out hercrime, even after detection? Knowing her own guilt, she calls forAltamont's vengeance on his best friend, as if he had traduced her;yields to marry Altamont, though criminal with another; and actually bedsthat whining puppy, when she had given up herself, body and soul, toLothario; who, nevertheless, refused to marry her.
Her penitence, when begun, she justly styles the phrensy of her soul;and, as I said, after having, as long as she could, most audaciouslybrazened out her crime, and done all the mischief she could do,(occasioning the death of Lothario, of her father, and others,) she stabsherself.
And can this be the act of penitence?
But, indeed, our poets hardly know how to create a distress withouthorror, murder, and suicide; and must shock your soul, to bring tearsfrom your eyes.
Altamont indeed, who is an amorous blockhead, a credulous cuckold, and,(though painted as a brave fellow, and a soldier,) a mere Tom. Essence,and a quarreler with his best friend, dies like a fool, (as we are led tosuppose at the conclusion of the play,) without either sword or pop-gun,of mere grief and nonsense for one of the vilest of her sex: but the FairPenitent, as she is called, perishes by her own hand; and, having notitle by her past crimes to laudable pity, forfeits all claim to truepenitence, and, in all probability, to future mercy.
But here is Miss CLARISSA HARLOWE, a virtuous, noble, wise, and piousyoung lady; who being ill used by her friends, and unhappily ensnared bya vile libertine, whom she believes to be a man of honour, is in a mannerforced to throw herself upon his protection. And he, in order to obtainher confidence, never scruples the deepest and most solemn protestationsof honour.
After a series of plots and contrivances, al baffled by her virtue andvigilance, he basely has recourse to the vilest of arts, and, to rob herof her honour, is forced first to rob her of her senses.
Unable to bring her, notwithstanding, to his ungenerous views ofcohabitation, she over-awes him in the very entrance of a fresh act ofpremeditated guilt, in presence of the most abandoned of women assembledto assist his devilish purpose; triumphs over them all, by virtue only ofher innocence; and escapes from the vile hands he had put her into.
She nobly, not franticly, resents: refuses to see or to marry the wretch;who, repenting his usage of so divine a creature, would fain move her toforgive his baseness, and make him her husband: and this, thoughpersecuted by all her friends, and abandoned to the deepest distress,being obliged, from ample fortunes, to make away with her apparel forsubsistence; surrounded also by strangers, and forced (in want of others)to make a friend of the friend of her seducer.
Though longing for death, and making all proper preparations for it,convinced that grief and ill usage have broken her noble heart, sheabhors the impious thought of shortening her allotted period; and, asmuch a stranger to revenge as despair, is able to forgive the author ofher ruin; wishes his repentance, and that she may be the last victim tohis barbarous perfidy: and is solicitous for nothing so much in thislife, as to prevent vindictive mischief to and from the man who used herso basely.
This is penitence! This is piety! And hence distress naturally arises,that must worthily effect every heart.
Whatever the ill usage of this excellent woman is from her relations, shebreaks not out into excesses: she strives, on the contrary, to findreason to justify them at her own expense; and seems more concerned fortheir cruelty to her for their sakes hereafter, when she shall be nomore, than for her own: for, as to herself, she is sure, she says, Godwill forgive her, though no one on earth will.
On every extraordinary provocation she has recourse to the Scriptures,and endeavours to regulate her vehemence by sacred precedents. 'Betterpeople, she says, have been more afflicted than she, grievous as shesometimes thinks her afflictions: and shall she not bear what less faultypersons have borne?' On the very occasion I have mentioned, (some newinstances of implacableness from her friends,) the enclosed meditationwill show how mildly, and yet how forcibly, she complains. See if thou,in the wicked levity of thy heart, canst apply it to thy cause, as thoudidst the other. If thou canst not, give way to thy conscience, and thatwill make the properest application.
MEDITATION
How long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words!
Be it indeed that I have erred, mine error remaineth with myself.
To her tha
t is afflicted, pity should be shown from her friend.
But she that is ready to slip with her feet, is as a lamp despised in thethought of them that are at ease.
There is a shame which bringeth sin, and there is a shame which bringethglory and grace.
Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye, my friends! for the hand ofGod hath touched me.
If your soul were in my soul's stead, I also could speak as ye do: Icould heap up words against you--
But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lipsshould assuage your grief.
Why will ye break a leaf driven to and fro? Why will ye pursue the drystubble? Why will ye write bitter words against me, and make me possessthe iniquities of my youth?
Mercy is seasonable in the time of affliction, as clouds of rain in thetime of drought.
Are not my days few? Cease then, and let me alone, that I may takecomfort a little--before I go whence I shall not return; even to the landof darkness, and shadow of death!
Let me add, that the excellent lady is informed, by a letter from Mrs.Norton, that Colonel Morden is just arrived in England. He is now theonly person she wishes to see.
I expressed some jealousy upon it, lest he should have place given overme in the executorship. She said, That she had no thoughts to do so now;because such a trust, were he to accept of it, (which she doubted,)might, from the nature of some of the papers which in that case wouldnecessarily pass through his hands, occasion mischiefs between my friendand him, that would be worse than death for her to think of.
Poor Belton, I hear, is at death's door. A messenger is just come fromhim, who tells me he cannot die till he sees me. I hope the poor fellowwill not go off yet; since neither his affairs of this world, nor for theother, are in tolerable order. I cannot avoid going to the poor man.Yet am unwilling to stir, till I have an assurance from you that you willnot disturb the lady: for I know he will be very loth to part with me,when he gets me to him.
Tourville tells me how fast thou mendest: let me conjure thee not tothink of molesting this incomparable woman. For thy own sake I requestthis, as well as for her's, and for the sake of thy given promise: for,should she die within a few weeks, as I fear she will, it will be said,and perhaps too justly, that thy visit has hastened her end.
In hopes thou wilt not, I wish thy perfect recovery: else that thoumayest relapse, and be confined to thy bed.