LETTER XXXI
MR. BELFORD, TO WILLIAM MORDEN, ESQ.SATURDAY, SEPT. 16.
DEAR SIR,
I once had thoughts to go down privately, in order, disguised, to see thelast solemnity performed. But there was no need to give myself thismelancholy trouble, since your last letter so naturally describes allthat passed, that I have every scene before my eyes.
You crowd me, Sir, methinks, into the silent slow procession--now withthe sacred bier, do I enter the awful porch; now measure I, with solemnpaces, the venerable aisle; now, ambitious of a relationship to her,placed in a pew near to the eye-attracting coffin, do I listen to themoving eulogy; now, through the buz of gaping, eye-swoln crowds, do Idescend into the clammy vault, as a true executor, to see that part ofher will performed with my own eyes. There, with a soul filled withmusing, do I number the surrounding monuments of mortality, andcontemplate the present stillness of so many once busy vanities, crowdedall into one poor vaulted nook, as if the living grudged room for thecorpse of those for which, when animated, the earth, the air, and thewaters, could hardly find room. Then seeing her placed at the feet ofhim whose earthly delight she was; and who, as I find, ascribes to thepleasure she gave him the prolongation of his own life;* sighing, andwith averted face, I quit the solemn mansion, the symbolic coffin, and,for ever, the glory of her sex; and ascend with those, who, in a fewyears, after a very short blaze of life, will fill up other spaces of thesame vault, which now (while they mourn only for her, whom they jointlypersecuted) they press with their feet.
* See Vol. I. Letter V.
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 Iimagine, as they retire, like them, in reality, I give up to new scenesof solitary and sleepless grief; reflecting upon the perfections I haveseen the end of; and having no relief but from an indignation, whichmakes me approve of the resentments of others against the unhappy man,and those equally unhappy relations of her's, to whom the irreparableloss is owing.
Forgive me, Sir, these reflections, and permit me, with this, to send youwhat 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 re-imbursement of the sums advanced to the testatrix since her grandfather's death.]
These expeditious proceedings, says he, will convince Mr. James Harlowethat I am resolved to see the will completely executed; and yet, by mymanner of doing it, that I desire not to give unnecessary mortificationto the family, since every thing that relates to them shall pass throughyour hands.