LETTER XLVIII
MISS HOWE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.SATURDAY, SEPT. 30.
SIR,
I little thought I ever could have owed so much obligation to any man asyou have laid me under. And yet what you have sent me has almost brokenmy heart, and ruined my eyes.
I am surprised, though agreeably, that you have so soon, and so well, gotover that part of the trust you have engaged in, which relates to thefamily.
It may be presumed, from the exits you mention of two of the infernalman's accomplices, that the thunderbolt will not stop short of theprincipal. Indeed I have some pleasure to think it seems rolling alongtowards the devoted head that has plotted all the mischief. But let me,however, say, that although I think Mr. Morden not altogether in thewrong in his reasons for resentment, as he is the dear creature's kinsmanand trustee, yet I think you very much in the right in endeavouring todissuade him from it, as you are her executor, and act in pursuance ofher earnest request.
But what a letter is that of the infernal man's! I cannot observe uponit. Neither can I, for very different reasons, upon my dear creature'sposthumous letters; particularly on that to him. O Mr. Belford! whatnumberless perfections died, when my Clarissa drew her last breath!
If decency be observed in his letters, for I have not yet had patienceto read above two or three of them, (besides this horrid one, which Ireturn to you enclosed,) I may some time hence be curious to look, bytheir means, into the hearts of wretches, which, though they must be theabhorrence of virtuous minds, will, when they are laid open, (as Ipresume they are in them,) afford a proper warning to those who readthem, and teach them to detest men of such profligate characters.
If your reformation be sincere, you will not be offended that I do notexcept you on this occasion.--And thus have I helped you to a criterionto try yourself by.
By this letter of the wicked man it is apparent that there are stillwickeder women. But see what a guilty commerce with the devils of yoursex will bring those to whose morals ye have ruined!--For these womenwere once innocent: it was man that made them otherwise. The first badman, perhaps, threw them upon worse men; those upon still worse; tillthey commenced devils incarnate--the height of wickedness or of shameis not arrived at all at once, as I have somewhere heard observed.
But this man, this monster rather, for him to curse these women, and tocurse the dear creature's family (implacable as the latter were,) inorder to lighten a burden he voluntarily took up, and groans under, ismeanness added to wickedness: and in vain will he one day find his lowplea of sharing with her friends, and with those common wretches, a guiltwhich will be adjudged him as all his own; though they too may meet theirpunishment; as it is evidently begun; in the first, in their ineffectualreproaches of one another; in the second--as you have told me.
This letter of the abandoned wretch I have not shown to any body; noteven to Mr. Hickman: for, Sir, I must tell you, I do not as yet think itthe same thing as only seeing it myself.
Mr. Hickman, like the rest of his sex, would grow upon indulgence. Onedistinction from me would make him pay two to himself. Insolentcreepers, or encroachers all of you! To show any of you a favour to-day,you would expect it as a right to-morrow.
I am, as you see, very open and sincere with you; and design in anotherletter to be still more so, in answer to your call, and Colonel Morden'scall, upon me, in a point that concerns me to explain myself upon to mybeloved creature's executor, and to the Colonel, as her only tender andonly worthy relation.
I cannot but highly applaud Colonel Morden for his generosity to MissDolly Hervey.
O that he had arrived time enough to save my inimitable friend from themachinations of the vilest of men, and from the envy and malice of themost selfish and implacable of brothers and sisters!
ANNA HOWE.