Volume VII Part 49 (1/2)

** Vol. VI. Letter x.x.xVI. in the pen-knife-scene.

Yet in both these to find her power over me, and my love for her, and to hate, to despise, and to refuse me!--She might have done this with some show of justice, had the last-intended violation been perpetrated:--but to go away conqueress and triumphant in every light!--Well may she despise me for suffering her to do so.

She left me low and mean indeed!--And the impression holds with her.--I could tear my flesh, that I gave her not cause--that I humbled her not indeed;--or that I staid not in town to attend her motions instead of Lord M.'s, till I could have exalted myself, by giving to myself a wife superior to all trial, to all temptation.

I will venture one more letter to her, however; and if that don't do, or procure me an answer, then will I endeavour to see her, let what will be the consequence. If she get out of my way, I will do some n.o.ble mischief to the vixen girl whom she most loves, and then quit the kingdom for ever.

And now, Jack, since thy hand is in at communicating the contents of private letters, tell her this, if thou wilt. And add to it, That if SHE abandon me, G.o.d will: and what then will be the fate of

Her LOVELACE.

LETTER LXXVIII

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

[IN ANSWER TO LETTER LXV. OF THIS VOLUME.]

MONDAY, AUG. 7.

And so you have actually delivered to the fair implacable extracts of letters written in the confidence of friends.h.i.+p! Take care--take care, Belford--I do indeed love you better than I love any man in the world: but this is a very delicate point. The matter is grown very serious to me. My heart is bent upon having her. And have her I will, though I marry her in the agonies of death.

She is very earnest, you say, that I will not offer to molest her. That, let me tell her, will absolutely depend upon herself, and the answer she returns, whether by pen and ink, or the contemptuous one of silence, which she bestowed upon my last four to her: and I will write it in such humble, and in such reasonable terms, that, if she be not a true Harlowe, she shall forgive me. But as to the executors.h.i.+p which she is for conferring upon thee--thou shalt not be her executor: let me perish if thou shalt.--Nor shall she die. n.o.body shall be any thing, n.o.body shall dare to be any thing, to her, but I--thy happiness is already too great, to be admitted daily to her presence; to look upon her, to talk to her, to hear her talk, while I am forbid to come within view of her window-- What a reprobation is this, of the man who was once more dear to her than all the men in the world!--And now to be able to look down upon me, while her exalted head is hid from me among the stars, sometimes with scorn, at other times with pity; I cannot bear it.

This I tell thee, that if I have not success in my effort by letter, I will overcome the creeping folly that has found its way to my heart, or I will tear it out in her presence, and throw it at her's, that she may see how much more tender than her own that organ is, which she, and you, and every one else, have taken the liberty to call callous.

Give notice of the people who live back and edge, and on either hand, of the cursed mother, to remove their best effects, if I am rejected: for the first vengeance I shall take will be to set fire to that den of serpents. Nor will there be any fear of taking them when they are in any act that has the relish of salvation in it, as Shakspeare says--so that my revenge, if they perish in the flames I shall light up, will be complete as to them.

LETTER LXXIX

MR. LOVELACE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE MONDAY, AUG. 7.

Little as I have reason to expect either your patient ear, or forgiving heart, yet cannot I forbear to write to you once more, (as a more pardonable intrusion, perhaps, than a visit would be,) to beg of you to put it in my power to atone, as far as it is possible to atone, for the injuries I have done you.

Your angelic purity, and my awakened conscience, are standing records of your exalted merit, and of my detestable baseness: but your forgiveness will lay me under an eternal obligation to you.--Forgive me then, my dearest life, my earthly good, the visible anchor of my future hope!--As you, (who believe you have something to be forgiven for,) hope for pardon yourself, forgive me, and consent to meet me, upon your own conditions, and in whose company you please, at the holy altar, and to give yourself a t.i.tle to the most repentant and affectionate heart that ever beat in a human bosom.

But, perhaps, a time of probation may be required. It may be impossible for you, as well from indisposition as doubt, so soon to receive me to absolute favour as my heart wishes to be received. In this case, I will submit to your pleasure; and there shall be no penance which you can impose that I will not cheerfully undergo, if you will be pleased to give me hope that, after an expiation, suppose of months, wherein the regularity of my future life and actions shall convince you of my reformation, you will at last be mine.

Let me beg then the favour of a few lines, encouraging me in this conditional hope, if it must not be a still nearer hope, and a more generous encouragement.

If you refuse me this, you will make me desperate. But even then I must, at all events, throw myself at your feet, that I may not charge myself with the omission of any earnest, any humble effort, to move you in my favour: for in YOU, Madam, in YOUR forgiveness, are centred my hopes as to both worlds: since to be reprobated finally by you, will leave me without expectation of mercy from above! For I am now awakened enough to think that to be forgiven by injured innocents is necessary to the Divine pardon; the Almighty putting into the power of such, (as is reasonable to believe,) the wretch who causelessly and capitally offends them. And who can be ent.i.tled to this power, if YOU are not?

Your cause, Madam, in a word, I look upon to be the cause of virtue, and, as such, the cause of G.o.d. And may I not expect that He will a.s.sert it in the perdition of a man, who has acted by a person of the most spotless purity as I have done, if you, by rejecting me, show that I have offended beyond the possibility of forgiveness.

I do most solemnly a.s.sure you that no temporal or worldly views induce me to this earnest address. I deserve not forgiveness from you. Nor do my Lord M. and his sisters from me. I despise them from my heart for presuming to imagine that I will be controuled by the prospect of any benefits in their power to confer. There is not a person breathing, but yourself, who shall prescribe to me. Your whole conduct, Madam, has been so n.o.bly principled, and your resentments are so admirably just, that you appear to me even in a divine light; and in an infinitely more amiable one at the same time than you could have appeared in, had you not suffered the barbarous wrongs, that now fill my mind with anguish and horror at my own recollected villany to the most excellent of women.