She remembers herself to her foster-brother in a very kind manner; and charges her, for his sake, that she will not take too much to heart what has befallen her.
She concludes as follows:
Remember me, in the last place, to all my kind well-wishers of your acquaintance; and to those I used to call My Poor. They will be God’s poor, if they trust in Him. I have taken such care, that I hope they will not be losers by my death. Bid them, therefore, rejoice; and do you also, my reverend comforter and sustainer, (as well in my darker as in my fairer days), likewise rejoice, that I am so soon delivered from the evils that were before me; and that I am now, when this comes to your hands, as I humbly trust, exulting in the mercies of a gracious God, who has conducted an end to all my temptations and distresses; and who, I most humbly trust, will, in his own good time, give us a joyful meeting in the regions of eternal blessedness. ↩
A blank, at the writing, was left for this date, and filled up on this day. See Letter 454. ↩
The date of the year is left blank for particular reasons. ↩
See Letter 147. ↩
See Letter 147. ↩
See Letter 476. ↩
Job 15:31, 32, 33. ↩
See Letter 454. ↩
See Letter 144. ↩
See Letter 346. ↩
See her letter, enclosed in Mr. Lovelace’s, No. 372.
The reader may observe, by the date of this letter, that it was written within two days of the allegorical one, to which it refers, and while the lady was labouring under the increased illness occasioned by the hurries and terrors into which Mr. Lovelace had thrown her, in order to avoid the visit he was so earnest to make her at Mr. Smith’s; so early written, perhaps, that she might not be surprised by death into a seeming breach of her word.
High as her Christian spirit soars in this letter, the reader has seen, in Letter 467 and in other places, that that exalted spirit carried her to still more divine elevations, as she drew nearer to her end. ↩
See his delirious Letter, No. 497. ↩
This Letter appears not. ↩
See Letter 510. ↩
See Letter 499. ↩
See Letter 339. ↩
See the Postscript to Letter 443. ↩
See Letter 490. ↩
See Letter 510. ↩
See Letter 511. ↩
The preceding Letter. ↩
What is between crotchets, thus [ ], Mr. Belford omitted in the transcription of this Letter to Miss Howe. ↩
See Letter 519. ↩
See Letter 399. ↩
In her commonplace book she has the following note upon the recollection of this illness in the time of her distress:
“In a dangerous illness, with which I was visited a few years before I had the unhappiness to know this ungrateful man! (would to Heaven I had died in it!) my bed was surrounded by my dear relations—father, mother, brother, sister, my two uncles, weeping, kneeling, round me, then put up their vows to Heaven for my recovery; and I, fearing that I should drag down with me to my grave one or other of my sorrowing friends, wished and prayed to recover for their sakes.—Alas! how shall parents in such cases know what to wish for! How happy for them, and for me, had I then been denied to their prayers! But now I am eased of that care. All those dear relations are living still—but not one of them (such as they think, has been the heinousness of my error!) but, far from being grieved, would rejoice to hear of my death.” ↩
These double dates are due to the fact that the United Kingdom had not yet converted to the Gregorian calendar whereas most of Europe had done so. —Editor ↩
See Letter 107. See also Letters 109, 137, 138, and many other places. ↩
See Letter 243.—It may be observed further, that all Clarissa’s occasional lectures to Miss Howe, on that young lady’s treatment of Mr. Hickman, prove that she was herself above affectation and tyranny.—See, more particularly, the advice she gives to that friend of her heart, Letter 243.—“O my dear,” says she, in that Letter, “that it had been my lot (as I was not permitted to live single) to have met with a man by whom I could have acted generously and unreservedly!” etc. etc. ↩
See Letter 243. ↩
See Letter 245. ↩
See Letter 467. ↩
See Letter 510. ↩
Ecclesiasticus 25:19. ↩
Several worthy persons
