But then what is my tumbling over and over through the floor into a frightful hole, descending as she ascends? Ho! only this! it alludes to my disrelish to matrimony: Which is a bottomless pit, a gulf, and I know not what. And I suppose, had I not awoke in such a plaguey fright, I had been soused into some river at the bottom of the hole, and then been carried (mundified or purified from my past iniquities), by the same bright form (waiting for me upon the mossy banks), to my beloved girl; and we should have gone on cherubiming of it and caroling to the end of the chapter.
But what are the black sweeping mantles and robes of Lord M. thrown over my face? And what are those of the ladies? O Jack! I have these too: They indicate nothing in the world but that my Lord will be so good as to die, and leave me all he has. So, rest to thy good-natured soul, honest Lord M.
Lady Sarah Sadleir and Lady Betty Lawrance, will also die, and leave me swinging legacies.
Miss Charlotte and her sister—what will become of the?—Oh! they will be in mourning, of course, for their uncle and aunts—that’s right!
As to Morden’s flashing through the window, and crying, Die, Lovelace, and be d⸺d, if thou wilt not repair my cousin’s wrong! That is only, that he would have sent me a challenge, had I not been disposed to do the lady justice.
All I dislike is this part of the dream: for, even in a dream, I would not be thought to be threatened into any measure, though I liked it ever so well.
And so much for my prophetic dream.
Dear charming creature! What a meeting will there be between her and her father and mother and uncles! What transports, what pleasure, will this happy, long-wished-for reconciliation give her dutiful heart! And indeed now methinks I am glad she is so dutiful to them; for her duty to her parents is a conviction to me that she will be as dutiful to her husband: since duty upon principle is an uniform thing.
Why pr’ythee, now, Jack, I have not been so much to blame as thou thinkest: for had it not been for me, who have led her into so much distress, she could neither have received nor given the joy that will now overwhelm them all. So here rises great and durable good out of temporary evil.
I know they loved her (the pride and glory of their family), too well to hold out long!
I wish I could have seen Arabella’s letter. She has always been so much eclipsed by her sister, that I dare say she has signified this reconciliation to her with intermingled phlegm and wormwood; and her invitation must certainly runs all in the rock-water style.
I shall long to see the promised letter too when she is got to her father’s, which I hope will give an account of the reception she will meet with.
There is a solemnity, however, I think, in the style of her letter, which pleases and affects me at the same time. But as it is evident she loves me still, and hopes soon to see me at her father’s, she could not help being a little solemn, and half-ashamed, (dear blushing pretty rogue!) to own her love, after my usage of her.
And then her subscription: Till when, I am
, Clarissa Harlowe: as much as to say, after that, I shall be, if not to your own fault
, Clarissa Lovelace!
O my best love! My ever-generous and adorable creature! How much does this thy forgiving goodness exalt us both!—Me, for the occasion given thee! Thee, for turning it so gloriously to thy advantage, and to the honour of both!
And if, my beloved creature, you will but connive at the imperfections of your adorer, and not play the wife with me: if, while the charms of novelty have their force with me, I should happen to be drawn aside by the love of intrigue, and of plots that my soul delights to form and pursue; and if thou wilt not be open-eyed to the follies of my youth, (a transitory state); every excursion shall serve but the more to endear thee to me, till in time, and in a very little time too, I shall get above sense; and then, charmed by thy soul-attracting converse; and brought to despise my former courses; what I now, at distance, consider as a painful duty, will be my joyful choice, and all my delight will centre in thee!
Mowbray is just arrived with thy letters. I therefore close my agreeable subject, to attend to one which I doubt will be very shocking.
I have engaged the rough varlet to bear me company in the morning to Berks.; where I shall file off the rust he has contracted in his attendance upon the poor fellow.
He tells me that, between the dying Belton and the preaching Belford, he shan’t be his own man these three days: and says that thou addest to the unhappy fellow’s weakness, instead of giving him courage to help him to bear his destiny.
I am sorry he takes the unavoidable lot so heavily. But he has been long ill; and sickness enervates the mind as well as the body; as he himself very significantly observed to thee.
Letter 422
Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq.
Wedn. Evening
I have been reading thy shocking letter—Poor Belton! what a multitude of lively hours have we passed together! He was a fearless, cheerful fellow: who’d have thought all that should end in such dejected whimpering and terror?
But why didst thou not comfort the poor man about the rencounter between him and that poltroon Metcalfe? He acted in that affair like a man of true honour, and as I should have acted in
