What would I give to have it so! And when the happiness of hundreds, as well as the peace and reconciliation of several eminent families, depend upon her restoration and happiness, why should it not be so?
But let me presume it will. Let me indulge my former hope, however improbable—I will; and enjoy it too. And let me tell thee how ecstatic my delight would be on the unravelling of such a plot as this!
Do, dear Belford, let it be so!—And, O, my dearest, and ever-dear Clarissa, keep me no longer in this cruel suspense; in which I suffer a thousand times more than ever I made thee suffer. Nor fear thou that I will resent, or recede, on an ecclaircissement so desirable; for I will adore thee forever, and without reproaching thee for the pangs thou hast tortured me with, confess thee as much my superior in virtue and honour!
But once more, should the worst happen—say not what that worst is—and I am gone from this hated island—gone forever—and may eternal—but I am crazed already—and will therefore conclude myself,
Letter 464
Mr. Belford, to Robert Lovelace, Esq.
Tues. in the Morn. at Mr. Smith’s
When I read yours of this morning, I could not help pitying you for the account you give of the dreadful anxiety and suspense you labour under. I wish from my heart all were to end as you are so willing to hope: but it will not be; and your suspense, if the worst part of your torment, as you say it is, will soon be over; but, alas! in a way you wish not.
I attended the lady just now. She is extremely ill: yet is she aiming at an answer to her Norton’s letter, which she began yesterday in her own chamber, and has written a good deal: but in a hand not like her own fine one, as Mrs. Lovick tells me, but larger, and the lines crooked.
I have accepted of the offer of a room adjoining to the widow Lovick’s, till I see how matters go; but unknown to the lady; and I shall go home every night, for a few hours. I would not lose a sentence that I could gain from lips so instructive, nor the opportunity of receiving any command from her, for an estate.
In this my new apartment I now write, and shall continue to write, as occasions offer, that I may be the more circumstantial: but I depend upon the return of my letters, or copies of them, on demand, that I may have together all that relates to this affecting story; which I shall re-peruse with melancholy pleasure to the end of my life.
I think I will send thee Brand’s letter to Mr. John Harlowe, recanting his base surmises. It is a matchless piece of pedantry; and may perhaps a little divert thy deep chagrin: some time hence at least it may, if not now.
What wretched creatures are there in the world! What strangely mixed creatures!—So sensible and so silly at the same time! What a various, what a foolish creature is man!—
Three o’clock.
The lady has just finished her letter, and has entertained Mrs. Lovick, Mrs. Smith, and me, with a noble discourse on the vanity and brevity of life, to which I cannot do justice in the repetition: and indeed I am so grieved for her, that, ill as she is, my intellects are not half so clear as hers.
A few things which made the strongest impression upon me, as well from the sentiments themselves as from her manner of uttering them, I remember. She introduced them thus:
I am thinking, said she, what a gradual and happy death God Almighty (blessed be his name) affords me! Who would have thought, that, suffering what I have suffered, and abandoned as I have been, with such a tender education as I have had, I should be so long a dying!—But see now by little and little it had come to this. I was first taken off from the power of walking; then I took a coach—a coach grew too violent an exercise: then I took up a chair—the prison was a large death-stride upon me—I should have suffered longer else!—Next, I was unable to go to church; then to go up or downstairs; now hardly can move from one room to another: and a less room will soon hold me.—My eyes begin to fail me, so that at times I cannot see to read distinctly; and now I can hardly write, or hold a pen.—Next, I presume, I shall know nobody, nor be able to thank any of you; I therefore now once more thank you, Mrs. Lovick, and you, Mrs. Smith, and you, Mr. Belford, while I can thank you, for all your kindness to me. And thus by little and little, in such a gradual sensible death as I am blessed with, God dies away in us, as I may say, all human satisfaction, in order to subdue his poor creatures to himself.
Thou mayest guess how affected we all were at this moving account of her progressive weakness. We heard it with wet eyes; for what with the women’s example, and what with her moving eloquence, I could no more help it than they. But we were silent nevertheless; and she went on applying herself to me.
O Mr. Belford! This is a poor transitory life in the best enjoyments. We flutter about here and there, with all our vanities about us, like painted butterflies, for a gay, but a very short season, till at last we lay ourselves down in a
