Letter 261: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Friday, June 16 

I am sorry to hear of thy misfortune; but hope thou wilt not long lie by it. Thy servant tells me what a narrow escape thou hadst with thy neck. I wish it may not be ominous: but I think thou seemest not to be in so enterprising a way as formerly; and yet, merry or sad, thou seest a rake's neck is always in danger, if not from the hangman, from his own horse. But 'tis a vicious toad, it seems; and I thinkthou shouldst never venture upon his back again; for 'tis a plaguy thing for rider and horse both to be vicious.

Thy fellow tells me thou desirest me to continue to write to thee, to divert thy chagrin on thy forced confinement: but how can I think it in my power to divert, when my subject is not pleasing to myself?

Caesar never knew what it was to e hypped, I will call it, till he came o be what Pompey was; that it was to be gloomy, till he had completed his wishes upon the charminest creature in the world, as the other did his upon the most potent republic that had ever existed.

And yet why say I, completed? when the will, the consent, is wanting--and I have still views before me of obtaining that?

Yet I could almost join with thee in the wish, which thou sendest me up by thy servant, unfriendly as it is, that I had thy misfortune before Monday night last: for here the poor lady has run into a contrary extreme to that I told thee of in my last: for now is she as much lively, as before she was too stupid; and, 'bating that she has pretty frequent lucid intervals, would be deemed raving mad, and I should be obliged to confine her.

I am most confoundedly disturbed about it: for I begin to fear that her intellects are irreparably hurt.

Who the devil could have expected such strange effects from a cause so common, and so slight?

But these high-souled and high-sensed girls, who had set up for shining lights and examples to the rest of the sex (I now see that such there are!) are with such difficulty brought down to the common standard, that a wise man, who prefers his  peace of mind to his glory in subduing one of that exalted class, would have nothing to say to them.

I do all in my power to quiet her spirits, when I force myself into her presence.

I go on, begging pardon one minute; and vowing truth and honour another.

I would at first have persuaded her, and offered to call witness to the truth of it, that we were actually married. Though the licence was in her hands, I thought the assertion might go down in her disorder; and charming consequences I hoped would follow. But this would not do--

I therefore gave up that hope: and now I declare to her that it is my resolution to marry her the moment her uncle Harlowe informs me that he will grace the ceremony with his presence.

But she believes nothing I say; nor (whether in her senses or not) bears me with patience in her sight.

I pity her with all my soul; and I curse myself when she is in her wailing fits, and when I apprehend that intellects so charming as hers are for ever damped-But  more I curse these women who put me upon such an expedient!--Lord! Lord!  what a hand have I made of it!--And all for what?

Last night, for the first time since Monday last,  she got to her pen and ink: but she pursues her writing with such eagerness and hurry, as show too evidently her discomposure.

I hope, however, that this employment will help to calm her spirits.

JUST now Dorcas tells me that what she writes she tears, and throws the paper in fragments under the table, either as not knowing what she does, or disliking it: then gets up, wrings her hands, weeps, and shifts her seat all round the room: then returns to her table, sits down, and writes again.

ONE odd letter, as I may call it, Dorcas has this moment given me from her--Carry this, said she, to the vilest of  men. Dorcas, a toad! brought it, without any further direction, to me--I sat down, intending (though 'tis pretty long) to give thee a copy of it: but, for my life, I cannot; 'tis so extravagant. And the original is too much an original to let it go out of my hands.

But some of the scraps and fragments, as either torn through, or flung aside, I will copy for the novelty of the thing, and to show thee how her mind works now she is in this whimsical way. Yet I know I am still furnishing thee with new weapons against myself. But spare thy comments. My own reflections render them needless. Dorcas thinks her lady will ask for them: so wishes to have them to lay again under her table.

By the first thou'lt guess that I have told her that Miss Howe is very ill, and can't write; that she may account the better for not having received the letter designed for her.

PAPERS I-X

AFTER all, Belford, I have just skimmed over these transcriptions of Dorcas; and I see there is method and good sense in some of them, wild as others of them are; and that her memory, which serves her so well for these poetical flights, is far from being impaired. And this gives me hope that she will soon recover her charming intellects--though I shall be the sufferer by their restoration, I make no doubt.

But, in the letter she wrote to me, there are yet greater extravagancies; and though I said it was too affecting to give thee a copy of it, yet, after I have let thee see the loose papers enclosed, I think I may throw in a transcription of that. Dorcas, therefore, shall here transcribe it: I cannot. The reading of it affected me ten times more than the severest reproaches of a regular mind.

[Letter 261.1: Clarissa Harlowe] to Mr Lovelace

I NEVER intended to write another line to you. I would not see you, if I could help it. Oh that I never had!

But tell me of a truth, is Miss Howe really and truly ill?--very ill?--and is not her illness poison? And don't you know who gave it her?--

What you, or Mrs Sinclair, or somebody I cannot tell who, have done to my poor head, you best know: but I shall never be what I was. My head is gone. I have wept away all my brain, I believe; for I can weep no more. Indeed I have had my full share; so it is no matter.

But, good now, Lovelace, don't set Mrs Sinclair upon me again! I never did her any harm. She so affrights me when I see her!--Ever since--when was it? I cannot tell. You can, I suppose. She may be a good woman, as far as I know. She was the wife of a man of honour--very likely!--though forced to let lodgings for her livelihood. Poor gentlewoman! Let her know I pity her: but don't let her come near me again--pray don't!

Yet she may be a very good woman--

What would I say!--I forget what I was going to say.

Oh Lovelace, you are Satan himself; or he helps you out in everything; and that's as bad!

But have you really and truly sold yourself to him? And for how long? What duration is your reign to have?

Poor man! The contract will be out; and then what will be your fate!

Oh! Lovelace! if you could be sorry for yourself, I would be sorry too--but when all my doors are fast, and nothing but the key-hole open, and the key of late put into that, to be where you are, in a manner without opening any of them--Oh wretched, wretched Clarissa Harlowe!

For I never will be Lovelace--let my uncle take it as he pleases.

Well, but now I remember what I was going to say--It is for your good--not mine--for nothing can do me good now!--Oh thou villainous man! thou hated Lovelace!

But Mrs Sinclair may be a good woman--If you love me--but that you don't--but don't let her bluster up with her worse than mannish airs to me again! Oh she is a frightful woman! If she be a woman!--She needed not to put on that fearful mask to scare me out of my poor wits. But don't tell her what I say-I have no hatred to her--It is only fright, and foolish fear, that's all--She may not be a bad woman-but neither are all men, any more than all women, alike--God forbid they should be like you!

Alas! you have killed my head among you--! don't say who did it--God forgive you all!--But had it not been better to have put me out of all your ways at once? You might safely have done it! For nobody would require me at your hands--no, not a soul--except, indeed, Miss Howe would have said, when she should see you, what, Lovelace, have you done with Clarissa Harlowe?-And then you could have given any slight gay answer--Sent her beyond sea; or, she has run away from me as she did from her parents. And this would have been easily credited; for you know, Lovelace, she that could run away from them, might very well run away from you.

But this is nothing to what I wanted to say. Now I have it!

I have lost it again--This foolish wench comes teasing me--For what purpose should I eat? For what end should! wish to live?--I tell thee, Dorcas, I will neither eat nor drink. I cannot be worse than I am.

I will do as you'd have me--Good Dorcas, look not upon me so fiercely--But thou canst not look so bad as! have seen somebody look.

Mr Lovelace, now that! remember what! took pen in hand to say, let me hurry ; off my thoughts, lest I lose them again--Here I am sensible--And yet! am hardly sensible neither--But ! know my head is not as it should be, for all that--Therefore let me propose one thing to you: it is for your good-not mine: and this is it:

I must needs be both a trouble and an expense to you. And here my uncle Harlowe, when he knows how I am, will never wish any man to have me: no, not even you, who have been the occasion of it--Barbarous and ungrateful!--A less complicated villainy cost a Tarquin2--but ! forget what! would say again--

Then this is it: ! never shall be myself again: ! have been a very wicked creature--a vain, proud, poor creature-full of secret pride-which ! carried off under an humble guise, and deceived everybody--My sister says so-and now! am punished--so let me be carried out of this house, and out of your sight; and let me be put into that Bedlam privately, which once I saw: but it was a sad sight to me then! Little as I thought what! should come to myself!--That is all I would say: this is all I have to wish for-then I shall be out of all your ways; and I shall be taken care of; and bread and water, without your tormentings, will be dainties :and my straw bed the easiest I have lain in-for-I cannot tell how long!--

My clothes will sell for what will keep me there, perhaps, as long as I shall live. But, Lovelace, dear Lovelace I will call you; for you have cost me enough, I'm sure!--don t let me be made a show of, for my family's sake; nay, for your own sake, don't do that--For when I know all I have suffered, which yet I do not, and no matter if I never do--I may be apt to rave against you by name, and tell of all ; your baseness to a poor humbled creature, that once was as proud as anybody--but of what I can't tell--except of my own folly and vanity--but let that pass--since I am punished enough for it-

So, suppose, instead of Bedlam, it were a private madhouse where nobody comes!--That will be better a great deal.

But, another thing, Lovelace: don't let them use me cruelly when! am there--You have used me cruelly enough, you know! Don't let them use me cruelly; for I will be very tractable; and do as anybody would have me do--except what you would have me do--for that I never will.--Another thing, Lovelace: don't let this good woman; I was going to say vile woman; but don't tell her that--because she won't let you send me to this happy refuge perhaps, if she were to know it--

Another thing, Lovelace; and let me have pen, and ink, and paper, allowed me--It will be all my amusement--But they need not send to anybody I shall write to, what I write, because it will but trouble them; and somebody may do you a mischief, maybe--I wish not that anybody do anybody a mischief upon my account.

You tell me that Lady Betty Lawrance and your cousin Montague were here to take leave of me; but that I was asleep, and could not be waked. So you told me at first, I was married, you know; and that you were my husband--Ah! Lovelace! look to what you say--But let not them (for they will sport with my misery), let not that Lady Betty, let not that Miss Montague, whatever the real ones may do; nor Mrs Sinclair neither, nor any of her lodgers, nor her nieces, come to see me in my, place--Real ones, I say; for, Lovelace, I shall find out all your villainies in time--indeed I shall--so put me there as soon as you can--It is for your good--Then all will pass for ravings that I can say, as, I doubt not, many poor creatures' exclamations do pass, though there may be too much truth in them for all that--and you know I began to be mad at Hampstead--so you said--Ah! villainous man! what have you not to answer for!

A little interval seems to be lent me. I had begun to look over what I have written. It is not fit for anyone to see, so far as I have been able to re-peruse it: but my head will not hold, I doubt, to go through it all. If therefore I have not already mentioned my earnest desire, let me tell you, it is this: that I be sent out of this abominable house without delay, and locked up in some private madhouse about this town; for such, it seems, there are; never more to be seen, or to be produced to anybody, except in your own vindication, if you should be charged with the murder of my person; a much lighter crime than that of my honour, which the greatest villain on earth has robbed me of. And deny me not this my last request, I beseech you; and one other, and that is, never to let me see you more! This surely, may be granted to

The miserably abused
CLARISSA HARLOWE

I WILL not hear thy heavy preachments upon this plaguy letter. So, not a word, of that sort! The paper, thou'lt see, is blistered with the tears even of the hardened transcriber; which has made her ink run here and there.

Mrs Sinclair is a true heroine and, I think, shames us all. And she is a woman too! Thou'lt say the best things corrupted become the worst. But this is certain. that whatever the sex set their hearts upon, they make thorough work of it. And hence it is, that a mischief which would end in simple robbery among men-rogues becomes murder if a woman be in it.

I know thou wilt blame me for having had recourse to art. But do not physicians prescribe opiates in acute cases, where the violence of the disorder would be apt to throw the patient into a fever or delirium? I aver that my motive for this; expedient was mercy; nor could it be anything else. For a rape, thou knowest, to us rakes is far from being an undesirable thing. Nothing but the law stands in our way, upon that account; and the opinion of what a modest woman will suffer, rather than become a viva voce accuser, lessens much an honest fellow's apprehensions on that score. Then, if these somnivolences (I hate the word opiates on this occasion) have turned her head, that is an effect they frequently have upon some constitutions; and in this case was rather the fault of the dose, than the design of the giver.

But is not wine itself an opiate in degree?--How many women have been taken advantage of by wine, and other still more intoxicating viands?--Let me tell thee, Jack, that the experience of many of the passive sex, and the consciences of many more of the active, appealed to, will testify that thy Lovelace is not the worst of villains. Nor would I have thee put me upon clearing myself, by comparisons.

If she escape a settled delirium when my plots unravel, I think it is all I ought to be concerned about. What therefore I desire of thee is, that if two constructions may be made of my actions, thou wilt afford me the most favourable. For this, not only friendship, but my own ingenuity, which has furnished thee with the knowledge of the facts against which thou art so ready to inveigh, require of thee.

WILL is just returned from an errand to Hampstead; and acquaints me that Mrs Townsend was yesterday at Mrs Moore's, accompanied by three or four rough fellows. She was strangely surprised at the news that my spouse and I are entirely reconciled; and that two fine ladies, my relations, came to visit her, and went to town with her: where she is very happy with me. She was sure we were not married, she said, unless it was while we were at Hampstead: and they were sure the ceremony was not performed there. But that the lady is happy and easy is unquestionable: and a fling was thrown out by Mrs Moore and Mrs Bevis at mischief-makers, as they knew Mrs Townsend to be acquainted with Miss Howe.

Now, since my fair one can neither receive nor send away letters, I am pretty easy as to this Mrs Townsend and her employer. And I fancy Miss Howe will bc puzzled to know what to think of the matter, and afraid of sending by Wilson's conveyance; and perhaps suppose that her friend slights her; or has changed her mind in my favour, and is ashamed to own it; as she has not had an answer to what she wrote; and will believe that the rustic delivered her last letter into her own hand.

Meantime, I have a little project come into my head, of a new kind; just for amusement sake, that's all: variety has irresistible charms. I cannot live without intrigue. My charmer has no passions; that is to say, none of the passions that I want her to have. She engages all my reverence. I am at present more inclined to regret what I have done, than to proceed to new offences: and shall regret it till I see how she takes it, when recovered.

Shall I tell thee my project? 'Tis not a high one--'Tis this--to get hither Mrs Moore, Miss Rawlins, and my Widow Bevis; for they are desirous to make a visit to my spouse, now we are so happy together. And, if I can order it right, Belton, Mowbray, Tourville, and I, will show them a little more of the ways of this wicked town than they at present know. Why should they be acquainted with a man of my character, and not be the better and wiser for it?--I would have everybody rail against rakes with judgement and knowledge, if they will rail. Two of these women gave me a great deal of trouble: and the third, I am confident, will forgive a merry evening.

I am really sick at heart for a frolic, and have no doubt but this will be an agreeable one. These women already think me a wild fellow; nor do they like me the less for it, as I can perceive; and I shall take care that they shall be treated with, so much freedom before one another's faces, that in policy they shall keep each other's counsel. And won't this be doing a kind thing by them? since it will knit an indissoluble band of union and friendship between three women who are neighbours, and at present have only common obligations to one another: for thou wantest not to be told that secrets of love, and secrets of this nature, are generally the strongest cement of female friendships.

But, after all, if my beloved should be happily restored to her intellects, we may have scenes arise between us, that will be sufficiently busy to employ all the faculties of thy friend, without looking out for new occasions. Already, as I have often observed, has she been the means of saving scores; yet without her own knowledge.

Sat. night

By Dorcas's account of her lady's behaviour, the dear creature seems to bet recovering. I shall give the earliest notice of this to the worthy Captain Tomlinson, that he may apprise uncle John of it. I must be properly enabled from that quarter, to pacify her, or, at least, to rebate her first violence