Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 8. Сэмюэл Ричардсон

to promise it to himself, though 'tis all he can bid his poor friend rely upon!

      What miscreants are we! What figures shall we make in these terrible hours!

      If Miss HARLOWE'S glorious example, on one hand, and the terrors of this poor man's last scene on the other, affect me not, I must be abandoned to perdition; as I fear thou wilt be, if thou benefittest not thyself from both.

      Among the consolatory things I urged, when I was called up the last time on Sunday night, I told him, that he must not absolutely give himself up to despair: that many of the apprehensions he was under, were such as the best men must have, on the dreadful uncertainty of what was to succeed to this life. 'Tis well observed, said I, by a poetical divine, who was an excellent christian,* That

              Death could not a more sad retinue find,

            Sickness and pain before, and darkness all behind.

      * The Rev Mr. Norris, of Bremerton.

      About eight o'clock yesterday (Monday) morning, I found him a little calmer. He asked me who was the author of the two lines I had repeated to him; and made me speak them over again. A sad retinue, indeed! said the poor man. And then expressing his hopelessness of life, and his terrors at the thoughts of dying; and drawing from thence terrible conclusions with regard to his future state; There is, said I, such a natural aversion to death in human nature, that you are not to imagine, that you, my dear Belton, are singular in the fear of it, and in the apprehensions that fill the thoughtful mind upon its approach; but you ought, as much as possible, to separate those natural fears which all men must have on so solemn an occasion, from those particular ones which your justly-apprehended unfitness fills you with. Mr. Pomfret, in his Prospect of Death, which I dipped into last night from a collection in your closet, which I put into my pocket, says, [and I turned to the place]

            Merely to die, no man of reason fears;

                  For certainly we must,

                  As we are born, return to dust;

            'Tis the last point of many ling-ring years;

                  But whither then we go,

                  Whither, we fain would know;

            But human understanding cannot show.

                  This makes US tremble——

      Mr. Pomfret, therefore, proceeded I, had such apprehensions of this dark state as you have: and the excellent divine I hinted at last night, who had very little else but human frailties to reproach himself with, and whose miscellanies fell into my hands among my uncle's books in my attendance upon him in his last hours, says,

            It must be done, my soul: but 'tis a strange,

               A dismal, and mysterious change,

            When thou shalt leave this tenement of clay,

               And to an unknown—somewhere—wing away;

            When time shall be eternity, and thou

               Shalt be—thou know'st not what—and live—

                  thou know'st not how!

            Amazing state! no wonder that we dread

               To think of death, or view the dead;

            Thou'rt all wrapt up in clouds, as if to thee

                  Our very knowledge had antipathy.

      Then follows, what I repeated,

              Death could not a more sad retinue find,

            Sickness and pain before, and darkness all behind.

      Alas! my dear Belford [inferred the unhappy deep-thinker] what poor creatures does this convince me we mortals are at best!—But what then must be the case of such a profligate as I, who by a past wicked life have added greater force to these natural terrors? If death be so repugnant a thing to human nature, that good men will be startled at it, what must it be to one who has lived a life of sense and appetite; nor ever reflected upon the end which I now am within view of?

      What could I say to an inference so fairly drawn? Mercy, mercy, unbounded mercy, was still my plea, though his repeated opposition of justice to it, in a manner silenced that plea: and what would I have given to have had rise in my mind, one good, eminently good action to have remembered him of, in order to combat his fears with it?

      I believe, Lovelace, I shall tire thee, and that more with the subject of my letter, than even with the length of it. But really, I think thy spirits are so offensively up since thy recovery, that I ought, as the melancholy subjects offer, to endeavour to reduce thee to the standard of humanity, by expatiating upon them. And then thou canst not but be curious to know every thing that concerns the poor man, for whom thou hast always expressed a great regard. I will therefore proceed as I have begun. If thou likest not to read it now, lay it by, if thou wilt, till the like circumstances befall thee, till like reflections from those circumstances seize thee; and then take it up, and compare the two cases together.

***

      At his earnest request, I sat up with him last night; and, poor man! it is impossible to tell thee, how easy and safe he thought himself in my company, for the first part of the night: A drowning man will catch at a straw, the proverb well says: and a straw was I, with respect to any real help I could give him. He often awaked in terrors; and once calling out for me, Dear Belford, said he, Where are you!—Oh! There you are!—Give me your friendly hand!—Then grasping it, and putting his clammy, half-cold lips to it—How kind! I fear every thing when you are absent. But the presence of a friend, a sympathising friend—Oh! how comfortable!

      But, about four in the morning, he frighted me much: he waked with three terrible groans; and endeavoured to speak, but could not presently—and when he did,—Jack, Jack, Jack, five or six times repeated he as quick as thought, now, now, now, save me, save me, save me—I am going—going indeed!

      I threw my arms about him, and raised him upon his pillow, as he was sinking (as if to hide himself) in the bed-clothes—And staring wildly, Where am I? said he, a little recovering. Did you not see him? turning his head this way and that; horror in his countenance; Did you not see him?

      See whom, see what, my dear Belton!

      O lay me upon the bed again, cried he!—Let me not die upon the floor!— Lay me down gently; and stand by me!—Leave me not!—All, all will soon be over!

      You are already, my dear Belton, upon the bed. You have not been upon the floor. This is a strong delirium; you are faint for want of refreshment [for he had refused several times to take any thing]: let me persuade you to take some of this cordial julap. I will leave you, if you will not oblige me.

      He then readily took it; but said he could have sworn that Tom. Metcalfe had been in the room, and had drawn him out of bed by the throat, upbraiding him with the injuries he had first done his sister, and then him, in the duel to which he owed that fever which cost him his life.

      Thou knowest the story, Lovelace, too well, to need my repeating it: but, mercy on us, if in these terrible moments all the evils we do rise to our frighted imaginations!—If so, what shocking scenes have I, but still what more shocking ones hast thou, to go through, if, as the noble poet says,

            If any sense at that sad time remains!