Clarissa Harlowe: Or, the History of a Young Lady, Volume 8 Read Online Free PDF Page B

thinks I proposed her writing to me as an alternative that should dispense with my attendance upon her. That it shall not do, nor did I intend it should, unless she pleased me better in the contents of her letter than she has done. Bid her read again. I gave no such hopes. I would have been with her in spite of you both, by to-morrow, at farthest, had I not been laid by the heels thus, like a helpless miscreant.
    But I grow better and better every hour, I say: the doctor says not: but I am sure I know best: and I will soon be in London, depend on't. But say nothing of this to my dear, cruel, and implacable Miss Harlowe.
    A--dieu--u, Ja--aack--What a gaping puppy (yaw--n! yaw--n! yaw--n!)
    Thy
LOVELACE.
LETTER VIII
MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
MONDAY, AUG. 15.
    I am extremely concerned for thy illness. I should be very sorry to lose thee. Yet, if thou diest so soon, I could wish, from my soul, it had been before the beginning of last April: and this as well for thy sake, as for the sake of the most excellent woman in the world: for then thou wouldst not have had the most crying sin of thy life to answer for.
    I was told on Saturday that thou wert very much out of order; and this made me forbear writing till I heard farther. Harry, on his return from thee, confirmed the bad way thou art in. But I hope Lord M. in his unmerited tenderness for thee, thinks the worst of thee. What can it be, Bob.? A violent fever, they say; but attended with odd and severe symptoms.
    I will not trouble thee in the way thou art in, with what passes here with Miss Harlowe. I wish thy repentance as swift as thy illness; and as efficacious, if thou diest; for it is else to be feared, that she and you will never meet in one place.
    I told her how ill you are. Poor man! said she. Dangerously ill, say
you?
    Dangerously indeed, Madam!--So Lord M. sends me word!
    God be merciful to him, if he die!--said the admirable creature.--Then, after a pause, Poor wretch!--may he meet with the mercy he has not shown!
    I send this by a special messenger: for I am impatient to hear how it goes with thee.--If I have received thy last letter, what melancholy reflections will that last, so full of shocking levity, give to
    Thy true friend,
JOHN BELFORD.
LETTER IX
MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
TUESDAY, AUG. 15.*
    * Text error: should be Aug. 16.
    Thank thee, Jack; most heartily I thank thee, for the sober conclusion of thy last!--I have a good mind, for the sake of it, to forgive thy till now absolutely unpardonable extracts.
    But dost think I will lose such an angel, such a forgiving angel, as this?--By my soul, I will not!--To pray for mercy for such an ungrateful miscreant!--how she wounds me, how she cuts me to the soul, by her exalted generosity!--But SHE must have mercy upon me first!--then will she teach me a reliance for the sake of which her prayer for me will be answered.
    But hasten, hasten to me particulars of her health, of her employments,
of her conversation.
    I am sick only of love! Oh! that I could have called her mine!--it would then have been worth while to be sick!--to have sent for her down to me from town; and to have had her, with healing in her dove-like wings, flying to my comfort; her duty and her choice to pray for me, and to bid me live for her sake!--O Jack! what an angel have I--
    But I have not lost her!--I will not lose her! I am almost well; should be quite well but for these prescribing rascals, who, to do credit to their skill, will make the disease of importance.--And I will make her mine!--and be sick again, to entitle myself to her dutiful tenderness, and pious as well as personal concern!
    God for ever bless her!--Hasten, hasten particulars of her!--I am sick of love!--such generous goodness!--By all that's great and good, I will not lose her!--so tell her!--She says, that she could not pity me, if she thought of being mine! This, according to Miss Howe's transcriptions to Charlotte.--But bid her hate me, and have me: and