Exalted creature!—And couldst thou, at such a time, and so early, and in such circumstances, have so far subdued thy own just resentments, as to wish happiness to the principal author of all thy distresses?—Wish happiness to him who had robbed thee 'of all thy favourite expectations in this life?' To him who had been the cause that thou wert cut off in the bloom of youth?'
Heavenly aspirer!—What a frame must thou be in, to be able to use the word ONLY, in mentioning these important deprivations!—And as this was before thou puttest off immortality, may I not presume that thou now,
—— with pitying eye,
Not derogating from thy perfect bliss,
Survey'st all Heav'n around, and wishest for me?
'Consider my ways.'—Dear life of my life! Of what avail is consideration now, when I have lost the dear creature, for whose sake alone it was worth while to have consideration?—Lost her beyond retrieving—swallowed up by the greedy grave—for ever lost her—that, that's the thing—matchless woman, how does this reflection wound me!
'Your golden dream cannot long last.'—Divine prophetess! my golden dream is already over. 'Thought and reflection are no longer to be kept off.' —No longer continues that 'hardened insensibility' thou chargest upon me. 'Remorse has broken in upon me. Dreadful is my condition;—it is all reproach and horror with me!'—A thousand vultures in turn are preying upon my heart!
But no more of these fruitless reflections—since I am incapable of writing any thing else; since my pen will slide into this gloomy subject, whether I will or not; I will once more quit it; nor will I again resume it, till I can be more its master, and my own.
All I took pen to write for is however unwritten. It was, in few words, to wish you to proceed with your communications, as usual. And why should you not;—since, in her ever-to-be-lamented death, I know every thing shocking and grievous—acquaint me, then, with all thou knowest, which I do not know; how her relations, her cruel relations, take it; and whether now the barbed dart of after-reflection sticks not in their hearts, as in mine, up to the very feathers.
***
I will soon quit this kingdom. For now my Clarissa is no more, what is there in it (in the world indeed) worth living for?—But shall I not first, by some masterly mischief, avenge her and myself upon her cursed family?
The accursed woman, they tell me, has broken her leg. Why was it not her neck?—All, all, but what is owing to her relations, is the fault of that woman, and of her hell-born nymphs. The greater the virtue, the nobler the triumph, was a sentence for ever in their mouths.—I have had it several times in my head to set fire to the execrable house; and to watch at the doors and windows, that not a devil in it escape the consuming flames. Had the house stood by itself, I had certainly done it.