up. Can I? How mean will any one now ap-. pear in his eyes, when he thinks of his Clementina? And who can be contented with half a heart? Nay, not half a one, if he does justice to this wonder of a woman? It was always my consolation, when I looked upon him as lost to myself, that it was to a person of superior merit. But who can forbear pitying the glorious man! O my dear, I am lost in the subject! I know not what to say. Were I to tell you what I thought, what were my emotions, as I read now his generous pity for the Count of Belvedere-Now his affectionate and respectful address to the noble lady-Her agitations of mind, previous to the delivery of her paper to him-That paper, the contents so greatly surpassing all that I had read of woman!-yet so much of a piece with the conduct she shewed, when the struggle between her religion and her love cost her her reason-His equal steadiness in his religion, so nobly firm-yet towards her so delicate-In short, the whole of his conduct and hers, in the various lights in which they appeared in the different conversations with her, with her family -Were I to tell you, I say, what I thought, and what were my emotions as I read, a volume would not be sufficient; nor know I what measure would contain my tears. Suffice it to say, that I was not able to rise in two days and nights; and it has been with the greatest difficulty that I obtained pen and ink, and leave to write, and the physician talks of confining me to my chamber for a week to come. Sir Charles cries out upon suspense-Indeed it is a grievous thing. You will observe, that in these last letters he mentions me but once, and that is, in making me a compliment on the favour which the beloved four conferred upon me, and all of us, in the visit you were so good as to make us. And why do you think I take notice of this?-Not from petulance, I assure you; but for the praise of his justice as well as delicacy: for, could Sir Charles Grandison excusably, (if on other occasions he remember the poor girl whom he rescued, could he excusably, I say,) while his soul was agitated by his own suspense, occasioned by the uncommon greatness of Clementina's behaviour, think of any other woman in the world? But you see, my Charlotte, that the excellent man has been, perhaps is, greatly indisposed. Can we wonder at it? Such a prize in view, so many difficulties as he had to struggle with, overcome; yet, at last, a seemingly insuperable one arising from the lady herself, and from motives that increased his admiration of her? But a woman may be eloquent from grief and disappointment, when a man, though his nobler heart is torn in pieces, must hardly complain.-How do I pity the distresses of a manly heart! VOL. VIII. But should this noble lady, on his return to Bologna, after a month's absence, hold her purpose, unless he changes his religion, I will tell you my thoughts of what will probably be the result. He will not marry at all. If he cannot love another woman as well as he does Clementina, ought he? And who can equally deserve his love? Have we not heard from himself, as well as from Dr Bartlett, that all the troubles he has had, have proceeded from our sex? It is true, that men and women can hardly ever have any great troubles but what must arise from each other. And his have arisen from good women too. (I hope Lady Olivia is not deliberately bad.) And why should so good a man continue to subject himself to the petulance, to the foibles, of us wayward women, who hardly know our own minds, as Signor Jeronymo told his friend, when our wishes are in our power? -? But, sick or well, you see Sir Charles Grandison loses not his spirit. His enlarged heart can rejoice in the happiness of his friends. I will have joy, said he once to me. And must he not have it in the hopes of recovery of his friend Jeronymo? In the restoration of the admirable Clementina? And in the happiness those recoveries must give to a worthy and illustrious family? Let me enumerate, from him, the pleasure he enjoys in the felicity he has given to many, though he cannot be, in himself, the happy person he makes others. Is he not delighted with the happiness of Lord and Lady WOf his Beauchamp, and his Beauchamp's father and mother?-Of Lady Mansfield and her family? With your and Lord G-'s happiness? Does it not rejoice you, my dear, to have it in your power to contribute to the pleasure of such a brother? And how great, how honourable, how considerate, how delicate, is his behaviour to the noble Clementina! how patient, how disinterested with her family! How ready to enter into their sentiments, and to allow for them, though against himself! But he is prudent: he sees before him at a great distance: he is resolved to have nothing to reproach himself with in future, that he can obviate at present. But is not his conduct such, as would make a considerate person, who has any connections with him, tremble? Since, if there be a fault between them, it must be all that person's; and he will not, if it be possible for him to avoid it, be a sharer in it? Do you think, my dear, that had he been the first man, he would have been so complaisant to his Eve as Milton makes Adam-[So contrary to that part of his character, which made him accuse the woman to the Almighty *-To taste the forbidden fruit, because he would not be separated from her in her punishment, though all posterity were to suffer by it?-No; it is my opinion, that your brother would have had gal lantry enough to his fallen spouse, to have made him extremely regret her lapse; but that he would have done his own duty, and left it to the Almighty, if such had been his pleasure, to have annihilated his first Eve, and given him a second -But, my dear, do I not write strangely? I would be cheerful, if I could, because you are so kind as to take pains to make me so: but on reperusing what I have written, I am afraid that you have taught me to think oddly. Tell me truth, Charlotte: is not what has last slipt from my pen, more in Lady G―'s manner, than in that of her HARRIET BYRON ? One line more, and no more, my dear, my indulgent Aunt Selby!-They won't let me write on, Charlotte, when I had a thousand things farther to say, on the contents of this important packet, or I should not have concluded so uncharacteristically. LETTER CLXXXIX. SIR CHARLES GRANDISON TO LADY CLEMENTINA DELLA PORRETTA. Florence, July 28-29. I BEGIN, dear and admirable Lady Clementina, the permitted correspondence, with a due sense of the favour done me in it: Yet, can I say that it is not a painful favour? Was ever man before circumstanced as I am?-Permitted to admire the noblest and most amiable of women, and even generously allowed to look upon himself as a man esteemed, perhaps more than esteemed, by her and her illustrious family; yet in honour forbidden to solicit for a blessing that once was designed for him; and which he is not accused of demeriting by misbehaviour, or by assuming an appearance that he made not good. Excellent lady! Am I other than you ever had reason to think me, in my manners, in my principles? Did I ever endeavour to unsettle you in your attachments to the religion of your country? No, madam: Invincibly attached as I knew you were to that religion, I contented myself with avowing my own; and, indeed, should have thought it an ill requital for the protection I enjoyed from the civil and ecclesiastical powers, and a breach of the laws of hospitality, had I attempted to unsettle the beloved daughter of a house so firmly likewise attached, as they always were, to their principles. From such a conduct, could this beloved daughter doubt the free exercise of her religion, had she But, hushed be the complainings, that my expostulating heart will hardly be denied to dictate to my pen! Have I not said, that I will be all you wish me to be-All hope, or all acquies cence?-Forgive me, madam, forgive me, dear and ever to be respected family, that yet I use the word hope. Such a prize, almost in possession-can I forbear to say hope?-Yet do I not, at the same time, promise acquiescence ?-Painful as it is to me, and impossible as it would be, were not all-commanding conscience pleaded, most excellent of women! I will, I do, acquiesce. If you persevere, dear to my soul as you ever must be, I resign to your will. The disappointed heart, not given up to unmanly despair, in a world so subject to disappointments, will catch at the next good to that it has lost-Shall I not hope, madam, that a correspondence so allowably begun, whatever be the issue in the greater event, will for ever last? That a friendship so pure will ever be allowed? That the disappointed man may be considered as the son, the brother of a family, which must, in all the branches of it, be ever dear to him? I will hope it. I will even demand the continuance of its esteem; why should I not say of its affection? But, so long only as my own impartial heart, and my zeal for the glory and happiness of your whole house, shall tell me I deserve this; and so long as I can make out my pretensions, to the satisfaction of every one of it. It cannot be on my side, nor will I allow it on yours, that the man who once, by the favour of your whole family, was likely to be happy in a near alliance to it, should, and perhaps for that reason, as it often happens in like instances, be looked upon as the most remote from its friendly love. Never, madam, could the heart of man boast a more disinterested passion for an object, whose mind was dearer to it than even her person; or a more sincere affection to every one of her family, than mine does. I am unhappily called upon to the proof. The proof is unquestionable. And-to the last hour of my life, you and they, madam, will be dear to me. Adieu, most excellent of women!-Circumstanced as I am, what more can Í say?—Adieu, most excellent of women:-May every good, temporal and eternal, be yours, and every one's of your beloved family, prays Your and their most grateful, Most affectionate, and most obedient, LETTER CXC. LADY CLEMENTINA DELLA PORRETTA TO SIR CHARLES GRANDISON. Bologna, Tuesday, Aug. 5, N. S. I was the more willing, sir, to become your correspondent, as I thought I could write to you with greater freedom than I could speak. And, indeed, I will be very free, and very sincere. I will suppose, when I address myself to you, that I am writing to my brother and best friend. And, indeed, to which of my other brothers can I write with equal freedom?-You, in imitation of the God of us all, require only the heart. My heart shall be as open to you, as if, like Him, you could look into every secret recess of it. I thank you, sir, for the kind and generous contents of the letter, by which you have opened this desirable correspondence. Such a regard have you paid in it to the weakness of my mind, and to its late unhappy state, without mentioning that unhappy state-O sir, you are the most delicate of men-What tenderness have you always shewn me for my attachment to the religion of my fathers-Surely you are the most pious of Protestants!-Protestants can be pious; you and Mrs Beaumont have convinced me that they can. Little did I think I should ever be brought to acknowledge so much in favour of the people of your religion, as you and she, by your goodness, have brought me to acknowledge. O sir, what might you not have brought me to by your love, by your kind treatment of me, and by your irresistible address, were I to have been yours, and residing in a Protestant nation, every one of your friends of that religion, and all amiable, and perhaps exemplarily good? I was afraid of you, chevalier. But no more of this subject. You are invincible; and I hope I should not have been overcome, had I been yours-But do we not pray against running into temptation? Again, I say, no more of this subject at present, yet hardly know how to forbear Nothing but the due consideration of the brevity and vanity of this life, in which we are but probationers, and of the eternity of the next, could have influenced me to act against my heart. Dear chevalier, how happy should I have been could I have given my hand as that heart would =have directed, and on such terms as I could have thought my soul secure !-How shall I quit this entangling subject? I am in the midst of briars and thorns-Lend me, lend me, your extricating hand, and conduct me into the smooth and pleasant path, in which you at first found me walking with undoubting feet. Never, never, for my sake, let an inexperienced virgin trust herself with her own imagination, when she begins to meditate, with pleasure, the great qualities of an object with whom she has frequent opportunities of conversing. Again am I recurring to a subject I wish to quit. But, since I cannot, I will give my pen its course-Pen, take thy course. Mind, equally perverse and disturbed, I will give way to thee; I see there is no withstanding thee. Tell me, then, my brother, my friend, my faithful, my disinterested friend, what I shall do, what method take, to be indifferent to you, in another character? What I shall do, to be able to look upon you, only as my brother and friend? -Can you not tell me? Will you not? Will not your love of Clementina permit you to tell her?-I will help you to words-Say, you are the friend of her soul.' If you cannot be a Catholic always, be a Catholic when you advise her. And then, from your love of her soul, you will be able to say, Persevere, Clementina! and I will not account you ungrateful.' O chevalier! I fear nothing so much as being thought capable of ingratitude, by those I love. And am I not, can you think that I am not, ungrateful? Once you told me so. Why, if you mean me more than a compliment, do you not tell me how to be grateful? Are you the only man on earth who have it in your will, and in your power, to confer obligations, yet can be endeavour to do to the soul of a misguided youth, above receiving returns? What services did you at your first acquaintance with him!-Unhappy youth! And how did he at the time requite you for them! He has let us know (generous selfaccuser!) what heroic patience you had with him, and how bravely you disdained his ungrate ful defiance. Well may he love you as he does. After many, many months' discontinuance of friendship, you were called upon to snatch him from the jaws of death by your bravery. You were not requited, as you might have expected, from some of our family-What regret has the recollection cost us all!-You were obliged to quit our Italy; yet, called upon, as I may say, by your wounded friend; incurably wounded, as it was apprehended; you hastened to him: you hastened to his sister, wounded in her head, in her heart you hastened to her father, mother, brothers, wounded in their minds by the sufferings of that son and daughter. And whence did you hasten to us? From your native country. Quitting your relations, all proud of your love, and proud of loving you: on the wings of friendly zeal did you hasten to us, in a distant region. You encountered with, you overcame, a thousand obstacles. The genius of healing, in the form of a skilful operator, accompanying you: all the art of the physicians of your country did you collect, to assist your noble purpose. Success attended your generous wishes. We see one another, a whole family see one another, with that delight which was wont to irradiate our countenances, before disaster overclouded them. And now, what return shall we make for your goodness to us? You say you are already rewarded in the success with which God has blessed your generous endeavours to serve us. Hence it is that I call you proud, and, at the same time, happy. Well do I know, that it is not in the power of a wife to reward you. For what could a wife do by such a man more than her duty? And, were it possible for Clementina to be yours, would you that your kindness, your love to her, should be rewarded at the price of her everlasting happiness?—No, you answer You would leave to her the full and free exercise of her religion-And can you promise, can you, the Chevalier Grandison, undertake, if you think your wife in an error, that you never will endeavour to cure her of that error? You who, as the husband, ought to be the regulator of her conscience, the strengthener of her mind -Can you, believing your own religion a right one, hers a wrong one, be contented that she shall persevere in it? Or can she avoid, on the same, and even still stricter principles, entering into debate with you? And will not then her faith, from your superior understanding, be endangered?-Of what force will be my confessor's arguments against yours, strengthened by your love, your kindness, your sweetness of manners? And how will all my family grieve, were Clementina to become indifferent to them, to her country, and more than indifferent to her religion? Say, Grandison, my tutor, my friend, my brother, can you be indifferent on these weighty matters?-O no, you cannot. My brother the Bishop has told me, (but be not angry with my brother for telling me,) that you did declare to my elder brother and him, that you would not in a beginning address, have granted to a princess the terms you were willing to grant me; and that you offered them to me as a compromise!-Compassion and love were equally, perhaps, your inducements. Poor Clementina!Yet, were there not a greater obstacle in the way, I would have accepted of your compassion; because you are great and good; and there can be no insult, but true godlike pity in your compassion.-Well, sir, and do not my father, my mother, the best and most indulgent of fathers and mothers; and do not my uncle and brothers, and my other kindred, comply with their Clementina, upon the same affectionate, the same pitying motive; otherwise religion, country, the one so different, the other so remote, would they have consented?-They would not. Will you not then, my dear chevalier, think that I do but right (knowing your motive, knowing theirs, knowing that to rely upon my own strength is presumption, and a tempting of the Almighty,) to act as I act, to resolve as I have resolved?-0 do you, my tutor, be again my tutor-You never taught me a lesson that either of us might be ashamed to own-Do you, as I have begged of you in my paper, strengthen my mind. I own to you that I have struggled much with myself: and now am got-above myself, or beneath my self, I know not whether-For my letter is not such as I designed it. You are too much the subject: I designed only a few lines, and those to express the grateful sense I have of your goodness to me, and our Jeronymo; indeed to everybody; and to beg of you, for the sake of my peace of mind, to point out some way by which I, and all of us, may demonstrate our attachment to our superior duties, and our gratitude to you. What a quantity have I written! Excuse my wandering head; and believe me to be, as much the well-wisher of your glory, as of my own. CLEMENTINA DELLA PORRETTA. LETTER CXCI. SIR CHARLES GRANDISON TO LADY CLEMENTINA. Rome, August 11, N. S. "NOTHING," says the most generous and pious of her sex, "but the due consideration of the brevity and vanity of this life, and of the duration of the next, could have influenced me to act against my heart."-Condescending goodness! what acknowledgments do you make in my favour! But, favour-can I say?—No, not in my favour; but, on the contrary, to the extinction of all my hopes; for what pleas remain to be urged, when you doubt not my affection, my gratitude, my tenderness, my good faith, and think that from them will arise your danger? My " extricating hand," at your command, "is held out;" and it shall not be my fault, if you recover not the "smooth and pleasant path, in which you were accustomed to walk with undoubting feet." You bid me "tell you what you shall do to be indifferent to me."-What pain does the gracious manner of your rejection give me? Exalted goodness!" Your brother, your friend, your faithful, your disinterested friend," will "tell you," against himself, to the forfeiture of all his hopes he will tell you," that you ought not" to give your hand as your heart" (condescending excellence!)" would have directed,” if you cannot do it, "and think your soul secure.” 66 You" will help me to words," you say—I repeat them after you. "Persevere, ClementinaI will not," I cannot, "account you'ungrateful.” How much does the dear, the generous Clementina, over-rate the services which Heaven, for my consolation, (so I will flatter myself,) in a very heavy disappointment which was to follow, made me an humble instrument of rendering to the worthiest of families! To that Heaven be all the glory! By ascribing so much to the agent, fear you not that you depreciate the first cause? Give to the supreme His due, and what will be left for me to claim? What but a common service, which any one of your family would, in the like circumstances, have done for me? It is generous, it is noble in you, madam, to declare your regard for the man you refuse: but what a restraint must I act under, who value, and must for ever value, the fair refuser; yet think myself bound in honour to acquiesce with the refusal, and to prefer your peace of mind to my own? To lay open my heart before you, would give you pain. I will not give you pain: yet let me say, that the honour once designed me, had it been conferred, would have laid me under unreturnable obligations to as many persons as are of your family. It was, at one time, an honour too great even for my ambition; and yet that is one of the constitutional faults that I have found it most difficult to restrain. But I will glory in their intended goodness, and that I lost not their or your favour from any act of unworthiness.-Continue to me, most excellent Clementina; continue to me, lords and ladies of your illustrious house, your friendship; and I will endeavour to be satisfied. Your "tutor," as you are pleased to call him; your friend, your "BROTHER," (too clearly do Í see the exclusive force of that last recognition!) owns, that he cannot be indifferent to those motives, that have so great weight with you." He sees your stedfastness, and that your conscience is engaged: He submits, therefore, whatever the submission may cost him, to your reasoning,and repeats your words—“ Persevere, Clementina." I did tell your elder brother, and I am ready to tell all the world, "that I would not, in a beginning address, though to a princess, have signed to the articles I yielded to by way of compromise." Allow me, madam, to repeat his question, to which my declaration was an answer "What would the daughters have done, that they should have been consigned to perdition?"-I had in my thoughts this farther plea, that our church admits of a possibility of salvation out of its own pale.-God forbid but it should!-The church of God, we hold, will be collected from the sincerely pious of all communions. Yet, I own, that had the intended honour been done me, I should have rejoiced that none but sons had blessed our nuptials. But how do your next words affect me"Compassion and love," say you," were equally, perhaps, your inducements-Poor Clementina!" add you. Inimitably great as what follows this is, I should have thought myself concerned, as well for my own honour as for your delicacy, to have expatiated on the self-pitying reflection conveyed in these words, had we been otherwise circumstanced than we are; but to write but one half of what, in happier circumstances, I would have written, must, as I have hinted, give pain to your noble heart. The excellent Clementina, I am sure, would not wish me to say much on this subject. If she would, I must not; I can not. The best of fathers, mothers, brothers, and of spiritual directors, in your own way, are yours. They, madam, will strengthen your mind. Their advices, and their indulgent love, will be your support in the resolution you have taken. You call upon me again to approve of that resolution. I do, I must approve of it. "The lover of your soul" concludes with the repetition of the words you prescribe to his pen-If cooler reflection, if reconsideration of those arguments, which persuaded me to hope, that you would have been in no way unhappy or unsafe, had you condescended to be mine-If mature and dispassionate thought cannot alter your present persuasion on this head-"Persevere, Clementina," in the rejection of a man as steady in his own faith as you are in yours. If your conscience is concernedIf your peace of mind is engaged-you ought to refuse. "You cannot be thought ungrateful." -So, against himself, decides your called upon, and generously acknowledged, 66 Tutor, friend, brother," LETTER CXCII. LADY CLEMENTINA TO SIR CHARLES GRANDISON. Bologna, August 19, N. S. AND do you, best of men, consent to be governed by my wishes? But are you convinced (you do not say you are) by my reasonings?Alas! my reasoning powers are weakened: my head has received an incurable wound: my memory, indeed, seems returned; but its return only serves to make me more sensible of my past unhappiness, and to dread a relapse. But what is it I hear? Olivia is come back to Florence; and you are at Florence! Fly from Florence, and from Olivia.—But whither will you go, to avoid a woman who could follow you to England?-Whither, but to England?-We are all of us apprehensive for the safety of your person, if you refuse to be the husband of that violent woman. Yet cannot I bear the thoughts of her being yours. But that, you have told me, she never can be-Yet, if you could be happy with her, why should I be an enemy to her happiness?-But to your own magnanimity I will leave this subject. Let me advise with my tutor, my friend, my brother, on a point that is now much more my concern than Olivia, and her hopes.-Fain, very fain, would I take the veil. My heart is in it. My friends, my dearest friends, urge against my plea, the dying request, as well as the wishes while living, of my grandfathers on both sides. I am distressed; I am greatly distressed; for well do I know what were the views of the two good men, now with God, in wishing me not to assume the veil. But could they foresee the calamity that was to befal their Clementina? They See Letter CX. |