nces, 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 immortalily, 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,