Clarissa--Or the History of a Young Lady Page 12
I got back without observation: but the apprehension that I should not, gave me great uneasiness; and made me begin my letter in a greater flutter than he gave me cause to be in, except at the first seeing him; for then, indeed, my spirits failed me; and it was a particular felicity that, in such a place, in such a fright, and alone with him, I fainted not away.
I have written a very long letter. To be so particular as you require in subjects of conversation, it is impossible to be short. I will add to it only the assurance, that I am, and ever will be,
Your affectionate and faithful
friend and servant,
CL. HARLOWE
Letter 40: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE
In order to acquit myself of so heavy a charge as that of having reserves to so dear a friend, I will acknowledge (and I thought I had over and over) that it is owing to my particular situation, if Mr Lovelace appears to me in a tolerable light: and I take upon me to say, that had they opposed to him a man of sense, of virtue, of generosity; one who enjoyed his fortune with credit; who had a tenderness in his nature for the calamities of others, which would have given a moral assurance that he would have been still less wanting in grateful returns to an obliging spirit: had they opposed such a man as this to Mr Lovelace, and been as earnest to have me married, as now they are, I do not know myself if they would have had reason to tax me with that invincible obstinacy which they lay to my charge: and this, whatever had been the figure of the man: since the heart is what we women should judge by in the choice we make, as the best security for the party’s good behaviour in every relation of life.
But, situated as I am, thus persecuted and driven; I own to you that I have now and then had a little more difficulty than I wished for in passing by Mr Lovelace’s tolerable qualities, to keep up my dislike to him for his others.
You say I must have argued with myself in his favour, and in his disfavour, on a supposition that I might possibly be one day his. I own that I have.
A great deal of the treatment a wife may expect from him will possibly depend upon herself. Perhaps she must practise, as well as promise, obedience to a man so little used to control; and must be careful to oblige. And what husband expects not this? The more, perhaps, if he has not reason to assure himself of the preferable love of his wife, before she became such. And how much easier and pleasanter to obey the man of her choice, if he should be even unreasonable sometimes, than one she would not have had, could she have avoided it? Then, I think, as the men were the framers of the matrimonial office, and made obedience a part of the woman’s vow, she ought not, even in policy, to show him that she can break through her part of the contract, however lightly she may think of the instance; lest he should take it into his head (himself is judge) to think as lightly of other points, which she may hold more important. But indeed no point, so solemnly vowed, can be slight.
Thus principled, and acting accordingly, what a wretch must that husband be, who could treat such a wife brutally! Will Lovelace’s wife be the only person to whom he will not pay the grateful debt of civility and good manners?
At worst, will he confine me prisoner to my chamber? Will he deny me the visits of my dearest friend, and forbid me to correspond with her? Will he take from me the mistressly management, which I had not faultily discharged? Will he set a servant over me, with licence to insult me? It cannot be. Why then, think I often, do you tempt me, oh my cruel friends, to try the difference?
And then has the secret pleasure intruded itself, to be able to reclaim such a man to the paths of virtue and honour: to be a secondary means, if I were to be his, of saving him, and preventing the mischiefs so enterprising a creature might otherwise be guilty of, if he be such a one.
In these lights when I have thought of him (and that as a man of sense he will sooner see his errors than another), I own to you, that I have had some difficulty to avoid taking the path they so violently endeavour to make me shun: and all that command of my passions, which has been attributed to me as my greatest praise, and in so young a creature, as my distinction, has hardly been sufficient for me.
Reflecting upon these things, I cannot help conjuring you, my dear, to pray with me, and to pray for me, that I may not be pushed upon such indiscreet measures as will render me inexcusable to myself: for that is the test, after all; the world’s opinion ought to be but a secondary consideration.
• • •
Sometimes we have both thought him one of the most undesigning merely witty men we ever knew; at other times one of the deepest creatures we ever conversed with. So that, when in one visit we have imagined we fathomed him, in the next he has made us ready to give him up as impenetrable.
But I used then to say, and I still am of opinion, that he wants a heart: and if he does, he wants everything. A wrong head may be convinced, may have a right turn given it: but who is able to give a heart, if a heart be wanting? Divine grace, working miracle, or next to a miracle, can only change a bad heart. Should not one fly the man who is but suspected of such a one?
From these considerations; from these over-balances; it was, that I said in a former [letter], that I would not be in love with this man for the world: and it was going further than prudence would warrant, when I was for compounding with you by the words conditional liking; which you so humorously rally.
Well but, methinks you say, what is all this to the purpose? This is still but reasoning: but, if you are in love, you are: and love, like the vapours, is the deeper rooted for having no sufficient cause assignable for its hold. And so you call upon me again to have no reserves, and so forth.
Why then, my dear, if you will have it, I think that, with all his preponderating faults, I like him better than I ever thought I should like him; and, those faults considered, better perhaps than I ought to like him. And, I believe, it is possible for the persecution I labour under to induce me to like him still more; especially while I can recollect to his advantage our last interview, and as every day produces stronger instances of tyranny, I will call it, on the other side. In a word, I will frankly own (since you cannot think anything I say too explicit), that were he now but a moral man, I would prefer him to all the men I ever saw.
So that this is but conditional liking still, you’ll say. Nor, I hope, is it more. I never was in love; and whether this be it, or not, I must submit to you—But will venture to think it, if it be, no such mighty monarch, no such unconquerable power, as I have heard it represented; and it must have met with greater encouragements than I think I have given it, to be so irresistible—Since I am persuaded, that I could yet, without a throb, most willingly give up the one man [Lovelace] to get rid of the other [Solmes].
I lay down my pen, here, that you may consider of it a little, if you please.
CL. HARLOWE
Letter 47: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
Thursday morn. 7 o’clock
I must begin with blaming you, my dear, for your resolution not to litigate for your right, if occasion were to be given you. Justice is due to one’s self, as well as to everybody else. Still more must I blame you for declaring to your aunt and sister that you will not: since (as they will tell it to your father and brother) the declaration must needs give advantages to spirits who have so little of that generosity for which you yourself are so much distinguished.
I know how much you despise riches in the main: but yet it behoves you to remember that in one instance you yourself have judged them valuable: ‘In that they put it into one’s power to lay obligations; while the want of them puts a person under a necessity of receiving favours; receiving them, perhaps, from grudging and narrow spirits, who know not how to confer them with that grace, which gives the principal merit to a beneficent action.’ Reflect upon this, my dear, and see how it agrees with the declaration you have made to your aunt and sister, that you would not resume your estate, were you to be turned out of doors, and reduced to indigenc
e and want. Their very fears that you will resume, point out to you the necessity of resuming, upon the treatment you meet with.
You have chidden me, and again will, I doubt not, for the liberties I take with some of your relations. But, my dear, need I tell you, that pride in ourselves must, and forever will, provoke contempt, and bring down upon us abasement from others? I am very loath to offend you, yet I cannot help speaking of them, as well as of others, as I think they deserve. I despise them all, but your mamma: indeed I do—and as for her—But I will spare the good lady for your sake. And one argument, indeed, I think may be pleaded in her favour, in the present contention. She who has for so many years, and with such absolute resignation, borne what she has borne, to the sacrifice of her own will, may think it an easier task, than another person can imagine it, for her daughter to give up hers. But to think to whose instigation all this is originally owing. God forgive me; but with such usage I should have been with Lovelace before now. Yet remember, my dear, that the step which would not be wondered at from such an hasty-tempered creature as me, would be inexcusable in such a considerate person as you.
Did I think you would have any manner of doubt, from the style or contents of this letter, whose saucy pen it is that has run on at this rate, I would write my name at length; since it comes too much from my heart to disavow it—but at present the initials shall serve; and I will go on again directly.
A.H.
Letter 49: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
Thursday afternoon, March 23
An unexpected visitor has turned the course of my thoughts, and changed the subject I had intended to pursue. The only one for whom I would have dispensed with my resolution not to see anybody all the dedicated day: a visitor, whom, according to Mr Hickman’s report from the expectations of his libertine friends, I supposed to be in town. Now, my dear, have I saved myself the trouble of telling you, that it was your too-agreeable rake. Our sex is said to love to trade in surprises: yet have I, by my over-promptitude, surprised myself out of mine. I had intended, you must know, to run twice the length, before I had suffered you so much as to guess who, and of which sex, my visitor was: but since you have the discovery at so cheap a rate, you are welcome to it.
The end [purpose] of his coming was, to engage my interest with my charming friend; and as he was sure that I knew all your mind, to acquaint him what he had to trust to. He mentioned what had passed in the interview between you: but could not be satisfied with the result of it, and with the little satisfaction he had obtained from you; the malice of your family to him increasing, and their cruelty to you not abating—his heart, he told me, was in tumults, for fear you should be prevailed upon in favour of a man despised by everybody.
He proposed several schemes for you to choose some one of them, in order to enable you to avoid the persecutions you labour under. One I will mention; that you will resume your estate; and if you find difficulties that can be no otherwise surmounted, that you will, either avowedly or privately, as he had proposed to you, accept of his aunt Lawrance’s or Lord M.’s assistance to instate you in it. He declared that, if you did, he would leave it absolutely to your own pleasure afterwards, and to the advice which your cousin Morden on his arrival should give you, whether to encourage his address or not, as you shall be convinced of the sincerity of the reformation which his enemies make him so much want.
I told him, as you yourself I knew had done, that you were extremely averse to Mr Solmes; and that might you be left to your own choice, it would be the single life. As to himself, I plainly said that you had great and just objections to him on the score of his careless morals: that it was surprising that young gentlemen, who gave themselves the liberties he was said to take, should presume to think that, whenever they took it into their heads to marry, the most virtuous and worthy of the sex were to fall to their lot: that as to the resumption, it had been very strongly urged by myself, and would be more, though you had been averse to it hitherto.
I told him, that with regard to the mischief he threatened, neither the act nor the menace could serve any end but theirs who persecuted you; as it would give them a pretence for carrying into effect their compulsatory projects; and that with the approbation of all the world, since he must not think the public would give its voice in favour of a violent young man, of no extraordinary character as to morals, who should seek to rob a family of eminence of a child so valuable; and who threatened, if he could not obtain her in preference to a man chosen by themselves, that he would avenge himself upon them all by acts of violence.
I added that he was very much mistaken, if he thought to intimidate you by such menaces: for that, though your disposition was all sweetness, yet I knew not a steadier temper in the world than yours; nor one more inflexible (as your friends had found, and would still farther find if they continued to give occasion for its exertion) whenever you thought yourself in the right; and that you were dealt ungenerously with in matters of too much moment to be indifferent about. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, Mr Lovelace, let me tell you, said I, timid as her foresight and prudence may make her in some cases, where she apprehends dangers to those she loves, is above fear in points where her honour and the true dignity of her sex are concerned. In short, sir, you must not think to frighten Miss Clarissa Harlowe into such a mean or unworthy conduct as only a weak or unsteady mind can be guilty of.
He was so very far from intending to intimidate you, he said, that he besought me not to mention one word to you of what had passed between us: that what he had hinted at, that carried the air of a menace, was owing to the fervour of his spirits, raised by his apprehensions of losing all hope of you for ever; and on a supposition that you were to be actually forced into the arms of a man you hated: that were this to be the case, he must own that he should pay very little regard to the world or its censures: especially as the menaces of some of your family now, and their triumph over him afterwards, would both provoke and warrant all the vengeance he could take.
I did not like the determined air he spoke this with. He is certainly, my dear, capable of great rashness.
This man is a violent man. I should wish, methinks, that you should not have either him or Solmes. You will find, if you get out of your brother’s and sister’s way, what you can or can-not do with regard to either.
I am, my dearest friend, and will be ever,
Your most affectionate and faithful
ANNA HOWE
Letter 50: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE
Wed. night, March 22
On my aunt’s and sister’s report of my obstinacy, my assembled relations have taken an unanimous resolution (as Betty tells me it is) against me. This resolution you will find signified to me in the enclosed letter from my brother, just now brought me. Be pleased to return it, when perused. I may have occasion for it in the altercations between my relations and me.
James Harlowe, Jun. to Clarissa Harlowe
I am commanded to let you know that my father and uncles having heard your aunt Hervey’s account of all that has passed between her and you; having heard from your sister what sort of treatment she has had from you; having recollected all that has passed between your mamma and you; having weighed all your pleas and proposals; having taken into consideration their engagements with Mr Solmes, that gentleman’s patience and great affection for you, and the little opportunity you have given yourself to be acquainted either with his merit, or his proposals; having considered two points more; to wit, the wounded authority of a father; and Mr Solmes’s continual entreaties (little as you have deserved regard from him) that you may be freed from a confinement to which he is desirous to attribute your perverseness to him (averseness I should have said, but let it go), he being unable to account otherwise for so strong a one, supposing you told truth to your mamma when you asserted that your heart was free; and which Mr Solmes is willing to believe, though nobody else does. For all these reasons, it is resolved that you
shall go to your uncle Antony’s: and you must accordingly prepare yourself so to do. You will have but short notice of the day for obvious reasons.
I will honestly tell you the motive for your going: it is a double one; first, that they may be sure that you shall not correspond with anybody they do not like, for they find from Mrs Howe, that by some means or other you do correspond with her daughter; and through her, perhaps with somebody else: and next, that you may receive the visits of Mr Solmes, which you have thought fit to refuse to do here; by which means you have deprived yourself of the opportunity of knowing whom and what you have hitherto refused.
It is hoped that, as you must go, you will go cheerfully. Your uncle Antony will make everything at his house agreeable to you. But indeed he won’t promise that he will not, at proper times, draw up the bridge.
Your answer is required, whether you cheerfully consent to go? And your indulgent mamma bids me remind you from her, that a fortnight’s visits from Mr Solmes are all that is meant at present.
I am, as you shall be pleased to deserve,
Yours, etc.
JAMES HARLOWE, JUN.
• • •
So here is the master-stroke of my brother’s policy! Called upon to consent to go to my uncle Antony’s, avowedly to receive Mr Solmes’s visits! A chapel!—a moated house! Deprived of the opportunity of corresponding with you!—or of any possibility of escape, should violence be used to compel me to be that odious man’s!
Late as it was when I received this insolent letter, I wrote an answer to it directly, that it might be ready for the writer’s time of rising. I enclose the rough draught of it.