Clarissa--Or the History of a Young Lady Read online

  This communication being as voluntarily made as dutifully intended, I humbly presume to hope that I shall not be required to produce the letter itself. I cannot either in honour or prudence do that, because of the vehemence of his style; for having heard (not, I assure you, by my means, or through Hannah’s) of some part of the harsh treatment I have met with, he thinks himself entitled to place it to his own account by reason of speeches thrown out by some of my relations equally vehement.

  If I do not answer him, he will be made desperate, and think himself justified (though I shall not think him so) in resenting the treatment he complains of. If I do, and if in compliment to me he forbears to resent what he thinks himself entitled to resent, be pleased, madam, to consider the obligation he will suppose he lays me under.

  If I were as strongly prepossessed in his favour as is supposed, I should not have wished this to be considered by you. And permit me, as a still further proof that I am not prepossessed, to beg of you to consider, whether, upon the whole, the proposal I made of declaring for the single life (which I will religiously adhere to) is not the best way to get rid of his pretensions with honour. To renounce him, and not to be allowed to aver that I will never be the other man’s will make him conclude (driven as I am driven) that I am determined in that other man’s favour.

  And so leaving the whole to your own wisdom, and whether you choose to consult my papa and uncles upon this humble application, or not; or whether I shall be allowed to write an answer to Mr Lovelace, or not (and if allowed so to do, I beg your direction by whom to send it); I remain,

  Honoured madam,

  Your unhappy, but ever-dutiful daughter,

  CL. HARLOWE

  Wednesday morning

  • • •

  I have just received an answer to the enclosed letter. My mamma, you’ll observe, has ordered me to burn it: but as you will have it in your safe keeping and nobody else will see it, her end will be equally answered. It has neither date nor superscription.

  • • •

  Mrs Harlowe to Clarissa

  Clarissa,

  Say not all the blame and all the punishment is yours. I am as much blamed and as much punished as you are; yet am more innocent. When your obstinacy is equal to any other person’s passion, blame not your brother. We judged right that Hannah carried on your correspondencies. Now she is gone, and you cannot write (we think you cannot) to Miss Howe, nor she to you, without our knowledge, one cause of uneasiness and jealousy is over.

  I had no dislike to Hannah. I did not tell her so, because Somebody was within hearing when she desired to pay her duty to me at going. I gave her a caution, in a raised voice, to take care wherever she went to live next, if there were any young ladies, how she made parties, and assisted in clandestine correspondencies: but I slid two guineas into her hand. Nor was I angry to hear you were more bountiful to her. So much for Hannah.

  I don’t know what to write about your answering that man of violence. What can you think of it, that such a family as ours should have such a rod held over it? You was once all my comfort: you made all my hardships tolerable. But now! However, nothing, it is plain, can move you; and I will say no more on that head: for you are under your papa’s discipline now; and he will neither be prescribed to, nor entreated.

  I should have been glad to see the letter you tell me of, as I saw the rest. You say both honour and prudence forbid you to show it me! Oh Clarissa! what think you of receiving letters that honour and prudence forbid you to show to a mother! But it is not for me to see it, if you would choose to show it me. I will not be in your secret. I will not know that you did correspond. And, as to an answer, take your own methods. But let him know it will be the last you will write. And if you do write, I won’t see it: so seal it up, if you do, and give it to Shorey and she—Yet do not think I give you licence to write!

  As to the rest, you have by your obstinacy put it out of my power to do anything for you. Your papa takes upon himself to be answerable for all consequences. You must not therefore apply to me for any favour. I shall endeavour to be only an observer; happy, if I could be an unconcerned one! While I had power, you would not let me use it as I would have used it.

  I charge you, let not this letter be found. Burn it. There is too much of the mother in it, to a daughter so unaccountably obstinate.

  Write not another letter to me. I can do nothing for you. But you can do everything for yourself.

  Letter 26: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

  Thursd. morn. Mar. 9

  I have another letter from Mr Lovelace, although I had not answered his former.

  This man, somehow or other, knows everything that passes in our family: my confinement; Hannah’s dismission; and more of the resentments and resolutions of my father, uncles, and brother, than I can possibly know, and almost as soon as things happen. He cannot come at these intelligences fairly.

  He is excessively uneasy upon what he hears; and his expressions both of love to me and resentment to them are very fervent. He solicits me much ‘To engage my honour to him, never to have Mr Solmes.’ I think I may fairly promise him that I will not.

  He begs, ‘That I will not think he is endeavouring to make to himself a merit at any man’s expense, since he hopes to obtain my favour on the foot of his own; nor that he seeks to intimidate me into a consideration for him. But declares that the treatment he meets with from my family is so intolerable that he is perpetually reproached for not resenting it; and that as well by Lord M. and his two aunts, as by all his other friends: and if he must have no hope from me, he cannot answer for what his despair will make him do.’

  Indeed, he says, his relations, the ladies particularly, advise him to have recourse to a legal remedy: ‘But how, he asks, can a man of honour go to law for verbal abuses, given by people entitled to wear swords?’

  You see, my dear, that my mamma seems as apprehensive of mischief as I, and has indirectly offered to let Shorey carry my answer to the letter he sent me before.

  He is full of the favour of the ladies of his family to me: to whom, nevertheless, I am personally a stranger.

  It is natural, I believe, for a person to be the more desirous of making new friends in proportion as she loses the favour of old ones, yet had I rather appear amiable in the eyes of my own relations and in your eyes than in those of all the world besides: but these four ladies of his family have such excellent characters that one cannot but wish to be thought well of by them. I cannot, for my own part, think so well of myself as to imagine that they can wish him to persevere in his views with regard to me, through such contempts and discouragements.

  Curiosity at present is all my motive: nor will there ever, I hope, be a stronger, notwithstanding your questionable throbs; even were Mr Lovelace to be less exceptionable than he is.

  • • •

  I have answered his letters. This is the substance of my letter:

  ‘I express my surprise at his knowing (and so early) all that passes here. I assure him, that were there not such a man in the world as himself, I would not have Mr Solmes.’

  I tell him, ‘That to return, as I understand he does, defiances for defiances, to my relations, is far from being a proof with me, either of his politeness or of the consideration he pretends to have for me.

  ‘On all these accounts, I desire that the one more letter which I will allow him to deposit in the usual place may be the very last; and that only to acquaint me with his acquiescence that it shall be so; at least till happier times!’

  This last I put in, that he may not be quite desperate. But if he take me at my word, I shall be rid of one of my tormentors.

  I have promised to lay before you all his letters and my answers. I repeat that promise; and am the less solicitous for that reason to amplify upon the contents of either. But I cannot too often express my vexation to be driven to such straits and difficulties,
here at home, as oblige me to answer letters (from a man I had not absolutely intended to encourage and had really great objections to) filled as his are with such warm protestations, and written to me with a spirit of expectation.

  For, my dear, you never knew so bold a supposer. In short, my dear, like a restive horse he pains one’s hands, and half disjoints one’s arms to rein him in. And when you see his letters, you must form no judgement upon them, till you have read my answers: if you do, you will indeed think you have cause to attribute self-deceit, and throbs, and glows to your friend. If he has a design by this conduct (sometimes complaining of my shyness, at others exulting in my imaginary favours) to induce me at one time to acquiesce with his compliments, at another to be more complaisant for his complaints; and if the contradiction be not the effect of his inattention and giddiness; I shall think him as deep and as artful (too probably, as practised) a creature as ever lived; and were I to be sure of it, should hate him, if possible, worse than I do Solmes.

  But enough for the present of a creature so very various!

  Letter 27: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

  Thursday night, March 9

  I have no patience with any of the people you are with. I know not what to advise you to do. How do you know that you are not punishable for being the cause, though to your own loss, that the will of your grandfather is not complied with? Wills are sacred things, child. You see that they, even they, think so, who imagine they suffer by a will through the distinction paid you in it.

  Your grandfather knew the family-failing: he knew what a noble spirit you had to do good. He himself, perhaps (excuse me, my dear), had done too little in his lifetime; and therefore he put it in your power to make up for the defects of the whole family. Were it to me, I would resume it [the estate bequeathed her]. Indeed I would.

  You will say, you cannot do it, while you are with them. I don’t know that. Do you think they can use you worse than they do? And is it not your right? And do they not make use of your own generosity to oppress you? Your uncle Harlowe is one trustee, your cousin Morden is the other. Insist upon your right to your uncle, and write to your cousin Morden about it. This, I dare say, will make them alter their behaviour to you.

  Your insolent brother, what has he to do to control you? Were it me (I wish it were for one month, and no more), I’d show him the difference. I’d be in my own mansion, pursuing my charming schemes and making all around me happy. I’d set up my own chariot. I’d visit them when they deserved it. But when my brother and sister gave themselves airs, I’d let them know that I was their sister, and not their servant; and if that did not do, I would shut my gates against them; and bid them be company for each other.

  It must be confessed, however, that this brother and sister of yours, judging as such narrow spirits will ever judge, have some reason for treating you as they do. It must have long been a mortifying consideration to them (set disappointed love on her side, and avarice on his, out of the question) to be so much eclipsed by a younger sister. Such a sun in a family where there are none but faint twinklers, how could they bear it! Can you wonder then, that they should embrace the first opportunity that offered to endeavour to bring you down to their level?

  Depend upon it, my dear, you will have more of it, and more still, as you bear it.

  As to this odious Solmes, I wonder not at your aversion to him. It is needless to say anything to you, who have so sincere an antipathy to him, to strengthen your dislike: yet who can resist her own talents? One of mine, as I have heretofore said, is to give an ugly likeness. Shall I indulge it? I will. And the rather as, in doing so, you will have my opinion in justification of your aversion to him, and in approbation of a steadiness that I ever admired, and must for ever approve in your temper.

  I was twice in this wretch’s company. At one of the times your Lovelace was there. I need not mention to you, who have such a pretty curiosity, though at present, only a curiosity, you know! the unspeakable difference!

  Lovelace entertained the company in his lively gay way, and made everybody laugh at one of his stories. It was before this creature was thought of for you. Solmes laughed too. It was, however, his laugh; for his first three years, at least, I imagine, must have been one continual fit of crying; and his muscles have never yet been able to recover a risible tone. His very smile (you never saw him smile, I believe; never at least gave him cause to smile) is so little natural to his features, that it appears in him as hideous as the grin of a man in malice.

  I took great notice of him, as I do of all the noble lords of the creation in their peculiarities, and was disgusted, nay, shocked at him even then. I was glad, I remember, on that particular occasion, to see his strange features recovering their natural gloominess, though they did this but slowly, as if the muscles which contributed to his distortions had turned upon rusty springs.

  What a dreadful thing must even the love of such a husband be! For my part, were I his wife! (but what have I done to myself to make but such a supposition?) I should never have comfort but in his absence, or when I was quarrelling with him.

  Yet this is the man they have found out, for the sake of considerations as sordid as those he is governed by, for a husband (that is to say, for a lord and master) for Miss Clarissa Harlowe!

  You must not have him, my dear—that I am clear in—though not so clear how you will be able to avoid it, except you assert the independence which your estate gives you.

  Mr Hickman is expected from London this evening. I have desired him to enquire after Lovelace’s life and conversation in town. If he has not, I shall be very angry with him. Don’t expect a very good account of either. He is certainly an intriguing wretch, and full of inventions.

  Upon my word, I most heartily despise that sex! I wish they would let our fathers and mothers alone; teasing them to tease us with their golden promises, and protestations, and settlements, and the rest of their ostentatious nonsense. How charmingly might you and I live together and despite them all! But to be cajoled, wire-drawn, and ensnared, like silly birds, into a state of bondage or vile subordination: to be courted as princesses for a few weeks, in order to be treated as slaves for the rest of our lives. Indeed, my dear, as you say of Solmes, I cannot endure them!

  Mr Hickman shall sound Lord M. upon the subject you recommend. But beforehand, I can tell you what he and what his sisters will say when they are sounded. Who would not be proud of such a relation as Miss Clarissa Harlowe?

  If I have not been clear enough in my advice about what you shall do, let me say that I can give it in one word: it is only by re-urging you to RESUME. If you do, all the rest will follow.

  Your mamma tells you, ‘That you will have great trials: that you are under your papa’s discipline.’ But can it be, that such a lady, such a sister, such a wife, such a mother, has no influence in her own family? Who indeed, as you say, would marry, that can live single? My choler is again beginning to rise. RESUME, my dear. And that’s all I will give myself time to say further, lest I offend you when I cannot serve you. Only this, that I am

  Your truly affectionate friend and servant

  ANNA HOWE

  Letter 28: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

  Friday, Mar. 10

  You will permit me, my dear, to touch upon a few passages in your last favour, that affect me sensibly.

  In the first place, you must allow me to say, low as I am in spirits, that I am very angry with you for your reflections on my relations, particularly on my father, and on the memory of my grandfather. Nor, my dear, does your own mamma always escape the keen edge of vivacity.

  As to the advice you give, to resume my estate, I am determined not to litigate with my papa, let what will be the consequence to myself. I may give you, at another time, a more particular answer to your reasonings on this subject: but at present will only observe, that it is my opinion that Lovelace himself would hardly think me worth a
ddressing, were he to know this to be my resolution.

  You very ingeniously account for the love we bear to one another, from the difference in our tempers. I own, I should not have thought of that. There may possibly be something in it: but whether there be, or not, whenever I am cool, and give myself time to reflect, I will love you the better for the correction you give me, be as severe as you will upon me. Spare me not therefore, my dear friend, whenever you think me in the least faulty. I love your agreeable raillery: you know I always did: nor, however over-serious you think me, did I ever think you flippant, as you harshly call it. One of the first conditions of our mutual friendship was that each should say or write to the other whatever was upon her mind, without any offence to be taken; a condition that is indeed an indispensable in all friendship.

  I should be very blameable to endeavour to hide any the least bias upon my mind from you: and I cannot but say—that this man—this Lovelace—is a person that might be liked well enough if he bore such a character as Mr Hickman bears; and even if there were hopes of reclaiming him: but LOVE, methinks, as short a word as it is, has a broad sound with it. Yet do I find that one may be driven by violent measures step by step, as it were, into something that may be called—I don’t know what to call it—a conditional kind of liking, or so. But as to the word LOVE—justifiable and charming as it is in some cases (that is to say, in all the relative, in all the social and, what is still beyond both, in all our superior duties, in which it may be properly called divine), it has, methinks, in this narrow, circumscribed, selfish, peculiar sense, no very pretty sound with it. Treat me as freely as you will in all other respects, I will love you, as I have said, the better for your friendly freedom: but, methinks, I could be glad, for SEX’S sake, that you would not let this imputation pass so glibly from your pen, or your lips, as attributable to one of your own sex, whether I be the person or not: since the other must have a double triumph, when a person of your delicacy (armed with such contempts of them all, as you would have one think) can give up a friend, with an exultation over her weakness, as a silly, love-sick creature!