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Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 2

by Samuel Richardson · English · Gutenberg #9798 · 598,664 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 2

Author: Samuel Richardson


        
Release date: January 1, 2006 [eBook #9798]
                Most recently updated: May 20, 2012

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9798

Credits: Produced by Julie C. Sparks, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLARISSA HARLOWE; OR THE HISTORY OF A YOUNG LADY — VOLUME 2 ***




Produced by Julie C. Sparks





CLARISSA HARLOWE

or the

HISTORY OF A YOUNG LADY

By Samuel Richardson


Nine Volumes

Volume II.




LETTERS OF VOLUME II


LETTER I. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--Another visit from her aunt and
sister. The latter spitefully insults her with the patterns. A tender
scene between her aunt and her in Arabella's absence. She endeavours to
account for the inflexibility of her parents and uncles.

LETTER II. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--Humourous description of Mr. Hickman.
Imagines, from what Lovelace, Hickman, and Solmes, are now, what figures
they made when boys at school.

LETTER III. From the same.--Useful observations on general life. Severe
censures of the Harlowe family, for their pride, formality, and other
bad qualities.

LETTER IV. From the same.--Mr. Hickman's conversation with two of
Lovelace's libertine companions.

LETTER V. From the same.--An unexpected visit from Mr. Lovelace. What
passes in it. Repeats her advice to her to resume her estate.

LETTER VI. VII. VIII. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--Farther particulars of the
persecutions she receives from her violent brother.

LETTER IX. From the same.--Impertinence of Betty Barnes. Overhears her
brother and sister encourage Solmes to persevere in his address. She
writes warmly to her brother upon it.

LETTER X. From the same.--Receives a provoking letter from her sister.
Writes to her mother. Her mother's severe reply. Is impatient. Desires
Miss Howe's advice what course to pursue. Tries to compose her angry
passions at her harpsichord. An Ode to Wisdom, by a Lady.

LETTER XI. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--Chides her for misrepresenting Mr.
Hickman. Fully answers her arguments about resuming her estate. Her
impartiality with regard to what Miss Howe says of Lovelace, Solmes, and
her brother. Reflections on revenge and duelling.

LETTER XII. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--Sir Harry Downeton's account of what
passed between himself and Solmes. She wishes her to avoid both men.
Admires her for her manifold excellencies.

LETTER XIII. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--Why she cannot overcome her
aversion to Solmes. Sharp letter to Lovelace. On what occasion. All his
difficulties, she tells him, owning to his faulty morals; which level
all distinction. Insists upon his laying aside all thoughts of her. Her
impartial and dutiful reasonings on her difficult situation.

LETTER XIV. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--A notable debate between her and her
mother on her case. Those who marry for love seldom so happy as those
who marry for convenience. Picture of a modern marriage. A lesson both
to parents and children in love-cases. Handsome men seldom make good
husbands. Miss Howe reflects on the Harlowe family, as not famous for
strictness in religion or piety. Her mother's partiality for Hickman.

LETTER XV. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--Her increased apprehensions.
Warmly defends her own mother. Extenuates her father's feelings; and
expostulates with her on her undeserved treatment of Mr. Hickman. A
letter to her from Solmes. Her spirited answer. All in an uproar about
it. Her aunt Hervey's angry letter to her. She writes to her mother. Her
letter returned unopened. To her father. He tears her letter in pieces,
and sends it back to her. She then writes a pathetic letter to her uncle
Harlowe.

LETTER XVI. From the same.--Receives a gentler answer than she expected
from her uncle Harlowe. Makes a new proposal in a letter to him, which
she thinks must be accepted. Her relations assembled upon it. Her
opinion of the sacrifice which a child ought to make to her parents.

LETTER XVII. From the same.--She tells her that the proposal she had
made to her relations, on which she had built so much, is rejected.
Betty's saucy report upon it. Her brother's provoking letter to her.
Her letter to her uncle Harlowe on the occasion. Substance of a letter
excusatory from Mr. Lovelace. He presses for an interview with her in
the garden.

LETTER XVIII. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--Her uncle's angry answer.
Substance of a humble letter from Mr. Lovelace. He has got a violent
cold and hoarseness, by his fruitless attendance all night in the
coppice. She is sorry he is not well. Makes a conditional appointment
with him for the next night, in the garden. Hates tyranny in all shapes.

LETTER XIX. From the same.--A characteristic dialogue with the pert
Betty Barnes. Women have great advantage over men in all the powers that
relate to the imagination. Makes a request to her uncle Harlowe, which
is granted, on condition that she will admit of a visit from Solmes. She
complies; and appoints that day sevennight. Then writes to Lovelace
to suspend the intended interview. Desires Miss Howe to inquire into
Lovelace's behaviour at the little inn he puts up at in his way to
Harlowe-Place.

LETTER XX. From the same.--Receives a letter from Lovelace, written
in very high terms, on her suspending the interview. Her angry answer.
Resolves against any farther correspondence with him.

LETTER XXI. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--Humourous account of her mother and
Mr. Hickman in their little journey to visit her dying cousin. Rallies
her on her present displeasure with Lovelace.

LETTER XXII. Mr. Hickman to Mrs. Howe.--Resenting Miss Howe's treatment
of him.

LETTER XXIII. Mrs. Howe. In answer.

LETTER XXIV. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--Observes upon the contents of her
seven last letters. Advises her to send all the letters and papers she
would not have her relations see; also a parcel of clothes, linen, &c.
Is in hopes of procuring an asylum for her with her mother, if things
come to extremity.

LETTER XXV. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--Requisites of true satire. Rejoices
in the hopes she gives of her mother's protection. Deposits a parcel
of linen, and all Lovelace's letters. Useful observations relating to
family management, and to neatness of person and dress. Her contrivances
to amuse Betty Barnes.

LETTER XXVI. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--Result of her inquiry after
Lovelace's behaviour at the inn. Doubts not but he has ruined the
innkeeper's daughter. Passionately inveighs against him.

LETTER XXVII. Clarissa. In answer.--Is extremely alarmed at Lovelace's
supposed baseness. Declares her abhorrence of him.

LETTER XXVIII. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--Lovelace, on inquiry, comes out
to be not only innocent with regard to his Rosebud, but generous. Miss
Howe rallies her on the effects this intelligence must have upon her
generosity.

LETTER XXIX. Clarissa. In reply.--Acknowledges her generosity engaged
in his favour. Frankly expresses tenderness and regard for him; and owns
that the intelligence of his supposed baseness had affected her more
than she thinks it ought. Contents of a letter she has received from
him. Pities him. Writes to him that her rejection of Solmes is not in
favour to himself; for that she is determined to hold herself free
to obey her parents, (as she had offered to them,) of their giving up
Solmes. Reproaches him for his libertine declarations in all companies
against matrimony. Her notions of filial duty, notwithstanding the
persecutions she meets with.

LETTER XXX. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--Her treatment of Mr. Hickman on his
intrusion into her company. Applauds Clarissa for the generosity of her
spirit, and the greatness of her mind.

LETTER XXXI. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--Dr. Lewen makes her a formal visit.
Affected civility of her brother and sister to her. Is visited by her
uncle Harlowe: and by her sister. She penetrates the low art designed in
this change of their outward behaviour. Substance of Lovelace's reply
to her last. He acknowledges his folly for having ever spoken lightly of
matrimony.

LETTER XXXII. From the same.--Another letter from Mr. Lovelace, in
which he expresses himself extremely apprehensive of the issue of
her interview with Solmes. Presses her to escape; proposes means for
effecting it; and threatens to rescue her by violence, if they attempt
to carry her to her uncle Antony's against her will. Her terror on the
occasion. She insists, in her answer, on his forbearing to take any rash
step; and expresses herself highly dissatisfied that he should think
himself entitled to dispute her father's authority in removing her to
her uncle's. She relies on Mrs. Howe's protection till her cousin Morden
arrives.

LETTER XXXIII. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--A visit from her aunt Hervey,
preparative to the approaching interview with Solmes. Her aunt tells her
what is expected on her having consented to that interview.

LETTER XXXIV. XXXV. From the same.--A particular account of what passed
in the interview with Solmes; and of the parts occasionally taken in
it by her boisterous uncle, by her brutal brother, by her implacable
sister, and by her qualifying aunt. Her perseverance and distress. Her
cousin Dolly's tenderness for her. Her closet searched for papers. All
the pens and ink they find taken from her.

LETTER XXXVI. From the same.--Substance of a letter from Lovelace. His
proposals, promises, and declarations. All her present wish is, to be
able to escape Solmes, on one hand, and to avoid incurring the disgrace
of refuging with the family of a man at enmity with her own, on the
other. Her emotions behind the yew-hedge on seeing her father going into
the garden. Grieved at what she hears him say. Dutiful message to
her mother. Harshly answered. She censures Mr. Lovelace for his rash
threatenings to rescue her. Justifies her friends for resenting them;
and condemns herself for corresponding with him at first.

LETTER XXXVII. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--Is vexed at the heart to be
obliged to tell her that her mother refuses to receive and protect her.
Offers to go away privately with her.

LETTER XXXVIII. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--Her disinterested arguments in
Mrs. Howe's favour, on her refusal to receive her. All her consolation
is, that her unhappy situation is not owing to her own inadvertence of
folly. Is afraid she is singled out, either for her own faults, or for
those of her family, or perhaps for the faults of both, to be a very
unhappy creature. Justifies the ways of Providence, let what will befal
her: and argues with exemplary greatness of mind on this subject. Warmly
discourages Miss Howe's motion to accompany her in her flight.

LETTER XXXIX. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--Further instances of her
impartiality in condemning Lovelace, and reasoning for her parents.
Overhears her brother and sister exulting in the success of their
schemes; and undertaking, the one to keep his father up to his
resentment on occasion of Lovelace's menaces, the other her mother.
Exasperated at this, and at what her aunt Hervey tells her, she writes
to Lovelace, that she will meet him the following Monday, and throw
herself into the protection of the ladies of his family.

LETTER XL. From the same.--Her frightful dream. Now that Lovelace has
got her letter, she repents her appointment.

LETTER XLI. From the same.--Receives a letter from Mr. Lovelace, full
of transport, vows, and promises. He presumes upon her being his on her
getting away, though she has not given him room for such hopes. In her
answer she tells him, 'that she looks not upon herself as absolutely
bound by her appointment: that there are many points to be adjusted
between them (were she to leave her father's house) before she can give
him particular encouragement: that he must expect she will do her utmost
to procure a reconciliation with her father, and his approbation of
her future steps.' All her friends are to be assembled on the following
Wednesday: she is to be brought before them. How to be proceeded with.
Lovelace, in his reply, asks pardon for writing to her with so much
assurance; and declares his entire acquiescence with her will and
pleasure.

LETTER XLII. From the same.--Confirms her appointment; but tells him
what he is not to expect. Promises, that if she should change her mind
as to withdrawing, she will take the first opportunity to see him, and
acquaint him with her reasons. Reflections on what she has done. Her
deep regret to be thus driven.

LETTER XLIII. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--Reasons why she ought to allow her
to accompany her in her flight. Punctilio at an end, the moment she is
out of her father's house. Requisites of friendship. Questions whether
she will not rather choose to go off with one of her own sex than
with Lovelace? And if not, whether she should not marry him as soon as
possible?

LETTER XLIV. Clarissa to Miss Howe, (Miss Howe's last not received.)
Lovelace promises compliance, in every article, with her pleasure.
Her heart misgives her notwithstanding. She knows not but she may yet
recede.

LETTER XLV. From the same. In answer to Letter XLIII.--Reflections
worthy of herself on some of the passages in Miss Howe's last letter.
Gives her home-put questions a full consideration; and determines NOT to
withdraw with Lovelace.

LETTER XLVI. XLVII. From the same.--Substance of her letter to Lovelace,
revoking her appointment. Thinks herself obliged (her letter being not
taken away) as well by promise as in order to prevent mischief, to meet
him, and to give him her reason for revoking.--The hour of meeting now
at hand, she is apprehensive of the contest she shall have with him, as
he will come with a different expectation.

LETTER XLVIII. From the same.--Dated from St. Alban's. Writes in the
utmost anguish of mind for the little parcel of linen she had sent to
her with better hopes. Condemns her own rashness in meeting Lovelace.
Begs her pity and her prayers.




THE HISTORY OF CLARISSA HARLOWE




LETTER I

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE


My heart fluttered with the hope and the fear of seeing my mother, and
with the shame and grief of having given her so much uneasiness. But it
needed not: she was not permitted to come. But my aunt was so good as to
return, yet not without my sister; and, taking my hand, made me sit down
by her.

She came, she must own, officiously, she said, this once more,
though against the opinion of my father: but knowing and dreading the
consequence of my opposition, she could not but come.

She then set forth to my friends' expectation from me; Mr. Solmes's
riches (three times as rich he came out to be, as any body had thought
him); the settlements proposed; Mr. Lovelace's bad character; their
aversions to him; all in a very strong light; not in a stronger than
my mother had before placed them in. My mother, surely, could not have
given the particulars of what had passed between herself and me: if she
had, my aunt would not have repeated many of the same sentiments, as
you will find she did, that had been still more strongly urged, without
effect by her venerable sister.

She said it would break the heart of my father to have it imagined that
he had not a power over his own child; and that, as he thought, for
my own good: a child too, whom they had always doated upon!--Dearest,
dearest Miss, concluded she, clasping her fingers, with the most
condescending earnestness, let me beg of you, for my sake, for your own
sake, for a hundred sakes, to get over this averseness, to give up your
prejudices, and make every one happy and easy once more.--I would kneel
to you, my dearest Niece--nay, I will kneel to you--!

And down she dropt, and I with her, kneeling to her, and beseeching her
not to kneel; clasping my arms about her, and bathing her worthy bosom
with my tears.

O rise! rise! my beloved Aunt, said I: you cut me to the heart with this
condescending goodness.

Say then, my dearest Niece, say then, that you will oblige all your
friends!--If you love us, I beseech you do--

How can I perform what I can sooner choose to die than to perform--!

Say then, my dear, that you will consider of it. Say you will but
reason with yourself. Give us but hopes. Don't let me entreat, and thus
entreat, in vain--[for still she kneeled, and I by her].

What a hard case is mine!--Could I but doubt, I know I could
conquer.--That which is an inducement to my friends, is none at all to
me--How often, my dearest Aunt, must I repeat the same thing?--Let me
but be single--Cannot I live single? Let me be sent, as I have proposed,
to Scotland, to Florence, any where: let me be sent a slave to the
Indies, any where--any of these I will consent to. But I cannot, cannot
think of giving my vows to man I cannot endure!

Well then, rising, (Bella silently, with uplifted hands, reproaching my
supposed perverseness,) I see nothing can prevail with you to oblige us.

What can I do, my dearest Aunt Hervey? What can I do? Were I capable of
giving a hope I meant not to enlarge, then could I say, I would consider
of your kind advice. But I would rather be thought perverse than
insincere. Is there, however, no medium? Can nothing be thought of? Will
nothing do, but to have a man who is the more disgustful to me, because
he is unjust in the very articles he offers?

Whom now, Clary, said my sister, do you reflect upon? Consider that.

Make not invidious applications of what I say, Bella. It may not be
looked upon in the same light by every one. The giver and the accepter
are principally answerable in an unjust donation. While I think of it in
this light, I should be inexcusable to be the latter. But why do I enter
upon a supposition of this nature?--My heart, as I have often, often
said, recoils, at the thought of the man, in every light.--Whose father,
but mine, agrees upon articles where there is no prospect of a liking?
Where the direct contrary is avowed, all along avowed, without the
least variation, or shadow of a change of sentiment?--But it is not my
father's doing originally. O my cruel, cruel brother, to cause a measure
to be forced upon me, which he would not behave tolerably under, were
the like to be offered to him!

The girl is got into her altitudes, Aunt Hervey, said my sister. You
see, Madam, she spares nobody. Be pleased to let her know what she has
to trust to. Nothing is to be done with her. Pray, Madam, pronounce her
doom.

My aunt retired to the window, weeping, with my sister in her hand:
I cannot, indeed I cannot, Miss Harlowe, said she, softly, (but yet I
heard every word she said): there is great hardship in her case. She
is a noble child after all. What pity things are gone so far!--But Mr.
Solmes ought to be told to desist.

O Madam, said my sister, in a kind of loud whisper, are you caught too
by the little siren?--My mother did well not to come up!--I question
whether my father himself, after his first indignation, would not be
turned round by her. Nobody but my brother can do any thing with her, I
am sure.

Don't think of your brother's coming up, said my aunt, still in a low
voice--He is too furious. I see no obstinacy, no perverseness, in
her manner! If your brother comes, I will not be answerable for the
consequences: for I thought twice or thrice she would have gone into
fits.

O Madam, she has a strong heart!--And you see there is no prevailing
with her, though you were upon your knees to her.

My sister left my aunt musing at the window, with her back towards us,
and took that opportunity to insult me still more barbarously; for,
stepping to my closet, she took up the patterns which my mother had sent
me up, and bringing them to me, she spread them upon the chair by me;
and offering one, and then another, upon her sleeve and shoulder, thus
she ran on, with great seeming tranquility, but whisperingly, that my
aunt might not hear her. This, Clary, is a pretty pattern enough: but
this is quite charming! I would advise you to make your appearance in
it. And this, were I you, should be my wedding night-gown--And this
my second dressed suit! Won't you give orders, love, to have your
grandmother's jewels new set?--Or will you thing to shew away in the new
ones Mr. Solmes intends to present to you? He talks of laying out two
or three thousand pounds in presents, child! Dear heart!--How gorgeously
will you be array'd! What! silent still?--But, Clary, won't you have a
velvet suit? It would cut a great figure in a country church, you know:
and the weather may bear it for a month yet to come. Crimson velvet,
suppose! Such a fine complexion as yours, how it would be set off by it!
What an agreeable blush would it give you!--Heigh-ho! (mocking me, for I
sighed to be thus fooled with,) and do you sigh, love?--Well then, as it
will be a solemn wedding, what think you of black velvet, child?--Silent
still, Clary?--Black velvet, so fair as you are, with those charming
eyes, gleaming through a wintry cloud, like an April sun!--Does not
Lovelace tell you they are charming eyes?--How lovely will you appear to
every one!--What! silent still, love?--But about your laces, Clary?--

She would have gone on still further, had not my aunt advance towards
me, wiping her eyes--What! whispering ladies! You seem so easy and so
pleased, Miss Harlowe, with your private conference, that I hope I shall
carry down good news.

I am only giving her my opinion of her patterns, here.--Unasked indeed;
but she seems, by her silence, to approve of my judgment.

O Bella! said I, that Mr. Lovelace had not taken you at your word!--You
had before now been exercising your judgment on your own account: and I
had been happy as well as you! Was it my fault, I pray you, that it was
not so?--

O how she raved!

To be so ready to give, Bella, and so loth to take, is not very fair in
you.

The poor Bella descended to call names.

Why, Sister, said I, you are as angry, as if there were more in the
hint than possibly might be designed. My wish is sincere, for both our
sakes!--for the whole family's sake!--And what (good now) is there in
it?--Do not, do not, dear Bella, give me cause to suspect, that I have
found a reason for your behaviour to me, and which till now was wholly
unaccountable from sister to sister--

Fie, fie, Clary! said my aunt.

My sister was more and more outrageous.

O how much fitter, said I, to be a jest, than a jester!--But now, Bella,
turn the glass to you, and see how poorly sits the robe upon your own
shoulders, which you have been so unmercifully fixing upon mine!

Fie, fie, Miss Clary! repeated my aunt.

And fie, fie, likewise, good Madam, to Miss Harlowe, you would say, were
you to have heard her barbarous insults!

Let us go, Madam, said my sister, with great violence; let us leave the
creature to swell till she bursts with her own poison.--The last time I
will ever come near her, in the mind I am in!

It is so easy a thing, returned I, were I to be mean enough to follow
an example that is so censurable in the setter of it, to vanquish such
a teasing spirit as your's with its own blunt weapons, that I am amazed
you will provoke me!--Yet, Bella, since you will go, (for she had
hurried to the door,) forgive me. I forgive you. And you have a double
reason to do so, both from eldership and from the offence so studiously
given to one in affliction. But may you be happy, though I never shall!
May you never have half the trials I have had! Be this your comfort,
that you cannot have a sister to treat you as you have treated me!--And
so God bless you!

O thou art a--And down she flung without saying what.

Permit me, Madam, said I to my aunt, sinking down, and clasping her
knees with my arms, to detain you one moment--not to say any thing about
my poor sister--she is her own punisher--only to thank you for all
your condescending goodness to me. I only beg of you not to impute to
obstinacy the immovableness I have shown to so tender a friend; and to
forgive me every thing I have said or done amiss in your presence, for
it has not proceeded from inward rancour to the poor Bella. But I will
be bold to say, that neither she, nor my brother, nor even my father
himself, knows what a heart they have set a bleeding.

I saw, to my comfort, what effect my sister's absence wrought for
me.--Rise, my noble-minded Niece!--Charming creature! [those were her
kind words] kneel not to me!--Keep to yourself what I now say to you.--I
admire you more than I can express--and if you can forbear claiming your
estate, and can resolve to avoid Lovelace, you will continue to be the
greatest miracle I ever knew at your years--but I must hasten down after
your sister.--These are my last words to you: 'Conform to your father's
will, if you possibly can. How meritorious will it be in you if you do
so! Pray to God to enable you to conform. You don't know what may be
done.'

Only, my dear Aunt, one word, one word more (for she was going)--Speak
all you can for my dear Mrs. Norton. She is but low in the world: should
ill health overtake her, she may not know how to live without my mamma's
favour. I shall have no means to help her; for I will want necessaries
before I will assert my right: and I do assure you, she has said so many
things to me in behalf of my submitting to my father's will, that her
arguments have not a little contributed to make me resolve to avoid the
extremities, which nevertheless I pray to God they do not at last force
me upon. And yet they deprive me of her advice, and think unjustly of
one of the most excellent of women.

I am glad to hear you say this: and take this, and this, and this, my
charming Niece! (for so she called me almost at every word, kissing me
earnestly, and clasping her arms about my neck:) and God protect you,
and direct you! But you must submit: indeed you must. Some one day in a
month from this is all the choice that is left you.

And this, I suppose, was the doom my sister called for; and yet no worse
than what had been pronounced upon me before.

She repeated these last sentences louder than the former. 'And remember,
Miss,' added she, 'it is your duty to comply.'--And down she went,
leaving me with my heart full, and my eyes running over.

The very repetition of this fills me with almost equal concern to that
which I felt at the time.

I must lay down my pen. Mistiness, which give to the deluged eye the
appearance of all the colours in the rainbow, will not permit me to
write on.


WEDNESDAY, FIVE O'CLOCK


I will now add a few lines--My aunt, as she went down from me, was met
at the foot of the stairs by my sister, who seemed to think she had
staid a good while after her; and hearing her last words prescribing
to me implicit duty, praised her for it, and exclaimed against my
obstinacy. Did you ever hear of such perverseness, Madam? said she:
Could you have thought that your Clarissa and every body's Clarissa, was
such a girl?--And who, as you said, is to submit, her father or she?

My aunt said something in answer to her, compassionating me, as I
thought, by her accent: but I heard not the words.

Such a strange perseverance in a measure so unreasonable!--But my
brother and sister are continually misrepresenting all I say and do; and
I am deprived of the opportunity of defending myself!--My sister says,*
that had they thought me such a championess, they you not have engaged
with me: and now, not knowing how to reconcile my supposed obstinacy
with my general character and natural temper, they seem to hope to tire
me out, and resolve to vary their measures accordingly. My brother, you
see,** is determined to carry this point, or to abandon Harlowe-place,
and never to see it more. So they are to lose a son, or to conquer
a daughter--the perversest and most ungrateful that ever parents
had!--This is the light he places things in: and has undertaken, it
seems, to subdue me, if his advice should be followed. It will be
farther tried; of that I am convinced; and what will be their next
measure, who can divine?


     * See Letter XLII. of Vol. I.

     ** Ibid.


I shall dispatch, with this, my answer to your's of Sunday last, begun
on Monday;* but which is not yet quite finished. It is too long to copy:
I have not time for it. In it I have been very free with you, my dear,
in more places than one. I cannot say that I am pleased with all I have
written--yet will not now alter it. My mind is not at ease enough for
the subject. Don't be angry with me. Yet, if you can excuse one or two
passages, it will be because they were written by

Your CLARISSA HARLOWE.


     * See Letter XL, ibid.




LETTER II

MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE WEDNESDAY NIGHT, MARCH 22.


ANGRY!--What should I be angry for? I am mightily pleased with your
freedom, as you call it. I only wonder at your patience with me; that's
all. I am sorry I gave you the trouble of so long a letter upon the
occasion,* notwithstanding the pleasure I received in reading it.


     * See Vol. I, Letter XXXVII, for the occasion; and Letters
     XXXVIII. and XL. of the same volume, for the freedom
     Clarissa apologizes for.


I believe you did not intend reserves to me: for two reasons I believe
you did not: First, because you say you did not: Next, because you have
not as yet been able to convince yourself how it is to be with you; and
persecuted as you are, how so to separate the effects that spring from
the two causes [persecution and love] as to give to each its particular
due. But this I believe I hinted to you once before; and so will say no
more upon this subject at present.

Robin says, you had but just deposited your last parcel when he took it:
for he was there but half an hour before, and found nothing. He had seen
my impatience, and loitered about, being willing to bring me something
from you, if possible.

My cousin Jenny Fynnett is here, and desires to be my bedfellow
to-night. So I shall not have an opportunity to sit down with that
seriousness and attention which the subjects of yours require. For she
is all prate, you know, and loves to set me a prating; yet comes upon
a very grave occasion--to procure my mother to go with her to her
grandmother Larking, who has long been bed-ridden; and at last has taken
it into her head that she is mortal, and therefore will make her will; a
work she was till now extremely averse to; but it must be upon condition
that my mother, who is her distant relation, will go to her, and advise
her as to the particulars of it: for she has a high opinion, as every
one else has, of my mother's judgment in all matters relating to wills,
settlements, and such-like notable affairs.

Mrs. Larking lives about seventeen miles off; and as my mother cannot
endure to lie out of her own house, she proposes to set out early in
the morning, that she might be able to get back again at night. So,
to-morrow I shall be at your devotion from day-light to day-light; nor
will I be at home to any body.

I have hinted before, that I could almost wish my mother and Mr. Hickman
would make a match of it: and I here repeat my wishes. What signifies
a difference of fifteen or twenty years; especially when the lady has
spirits that will make her young a long time, and the lover is a mighty
sober man?--I think, verily, I could like him better for a papa, than
for a nearer relation: and they are strange admirers of one another.

But allow me a perhaps still better (and, as to years, more suitable and
happier) disposal; for the man at least.--What think you, my dear, of
compromising with your friends, by rejecting both men, and encouraging
my parader?--If your liking one of the two go no farther than
conditional, I believe it will do. A rich thought, if it obtain your
approbation! In this light, I should have a prodigious respect for
Mr. Hickman; more by half than I can have in the other. The vein is
opened--Shall I let it flow? How difficult to withstand constitutional
foibles!

Hickman is certainly a man more in your taste than any of those who have
hitherto been brought to address you. He is mighty sober, mighty grave,
and all that. Then you have told me, that he is your favourite. But that
is because he is my mother's perhaps. The man would certainly rejoice at
the transfer; or he must be a greater fool than I take him to be.

O but your fierce lover would knock him o' the head--I forgot
that!--What makes me incapable of seriousness when I write about
Hickman?--Yet the man so good a sort of man in the main!--But who is
perfect? This is one of my foibles: and it is something for you to chide
me for.

You believe me to be very happy in my prospect in relation to him:
because you are so very unhappy in the foolish usage you meet with, you
are apt (as I suspect) to think that tolerable which otherwise would be
far from being so. I dare say, you would not, with all your grave airs,
like him for yourself; except, being addressed by Solmes and him, you
were obliged to have one of them.--I have given you a test. Let me see
what you will say to it.

For my own part, I confess to you, that I have great exceptions to
Hickman. He and wedlock never yet once entered into my head at one time.
Shall I give you my free thoughts of him?--Of his best and his worst;
and that as if I were writing to one who knows him not?--I think I will.
Yet it is impossible I should do it gravely. The subject won't bear to
be so treated in my opinion. We are not come so far as that yet, if ever
we shall: and to do it in another strain, ill becomes my present real
concern for you.


*****


Here I was interrupted on the honest man's account. He has been here
these two hours--courting the mother for the daughter, I suppose--yet
she wants no courting neither: 'Tis well one of us does; else the man
would have nothing but halcyon; and be remiss, and saucy of course.

He was going. His horses at the door. My mother sent for me down,
pretending to want to say something to me.

Something she said when I came that signified nothing--Evidently, for no
reason called me, but to give me an opportunity to see what a fine bow
her man could make; and that she might wish me a good night. She knows
I am not over ready to oblige him with my company, if I happen to be
otherwise engaged. I could not help an air a little upon the fretful,
when I found she had nothing of moment to say to me, and when I saw her
intention.

She smiled off the visible fretfulness, that the man might go away in
good humour with himself.

He bowed to the ground, and would have taken my hand, his whip in the
other. I did not like to be so companioned: I withdrew my hand, but
touched his elbow with a motion, as if from his low bow I had supposed
him falling, and would have helped him up--A sad slip, it might have
been! said I.

A mad girl! smiled it off my mother.

He was quite put out; took his horse-bridle, stumped back, back, back,
bowing, till he run against his servant. I laughed. He mounted his
horse. I mounted up stairs, after a little lecture; and my head is so
filled with him, that I must resume my intention, in hopes to divert you
for a few moments.

Take it then--his best, and his worst, as I said before.

Hickman is a sort of fiddling, busy, yet, to borrow a word from you,
unbusy man: has a great deal to do, and seems to me to dispatch nothing.
Irresolute and changeable in every thing, but in teasing me with his
nonsense; which yet, it is evident, he must continue upon my mother's
interest more than upon his own hopes; for none have I given him.

Then I have a quarrel against his face, though in his person, for
a well-thriven man, tolerably genteel--Not to his features so much
neither; for what, as you have often observed, are features in a
man?--But Hickman, with strong lines, and big cheek and chin bones,
has not the manliness in his aspect, which Lovelace has with the most
regular and agreeable features.

Then what a set and formal mortal he is in some things!--I have not been
able yet to laugh him out of his long bid and beads. Indeed, that is,
because my mother thinks they become him; and I would not be so free
with him, as to own I should choose to have him leave it off. If he did,
so particular is the man, he would certainly, if left to himself, fall
into a King-William's cravat, or some such antique chin-cushion, as by
the pictures of that prince one sees was then the fashion.

As to his dress in general, he cannot indeed be called a sloven, but
sometimes he is too gaudy, at other times too plain, to be uniformly
elegant. And for his manners, he makes such a bustle with them, and
about them, as would induce one to suspect that they are more strangers
than familiars to him. You, I know, lay this to his fearfulness of
disobliging or offending. Indeed your over-doers generally give the
offence they endeavour to avoid.

The man however is honest: is of family: has a clear and good estate;
and may one day be a baronet, an't please you. He is humane and
benevolent, tolerably generous, as people say; and as I might say too,
if I would accept of his bribes; which he offers in hopes of having them
all back again, and the bribed into the bargain. A method taken by all
corrupters, from old Satan, to the lowest of his servants. Yet, to speak
in the language of a person I am bound to honour, he is deemed a prudent
man; that is to say a good manager.

Then I cannot but confess, that now I like not anybody better, whatever
I did once.

He is no fox-hunter: he keeps a pack indeed; but prefers not his hounds
to his fellow-creatures. No bad sign for a wife, I own. He loves his
horse; but dislikes racing in a gaming way, as well as all sorts of
gaming. Then he is sober; modest; they say, virtuous; in short,
has qualities that mothers would be fond of in a husband for their
daughters; and for which perhaps their daughters would be the happier
could they judge as well for themselves, as experience possibly may
teach them to judge for their future daughters.

Nevertheless, to own the truth, I cannot say I love the man: nor, I
believe, ever shall.

Strange! that these sober fellows cannot have a decent sprightliness,
a modest assurance with them! Something debonnaire; which need not be
separated from that awe and reverence, when they address a woman, which
should shew the ardour of their passion, rather than the sheepishness
of their nature; for who knows not that love delights in taming the
lion-hearted? That those of the sex, who are most conscious of their
own defect in point of courage, naturally require, and therefore as
naturally prefer, the man who has most of it, as the most able to give
them the requisite protection? That the greater their own cowardice, as
it would be called in a man, the greater is their delight in subjects
of heroism? As may be observed in their reading; which turns upon
difficulties encountered, battles fought, and enemies overcome, four or
five hundred by the prowess of one single hero, the more improbable the
better: in short, that their man should be a hero to every one living
but themselves; and to them know no bound to his humility. A woman has
some glory in subduing a heart no man living can appall; and hence too
often the bravo, assuming the hero, and making himself pass for one,
succeeds as only a hero should.

But as for honest Hickman, the good man is so generally meek, as I
imagine, that I know not whether I have any preference paid me in his
obsequiousness. And then, when I rate him, he seems to be so naturally
fitted for rebuke, and so much expects it, that I know not how to
disappoint him, whether he just then deserve it, or not. I am sure, he
has puzzled me many a time when I have seen him look penitent for faults
he has not committed, whether to pity or laugh at him.

You and I have often retrospected the faces and minds of grown people;
that is to say, have formed images for their present appearances,
outside and in, (as far as the manners of the persons would justify us
in the latter) what sort of figures they made when boys and girls. And
I'll tell you the lights in which HICKMAN, SOLMES, and LOVELACE, our
three heroes, have appeared to me, supposing them boys at school.

Solmes I have imagined to be a little sordid, pilfering rogue, who would
purloin from every body, and beg every body's bread and butter from him;
while, as I have heard a reptile brag, he would in a winter-morning spit
upon his thumbs, and spread his own with it, that he might keep it all
to himself.

Hickman, a great overgrown, lank-haired, chubby boy, who would be
hunched and punched by every body; and go home with his finger in his
eye, and tell his mother.

While Lovelace I have supposed a curl-pated villain, full of fire,
fancy, and mischief; an orchard-robber, a wall-climber, a horse-rider
without saddle or bridle, neck or nothing: a sturdy rogue, in short,
who would kick and cuff, and do no right, and take no wrong of any
body; would get his head broke, then a plaster for it, or let it heal
of itself; while he went on to do more mischief, and if not to get,
to deserve, broken bones. And the same dispositions have grown up with
them, and distinguish them as me, with no very material alteration.

Only that all men are monkeys more or less, or else that you and I
should have such baboons as these to choose out of, is a mortifying
thing, my dear.

I am sensible that I am a little out of season in treating thus
ludicrously the subject I am upon, while you are so unhappy; and if
my manner does not divert you, as my flightiness used to do, I am
inexcusable both to you, and to my own heart: which, I do assure you,
notwithstanding my seeming levity, is wholly in your case.

As this letter is extremely whimsical, I will not send it until I can
accompany it with something more solid and better suited to your
unhappy circumstances; that is to say, to the present subject of our
correspondence. To-morrow, as I told you, will be wholly my own, and of
consequence yours. Adieu, therefore, till then.




LETTER III

MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TUESDAY MORN. 7 O'CLOCK


My mother and cousin are already gone off in our chariot and four,
attended by their doughty 'squire on horseback, and he by two of his
own servants, and one of my mother's. They both love parade when they
go abroad, at least in compliment to one another; which shews, that
each thinks the other does. Robin is your servant and mine, and nobody's
else--and the day is all my own.

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 ourselves, as well as to every body 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 advantage to spirits who have so little of that generosity for
which you are so much distinguished.

There never was a spirit in the world that would insult where it dared,
but it would creep and cringe where it dared not. Let me remind you of
a sentence of your own, the occasion for which I have forgotten: 'That
little spirits will always accommodate themselves to the temper of those
they would work upon: will fawn upon a sturdy-tempered person: will
insult the meek:'--And another given to Miss Biddulph, upon an occasion
you cannot forget:--'If we assume a dignity in what we say and do, and
take care not to disgrace by arrogance our own assumption, every body
will treat us with respect and deference.'

I remember that you once made an observation, which you said, you was
obliged to Mrs. Norton for, and she to her father, upon an excellent
preacher, who was but an indifferent liver: 'That to excel in theory,
and to excel in practice, generally required different talents; which
did not always meet in the same person.' Do you, my dear (to whom theory
and practice are the same thing in almost every laudable quality), apply
the observation to yourself, in this particular case, where resolution
is required; and where the performance of the will of the defunct is the
question--no more to be dispensed with by you, in whose favour it was
made, than by any body else who have only themselves in view by breaking
through it.

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 our power to lay obligations; while
the want of that power 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 indigence and want. Their very fears that you will
resume, point out to you the necessity of resuming upon the treatment
you meet with.

I own, that (at first reading) I was much affected with your mother's
letter sent with the patterns. A strange measure however from a mother;
for she did not intend to insult you; and I cannot but lament that so
sensible and so fine a woman should stoop to so much art as that letter
is written with: and which also appears in some of the conversations
you have given me an account of. See you not in her passiveness, what
boisterous spirits can obtain from gentler, merely by teasing and
ill-nature?

I know the pride they have always taken in calling you a
Harlowe--Clarissa Harlowe, so formal and so set, at every word,
when they are grave or proudly solemn.--Your mother has learnt it of
them--and as in marriage, so in will, has been taught to bury her own
superior name and family in theirs. I have often thought that the same
spirit governed them, in this piece of affectation, and others of
the like nature (as Harlowe-Place, and so-forth, though not the elder
brother's or paternal seat), as governed the tyrant Tudor,* who marrying
Elizabeth, the heiress of the house of York, made himself a title to
a throne, which he would not otherwise have had (being but a base
descendant of the Lancaster line); and proved a gloomy and vile
husband to her; for no other cause, than because she had laid him under
obligations which his pride would not permit him to own.--Nor would the
unprincely wretch marry her till he was in possession of the crown, that
he might not be supposed to owe it to her claim.


     * Henry VII.


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 for ever will, provoke contempt, and bring
down upon us abasement from others?--Have we not, in the case of a
celebrated bard, observed, that those who aim at more than their due,
will be refused the honours they may justly claim?--I am very much loth
to offend you; yet I cannot help speaking of your relations, as well as
of others, as I think they deserve. Praise or dispraise, is the reward
or punishment which the world confers or inflicts on merit or
demerit; and, for my part, I neither can nor will confound them in the
application. I despise them all, but your mother: 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 a hasty-tempered creatures as me,
would be inexcusable in such a considerate person as you.

After your mother has been thus drawn in against her judgment, I am the
less surprised, that your aunt Hervey should go along with her; since
the two sisters never separate. I have inquired into the nature of the
obligation which Mr. Hervey's indifferent conduct in his affairs has
laid him under--it is only, it seems, that your brother has paid off
for him a mortgage upon one part of his estate, which the mortgagee was
about to foreclose; and taken it upon himself. A small favour (as he has
ample security in his hands) from kindred to kindred: but such a one, it
is plain, as has laid the whole family of the Herveys under obligation
to the ungenerous lender, who has treated him, and his aunt too (as
Miss Dolly Hervey has privately complained), with the less ceremony ever
since.

Must I, my dear, call such a creature your brother?--I believe I
must--Because he is your father's son. There is no harm, I hope, in
saying that.

I am concerned, that you ever wrote at all to him. It was taking too
much notice of him: it was adding to his self-significance; and a call
upon him to treat you with insolence. A call which you might have been
assured he would not fail to answer.

But such a pretty master as this, to run riot against such a man as
Lovelace; who had taught him to put his sword into his scabbard, when
he had pulled it out by accident!--These in-door insolents, who, turning
themselves into bugbears, frighten women, children, and servants, are
generally cravens among men. Were he to come fairly across me, and say
to my face some of the free things which I am told he has said of me
behind my back, or that (as by your account) he has said of our sex, I
would take upon myself to ask him two or three questions; although he
were to send me a challenge likewise.

I repeat, you know that I will speak my mind, and write it too. He is
not my brother. Can you say, he is yours?--So, for your life, if you
are just, you can't be angry with me: For would you side with a false
brother against a true friend? A brother may not be a friend: but a
friend will always be a brother--mind that, as your uncle Tony says!

I cannot descend so low, as to take very particular notice of the
epistles of these poor souls, whom you call uncles. Yet I love to divert
myself with such grotesque characters too. But I know them and love you;
and so cannot make the jest of them which their absurdities call for.

You chide me, my dear,* for my freedoms with relations still nearer and
dearer to you, than either uncles or brother or sister. You had better
have permitted me (uncorrected) to have taken my own way. Do not use
those freedoms naturally arise from the subject before us? And from whom
arises that subject, I pray you? Can you for one quarter of an hour
put yourself in my place, or in the place of those who are still more
indifferent to the case than I can be?--If you can--But although I have
you not often at advantage, I will not push you.


     * See Vol. I. Letter XXVIII.


Permit me, however, to subjoin, that well may your father love your
mother, as you say he does. A wife who has no will but his! But were
there not, think you, some struggles between them at first, gout out of
the question?--Your mother, when a maiden, had, as I have heard (and it
is very likely) a good share of those lively spirits which she liked
in your father. She has none of them now. How came they to be
dissipated?--Ah! my dear!--she has been too long resident in
Trophonius's cave, I doubt.*


     * Spectator, Vol. VIII. No. 599.


Let me add one reflection upon this subject, and so entitle myself to
your correction for all at once.--It is upon the conduct of those wives
(for you and I know more than one such) who can suffer themselves to
be out-blustered and out-gloomed of their own wills, instead of being
fooled out of them by acts of tenderness and complaisance.--I wish,
that it does not demonstrate too evidently, that, with some of the
sex, insolent controul is a more efficacious subduer than kindness or
concession. Upon my life, my dear, I have often thought, that many of us
are mere babies in matrimony: perverse fools when too much indulged and
humoured; creeping slaves, when treated harshly. But shall it be said,
that fear makes us more gentle obligers than love?--Forbid it, Honour!
Forbid it, Gratitude! Forbid it, Justice! that any woman of sense should
give occasion to have this said of her!

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 IV

MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE THURSDAY MORN. 10 O'CLOCK (MAR. 23).


I will postpone, or perhaps pass by, several observations which I had to
make on other parts of your letters; to acquaint you, that Mr. Hickman,
when in London, found an opportunity to inquire after Mr. Lovelace's
town life and conversation.

At the Cocoa-tree, in Pall-mall, he fell in with two of his intimates,
the one named Belton, the other Mowbray; both very free of speech,
and probably as free in their lives: but the waiters paid them great
respect, and on Mr. Hickman's inquiry after their characters, called
them men of fortune and honour.

They began to talk of Mr. Lovelace of their own accord; and upon some
gentlemen in the room asking, when they expected him in town, answered,
that very day. Mr. Hickman (as they both went on praising Lovelace)
said, he had indeed heard, that Mr. Lovelace was a very fine
gentleman--and was proceeding, when one of them, interrupting him,
said,--Only, Sir, the finest gentleman in the world; that's all.

And so he led them on to expatiate more particularly on his qualities;
which they were very fond of doing: but said not one single word in
behalf of his morals--Mind that also, in your uncle's style.

Mr. Hickman said, that Mr. Lovelace was very happy, as he understood, in
the esteem of the ladies; and smiling, to make them believe he did not
think amiss of it, that he pushed his good fortune as far as it would
go.

Well put, Mr. Hickman! thought I; equally grave and sage--thou seemest
not to be a stranger to their dialect, as I suppose this is. But I said
nothing; for I have often tried to find out this might sober man of my
mother's: but hitherto have only to say, that he is either very moral,
or very cunning.

No doubt of it, replied one of them; and out came an oath, with a Who
would not?--That he did as every young fellow would do.

Very true! said my mother's puritan--but I hear he is in treaty with a
fine lady--

So he was, Mr. Belton said--The devil fetch her! [vile brute!] for
she engrossed all his time--but that the lady's family ought to
be--something--[Mr. Hickman desired to be excused repeating what--though
he had repeated what was worse] and might dearly repent their usage of a
man of his family and merit.

Perhaps they may think him too wild, cries Hickman: and theirs is, I
hear, a very sober family--

SOBER! said one of them: A good honest word, Dick!--Where the devil has
it lain all this time?--D---- me if I have heard of it in this sense
ever since I was at college! and then, said he, we bandied it about
among twenty of us as an obsolete.

These, my dear, are Mr. Lovelace's companions: you'll be pleased to take
notice of that!

Mr. Hickman said, this put him out of countenance.

I stared at him, and with such a meaning in my eyes, as he knew how to
take; and so was out of countenance again.

Don't you remember, my dear, who it was that told a young gentleman
designed for the gown, who owned that he was apt to be too easily put
out of countenance when he came into free company, 'That it was a bad
sign; that it looked as if his morals were not proof; but that his good
disposition seemed rather the effect of accident and education, than
of such a choice as was founded upon principle?' And don't you know
the lesson the very same young lady gave him, 'To endeavour to stem and
discountenance vice, and to glory in being an advocate in all companies
for virtue;' particularly observing, 'That it was natural for a man to
shun or to give up what he was ashamed of?' Which she should be sorry
to think his case on this occasion: adding, 'That vice was a coward, and
would hide its head, when opposed by such a virtue as had presence of
mind, and a full persuasion of its own rectitude to support it.' The
lady, you may remember, modestly put her doctrine into the mouth of a
worthy preacher, Dr. Lewen, as she used to do, when she has a mind not
to be thought what she is at so early an age; and that it may give more
weight to any thing she hit upon, that might appear tolerable, was her
modest manner of speech.

Mr. Hickman, upon the whole, professed to me, upon his second recovery,
that he had no reason to think well of Mr. Lovelace's morals, from what
he heard of him in town; yet his two intimates talked of his being more
regular than he used to be. That he had made a very good resolution,
that of old Tom Wharton, was the expression, That he would never give
a challenge, nor refuse one; which they praised in him highly: that, in
short, he was a very brave fellow, and the most agreeable companion in
the world: and would one day make a great figure in his country; since
there was nothing he was not capable of--

I am afraid that his last assertion is too true. And this, my dear, is
all that Mr. Hickman could pick up about him: And is it not enough to
determine such a mind as yours, if not already determined?

Yet it must be said too, that if there be a woman in the world that can
reclaim him, it is you. And, by your account of his behaviour in the
interview between you, I own I have some hope of him. At least, this
I will say, that all the arguments he then used with you, seemed to
be just and right. And if you are to be his--But no more of that: he
cannot, after all, deserve you.




LETTER V

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 any body all the dedicated day:
a visiter, 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 you too-agreeable
rake. Our sex is said to love to trade in surprises: yet have I, by
my promptitude, surprised myself out of mine. I had intended, you must
know, to run twice the length, before I had suffered you to know so much
as to guess who, and whether man or woman, my visiter was: but since you
have the discovery at so cheap a rate, you are welcome to it.

The end of his coming was, to engage my interest with my charming
friend; and 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
every body.

He gave me fresh instance of indignities cast upon himself by your
uncles and brother; and declared, that if you suffered yourself to
be forced into the arms of the man for whose sake he was loaded with
undeserved abuses, you should be one of the youngest, as you would be
one of the loveliest widows in England. And that he would moreover call
your brother to account for the liberties he takes with his character to
every one he meets with.

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 Lady Betty
Lawrance's or Lord M.'s assistance to instate you in it. He declared,
that if you did, he would leave 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 should
be convinced of the sincerity of the reformation which his enemies make
him so much want.

I had now a good opportunity to sound him, as you wished Mr. Hickman
would Lord M. as to the continued or diminished favour of the ladies,
and of his Lordship, towards you, upon their being acquainted with the
animosity of your relations to them, as well as to their kinsman. I laid
hold of the opportunity, and he satisfied me, by reading some passages
of a letter he had about him, from Lord M. That an alliance with
you, and that on the foot of your own single merit, would be the most
desirable event to them that could happen: and so far to the purpose of
your wished inquiry does his Lordship go in this letter, that he assures
him, that whatever you suffer in fortune from the violence of your
relations on his account, he and Lady Sarah and Lady Betty will join to
make it up to him. And yet that the reputation of a family so splendid,
would, no doubt, in a case of such importance to the honour of both,
make them prefer a general consent.

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 men 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 still further urged; though you
had been hitherto averse to that measure: that your chief reliance and
hopes were upon your cousin Morden; and that to suspend or gain time
till he arrived, was, as I believed, your principal aim.

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 compulsory
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 further find, if
they continued to give occasion for its exertion,) whenever you thought
yourself in the right; and that you were ungenerously dealt 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, which carried the air of 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.

He added, that all the countries in the world were alike to him, but on
your account: so that, whatever he should think fit to do, were you lost
to him, he should have noting to apprehend from the laws of this.

I did not like the determined air he spoke this with: he is certainly
capable of great rashness.

He palliated a little this fierceness (which by the way I warmly
censured) by saying, That while you remain single, he will bear all the
indignities that shall be cast upon him by your family. But would
you throw yourself, if you were still farther driven, into any other
protection, if not Lord M.'s, or that of the ladies of his family, into
my mother's,* suppose; or would you go to London to private lodgings,
where he would never visit you, unless he had your leave (and from
whence you might make your own terms with your relations); he would be
entirely satisfied; and would, as he had said before, wait the effect of
your cousin's arrival, and your free determination as to his own fate.
Adding, that he knew the family so well, and how much fixed they were
upon their measures, as well as the absolute dependence they had upon
your temper and principles, that he could not but apprehend the worst,
while you remained in their power, and under the influence of their
persuasions and menaces.


     * Perhaps it will be unnecessary to remind the reader, that
     although Mr. Lovelace proposes (as above) to Miss Howe, that
     her fair friend should have recourse to the protection of
     Mrs. Howe, if farther driven; yet he had artfully taken
     care, by means of his agent in the Harlowe family, not only
     to inflame the family against her, but to deprive her of
     Mrs. Howe's, and of every other protection, being from the
     first resolved to reduce her to an absolute dependence upon
     himself. See Vol. I. Letter XXXI.


We had a great deal of other discourse: but as the reciting of the rest
would be but a repetition of many of the things that passed between you
and him in the interview between you in the wood-house, I refer myself
to your memory on that occasion.*


     * See Vol. I. Letter XXXVI.


And now, my dear, upon the whole, I think it behoves you to make
yourself independent: all then will fall right. 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 cannot do, with regard to either.

If your relations persist in their foolish scheme, I think I will take
his hint, and, at a proper opportunity, sound my mother. Mean time, let
me have your clear opinion of the resumption, which I join with Lovelace
in advising. You can but see how your demand will work. To demand, is
not to litigate. But be your resolution what it will, do not by any
means repeat to them, that you will not assert your right. If they go on
to give you provocation, you may have sufficient reason to change your
mind: and let them expect that you will change it. They have not the
generosity to treat you the better for disclaiming the power they know
you have. That, I think, need not now be told you. I am, my dearest
friend, and ever will be,

Your most affectionate and faithful ANNA HOWE.




LETTER VI

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE WEDN. NIGHT, MARCH 22.


On the report made by my aunt and sister 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
inclosed 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.


*****


MISS CLARY,

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 mother 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 continued 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
mother, 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 to do so. 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 any
body 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.

If after one fortnight's conversation with Mr. Solmes, and after
you have heard what your friends shall further urge in his behalf,
unhardened by clandestine correspondencies, you shall convince them,
that Virgil's amor omnibus idem (for the application of which I refer
you to the Georgic as translated by Dryden) is verified in you, as well
as in the rest of the animal creation; and that you cannot, or will
not forego your prepossession in favour of the moral, the virtuous,
the pious Lovelace, [I would please you if I could!] it will then be
considered, whether to humour you, or to renounce you for ever.

It is hoped, that as you must go, you will go cheerfully. Your uncle
Antony will make ever thing at his house agreeable to you. But indeed he
won't promise, that he will not, at proper times, draw up the bridge.

Your visiters, besides Mr. Solmes, will be myself, if you permit me that
honour, Miss Clary; your sister; and, as you behave to Mr. Solmes, your
aunt Hervey, and your uncle Harlowe; and yet the two latter will
hardly come neither, if they think it will be to hear your whining
vocatives.--Betty Barnes will be your attendant: and I must needs tell
you, Miss, that we none of us think the worse of the faithful maid for
your dislike of her: although Betty, who would be glad to oblige you,
laments it as a misfortune.

Your answer is required, whether you cheerfully consent to go? And your
indulgent mother bids me remind you from her, that a fortnight's visit
from Mr. Solmes, are all that is meant at present.

I am, as you shall be pleased to deserve, Yours, &c. 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!*


     * These violent measures, and the obstinate perseverance of
     the whole family in them, will be the less wondered at, when
     it is considered, that all the time they were but as so many
     puppets danced upon Mr. Lovelace's wires, as he boasts, Vol.
     I. Letter XXXI.


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 inclose the rough draught of it. You will see by it how much his vile
hint from the Georgic; and his rude one of my whining vocatives, have
set me up. Besides, as the command to get ready to go to my uncle's is
in the name of my father and uncles, it is but to shew a piece of the
art they accuse me of, to resent the vile hint I have so much reason to
resent in order to palliate my refusal of preparing to go to my uncle's;
which refusal would otherwise be interpreted an act of rebellion by my
brother and sister: for it seems plain to me, that they will work but
half their ends, if they do not deprive me of my father's and uncles'
favour, even although it were possible for me to comply with their own
terms.


You might have told me, Brother, in three lines, what the determination
of my friends was; only, that then you would not have had room to
display your pedantry by so detestable an allusion or reference to the
Georgic. Give me leave to tell you, Sir, that if humanity were a branch
of your studies at the university, it has not found a genius in you for
mastering it. Nor is either my sex or myself, though a sister, I see
entitled to the least decency from a brother, who has studied, as it
seems, rather to cultivate the malevolence of his natural temper,
than any tendency which one might have hoped his parentage, if not his
education, might have given him to a tolerable politeness.

I doubt not, that you will take amiss my freedom: but as you have
deserved it from me, I shall be less and less concerned on that score,
as I see you are more and more intent to shew your wit at the expense of
justice and compassion.

The time is indeed come that I can no longer bear those contempts and
reflections which a brother, least of all men, is entitled to give. And
let me beg of you one favour, Sir:--It is this, That you will not give
yourself any concern about a husband for me, till I shall have the
forwardness to propose a wife to you. Pardon me, Sir; but I cannot
help thinking, that could I have the art to get my father of my side, I
should have as much right to prescribe for you, as you have for me.

As to the communication you make me, I must take upon me to say, That
although I will receive, as becomes me, any of my father's commands;
yet, as this signification is made by a brother, who has shewn of late
so much of an unbrotherly animosity to me, (for no reason in the world
that I know if, but that he believes he has, in me, one sister too much
for his interest,) I think myself entitled to conclude, that such a
letter as you have sent me, is all your own: and of course to declare,
that, while I so think it, I will not willingly, nor even without
violence, go to any place, avowedly to receive Mr. Solmes's visits.

I think myself so much entitled to resent your infamous hint, and this
as well for the sake of my sex, as for my own, that I ought to declare,
as I do, that I will not receive any more of your letters, unless
commanded to do so by an authority I never will dispute; except in a
case where I think my future as well as present happiness concerned: and
were such a case to happen, I am sure my father's harshness will be less
owing to himself than to you; and to the specious absurdities of your
ambitious and selfish schemes.--Very true, Sir!

One word more, provoked as I am, I will add: That had I been thought as
really obstinate and perverse as of late I am said to be, I should not
have been so disgracefully treated as I have been--Lay your hand upon
your heart, Brother, and say, By whose instigations?--And examine what I
have done to deserve to be made thus unhappy, and to be obliged to style
myself

Your injured sister, CL. HARLOWE.


When, my dear, you have read my answer to my brother's letter, tell me
what you think of me?--It shall go!




LETTER VII

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE THURSDAY MORNING, MARCH 23.


My letter has set them all in tumults: for, it seems, none of them went
home last night; and they all were desired to be present to give
their advice, if I should refuse compliance with a command thought so
reasonable as it seems this is.

Betty tells me, that at first my father, in a rage, was for coming up
to me himself, and for turning me out of his doors directly. Nor was he
restrained, till it was hinted to him, that that was no doubt my wish,
and would answer all my perverse views. But the result was, that my
brother (having really, as my mother and aunt insisted, taken wrong
measures with me) should write again in a more moderate manner: for
nobody else was permitted or cared to write to such a ready scribbler.
And, I having declared, that I would not receive any more of his
letters, without command from a superior authority, my mother was
to give it hers: and accordingly has done so in the following lines,
written on the superscription of his letter to me: which letter also
follows; together with my reply.


CLARY HARLOWE,

Receive and read this, with the temper that becomes your sex, your
character, your education, and your duty: and return an answer to it,
directed to your brother.

CHARLOTTE HARLOWE.


TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE THURSDAY MORNING.

Once more I write, although imperiously prohibited by a younger sister.
Your mother will have me do so, that you may be destitute of all
defence, if you persist in your pervicacy. Shall I be a pedant, Miss,
for this word? She is willing to indulge in you the least appearance of
that delicacy for which she once, as well as every body else, admired
you--before you knew Lovelace; I cannot, however, help saying that: and
she, and your aunt Hervey, will have it--[they would fain favour you,
if they could] that I may have provoked from you the answer they
nevertheless own to be so exceedingly unbecoming. I am now learning, you
see, to take up the softer language, where you have laid it down. This
then is the case:

They entreat, they pray, they beg, they supplicate (will either of
these do, Miss Clary?) that you will make no scruple to go to your uncle
Antony's: and fairly I am to tell you, for the very purpose mentioned
in my last--or, 'tis presumable, they need not entreat, beg, pray,
supplicate. Thus much is promised to Mr. Solmes, who is your advocate,
and very uneasy that you should be under constraint, supposing that your
dislike to him arises from that. And, if he finds that you are not to be
moved in his favour, when you are absolutely freed from what you call
a controul, he will forbear thinking of you, whatever it costs him.
He loves you too well: and in this, I really think, his understanding,
which you have reflected upon, is to be questioned.

Only for one fornight [sic], therefore, permit his visits. Your
education (you tell me of mine, you know) ought to make you incapable
of rudeness to any body. He will not, I hope, be the first man, myself
excepted, whom you ever treated rudely, purely because he is esteemed
by us all. I am, what you have a mind to make me, friend, brother,
or servant--I wish I could be still more polite, to so polite, to so
delicate, a sister.

JA. HARLOWE.

You must still write to me, if you condescend to reply. Your mother
will not be permitted to be disturbed with your nothing-meaning
vocatives!--Vocatives, once more, Madam Clary, repeats the pedant your
brother!


*****


TO JAMES HARLOWE, JUNIOR, ESQ.

Permit me, my ever-dear and honoured Papa and Mamma, in this manner to
surprise you into an audience, (presuming this will be read to you,)
since I am denied the honour of writing to you directly. Let me beg of
you to believe, that nothing but the most unconquerable dislike
could make me stand against your pleasure. What are riches, what are
settlements, to happiness? Let me not thus cruelly be given up to a man
my very soul is averse to. Permit me to repeat, that I cannot honestly
be his. Had I a slighter notion of the matrimonial duty than I have,
perhaps I might. But when I am to bear all the misery, and that for
life; when my heart is less concerned in this matter, than my soul;
my temporary, perhaps, than my future good; why should I be denied the
liberty of refusing? That liberty is all I ask.

It were easy for me to give way to hear Mr. Solmes talk for the
mentioned fortnight, although it is impossible for me, say what he
would, to get over my dislike to him. But the moated-house, the chapel
there, and the little mercy my brother and sister, who are to be there,
have hitherto shewn me, are what I am extremely apprehensive of. And why
does my brother say, my restraint is to be taken off, (and that too
at Mr. Solmes's desire,) when I am to be a still closer prisoner than
before; the bridge threatened to be drawn up; and no dear papa and mamma
near me, to appeal to, in the last resort?

Transfer not, I beseech you, to a brother and sister your own authority
over your child--to a brother and sister, who treat me with unkindness
and reproach; and, as I have too much reason to apprehend, misrepresent
my words and behaviour; or, greatly favoured as I used to be, it is
impossible I should be sunk so low in your opinions, as I unhappily am!

Let but this my hard, my disgraceful confinement be put an end to.
Permit me, my dear Mamma, to pursue my needleworks in your presence,
as one of your maidens; and you shall be witness, that it is not either
wilfulness or prepossession that governs me. Let me not, however, be put
out of your own house. Let Mr. Solmes come and go, as my papa pleases:
let me but stay or retire when he comes, as I can; and leave the rest to
Providence.

Forgive me, Brother, that thus, with an appearance of art, I address
myself to my father and mother, to whom I am forbidden to approach,
or to write. Hard it is to be reduced to such a contrivance! Forgive
likewise the plain dealing I have used in the above, with the nobleness
of a gentleman, and the gentleness due from a brother to a sister.
Although of late you have given me but little room to hope either for
your favour or compassion; yet, having not deserved to forfeit either, I
presume to claim both: for I am confident it is at present much in your
power, although but my brother (my honoured parents both, I bless God,
in being), to give peace to the greatly disturbed mind of

Your unhappy sister, CL. HARLOWE.


Betty tells me, my brother has taken my letter all in pieces; and has
undertaken to write such an answer to it, as shall confirm the wavering.
So, it is plain, that I should have moved somebody by it, but for this
hard-hearted brother--God forgive him!




LETTER VIII

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE THURSDAY NIGHT, MARCH 23.


I send you the boasted confutation-letter, just now put into my
hands. My brother and sister, my uncle Antony and Mr. Solmes, are,
I understand, exulting over the copy of it below, as an unanswerable
performance.


TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Once again, my inflexible Sister, I write to you. It is to let you know,
that the pretty piece of art you found out to make me the vehicle
of your whining pathetics to your father and mother, has not had the
expected effect.

I do assure you, that your behaviour has not been misrepresented--nor
need it. Your mother, who is solicitous to take all opportunities of
putting the most favourable constructions upon all you do, has been
forced, as you well know, to give you up, upon full trial. No need then
of the expedient of pursuing your needleworks in her sight. She cannot
bear your whining pranks: and it is for her sake, that you are not
permitted to come into her presence--nor will be, but upon her own
terms.

You had like to have made a simpleton of your aunt Hervey yesterday:
she came down from you, pleading in your favour. But when she was asked,
What concession she had brought you to? she looked about her, and knew
not what to answer. So your mother, when surprised into the beginning
of your cunning address to her and to your father, under my name, (for
I had begun to read it, little suspecting such an ingenious
subterfuge,)and would then make me read it through, wrung her hands, Oh!
her dear child, her dear child, must not be so compelled!--But when she
was asked, Whether she would be willing to have for her son-in-law the
man who bids defiance to her whole family; and who had like to have
murdered her son? And what concession she had gained from her dear child
to merit this tenderness? And that for one who had apparently deceived
her in assuring her that her heart was free?--Then could she look
about her, as her sister had done before: then was she again brought to
herself, and to a resolution to assert her authority [not to transfer
it, witty presumer!] over the rebel, who of late has so ungratefully
struggled to throw it off.

You seem, child, to have a high notion of the matrimonial duty; and I'll
warrant, like the rest of your sex, (one or two, whom I have the honour
to know, excepted,) that you will go to church to promise what you will
never think of afterwards. But, sweet child! as your worthy Mamma Norton
calls you, think a little less of the matrimonial, (at least, till you
come into that state,) and a little more of the filial duty.

How can you say, you are to bear all the misery, when you give so large
a share of it to your parents, to your uncles, to your aunt, to myself,
and to your sister; who all, for eighteen years of your life, loved you
so well?

If of late I have not given you room to hope for my favour or
compassion, it is because of late you have not deserved either. I know
what you mean, little reflecting fool, by saying, it is much in my
power, although but your brother, (a very slight degree of relationship
with you,) to give you that peace which you can give yourself whenever
you please.

The liberty of refusing, pretty Miss, is denied you, because we are all
sensible, that the liberty of choosing, to every one's dislike, must
follow. The vile wretch you have set your heart upon speaks this plainly
to every body, though you won't. He says you are his, and shall be his,
and he will be the death of any man who robs him of his PROPERTY. So,
Miss, we have a mind to try this point with him. My father, supposing he
has the right of a father in his child, is absolutely determined not to
be bullied out of that right. And what must that child be, who prefers
the rake to a father?

This is the light in which this whole debate ought to be taken. Blush,
then, Delicacy, that cannot bear the poet's amor omnibus idem!--Blush,
then, Purity! Be ashamed, Virgin Modesty! And, if capable of conviction,
surrender your whole will to the will of the honoured pair, to whom you
owe your being: and beg of all your friends to forgive and forget the
part you have of late acted.

I have written a longer letter than ever I designed to write to you,
after the insolent treatment and prohibition you have given me: and,
now I am commissioned to tell you, that your friends are as weary of
confining you, as you are of being confined. And therefore you must
prepare yourself to go in a very few days, as you have been told before,
to your uncle Antony's; who, notwithstanding you apprehensions, will
draw up his bridge when he pleases; will see what company he pleases
in his own house; nor will he demolish his chapel to cure you of your
foolish late-commenced antipathy to a place of divine worship.--The more
foolish, as, if we intended to use force, we could have the ceremony
pass in your chamber, as well as any where else.

Prejudice against Mr. Solmes has evidently blinded you, and there is a
charitable necessity to open your eyes: since no one but you thinks
the gentleman so contemptible in his person; nor, for a plain country
gentleman, who has too much solid sense to appear like a coxcomb, justly
blamable in his manners.--And as to his temper, it is necessary you
should speak upon fuller knowledge, than at present it is plain you can
have of him.

Upon the whole, it will not be amiss, that you prepare for your speedy
removal, as well for the sake of your own conveniency, as to shew your
readiness, in one point, at least, to oblige your friends; one of whom
you may, if you please to deserve it, reckon, though but a brother,

JAMES HARLOWE.

P.S. If you are disposed to see Mr. Solmes, and to make some excuses
to him for past conduct, in order to be able to meet him somewhere else
with the less concern to yourself for your freedoms with him, he shall
attend you where you please.

If you have a mind to read the settlements, before they are read to you
for your signing, they shall be sent you up--Who knows, but they will
help you to some fresh objections?--Your heart is free, you know--It
must--For, did you not tell your mother it was? And will the pious
Clarissa fib to her mamma?

I desire no reply. The case requires none. Yet I will ask you, Have you,
Miss, no more proposals to make?


*****


I was so vexed when I came to the end of this letter, (the postscript to
which, perhaps, might be written after the others had seen the letter,)
that I took up my pen, with an intent to write to my uncle Harlowe about
resuming my own estate, in pursuance of your advice. But my heart failed
me, when I recollected, that I had not one friend to stand by or
support me in my claim; and it would but the more incense them, without
answering any good end. Oh! that my cousin were but come!

Is it not a sad thing, beloved as I thought myself so lately by every
one, that now I have not one person in the world to plead for me, to
stand by me, or who would afford me refuge, were I to be under the
necessity of asking for it!--I who had the vanity to think I had as
many friends as I saw faces, and flattered myself too, that it was not
altogether unmerited, because I saw not my Maker's image, either in man,
woman, or child, high or low, rich or poor, whom, comparatively, I
loved not as myself.--Would to heaven, my dear, that you were married!
Perhaps, then, you could have induced Mr. Hickman to afford me
protection, till these storms were over-blown. But then this might have
involved him in difficulties and dangers; and that I would not have done
for the world.

I don't know what to do, not I!--God forgive me, but I am very
impatient! I wish--But I don't know what to wish, without a sin!--Yet I
wish it would please God to take me to his mercy!--I can meet with none
here--What a world is this!--What is there in it desirable? The good we
hope for, so strangely mixed, that one knows not what to wish for! And
one half of mankind tormenting the other, and being tormented themselves
in tormenting!--For here is this my particular case, my relations cannot
be happy, though they make me unhappy!--Except my brother and sister,
indeed--and they seem to take delight in and enjoy the mischief they
make.

But it is time to lay down my pen, since my ink runs nothing but gall.




LETTER IX

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE FRIDAY MORNING, SIX O'CLOCK

Mrs. Betty tells me, there is now nothing talked of but of my going
to my uncle Antony's. She has been ordered, she says, to get ready to
attend me thither: and, upon my expressing my averseness to go, had the
confidence to say, That having heard me often praise the romanticness
of the place, she was astonished (her hands and eyes lifted up) that I
should set myself against going to a house so much in my taste.

I asked if this was her own insolence, or her young mistress's
observation?

She half-astonished me by her answer: That it was hard she could not say
a good thing, without being robbed of the merit of it.

As the wench looked as if she really thought she had said a good thing,
without knowing the boldness of it, I let it pass. But, to say the
truth, this creature has surprised me on many occasions with her
smartness: for, since she has been employed in this controuling office,
I have discovered a great deal of wit in her assurance, which I never
suspected before. This shews, that insolence is her talent: and that
Fortune, in placing her as a servant to my sister, had not done so
kindly by her as Nature; for that she would make a better figure as her
companion. And indeed I can't help thinking sometimes, that I myself was
better fitted by Nature to be the servant of both, than the mistress of
the one, or the servant of the other. And within these few months past,
Fortune has acted by me, as if she were of the same mind.


FRIDAY, TEN O'CLOCK

Going down to my poultry-yard, just now, I heard my brother and sister
and that Solmes laughing and triumphing together. The high yew-hedge
between us, which divides the yard from the garden, hindered them from
seeing me.

My brother, as I found, has been reading part, or the whole perhaps, of
the copy of his last letter--Mighty prudent, and consistent, you'll say,
with their views to make me the wife of a man from whom they conceal
not what, were I to be such, it would be kind in them to endeavour to
conceal, out of regard to my future peace!--But I have no doubt, that
they hate me heartily.

Indeed, you was up with her there, brother, said my sister. You need not
have bid her not to write to you. I'll engage, with all her wit, she'll
never pretend to answer it.

Why, indeed, said my brother, with an air of college-sufficiency, with
which he abounds, (for he thinks nobody writes like himself,) I believe
I have given her a choke-pear. What say you, Mr. Solmes?

Why, Sir, said he, I think it is unanswerable. But will it not
exasperate he more against me?

Never fear, Mr. Solmes, said my brother, but we'll carry our point, if
she do not tire you out first. We have gone too far in this method to
recede. Her cousin Morden will soon be here: so all must be over before
that time, or she'll be made independent of us all.

There, Miss Howe, is the reason given for their jehu-driving.

Mr. Solmes declared, that he was determined to persevere while my
brother gave him any hopes, and while my father stood firm.

My sister told my brother, that he hit me charmingly on the reason why
I ought to converse with Mr. Solmes: but that he should not be so smart
upon the sex, for the faults of this perverse girl.

Some lively, and, I suppose, witty answer, my brother returned; for he
and Mr. Solmes laughed outrageously upon it, and Bella, laughing too,
called him a naughty man: but I heard no more of what they said; they
walked on into the garden.

If you think, my dear, that what I have related did not again fire me,
you will find yourself mistaken when you read at this place the enclosed
copy of my letter to my brother; struck off while the iron was red hot.

No more call me meek and gentle, I beseech you.


TO MR. JAMES HARLOWE

FRIDAY MORNING.

SIR,

If, notwithstanding your prohibition, I should be silent, on occasion of
your last, you would, perhaps, conclude, that I was consenting to go to
my uncle Antony's upon the condition you mention. My father must do as
he pleases with his child. He may turn me out of his doors, if he thinks
fit, or give you leave to do it; but (loth as I am to say it) I should
think it very hard to be carried by force to any body's house, when I
have one of my own to go to.

Far be it from me, notwithstanding yours and my sister's provocations,
to think of my taking my estate into my own hands, without my father's
leave: But why, if I must not stay any longer here, may I not be
permitted to go thither? I will engage to see nobody they would not have
me see, if this favour be permitted. Favour I call it, and am ready to
receive and acknowledge it as such, although my grandfather's will has
made it a matter of right.

You ask me, in a very unbrotherly manner, in the postscript to your
letter, if I have not some new proposals to make? I HAVE (since you put
the question) three or four; new ones all, I think; though I will be
bold to say, that, submitting the case to any one person whom you have
not set against me, my old ones ought not to have been rejected. I think
this; why then should I not write it?--Nor have you any more reason to
storm at your sister for telling it you, (since you seem in your letter
to make it your boast how you turned my mother and my aunt Hervey
against me,) than I have to be angry with my brother, for treating me as
no brother ought to treat a sister.

These, then, are my new proposals.

That, as above, I may not be hindered from going to reside (under such
conditions as shall be prescribed to me, which I will most religiously
observe) at my grandfather's late house. I will not again in this place
call it mine. I have reason to think it a great misfortune that ever it
was so--indeed I have.

If this be not permitted, I desire leave to go for a month, or for what
time shall be thought fit, to Miss Howe's. I dare say my mother will
consent to it, if I have my father's permission to go.

If this, neither, be allowed, and I am to be turned out of my father's
house, I beg I may be suffered to go to my aunt Hervey's, where I will
inviolably observe her commands, and those of my father and mother.

But if this, neither, is to be granted, it is my humble request, that I
may be sent to my uncle Harlowe's, instead of my uncle Antony's. I mean
not by this any disrespect to my uncle Antony: but his moat, with his
bridge threatened to be drawn up, and perhaps the chapel there, terrify
me beyond expression, notwithstanding your witty ridicule upon me for
that apprehension.

If this likewise be refused, and if I must be carried to the
moated-house, which used to be a delightful one to me, let it be
promised me, that I shall not be compelled to receive Mr. Solmes's
visits there; and then I will as cheerfully go, as ever I did.

So here, Sir, are your new proposals. And if none of them answer
your end, as each of them tends to the exclusion of that ungenerous
persister's visits, be pleased to know, that there is no misfortune I
will not submit to, rather than yield to give my hand to the man to whom
I can allow no share in my heart.

If I write in a style different from my usual, and different from what
I wished to have occasion to write, an impartial person, who knew what I
have accidentally, within this hour past, heard from your mouth, and my
sister's, and a third person's, (particularly the reason you give
for driving on at this violent rate, to wit, my cousin Morden's
soon-expected arrival,) would think I have but too much reason for it.
Then be pleased to remember, Sir, that when my whining vocatives have
subjected me to so much scorn and ridicule, it is time, were it but to
imitate examples so excellent as you and my sister set me, that I should
endeavour to assert my character, in order to be thought less an alien,
and nearer of kin to you both, than either of you have of late seemed to
suppose me.

Give me leave, in order to empty my female quiver at once, to add, that
I know no other reason which you can have for forbidding me to reply to
you, after you have written what you pleased to me, than that you are
conscious you cannot answer to reason and to justice the treatment you
have given me.

If it be otherwise, I, an unlearned, an unlogical girl, younger by near
a third than yourself, will venture (so assured am I of the justice of
my cause) to put my fate upon an issue with you: with you, Sir, who have
had the advantage of an academical education; whose mind must have been
strengthened by observation, and learned conversation, and who, pardon
my going so low, have been accustomed to give choke-pears to those you
vouchsafe to write against.

Any impartial person, your late tutor, for instance, or the pious and
worthy Dr. Lewen, may be judge between us: and if either give it against
me, I will promise to resign to my destiny: provided, if it be given
against you, that my father will be pleased only to allow of my negative
to the person so violently sought to be imposed upon me.

I flatter myself, Brother, that you will the readier come into this
proposal, as you seem to have a high opinion of your talents for
argumentation; and not a low one of the cogency of the arguments
contained in your last letter. And if I can possibly have no advantage
in a contention with you, if the justice of my cause affords me not any
(as you have no opinion it will,) it behoves you, methinks, to shew to
an impartial moderator that I am wrong, and you not so.

If this be accepted, there is a necessity for its being carried on
by the pen; the facts being stated, and agreed upon by both; and the
decision to be given, according to the force of the arguments each shall
produce in support of their side of the question: for give me leave
to say, I know too well the manliness of your temper, to offer at a
personal debate with you.

If it be not accepted, I shall conclude, that you cannot defend your
conduct towards me; and shall only beg of you, that, for the future, you
will treat me with the respect due to a sister from a brother who would
be thought as polite as learned.

And now, Sir, if I have seemed to shew some spirit, not foreign to the
relation I have the honour to be to you, and to my sister; and which may
be deemed not altogether of a piece with that part of my character which
once, it seems, gained me every one's love; be pleased to consider to
whom, and to what it is owing; and that this part of that character was
not dispensed with, till it subjected me to that scorn, and to those
insults, which a brother, who has been so tenacious of an independence
voluntarily given up by me, and who has appeared so exalted upon it,
ought not to have shewn to any body, much less to a weak and defenceless
sister; who is, notwithstanding, an affectionate and respectful one, and
would be glad to shew herself to be so upon all future occasions; as she
has in every action of her past life, although of late she has met with
such unkind returns.

CL. HARLOWE


*****


See, my dear, the force, and volubility, as I may say, of passion; for
the letter I send you is my first draught, struck off without a blot or
erasure.


*****


FRIDAY, THREE O'CLOCK

As soon as I had transcribed it, I sent it down to my brother by Mrs.
Betty.

The wench came up soon after, all aghast, with a Laud, Miss! What have
you done?--What have you written? For you have set them all in a joyful
uproar!


*****


My sister is but this moment gone from me. She came up all in a flame;
which obliged me abruptly to lay down my pen: she ran to me--

O Spirit! said she; tapping my neck a little too hard. And is it come to
this at last--!

Do you beat me, Bella?

Do you call this beating you? only tapping you shoulder thus, said
she; tapping again more gently--This is what we expected it would come
to--You want to be independent--My father has lived too long for you--!

I was going to speak with vehemence; but she put her handkerchief
before my mouth, very rudely--You have done enough with your pen, mean
listener, as you are!--But know that neither your independent scheme,
nor any of your visiting ones, will be granted you. Take your course,
perverse one! Call in your rake to help you to an independence upon
your parents, and a dependence upon him!--Do so!--Prepare this
moment--resolve what you will take with you--to-morrow you go--depend
upon it to-morrow you go!--No longer shall you stay here, watching
and creeping about to hearken to what people say--'Tis determined,
child!--You go to-morrow--my brother would have come up to tell you so;
but I persuaded him to the contrary--for I know not what had become
of you, if he had--Such a letter! such an insolent, such a
conceited challenger!--O thou vain creature! But prepare yourself, I
say--to-morrow you go--my brother will accept of your bold challenge;
but it must be personal; and at my uncle Antony's--or perhaps at Mr.
Solmes's--

Thus she ran on, almost foaming with passion; till, quite out of
patience, I said, No more of your violence, Bella--Had I known in what
way you designed to come up, you should not have found my chamber-door
open--talk to your servant in this manner. Unlike you, as I bless God I
am, I am nevertheless your sister--and let me tell you, that I won't go
to-morrow, nor next day, nor next day to that--except I am dragged away
by violence.

What! not if your father or mother command it--Girl? said she, intending
another word, by her pause and manner before it came out.

Let it come to that, Bella; then I shall know what to say. But it shall
be from their own mouths, if I do--not from yours, nor you Betty's--And
say another word to me, in this manner, and be the consequence what it
may, I will force myself into their presence; and demand what I have
done to be used thus!

Come along, Child! Come along, Meekness--taking my hand, and leading me
towards the door--Demand it of them now--you'll find both your despised
parents together!--What! does your heart fail you?--for I resisted,
being thus insolently offered to be led, and pulled my hand from her.

I want not to be led, said I; and since I can plead your invitation, I
will go: and was posting to the stairs accordingly in my passion--but
she got between me and the door, and shut it--

Let me first, Bold one, said she, apprize them of your visit--for your
own sake let me--for my brother is with them. But yet opening it again,
seeing me shrink back--Go, if you will!--Why don't you go?--Why don't
you go, Miss?--following me to my closet, whither I retired, with my
heart full, and pulled the sash-door after me; and could no longer hold
in my tears.

Nor would I answer one word to her repeated aggravations, nor to her
demands upon me to open my door (for the key was on the inside); nor so
much as turn my head towards her, as she looked through the glass at me.
And at last, which vexed her to the heart, I drew the silk curtain, that
she should not see me, and down she went muttering all the way.

Is not this usage enough to provoke a rashness never before thought of?

As it is but too probable that I may be hurried away to my uncle's
without being able to give you previous notice of it; I beg that as soon
as you shall hear of such a violence, you would send to the usual place,
to take back such of your letters as may not have reached my hands, or
to fetch any of mine that may be there.

May you, my dear, be always happy, prays you CLARISSA HARLOWE.

I have received your four letters. But am in such a ferment, that I
cannot at present write to them.




LETTER X

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE FRIDAY NIGHT, MARCH 24.


I have a most provoking letter from my sister. I might have supposed she
would resent the contempt she brought upon herself in my chamber. Her
conduct surely can only be accounted for by the rage instigate by a
supposed rivalry.


TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

I am to tell you, that your mother has begged you off for the morrow:
but that you have effectually done your business with her, as well as
with every body else.

In your proposals and letter to your brother, you have shewn yourself so
silly, and so wise; so young, and so old; so gentle, and so obstinate;
so meek, and so violent; that never was there so mixed a character.

We all know of whom you have borrowed this new spirit. And yet the seeds
of it must be in your heart, or it could not all at once shew itself so
rampant. It would be doing Mr. Solmes a spite to wish him such a shy,
un-shy girl; another of your contradictory qualities--I leave you to
make out what I mean by it.

Here, Miss, your mother will not let you remain: she cannot have any
peace of mind while such a rebel of a child is so near her. Your aunt
Hervey will not take a charge which all the family put together cannot
manage. Your uncle Harlowe will not see you at his house, till you are
married. So, thanks to your own stubbornness, you have nobody that will
receive you but your uncle Antony. Thither you must go in a very
few days; and, when there, your brother will settle with you, in my
presence, all that relates to your modest challenge; for it is accepted,
I assure you. Dr. Lewen will possibly be there, since you make choice of
him. Another gentleman likewise, were it but to convince you, that he is
another sort of man than you have taken him to be. Your two uncles
will possibly be there too, to see that the poor, weak, and defenceless
sister has fair play. So, you see, Miss, what company your smart
challenge will draw together.

Prepare for the day. You'll soon be called upon. Adieu, Mamma Norton's
sweet child!

ARAB. HARLOWE.


*****


I transcribed this letter, and sent it to my mother, with these lines:


A very few words, my ever-honoured Mamma!

If my sister wrote the enclosed by my father's direction, or yours, I
must submit to the usage she gave me in it, with this only observation,
That it is short of the personal treatment I have received from her.
If it be of her own head--why then, Madam--But I knew that when I was
banished from your presence--Yet, till I know if she has or has not
authority for this usage, I will only write further, that I am

Your very unhappy child, CL. HARLOWE.


*****


This answer I received in an open slip of paper; but it was wet in one
place. I kissed the place; for I am sure it was blistered, as I may
say, by a mother's tear!--She must (I hope she must) have written it
reluctantly.


To apply for protection, where authority is defied, is bold. Your
sister, who would not in your circumstances have been guilty of your
perverseness, may allowably be angry at you for it. However, we have
told her to moderate her zeal for our insulted authority. See, if you
can deserve another behaviour, than that you complain of: which cannot,
however be so grievous to you, as the cause of it is to

Your more unhappy Mother.

How often must I forbid you any address to me!


*****


Give me, my dearest Miss Howe, your opinion, what I can, what I ought
to do. Not what you would do (pushed as I am pushed) in resentment or
passion--since, so instigated, you tell me, that you should have been
with somebody before now--and steps taken in passion hardly ever fail
of giving cause for repentance: but acquaint me with what you think
cool judgment, and after-reflection, whatever were to be the event, will
justify.

I doubt not your sympathizing love: but yet you cannot possibly feel
indignity and persecution so very sensibly as the immediate sufferer
feels them--are fitter therefore to advise me, than I am myself.

I will here rest my cause. Have I, or have I not, suffered or borne
enough? And if they will still persevere; if that strange persister
against an antipathy so strongly avowed, will still persist; say, What
can I do?--What course pursue?--Shall I fly to London, and endeavour to
hide myself from Lovelace, as well as from all my own relations, till
my cousin Morden arrives? Or shall I embark for Leghorn in my way to my
cousin? Yet, my sex, my youth, considered, how full of danger is this
last measure!--And may not my cousin be set out for England, while I
am getting thither?--What can I do?--Tell me, tell me, my dearest Miss
Howe, [for I dare not trust myself,] tell me, what I can do.

ELEVEN O'CLOCK AT NIGHT.

I have been forced to try to compose my angry passions at my
harpsichord; having first shut close my doors and windows, that I might
not be heard below. As I was closing the shutters of the windows, the
distant whooting of the bird of Minerva, as from the often-visited
woodhouse, gave the subject in that charming Ode to Wisdom, which does
honour to our sex, as it was written by one of it. I made an essay, a
week ago, to set the three last stanzas of it, as not unsuitable to my
unhappy situation; and after I had re-perused the Ode, those were
my lesson; and, I am sure, in the solemn address they contain to the
All-Wise and All-powerful Deity, my heart went with my fingers.

I enclose the Ode, and my effort with it. The subject is solemn; my
circumstances are affecting; and I flatter myself, that I have not been
quite unhappy in the performance. If it obtain your approbation, I shall
be out of doubt, and should be still more assured, could I hear it tried
by your voice and finger.



ODE TO WISDOM BY A LADY


     I.
     The solitary bird of night
     Thro' thick shades now wings his flight,
        And quits his time-shook tow'r;
     Where, shelter'd from the blaze of day,
     In philosophic gloom he lay,
        Beneath his ivy bow'r.

     II.
     With joy I hear the solemn sound,
     Which midnight echoes waft around,
        And sighing gales repeat.
     Fav'rite of Pallas! I attend,
     And, faithful to thy summons, bend
        At Wisdom's awful seat.

     III.
     She loves the cool, the silent eve,
     Where no false shows of life deceive,
        Beneath the lunar ray.
     Here folly drops each vain disguise;
     Nor sport her gaily colour'd dyes,
        As in the beam of day.

     IV.
     O Pallas! queen of ev'ry art,
     That glads the sense, and mends the heart,
        Blest source of purer joys!
     In ev'ry form of beauty bright,
     That captivates the mental sight
        With pleasure and surprise;

     V.
     To thy unspotted shrine I bow:
     Attend thy modest suppliant's vow,
        That breathes no wild desires;
     But, taught by thy unerring rules,
     To shun the fruitless wish of fools,
        To nobler views aspires.

     VI.
     Not Fortune's gem, Ambition's plume,
     Nor Cytherea's fading bloom,
        Be objects of my prayer:
     Let av'rice, vanity, and pride,
     Those envy'd glitt'ring toys divide,
        The dull rewards of care.

     VII.
     To me thy better gifts impart,
     Each moral beauty of the heart,
        By studious thought refin'd;
     For wealth, the smile of glad content;
     For pow'r, its amplest, best extent,
        An empire o'er my mind.

     VIII.
     When Fortune drops her gay parade.
     When Pleasure's transient roses fade,
        And wither in the tomb,
     Unchang'd is thy immortal prize;
     Thy ever-verdant laurels rise
        In undecaying bloom.

     IX.
     By thee protected, I defy
     The coxcomb's sneer, the stupid lie
        Of ignorance and spite:
     Alike contemn the leaden fool,
     And all the pointed ridicule
        Of undiscerning wit.

     X.
     From envy, hurry, noise, and strife,
     The dull impertinence of life,
        In thy retreat I rest:
     Pursue thee to the peaceful groves,
     Where Plato's sacred spirit roves,
        In all thy beauties drest.

     XI.
     He bad Ilyssus' tuneful stream
     Convey thy philosophic theme
        Of perfect, fair, and good:
     Attentive Athens caught the sound,
     And all her list'ning sons around
        In awful silence stood.

     XII.
     Reclaim'd her wild licentious youth,
     Confess'd the potent voice of Truth,
        And felt its just controul.
     The Passions ceas'd their loud alarms,
     And Virtue's soft persuasive charms
        O'er all their senses stole.

     XIII.
     Thy breath inspires the Poet's song
     The Patriot's free, unbiass'd tongue,
        The Hero's gen'rous strife;
     Thine are retirement's silent joys,
     And all the sweet engaging ties
        Of still, domestic life.

     XIV.
     No more to fabled names confin'd;
     To Thee supreme, all perfect mind,
        My thought direct their flight.
     Wisdom's thy gift, and all her force
     From thee deriv'd, Eternal source
        Of Intellectual Light!

     XV.
     O send her sure, her steady ray,
     To regulate my doubtful way,
        Thro' life's perplexing road:
     The mists of error to controul,
     And thro' its gloom direct my soul
        To happiness and good.

     XVI.
     Beneath her clear discerning eye
     The visionary shadows fly
        Of Folly's painted show.
     She sees thro' ev'ry fair disguise,
     That all but Virtue's solid joys,
        Is vanity and woe.

[Facsimile of the music to "The Ode to Wisdom" (verse 14).]




LETTER XI

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE FRIDAY MIDNIGHT.


I have now a calmer moment. Envy, ambition, high and selfish resentment,
and all the violent passions, are now, most probably, asleep all around
me; and shall now my own angry ones give way to the silent hour, and
subside likewise?--They have given way to it; and I have made use of
the gentler space to re-peruse your last letters. I will touch upon
some passages in them. And that I may the less endanger the but-just
recovered calm, I will begin with what you write about Mr. Hickman.

Give me leave to say, That I am sorry you cannot yet persuade yourself
to think better, that is to say, more justly, of that gentleman, than
your whimsical picture of him shews you so; or, at least, than the
humourousness of your natural vein would make one think you do.

I do not imagine, that you yourself will say, he sat for the picture
you have drawn. And yet, upon the whole, it is not greatly to his
disadvantage. Were I at ease in my mind, I would venture to draw a much
more amiable and just likeness.

If Mr. Hickman has not that assurance which some men have, he has that
humility and gentleness which many want: and which, with the infinite
value he has for you, will make him one of the fittest husbands in the
world for a person of your vivacity and spirit.

Although you say I would not like him myself, I do assure you, if Mr.
Solmes were such a man as Mr. Hickman, in person, mind, and behaviour,
my friends and I had never disagreed about him, if they would not have
permitted me to live single; Mr. Lovelace (having such a character as
he has) would have stood no chance with me. This I can the more boldly
aver, because I plainly perceive, that of the two passions, love
and fear, this man will be able to inspire one with a much greater
proportion of the latter, than I imagine is compatible with the former,
to make a happy marriage.

I am glad you own, that you like no one better than Mr. Hickman. In a
little while, I make no doubt, you will be able, if you challenge
your heart upon it, to acknowledge, that you like not any man so well:
especially, when you come to consider, that the very faults you find in
Mr. Hickman, admirably fit him to make you happy: that is to say, if it
be necessary to your happiness, that you should have your own will in
every thing.

But let me add one thing: and that is this:--You have such a sprightly
turn, that, with your admirable talents, you would make any man in the
world, who loved you, look like a fool, except he were such a one as
Lovelace.

Forgive me, my dear, for my frankness: and forgive me, also, for so soon
returning to subject so immediately relative to myself, as those I now
must touch upon.

You again insist (strengthened by Mr. Lovelace's opinion) upon my
assuming my own estate [I cannot call it resuming, having never been
in possession of it]: and I have given you room to expect, that I will
consider this subject more closely than I have done before. I must
however own, that the reasons which I had to offer against taking
your advice were so obvious, that I thought you would have seen
them yourself, and been determined by them, against your own hastier
counsel.--But since this has not been so, and that both you and Mr.
Lovelace call upon me to assume my own estate, I will enter briefly into
the subject.

In the first place, let me ask you, my dear, supposing I were inclined
to follow your advice, Whom have I to support me in my demand? My uncle
Harlowe is one of my trustees--he is against me. My cousin Morden is the
other--he is in Italy, and very probably may be set against me too.
My brother has declared, that they are resolved to carry their points
before he arrives: so that, as they drive on, all will probably be
decided before I can have an answer from him, were I to write: and,
confined as I am, were the answer to come in time, and they did not like
it, they would keep it from me.

In the next place, parents have great advantages in every eye over the
child, if she dispute their pleasure in the disposing of her: and so
they ought; since out of twenty instances, perhaps two could not be
produced, when they were not in the right, the child in the wrong.

You would not, I am sure, have me accept of Mr. Lovelace's offered
assistance in such a claim. If I would embrace any other person's, who
else would care to appear for a child against parents, ever, till of
late, so affectionate?==But were such a protector to be found, what a
length of time would it take up in a course of litigation! The will and
the deeds have flaws in them, they say. My brother sometimes talks
of going to reside at The Grove: I suppose, with a design to make
ejectments necessary, were I to offer at assuming; or, were I to marry
Mr. Lovelace, in order to give him all the opposition and difficulty the
law would help him to give.

These cases I have put to myself, for argument-sake: but they are
all out of the question, although any body were to be found who would
espouse my cause: for I do assure you, I would sooner beg my bread, than
litigate for my right with my father: since I am convinced, that whether
the parent do his duty by the child or not, the child cannot be excused
from doing hers to him. And to go to law with my father, what a
sound has that! You will see, that I have mentioned my wish (as an
alternative, and as a favour) to be permitted, if I must be put out of
his house, to go thither: but not one step further can I go. And you see
how this is resented.

Upon the whole, then, what have I to hope for, but a change in my
father's resolution?--And is there any probability of that; such an
ascendancy as my brother and sister have obtained over every body;
and such an interest to pursue the enmity they have now openly avowed
against me?

As to Mr. Lovelace's approbation of your assumption-scheme, I wonder not
at. He very probably penetrates the difficulties I should have to bring
it to effect, without his assistance. Were I to find myself as free as I
would wish myself to be, perhaps Mr. Lovelace would stand a worse chance
with me than his vanity may permit him to imagine; notwithstanding the
pleasure you take in rallying me on his account. How know you, but
all that appears to be specious and reasonable in his offers; such as,
standing his chance for my favour, after I became independent, as I may
call it [by which I mean no more, than to have the liberty of refusing
for my husband a man whom it hurts me but to think of in that light];
and such as his not visiting me but by my leave; and till Mr. Morden
come; and till I am satisfied of his reformation;--How know you, I say,
that he gives not himself these airs purely to stand better in your
graces as well as mine, by offering of his own accord conditions which
he must needs think would be insisted on, were the case to happen?

Then am I utterly displeased with him. To threaten as he threatens; yet
to pretend, that it is not to intimidate me; and to beg of you not to
tell me, when he must know you would, and no doubt intended that you
should, is so meanly artful!--The man must think he has a frightened
fool to deal with.--I, to join hands with such a man of violence! my
own brother the man whom he threatens!--And what has Mr. Solmes done to
him?--Is he to be blamed, if he thinks a person would make a wife worth
having, to endeavour to obtain her?--Oh that my friends would but
leave me to my own way in this one point! For have I given the man
encouragement sufficient to ground these threats upon? Were Mr. Solmes a
man to whom I could but be indifferent, it might be found, that to have
spirit, would very little answer the views of that spirit. It is my
fortune to be treated as a fool by my brother: but Mr. Lovelace shall
find--Yet I will let him know my mind; and then it will come with a
better grace to your knowledge.

Mean time, give me leave to tell you, that it goes against me, in my
cooler moments, unnatural as my brother is to me, to have you, my dear,
who are my other self, write such very severe reflections upon him, in
relation to the advantage Lovelace had over him. He is not indeed your
brother: but remember, that you write to his sister.--Upon my word, my
dear Miss Howe, you dip your pen in gall whenever you are offended: and
I am almost ready to question, whether I read some of your expressions
against others of my relations as well as him, (although in my favour,)
whether you are so thoroughly warranted to call other people to account
for their warmth. Should we not be particularly careful to keep clear
of the faults we censure?--And yet I am so angry both at my brother and
sister, that I should not have taken this liberty with my dear friend,
notwithstanding I know you never loved them, had you not made so light
of so shocking a transaction where a brother's life was at stake: when
his credit in the eye of the mischievous sex has received a still deeper
wound than he personally sustained; and when a revival of the same
wicked resentments (which may end more fatally) is threatened.

His credit, I say, in the eye of the mischievous sex: Who is not
warranted to call it so; when it is re (as the two libertines his
companions gloried) to resolve never to give a challenge; and among whom
duelling is so fashionable a part of brutal bravery, that the man of
temper, who is, mostly, I believe, the truly brave man, is often at
a loss so to behave as to avoid incurring either a mortal guilt, or a
general contempt?

To enlarge a little upon this subject, May we not infer, that those who
would be guilty of throwing these contempts upon a man of temper, who
would rather pass by a verbal injury, than to imbrue his hands in blood,
know not the measure of true magnanimity? nor how much nobler it is to
forgive, and even how much more manly to despise, than to resent, an
injury? Were I a man, methinks, I should have too much scorn for a
person, who could wilfully do me a mean wrong, to put a value upon his
life, equal to what I put upon my own. What an absurdity, because a man
had done me a small injury, that I should put it in his power (at least,
to an equal risque) to do me, and those who love me, an irreparable
one!--Were it not a wilful injury, nor avowed to be so, there could not
be room for resentment.

How willingly would I run away from myself, and what most concerns
myself, if I could! This digression brings me back again to the occasion
of it--and that to the impatience I was in, when I ended my last
letter, for my situation is not altered. I renew, therefore, my former
earnestness, as the new day approaches, and will bring with it perhaps
new trials, that you will (as undivestedly as possible of favour or
resentment) tell me what you would have me do:--for, if I am obliged to
go to my uncle Antony's, all, I doubt, will be over with me. Yet how to
avoid it--that's the difficulty!

I shall deposit this the first thing. When you have it, lose no time, I
pray you, to advise (lest it be too late)

Your ever obliged CL. HARLOWE.




LETTER XII

MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE SATURDAY, MARCH 25.


What can I advise you to do, my noble creature? Your merit is your
crime. You can no more change your nature, than your persecutors can
theirs. Your distress is owing to the vast disparity between you and
them. What would you have of them? Do they not act in character?--And to
whom? To an alien. You are not one of them. They have two dependencies
in their hope to move you to compliance.--Upon their impenetrableness
one [I'd give it a more proper name, if I dared]; the other, on the
regard you have always had for your character, [Have they not heretofore
owned as much?] and upon your apprehensions from that of Lovelace, which
would discredit you, should you take any step by his means to extricate
yourself. Then they know, that resentment and unpersuadableness are not
natural to you; and that the anger they have wrought you up to, will
subside, as all extraordinaries soon do; and that once married, you will
make the best of it.

But surely your father's son and eldest daughter have a view (by
communicating to so narrow a soul all they know of your just aversion to
him) to entail unhappiness for life upon you, were you to have the man
who is already more nearly related to them, than ever he can be to you,
although the shocking compulsion should take place.

As to that wretch's perseverance, those only, who know not the man,
will wonder at it. He has not the least delicacy. His principal view in
marriage is not to the mind. How shall those beauties be valued, which
cannot be comprehended? Were you to be his, and shew a visible want of
tenderness to him, it is my opinion, he would not be much concerned at
it. I have heard you well observe, from your Mrs. Norton, That a person
who has any over-ruling passion, will compound by giving up twenty
secondary or under-satisfactions, though more laudable ones, in order to
have that gratified.

I'll give you the substance of a conversation [no fear you can be made
to like him worse than you do already] that passed between Sir Harry
Downeton and this Solmes, but three days ago, as Sir Harry told it but
yesterday to my mother and me. It will confirm to you that what your
sister's insolent Betty reported he should say, of governing by fear,
was not of her own head.

Sir Harry told her, he wondered he should wish to obtain you so much
against you inclination as every body knew it would be, if he did.

He matter'd not that, he said: coy maids made the fondest wives: [A
sorry fellow!] It would not at all grieve him to see a pretty woman make
wry faces, if she gave him cause to vex her. And your estate, by the
convenience of its situation, would richly pay him for all he could bear
with your shyness.

He should be sure, he said, after a while, of your complaisance, if not
of your love: and in that should be happier than nine parts in ten of
his married acquaintance.

What a wretch is this!

For the rest, your known virtue would be as great a security to him, as
he could wish for.

She will look upon you, said Sir Harry, if she be forced to marry you,
as Elizabeth of France did upon Philip II. of Spain, when he received
her on his frontiers as her husband, who was to have been but her
father-in-law: that is, with fear and terror, rather than with
complaisance and love: and you will perhaps be as surly to her, as that
old monarch was to his young bride.

Fear and terror, the wretch, the horrid wretch! said, looked pretty in
a bride as well as in a wife: and, laughing, [yes, my dear, the hideous
fellow laughed immoderately, as Sir Harry told us, when he said it,] it
should be his care to perpetuate the occasion for that fear, if he could
not think he had the love. And, truly, he was of opinion, that if
LOVE and FEAR must be separated in matrimony, the man who made himself
feared, fared best.

If my eyes would carry with them the execution which the eyes of the
basilisk are said to do, I would make it my first business to see this
creature.

My mother, however, says, it would be a prodigious merit in you, if you
could get over your aversion to him. Where, asks she [as you have been
asked before], is the praise-worthiness of obedience, if it be only paid
in instance where we give up nothing?

What a fatality, that you have no better an option--either a Scylla or a
Charybdis.

Were it not you, I should know how (barbarously as you are used) to
advise you in a moment. But such a noble character to suffer from a
(supposed) rashness and indiscretion of such a nature, would, as I have
heretofore observed, be a wound to the sex.

While I was in hope, that the asserting of your own independence would
have helped you, I was pleased that you had one resource, as I thought.
But now, that you have so well proved, that such a step would not avail
you, I am entirely at a loss what to say.

I will lay down my pen, and think.


*****


I have considered, and considered again; but, I protest, I know no more
what to say now, than before. Only this: That I am young, like yourself;
and have a much weaker judgment, and stronger passions, than you have.

I have heretofore said, that you have offered as much as you ought, in
offering to live single. If you were never to marry, the estate they are
so loth should go out of their name, would, in time, I suppose, revert
to your brother: and he or his would have it, perhaps, much more
certainly this way, than by the precarious reversions which Solmes makes
them hope for. Have you put this into their odd heads, my dear?--The
tyrant word AUTHORITY, as they use it, can be the only objection against
this offer.

One thing you must consider, that, if you leave your parents, your duty
and love will not suffer you to justify yourself by an appeal against
them; and so you'll have the world against you. And should Lovelace
continue his wild life, and behave ungratefully to you, will not his
baseness seem to justify their cruel treatment of you, as well as their
dislike of him?

May heaven direct you for the best!--I can only say, that for my own
part, I would do any thing, go any where, rather than be compelled to
marry the man I hate; and (were he such a man as Solmes) must always
hate. Nor could I have borne what you have borne, if from father and
uncles, not from brother and sister.

My mother will have it, that after they have tried their utmost efforts
to bring you into their measures, and find them ineffectual, they will
recede. But I cannot say I am of her mind. She does not own, she has
any authority for this, but her own conjecture. I should otherwise have
hoped, that your uncle Antony and she had been in on one secret, and
that favourable to you. Woe be to one of them at least [to you uncle to
be sure I mean] if they should be in any other!

You must, if possible, avoid being carried to that uncle's. The man, the
parson, your brother and sister present!--They'll certainly there marry
you to the wretch. Nor will your newly-raised spirit support you in your
resistance on such an occasion. Your meekness will return; and you
will have nothing for it but tears [tears despised by them all] and
ineffectual appeals and lamentations: and these tears when the ceremony
is profaned, you must suddenly dry up; and endeavour to dispose of
yourself to such a humble frame of mind, as may induce your new-made
lord to forgive all your past declarations of aversion.

In short, my dear, you must then blandish him over with a confession,
that all your past behaviour was maidenly reserve only: and it will be
your part to convince him of the truth of his imprudent sarcasm, that
the coyest maids make the fondest wives. Thus will you enter the state
with a high sense of obligation to his forgiving goodness: and if you
will not be kept to it by that fear, by which he proposes to govern, I
am much mistaken.

Yet, after all, I must leave the point undetermined, and only to be
determined, as you find they recede from their avowed purpose, or
resolve to remove you to your uncle Antony's. But I must repeat my
wishes, that something may fall out, that neither of these men may call
you his!--And may you live single, my dearest friend, till some man
shall offer, that may be as worthy of you, as man can be!

But yet, methinks, I would not, that you, who are so admirably qualified
to adorn the married state, should be always single. You know I am
incapable of flattery; and that I always speak and write the sincerest
dictates of my heart. Nor can you, from what you must know of your
own merit (taken only in a comparative light with others) doubt my
sincerity. For why should a person who delight to find out and admire
every thing that is praise-worthy in another, be supposed ignorant of
like perfections in herself, when she could not so much admire them in
another, if she had them not herself? And why may not I give her those
praises, which she would give to any other, who had but half of her
excellencies?--Especially when she is incapable of pride and vain-glory;
and neither despises others for the want of her fine qualities, nor
overvalues herself upon them?--Over-values, did I say!--How can that be?

Forgive me, my beloved friend. My admiration of you (increased, as it
is, by every letter you write) will not always be held down in silence;
although, in order to avoid offending you, I generally endeavour to keep
it from flowing to my pen, when I write to you, or to my lips, whenever
I have the happiness to be in your company.

I will add nothing (though I could add a hundred things on account of
your latest communications) but that I am

Your ever affectionate and faithful ANNA HOWE.

I hope I have pleased you with my dispatch. I wish I had been able to
please you with my requested advice.

You have given new beauties to the charming Ode which you have
transmitted to me. What pity that the wretches you have to deal with,
put you out of your admirable course; in the pursuit of which, like the
sun, you was wont to cheer and illuminate all you shone upon!




LETTER XIII

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH 26.


How soothing a thing is praise from those we love!--Whether conscious
or not of deserving it, it cannot but give us great delight, to see
ourselves stand high in the opinion of those whose favour we are
ambitious to cultivate. An ingenuous mind will make this farther use of
it, that if he be sensible that it does not already deserve the charming
attributes, it will hasten (before its friend finds herself mistaken) to
obtain the graces it is complimented for: and this it will do, as well
in honour to itself, as to preserve its friend's opinion, and justify
her judgment. May this be always my aim!--And then you will not only
give the praise, but the merit; and I shall be more worthy of that
friendship, which is the only pleasure I have to boast of.

Most heartily I thank you for the kind dispatch of your last favour. How
much am I indebted to you! and even to your honest servant!--Under what
obligations does my unhappy situation lay me!

But let me answer the kind contents of it, as well as I may.

As to getting over my disgusts to Mr. Solmes, it is impossible to
be done; while he wants generosity, frankness of heart, benevolence,
manners and every qualification that distinguishes the worthy man. O my
dear! what a degree of patience, what a greatness of soul, is required
in the wife, not to despise a husband who is more ignorant, more
illiterate, more low-minded than herself!--The wretch, vested with
prerogatives, who will claim rule in virtue of them (and not to permit
whose claim, will be as disgraceful to the prescribing wife as to the
governed husband); How shall such a husband as this be borne, were he,
for reasons of convenience and interest, even to be our CHOICE? But,
to be compelled to have such a one, and that compulsion to arise from
motives as unworthy of the prescribers as of the prescribed, who can
think of getting over an aversion so justly founded? How much easier to
bear the temporary persecutions I labour under, because temporary, than
to resolve to be such a man's for life? Were I to comply, must I not
leave my relations, and go to him? A month will decide the one, perhaps:
But what a duration of woe will the other be!--Every day, it is likely,
rising to witness to some new breach of an altar-vowed duty!

Then, my dear, the man seems already to be meditating vengeance against
me for an aversion I cannot help: for yesterday my saucy gaoleress
assured me, that all my oppositions would not signify that pinch of
snuff, holding out her genteel finger and thumb: that I must have Mr.
Solmes: that therefore I had not best carry my jest too far; for that
Mr. Solmes was a man of spirit, and had told HER, that as I should
surely be his, I acted very unpolitely; since, if he had not more mercy
[that was her word, I know not if it were his] than I had, I might have
cause to repent the usage I gave him to the last day of my life. But
enough of this man; who, by what you repeat from Sir Harry Downeton,
has all the insolence of his sex, without any one quality to make that
insolence tolerable.

I have receive two letters from Mr. Lovelace, since his visit to you;
which make three that I have not answered. I doubt not his being very
uneasy; but in his last he complains in high terms of my silence; not
in the still small voice, or rather style of an humble lover, but in a
style like that which would probably be used by a slighted protector.
And his pride is again touched, that like a thief, or eves-dropper, he
is forced to dodge about in hopes of a letter, and returns five miles
(and then to an inconvenient lodging) without any.

His letters and the copy of mine to him, shall soon attend you. Till
when, I will give you the substance of what I wrote him yesterday.

I take him severely to task for his freedom in threatening me, through
you, with a visit to Mr. Solmes, or to my brother. I say, 'That, surely,
I must be thought to be a creature fit to bear any thing; that violence
and menaces from some of my own family are not enough for me to bear, in
order to make me avoid him; but that I must have them from him too, if
I oblige those to whom it is both my inclination and duty to oblige in
every thing that is reasonable, and in my power.

'Very extraordinary, I tell him, that a violent spirit shall threaten to
do a rash and unjustifiable thing, which concerns me but a little, and
himself a great deal, if I do not something as rash, my character and
sex considered, to divert him from it.

'I even hint, that, however it would affect me, were any mischief to
happen on my own account, yet there are persons, as far as I know, who
in my case would not think there would be reason for much regret, were
such a committed rashness as he threatens Mr. Solmes with, to rid her of
two persons whom, had she never known, she had never been unhappy.'

This is plain-dealing, my dear: and I suppose he will put it into still
plainer English for me.

I take his pride to task, on his disdaining to watch for my letters; and
for his eves-dropping language: and say, 'That, surely, he has the less
reason to think so hardly of his situation; since his faulty morals
are the cause of all; and since faulty morals deservedly level all
distinction, and bring down rank and birth to the canaille, and to the
necessity which he so much regrets, of appearing (if I must descent to
his language) as an eves-dropper and a thief. And then I forbid him
ever to expect another letter from me that is to subject him to such
disgraceful hardships.

'As to the solemn vows and protestations he is so ready, upon all
occasions, to make, they have the less weight with me, I tell him,
as they give a kind of demonstration, that he himself, from his own
character, thinks there is reason to make them. Deeds are to me the
only evidence of intentions. And I am more and more convinced of
the necessity of breaking off a correspondence with a person, whose
addresses I see it is impossible either to expect my friends to
encourage, or him to appear to wish that they should think him worthy of
encouragement.

'What therefore I repeatedly desire is, That since his birth, alliances,
and expectations, are such as will at any time, if his immoral character
be not an objection, procure him at least equal advantages in a woman
whose taste and inclinations moreover might be better adapted to
his own; I insist upon it, as well as advise it, that he give up all
thoughts of me: and the rather, as he has all along (by his threatening
and unpolite behaviour to my friends, and whenever he speaks of them)
given me reason to conclude, that there is more malice in them, than
regard to me, in his perseverance.'

This is the substance of the letter I have written to him.

The man, to be sure, must have the penetration to observe, that my
correspondence with him hitherto is owing more to the severity I meet
with, than to a very high value for him. And so I would have him think.
What a worse than moloch deity is that, which expects an offering of
reason, duty, and discretion, to be made to its shrine!

Your mother is of opinion, you say, that at last my friends will relent.
Heaven grant that they may!--But my brother and sister have such an
influence over every body, and are so determined; so pique themselves
upon subduing me, and carrying their point; that I despair that they
will. And yet, if they do not, I frankly own, I would not scruple to
throw myself upon any not disreputable protection, by which I might
avoid my present persecutions, on one hand, and not give Mr. Lovelace
advantage over me, on the other--that is to say, were there manifestly
no other way left me: for, if there were, I should think the leaving my
father's house, without his consent, one of the most inexcusable actions
I could be guilty of, were the protection to be ever so unexceptionable;
and this notwithstanding the independent fortune willed me by my
grandfather. And indeed I have often reflected with a degree of
indignation and disdain, upon the thoughts of what a low, selfish
creature that child must be, who is to be reined in only by the hopes of
what a parent can or will do for her.

But notwithstanding all this, I owe it to the sincerity of friendship to
confess, that I know not what I should have done, had your advice been
conclusive any way. Had you, my dear, been witness to my different
emotions, as I read your letter, when, in one place, you advise me of
my danger, if I am carried to my uncle's; in another, when you own you
could not bear what I bear, and would do any thing rather than marry
the man you hate; yet, in another, to represent to me my reputation
suffering in the world's eye; and the necessity I should be under to
justify my conduct, at the expense of my friends, were I to take a rash
step; in another, insinuate the dishonest figure I should be forced to
make, in so compelled a matrimony; endeavouring to cajole, fawn upon,
and play the hypocrite with a man to whom I have an aversion; who would
have reason to believe me an hypocrite, as well from my former avowals,
as from the sense he must have (if common sense he has) of his own
demerits; the necessity you think there would be for me, the more averse
(were I capable of so much dissimulation) that would be imputable to
disgraceful motives; as it would be too visible, that love, either of
person or mind, could be neither of them: then his undoubted, his even
constitutional narrowness: his too probably jealousy, and unforgiveness,
bearing in my mind my declared aversion, and the unfeigned despights I
took all opportunities to do him, in order to discourage his address:
a preference avowed against him from the same motive; with the pride he
professes to take in curbing and sinking the spirits of a woman he had
acquired a right to tyrannize over: had you, I say, been witness of
my different emotions as I read; now leaning this way, now that; now
perplexed; now apprehensive; now angry at one, then at another; now
resolving; now doubting; you would have seen the power you have over me;
and would have had reason to believe, that, had you given your advice
in any determined or positive manner, I had been ready to have
been concluded by it. So, my dear, you will find, from these
acknowledgements, that you must justify me to those laws of friendship,
which require undisguised frankness of heart; although you justification
of me in that particular, will perhaps be at the expense of my prudence.

But, upon the whole, this I do repeat--That nothing but the last
extremity shall make me abandon my father's house, if they will permit
me to stay; and if I can, by any means, by any honest pretences, but
keep off my evil destiny in it till my cousin Morden arrives. As one
of my trustees, his is a protection, into which I may without discredit
throw myself, if my other friends should remain determined. And this
(although they seem too well aware of it) is all my hope: for, as
to Lovelace, were I to be sure of his tenderness, and even of his
reformation, must not the thought of embracing the offered protection of
his family, be the same thing, in the world's eye, as accepting of his
own?--Could I avoid receiving his visits at his own relations'? Must I
not be his, whatever, (on seeing him in a nearer light,) I should find
him out to be? For you know, it has always been my observation, that
very few people in courtship see each other as they are. Oh! my dear!
how wise have I endeavoured to be! How anxious to choose, and to avoid
every thing, precautiously, as I may say, that might make me happy,
or unhappy; yet all my wisdom now, by a strange fatality, is likely to
become foolishness!

Then you tell me, in your usual kindly-partial manner, what is expected
of me, more than would be of some others. This should be a lesson to me.
What ever my motives were, the world would not know them. To complain
of a brother's unkindness, that, indeed, I might do. Differences between
brothers and sisters, where interests clash, but too commonly arise:
but, where the severe father cannot be separated from the faulty
brother, who could bear to lighten herself, by loading a father?--Then,
in this particular case, must not the hatred Mr. Lovelace expresses
to every one of my family (although in return for their hatred of
him) shock one extremely? Must it not shew, that there is something
implacable, as well as highly unpolite in his temper?--And what creature
can think of marrying so as to be out of all hopes ever to be well with
her own nearest and tenderest relations?

But here, having tired myself, and I dare say you, I will lay down my
pen.


*****


Mr. Solmes is almost continually here: so is my aunt Hervey: so are my
two uncles. Something is working against me, I doubt. What an uneasy
state is suspense!--When a naked sword, too, seems hanging over one's
head!

I hear nothing but what this confident creature Betty throws out in
the wantonness of office. Now it is, Why, Miss, don't you look up your
things? You'll be called upon, depend upon it, before you are aware.
Another time she intimates darkly, and in broken sentences, (as if on
purpose to tease me,) what one says, what another; with their inquiries
how I dispose of my time? And my brother's insolent question comes
frequently in, Whether I am not writing a history of my sufferings?

But I am now used to her pertness: and as it is only through that that
I can hear of any thing intended against me, before it is to be put in
execution; and as, when she is most impertinent, she pleads a commission
for it; I bear with her: yet, now-and-then, not without a little of the
heart-burn.

I will deposit thus far. Adieu, my dear. CL. HARLOWE.


Written on the cover, after she went down, with a pencil:

On coming down, I found your second letter of yesterday's date.* I
have read it; and am in hopes that the enclosed will in a great measure
answer your mother's expectations of me.


     * See the next letter.


My most respectful acknowledgements to her for it, and for her very kind
admonitions.

You'll read to her what you please of the enclosed.




LETTER XIV

MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE SAT. MARCH 25.


I follow my last of this date by command. I mentioned in my former my
mother's opinion of the merit you would have, if you could oblige your
friends against your own inclination. Our conference upon this subject
was introduced by the conversation we had had with Sir Harry Downeton;
and my mother thinks it of so much importance, that she enjoins me to
give you the particulars of it. I the rather comply, as I was unable in
my last to tell what to advise you to; and as you will in this recital
have my mother's opinion at least, and, perhaps, in hers what the
world's would be, were it only to know what she knows, and not so much
as I know.

My mother argues upon this case in a most discouraging manner for all
such of our sex as look forward for happiness in marriage with the man
of their choice.

Only, that I know, she has a side-view of her daughter; who, at the
same time that she now prefers no one to another, values not the man her
mother most regards, of one farthing; or I should lay it more to heart.

What is there in it, says she, that all this bustle is about? Is it such
a mighty matter for a young woman to give up her inclinations to oblige
her friends?

Very well, my mamma, thought I! Now, may you ask this--at FORTY, you
may. But what would you have said at EIGHTEEN, is the question?

Either, said she, the lady must be thought to have very violent
inclinations [And what nice young creature would have that supposed?]
which she could not give up; or a very stubborn will, which she would
not; or, thirdly, have parents she was indifferent about obliging.

You know my mother now-and-then argues very notably; always very warmly
at least. I happen often to differ from her; and we both think so well
of our own arguments, that we very seldom are so happy as to convince
one another. A pretty common case, I believe, in all vehement debatings.
She says, I am too witty; Angelice, too pert: I, That she is too wise;
that is to say, being likewise put into English, not so young as she has
been: in short, is grown so much into mother, that she has forgotten
she ever was a daughter. So, generally, we call another cause by
consent--yet fall into the old one half a dozen times over, without
consent--quitting and resuming, with half-angry faces, forced into a
smile, that there might be some room to piece together again: but go
a-bed, if bedtime, a little sullen nevertheless: or, if we speak, her
silence is broken with an Ah! Nancy! You are so lively! so quick! I wish
you were less like your papa, child!

I pay it off with thinking, that my mother has no reason to disclaim her
share in her Nancy: and if the matter go off with greater severity on
her side than I wish for, then her favourite Hickman fares the worse for
it next day.

I know I am a saucy creature. I know, if I do not say so, you will think
so. So no more of this just now. What I mention it for, is to tell you,
that on this serious occasion I will omit, if I can, all that passed
between us, that had an air of flippancy on my part, or quickness on my
mother's, to let you into the cool and cogent of the conversation.

'Look through the families, said she, which we both know, where the man
and the woman have been said to marry for love; which (at the time it
is so called) is perhaps no more than a passion begun in folly or
thoughtlessness, and carried on from a spirit of perverseness and
opposition [here we had a parenthetical debate, which I omit]; and see,
if they appear to be happier than those whose principal inducement to
marry has been convenience, or to oblige their friends; or ever whether
they are generally so happy: for convenience and duty, where observed,
will afford a permanent and even an increasing satisfaction (as well
at the time, as upon the reflection) which seldom fail to reward
themselves: while love, if love be the motive, is an idle passion' [idle
in ONE SENSE my mother cannot say; for love is as busy as a monkey, and
as mischievous as a school-boy]--'it is a fervour, that, like all other
fervours, lasts but a little while after marriage; a bow overstrained,
that soon returns to its natural bent.

'As it is founded generally upon mere notional excellencies, which
were unknown to the persons themselves till attributed to either by the
other; one, two, or three months, usually sets all right on both sides;
and then with opened eyes they think of each other--just as every body
else thought of them before.

'The lovers imaginaries [her own notable word!] are by that time gone
off; nature and old habits (painfully dispensed with or concealed)
return: disguises thrown aside, all the moles, freckles, and defects in
the minds of each discover themselves; and 'tis well if each do not sink
in the opinion of the other, as much below the common standard, as the
blinded imagination of both had set them above it. And now, said she,
the fond pair, who knew no felicity out of each other's company, are
so far from finding the never-ending variety each had proposed in
an unrestrained conversation with the other (when they seldom were
together; and always parted with something to say; or, on recollection,
when parted, wishing they had said); that they are continually on the
wing in pursuit of amusements out of themselves; and those, concluded my
sage mamma, [Did you think her wisdom so very modern?] will perhaps be
the livelier to each, in which the other has no share.'

I told my mother, that if you were to take any rash step, it would be
owing to the indiscreet violence of your friends. I was afraid, I said,
that these reflection upon the conduct of people in the married state,
who might set out with better hopes, were but too well grounded: but
that this must be allowed me, that if children weighed not these matters
so thoroughly as they ought, neither did parents make those allowances
for youth, inclination, and inexperience, which had been found necessary
to be made for themselves at their children's time of life.

I remembered a letter, I told her, hereupon, which you wrote a few
months ago, personating an anonymous elderly lady (in Mr. Wyerley's
day of plaguing you) to Miss Drayton's mother, who, by her severity and
restraints, had like to have driven the young lady into the very fault
against which her mother was most solicitous to guard her. And I dared
to say, she would be pleased with it.

I fetched the first draught of it, which at my request you obliged me
at the time; and read the whole letter to my mother. But the following
passage she made me read twice. I think you once told me you had not a
copy of this letter.

'Permit me, Madam, [says the personated grave writer,] to observe, That
if persons of your experience would have young people look forward, in
order to be wiser and better by their advice, it would be kind in them
to look backward, and allow for their children's youth, and natural
vivacity; in other words, for their lively hopes, unabated by time,
unaccompanied by reflection, and unchecked by disappointment. Things
appear to us all in a very different light at our entrance upon
a favourite party, or tour; when, with golden prospects, and high
expectations, we rise vigorous and fresh like the sun beginning its
morning course; from what they do, when we sit down at the end of our
views, tired, and preparing for our journey homeward: for then we take
into our reflection, what we had left out in prospect, the fatigues,
the checks, the hazards, we had met with; and make a true estimate of
pleasures, which from our raised expectations must necessarily have
fallen miserably short of what we had promised ourselves at setting out.
Nothing but experience can give us a strong and efficacious conviction
of this difference: and when we would inculcate the fruits of that upon
the minds of those we love, who have not lived long enough to find those
fruits; and would hope, that our advice should have as much force upon
them, as experience has upon us; and which, perhaps, our parents' advice
had not upon ourselves, at our daughter' time of life; should we not
proceed by patient reasoning and gentleness, that we may not harden,
where we would convince? For, Madam, the tenderest and most generous
minds, when harshly treated, become generally the most inflexible. If
the young lady knows her heart to be right, however defective her
head may be for want of age and experience, she will be apt to be very
tenacious. And if she believes her friends to be wrong, although perhaps
they may be only so in their methods of treating her, how much will
every unkind circumstance on the parent's part, or heedless one on the
child's, though ever so slight in itself, widen the difference! The
parent's prejudice in disfavour, will confirm the daughter's in favour,
of the same person; and the best reasonings in the world on either side,
will be attributed to that prejudice. In short, neither of them will be
convinced: a perpetual opposition ensues: the parent grows impatient;
the child desperate: and, as a too natural consequence, that falls
out which the mother was most afraid of, and which possibly had not
happened, if the child's passions had been only led, not driven.'

My mother was pleased with the whole letter; and said, It deserved to
have the success it met with. But asked me what excuse could be offered
for a young lady capable of making such reflections (and who at her time
of life could so well assume the character of one of riper years) if she
should rush into any fatal mistake herself?

She then touched upon the moral character of Mr. Lovelace; and how
reasonable the aversion of your reflections is to a man who gives
himself the liberties he is said to take; and who indeed himself denies
not the accusation; having been heard to declare, that he will do all
the mischief he can to the sex, in revenge for the ill usage and
broken vows of his first love, at a time when he was too young [his own
expression it seems] to be insincere.

I replied, that I had heard every one say, that the lady meant really
used him ill; that it affected him so much at the time, that he was
forced to travel upon it; and to drive her out of his heart, ran into
courses which he had ingenuousness enough himself to condemn: that,
however, he had denied that he had thrown out such menaces against the
sex when charged with them by me in your presence; and declared himself
incapable of so unjust and ungenerous a resentment against all, for the
perfidy of one.

You remember this, my dear, as I do your innocent observation upon it,
that you could believe his solemn asseveration and denial: 'For surely,
said you, the man who would resent, as the highest indignity that could
be offered to a gentleman, the imputation of a wilful falsehood, would
not be guilty of one.'

I insisted upon the extraordinary circumstances in your case;
particularizing them. I took notice, that Mr. Lovelace's morals were at
one time no objection with your relations for Arabella: that then much
was built upon his family, and more upon his part and learning, which
made it out of doubt, that he might be reclaimed by a woman of virtue
and prudence: and [pray forgive me for mentioning it] I ventured to
add, that although your family might be good sort of folks, as the world
went, yet no body but you imputed to any of them a very punctilious
concern for religion or piety--therefore were they the less entitled to
object to defect of that kind in others. Then, what an odious man, said
I, have they picked out, to supplant in a lady's affections one of the
finest figures of a man, and one noted for his brilliant parts, and
other accomplishments, whatever his morals may be!

Still my mother insisted, that there was the greater merit in your
obedience on that account; and urged, that there hardly ever was a very
handsome and a very sprightly man who made a tender and affectionate
husband: for that they were generally such Narcissus's, as to imagine
every woman ought to think as highly of them, as they did of themselves.

There was no danger from that consideration here, I said, because the
lady still had greater advantages of person and mind, than the man;
graceful and elegant, as he must be allowed to be, beyond most of his
sex.

She cannot endure to hear me praise any man but her favourite Hickman;
upon whom, nevertheless, she generally brings a degree of contempt which
he would escape, did she not lessen the little merit he has, by giving
him, on all occasions, more than I think he can deserve, and entering
him into comparisons in which it is impossible but he must be a
sufferer. And now [preposterous partiality!] she thought for her part,
that Mr. Hickman, bating that his face indeed was not so smooth, nor his
complexion quite so good, and saving that he was not so presuming and
so bold (which ought to be no fault with a modest woman) equaled Mr.
Lovelace at any hour of the day.

To avoid entering further into such an incomparable comparison, I said,
I did not believe, had they left you to your own way, and treated you
generously, that you would have had the thought of encouraging any man
whom they disliked--

Then, Nancy, catching me up, the excuse is less--for if so, must there
not be more of contradiction, than love, in the case?

Not so, neither, Madam: for I know Miss Clarissa Harlowe would prefer
Mr. Lovelace to all men, if morals--

IF, Nancy!--That if is every thing.--Do you really think she loves Mr.
Lovelace?

What would you have had me say, my dear?--I won't tell you what I did
say: But had I not said what I did, who would have believed me?

Besides, I know you love him!--Excuse me, my dear: Yet, if you deny it,
what do you but reflect upon yourself, as if you thought you ought not
to allow yourself in what you cannot help doing?

Indeed, Madam, said I, the man is worthy of any woman's love [if, again,
I could say]--But her parents--

Her parents, Nancy--[You know, my dear, how my mother, who accuses her
daughter of quickness, is evermore interrupting one!]

May take wrong measures, said I--

Cannot do wrong--they have reason, I'll warrant, said she--

By which they may provoke a young woman, said I, to do rash things,
which otherwise she would not do.

But, if it be a rash thing, [returned she,] should she do it? A prudent
daughter will not wilfully err, because her parents err, if they were to
err: if she do, the world which blames the parents, will not acquit the
child. All that can be said, in extenuation of a daughter's error in
this case, arises from a kind consideration, which Miss Clary's letter
to Lady Drayton pleads for, to be paid to her daughter's youth and
inexperience. And will such an admirable young person as Miss Clarissa
Harlowe, whose prudence, as we see, qualifies her to be an advisor of
persons much older than herself, take shelter under so poor a covert?

Let her know, Nancy, out of hand, what I say; and I charge you to
represent farther to her, That let he dislike one man and approve
of another ever so much, it will be expected of a young lady of her
unbounded generosity and greatness of mind, that she should deny herself
when she can oblige all her family by so doing--no less than ten or a
dozen perhaps the nearest and dearest to her of all the persons in the
world, an indulgent father and mother at the head of them. It may be
fancy only on her side; but parents look deeper: And will not Miss
Clarissa Harlowe give up her fancy to her parents' judgment?

I said a great deal upon this judgment subject: all that you could wish
I should say; and all that your extraordinary case allowed me to say.
And my mother was so sensible of the force of it, that she charged me
not to write to you any part of my answer to what she said; but only
what she herself had advanced; lest, in so critical a case, it should
induce you to take measures which might give us both reason (me for
giving it, you for following it) to repent it as long as we lived.

And thus, my dear, have I set my mother's arguments before you. And the
rather, as I cannot myself tell what to advise you to do--you know best
your own heart; and what that will let you do.

Robin undertakes to deposit this very early, that you may have an
opportunity to receive it by your first morning airing.

Heaven guide and direct you for the best, is the incessant prayer of

Your ever affectionate ANNA HOWE.




LETTER XV

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE SUNDAY AFTERNOON


I am in great apprehension. Yet cannot help repeating my humble thanks
to your mother and you for your last favour. I hope her kind end is
answered by the contents of my last. Yet I must not think it enough to
acknowledge her goodness to me, with a pencil only, on the cover of a
letter sealed up. A few lines give me leave to write with regard to my
anonymous letter to Lady Drayton. If I did not at that time tell you, as
I believe I did, that my excellent Mrs. Norton gave me her assistance in
that letter, I now acknowledge that she did.

Pray let your mother know this, for two reasons: one, that I may not be
thought to arrogate to myself a discretion which does not belong to me;
the other, that I may not suffer by the severe, but just inference she
was pleased to draw; doubling my faults upon me, if I myself should act
unworthy of the advice I was supposed to give.

Before I come to what most nearly affects us all, I must chide you once
more, for the severe, the very severe things you mention of our family,
to the disparagement of their MORALS. Indeed, my dear, I wonder at
you!--A slighter occasion might have passed me, after I had written to
you so often to so little purpose, on this topic. But, affecting as
my own circumstances are, I cannot pass by, without animadversion, the
reflection I need not repeat in words.

There is not a worthier woman in England than my mother. Nor is my
father that man you sometimes make him. Excepting in one point, I know
not any family which lives more up to their duty, than the principals of
ours. A little too uncommunicative for their great circumstances--that
is all.--Why, then, have they not reason to insist upon unexceptionable
morals in a man whose sought-for relationship to them, by a marriage
in their family, they have certainly a right either to allow of, or to
disallow.

Another line or two, before I am engrossed by my own concerns--upon your
treatment of Mr. Hickman. Is it, do you think, generous to revenge upon
an innocent person, the displeasure you receive from another quarter,
where, I doubt, you are a trespasser too?--But one thing I could tell
him; and you have best not provoke me to it: It is this, That no woman
uses ill the man she does not absolutely reject, but she has it in her
heart to make him amends, when her tyranny has had its run, and he
has completed the measure of his services and patience. My mind is not
enough at ease to push this matter further.

I will now give you the occasion of my present apprehensions.

I had reason to fear, as I mentioned in mine of this morning, that a
storm was brewing. Mr. Solmes came home from church this afternoon with
my brother. Soon after, Betty brought me up a letter, without saying
from whom. It was in a cover, and directed by a hand I never saw before;
as if it were supposed that I would not receive and open it, had I known
from whom it came.

These are the contents:


*****


TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE SUNDAY, MARCH 26.

DEAREST MADAM,

I think myself a most unhappy man, in that I have never yet been able
to pay my respects to you with youre consent, for one halfe-hour. I
have something to communicat to you that concernes you much, if you be
pleased to admit me to youre speech. Youre honour is concerned in it,
and the honour of all youre familly. It relates to the designes of one
whom you are sed to valew more than he desarves; and to some of his
reprobat actions; which I am reddie to give you convincing proofes of
the truth of. I may appear to be interested in it: but, neverthelesse,
I am reddie to make oathe, that every tittle is true: and you will
see what a man you are sed to favour. But I hope not so, for your owne
honour.

Pray, Madam, vouchsafe me a hearing, as you valew your honour and
familly: which will oblidge, dearest Miss,

Your most humble and most faithful servant, ROGER SOLMES.

I wait below for the hope of admittance.


*****


I have no manner of doubt, that this is a poor device to get this man
into my company. I would have sent down a verbal answer; but Betty
refused to carry any message, which should prohibit his visiting me. So
I was obliged either to see him, or to write to him. I wrote therefore
an answer, of which I shall send you the rough draught. And now my heart
aches for what may follow from it; for I hear a great hurry below.


*****


TO ROGER SOLMES, ESQ.

SIR,

Whatever you have to communicate to me, which concerns my honour, may as
well be done by writing as by word of mouth. If Mr. Lovelace is any
of my concern, I know not that therefore he ought to be yours: for the
usage I receive on your account [I must think it so!] is so harsh, that
were there not such a man in the world as Mr. Lovelace, I would not wish
to see Mr. Solmes, no, not for one half-hour, in the way he is pleased
to be desirous to see me. I never can be in any danger from Mr.
Lovelace, (and, of consequence, cannot be affected by any of your
discoveries,) if the proposal I made be accepted. You have been
acquainted with it no doubt. If not, be pleased to let my friends know,
that if they will rid me of my apprehensions of one gentleman, I will
rid them of their of another: And then, of what consequence to them, or
to me, will it be, whether Mr. Lovelace be a good man, or a bad? And if
not to them, nor to me, I see not how it can be of any to you. But if
you do, I have nothing to say to that; and it will be a christian part
if you will expostulate with him upon the errors you have discovered,
and endeavour to make him as good a man, as, no doubt, you are yourself,
or you would not be so ready to detect and expose him.

Excuse me, Sir: but, after my former letter to you, and your ungenerous
perseverance; and after this attempt to avail yourself at the expense of
another man's character, rather than by your own proper merit; I see
not that you can blame any asperity in her, whom you have so largely
contributed to make unhappy.

CL. HARLOWE.


*****


SUNDAY NIGHT.

My father was for coming up to me, in great wrath, it seems; but was
persuaded to the contrary. My aunt Hervey was permitted to send me this
that follow.--Quick work, my dear!


TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

NIECE,

Every body is now convinced, that nothing is to be done with you by way
of gentleness or persuasion. Your mother will not permit you to stay in
the house; for your father is so incensed by your strange letter to his
friend, that she knows not what will be the consequence if you do. So,
you are commanded to get ready to go to your uncle Antony's out of hand.

Your uncle thinks he has not deserved of you such an unwillingness as
you shew to go to his house.

You don't know the wickedness of the man for whose sake you think it
worth while to quarrel with all your friends.

You must not answer me. There will be no end of that.

You know not the affliction you give to every body; but to none more
than to

Your affectionate aunt, DOROTHY HERVEY.


*****


Forbid to write to my aunt, I took a bolder liberty. I wrote a few lines
to my mother; beseeching her to procure me leave to throw myself at my
father's feet, and hers, if I must go, (nobody else present,) to beg
pardon for the trouble I had given them both, and their blessings; and
to receive their commands as to my removal, and the time for it, from
their own lips.

'What new boldness this!--Take it back; and bid her learn to obey,' was
my mother's angry answer, with my letter returned, unopened.

But that I might omit nothing, that had an appearance of duty, I wrote
a few lines to my father himself, to the same purpose; begging, that he
would not turn me out of his house, without his blessing. But this, torn
in two pieces, and unopened, was brought me up again by Betty, with an
air, one hand held up, the other extended, the torn letter in her open
palm; and a See here!--What a sad thing is this!--Nothing will do but
duty, Miss!--Your papa said, Let her tell me of deeds!--I'll receive no
words from her. And so he tore the letter, and flung the pieces at my
head.

So desperate was my case, I was resolved not to stop even at this
repulse. I took my pen, and addressed myself to my uncle Harlowe,
enclosing that which my mother had returned unopened, and the torn
unopened one sent to my father; having first hurried off a transcript
for you.

My uncle was going home, and it was delivered to him just as he stepped
into his chariot. What may be the fate of it therefore I cannot know
till to-morrow.

The following is a copy of it:


TO JOHN HARLOWE, ESQ.

MY DEAR AND EVER-HONOURED UNCLE,

I have nobody now but you, to whom I can apply, with hope, so much as
to have my humble addresses opened and read. My aunt Hervey has given me
commands which I want to have explained; but she has forbid me writing
to her. Hereupon I took the liberty to write to my father and mother.
You will see, Sir, by the torn one, and by the other, (both unopened,)
what has been the result. This, Sir, perhaps you already know: but, as
you know not the contents of the disgraced letters, I beseech you to
read them both, that you may be a witness for me, that they are not
filled with either complaints or expostulations, nor contain any thing
undutiful. Give me leave to say, Sir, that if deaf-eared anger will
neither grant me a hearing, nor, what I write a perusal, some time hence
the hard-heartedness may be regretted. I beseech you, dear, good Sir,
to let me know what is meant by sending me to my uncle Antony's house,
rather than to yours, or to my aunt Hervey's, or else-where? If it be
for what I apprehend it to be, life will not be supportable upon the
terms. I beg also to know, WHEN I am to be turned out of doors!--My
heart strongly gives me, that if once I am compelled to leave this
house, I never shall see it more.

It becomes me, however, to declare, that I write not this through
perverseness, or in resentment. God knows my heart, I do not! But the
treatment I apprehend I shall meet with, if carried to my other uncle's,
will, in all probability, give the finishing stroke to the distresses,
the undeserved distresses I will be bold to call them, of

Your once highly-favoured, but now unhappy, CL. HARLOWE.




LETTER XVI

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE MONDAY MORNING, MARCH 27.


This morning early my uncle Harlowe came hither. He sent up the enclosed
very tender letter. It has made me wish I could oblige him. You will see
how Mr. Solmes's ill qualities are glossed over in it. What blemishes
dies affection hide!--But perhaps they may say to me, What faults does
antipathy bring to light!

Be pleased to send me back this letter of my uncle by the first return.


SUNDAY NIGHT, OR RATHER MINDAY MORNING.

I must answer you, though against my own resolution. Every body loves
you; and you know they do. The very ground you walk upon is dear to most
of us. But how can we resolve to see you? There is no standing against
your looks and language. It is our loves makes us decline to see you.
How can we, when you are resolved not to do what we are resolved you
shall do? I never, for my part, loved any creature, as I loved you from
your infancy till now. And indeed, as I have often said, never was there
a young creature so deserving of our love. But what is come to you now!
Alas! alas! my dear kinswoman, how you fail in the trial!

I have read the letters you enclosed. At a proper time, I may shew them
to my brother and sister: but they will receive nothing from you at
present.

For my part, I could not read your letter to me, without being unmanned.
How can you be so unmoved yourself, yet so able to move every body
else? How could you send such a letter to Mr. Solmes? Fie upon you! How
strangely are you altered!

Then to treat your brother and sister as you did, that they don't care
to write to you, or to see you! Don't you know where it is written, That
soft answers turn away wrath? But if you will trust to you sharp-pointed
wit, you may wound. Yet a club will beat down a sword: And how can you
expect that they who are hurt by you will not hurt you again? Was this
the way you used to take to make us all adore you as we did?--No, it
was your gentleness of heart and manners, that made every body, even
strangers, at first sight, treat you as a lady, and call you a lady,
though not born one, while your elder sister had no such distinctions
paid her. If you were envied, why should you sharpen envy, and file up
its teeth to an edge?--You see I write like an impartial man, and as one
that loves you still.

But since you have displayed your talents, and spared nobody, and moved
every body, without being moved, you have but made us stand the closer
and firmer together. This is what I likened to an embattled phalanx,
once before. Your aunt Hervey forbids your writing for the same reason
that I must not countenance it. We are all afraid to see you, because we
know we shall be made as so many fools. Nay, your mother is so afraid
of you, that once or twice, when she thought you were coming to force
yourself into her presence, she shut the door, and locked herself in,
because she knew she must not see you upon your terms, and you are
resolved you will not see her upon hers.

Resolves but to oblige us all, my dearest Miss Clary, and you shall see
how we will clasp you every one by turns to our rejoicing hearts. If the
one man has not the wit, and the parts, and the person, of the other, no
one breathing has a worse heart than that other: and is not the love
of all your friends, and a sober man (if he be not so polished) to be
preferred to a debauchee, though ever so fine a man to look at? You have
such talents that you will be adored by the one: but the other has as
much advantage in those respects, as you have yourself, and will not set
by them one straw: for husbands are sometimes jealous of their authority
with witty wives. You will have in one, a man of virtue. Had you not
been so rudely affronting to him, he would have made your ears tingle
with what he could have told you of the other.

Come, my dear niece, let me have the honour of doing with you what no
body else yet has been able to do. Your father, mother, and I, will
divide the pleasure, and the honour, I will again call it, between us;
and all past offences shall be forgiven; and Mr. Solmes, we will engage,
shall take nothing amiss hereafter, of what has passed.

He knows, he says, what a jewel that man will have, who can obtain your
favour; and he will think light of all he has suffered, or shall suffer,
in obtaining you.

Dear, sweet creature, oblige us: and oblige us with a grace. It must be
done, whether with a grace or not. I do assure you it must. You must not
conquer father, mother, uncles, every body: depend upon that.

I have set up half the night to write this. You do not know how I
am touched at reading yours, and writing this. Yet will I be at
Harlowe-place early in the morning. So, upon reading this, if you will
oblige us all, send me word to come up to your apartment: and I will
lead you down, and present you to the embraces of every one: and you
will then see, you have more of a brother and sister in them both, than
of late your prejudices will let you think you have. This from one who
used to love to style himself,

Your paternal uncle, JOHN HARLOWE.


*****


In about an hour after this kind letter was given me, my uncle sent up
to know, if he should be a welcome visiter, upon the terms mentioned in
his letter? He bid Betty bring him down a verbal answer: a written one,
he said, would be a bad sign: and he bid her therefore not to bring a
letter. But I had just finished the enclosed transcription of one I had
been writing. She made a difficulty to carry it; but was prevailed upon
to oblige me by a token which these Mrs. Betty's cannot withstand.


DEAR AND HONOURED SIR,

How you rejoice me by your condescending goodness!--So kind, so paternal
a letter!--so soothing to a wounded heart; and of late what I have been
so little used to!--How am I affected with it! Tell me not, dear Sir, of
my way of writing: your letter has more moved me, than I have been able
to move any body!--It has made me wish, with all my heart, that I could
entitle myself to be visited upon your own terms; and to be led down to
my father and mother by so good and so kind an uncle.

I will tell you, dearest Uncle, what I will do to make my peace. I have
no doubt that Mr. Solmes, upon consideration, would greatly prefer my
sister to such a strange averse creature as me. His chief, or one of his
chief motives in his address to me, is, as I have reason to believe, the
contiguity of my grandfather's estate to his own. I will resign it; for
ever I will resign it: and the resignation must be good, because I will
never marry at all. I will make it over to my sister, and her heirs for
ever. I shall have no heirs, but my brother and her; and I will receive,
as of my father's bounty, such an annuity (not in lieu of the estate,
but as of his bounty) as he shall be pleased to grant me, if it be
ever so small: and whenever I disoblige him, he to withdraw it, at his
pleasure.

Will this not be accepted?--Surely it must--surely it will!--I beg of
you, dearest Sir, to propose it; and second it with your interest. This
will answer every end. My sister has a high opinion of Mr. Solmes. I
never can have any in the light he is proposed to me. But as my sister's
husband, he will be always entitled to my respect; and shall have it.

If this be accepted, grant me, Sir, the honour of a visit; and do me
then the inexpressible pleasure of leading me down to the feet of my
honoured parents, and they shall find me the most dutiful of children;
and to the arms of my brother and sister, and they shall find me the
most obliging and most affectionate of sisters.

I wait, Sir, for your answer to this proposal, made with the whole heart
of

Your dutiful and most obliged niece, CL. HARLOWE.


MONDAY NOON.

I hope this will be accepted: for Betty tells me, that my uncle Antony
and my aunt Hervey are sent for; and not Mr. Solmes; which I look upon
as a favourable circumstance. With what cheerfulness will I assign over
this envied estate!--What a much more valuable consideration shall I
part with it for!--The love and favour of all my relations! That love
and favour, which I used for eighteen years together to rejoice in, and
be distinguished by!--And what a charming pretence will this afford me
of breaking with Mr. Lovelace! And how easily will it possibly make him
to part with me!

I found this morning, in the usual place, a letter from him, in answer,
I suppose, to mine of Friday, which I deposited not till Saturday. But
I have not opened it; nor will I, till I see what effect this new offer
will have.

Let me but be permitted to avoid the man I hate; and I will give up with
cheerfulness the man I could prefer. To renounce the one, were I really
to value him as much as you seem to imagine, can give but a temporary
concern, which time and discretion will alleviate. This is a sacrifice
which a child owes to parents and friends, if they insist upon its being
made. But the other, to marry a man one cannot endure, is not only a
dishonest thing, as to the man; but it is enough to make a creature who
wishes to be a good wife, a bad or indifferent one, as I once wrote to
the man himself: and then she can hardly be either a good mistress, or
a good friend; or any thing but a discredit to her family, and a bad
example to all around her.

Methinks I am loth, in the suspense I am in at present, to deposit
this, because it will be leaving you in one as great: but having been
prevented by Betty's officiousness twice, I will now go down to my
little poultry; and, if I have an opportunity, will leave it in the
usual place, where I hope to find something from you.




LETTER XVII

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE MONDAY AFTERNOON, MARCH 27.


I have deposited my narrative down to this day noon; but I hope soon to
follow it with another letter, that I may keep you as little a while as
possible in that suspense which I am so much affected by at this moment:
for my heart is disturbed at ever foot I hear stir; and at every door
below that I hear open or shut.

They have been all assembled some time, and are in close debate I
believe: But can there be room for long debate upon a proposal, which,
if accepted, will so effectually answer all their views?--Can they
insist a moment longer upon my having Mr. Solmes, when they see what
sacrifices I am ready to make, to be freed from his addresses?--Oh! but
I suppose the struggle is, first, with Bella's nicety, to persuade her
to accept of the estate, and of the husband; and next, with her pride,
to take her sister's refusals, as she once phrased it!--Or, it may
be, my brother is insisting upon equivalents for his reversion in the
estate: and these sort of things take up but too much the attention of
some of our family. To these, no doubt, one or both, it must be owing,
that my proposal admits of so much consideration.

I want, methinks, to see what Mr. Lovelace, in his letter, says. But I
will deny myself this piece of curiosity till that which is raised by my
present suspense is answered.--Excuse me, my dear, that I thus trouble
you with my uncertainties: but I have no employment, nor heart, if I
had, to pursue any other but what my pen affords me.


MONDAY EVENING.

Would you believe it?--Betty, by anticipation, tells me, that I am to be
refused. I am 'a vile, artful creature. Every body is too good to me.
My uncle Harlowe has been taken in, that's the phrase. They know how
it would be, if he either wrote to me, or saw me. He has, however, been
made ashamed to be so wrought upon. A pretty thing truly in the eye of
the world it would be, were they to take me at my word! It would look
as if they had treated me thus hardly, as I think it, for this very
purpose. My peculiars, particularly Miss Howe, would give it that
turn; and I myself could mean nothing by it, but to see if it would be
accepted in order to strengthen my own arguments against Mr. Solmes. It
was amazing, that it could admit of a moment's deliberation: that any
thing could be supposed to be done in it. It was equally against law and
equity: and a fine security Miss Bella would have, or Mr. Solmes, when I
could resume it when I would!--My brother and she my heirs! O the artful
creature!--I to resolve to live single, when Lovelace is so sure of
me--and every where declares as much!--and can whenever he pleases,
if my husband, claim under the will!--Then the insolence--the
confidence--[as Betty mincingly told me, that one said; you may easily
guess who] that she, who was so justly in disgrace for downright
rebellion, should pretend to prescribe to the whole family!--Should name
a husband for her elder sister!--What a triumph would her obstinacy go
away with, to delegate her commands, not as from a prison, as she called
it, but as from her throne, to her elders and betters; and to her father
and mother too!--Amazing, perfectly amazing, that any body could argue
upon such a proposal as this! It was a master-stroke of finesse--It was
ME in perfection!--Surely my uncle Harlowe will never again be so taken
in!'

All this was the readier told me, because it was against me, and would
tease and vex me. But as some of this fine recapitulation implied, that
somebody spoke up for me. I was curious to know who it was. But Betty
would not tell me, for fear I should have the consolation to find that
all were not against me.

But do you not see, my dear, what a sad creature she is whom you honour
with your friendship?--You could not doubt your influence over me: Why
did you not take the friendly liberty I have always taken with you,
and tell me my faults, and what a specious hypocrite I am? For, if my
brother and sister could make such discoveries, how is it possible, that
faults to enormous [you could see others, you thought, of a more secret
nature!] could escape you penetrating eye?

Well, but now, it seems, they are debating how and by whom to answer me:
for they know not, nor are they to know, that Mrs. Betty has told me all
these fine things. One desires to be excused, it seems: another chooses
not to have any thing to say to me: another has enough of me: and of
writing to so ready a scribbler, there will be no end.

Thus are those imputed qualifications, which used so lately to gain me
applause, now become my crimes: so much do disgust and anger alter the
property of things.

The result of their debate, I suppose, will somehow or other be
communicated to me by-and-by. But let me tell you, my dear, that I am
made so desperate, that I am afraid to open Mr. Lovelace's letter,
lest, in the humour I am in, I should do something (if I find it not
exceptionable) that may give me repentance as long as I live.


MONDAY NIGHT.

This moment the following letter is brought me by Betty.


MONDAY, 5 O'CLOCK

MISS CUNNING-ONE,

Your fine new proposal is thought unworthy of a particular answer. Your
uncle Harlowe is ashamed to be so taken in. Have you no new fetch for
your uncle Antony? Go round with us, child, now your hand's in. But I
was bid to write only one line, that you might not complain, as you
did of your worthy sister, for the freedoms you provoked: It is
this--Prepare yourself. To-morrow you go to my uncle Antony's. That's
all, child.

JAMES HARLOWE.


I was vexed to the heart at this: and immediately, in the warmth of
resentment, wrote the enclosed to my uncle Harlowe; who it seems stays
here this night.


TO JOHN HARLOWE, ESQ. MONDAY NIGHT.

HONOURED SIR,

I find I am a very sad creature, and did not know it. I wrote not to my
brother. To you, Sir, I wrote. From you I hope the honour of an answer.
No one reveres her uncle more than I do. Nevertheless, between uncle and
niece, excludes not such a hope: and I think I have not made a proposal
that deserves to be treated with scorn.

Forgive me, Sir--my heart is full. Perhaps one day you may think you
have been prevailed upon (for that is plainly the case!) to join to
treat me--as I do not deserve to be treated. If you are ashamed, as my
brother hints, of having expressed any returning tenderness to me, God
help me! I see I have no mercy to expect from any body! But, Sir, from
your pen let me have an answer; I humbly implore it of you. Till my
brother can recollect what belongs to a sister, I will not take from him
no answer to the letter I wrote to you, nor any commands whatever.

I move every body!--This, Sir, is what you are pleased to mention. But
whom have I moved?--One person in the family has more moving ways than I
have, or he could never so undeservedly have made every body ashamed to
show tenderness to a poor distressed child of the same family.

Return me not this with contempt, or torn, or unanswered, I beseech you.
My father has a title to do that or any thing by his child: but from no
other person in the world of your sex, Sir, ought a young creature of
mine (while she preserves a supplicating spirit) to be so treated.

When what I have before written in the humblest strain has met with such
strange constructions, I am afraid that this unguarded scrawl will be
very ill received. But I beg, Sir, you will oblige me with one line, be
it ever so harsh, in answer to my proposal. I still think it ought to
be attended to. I will enter into the most solemn engagements to make it
valid by a perpetual single life. In a word, any thing I can do, I will
do, to be restored to all your favours. More I cannot say, but that I
am, very undeservedly,

A most unhappy creature.


Betty scrupled again to carry this letter; and said, she should have
anger; and I should have it returned in scraps and bits.

I must take that chance, said I: I only desire that you will deliver it
as directed.

Sad doings! very sad! she said, that young ladies should so violently
set themselves against their duty.

I told her, she should have the liberty to say what she pleased, so she
would but be my messenger that one time: and down she went with it.

I bid her, if she could, slide it into my uncle's hand, unseen; at least
unseen by my brother or sister, for fear it should meet, through their
good office, with the fate she had bespoken for it.

She would not undertake for that, she said.

I am now in expectation of the result. But having so little ground to
hope for their favour or mercy, I opened Mr. Lovelace's letter.

I would send it to you, my dear (as well as those I shall enclose) by
this conveyance; but not being able at present to determine in what
manner I shall answer it, I will give myself the trouble of abstracting
it here, while I am waiting for what may offer from the letter just
carried down.

'He laments, as usual, my ill opinion of him, and readiness to believe
every thing to his disadvantage. He puts into plain English, as I
supposed he would, my hint, that I might be happier, if, by any rashness
he might be guilty of to Solmes, he should come to an untimely end
himself.'

He is concerned, he says, 'That the violence he had expressed on his
extreme apprehensiveness of losing me, should have made him guilty of
any thing I had so much reason to resent.'

He owns, 'That he is passionate: all good-natured men, he says, are so;
and a sincere man cannot hide it.' But appeals to me, 'Whether, if any
occasion in the world could excuse the rashness of his expressions, it
would not be his present dreadful situation, through my indifference,
and the malice of his enemies.'

He says, 'He has more reason than ever, from the contents of my last,
to apprehend, that I shall be prevailed upon by force, if not by fair
means, to fall in with my brother's measures; and sees but too plainly,
that I am preparing him to expect it.

'Upon this presumption, he supplicates, with the utmost earnestness,
that I will not give way to the malice of his enemies.

'Solemn vows of reformation, and everlasting truth and obligingness,
he makes; all in the style of desponding humility: yet calls it a cruel
turn upon him, to impute his protestations to a consciousness of the
necessity there is for making them from his bad character.

'He despises himself, he solemnly protests, for his past follies. He
thanks God he has seen his error; and nothing but my more particular
instructions is wanting to perfect his reformation.

'He promises, that he will do every thing that I shall think he can do
with honour, to bring about a reconciliation with my father; and even
will, if I insist upon it, make the first overtures to my brother, and
treat him as his own brother, because he is mine, if he will not by new
affronts revive the remembrance of the past.

'He begs, in the most earnest and humble manner, for one half-hour's
interview; undertaking by a key, which he owns he has to the
garden-door, leading into the coppice, as we call it, (if I will but
unbolt the door,) to come into the garden at night, and wait till I have
an opportunity to come to him, that he may re-assure me of the truth of
all he writes, and of the affection, and, if needful, protection, of all
his family.

'He presumes not, he says, to write by way of menace to me; but if I
refuse him this favour, he knows not (so desperate have some strokes in
my letter made him) what his despair may make him do.'

He asks me, 'Determined, as my friends are,

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