LETTER XIII
MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH 26.
How soothing a thing is praise from those we love!--Whether consciousor not of deserving it, it cannot but give us great delight, to seeourselves stand high in the opinion of those whose favour we areambitious to cultivate. An ingenuous mind will make this farther use ofit, that if he be sensible that it does not already deserve the charmingattributes, it will hasten (before its friend finds herself mistaken) toobtain the graces it is complimented for: and this it will do, as wellin honour to itself, as to preserve its friend's opinion, and justifyher judgment. May this be always my aim!--And then you will not onlygive the praise, but the merit; and I shall be more worthy of thatfriendship, which is the only pleasure I have to boast of.
Most heartily I thank you for the kind dispatch of your last favour. Howmuch am I indebted to you! and even to your honest servant!--Under whatobligations 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 tobe done; while he wants generosity, frankness of heart, benevolence,manners and every qualification that distinguishes the worthy man. O mydear! what a degree of patience, what a greatness of soul, is requiredin the wife, not to despise a husband who is more ignorant, moreilliterate, more low-minded than herself!--The wretch, vested withprerogatives, who will claim rule in virtue of them (and not to permitwhose claim, will be as disgraceful to the prescribing wife as to thegoverned 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 frommotives as unworthy of the prescribers as of the prescribed, who canthink of getting over an aversion so justly founded? How much easier tobear the temporary persecutions I labour under, because temporary, thanto resolve to be such a man's for life? Were I to comply, must I notleave 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 againstme for an aversion I cannot help: for yesterday my saucy gaoleressassured me, that all my oppositions would not signify that pinch ofsnuff, 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 thatMr. Solmes was a man of spirit, and had told HER, that as I shouldsurely 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 havecause to repent the usage I gave him to the last day of my life. Butenough 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 thatinsolence 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 veryuneasy; but in his last he complains in high terms of my silence; notin the still small voice, or rather style of an humble lover, but in astyle like that which would probably be used by a slighted protector.And his pride is again touched, that like a thief, or eves-dropper, heis 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. Tillwhen, I will give you the substance of what I wrote him yesterday.
I take him severely to task for his freedom in threatening me, throughyou, 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 violenceand menaces from some of my own family are not enough for me to bear, inorder to make me avoid him; but that I must have them from him too, ifI oblige those to whom it is both my inclination and duty to oblige inevery thing that is reasonable, and in my power.
'Very extraordinary, I tell him, that a violent spirit shall threaten todo a rash and unjustifiable thing, which concerns me but a little, andhimself a great deal, if I do not something as rash, my character andsex considered, to divert him from it.
'I even hint, that, however it would affect me, were any mischief tohappen on my own account, yet there are persons, as far as I know, whoin my case would not think there would be reason for much regret, weresuch a committed rashness as he threatens Mr. Solmes with, to rid her oftwo 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 stillplainer English for me.
I take his pride to task, on his disdaining to watch for my letters; andfor his eves-dropping language: and say, 'That, surely, he has the lessreason to think so hardly of his situation; since his faulty moralsare the cause of all; and since faulty morals deservedly level alldistinction, and bring down rank and birth to the canaille, and to thenecessity which he so much regrets, of appearing (if I must descent tohis language) as an eves-dropper and a thief. And then I forbid himever to expect another letter from me that is to subject him to suchdisgraceful hardships.
'As to the solemn vows and protestations he is so ready, upon alloccasions, to make, they have the less weight with me, I tell him,as they give a kind of demonstration, that he himself, from his owncharacter, thinks there is reason to make them. Deeds are to me theonly evidence of intentions. And I am more and more convinced ofthe necessity of breaking off a correspondence with a person, whoseaddresses I see it is impossible either to expect my friends toencourage, or him to appear to wish that they should think him worthy ofencouragement.
'What therefore I repeatedly desire is, That since his birth, alliances,and expectations, are such as will at any time, if his immoral characterbe not an objection, procure him at least equal advantages in a womanwhose taste and inclinations moreover might be better adapted tohis own; I insist upon it, as well as advise it, that he give up allthoughts of me: and the rather, as he has all along (by his threateningand unpolite behaviour to my friends, and whenever he speaks of them)given me reason to conclude, that there is more malice in them, thanregard 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 mycorrespondence with him hitherto is owing more to the severity I meetwith, 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 ofreason, 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 aninfluence over every body, and are so determined; so pique themselvesupon subduing me, and carrying their point; that I despair that theywill. And yet, if they do not, I frankly own, I would not scruple tothrow myself upon any not disreputable protection, by which I mightavoid my present persecutions, on one hand, and not give Mr. Lovelaceadvantage over me, on the other--that is to say, were there manifestlyno other way left me: for, if there were, I should think the leaving myfather's house, without his consent, one of the most inexcusable actionsI could be guilty of, were the protection to be ever so unexceptionable;and this notwithstanding the independent fortune willed me by mygrandfather. And indeed I have often reflected with a degree ofindignation and disdain, upon the thoughts of what a low, selfishcreature that child must be, who is to be reined in only by the hopes ofwhat a parent can or will do for her.
But notwithstanding all this, I owe it to the sincerity of friendship toconfess, that I know not what I should have done, had your advice beenconclusive any way. Had you, my dear, been witness to my differentemotions, as I read your letter, when, in one place, you advise me ofmy danger, if I am carried to my uncle's; in another, when you own youcould not bear what I bear, and would do any thing rather than marrythe man you hate; yet, in another, to represent to me my reputationsuffering in the world's eye; and the necessity I shou
ld be under tojustify my conduct, at the expense of my friends, were I to take a rashstep; in another, insinuate the dishonest figure I should be forced tomake, in so compelled a matrimony; endeavouring to cajole, fawn upon,and play the hypocrite with a man to whom I have an aversion; who wouldhave 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 owndemerits; the necessity you think there would be for me, the more averse(were I capable of so much dissimulation) that would be imputable todisgraceful motives; as it would be too visible, that love, either ofperson or mind, could be neither of them: then his undoubted, his evenconstitutional narrowness: his too probably jealousy, and unforgiveness,bearing in my mind my declared aversion, and the unfeigned despights Itook all opportunities to do him, in order to discourage his address:a preference avowed against him from the same motive; with the pride heprofesses to take in curbing and sinking the spirits of a woman he hadacquired a right to tyrannize over: had you, I say, been witness ofmy different emotions as I read; now leaning this way, now that; nowperplexed; now apprehensive; now angry at one, then at another; nowresolving; now doubting; you would have seen the power you have over me;and would have had reason to believe, that, had you given your advicein any determined or positive manner, I had been ready to havebeen concluded by it. So, my dear, you will find, from theseacknowledgements, that you must justify me to those laws of friendship,which require undisguised frankness of heart; although you justificationof 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 lastextremity shall make me abandon my father's house, if they will permitme to stay; and if I can, by any means, by any honest pretences, butkeep off my evil destiny in it till my cousin Morden arrives. As oneof my trustees, his is a protection, into which I may without discreditthrow myself, if my other friends should remain determined. And this(although they seem too well aware of it) is all my hope: for, asto Lovelace, were I to be sure of his tenderness, and even of hisreformation, must not the thought of embracing the offered protection ofhis family, be the same thing, in the world's eye, as accepting of hisown?--Could I avoid receiving his visits at his own relations'? Must Inot be his, whatever, (on seeing him in a nearer light,) I should findhim out to be? For you know, it has always been my observation, thatvery 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 avoidevery thing, precautiously, as I may say, that might make me happy,or unhappy; yet all my wisdom now, by a strange fatality, is likely tobecome foolishness!
Then you tell me, in your usual kindly-partial manner, what is expectedof 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 complainof a brother's unkindness, that, indeed, I might do. Differences betweenbrothers and sisters, where interests clash, but too commonly arise:but, where the severe father cannot be separated from the faultybrother, who could bear to lighten herself, by loading a father?--Then,in this particular case, must not the hatred Mr. Lovelace expressesto every one of my family (although in return for their hatred ofhim) shock one extremely? Must it not shew, that there is somethingimplacable, as well as highly unpolite in his temper?--And what creaturecan think of marrying so as to be out of all hopes ever to be well withher own nearest and tenderest relations?
But here, having tired myself, and I dare say you, I will lay down mypen.
*****
Mr. Solmes is almost continually here: so is my aunt Hervey: so are mytwo uncles. Something is working against me, I doubt. What an uneasystate is suspense!--When a naked sword, too, seems hanging over one'shead!
I hear nothing but what this confident creature Betty throws out inthe wantonness of office. Now it is, Why, Miss, don't you look up yourthings? You'll be called upon, depend upon it, before you are aware.Another time she intimates darkly, and in broken sentences, (as if onpurpose to tease me,) what one says, what another; with their inquirieshow I dispose of my time? And my brother's insolent question comesfrequently 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 thatI can hear of any thing intended against me, before it is to be put inexecution; and as, when she is most impertinent, she pleads a commissionfor it; I bear with her: yet, now-and-then, not without a little of theheart-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.* Ihave read it; and am in hopes that the enclosed will in a great measureanswer your mother's expectations of me.
* See the next letter.
My most respectful acknowledgements to her for it, and for her very kindadmonitions.
You'll read to her what you please of the enclosed.
Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 2 Page 15
