Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9)

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It is a sad thing to have it to say, without being conscious of ever
having given you cause of offence, that I have in you a brother, but
not a friend.

Perhaps you will not condescend to enter into the reasons of your late
and present conduct with a foolish sister. But if politeness, if
civility, be not due to that character, and to my sex, justice is.

Let me take the liberty further to observe, that the principal end of
a young man's education at the university, is, to learn him to reason
justly, and to subdue the violence of his passions. I hope, Brother,
that you will not give room for any body who knows us both, to
conclude, that the toilette has taught the one more of the latter
doctrine, than the university has taught the other. I am truly sorry
to have cause to say, that I have heard it often remarked, that your
uncontrouled passions are not a credit to your liberal education.

I hope, Sir, that you will excuse the freedom I have taken with you:
you have given me too much reason for it, and you have taken much
greater with me, without reason:--so, if you are offended, ought to
look at the cause, and not at the effect:--then examining yourself,
that cause will cease, and there will not be any where a more
accomplished gentleman than my brother.

Sisterly affection, I do assure you, Sir, (unkindly as you have used
me,) and not the pertness which of late you have been so apt to impute
to me, is my motive in this hint. Let me invoke your returning
kindness, my only brother! And give me cause, I beseech you, to call
you my compassionating friend. For I am, and ever will be,

Your affectionate sister,
CLARISSA HARLOWE.

***

This is my brother's answer.

TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

I KNOW there will be no end of your impertinent scribble, if I don't
write to you. I write therefore: but, without entering into argument
with such a conceited and pert preacher and questioner, it is, to
forbid you to plague me with your quaint nonsense. I know not what
wit in a woman is good for, but to make her overvalue herself, and
despise every other person. Yours, Miss Pert, has set you above your
duty, and above being taught or prescribed to, either by parents, or
any body else. But go on, Miss: your mortification will be the
greater; that's all, child. It shall, I assure you, if I can make it
so, so long as you prefer that villainous Lovelace, (who is justly
hated by all your family) to every body. We see by your letter now
(what we too justly suspected before), most evidently we see, the hold
he has got of your forward heart. But the stronger the hold, the
greater must be the force (and you shall have enough of that) to tear
such a miscreant from it. In me, notwithstanding your saucy
lecturing, and your saucy reflections before, you are sure of a
friend, as well as of a brother, if it be not your own fault. But if
you will still think of such a wretch as that Lovelace, never expect
either friend or brother in

JA. HARLOWE.

***

I will now give you a copy of my letter to my sister; with her answer.

IN what, my dear Sister, have I offended you, that instead of
endeavouring to soften my father's anger against me, (as I am sure I
should have done for you, had my unhappy case been yours,) you should,
in so hard-hearted a manner, join to aggravate not only his
displeasure, but my mother's against me. Make but my case your own,
my dear Bella; and suppose you were commanded to marry Mr. Lovelace,
(to whom you are believed to have such an antipathy,) would you not
think it a very grievous injunction?--Yet cannot your dislike to Mr.
Lovelace be greater than mine is to Mr. Solmes. Nor are love and
hatred voluntary passions.

My brother may perhaps think it a proof of a manly spirit, to shew
himself an utter stranger to the gentle passions. We have both heard
him boast, that he never loved with distinction: and, having
predominating passions, and checked in his first attempt, perhaps he
never will. It is the less wonder, then, raw from the college, so
lately himself the tutored, that he should set up for a tutor, a
prescriber to our gentler sex, whose tastes and manners are
differently formed: for what, according to his account, are colleges,
but classes of tyrants, from the upper students over the lower, and
from them to the tutor?--That he, with such masculine passions should
endeavour to controul and bear down an unhappy sister, in a case where
his antipathy, and, give me leave to say, his ambition [once you would
have allowed the latter to be his fault] can be gratified by so doing,
may not be quite so much to be wondered at--but that a sister should
give up the cause of a sister, and join with him to set her father and
mother against her, in a case that might have been her own--indeed, my
Bella, this is not pretty in you.

There was a time that Mr. Lovelace was thought reclaimable, and when
it was far from being deemed a censurable view to hope to bring back
to the paths of virtue and honour, a man of his sense and
understanding. I am far from wishing to make the experiment: but
nevertheless will say, that if I have not a regard for him, the
disgraceful methods taken to compel me to receive the addresses of
such a man as Mr. Solmes are enough to induce it.

Do you, my Sister, for one moment, lay aside all prejudice, and
compare the two men in their births, their educations, their persons,
their understandings, their manners, their air, and their whole
deportments; and in their fortunes too, taking in reversions; and then
judge of both; yet, as I have frequently offered, I will live single
with all my heart, if that will do.

I cannot thus live in displeasure and disgrace. I would, if I could,
oblige all my friends. But will it be just, will it be honest, to
marry a man I cannot endure? If I have not been used to oppose the
will of my father, but have always delighted to oblige and obey, judge
of the strength of my antipathy, by the painful opposition I am
obliged to make, and cannot help it.

Pity then, my dearest Bella, my sister, my friend, my companion, my
adviser, as you used to be when I was happy, and plead for

Your ever-affectionate,
CL. HARLOWE.

***

TO MISS CLARY HARLOWE

Let it be pretty or not pretty, in your wise opinion, I shall speak my
mind, I will assure you, both of you and your conduct in relation to
this detested Lovelace. You are a fond foolish girl with all your
wisdom. Your letter shews that enough in twenty places. And as to
your cant of living single, nobody will believe you. This is one of
your fetches to avoid complying with your duty, and the will of the
most indulgent parents in the world, as yours have been to you, I am
sure--though now they see themselves finely requited for it.

We all, indeed, once thought your temper soft and amiable: but why was
it? You never were contradicted before: you had always your own way.
But no sooner do you meet with opposition in your wishes to throw
yourself away upon a vile rake, but you shew what you are. You cannot
love Mr. Solmes! that's the pretence; but Sister, Sister, let me tell
you, that is because Lovelace has got into your fond heart:--a wretch
hated, justly hated, by us all; and who has dipped his hands in the
blood of your brother: yet him you would make our relation, would you?

I have no patience with you, but for putting the case of my liking
such a vile wretch as him. As to the encouragement you pretend he
received formerly from all our family, it was before we knew him to be
so vile: and the proofs that had such force upon us, ought to have had
some upon you:--and would, had you not been a foolish forward girl; as
on this occasion every body sees you are.

O how you run out in favour of the wretch!--His birth, his education,
his person, his understanding, his manners, his air, his fortune--
reversions too taken in to augment the surfeiting catalogue! What a
fond string of lovesick praises is here! And yet you would live
single--Yes, I warrant!--when so many imaginary perfections dance
before your dazzled eye!--But no more--I only desire, that you will
not, while you seem to have such an opinion of your wit, think every
one else a fool; and that you can at pleasure, by your whining
flourishes, make us all dance after your lead.

Write as often as you will, this shall be the last answer or notice
you shall have upon this subject from

ARABELLA HARLOWE.

***

I had in readiness a letter for each of my uncles; and meeting in the
garden a servant of my uncle Harlowe, I gave him to deliver according
to their respective directions. If I am to form a judgment by the
answers I have received from my brother and sister, as above, I must
not, I doubt, expect any good from those letters. But when I have
tried every expedient, I shall have the less to blame myself for, if
any thing unhappy should fall out. I will send you copies of both,
when I shall see what notice they will be thought worthy of, if of
any.

LETTER XXX

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
SUNDAY NIGHT, MARCH 12.

This man, this Lovelace, gives me great uneasiness. He is extremely
bold and rash. He was this afternoon at our church--in hopes to see
me, I suppose: and yet, if he had such hopes, his usual intelligence
must have failed him.

Shorey was at church; and a principal part of her observation was upon
his haughty and proud behaviour when he turned round in the pew where
he sat to our family-pew. My father and both my uncles were there; so
were my mother and sister. My brother happily was not.--They all came
home in disorder. Nor did the congregation mind any body but him; it
being his first appearance there since the unhappy rencounter.

What did the man come for, if he intended to look challenge and
defiance, as Shorey says he did, and as others, it seems, thought he
did, as well as she? Did he come for my sake; and, by behaving in
such a manner to those present of my family, imagine he was doing me
either service or pleasure?--He knows how they hate him: nor will he
take pains, would pains do, to obviate their hatred.

You and I, my dear, have often taken notice of his pride; and you have
rallied him upon it; and instead of exculpating himself, he has owned
it: and by owning it he has thought he has done enough.

For my own part, I thought pride in his case an improper subject for
raillery.--People of birth and fortune to be proud, is so needless, so
mean a vice!--If they deserve respect, they will have it, without
requiring it. In other words, for persons to endeavour to gain
respect by a haughty behaviour, is to give a proof that they mistrust
their own merit: To make confession that they know that their actions
will not attract it.--Distinction or quality may be prided in by those
to whom distinction or quality is a new thing. And then the
reflection and contempt which such bring upon themselves by it, is a
counter-balance.

Such added advantages, too, as this man has in his person and mien:
learned also, as they say he is: Such a man to be haughty, to be
imperious!--The lines of his own face at the same time condemning him
--how wholly inexcusable!--Proud of what? Not of doing well: the only
justifiable pride.--Proud of exterior advantages!--Must not one be led
by such a stop-short pride, as I may call it, in him or her who has
it, to mistrust the interior? Some people may indeed be afraid, that
if they did not assume, they would be trampled upon. A very narrow
fear, however, since they trample upon themselves, who can fear this.
But this man must be secure that humility would be an ornament to him.

He has talents indeed: but those talents and his personal advantages
have been snares to him. It is plain they have. And this shews,
that, weighed in an equal balance, he would be found greatly wanting.

Had my friends confided as they did at first, in that discretion which
they do not accuse me of being defective in, I dare say I should have
found him out: and then should have been as resolute to dismiss him,
as I was to dismiss others, and as I am never to have Mr. Solmes.
O that they did but know my heart!--It shall sooner burst, than
voluntarily, uncompelled, undriven, dictate a measure that shall cast
a slur either upon them, or upon my sex.

Excuse me, my dear friend, for these grave soliloquies, as I may call
them. How have I run from reflection to reflection!--But the occasion
is recent--They are all in commotion below upon it.

Shorey says, that Mr. Lovelace watched my mother's eye, and bowed to
her: and she returned the compliment. He always admired my mother.
She would not, I believe, have hated him, had she not been bid to hate
him: and had it not been for the rencounter between him and her only
son.

Dr. Lewen was at church; and observing, as every one else did, the
disorder into which Mr. Lovelace's appearance* had put all our family,
was so good as to engage him in conversation, when the service was
over, till they were all gone to their coaches.

* See Letter XXXI, for Mr. Lovelace's account of his behaviour and
intentions in his appearance at church.

My uncles had my letters in the morning. They, as well as my father,
are more and more incensed against me, it seems. Their answers, if
they vouchsafe to answer me, will demonstrate, I doubt not, the
unseasonableness of this rash man's presence at our church.

They are angry also, as I understand, with my mother, for returning
his compliment. What an enemy is hatred, even to the common forms of
civility! which, however, more distinguish the payer of a compliment,
than the receiver. But they all see, they say, that there is but one
way to put an end to his insults. So I shall suffer: And in what will
the rash man have benefited himself, or mended his prospects?

I am extremely apprehensive that this worse than ghost-like appearance
of his, bodes some still bolder step. If he come hither (and very
desirous he is of my leave to come) I am afraid there will be murder.
To avoid that, if there were no other way, I would most willingly be
buried alive.

They are all in consultation--upon my letters, I suppose--so they were
in the morning; which occasioned my uncles to be at our church. I
will send you the copies of those letters, as I promised in my last,
when I see whether I can give you their answers with them. This
letter is all--I cannot tell what--the effect of apprehension and
displeasure at the man who has occasioned my apprehensions. Six lines
would have contained all that is in it to the purpose of my story.

CL. H.

LETTER XXXI

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
MONDAY, MARCH 13.

In vain dost thou* and thy compeers press me to go to town, while I am
in such an uncertainty as I am in at present with this proud beauty.
All the ground I have hitherto gained with her is entirely owing to
her concern for the safety of people whom I have reason to hate.

*These gentlemen affected what they called the Roman style (to wit,
the thee and the thou) in their letters: and it was an agreed rule
with them, to take in good part whatever freedoms they treated each
other with, if the passages were written in that style.

Write then, thou biddest me, if I will not come. That, indeed, I can
do; and as well without a subject, as with one. And what follows
shall be a proof of it.

The lady's malevolent brother has now, as I told thee at M. Hall,
introduced another man; the most unpromising in his person and
qualities, the most formidable in his offers, that has yet appeared.

This man has by his proposals captivated every soul of the Harlowes--
Soul! did I say--There is not a soul among them but my charmer's: and
she, withstanding them all, is actually confined, and otherwise
maltreated by a father the most gloomy and positive; at the
instigation of a brother the most arrogant and selfish. But thou
knowest their characters; and I will not therefore sully my paper with
them.

But is it not a confounded thing to be in love with one, who is the
daughter, the sister, the niece, of a family, I must eternally
despise? And, the devil of it, that love increasing with her--what
shall I call it?--'Tis not scorn:--'Tis not pride:--'Tis not the
insolence of an adored beauty:--But 'tis to virtue, it seems, that my
difficulties are owin; and I pay for not being a sly sinner, an
hypocrite; for being regardless of my reputation; for permittin
slander to open its mouth against me. But is it necessary for such a
one as I, who have been used to carry all before me, upon my own
terms--I, who never inspired a fear, that had not a discernibly-
predominant mixture of love in it, to be a hypocrite?--Well says the
poet:

He who seems virtuous does but act a part;
And shews not his own nature, but his art.

Well, but it seems I must practise for this art, if it would succeed
with this truly-admirable creature; but why practise for it?--Cannot I
indeed reform?--I have but one vice;--Have I, Jack?--Thou knowest my
heart, if any man living does. As far as I know it myself, thou
knowest it. But 'tis a cursed deceiver; for it has many a time
imposed upon its master--Master, did I say? That I am not now; nor
have I been from the moment I beheld this angel of a woman. Prepared
indeed as I was by her character before I saw her: For what a mind
must that be, which, though not virtuous itself, admires not virtue in
another?--My visit to Arabella, owing to a mistake of the sister, into
which, as thou hast heard me say, I was led by the blundering uncle;
who was to introduce me (but lately come from abroad) to the divinity,
as I thought; but, instead of her, carried me to a mere mortal. And
much difficulty had I, so fond and forward my lady! to get off without
forfeiting all with a family I intended should give me a goddess.

I have boasted that I was once in love before:--and indeed I thought I
was. It was in my early manhood--with that quality jilt, whose
infidelity I have vowed to revenge upon as many of the sex as shall
come into my power. I believe, in different climes, I have already
sacrificed an hecatomb to my Nemesis, in pursuance of this vow. But
upon recollecting what I was then, and comparing it with what I find
myself now, I cannot say that I was ever in love before.

What was it then, dost thou ask me, since the disappointment had such
effects upon me, when I found myself jilted, that I was hardly kept in
my senses?--Why, I'll grant thee what, as near as I can remember; for
it was a great while ago:--It was--Egad, Jack, I can hardly tell what
it was--but a vehement aspiration after a novelty, I think. Those
confounded poets, with their terrenely-celestial descriptions, did as
much with me as the lady: they fired my imagination, and set me upon a
desire to become a goddess-maker. I must needs try my new-fledged
pinions in sonnet, elogy, and madrigal. I must have a Cynthia, a
Stella, a Sacharissa, as well as the best of them: darts and flames,
and the devil knows what, must I give to my cupid. I must create
beauty, and place it where nobody else could find it: and many a time
have I been at a loss for a subject, when my new-created goddess has
been kinder than it was proper for my plaintive sonnet that she should
be.

Then I found I had a vanity of another sort in my passion: I found
myself well received among the women in general; and I thought it a
pretty lady-like tyranny [I was then very young, and very vain!] to
single out some one of the sex, to make half a score jealous. And I
can tell thee, it had its effect: for many an eye have I made to
sparkle with rival indignation: many a cheek glow; and even many a fan
have I caused to be snapped at a sister-beauty; accompanied with a
reflection perhaps at being seen alone with a wild young fellow who
could not be in private with both at once.

In short, Jack, it was more pride than love, as I now find it, that
put me upon making such a confounded rout about losing that noble
varletess. I thought she lo9ved me at least as well as I believed I
loved her: nay, I had the vanity to suppose she could not help it. My
friends were pleased with my choice. They wanted me to be shackled:
for early did they doubt my morals, as to the sex. They saw, that the
dancing, the singing, the musical ladies were all fond of my company:
For who [I am in a humour to be vain, I think!]--for who danced, who
sung, who touched the string, whatever the instrument, with a better
grace than thy friend?

I have no notion of playing the hypocrite so egregiously, as to
pretend to be blind to qualifications which every one sees and
acknowledges. Such praise-begetting hypocrisy! Such affectedly
disclaimed attributes! Such contemptible praise-traps!--But yet,
shall my vanity extend only to personals, such as the gracefulness of
dress, my debonnaire, and my assurance?--Self-taught, self-acquired,
these!--For my parts, I value not myself upon them. Thou wilt say, I
have no cause.--Perhaps not. But if I had any thing valuable as to
intellectuals, those are not my own; and to be proud of what a man is
answerable for the abuse of, and has no merit in the right use of, is
to strut, like the jay, in borrowed plumage.

But to return to my fair jilt. I could not bear, that a woman, who
was the first that had bound me in silken fetters [they were not iron
ones, like those I now wear] should prefer a coronet to me: and when
the bird was flown, I set more value upon it, that when I had it safe
in my cage, and could visit in when I pleased.

But now am I indeed in love. I can think of nothing, of nobody, but
the divine Clarissa Harlowe--Harlowe!--How that hated word sticks in
my throat--But I shall give her for it the name of Love.*

* Lovelace.

CLARISSA! O there's music in the name,
That, soft'ning me to infant tenderness,
Makes my heart spring like the first leaps of life!

But couldst thou have believed that I, who think it possible for me to
favour as much as I can be favoured; that I, who for this charming
creature think of foregoing the life of honour for the life of
shackles; could adopt these over-tender lines of Otway?

I checked myself, and leaving the first three lines of the following
of Dryden to the family of whiners, find the workings of the passion
in my stormy soul better expressed by the three last:

Love various minds does variously inspire:
He stirs in gentle natures gentle fires;
Like that of incense on the alter laid.

But raging flames tempestuous souls invade:
A fire which ev'ry windy passion blows;
With pride it mounts, and with revenge it glows.

And with REVENGE it shall glow!--For, dost thou think, that if it were
not from the hope, that this stupid family are all combined to do my
work for me, I would bear their insults?--Is it possible to imagine,
that I would be braved as I am braved, threatened as I am threatened,
by those who are afraid to see me; and by this brutal brother, too, to
whom I gave a life; [a life, indeed, not worth my taking!] had I not a
greater pride in knowing that by means of his very spy upon me, I am
playing him off as I please; cooling or inflaming his violent passions
as may best suit my purposes; permitting so much to be revealed of my
life and actions, and intentions, as may give him such a confidence in
his double-faced agent, as shall enable me to dance his employer upon
my own wires?

This it is that makes my pride mount above my resentment. By this
engine, whose springs I am continually oiling, I play them all off.
The busy old tarpaulin uncle I make but my ambassador to Queen
Anabella Howe, to engage her (for example-sake to her princessly
daughter) to join in their cause, and to assert an authority they are
resolved, right or wrong, (or I could do nothing,) to maintain.

And what my motive, dost thou ask? No less than this, That my beloved
shall find no protection out of my family; for, if I know hers, fly
she must, or have the man she hates. This, therefore, if I take my
measures right, and my familiar fail me not, will secure her mine, in
spite of them all; in spite of her own inflexible heart: mine, without
condition; without reformation-promises; without the necessity of a
siege of years, perhaps; and to be even then, after wearing the guise
of merit-doubting hypocrisy, at an uncertainty, upon a probation
unapproved of. Then shall I have all the rascals and rascalesses of
the family come creeping to me: I prescribing to them; and bringing
that sordidly imperious brother to kneel at the footstool of my
throne.

All my fear arises from the little hold I have in the heart of this
charming frost-piece: such a constant glow upon her lovely features:
eyes so sparkling: limbs so divinely turned: health so florid: youth
so blooming: air so animated--to have an heart so impenetrable: and I,
the hitherto successful Lovelace, the addresser--How can it be? Yet
there are people, and I have talked with some of them, who remember
that she was born. Her nurse Norton boasts of her maternal offices in
her earliest infancy; and in her education gradatim. So there is full
proof, that she came not from above all at once an angel! How then can
she be so impenetrable?

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