Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9)

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But here's her mistake; nor will she be cured of it--She takes the man
she calls her father [her mother had been faultless, had she not been
her father's wife]; she takes the men she calls her uncles; the fellow
she calls her brother; and the poor contemptible she calls her sister;
to be her father, to be her uncles, her brother, her sister; and that,
as such, she owes to some of them reverence, to others respect, let
them treat her ever so cruelly!--Sordid ties!--Mere cradle
prejudices!--For had they not been imposed upon her by Nature, when
she was in a perverse humour, or could she have chosen her relations,
would any of these have been among them?

How my heart rises at her preference of them to me, when she is
convinced of their injustice to me! Convinced, that the alliance
would do honour to them all--herself excepted; to whom every one owes
honour; and from whom the most princely family might receive it. But
how much more will my heart rise with indignation against her, if I
find she hesitates but one moment (however persecuted) about
preferring me to the man she avowedly hates! But she cannot surely be
so mean as to purchase her peace with them at so dear a rate. She
cannot give a sanction to projects formed in malice, and founded in a
selfishness (and that at her own expense) which she has spirit enough
to despise in others; and ought to disavow, that we may not think her
a Harlowe.

By this incoherent ramble thou wilt gather, that I am not likely to
come up in haste; since I must endeavour first to obtain some
assurance from the beloved of my soul, that I shall not be sacrificed
to such a wretch as Solmes! Woe be to the fair one, if ever she be
driven into my power (for I despair of a voluntary impulse in my
favour) and I find a difficulty in obtaining this security.

That her indifference to me is not owing to the superior liking she
has for any other, is what rivets my chains. But take care, fair one;
take care, O thou most exalted of female minds, and loveliest of
persons, how thou debasest thyself by encouraging such a competition
as thy sordid relations have set on foot in mere malice to me!--Thou
wilt say I rave. And so I do:

Perdition catch my soul, but I do love her.

Else, could I hear the perpetual revilings of her implacable family?--
Else, could I basely creep about--not her proud father's house--but
his paddock and garden walls?--Yet (a quarter of a mile distance
between us) not hoping to behold the least glimpse of her shadow?--
Else, should I think myself repaid, amply repaid, if the fourth,
fifth, or sixth midnight stroll, through unfrequented paths, and over
briery enclosures, affords me a few cold lines; the even expected
purport only to let me know, that she values the most worthless person
of her very worthless family, more than she values me; and that she
would not write at all, but to induce me to bear insults, which unman
me to bear?--My lodging in the intermediate way at a wretched
alehouse; disguised like an inmate of it: accommodations equally vile,
as those I met with in my Westphalian journey. 'Tis well, that the
necessity for all this arise not from scorn and tyranny! but is first
imposed upon herself!

But was ever hero in romance (fighting with giants and dragons
excepted) called upon to harder trials?--Fortune and family, and
reversionary grandeur on my side! Such a wretched fellow my
competitor!--Must I not be deplorably in love, that can go through
these difficulties, encounter these contempts?--By my soul, I am half
ashamed of myself: I, who am perjured too, by priority of obligation,
if I am faithful to any woman in the world?

And yet, why say I, I am half ashamed?--Is it not a glory to love her
whom every one who sees her either loves, or reveres, or both? Dryden
says,

The cause of love can never be assign'd:
'Tis in no face;--but in the lover's mind.

--And Cowley thus addresses beauty as a mere imaginary:

Beauty! thou wild fantastic ape,
Who dost in ev'ry country change thy shape:
Here black; there brown; here tawny; and there white!
Thou flatt'rer, who comply'st with ev'ry sight!
Who hast no certain what, nor where.

But both these, had they been her contemporaries, and known her, would
have confessed themselves mistaken: and, taking together person, mind,
and behaviour, would have acknowledged the justice of the universal
voice in her favour.

--Full many a lady
I've ey'd with best regard; and many a time
Th' harmony of their tongues hath into bondage
Brought my too-diligent ear. For sev'ral virtues
Have I liked several women. Never any
With so full a soul, but some defect in her
Did quarrel with the noblest grace she ow'd,
And put it to the foil. But SHE!--O SHE!
So perfect and so peerless is created,
Of ev'ry creature's best.

SHAKESP.

Thou art curious to know, if I have not started a new game? If it be
possible for so universal a lover to be confined so long to one
object?--Thou knowest nothing of this charming creature, that thou
canst put such questions to me; or thinkest thou knowest me better
than thou dost. All that's excellent in her sex is this lady!--Until
by MATRIMONIAL or EQUAL intimacies, I have found her less than
angel, it is impossible to think of any other. Then there are so many
stimulatives to such a spirit as mine in this affair, besides love:
such a field of stratagem and contrivance, which thou knowest to be
the delight of my heart. Then the rewarding end of all!--To carry off
such a girl as this, in spite of all her watchful and implacable
friends; and in spite of a prudence and reserve that I never met with
in any of the sex;--what a triumph!--What a triumph over the whole
sex!--And then such a revenge to gratify; which is only at present
politically reined in, eventually to break forth with greater fury--Is
it possible, thinkest thou, that there can be room for a thought that
is not of her, and devoted to her?

***

By the devices I have this moment received, I have reason to think,
that I shall have occasion for thee here. Hold thyself in readiness
to come down upon the first summons.

Let Belton, and Mowbray, and Tourville, likewise prepare themselves.
I have a great mind to contrive a method to send James Harlowe to
travel for improvement. Never was there a booby 'squire that more
wanted it. Contrive it, did I say? I have already contrived it;
could I but put it in execution without being suspected to have a hand
in it. This I am resolved upon; if I have not his sister, I will have
him.

But be this as it may, there is a present likelihood of room for
glorious mischief. A confederacy had been for some time formed
against me; but the uncles and the nephew are now to be double-
servanted [single-servanted they were before]; and those servants are
to be double armed when they attend their masters abroad. This
indicates their resolute enmity to me, and as resolute favour to
Solmes.

The reinforced orders for this hostile apparatus are owing it seems to
a visit I made yesterday to their church.--A good place I thought to
begin a reconciliation in; supposing the heads of the family to be
christians, and that they meant something by their prayers. My hopes
were to have an invitation (or, at least, to gain a pretence) to
accompany home the gloomy sire; and so get an opportunity to see my
goddess: for I believed they durst not but be civil to me, at least.
But they were filled with terror it seems at my entrance; a terror
they could not get over. I saw it indeed in their countenances; and
that they all expected something extraordinary to follow.--And so it
should have done, had I been more sure than I am of their daughter's
favour. Yet not a hair of any of their stupid heads do I intend to
hurt.

You shall all have your directions in writing, if there be occasion.
But after all, I dare say there will be no need but to shew your faces
in my company.

Such faces never could four men shew--Mowbray's so fierce and so
fighting: Belton's so pert and so pimply: Tourville's so fair and so
foppish: thine so rough and so resolute: and I your leader!--What
hearts, although meditating hostility, must those be which we shall
not appall?--Each man occasionally attended by a servant or two, long
ago chosen for qualities resembling those of his master.

Thus, Jack, as thou desirest, have I written.--Written upon something;
upon nothing; upon REVENGE, which I love; upon LOVE, which I hate,
heartily hate, because 'tis my master: and upon the devil knows what
besides: for looking back, I am amazed at the length of it. Thou
mayest read it: I would not for a king's ransom. But so as I do but
write, thou sayest thou wilt be pleased.

Be pleased then. I command thee to be pleased: if not for the
writer's or written sake, for thy word's sake. And so in the royal
style (for am I not likely to be thy king and thy emperor in the great
affair before us?) I bid thee very heartily

Farewell.

LETTER XXXII

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
TUESDAY, MARCH 14.

I now send you copies of my letters to my uncles: with their answers.
Be pleased to return the latter by the first deposit. I leave them
for you to make remarks upon. I shall make none.

TO JOHN HARLOWE, ESQ.
SAT. MARCH 11.

Allow me, my honoured second Papa, as in my happy days you taught me
to call you, to implore your interest with my Papa, to engage him to
dispense with a command, which, if insisted upon, will deprive me of
my free-will, and make me miserable for my whole life.

For my whole life! let me repeat: Is that a small point, my dear
Uncle, to give up? Am not I to live with the man? Is any body else?
Shall I not therefore be allowed to judge for myself, whether I can,
or cannot, live happily with him?

Should it be ever so unhappily, will it be prudence to complain or
appeal? If it were, to whom could I appeal with effect against a
husband? And would not the invincible and avowed dislike I have for
him at setting out, seem to justify any ill usage from him, in that
state, were I to be ever so observant of him? And if I were to be at
all observant of him, it must be from fear, not love.

Once more, let me repeat, That this is not a small point to give up:
and that it is for life. Why, I pray you, good Sir, should I be made
miserable for life? Why should I be deprived of all comfort, but that
which the hope that it would be a very short one, would afford me?

Marriage is a very solemn engagement, enough to make a young
creature's heart ache, with the best prospects, when she thinks
seriously of it!--To be given up to a strange man; to be engrafted
into a strange family; to give up her very name, as a mark of her
becoming his absolute and dependent property; to be obliged to prefer
this strange man to father, mother--to every body:--and his humours to
all her own--or to contend, perhaps, in breach of avowed duty, for
every innocent instance of free-will. To go no where; to make
acquaintance; to give up acquaintance; to renounce even the strictest
friendships, perhaps; all at his pleasure, whether she thinks it
reasonable to do so or not. Surely, Sir, a young creature ought not
to be obliged to make all these sacrifices but for such a man as she
can love. If she be, how sad must be the case! How miserable the
life, if it can be called life!

I wish I could obey you all. What a pleasure would it be to me, if I
could!--Marry first, and love will come after, was said by one of my
dearest friends! But this is a shocking assertion. A thousand thing
may happen to make that state but barely tolerable, where it is
entered into with mutual affections: What must it then be, where the
husband can have no confidence in the love of his wife: but has reason
rather to question it, from the preference he himself believes she
would have given to somebody else, had she had her own option? What
doubts, what jealousies, what want of tenderness, what unfavourable
prepossessions, will there be, in a matrimony thus circumstanced! How
will every look, every action, even the most innocent, be liable to
misconstruction!--While, on the other hand, an indifference, a
carelessness to oblige, may take place; and fear only can constrain
even an appearance of what ought to be the effect of undisguised love!

Think seriously of these things, dear, good Sir, and represent them to
my father in that strong light which the subject will bear; but in
which my sex, and my tender years and inexperience, will not permit me
to paint it; and use your powerful interest, that your poor niece may
not be consigned to a misery so durable.

I offered to engage not to marry at all, if that condition may be
accepted. What a disgrace is it to me to be thus sequestered from
company, thus banished my papa's and mamma's presence; thus slighted
and deserted by you, Sir, and my other kind uncle! And to be hindered
from attending at that public worship, which, were I out of the way of
my duty, would be most likely to reduce me into the right path again!
--Is this the way, Sir; can this be thought to be the way to be taken
with a free and open spirit? May not this strange method rather
harden than convince? I cannot bear to live in disgrace thus. The
very servants so lately permitted to be under my own direction, hardly
daring to speak to me; my own servant discarded with high marks of
undeserved suspicion and displeasure, and my sister's maid set over
me.

The matter may be too far pushed.--Indeed it may.--And then, perhaps,
every one will be sorry for their parts in it.

May I be permitted to mention an expedient?--'If I am to be watched,
banished, and confined; suppose, Sir, it were to be at your house?'--
Then the neighbouring gentry will the less wonder, that the person of
whom they used to think so favourably, appear not at church here; and
that she received not their visits.

I hope there can be no objection to this. You used to love to have me
with you, Sir, when all went happily with me: And will you not now
permit me, in my troubles, the favour of your house, till all this
displeasure is overblown?--Upon my word, Sir, I will not stir out of
doors, if you require the contrary of me: nor will I see any body,
but whom you will allow me to see; provided Mr. Solmes be not brought
to persecute me there.

Procure, then, this favour for me; if you cannot procure the still
greater, that of a happy reconciliation (which nevertheless I presume
to hope for, if you will be so good as to plead for me); and you will
then add to those favours and to that indulgence, which have bound me,
and will for ever bind me to be

Your dutiful and obliged niece,
CLARISSA HARLOWE.

THE ANSWER

SUNDAY NIGHT.

MY DEAR NIECE,

It grieves me to be forced to deny you any thing you ask. Yet it must
be so; for unless you can bring your mind to oblige us in this one
point, in which our promises and honour were engaged before we
believed there could be so sturdy an opposition, you must never expect
to be what you have been to us all.

In short, Niece, we are in an embattled phalanx. Your reading makes
you a stranger to nothing but what you should be most acquainted with.
So you will see by that expression, that we are not to be pierced by
your persuasions, and invincible persistence. We have agreed all to
be moved, or none; and not to comply without one another. So you know
your destiny; and have nothing to do but to yield to it.

Let me tell you, the virtue of obedience lies not in obliging when you
can be obliged again. But give up an inclination, and there is some
merit in that.

As to your expedient; you shall not come to my house, Miss Clary;
though this is a prayer I little thought I ever should have denied
you: for were you to keep your word as to seeing nobody but whom we
please, yet can you write to somebody else, and receive letters from
him. This we too well know you can, and have done--more is the shame
and the pity!

You offer to live single, Miss--we wished you married: but because you
may not have the man your heart is set upon, why, truly, you will have
nobody we shall recommend: and as we know, that somehow or other you
correspond with him, or at least did as long as you could; and as he
defies us all, and would not dare to do so, if he were not sure of you
in spite of us all, (which is not a little vexatious to us, you must
think,) we are resolved to frustrate him, and triumph over him, rather
than that he should triumph over us: that's one word for all. So
expect not any advocateship from me: I will not plead for you; and
that's enough. From

Your displeased uncle,
JOHN HARLOWE.

P.S. For the rest I refer to my brother Antony.

***

TO ANTONY HARLOWE, ESQ.
SATURDAY, MARCH 11.

HONOURED SIR,

As you have thought fit to favour Mr. Solmes with your particular
recommendation, and was very earnest in his behalf, ranking him (as
you told me, upon introducing him to me) among your select friends;
and expecting my regards to him accordingly; I beg your patience,
while I offer a few things, out of many that I could offer, to your
serious consideration, on occasion of his address to me, if I am to
use that word.

I am charged with prepossession in another person's favour. You will
be pleased, Sir, to remember, that till my brother returned from
Scotland, that other person was not absolutely discouraged, nor was I
forbid to receive his visits. I believe it will not be pretended,
that in birth, education, or personal endowments, a comparison can be
made between the two. And only let me ask you, Sir, if the one would
have been thought of for me, had he not made such offers, as, upon my
word, I think, I ought not in justice to accept of, nor he to propose:
offers, which if he had not made, I dare say, my papa would not have
required them of him.

But the one, it seems, has many faults:--Is the other faultless?--The
principal thing objected to Mr. Lovelace (and a very inexcusable one)
is that he is immoral in his loves--Is not the other in his hatreds?--
Nay, as I may say, in his loves too (the object only differing) if the
love of money be the root of all evil.

But, Sir, if I am prepossessed, what has Mr. Solmes to hope for?--Why
should he persevere? What must I think of the man who would wish me
to be his wife against my inclination?--And is it not a very harsh
thing for my friends to desire to see me married to one I cannot love,
when they will not be persuaded but that there is one whom I do love?

Treated as I am, now is the time for me to speak out or never.--Let me
review what it is Mr. Solmes depends upon on this occasion. Does he
believe, that the disgrace which I supper on his account, will give
him a merit with me? Does he think to win my esteem, through my
uncles' sternness to me; by my brother's contemptuous usage; by my
sister's unkindness; by being denied to visit, or be visited; and to
correspond with my chosen friend, although a person of unexceptionable
honour and prudence, and of my own sex; my servant to be torn from me,
and another servant set over me; to be confined, like a prisoner, to
narrow and disgraceful limits, in order avowedly to mortify me, and to
break my spirit; to be turned out of that family-management which I
loved, and had the greater pleasure in it, because it was an ease, as
I thought, to my mamma, and what my sister chose not; and yet, though
time hangs heavy upon my hands, to be so put out of my course, that I
have as little inclination as liberty to pursue any of my choice
delights?--Are these steps necessary to reduce me to a level so low,
as to make me a fit wife for this man?--Yet these are all he can have
to trust to. And if his reliance is on these measures, I would have
him to know, that he mistakes meekness and gentleness of disposition
for servility and baseness of heart.

I beseech you, Sir, to let the natural turn and bent of his mind and
my mind be considered: What are his qualities, by which he would hope
to win my esteem?--Dear, dear Sir, if I am to be compelled, let it be
in favour of a man that can read and write--that can teach me
something: For what a husband must that man make, who can do nothing
but command; and needs himself the instruction he should be qualified
to give?

I may be conceited, Sir; I may be vain of my little reading; of my
writing; as of late I have more than once been told I am. But, Sir,
the more unequal the proposed match, if so: the better opinion I have
of myself, the worse I must have of him; and the more unfit are we for
each other.

Indeed, Sir, I must say, I thought my friends had put a higher value
upon me. My brother pretended once, that it was owing to such value,
that Mr. Lovelace's address was prohibited.--Can this be; and such a
man as Mr. Solmes be intended for me?

As to his proposed settlements, I hope I shall not incur your great
displeasure, if I say, what all who know me have reason to think (and
some have upbraided me for), that I despise those motives. Dear, dear
Sir, what are settlements to one who has as much of her own as she
wishes for?--Who has more in her own power, as a single person, than
it is probable she would be permitted to have at her disposal, as a
wife?--Whose expenses and ambition are moderate; and who, if she had
superfluities, would rather dispense them to the necessitous, than lay
them by her useless? If then such narrow motives have so little
weight with me for my own benefit, shall the remote and uncertain view
of family-aggrandizements, and that in the person of my brother and
his descendents, be thought sufficient to influence me?

Has the behaviour of that brother to me of late, or his consideration
for the family (which had so little weight with him, that he could
choose to hazard a life so justly precious as an only son's, rather
than not ratify passions which he is above attempting to subdue, and,
give me leave to say, has been too much indulged in, either with
regard to his own good, or the peace of any body related to him;) Has
his behaviour, I say, deserved of me in particular, that I should make
a sacrifice of my temporal (and, who knows? of my eternal) happiness,
to promote a plan formed upon chimerical, at least upon unlikely,
contingencies; as I will undertake to demonstrate, if I may be
permitted to examine it?

I am afraid you will condemn my warmth: But does not the occasion
require it? To the want of a greater degree of earnestness in my
opposition, it seems, it is owing, that such advances have been made,
as have been made. Then, dear Sir, allow something, I beseech you,
for a spirit raised and embittered by disgraces, which (knowing my own
heart) I am confident to say, are unmerited.

But why have I said so much, in answer to the supposed charge of
prepossession, when I have declared to my mamma, as now, Sir, I do to
you, that if it be not insisted upon that I shall marry any other
person, particularly this Mr. Solmes, I will enter into any
engagements never to have the other, nor any man else, without their
consents; that is to say, without the consents of my father and my
mother, and of you my uncle, and my elder uncle, and my cousin Morden,
as he is one of the trustees for my grandfather's bounty to me?--As to
my brother indeed, I cannot say, that his treatment of me has been of
late so brotherly, as to entitle him to more than civility from me:
and for this, give me leave to add, he would be very much my debtor.

If I have not been explicit enough in declaring my dislike to Mr.
Solmes (that the prepossession which is charged upon me may not be
supposed to influence me against him) I do absolutely declare, That
were there no such man as Mr. Lovelace in the world, I would not have
Mr. Solmes. It is necessary, in some one of my letters to my dear
friends, that I should write so clearly as to put this matter out of
all doubt: and to whom can I better address myself with an
explicitness that can admit of no mistake, than to that uncle who
professes the highest regard for plain-dealing and sincerity?

Let me, for these reasons, be still more particular in some of my
exceptions to him.

Mr. Solmes appears to me (to all the world, indeed) to have a very
narrow mind, and no great capacity: he is coarse and indelicate; as
rough in his manners as in his person: he is not only narrow, but
covetous: being possessed of great wealth, he enjoys it not; nor has
the spirit to communicate to a distress of any kind. Does not his own
sister live unhappily, for want of a little of his superfluities? And
suffers not he his aged uncle, the brother of his own mother, to owe
to the generosity of strangers the poor subsistence he picks up from
half-a-dozen families?--You know, Sir, my open, free, communicative
temper: how unhappy must I be, circumscribed in his narrow, selfish
circle! out of which being with-held by this diabolical parsimony, he
dare no more stir, than a conjurer out of his; nor would let me.

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