Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9)

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Pardon me, dear Miss; but I must persevere, though I am sorry you
suffer on my account, as you are pleased to think; for I never before
saw the woman I could love: and while there is any hope, and that you
remain undisposed of to some happier man, I must and will be

Your faithful and obsequious admirer,
ROGER SOLMES.

MARCH 16.

***

MR. JAMES HARLOWE, TO MISS CL. HARLOWE
MARCH 16.

What a fine whim you took into your head, to write a letter to Mr.
Solmes, to persuade him to give up his pretensions to you!--Of all the
pretty romantic flights you have delighted in, this was certainly one
of the most extraordinary. But to say nothing of what fires us all
with indignation against you (your owning your prepossession in a
villain's favour, and your impertinence to me, and your sister, and
your uncles; one of which has given it you home, child), how can you
lay at Mr. Solmes's door the usage you so bitterly complain of?--You
know, little fool as you are, that it is your fondness for Lovelace
that has brought upon you all these things; and which would have
happened, whether Mr. Solmes had honoured you with his addresses or
not.

As you must needs know this to be true, consider, pretty witty Miss,
if your fond, love-sick heart can let you consider, what a fine figure
all your expostulations with us, and charges upon Mr. Solmes, make!--
With what propriety do you demand of him to restore to you your former
happiness (as you call it, and merely call it; for if you thought our
favour so, you would restore it to yourself), since it is yet in your
own power to do so? Therefore, Miss Pert, none of your pathetics,
except in the right place. Depend upon it, whether you have Mr.
Solmes, or not, you shall never have your heart's delight, the vile
rake Lovelace, if our parents, if our uncles, if I, can hinder it.
No! you fallen angel, you shall not give your father and mother such a
son, nor me such a brother, in giving yourself that profligate wretch
for a husband. And so set your heart at rest, and lay aside all
thoughts of him, if ever you expect forgiveness, reconciliation, or a
kind opinion, from any of your family; but especially from him, who,
at present, styles himself

Your brother,
JAMES HARLOWE.

P.S. I know your knack at letter-writing. If you send me an answer
for this, I will return it unopened; for I will not argue with your
perverseness in so plain a case--Only once for all, I was willing to
put you right as to Mr. Solmes; whom I think to blame to trouble his
head about you.

LETTER XXXIV

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
FRIDAY, MARCH 17.

I receive, with great pleasure, the early and cheerful assurances of
your loyalty and love. And let our principal and most trusty friends
named in my last know that I do.

I would have thee, Jack, come down, as soon as thou canst. I believe
I shall not want the others so soon. Yet they may come down to Lord
M.'s. I will be there, if not to receive them, to satisfy my lord,
that there is no new mischief in hand, which will require his second
intervention.

For thyself, thou must be constantly with me: not for my security: the
family dare do nothing but bully: they bark only at a distance: but
for my entertainment: that thou mayest, from the Latin and the English
classics, keep my lovesick soul from drooping.

Thou hadst best come to me here, in thy old corporal's coat: thy
servant out of livery; and to be upon a familiar footing with me, as a
distant relation, to be provided for by thy interest above--I mean not
in Heaven, thou mayest be sure. Thou wilt find me at a little
alehouse, they call it an inn; the White Hart, most terribly wounded,
(but by the weather only,) the sign: in a sorry village, within five
miles from Harlowe-place. Every body knows Harlowe-place, for, like
Versailles, it is sprung up from a dunghill, within every elderly
person's remembrance. Every poor body, particularly, knows it: but
that only for a few years past, since a certain angel has appeared
there among the sons and daughters of men.

The people here at the Hart are poor, but honest; and have gotten it
into their heads, that I am a man of quality in disguise; and there is
no reining-in their officious respect. Here is a pretty little
smirking daughter, seventeen six days ago. I call her my Rose-bud.
Her grandmother (for there is no mother), a good neat old woman, as
ever filled a wicker chair in a chimney-corner, has besought me to be
merciful to her.

This is the right way with me. Many and many a pretty rogue had I
spared, whom I did not spare, had my power been acknowledged, and my
mercy in time implored. But the debellare superbos should be my
motto, were I to have a new one.

This simple chit (for there is a simplicity in her thou wouldst be
highly pleased with: all humble; all officious; all innocent--I love
her for her humility, her officiousness, and even for her innocence)
will be pretty amusement to thee; while I combat with the weather, and
dodge and creep about the walls and purlieus of Harlowe-place. Thou
wilt see in her mind, all that her superiors have been taught to
conceal, in order to render themselves less natural, and of
consequence less pleasing.

But I charge thee, that thou do not (what I would not permit myself to
do for the world--I charge thee, that thou do not) crop my Rose-bud.
She is the only flower of fragrance, that has blown in this vicinage
for ten years past, or will for ten years to come: for I have looked
backward to the have-been's, and forward to the will-be's; having but
too much leisure upon my hands in my present waiting.

I never was so honest for so long together since my matriculation. It
behoves me so to be--some way or other, my recess at this little inn
may be found out; and it will then be thought that my Rose-bud has
attracted me. A report in my favour, from simplicities so amiable,
may establish me; for the grandmother's relation to my Rose-bud may be
sworn to: and the father is an honest, poor man; has no joy, but in
his Rose-bud.--O Jack! spare thou, therefore, (for I shall leave thee
often alone with her, spare thou) my Rose-bud!--Let the rule I never
departed from, but it cost me a long regret, be observed to my Rose-
bud!--never to ruin a poor girl, whose simplicity and innocence were
all she had to trust to; and whose fortunes were too low to save her
from the rude contempts of worse minds than her own, and from an
indigence extreme: such a one will only pine in secret; and at last,
perhaps, in order to refuge herself from slanderous tongues and
virulence, be induced to tempt some guilty stream, or seek her end in
the knee-encircling garter, that peradventure, was the first attempt
of abandoned love.--No defiances will my Rose-bud breathe; no self-
dependent, thee-doubting watchfulness (indirectly challenging thy
inventive machinations to do their worst) will she assume.
Unsuspicious of her danger, the lamb's throat will hardly shun thy
knife!--O be not thou the butcher of my lambkin!

The less thou be so, for the reason I am going to give thee--The
gentle heart is touched by love: her soft bosom heaves with a passion
she has not yet found a name for. I once caught her eye following a
young carpenter, a widow neighbour's son, living [to speak in her
dialect] at the little white house over the way. A gentle youth he
also seems to be, about three years older than herself: playmates from
infancy, till his eighteenth and her fifteenth year furnished a reason
for a greater distance in shew, while their hearts gave a better for
their being nearer than ever--for I soon perceived the love
reciprocal. A scrape and a bow at first seeing his pretty mistress;
turning often to salute her following eye; and, when a winding lane
was to deprive him of her sight, his whole body turned round, his hat
more reverently doffed than before. This answered (for, unseen, I was
behind her) by a low courtesy, and a sigh, that Johnny was too far off
to hear!--Happy whelp! said I to myself.--I withdrew; and in tript my
Rose-bud, as if satisfied with the dumb shew, and wishing nothing
beyond it.

I have examined the little heart. She has made me her confidant. She
owns, she could love Johnny Barton very well: and Johnny Barton has
told her, he could love her better than any maiden he ever saw--but,
alas! it must not be thought of. Why not be thought of!--She don't
know!--And then she sighed: But Johnny has an aunt, who will give him
an hundred pounds, when his time is out; and her father cannot give
her but a few things, or so, to set her out with: and though Johnny's
mother says, she knows not where Johnny would have a prettier, or
notabler wife, yet--And then she sighed again--What signifies
talking?--I would not have Johnny be unhappy and poor for me!--For
what good would that do me, you know, Sir!

What would I give [by my soul, my angel will indeed reform me, if her
friends' implacable folly ruin us not both!--What would I give] to
have so innocent and so good a heart, as either my Rose-bud's, or
Johnny's!

I have a confounded mischievous one--by nature too, I think!--A good
motion now-and-then rises from it: but it dies away presently--a love
of intrigue--an invention for mischief--a triumph in subduing--fortune
encouraging and supporting--and a constitution--What signifies
palliating? But I believe I had been a rogue, had I been a
plough-boy.

But the devil's in this sex! Eternal misguiders. Who, that has once
trespassed with them, ever recovered his virtue? And yet where there
is not virtue, which nevertheless we freelivers are continually
plotting to destroy, what is there even in the ultimate of our wishes
with them?--Preparation and expectation are in a manner every thing:
reflection indeed may be something, if the mind be hardened above
feeling the guilt of a past trespass: but the fruition, what is there
in that? And yet that being the end, nature will not be satisfied
without it.

See what grave reflections an innocent subject will produce! It gives
me some pleasure to think, that it is not out of my power to reform:
but then, Jack, I am afraid I must keep better company than I do at
present--for we certainly harden one another. But be not cast down,
my boy; there will be time enough to give the whole fraternity warning
to choose another leader: and I fancy thou wilt be the man.

Mean time, as I make it my rule, whenever I have committed a very
capital enormity, to do some good by way of atonement; and as I
believe I am a pretty deal indebted on that score, I intend, before I
leave these parts (successfully shall I leave them I hope, or I shall
be tempted to double the mischief by way of revenge, though not to my
Rose-bud any) to join an hundred pounds to Johnny's aunt's hundred
pounds, to make one innocent couple happy.--I repeat therefore, and
for half a dozen more therefores, spare thou my Rose-bud.

An interruption--another letter anon; and both shall go together.

LETTER XXXV

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

I have found out by my watchful spy almost as many of my charmer's
motions, as those of the rest of her relations. It delights me to
think how the rascal is caressed by the uncles and nephew; and let
into their secrets; yet it proceeds all the time by my line of
direction. I have charged him, however, on forfeiture of his present
weekly stipend, and my future favour, to take care, that neither my
beloved, nor any of the family suspect him: I have told him that he
may indeed watch her egresses and regresses; but that only keep off
other servants from her paths; yet not to be seen by her himself.

The dear creature has tempted him, he told them, with a bribe [which
she never offered] to convey a letter [which she never wrote] to Miss
Howe; he believes, with one enclosed (perhaps to me): but he declined
it: and he begged they would take notice of it to her. This brought
him a stingy shilling; great applause; and an injunction followed it
to all the servants, for the strictest look-out, lest she should
contrive some way to send it--and, above an hour after, an order was
given him to throw himself in her way; and (expressing his concern for
denying her request) to tender his service to her, and to bring them
her letter: which it will be proper for him to report that she has
refused to give him.

Now seest thou not, how many good ends this contrivance answers?

In the first place, the lady is secured by it, against her own
knowledge, in the liberty allowed her of taking her private walks in
the garden: for this attempt has confirmed them in their belief, that
now they have turned off her maid, she has no way to send a letter out
of the house: if she had, she would not have run the risque of
tempting a fellow who had not been in her secret--so that she can
prosecute unsuspectedly her correspondence with me and Miss Howe.

In the next place, it will perhaps afford me an opportunity of a
private interview with her, which I am meditating, let her take it as
she will; having found out by my spy (who can keep off every body
else) that she goes every morning and evening to a wood-house remote
from the dwelling-house, under pretence of visiting and feeding a set
of bantam-poultry, which were produced from a breed that was her
grandfather's, and of which for that reason she is very fond; as also
of some other curious fowls brought from the same place. I have an
account of all her motions here. And as she has owned to me in one of
her letters that she corresponds privately with Miss Howe, I presume
it is by this way.

The interview I am meditating, will produce her consent, I hope, to
other favours of the like kind: for, should she not choose the place
in which I am expecting to see her, I can attend her any where in the
rambling Dutch-taste garden, whenever she will permit me that honour:
for my implement, high Joseph Leman, has procured me the opportunity
of getting two keys made to the garden-door (one of which I have given
him for reasons good); which door opens to the haunted coppice, as
tradition has made the servants think it; a man having been found
hanging in it about twenty years ago: and Joseph, upon proper notice,
will leave it unbolted.

But I was obliged previously to give him my honour, that no mischief
should happen to any of my adversaries, from this liberty: for the
fellow tells me, that he loves all his masters: and, only that he
knows I am a man of honour; and that my alliance will do credit to the
family; and after prejudices are overcome, every body will think so;
or he would not for the world act the part he does.

There never was a rogue, who had not a salvo to himself for being so.
--What a praise to honesty, that every man pretends to it, even at the
instant that he knows he is pursuing the methods that will perhaps
prove him a knave to the whole world, as well as to his own
conscience!

But what this stupid family can mean, to make all this necessary, I
cannot imagine. My REVENGE and my LOVE are uppermost by turns. If
the latter succeed not, the gratifying of the former will be my only
consolation: and, by all that's good, they shall feel it; although for
it I become an exile from my native country for ever.

I will throw myself into my charmer's presence. I have twice already
attempted it in vain. I shall then see what I may depend upon from
her favour. If I thought I had no prospect of that, I should be
tempted to carry her off. That would be a rape worthy of Jupiter!

But all gentle shall be my movements: all respectful, even to
reverence, my address to her--her hand shall be the only witness to
the pressure of my lip--my trembling lip: I know it will tremble, if I
do not bid it tremble. As soft my sighs, as the sighs of my gentle
Rose-bud. By my humility will I invite her confidence: the loneliness
of the place shall give me no advantage: to dissipate her fears, and
engage her reliance upon my honour for the future, shall be my whole
endeavour: but little will I complain of, not at all will I threaten,
those who are continually threatening me: but yet with a view to act
the part of Dryden's lion; to secure my love, or to let loose my
vengeance upon my hunters.

What tho' his mighty soul his grief contains?
He meditates revenge who least complains:
And like a lion slumb'ring in his way,
Or sleep dissembling, while he waits his prey,
His fearless foes within his distance draws,
Constrains his roaring, and contracts his paws:
Till at the last, his time for fury found,
He shoots with sudden vengeance from the ground:
The prostrate vulgar passes o'er, and spares,
But, with a lordly rage, his hunter tears.

LETTER XXXVI

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
SATURDAY, MARCH 18.

I have been frighted out of my wits--still am in a manner out of
breath--thus occasioned--I went down, under the usual pretence, in
hopes to find something from you. Concerned at my disappointment, I
was returning from the wood-house, when I heard a rustling as of
somebody behind a stack of wood. I was extremely surprised: but still
more, to behold a man coming from behind the furthermost stack. Oh!
thought I, at that moment, the sin of a prohibited correspondence!

In the same point of time that I saw him, he besought me not to be
frighted: and, still nearer approaching me, threw open a horseman's
coat: And who should it be but Mr. Lovelace!--I could not scream out
(yet attempted to scream, the moment I saw a man; and again, when I
saw who it was); for I had no voice: and had I not caught hold of a
prop which supported the old roof, I should have sunk.

I had hitherto, as you know, kept him at a distance: And now, as I
recovered myself, judge of my first emotions, when I recollected his
character from every mouth of my family; his enterprising temper; and
found myself alone with him, in a place so near a bye-lane, and so
remote from the house.

But his respectful behaviour soon dissipated these fears, and gave me
others; lest we should be seen together, and information of it given
to my brother: the consequences of which, I could readily think, would
be, if not further mischief, an imputed assignation, a stricter
confinement, a forfeited correspondence with you, my beloved friend,
and a pretence for the most violent compulsion: and neither the one
set of reflections, nor the other, acquitted him to me for his bold
intrusion.

As soon therefore as I could speak, I expressed with the greatest
warmth my displeasure; and told him, that he cared not how much he
exposed me to the resentment of all my friends, provided he could
gratify his own impetuous humour. I then commanded him to leave the
place that moment; and was hurrying from him, when he threw himself in
the way at my feet, beseeching my stay for one moment; declaring, that
he suffered himself to be guilty of this rashness, as I thought it, to
avoid one much greater:--for, in short, he could not bear the hourly
insults he received from my family, with the thoughts of having so
little interest in my favour, that he could not promise himself that
his patience and forbearance would be attended with any other issue
than to lose me for ever, and be triumphed over and insulted upon it.

This man, you know, has very ready knees. You have said, that he
ought, in small points, frequently to offend, on purpose to shew what
an address he is master of.

He ran on, expressing his apprehensions that a temper so gentle and
obliging, as he said mine was, to every body but him, (and a
dutifulness so exemplary inclined me to do my part to others, whether
they did theirs or not by me,) would be wrought upon in favour of a
man set up in part to be revenged upon myself, for my grandfather's
envied distinction of me; and in part to be revenged upon him, for
having given life to one, who would have taken his; and now sought to
deprive him of hopes dearer to him than life.

I told him, he might be assured, that the severity and ill-usage I met
with would be far from effecting the proposed end: that although I
could, with great sincerity, declare for a single life (which had
always been my choice); and particularly, that if ever I married, if
they would not insist upon the man I had an aversion to, it should not
be with the man they disliked--

He interrupted me here: He hoped I would forgive him for it; but he
could not help expressing his great concern, that, after so many
instances of his passionate and obsequious devotion--

And pray, Sir, said I, let me interrupt you in my turn;--Why don't you
assert, in still plainer words, the obligation you have laid me under
by this your boasted devotion? Why don't you let me know, in terms as
high as your implication, that a perseverance I have not wished for,
which has set all my relations at variance with me, is a merit that
throws upon me the guilt of ingratitude for not having answered it as
you seem to expect?

I must forgive him, he said, if he, who pretended only to a
comparative merit, (and otherwise thought no man living could deserve
me,) had presumed to hope for a greater share in my favour, than he
had hitherto met with, when such men as Mr. Symmes, Mr. Wyerley, and
now, lastly, so vile a reptile as this Solmes, however discouraged by
myself, were made his competitors. As to the perseverance I
mentioned, it was impossible for him not to persevere: but I must
needs know, that were he not in being, the terms Solmes had proposed
were such, as would have involved me in the same difficulties with my
relations that I now laboured under. He therefore took the liberty to
say, that my favour to him, far from increasing those difficulties,
would be the readiest way to extricate me from them. They had made it
impossible [he told me, with too much truth] to oblige them any way,
but by sacrificing myself to Solmes. They were well apprized besides
of the difference between the two; one, whom they hoped to manage as
they pleased; the other, who could and would protect me from every
insult; and who had natural prospects much superior to my brother's
foolish views of a title.

How comes this man to know so well all our foibles? But I more
wonder, how he came to have a notion of meeting me in this place?

I was very uneasy to be gone; and the more as the night came on apace.
But there was no getting from him, till I had heard a great deal more
of what he had to say.

As he hoped, that I would one day make him the happiest man in the
world, he assured me, that he had so much regard for my fame, that he
would be as far from advising any step that was likely to cast a shade
upon my reputation, (although that step was to be ever so much in his
own favour,) as I would be to follow such advice. But since I was not
to be permitted to live single, he would submit it to my
consideration, whether I had any way but one to avoid the intended
violence to my inclinations--my father so jealous of his authority:
both my uncles in my father's way of thinking: my cousin Morden at a
distance: my uncle and aunt Hervey awed into insignificance, was his
word: my brother and sister inflaming every one: Solmes's offers
captivating: Miss Howe's mother rather of a party with them, for
motives respecting example to her own daughter.

And then he asked me, if I would receive a letter from Lady Betty
Lawrance, on this occasion: for Lady Sarah Sadleir, he said, having
lately lost her only child, hardly looked into the world, or thought
of it farther than to wish him married, and, preferably to all the
women in the world, with me.

To be sure, my dear, there is a great deal in what the man said--I may
be allowed to say this, without an imputed glow or throb. But I told
him nevertheless, that although I had great honour for the ladies he
was related to, yet I should not choose to receive a letter on a
subject that had a tendency to promote an end I was far from intending
to promote: that it became me, ill as I was treated at present, to
hope every thing, to bear every thing, and to try ever thing: when my
father saw my steadfastness, and that I would die rather than have Mr.
Solmes, he would perhaps recede--

Interrupting me, he represented the unlikelihood there was of that,
from the courses they had entered upon; which he thus enumerated:--
Their engaging Mrs. Howe against me, in the first place, as a person I
might have thought to fly to, if pushed to desperation--my brother
continually buzzing in my father's ears, that my cousin Morden would
soon arrive, and then would insist upon giving me possession of my
grandfather's estate, in pursuance of the will; which would render me
independent of my father--their disgraceful confinement of me--their
dismissing so suddenly my servant, and setting my sister's over me--
their engaging my mother, contrary to her own judgment, against me:
these, he said, were all so many flagrant proofs that they would stick
at nothing to carry their point; and were what made him inexpressibly
uneasy.

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