Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9)

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I am well aware that this is your opinion of friendship, as well as mine:
for I owe the distinction to you, upon a certain occasion; and it saved
me from a very great inconvenience, as you must needs remember. But you
were always for making excuses for other people, in cases wherein you
would not have allowed of one for yourself.

I must own, that were these excuses for a friend's indifference, or
denial, made by any body but you, in a case of such vast importance to
herself, and of so comparative a small one to those for whose protection
she would be thought to wish; I, who am for ever, as you have often
remarked, endeavouring to trace effects to their causes, should be ready
to suspect that there was a latent, unowned inclination, which balancing,
or preponderating rather, made the issue of the alternative (however
important) sit more lightly upon the excuser's mind than she cared to
own.

You will understand me, my dear. But if you do not, it may be well for
me; for I am afraid I shall have it from you for but starting such a\
notion, or giving a hint, which perhaps, as you did once in another case,
you will reprimandingly call, 'Not being able to forego the ostentation
of sagacity, though at the expense of that tenderness which is due to
friendship and charity.'

What signifies owning a fault without mending it, you'll say?--Very true,
my dear. But you know I ever was a saucy creature--ever stood in need of
great allowances.--And I remember, likewise, that I ever had them from my
dear Clarissa. Nor do I doubt them now: for you know how much I love you
--if it be possible, more than myself I love you! Believe me, my dear:
and, in consequence of that belief, you will be able to judge how much I
am affected by your present distressful and critical situation; which
will not suffer me to pass by without a censure even that philosophy of
temper in your own cause, which you have not in another's, and which all
that know you ever admired you for.

From this critical and distressful situation, it shall be my hourly
prayers that you may be delivered without blemish to that fair fame which
has hitherto, like your heart, been unspotted.

With this prayer, twenty times repeated, concludes
Your ever affectionate,
ANNA HOWE.

I hurried myself in writing this; and I hurry Robin away with it, that,
in a situation so very critical, you may have all the time possible to
consider what I have written, upon two points so very important. I will
repeat them in a very few words:

'Whether you choose not rather to go off with one of your own sex; with
your ANNA HOWE--than with one of the other; with Mr. LOVELACE?'

And if not,

'Whether you should not marry him as soon as possible?'

LETTER XLIV

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
[THE PRECEDING LETTER NOT RECEIVED.]
SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

Already have I an ecstatic answer, as I may call it, to my letter.

'He promises compliance with my will in every article: approves of all I
propose; particularly of the private lodging: and thinks it a happy
expedient to obviate the censures of the busy and the unreflecting: and
yet he hopes, that the putting myself into the protection of either of
his aunts, (treated as I am treated,) would be far from being looked upon
by any body in a disreputable light. But every thing I enjoin or resolve
upon must, he says, be right, not only with respect to my present but
future reputation; with regard to which, he hopes so to behave himself,
as to be allowed to be, next to myself, more properly solicitous than any
body. He will only assure me, that his whole family are extremely
desirous to take advantage of the persecutions I labour under to make
their court, and endear themselves to me, by their best and most
cheerful services: happy if they can in any measure contribute to my
present freedom and future happiness.

'He will this afternoon, he says, write to Lord M. and to Lady Betty and
Lady Sarah, that he is now within view of being the happiest man in the
world, if it be not his own fault; since the only woman upon earth that
can make him so will be soon out of danger of being another man's; and
cannot possibly prescribe any terms to him that he shall not think it his
duty to comply with.

'He flatters himself now (my last letter confirming my resolution) that
he can be in no apprehension of my changing my mind, unless my friends
change their manner of acting by me; which he is too sure they will not.*
And now will all his relations, who take such a kind and generous share
in his interests, glory and pride themselves in the prospects he has
before him.'

* Well might he be so sure, when he had the art to play them off, by his
corrupted agent, and to make them all join to promote his views unknown
to themselves; as is shewn in some of his preceding letters.

Thus does he hold me to it.

'As to fortune, he begs me not to be solicitous on that score: that his
own estate is sufficient for us both; not a nominal, but a real, two
thousand pounds per annum, equivalent to some estates reputed a third
more: that it never was encumbered; that he is clear of the world, both
as to book and bond debts; thanks, perhaps, to his pride, more than to
his virtue: that Lord M. moreover resolves to settle upon him a thousand
pounds per annum on his nuptials. And to this, he will have it, his
lordship is instigated more by motives of justice than of generosity; as
he must consider it was but an equivalent for an estate which he had got
possession of, to which his (Mr. Lovelace's) mother had better
pretensions. That his lordship also proposed to give him up either his
seat in Hertfordshire, or that in Lancashire, at his own or at his wife's
option, especially if I am the person. All which it will be in my power
to see done, and proper settlements drawn, before I enter into any
farther engagements with him; if I will have it so.'

He says, 'That I need not be under any solicitude as to apparel: all
immediate occasions of that sort will be most cheerfully supplied by the
ladies of his family: as my others shall, with the greatest pride and
pleasure (if I allow him that honour) by himself.

'He assures me, that I shall govern him as I please, with regard to any
thing in his power towards effecting a reconciliation with my friends:' a
point he knows my heart is set upon.

'He is afraid, that the time will hardly allow of his procuring Miss
Charlotte Montague's attendance upon me, at St. Alban's, as he had
proposed she should; because, he understands, she keeps her chamber with
a violent cold and sore throat. But both she and her sister, the first
moment she is able to go abroad, shall visit me at my private lodgings;
and introduce me to Lady Sarah and Lady Betty, or those ladies to me, as
I shall choose; and accompany me to town, if I please; and stay as long
in it with me as I shall think fit to stay there.

'Lord M. will also, at my own time, and in my own manner, (that is to
say, either publicly or privately,) make me a visit. And, for his own
part, when he has seen me in safety, either in their protection, or in
the privacy I prefer, he will leave me, and not attempt to visit me but
by my own permission.

'He had thought once, he says, on hearing of his cousin Charlotte's
indisposition, to have engaged his cousin Patty's attendance upon me,
either in or about the neighbouring village, or at St. Alban's: but, he
says, she is a low-spirited, timorous girl, and would but the more have
perplexed us.'

So, my dear, the enterprise requires courage and high spirits, you see!
--And indeed it does!--What am I about to do!

He himself, it is plain, thinks it necessary that I should be accompanied
with one of my own sex.--He might, at least, have proposed the woman of
one of the ladies of his family.--Lord bless me!--What am I about to do!
--

***

After all, as far as I have gone, I know not but I may still recede: and,
if I do, a mortal quarrel I suppose will ensue.--And what if it does?--
Could there be any way to escape this Solmes, a breach with Lovelace
might make way for the single life to take place, which I so much prefer:
and then I would defy the sex. For I see nothing but trouble and
vexation that they bring upon ours: and when once entered, one is obliged
to go on with them, treading, with tender feet, upon thorns, and sharper
thorns, to the end of a painful journey.

What to do I know not. The more I think, the more I am embarrassed!--And
the stronger will be my doubts as the appointed time draws near.

But I will go down, and take a little turn in the garden; and deposit
this, and his letters all but the two last, which I will enclose in my
next, if I have opportunity to write another.

Mean time, my dear friend----But what can I desire you to pray for?--
Adieu, then!--Let me only say--Adieu!--

LETTER XLV

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE.
[IN ANSWER TO LETTER XLIII.]
SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 9.

Do not think, my beloved friend, although you have given me in yours of
yesterday a severer instance of what, nevertheless, I must cal your
impartial love, than ever yet I received from you, that I would be
displeased with you for it. That would be to put myself into the
inconvenient situation of royalty: that is to say, out of the way of ever
being told of my faults; of ever mending them: and in the way of making
the sincerest and warmest friendship useless to me.

And then how brightly, how nobly glows in your bosom the sacred flame of
friendship; since it can make you ready to impute to the unhappy sufferer
a less degree of warmth in her own cause, than you have for her, because
of the endeavours to divest herself of self so far as to leave others to
the option which they have a right to make!--Ought I, my dear, to blame,
ought I not rather to admire you for this ardor?

But nevertheless, lest you should think that there is any foundation for
a surmise which (although it owe its rise to your friendship) would, if
there were, leave me utterly inexcusable, I must, in justice to myself,
declare, that I know not my own heart if I have any of that latent or
unowned inclination, which you would impute to any other but me. Nor
does the important alternative sit lightly on my mind. And yet I must
excuse your mother, were it but on this single consideration, that I
could not presume to reckon upon her favour, as I could upon her
daughter's, so as to make the claim of friendship upon her, to whom, as
the mother of my dearest friend, a veneration is owing, which can hardly
be compatible with that sweet familiarity which is one of the
indispensable requisites of the sacred tie by which your heart and mine
are bound in one.

What therefore I might expect from my Anna Howe, I ought not from her
mother; for would it not be very strange, that a person of her experience
should be reflected upon because she gave not up her own judgment, where
the consequence of her doing so would be to embroil herself, as she
apprehends, with a family she has lived well with, and in behalf of a
child against her parents?--as she has moreover a daughter of her own:--a
daughter too, give me leave to say, of whose vivacity and charming
spirits she is more apprehensive than she need to be, because her truly
maternal cares make her fear more from her youth, than she hopes for her
prudence; which, nevertheless, she and all the world know to be beyond
her years.

And here let me add, that whatever you may generously, and as the result
of an ardent affection for your unhappy friend, urge on this head, in my
behalf, or harshly against any one who may refuse me protection in the
extraordinary circumstances I find myself in, I have some pleasure in
being able to curb undue expectations upon my indulgent friends, whatever
were to befal myself from those circumstances, for I should be extremely
mortified, were I by my selfish forwardness to give occasion for such a
check, as to be told, that I had encouraged an unreasonable hope, or,
according to the phrase you mention, wished to take a thorn out of my own
foot, and to put in to that of my friend. Nor should I be better pleased
with myself, if, having been taught by my good Mrs. Norton, that the best
of schools is that of affliction, I should rather learn impatience than
the contrary, by the lessons I am obliged to get by heart in it; and if I
should judge of the merits of others, as they were kind to me; and that
at the expense of their own convenience or peace of mind. For is not
this to suppose myself ever in the right; and all who do not act as I
would have them act, perpetually in the wrong? In short, to make my sake
God's sake, in the sense of Mr. Solmes's pitiful plea to me?

How often, my dear, have you and I endeavoured to detect and censure this
partial spirit in others?

But I know you do not always content yourself with saying what you think
may justly be said; but, in order the shew the extent of a penetration
which can go to the bottom of any subject, delight to say or to write all
that can be said or written, or even thought, on the particular occasion;
and this partly perhaps from being desirous [pardon me, my dear!] to be
thought mistress of a sagacity that is aforehand with events. But who
would wish to drain off or dry up a refreshing current, because it now-
and-then puts us to some little inconvenience by its over-flowings? In
other words, who would not allow for the liveliness of a spirit which for
one painful sensibility gives an hundred pleasurable ones; and the one in
consequence of the other?

But now I come to the two points in your letter, which most sensibly
concern me: Thus you put them:

'Whether I choose not rather to go off [shocking words!] with one of my
own sex; with my ANNA HOWE--than with one of the other; with Mr.
LOVELACE?'

And if not,

'Whether I should not marry him as soon as possible?'

You know, my dear, my reasons for rejecting your proposal, and even for
being earnest that you should not be known to be assisting me in an
enterprise in which a cruel necessity induced me to think of engaging;
and for which you have not the same plea. At this rate, well might your
mother be uneasy at our correspondence, not knowing to what
inconveniencies it might subject her and you!--If I am hardly excusable
to think of withdrawing from my unkind friends, what could you have to
say for yourself, were you to abandon a mother so indulgent? Does she
suspect that your fervent friendship may lead you to a small
indiscretion? and does this suspicion offend you? And would you, in
resentment, shew her and the world, that you can voluntarily rush into
the highest error that any of our sex can be guilty of?

And is it worthy of your generosity [I ask you, my dear, is it?] to think
of taking so undutiful a step, because you believe your mother would be
glad to receive you again?

I do assure you, that were I to take this step myself, I would run all
risks rather than you should accompany me in it. Have I, do you think, a
desire to double and treble my own fault in the eye of the world? in the
eye of that world which, cruelly as I am used, (not knowing all,) would
not acquit me?

But, my dearest, kindest friend, let me tell you, that we will neither of
us take such a step. The manner of putting your questions abundantly
convinces me, that I ought not, in your opinion, to attempt it. You no
doubt intend that I shall so take it; and I thank you for the equally
polite and forcible conviction.

It is some satisfaction to me (taking the matter in this light) that I
had begun to waver before I received your last. And now I tell you, that
it has absolutely determined me not to go off; at least not to-morrow.

If you, my dear, think the issue of the alternative (to use your own
words) sits so lightly upon my mind, in short, that my inclination is
faulty; the world would treat me much less scrupulously. When therefore
you represent, that all punctilio must be at an end the moment I am out
of my father's house; and hint, that I must submit it to Mr. Lovelace to
judge when he can leave me with safety; that is to say, give him the
option whether he will leave me, or not; who can bear these reflections,
who can resolve to incur these inconveniencies, that has the question
still in her own power to decide upon?

While I thought only of an escape from this house as an escape from Mr.
Solmes; that already my reputation suffered by my confinement; and that
it would be in my own option either to marry Mr. Lovelace, or wholly to
renounce him; bold as the step was, I thought, treated as I am treated,
something was to be said in excuse of it--if not to the world, to myself:
and to be self-acquitted, is a blessing to be preferred to the option of
all the world. But, after I have censured most severely, as I have ever
done, those giddy girls, who have in the same hour, as I may say, that
they have fled from their chamber, presented themselves at the altar that
is witness to their undutiful rashness; after I have stipulated with Mr.
Lovelace for time, and for an ultimate option whether to accept or refuse
him; and for his leaving me, as soon as I am in a place of safety (which,
as you observe, he must be the judge of); and after he has signified to
me hi compliance with these terms; so that I cannot, if I would, recall
them, and suddenly marry;--you see, my dear, that I have nothing left me
but to resolve not to go away with him!

But, how, on this revocation of my appointment, shall I be able to pacify
him?

How!--Why assert the privilege of my sex!--Surely, on this side of the
solemnity he has no right to be displeased. Besides, did I not reserve a
power of receding, as I saw fit? To what purpose, as I asked in the case
between your mother and you, has any body an option, if the making use of
it shall give the refused a right to be disgusted?

Far, very far, would those, who, according to the old law, have a right
of absolving or confirming a child's promise, be from ratifying mine, had
it been ever so solemn a one.* But this was rather an appointment than a
promise: and suppose it had been the latter; and that I had not reserved
to myself a liberty of revoking it; was it to preclude better or maturer
consideration?--If so, how unfit to be given!--how ungenerous to be
insisted upon!--And how unfitter still to be kept!--Is there a man living
who ought to be angry that a woman whom he hopes one day to call his,
shall refuse to keep a rash promise, when, on the maturest deliberation,
she is convinced that it was a rash one?

* See Numb. XXX. Where it is declared, whose vows shall be binding, and
whose not. The vows of a man, or of a widow, are there pronounced to be
indispensable; because they are sole, and subject to no other domestic
authority. But the vows of a single woman, or of a wife, if the father
of the one, or the husband of the other, disallow of them as soon as they
know them, are to be of no force.

A matter highly necessary to be known; by all young ladies especially,
whose designing addressers too often endeavour to engage them by vows;
and then plead conscience and honour to them to hold them down to the
performance.

It cannot be amiss to recite the very words.

Ver. 3 If a woman vow a vow unto the Lord, and bind herself by a bond,
being in her father's house in her youth;

4. And her father hear her vow, and her bond wherewith she hath bound
her soul, and her father shall hold his peace at her; then all her vows
shall stand, and every bond wherewith she hath bound her soul shall
stand.

5. But if her father disallow her in the day that he heareth; not any of
her vows or of her bonds wherewith she hath bound her soul shall stand:
and the Lord shall forgive her, because her father disallowed her.

The same in the case of a wife, as said above. See ver. 6, 7, 8, &c.--
All is thus solemnly closed:

Ver. 16. These are the statutes which the Lord commanded Moses between a
man and his wife, between the father and his daughter, being yet in her
youth in her father's house.

I resolve then, upon the whole, to stand this one trial of Wednesday
next--or, perhaps, I should rather say, of Tuesday evening, if my father
hold his purpose of endeavouring, in person, to make me read, or hear
read, and then sign, the settlements.--That, that must be the greatest
trial of all.

If I am compelled to sign them over-night--then (the Lord bless me!) must
all I dread follow, as of course, on Wednesday. If I can prevail upon
them by my prayers [perhaps I shall fall into fits; for the very first
appearance of my father, after having been so long banished his presence,
will greatly affect me--if, I say, I can prevail upon them by my prayers]
to lay aside their views; or to suspend the day, if but for one week; but
if not, but for two or three days; still Wednesday will be a lighter day
of trial. They will surely give me time to consider: to argue with
myself. This will not be promising. As I have made no effort to get
away, they have no reason to suspect me; so I may have an opportunity, in
the last resort, to withdraw. Mrs. Norton is to be with me: she,
although she should be chidden for it, will, in my extremity, plead for
me. My aunt Hervey may, in such an extremity, join with her. Perhaps my
mother may be brought over. I will kneel to each, one by one, to make a
friend. Some of them have been afraid to see me, lest they should be
moved in my favour: does not this give a reasonable hope that I may move
them? My brother's counsel, heretofore given, to turn me out of doors to
my evil destiny, may again be repeated, and may prevail; then shall I be
in no worse case than now, as to the displeasure of my friends; and thus
far better, that it will not be my fault that I seek another protection:
which even then ought to be my cousin Morden's, rather than Mr.
Lovelace's, or any other person's.

My heart, in short, misgives me less, when I resolve this way, than when
I think of the other: and in so strong and involuntary a bias, the heart
is, as I may say, conscience. And well cautions the wise man: 'Let the
counsel of thine own heart stand; for there is no man more faithful to
thee than it: for a man's mind is sometimes wont to tell him more than
seven watchmen, that sit above in a high tower.'*

* Ecclus. xxxvii. 13, 14.

Forgive these indigested self-reasonings. I will close here: and
instantly set about a letter of revocation to Mr. Lovelace; take it as he
will. It will only be another trial of temper to him. To me of infinite
importance. And has he not promised temper and acquiescence, on the
supposition of a change in my mind?

LETTER XLVI

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 9.

Nobody it seems will go to church this day. No blessing to be expected
perhaps upon views so worldly, and in some so cruel.

They have a mistrust that I have some device in my head. Betty has been
looking among my clothes. I found her, on coming up from depositing my
letter to Lovelace (for I have written!) peering among them; for I had
left the key in the lock. She coloured, and was confounded to be caught.
But I only said, I should be accustomed to any sort of treatment in time.
If she had her orders--those were enough for her.

She owned, in her confusion, that a motion had been made to abridge me of
my airings; and the report she should make, would be of no disadvantage
to me. One of my friends, she told me, urged in my behalf, That there
was no need of laying me under greater restraint, since Mr. Lovelace's
threatening to rescue me by violence, were I to have been carried to my
uncle's, was a conviction that I had no design to go to him voluntarily;
and that if I had, I should have made preparations of that kind before
now; and, most probably, had been detected in them.--Hence, it was also
inferred, that there was no room to doubt, but I would at last comply.
And, added the bold creature, if you don't intend to do so, your conduct,
Miss, seems strange to me.--Only thus she reconciled it, that I had gone
so far, I knew not how to come off genteelly: and she fancied I should,
in full congregation, on Wednesday, give Mr. Solmes my hand. And then
said the confident wench, as the learned Dr. Brand took his text last
Sunday, There will be joy in heaven--

This is the substance of my letter to Mr. Lovelace:

'That I have reasons of the greatest consequence to myself (and which,
when known, must satisfy him) to suspend, for the present, my intention
of leaving my father's house: that I have hopes that matters may be
brought to an happy conclusion, without taking a step, which nothing but
the last necessity could justify: and that he may depend upon my promise,
that I will die rather than consent to marry Mr. Solmes.'

And so, I am preparing myself to stand the shock of his exclamatory
reply. But be that what it will, it cannot affect me so much, as the
apprehensions of what may happen to me next Tuesday or Wednesday; for now
those apprehensions engage my whole attention, and make me sick at the
very heart.

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