Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9)

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LETTER XIV

MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
SAT. MARCH 25.

I follow my last of this date by command. I mentioned in my former my
mother's opinion of the merit you would have, if you could oblige your
friends against your own inclination. Our conference upon this subject
was introduced by the conversation we had had with Sir Harry Downeton;
and my mother thinks it of so much importance, that she enjoins me to
give you the particulars of it. I the rather comply, as I was unable in
my last to tell what to advise you to; and as you will in this recital
have my mother's opinion at least, and, perhaps, in hers what the world's
would be, were it only to know what she knows, and not so much as I know.

My mother argues upon this case in a most discouraging manner for all
such of our sex as look forward for happiness in marriage with the man of
their choice.

Only, that I know, she has a side-view of her daughter; who, at the same
time that she now prefers no one to another, values not the man her
mother most regards, of one farthing; or I should lay it more to heart.

What is there in it, says she, that all this bustle is about? Is it such
a mighty matter for a young woman to give up her inclinations to oblige
her friends?

Very well, my mamma, thought I! Now, may you ask this--at FORTY, you
may. But what would you have said at EIGHTEEN, is the question?

Either, said she, the lady must be thought to have very violent
inclinations [And what nice young creature would have that supposed?]
which she could not give up; or a very stubborn will, which she would
not; or, thirdly, have parents she was indifferent about obliging.

You know my mother now-and-then argues very notably; always very warmly
at least. I happen often to differ from her; and we both think so well
of our own arguments, that we very seldom are so happy as to convince
one another. A pretty common case, I believe, in all vehement debatings.
She says, I am too witty; Angelice, too pert: I, That she is too wise;
that is to say, being likewise put into English, not so young as she has
been: in short, is grown so much into mother, that she has forgotten she
ever was a daughter. So, generally, we call another cause by consent--
yet fall into the old one half a dozen times over, without consent--
quitting and resuming, with half-angry faces, forced into a smile, that
there might be some room to piece together again: but go a-bed, if
bedtime, a little sullen nevertheless: or, if we speak, her silence is
broken with an Ah! Nancy! You are so lively! so quick! I wish you were
less like your papa, child!

I pay it off with thinking, that my mother has no reason to disclaim her
share in her Nancy: and if the matter go off with greater severity on her
side than I wish for, then her favourite Hickman fares the worse for it
next day.

I know I am a saucy creature. I know, if I do not say so, you will think
so. So no more of this just now. What I mention it for, is to tell you,
that on this serious occasion I will omit, if I can, all that passed
between us, that had an air of flippancy on my part, or quickness on my
mother's, to let you into the cool and cogent of the conversation.

'Look through the families, said she, which we both know, where the man
and the woman have been said to marry for love; which (at the time it is
so called) is perhaps no more than a passion begun in folly or
thoughtlessness, and carried on from a spirit of perverseness and
opposition [here we had a parenthetical debate, which I omit]; and see,
if they appear to be happier than those whose principal inducement to
marry has been convenience, or to oblige their friends; or ever whether
they are generally so happy: for convenience and duty, where observed,
will afford a permanent and even an increasing satisfaction (as well at
the time, as upon the reflection) which seldom fail to reward themselves:
while love, if love be the motive, is an idle passion' [idle in ONE SENSE
my mother cannot say; for love is as busy as a monkey, and as mischievous
as a school-boy]--'it is a fervour, that, like all other fervours, lasts
but a little while after marriage; a bow overstrained, that soon returns
to its natural bent.

'As it is founded generally upon mere notional excellencies, which were
unknown to the persons themselves till attributed to either by the other;
one, two, or three months, usually sets all right on both sides; and then
with opened eyes they think of each other--just as every body else
thought of them before.

'The lovers imaginaries [her own notable word!] are by that time gone
off; nature and old habits (painfully dispensed with or concealed)
return: disguises thrown aside, all the moles, freckles, and defects in
the minds of each discover themselves; and 'tis well if each do not sink
in the opinion of the other, as much below the common standard, as the
blinded imagination of both had set them above it. And now, said she,
the fond pair, who knew no felicity out of each other's company, are so
far from finding the never-ending variety each had proposed in an
unrestrained conversation with the other (when they seldom were together;
and always parted with something to say; or, on recollection, when
parted, wishing they had said); that they are continually on the wing in
pursuit of amusements out of themselves; and those, concluded my sage
mamma, [Did you think her wisdom so very modern?] will perhaps be the
livelier to each, in which the other has no share.'

I told my mother, that if you were to take any rash step, it would be
owing to the indiscreet violence of your friends. I was afraid, I said,
that these reflection upon the conduct of people in the married state,
who might set out with better hopes, were but too well grounded: but that
this must be allowed me, that if children weighed not these matters so
thoroughly as they ought, neither did parents make those allowances for
youth, inclination, and inexperience, which had been found necessary to
be made for themselves at their children's time of life.

I remembered a letter, I told her, hereupon, which you wrote a few months
ago, personating an anonymous elderly lady (in Mr. Wyerley's day of
plaguing you) to Miss Drayton's mother, who, by her severity and
restraints, had like to have driven the young lady into the very fault
against which her mother was most solicitous to guard her. And I dared
to say, she would be pleased with it.

I fetched the first draught of it, which at my request you obliged me at
the time; and read the whole letter to my mother. But the following
passage she made me read twice. I think you once told me you had not a
copy of this letter.

'Permit me, Madam, [says the personated grave writer,] to observe, That
if persons of your experience would have young people look forward, in
order to be wiser and better by their advice, it would be kind in them to
look backward, and allow for their children's youth, and natural
vivacity; in other words, for their lively hopes, unabated by time,
unaccompanied by reflection, and unchecked by disappointment. Things
appear to us all in a very different light at our entrance upon a
favourite party, or tour; when, with golden prospects, and high
expectations, we rise vigorous and fresh like the sun beginning its
morning course; from what they do, when we sit down at the end of our
views, tired, and preparing for our journey homeward: for then we take
into our reflection, what we had left out in prospect, the fatigues, the
checks, the hazards, we had met with; and make a true estimate of
pleasures, which from our raised expectations must necessarily have
fallen miserably short of what we had promised ourselves at setting out.
Nothing but experience can give us a strong and efficacious conviction of
this difference: and when we would inculcate the fruits of that upon the
minds of those we love, who have not lived long enough to find those
fruits; and would hope, that our advice should have as much force upon
them, as experience has upon us; and which, perhaps, our parents' advice
had not upon ourselves, at our daughter' time of life; should we not
proceed by patient reasoning and gentleness, that we may not harden,
where we would convince? For, Madam, the tenderest and most generous
minds, when harshly treated, become generally the most inflexible. If
the young lady knows her heart to be right, however defective her head
may be for want of age and experience, she will be apt to be very
tenacious. And if she believes her friends to be wrong, although perhaps
they may be only so in their methods of treating her, how much will every
unkind circumstance on the parent's part, or heedless one on the child's,
though ever so slight in itself, widen the difference! The parent's
prejudice in disfavour, will confirm the daughter's in favour, of the
same person; and the best reasonings in the world on either side, will be
attributed to that prejudice. In short, neither of them will be
convinced: a perpetual opposition ensues: the parent grows impatient; the
child desperate: and, as a too natural consequence, that falls out which
the mother was most afraid of, and which possibly had not happened, if
the child's passions had been only led, not driven.'

My mother was pleased with the whole letter; and said, It deserved to
have the success it met with. But asked me what excuse could be offered
for a young lady capable of making such reflections (and who at her time
of life could so well assume the character of one of riper years) if she
should rush into any fatal mistake herself?

She then touched upon the moral character of Mr. Lovelace; and how
reasonable the aversion of your reflections is to a man who gives himself
the liberties he is said to take; and who indeed himself denies not the
accusation; having been heard to declare, that he will do all the
mischief he can to the sex, in revenge for the ill usage and broken vows
of his first love, at a time when he was too young [his own expression
it seems] to be insincere.

I replied, that I had heard every one say, that the lady meant really
used him ill; that it affected him so much at the time, that he was
forced to travel upon it; and to drive her out of his heart, ran into
courses which he had ingenuousness enough himself to condemn: that,
however, he had denied that he had thrown out such menaces against the
sex when charged with them by me in your presence; and declared himself
incapable of so unjust and ungenerous a resentment against all, for the
perfidy of one.

You remember this, my dear, as I do your innocent observation upon it,
that you could believe his solemn asseveration and denial: 'For surely,
said you, the man who would resent, as the highest indignity that could
be offered to a gentleman, the imputation of a wilful falsehood, would
not be guilty of one.'

I insisted upon the extraordinary circumstances in your case;
particularizing them. I took notice, that Mr. Lovelace's morals were at
one time no objection with your relations for Arabella: that then much
was built upon his family, and more upon his part and learning, which
made it out of doubt, that he might be reclaimed by a woman of virtue and
prudence: and [pray forgive me for mentioning it] I ventured to add, that
although your family might be good sort of folks, as the world went, yet
no body but you imputed to any of them a very punctilious concern for
religion or piety--therefore were they the less entitled to object to
defect of that kind in others. Then, what an odious man, said I, have
they picked out, to supplant in a lady's affections one of the finest
figures of a man, and one noted for his brilliant parts, and other
accomplishments, whatever his morals may be!

Still my mother insisted, that there was the greater merit in your
obedience on that account; and urged, that there hardly ever was a very
handsome and a very sprightly man who made a tender and affectionate
husband: for that they were generally such Narcissus's, as to imagine
every woman ought to think as highly of them, as they did of themselves.

There was no danger from that consideration here, I said, because the
lady still had greater advantages of person and mind, than the man;
graceful and elegant, as he must be allowed to be, beyond most of his
sex.

She cannot endure to hear me praise any man but her favourite Hickman;
upon whom, nevertheless, she generally brings a degree of contempt which
he would escape, did she not lessen the little merit he has, by giving
him, on all occasions, more than I think he can deserve, and entering him
into comparisons in which it is impossible but he must be a sufferer.
And now [preposterous partiality!] she thought for her part, that Mr.
Hickman, bating that his face indeed was not so smooth, nor his
complexion quite so good, and saving that he was not so presuming and so
bold (which ought to be no fault with a modest woman) equaled Mr.
Lovelace at any hour of the day.

To avoid entering further into such an incomparable comparison, I said,
I did not believe, had they left you to your own way, and treated you
generously, that you would have had the thought of encouraging any man
whom they disliked--

Then, Nancy, catching me up, the excuse is less--for if so, must there
not be more of contradiction, than love, in the case?

Not so, neither, Madam: for I know Miss Clarissa Harlowe would prefer Mr.
Lovelace to all men, if morals--

IF, Nancy!--That if is every thing.--Do you really think she loves Mr.
Lovelace?

What would you have had me say, my dear?--I won't tell you what I did
say: But had I not said what I did, who would have believed me?

Besides, I know you love him!--Excuse me, my dear: Yet, if you deny it,
what do you but reflect upon yourself, as if you thought you ought not to
allow yourself in what you cannot help doing?

Indeed, Madam, said I, the man is worthy of any woman's love [if, again,
I could say]--But her parents--

Her parents, Nancy--[You know, my dear, how my mother, who accuses her
daughter of quickness, is evermore interrupting one!]

May take wrong measures, said I--

Cannot do wrong--they have reason, I'll warrant, said she--

By which they may provoke a young woman, said I, to do rash things, which
otherwise she would not do.

But, if it be a rash thing, [returned she,] should she do it? A prudent
daughter will not wilfully err, because her parents err, if they were to
err: if she do, the world which blames the parents, will not acquit the
child. All that can be said, in extenuation of a daughter's error in
this case, arises from a kind consideration, which Miss Clary's letter to
Lady Drayton pleads for, to be paid to her daughter's youth and
inexperience. And will such an admirable young person as Miss Clarissa
Harlowe, whose prudence, as we see, qualifies her to be an advisor of
persons much older than herself, take shelter under so poor a covert?

Let her know, Nancy, out of hand, what I say; and I charge you to
represent farther to her, That let he dislike one man and approve of
another ever so much, it will be expected of a young lady of her
unbounded generosity and greatness of mind, that she should deny herself
when she can oblige all her family by so doing--no less than ten or a
dozen perhaps the nearest and dearest to her of all the persons in the
world, an indulgent father and mother at the head of them. It may be
fancy only on her side; but parents look deeper: And will not Miss
Clarissa Harlowe give up her fancy to her parents' judgment?

I said a great deal upon this judgment subject: all that you could wish I
should say; and all that your extraordinary case allowed me to say. And
my mother was so sensible of the force of it, that she charged me not to
write to you any part of my answer to what she said; but only what she
herself had advanced; lest, in so critical a case, it should induce you
to take measures which might give us both reason (me for giving it, you
for following it) to repent it as long as we lived.

And thus, my dear, have I set my mother's arguments before you. And the
rather, as I cannot myself tell what to advise you to do--you know best
your own heart; and what that will let you do.

Robin undertakes to deposit this very early, that you may have an
opportunity to receive it by your first morning airing.

Heaven guide and direct you for the best, is the incessant prayer of

Your ever affectionate
ANNA HOWE.

LETTER XV

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
SUNDAY AFTERNOON

I am in great apprehension. Yet cannot help repeating my humble thanks
to your mother and you for your last favour. I hope her kind end is
answered by the contents of my last. Yet I must not think it enough to
acknowledge her goodness to me, with a pencil only, on the cover of a
letter sealed up. A few lines give me leave to write with regard to my
anonymous letter to Lady Drayton. If I did not at that time tell you, as
I believe I did, that my excellent Mrs. Norton gave me her assistance in
that letter, I now acknowledge that she did.

Pray let your mother know this, for two reasons: one, that I may not be
thought to arrogate to myself a discretion which does not belong to me;
the other, that I may not suffer by the severe, but just inference she
was pleased to draw; doubling my faults upon me, if I myself should act
unworthy of the advice I was supposed to give.

Before I come to what most nearly affects us all, I must chide you once
more, for the severe, the very severe things you mention of our family,
to the disparagement of their MORALS. Indeed, my dear, I wonder at you!
--A slighter occasion might have passed me, after I had written to you so
often to so little purpose, on this topic. But, affecting as my own
circumstances are, I cannot pass by, without animadversion, the
reflection I need not repeat in words.

There is not a worthier woman in England than my mother. Nor is my
father that man you sometimes make him. Excepting in one point, I know
not any family which lives more up to their duty, than the principals of
ours. A little too uncommunicative for their great circumstances--that
is all.--Why, then, have they not reason to insist upon unexceptionable
morals in a man whose sought-for relationship to them, by a marriage in
their family, they have certainly a right either to allow of, or to
disallow.

Another line or two, before I am engrossed by my own concerns--upon your
treatment of Mr. Hickman. Is it, do you think, generous to revenge upon
an innocent person, the displeasure you receive from another quarter,
where, I doubt, you are a trespasser too?--But one thing I could tell
him; and you have best not provoke me to it: It is this, That no woman
uses ill the man she does not absolutely reject, but she has it in her
heart to make him amends, when her tyranny has had its run, and he has
completed the measure of his services and patience. My mind is not
enough at ease to push this matter further.

I will now give you the occasion of my present apprehensions.

I had reason to fear, as I mentioned in mine of this morning, that a
storm was brewing. Mr. Solmes came home from church this afternoon with
my brother. Soon after, Betty brought me up a letter, without saying
from whom. It was in a cover, and directed by a hand I never saw before;
as if it were supposed that I would not receive and open it, had I known
from whom it came.

These are the contents:

***

TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
SUNDAY, MARCH 26.

DEAREST MADAM,

I think myself a most unhappy man, in that I have never yet been able to
pay my respects to you with youre consent, for one halfe-hour. I have
something to communicat to you that concernes you much, if you be pleased
to admit me to youre speech. Youre honour is concerned in it, and the
honour of all youre familly. It relates to the designes of one whom you
are sed to valew more than he desarves; and to some of his reprobat
actions; which I am reddie to give you convincing proofes of the truth
of. I may appear to be interested in it: but, neverthelesse, I am reddie
to make oathe, that every tittle is true: and you will see what a man you
are sed to favour. But I hope not so, for your owne honour.

Pray, Madam, vouchsafe me a hearing, as you valew your honour and
familly: which will oblidge, dearest Miss,

Your most humble and most faithful servant,
ROGER SOLMES.

I wait below for the hope of admittance.

***

I have no manner of doubt, that this is a poor device to get this man
into my company. I would have sent down a verbal answer; but Betty
refused to carry any message, which should prohibit his visiting me. So
I was obliged either to see him, or to write to him. I wrote therefore
an answer, of which I shall send you the rough draught. And now my heart
aches for what may follow from it; for I hear a great hurry below.

***

TO ROGER SOLMES, ESQ.

SIR,

Whatever you have to communicate to me, which concerns my honour, may as
well be done by writing as by word of mouth. If Mr. Lovelace is any of
my concern, I know not that therefore he ought to be yours: for the usage
I receive on your account [I must think it so!] is so harsh, that were
there not such a man in the world as Mr. Lovelace, I would not wish to
see Mr. Solmes, no, not for one half-hour, in the way he is pleased to be
desirous to see me. I never can be in any danger from Mr. Lovelace,
(and, of consequence, cannot be affected by any of your discoveries,) if
the proposal I made be accepted. You have been acquainted with it no
doubt. If not, be pleased to let my friends know, that if they will rid
me of my apprehensions of one gentleman, I will rid them of their of
another: And then, of what consequence to them, or to me, will it be,
whether Mr. Lovelace be a good man, or a bad? And if not to them, nor to
me, I see not how it can be of any to you. But if you do, I have nothing
to say to that; and it will be a christian part if you will expostulate
with him upon the errors you have discovered, and endeavour to make him
as good a man, as, no doubt, you are yourself, or you would not be so
ready to detect and expose him.

Excuse me, Sir: but, after my former letter to you, and your ungenerous
perseverance; and after this attempt to avail yourself at the expense of
another man's character, rather than by your own proper merit; I see not
that you can blame any asperity in her, whom you have so largely
contributed to make unhappy.

CL. HARLOWE.

***

SUNDAY NIGHT.

My father was for coming up to me, in great wrath, it seems; but was
persuaded to the contrary. My aunt Hervey was permitted to send me this
that follow.--Quick work, my dear!

TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

NIECE,

Every body is now convinced, that nothing is to be done with you by way
of gentleness or persuasion. Your mother will not permit you to stay in
the house; for your father is so incensed by your strange letter to his
friend, that she knows not what will be the consequence if you do. So,
you are commanded to get ready to go to your uncle Antony's out of hand.

Your uncle thinks he has not deserved of you such an unwillingness as you
shew to go to his house.

You don't know the wickedness of the man for whose sake you think it
worth while to quarrel with all your friends.

You must not answer me. There will be no end of that.

You know not the affliction you give to every body; but to none more than
to

Your affectionate aunt,
DOROTHY HERVEY.

***

Forbid to write to my aunt, I took a bolder liberty. I wrote a few lines
to my mother; beseeching her to procure me leave to throw myself at my
father's feet, and hers, if I must go, (nobody else present,) to beg
pardon for the trouble I had given them both, and their blessings; and to
receive their commands as to my removal, and the time for it, from their
own lips.

'What new boldness this!--Take it back; and bid her learn to obey,' was
my mother's angry answer, with my letter returned, unopened.

But that I might omit nothing, that had an appearance of duty, I wrote a
few lines to my father himself, to the same purpose; begging, that he
would not turn me out of his house, without his blessing. But this, torn
in two pieces, and unopened, was brought me up again by Betty, with an
air, one hand held up, the other extended, the torn letter in her open
palm; and a See here!--What a sad thing is this!--Nothing will do but
duty, Miss!--Your papa said, Let her tell me of deeds!--I'll receive no
words from her. And so he tore the letter, and flung the pieces at my
head.

So desperate was my case, I was resolved not to stop even at this
repulse. I took my pen, and addressed myself to my uncle Harlowe,
enclosing that which my mother had returned unopened, and the torn
unopened one sent to my father; having first hurried off a transcript for
you.

My uncle was going home, and it was delivered to him just as he stepped
into his chariot. What may be the fate of it therefore I cannot know
till to-morrow.

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