Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9)

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Produced by Julie C. Sparks.

The Writings Of Samuel Richardson V 7 Julie Sparks 07/10/03 ok

CLARISSA HARLOWE

or the

HISTORY OF A YOUNG LADY

Nine Volumes
Volume III.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME III

LETTER I. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
Is astonished, confounded, aghast. Repeats her advice to marry Lovelace.

LETTER II. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
Gives a particular account of her meeting Lovelace; of her vehement
contention with him; and, at last, of her being terrified out of her
predetermined resolution, and tricked away. Her grief and compunction of
heart upon it. Lays all to the fault of corresponding with him at first
against paternal prohibition. Is incensed against him for his artful
dealings with her, and for his selfish love.

LETTER III. Mr. Lovelace to Joseph Leman.--
A letter which lays open the whole of his contrivance to get off
Clarissa.

LETTER IV. Joseph Leman. In answer.

LETTER V. Lovelace to Belford.--
In ecstasy on the success of his contrivances. Well as he loves
Clarissa, he would show her no mercy, if he thought she preferred any man
living to him. Will religiously observe the INJUNCTIONS she laid upon
him previous to their meeting.

LETTER VI. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
A recriminating conversation between her and Lovelace. He reminds her of
her injunctions; and, instead of beseeching her to dispense with them,
promises a sacred regard to them. It is not, therefore, in her power, she
tells Miss Howe, to take her advice as to speedy marriage. [A note on
the place, justifying her conduct.] Is attended by Mrs. Greme, Lord M.'s
housekeeper at The Lawn, who waits on her to her sister Sorlings, with
whom she consents to lodge. His looks offend her. Has written to her
sister for her clothes.

LETTER VII. Lovelace to Belford.--
Gives briefly the particulars of his success. Describes her person and
dress on her first meeting him. Extravagant exultation. Makes Belford
question him on the honour of his designs by her: and answers doubtfully.

LETTER VIII. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
Her sentiments on her narrative. Her mother, at the instigation of
Antony Harlowe, forbids their correspondence. Mr. Hickman's zeal to
serve them in it. What her family now pretend, if she had not left them.
How they took her supposed projected flight. Offers her money and
clothes. Would have her seem to place some little confidence in
Lovelace. Her brother and sister will not permit her father and uncles
to cool.

LETTR IX. X. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
Advises her to obey her mother, who prohibits their correspondence.
Declines to accept her offers of money: and why. Mr. Lovelace not a
polite man. She will be as ready to place a confidence in him, as he
will be to deserve it. Yet tricked away by him as she was, cannot
immediately treat him with great complaisance. Blames her for her
liveliness to her mother. Encloses the copy of her letter to her sister.

LETTER XI. Lovelace to Belford.--
Prides himself in his arts in the conversations between them. Is alarmed
at the superiority of her talents. Considers opposition and resistance
as a challenge to do his worst. His artful proceedings with Joseph
Leman.

LETTER XII. From the same.--
Men need only be known to be rakes, he says, to recommend themselves to
the favour of the sex. Wishes Miss Howe were not so well acquainted with
Clarissa: and why.

LETTER XIII. From the same.--
Intends to set old Antony at Mrs. Howe, to prevent the correspondence
between the two young ladies. Girl, not gold, his predominant passion.
Rallies Belford on his person and appearance. Takes humourous notice of
the two daughters of the widow Sorlings.

LETTER XIV. From the same.--
Farther triumphs over the Harlowes. Similitude of the spider and fly. Is
for having separate churches as well as separate boarding-schools for the
sexes. The women ought to love him, he says: and why. Prides himself that
they do.

LETTER XV. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
Particulars of an angry conference with Lovelace. Seeing her sincerely
displeased, he begs the ceremony may immediately pass. He construes her
bashful silence into anger, and vows a sacred regard to her injunctions.

LETTER XVI. XVII. XVIII. Lovelace to Belford.--
The pleasure of a difficult chace. Triumphs in the distress and
perplexity he gave her by his artful and parading offer of marriage. His
reasons for and against doing her justice. Resolves to try her to the
utmost. The honour of the whole sex concerned in the issue of her trial.
Matrimony, he sees, is in his power, now she is.

LETTER XIX. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
Will not obey her mother in her prohibition of their correspondence: and
why. Is charmed with her spirit.

LETTER XX. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
Knows not what she can do with Lovelace. He may thank himself for the
trouble he has had on her account. Did she ever, she asks, make him any
promises? Did she ever receive him as a lover?

LETTER XXI. XXII. From the same.--
She calls upon Lovelace to give her a faithful account of the noise and
voices she heard at the garden-door, which frightened her away with him.
His confession, and daring hints in relation to Solmes, and her brother,
and Betty Barnes. She is terrified.

LETTER XXIII. Lovelace to Belford.--
Rejoices in the stupidity of the Harlowes. Exults in his capacity for
mischief. The condescensions to which he intends to bring the lady.
Libertine observations to the disadvantage of women; which may serve as
cautions to the sex.

LETTER XXIV. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
A conversation with Mr. Lovelace wholly agreeable. His promises of
reformation. She remembers, to his advantage, his generosity to his
Rosebud and his tenants. Writes to her aunt Hervey.

LETTER XXV. XXVI. Lovelace to Belford.--
His acknowledged vanity. Accounts for his plausible behaviour, and
specious promises and proposals. Apprehensive of the correspondence
between Miss Howe and Clarissa. Loves to plague him with out-of-the-
way words and phrases.

LETTER XXVII. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
How to judge of Lovelace's suspicious proposals and promises. Hickman
devoted to their service. Yet she treats him with ridicule.

LETTER XXVIII. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
Lovelace complains, she hears, to Mrs. Greme, of her adhering to her
injunctions. What means he by it, she asks, yet forego such
opportunities as he had? She is punished for her vanity in hoping to be
an example. Blames Miss Howe for her behaviour to Hickman.

LETTER XXIX. From the same.--
Warm dialogues with Lovelace. She is displeased with him for his
affectedly-bashful hints of matrimony. Mutual recriminations. He looks
upon her as his, she says, by a strange sort of obligation, for having
run away with her against her will. Yet but touches on the edges of
matrimony neither. She is sick of herself.

LETTER XXX. From the same.--
Mr. Lovelace a perfect Proteus. He now applauds her for that treatment
of him which before he had resented; and communicates to her two letters,
one from Lady Betty Lawrance, the other from Miss Montague. She wonders
he did not produce those letters before, as he must know they would be
highly acceptable to her.

LETTER XXXI. XXXII. XXXIII. XXXIV. From the same.--
The contents of the letters from Lady Betty and Miss Montague put
Clarissa in good humour with Mr. Lovelace. He hints at marriage; but
pretends to be afraid of pursuing the hint. She is earnest with him to
leave her: and why. He applauds her reasonings. Her serious questions,
and his ludicrous answer.--He makes different proposals.--He offers to
bring Mrs. Norton to her. She is ready to blame herself for her doubts
of him: but gives reasons for her caution.--He writes by her consent to
his friend Doleman, to procure lodgings for her in town.

LETTER XXXV. Lovelace to Belford.--
Glories in his contrivances. Gives an advantageous description of
Clarissa's behaviour. Exults on her mentioning London. None but
impudent girls, he says, should run away with a man. His farther views,
plots, and designs.

LETTER XXXVI. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
Humourously touches on her reproofs in relation to Hickman. Observations
on smooth love. Lord M.'s family greatly admire her. Approves of her
spirited treatment of Lovelace, and of her going to London. Hints at the
narrowness of her own mother. Advises her to keep fair with Lovelace.

LETTER XXXVII. XXXVIII. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
Wonders not that her brother has weight to make her father
irreconcilable.--Copy of Mr. Doleman's answer about London lodgings. Her
caution in her choice of them. Lovelace has given her five guineas for
Hannah. Other instances of his considerateness. Not displeased with her
present prospects.

LETTER XXXIX. Lovelace to Belford.--
Explains what is meant by Doleman's answer about the lodgings. Makes
Belford object to his scheme, that he may answer the objections. Exults.
Swells. Despises every body. Importance of the minutiae. More of his
arts, views, and contrivances.

LETTER XL. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
Acquaints her with a scheme formed by her brother and captain Singleton,
to carry her off. Hickman's silent charities. She despises all his sex,
as well as him. Ill terms on which her own father and mother lived.
Extols Clarissa for her domestic good qualities. Particulars of a great
contest with her mother, on their correspondence. Has been slapt by her.
Observations on managing wives.

LETTER XLI. XLII. XLIII. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
A strong remonstrance on her behaviour to her mother; in which she lays
down the duty of children. Accuses her of want of generosity to Hickman.
Farther excuses herself on declining to accept of her money offers.
Proposes a condition on which Mrs. Howe may see all they write.

LETTER XLIV. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
Her mother rejects the proposed condition. Miss Howe takes thankfully
her reprehensions: but will continue the correspondence. Some excuses
for herself. Humourous story of game-chickens.

LETTER XLV. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
Lovelace communicates her brother's and Singleton's project; but treats
it with seeming contempt. She asks his advice what to do upon it. This
brings on an offer of marriage from him. How it went off.

LETTER XLVI. Lovelace to Belford.--
He confesses his artful intentions in the offer of marriage: yet had
like, he says, to have been caught in his own snares.

LETTER XLVII. Joseph Leman to Mr. Lovelace.--
With intelligence of a design formed against him by the Harlowes.
Joseph's vile hypocrisy and selfishness.

LETTER XLVIII. Lovelace. In answer.--
Story of Miss Betterton. Boast of his treatment of his mistresses. The
artful use he makes of Joseph's intelligence.

LETTER XLIX. Clarissa to her aunt Hervey.--
Complains of her silence. Hints at her not having designed to go away
with Lovelace. She will open her whole heart to her, if she encourage
her to do so, by the hopes of a reconciliation.

LETTER L. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
Observations on Lovelace's meanness, pride, and revenge. Politeness not
to be expected from him. She raves at him for the artful manner in which
he urges Clarissa to marry him. Advises her how to act in her present
situation.

LETTER LI. Belford to Lovelace.--
Becomes a warm advocate for the lady. Gives many instructive reasons to
enforce his arguments in her favour.

LETTER LII. Mrs. Hervey to Clarissa.--
A severe and cruel letter in answer to her's, Letter XLIX. It was not
designed, she says, absolutely to force her to marry to her dislike.

LETTER LIII. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
Her deep regret on this intelligence, for having met Lovelace. The finer
sensibilities make not happy. Her fate too visibly in her power. He is
unpolite, cruel, insolent, unwise, a trifler in his own happiness. Her
reasons why she less likes him than ever. Her soul his soul's superior.
Her fortitude. Her prayer.

LETTER LIV. LV. From the same.--
Now indeed is her heart broken, she says. A solemn curse laid upon her
by her father. Her sister's barbarous letters on the occasion.

LETTER LVI. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
A letter full of generous consolation and advice. Her friendly vow.
Sends her fifty guineas in the leaves of a Norris's miscellanies.

LETTER LVII. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
A faithful friend the medicine of life. She is just setting out for
London. Lovelace has offered marriage to her in so unreserved a manner,
that she wishes she had never written with diffidence of him. Is sorry
it was not in her power to comply with his earnest solicitations.
Returns her Norris: and why.

LETTER LVIII. LIX. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
Sorry she has returned her Norris. Wishes she had accepted of Lovelace's
unreserved offer of marriage. Believes herself to have a sneaking
kindness for Hickman: and why. She blames Mrs. Harlowe: and why.

In answer to Letter VIII.
Clarissa states the difference in the characters of Mr. Lovelace and Mr.
Hickman; and tells her, that her motives for suspending marriage were not
merely ceremonious ones. Regrets Mrs. Howe's forbidding the
correspondence between them. Her dutiful apology for her own mother.
Lesson to children.

LETTER LX. Lovelace to Belford.--
Thinks he shall be inevitably manacled at last. The lady's extreme
illness. Her filial piety gives her dreadful faith in a father's curses.
She lets not Miss Howe know how very ill she was. His vows of marriage
bring her back to life. Absolutely in earnest in those vows. [The only
time he was so.] He can now talk of love and marriage without check.
Descants upon Belford's letter, No. LI.

LETTER LXI. From the same.--
Is setting out for London. A struggle with his heart. Owns it to be a
villain of a heart. A fit of strong, but transitory remorse. If he do
marry, he doubts he shall have a vapourish wife. Thinks it would be
better for both not to marry. His libertine reasons. Lessons to the
sex.

LETTER LXII. From the same.--
They arrive at Mrs. Sinclair's. Sally Martin and Polly Horton set upon
him. He wavers in his good purposes. Dorcas Wykes proposed, and
reluctantly accepted for a servant, till Hannah can come. Dorcas's
character. He has two great points to carry. What they are.

THE HISTORY

OF

CLARISSA HARLOWE

LETTER I

MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
TUESDAY, NINE O'CLOCK.

I write, because you enjoin me to do so. Love you still!--How can I help
it, if I would? You may believe how I stand aghast, your letter
communicating the first news--Good God of Heaven and Earth!--But what
shall I say?--I am all impatient for particulars.

Lord have mercy upon me!--But can it be?

My mother will indeed be astonished!--How can I tell it her!--It was but
last night (upon some jealousies put into her head by your foolish uncle)
that I assured her, and this upon the strength of your own assurances,
that neither man nor devil would be able to induce you to take a step
that was in the least derogatory to the most punctilious honour.

But, once more, can it be? What woman at this rate!--But, God preserve
you!

Let nothing escape you in your letters. Direct them for me, however, to
Mrs. Knolly's, till further notice.

***

Observe, my dear, that I don't blame you by all this--Your relations only
are in fault!--Yet how you came to change your mind is the surprising
thing.

How to break it to my mother, I know not. Yet if she hear it first from
any other, and find I knew it before, she will believe it to be my
connivance!--Yet, as I hope to live, I know not how to break it to her.

But this is teasing you.--I am sure, without intention.

Let me now repeat my former advice--If you are not married by this time,
be sure delay not the ceremony. Since things are as they are, I wish it
were thought that you were privately married before you went away. If
these men plead AUTHORITY to our pain, when we are theirs--Why should we
not, in such a case as this, make some good out of the hated word, for
our reputation, when we are induced to violate a more natural one?

Your brother and sister [that vexes me almost as much as any thing!] have
now their ends. Now, I suppose, will go forward alterations of wills, and
such-like spiteful doings.

***

Miss Lloyd and Miss Biddulph this moment send up their names. They are
out of breath, Kitty says, to speak to me--easy to guess their errand;--
I must see my mother, before I see them. I have no way but to shew her
your letter to clear myself. I shall not be able to say a word, till she
has run herself out of her first breath.--Forgive me, my dear--surprise
makes me write thus. If your messenger did not wait, and were not those
young ladies below, I could write it over again, for fear of afflicting
you.

I send what you write for. If there be any thing else you want that is
in my power, command without reserve

Your ever affectionate
ANNA HOWE.

LETTER II.

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE.
TUESDAY NIGHT.

I think myself obliged to thank you, my dear Miss Howe, for your
condescension, in taking notice of a creature who has occasioned you so
much scandal.

I am grieved on this account, as much, I verily think, as for the evil
itself.

Tell me--but yet I am afraid to know--what your mother said.

I long, and yet I dread, to be told, what the young ladies my companions,
now never more perhaps to be so, say of me.

They cannot, however, say worse of me than I will of myself. Self
accusation shall flow in every line of my narrative where I think I am
justly censurable. If any thing can arise from the account I am going to
give you, for extenuation of my fault (for that is all a person can hope
for, who cannot excuse herself) I know I may expect it from your
friendship, though not from the charity of any other: since by this time
I doubt not every mouth is opened against me; and all that know Clarissa
Harlowe condemn the fugitive daughter.

After I had deposited my letter to you, written down to the last hour, as
I may say, I returned to the ivy summer-house; first taking back my
letter from the loose bricks: and there I endeavoured, as coolly as my
situation would permit, to recollect and lay together several incidents
that had passed between my aunt and me; and, comparing them with some of
the contents of my cousin Dolly's letter, I began to hope, that I needed
not to be so very apprehensive as I have been next Wednesday. And thus I
argued with myself.

'Wednesday cannot possibly be the day they intend, although to intimidate
me they may wish me to think it is: for the settlements are unsigned: nor
have they been offered me to sign. I can choose whether I will or will
not put my hand to them; hard as it will be to refuse if my father and
mother propose, if I made compulsion necessary, to go to my uncle's
themselves in order to be out of the way of my appeals? Whereas they
intend to be present on Wednesday. And, however affecting to me the
thought of meeting them and all my friends in full assembly is, perhaps
it is the very thing I ought to wish for: since my brother and sister had
such an opinion of my interest in them, that they got me excluded from
their presence, as a measure which they thought previously necessary to
carry on their designs.

'Nor have I reason to doubt, but that (as I had before argued with
myself) I shall be able to bring over some of my relations to my party;
and, being brought face to face with my brother, that I shall expose his
malevolence, and of consequence weaken his power.

'Then supposing the very worst, challenging the minister as I shall
challenge him, he will not presume to proceed: nor surely will Mr. Solmes
dare to accept my refusing and struggling hand. And finally, if nothing
else will do, nor procure me delay, I can plead scruples of conscience,
and even pretend prior obligation; for, my dear, I have give Mr. Lovelace
room to hope (as you will see in one of my letters in your hands) that I
will be no other man's while he is single, and gives me not wilful and
premeditated cause of offence against him; and this in order to rein-in
his resentment on the declared animosity of my brother and uncles to him.
And as I shall appeal, or refer my scruples on this head, to the good Dr.
Lewen, it is impossible but that my mother and aunt (if nobody else) must
be affected with this plea.'

Revolving cursorily these things, I congratulated myself, that I had
resolved against going away with Mr. Lovelace.

I told you, my dear, that I would not spare myself: and I enumerate these
particulars as so many arguments to condemn the actions I have been so
unhappily betrayed into. An argument that concludes against me with the
greater force, as I must acknowledge, that I was apprehensive, that what
my cousin Dolly mentions as from Betty, and from my sister who told her,
that she should tell me, in order to make me desperate, and perhaps to
push me upon some such step as I have been driven to take, as the most
effectual means to ruin me with my father and uncles.

God forgive me, if I judge too harshly of their views!--But if I do not,
it follows, that they laid a wicked snare for me; and that I have been
caught in it.--And now they triumph, if they can triumph, in the ruin of
a sister, who never wished or intended to hurt them!

As the above kind of reasoning had lessened my apprehensions as to the
Wednesday, it added to those I had of meeting Mr. Lovelace--now, as it
seemed, not only the nearest, but the heaviest evil; principally indeed
because nearest; for little did I dream (foolish creature that I was, and
every way beset!) of the event proving what it has proved. I expected a
contention with him, 'tis true, as he had not my letter: but I thought it
would be very strange, as I mentioned in one of my former,* if I, who had
so steadily held out against characters so venerable, against authorities
so sacred, as I may say, when I thought them unreasonably exerted, should
not find myself more equal to such a trial as this; especially as I had
so much reason to be displeased with him for not having taken away my
letter.

On what a point of time may one's worldly happiness depend! Had I but
two hours more to consider of the matter, and to attend to and improve
upon these new lights, as I may call them--but even then, perhaps, I
might have given him a meeting.--Fool that I was! what had I to do to
give him hope that I would personally acquaint him with the reason for my
change of mind, if I did change it?

O my dear! an obliging temper is a very dangerous temper!--By
endeavouring to gratify others, it is evermore disobliging itself!

When the bell rang to call the servants to dinner, Betty came to me and
asked, if I had any commands before she went to hers; repeating her hint,
that she should be employed; adding, that she believed it was expected
that I should not come up till she came down, or till I saw my aunt or
Miss Hervey.

I asked her some questions about the cascade, which had been out of
order, and lately mended; and expressed a curiosity to see how it played,
in order to induce her [how cunning to cheat myself, as it proved!] to go
thither, if she found me not where she left me; it being a part of the
garden most distant from the ivy summer-house.

She could hardly have got into the house when I heard the first signal--O
how my heart fluttered!--but no time was to be lost. I stept to the
garden-door; and seeing a clear coast, unbolted the already-unlocked door
--and there was he, all impatience, waiting for me.

A panic next to fainting seized me when I saw him. My heart seemed
convulsed; and I trembled so, that I should hardly have kept my feet, had
he not supported me.

Fear nothing, dearest creature, said he--let us hasten away--the chariot
is at hand--and, by this sweet condescension, you have obliged me beyond
expression or return.

Recovering my spirits a little, as he kept drawing me after him, O Mr.
Lovelace, said I, I cannot go with you--indeed I cannot--I wrote you word
so--let go my hand, and you shall see my letter. It is lain there from
yesterday morning, till within this half-hour. I bid you watch to the
last for a letter from me, lest I should be obliged to revoke the
appointment; and, had you followed the direction, you would have found
it.

I have been watched, my dearest life, said he, half out of breath--I have
been watched in every step I took: and my trusty servant has been watched
too, ever since Saturday; and dared not to come near your wall. And here
we shall be discovered in a moment.--Speed away, my charmer--this is the
moment of your deliverance--if you neglect this opportunity, you can
never have such another.

What is it you mean, Sir?--Let go my hand: for I tell you [struggling
vehemently] that I will sooner die than go with you.

Good God! said he, with a look of wildness and surprise, what is it I
hear?--But [still drawing me after him, as he retreated farther from
the door] it is no time to argue--by all that's good you must go--surely
you cannot doubt my honour, nor give me cause to question your own.

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