LETTER XL
MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19.
I have a piece of intelligence to give you, which concerns you much to know.
Your brother having been assured that you are not married, has taken a resolution to find you out, waylay you, and carry you off. A friend of his, a captain of a ship, undertakes to get you on ship-board, and to sail away with you, either to Hull or Leith, in the way to one of your brother's houses.
They are very wicked: for in spite of your virtue they conclude you to be ruined. But if they can be assured when they have you that you are not, they will secure you till they can bring you out Mrs. Solmes. Mean time, in order to give Mr. Lovelace full employment, they talk of a prosecution which will be set up against him, for some crime they have got a notion of, which they think, if it do not cost him his life, will make him fly his country.
This is very early news. Miss Bell told it in confidence, and with mighty triumph over Lovelace, to Miss Lloyd, who is at present her favourite, though as much you admirer as ever. Miss Lloyd, being very apprehensive of the mischief which might follow such an attempt, told it to me, with leave to apprize you privately of it—and yet neither she nor I would be sorry, perhaps, if Lovelace were to be fairly hanged—that is to say, if you, my dear, had no objection to it. But we cannot bear that such an admirable creature should be made the tennis-ball of two violent spirits—much less that you should be seized, and exposed to the brutal treatment of wretches who have no bowels.
If you can engage Mr. Lovelace to keep his temper upon it, I think you should acquaint him with it, but not to mention Miss Lloyd. Perhaps his wicked agent may come at the intelligence, and reveal it to him. But leave it to your own discretions to do as you think fit in it. All my concern is, that this daring and foolish project, if carried on, will be a mean of throwing you more into his power than ever. But as it will convince you that there can be no hope of a reconciliation, I wish you were actually married, let the cause for prosecution hinted at be what it will, short of murder or a rape.
Your Hannah was very thankful for your kind present. She heaped a thousand blessings upon you for it. She has Mr. Lovelace's too by this time.
I am pleased with Mr. Hickman, I can tell you:—for he has sent her two guineas by the person who carries Mr. Lovelace's five, as from an unknown hand: nor am I, or you, to know it. But he does a great many things of this sort, and is as silent as the night in his charities; for nobody knows of them till the gratitude of the benefited will not let them be concealed. He is now and then my almoner, and, I believe, always adds to my little benefactions.
But his time is not come to be praised to his face for these things; nor does he seem to want that encouragement.
The man certainly has a good mind. Nor can we expect in one man every good quality. But he is really a silly fellow, my dear, to trouble his head about me, when he sees how much I despise his whole sex; and must of course make a common man look like a fool, were he not to make himself look like one, by wishing to pitch his tent so oddly. Our likings and dislikings, as I have often thought, are seldom governed by prudence, or with a view to happiness. The eye, my dear, the wicked eye, has such a strict alliance with the heart—and both have such enmity to the judgment!—What an unequal union, the mind and body! All the senses, like the family at Harlowe-place, in a confederacy against that which would animate, and give honour to the whole, were it allowed its proper precedence.
Permit me, I beseech you, before you go to London to send you forty-eight guineas. I mention that sum to oblige you, because, by accepting back the two to Hannah, I will hold you indebted to me fifty.—Surely this will induce you! You know that I cannot want the money. I told you that I had near double that sum, and that the half of it is more than my mother knows I am mistress of. You are afraid that my mother will question me on this subject; and then you think I must own the truth. But little as I love equivocation, and little as you would allow of it in your Anna Howe, it is hard if I cannot (were I to be put to it ever so closely) find something to say that would bring me off, as you have, what can you do at such a place as London?—You don't know what occasion you may have for messengers, intelligence, and suchlike. If you don't oblige me, I shall not think your stomach so much down as you say it is, and as, in this one particular, I think it ought to be.
As to the state of things between my mother and me, you know enough of her temper, not to need to be told that she never espouses or resents with indifference. Yet will she not remember that I am her daughter. No, truly, I am all my papa's girl.
She was very sensible, surely, of the violence of my poor father's temper, that she can so long remember that, when acts of tenderness and affection seem quite forgotten. Some daughters would be tempted to think that controul sat very heavy upon a mother, who can endeavour to exert the power she has over a child, and regret, for years after death, that she had not the same over a husband.
If this manner of expression becomes not me of my mother, the fault will be somewhat extenuated by the love I always bore to my father, and by the reverence I shall ever pay to his memory: for he was a fond father, and perhaps would have been as tender a husband, had not my mother and he been too much of a temper to agree.
The misfortune was, in short, that when one was out of humour, the other would be so too: yet neither of their tempers comparatively bad. Notwithstanding all which, I did not imagine, girl as I was in my father's life-time, that my mother's part of the yoke sat so heavy upon her neck as she gives me room to think it did, whenever she is pleased to disclaim her part of me.
Both parents, as I have often thought, should be very careful, if they would secure to themselves the undivided love of their children, that, of all things, they should avoid such durable contentions with each other, as should distress their children in choosing their party, when they would be glad to reverence both as they ought.
But here is the thing: there is not a better manager of affairs in the sex than my mother; and I believe a notable wife is more impatient of controul than an indolent one. An indolent one, perhaps, thinks she has some thing to compound for; while women of the other character, I suppose, know too well their own significance to think highly of that of any body else. All must be their own way. In one word, because they are useful, they will be more than useful.
I do assure you, my dear, were I man, and a man who loved my quiet, I would not have one of these managing wives on any consideration. I would make it a matter of serious inquiry beforehand, whether my mistress's qualifications, if I heard she was notable, were masculine or feminine ones. If indeed I were an indolent supine mortal, who might be in danger of perhaps choosing to marry for the qualifications of a steward.
But, setting my mother out of the question, because she is my mother, have I not seen how Lady Hartley pranks up herself above all her sex, because she knows how to manage affairs that do not belong to her sex to manage?—Affairs that do no credit to her as a woman to understand; practically, I mean; for the theory of them may not be amiss to be known.
Indeed, my dear, I do not think a man-woman a pretty character at all: and, as I said, were I a man, I would sooner choose a dove, though it were fit for nothing but, as the play says, to go tame about house, and breed, than a wife that is setting at work (my insignificant self present perhaps) every busy our my never-resting servants, those of the stud not excepted; and who, with a besom in her hand, as I may say, would be continually filling my with apprehensions that she wanted to sweep me out of my own house as useless lumber.
Were indeed the mistress of a family (like the wonderful young lady I so much and so justly admire) to know how to confine herself within her own respectable rounds of the needle, the pen, the housekeeper's bills, the dairy for her amusement; to see the poor fed from superfluities that would otherwise be wasted, and exert herself in all the really-useful branches of domestic management; then would she move in her proper sphere; then would she render herself amiably useful, and respectably necessary; then would she become the mistress-wheel of the family, [whatever you think of your Anna Howe, I would not have her be the master-wheel,] and every body would love her; as every body did you, before your insolent brother came back, flushed with his unmerited acquirements, and turned all things topsy-turvy.
If you will be informed of the particulars of our contention, after you have known in general that your unhappy affair was the subject, why then, I think I must tell you.
Yet how shall I?==I feel my cheek glow with mingled shame and indignation.—Know then, my dear,—that I have been—as I may say—that I have been beaten—indeed 'tis true. My mother thought fit to slap my hands to get from me a sheet of a letter she caught me writing to you; which I tore, because she should not read it, and burnt it before her face.
I know this will trouble you: so spare yourself the pains to tell me it does.
Mr. Hickman came in presently after. I would not see him. I am either too much a woman to be beat, or too much a child to have an humble servant—so I told my mother. What can one oppose but sullens, when it would be unpardonable so much as to think of lifting up a finger?
In the Harlowe style, She will be obeyed, she says: and even Mr. Hickman shall be forbid the house, if he contributes to the carrying on of a correspondence which she will not suffer to be continued.
Poor man! He stands a whimsical chance between us. But he knows he is sure of my mother; but not of me. 'Tis easy then for him to choose his party, were it not his inclination to serve you, as it surely is. And this makes him a merit with me, which otherwise he would not have had; notwithstanding the good qualities which I have just now acknowledged in his favour. For, my dear, let my faults in other respects be what they may, I will pretend to say, that I have in my own mind those qualities which I praised him for. And if we are to come together, I could for that reason better dispense with them in him.—So if a husband, who has a bountiful-tempered wife, is not a niggard, nor seeks to restrain her, but has an opinion of all she does, that is enough for him: as, on the contrary, if a bountiful-tempered husband has a frugal wife, it is best for both. For one to give, and the other to give, except they have prudence, and are at so good an understanding with each other as to compare notes, they may perhaps put it out of their power to be just. Good frugal doctrine, my dear! But this way of putting it is middling the matter between what I have learnt of my mother's over-prudent and your enlarged notions.—But from doctrine to fact—
I shut myself up all that day; and what little I did eat, eat alone. But at night she sent up Kitty with a command, upon my obedience, to attend her at supper.
I went down; but most gloriously in the sullens. YES, and NO, were great words with me, to every thing she asked, for a good while.
That behaviour, she told me, should not do for her.
Beating should not do for me, I said.
My bold resistance, she told me, had provoked her to slap my hand; and she was sorry to have been so provoked. But again insisted that I would either give up my correspondence absolutely, or let her see all that passed in it.
I must not do either, I told her. It was unsuitable both to my inclination and to my honour, at the instigation of base minds to give up a friend in distress.
She rung all the maternal changes upon the words duty, obedience, filial obligation, and so forth.
I told her that a duty too rigorously and unreasonably exacted had been your ruin, if you were ruined.
If I were of age to be married, I hope she would think me capable of making, or at least of keeping, my own friendships; such a one especially as this, with a woman too, and one whose friendship she herself, till this distressful point of time, had thought the most useful and edifying that I had ever contracted.
The greater the merit, the worse the action: the finer the talents, the more dangerous the example.
There were other duties, I said, besides the filial one; and I hoped I need not give up a suffering friend, especially at the instigation of those by whom she suffered. I told her, that it was very hard to annex such a condition as that to my duty; when I was persuaded, that both duties might be performed, without derogating from either: that an unreasonable command (she must excuse me, I must say it, though I were slapped again) was a degree of tyranny: and I could not have expected, that at these years I should be allowed now will, no choice of my own! where a woman only was concerned, and the devilish sex not in the question.
What turned most in favour of her argument was, that I desired to be excused from letting her read all that passes between us. She insisted much upon this: and since, she said, you were in the hands of the most intriguing man in the world, and a man who had made a jest of her favourite Hickman, as she had been told, she knows not what consequences, unthought of by your or me, may flow from such a correspondence.
So you see, my dear, that I fare the worse on Mr. Hickman's account! My mother might see all that passes between us, did I not know, that it would cramp your spirit, and restrain the freedom of your pen, as it would also the freedom of mine: and were she not moreover so firmly attached to the contrary side, that inferences, consequences, strained deductions, censures, and constructions the most partial, would for ever to be haled in to tease me, and would perpetually subject us to the necessity of debating and canvassing.
Besides, I don't choose that she should know how much this artful wretch has outwitted, as I may call it, a person so much his superior in all the nobler qualities of the human mind.
The generosity of your heart, and the greatness of your soul, full well I know; but do offer to dissuade me from this correspondence.
Mr. Hickman, immediately on the contention above, offered his service; and I accepted of it, as you will see by my last. He thinks, though he has all honour for my mother, that she is unkind to us both. He was pleased to tell me (with an air, as I thought) that he not only approved of our correspondence, but admired the steadiness of my friendship; and having no opinion of your man, but a great one of me, thinks that my advice or intelligence from time to time may be of use to you; and on this presumption said, that it would be a thousand pities that you should suffer for want of either.
Mr. Hickman pleased me in the main of his speech; and it is well the general tenor of it was agreeable; otherwise I can tell him, I should have reckoned with him for his word approve; for it is a style I have not yet permitted him to talk to me in. And you see, my dear, what these men are—no sooner do they find that you have favoured them with the power of doing you an agreeable service, but they take upon them to approve, forsooth, of your actions! By which is implied a right to disapprove, if they think fit.
I have told my mother how much you wish to be reconciled to your relations, and how independent you are upon Lovelace.
Mark the end of the latter assertion, she says. And as to reconciliation, she knows that nothing will do, (and will have it, that nothing ought to do,) but your returning back, without presuming to condition with them. And this if you do, she says, will best show your independence on Lovelace.
You see, my dear, what your duty is, in my mother's opinion.
I suppose your next, directed to Mr. Hickman, at his own house, will be from London.
Heaven preserve you in honour and safety, is my prayer.
What you do for change of clothes, I cannot imagine.
It is amazing to me what your relations can mean by distressing you, as they seem resolved to do. I see they will throw you into his arms, whether you will or not.
I send this by Robert, for dispatch-sake: and can only repeat the hitherto-rejected offer of my best services. Adieu, my dearest friend. Believe me ever
Your affectionate and faithful ANNA HOWE.
LETTER XLI
MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE TUESDAY, APRIL 20.
I should think myself utterly unworthy of your friendship did not my own concerns, heavy as they are, so engross me, that I could not find leisure for a few lines to declare to my beloved friend my sincere disapprobation of her conduct, in an instance where she is so generously faulty, that the consciousness of that very generosity may hide from her the fault, which I, more than any other, have reason to deplore, as being the unhappy occasion of it.
You know, you say, that your account of the contentions between your mother and you will trouble me; and so you bid me spare myself the pains to tell you that they do.
You did not use, my dear, to forbid me thus beforehand. You were wont to say, you loved me the better for my expostulations with you on that acknowledged warmth and quickness of your temper which your own good sense taught you to be apprehensive of. What though I have so miserably fallen, and am unhappy, if ever I had any judgment worth regarding, it is now as much worth as ever, because I can give it as freely against myself as against any body else. And shall I not, when there seems to be an infection in my fault, and that it leads you likewise to resolve to carry on a correspondence against prohibition, expostulate with you upon it; when whatever consequences flow from your disobedience, they but widen my error, which is as the evil root, from which such sad branches spring?
The mind that can glory in being capable of so noble, so firm, so unshaken friendship, as that of my dear Miss Howe; a friendship which no casualty or distress can lessen, but which increases with the misfortunes of its friend—such a mind must be above taking amiss the well-meant admonitions of that distinguished friend. I will not therefore apologize for my freedom on this subject: and the less need I, when that freedom is the result of an affection, in the very instance, so absolutely disinterested, that it tends to deprive myself of the only comfort left me.
Your acknowledged sullens; your tearing from your mother's hands the letter she thought she had a right to see, and burning it, as you own, before her face; your refusal to see the man, who is so willing to obey you for the sake of your unhappy friend, and this purely to vex your mother; can you think, my dear, upon this brief recapitulation of hardly one half of the faulty particulars you give, that these faults are excusable in one who so well knows her duty?
Your mother had a good opinion of me once: is not that a reason why she should be more regarded now, when I have, as she believes, so deservedly forfeited it? A prejudice in favour is as hard to be totally overcome as a prejudice in disfavour. In what a strong light, then, must that error appear to her, that should so totally turn her heart against me, herself not a principal in the case?
There are other duties, you say, besides the filial duty: but that, my dear, must be a duty prior to all other duties; a duty anterior, as I may say, to your very birth: and what duty ought not to give way to that, when they come in competition?
You are persuaded, that the duty to your friend, and the filial duty, may be performed without derogating from either. Your mother thinks otherwise. What is the conclusion to be drawn from these premises?
When your mother sees, how much I suffer in my reputation from the step I have taken, from whom she and all the world expected better things, how much reason has she to be watchful over you! One evil draws on another after it; and how knows she, or any body, where it may stop?
Does not the person who will vindicate, or seek to extenuate, a faulty step in another [in this light must your mother look upon the matter in question between her and you] give an indication either of a culpable will, or a weak judgment; and may not she apprehend, that the censorious will think, that such a one might probably have equally failed under the same inducements and provocations, to use your own words, as applied to me in a former letter?
Can there be a stronger instance in human lie than mine has so early furnished, within a few months past, (not to mention the uncommon provocations to it, which I have met with,) of the necessity of the continuance of a watchful parent's care over a daughter: let that daughter have obtained ever so great a reputation for her prudence?
Is not the space from sixteen to twenty-one that which requires this care, more than at any time of a young woman's life? For in that period do we not generally attract the eyes of the other sex, and become the subject of their addresses, and not seldom of their attempts? And is not that the period in which our conduct or misconduct gives us a reputation or disreputation, that almost inseparably accompanies us throughout our whole future lives?
Are we not likewise then most in danger from ourselves, because of the distinction with which we are apt to behold particulars of that sex.
And when our dangers multiply, both from within and without, do not our parents know, that their vigilance ought to be doubled? And shall that necessary increase of care sit uneasy upon us, because we are grown up to stature and womanhood?
Will you tell me, if so, what is the precise stature and age at which a good child shall conclude herself absolved from the duty she owes to a parent?—And at which a parent, after the example of the dams of the brute creation, is to lay aside all care and tenderness for her offspring?
Is it so hard for you, my dear, to be treated like a child? And can you not think it is hard for a good parent to imagine herself under the unhappy necessity of so treating her woman-grown daughter?
Do you think, if your mother had been you, and you your mother, and your daughter had struggled with you, as you did with her, that you would not have been as apt as your mother was to have slapped your daughter's hands, to have made her quit her hold, and give up the prohibited letter?
Your mother told you, with great truth, that you provoked her to this harshness; and it was a great condescension in her (and not taken notice of by you as it deserved) to say that she was sorry for it.
At every age on this side matrimony (for then we come under another sort of protection, though that is far from abrogating the filial duty) it will be found, that the wings of our parents are our most necessary and most effectual safeguard from the vultures, the hawks, the kites, and other villainous birds of prey, that hover over us with a view to seize and destroy us the first time we are caught wandering out of the eye or care of our watchful and natural guardians and protectors.
Hard as you may suppose it, to be denied to continuance of a correspondence once so much approved, even by the venerable denier; yet, if your mother think my fault to be of such a nature, as that a correspondence with me will cast a shade upon your reputation, all my own friends having given me up—that hardship is to be submitted to. And must it not make her the more strenuous to support her own opinion, when she sees the first fruits of this tenaciousness on your side is to be gloriously in the sullens, as you call it, and in a disobedient opposition?
I know that you have a humourous meaning in that expression, and that this turn, in most cases, gives a delightful poignancy both to your conversation and correspondence; but indeed, my dear, this case will not bear humour.
Will you give me leave to add to this tedious expostulation, that I by no means approve of some of the things you write, in relation to the manner in which your father and mother lived—at times lived—only at times, I dare say, though perhaps too often.
Your mother is answerable to any body, rather than to her child, for whatever was wrong in her conduct, if any thing was wrong, towards Mr. Howe: a gentleman, of whose memory I will only say, that it ought to be revered by you—But yet, should you not examine yourself, whether your displeasure at your mother had no part in your revived reverence for your father at the time you wrote?
No one is perfect: and although your mother may not be right to remember disagreeableness against the departed, yet should you not want to be reminded on whose account, and on what occasion, she remembered them. You cannot judge, nor ought you to attempt to judge, of what might have passed between both, to embitter and keep awake disagreeable remembrances in the survivor.
LETTER XLII
MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE [IN CONTINUATION.]
But this subject must not be pursued. Another might, with more pleasure, (though not with more approbation,) upon one of your lively excursions. It is upon the high airs you give yourself upon the word approve.
How comes it about, I wonder, that a young lady so noted for predominating generosity, should not be uniformly generous? That your generosity should fail in an instance where policy, prudence, gratitude, would not permit it to fail? Mr. Hickman (as you confess) had indeed a worthy mind. If I had not long ago known that, he would never have found an advocate in me for my Anna Howe's favour to him. Often and often have I been concerned, when I was your happy guest, to see him, after a conversation, in which he had well supported his part in your absence, sink at once into silence the moment you came into company.
I have told you of this before: and I believe I hinted to you once, that the superciliousness you put on only to him, was capable of a construction, which at the time would have very little gratified your pride to have had made; since it would have been as much in his favour, as in your disfavour.
Mr. Hickman, my dear, is a modest man. I never see a modest man, but I am sure (if he has not wanted opportunities) that he has a treasure in his mind, which requires nothing but the key of encouragement to unlock it, to make him shine—while a confident man, who, to be confident, must think as meanly of his company as highly of himself, enters with magisterial airs upon any subject; and, depending upon his assurance to bring himself off when found out, talks of more than he is master of.
But a modest man!—O my dear, shall not a modest woman distinguish and wish to consort with a modest man?—A man, before whom, and to whom she may open her lips secure of his good opinion of all she says, and of his just and polite regard for her judgment? and who must therefore inspire her with an agreeable self-confidence.
What a lot have I drawn!—We are all indeed apt to turn teachers—but, surely, I am better enabled to talk, to write, upon these subjects, than ever I was. But I will banish myself, if possible, from an address which, when I began to write, I was determined to confine wholly to your own particular.
My dearest, dearest friend, how ready are you to tell us what others should do, and even what a mother should have done! But indeed you once, I remember, advanced, that, as different attainments required different talents to master them, so, in the writing way, a person might not be a bad critic upon the works of others, although he might himself be unable to write with excellence. But will you permit me to account for all this readiness of finding fault, by placing it to human nature, which, being sensible of the defects of human nature, (that is to say, of its own defects,) loves to be correcting? But in exercising that talent, chooses rather to turn its eye outward than inward? In other words, to employ itself rather in the out-door search, than in the in-door examination.
And here give me leave to add, (and yet it is with tender reluctance,) that although you say very pretty things of notable wives; and although I join with you in opinion, that husbands may have as many inconveniencies to encounter with, as conveniencies to boast of, from women, of that character; yet Lady Hartley perhaps would have had milder treatment from your pen, had it not been dipped in gall with a mother in your eye.
As to the money, you so generously and repeatedly offer, don't be angry with me, if I again say, that I am very desirous that you should be able to aver, without the least qualifying or reserve, that nothing of that sort has passed between us. I know your mother's strong way of putting the question she is intent upon having answered. But yet I promise that I will be obliged to nobody but you, when I have occasion.
LETTER XLIII
MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE [IN CONTINUATION.]
And now, my dear, a few words, as to the prohibition laid upon you; a subject that I have frequently touched upon, but cursorily, because I was afraid to trust myself with it, knowing that my judgment, if I did, would condemn my practice.
You command me not to attempt to dissuade you from this correspondence; and you tell me how kindly Mr. Hickman approves of it; and how obliging he is to me, to permit it to be carried on under cover to him—but this does not quite satisfy me.
I am a very bad casuist; and the pleasure I take in writing to you, who are the only one to whom I can disburden my mind, may make me, as I have hinted, very partial to my own wishes: else, if it were not an artful evasion beneath an open and frank heart to wish to be complied with, I would be glad methinks to be permitted still to write to you; and only to have such occasional returns by Mr. Hickman's pen, as well as cover, as might set me right when I am wrong; confirm me, when right, and guide me where I doubt. This would enable me to proceed in the difficult path before me with more assuredness. For whatever I suffer from the censure of others, if I can preserve your good opinion, I shall not be altogether unhappy, let what will befall me.
And indeed, my dear, I know not how to forbear writing. I have now no other employment or diversion. And I must write on, although I were not to send it to any body. You have often heard me own the advantages I have found from writing down every thing of moment that befalls me; and of all I think, and of all I do, that may be of future use to me; for, besides that this helps to form one to a style, and opens and expands the ductile mind, every one will find that many a good thought evaporates in thinking; many a good resolution goes off, driven out of memory perhaps by some other not so good. But when I set down what I will do, or what I have done, on this or that occasion; the resolution or action is before me either to be adhered to, withdrawn, or amended; and I have entered into compact with myself, as I may say; having given it under my own hand to improve, rather than to go backward, as I live longer.
I would willingly, therefore, write to you, if I might; the rather as it would be the more inspiriting to have some end in view in what I write; some friend to please; besides merely seeking to gratify my passion for scribbling.
But why, if your mother will permit our correspondence on communicating to her all that passes in it, and if she would condescend to one only condition, may it not be complied with?
Would she not, do you think, my dear, be prevailed upon to have the communication made to her, in confidence?
If there were any prospect of a reconciliation with my friends, I should not have so much regard for my pride, as to be afraid of any body's knowing how much I have been outwitted as you call it. I would in that case (when I had left Mr. Lovelace) acquaint your mother, and all my own friends, with the whole of my story. It would behove me so to do, for my own reputation, and for their satisfaction.
But, if I have no such prospect, what will the communication of my reluctance to go away with Mr. Lovelace, and of his arts to frighten me away, avail me? Your mother has hinted, that my friends would insist upon my returning home to them (as a proof of the truth of my plea) to be disposed of, without condition, at their pleasure. If I scrupled this, my brother would rather triumph over me, than keep my secret. Mr. Lovelace, whose pride already so ill brooks my regrets for meeting him, (when he thinks, if I had not, I must have been Mr. Solmes's wife,) would perhaps treat me with indignity: and thus, deprived of all refuge and protection, I should become the scoff of men of intrigue; a disgrace to my sex—while that avowed love, however indiscreetly shown, which is followed by marriage, will find more excuses made for it, than generally it ought to find.
But, if your mother will receive the communication in confidence, pray shew her all that I have written, or shall write. If my past conduct in that case shall not be found to deserve heavy blame, I shall then perhaps have the benefit of her advice, as well as yours. And if, after a re-establishment in her favour, I shall wilfully deserve blame for the time to come, I will be content to be denied yours as well as hers for ever.
As to cramping my spirit, as you call it, (were I to sit down to write what I know your mother must see,) that, my dear, is already cramped. And do not think so unhandsomely of your mother, as to fear that she would make partial constructions against me. Neither you nor I can doubt, but that, had she been left unprepossessedly to herself, she would have shown favour to me. And so, I dare say, would my uncle Antony. Nay, my dear, I can extend my charity still farther: for I am sometimes of opinion, that were my brother and sister absolutely certain that they had so far ruined me in the opinion of both my uncles, as that they need not be apprehensive of my clashing with their interests, they would not oppose a pardon, although they might not wish a reconciliation; especially if I would make a few sacrifices to them: which, I assure you, I should be inclined to make were I wholly free, and independent on this man. You know I never valued myself upon worldly acquisitions, but as they enlarged my power to do things I loved to do. And if I were denied the power, I must, as I now do, curb my inclination.
Do not however think me guilty of an affectation in what I have said of my brother and sister. Severe enough I am sure it is, in the most favourable sense. And an indifferent person will be of opinion, that they are much better warranted than ever, for the sake of the family honour, to seek to ruin me in the favour of all my friends.
But to the former topic—try, my dear, if your mother will, upon the condition above given, permit our correspondence, on seeing all we write. But if she will not, what a selfishness would there be in my love to you, were I to wish you to forego your duty for my sake?
And now, one word, as to the freedom I have treated you with in this tedious expostulatory address. I presume upon your forgiveness of it, because few friendships are founded on such a basis as ours: which is, 'freely to give reproof, and thankfully to receive it as occasions arise; that so either may have opportunity to clear up mistakes, to acknowledge and amend errors, as well in behaviour as in words and deeds; and to rectify and confirm each other in the judgment each shall form upon persons, things, and circumstances.' And all this upon the following consideration; 'that it is much more eligible, as well as honourable, to be corrected with the gentleness that may be expected from an undoubted friend, than, by continuing either blind or wilful, to expose ourselves to the censures of an envious and perhaps malignant world.'
But it is as needless, I dare say, to remind you of this, as it is to repeat my request, so often repeated, that you will not, in your turn, spare the follies and the faults of
Your ever affectionate CL. HARLOWE.
SUBJOINED TO THE ABOVE.
I said, that I would avoid writing any thing of my own particular affairs in the above address, if I could.
I will write one letter more, to inform you how I stand with this man. But, my dear, you must permit that one, and your answer to it (for I want your advice upon the contents of mine) and the copy of one I have written to my aunt, to be the last that shall pass between us, while the prohibition continues.
I fear, I very much fear, that my unhappy situation will draw me in to being guilty of evasion, of little affectations, and of curvings from the plain simple truth which I was wont to delight in, and prefer to every other consideration. But allow me to say, and this for your sake, and in order to lessen your mother's fears of any ill consequences that she might apprehend from our correspondence, that if I am at any time guilty of a failure in these respects, I will not go on in it, but endeavour to recover my lost ground, that I may not bring error into habit.
I have deferred going to town, at Mrs. Sorlings's earnest request. But have fixed my removal to Monday, as I shall acquaint you in my next.
I have already made a progress in that next; but, having an unexpected opportunity, will send this by itself.
LETTER XLIV
MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE FRIDAY MORNING, APRIL 21.
My mother will not comply with your condition, my dear. I hinted it to her, as from myself. But the Harlowes (excuse me) have got her entirely in with them. It is a scheme of mine, she told me, formed to draw her into your party against your parents. Which, for your own sake, she is very careful about.
Don't be so much concerned about my mother and me, once more, I beg of you. We shall do well enough together—now a falling out, now a falling in.
It used to be so, when you were not in the question.
Yet do I give you my sincere thanks for every line of your reprehensive letters; which I intend to read as often as I find my temper rises.
I will freely own, however, that I winced a little at first reading them. But I see that, on every re-perusal, I shall love and honour you still more, if possible, than before.
Yet, I think I have one advantage over you; and which I will hold through this letter, and through all my future letters; that is, that I will treat you as freely as you treat me; and yet will never think an apology necessary to you for my freedom.
But that you so think with respect to me is the effect of your gentleness of temper, with a little sketch of implied reflection on the warmth of mine. Gentleness in a woman you hold to be no fault: nor do I a little due or provoked warmth—But what is this, but praising on both sides what what neither of us can help, nor perhaps wish to help? You can no more go out of your road, than I can go out of mine. It would be a pain to either to do so: What then is it in either's approving of her own natural bias, but making a virtue of necessity?
But one observation I will add, that were your character, and my character, to be truly drawn, mine would be allowed to be the most natural. Shades and lights are equally necessary in a fine picture. Yours would be surrounded with such a flood of brightness, with such a glory, that it would indeed dazzle; but leave one heartless to imitate it.
O may you not suffer from a base world for your gentleness; while my temper, by its warmth, keeping all imposition at a distance, though less amiable in general, affords me not reason, as I have mentioned heretofore, to wish to make an exchange with you!
I should indeed be inexcusable to open my lips by way of contradiction to my mother, had I such a fine spirit as yours to deal with. Truth is truth, my dear! Why should narrowness run away with the praises due to a noble expansion of heart? If every body would speak out, as I do, (that is to say, give praise where only praise is due; dispraise where due likewise,) shame, if not principle, would mend the world—nay, shame would introduce principle in a generation or two. Very true, my dear. Do you apply. I dare not.—For I fear you, almost as much as I love you.
I will give you an instance, nevertheless, which will a-new demonstrate, that none but very generous and noble-minded people ought to be implicitly obeyed. You know what I said above, that truth is truth.
Inconveniencies will sometimes arise from having to do with persons of modest and scrupulousness. Mr. Hickman, you say, is a modest man. He put your corrective packet into my hand with a very fine bow, and a self-satisfied air [we'll consider what you say of this honest man by-and-by, my dear]: his strut was no gone off, when in came my mother, as I was reading it.
When some folks find their anger has made them considerable, they will be always angry, or seeking occasions for anger.
Why, now, Mr. Hickman—why, now, Nancy, [as I was huddling in the packet between my gown and my stays, at her entrance.] You have a letter brought you this instant.—While the modest man, with his pausing brayings, Mad-da—Mad-dam, looked as if he knew not whether to fight it out, or to stand his ground, and see fair play.
It would have been poor to tell a lie for it. She flung away. I went out at the opposite door, to read the contents; leaving Mr. Hickman to exercise his white teeth upon his thumb-nails.
When I had read your letters, I went to find out my mother. I told her the generous contents, and that you desired that the prohibition might be adhered to. I proposed your condition, as for myself; and was rejected, as above.
She supposed, she was finely painted between two 'young creatures, who had more wit than prudence:' and instead of being prevailed upon by the generosity of your sentiments, made use of your opinion only to confirm her own, and renewed her prohibitions, charging me to return no other answer, but that she did renew them: adding, that they should stand, till your relations were reconciled to you; hinting as if she had engaged for as much: and expected my compliance.
I thought of your reprehensions, and was meek, though not pleased. And let me tell you, my dear, that as long as I can satisfy my own mind, that good is intended, and that it is hardly possible that evil should ensue from our correspondence—as long as I know that this prohibition proceeds originally from the same spiteful minds which have been the occasion of all these mischiefs—as long as I know that it is not your fault if your relations are not reconciled to you, and that upon conditions which no reasonable people would refuse—you must give me leave, with all deference to your judgment, and to your excellent lessons, (which would reach almost every case of this kind but the present,) to insist upon your writing to me, and that minutely, as if this prohibition had not been laid.
It is not from humour, from perverseness, that I insist upon this. I cannot express how much my heart is in your concerns. And you must, in short, allow me to think, that if I can do you service by writing, I shall be better justified in continuing to write, than my mother is in her prohibition.
But yet, to satisfy you all I can, I will as seldom return answers, while the interdict lasts, as may be consistent with my notions of friendship, and with the service I owe you, and can do you.
As to your expedient of writing by Hickman [and now, my dear, your modest man comes in: and as you love modesty in that sex, I will do my endeavour, by holding him at a proper distance, to keep him in your favour] I know what you mean by it, my sweet friend. It is to make that man significant with me. As to the correspondence, THAT shall go on, I do assure you, be as scrupulous as you please—so that that will not suffer if I do not close with your proposal as to him.
I must tell you, that I think it will be honour enough for him to have his name made use of so frequently betwixt us. This, of itself, is placing a confidence in him, that will make him walk bolt upright, and display his white hand, and his fine diamond ring; and most mightily lay down his services, and his pride to oblige, and his diligence, and his fidelity, and his contrivances to keep our secret, and his excuses, and his evasions to my mother, when challenged by her; with fifty ana's beside: and will it not moreover give him pretence and excuse oftener than ever to pad-nag it hither to good Mrs. Howe's fair daughter?
But to admit him into my company tete-a-tete, and into my closet, as often as I would wish to write to you, I only dictate to his pen—my mother all the time supposing that I was going to be heartily in love with him—to make him master of my sentiments, and of my heart, as I may say, when I write to you—indeed, my dear, I won't. Nor, were I married to the best HE in England, would I honour him with the communication of my correspondences.
No, my dear, it is sufficient, surely, for him to parade in the character of our letter-conveyor, and to be honoured in a cover, and never fear but, modest as you think him, he will make enough of that.
You are always blaming me for want of generosity to this man, and for abuse of power. But I profess, my dear, I cannot tell how to help it. Do, dear, now, let me spread my plumes a little, and now-and-then make myself feared. This is my time, you know, since it would be no more to my credit than to his, to give myself those airs when I am married. He has a joy when I am pleased with him that he would not know, but for the pain my displeasure gives him.
Men, no more than women, know how to make a moderate use of power. Is not that seen every day, from the prince to the peasant? If I do not make Hickman quake now-and-then, he will endeavour to make me fear. All the animals in the creation are more or less in a state of hostility with each other. The wolf, that runs away from a lion, will devour a lamb the next moment. I remember, that I was once so enraged at a game chicken that was continually pecking at another (a poor humble one, as I thought him) that I had the offender caught, and without more ado, in a pet of humanity, wrung his neck off. What followed this execution? Why that other grew insolent, as soon as his insulter was gone, and was continually pecking at one or two under him. Peck and be hanged, said I,—I might as well have preserved the first, for I see it is the nature of the beast.
Excuse my flippancies. I wish I were with you. I would make you smile in the midst of your gravest airs, as I used to do. O that you had accepted of my offer to attend you! but nothing that I offer will you accept——Take care!—You will make me very angry with you: and when I am, you know I value nobody: for, dearly as I love you, I must be, and cannot always help it,
Your saucy ANNA HOWE.