Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady Volume I Part 26

I hope, Sir, that you will excuse the freedom I have taken with you: you have given me too much reason for it, and you have taken much greater with me, without reason:--so, if you are offended, ought to look at the cause, and not at the effect:--then examining yourself, that cause will cease, and there will not be any where a more accomplished gentleman than my brother.

Sisterly affection, I do a.s.sure you, Sir, (unkindly as you have used me,) and not the pertness which of late you have been so apt to impute to me, is my motive in this hint. Let me invoke your returning kindness, my only brother! And give me cause, I beseech you, to call you my compa.s.sionating friend. For I am, and ever will be,

Your affectionate sister, CLARISSA HARLOWE.

This is my brother's answer.

TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

I KNOW there will be no end of your impertinent scribble, if I don't write to you. I write therefore: but, without entering into argument with such a conceited and pert preacher and questioner, it is, to forbid you to plague me with your quaint nonsense. I know not what wit in a woman is good for, but to make her overvalue herself, and despise every other person. Yours, Miss Pert, has set you above your duty, and above being taught or prescribed to, either by parents, or any body else. But go on, Miss: your mortification will be the greater; that's all, child.

It shall, I a.s.sure you, if I can make it so, so long as you prefer that villainous Lovelace, (who is justly hated by all your family) to every body. We see by your letter now (what we too justly suspected before), most evidently we see, the hold he has got of your forward heart. But the stronger the hold, the greater must be the force (and you shall have enough of that) to tear such a miscreant from it. In me, notwithstanding your saucy lecturing, and your saucy reflections before, you are sure of a friend, as well as of a brother, if it be not your own fault. But if you will still think of such a wretch as that Lovelace, never expect either friend or brother in

JA. HARLOWE.

I will now give you a copy of my letter to my sister; with her answer.

IN what, my dear Sister, have I offended you, that instead of endeavouring to soften my father's anger against me, (as I am sure I should have done for you, had my unhappy case been yours,) you should, in so hard-hearted a manner, join to aggravate not only his displeasure, but my mother's against me. Make but my case your own, my dear Bella; and suppose you were commanded to marry Mr. Lovelace, (to whom you are believed to have such an antipathy,) would you not think it a very grievous injunction?--Yet cannot your dislike to Mr. Lovelace be greater than mine is to Mr. Solmes. Nor are love and hatred voluntary pa.s.sions.

My brother may perhaps think it a proof of a manly spirit, to shew himself an utter stranger to the gentle pa.s.sions. We have both heard him boast, that he never loved with distinction: and, having predominating pa.s.sions, and checked in his first attempt, perhaps he never will. It is the less wonder, then, raw from the college, so lately himself the tutored, that he should set up for a tutor, a prescriber to our gentler s.e.x, whose tastes and manners are differently formed: for what, according to his account, are colleges, but cla.s.ses of tyrants, from the upper students over the lower, and from them to the tutor?--That he, with such masculine pa.s.sions should endeavour to controul and bear down an unhappy sister, in a case where his antipathy, and, give me leave to say, his ambition [once you would have allowed the latter to be his fault] can be gratified by so doing, may not be quite so much to be wondered at--but that a sister should give up the cause of a sister, and join with him to set her father and mother against her, in a case that might have been her own--indeed, my Bella, this is not pretty in you.

There was a time that Mr. Lovelace was thought reclaimable, and when it was far from being deemed a censurable view to hope to bring back to the paths of virtue and honour, a man of his sense and understanding. I am far from wis.h.i.+ng to make the experiment: but nevertheless will say, that if I have not a regard for him, the disgraceful methods taken to compel me to receive the addresses of such a man as Mr. Solmes are enough to induce it.

Do you, my Sister, for one moment, lay aside all prejudice, and compare the two men in their births, their educations, their persons, their understandings, their manners, their air, and their whole deportments; and in their fortunes too, taking in reversions; and then judge of both; yet, as I have frequently offered, I will live single with all my heart, if that will do.

I cannot thus live in displeasure and disgrace. I would, if I could, oblige all my friends. But will it be just, will it be honest, to marry a man I cannot endure? If I have not been used to oppose the will of my father, but have always delighted to oblige and obey, judge of the strength of my antipathy, by the painful opposition I am obliged to make, and cannot help it.

Pity then, my dearest Bella, my sister, my friend, my companion, my adviser, as you used to be when I was happy, and plead for

Your ever-affectionate, CL. HARLOWE.

TO MISS CLARY HARLOWE

Let it be pretty or not pretty, in your wise opinion, I shall speak my mind, I will a.s.sure you, both of you and your conduct in relation to this detested Lovelace. You are a fond foolish girl with all your wisdom. Your letter shews that enough in twenty places. And as to your cant of living single, n.o.body will believe you. This is one of your fetches to avoid complying with your duty, and the will of the most indulgent parents in the world, as yours have been to you, I am sure--though now they see themselves finely requited for it.

We all, indeed, once thought your temper soft and amiable: but why was it? You never were contradicted before: you had always your own way. But no sooner do you meet with opposition in your wishes to throw yourself away upon a vile rake, but you shew what you are. You cannot love Mr.

Solmes! that's the pretence; but Sister, Sister, let me tell you, that is because Lovelace has got into your fond heart:--a wretch hated, justly hated, by us all; and who has dipped his hands in the blood of your brother: yet him you would make our relation, would you?

I have no patience with you, but for putting the case of my liking such a vile wretch as him. As to the encouragement you pretend he received formerly from all our family, it was before we knew him to be so vile: and the proofs that had such force upon us, ought to have had some upon you:--and would, had you not been a foolish forward girl; as on this occasion every body sees you are.

O how you run out in favour of the wretch!--His birth, his education, his person, his understanding, his manners, his air, his fortune--reversions too taken in to augment the surfeiting catalogue!

What a fond string of lovesick praises is here! And yet you would live single--Yes, I warrant!--when so many imaginary perfections dance before your dazzled eye!--But no more--I only desire, that you will not, while you seem to have such an opinion of your wit, think every one else a fool; and that you can at pleasure, by your whining flourishes, make us all dance after your lead.

Write as often as you will, this shall be the last answer or notice you shall have upon this subject from

ARABELLA HARLOWE.

I had in readiness a letter for each of my uncles; and meeting in the garden a servant of my uncle Harlowe, I gave him to deliver according to their respective directions. If I am to form a judgment by the answers I have received from my brother and sister, as above, I must not, I doubt, expect any good from those letters. But when I have tried every expedient, I shall have the less to blame myself for, if any thing unhappy should fall out. I will send you copies of both, when I shall see what notice they will be thought worthy of, if of any.

LETTER x.x.x

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE SUNDAY NIGHT, MARCH 12.

This man, this Lovelace, gives me great uneasiness. He is extremely bold and rash. He was this afternoon at our church--in hopes to see me, I suppose: and yet, if he had such hopes, his usual intelligence must have failed him.

Sh.o.r.ey was at church; and a princ.i.p.al part of her observation was upon his haughty and proud behaviour when he turned round in the pew where he sat to our family-pew. My father and both my uncles were there; so were my mother and sister. My brother happily was not.--They all came home in disorder. Nor did the congregation mind any body but him; it being his first appearance there since the unhappy rencounter.

What did the man come for, if he intended to look challenge and defiance, as Sh.o.r.ey says he did, and as others, it seems, thought he did, as well as she? Did he come for my sake; and, by behaving in such a manner to those present of my family, imagine he was doing me either service or pleasure?--He knows how they hate him: nor will he take pains, would pains do, to obviate their hatred.

You and I, my dear, have often taken notice of his pride; and you have rallied him upon it; and instead of exculpating himself, he has owned it: and by owning it he has thought he has done enough.

For my own part, I thought pride in his case an improper subject for raillery.--People of birth and fortune to be proud, is so needless, so mean a vice!--If they deserve respect, they will have it, without requiring it. In other words, for persons to endeavour to gain respect by a haughty behaviour, is to give a proof that they mistrust their own merit: To make confession that they know that their actions will not attract it.--Distinction or quality may be prided in by those to whom distinction or quality is a new thing. And then the reflection and contempt which such bring upon themselves by it, is a counter-balance.

Such added advantages, too, as this man has in his person and mien: learned also, as they say he is: Such a man to be haughty, to be imperious!--The lines of his own face at the same time condemning him--how wholly inexcusable!--Proud of what? Not of doing well: the only justifiable pride.--Proud of exterior advantages!--Must not one be led by such a stop-short pride, as I may call it, in him or her who has it, to mistrust the interior? Some people may indeed be afraid, that if they did not a.s.sume, they would be trampled upon. A very narrow fear, however, since they trample upon themselves, who can fear this. But this man must be secure that humility would be an ornament to him.

He has talents indeed: but those talents and his personal advantages have been snares to him. It is plain they have. And this shews, that, weighed in an equal balance, he would be found greatly wanting.

Had my friends confided as they did at first, in that discretion which they do not accuse me of being defective in, I dare say I should have found him out: and then should have been as resolute to dismiss him, as I was to dismiss others, and as I am never to have Mr. Solmes. O that they did but know my heart!--It shall sooner burst, than voluntarily, uncompelled, undriven, dictate a measure that shall cast a slur either upon them, or upon my s.e.x.

Excuse me, my dear friend, for these grave soliloquies, as I may call them. How have I run from reflection to reflection!--But the occasion is recent--They are all in commotion below upon it.

Sh.o.r.ey says, that Mr. Lovelace watched my mother's eye, and bowed to her: and she returned the compliment. He always admired my mother. She would not, I believe, have hated him, had she not been bid to hate him: and had it not been for the rencounter between him and her only son.

Dr. Lewen was at church; and observing, as every one else did, the disorder into which Mr. Lovelace's appearance* had put all our family, was so good as to engage him in conversation, when the service was over, till they were all gone to their coaches.

* See Letter x.x.xI, for Mr. Lovelace's account of his behaviour and intentions in his appearance at church.