Volume I Part 26 (2/2)

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.

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