Volume III Part 43 (1/2)

[Clarissa, in her answer to the first of the two last letters, chides her friend for giving so little weight to her advice, in relation to her behaviour to her mother. It may be proper to insert here the following extracts from that answer, though a little before the time.]

You a.s.sume, my dear, says she, your usual and ever-agreeable style in what you write of the two gentlemen,* and how unaptly you think they have chosen; Mr. Hickman in addressing you, Mr. Lovelace me. But I am inclinable to believe that, with a view to happiness, however two mild tempers might agree, two high ones would make sad work of it, both at one time violent and unyielding. You two might, indeed, have raqueted the ball betwixt you, as you say.** But Mr. Hickman, by his gentle manners, seems formed for you, if you go not too far with him. If you do, it would be a tameness in him to bear it, which would make a man more contemptible than Mr. Hickman can ever deserve to be made. Nor is it a disgrace for even a brave man, who knows what a woman is to vow to him afterwards, to be very obsequious beforehand.

* See Letter x.x.xV. and Letter x.x.xVI. of this volume.

** See Letter x.x.xVI. of this volume.

Do you think it is to the credit of Mr. Lovelace's character that he can be offensive and violent?--Does he not, as all such spirits must, subject himself to the necessity of making submissions for his excesses far more mortifying to a proud hear than those condescensions which the high-spirited are so apt to impute as a weakness of mind in such a man as Mr. Hickman?

Let me tell you, my dear, that Mr. Hickman is such a one as would rather bear an affront from a lady, than offer one to her. He had rather, I dare say, that she should have occasion to ask his pardon than he her's.

But my dear, you have outlived your first pa.s.sion; and had the second man been an angel, he would not have been more than indifferent to you.

My motives for suspending, proceeds she, were not merely ceremonious ones. I was really very ill. I could not hold up my head. The contents of my sister's letters had pierced my heart. Indeed, my dear, I was very ill. And was I, moreover, to be as ready to accept his offer as if I were afraid he never would repeat it?

I see with great regret that your mamma is still immovably bent against our correspondence. What shall I do about it?--It goes against me to continue it, or to wish you to favour me with returns.--Yet I have so managed my matters that I have no friend but you to advise with. It is enough to make one indeed wish to be married to this man, though a man of errors, as he has worthy relations of my own s.e.x; and I should have some friends, I hope:--and having some, I might have more--for as money is said to increase money, so does the countenance of persons of character increase friends: while the dest.i.tute must be dest.i.tute.--It goes against my heart to beg of your to discontinue corresponding with me; and yet it is against my conscience to carry it on against parental prohibition. But I dare not use all the arguments against it that I could use--And why?--For fear I should convince you; and you should reject me as the rest of my friends have done. I leave therefore the determination of this point upon you.--I am not, I find, to be trusted with it. But be mine all the fault, and all the punishment, if it be punishable!--And certainly it must, when it can be the cause of the letter I have before me, and which I must no farther animadvert upon, because you forbid me to do so.

[To the second letter, among other things, she says,]

So, my dear, you seem to think that there was a fate in my error. The cordial, the considerate friends.h.i.+p is seen in the observation you make on this occasion. Yet since things have happened as they have, would to Heaven I could hear that all the world acquitted my father, or, at least, my mother! whose character, before these family feuds broke out, was the subject of everyone's admiration. Don't let any body say from you, so that it may come to her ear, that she might, from a timely exertion of her fine talents, have saved her unhappy child. You will observe, my dear, that in her own good time, when she saw there was not likely to be an end to my brother's persecutions, she resolved to exert herself. But the pragmatical daughter, by the fatal meeting, precipitated all, and frustrated her indulgent designs. O my love, I am now convinced, by dear experience, that while children are so happy as to have parents or guardians whom they may consult, they should not presume (no, not with the best and purest intentions) to follow their own conceits in material cases.

A ray of hope of future reconciliation darts in upon my mind, from the intention you tell me my mother had to exert herself in my favour, had I not gone away. And my hope is the stronger, as this communication points out to me that my uncle Harlowe's interest is likely, in my mother's opinion, to be of weight, if it could be engaged. It will behove me, perhaps, to apply to that dear uncle, if a proper occasion offer.

LETTER LX

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. MONDAY, APRIL 24.

Fate is weaving a whimsical web for thy friend; and I see not but I shall be inevitably manacled.

Here have I been at work, dig, dig, dig, like a cunning miner, at one time, and spreading my snares, like an artful fowler, at another, and exulting in my contrivances to get this inimitable creature, absolutely into my power. Every thing made for me. Her brother and uncles were but my pioneers: her father stormed as I directed him to storm: Mrs. Howe was acted by the springs I set at work; her daughter was moving for me, yet imagined herself plumb against me: and the dear creature herself had already run her stubborn neck into my gin, and knew not that she was caught, for I had not drawn my sprindges close about her--And just as all this was completed, wouldst thou believe, that I should be my own enemy, and her friend? That I should be so totally diverted from all my favourite purposes, as to propose to marry her before I went to town, in order to put it out of my own power to resume them.

When thou knowest this, wilt thou not think that my black angel plays me booty, and has taken it into his head to urge me on to the indissoluble tie, that he might be more sure of me (from the complex transgressions to which he will certainly stimulate me, when wedded) than perhaps he thought he could be from the simple sins, in which I have so long allowed myself, that they seem to have the plea of habit?

Thou wilt be still the more surprised, when I tell thee, that there seems to be a coalition going forward between the black angels and the white ones; for here has her's induced her, in one hour, and by one retrograde accident, to acknowledge what the charming creature never before acknowledged, a preferable favour for me. She even avows an intention to be mine.--Mine! without reformation-conditions!--She permits me to talk of love to her!--of the irrevocable ceremony!--Yet, another extraordinary! postpones that ceremony; chooses to set out for London; and even to go to the widow's in town.

Well, but how comes all this about? methinks thou askest.--Thou, Lovelace, dealest in wonders, yet aimest not at the marvellous!--How did all this come about?

I will tell thee--I was in danger of losing my charmer for ever! She was soaring upward to her native skies! She was got above earth, by means too, of the earth-born! And something extraordinary was to be done to keep her with us sublunaries. And what so effectually as the soothing voice of Love, and the attracting offer of matrimony from a man not hated, can fix the attention of the maiden heart, aching with uncertainty, and before impatient of the questionable question?

This, in short, was the case: while she was refusing all manner of obligation to me, keeping me at haughty distance, in hopes that her cousin Morden's arrival would soon fix her in a full and absolute independence of me--disgusted, likewise, at her adorer, for holding himself the reins of his own pa.s.sions, instead of giving them up to her controul--she writes a letter, urging an answer to a letter before sent, for her apparel, her jewels, and some gold, which she had left behind her; all which was to save her pride from obligation, and to promote the independence her heart was set upon. And what followed but a shocking answer, made still more shocking by the communication of a father's curse, upon a daughter deserving only blessings?--A curse upon the curser's heart, and a double one upon the transmitter's, the spiteful the envious Arabella!

Absent when it came--on my return I found her recovering from fits, again to fall into stronger fits; and n.o.body expecting her life; half a dozen messengers dispatched to find me out. Nor wonder at her being so affected; she, whose filial piety gave her dreadful faith in a father's curses; and the curse of this gloomy tyrant extending (to use her own words, when she could speak) to both worlds--O that it had turned, in the moment of its utterance, to a mortal quinsy, and, sticking in his gullet, had choked the old execrator, as a warning to all such unnatural fathers!

What a miscreant had I been, not to have endeavoured to bring her back, by all the endearments, by all the vows, by all the offers, that I could make her!

I did bring her back. More than a father to her: for I have given her a life her unnatural father had well-nigh taken away: Shall I not cherish the fruits of my own benefaction? I was earnest in my vows to marry, and my ardour to urge the present time was a real ardour. But extreme dejection, with a mingled delicacy, that in her dying moments I doubt not she will preserve, have caused her to refuse me the time, though not the solemnity; for she has told me, that now she must be wholly in my protection [being dest.i.tute of every other!] More indebted, still, thy friend, as thou seest, to her cruel relations, than to herself, for her favour!