Volume IV Part 22 (1/2)

I abruptly broke from him. I recollect, as I pa.s.sed by one of the pier- gla.s.ses, that I saw in it his clenched hand offered in wrath to his forehead: the words, Indifference, by his soul, next to hatred, I heard him speak; and something of ice he mentioned: I heard not what.

Whether he intends to write to my Lord, or Miss Montague, I cannot tell.

But, as all delicacy ought to be over with me now, perhaps I am to blame to expect it from a man who may not know what it is. If he does not, and yet thinks himself very polite, and intends not to be otherwise, I am rather to be pitied, than he to be censured.

And after all, since I must take him as I find him, I must: that is to say, as a man so vain and so accustomed to be admired, that, not being conscious of internal defect, he has taken no pains to polish more than his outside: and as his proposals are higher than my expectations; and as, in his own opinion, he has a great deal to bear from me, I will (no new offence preventing) sit down to answer them; and, if possible, in terms as un.o.bjectionable to him, as his are to me.

But after all, see you not, my dear, more and more, the mismatch that there is in our minds?

However, I am willing to compound for my fault, by giving up, (if that may be all my punishment) the expectation of what is deemed happiness in this life, with such a husband as I fear he will make. In short, I will content myself to be a suffering person through the state to the end of my life.--A long one it cannot be!

This may qualify him (as it may prove) from stings of conscience from misbehaviour to a first wife, to be a more tolerable one to a second, though not perhaps a better deserving one: while my story, to all who shall know it, will afford these instructions: That the eye is a traitor, and ought ever to be mistrusted: that form is deceitful: in other words; that a fine person is seldom paired by a fine mind: and that sound principle and a good heart, are the only bases on which the hopes of a happy future, either with respect to this world, or the other, can be built.

And so much at present for Mr. Lovelace's proposals: Of which I desire your opinion.*

* We cannot forbear observing in this place, that the Lady has been particularly censured, even by some of her own s.e.x, as over-nice in her part of the above conversations: but surely this must be owing to want of attention to the circ.u.mstances she was in, and to her character, as well as to the character of the man she had to deal with: for, although she could not be supposed to know so much of his designs as the reader does by means of his letters to Belford, yet she was but too well convinced of his faulty morals, and of the necessity there was, from the whole of his behaviour to her, to keep such an encroacher, as she frequently calls him, at a distance. In Letter x.x.xIII. of Vol. III. the reader will see, that upon some favourable appearances she blames herself for her readiness to suspect him. But his character, his principles, said she, are so faulty!--He is so light, so vain, so various.----Then, my dear, I have no guardian to depend upon. In Letter IX. of Vol. III.

Must I not with such a man, says she, be wanting to myself, were I not jealous and vigilant?

By this time the reader will see, that she had still greater reason for her jealousy and vigilance. And Lovelace will tell the s.e.x, as he does in Letter XI. of Vol. V., that the woman who resents not initiatory freedoms, must be lost. Love is an encroacher, says he: loves never goes backward. Nothing but the highest act of love can satisfy an indulged love.

But the reader perhaps is too apt to form a judgment of Clarissa's conduct in critical cases by Lovelace's complaints of her coldness; not considering his views upon her; and that she is proposed as an example; and therefore in her trials and distresses must not be allowed to dispense with those rules which perhaps some others of the s.e.x, in her delicate situation, would not have thought themselves so strictly bound to observe; although, if she had not observed them, a Lovelace would have carried all his points.

[Four letters are written by Mr. Lovelace from the date of his last, giving the state of affairs between him and the Lady, pretty much the same as in hers in the same period, allowing for the humour in his, and for his resentments expressed with vehemence on her resolution to leave him, if her friends could be brought to be reconciled to her.-- A few extracts from them will be only given.]

What, says he, might have become of me, and of my projects, had not her father, and the rest of the implacables, stood my friends?

[After violent threatenings of revenge, he says,]

'Tis plain she would have given me up for ever: nor should I have been able to prevent her abandoning of me, unless I had torn up the tree by the roots to come at the fruit; which I hope still to bring down by a gentle shake or two, if I can but have patience to stay the ripening seasoning.

[Thus triumphing in his unpolite cruelty, he says,]

After her haughty treatment of me, I am resolved she shall speak out.

There are a thousand beauties to be discovered in the face, in the accent, in the bush-beating hesitations of a woman who is earnest about a subject she wants to introduce, yet knows not how. Silly fellows, calling themselves generous ones, would value themselves for sparing a lady's confusion: but they are silly fellows indeed; and rob themselves of prodigious pleasure by their forwardness; and at the same time deprive her of displaying a world of charms, which can only be manifested on these occasions.

I'll tell thee beforehand, how it will be with my charmer in this case-- she will be about it, and about it, several times: but I will not understand her: at least, after half a dozen hem--ings, she will be obliged to speak out--I think, Mr. Lovelace--I think, Sir--I think you were saying some days ago--Still I will be all silence--her eyes fixed upon my shoe-buckles, as I sit over-against her--ladies when put to it thus, always admire a man's shoe-buckles, or perhaps some particular beauties in the carpet. I think you said that Mrs. Fretchville--Then a crystal tear trickles down each crimson cheek, vexed to have her virgin pride so little a.s.sisted. But, come, my meaning dear, cry I to myself, remember what I have suffered for thee, and what I have suffered by thee!

Thy tearful pausings shall not be helped out by me. Speak out, love!--O the sweet confusion! Can I rob myself of so many conflicting beauties by the precipitate charmer-pitying folly, by which a politer man [thou knowest, lovely, that I am no polite man!] betrayed by his own tenderness, and unused to female tears, would have been overcome? I will feign an irresolution of mind on the occasion, that she may not quite abhor me--that her reflections on the scene in my absence may bring to her remembrance some beauties in my part of it: an irresolution that will be owing to awe, to reverence, to profound veneration; and that will have more eloquence in it than words can have. Speak out then, love, and spare not.

Hard-heartedness, as it is called, is an essential of the libertine's character. Familiarized to the distresses he occasions, he is seldom betrayed by tenderness into a complaisant weakness unworthy of himself.

[Mentioning the settlements, he says,]

I am in earnest as to the terms. If I marry her, [and I have no doubt that I shall, after my pride, my ambition, my revenge, if thou wilt, is gratified,] I will do her n.o.ble justice. The more I do for such a prudent, such an excellent economist, the more shall I do for myself.-- But, by my soul, Belford, her haughtiness shall be brought down to own both love and obligation to me. Nor will this sketch of settlements bring us forwarder than I would have it. Modesty of s.e.x will stand my friend at any time. At the very altar, our hands joined, I will engage to make this proud beauty leave the parson and me, and all my friends who should be present, though twenty in number, to look like fools upon one another, while she took wing, and flew out of the church door, or window, (if that were open, and the door shut); and this only by a single word.

[He mentions his rash expression, That she should be his, although his d.a.m.nation was to be the purchase.]