LETTER XXVIII
MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE FRIDAY, MARCH 10.
You will permit me, my dear, to touch upon a few passages in your lastletter, that affect me sensibly.
In the first place, you must allow me to say, low as I am in spirits,that I am very angry with you, for your reflections on my relations,particularly on my father and mother, and on the memory of mygrandfather. Nor, my dear, does your own mother always escape the keenedge of your vivacity. One cannot one's self forbear to write or speakfreely of those we love and honour, when grief from imagined hardtreatment wrings the heart: but it goes against one to hear any bodyelse take the same liberties. Then you have so very strong a manner ofexpression where you take a distaste, that when passion has subdued,and I come (upon reflection) to see by your severity what I have givenoccasion for, I cannot help condemning myself.
But least of all can I bear that you should reflect upon my mother.What, my dear, if her meekness should not be rewarded? Is the want ofreward, or the want even of a grateful acknowledgement, a reason for usto dispense with what we think our duty? They were my father's livelyspirits that first made him an interest in her gentle bosom. They werethe same spirits turned inward, as I have heretofore observed,* thatmade him so impatient when the cruel malady seized him. He always lovedmy mother: And would not LOVE and PITY excusably, nay laudably, make agood wife (who was an hourly witness of his pangs, when labouring undera paroxysm, and his paroxysms becoming more and more frequent, as wellas more and more severe) give up her own will, her own likings,to oblige a husband, thus afflicted, whose love for her wasunquestionable?--And if so, was it not too natural [human nature is notperfect, my dear] that the husband thus humoured by the wife, should beunable to bear controul from any body else, much less contradiction fromhis children?
* See Letter V.
If then you would avoid my highest displeasure, you must spare mymother: and, surely, you will allow me, with her, to pity, as well as tolove and honour my father.
I have no friend but you to whom I can appeal, to whom I dare complain.Unhappily circumstanced as I am, it is but too probable that I shallcomplain, because it is but too probably that I shall have more and morecause given me for complaint. But be it your part, if I do, to sooth myangry passions, and to soften my resentments; and this the rather, asyou know what an influence your advice has upon me; and as you mustalso know, that the freedoms you take with my friends, can have no othertendency, but to weaken the sense of my duty to them, without answeringany good end to myself.
I cannot help owning, however, that I am pleased to have you join withme in opinion of the contempt which Mr. Solmes deserves from me. Butyet, permit me to say, that he is not quite so horrible a creature asyou make him: as to his person, I mean; for with regard to his mind,by all I have heard, you have done him but justice: but you have sucha talent at an ugly likeness, and such a vivacity, that they sometimescarry you out of verisimilitude. In short, my dear, I have known you, inmore instances than one, sit down resolved to write all that wit, ratherthan strict justice, could suggest upon the given occasion. Perhaps itmay be thought, that I should say the less on this particular subject,because your dislike of him arises from love to me: But should it not beour aim to judge of ourselves, and of every thing that affects us, aswe may reasonably imagine other people would judge of us and of ouractions?
As to the advice you give, to resume my estate, I am determined not tolitigate with my father, let what will be the consequence to myself.I may give you, at another time, a more particular answer to yourreasonings on this subject: but, at present, will only observe, thatit is in my opinion, that Lovelace himself would hardly think me worthaddressing, were he to know this would be my resolution. These men, mydear, with all their flatteries, look forward to the PERMANENT. Indeed,it is fit they should. For love must be a very foolish thing to lookback upon, when it has brought persons born to affluence into indigence,and laid a generous mind under obligation and dependence.
You very ingeniously account for the love we bear to one another, fromthe difference in our tempers. I own, I should not have thought of that.There may possibly be something in it: but whether there be or not,whenever I am cool, and give myself time to reflect, I will love you thebetter for the correction you give, be as severe as you will upon me.Spare me not, therefore, my dear friend, whenever you think me in theleast faulty. I love your agreeable raillery: you know I always did:nor, however over-serious you think me, did I ever think you flippant,as you harshly call it. One of the first conditions of our mutualfriendship was, each should say or write to the other whatever was uponher mind, without any offence to be taken: a condition, that is indeedindispensable in friendship.
I knew your mother would be for implicit obedience in a child. I amsorry my case is so circumstanced, that I cannot comply. It would bemy duty to do so, if I could. You are indeed very happy, that you havenothing but your own agreeable, yet whimsical, humours to contend with,in the choice she invites you to make of Mr. Hickman. How happy I shouldbe, to be treated with so much lenity!--I should blush to have my mothersay, that she begged and prayed me, and all in vain, to encourage a manso unexceptionable as Mr. Hickman.
Indeed, my beloved Miss Howe, I am ashamed to have your mother say, withME in her view, 'What strange effects have prepossession and love uponyoung creatures of our sex!' This touches me the more sensibly, becauseyou yourself, my dear, are so ready to persuade me into it.
I should be very blamable to endeavour to hide any the least biasupon my mind, from you: and I cannot but say--that this man--thisLovelace--is a man that might be liked well enough, if he bore sucha character as Mr. Hickman bears; and even if there were hopes ofreclaiming him. And further still I will acknowledge, that I believe itpossible that one might be driven, by violent measures, step by step, asit were, into something that might be called--I don't know what tocall it--a conditional kind of liking, or so. But as to the wordLOVE--justifiable and charming as it is in some cases, (that is to say,in all the relative, in all the social, and, what is still beyond both,in all our superior duties, in which it may be properly called divine;)it has, methinks, in the narrow, circumscribed, selfish, peculiar sense,in which you apply it to me, (the man too so little to be approved offor his morals, if all that report says of him be true,) no pretty soundwith it. Treat me as freely as you will in all other respects, I willlove you, as I have said, the better for your friendly freedom. But,methinks, I could be glad that you would not let this imputation pass soglibly from your pen, or your lips, as attributable to one of your ownsex, whether I be the person or not: since the other must have a doubletriumph, when a person of your delicacy (armed with such contempts ofthem all, as you would have one think) can give up a friend, with anexultation over her weakness, as a silly, love-sick creature.
I could make some other observations upon the contents of your last twoletters; but my mind is not free enough at present. The occasion for theabove stuck with me; and I could not help taking the earliest notice ofthem.
Having written to the end of my second sheet, I will close this letter,and in my next, acquaint you with all that has happened here since mylast.