LETTER XVI
MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE MONDAY MORNING, MARCH 27.
This morning early my uncle Harlowe came hither. He sent up the enclosedvery tender letter. It has made me wish I could oblige him. You will seehow Mr. Solmes's ill qualities are glossed over in it. What blemishesdies affection hide!--But perhaps they may say to me, What faults doesantipathy bring to light!
Be pleased to send me back this letter of my uncle by the first return.
SUNDAY NIGHT, OR RATHER MINDAY MORNING.
I must answer you, though against my own resolution. Every body lovesyou; and you know they do. The very ground you walk upon is dear to mostof us. But how can we resolve to see you? There is no standing againstyour looks and language. It is our loves makes us decline to see you.How can we, when you are resolved not to do what we are resolved youshall do? I never, for my part, loved any creature, as I loved you fromyour infancy till now. And indeed, as I have often said, never was therea young creature so deserving of our love. But what is come to you now!Alas! alas! my dear kinswoman, how you fail in the trial!
I have read the letters you enclosed. At a proper time, I may shew themto my brother and sister: but they will receive nothing from you atpresent.
For my part, I could not read your letter to me, without being unmanned.How can you be so unmoved yourself, yet so able to move every bodyelse? How could you send such a letter to Mr. Solmes? Fie upon you! Howstrangely are you altered!
Then to treat your brother and sister as you did, that they don't careto write to you, or to see you! Don't you know where it is written, Thatsoft answers turn away wrath? But if you will trust to you sharp-pointedwit, you may wound. Yet a club will beat down a sword: And how can youexpect that they who are hurt by you will not hurt you again? Was thisthe way you used to take to make us all adore you as we did?--No, itwas your gentleness of heart and manners, that made every body, evenstrangers, at first sight, treat you as a lady, and call you a lady,though not born one, while your elder sister had no such distinctionspaid her. If you were envied, why should you sharpen envy, and file upits teeth to an edge?--You see I write like an impartial man, and as onethat loves you still.
But since you have displayed your talents, and spared nobody, and movedevery body, without being moved, you have but made us stand the closerand firmer together. This is what I likened to an embattled phalanx,once before. Your aunt Hervey forbids your writing for the same reasonthat I must not countenance it. We are all afraid to see you, because weknow we shall be made as so many fools. Nay, your mother is so afraidof you, that once or twice, when she thought you were coming to forceyourself into her presence, she shut the door, and locked herself in,because she knew she must not see you upon your terms, and you areresolved you will not see her upon hers.
Resolves but to oblige us all, my dearest Miss Clary, and you shall seehow we will clasp you every one by turns to our rejoicing hearts. If theone man has not the wit, and the parts, and the person, of the other, noone breathing has a worse heart than that other: and is not the loveof all your friends, and a sober man (if he be not so polished) to bepreferred to a debauchee, though ever so fine a man to look at? You havesuch talents that you will be adored by the one: but the other has asmuch advantage in those respects, as you have yourself, and will not setby them one straw: for husbands are sometimes jealous of their authoritywith witty wives. You will have in one, a man of virtue. Had you notbeen so rudely affronting to him, he would have made your ears tinglewith what he could have told you of the other.
Come, my dear niece, let me have the honour of doing with you what nobody else yet has been able to do. Your father, mother, and I, willdivide the pleasure, and the honour, I will again call it, between us;and all past offences shall be forgiven; and Mr. Solmes, we will engage,shall take nothing amiss hereafter, of what has passed.
He knows, he says, what a jewel that man will have, who can obtain yourfavour; and he will think light of all he has suffered, or shall suffer,in obtaining you.
Dear, sweet creature, oblige us: and oblige us with a grace. It must bedone, whether with a grace or not. I do assure you it must. You must notconquer father, mother, uncles, every body: depend upon that.
I have set up half the night to write this. You do not know how Iam touched at reading yours, and writing this. Yet will I be atHarlowe-place early in the morning. So, upon reading this, if you willoblige us all, send me word to come up to your apartment: and I willlead you down, and present you to the embraces of every one: and youwill then see, you have more of a brother and sister in them both, thanof late your prejudices will let you think you have. This from one whoused to love to style himself,
Your paternal uncle, JOHN HARLOWE.
*****
In about an hour after this kind letter was given me, my uncle sent upto know, if he should be a welcome visiter, upon the terms mentioned inhis letter? He bid Betty bring him down a verbal answer: a written one,he said, would be a bad sign: and he bid her therefore not to bring aletter. But I had just finished the enclosed transcription of one I hadbeen writing. She made a difficulty to carry it; but was prevailed uponto oblige me by a token which these Mrs. Betty's cannot withstand.
DEAR AND HONOURED SIR,
How you rejoice me by your condescending goodness!--So kind, so paternala letter!--so soothing to a wounded heart; and of late what I have beenso little used to!--How am I affected with it! Tell me not, dear Sir, ofmy way of writing: your letter has more moved me, than I have been ableto move any body!--It has made me wish, with all my heart, that I couldentitle myself to be visited upon your own terms; and to be led down tomy father and mother by so good and so kind an uncle.
I will tell you, dearest Uncle, what I will do to make my peace. I haveno doubt that Mr. Solmes, upon consideration, would greatly prefer mysister to such a strange averse creature as me. His chief, or one of hischief motives in his address to me, is, as I have reason to believe, thecontiguity of my grandfather's estate to his own. I will resign it; forever I will resign it: and the resignation must be good, because I willnever marry at all. I will make it over to my sister, and her heirs forever. I shall have no heirs, but my brother and her; and I will receive,as of my father's bounty, such an annuity (not in lieu of the estate,but as of his bounty) as he shall be pleased to grant me, if it beever so small: and whenever I disoblige him, he to withdraw it, at hispleasure.
Will this not be accepted?--Surely it must--surely it will!--I beg ofyou, dearest Sir, to propose it; and second it with your interest. Thiswill answer every end. My sister has a high opinion of Mr. Solmes. Inever can have any in the light he is proposed to me. But as my sister'shusband, he will be always entitled to my respect; and shall have it.
If this be accepted, grant me, Sir, the honour of a visit; and do methen the inexpressible pleasure of leading me down to the feet of myhonoured parents, and they shall find me the most dutiful of children;and to the arms of my brother and sister, and they shall find me themost obliging and most affectionate of sisters.
I wait, Sir, for your answer to this proposal, made with the whole heartof
Your dutiful and most obliged niece, CL. HARLOWE.
MONDAY NOON.
I hope this will be accepted: for Betty tells me, that my uncle Antonyand my aunt Hervey are sent for; and not Mr. Solmes; which I look uponas a favourable circumstance. With what cheerfulness will I assign overthis envied estate!--What a much more valuable consideration shall Ipart with it for!--The love and favour of all my relations! That loveand favour, which I used for eighteen years together to rejoice in, andbe distinguished by!--And what a charming pretence will this afford meof breaking with Mr. Lovelace! And how easily will it possibly make himto part with me!
I found this morning, in the usual place, a letter from him, in answer,I suppose, to mine of Friday, which I deposited not till Saturday. ButI have not opened it; nor will I, till I see what effect this new offerwill have.
Let me but be permitted to avoid the m
an I hate; and I will give up withcheerfulness the man I could prefer. To renounce the one, were I reallyto value him as much as you seem to imagine, can give but a temporaryconcern, which time and discretion will alleviate. This is a sacrificewhich a child owes to parents and friends, if they insist upon its beingmade. But the other, to marry a man one cannot endure, is not only adishonest thing, as to the man; but it is enough to make a creature whowishes to be a good wife, a bad or indifferent one, as I once wrote tothe man himself: and then she can hardly be either a good mistress, ora good friend; or any thing but a discredit to her family, and a badexample to all around her.
Methinks I am loth, in the suspense I am in at present, to depositthis, because it will be leaving you in one as great: but having beenprevented by Betty's officiousness twice, I will now go down to mylittle poultry; and, if I have an opportunity, will leave it in theusual place, where I hope to find something from you.