LETTER II
MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE WEDNESDAY NIGHT, MARCH 22.
ANGRY!--What should I be angry for? I am mightily pleased with yourfreedom, as you call it. I only wonder at your patience with me; that'sall. I am sorry I gave you the trouble of so long a letter upon theoccasion,* notwithstanding the pleasure I received in reading it.
* See Vol. I, Letter XXXVII, for the occasion; and Letters XXXVIII. and XL. of the same volume, for the freedom Clarissa apologizes for.
I believe you did not intend reserves to me: for two reasons I believeyou did not: First, because you say you did not: Next, because you havenot as yet been able to convince yourself how it is to be with you; andpersecuted as you are, how so to separate the effects that spring fromthe two causes [persecution and love] as to give to each its particulardue. But this I believe I hinted to you once before; and so will say nomore upon this subject at present.
Robin says, you had but just deposited your last parcel when he took it:for he was there but half an hour before, and found nothing. He had seenmy impatience, and loitered about, being willing to bring me somethingfrom you, if possible.
My cousin Jenny Fynnett is here, and desires to be my bedfellowto-night. So I shall not have an opportunity to sit down with thatseriousness and attention which the subjects of yours require. For sheis all prate, you know, and loves to set me a prating; yet comes upona very grave occasion--to procure my mother to go with her to hergrandmother Larking, who has long been bed-ridden; and at last has takenit into her head that she is mortal, and therefore will make her will; awork she was till now extremely averse to; but it must be upon conditionthat my mother, who is her distant relation, will go to her, and adviseher as to the particulars of it: for she has a high opinion, as everyone else has, of my mother's judgment in all matters relating to wills,settlements, and such-like notable affairs.
Mrs. Larking lives about seventeen miles off; and as my mother cannotendure to lie out of her own house, she proposes to set out early inthe morning, that she might be able to get back again at night. So,to-morrow I shall be at your devotion from day-light to day-light; norwill I be at home to any body.
I have hinted before, that I could almost wish my mother and Mr. Hickmanwould make a match of it: and I here repeat my wishes. What signifiesa difference of fifteen or twenty years; especially when the lady hasspirits that will make her young a long time, and the lover is a mightysober man?--I think, verily, I could like him better for a papa, thanfor a nearer relation: and they are strange admirers of one another.
But allow me a perhaps still better (and, as to years, more suitable andhappier) disposal; for the man at least.--What think you, my dear, ofcompromising with your friends, by rejecting both men, and encouragingmy parader?--If your liking one of the two go no farther thanconditional, I believe it will do. A rich thought, if it obtain yourapprobation! In this light, I should have a prodigious respect forMr. Hickman; more by half than I can have in the other. The vein isopened--Shall I let it flow? How difficult to withstand constitutionalfoibles!
Hickman is certainly a man more in your taste than any of those who havehitherto been brought to address you. He is mighty sober, mighty grave,and all that. Then you have told me, that he is your favourite. But thatis because he is my mother's perhaps. The man would certainly rejoice atthe transfer; or he must be a greater fool than I take him to be.
O but your fierce lover would knock him o' the head--I forgotthat!--What makes me incapable of seriousness when I write aboutHickman?--Yet the man so good a sort of man in the main!--But who isperfect? This is one of my foibles: and it is something for you to chideme for.
You believe me to be very happy in my prospect in relation to him:because you are so very unhappy in the foolish usage you meet with, youare apt (as I suspect) to think that tolerable which otherwise would befar from being so. I dare say, you would not, with all your grave airs,like him for yourself; except, being addressed by Solmes and him, youwere obliged to have one of them.--I have given you a test. Let me seewhat you will say to it.
For my own part, I confess to you, that I have great exceptions toHickman. He and wedlock never yet once entered into my head at one time.Shall I give you my free thoughts of him?--Of his best and his worst;and that as if I were writing to one who knows him not?--I think I will.Yet it is impossible I should do it gravely. The subject won't bear tobe so treated in my opinion. We are not come so far as that yet, if everwe shall: and to do it in another strain, ill becomes my present realconcern for you.
*****
Here I was interrupted on the honest man's account. He has been herethese two hours--courting the mother for the daughter, I suppose--yetshe wants no courting neither: 'Tis well one of us does; else the manwould have nothing but halcyon; and be remiss, and saucy of course.
He was going. His horses at the door. My mother sent for me down,pretending to want to say something to me.
Something she said when I came that signified nothing--Evidently, for noreason called me, but to give me an opportunity to see what a fine bowher man could make; and that she might wish me a good night. She knowsI am not over ready to oblige him with my company, if I happen to beotherwise engaged. I could not help an air a little upon the fretful,when I found she had nothing of moment to say to me, and when I saw herintention.
She smiled off the visible fretfulness, that the man might go away ingood humour with himself.
He bowed to the ground, and would have taken my hand, his whip in theother. I did not like to be so companioned: I withdrew my hand, buttouched his elbow with a motion, as if from his low bow I had supposedhim falling, and would have helped him up--A sad slip, it might havebeen! said I.
A mad girl! smiled it off my mother.
He was quite put out; took his horse-bridle, stumped back, back, back,bowing, till he run against his servant. I laughed. He mounted hishorse. I mounted up stairs, after a little lecture; and my head is sofilled with him, that I must resume my intention, in hopes to divert youfor a few moments.
Take it then--his best, and his worst, as I said before.
Hickman is a sort of fiddling, busy, yet, to borrow a word from you,unbusy man: has a great deal to do, and seems to me to dispatch nothing.Irresolute and changeable in every thing, but in teasing me with hisnonsense; which yet, it is evident, he must continue upon my mother'sinterest more than upon his own hopes; for none have I given him.
Then I have a quarrel against his face, though in his person, fora well-thriven man, tolerably genteel--Not to his features so muchneither; for what, as you have often observed, are features in aman?--But Hickman, with strong lines, and big cheek and chin bones,has not the manliness in his aspect, which Lovelace has with the mostregular and agreeable features.
Then what a set and formal mortal he is in some things!--I have not beenable yet to laugh him out of his long bid and beads. Indeed, that is,because my mother thinks they become him; and I would not be so freewith him, as to own I should choose to have him leave it off. If he did,so particular is the man, he would certainly, if left to himself, fallinto a King-William's cravat, or some such antique chin-cushion, as bythe pictures of that prince one sees was then the fashion.
As to his dress in general, he cannot indeed be called a sloven, butsometimes he is too gaudy, at other times too plain, to be uniformlyelegant. And for his manners, he makes such a bustle with them, andabout them, as would induce one to suspect that they are more strangersthan familiars to him. You, I know, lay this to his fearfulness ofdisobliging or offending. Indeed your over-doers generally give theoffence they endeavour to avoid.
The man however is honest: is of family: has a clear and good estate;and may one day be a baronet, an't please you. He is humane andbenevolent, tolerably generous, as people say; and as I might say too,if I would accept of his bribes; which he offers in hopes of having themall back again, and the bribed into the bargain. A method taken by allcorrupters, from old Satan, to the lowest of his servants.
Yet, to speakin the language of a person I am bound to honour, he is deemed a prudentman; that is to say a good manager.
Then I cannot but confess, that now I like not anybody better, whateverI did once.
He is no fox-hunter: he keeps a pack indeed; but prefers not his houndsto his fellow-creatures. No bad sign for a wife, I own. He loves hishorse; but dislikes racing in a gaming way, as well as all sorts ofgaming. Then he is sober; modest; they say, virtuous; in short,has qualities that mothers would be fond of in a husband for theirdaughters; and for which perhaps their daughters would be the happiercould they judge as well for themselves, as experience possibly mayteach them to judge for their future daughters.
Nevertheless, to own the truth, I cannot say I love the man: nor, Ibelieve, ever shall.
Strange! that these sober fellows cannot have a decent sprightliness,a modest assurance with them! Something debonnaire; which need not beseparated from that awe and reverence, when they address a woman, whichshould shew the ardour of their passion, rather than the sheepishnessof their nature; for who knows not that love delights in taming thelion-hearted? That those of the sex, who are most conscious of theirown defect in point of courage, naturally require, and therefore asnaturally prefer, the man who has most of it, as the most able to givethem the requisite protection? That the greater their own cowardice, asit would be called in a man, the greater is their delight in subjectsof heroism? As may be observed in their reading; which turns upondifficulties encountered, battles fought, and enemies overcome, four orfive hundred by the prowess of one single hero, the more improbable thebetter: in short, that their man should be a hero to every one livingbut themselves; and to them know no bound to his humility. A woman hassome glory in subduing a heart no man living can appall; and hence toooften the bravo, assuming the hero, and making himself pass for one,succeeds as only a hero should.
But as for honest Hickman, the good man is so generally meek, as Iimagine, that I know not whether I have any preference paid me in hisobsequiousness. And then, when I rate him, he seems to be so naturallyfitted for rebuke, and so much expects it, that I know not how todisappoint him, whether he just then deserve it, or not. I am sure, hehas puzzled me many a time when I have seen him look penitent for faultshe has not committed, whether to pity or laugh at him.
You and I have often retrospected the faces and minds of grown people;that is to say, have formed images for their present appearances,outside and in, (as far as the manners of the persons would justify usin the latter) what sort of figures they made when boys and girls. AndI'll tell you the lights in which HICKMAN, SOLMES, and LOVELACE, ourthree heroes, have appeared to me, supposing them boys at school.
Solmes I have imagined to be a little sordid, pilfering rogue, who wouldpurloin from every body, and beg every body's bread and butter from him;while, as I have heard a reptile brag, he would in a winter-morning spitupon his thumbs, and spread his own with it, that he might keep it allto himself.
Hickman, a great overgrown, lank-haired, chubby boy, who would behunched and punched by every body; and go home with his finger in hiseye, and tell his mother.
While Lovelace I have supposed a curl-pated villain, full of fire,fancy, and mischief; an orchard-robber, a wall-climber, a horse-riderwithout saddle or bridle, neck or nothing: a sturdy rogue, in short,who would kick and cuff, and do no right, and take no wrong of anybody; would get his head broke, then a plaster for it, or let it healof itself; while he went on to do more mischief, and if not to get,to deserve, broken bones. And the same dispositions have grown up withthem, and distinguish them as me, with no very material alteration.
Only that all men are monkeys more or less, or else that you and Ishould have such baboons as these to choose out of, is a mortifyingthing, my dear.
I am sensible that I am a little out of season in treating thusludicrously the subject I am upon, while you are so unhappy; and ifmy manner does not divert you, as my flightiness used to do, I aminexcusable both to you, and to my own heart: which, I do assure you,notwithstanding my seeming levity, is wholly in your case.
As this letter is extremely whimsical, I will not send it until I canaccompany it with something more solid and better suited to yourunhappy circumstances; that is to say, to the present subject of ourcorrespondence. To-morrow, as I told you, will be wholly my own, and ofconsequence yours. Adieu, therefore, till then.