LETTER LIII
MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE [WITH THE PRECEDING.] SAT. MORN.APRIL 22.
I have just now received the enclosed from my aunt Hervey. Be pleased,my dear, to keep her secret of having written to the unhappy wretch herniece.
I may go to London, I see, or where I will. No matter what becomes ofme.
I was the willinger to suspend my journey thither till I heard fromHarlowe-place. I thought, if I could be encouraged to hope for areconciliation, I would let this man see, that he should not have me inhis power, but upon my own terms, if at all.
But I find I must be his, whether I will or not; and perhaps throughstill greater mortifications than those great ones which I have alreadymet with--And must I be so absolutely thrown upon a man, with whom I amnot at all satisfied!
My letter is sent, you see, to Harlowe-place. My heart aches for thereception it may meet with there.
One comfort only arises to me from its being sent; that my aunt willclear herself, by the communication, from the supposition of havingcorresponded with the poor creature whom they have all determine toreprobate. It is no small part of my misfortune that I have weakened theconfidence one dear friend has in another, and made one look cool uponanother. My poor cousin Dolly, you see, has reason to regret on thisaccount, as well as my aunt. Miss Howe, my dear Miss Howe, is but toosensible of the effects of my fault, having had more words with hermother on my account, than ever she had on any other. Yet the man whohas drawn me into all this evil I must be thrown upon!--Much did Iconsider, much did I apprehend, before my fault, supposing I were to beguilty of it: but I saw it not in all its shocking lights.
And now, to know that my father, an hour before he received the tidingsof my supposed flight, owned that he loved me as his life: that he wouldhave been all condescension: that he would--Oh! my dear, how tender, howmortifyingly tender now in him! My aunt need not have been afraid, thatit should be known that she has sent me such a letter as this!--A fatherto kneel to his child!--There would not indeed have been any bearing ofthat!--What I should have done in such a case, I know not. Deathwould have been much more welcome to me than such a sight, on such anoccasion, in behalf of a man so very, very disgustful to me!--But I haddeserve annihilation, had I suffered my father to kneel in vain.
Yet, had but the sacrifice of inclination and personal preference beenall, less than KNEELING should have been done. My duty should have beenthe conqueror of my inclination. But an aversion--an aversion sovery sincere!--The triumph of a cruel and ambitious brother, ever souncontroulable, joined with the insults of an envious sister, bringingwills to theirs, which otherwise would have been favourable to me: themarriage-duties, so absolutely indispensable, so solemnly to be engagedfor: the marriage-intimacies (permit me to say to you, my friend, whatthe purest, although with apprehension, must think of) so veryintimate: myself one who has never looked upon any duty, much less avoluntary-vowed one, with indifference; could it have been honest in meto have given my hand to an odious hand, and to have consented to such amore than reluctant, such an immiscible union, if I may so call it?--Forlife too!--Did not I think more and deeper than most young creaturesthink; did I not weigh, did I not reflect, I might perhaps have beenless obstinate.--Delicacy, (may I presume to call it?) thinking,weighing, reflection, are not blessings (I he not found them such) inthe degree I have them. I wish I had been able, in some very nicecases, to have known what indifference was; yet not to have my ignoranceimputable to me as a fault. Oh! my dear! the finer sensibilities, if Imay suppose mine to be such, make not happy.
What a method had my friends intended to take with me! This, I daresay, was a method chalked out by my brother. He, I suppose, was to havepresented me to all my assembled friends, as the daughter capable ofpreferring her own will to the wills of them all. It would have been asore trial, no doubt. Would to Heaven, however, I had stood it--let theissue have been what it would, would to Heaven I had stood it!
There may be murder, my aunt says. This looks as if she knew ofSingleton's rash plot. Such an upshot, as she calls it, of this unhappyaffair, Heaven avert!
She flies a thought, that I can less dwell upon--a cruel thought--butshe has a poor opinion of the purity she compliments me with, if shethinks that I am not, by God's grace, above temptation from this sex.Although I never saw a man, whose person I could like, before thisman; yet his faulty character allowed me but little merit from theindifference I pretended to on his account. But, now I see him in nearerlights, I like him less than ever. Unpolite, cruel, insolent!--Unwise!A trifler with his own happiness; the destroyer of mine!--His lasttreatment--my fate too visibly in his power--master of his own wishes,[shame to say it,] if he knew what to wish for.--Indeed I never likedhim so little as now. Upon my word, I think I could hate him, (if I donot already hate him) sooner than any man I ever thought tolerablyof--a good reason why: because I have been more disappointed in myexpectations of him; although they never were so high, as to have madehim my choice in preference to the single life, had that beenpermitted me. Still, if the giving him up for ever will make my path toreconciliation easy, and if they will signify as much to me, they shallsee that I never will be his: for I have the vanity to think my soul hissoul's superior.
You will say I rave: forbidden to write to my aunt, and taught todespair of reconciliation, you, my dear, must be troubled with mypassionate resentments. What a wretch was I to give him a meeting, sinceby that I put it out of my power to meet my assembled friends!--Allwould now, if I had met them, been over; and who can tell when mypresent distresses will?--Rid of both men, I had been now perhaps at myaunt Hervey's or at my uncle Antony's; wishing for my cousin Morden'sarrival, who might have accommodated all.
I intended, indeed, to have stood it: And, if I had, how know I by whosename I might now have been called? For how should I have resisted acondescending, a kneeling father, had he been able to have kept histemper with me?
Yet my aunt say he would have relented, if I had not. Perhaps he wouldhave been moved by my humility, before he could have shown such unduecondescension. Such temper as he would have received me with might havebeen improved upon in my favour. And that he had designed ultimately torelent, how it clears my friends (at least to themselves) and condemnsme! O why were my aunt's hints (I remember them now) so very dark?--YetI intended to have returned after the interview; and then perhapsshe would have explained herself.--O this artful, this designingLovelace--yet I must repeat, that most ought I to blame myself formeeting him.
But far, far, be banished from me fruitless recrimination! Far banished,because fruitless! Let me wrap myself about in the mantle of my ownintegrity, and take comfort in my unfaulty intention! Since it is nowtoo late to look back, let me collect all my fortitude, and endeavour tostand those shafts of angry Providence, which it will not permit me toshun! That, whatever the trials may be which I am destined to undergo, Imay not behave unworthily in them, and may come out amended by them.
Join with me in this prayer, my beloved friend; for your own honour'ssake, as well as for love's sake, join with me in it; lest a deviationon my side should, with the censorious, cast a shade upon a friendshipwhich has no levity in it; and the basis of which is improvement, aswell in the greater as lesser duties.
CL. HARLOWE.