LETTER LVIII
MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE THURSDAY, APRIL 27.
I am sorry you sent back my Norris. But you must be allowed to do as youplease. So must I, in my turn. We must neither of us, perhaps, expectabsolutely of the other what is the rightest thing to be done: andyet few folks, so young as we are, better know what the rightest is. Icannot separate myself from you; although I give a double instance of myvanity in joining myself with you in this particular assertion.
I am most heartily rejoiced that your prospects are so much mended; andthat, as I hoped, good has been produced out of evil. What must the manhave been, what must have been his views, had he not taken such aturn, upon a letter so vile, and upon a treatment so unnatural, himselfprincipally the occasion of it?
You know best your motives for suspending: but I wish you could havetaken him at offers so earnest.* Why should you not have permitted himto send for Lord M.'s chaplain? If punctilio only was in the way, andwant of a license, and of proper preparations, and such like, my serviceto you, my dear: and there is ceremony tantamount to your ceremony.
* Mr. Lovelace, in his next Letter, tells his friend how extremely illthe Lady was, recovering from fits to fall into stronger fits, andnobody expecting her life. She had not, he says, acquainted Miss Howehow very ill she was.--In the next Letter, she tells Miss Howe, that hermotives for suspending were not merely ceremonious ones.
Do not, do not, my dear friend, again be so very melancholy a declineras to prefer a shroud, when the matter you wish for is in your power;and when, as you have justly said heretofore, persons cannot die whenthey will.
But it is a strange perverseness in human nature that we slight thatwhen near us which at a distance we wish for.
You have now but one point to pursue: that is marriage: let that besolemnized. Leave the rest to Providence, and, to use your own words ina former letter, follow as that leads. You will have a handsome man,a genteel man; he would be a wise man, if he were not vain of hisendowments, and wild and intriguing: but while the eyes of many of oursex, taken by so specious a form and so brilliant a spirit, encouragethat vanity, you must be contented to stay till grey hairs and prudenceenter upon the stage together. You would not have every thing in thesame man.
I believe Mr. Hickman treads no crooked paths; but he hobbles mostungracefully in a straight one. Yet Mr. Hickman, though he pleases notmy eye, nor diverts my ear, will not, as I believe, disgust the one, norshock the other. Your man, as I have lately said, will always keep upattention; you will always be alive with him, though perhaps more fromfears than hopes: while Mr. Hickman will neither say any thing to keepone awake, nor yet, by shocking adventures, make one's slumbers uneasy.
I believe I now know which of the two men so prudent a person as youwould, at first, have chosen; nor doubt I that you can guess which Iwould have made choice of, if I might. But proud as we are, the proudestof us all can only refuse, and many of us accept the but half-worthy,for fear a still worse should offer.
If men had chosen their mistresses for spirits like their own, althoughMr. Lovelace, at the long run, may have been too many for me, I don'tdoubt but I should have given heart-ach for heart-ach, for one half-yearat least; while you, with my dull-swift, would have glided on asserenely, as calmly, as unaccountably, as the succeeding seasons;and varying no otherwise than they, to bring on new beauties andconveniencies to all about you.
*****
I was going on in this style--but my mother broke in upon me with aprohibitory aspect. 'She gave me leave for one letter only.'--Shehad just parted with your odious uncle, and they have been in closeconference again.
She has vexed me. I must lay this by till I hear from you again, notknowing whither to send it.
Direct me to a third place, as I desired in my former.
I told my mother (on her challenging me) that I was writing indeed, andto you: but it was only to amuse myself; for I protested that I knew notwhere to send to you.
I hope that your next may inform me of your nuptials, although the nextto that were to acquaint me that he was the most ungratefullest monsteron earth; as he must be, if not the kindest husband in it.
My mother has vexed me. But so, on revising, I wrote before.--But shehas unhinged me, as you call it: pretended to catechise Hickman, Iassure you, for contributing to our supposed correspondence. Catechisedhim severely too, upon my word!--I believe I have a sneaking kindnessfor the sneaking fellow, for I cannot endure that any body should treathim like a fool but myself.
I believe, between you and me, the good lady forgot herself. I heard herloud. She possibly imagined that my father was come to life again. Yetthe meekness of the man might have soon convinced her, I should havethought; for my father, it seems, would talk as loud as she, I suppose,(though within a few yards of each other,) as if both were out of theirway, and were hallooing at half a mile's distance, to get in again.
I know you'll blame me for this sauciness--but I told you I was vexed;and if I had not a spirit, my parentage on both sides might be doubted.
You must not chide me too severely, however, because I have learned ofyou not to defend myself in an error: and I own I am wrong: and that'senough: you won't be so generous in this case as you are in every other,if you don't think it is.
Adieu, my dear! I must, I will love you, and love you for ever! Sosubscribes your
ANNA HOWE.