LETTER XXIII
MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWEWEDNESDAY, MAY 10.
I WILL write! No man shall write for me.* No woman shall hinder me fromwriting. Surely I am of age to distinguish between reason and caprice.I am not writing to a man, am I?--If I were carrying on a correspondencewith a fellow, of whom my mother disapproved, and whom it might beimproper for me to encourage, my own honour and my duty would engage myobedience. But as the case is so widely different, not a word more onthis subject, I beseech you!
* Clarissa proposes Mr. Hickman to write for Miss Howe. See Letter XI.of this volume, Paragr. 5, & ult.
I much approve of your resolution to leave this wretch, if you can makeit up with your uncle.
I hate the man--most heartily do I hate him, for his teasing ways. Thevery reading of your account of them teases me almost as much as they canyou. May you have encouragement to fly the foolish wretch!
I have other reasons to wish you may: for I have just made anacquaintance with one who knows a vast deal of his private history. Theman is really a villain, my dear! an execrable one! if all be true that Ihave heard! And yet I am promised other particulars. I do assure you,my dear friend, that, had he a dozen lives, he might have forfeited themall, and been dead twenty crimes ago.
If ever you condescend to talk familiarly with him again, ask him afterMiss Betterton, and what became of her. And if he shuffle andprevaricate as to her, question him about Miss Lockyer.--O my dear, theman's a villain!
I will have your uncle sounded, as you desire, and that out of hand. Butyet I am afraid of the success; and this for several reasons. 'Tis hardto say what the sacrifice of your estate would do with some people: andyet I must not, when it comes to the test, permit you to make it.
As your Hannah continues ill, I would advise you to try to attach Dorcasto your interest. Have you not been impoliticly shy of her?
I wish you could come at some of his letters. Surely a man of hisnegligent character cannot be always guarded. If he be, and if youcannot engage your servant, I shall suspect them both. Let him be calledupon at a short warning when he is writing, or when he has papers lyingabout, and so surprise him into negligence.
Such inquiries, I know, are of the same nature with those we make at aninn in traveling, when we look into every corner and closet, for fear ofa villain; yet should be frighted out of our wits, were we to find one.But 'tis better to detect such a one when awake and up, than to beattacked by him when in bed and asleep.
I am glad you have your clothes. But no money! No books but a Spira, aDrexelius, and a Practice of Piety! Those who sent the latter ought tohave kept it for themselves--But I must hurry myself from this subject.
You have exceedingly alarmed me by what you hint of his attempt to getone of my letters. I am assured by my new informant, that he is the headof a gang of wretched (those he brought you among, no doubt, were some ofthem) who join together to betray innocent creatures, and to support oneanother afterwards by violence; and were he to come at the knowledge ofthe freedoms I take with him, I should be afraid to stir out without aguard.
I am sorry to tell you, that I have reason to think, that your brotherhas not laid aside his foolish plot. A sunburnt, sailor-looking fellowwas with me just now, pretending great service to you from CaptainSingleton, could he be admitted to your speech. I pleaded ignorance asto the place of your abode. The fellow was too well instructed for me toget any thing out of him.
I wept for two hours incessantly on reading your's, which enclosed thatfrom your cousin Morden.* My dearest creature, do not desert yourself.Let your Anna Howe obey the call of that friendship which has united usas one soul, and endeavour to give you consolation.
* See Letter XIX. of this volume.
I wonder not at the melancholy reflections you so often cast uponyourself in your letters, for the step you have been forced upon on onehand, and tricked into on the other. A strange fatality! As if it weredesigned to show the vanity of all human prudence. I wish, my dear, asyou hint, that both you and I have not too much prided ourselves in aperhaps too conscious superiority over others. But I will stop--how aptare weak minds to look out for judgments in any extraordinary event!'Tis so far right, that it is better, and safer, and juster, to arraignourselves, or our dearest friends, than Providence; which must alwayshave wise ends to answer its dispensations.
But do not talk, as if one of your former, of being a warning only*--youwill be as excellent an example as ever you hoped to be, as well as awarning: and that will make your story, to all that shall come to knowit, of double efficacy: for were it that such a merit as yours could notensure to herself noble and generous usage from a libertine heart, whowill expect any tolerable behaviour from men of his character?
* See Vol. III. Letter XXVIII.
If you think yourself inexcusable for taking a step that put you into theway of delusion, without any intention to go off with him, what mustthose giddy creatures think of themselves, who, without half yourprovocations and inducements, and without any regard to decorum, leapwalls, drop from windows, and steal away from their parents' house, tothe seducer's bed, in the same day?
Again, if you are so ready to accuse yourself for dispensing with theprohibitions of the most unreasonable parents, which yet were but half-prohibitions at first, what ought those to do, who wilfully shut theirears to the advice of the most reasonable; and that perhaps, whereapparent ruin, or undoubted inconvenience, is the consequence of thepredetermined rashness?
And lastly, to all who will know your story, you will be an excellentexample of watchfulness, and of that caution and reserve by which aprudent person, who has been supposed to be a little misled, endeavoursto mend her error; and, never once losing sight of her duty, does all inher power to recover the path she has been rather driven out of thanchosen to swerve from.
Come, come, my dearest friend, consider but these things; and steadily,without desponding, pursue your earnest purposes to amend what you thinkhas been amiss; and it may not be a misfortune in the end that you haveerred; especially as so little of your will was in your error.
And indeed I must say that I use the words misled, and error, and such-like, only in compliment to your own too-ready self-accusations, and tothe opinion of one to whom I owe duty: for I think in my conscience, thatevery part of your conduct is defensible: and that those only areblamable who have no other way to clear themselves but by condemning you.
I expect, however, that such melancholy reflections as drop from your penbut too often will mingle with all your future pleasures, were you tomarry Lovelace, and were he to make the best of husbands.
You was immensely happy, above the happiness of a mortal creature, beforeyou knew him: every body almost worshipped you: envy itself, which has oflate reared up its venomous head against you, was awed, by your superiorworthiness, into silence and admiration. You was the soul of everycompany where you visited. Your elders have I seen declining to offertheir opinions upon a subject till you had delivered yours; often, tosave themselves the mortification of retracting theirs, when they heardyours. Yet, in all this, your sweetness of manners, your humility andaffability, caused the subscription every one made to your sentiments,and to your superiority, to be equally unfeigned, and unhesitating; forthey saw that their applause, and the preference they gave you tothemselves, subjected not themselves to insults, nor exalted you into anyvisible triumph over them; for you had always something to say on everypoint you carried that raised the yielding heart, and left every onepleased and satisfied with themselves, though they carried not off thepalm.
Your works were showed or referred to wherever fine works were talked of.Nobody had any but an inferior and second-hand praise for diligence, foreconomy, for reading, for writing, for memory, for facility in learningevery thing laudable, and even for the more envied graces of person anddress, and an all-surpassing elegance in both, where you were known, andthose subjects talked of.
The poor blessed you e
very step you trod: the rich thought you theirhonour, and took a pride that they were not obliged to descend from theirown class for an example that did credit to it.
Though all men wished for you, and sought you, young as you were; yet,had not those who were brought to address you been encouraged out ofsordid and spiteful views, not one of them would have dared to lift uphis eyes to you.
Thus happy in all about you, thus making happy all within your circle,could you think that nothing would happen to you, to convince you thatyou were not to be exempted from the common lot?--To convinced you, thatyou were not absolutely perfect; and that you must not expect to passthrough life without trial, temptation, and misfortune?
Indeed, it must be owned that no trial, no temptation, worthy of yourvirtue, and of your prudence, could well have attacked you sooner,because of your tender years, and more effectually, than those heavy onesunder which you struggle; since it must be allowed, that you equanimityand foresight made you superior to common accidents; for are not most ofthe troubles that fall to the lot of common mortals brought uponthemselves either by their too large desires, or too little deserts?--Cases, both, from which you stood exempt.--It was therefore to be someman, or some worse spirit in the shape of one, that, formed on purpose,was to be sent to invade you; while as many other such spirits as thereare persons in your family were permitted to take possession, severally,in one dark hour, of the heart of every one of it, there to sit perching,perhaps, and directing every motion to the motions of the seducerwithout, in order to irritate, to provoke, to push you forward to meethim.
Upon the whole, there seems, as I have often said, to have been a kind offate in your error, if it were an error; and this perhaps admitted forthe sake of a better example to be collected from your SUFFERINGS, thancould have been given, had you never erred: for my dear, the time ofADVERSITY is your SHINING-TIME. I see it evidently, that adversity mustcall forth graces and beauties which could not have been brought to lightin a run of that prosperous fortune which attended you from your cradletill now; admirably as you became, and, as we all thought, greatly as youdeserved that prosperity.
All the matter is, the trial must be grievous to you. It is to me: it isto all who love you, and looked upon you as one set aloft to be admiredand imitated, and not as a mark, as you have lately found, for envy toshoot its shafts at.
Let what I have written above have its due weight with you, my dear; andthen, as warm imaginations are not without a mixture of enthusiasm, yourAnna Howe, who, on reperusal of it, imagines it to be in a style superiorto her usual style, will be ready to flatter herself that she has been ina manner inspired with the hints that have comforted and raised thedejected heart of her suffering friend; who, from such hard trials, in abloom so tender, may find at times her spirits sunk too low to enable herto pervade the surrounding darkness, which conceals from her the hopefuldawning of the better day which awaits her.
I will add no more at present, than that I amYour ever faithful and affectionateANNA HOWE.