LETTER III
MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWESATURDAY, MAY 27.
Mr. Lovelace, my dear, has been very ill. Suddenly taken. With avomiting of blood in great quantities. Some vessel broken. Hecomplained of a disorder in his stomach over night. I was theaffected with it, as I am afraid it was occasioned by the violentcontentions between us.--But was I in fault?
How lately did I think I hated him!--But hatred and anger, I see, are buttemporary passions with me. One cannot, my dear, hate people in dangerof death, or who are in distress or affliction. My heart, I find, is notproof against kindness, and acknowledgements of errors committed.
He took great care to have his illness concealed from me as long as hecould. So tender in the violence of his disorder!--So desirous to makethe best of it!--I wish he had not been ill in my sight. I was too muchaffected--every body alarming me with his danger. The poor man, fromsuch high health, so suddenly taken!--and so unprepared!--
He is gone out in a chair. I advised him to do so. I fear that myadvice was wrong; since quiet in such a disorder must needs be best. Weare apt to be so ready, in cases of emergency, to give our advice,without judgment, or waiting for it!--I proposed a physician indeed; buthe would not hear of one. I have great honour for the faculty; and thegreater, as I have always observed that those who treat the professors ofthe art of healing contemptuously, too generally treat higherinstitutions in the same manner.
I am really very uneasy. For I have, I doubt, exposed myself to him, andto the women below. They indeed will excuse me, as they think usmarried. But if he be not generous, I shall have cause to regret thissurprise; which (as I had reason to think myself unaccountably treated byhim) has taught me more than I knew of myself.
'Tis true, I have owned more than once, that I could have liked Mr.Lovelace above all men. I remember the debates you and I used to have onthis subject, when I was your happy guest. You used to say, and once youwrote,* that men of his cast are the men that our sex do not naturallydislike: While I held, that such were not (however that might be) the menwe ought to like. But what with my relations precipitating of me, on onehand, and what with his unhappy character, and embarrassing ways, on theother, I had no more leisure than inclination to examine my own heart inthis particular. And this reminds me of a transcribe, though it waswritten in raillery. 'May it not be,' say you,** 'that you have had suchpersons to deal with, as have not allowed you to attend to the throbs; orif you had them a little now-and-then, whether, having had two accountsto place them to, you have not by mistake put them to the wrong one?' Apassage, which, although it came into my mind when Mr. Lovelace was leastexceptionable, yet that I have denied any efficacy to, when he has teasedand vexed me, and given me cause of suspicion. For, after all, my dear,Mr. Lovelace is not wise in all his ways. And should we not endeavour,as much as is possible, (where we are not attached by natural ties,) tolike and dislike as reason bids us, and according to the merit or demeritof the object? If love, as it is called, is allowed to be an excuse forour most unreasonable follies, and to lay level all the fences that acareful education has surrounded us by, what is meant by the doctrine ofsubduing our passions?--But, O my dearest friend, am I not guilty of apunishable fault, were I to love this man of errors? And has not my ownheart deceived me, when I thought it did not? And what must be that love,that has not some degree of purity for its object? I am afraid ofrecollecting some passages in my cousin Morden's letter.***--And yet whyfly I from subjects that, duly considered, might tend to correct andpurify my heart? I have carried, I doubt, my notions on this head toohigh, not for practice, but for my practice. Yet think me not guilty ofprudery neither; for had I found out as much of myself before; or,rather, had he given me heart's ease enough before to find it out, youshould have had my confession sooner.
* See Vol. IV. Letter XXXIV.** See Vol. I. Letter XII.*** See Vol. IV. Letter XIX, & seq.
Nevertheless, let me tell you (what I hope I may justly tell you,) thatif again he give me cause to resume distance and reserve, I hope myreason will gather strength enough from his imperfections to enable me tokeep my passions under.--What can we do more than govern ourselves by thetemporary lights lent us?
You will not wonder that I am grave on this detection--Detection, must Icall it? What can I call it?--
Dissatisfied with myself, I am afraid to look back upon what I havewritten: yet know not how to have done writing. I never was in such anodd frame of mind.--I know not how to describe it.--Was you ever so?--Afraid of the censure of her you love--yet not conscious that you deserveit?
Of this, however, I am convinced, that I should indeed deserve censure,if I kept any secret of my heart from you.
But I will not add another word, after I have assured you, that I willlook still more narrowly into myself: and that I am
Your equally sincere and affectionateCL. HARLOWE.