LETTER LV
MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWESATURDAY, SEPT. 2.
I write, my beloved Miss Howe, though very ill still: but I could not bythe return of your messenger; for I was then unable to hold a pen.
Your mother's illness (as mentioned in the first part of your letter,)gave me great distress for you, till I read farther. You bewailed it asbecame a daughter so sensible. May you be blessed in each other formany, very many years to come! I doubt not, that even this sudden andgrievous indisposition, by the frame it has put you in, and theapprehension it has given you of losing so dear a mother, will contributeto the happiness I wish you: for, alas! my dear, we seldom know how tovalue the blessings we enjoy, till we are in danger of losing them, orhave actually lost them: and then, what would we give to have themrestored to us!
What, I wonder, has again happened between you and Mr. Hickman? AlthoughI know not, I dare say it is owing to some petty petulance, to somehalf-ungenerous advantage taken of his obligingness and assiduity. Willyou never, my dear, give the weight you and all our sex ought to give tothe qualities of sobriety and regularity of life and manners in that sex?Must bold creatures, and forward spirits, for ever, and by the best andwisest of us, as well as by the indiscreetest, be the most kindlytreated?
My dear friends know not that I have actually suffered within less thanan inch of my life.
Poor Mr. Brand! he meant well, I believe. I am afraid all will turnheavily upon him, when he probably imagined that he was taking the bestmethod to oblige. But were he not to have been so light of belief, andso weakly officious; and had given a more favourable, and, it would bestrange if I could not say, a juster report; things would have been,nevertheless, exactly as they are.
I must lay down my pen. I am very ill. I believe I shall be betterby-and-by. The bad writing would betray me, although I had a mind tokeep from you what the event must soon--
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Now I resume my trembling pen. Excuse the unsteady writing. It willbe so--
I have wanted no money: so don't be angry about such a trifle as money.Yet I am glad of what you inclined me to hope, that my friends will giveup the produce of my grandfather's estate since it has been in theirhands: because, knowing it to be my right, and that they could not wantit, I had already disposed of a good part of it; and could only hope theywould be willing to give it up at my last request. And now how richshall I think myself in this my last stage!--And yet I did not wantbefore--indeed I did not--for who, that has many superfluities, can besaid to want!
Do not, my dear friend, be concerned that I call it my last stage; Forwhat is even the long life which in high health we wish for? What, but,as we go along, a life of apprehension, sometimes for our friends,oftener for ourselves? And at last, when arrived at the old age wecovet, one heavy loss or deprivation having succeeded another, we seeourselves stript, as I may say, of every one we loved; and find ourselvesexposed, as uncompanionable poor creatures, to the slights, to thecontempts, of jostling youth, who want to push us off the stage, in hopesto possess what we have:--and, superadded to all, our own infirmitiesevery day increasing: of themselves enough to make the life we wished forthe greatest disease of all! Don't you remember the lines of Howard,which once you read to me in my ivy-bower?*
* These are the lines the lady refers to:
From death we rose to life: 'tis but the same, Through life to pass again from whence we came. With shame we see our PASSIONS can prevail, Where reason, certainty, and virtue fail. HONOUR, that empty name, can death despise; | SCORN'D LOVE to death, as to a refuge, flies; | And SORROW waits for death with longing eyes. | HOPE triumphs o'er the thoughts of death; and FATE Cheats fools, and flatters the unfortunate. We fear to lose, what a small time must waste, Till life itself grows the disease at last. Begging for life, we beg for more decay, And to be long a dying only pray.
In the disposition of what belongs to me, I have endeavoured to do everything in the justest and best manner I could think of; putting myself inmy relations' places, and, in the greater points, ordering my matters asif no misunderstanding had happened.
I hope they will not think much of some bequests where wanted, and wheredue from my gratitude: but if they should, what is done, is done; and Icannot now help it. Yet I must repeat, that I hope, I hope, I havepleased every one of them. For I would not, on any account, have itthought that, in my last disposition, any thing undaughterly, unsisterly,or unlike a kinswoman, should have had place in a mind that is a trulyfree (as I will presume to say) from all resentment, that it nowoverflows with gratitude and blessings for the good I have received,although it be not all that my heart wished to receive. Were it even anhardship that I was not favoured with more, what is it but an hardshipof half a year, against the most indulgent goodness of eighteen years andan half, that ever was shown to a daughter?
My cousin, you tell me, thinks I was off my guard, and that I was takenat some advantage. Indeed, my dear, I was not. Indeed I gave no roomfor advantage to be taken of me. I hope, one day, that will be seen, ifI have the justice done me which Mr. Belford assures me of.
I should hope that my cousin has not taken the liberties which you (by anobservation not, in general, unjust) seem to charge him with. For it issad to think, that the generality of that sex should make so light ofcrimes, which they justly hold so unpardonable in their own most intimaterelations of our's--yet cannot commit them without doing such injuries toother families as they think themselves obliged to resent unto death,when offered to their own.
But we women are to often to blame on this head; since the most virtuousamong us seldom make virtue the test of their approbation of the othersex; insomuch that a man may glory in his wickedness of this sort withoutbeing rejected on that account, even to the faces of women ofunquestionable virtue. Hence it is, that a libertine seldom thinkshimself concerned so much as to save appearances: And what is it not thatour sex suffers in their opinion on this very score? And what have I,more than many others, to answer for on this account in the world's eye?
May my story be a warning to all, how they prefer a libertine to a man oftrue honour; and how they permit themselves to be misled (where they meanthe best) by the specious, yet foolish hope of subduing riveted habits,and, as I may say, of altering natures!--The more foolish, as constantexperience might convince us, that there is hardly one in ten, of eventolerably happy marriages, in which the wife keeps the hold in thehusband's affections, which she had in the lover's. What influence thencan she hope to have over the morals of an avowed libertine, who marriesperhaps for conveniency, who despises the tie, and whom, it is tooprobable, nothing but old age, or sickness, or disease, (the consequenceof ruinous riot,) can reclaim?
I am very glad you gave my cous--
SUNDAY MORNING, SEPT. 3, SIX O'CLOCK.
Hither I had written, and was forced to quit my pen. And so much weakerand worse I grew, that had I resumed it, to have closed here, it musthave been with such trembling unsteadiness, that it would have given youmore concern for me, than the delay of sending it away by last night'spost can do. I deferred it, therefore, to see how it would please God todeal with me. And I find myself, after a better night than I expected,lively and clear; and hope to give a proof that I do, in the continuationof my letter, which I will pursue as currently as if I had not left off.
I am glad that you so considerately gave my cousin Morden favourableimpressions of Mr. Belford; since, otherwise, some misunderstanding mighthave happened between them: for although I hope this Mr. Belford is analtered man, and in time will be a reformed one, yet is he one of thosehigh spirits that has been accustomed to resent imaginary indignities tohimself, when, I believe, he has not been studious to avoid giving realoffences to others; men of this cast acting as if they thought all theworld was made to bar with them, and they with nobody in it.
Mr. Lovelace, you tell me, thought fit to intrust my cousin with the copyof
his letter of penitence to me, and with my answer to it, rejecting himand his suit: and Mr. Belford, moreover, acquaints me, how much concernedMr. Lovelace is for his baseness, and how freely he accused himself to mycousin. This shows, that the true bravery of spirit is to be above doinga vile action; and that nothing subjects the human mind to so muchmeanness, as the consciousness of having done wilful wrong to our fellowcreatures. How low, how sordid, are the submissions which elaboratebaseness compels! that that wretch could treat me as he did, and thencould so poorly creep to me for forgiveness of crimes so wilful, soblack, and so premeditated! how my soul despised him for his meanness ona certain occasion, of which you will one day be informed!* and him whoseactions one's heart despises, it is far from being difficult to reject,had one ever so partially favoured him once.
* Meaning his meditated second violence (See Vol. VI. Letter XXXVI.) andhis succeeding letters to her, supplicating for her pardon.
Yet am I glad this violent spirit can thus creep; that, like a poisonousserpent, he can thus coil himself, and hide his head in his own narrowcirclets; because this stooping, this abasement, gives me hope that nofarther mischief will ensue.
All my apprehension is, what may happen when I am gone; lest then mycousin, or any other of my family, should endeavour to avenge me, andrisk their own more precious lives on that account.
If that part of Cain's curse were Mr. Lovelace's, to be a fugitive andvagabond in the earth; that is to say, if it meant no more harm to himthan that he should be obliged to travel, as it seems he intends, (thoughI wish him no ill in his travels;) and I could know it; then should I beeasy in the hoped-for safety of my friends from his skilful violence--Oh!that I could hear he was a thousand miles off!
When I began this letter, I did not think I could have run to such alength. But 'tis to YOU, my dearest friend, and you have a title to thespirits you raise and support; for they are no longer mine, and willsubside the moment I cease writing to you.
But what do you bid me hope for, when you tell me that, if your mother'shealth will permit, you will see me in town? I hope your mother's healthwill be perfected as you wish; but I dare not promise myself so great afavour; so great a blessing, I will call it--and indeed I know not if Ishould be able to bear it now!
Yet one comfort it is in your power to give me; and that is, let me know,and very speedily it must be, if you wish to oblige me, that all mattersare made up between you and Mr. Hickman; to whom, I see, you areresolved, with all your bravery of spirit, to owe a multitude ofobligations for his patience with your flightiness. Think of this, mydear proud friend! and think, likewise, of what I have often told you,that PRIDE, in man or woman, is an extreme that hardly ever fails, sooneror later, to bring forth its mortifying CONTRARY.
May you, my dear Miss Howe, have no discomforts but what you make toyourself! as it will be in your own power to lessen such as these, theyought to be your punishment if you do not. There is no such thing asperfect happiness here, since the busy mind will make to itself evils,were it to find none. You will, therefore, pardon this limited wish,strange as it may appear, till you consider it: for to wish you noinfelicity, either within or without you, were to wish you what can neverhappen in this world; and what perhaps ought not to be wished for, if bya wish one could give one's friend such an exemption; since we are not tolive here always.
We must not, in short, expect that our roses will grow without thorns:but then they are useful and instructive thorns: which, by pricking thefingers of the too-hasty plucker, teach future caution. And who knowsnot that difficulty gives poignancy to our enjoyments; which are apt tolose their relish with us when they are over easily obtained?
I must conclude--
God for ever bless you, and all you love and honour, and reward you hereand hereafter for your kindness to
Your ever obliged and affectionateCLARISSA HARLOWE.