'Two neighbouring sovereigns were at war together, about some pitiful
chuck-farthing thing or other; no matter what; for the least trifles will
set princes and children at loggerheads. Their armies had been drawn up
in battalia some days, and the news of a decisive action was expected
every hour to arrive at each court. At last, issue was joined; a bloody
battle was fought; and a fellow who had been a spectator of it, arriving,
with the news of a complete victory, at the capital of one of the princes
some time before the appointed couriers, the bells were set a ringing,
bonfires and illuminations were made, and the people went to bed
intoxicated with joy and good liquor. But the next day all was reversed:
The victorious enemy, pursuing his advantage, was expected every hour at
the gates of the almost defenceless capital. The first reporter was
hereupon sought for, and found; and being questioned, pleaded a great
deal of merit, in that he had, in so dismal a situation, taken such a
space of time from the distress of his fellow-citizens, and given it to
festivity, as were the hours between the false good news and the real
bad.'
Do thou, Belford, make the application. This I know, that I have given
greater joy to my beloved, than she had thought would so soon fall to her
share. And as the human life is properly said to be chequerwork, no
doubt but a person of her prudence will make the best of it, and set off
so much good against so much bad, in order to strike as just a balance as
possible.
[The Lady, in three several letters, acquaints her friend with the most
material passages and conversations contained in those of Mr. Lovelace's
preceding. These are her words, on relating what the commission of the
pretended Tomlinson was, after the apprehensions that his distant inquiry
had given her:]
At last, my dear, all these doubts and fears were cleared up, and
banished; and, in their place, a delightful prospect was opened to me.
For it comes happily out, (but at present it must be an absolute secret,
for reasons which I shall mention in the sequel,) that the gentleman was
sent by my uncle Harlowe [I thought he could not be angry with me for
ever]: all owing to the conversation that passed between your good Mr.
Hickman and him. For although Mr. Hickman's application was too harshly
rejected at the time, my uncle could not but think better of it
afterwards, and of the arguments that worthy gentleman used in my favour.
Who, upon a passionate repulse, would despair of having a reasonable
request granted?--Who would not, by gentleness and condescension,
endeavour to leave favourable impressions upon an angry mind; which, when
it comes cooly to reflect, may induce it to work itself into a
condescending temper? To request a favour, as I have often said, is one
thing; to challenge it as our due, is another. And what right has a
petitioner to be angry at a repulse, if he has not a right to demand what
he sues for as a debt?
[She describes Captain Tomlinson, on his breakfast-visit, to be, a grave,
good sort of man. And in another place, a genteel man of great gravity,
and a good aspect; she believes upwards of fifty years of age. 'I liked
him, says she, as soon as I saw him.'
As her projects are now, she says, more favourable than heretofore, she
wishes, that her hopes of Mr. Lovelace's so-often-promised reformation
were better grounded than she is afraid they can be.]
We have both been extremely puzzled, my dear, says she, to reconcile some
parts of Mr. Lovelace's character with other parts of it: his good with
his bad; such of the former, in particular, as his generosity to his
tenants; his bounty to the innkeeper's daughter; his readiness to put me
upon doing kind things by my good Norton, and others.
A strange mixture in his mind, as I have told him! for he is certainly
(as I have reason to say, looking back upon his past behaviour to me in
twenty instances) a hard-hearted man.--Indeed, my dear, I have thought
more than once, that he had rather see me in tears than give me reason to
be pleased with him.
My cousin Morden says, that free livers are remorseless.* And so they
must be in the very nature of things.
* See Vol. IV. Letter XIX. See also Mr. Lovelace's own confession of the
delight he takes in a woman's tears, in different parts of his letters.
Mr. Lovelace is a proud man. We have both long ago observed that he is.
And I am truly afraid, that his very generosity is more owing to his
pride and his vanity, that that philanthropy (shall I call it?) which
distinguishes a beneficent mind.
Money he values not, but as a mean to support his pride and his
independence. And it is easy, as I have often thought, for a person to
part with a secondary appetite, when, by so doing, he can promote or
gratify a first.
I am afraid, my dear, that there must have been some fault in his
education. His natural bias was not, perhaps (as his power was likely to
be large) to do good and beneficent actions; but not, I doubt, from
proper motives.
If he had, his generosity would not have stopt at pride, but would have
struck into humanity; and then would he not have contented himself with
doing praiseworthy things by fits and starts, or, as if relying on the
doctrine of merits, he hoped by a good action to atone for a bad one;*
but he would have been uniformly noble, and done the good for its own
sake.
* That the Lady judges rightly of him in this place, see Vol. I. Letter
XXXIV. where, giving the motive for his generosity to his Rosebud, he
says--'As I make it my rule, whenever I have committed a very capital
enormity, to do some good by way of atonement; and as I believe I am a
pretty deal indebted on that score; I intend to join an hundred pounds to
Johnny's aunt's hundred pounds, to make one innocent couple happy.'--
Besides which motive, he had a further view in answer in that instance of
his generosity; as may be seen in Vol. II. Letters XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII.
See also the note, Vol. II. pp. 170, 171.
To show the consistence of his actions, as they now appear, with his
views and principles, as he lays them down in his first letters, it may
be not amiss to refer the reader to his letters, Vol. I. No. XXXIV. XXXV.
See also Vol. I. Letter XXX.--and Letter XL. for Clarissa's early opinion
of Mr. Lovelace.--Whence the coldness and indifference to him, which he
so repeatedly accuses her of, will be accounted for, more to her glory,
than to his honour.
O my dear! what a lot have I drawn! pride, this poor man's virtue; and
revenge, his other predominating quality!--This one consolation, however,
remains:--He is not an infidel, and unbeliever: had he been an infidel,
there would have been no room at all for hope of him; (but priding
himself, as he does, in his fertile invention) he would have been utterly
abandoned, irreclaimable, and a savage.
[When she comes to relate those occasions, which Mr. Lovelace in his
narrative acknowledges himself to be affected by, she thus expresses
herself:]
He endeavoured, as once before, to conceal his emotion. But why, my
dear, should these men (for Mr. Lovelace is not singular in this) think
themselves above giving these beautiful proofs of a feeling heart? Were
it in my power again to choose, or to refuse, I would reject the man with
contempt, who sought to suppress, or offered to deny, the power of being
visibly affected upon proper occasions, as either a savage-hearted
creature, or as one who was so ignorant of the principal glory of the
human nature, as to place his pride in a barbarous insensibility.
These lines translated from Juvenal by Mr. Tate, I have been often
pleased with:
Compassion proper to mankind appears:
Which Nature witness'd, when she lent us tears.
Of tender sentiments we only give
These proofs: To weep is our prerogative:
To show by pitying looks, and melting eyes,
How with a suff'ring friend we sympathise.
Who can all sense of other ills escape,
Is but a brute at best, in human shape.
It cannot but yield me some pleasure, hardly as I have sometimes thought
of the people of the house, that such a good man as Captain Tomlinson had
spoken well of them, upon inquiry.
And here I stop a minute, my dear, to receive, in fancy, your kind
congratulation.
My next, I hope, will confirm my present, and open still more agreeable
prospects. Mean time be assured, that there cannot possibly any good
fortune befal me, which I shall look upon with equal delight to that I
have in your friendship.
My thankful compliments to your good Mr. Hickman, to whose kind invention
I am so much obliged on this occasion, conclude me, my dearest Miss Howe,
Your ever affectionate and grateful
CL. HARLOWE.