MISS HOWE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
MONDAY, OCT. 2.
When you question me, Sir, as you do, and on a subject so affecting to
me, in the character of the representative of my best beloved friend,
and have in every particular hitherto acted up to that character, you are
entitled to my regard: especially as you are joined in your questioning
of me by a gentleman whom I look upon as the dearest and nearest (because
worthiest) relation of my dear friend: and who, it seems, has been so
severe a censurer of my conduct, that your politeness will not permit you
to send me his letter, with others of his; but a copy only, in which the
passages reflecting upon me are omitted.
I presume, however, that what is meant by this alarming freedom of the
Colonel is no more than what you both have already hinted to me. As if
you thought I were not inclined to pay so much regard to my beloved
creature's last will, in my own case, as I would have others pay to it.
A charge that I ought not to be quite silent under.
You have observed, no doubt, that I have seemed to value myself upon the
freedom I take in declaring my sentiments without reserve upon every
subject that I pretend to touch upon: and I can hardly question that I
have, or shall, in your opinion, by my unceremonious treatment of you
upon so short an acquaintance, run into the error of those, who, wanting
to be thought above hypocrisy and flattery, fall into rusticity, if not
ill-manners; a common fault with such, who, not caring to correct
constitutional failings, seek to gloss them over by some nominal virtue;
when all the time, perhaps, these failings are entirely owing to native
arrogance; or, at least, to a contracted rust, that they will not,
because it would give them pain, submit to have filed off.
You see, Sir, that I can, however, be as free with myself as with you:
and by what I am going to write, you will find me still more free; and
yet I am aware that such of my sex as will not assume some little
dignity, and exact respect from your's, will render themselves cheap;
and, perhaps, for their modesty and diffidence, be repaid with scorn and
insult.
But the scorn I will endeavour not to deserve; and the insult I will not
bear.
In some of the dear creature's papers which you have had in your
possession, and must again have, in order to get transcribed, you will
find several friendly, but severe reprehensions of me, on account of a
natural, or, at least, an habitual, warmth of temper, which she was
pleased to impute to me.
I was thinking to give you her charge against me in her own words, from
one of her letters delivered to me with her own hands, on taking leave
of me on the last visit she honoured me with. But I will supply that
charge by confession of more than it imports; to wit, 'That I am haughty,
uncontroulable, and violent in my temper;' this, I say; 'Impatient of
contradiction,' was my beloved's charge; [from any body but her dear
self, she should have said;] 'and aim not at that affability, that
gentleness, next to meekness, which, in the letter I was going to
communicate, she tells me are the peculiar and indispensable
characteristics of a real fine lady; who, she is pleased to say, should
appear to be gall-less as a dove; and never should know what warmth or
high spirit is, but in the cause of religion or virtue; or in cases where
her own honour, the honour of a friend, or that of an innocent person, is
concerned.'
Now, Sir, as I needs must plead guilty to this indictment, do you think I
ought not to resolve upon a single life?--I, who have such an opinion of
your sex, that I think there is not one man in an hundred whom a woman of
sense and spirit can either honour or obey, though you make us promise
both, in that solemn form of words which unites or rather binds us to you
in marriage?
When I look round upon all the married people of my acquaintance, and see
how they live, and what they bear who live best, I am confirmed in my
dislike to the state.
Well do your sex contrive to bring us up fools and idiots, in order to
make us bear the yoke you lay upon our shoulders; and that we may not
despise you from our hearts, (as we certainly should, if we were brought
up as you are,) for your ignorance, as much as you often make us do (as
it is) for your insolence.
These, Sir, are some of my notions. And, with these notions, let me
repeat my question, Do you think I ought to marry at all?
If I marry either a sordid or an imperious wretch, can I, do you think,
live with him? And ought a man of a contrary character, for the sake of
either of our reputations, to be plagued with me?
Long did I stand out against all the offers made me, and against all the
persuasions of my mother; and, to tell you the truth, the longer, and
with the more obstinacy, as the person my choice would have first fallen
upon was neither approved by my mother, nor by my dear friend. This
riveted me to my pride, and to my opposition; for although I was
convinced, after a while, that my choice would neither have been prudent
nor happy; and that the specious wretch was not what he had made me
believe he was; yet could I not easily think of any other man; and
indeed, from the detection of him, took a settled aversion to the whole
sex.
At last Mr. Hickman offered himself; a man worthy of a better choice. He
had the good fortune [he thinks it so] to be agreeable (and to make his
proposals agreeable) to my mother.
As to myself; I own, that were I to have chosen a brother, Mr. Hickman
should have been the man; virtuous, sober, sincere, friendly, as he is.
But I wish not to marry; nor knew I the man in the world whom I could
think deserving of my beloved friend. But neither of our parents would
let us live single.
The accursed Lovelace was proposed warmly to her at one time; and, while
she was yet but indifferent to him, they, by ungenerous usage of him,
(for then, Sir, he was not known to be Beelzebub himself,) and by
endeavouring to force her inclinations in favour first of one worthless
man, then of another, in antipathy to him, through her foolish brother's
caprice, turned that indifference (from the natural generosity of her
soul) into a regard which she never otherwise would have had for a man of
his character.
Mr. Hickman was proposed to me. I refused him again and again. He
persisted; my mother his advocate. I told him my dislike of all men--of
him--of matrimony--still he persisted. I used him with tyranny--led,
indeed, partly by my temper, partly by design; hoping thereby to get rid
of him; till the poor man (his character unexceptionably uniform) still
persisting, made himself a merit with me by his patience. This brought
down my pride, [I never, Sir, was accounted very ungenerous, nor quite
ungrateful,] and gave me, at one time, an inferiority in my own opinion
to him; which lasted just long enough for my friends to prevail upon me
to promise him encouragement, and to receive his addresses.
Having done so, when the weather-glass of my pride got up again, I found
I had gone too far to recede. My mother and my friends both held me to
it. Yet I tried him, I vexed him, an hundred ways; and not so much
neither with design to vex him, as to make him hate me, and decline his
suit.
He bore this, however; and got nothing but my pity; yet still my mother,
and my friend, having obtained my promise, [made, however, not to him,
but to them,] and being well assured that I valued no man more than Mr.
Hickman, (who never once disobliged me in word, or deed, or look, except
by his foolish perseverance,) insisted upon the performance.
While my dear friend was in her unhappy uncertainty, I could not think of
marriage; and now, what encouragement have I?--She, my monitress, my
guide, my counsel, gone, for ever gone! by whose advice and instructions
I hoped to acquit myself tolerably in the state to which I could not
avoid entering. For, Sir, my mother is so partially Mr. Hickman's
friend, that I am sure, should any difference arise, she would always
censure me, and acquit him; even were he ungenerous enough to remember me
in his day.
This, Sir, being my situation, consider how difficult it is for me to
think of marriage. Whenever we approve, we can find an hundred good
reasons to justify our approbation. Whenever we dislike, we can find a
thousand to justify our dislike. Every thing in the latter case is an
impediment; every shadow a bugbear.--Thus can I enumerate and swell,
perhaps, only imaginary grievances; 'I must go whither he would have me
to go; visit whom he would have me to visit: well as I love to write,
(though now, alas! my grand inducement to write is over!) it must be to
whom he pleases:' and Mrs. Hickman (who, as Miss Howe, cannot do wrong)
would hardly ever be able to do right. Thus, the tables turned upon me,
I am reminded of my vowed obedience; Madam'd up perhaps to matrimonial
perfection, and all the wedded warfare practised comfortably over between
us, (for I shall not be passive under insolent treatment,) till we become
curses to each other, a bye-word to our neighbours, and the jest of our
own servants.
But there must be bear and forbear, methinks some wise body will tell me:
But why must I be teased into a state where that must be necessarily the
case; when now I can do as I please, and wish only to be let alone to do
as best pleases me? And what, in effect, does my mother say? 'Anna
Howe, you now do every thing that pleases you; you now have nobody to
controul you; you go and you come; you dress and you undress; you rise
and you go to rest, just as you think best; but you must be happier
still, child!'--
As how, Madam?
'Why, you must marry, my dear, and have none of these options; but, in
every thing, do as your husband commands you.'
This is very hard, you will own, Sir, for such a one as me to think of.
And yet, engaged to enter into that state, as I am, how can I help
myself? My mother presses me; my friend, my beloved friend, writing as
from the dead, presses me; and you and Mr. Morden, as executors of her
will, remind me; the man is not afraid of me, [I am sure, were I the man,
I should not have half his courage;] and I think I ought to conclude to
punish him (the only effectual way I have to do it) for his perverse
adherence and persecution, with the grant of his own wishes; a punishment
which many others who enjoy their's very commonly experience.
Let me then assure you, Sir, that when I can find, in the words of my
charming friend in her will, writing of her cousin Hervey, that my grief
for her is mellowed by time into a remembrance more sweet than painful,
that I may not be utterly unworthy of the passion a man of some merit has
for me, I will answer the request of my dear friend, so often repeated,
and so earnestly pressed; and Mr. Hickman shall find, if he continue to
deserve my gratitude, that my endeavours shall not be wanting to make him
amends for the patience he has had, and must still a little while longer
have with me: and then will it be his own fault (I hope not mine) if our
marriage answer not those happy prognostics, which filled her generous
presaging mind, upon this view, as she once, for my encouragement, and to
induce me to encourage him, told me.
Thus, Sir, have I, in a very free manner, accounted to you, as to the
executor of my beloved friend, for all that relates to you, as such, to
know; and even for more than I needed to do, against myself; only that
you will find as much against me in some of her letters; and so, losing
nothing, I gain the character of ingenuousness with you.
And thus much for the double reprimand, on my delaying my part of the
performance of my dear friend's will.
And now, while you are admonishing me on this subject, let me remind you
of one great article relating to yourself: it is furnished me by my dear
creature's posthumous letter to you--I hope you will not forget, that the
most benevolent of her sex expresses herself as earnestly concerned for
your thorough reformation, as she does for my marrying. You'll see to
it, then, that her wishes are as completely answered in that particular,
as you are desirous they should be in all others.
I have, I own, disobeyed her in one article; and that is, where she
desires I would not put myself into mourning. I could not help it.
I send this and mine of Saturday last together; and will not add another
word, after I have told you that I think myself
Your obliged servant,
A. HOWE.