A reply is just sent me. I thought it became my averseness to this
meeting, to name a distant day: but I did not expect they would have
complied with it. So here is one week gained!
This is the reply:
You have done well to comply. We are willing to think the best of every
slight instance of duty from you. Yet have you seemed to consider the
day as an evil day, and so put if far off. This nevertheless is granted
you, as no time need to be lost, if you are as generous after the day,
as we are condescending before it. Let me advise you, not to harden your
mind; nor take up your resolution beforehand. Mr. Solmes has more awe,
and even terror, at the thought of seeing you, than you can have at the
thoughts of seeing him. His motive is love; let not yours be hatred. My
brother Antony will be present, in hopes you will deserve well of him,
by behaving well to the friend of the family. See you use him as such.
Your mother had permission to be there, if she thought fit: but says,
she would not for a thousand pound, unless you would encourage her
beforehand as she wishes to be encouraged. One hint I am to give you
mean time. It is this: To make a discreet use of your pen and ink.
Methinks a young creature of niceness should be less ready to write to
one man, when she is designed to be another's.
This compliance, I hope, will produce greater, and then the peace of the
family will be restored: which is what is heartily wished by
Your loving uncle, JOHN HARLOWE.
Unless it be to the purpose our hearts are set upon, you need not write
again.
*****
This man have more terror at seeing me, than I can have at seeing
him!--How can that be? If he had half as much, he would not wish to see
me!--His motive love!--Yes, indeed! Love of himself! He knows no other;
for love, that deserves the name, seeks the satisfaction of the beloved
object more than its own. Weighed in this scale, what a profanation is
this man guilty of!
Not to take up my resolution beforehand!--That advice comes too late.
But I must make a discreet use of my pen. That, I doubt, as they have
managed it, in the sense they mean it, is as much out of my power, as
the other.
But write to one man, when I am designed for another!--What a shocking
expression is that!
Repenting of my appointment with Mr. Lovelace before I had this favour
granted me, you may believe I hesitated not a moment to revoke it now
that I had gained such a respite. Accordingly, I wrote, 'That I found
it inconvenient to meet him, as I had intended: that the risque I should
run of a discovery, and the mischiefs that might flow from it, could not
be justified by any end that such a meeting could answer: that I found
one certain servant more in my way, when I took my morning and evening
airings, than any other: that the person who might reveal the secrets
of a family to him, might, if opportunity were given him, betray me, or
him, to those whom it was his duty to serve: that I had not been used to
a conduct so faulty, as to lay myself at the mercy of servants: and was
sorry he had measures to pursue, that made steps necessary in his own
opinion, which, in mine, were very culpable, and which no end could
justify: that things drawing towards a crisis between my friends and me,
an interview could avail nothing; especially as the method by which this
correspondence was carried on was not suspected, and he could write all
that was in his mind to write: that I expected to be at liberty to judge
of what was proper and fit upon this occasion: especially as he might be
assured, that I would sooner choose death, than Mr. Solmes.'