Ay, my dear, that's true: but, if none but persons of discretion were
to marry--And would it not surprise you if I were to advance, that the
persons of discretion are generally single?--Such persons are apt
to consider too much, to resolve.--Are not you and I complimented as
such?--And would either of us marry, if the fellows and our friends
would let us alone?
But to the former point;--had Lovelace made his addresses to me, (unless
indeed I had been taken with a liking for him more than conditional,)
I would have forbid him, upon the first passionate instance of his
good-nature, as he calls it, ever to see me more: 'Thou must bear with
me, honest friend, might I have said [had I condescended to say any
thing to him] an hundred times more than this:--Begone, therefore!--I
bear with no passions that are predominant to that thou has pretended
for me!'
But to one of your mild and gentle temper, it would be all one, were
you married, whether the man were a Lovelace or a Hickman in his
spirit.--You are so obediently principled, that perhaps you would have
told a mild man, that he must not entreat, but command; and that it
was beneath him not to exact from you the obedience you had so solemnly
vowed to him at the altar.--I know of old, my dear, your meek regard
to that little piddling part of the marriage-vow which some
prerogative-monger foisted into the office, to make that a duty, which
he knew was not a right.
Our way of training-up, you say, makes us need the protection of the
brave. Very true: And how extremely brave and gallant is it, that this
brave man will free us from all insults but those which will go nearest
to our hearts; that is to say, his own!
How artfully has Lovelace, in the abstract you give me of one of
his letters, calculated to your meridian! Generous spirits hate
compulsion!--He is certainly a deeper creature by much than once we
thought him. He knows, as you intimate, that his own wild pranks cannot
be concealed: and so owns just enough to palliate (because it teaches
you not to be surprised at) any new one, that may come to your ears; and
then, truly, he is, however faulty, a mighty ingenuous man; and by no
means an hypocrite: a character the most odious of all others, to our
sex, in a lover, and the least to be forgiven, were it only because,
when detected, it makes us doubt the justice of those praises which we
are willing to believe he thought to be our due.
By means of this supposed ingenuity, Lovelace obtains a praise, instead
of a merited dispraise; and, like an absolved confessionaire, wipes off
as he goes along one score, to begin another: for an eye favourable
to him will not see his faults through a magnifying glass; nor will a
woman, willing to hope the best, forbear to impute it to ill-will and
prejudice all that charity can make so imputable. And if she even give
credit to such of the unfavourable imputations as may be too flagrant
to be doubted, she will be very apt to take in the future hope, which
he inculcates, and which to question would be to question her own power,
and perhaps merit: and thus may a woman be inclined to make a slight,
even a fancied merit atone for the most glaring vice.
I have a reason, a new one, for this preachment upon a text you have
given me. But, till I am better informed, I will not explain myself.
If it come out, as I shrewdly suspect it will, the man, my dear, is a
devil; and you must rather think of--I protest I had like to have said
Solmes than him.
But let this be as it will, shall I tell you, how, after all his
offences, he may creep in with you again?
I will. Thus then: It is but to claim for himself the good-natured
character: and this, granted, will blot out the fault of passionate
insolence: and so he will have nothing to do, but this hour to
accustom you to insult; the next, to bring you to forgive him, upon
his submission: the consequence must be, that he will, by this teazing,
break your resentment all to pieces: and then, a little more of the
insult, and a little less of the submission, on his part, will go down,
till nothing else but the first will be seen, and not a bit of the
second. You will then be afraid to provoke so offensive a spirit: and
at last will be brought so prettily, and so audibly, to pronounce the
little reptile word OBEY, that it will do one's heart good to hear you.
The Muscovite wife then takes place of the managed mistress. And if
you doubt the progression, be pleased, my dear, to take your mother's
judgment upon it.
But no more of this just now. Your situation is become too critical to
permit me to dwell upon these sort of topics. And yet this is but an
affected levity with me. My heart, as I have heretofore said, is a
sincere sharer in all your distresses. My sun-shine darts but through
a drizly cloud. My eye, were you to see it, when it seems to you so
gladdened, as you mentioned in a former, is more than ready to overflow,
even at the very passages perhaps upon which you impute to me the
archness of exultation.
But now the unheard-of cruelty and perverseness of some of your friends
[relations, I should say--I am always blundering thus!] the as strange
determinedness of others; your present quarrel with Lovelace; and your
approaching interview with Solmes, from which you are right to apprehend
a great deal; are such considerable circumstances in your story, that it
is fit they should engross all my attention.
You ask me to advise you how to behave upon Solmes's visit. I cannot for
my life. I know they expect a great deal from it: you had not else had
your long day complied with. All I will say is, That if Solmes cannot
be prevailed for, now that Lovelace has so much offended you, he never
will. When the interview is over, I doubt not but that I shall have
reason to say, that all you did, that all you said, was right, and could
not be better: yet, if I don't think so, I won't say so; that I promise
you.
Only let me advise you to pull up a spirit, even to your uncle, if there
be occasion. Resent the vile and foolish treatment you meet with, in
which he has taken so large a share, and make him ashamed of it, if you
can.
I know not, upon recollection, but this interview may be a good thing
for you, however designed. For when Solmes sees (if that be to be so)
that it is impossible he should succeed with you; and your relations see
it too; the one must, I think, recede, and the other come to terms with
you, upon offers, that it is my opinion, will go hard enough with you to
comply with; when the still harder are dispensed with.
There are several passages in your last letters, as well as in your
former, which authorize me to say this. But it would be unseasonable to
touch this subject farther just now.
But, upon the whole, I have no patience to see you thus made sport of
your brother's and sister's cruelty: For what, after so much steadiness
on your part, in so many trials, can be their hope? except indeed it be
to drive you to extremity, and to ruin you in the opinion of your uncles
as well as father.
I urge you by all means to send out of their reach all the letters
and papers you would not have them see. Methinks, I would wish you to
deposit likewise a parcel of clothes, linen, and the like, before your
interview with Solmes: lest you should not have an opportunity for it
afterwards. Robin shall fetch it away on the first orders by day or by
night.
I am in hopes to procure from my mother, if things come to extremity,
leave for you to be privately with us.
I will condition to be good-humoured, and even kind, to HER favourite,
if she will shew me an indulgence that shall make me serviceable to
MINE.
This alternative has been a good while in my head. But as your foolish
uncle has so strangely attached my mother to their views, I cannot
promise that I shall succeed as I wish.
Do not absolutely despair, however. What though the contention will be
between woman and woman? I fancy I shall be able to manage it, by the
help of a little female perseverance. Your quarrel with Lovelace, if
it continue, will strengthen my hands. And the offers you made in your
answer to your uncle Harlowe's letter of Sunday night last, duly dwelt
upon, must add force to my pleas.
I depend upon your forgiveness of all the perhaps unseasonable
flippancies of your naturally too lively, yet most sincerely
sympathizing, ANNA HOWE.