You have very kindly accounted for your silence. People in misfortune
are always in doubt. They are too apt to turn even unavoidable accidents
into slights and neglects; especially in those whose favourable opinion
they wish to preserve.
I am sure I ought evermore to exempt my Anna Howe from the supposed
possibility of her becoming one of those who bask only in the sun-shine
of a friend: but nevertheless her friendship is too precious to me, not
to doubt my own merits on the one hand, and not to be anxious for the
preservation of it, on the other.
You so generously gave me liberty to chide you, that I am afraid of
taking it, because I could sooner mistrust my own judgment, than that of
a beloved friend, whose ingenuousness in acknowledging an imputed error
seems to set her above the commission of a wilful one. This makes
me half-afraid to ask you, if you think you are not too cruel, too
ungenerous shall I say? in your behaviour to a man who loves you so
dearly, and is so worthy and so sincere a man?
Only it is by YOU, or I should be ashamed to be outdone in that true
magnanimity, which makes one thankful for the wounds given by a true
friend. I believe I was guilty of a petulance, which nothing but my
uneasy situation can excuse; if that can. I am but almost afraid to beg
of you, and yet I repeatedly do, to give way to that charming spirit,
whenever it rises to your pen, which smiles, yet goes to the quick of my
fault. What patient shall be afraid of a probe in so delicate a hand?--I
say, I am almost afraid to pray you to give way to it, for fear you
should, for that very reason, restrain it. For the edge may be taken
off, if it does not make the subject of its raillery wince a little.
Permitted or desired satire may be apt, in a generous satirist, mending
as it rallies, to turn too soon into panegyric. Yours is intended to
instruct; and though it bites, it pleases at the same time: no fear of a
wound's wrankling or festering by so delicate a point as you carry;
not envenomed by personality, not intending to expose, or ridicule, or
exasperate. The most admired of our moderns know nothing of this art:
Why? Because it must be founded in good nature, and directed by a right
heart. The man, not the fault, is generally the subject of their satire:
and were it to be just, how should it be useful; how should it answer
any good purpose; when every gash (for their weapon is a broad sword,
not a lancet) lets in the air of public ridicule, and exasperates where
it should heal? Spare me not therefore because I am your friend. For
that very reason spare me not. I may feel your edge, fine as it is. I
may be pained: you would lose you end if I were not: but after the first
sensibility (as I have said more than once before) I will love you the
better, and my amended heart shall be all yours; and it will then be
more worthy to be yours.
You have taught me what to say to, and what to think of, Mr. Lovelace.
You have, by agreeable anticipation, let me know how it is probable he
will apply to me to be excused. I will lay every thing before you that
shall pass on the occasion, if he do apply, that I may take your advice,
when it can come in time; and when it cannot, that I may receive your
correction, or approbation, as I may happen to merit either.--Only one
thing must be allowed for me; that whatever course I shall be permitted
or be forced to steer, I must be considered as a person out of her own
direction. Tost to and fro by the high winds of passionate controul,
(and, as I think, unseasonable severity,) I behold the desired port,
the single state, into which I would fain steer; but am kept off by
the foaming billows of a brother's and sister's envy, and by the raging
winds of a supposed invaded authority; while I see in Lovelace, the
rocks on one hand, and in Solmes, the sands on the other; and tremble,
lest I should split upon the former, or strike upon the latter.
But you, my better pilot, to what a charming hope do you bid me aspire,
if things come to extremity!--I will not, as you caution me, too much
depend upon your success with your mother in my favour; for well I know
her high notions of implicit duty in a child: but yet I will hope too;
because her seasonable protection may save me perhaps from a greater
rashness: and in this case, she shall direct me in all my ways: I will
do nothing but by her orders, and by her advice and yours: not see
any body: not write to any body: nor shall any living soul, but by her
direction and yours, know where I am. In any cottage place me, I will
never stir out, unless, disguised as your servant, I am now-and-then
permitted an evening-walk with you: and this private protection to be
granted for no longer time than till my cousin Morden comes; which, as I
hope, cannot be long.
I am afraid I must not venture to take the hint you give me, to deposit
some of my clothes; although I will some of my linen, as well as papers.
I will tell you why--Betty had for some time been very curious about my
wardrobe, whenever I took out any of my things before her.
Observing this, I once, on taking one of my garden-airings, left my keys
in the locks: and on my return surprised the creature with her hand upon
the keys, as if shutting the door.
She was confounded at my sudden coming back. I took no notice: but on
her retiring, I found my cloaths were not in the usual order.
I doubted not, upon this, that her curiosity was owing to the orders she
had received; and being afraid they would abridge me of my airings, if
their suspicions were not obviated, it has ever since been my custom
(among other contrivances) not only to leave my keys in the locks, but
to employ the wench now-and-then in taking out my cloaths, suit by suit,
on pretence of preventing their being rumpled or creased, and to see
that the flowered silver suit did not tarnish: sometimes declaredly to
give myself employment, having little else to do. With which employment
(superadded to the delight taken by the low as well as by the high of
our sex in seeing fine cloaths) she seemed always, I thought, as well
pleased as if it answered one of the offices she had in charge.
To this, and to the confidence they have in a spy so diligent, and
to their knowing that I have not one confidant in a family in which
nevertheless I believe every servant loves me; nor have attempted
to make one; I suppose, I owe the freedom I enjoy of my airings: and
perhaps (finding I make no movements towards going away) they are the
more secure, that I shall at last be prevailed upon to comply with
their measures: since they must think, that, otherwise, they give me
provocation enough to take some rash step, in order to free myself
from a treatment so disgraceful; and which [God forgive me, if I judge
amiss!] I am afraid my brother and sister would not be sorry to drive me
to take.
If, therefore, such a step should become necessary, (which I yet hope
will not,) I must be contented to go away with the clothes I shall
have on at the time. My custom to be dressed for the day, as soon as
breakfast is over, when I have had no household employments to prevent
me, will make such a step (if I am forced to take it) less suspected.
And the linen I shall deposit, in pursuance of your kind hint, cannot be
missed.
This custom, although a prisoner, (as I may too truly say,) and neither
visited nor visiting, I continue. We owe to ourselves, and to our sex,
you know, to be always neat; and never to be surprised in a way we
should be pained to be seen in.
Besides, people in adversity (which is the state of trial of every good
quality) should endeavour to preserve laudable customs, that, if sun
shine return, they may not be losers by their trial.
Does it not, moreover, manifest a firmness of mind, in an unhappy
person, to keep hope alive? To hope for better days, is half to deserve
them: for could we have just ground for such a hope, if we did not
resolve to deserve what that hope bids us aspire to?--Then who shall
befriend a person who forsakes herself?
These are reflections by which I sometimes endeavour to support myself.
I know you don't despise my grave airs, although (with a view no doubt
to irradiate my mind in my misfortunes) you rally me upon them. Every
body has not your talent of introducing serious and important lessons,
in such a happy manner as at once to delight and instruct.
What a multitude of contrivances may not young people fall upon, if the
mind be not engaged by acts of kindness and condescension! I am not used
by my friends of late as I always used their servants.
When I was intrusted with the family-management, I always found it
right, as well in policy as generosity, to repose a trust in them. Not
to seem to expect or depend upon justice from them, is in a manner to
bid them to take opportunities, whenever they offer, to be unjust.
Mr. Solmes, (to expatiate on this low, but not unuseful subject,) in his
more trifling solicitudes, would have had a sorry key-keeper in me. Were
I mistress of a family, I would not either take to myself, or give to
servants, the pain of keeping those I had reason to suspect. People low
in station have often minds not sordid. Nay, I have sometimes thought,
that (even take number for number) there are more honest low people,
than honest high. In the one, honest is their chief pride. In the other,
the love of power, of grandeur, of pleasure, mislead; and that and their
ambition induce a paramount pride, which too often swallows up the more
laudable one.
Many of the former would scorn to deceive a confidence. But I have seen,
among the most ignorant of their class, a susceptibility of resentment,
if their honesty has been suspected: and have more than once been forced
to put a servant right, whom I have heard say, that, although she valued
herself upon her honesty, no master or mistress should suspect her for
nothing.
How far has the comparison I had in my head, between my friends
treatment of me, and my treatment of the servants, carried me!--But we
always allowed ourselves to expatiate on such subjects, whether low
or high, as might tend to enlarge our minds, or mend our management,
whether notional or practical, and whether such expatiating respected
our present, or might respect our probable future situations.
What I was principally leading to, was to tell you how ingenious I am in
my contrivances and pretences to blind my gaoleress, and to take off the
jealousy of her principals on my going down so often into the garden and
poultry-yard. People suspiciously treated are never I believe at a loss
for invention. Sometimes I want air, and am better the moment I am out
of my chamber.--Sometimes spirits; and then my bantams and pheasants or
the cascade divert me; the former, by their inspiring liveliness; the
latter, by its echoing dashes, and hollow murmurs.--Sometimes, solitude
is of all things my wish; and the awful silence of the night, the
spangled element, and the rising and setting sun, how promotive of
contemplation!--Sometimes, when I intend nothing, and expect no letters,
I am officious to take Betty with me; and at others, bespeak her
attendance, when I know she is otherwise employed, and cannot give it
me.
These more capital artifices I branch out into lesser ones, without
number. Yet all have not only the face of truth, but are real truths;
although not my principal motive. How prompt a thing is will!--What
impediments does dislike furnish!--How swiftly, through every
difficulty, do we move with the one!--how tardily with the other!--every
trifling obstruction weighing us down, as if lead were fastened to our
feet!