I wish you may, said I. Example from a sister older than one's self is a
fine thing.
Older! saucy little fool!--And away she flung.
What a captious old woman will my sister make, if she lives to be
one!--demanding the reverence, perhaps, yet not aiming at the merit; and
ashamed of the years that can only entitle her to the reverence.
It is plain, from what I have related, that they think they have got me
at some advantage by obtaining my consent to the interview: but if it
were not, Betty's impertinence just now would make it evident. She has
been complimenting me upon it; and upon the visit of my uncle Harlowe.
She says, the difficulty now is more than half over with me. She is
sure I would not see Mr. Solmes, but to have him. Now shall she be soon
better employed than of late she has been. All hands will be at work.
She loves dearly to have weddings go forward!--Who knows, whose turn
will be next?
I found in the afternoon a reply to my answer to Mr. Lovelace's letter.
It is full of promises, full of vows of gratitude, of eternal gratitude,
is his word, among others still more hyperbolic. Yet Mr. Lovelace, the
least of any man whose letters I have seen, runs into those elevated
absurdities. I should be apt to despise him for it, if he did. Such
language looks always to me, as if the flatterer thought to find a woman
a fool, or hoped to make her one.
'He regrets my indifference to him; which puts all the hope he has in my
favour upon the shocking usage I receive from my friends.
'As to my charge upon him of unpoliteness and uncontroulableness--What
[he asks] can he say? since being unable absolutely to vindicate
himself, he has too much ingenuousness to attempt to do so: yet is
struck dumb by my harsh construction, that his acknowledging temper
is owing more to his carelessness to defend himself, than to his
inclination to amend. He had never before met with the objections
against his morals which I had raised, justly raised: and he was
resolved to obviate them. What is it, he asks, that he has promised, but
reformation by my example? And what occasion for the promise, if he
had not faults, and those very great ones, to reform? He hopes
acknowledgement of an error is no bad sign; although my severe virtue
has interpreted it into one.
'He believes I may be right (severely right, he calls it) in my judgment
against making reprisals in the case of the intelligence he receives
from my family: he cannot charge himself to be of a temper that leads
him to be inquisitive into any body's private affairs; but hopes, that
the circumstances of the case, and the strange conduct of my friends,
will excuse him; especially when so much depends upon his knowing the
movements of a family so violently bent, by measures right or wrong, to
carry their point against me, in malice to him. People, he says, who act
like angels, ought to have angels to deal with. For his part, he has not
yet learned the difficult lesson of returning good for evil: and shall
think himself the less encouraged to learn it by the treatment I have
met with from the very persons who would trample upon him, as they do
upon me, were he to lay himself under their feet.
'He excuses himself for the liberties he owns he has heretofore taken in
ridiculing the marriage-state. It is a subject, he says, that he has not
of late treated so lightly. He owns it to be so trite, so beaten a
topic with all libertines and witlings; so frothy, so empty, so nothing
meaning, so worn-out a theme, that he is heartily ashamed of himself,
ever to have made it his. He condemns it as a stupid reflection upon the
laws and good order of society, and upon a man's own ancestors: and
in himself, who has some reason to value himself upon his descent
and alliances, more censurable, than in those who have not the same
advantages to boast of. He promises to be more circumspect than ever,
both in his words and actions, that he may be more and more worthy of
my approbation; and that he may give an assurance before hand, that a
foundation is laid in his mind for my example to work upon with equal
reputation and effect to us both;--if he may be so happy to call me his.
'He gives me up, as absolutely lost, if I go to my uncle Antony's; the
close confinement; the moated house; the chapel; the implacableness of
my brother and sister; and their power over the rest of the family,
he sets forth in strong lights; and plainly says, that he must have a
struggle to prevent my being carried thither.'
Your kind, your generous endeavours to interest your mother in my
behalf, will, I hope, prevent those harsher extremities to which I might
be otherwise driven. And to you I will fly, if permitted, and keep all
my promises, of not corresponding with any body, not seeing any body,
but by your mother's direction and yours.
I will close and deposit at this place. It is not necessary to say, how
much I am
Your ever affectionate and obliged CL. HARLOWE.