MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE. [IN ANSWER TO LETTER XLIII.] SUNDAY
MORNING, APRIL 9.
Do not think, my beloved friend, although you have given me in yours
of yesterday a severer instance of what, nevertheless, I must call your
impartial love, than ever yet I received from you, that I would be
displeased with you for it. That would be to put myself into the
inconvenient situation of royalty: that is to say, out of the way of
ever being told of my faults; of ever mending them: and in the way of
making the sincerest and warmest friendship useless to me.
And then how brightly, how nobly glows in your bosom the sacred flame
of friendship; since it can make you ready to impute to the unhappy
sufferer a less degree of warmth in her own cause, than you have for
her, because of the endeavours to divest herself of self so far as to
leave others to the option which they have a right to make!--Ought I, my
dear, to blame, ought I not rather to admire you for this ardor?
But nevertheless, lest you should think that there is any foundation for
a surmise which (although it owe its rise to your friendship) would, if
there were, leave me utterly inexcusable, I must, in justice to myself,
declare, that I know not my own heart if I have any of that latent or
unowned inclination, which you would impute to any other but me. Nor
does the important alternative sit lightly on my mind. And yet I must
excuse your mother, were it but on this single consideration, that
I could not presume to reckon upon her favour, as I could upon her
daughter's, so as to make the claim of friendship upon her, to whom, as
the mother of my dearest friend, a veneration is owing, which can
hardly be compatible with that sweet familiarity which is one of the
indispensable requisites of the sacred tie by which your heart and mine
are bound in one.
What therefore I might expect from my Anna Howe, I ought not from
her mother; for would it not be very strange, that a person of her
experience should be reflected upon because she gave not up her own
judgment, where the consequence of her doing so would be to embroil
herself, as she apprehends, with a family she has lived well with,
and in behalf of a child against her parents?--as she has moreover a
daughter of her own:--a daughter too, give me leave to say, of whose
vivacity and charming spirits she is more apprehensive than she need to
be, because her truly maternal cares make her fear more from her youth,
than she hopes for her prudence; which, nevertheless, she and all the
world know to be beyond her years.
And here let me add, that whatever you may generously, and as the result
of an ardent affection for your unhappy friend, urge on this head, in my
behalf, or harshly against any one who may refuse me protection in the
extraordinary circumstances I find myself in, I have some pleasure
in being able to curb undue expectations upon my indulgent friends,
whatever were to befal myself from those circumstances, for I should be
extremely mortified, were I by my selfish forwardness to give occasion
for such a check, as to be told, that I had encouraged an unreasonable
hope, or, according to the phrase you mention, wished to take a thorn
out of my own foot, and to put in to that of my friend. Nor should I
be better pleased with myself, if, having been taught by my good Mrs.
Norton, that the best of schools is that of affliction, I should rather
learn impatience than the contrary, by the lessons I am obliged to get
by heart in it; and if I should judge of the merits of others, as they
were kind to me; and that at the expense of their own convenience or
peace of mind. For is not this to suppose myself ever in the right; and
all who do not act as I would have them act, perpetually in the wrong?
In short, to make my sake God's sake, in the sense of Mr. Solmes's
pitiful plea to me?
How often, my dear, have you and I endeavoured to detect and censure
this partial spirit in others?
But I know you do not always content yourself with saying what you think
may justly be said; but, in order the shew the extent of a penetration
which can go to the bottom of any subject, delight to say or to write
all that can be said or written, or even thought, on the particular
occasion; and this partly perhaps from being desirous [pardon me, my
dear!] to be thought mistress of a sagacity that is aforehand with
events. But who would wish to drain off or dry up a refreshing current,
because it now-and-then puts us to some little inconvenience by its
over-flowings? In other words, who would not allow for the liveliness of
a spirit which for one painful sensibility gives an hundred pleasurable
ones; and the one in consequence of the other?
But now I come to the two points in your letter, which most sensibly
concern me: Thus you put them:
'Whether I choose not rather to go off [shocking words!] with one of
my own sex; with my ANNA HOWE--than with one of the other; with Mr.
LOVELACE?'
And if not,
'Whether I should not marry him as soon as possible?'
You know, my dear, my reasons for rejecting your proposal, and even
for being earnest that you should not be known to be assisting me in an
enterprise in which a cruel necessity induced me to think of engaging;
and for which you have not the same plea. At this rate, well might
your mother be uneasy at our correspondence, not knowing to what
inconveniencies it might subject her and you!--If I am hardly excusable
to think of withdrawing from my unkind friends, what could you have to
say for yourself, were you to abandon a mother so indulgent? Does
she suspect that your fervent friendship may lead you to a small
indiscretion? and does this suspicion offend you? And would you, in
resentment, shew her and the world, that you can voluntarily rush into
the highest error that any of our sex can be guilty of?
And is it worthy of your generosity [I ask you, my dear, is it?] to
think of taking so undutiful a step, because you believe your mother
would be glad to receive you again?
I do assure you, that were I to take this step myself, I would run all
risks rather than you should accompany me in it. Have I, do you think, a
desire to double and treble my own fault in the eye of the world? in the
eye of that world which, cruelly as I am used, (not knowing all,) would
not acquit me?
But, my dearest, kindest friend, let me tell you, that we will neither
of us take such a step. The manner of putting your questions abundantly
convinces me, that I ought not, in your opinion, to attempt it. You no
doubt intend that I shall so take it; and I thank you for the equally
polite and forcible conviction.
It is some satisfaction to me (taking the matter in this light) that I
had begun to waver before I received your last. And now I tell you, that
it has absolutely determined me not to go off; at least not to-morrow.
If you, my dear, think the issue of the alternative (to use your own
words) sits so lightly upon my mind, in short, that my inclination is
faulty; the world would treat me much less scrupulously. When therefore
you represent, that all punctilio must be at an end the moment I am out
of my father's house; and hint, that I must submit it to Mr. Lovelace
to judge when he can leave me with safety; that is to say, give him the
option whether he will leave me, or not; who can bear these reflections,
who can resolve to incur these inconveniencies, that has the question
still in her own power to decide upon?
While I thought only of an escape from this house as an escape from Mr.
Solmes; that already my reputation suffered by my confinement; and that
it would be in my own option either to marry Mr. Lovelace, or wholly to
renounce him; bold as the step was, I thought, treated as I am treated,
something was to be said in excuse of it--if not to the world, to
myself: and to be self-acquitted, is a blessing to be preferred to the
option of all the world. But, after I have censured most severely, as I
have ever done, those giddy girls, who have in the same hour, as I may
say, that they have fled from their chamber, presented themselves at
the altar that is witness to their undutiful rashness; after I have
stipulated with Mr. Lovelace for time, and for an ultimate option
whether to accept or refuse him; and for his leaving me, as soon as I am
in a place of safety (which, as you observe, he must be the judge of);
and after he has signified to me his compliance with these terms; so
that I cannot, if I would, recall them, and suddenly marry;--you see,
my dear, that I have nothing left me but to resolve not to go away with
him!
But, how, on this revocation of my appointment, shall I be able to
pacify him?
How!--Why assert the privilege of my sex!--Surely, on this side of the
solemnity he has no right to be displeased. Besides, did I not reserve a
power of receding, as I saw fit? To what purpose, as I asked in the case
between your mother and you, has any body an option, if the making use
of it shall give the refused a right to be disgusted?
Far, very far, would those, who, according to the old law, have a right
of absolving or confirming a child's promise, be from ratifying mine,
had it been ever so solemn a one.* But this was rather an appointment
than a promise: and suppose it had been the latter; and that I had not
reserved to myself a liberty of revoking it; was it to preclude better
or maturer consideration?--If so, how unfit to be given!--how ungenerous
to be insisted upon!--And how unfitter still to be kept!--Is there a man
living who ought to be angry that a woman whom he hopes one day to
call his, shall refuse to keep a rash promise, when, on the maturest
deliberation, she is convinced that it was a rash one?
* See Numb. XXX. Where it is declared, whose vows shall be
binding, and whose not. The vows of a man, or of a widow,
are there pronounced to be indispensable; because they are
sole, and subject to no other domestic authority. But the
vows of a single woman, or of a wife, if the father of the
one, or the husband of the other, disallow of them as soon
as they know them, are to be of no force.
A matter highly necessary to be known; by all young ladies
especially, whose designing addressers too often endeavour
to engage them by vows; and then plead conscience and honour
to them to hold them down to the performance.
It cannot be amiss to recite the very words.
Ver. 3 If a woman vow a vow unto the Lord, and bind herself
by a bond, being in her father's house in her youth;
4. And her father hear her vow, and her bond wherewith she
hath bound her soul, and her father shall hold his peace at
her; then all her vows shall stand, and every bond wherewith
she hath bound her soul shall stand.
5. But if her father disallow her in the day that he
heareth; not any of her vows or of her bonds wherewith she
hath bound her soul shall stand: and the Lord shall forgive
her, because her father disallowed her.
The same in the case of a wife, as said above. See ver. 6,
7, 8, &c.--All is thus solemnly closed:
Ver. 16. These are the statutes which the Lord commanded
Moses between a man and his wife, between the father and his
daughter, being yet in her youth in her father's house.
I resolve then, upon the whole, to stand this one trial of Wednesday
next--or, perhaps, I should rather say, of Tuesday evening, if my father
hold his purpose of endeavouring, in person, to make me read, or hear
read, and then sign, the settlements.--That, that must be the greatest
trial of all.
If I am compelled to sign them over-night--then (the Lord bless me!)
must all I dread follow, as of course, on Wednesday. If I can prevail
upon them by my prayers [perhaps I shall fall into fits; for the very
first appearance of my father, after having been so long banished his
presence, will greatly affect me--if, I say, I can prevail upon them by
my prayers] to lay aside their views; or to suspend the day, if but for
one week; but if not, but for two or three days; still Wednesday will
be a lighter day of trial. They will surely give me time to consider: to
argue with myself. This will not be promising. As I have made no
effort to get away, they have no reason to suspect me; so I may have an
opportunity, in the last resort, to withdraw. Mrs. Norton is to be with
me: she, although she should be chidden for it, will, in my extremity,
plead for me. My aunt Hervey may, in such an extremity, join with her.
Perhaps my mother may be brought over. I will kneel to each, one by one,
to make a friend. Some of them have been afraid to see me, lest they
should be moved in my favour: does not this give a reasonable hope that
I may move them? My brother's counsel, heretofore given, to turn me out
of doors to my evil destiny, may again be repeated, and may prevail;
then shall I be in no worse case than now, as to the displeasure of my
friends; and thus far better, that it will not be my fault that I seek
another protection: which even then ought to be my cousin Morden's,
rather than Mr. Lovelace's, or any other person's.
My heart, in short, misgives me less, when I resolve this way, than when
I think of the other: and in so strong and involuntary a bias, the heart
is, as I may say, conscience. And well cautions the wise man: 'Let the
counsel of thine own heart stand; for there is no man more faithful to
thee than it: for a man's mind is sometimes wont to tell him more than
seven watchmen, that sit above in a high tower.'*
* Ecclus. xxxvii. 13, 14.
Forgive these indigested self-reasonings. I will close here: and
instantly set about a letter of revocation to Mr. Lovelace; take it
as he will. It will only be another trial of temper to him. To me of
infinite importance. And has he not promised temper and acquiescence, on
the supposition of a change in my mind?