MISS BYRON, TO SIR ROWLAND MEREDITH
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19.
It was with great pleasure that I received, this day, the kindest Letter
that ever was written by a real father to his dearest child. I was
resolved that I would not go to rest till I had acknowledged the favour.
How sweet is the name of father to a young person who, out of near
one-and-twenty years of life, has for more than half the time been
bereaved of hers; and who was also one of the best of men!
You gave me an additional pleasure in causing this remembrance of your
promised paternal goodness to be given me by Mr. Fowler in person. Till
I knew you and him, I had no father, no brother.
How good you are in your apprehensions that there may be a man on whom
your daughter has cast her eye, and who cannot look upon her with the
same distinction--O that I had been near you when you wrote that
sweetly-compassionating, that indulgent passage! I would have wiped the
tears from your eyes myself, and reverenced you as my true father.
You demand of me, as my father, a hint, or half a hint, as you call it,
to be given to my brother Fowler; or if not to him, to you. To him, whom
I call father, I mean all the duty of a child. I call him not father
nominally only: I will, irksome as the subject is, own, without reserve,
the truth to you--[In tenderness to my brother, how could I to him?]--
There is a man whom, and whom only, I could love as a good wife ought to
love her husband. He is the best of men. O my good Sir Rowland
Meredith! if you knew him, you would love him yourself, and own him for
your son. I will not conceal his name from my father: Sir Charles
Grandison is the man. Inquire about him. His character will rise upon
you from every mouth. He engaged first all your daughter's gratitude, by
rescuing her from a great danger and oppression; for he is as brave as he
is good: and how could she help suffering a tenderness to spring up from
her gratitude, of which she was never before sensible to any man in the
world? There is something in the way, my good sir; but not that proceeds
from his slights or contempts. Your daughter could not live, if it were
so. A glorious creature is in the way! who has suffered for him, who
does suffer for him: he ought to be hers, and only hers; and if she can
be recovered from a fearful malady that has seized her mind, he probably
will. My daily prayers are, that God will restore her!
But yet, my dear sir, my friend, my father! my esteem for this noblest of
men is of such a nature, that I cannot give my hand to any other: my
father Meredith would not wish me to give a hand without a heart.
This, sir, is the case. Let it, I beseech you, rest within your own
breast, and my brother Fowler's. How few minds are there delicate and
candid enough to see circumstances of this kind in the light they ought
to appear in! And pray for me, my good Sir Rowland; not that the way may
be smoothed to what once would have crowned my wishes as to this life;
but that Sir Charles Grandison may be happy with the lady that is, and
ought to be, dearest to his heart; and that your daughter may be enabled
to rejoice in their felicity. What, my good sir, is this span of life,
that a passenger through it should seek to overturn the interests of
others to establish her own? And can the single life be a grievance?
Can it be destitute of the noblest tendernesses? No, sir. You that have
lived to an advanced age, in a fair fame, surrounded with comforts, and
as tender to a worthy nephew, as the most indulgent father could be to
the worthiest of sons, can testify for me, that it is not.
But now, sir, one word--I disclaim, but yet in all thankfulness, the
acceptance of the favour signified to be intended me in the latter part
of the paternal letter before me. Our acquaintance began with a hope, on
your side, that I could not encourage. As I could not, shall I accept of
the benefit from you, to which I could only have been entitled (and that
as I had behaved) had I been able to oblige you?--No, sir! I will not,
in this case, be benefited, when I cannot benefit. Put me not therefore,
I beseech you, sir, if such an event (deplored by me, as it would be!)
should happen, upon the necessity of inquiring after your other relations
and friends. Sir Rowland Meredith my father, and Mr. Fowler my brother,
are all to me of the family they distinguish by their relation, that I
know at present. Let me not be made known to the rest by a distinction
that would be unjust to them, and to yourself, as it must deprive you of
the grace of obliging those who have more than a stranger's claim; and
must, in the event, lay them under the appearance of an obligation to
that stranger for doing them common justice.
I use the word stranger with reference to those of your family and
friends to whom I must really appear in that light. But, laying these
considerations aside, in which I am determined not to interfere with
them, I am, with the tenderest regard, dear and good sir,
Your ever-dutiful and affectionate daughter,
HARRIET BYRON.