And now, Jack, I will suppose that thou hast read this cursed letter.
Allow me to make a few observations upon some of its contents.
It is strange to Miss Howe, that having got her friend at such a
shocking advantage, &c. And it is strange to me, too. If ever I have
such another opportunity given to me, the cause of both our wonder, I
believe, will cease.
So thou seest Tomlinson is further detected.—No such person as Mrs.
Fretchville.—May lightning from Heaven—O Lord, O Lord, O Lord!—What a
horrid vixen is this!—My gang, my remorseless gang, too, is brought
in—and thou wilt plead for these girls again; wilt thou? heaven be
praised, she says, that her friend is out of danger—Miss Howe should be
sure of that, and that she herself is safe.—But for this termagant, (as
I often said,) I must surely have made a better hand of it.—
New stories of me, Jack!—What can they be?—I have not found that my
generosity to my Rose-bud ever did me due credit with this pair of
friends. Very hard, Belford, that credits cannot be set against debits,
and a balance struck in a rake’s favour, as well as in that of every
common man!—But he, from whom no good is expected, is not allowed the
merit of the good he does.
I ought to have been a little more attentive to character than I have
been. For, notwithstanding that the measures of right and wrong are
said to be so manifest, let me tell thee, that character biases and
runs away with all mankind. Let a man or woman once establish
themselves in the world’s opinion, and all that either of them do will
be sanctified. Nay, in the very courts of justice, does not character
acquit or condemn as often as facts, and sometimes even in spite of
facts?—Yet, [impolitic that I have been and am!] to be so careless of
mine!—And now, I doubt, it is irretrievable.—But to leave moralizing.
Thou, Jack, knowest almost all my enterprises worth remembering. Can
this particular story, which this girl hints at, be that of Lucy
Villars?—Or can she have heard of my intrigue with the pretty gipsey,
who met me in Norwood, and of the trap I caught her cruel husband in,
[a fellow as gloomy and tyrannical as old Harlowe,] when he pursued a
wife, who would not have deserved ill of him, if he had deserved well
of her!—But he was not quite drowned. The man is alive at this day, and
Miss Howe mentions the story as a very shocking one. Besides, both
these are a twelve-month old, or more.
But evil fame and scandal are always new. When the offender has forgot
a vile fact, it is often told to one and to another, who, having never
heard of it before, trumpet it about as a novelty to others. But well
said the honest corregidor at Madrid, [a saying with which I encroached
Lord M.’s collection,]—Good actions are remembered but for a day: bad
ones for many years after the life of the guilty. Such is the relish
that the world has for scandal. In other words, such is the desire
which every one has to exculpate himself by blackening his neighbour.
You and I, Belford, have been very kind to the world, in furnishing it
with opportunities to gratify its devil.
[Miss Howe will abandon her own better prospects, and share fortunes
with her, were she to go abroad.]—Charming romancer!—I must set about
this girl, Jack. I have always had hopes of a woman whose passions
carry her to such altitudes.—Had I attacked Miss Howe first, her
passions, (inflamed and guided as I could have managed them,) would
have brought her into my lure in a fortnight.
But thinkest thou, [and yet I think thou dost,] that there is any thing
in these high flights among the sex?—Verily, Jack, these vehement
friendships are nothing but chaff and stubble, liable to be blown away
by the very wind that raises them. Apes, mere apes of us! they think
the word friendship has a pretty sound with it; and it is much talked
of—a fashionable word. And so, truly, a single woman, who thinks she
has a soul, and knows that she wants something, would be thought to
have found a fellow-soul for it in her own sex. But I repeat, that the
word is a mere word, the thing a mere name with them; a cork-bottomed
shuttle-cock, which they are fond of striking to and fro, to make one
another glow in the frosty weather of a single-state; but which, when a
man comes in between the pretended inseparables, is given up, like
their music and other maidenly amusements; which, nevertheless, may be
necessary to keep the pretty rogues out of active mischief. They then,
in short, having caught the fish, lay aside the net.*
* He alludes here to the story of a pope, who, (once a poor fisherman,)
through every preferment he rose to, even to that of the cardinalate,
hung up in view of all his guests his net, as a token of humility. But,
when he arrived at the pontificate, he took it down, saying, that there
was no need of the net, when he had caught the fish.
Thou hast a mind, perhaps, to make an exception for these two
ladies.—With all my heart. My Clarissa has, if woman has, a soul
capable of friendship. Her flame is bright and steady. But Miss Howe’s,
were it not kept up by her mother’s opposition, is too vehement to
endure. How often have I known opposition not only cement friendship,
but create love? I doubt not but poor Hickman would fare the better
with this vixen, if her mother were as heartily against him, as she is
for him.
Thus much, indeed, as to these two ladies, I will grant thee, that the
active spirit of the one, and the meek disposition of the other, may
make their friendship more durable than it would otherwise be; for this
is certain, that in every friendship, whether male or female, there
must be a man and a woman spirit, (that is to say, one of them must be
a forbearing one,) to make it permanent.
But this I pronounce, as a truth, which all experience confirms, that
friendship between women never holds to the sacrifice of capital
gratifications, or to the endangering of life, limb, or estate, as it
often does in our nobler sex.
Well, but next comes an indictment against poor beauty! What has beauty
done that Miss Howe should be offended at it?—Miss Howe, Jack, is a
charming girl. She has no reason to quarrel with beauty!—Didst ever see
her?—Too much fire and spirit in her eye, indeed, for a girl!—But
that’s no fault with a man that can lower that fire and spirit at
pleasure; and I know I am the man that can.
For my own part, when I was first introduced to this lady, which was by
my goddess when she herself was a visiter at Mrs. Howe’s, I had not
been half an hour with her, but I even hungered and thirsted after a
romping ’bout with the lively rogue; and, in the second or third visit,
was more deterred by the delicacy of her friend, than by what I
apprehended from her own. This charming creature’s presence, thought I,
awes us both. And I wished her absence, though any other woman were
present, that I might try the differences in Miss Howe’s behaviour
before her friend’s face, or behind her back.
Delicate women make delicate women, as well as decent men. With all
Miss Howe’s fire and spirit, it was easy to see, by her very eye, that
she watched for lessons and feared reproof from the penetrating eye of
her milder dispositioned friend;* and yet it was as easy to observe, in
the candour and sweet manners of the other, that the fear which Miss
Howe stood in of her, was more owing to her own generous apprehension
that she fell short of her excellencies, than to Miss Harlowe’s
consciousness of excellence over her. I have often since I came at Miss
Howe’s letters, revolved this just and fine praise contained in one of
them:** ‘Every one saw that the preference they gave you to themselves
exalted you not into any visible triumph over them; for you had always
something to say, on every point you carried, that raised the yielding
heart, and left every one pleased and satisfied with themselves, though
they carried not off the palm.’
* Miss Howe, in Vol. III. Letter XIX. says, That she was always more
afraid of Clarissa than of her mother; and, in Vol. III. Letter XLIV.
That she fears her almost as much as she loves her; and in many other
places, in her letters, verifies this observation of Lovelace. ** See
Vol. IV. Letter XXXI.
As I propose, in a more advanced life, to endeavour to atone for my
useful freedoms with individuals of the sex, by giving cautions and
instructions to the whole, I have made a memorandum to enlarge upon
this doctrine;—to wit, that it is full as necessary to direct daughters
in the choice of their female companions, as it is to guard them
against the designs of men.
I say not this, however, to the disparagement of Miss Howe. She has
from pride, what her friend has from principle. [The Lord help the sex,
if they had not pride!] But yet I am confident, that Miss Howe is
indebted to the conversation and correspondence of Miss Harlowe for her
highest improvements. But, both these ladies out of the question, I
make no scruple to aver, [and I, Jack, should know something of the
matter,] that there have been more girls ruined, at least prepared for
ruin, by their own sex, (taking in servants, as well as companions,)
than directly by the attempts and delusions of men.
But it is time enough when I am old and joyless, to enlarge upon this
topic.
As to the comparison between the two ladies, I will expatiate more on
that subject, (for I like it,) when I have had them both. Which this
letter of the vixen girl’s, I hope thou wilt allow, warrants me to try
for.
I return to the consideration of a few more of its contents, to justify
my vengeances so nearly now in view.
As to Mrs. Townsend,—her manlike spirit—her two brothers—and the ships’
crews—I say nothing but this to the insolent threatening—Let ’em
come!—But as to her sordid menace—To repay the horrid villain, as she
calls me, for all my vileness by BROKEN BONES!—Broken bones,
Belford!—Who can bear this porterly threatening!—Broken bones,
Jack!—D—n the little vulgar!—Give me a name for her—but I banish all
furious resentment. If I get these two girls into my power, Heaven
forbid that I should be a second Phalaris, who turned his bull upon the
artist!—No bones of their’s will I break—They shall come off with me
upon much lighter terms!—
But these fellows are smugglers, it seems. And am not I a smuggler
too?—I am—and have not the least doubt but I shall have secured my
goods before Thursday, or Wednesday either.
But did I want a plot, what a charming new one does this letter of Miss
Howe strike me out! I am almost sorry, that I have fixed upon one.—For
here, how easy would it be for me to assemble a crew of swabbers, and
to create a Mrs. Townsend (whose person, thou seest, my beloved knows
not) to come on Tuesday, at Miss Howe’s repeated solicitations, in
order to carry my beloved to a warehouse of my own providing?
This, however, is my triumphant hope, that at the very time that these
ragamuffins will be at Hampstead (looking for us) my dear Miss Harlowe
and I [so the Fates I imagine have ordained] shall be fast asleep in
each other’s arms in town.—Lie still, villain, till the time comes.—My
heart, Jack! my heart!—It is always thumping away on the remotest
prospects of this nature.
But it seems that the vileness of this specious monster [meaning me,
Jack!] has brought Hickman into credit with her. So I have done some
good! But to whom I cannot tell: for this poor fellow, should I permit
him to have this termagant, will be punished, as many times we all are,
by the enjoyment of his own wishes—nor can she be happy, as I take it,
with him, were he to govern himself by her will, and have none of his
own; since never was there a directing wife who knew where to stop:
power makes such a one wanton—she despises the man she can govern. Like
Alexander, who wept, that he had no more worlds to conquer, she will be
looking out for new exercises for her power, till she grow uneasy to
herself, a discredit to her husband, and a plague to all about her.
But this honest fellow, it seems, with tears in his eyes, and with
humble prostration, besought the vixen to permit him to set out in his
chariot-and-four, in order to give himself the glory of protecting such
an oppressed innocent, in the face of the whole world. Nay, he
reddened, it seems: and trembled too! as he read the fair complainant’s
letter.—How valiant is all this!—Women love brave men; and no wonder
that his tears, his trembling, and his prostration, gave him high
reputation with the meek Miss Howe.
But dost think, Jack, that I in the like case (and equally affected
with the distress) should have acted thus? Dost think, that I should
not first have rescued the lady, and then, if needful, have asked
excuse for it, the lady in my hand?—Wouldst not thou have done thus, as
well as I?
But, ’tis best as it is. Honest Hickman may now sleep in a whole skin.
And yet that is more perhaps than he would have done (the lady’s
deliverance unattempted) had I come at this requested permission of his
any other way than by a letter that it must not be known that I have
intercepted.
Miss Howe thinks I may be diverted from pursuing my charmer, by some
new-started villany. Villany is a word that she is extremely fond of.
But I can tell her, that it is impossible I should, till the end of
this villany be obtained. Difficulty is a stimulus with such a spirit
as mine. I thought Miss Howe knew me better. Were she to offer herself,
person for person, in the romancing zeal of her friendship, to save her
friend, it should not do, while the dear creature is on this side the
moon.
She thanks Heaven, that her friend has received her letter of the 7th.
We are all glad of it. She ought to thank me too. But I will not at
present claim her thanks.
But when she rejoices that the letter went safe, does she not, in
effect, call out for vengeance, and expect it!—All in good time, Miss
Howe. When settest thou out for the Isle of Wight, love?
I will close at this time with desiring thee to make a list of the
virulent terms with which the enclosed letter abounds: and then, if
thou supposest that I have made such another, and have added to it all
the flowers of the same blow, in the former letters of the same saucy
creature, and those in that of Miss Harlowe, which she left for me on
her elopement, thou wilt certainly think, that I have provocations
sufficient to justify me in all that I shall do to either.
Return the enclosed the moment thou hast perused it.