MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
FRIDAY, AUG. 25.
You are very obliging, my dear Miss Howe, to account to me for your
silence. I was easy in it, as I doubted not that, among such near and
dear friends as you are with, you was diverted from writing by some such
agreeable excursion as that you mention.
I was in hopes that you had given over, at this time of day, those very
sprightly airs, which I have taken the liberty to blame you for, as often
as you have given me occasion to so do; and that has been very often.
I was always very grave with you upon this subject: and while your own
and a worthy man's future happiness are in the question, I must enter
into it, whenever you forget yourself, although I had not a day to live:
and indeed I am very ill.
I am sure it was not your intention to take your future husband with you
to the little island to make him look weak and silly among those of your
relations who never before had seen him. Yet do you think it possible
for them (however prepared and resolved they may be to like him) to
forbear smiling at him, when they see him suffering under your whimsical
penances? A modest man should no more be made little in his own eyes,
than in the eyes of others. If he be, he will have a diffidence, which
will give an awkwardness to every thing he says or does; and this will be
no more to the credit of your choice than to that of the approbation he
meets with from your friends, or to his own credit.
I love an obliging, and even an humble, deportment in a man to the woman
he addresses. It is a mark of his politeness, and tends to give her that
opinion of herself, which it may be supposed bashful merit wants to be
inspired with. But if the woman exacts it with an high hand, she shows
not either her own politeness or gratitude; although I must confess she
does her courage. I gave you expectations that I would be very serious
with you.
O my dear, that it had been my lot (as I was not permitted to live
single,) to have met with a man by whom I could have acted generously and
unreservedly!
Mr. Lovelace, it is now plain, in order to have a pretence against me,
taxed my behaviour to him with stiffness and distance. You, at one time,
thought me guilty of some degree of prudery. Difficult situations should
be allowed for: which often make seeming occasions for censure
unavoidable. I deserved not blame from him who made mine difficult. And
you, my dear, had I any other man to deal with, or had he but half the
merit which Mr. Hickman has, would have found that my doctrine on this
subject should have governed my practice.
But to put myself out of the question--I'll tell you what I should think,
were I an indifferent by-stander, of those high airs of your's, in return
for Mr. Hickman's humble demeanour. 'The lady thinks of having the
gentleman, I see plainly, would I say. But I see as plainly, that she
has a very great indifference to him. And to what may this indifference
be owing? To one or all of these considerations, no doubt: that she
receives his addresses rather from motives of convenience than choice:
that she thinks meanly of his endowments and intellects; at least more
highly of her own: or, she has not the generosity to use that power with
moderation, which his great affection for her puts into her hands.'
How would you like, my dear, to have any of these things said?
Then to give but the shadow of a reason for free-livers and free speakers
to say, or to imagine, that Miss Howe gives her hand to a man who has no
reason to expect any share in her heart, I am sure you would not wish
that such a thing should be so much as supposed. Then all the regard
from you to come afterwards; none to be shown before; must, should I
think, be capable of being construed as a compliment to the husband, made
at the expense of the wife's and even of the sex's delicacy!
There is no fear that attempts could be formed by the most audacious [two
Lovelaces there cannot be!] upon a character so revered for virtue, and
so charmingly spirited, as Miss Howe's: yet, to have any man encouraged
to despise a husband by the example of one who is most concerned to do
him honour; what, my dear, think you of that? It is but too natural for
envious men (and who that knows Miss Howe, will not envy Mr. Hickman!) to
scoff at, and to jest upon, those who are treated with or will bear
indignity from a woman.
If a man so treated have a true and ardent love for the woman he
addresses, he will be easily overawed by her displeasure: and this will
put him upon acts of submission, which will be called meanness. And what
woman of true spirit would like to have it said, that she would impose
any thing upon the man from whom she one day expects protection and
defence, that should be capable of being construed as a meanness, or
unmanly abjectness in his behaviour, even to herself?--Nay, I am not
sure, and I ask it of you, my dear, to resolve me, whether, in your own
opinion, it is not likely, that a woman of spirit will despise rather
than value more, the man who will take patiently an insult at her hands;
especially before company.
I have always observed, that prejudices in disfavour of a person at his
first appearance, fix deeper, and are much more difficult to be removed
when fixed, than that malignant principle so eminently visible in little
minds, which makes them wish to bring down the more worthy characters to
their own low level, I pretend not to determine. When once, therefore, a
woman of your good sense gives room to the world to think she has not an
high opinion of the lover, whom nevertheless she entertains, it will be
very difficult for her afterwards to make that world think so well as she
would have it of the husband she has chosen.
Give me leave to observe, that to condescend with dignity, and to command
with such kindness, and sweetness of manners, as should let the
condescension, while in a single state, be seen and acknowledged, are
points, which a wise woman, knowing her man, should aim at: and a wise
woman, I should think, would choose to live single all her life rather
than give herself to a man whom she thinks unworthy of a treatment so
noble.
But when a woman lets her lover see that she has the generosity to
approve of and reward a well-meant service; that she has a mind that
lifts her above the little captious follies, which some (too
licentiously, I hope,) attribute to the sex in general: that she resents
not (if ever she thinks she has reason to be displeased) with petulance,
or through pride: nor thinks it necessary to insist upon little points,
to come at or secure great ones, perhaps not proper to be aimed at: nor
leaves room to suppose she has so much cause to doubt her own merit, as
to put the love of the man she intends to favour upon disagreeable or
arrogant trials: but let reason be the principal guide of her actions--
she will then never fail of that true respect, of that sincere
veneration, which she wishes to meet with; and which will make her
judgment after marriage consulted, sometimes with a preference to a man's
own; at other times as a delightful confirmation of his.
And so much, my beloved Miss Howe, for this subject now, and I dare say,
for ever!
I will begin another letter by-and-by, and send both together. Mean
time, I am, &c.