Allow me, my honoured second Papa, as in my happy days you taught me
to call you, to implore your interest with my Papa, to engage him to
dispense with a command, which, if insisted upon, will deprive me of my
free-will, and make me miserable for my whole life.
For my whole life! let me repeat: Is that a small point, my dear Uncle,
to give up? Am not I to live with the man? Is any body else? Shall I not
therefore be allowed to judge for myself, whether I can, or cannot, live
happily with him?
Should it be ever so unhappily, will it be prudence to complain or
appeal? If it were, to whom could I appeal with effect against a
husband? And would not the invincible and avowed dislike I have for him
at setting out, seem to justify any ill usage from him, in that state,
were I to be ever so observant of him? And if I were to be at all
observant of him, it must be from fear, not love.
Once more, let me repeat, That this is not a small point to give up:
and that it is for life. Why, I pray you, good Sir, should I be made
miserable for life? Why should I be deprived of all comfort, but that
which the hope that it would be a very short one, would afford me?
Marriage is a very solemn engagement, enough to make a young creature's
heart ache, with the best prospects, when she thinks seriously of
it!--To be given up to a strange man; to be engrafted into a strange
family; to give up her very name, as a mark of her becoming his absolute
and dependent property; to be obliged to prefer this strange man to
father, mother--to every body:--and his humours to all her own--or to
contend, perhaps, in breach of avowed duty, for every innocent
instance of free-will. To go no where; to make acquaintance; to give up
acquaintance; to renounce even the strictest friendships, perhaps;
all at his pleasure, whether she thinks it reasonable to do so or not.
Surely, Sir, a young creature ought not to be obliged to make all these
sacrifices but for such a man as she can love. If she be, how sad must
be the case! How miserable the life, if it can be called life!
I wish I could obey you all. What a pleasure would it be to me, if I
could!--Marry first, and love will come after, was said by one of my
dearest friends! But this is a shocking assertion. A thousand thing may
happen to make that state but barely tolerable, where it is entered into
with mutual affections: What must it then be, where the husband can have
no confidence in the love of his wife: but has reason rather to question
it, from the preference he himself believes she would have given to
somebody else, had she had her own option? What doubts, what jealousies,
what want of tenderness, what unfavourable prepossessions, will there
be, in a matrimony thus circumstanced! How will every look, every
action, even the most innocent, be liable to misconstruction!--While,
on the other hand, an indifference, a carelessness to oblige, may take
place; and fear only can constrain even an appearance of what ought to
be the effect of undisguised love!
Think seriously of these things, dear, good Sir, and represent them to
my father in that strong light which the subject will bear; but in which
my sex, and my tender years and inexperience, will not permit me to
paint it; and use your powerful interest, that your poor niece may not
be consigned to a misery so durable.
I offered to engage not to marry at all, if that condition may be
accepted. What a disgrace is it to me to be thus sequestered from
company, thus banished my papa's and mamma's presence; thus slighted and
deserted by you, Sir, and my other kind uncle! And to be hindered from
attending at that public worship, which, were I out of the way of my
duty, would be most likely to reduce me into the right path again!--Is
this the way, Sir; can this be thought to be the way to be taken with
a free and open spirit? May not this strange method rather harden than
convince? I cannot bear to live in disgrace thus. The very servants so
lately permitted to be under my own direction, hardly daring to speak to
me; my own servant discarded with high marks of undeserved suspicion and
displeasure, and my sister's maid set over me.
The matter may be too far pushed.--Indeed it may.--And then, perhaps,
every one will be sorry for their parts in it.
May I be permitted to mention an expedient?--'If I am to be
watched, banished, and confined; suppose, Sir, it were to be at your
house?'--Then the neighbouring gentry will the less wonder, that the
person of whom they used to think so favourably, appear not at church
here; and that she received not their visits.
I hope there can be no objection to this. You used to love to have
me with you, Sir, when all went happily with me: And will you not now
permit me, in my troubles, the favour of your house, till all this
displeasure is overblown?--Upon my word, Sir, I will not stir out of
doors, if you require the contrary of me: nor will I see any body, but
whom you will allow me to see; provided Mr. Solmes be not brought to
persecute me there.
Procure, then, this favour for me; if you cannot procure the still
greater, that of a happy reconciliation (which nevertheless I presume to
hope for, if you will be so good as to plead for me); and you will then
add to those favours and to that indulgence, which have bound me, and
will for ever bind me to be
Your dutiful and obliged niece, CLARISSA HARLOWE.