I beg your pardon, my dearest friend, for having given you occasion to
remind me of the date of my last. I was willing to have before me as
much of the workings of your wise relations as possible; being verily
persuaded, that one side or the other would have yielded by this
time: and then I should have had some degree of certainty to found my
observations upon. And indeed what can I write that I have not already
written?--You know, that I can do nothing but rave at your stupid
persecutors: and that you don't like. I have advised you to resume your
own estate: that you won't do. You cannot bear the thoughts of having
their Solmes: and Lovelace is resolved you shall be his, let who will
say to the contrary. I think you must be either the one man's or the
other's. Let us see what their next step will be.
As to Lovelace, while he tells his own story (having also behaved so
handsomely on his intrusion in the wood-house, and intended so well at
church) who can say, that the man is in the least blameworthy?--Wicked
people! to combine against so innocent a man!--But, as I said, let us
see what their next step will be, and what course you will take upon it;
and then we may be the more enlightened.
As to your change of style to your uncles, and brother and sister, since
they were so fond of attributing to you a regard for Lovelace, and would
not be persuaded to the contrary; and since you only strengthened their
arguments against yourself by denying it; you did but just as I would
have done, in giving way to their suspicions, and trying what that would
do--But if--but if--Pray, my dear, indulge me a little--you yourself
think it was necessary to apologize to me for that change of style to
them--and till you will speak out like a friend to her unquestionable
friend, I must tease you a little--let it run therefore; for it will
run--
If, then, there be not a reason for this change of style, which you have
not thought fit to give me, be so good as to watch, as I once before
advised you, how the cause for it will come on--Why should it be
permitted to steal upon you, and you know nothing of the matter?
When we get a great cold, we are apt to puzzle ourselves to find out
when it began, or how we got it; and when that is accounted for, down
we sit contented, and let it have its course; or, if it be very
troublesome, take a sweat, or use other means to get rid of it. So
my dear, before the malady you wot of, yet wot not of, grows so
importunate, as that you must be obliged to sweat it out, let me advise
you to mind how it comes on. For I am persuaded, as surely as that I am
now writing to you, that the indiscreet violence of your friends on the
one hand, and the insinuating address of Lovelace on the other, (if the
man be not a greater fool than any body thinks him,) will effectually
bring it to this, and do all his work for him.
But let it--if it must be Lovelace or Solmes, the choice cannot admit of
debate. Yet if all be true that is reported, I should prefer almost any
of your other lovers to either; unworthy as they also are. But who can
be worthy of a Clarissa?
I wish you are not indeed angry with me for harping so much on one
string. I must own, that I should think myself inexcusable so to do,
(the rather, as I am bold enough to imagine it a point out of all doubt
from fifty places in your letters, were I to labour the proof,) if you
would ingenuously own--
Own what? you'll say. Why, my Anna Howe, I hope you don't think that I
am already in love--!
No, to be sure! How can your Anna Howe have such a thought?--What then
shall we call it? You might have helped me to a phrase--A conditional
kind of liking!--that's it.--O my friend! did I not know how much you
despise prudery; and that you are too young, and too lovely, to be a
prude--
But, avoiding such hard names, let me tell you one thing, my dear (which
nevertheless I have told you before); and that is this: that I shall
think I have reason to be highly displeased with you, if, when you write
to me, you endeavour to keep from me any secret of your heart.
Let me add, that if you would clearly and explicitly tell me, how far
Lovelace has, or has not, a hold in your affections, I could better
advise you what to do, than at present I can. You, who are so famed
for prescience, as I may call it; and than whom no young lady ever had
stronger pretensions to a share of it; have had, no doubt, reasonings
in your heart about him, supposing you were to be one day his: [no doubt
but you have had the same in Solmes's case: whence the ground for the
hatred of the one; and for the conditional liking of the other.] Will
you tell me, my dear, what you have thought of Lovelace's best and of
his worst?--How far eligible for the first; how far rejectable for the
last?--Then weighing both parts in opposite scales, we shall see which
is likely to preponderate; or rather which does preponderate. Nothing
less than the knowledge of the inmost recesses of your heart, can
satisfy my love and my friendship. Surely, you are not afraid to trust
yourself with a secret of this nature: if you are, then you may the more
allowably doubt me. But, I dare say, you will not own either--nor is
there, I hope, cause for either.
Be pleased to observe one thing, my dear, that whenever I have given
myself any of those airs of raillery, which have seemed to make you look
about you, (when, likewise, your case may call for a more serious turn
from a sympathizing friend,) it has not been upon those passages which
are written, though, perhaps not intended, with such explicitness [don't
be alarmed, my dear!] as leaves little cause of doubt: but only when you
affect reserve; when you give new words for common things; when you
come with your curiosities, with your conditional likings, and with your
PRUDE-encies [mind how I spell the word] in a case that with every other
person defies all prudence--over-acts of treason all these, against the
sovereign friendship we have avowed to each other.
Remember, that you found me out in a moment. You challenged me. I owned
directly, that there was only my pride between the man and me; for I
could not endure, I told you, to think of any fellow living to give me a
moment's uneasiness. And then my man, as I have elsewhere said, was not
such a one as yours: so I had reason to impute full as much as to my own
inconsideration, as to his power over me: nay, more: but still more
to yours. For you reasoned me out of the curiosity first; and when the
liking was brought to be conditional--why then, you know, I throbbed no
more about him.
O! pray now, as you say, now I have mentioned that my fellow was not
such a charming fellow as yours, let Miss Biddulph, Miss Lloyd, Miss
Campion, and me, have your opinion, how far figure ought to engage us:
with a view to your own case, however--mind that--as Mr. Tony says--and
whether at all, if the man be vain of it; since, as you observe in a
former, that vanity is a stop-short pride in such a one, that would make
one justly doubt the worthiness of his interior. You, our pattern, so
lovely in feature, so graceful in person, have none of it; and have
therefore with the best grace always held, that it is not excusable even
in a woman.
You must know, that this subject was warmly debated among us in our last
conversation: and Miss Lloyd wished me to write to you upon it for your
opinion; to which, in every debated case, we always paid the greatest
deference. I hope you will not be so much engrossed by your weighty
cares, as not to have freedom of spirits enough to enter upon the task.
You know how much we all admire your opinion on such topics; which ever
produces something new and instructive, as you handle the subjects. And
pray tell us, to what you think it owing, that your man seems so careful
to adorn that self-adorned person of his! yet so manages, that one
cannot for one's heart think him a coxcomb?--Let this question, and the
above tasks, divert, and not displease you, my dear. One subject, though
ever so important, could never yet engross your capacious mind. If
they should displease you, you must recollect the many instances of my
impertinence which you have forgiven, and then say, 'This is a mad girl:
but yet I love her!--And she is my own'