MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE [In continuation of the subject in
Letter XXXVIII.]
I will now, though midnight (for I have no sleep in my eyes) resume
the subject I was forced so abruptly to quit, and will obey yours, Miss
Lloyd's, Miss Campion's, and Miss Biddulph's call, with as much temper
as my divided thought will admit. The dead stillness of this solemn hour
will, I hope, contribute to calm my disturbed mind.
In order to acquit myself of so heavy a charge as that of having
reserves to so dear a friend, I will acknowledge (and I thought I had
over-and-over) that it is owing to my particular situation, if Mr.
Lovelace appears to me in a tolerable light: and I take upon me to say,
that had they opposed to him a man of sense, of virtue, of generosity;
one who enjoyed his fortune with credit, who had a tenderness in his
nature for the calamities of others, which would have given a moral
assurance, that he would have been still less wanting in grateful
returns to an obliging spirit:--had they opposed such a man as this to
Mr. Lovelace, and been as earnest to have me married, as now they are,
I do not know myself, if they would have had reason to tax me with that
invincible obstinacy which they lay to my charge: and this whatever
had been the figure of the man; since the heart is what we women should
judge by in the choice we make, as the best security for the party's
good behaviour in every relation of life.
But, situated as I am, thus persecuted and driven, I own to you, that
I have now-and-then had a little more difficulty than I wished for, in
passing by Mr. Lovelace's tolerable qualities, to keep up my dislike to
him for his others.
You say, I must have argued with myself in his favour, and in his
disfavour, on a supposition, that I might possibly be one day his. I
own that I have: and thus called upon by my dearest friend, I will set
before you both parts of the argument.
And first, what occurred to me in his favour.
At his introduction into our family, his negative virtues were insisted
upon:--He was no gamester; no horse-racer; no fox-hunter; no drinker:
my poor aunt Hervey had, in confidence, given us to apprehend much
disagreeable evil (especially to a wife of the least delicacy) from a
wine-lover: and common sense instructed us, that sobriety in a man is
no small point to be secured, when so many mischiefs happen daily from
excess. I remember, that my sister made the most of this favourable
circumstance in his character while she had any hopes of him.
He was never thought to be a niggard; not even ungenerous: nor when
his conduct came to be inquired into, an extravagant, a squanderer: his
pride [so far was it a laudable pride] secured him from that. Then he
was ever ready to own his errors. He was no jester upon sacred things:
poor Mr. Wyerley's fault; who seemed to think there was wit in saying
bold things, which would shock a serious mind. His conversation with us
was always unexceptionable, even chastely so; which, be his actions what
they would, shewed him capable of being influenced by decent company;
and that he might probably therefore be a led man, rather than a leader,
in other company. And one late instance, so late as last Saturday
evening, has raised him not a little in my opinion, with regard to this
point of good (and at the same time, of manly) behaviour.
As to the advantage of birth, that is of his side, above any man who has
been found out for me. If we may judge by that expression of his,
which you were pleased with at the time; 'That upon true quality, and
hereditary distinction, if good sense were not wanting, humour sat as
easy as his glove;' that, with as familiar an air, was his familiar
expression; 'while none but the prosperous upstart, MUSHROOMED into
rank, (another of his peculiars,) was arrogantly proud of it.'--If, I
say, we may judge of him by this, we shall conclude in his favour, that
he knows what sort of behaviour is to be expected from persons of birth,
whether he act up to it or not. Conviction is half way to amendment.
His fortunes in possession are handsome; in expectation, splendid: so
nothing need be said on that subject.
But it is impossible, say some, that he should make a tender or kind
husband. Those who are for imposing upon me such a man as Mr. Solmes,
and by methods so violent, are not entitled to make this objection. But
now, on this subject, let me tell you how I have argued with myself--for
still you must remember, that I am upon the extenuating part of his
character.
A great deal of the treatment a wife may expect from him, will possibly
depend upon herself. Perhaps she must practise as well as promise
obedience, to a man so little used to controul; and must be careful to
oblige. And what husband expects not this?--The more perhaps if he had
not reason to assure himself of the preferable love of his wife before
she became such. And how much easier and pleasanter to obey the man of
her choice, if he should be even more unreasonable sometimes, than one
she would not have had, could she have avoided it? Then, I think, as
the men were the framers of the matrimonial office, and made obedience
a part of the woman's vow, she ought not, even in policy, to shew him,
that she can break through her part of the contract, (however lightly
she may think of the instance,) lest he should take it into his head
(himself is judge) to think as lightly of other points, which she may
hold more important--but, indeed, no point so solemnly vowed can be
slight.
Thus principled, and acting accordingly, what a wretch must that husband
be, who could treat such a wife brutally!--Will Lovelace's wife be the
only person to whom he will not pay the grateful debt of civility and
good manners? He is allowed to be brave: Who ever knew a brave man, if a
brave man of sense, an universally base man? And how much the gentleness
of our sex, and the manner of our training up and education, make us
need the protection of the brave, and the countenance of the generous,
let the general approbation, which we are all so naturally inclined to
give to men of that character, testify.
At worst, will he confine me prisoner to my chamber? Will he deny me the
visits of my dearest friend, and forbid me to correspond with her? Will
he take from me the mistressly management, which I had not faultily
discharged? Will he set a servant over me, with license to insult me?
Will he, as he has not a sister, permit his cousins Montague, or would
either of those ladies accept of a permission, to insult and tyrannize
over me?--It cannot be.--Why then, think I often, do you tempt me, O my
cruel friends, to try the difference?
And then has the secret pleasure intruded itself, to be able to reclaim
such a man to the paths of virtue and honour: to be a secondary means,
if I were to be his, of saving him, and preventing the mischiefs so
enterprising a creature might otherwise be guilty of, if he be such a
one.
When I have thought of him in these lights, (and that as a man of sense
he will sooner see his errors, than another,) I own to you, that I have
had some difficulty to avoid taking the path they so violently endeavour
to make me shun: and all that command of my passions which has been
attributed to me as my greatest praise, and, in so young a creature, as
my distinction, has hardly been sufficient for me.
And let me add, that the favour of his relations (all but himself
unexceptionable) has made a good deal of additional weight, thrown in
the same scale.
But now, in his disfavour. When I have reflected upon the prohibition
of my parents; the giddy appearance, disgraceful to our sex, that such
a preference would have: that there is no manner of likelihood, enflamed
by the rencounter, and upheld by art and ambition on my brother's side,
that ever the animosity will be got over: that I must therefore be at
perpetual variance with all my own family: that I must go to him, and to
his, as an obliged and half-fortuned person: that his aversion to them
all is as strong as theirs to him: that his whole family are hated
for his sake; they hating ours in return: that he has a very immoral
character as to women: that knowing this, it is a high degree of
impurity to think of joining in wedlock with such a man: that he is
young, unbroken, his passions unsubdued: that he is violent in his
temper, yet artful; I am afraid vindictive too: that such a husband
might unsettle me in all my own principles, and hazard my future hopes:
that his own relations, two excellent aunts, and an uncle, from whom
he has such large expectations, have no influence upon him: that what
tolerable qualities he has, are founded more in pride than in virtue:
that allowing, as he does, the excellency of moral precepts, and
believing the doctrine of future rewards and punishments, he can live as
if he despised the one, and defied the other: the probability that the
taint arising from such free principles, may go down into the manners
of posterity: that I knowing these things, and the importance of them,
should be more inexcusable than one who knows them not; since an error
against judgment is worse, infinitely worse, than an error in judgment.
Reflecting upon these things, I cannot help conjuring you, my dear, to
pray with me, and to pray for me, that I may not be pushed upon such
indiscreet measures, as will render me inexcusable to myself: for that
is the test, after all. The world's opinion ought to be but a secondary
consideration.
I have said in his praise, that he is extremely ready to own his errors:
but I have sometimes made a great drawback upon this article, in his
disfavour; having been ready to apprehend, that this ingenuousness may
possibly be attributable to two causes, neither of them, by any means,
creditable to him. The one, that his vices are so much his masters, that
he attempts not to conquer them; the other, that he may think it policy,
to give up one half of his character to save the other, when the
whole may be blamable: by this means, silencing by acknowledgment
the objections he cannot answer; which may give him the praise of
ingenuousness, when he can obtain no other, and when the challenged
proof might bring out, upon discussion, other evils. These, you will
allow, are severe constructions; but every thing his enemies say of him
cannot be false.