Do not be so much concerned, my dearest friend, at the bickerings
between my mother and me. We love one another dearly notwithstanding.
If my mother had not me to find fault with, she must find fault with
somebody else. And as to me, I am a very saucy girl; and were not this
occasion, there would be some other, to shew it.
You have heard me say, that this was always the case between us.
You could not otherwise have known it. For when you was with us, you
harmonized us both; and, indeed, I was always more afraid of you than of
my mother. But then that awe is accompanied with love. Your reproofs,
as I have always found, are so charmingly mild and instructive; so
evidently calculated to improve, and not to provoke; that a generous
temper must be amended by them. But hear now, mind my good mamma, when
you are not with us--You shall, I tell you, Nancy. I will have it so.
Don't I know best, I won't be disobeyed. How can a daughter of spirits
bear such language; such looks too with the language; and not have a
longing mind to disobey?
Don't advise me, my dear, to subscribe to my mother's prohibition of
correspondence with you. She has no reason for it. Nor would she of her
own judgment have prohibited it. That odd old ambling soul your uncle,
(whose visits are frequenter than ever,) instigated by your malicious
and selfish brother and sister in the occasion. And they have only
borrowed my mother's lips, at the distance they are from you, for a sort
of speaking trumpet for them. The prohibition, once more I say, cannot
come from her heart: But if it did, is so much danger to be apprehended
from my continuing to write to one of my own sex, as if I wrote to one
of the other? Don't let dejection and disappointment, and the course
of oppression which you have run through, weaken your mind, my dearest
creature, and make you see inconveniencies where there possibly cannot
be any. If your talent is scribbling, as you call it; so is mine--and
I will scribble on, at all opportunities; and to you; let them say what
they will. Nor let your letters be filled with the self-accusations you
mention: there is no cause for them. I wish that your Anna Howe, who
continues in her mother's house, were but half so good as Miss Clarissa
Harlowe, who has been driven out of her father's.
I will say nothing upon your letter to your sister till I see the effect
it will have. You hope, you tell me, that you shall have your money and
clothes sent you, notwithstanding my opinion to the contrary--I am sorry
to have it to acquaint you, that I have just now heard, that they have
sat in council upon your letter; and that your mother was the only
person who was for sending you your things, and was overruled. I
charge you therefore to accept of my offer, as by my last: and give
me particular directions for what you want, that I can supply you with
besides.
Don't set your thought so much upon a reconciliation as to prevent your
laying hold of any handsome opportunity to give yourself a protector;
such a one as the man will be, who, I imagine, husband-like, will let
nobody insult you but himself.
What could he mean by letting slip such a one as that you mention? I
don't know how to blame you; for how you go beyond silence and blushes,
when the foolish fellow came with his observances of the restrictions
which you laid him under when in another situation? But, as I told you
above, you really strike people into awe. And, upon my word, you did not
spare him.
I repeat what I said in my last, that you have a very nice part to act:
and I will add, that you have a mind that is much too delicate for your
part. But when the lover is exalted, the lady must be humbled. He is
naturally proud and saucy. I doubt you must engage his pride, which he
calls his honour: and that you must throw off a little more of the veil.
And I would have you restrain your wishes before him, that you had not
met him, and the like. What signifies wishing, my dear? He will not bear
it. You can hardly expect that he will.
Nevertheless, it vexed me to the very bottom of my pride, that any
wretch of that sex should be able to triumph over Clarissa.
I cannot, however, but say, that I am charmed with your spirit. So much
sweetness, where sweetness is requisite; so much spirit, where spirit is
called for--what a true magnanimity!
But I doubt, in your present circumstances, you must endeavour after a
little more of the reserve, in cases where you are displeased with him,
and palliate a little. That humility which he puts on when you rise upon
him, is not natural to him.
Methinks I see the man hesitating, and looking like the fool you paint
him, under your corrective superiority!--But he is not a fool. Don't put
him upon mingling resentment with his love.
You are very serious, my dear, in the first of the two letters before
me, in relation to Mr. Hickman and me; and in relation to my mother and
me. But as to the latter, you must not be too grave. If we are not well
together at one time, we are not ill together at another. And while I am
able to make her smile in the midst of the most angry fit she ever fell
into on the present occasion, (though sometimes she would not if she
could help it,) it is a very good sign; a sign that displeasure can
never go deep, or be lasting. And then a kind word, or kind look, to
her favourite Hickman, sets the one into raptures, and the other in
tolerable humour, at any time.
But your case pains me at heart; and with all my levity, both the good
folks most sometimes partake of that pain; nor will it be over, as long
as you are in a state of uncertainty; and especially as I was not able
to prevail for that protection for you which would have prevented the
unhappy step, the necessity for which we both, with so much reason,
deplore.
I have only to add (and yet it is needless to tell you) that I am, and
will ever be,
Your affectionate friend and servant, ANNA HOWE.