MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE [IN ANSWER TO LETTERS
XXVIII.--XXXIV. INCLUSIVE.] TUESDAY, APRIL 18.
You have a most implacable family. Another visit from your uncle Antony
has not only confirmed my mother an enemy to our correspondence, but has
almost put her upon treading in their steps.--
But to other subjects:
You plead generously for Mr. Hickman. Perhaps, with regard to him, I
may have done, as I have often done in singing--begun a note or key
too high; and yet, rather than begin again, proceed, though I strain
my voice, or spoil my tune. But this is evident, the man is the more
observant for it; and you have taught me, that the spirit which is the
humbler for ill usage, will be insolent upon better. So, good and grave
Mr. Hickman, keep your distance a little longer, I beseech you. You have
erected an altar to me; and I hope you will not refuse to bow to it.
But you ask me, if I would treat Mr. Lovelace, were he to be in Mr.
Hickman's place, as I do Mr. Hickman? Why really, my dear, I believe I
should not.--I have been very sagely considering this point of behaviour
(in general) on both sides in courtship; and I will very candidly tell
you the result. I have concluded, that politeness, even to excess,
is necessary on the men's part, to bring us to listen to their first
addresses, in order to induce us to bow our necks to a yoke so unequal.
But, upon my conscience, I very much doubt whether a little intermingled
insolence is not requisite from them, to keep up that interest, when
once it has got footing. Men must not let us see, that we can make
fools of them. And I think, that smooth love; that is to say, a passion
without rubs; in other words, a passion without passion; is like a
sleepy stream that is hardly seen to give motion to a straw. So that,
sometimes to make us fear, and even, for a short space, to hate the
wretch, is productive of the contrary extreme.
If this be so, Lovelace, than whom no man was ever more polite and
obsequious at the beginning, has hit the very point. For his turbulence
since, his readiness to offend, and his equal readiness to humble
himself, (as must keep a woman's passion alive); and at last tire her
into a non-resistance that shall make her as passive as a tyrant-husband
would wish her to be.
I verily think, that the different behaviour of our two heroes to
their heroines make out this doctrine to demonstration. I am so much
accustomed, for my own part, to Hickman's whining, creeping, submissive
courtship, that I now expect nothing but whine and cringe from him: and
am so little moved with his nonsense, that I am frequently forced to go
to my harpsichord, to keep me awake, and to silence his humdrum. Whereas
Lovelace keeps up the ball with a witness, and all his address and
conversation is one continual game at raquet.
Your frequent quarrels and reconciliations verify this observation: and
I really believe, that, could Hickman have kept my attention alive after
the Lovelace manner, only that he had preserved his morals, I should
have married the man by this time. But then he must have set out
accordingly. For now he can never, never recover himself, that's
certain; but must be a dangler to the end of the courtship-chapter; and,
what is still worse for him, a passive to the end of his life.
Poor Hickman! perhaps you'll say.