It would be hard not to write a few lines, so much pressed to write, to
one I ever loved. Your former letter I received; yet was not at liberty
to answer it. I break my word to answer you now.
Strange informations are every day received about you. The wretch you
are with, we are told, is every hour triumphing and defying--Must not
these informations aggravate? You know the uncontroulableness of the
man. He loves his own humour better than he loves you--though so fine a
creature as you are! I warned you over and over: no young lady was ever
more warned!--Miss Clarissa Harlowe to do such a thing!
You might have given your friends the meeting. If you had held your
aversion, it would have been complied with. As soon as I was intrusted
myself with their intention to give up the point, I gave you a hint--a
dark one perhaps*--but who would have thought--O Miss!--Such an artful
flight!--Such cunning preparations!
But you want to clear up things--what can you clear up? Are you not gone
off?--With a Lovelace too? What, my dear, would you clear up?
You did not design to go, you say. Why did you meet him then, chariot
and six, horsemen, all prepared by him? O my dear, how art produces
art!--Will it be believed?--If it would, what power will he be
thought to have had over you!--He--Who?--Lovelace!--The vilest of
libertines!--Over whom? A Clarissa!--Was your love for such a man above
your reason? Above your resolution? What credit would a belief of this,
if believed, bring you?--How mend the matter?--Oh! that you had stood
the next morning!
I'll tell you all that was intended if you had.
It was, indeed, imagined that you would not have been able to resist
your father's entreaties and commands. He was resolved to be all
condescension, if anew you had not provoked him. I love my Clary
Harlowe, said he, but an hour before the killing tidings were brought
him; I love her as my life: I will kneel to her, if nothing else will
do, to prevail upon her to oblige me.
Your father and mother (the reverse of what should have been!) would
have humbled themselves to you: and if you could have denied them, and
refused to sign the settlements previous to the meeting, they would have
yielded, although with regret.
But it was presumed, so naturally sweet your temper, so self-denying
as they thought you, that you could not have withstood them,
notwithstanding all your dislike of the one man, without a greater
degree of headstrong passion for the other, than you had given any of us
reason to expect from you.
If you had, the meeting on Wednesday would have been a lighter trial to
you. You would have been presented to all your assembled friends, with
a short speech only, 'That this was the young creature, till very lately
faultless, condescending, and obliging; now having cause to glory in a
triumph over the wills of father, mother, uncles, the most indulgent;
over family-interests, family-views; and preferring her own will to
every body's! and this for a transitory preference to person only; there
being no comparison between the men in their morals.'
Thus complied with, and perhaps blessed, by your father and mother, and
the consequences of your disobedience deprecated in the solemnest manner
by your inimitable mother, your generosity would have been appealed to,
since your duty would have been fount too weak an inducement, and you
would have been bid to withdraw for one half hour's consideration. Then
would the settlements have been again tendered for your signing, by
the person least disobliging to you; by your good Norton perhaps; she
perhaps seconded by your father again; and, if again refused, you
would have again have been led in to declare such your refusal. Some
restrictions which you yourself had proposed, would have been insisted
upon. You would have been permitted to go home with me, or with your
uncle Antony, (with which of us was not agreed upon, because they hoped
you might be persuaded,) there to stay till the arrival of your cousin
Morden; or till your father could have borne to see you; or till assured
that the views of Lovelace were at an end.
This the intention, your father so set upon your compliance, so much in
hopes that you would have yielded, that you would have been prevailed
upon by methods so condescending and so gentle; no wonder that he, in
particular, was like a distracted man, when he heard of your flight--of
your flight so premeditated;--with your ivy summer-house dinings, your
arts to blind me, and all of us!--Naughty, naughty, young creature!
I, for my part, would not believe it, when told of it. Your uncle Hervey
would not believe it. We rather expected, we rather feared, a still more
desperate adventure. There could be but one more desperate; and I
was readier to have the cascade resorted to, than the garden
back-door.--Your mother fainted away, while her heart was torn between
the two apprehensions.--Your father, poor man! your father was
beside himself for near an hour--What imprecations!--What dreadful
imprecations!--To this day he can hardly bear your name: yet can
think of nobody else. Your merits, my dear, but aggravate your
fault.--Something of fresh aggravation every hour.--How can any favour
be expected?