MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
MONDAY NIGHT, MAY 1.
I have just escaped from a very disagreeable company I was obliged, so
much against my will, to be in. As a very particular relation of this
evening's conversation would be painful to me, you must content yourself
with what you shall be able to collect from the outlines, as I may call
them, of the characters of the persons; assisted by the little histories
Mr. Lovelace gave me of each yesterday.
The names of the gentlemen are Belton, Mowbray, Tourville, and Belford.
These four, with Mrs. Sinclair, Miss Partington, the great heiress
mentioned in my last, Mr. Lovelace, and myself, made up the company.
I gave you before the favourable side of Miss Partington's character,
such as it was given to me by Mrs. Sinclair, and her nieces. I will now
add a few words from my own observation upon her behaviour in this
company.
In better company perhaps she would have appeared to less disadvantage:
but, notwithstanding her innocent looks, which Mr. Lovelace also highly
praised, he is the last person whose judgment I would take upon real
modesty. For I observed, that, upon some talk from the gentlemen, not
free enough to be easily censured, yet too indecent in its implication to
come from well-bred persons, in the company of virtuous prople [sic],
this young lady was very ready to apprehend; and yet, by smiles and
simperings, to encourage, rather than discourage, the culpable freedoms
of persons, who, in what they went out of their way to say, must either
be guilty of absurdity, meaning nothing, or meaning something of
rudeness.*
* Mr. Belford, in Letter XIII. of Vol. V. reminds Mr. Lovelace of some
particular topics which passed in their conversation, extremely to the
Lady's honour.
But, indeed, I have seen no women, of whom I had a better opinion than I
can say of Mrs. Sinclair, who have allowed gentlemen, and themselves too,
in greater liberties of this sort than I had thought consistent with that
purity of manners which ought to be the distinguishing characteristic of
our sex: For what are words, but the body and dress of thought? And is
not the mind of a person strongly indicated by outward dress?
But to the gentlemen--as they must be called in right of their ancestors,
it seems; for no other do they appear to have:--
Mr. BELTON has had university education, and was designed for the gown;
but that not suiting with the gaiety of his temper, and an uncle dying,
who devised to him a good estate, he quitted the college, came up to
town, and commenced fine gentleman. He is said to be a man of sense.--
Mr. Belton dresses gaily, but not quite foppishly; drinks hard; keeps all
hours, and glories in doing so; games, and has been hurt by that
pernicious diversion: he is about thirty years of age: his face is a
fiery red, somewhat bloated and pimply; and his irregularities threaten a
brief duration to the sensual dream he is in: for he has a short
consumption cough, which seems to denote bad lungs; yet makes himself and
his friends merry by his stupid and inconsiderate jests upon very
threatening symptoms which ought to make him more serious.
Mr. MOWBRAY has been a great traveller; speaks as many languages as Mr.
Lovelace himself, but not so fluently: is of a good family: seems to be
about thirty-three or thirty-four: tall and comely in his person: bold
and daring in his look: is a large-boned, strong man: has a great scar in
his forehead, with a dent, as if his skull had been beaten in there, and
a seamed scar in his right cheek: he likewise dresses very gaily: has his
servants always about him, whom he is continually calling upon, and
sending on the most trifling messages--half a dozen instances of which we
had in the little time I was among them; while they seem to watch the
turn of his fierce eye, to be ready to run, before they have half his
message, and serve him with fear and trembling. Yet to his equals the
man seems tolerable: he talks not amiss upon public entertainments and
diversions, especially upon those abroad: yet has a romancing air, and
avers things strongly which seem quite improbable. Indeed he doubts
nothing but what he ought to believe; for he jests upon sacred things;
and professes to hate the clergy of all religions. He has high notions
of honour, a world hardly ever out of his mouth; but seems to have no
great regard to morals.
Mr. TOURVILLE occasionally told his age; just turned of thirty-one. He
is also of an ancient family; but, in his person and manners, more of what
I call the coxcomb than any of his companions. He dresses richly;
would be thought elegant in the choice and fashion of what he wears; yet,
after all, appears rather tawdry than fine.--One sees by the care he
takes of his outside, and the notice he bespeaks from every one by his
own notice of himself, that the inside takes up the least of his
attention. He dances finely, Mr. Lovelace says; is a master of music,
and singing is one of his principal excellencies. They prevailed upon
him to sing, and he obliged them both in Italian and French; and, to do
him justice, his songs in both were decent. They were all highly
delighted with his performance; but his greatest admirers were, Mrs.
Sinclair, Miss Partington, and himself. To me he appeared to have a
great deal of affectation.
Mr. Tourville's conversation and address are insufferably full of those
really gross affronts upon the understanding of our sex, which the
moderns call compliments, and are intended to pass for so many instances
of good breeding, though the most hyperbolical, unnatural stuff that can
be conceived, and which can only serve to show the insincerity of the
complimenter, and the ridiculous light in which the complimented appears
in his eyes, if he supposes a woman capable of relishing the romantic
absurdities of his speeches.
He affects to introduce into his common talk Italian and French words;
and often answers an English question in French, which language he greatly
prefers to the barbarously hissing English. But then he never fails to
translate into this his odious native tongue the words and the sentences
he speaks in the other two--lest, perhaps, it should be questioned
whether he understands what he says.
He loves to tell stories: always calls them merry, facetious, good, or
excellent, before he begins, in order to bespeak the attention of the
hearers, but never gives himself concern in the progress or conclusion of
them, to make good what he promises in his preface. Indeed he seldom
brings any of them to a conclusion; for if his company have patience to
hear him out, he breaks in upon himself by so many parenthetical
intrusions, as one may call them, and has so many incidents springing in
upon him, that he frequently drops his own thread, and sometimes sits
down satisfied half way; or, if at other times he would resume it, he
applies to his company to help him in again, with a Devil fetch him if he
remembers what he was driving at--but enough, and too much of Mr.
Tourville.
Mr. BELFORD is the fourth gentleman, and one of whom Mr. Lovelace seems
more fond than any of the rest; for he is a man of tried bravery, it
seems; and this pair of friends came acquainted upon occasion of a
quarrel, (possibly about a woman,) which brought on a challenge, and a
meeting at Kensington Gravel-pits; which ended without unhappy
consequences, by the mediation of three gentlemen strangers, just as each
had made a pass at the other.
Mr. Belford, it seems, is about seven or eight and twenty. He is the
youngest of the five, except Mr. Lovelace, and they are perhaps the
wickedest; for they seem to lead the other three as they please. Mr.
Belford, as the others, dresses gaily; but has not those advantages of
person, nor from his dress, which Mr. Lovelace is too proud of. He has,
however, the appearance and air of a gentleman. He is well read in
classical authors, and in the best English poets and writers; and, by his
means, the conversation took now and then a more agreeable turn. And I,
who endeavoured to put the best face I could upon my situation, as I
passed for Mrs. Lovelace with them, made shift to join in it, at such
times, and received abundance of compliments from all the company, on the
observations I made.*
* See Letter XIII. of Vol. V. above referred to.
Mr. Belford seems good-natured and obliging; and although very
complaisant, not so fulsomely so as Mr. Tourville; and has a polite and
easy manner of expressing his sentiments on all occasions. He seems to
delight in a logical way of argumentation, as also does Mr. Belton.
These two attacked each other in this way; and both looked at us women,
as if to observe whether we did not admire this learning, or when they
had said a smart thing, their wit. But Mr. Belford had visibly the
advantage of the other, having quicker parts, and by taking the worst
side of the argument, seemed to think he had. Upon the whole of his
behaviour and conversation, he put me in mind of that character of
Milton:--
--------His tongue
Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels; for his thoughts were low;
To vice industrious: but to nobler deeds
Tim'rous and slothful: yet he pleased the ear.
How little soever matters in general may be to our liking, we are apt,
when hope is strong enough to permit it, to endeavour to make the best we
can of the lot we have drawn; and I could not but observe often, how much
Mr. Lovelace excelled all his four friends in every thing they seemed
desirous to excel in. But as to wit and vivacity, he had no equal there.
All the others gave up to him, when his lips began to open. The haughty
Mowbray would call upon the prating Tourville for silence, when Lovelace
was going to speak. And when he had spoken, the words, Charming fellow!
with a free word of admiration or envy, fell from every mouth.
He has indeed so many advantages in his person and manner, that what
would be inexcusable in another, would, if one watched not over one's
self, and did not endeavour to distinguish what is the essence of right
and wrong, look becoming in him.
Mr. Belford, to my no small vexation and confusion, with the forwardness
of a favoured and intrusted friend, singled me out, on Mr. Lovelace's
being sent for down, to make me congratulatory compliments on my supposed
nuptials; which he did with a caution, not to insist too long on the
rigorous vow I had imposed upon a man so universally admired--
'See him among twenty men,' said he, 'all of distinction, and nobody is
regarded but Mr. Lovelace.'
It must, indeed, be confessed, that there is, in his whole deportment, a
natural dignity, which renders all insolent or imperative demeanour as
unnecessary as inexcusable. Then that deceiving sweetness which appears
in his smiles, in his accent, in his whole aspect, and address, when he
thinks it worth his while to oblige, or endeavour to attract, how does
this show that he was born innocent, as I may say; that he was not
naturally the cruel, the boisterous, the impetuous creature, which the
wicked company he may have fallen into have made him! For he has,
besides, as open, and, I think, an honest countenance. Don't you think
so, my dear? On all these specious appearances, have I founded my hopes
of seeing him a reformed man.
But it is amazing to me, I own, that with so much of the gentleman, such
a general knowledge of books and men, such a skill in the learned as well
as modern languages, he can take so much delight as he does in the
company of such persons as I have described, and in subjects of frothy
impertinence, unworthy of his talents, and his natural and acquired
advantages. I can think but of one reason for it, and that must argue a
very low mind,--his vanity; which makes him desirous of being considered
as the head of the people he consorts with.--A man to love praise, yet to
be content to draw it from such contaminated springs!
One compliment passed from Mr. Belford to Mr. Lovelace, which hastened my
quitting the shocking company--'You are a happy man, Mr. Lovelace,' said
he, upon some fine speeches made him by Mrs. Sinclair, and assented to by
Miss Partington:--'You have so much courage, and so much wit, that
neither man nor woman can stand before you.'
Mr. Belford looked at me when he spoke: yes, my dear, he smilingly looked
at me; and he looked upon his complimented friend; and all their
assenting, and therefore affronting eyes, both men's and women's, were
turned upon your Clarissa; at least, my self-reproaching heart made me
think so; for that would hardly permit my eye to look up.
Oh! my dear, were but a woman, who gives reason to the world to think her
to be in love with a man, [And this must be believed to be my case; or to
what can my supposed voluntary going off with Mr. Lovelace be imputed?]
to reflect one moment on the exaltation she gives him, and the disgrace
she brings upon herself,--the low pity, the silent contempt, the insolent
sneers and whispers, to which she makes herself obnoxious from a
censuring world of both sexes,--how would she despise herself! and how
much more eligible would she think death itself than such a discovered
debasement!
What I have thus in general touched upon, will account to you why I could
not more particularly relate what passed in this evening's conversation:
which, as may be gathered from what I have written, abounded with
approbatory accusations, and supposed witty retorts.