MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
THURSDAY, MAY 18.
I have neither time nor patience, my dear friend, to answer every
material article in your last letters just now received. Mr. Lovelace's
proposals are all I like of him. And yet (as you do) I think, that he
concludes them not with the warmth and earnestness which we might
naturally have expected from him. Never in my life did I hear or read of
so patient a man, with such a blessing in his reach. But wretches of his
cast, between you and me, my dear, have not, I fancy, the ardors that
honest men have. Who knows, as your Bell once spitefully said, but he
may have half a dozen creatures to quit his hands of before he engages
for life?--Yet I believe you must not expect him to be honest on this
side of his grand climacteric.
He, to suggest delay from a compliment to be made to Lord M. and to give
time for settlements! He, a part of whose character it is, not to know
what complaisance to his relations is--I have no patience with him! You
did indeed want an interposing friend on the affecting occasion which you
mention in yours of yesterday morning. But, upon my word, were I to have
been that moment in your situation, and been so treated, I would have
torn his eyes out, and left it to his own heart, when I had done, to
furnish the reason for it.
Would to Heaven to-morrow, without complimenting any body, might be his
happy day!--Villain! After he had himself suggested the compliment!--And
I think he accuses YOU of delaying!--Fellow, that he is!--How my heart is
wrung--
But as matters now stand betwixt you, I am very unseasonable in
expressing my resentments against him.--Yet I don't know whether I am or
not, neither; since it is the most cruel of fates, for a woman to be
forced to have a man whom her heart despises. You must, at least,
despise him; at times, however. His clenched fist offered to his
forehead on your leaving him in just displeasure--I wish it had been a
pole-axe, and in the hand of his worst enemy.
I will endeavour to think of some method, of some scheme, to get you from
him, and to fix you safely somewhere till your cousin Morden arrives--A
scheme to lie by you, and to be pursued as occasion may be given. You
are sure, that you can go abroad when you please? and that our
correspondence is safe? I cannot, however (for the reasons heretofore
mentioned respecting your own reputation,) wish you to leave him while he
gives you not cause to suspect his honour. But your heart I know would be
the easier, if you were sure of some asylum in case of necessity.
Yet once more, I say, I can have no notion that he can or dare mean your
dishonour. But then the man is a fool, my dear--that's all.
However, since you are thrown upon a fool, marry the fool at the first
opportunity; and though I doubt that this man will be the most
ungovernable of fools, as all witty and vain fools are, take him as a
punishment, since you cannot as a reward: in short, as one given to
convince you that there is nothing but imperfection in this life.
And what is the result of all I have written, but this--Either marry,
my dear, or get from them all, and from him too.
You intend the latter, you'll say, as soon as you have opportunity.
That, as above hinted, I hope quickly to furnish you with: and then comes
on a trial between you and yourself.
These are the very fellows that we women do not naturally hate. We don't
always know what is, and what is not, in our power to do. When some
principal point we have long had in view becomes so critical, that we
must of necessity choose or refuse, then perhaps we look about us; are
affrighted at the wild and uncertain prospect before us; and, after a few
struggles and heart-aches, reject the untried new; draw in your horns,
and resolve to snail-on, as we did before, in a track we are acquainted
with.