Produced by Julie C. Sparks CLARISSA HARLOWE or the HISTORY OF A YOUNG LADY By Samuel Richardson Nine Volumes Volume II. LETTERS OF VOLUME II LETTER I. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--Another visit from her aunt and sister. The latter spitefully insults her with the patterns. A tender scene between her aunt and her in Arabella's absence. She endeavours to account for the inflexibility of her parents and uncles. LETTER II. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--Humourous description of Mr. Hickman. Imagines, from what Lovelace, Hickman, and Solmes, are now, what figures they made when boys at school. LETTER III. From the same.--Useful observations on general life. Severe censures of the Harlowe family, for their pride, formality, and other bad qualities. LETTER IV. From the same.--Mr. Hickman's conversation with two of Lovelace's libertine companions. LETTER V. From the same.--An unexpected visit from Mr. Lovelace. What passes in it. Repeats her advice to her to resume her estate. LETTER VI. VII. VIII. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--Farther particulars of the persecutions she receives from her violent brother. LETTER IX. From the same.--Impertinence of Betty Barnes. Overhears her brother and sister encourage Solmes to persevere in his address. She writes warmly to her brother upon it. LETTER X. From the same.--Receives a provoking letter from her sister. Writes to her mother. Her mother's severe reply. Is impatient. Desires Miss Howe's advice what course to pursue. Tries to compose her angry passions at her harpsichord. An Ode to Wisdom, by a Lady. LETTER XI. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--Chides her for misrepresenting Mr. Hickman. Fully answers her arguments about resuming her estate. Her impartiality with regard to what Miss Howe says of Lovelace, Solmes, and her brother. Reflections on revenge and duelling. LETTER XII. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--Sir Harry Downeton's account of what passed between himself and Solmes. She wishes her to avoid both men. Admires her for her manifold excellencies. LETTER XIII. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--Why she cannot overcome her aversion to Solmes. Sharp letter to Lovelace. On what occasion. All his difficulties, she tells him, owning to his faulty morals; which level all distinction. Insists upon his laying aside all thoughts of her. Her impartial and dutiful reasonings on her difficult situation. LETTER XIV. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--A notable debate between her and her mother on her case. Those who marry for love seldom so happy as those who marry for convenience. Picture of a modern marriage. A lesson both to parents and children in love-cases. Handsome men seldom make good husbands. Miss Howe reflects on the Harlowe family, as not famous for strictness in religion or piety. Her mother's partiality for Hickman. LETTER XV. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--Her increased apprehensions. Warmly defends her own mother. Extenuates her father's feelings; and expostulates with her on her undeserved treatment of Mr. Hickman. A letter to her from Solmes. Her spirited answer. All in an uproar about it. Her aunt Hervey's angry letter to her. She writes to her mother. Her letter returned unopened. To her father. He tears her letter in pieces, and sends it back to her. She then writes a pathetic letter to her uncle Harlowe. LETTER XVI. From the same.--Receives a gentler answer than she expected from her uncle Harlowe. Makes a new proposal in a letter to him, which she thinks must be accepted. Her relations assembled upon it. Her opinion of the sacrifice which a child ought to make to her parents. LETTER XVII. From the same.--She tells her that the proposal she had made to her relations, on which she had built so much, is rejected. Betty's saucy report upon it. Her brother's provoking letter to her. Her letter to her uncle Harlowe on the occasion. Substance of a letter excusatory from Mr. Lovelace. He presses for an interview with her in the garden. LETTER XVIII. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--Her uncle's angry answer. Substance of a humble letter from Mr. Lovelace. He has got a violent cold and hoarseness, by his fruitless attendance all night in the coppice. She is sorry he is not well. Makes a conditional appointment with him for the next night, in the garden. Hates tyranny in all shapes. LETTER XIX. From the same.--A characteristic dialogue with the pert Betty Barnes. Women have great advantage over men in all the powers that relate to the imagination. Makes a request to her uncle Harlowe, which is granted, on condition that she will admit of a visit from Solmes. She complies; and appoints that day sevennight. Then writes to Lovelace to suspend the intended interview. Desires Miss Howe to inquire into Lovelace's behaviour at the little inn he puts up at in his way to Harlowe-Place. LETTER XX. From the same.--Receives a letter from Lovelace, written in very high terms, on her suspending the interview. Her angry answer. Resolves against any farther correspondence with him. LETTER XXI. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--Humourous account of her mother and Mr. Hickman in their little journey to visit her dying cousin. Rallies her on her present displeasure with Lovelace. LETTER XXII. Mr. Hickman to Mrs. Howe.--Resenting Miss Howe's treatment of him. LETTER XXIII. Mrs. Howe. In answer. LETTER XXIV. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--Observes upon the contents of her seven last letters. Advises her to send all the letters and papers she would not have her relations see; also a parcel of clothes, linen, &c. Is in hopes of procuring an asylum for her with her mother, if things come to extremity. LETTER XXV. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--Requisites of true satire. Rejoices in the hopes she gives of her mother's protection. Deposits a parcel of linen, and all Lovelace's letters. Useful observations relating to family management, and to neatness of person and dress. Her contrivances to amuse Betty Barnes. LETTER XXVI. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--Result of her inquiry after Lovelace's behaviour at the inn. Doubts not but he has ruined the innkeeper's daughter. Passionately inveighs against him. LETTER XXVII. Clarissa. In answer.--Is extremely alarmed at Lovelace's supposed baseness. Declares her abhorrence of him. LETTER XXVIII. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--Lovelace, on inquiry, comes out to be not only innocent with regard to his Rosebud, but generous. Miss Howe rallies her on the effects this intelligence must have upon her generosity. LETTER XXIX. Clarissa. In reply.--Acknowledges her generosity engaged in his favour. Frankly expresses tenderness and regard for him; and owns that the intelligence of his supposed baseness had affected her more than she thinks it ought. Contents of a letter she has received from him. Pities him. Writes to him that her rejection of Solmes is not in favour to himself; for that she is determined to hold herself free to obey her parents, (as she had offered to them,) of their giving up Solmes. Reproaches him for his libertine declarations in all companies against matrimony. Her notions of filial duty, notwithstanding the persecutions she meets with. LETTER XXX. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--Her treatment of Mr. Hickman on his intrusion into her company. Applauds Clarissa for the generosity of her spirit, and the greatness of her mind. LETTER XXXI. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--Dr. Lewen makes her a formal visit. Affected civility of her brother and sister to her. Is visited by her uncle Harlowe: and by her sister. She penetrates the low art designed in this change of their outward behaviour. Substance of Lovelace's reply to her last. He acknowledges his folly for having ever spoken lightly of matrimony. LETTER XXXII. From the same.--Another letter from Mr. Lovelace, in which he expresses himself extremely apprehensive of the issue of her interview with Solmes. Presses her to escape; proposes means for effecting it; and threatens to rescue her by violence, if they attempt to carry her to her uncle Antony's against her will. Her terror on the occasion. She insists, in her answer, on his forbearing to take any rash step; and expresses herself highly dissatisfied that he should think himself entitled to dispute her father's authority in removing her to her uncle's. She relies on Mrs. Howe's protection till her cousin Morden arrives. LETTER XXXIII. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--A visit from her aunt Hervey, preparative to the approaching interview with Solmes. Her aunt tells her what is expected on her having consented to that interview. LETTER XXXIV. XXXV. From the same.--A particular account of what passed in the interview with Solmes; and of the parts occasionally taken in it by her boisterous uncle, by her brutal brother, by her implacable sister, and by her qualifying aunt. Her perseverance and distress. Her cousin Dolly's tenderness for her. Her closet searched for papers. All the pens and ink they find taken from her. LETTER XXXVI. From the same.--Substance of a letter from Lovelace. His proposals, promises, and declarations. All her present wish is, to be able to escape Solmes, on one hand, and to avoid incurring the disgrace of refuging with the family of a man at enmity with her own, on the other. Her emotions behind the yew-hedge on seeing her father going into the garden. Grieved at what she hears him say. Dutiful message to her mother. Harshly answered. She censures Mr. Lovelace for his rash threatenings to rescue her. Justifies her friends for resenting them; and condemns herself for corresponding with him at first. LETTER XXXVII. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--Is vexed at the heart to be obliged to tell her that her mother refuses to receive and protect her. Offers to go away privately with her. LETTER XXXVIII. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--Her disinterested arguments in Mrs. Howe's favour, on her refusal to receive her. All her consolation is, that her unhappy situation is not owing to her own inadvertence of folly. Is afraid she is singled out, either for her own faults, or for those of her family, or perhaps for the faults of both, to be a very unhappy creature. Justifies the ways of Providence, let what will befal her: and argues with exemplary greatness of mind on this subject. Warmly discourages Miss Howe's motion to accompany her in her flight. LETTER XXXIX. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--Further instances of her impartiality in condemning Lovelace, and reasoning for her parents. Overhears her brother and sister exulting in the success of their schemes; and undertaking, the one to keep his father up to his resentment on occasion of Lovelace's menaces, the other her mother. Exasperated at this, and at what her aunt Hervey tells her, she writes to Lovelace, that she will meet him the following Monday, and throw herself into the protection of the ladies of his family. LETTER XL. From the same.--Her frightful dream. Now that Lovelace has got her letter, she repents her appointment. LETTER XLI. From the same.--Receives a letter from Mr. Lovelace, full of transport, vows, and promises. He presumes upon her being his on her getting away, though she has not given him room for such hopes. In her answer she tells him, 'that she looks not upon herself as absolutely bound by her appointment: that there are many points to be adjusted between them (were she to leave her father's house) before she can give him particular encouragement: that he must expect she will do her utmost to procure a reconciliation with her father, and his approbation of her future steps.' All her friends are to be assembled on the following Wednesday: she is to be brought before them. How to be proceeded with. Lovelace, in his reply, asks pardon for writing to her with so much assurance; and declares his entire acquiescence with her will and pleasure. LETTER XLII. From the same.--Confirms her appointment; but tells him what he is not to expect. Promises, that if she should change her mind as to withdrawing, she will take the first opportunity to see him, and acquaint him with her reasons. Reflections on what she has done. Her deep regret to be thus driven. LETTER XLIII. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--Reasons why she ought to allow her to accompany her in her flight. Punctilio at an end, the moment she is out of her father's house. Requisites of friendship. Questions whether she will not rather choose to go off with one of her own sex than with Lovelace? And if not, whether she should not marry him as soon as possible? LETTER XLIV. Clarissa to Miss Howe, (Miss Howe's last not received.) Lovelace promises compliance, in every article, with her pleasure. Her heart misgives her notwithstanding. She knows not but she may yet recede. LETTER XLV. From the same. In answer to Letter XLIII.--Reflections worthy of herself on some of the passages in Miss Howe's last letter. Gives her home-put questions a full consideration; and determines NOT to withdraw with Lovelace. LETTER XLVI. XLVII. From the same.--Substance of her letter to Lovelace, revoking her appointment. Thinks herself obliged (her letter being not taken away) as well by promise as in order to prevent mischief, to meet him, and to give him her reason for revoking.--The hour of meeting now at hand, she is apprehensive of the contest she shall have with him, as he will come with a different expectation. LETTER XLVIII. From the same.--Dated from St. Alban's. Writes in the utmost anguish of mind for the little parcel of linen she had sent to her with better hopes. Condemns her own rashness in meeting Lovelace. Begs her pity and her prayers. THE HISTORY OF CLARISSA HARLOWE LETTER I MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE My heart fluttered with the hope and the fear of seeing my mother, and with the shame and grief of having given her so much uneasiness. But it needed not: she was not permitted to come. But my aunt was so good as to return, yet not without my sister; and, taking my hand, made me sit down by her. She came, she must own, officiously, she said, this once more, though against the opinion of my father: but knowing and dreading the consequence of my opposition, she could not but come. She then set forth to my friends' expectation from me; Mr. Solmes's riches (three times as rich he came out to be, as any body had thought him); the settlements proposed; Mr. Lovelace's bad character; their aversions to him; all in a very strong light; not in a stronger than my mother had before placed them in. My mother, surely, could not have given the particulars of what had passed between herself and me: if she had, my aunt would not have repeated many of the same sentiments, as you will find she did, that had been still more strongly urged, without effect by her venerable sister. She said it would break the heart of my father to have it imagined that he had not a power over his own child; and that, as he thought, for my own good: a child too, whom they had always doated upon!--Dearest, dearest Miss, concluded she, clasping her fingers, with the most condescending earnestness, let me beg of you, for my sake, for your own sake, for a hundred sakes, to get over this averseness, to give up your prejudices, and make every one happy and easy once more.--I would kneel to you, my dearest Niece--nay, I will kneel to you--! And down she dropt, and I with her, kneeling to her, and beseeching her not to kneel; clasping my arms about her, and bathing her worthy bosom with my tears. O rise! rise! my beloved Aunt, said I: you cut me to the heart with this condescending goodness. Say then, my dearest Niece, say then, that you will oblige all your friends!--If you love us, I beseech you do-- How can I perform what I can sooner choose to die than to perform--! Say then, my dear, that you will consider of it. Say you will but reason with yourself. Give us but hopes. Don't let me entreat, and thus entreat, in vain--[for still she kneeled, and I by her]. What a hard case is mine!--Could I but doubt, I know I could conquer.--That which is an inducement to my friends, is none at all to me--How often, my dearest Aunt, must I repeat the same thing?--Let me but be single--Cannot I live single? Let me be sent, as I have proposed, to Scotland, to Florence, any where: let me be sent a slave to the Indies, any where--any of these I will consent to. But I cannot, cannot think of giving my vows to man I cannot endure! Well then, rising, (Bella silently, with uplifted hands, reproaching my supposed perverseness,) I see nothing can prevail with you to oblige us. What can I do, my dearest Aunt Hervey? What can I do? Were I capable of giving a hope I meant not to enlarge, then could I say, I would consider of your kind advice. But I would rather be thought perverse than insincere. Is there, however, no medium? Can nothing be thought of? Will nothing do, but to have a man who is the more disgustful to me, because he is unjust in the very articles he offers? Whom now, Clary, said my sister, do you reflect upon? Consider that. Make not invidious applications of what I say, Bella. It may not be looked upon in the same light by every one. The giver and the accepter are principally answerable in an unjust donation. While I think of it in this light, I should be inexcusable to be the latter. But why do I enter upon a supposition of this nature?--My heart, as I have often, often said, recoils, at the thought of the man, in every light.--Whose father, but mine, agrees upon articles where there is no prospect of a liking? Where the direct contrary is avowed, all along avowed, without the least variation, or shadow of a change of sentiment?--But it is not my father's doing originally. O my cruel, cruel brother, to cause a measure to be forced upon me, which he would not behave tolerably under, were the like to be offered to him! The girl is got into her altitudes, Aunt Hervey, said my sister. You see, Madam, she spares nobody. Be pleased to let her know what she has to trust to. Nothing is to be done with her. Pray, Madam, pronounce her doom. My aunt retired to the window, weeping, with my sister in her hand: I cannot, indeed I cannot, Miss Harlowe, said she, softly, (but yet I heard every word she said): there is great hardship in her case. She is a noble child after all. What pity things are gone so far!--But Mr. Solmes ought to be told to desist. O Madam, said my sister, in a kind of loud whisper, are you caught too by the little siren?--My mother did well not to come up!--I question whether my father himself, after his first indignation, would not be turned round by her. Nobody but my brother can do any thing with her, I am sure. Don't think of your brother's coming up, said my aunt, still in a low voice--He is too furious. I see no obstinacy, no perverseness, in her manner! If your brother comes, I will not be answerable for the consequences: for I thought twice or thrice she would have gone into fits. O Madam, she has a strong heart!--And you see there is no prevailing with her, though you were upon your knees to her. My sister left my aunt musing at the window, with her back towards us, and took that opportunity to insult me still more barbarously; for, stepping to my closet, she took up the patterns which my mother had sent me up, and bringing them to me, she spread them upon the chair by me; and offering one, and then another, upon her sleeve and shoulder, thus she ran on, with great seeming tranquility, but whisperingly, that my aunt might not hear her. This, Clary, is a pretty pattern enough: but this is quite charming! I would advise you to make your appearance in it. And this, were I you, should be my wedding night-gown--And this my second dressed suit! Won't you give orders, love, to have your grandmother's jewels new set?--Or will you thing to shew away in the new ones Mr. Solmes intends to present to you? He talks of laying out two or three thousand pounds in presents, child! Dear heart!--How gorgeously will you be array'd! What! silent still?--But, Clary, won't you have a velvet suit? It would cut a great figure in a country church, you know: and the weather may bear it for a month yet to come. Crimson velvet, suppose! Such a fine complexion as yours, how it would be set off by it! What an agreeable blush would it give you!--Heigh-ho! (mocking me, for I sighed to be thus fooled with,) and do you sigh, love?--Well then, as it will be a solemn wedding, what think you of black velvet, child?--Silent still, Clary?--Black velvet, so fair as you are, with those charming eyes, gleaming through a wintry cloud, like an April sun!--Does not Lovelace tell you they are charming eyes?--How lovely will you appear to every one!--What! silent still, love?--But about your laces, Clary?-- She would have gone on still further, had not my aunt advance towards me, wiping her eyes--What! whispering ladies! You seem so easy and so pleased, Miss Harlowe, with your private conference, that I hope I shall carry down good news. I am only giving her my opinion of her patterns, here.--Unasked indeed; but she seems, by her silence, to approve of my judgment. O Bella! said I, that Mr. Lovelace had not taken you at your word!--You had before now been exercising your judgment on your own account: and I had been happy as well as you! Was it my fault, I pray you, that it was not so?-- O how she raved! To be so ready to give, Bella, and so loth to take, is not very fair in you. The poor Bella descended to call names. Why, Sister, said I, you are as angry, as if there were more in the hint than possibly might be designed. My wish is sincere, for both our sakes!--for the whole family's sake!--And what (good now) is there in it?--Do not, do not, dear Bella, give me cause to suspect, that I have found a reason for your behaviour to me, and which till now was wholly unaccountable from sister to sister-- Fie, fie, Clary! said my aunt. My sister was more and more outrageous. O how much fitter, said I, to be a jest, than a jester!--But now, Bella, turn the glass to you, and see how poorly sits the robe upon your own shoulders, which you have been so unmercifully fixing upon mine! Fie, fie, Miss Clary! repeated my aunt. And fie, fie, likewise, good Madam, to Miss Harlowe, you would say, were you to have heard her barbarous insults! Let us go, Madam, said my sister, with great violence; let us leave the creature to swell till she bursts with her own poison.--The last time I will ever come near her, in the mind I am in! It is so easy a thing, returned I, were I to be mean enough to follow an example that is so censurable in the setter of it, to vanquish such a teasing spirit as your's with its own blunt weapons, that I am amazed you will provoke me!--Yet, Bella, since you will go, (for she had hurried to the door,) forgive me. I forgive you. And you have a double reason to do so, both from eldership and from the offence so studiously given to one in affliction. But may you be happy, though I never shall! May you never have half the trials I have had! Be this your comfort, that you cannot have a sister to treat you as you have treated me!--And so God bless you! O thou art a--And down she flung without saying what. Permit me, Madam, said I to my aunt, sinking down, and clasping her knees with my arms, to detain you one moment--not to say any thing about my poor sister--she is her own punisher--only to thank you for all your condescending goodness to me. I only beg of you not to impute to obstinacy the immovableness I have shown to so tender a friend; and to forgive me every thing I have said or done amiss in your presence, for it has not proceeded from inward rancour to the poor Bella. But I will be bold to say, that neither she, nor my brother, nor even my father himself, knows what a heart they have set a bleeding. I saw, to my comfort, what effect my sister's absence wrought for me.--Rise, my noble-minded Niece!--Charming creature! [those were her kind words] kneel not to me!--Keep to yourself what I now say to you.--I admire you more than I can express--and if you can forbear claiming your estate, and can resolve to avoid Lovelace, you will continue to be the greatest miracle I ever knew at your years--but I must hasten down after your sister.--These are my last words to you: 'Conform to your father's will, if you possibly can. How meritorious will it be in you if you do so! Pray to God to enable you to conform. You don't know what may be done.' Only, my dear Aunt, one word, one word more (for she was going)--Speak all you can for my dear Mrs. Norton. She is but low in the world: should ill health overtake her, she may not know how to live without my mamma's favour. I shall have no means to help her; for I will want necessaries before I will assert my right: and I do assure you, she has said so many things to me in behalf of my submitting to my father's will, that her arguments have not a little contributed to make me resolve to avoid the extremities, which nevertheless I pray to God they do not at last force me upon. And yet they deprive me of her advice, and think unjustly of one of the most excellent of women. I am glad to hear you say this: and take this, and this, and this, my charming Niece! (for so she called me almost at every word, kissing me earnestly, and clasping her arms about my neck:) and God protect you, and direct you! But you must submit: indeed you must. Some one day in a month from this is all the choice that is left you. And this, I suppose, was the doom my sister called for; and yet no worse than what had been pronounced upon me before. She repeated these last sentences louder than the former. 'And remember, Miss,' added she, 'it is your duty to comply.'--And down she went, leaving me with my heart full, and my eyes running over. The very repetition of this fills me with almost equal concern to that which I felt at the time. I must lay down my pen. Mistiness, which give to the deluged eye the appearance of all the colours in the rainbow, will not permit me to write on. WEDNESDAY, FIVE O'CLOCK I will now add a few lines--My aunt, as she went down from me, was met at the foot of the stairs by my sister, who seemed to think she had staid a good while after her; and hearing her last words prescribing to me implicit duty, praised her for it, and exclaimed against my obstinacy. Did you ever hear of such perverseness, Madam? said she: Could you have thought that your Clarissa and every body's Clarissa, was such a girl?--And who, as you said, is to submit, her father or she? My aunt said something in answer to her, compassionating me, as I thought, by her accent: but I heard not the words. Such a strange perseverance in a measure so unreasonable!--But my brother and sister are continually misrepresenting all I say and do; and I am deprived of the opportunity of defending myself!--My sister says,* that had they thought me such a championess, they you not have engaged with me: and now, not knowing how to reconcile my supposed obstinacy with my general character and natural temper, they seem to hope to tire me out, and resolve to vary their measures accordingly. My brother, you see,** is determined to carry this point, or to abandon Harlowe-place, and never to see it more. So they are to lose a son, or to conquer a daughter--the perversest and most ungrateful that ever parents had!--This is the light he places things in: and has undertaken, it seems, to subdue me, if his advice should be followed. It will be farther tried; of that I am convinced; and what will be their next measure, who can divine? * See Letter XLII. of Vol. I. ** Ibid. I shall dispatch, with this, my answer to your's of Sunday last, begun on Monday;* but which is not yet quite finished. It is too long to copy: I have not time for it. In it I have been very free with you, my dear, in more places than one. I cannot say that I am pleased with all I have written--yet will not now alter it. My mind is not at ease enough for the subject. Don't be angry with me. Yet, if you can excuse one or two passages, it will be because they were written by Your CLARISSA HARLOWE. * See Letter XL, ibid. LETTER II MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE WEDNESDAY NIGHT, MARCH 22. ANGRY!--What should I be angry for? I am mightily pleased with your freedom, as you call it. I only wonder at your patience with me; that's all. I am sorry I gave you the trouble of so long a letter upon the occasion,* notwithstanding the pleasure I received in reading it. * See Vol. I, Letter XXXVII, for the occasion; and Letters XXXVIII. and XL. of the same volume, for the freedom Clarissa apologizes for. I believe you did not intend reserves to me: for two reasons I believe you did not: First, because you say you did not: Next, because you have not as yet been able to convince yourself how it is to be with you; and persecuted as you are, how so to separate the effects that spring from the two causes [persecution and love] as to give to each its particular due. But this I believe I hinted to you once before; and so will say no more upon this subject at present. Robin says, you had but just deposited your last parcel when he took it: for he was there but half an hour before, and found nothing. He had seen my impatience, and loitered about, being willing to bring me something from you, if possible. My cousin Jenny Fynnett is here, and desires to be my bedfellow to-night. So I shall not have an opportunity to sit down with that seriousness and attention which the subjects of yours require. For she is all prate, you know, and loves to set me a prating; yet comes upon a very grave occasion--to procure my mother to go with her to her grandmother Larking, who has long been bed-ridden; and at last has taken it into her head that she is mortal, and therefore will make her will; a work she was till now extremely averse to; but it must be upon condition that my mother, who is her distant relation, will go to her, and advise her as to the particulars of it: for she has a high opinion, as every one else has, of my mother's judgment in all matters relating to wills, settlements, and such-like notable affairs. Mrs. Larking lives about seventeen miles off; and as my mother cannot endure to lie out of her own house, she proposes to set out early in the morning, that she might be able to get back again at night. So, to-morrow I shall be at your devotion from day-light to day-light; nor will I be at home to any body. I have hinted before, that I could almost wish my mother and Mr. Hickman would make a match of it: and I here repeat my wishes. What signifies a difference of fifteen or twenty years; especially when the lady has spirits that will make her young a long time, and the lover is a mighty sober man?--I think, verily, I could like him better for a papa, than for a nearer relation: and they are strange admirers of one another. But allow me a perhaps still better (and, as to years, more suitable and happier) disposal; for the man at least.--What think you, my dear, of compromising with your friends, by rejecting both men, and encouraging my parader?--If your liking one of the two go no farther than conditional, I believe it will do. A rich thought, if it obtain your approbation! In this light, I should have a prodigious respect for Mr. Hickman; more by half than I can have in the other. The vein is opened--Shall I let it flow? How difficult to withstand constitutional foibles! Hickman is certainly a man more in your taste than any of those who have hitherto been brought to address you. He is mighty sober, mighty grave, and all that. Then you have told me, that he is your favourite. But that is because he is my mother's perhaps. The man would certainly rejoice at the transfer; or he must be a greater fool than I take him to be. O but your fierce lover would knock him o' the head--I forgot that!--What makes me incapable of seriousness when I write about Hickman?--Yet the man so good a sort of man in the main!--But who is perfect? This is one of my foibles: and it is something for you to chide me for. You believe me to be very happy in my prospect in relation to him: because you are so very unhappy in the foolish usage you meet with, you are apt (as I suspect) to think that tolerable which otherwise would be far from being so. I dare say, you would not, with all your grave airs, like him for yourself; except, being addressed by Solmes and him, you were obliged to have one of them.--I have given you a test. Let me see what you will say to it. For my own part, I confess to you, that I have great exceptions to Hickman. He and wedlock never yet once entered into my head at one time. Shall I give you my free thoughts of him?--Of his best and his worst; and that as if I were writing to one who knows him not?--I think I will. Yet it is impossible I should do it gravely. The subject won't bear to be so treated in my opinion. We are not come so far as that yet, if ever we shall: and to do it in another strain, ill becomes my present real concern for you. ***** Here I was interrupted on the honest man's account. He has been here these two hours--courting the mother for the daughter, I suppose--yet she wants no courting neither: 'Tis well one of us does; else the man would have nothing but halcyon; and be remiss, and saucy of course. He was going. His horses at the door. My mother sent for me down, pretending to want to say something to me. Something she said when I came that signified nothing--Evidently, for no reason called me, but to give me an opportunity to see what a fine bow her man could make; and that she might wish me a good night. She knows I am not over ready to oblige him with my company, if I happen to be otherwise engaged. I could not help an air a little upon the fretful, when I found she had nothing of moment to say to me, and when I saw her intention. She smiled off the visible fretfulness, that the man might go away in good humour with himself. He bowed to the ground, and would have taken my hand, his whip in the other. I did not like to be so companioned: I withdrew my hand, but touched his elbow with a motion, as if from his low bow I had supposed him falling, and would have helped him up--A sad slip, it might have been! said I. A mad girl! smiled it off my mother. He was quite put out; took his horse-bridle, stumped back, back, back, bowing, till he run against his servant. I laughed. He mounted his horse. I mounted up stairs, after a little lecture; and my head is so filled with him, that I must resume my intention, in hopes to divert you for a few moments. Take it then--his best, and his worst, as I said before. Hickman is a sort of fiddling, busy, yet, to borrow a word from you, unbusy man: has a great deal to do, and seems to me to dispatch nothing. Irresolute and changeable in every thing, but in teasing me with his nonsense; which yet, it is evident, he must continue upon my mother's interest more than upon his own hopes; for none have I given him. Then I have a quarrel against his face, though in his person, for a well-thriven man, tolerably genteel--Not to his features so much neither; for what, as you have often observed, are features in a man?--But Hickman, with strong lines, and big cheek and chin bones, has not the manliness in his aspect, which Lovelace has with the most regular and agreeable features. Then what a set and formal mortal he is in some things!--I have not been able yet to laugh him out of his long bid and beads. Indeed, that is, because my mother thinks they become him; and I would not be so free with him, as to own I should choose to have him leave it off. If he did, so particular is the man, he would certainly, if left to himself, fall into a King-William's cravat, or some such antique chin-cushion, as by the pictures of that prince one sees was then the fashion. As to his dress in general, he cannot indeed be called a sloven, but sometimes he is too gaudy, at other times too plain, to be uniformly elegant. And for his manners, he makes such a bustle with them, and about them, as would induce one to suspect that they are more strangers than familiars to him. You, I know, lay this to his fearfulness of disobliging or offending. Indeed your over-doers generally give the offence they endeavour to avoid. The man however is honest: is of family: has a clear and good estate; and may one day be a baronet, an't please you. He is humane and benevolent, tolerably generous, as people say; and as I might say too, if I would accept of his bribes; which he offers in hopes of having them all back again, and the bribed into the bargain. A method taken by all corrupters, from old Satan, to the lowest of his servants. Yet, to speak in the language of a person I am bound to honour, he is deemed a prudent man; that is to say a good manager. Then I cannot but confess, that now I like not anybody better, whatever I did once. He is no fox-hunter: he keeps a pack indeed; but prefers not his hounds to his fellow-creatures. No bad sign for a wife, I own. He loves his horse; but dislikes racing in a gaming way, as well as all sorts of gaming. Then he is sober; modest; they say, virtuous; in short, has qualities that mothers would be fond of in a husband for their daughters; and for which perhaps their daughters would be the happier could they judge as well for themselves, as experience possibly may teach them to judge for their future daughters. Nevertheless, to own the truth, I cannot say I love the man: nor, I believe, ever shall. Strange! that these sober fellows cannot have a decent sprightliness, a modest assurance with them! Something debonnaire; which need not be separated from that awe and reverence, when they address a woman, which should shew the ardour of their passion, rather than the sheepishness of their nature; for who knows not that love delights in taming the lion-hearted? That those of the sex, who are most conscious of their own defect in point of courage, naturally require, and therefore as naturally prefer, the man who has most of it, as the most able to give them the requisite protection? That the greater their own cowardice, as it would be called in a man, the greater is their delight in subjects of heroism? As may be observed in their reading; which turns upon difficulties encountered, battles fought, and enemies overcome, four or five hundred by the prowess of one single hero, the more improbable the better: in short, that their man should be a hero to every one living but themselves; and to them know no bound to his humility. A woman has some glory in subduing a heart no man living can appall; and hence too often the bravo, assuming the hero, and making himself pass for one, succeeds as only a hero should. But as for honest Hickman, the good man is so generally meek, as I imagine, that I know not whether I have any preference paid me in his obsequiousness. And then, when I rate him, he seems to be so naturally fitted for rebuke, and so much expects it, that I know not how to disappoint him, whether he just then deserve it, or not. I am sure, he has puzzled me many a time when I have seen him look penitent for faults he has not committed, whether to pity or laugh at him. You and I have often retrospected the faces and minds of grown people; that is to say, have formed images for their present appearances, outside and in, (as far as the manners of the persons would justify us in the latter) what sort of figures they made when boys and girls. And I'll tell you the lights in which HICKMAN, SOLMES, and LOVELACE, our three heroes, have appeared to me, supposing them boys at school. Solmes I have imagined to be a little sordid, pilfering rogue, who would purloin from every body, and beg every body's bread and butter from him; while, as I have heard a reptile brag, he would in a winter-morning spit upon his thumbs, and spread his own with it, that he might keep it all to himself. Hickman, a great overgrown, lank-haired, chubby boy, who would be hunched and punched by every body; and go home with his finger in his eye, and tell his mother. While Lovelace I have supposed a curl-pated villain, full of fire, fancy, and mischief; an orchard-robber, a wall-climber, a horse-rider without saddle or bridle, neck or nothing: a sturdy rogue, in short, who would kick and cuff, and do no right, and take no wrong of any body; would get his head broke, then a plaster for it, or let it heal of itself; while he went on to do more mischief, and if not to get, to deserve, broken bones. And the same dispositions have grown up with them, and distinguish them as me, with no very material alteration. Only that all men are monkeys more or less, or else that you and I should have such baboons as these to choose out of, is a mortifying thing, my dear. I am sensible that I am a little out of season in treating thus ludicrously the subject I am upon, while you are so unhappy; and if my manner does not divert you, as my flightiness used to do, I am inexcusable both to you, and to my own heart: which, I do assure you, notwithstanding my seeming levity, is wholly in your case. As this letter is extremely whimsical, I will not send it until I can accompany it with something more solid and better suited to your unhappy circumstances; that is to say, to the present subject of our correspondence. To-morrow, as I told you, will be wholly my own, and of consequence yours. Adieu, therefore, till then. LETTER III MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TUESDAY MORN. 7 O'CLOCK My mother and cousin are already gone off in our chariot and four, attended by their doughty 'squire on horseback, and he by two of his own servants, and one of my mother's. They both love parade when they go abroad, at least in compliment to one another; which shews, that each thinks the other does. Robin is your servant and mine, and nobody's else--and the day is all my own. I must begin with blaming you, my dear, for your resolution not to litigate for your right, if occasion were to be given you. Justice is due to ourselves, as well as to every body else. Still more must I blame you for declaring to your aunt and sister, that you will not: since (as they will tell it to your father and brother) the declaration must needs give advantage to spirits who have so little of that generosity for which you are so much distinguished. There never was a spirit in the world that would insult where it dared, but it would creep and cringe where it dared not. Let me remind you of a sentence of your own, the occasion for which I have forgotten: 'That little spirits will always accommodate themselves to the temper of those they would work upon: will fawn upon a sturdy-tempered person: will insult the meek:'--And another given to Miss Biddulph, upon an occasion you cannot forget:--'If we assume a dignity in what we say and do, and take care not to disgrace by arrogance our own assumption, every body will treat us with respect and deference.' I remember that you once made an observation, which you said, you was obliged to Mrs. Norton for, and she to her father, upon an excellent preacher, who was but an indifferent liver: 'That to excel in theory, and to excel in practice, generally required different talents; which did not always meet in the same person.' Do you, my dear (to whom theory and practice are the same thing in almost every laudable quality), apply the observation to yourself, in this particular case, where resolution is required; and where the performance of the will of the defunct is the question--no more to be dispensed with by you, in whose favour it was made, than by any body else who have only themselves in view by breaking through it. I know how much you despise riches in the main: but yet it behoves you to remember, that in one instance you yourself have judged them valuable--'In that they put it into our power to lay obligations; while the want of that power puts a person under a necessity of receiving favours--receiving them perhaps from grudging and narrow spirits, who know not how to confer them with that grace, which gives the principal merit to a beneficent action.'--Reflect upon this, my dear, and see how it agrees with the declaration you have made to your aunt and sister, that you would not resume your estate, were you to be turned out of doors, and reduced to indigence and want. Their very fears that you will resume, point out to you the necessity of resuming upon the treatment you meet with. I own, that (at first reading) I was much affected with your mother's letter sent with the patterns. A strange measure however from a mother; for she did not intend to insult you; and I cannot but lament that so sensible and so fine a woman should stoop to so much art as that letter is written with: and which also appears in some of the conversations you have given me an account of. See you not in her passiveness, what boisterous spirits can obtain from gentler, merely by teasing and ill-nature? I know the pride they have always taken in calling you a Harlowe--Clarissa Harlowe, so formal and so set, at every word, when they are grave or proudly solemn.--Your mother has learnt it of them--and as in marriage, so in will, has been taught to bury her own superior name and family in theirs. I have often thought that the same spirit governed them, in this piece of affectation, and others of the like nature (as Harlowe-Place, and so-forth, though not the elder brother's or paternal seat), as governed the tyrant Tudor,* who marrying Elizabeth, the heiress of the house of York, made himself a title to a throne, which he would
{'title': 'Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 2 by Samuel Richardson', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}