I transcribed this letter, and sent it to my mother, with these lines. A very few words, my ever-honoured mamma! If my sister wrote the inclosed by my father's direction, or yours, I must submit to the usage she gives me in it, with this only observation, that it is short of the personal treatment I have received from her. If it be of her own head-why then, madam-but I knew, that when I was banished from your presence-yet, till I know if she has or has not authority for this usage, I will only write further, that I am Your very unhappy child, CL. HARLOWE. This answer I received in an open slip of paper; but it was wet in one place. I kissed the place; for I am sure it was blister'd, as I may say, by a mother's tear!she must (I hope she must) have written it reluctantly. To apply for protection, where authority is defied, is bold. Your sister, who would not in your circumstances have been guilty of your perverseness, may allowably be angry at you for it. However, we have told her to moderate her zeal for our insulted authority. See, if you can deserve another behaviour, than that you complain of: which cannot, however, be so grievous to you, as the cause of it is to Your more unhappy Mother. How often must I forbid you any address to me! Tell me, tell me, my dearest Miss Howe (for I dare not trust myself) tell me what I can do. MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE. HAT can I advise you to do, Your merit is your crime. Saturday, March 25. my noble creature? You can no more change your nature, than your persecutors can theirs. Your distress is owing to the vast disparity between you and them. What would you have of them? Do they not act in character?-and to whom? To an alien. You are not one of them. They have two dependencies in their hope to move you to compliance— upon their impenetrableness one (I'd give it a more proper name, if I dared); the other, on the regard you have always had for your character (have they not heretofore owned as much?) and upon your apprehensions from that of Lovelace, which would discredit you, should you take any step by his means to extricate yourself. I'll give you the substance of a conversation that passed between Sir Harry Downeton and this Solmes, but three days ago, as Sir Harry told it but yesterday to my mother and me. Sir Harry told him, he wondered he should wish to obtain you so much against your inclination as everybody knew it would be, if he did. He matter'd not that, he said: coy maids made the fondest wives (a sorry fellow !): it would not at all grieve him to see a pretty woman make wry faces, if she gave him cause to vex her. And your estate, by the convenience of its situation, would richly pay him for all he could bear with your shyness. He should be sure, he said, after a while, of your complaisance, if not of your love: and in that should be happier than nine parts in ten of his married acquaint ance. What a wretch is this! My mother, however, says, it would be a prodigious merit in you, if you could get over your aversion to him. Where, asks she (as you have been asked before) is the praiseworthiness of obedience, if it be only paid in instances where we give up nothing? What a fatality, that you have no better an option— either a Scylla or a Charybdis ! You must, if possible, avoid being carried to that uncle's. The man, the parson, your brother and sister present!— they'll certainly there marry you to the wretch. Nor will your newly-raised spirit support you in your resistance on such an occasion. Your meekness will return; and you will have nothing for it but tears (tears despised by them all) and ineffectual appeals and lamentations :—and these tears, when the ceremony is profaned, you must suddenly dry up; and endeavour to dispose yourself to such an humble frame of mind, as may induce your new-made lord to forgive all your past declarations of aversion. I will add nothing (though I could an hundred things on occasion of your latest communications) but that I am Your ever-affectionate and faithful ANNA HOWE. MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE. Sunday Morning, March 26. HAVE received two letters from Mr. Lovelace, since his visit to you; which make three that I have not answered. I doubt not his being uneasy; but in his last he complains in high terms of my silence; not in the still small voice, or rather style of an humble lover, but in a style like that which would probably be used by a slighted protector. And his pride is again touched, that like a thief, or eaves-dropper, he is forced to dodge about in hopes of a letter, and return five miles (and then to an inconvenient lodging) without any. I take his pride to task, on his disdaining to watch for my letters; and for his eves-dropping language: and say, That, surely, he has the less reason to think so hardly of his situation; since his faulty morals are the cause of all; and since faulty morals deservedly level all distinction, and bring down rank and birth to the canaille, and to the necessity which he so much regrets, of appearing (if I must descend to his language) as an eves-dropper and a thief. And then I forbid him ever to expect another letter from me that is to subject him to such disgraceful hardships. This is the substance of the letter I have written to him. The man, to be sure, must have the penetration to observe, that my correspondence with him hitherto is owing more to the severity I meet with, than to a very high value for him. And so I would have him think. What a worse than Moloch deity is that, which expects an offering of reason, duty, and discretion, to be made to its shrine ! Mr. Solmes is almost continually here: so is my aunt Hervey so are my two uncles. Something is working against me, I doubt. What an uneasy state is suspense ! —when a naked sword, too, seems hanging over one's head! You'll be called I hear nothing but what this confident creature Betty throws out in the wantonness of office. Now it is, Why, miss, don't you look up your things? upon, depend upon it, before you are aware. Another time she intimates darkly, and in broken sentences (as if on purpose to teaze me) what one says, what another; with their inquiries how I dispose of my time? my brother's insolent question comes frequently in, whether I am not writing a history of my sufferings? And But I am now used to her pertness and as it is only through that, that I can hear of anything intended against me, before it is to be put into execution; and as, when she is most impertinent, she pleads a commission for it; I bear with her yet, now and then, not without a little of the heart-burn. I will deposit thus far. Adieu, my dear. MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE. Sunday Afternoon. HAD reason to fear, as I mentioned in mine of this morning, that a storm was brewing. Mr. Solmes came home from church this afternoon with my brother. Soon after, Betty brought me up a letter, without saying from whom. It was in a cover, and directed by a hand I never saw before; as if it were supposed that I would not receive and open it, had I known from whom it came. These are the contents: TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE. Sunday, March 26. DEAREST MADAM,-I think myself a most unhappy man, in that I have never yet been able to pay my respects to you with youre consent for one halfe-hour. I have something to communicat to you that concernes you much, if you be pleased to admit me to youre speech. Youre honour is concerned in it, and the honour of all youre familly. Pray, madam, vouchsafe me a hearing, as you value your honour and familly: which will oblidge, dearest miss, Your most humble and most faithful servant, ROGER SOLMES. I waite below for the hope of admittance. I have no manner of doubt, that this is a poor device, to get this man into my company. I would have sent down |