MY DEAREST FRIEND,
We are busy in preparing for our little journey and voyage: but I will be ill, I will be very ill, if I cannot hear you are better before I go.
Rogers greatly afflicted me, by telling me the bad way you are in. But now you have been able to hold a pen, and as your sense is strong and clear, I hope that the amus.e.m.e.nt you will receive from writing will make you better.
I dispatch this by an extraordinary way, that it may reach you time enough to move you to consider well before you absolutely decide upon the contents of mine of the 13th, on the subject of the two Misses Montague"s visit to me; since, according to what you write, must I answer them.
In your last, conclude very positively that you will not be his. To be sure, he rather deserves an infamous death than such a wife. But as I really believe him innocent of the arrest, and as all his family are such earnest pleaders, and will be guarantees, for him, I think the compliance with their entreaties, and his own, will be now the best step you can take; your own family remaining implacable, as I can a.s.sure you they do.
He is a man of sense; and it is not impossible but he may make you a good husband, and in time may become no bad man.
My mother is entirely of my opinion: and on Friday, pursuant to a hint I gave you in my last, Mr. Hickman had a conference with the strange wretch: and though he liked not, by any means, his behaviour to himself; nor indeed, had reason to do so; yet he is of opinion that he is sincerely determined to marry you, if you will condescend to have him.
Perhaps Mr. Hickman may make you a private visit before we set out. If I may not attend you myself, I shall not be easy except he does. And he will then give you an account of the admirable character the surprising wretch gave of you, and of the justice he does to your virtue.
He was as acknowledging to his relations, though to his own condemnation, as his two cousins told me. All he apprehends, as he said to Mr.
Hickman, is that if you go on exposing him, wedlock itself will not wipe off the dishonour to both: and moreover, "that you would ruin your const.i.tution by your immoderate sorrow; and, by seeking death when you might avoid it, would not be able to escape it when you would wish to do so."
So, my dearest friend, I charge you, if you can, to get over your aversion to this vile man. You may yet live to see many happy days, and be once more the delight of all your friends, neighbours, and acquaintance, as well as a stay, a comfort, and a blessing to your Anna Howe.
I long to have your answer to mine of the 13th. Pray keep the messenger till it be ready. If he return on Monday night, it will be time enough for his affairs, and to find me come back from Colonel Ambrose"s; who gives a ball on the anniversary of Mrs. Ambrose"s birth and marriage both in one. The gentry all round the neighbourhood are invited this time, on some good news they have received from Mrs. Ambrose"s brother, the governor.
My mother promised the Colonel for me and herself, in my absence. I would fain have excused myself to her; and the rather, as I had exceptions on account of the day:* but she is almost as young as her daughter; and thinking it not so well to go without me, she told me. And having had a few sparring blows with each other very lately, I think I must comply. For I don"t love jingling when I can help it; though I seldom make it my study to avoid the occasion, when it offers of itself.
I don"t know, if either were not a little afraid of the other, whether it would be possible that we could live together:--I, all my father!--My mamma--What?--All my mother--What else should I say?
* The 24th of July, Miss Clarissa Harlowe"s birth-day.
O my dear, how many things happen in this life to give us displeasure!
How few to give us joy!--I am sure I shall have none on this occasion; since the true partner of my heart, the princ.i.p.al of the one soul, that it used to be said, animated the pair of friends, as we were called; you, my dear, [who used to irradiate every circle you set your foot into, and to give me real significance in a second place to yourself,] cannot be there!--One hour of your company, my ever instructive friend, [I thirst for it!] how infinitely preferable would it be to me to all the diversions and amus.e.m.e.nts with which our s.e.x are generally most delighted --Adieu, my dear!
A. HOWE.
LETTER XLI
MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE SUNDAY, JULY 23.
What pain, my dearest friend, does your kind solicitude for my welfare give me! How much more binding and tender are the ties of pure friendship, and the union of like minds, than the ties of nature! Well might the sweet-singer of Israel, when he was carrying to the utmost extent the praises of the friendship between him and his beloved friend, say, that the love of Jonathan to him was wonderful; that it surpa.s.sed the love of women! What an exalted idea does it give of the soul of Jonathan, sweetly attempered for the sacred band, if we may suppose it but equal to that of my Anna Howe for her fallen Clarissa?--But, although I can glory in your kind love for me, think, my dear, what concern must fill a mind, not ungenerous, when the obligation lies all on one side.
And when, at the same time that your light is the brighter for my darkness, I must give pain to a dear friend, to whom I delighted to give pleasure; and not pain only, but discredit, for supporting my blighted fame against the busy tongues of uncharitable censures!
This is that makes me, in the words of my admired exclaimer, very little altered, often repeat: "Oh! that I were as in months past! as in the days when G.o.d preserved me! when his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness! As I was in the days of my childhood--when the Almighty was yet with me: when I was in my father"s house: when I washed my steps with b.u.t.ter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil."
You set before me your reasons, enforced by the opinion of your honoured mother, why I should think of Mr. Lovelace for a husband.*
* See the preceding Letter.
And I have before me your letter of the 13th,* containing the account of the visit and proposals, and kind interposition of the two Misses Montague, in the names of the good Ladies Sadleir and Betty Lawrance, and in that of my Lord M.
* See Letter IX. of this vol.
Also your"s of the 18th,* demanding me, as I may say, of those ladies, and of that family, when I was so infamously and cruelly arrested, and you knew not what was become of me.
* See Letter XI. ibid.
The answer likewise of those ladies, signed in so full and generous a manner by themselves,* and by that n.o.bleman, and those two venerable ladies; and, in his light way, by the wretch himself.
* See Letter XIV. ibid.
Thse, my dearest Miss Howe; and your letter of the 16th,* which came when I was under arrest, and which I received not till some days after; are all before me.
* See Letter X. of this volume.
And I have as well weighed the whole matter, and your arguments in support of your advice, as at present my head and my heart will let me weigh them.
I am, moreover, willing to believe, not only from your own opinion, but from the a.s.surances of one of Mr. Lovelace"s friends, Mr. Belford, a good-natured and humane man, who spares not to censure the author of my calamities (I think, with undissembled and undesigning sincerity) that that man is innocent of the disgraceful arrest.
And even, if you please, in sincere compliment to your opinion, and to that of Mr. Hickman, that (over-persuaded by his friends, and ashamed of his unmerited baseness to me) he would in earnest marry me, if I would have him.
"*Well, and now, what is the result of all?--It is this--that I must abide by what I have already declared--and that is, [don"t be angry at me, my best friend,] that I have much more pleasure in thinking of death, than of such a husband. In short, as I declared in my last, that I cannot [forgive me, if I say, I will not] ever be his.
* Those parts of this letter which are marked with an inverted comma [thus " ] were afterwards transcribed by Miss Howe in Letter LV. written to the Ladies of Mr. Lovelace"s family; and are thus distinguished to avoid the necessity of repeating them in that letter.
"But you will expect my reasons; I know you will: and if I give them not, will conclude me either obstinate, or implacable, or both: and those would be sad imputations, if just, to be laid to the charge of a person who thinks and talks of dying. And yet, to say that resentment and disappointment have no part in my determination, would be saying a thing hardly to be credited. For I own I have resentment, strong resentment, but not unreasonable ones, as you will be convinced, if already you are not so, when you know all my story--if ever you do know it--for I begin to fear (so many things more necessary to be thought of than either this man, or my own vindication, have I to do) that I shall not have time to compa.s.s what I have intended, and, in a manner, promised you.*
* See Vol. VI. Letter LXXIII.
"I have one reason to give in support of my resolution, that, I believe, yourself will allow of: but having owned that I have resentments, I will begin with those considerations in which anger and disappointment have too great a share; in hopes that, having once disburdened my mind upon paper, and to my Anna Howe, of those corroding uneasy pa.s.sions, I shall prevent them for ever from returning to my heart, and to have their place supplied by better, milder, and more agreeable ones.
"My pride, then, my dearest friend, although a great deal mortified, is not sufficiently mortified, if it be necessary for me to submit to make that man my choice, whose actions are, and ought to be, my abhorrence!-- What!--Shall I, who have been treated with such premeditated and perfidious barbarity, as is painful to be thought of, and cannot, with modesty be described, think of taking the violator to my heart? Can I vow duty to one so wicked, and hazard my salvation by joining myself to so great a profligate, now I know him to be so? Do you think your Clarissa Harlowe so lost, so sunk, at least, as that she could, for the sake of patching up, in the world"s eye, a broken reputation, meanly appear indebted to the generosity, or perhaps compa.s.sion, of a man, who has, by means so inhuman, robbed her of it? Indeed, my dear, I should not think my penitence for the rash step I took, any thing better than a specious delusion, if I had not got above the least wish to have Mr.
Lovelace for my husband.
"Yes, I warrant, I must creep to the violator, and be thankful to him for doing me poor justice!