MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE. SUNDAY, MARCH 19.
I beg your pardon, my dearest friend, for having given you occasion to
remind me of the date of my last. I was willing to have before me as
much of the workings of your wise relations as possible; being verily
persuaded, that one side or the other would have yielded by this time:
and then I should have had some degree of certainty to found my
observations upon. And indeed what can I write that I have not
already written?--You know, that I can do nothing but rave at your
stupid persecutors: and that you don't like. I have advised you to
resume your own estate: that you won't do. You cannot bear the
thoughts of having their Solmes: and Lovelace is resolved you shall be
his, let who will say to the contrary. I think you must be either the
one man's or the other's. Let us see what their next step will be.
As to Lovelace, while he tells his own story (having also behaved so
handsomely on his intrusion in the wood-house, and intended so well at
church) who can say, that the man is in the least blameworthy?--Wicked
people! to combine against so innocent a man!--But, as I said, let us
see what their next step will be, and what course you will take upon
it; and then we may be the more enlightened.
As to your change of style to your uncles, and brother and sister,
since they were so fond of attributing to you a regard for Lovelace,
and would not be persuaded to the contrary; and since you only
strengthened their arguments against yourself by denying it; you did
but just as I would have done, in giving way to their suspicions, and
trying what that would do--But if--but if--Pray, my dear, indulge me a
little--you yourself think it was necessary to apologize to me for
that change of style to them--and till you will speak out like a
friend to her unquestionable friend, I must tease you a little--let it
run therefore; for it will run--
If, then, there be not a reason for this change of style, which you
have not thought fit to give me, be so good as to watch, as I once
before advised you, how the cause for it will come on--Why should it
be permitted to steal upon you, and you know nothing of the matter?
When we get a great cold, we are apt to puzzle ourselves to find out
when it began, or how we got it; and when that is accounted for, down
we sit contented, and let it have its course; or, if it be very
troublesome, take a sweat, or use other means to get rid of it. So my
dear, before the malady you wot of, yet wot not of, grows so
importunate, as that you must be obliged to sweat it out, let me
advise you to mind how it comes on. For I am persuaded, as surely as
that I am now writing to you, that the indiscreet violence of your
friends on the one hand, and the insinuating address of Lovelace on
the other, (if the man be not a greater fool than any body thinks
him,) will effectually bring it to this, and do all his work for him.
But let it--if it must be Lovelace or Solmes, the choice cannot admit
of debate. Yet if all be true that is reported, I should prefer
almost any of your other lovers to either; unworthy as they also are.
But who can be worthy of a Clarissa?
I wish you are not indeed angry with me for harping so much on one
string. I must own, that I should think myself inexcusable so to do,
(the rather, as I am bold enough imagine it a point out of all doubt
from fifty places in your letters, were I to labour the proof,) if you
would ingenuously own--
Own what? you'll say. Why, my Anna Howe, I hope you don't think that
I am already in love!--
No, to be sure! How can your Anna Howe have such a thought?--What
then shall we call it? You might have helped me to a phrase--A
conditional kind of liking!--that's it.--O my friend! did I not know
how much you despise prudery; and that you are too young, and too
lovely, to be a prude--
But, avoiding such hard names, let me tell you one thing, my dear
(which nevertheless I have told you before); and that is this: that I
shall think I have reason to be highly displeased with you, if, when
you write to me, you endeavour to keep from me any secret of your
heart.
Let me add, that if you would clearly and explicitly tell me, how far
Lovelace has, or has not, a hold in your affections, I could better
advise you what to do, than at present I can. You, who are so famed
for prescience, as I may call it; and than whom no young lady ever had
stronger pretensions to a share of it; have had, no doubt, reasonings
in your heart about him, supposing you were to be one day his: [no
doubt but you have had the same in Solmes's case: whence the ground for
the hatred of the one; and for the conditional liking of the other.]
Will you tell me, my dear, what you have thought of Lovelace's best
and of his worst?--How far eligible for the first; how far rejectable
for the last?--Then weighing both parts in opposite scales, we shall
see which is likely to preponderate; or rather which does
preponderate. Nothing less than the knowledge of the inmost recesses
of your heart, can satisfy my love and my friendship. Surely, you are
not afraid to trust yourself with a secret of this nature: if you are,
then you may the more allowably doubt me. But, I dare say, you will
not own either--nor is there, I hope, cause for either.
Be pleased to observe one thing, my dear, that whenever I have given
myself any of those airs of raillery, which have seemed to make you
look about you, (when, likewise, your case may call for a more serious
turn from a sympathizing friend,) it has not been upon those passages
which are written, though, perhaps not intended, with such
explicitness [don't be alarmed, my dear!] as leaves little cause of
doubt: but only when you affect reserve; when you give new words for
common things; when you come with your curiosities, with your
conditional likings, and with your PRUDE-encies [mind how I spell the
word] in a case that with every other person defies all prudence-- over-acts of treason all these, against the sovereign friendship we
have avowed to each other.
Remember, that you found me out in a moment. You challenged me. I
owned directly, that there was only my pride between the man and me;
for I could not endure, I told you, to think of any fellow living to
give me a moment's uneasiness. And then my man, as I have elsewhere
said, was not such a one as yours: so I had reason to impute full as
much as to my own inconsideration, as to his power over me: nay, more:
but still more to yours. For you reasoned me out of the curiosity
first; and when the liking was brought to be conditional--why then,
you know, I throbbed no more about him.
O! pray now, as you say, now I have mentioned that my fellow was not
such a charming fellow as yours, let Miss Biddulph, Miss Lloyd, Miss
Campion, and me, have your opinion, how far figure ought to engage us:
with a view to your own case, however--mind that--as Mr. Tony says-- and whether at all, if the man be vain of it; since, as you observe in
a former, that vanity is a stop-short pride in such a one, that would
make one justly doubt the worthiness of his interior. You, our
pattern, so lovely in feature, so graceful in person, have none of it;
and have therefore with the best grace always held, that it is not
excusable even in a woman.
You must know, that this subject was warmly debated among us in our
last conversation: and Miss Lloyd wished me to write to you upon it
for your opinion; to which, in every debated case, we always paid the
greatest deference. I hope you will not be so much engrossed by your
weighty cares, as not to have freedom of spirits enough to enter upon
the task. You know how much we all admire your opinion on such
topics; which ever produces something new and instructive, as you
handle the subjects. And pray tell us, to what you think it owing,
that your man seems so careful to adorn that self-adorned person of
his! yet so manages, that one cannot for one's heart think him a
coxcomb?--Let this question, and the above tasks, divert, and not
displease you, my dear. One subject, though ever so important, could
never yet engross your capacious mind. If they should displease you,
you must recollect the many instances of my impertinence which you
have forgiven, and then say, 'This is a mad girl: but yet I love her! --And she is my own'
ANNA HOWE.
