Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady Volume I Part 27

My uncles had my letters in the morning. They, as well as my father, are more and more incensed against me, it seems. Their answers, if they vouchsafe to answer me, will demonstrate, I doubt not, the unseasonableness of this rash man's presence at our church.

They are angry also, as I understand, with my mother, for returning his compliment. What an enemy is hatred, even to the common forms of civility! which, however, more distinguish the payer of a compliment, than the receiver. But they all see, they say, that there is but one way to put an end to his insults. So I shall suffer: And in what will the rash man have benefited himself, or mended his prospects?

I am extremely apprehensive that this worse than ghost-like appearance of his, bodes some still bolder step. If he come hither (and very desirous he is of my leave to come) I am afraid there will be murder. To avoid that, if there were no other way, I would most willingly be buried alive.

They are all in consultation--upon my letters, I suppose--so they were in the morning; which occasioned my uncles to be at our church. I will send you the copies of those letters, as I promised in my last, when I see whether I can give you their answers with them. This letter is all--I cannot tell what--the effect of apprehension and displeasure at the man who has occasioned my apprehensions. Six lines would have contained all that is in it to the purpose of my story.

CL. H.

LETTER x.x.xI

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. MONDAY, MARCH 13.

In vain dost thou* and thy compeers press me to go to town, while I am in such an uncertainty as I am in at present with this proud beauty.

All the ground I have hitherto gained with her is entirely owing to her concern for the safety of people whom I have reason to hate.

*These gentlemen affected what they called the Roman style (to wit, the thee and the thou) in their letters: and it was an agreed rule with them, to take in good part whatever freedoms they treated each other with, if the pa.s.sages were written in that style.

Write then, thou biddest me, if I will not come. That, indeed, I can do; and as well without a subject, as with one. And what follows shall be a proof of it.

The lady's malevolent brother has now, as I told thee at M. Hall, introduced another man; the most unpromising in his person and qualities, the most formidable in his offers, that has yet appeared.

This man has by his proposals captivated every soul of the Harlowes--Soul! did I say--There is not a soul among them but my charmer's: and she, withstanding them all, is actually confined, and otherwise maltreated by a father the most gloomy and positive; at the instigation of a brother the most arrogant and selfish. But thou knowest their characters; and I will not therefore sully my paper with them.

But is it not a confounded thing to be in love with one, who is the daughter, the sister, the niece, of a family, I must eternally despise?

And, the devil of it, that love increasing with her--what shall I call it?--'Tis not scorn:--'Tis not pride:--'Tis not the insolence of an adored beauty:--But 'tis to virtue, it seems, that my difficulties are owin; and I pay for not being a sly sinner, an hypocrite; for being regardless of my reputation; for permittin slander to open its mouth against me. But is it necessary for such a one as I, who have been used to carry all before me, upon my own terms--I, who never inspired a fear, that had not a discernibly-predominant mixture of love in it, to be a hypocrite?--Well says the poet:

He who seems virtuous does but act a part; And shews not his own nature, but his art.

Well, but it seems I must practise for this art, if it would succeed with this truly-admirable creature; but why practise for it?--Cannot I indeed reform?--I have but one vice;--Have I, Jack?--Thou knowest my heart, if any man living does. As far as I know it myself, thou knowest it. But 'tis a cursed deceiver; for it has many a time imposed upon its master--Master, did I say? That I am not now; nor have I been from the moment I beheld this angel of a woman. Prepared indeed as I was by her character before I saw her: For what a mind must that be, which, though not virtuous itself, admires not virtue in another?--My visit to Arabella, owing to a mistake of the sister, into which, as thou hast heard me say, I was led by the blundering uncle; who was to introduce me (but lately come from abroad) to the divinity, as I thought; but, instead of her, carried me to a mere mortal. And much difficulty had I, so fond and forward my lady! to get off without forfeiting all with a family I intended should give me a G.o.ddess.

I have boasted that I was once in love before:--and indeed I thought I was. It was in my early manhood--with that quality jilt, whose infidelity I have vowed to revenge upon as many of the s.e.x as shall come into my power. I believe, in different climes, I have already sacrificed an hecatomb to my Nemesis, in pursuance of this vow. But upon recollecting what I was then, and comparing it with what I find myself now, I cannot say that I was ever in love before.

What was it then, dost thou ask me, since the disappointment had such effects upon me, when I found myself jilted, that I was hardly kept in my senses?--Why, I'll grant thee what, as near as I can remember; for it was a great while ago:--It was--Egad, Jack, I can hardly tell what it was--but a vehement aspiration after a novelty, I think. Those confounded poets, with their terrenely-celestial descriptions, did as much with me as the lady: they fired my imagination, and set me upon a desire to become a G.o.ddess-maker. I must needs try my new-fledged pinions in sonnet, elogy, and madrigal. I must have a Cynthia, a Stella, a Sacharissa, as well as the best of them: darts and flames, and the devil knows what, must I give to my cupid. I must create beauty, and place it where n.o.body else could find it: and many a time have I been at a loss for a subject, when my new-created G.o.ddess has been kinder than it was proper for my plaintive sonnet that she should be.

Then I found I had a vanity of another sort in my pa.s.sion: I found myself well received among the women in general; and I thought it a pretty lady-like tyranny [I was then very young, and very vain!] to single out some one of the s.e.x, to make half a score jealous. And I can tell thee, it had its effect: for many an eye have I made to sparkle with rival indignation: many a cheek glow; and even many a fan have I caused to be snapped at a sister-beauty; accompanied with a reflection perhaps at being seen alone with a wild young fellow who could not be in private with both at once.

In short, Jack, it was more pride than love, as I now find it, that put me upon making such a confounded rout about losing that n.o.ble varletess.

I thought she loved me at least as well as I believed I loved her: nay, I had the vanity to suppose she could not help it. My friends were pleased with my choice. They wanted me to be shackled: for early did they doubt my morals, as to the s.e.x. They saw, that the dancing, the singing, the musical ladies were all fond of my company: For who [I am in a humour to be vain, I think!]--for who danced, who sung, who touched the string, whatever the instrument, with a better grace than thy friend?

I have no notion of playing the hypocrite so egregiously, as to pretend to be blind to qualifications which every one sees and acknowledges.

Such praise-begetting hypocrisy! Such affectedly disclaimed attributes!

Such contemptible praise-traps!--But yet, shall my vanity extend only to personals, such as the gracefulness of dress, my debonnaire, and my a.s.surance?--Self-taught, self-acquired, these!--For my parts, I value not myself upon them. Thou wilt say, I have no cause.--Perhaps not. But if I had any thing valuable as to intellectuals, those are not my own; and to be proud of what a man is answerable for the abuse of, and has no merit in the right use of, is to strut, like the jay, in borrowed plumage.

But to return to my fair jilt. I could not bear, that a woman, who was the first that had bound me in silken fetters [they were not iron ones, like those I now wear] should prefer a coronet to me: and when the bird was flown, I set more value upon it, that when I had it safe in my cage, and could visit in when I pleased.

But now am I indeed in love. I can think of nothing, of n.o.body, but the divine Clarissa Harlowe--Harlowe!--How that hated word sticks in my throat--But I shall give her for it the name of Love.*

* Lovelace.

CLARISSA! O there's music in the name, That, soft'ning me to infant tenderness, Makes my heart spring like the first leaps of life!

But couldst thou have believed that I, who think it possible for me to favour as much as I can be favoured; that I, who for this charming creature think of foregoing the life of honour for the life of shackles; could adopt these over-tender lines of Otway?

I checked myself, and leaving the first three lines of the following of Dryden to the family of whiners, find the workings of the pa.s.sion in my stormy soul better expressed by the three last:

Love various minds does variously inspire: He stirs in gentle natures gentle fires; Like that of incense on the alter laid.

But raging flames tempestuous souls invade: A fire which ev'ry windy pa.s.sion blows; With pride it mounts, and with revenge it glows.

And with REVENGE it shall glow!--For, dost thou think, that if it were not from the hope, that this stupid family are all combined to do my work for me, I would bear their insults?--Is it possible to imagine, that I would be braved as I am braved, threatened as I am threatened, by those who are afraid to see me; and by this brutal brother, too, to whom I gave a life; [a life, indeed, not worth my taking!] had I not a greater pride in knowing that by means of his very spy upon me, I am playing him off as I please; cooling or inflaming his violent pa.s.sions as may best suit my purposes; permitting so much to be revealed of my life and actions, and intentions, as may give him such a confidence in his double-faced agent, as shall enable me to dance his employer upon my own wires?

This it is that makes my pride mount above my resentment. By this engine, whose springs I am continually oiling, I play them all off.

The busy old tarpaulin uncle I make but my amba.s.sador to Queen Anabella Howe, to engage her (for example-sake to her princessly daughter) to join in their cause, and to a.s.sert an authority they are resolved, right or wrong, (or I could do nothing,) to maintain.

And what my motive, dost thou ask? No less than this, That my beloved shall find no protection out of my family; for, if I know hers, fly she must, or have the man she hates. This, therefore, if I take my measures right, and my familiar fail me not, will secure her mine, in spite of them all; in spite of her own inflexible heart: mine, without condition; without reformation-promises; without the necessity of a siege of years, perhaps; and to be even then, after wearing the guise of merit-doubting hypocrisy, at an uncertainty, upon a probation unapproved of. Then shall I have all the rascals and rascalesses of the family come creeping to me: I prescribing to them; and bringing that sordidly imperious brother to kneel at the footstool of my throne.

All my fear arises from the little hold I have in the heart of this charming frost-piece: such a constant glow upon her lovely features: eyes so sparkling: limbs so divinely turned: health so florid: youth so blooming: air so animated--to have an heart so impenetrable: and I, the hitherto successful Lovelace, the addresser--How can it be? Yet there are people, and I have talked with some of them, who remember that she was born. Her nurse Norton boasts of her maternal offices in her earliest infancy; and in her education gradatim. So there is full proof, that she came not from above all at once an angel! How then can she be so impenetrable?

But here's her mistake; nor will she be cured of it--She takes the man she calls her father [her mother had been faultless, had she not been her father's wife]; she takes the men she calls her uncles; the fellow she calls her brother; and the poor contemptible she calls her sister; to be her father, to be her uncles, her brother, her sister; and that, as such, she owes to some of them reverence, to others respect, let them treat her ever so cruelly!--Sordid ties!--Mere cradle prejudices!--For had they not been imposed upon her by Nature, when she was in a perverse humour, or could she have chosen her relations, would any of these have been among them?

How my heart rises at her preference of them to me, when she is convinced of their injustice to me! Convinced, that the alliance would do honour to them all--herself excepted; to whom every one owes honour; and from whom the most princely family might receive it. But how much more will my heart rise with indignation against her, if I find she hesitates but one moment (however persecuted) about preferring me to the man she avowedly hates! But she cannot surely be so mean as to purchase her peace with them at so dear a rate. She cannot give a sanction to projects formed in malice, and founded in a selfishness (and that at her own expense) which she has spirit enough to despise in others; and ought to disavow, that we may not think her a Harlowe.

By this incoherent ramble thou wilt gather, that I am not likely to come up in haste; since I must endeavour first to obtain some a.s.surance from the beloved of my soul, that I shall not be sacrificed to such a wretch as Solmes! Woe be to the fair one, if ever she be driven into my power (for I despair of a voluntary impulse in my favour) and I find a difficulty in obtaining this security.

That her indifference to me is not owing to the superior liking she has for any other, is what rivets my chains. But take care, fair one; take care, O thou most exalted of female minds, and loveliest of persons, how thou debasest thyself by encouraging such a compet.i.tion as thy sordid relations have set on foot in mere malice to me!--Thou wilt say I rave.

And so I do:

Perdition catch my soul, but I do love her.

Else, could I hear the perpetual revilings of her implacable family?--Else, could I basely creep about--not her proud father's house--but his paddock and garden walls?--Yet (a quarter of a mile distance between us) not hoping to behold the least glimpse of her shadow?--Else, should I think myself repaid, amply repaid, if the fourth, fifth, or sixth midnight stroll, through unfrequented paths, and over briery enclosures, affords me a few cold lines; the even expected purport only to let me know, that she values the most worthless person of her very worthless family, more than she values me; and that she would not write at all, but to induce me to bear insults, which unman me to bear?--My lodging in the intermediate way at a wretched alehouse; disguised like an inmate of it: accommodations equally vile, as those I met with in my Westphalian journey. 'Tis well, that the necessity for all this arise not from scorn and tyranny! but is first imposed upon herself!

But was ever hero in romance (fighting with giants and dragons excepted) called upon to harder trials?--Fortune and family, and reversionary grandeur on my side! Such a wretched fellow my compet.i.tor!--Must I not be deplorably in love, that can go through these difficulties, encounter these contempts?--By my soul, I am half ashamed of myself: I, who am perjured too, by priority of obligation, if I am faithful to any woman in the world?

And yet, why say I, I am half ashamed?--Is it not a glory to love her whom every one who sees her either loves, or reveres, or both? Dryden says,

The cause of love can never be a.s.sign'd: 'Tis in no face;--but in the lover's mind.

--And Cowley thus addresses beauty as a mere imaginary:

Beauty! thou wild fantastic ape, Who dost in ev'ry country change thy shape: Here black; there brown; here tawny; and there white!

Thou flatt'rer, who comply'st with ev'ry sight!