 Leta VIII of Clarissa. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ben Dutton, Lampter, Wales. Clarissa by Samuel Richardson. Lampter VIII. Miss Clarissa Harlow, to Miss Howe, February the 24th. They drive on here at a furious rate. The man lives here, I think. He courts them, and is more and more a favourite. Such terms! Such settlements! That's the cry! Oh, my dear, that I had not reason to deplore the family fault, immensely rich as they all are. But this I may, the more unreservedly, say to you, as we have often joined in the same concern. I, for a father and uncles, you for a mother, in every other respect, faultless. Hitherto I seem to be delivered over to my brother, who pretends as great a love to me as ever. You may believe I have been very sincere with him. But he affects to rally me, and not to believe it possible, but one so dutiful and discreet as my sister Clarie can resolve to disoblige all her friends. Indeed, I tremble at the prospect before me, for it is evident that they are strangely determined. My father and mother industriously avoid giving me opportunity of speaking to them alone. They ask not for my approbation, intended, as it would seem, to suppose me into their will. And with them I shall hope to prevail, or with nobody. They have not the interest in compelling me, as my brother and sister have. I say less, therefore, to them, reserving my whole force for an audience of my father, if he will permit me a patient ear. How difficult it is, my dear, to give a negative where both duty and inclination join to make one wish to oblige. I have already stood the shock of three of this man's particular visits, besides my share in his general ones. And find it is impossible I should ever endure him. He has but a very ordinary share of understanding, is very illiterate, knows nothing but the value of estates and how to improve them, and what belongs to land-jobbing and husbandry. Yet I am as one stupid, I think. They have begun so cruelly with me, that I have not spirit enough to assert my own negative. So he had endeavoured, it seems, to influence my good Mrs. Norton before I came home. So intent are they to carry their point. And her opinion, not being to their liking, she has been told that she would do well to decline visiting here for the present. Yet she is the person of all the world next to my mother. The most likely to prevail upon me were the measures they are engaged in reasonable measures, or such as she could think so. My aunt, likewise having said that she did not think her niece could ever be bought to like Mr. Soames, has been obliged to learn another lesson. I am to have a visit from her to-morrow. And since I have refused so much as to hear from my brother and sister what the noble settlements are to be, she is to acquaint me with the particulars. And to receive from me my determination. For my father, I am told, will not have patience but to suppose that I shall stand in opposition to his will. Meantime, it has been signified to me that it will be acceptable if I do not think of going to church next Sunday. The same signification was made for me last Sunday, and I obeyed. They are apprehensive that Mr. Lovelace will be there, with design to come home with me. Help me, my dear Mrs. Howe, to your little of your charming spirit. I never more wanted it. The man, this Soames, you may suppose, has no reason to boast of his progress with me. He is not the sense to say anything to the purpose. His courtship, indeed, is to them, and my brother pretends to court me as his proxy. Truly! I utterly, to my brother, reject his address, but thinking a person so well received and recommended by all my family, entitled to good manners, all I say against him is affectedly attributed to coiness. And he, not being sensible of his own imperfections, believes that my avoiding him when I can, and the reserves I express, are owing to nothing else. For, as I said, all his courtship is to them, and I have no opportunity of saying no to one who asks me not the question. And so, with an error of man's superiority, he seems rather to pity the bashful girl than to apprehend that he shall not succeed. February the twenty-fifth. I have had the expected conference with my aunt. I have been obliged to hear the man's proposals from her, and have been told also what their motives are for a spouse in his interest with so much warmth. I am even loath to mention how equally unjust it is for him to make such offers, or for those I am bound to reverence to accept of them. I hate him more than before. One great estate is already obtained at the expense of the relations to it, though distant relations, my brother's I mean, by his godmother, and this is given the hope, however chimerical that hope of procuring others, and that my own at least may revert to the family. And yet, in my opinion, the world is one great family. Originally it was so. What then is this narrow selfishness that reigns us in, but a relationship remembered against relationship forgot? But here, upon my absolute refusal of him, upon any terms, have I had a signification made me that wounds me to the heart. How can I tell it to you? Yet I must. It is, my dear, that I must not for a month to come, or till license obtained, correspond with anybody out of the house. My brother, upon my aunt's report, made, however, as I am formed, in the gentlest manner, and even given remote hopes, which he had no commission for me to give, bought me, in authoritative terms, the prohibition. Not to miss how, said I? No. Not to miss how, madame, tauntingly, for have you not acknowledged that lovelace is a favourite there? See, my dear, miss how? And do you think, brother, this is the way? Do you look to that? But your letters will be stopped, I can tell you, and a way he flung. My sister came to me soon after. Sister Clary, you are going on in a fine way, I understand. And as there are people who are supposed to be hardened against your duty, I am to tell you that you will be taken well if you avoid visits or visiting for a week or two till further order. Can this be from those who have authority? Ask them. Ask them, child, with a twirl of her finger. I have delivered my message. Your father will be obeyed. He is willing to hope you to be all obedience, and would prevent all incitement to refractorium. I know my duty, said I, and hope I shall not find impossible condition annexed to it. A pert young creature, vain and conceited, she called me. I was the only judge, in my own wise opinion, of what was right and fit. She for her part had long seen into my spacious ways, and now I should show everybody what I was at the bottom. Dear Bella, said I, hands and eyes lifting up, why all this? Dear Bella, dear Bella, why? None of your dear, dear Bellas to me. I tell you, I see through your witchcrafts. That was her strange word, and away she flung, adding, as she went, and so will everybody else, very quickly, I dare say. Bless me, said I to myself. What a sister have I. How have I deserved this? Then I again regretted my grandfather's two distinguishing goodness to me. February the twenty-fifth, in the evening. What my brother and sister have said against me, I cannot tell. But I am in heavy disgrace with my father. I was sent down for tea. I went with a very cheerful aspect, but had occasioned soon to change it, such a soliminity in everybody's countenance. My mother's eyes were fixed upon the tea-cups, and when she looked up, it was heavily, as if her eyelids had waked upon them. And then not to me. My father sat half aside in his elbow-chair, that his head might be turned from me, his hands clasped and waving as it were, up and down. His fingers, poor dear gentleman, in motion, as if angry to the very ends of them, my sister was swelling. My brother looked at me with scorn, having measured me, as I may say, with his eyes as I entered, from head to foot. My aunt was there, and looked upon me as if with kindness restrained, bending coldly to my compliment to her as she sat. And then cast an eye first on my brother, then on my sister, as if to give the reason, so I am willing to construe it, of her unusual stiffness. Bless me, my dear, that they should choose to intimidate rather than invite a mind till now, not thought either unpersuadable or ungenerous. I took my seat. Shall I make tea, madame, to my mother? I was used to, you know, my dear, to make tea. No! A very short sentence, in one very short word, was the expressive answer. And she was pleased to take the canister in her own hands. My brother bid the footman, who attended, leave the room. I, he said, will pour out the water. My heart was up in my mouth. I did not know what to do with myself. What is to follow, thought I? Just after the second dish, outstepped my mother, a word with you, sister Harvey, taking in her hand. Presently my sister dropped away. And my brother, so I was left alone with my father. He looked so very sternly, that my heart failed me as twice or thrice I would have addressed myself to him. Nothing but solemn silence on all hands having pressed before. At last I asked, if it were his pleasure that I should pour him out another dish. He answered me with the same angry monosyllable, which I had received from my mother before. And then arose, and walked out of the room. I arose too, with intent to throw myself at his feet, but was too much overored by his sternness even to make such an expression of my duty to him as my heart overflowed with. At last, as he supported himself because of his gout on the back of a chair, I took a little more courage, and approaching him, we sought him to acquaint me in what I had offended him. He turned from me, and in a strong voice, Clarissa Harlow, said he, Know that I will be obeyed. God forbid, sir, that you should not. I have never yet opposed your will. Nor I, your whimsies, Clarissa Harlow, interrupted he. Don't let me run the fate of all who show indulgence to your sex, to be the more contradicted for mine to you. My father, you know, my dear, has not, any more than my brother, a kind opinion of our sex, or there is not a more condescending wife in the world than my mother. I was going to make prostitations of duty. No protestations, girl, no words. I will not be pratted to. I will be obeyed. I have no child. I will have no child, but an obedient one. Sir, you never had the reason, I hope. Tell me not what I never had, but what I have, and what I shall have. Good, sir, be pleased to hear me. My brother and sister, I fear. Your brother and sister shall not be spoken against, girl. They have a just concern for the honour of my family. And I hope, sir, hope nothing. Tell me not of hopes, but of facts. I ask nothing of you, but what is in your power to comply with, and what is your duty to comply with. Then, sir, I will comply with it. But yet I hope from your goodness. No expostulations, no buts, girl, no qualifying. I will be obeyed, I tell you, and cheerfully too, or you are no child of mine. I wept. Let me beseech you, my dear and ever honoured papa, and I drop down on my knees, that I may have only yours and my mamma's will, and not my brother's to obey. I was going on, but he was pleased to withdraw, leaving me on the floor, saying that he would not hear me thus by subtlety and cunning aiming to distinguish away my duty, repeating that he would be obeyed. My heart is too full, so full, that it may endanger my duty were I to try and to unburden it to you on this occasion. So I will lay down my pen. But can, yet positively, I will lay down my pen. End of Letter 8 Letter 9 of Clarissa. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Ben Dutton, Lampeder, Wales Clarissa by Samuel Richardson Letter 9 Miss Clarissa Harlow to Miss Howe February 26 In the morning my aunt, who stayed here last night, made me a visit this morning as soon as it was light. She tells me that I was left alone with my father yesterday on purpose, that he might talk with me on my expected obedience, but that he owned he was put beside his purpose by reflecting on something my brother had told him in my disfavour, and by his impatience but to suppose that such a gentle spirit as mine had hitherto seemed to be, should presume to dispute his will in a point where the advantage of the whole family was to be so greatly promoted by my compliance, I find, by a few words which dropped unawares from my aunt, that they have in all absolute dependence upon what they supposed to be meekness in my temper. But in this they may be mistaken. For I vellerily think, upon a strict examination of myself, that I have almost as much in me of my fathers as of my mother's family. My uncle Harlow, it seems, is against driving me upon extremities. But my brother has engaged, that the regard I have for my reputation and my principles will bring me round to my duty. That's the expression. Thus I shall have reason to wish I had not known this. My aunt advises me to submit for the present to the interdicts they have laid me under, and indeed to encourage Mr. Somes' address. I have absolutely refused the latter, let what will, as I have told her, be the consequence. The visiting prohibition I will conform to. But as to that of not corresponding with you, nothing but the menace that our letter shall be intercepted can engage my observation of it. She believes that this order is from my father, and that my mother has been not been consulted upon it. She says that it is a given, as she has reason to think, purely in consideration to me, lest I should mortally offend him. And this, from the incitements of other people, meaning you and Miss Lloyd, I make no doubt, rather than by my own will. For still, as she tells me, he speaks kind and praiseful things of me. Here is clemency, here is indulgence, and so it is, to prevent a headstrong child, as a good prince would wish to deter disaffected subjects from running into rebellion, and so forfeiting everything. But this is allowing to the younger man's wisdom of my brother, a plotter without a head, and a brother without a heart. How happy might I have been with any other old brother in the world but James Harlow, and with any other sister but his sister! Wonder not, my dear, that I, who used to chide you for these sort of liberties with my relations, now are more and dutiful than you ever were unkind. I cannot bear the thought of being deprived of the principal pleasure of my life, for such is your conversation by person and by letter, and who, besides, can bear to be made the jup of such low cunning, operating with such high and arrogant passions. But can you, my dear Miss Howe, condescend to carry on a private correspondence with me? If you can, there is only one way I have thought of by which it may be done. You must remember the green lane, as we call it, that runs by the side of the woodhouse and the poultry-yard, where I kept my band-tams, pheasants, and beahends, which generally engage my notice twice a day. The more my favourites, because they were my grandfathers, I'd recommended to my care by him, and therefore bought hither from my dairy-house since his death. The lane is lower than the floor of the woodhouse, and in the side of the woodhouse the boards are rotted away down to the floor for half an L together in several places. Hannah can step into the lane and make a mark with chalk where a letter or parcel may be pushed in, under some sticks, which may be so managed as to be an unsuspected cover for the written deposits from either. I have been just now to look at the place, and find it will answer. It is your faithful Robert May, without coming near the house, and is only passing through the green lane, which leads two or three farmhouses, out of delivery, if you please, very easily take from thence my letters and deposit yours. This place is the more convenient, because it is seldom resorted to but by myself or Hannah, on the above-mentioned count, for it is the general storehouse for firing, the wood for constant use, being nearer the house. One corner of this being separated off for the roosting-place of my little pool-tree, either she or I shall never want a pretense to go fither. Try my dear, the success of a letter this way, and give me your opinion and advice what to do in this disgraceful situation, as I cannot but to call it, and what you think of my prospects, and what you would do in my case. But beforehand I will tell you that your advice must not run in favour of this soams, and yet it is very likely they will endeavour to engage your mother, in order to induce you, who have such an influence over me, to favour him. Yet, on second thoughts, if you inclined to that side of the question, I would have you write your whole mind, determined, as I think I am, and cannot help it. I would at least give a patient hearing to what may be said on the other side. For my regards are no much so engaged, upon my word they are not, I know not myself if they be, to another person, as some of my friends suppose, and as you, giving way to your lively vein, upon his last visits, effect it as suppose. What preferable favour I may have for him, to any other person, is owing more to the usage he has received, and for my sake, more than to any personal consideration. I write a few lines of grateful acknowledgement to your good mother, for her favours to me in the late happy period. I fear I shall never know such another. I hope she will forgive me, that I did not write sooner. The bearer, if suspected and examined, is to produce that as the only one he carries. How do needless watchfulness and undue restraint produce artifice and contrivance? I should amore these clandestine correspondences, were they not forced upon me. They have so mean, so low an appearance to myself, that I think I ought not to expect that you should take part in them. But why, as I have so expostulated with my aunt, must I be pushed into a state, which I have no wish to enter into, although I reverence it? Why should not my brother, so many years older, and so earnest to see me engaged, be first engaged, and why should not my sister be first provided for? But here I conclude these unavailing expostulations, with the assurance that I am, and ever will be, your affectionate Clarissa Harlow. End of letter nine. Letter ten. Miss Howe to Miss Clarissa Harlow, February twenty-seven. What odd heads some people have! Miss Clarissa Harlow to be sacrificed in marriage to Mr. Roger Soames, astonishing. I must not, you say, give my advice in favour of this man. You now convince me, my dear, that you are nearer of kin than I thought you to the family that could think so preposterous a match, or you would never have had the least notion of my advising in his favour. Ask for his picture. You know I have a good hand at drawing an ugly likeness. But I'll see a little further first. Who knows what may happen, since matters are in such a train, and since you have not the courage to oppose so overwhelming a torrent? You ask me to help you to a little of my spirit. Are you in earnest? But it will not now, I doubt, do you service. It will not sit naturally upon you. You are your mother's girl. Think what you will, and have violent spirits to contend with. Alas, my dear, you should have borrowed some of mine a little sooner. That is to say, before you had given the management of your estates into the hands of those who think they have a prior claim to it. Not, though, a father's. Has not the father too elder children? And do they not both bear more of his stamp and image than you do? Pray, my dear, call me not to count for this free question. Lest your application of this meaning on examination prove to be as severe as that. Now I have launched out a little. Indulge me one word more in the same strain. I will be decent, I promise you. I think that you might have known that avarice and envy are two passions that are not to be satisfied, the one by giving, the one other by the envied persons continuing to deserve an excel, fuel, fuel both all the world over to flames in satiate and devouring. And since you ask for my opinion, you must tell me all you know or surmise of their inducements. And if you will not forbid me to make extract from your letters for the entertainment of my aunt and cousin in the little island who long to hear more of your affairs, it will be very obliging. But you are so tender of some people who have no tenderness for anybody but themselves that I must conjure you to speak out. Remember that a friendship like ours admits of no reserves, yet may trust my partiality. It would be in a front to your own judgment if you did not. For do you not ask my advice, and have you not taught me that friendship should never give a bias against justice? Justify them, therefore, if you can. Let us see if there be any sense whether sufficient reason or not in their choice. At present I cannot, and yet I know a great deal of your family have any conception how all of them, your mother and your aunt Harvey in particular, can join with the rest against judgment's given. As to some of the others, I cannot wonder at anything they do or attempt to do where self is concerned. You ask, why not may not your brother be first engaged in wedlock? I'll tell you why. His temper and his arrogance are too well known to induce woman he would aspire to to receive his addresses, notwithstanding his great independent acquisitions and still greater prospects. Let me tell you, my dear, those acquisitions have given him more pride than reputation. To me he is the most intolerable creature that I have ever conversed with. The treatment you blame, he merited from one whom he addressed with the heir of a person who presumes he is about to confer a favour rather than to receive one. I ever loved to mortify proud and insolent spirits. What think you makes me bear Hickman near me, but that the man is humble and knows and keeps his distance? As to your question, why your elder sister may not first be provided for, I answer, because she must have no man, but one who has a great and clear estate, that's one thing. Another is because she has a younger sister. Pray, my dear, be so good as to tell me what man of a great clear estate would think of that elder sister while the younger were single. You are all too rich to be happy, child, for must not each of you, by the constitutions of a family, marry to be still richer? People who know in what their main excellence consists are not to be blamed, are they, for cultivating and improving what they think most valuable? Is true happiness any part of your family view? So far from it, that none of your family but yourself could be happy were they not rich. So let them fret on, grumble and grudge and accumulate, I am wondering what ails them that they have not happiness when they have riches. Think the cause is want of more, and so go on heaping up till death as greedy and accumulator as themselves gathers them into his garner. Well then, once more I say, do you, my dear, tell me what you know of their avowed and general motives, and I will tell you more than you will tell me of their failings. Your aunt Harvey, you say, has told you why must I ask you to let me know them when you condescend to ask my advice on the occasion. May that prohibit your corresponding with me is a wisdom I neither wonder at nor blame them for, since it is an evidence to me that they know of their own folly, and if they do is it strange that they should be afraid to trust one another's judgment upon it. I am glad you have found out a way to correspond with me, I approve it much. I shall more if this first trial of it proves successful, but should it not and fall it into their hands I would not concern me but for your say. We have heard before you wrote that all was not right between your relations and you at your coming home, that Mr. Soames visited you and that with a prospect of success, but I concluded the mistake lay in the person, and that his address was to Miss Arabella. And indeed, had she been as good-natured as your plump ones generally are, I should have thought her too good for him by half. This must certainly be the thing, thought I, and my beloved friend is sent forth to advise and assist in her nuptial preparations. Who knows, said I to my mother, but that when the man has thrown aside his yellowful buckled perook and his broad brim beaver, both of which I suppose were Solova's best of longstanding, he may cut a horrible figure dangling to church with Miss Bell. The woman, as she observed, should excel the man in features, and where can she match so well for a foil. I indulged in this surmise against rumour, because I could not believe that the absurdist people in England could be so very absurd as to think of this man for you. We heard moreover that you received no visitors. I could assign no reason for this except that the preparations for your sister were to be private, and the ceremony sudden, for fear this man should, as another man did, change his mind. Miss Lloyd and Miss Bedouffe were with me to inquire what I knew of this, and of your not being in church either morning or afternoon the Sunday after your return from us, to the disappointment of a little hundred of your admirers to use their words. It was easy for me to guess the reason to be what you confirm, their apprehensions that lovelace would be there, an attempt to wait on you home. My mother takes very kindly your compliments in your letter to her. Her words upon reading it were, Miss Clare Sahalo is an admirable young lady, wherever she goes she confers a favour, whomever she leaves she fills with regret, and the little comparative reflection. O my Nancy, that you had a little of her sweet obligingness. No matter. The praise was yours. You are me, and I enjoyed it. The more enjoyed it because, shall I tell you the truth, because I think myself as well as I am. Wear it, but for this reason, that had I twenty brother James's, and twenty sister bells. Not one of them, nor all of them joined together, would dare treat me as yours presumed to treat you. The person who will bear much shall have much to bear, all the world through. It is your own sentiment, grounded upon the strongest instance that can be given in your own family, though you have so little improved by it. The result is this, that I am fitter for this world than you. You for the next than me. That is the difference. But long, long for my sake, and for hundreds of sakes, may be it before you quit us for company more congenial to you, and more worthy of you. I communicated to my mother the account you give of your strange reception, also what a horrid wretch they have found out for you, and the compulsory treatment they give you. It only set her on magnifying her lenity to me. On my tyrannical behaviour, as she will call it, mothers must have their own way, you know, my dear, to the man whom she so warmly recommends, against whom it seems there can be no just exception, and expatiating upon the complacence I owe her for indulgence. So I believe I must communicate to her nothing farther, especially as I know she would condemn the correspondence between us, and that between you and Lovelace, as clandestine and undutiful proceedings, and divulge our secret besides, for duty implicit is her cry. And moreover she lends a pretty open ear to the preachments of that starch old bachelor your uncle Antony, and for an example to her daughter would be more careful how she takes you apart, be the cause ever so just. Yet this is not the right policy neither, for people who allow nothing will be granted nothing. In other words, those who aim at carrying too many points will not be able to carry any. But can you divine, my dear, what the old preachment making plump-hearted soul your uncle Antony means by his frequent amblings hither? There's such smirking and smiling between my mother and him, such mutual praises of economy, and that is my way, and this I do, and I'm glad it is your apprehension, sir, and you look into everything, madame, nothing would be done if I did not. Such exclamations against servants, such exaltings of self, and dear heart and good lack and lassaday, and now and then their conversation sinkering into whispering accent, if I come across them, I'll tell you, my dear, I don't half above like it. Only that these old bachelors usually take as many years to resolve upon matrimony as they can expect to live, or I should be ready to fire upon his visits and to recommend Mr. Hickman to my mother's acceptance as a more eligible man, for what he wants in years he makes up in gravity, and if he will not chide me, I will say there is a primness in both, especially when the man has presumed too much with me upon my mother's favour for him and his under-discipline on that account, as makes them seem near of kin, and then in contemplation of my sourciness, and what they both fear from it, they sigh away, and seem so mightily to compassionate each other, that if pity be but one remove from love, I am in no danger, while they in both in a great deal and don't know it. Now, my dear, I know you upon me with your grave heirs, so in for the sheep, and do yourself look about you, for I'll have a pull with you by way of being a forehand. Hannibal, we read, always advise to attack the Romans upon their own territories. You are pleased to say, and upon your word, too, that your regards, a mighty quaint word for affections, are not so much engaged as some of your friends suppose to another person. What need you give one to imagine, my dear, that the last month or two has been a period extremely favourable to the other person, whom it has made an obliger of the niece for his patients with the uncles? But to pass that by, so much engaged, how much, my dear, shall I ever, some of my friends, suppose a great deal, you may seem to own a little. Don't be angry, it is all fair, because you have not acknowledged me that little. People, I have heard you say, who affect secrets, always excite curiosity. But you proceed with a kind of drawback upon your oeuvrement, as if recollection had given you a doubt. You know not yourself, if they be so much engaged. Was it necessary to say this to me, and to say it upon your word, too? But you know best. Yet you don't, neither, I believe. For a beginning love is acted by a subtle spirit, and oftentimes discovers itself to a bystander, when the person possessed, why should I not call it possessed, knows not it has such a demon. But further, you say, what preferable favour you may have for him to any other person is owing more to the usage he has received, and for your sake borne, than to any personal consideration? This is generously said, it is in character, but, oh my friend, depend upon it. You are in danger. Depend upon it, whether you know it or not, you are a little in for it. Your native generosity and greatness of mind endangers you. All your friends, by fighting against him with impolitic violence, fight for him. And loveless, my life for yours, notwithstanding all his veneration and assiduities, has seen further than that veneration, and those assiduities, so well calculated to your margin. Well, let him own he has seen, in short, that his work is doing for him more effectually than he could do it for himself. And have you not before now said that nothing is so penetrating as the eye of a lover who has vanity, and who says lovelace once vanity? In short, my dear, it is my opinion that from the easiness of his heart and behaviour, that he has seen more than I have seen, more than you think could be seen, more than I believe you yourself know or else you would let me know it. Already, in order to restrain him from resenting the indignities he has received and which he daily offered him, he has prevailed upon you to correspond with him privately. I know he has nothing to boast of from what you have written, but is not him inducing you to receive his letters and to answer them a great point gained? By your insisting that he should keep the correspondence private, it appears there is one secret which you do not wish the world should know, and he is master of that secret. He is himself, as I may say, that secret. What intimacy does this beget for the lover? How is it distancing the parent? Yet who, as things are situated, can blame you? Your condescension has no doubt hitherto prevented great mischiefs. It must be continued for the same reason or the cause remains. You are drawn in by perverse faint against inclination, but custom, with such laudable purposes, will reconcile the inconvenience and make an inclination. And I would advise you, as you would wish to manage on an occasion so critical with that prudence which covers all your actions, not to be afraid of entering Kavan a close examination into the true springs and grounds of this your generosity to that happy man. It is my humble opinion, I tell you frankly, that on inquiry it will come out to be love. Don't stop, my dear. Has not your man himself had natural philosophy to observe already to Aunt Harvey that love takes the deepest route in the steadiest minds? The deuce take his sly penetration, I was going to say, for this was six or seven weeks ago. I have been tinctured, you know, nor on the coolest reflection could I account how and when the jaundice began, but had been overhead and ears, as the saying is, but for some advice from you, which I now return to you, yet my man was not half so, so what, my dear, to be sure, Lovelace is a charming fellow, and where he only, but I will not make you glow as you read, upon my word I will not. Yet, my dear, don't you find at your heart somewhat unusual make you go throb, throb, throb, as you read just here? And you, if you do, don't be ashamed to own it. It is your generosity, my love, that's all. But as the Roman auger said, Caesar, beware the ides of March. Adieu, my dearest friend, forgive and very speedily by the newfound expedient. Tell me that you forgive your ever affectionate Anna Howe. By Samuel Richardson At first reading it, I did not think it was necessary, said I to myself, to guard against a critic, when I was writing to so dear a friend. But then, recollecting myself, is there not more in it, said I, than the result of a vain so naturally lively? Surely I must have been guilty of an invertence. Let me enter into the close examination of myself, which my beloved friend advises. I do so, and cannot own of any of the glow, any of the throbs you mention. Upon my word I will repeat I cannot. And yet the passages in my letter, upon which you are so humorously severe, lay me fairly open to your agreeable railery. I own they do, and I cannot tell what turned my mind and taken to dictate so oddly to my pen. But pray now, is it saying so much when one, who was no very particular regard to any man, says there are some who are preferable to others? And is it blameable to say they are the preferable who are not well used by one's relations, yet dispense with that usage out of regard to oneself which they would otherwise resent? Mr. Lovelace, for instance, I may be allowed to say, is a man to be preferred to Mr. Soames. And that I do prefer him to that man. But surely this may be said without its being a necessary consequence that I must be in love with him. Indeed, I would not be in love with him, as it is called, for the world. First, because I have no opinion of his morals, and I think it in fault in which our whole family, my brother accepted, has had a share. But he was permitted to visit us with a hope which, however being distant, did not, as I have observed here too for, entitle any of us to call him to account for such of his immoralities as came to our ears. Next, because I think him to be a vain man, capable of triumphing, secretly at least, over a person whose heart he thinks he has engaged. And thirdly, because the acidities and veneration which impute to him seem to carry a haughtiness in them as if he thought his address had a merit in it. That would be more than equivalent to a woman's love. In short, his very politeness, notwithstanding the advantages he must have had from his birth and education, appear to be constrained. And, with the most remarkable, easy, agenteal person, something, at times, seems to be behind in his manner that is too studiously kept in. Then, good-humoured as he is thought to be in the main to other people's servants, and this even to familiarity, although, as you have observed, a familiarity that has dignity in it not unbecoming to a man of quality, he is apt, sometimes, to break out into a passion with his own. An oath or a curse follows, and such looks from those servants as painly show terror, and that they should have fared worse had they not been in my hearing. With a confirmation in the master's looks of a surmise too well justified. Indeed, my dear, this man is not THE man. I have great objections to him. My heart throbs not after him. I glow not, but with indignation against myself, for having given room for such an imputation. But you must not, my dearest friend, construe common gratitude into love. I cannot bear that you should. But ever I should have the misfortune to think it love. I promise you upon my word, which is the same as us upon my honour, that I will acquaint you with it. You bid me to tell you very speedily, and by the newfound expedient, that I am not displeased with you for your agreeable railery. I dispatch this, therefore, immediately, postpone into my next the account of the inducements which my friends have to promote with so much earnestness the address of Mr. Soames. Be satisfied, my dear, meantime, that I am not displeased with you. Indeed, I am not. On the contrary, I give you my hearty thanks for your friendly premonitions, and I charge you, as I have often done, that if you observe anything in me so very faulty as would require from you to others in my behalf the palatation of friendly and partial love, you acquaint me with it. For me thinks I would so conduct myself as not to give reason, even for an adversary to censure me. And how shall so weak and so younger creature avoid the censure of such, if my friend will not hold a looking glass before me to let me see my imperfections? Judge me then, my dear, as any indifferent person, know what you know of me, would do. I may be at first a little pained. May glow a little, perhaps, to be found less worthy of your friendship than I wish to be, but assure yourself that your kind correction will give me reflection that shall amend me. If it do not, you will have a fault to accuse me of, that will be utterly inexcusable. A fault, let me add, that should you not accuse me of it, if in your opinion I am guilty, you will not be so much, so warmly, my friend, as I am yours, since I have never spared you on the like occasions. Here I break off to begin another letter to you, with the assurance, meantime, that I am, and ever will be, your equally affectionate and grateful Clarissa Harlow, end of letter 11. Indeed, you would not be in love with him for the world, your servant, my dear, nor would I have you, for I think with all the advantages of person, fortune, and family he is not by any means worthy of you, and this opinion I give as well from the reasons you mention, which I cannot but confirm. As from what I have heard of him, but a few hours ago, from Mrs. Fortescue, a favourite of Lady Betty Lawrence, who knows him well, but let me congratulate you, however, on your being the first of your sex, whoever I heard of, who has been able to turn that lion love into her own pleasure into a lap dog. Well, but, if you have not the throbs and the glows, you have not, and are not in love. Good reason why? Because you would not be in love, and there's no more to be said. Only, my dear, I shall keep a good look out upon you, and so I hope you will, upon yourself, for there is no manner of argument that because you would not be in love, you therefore are not. But before I part entirely with this subject, a word in your ear, my charming friend. It is only by way of caution, an impersuance of the general observation that a standard by is often a better judge of a game than those at play. May it not be that you have had and have such cross-creatures and such odd-eds to deal with, as have not allowed you to attend to the throbs, or if you had them a little now and then, whether having had two accounts to place them to, you have not, by mistake, put them to the wrong one. But whether you have a value for lovelace or not, I know you'll be impatient to hear what Mrs. Fortacue has said of him, nor will I keep you longer in suspense. A hundred wild stories she tells of him from childhood to manhood, for, as she observed, having never been subject to contradiction, he was always as mischievous as a monkey. But Shia pass over these whole hundred of his pure-ow rogueries, though indicative ones, as I may say, to take notice as well of some things you are not quite ignorant of, as of others you know not, and to make a few observations upon him and his ways. Mrs. Fortacue owns, what everybody knows, that he is notoriously, nay avowedly a man of pleasure, yet says that in anything he sets his heart upon or undertakes, he is the most industrious and persevering mortal unto the sun. He rests, it seems, not above six hours in the twenty-four, any more than you. He delights in writing. Whether at Lord Ems or at Lady Betty's or Lady Sarah's, he has always a pen in his fingers when he retires. One of his companions, confirming his love of writing, has told her that his thoughts flow rapidly to his pen, and you and I, my dear, have observed, on more occasions than one, that though he writes an even a fine hand, he is one of the readiest and quickest of writers. He must indeed have had early a very docile genius, since a person of his pleasurable turn and active spirit could never have submitted to take long or great pains in attaining the qualifications he is master of, qualifications so seldom attained by youth of quality and fortune, by such especially of those either who, like him, have never known what is to be controlled. He had, once it seems, the vanity upon being complimented on these talents, and on his surprising diligence for a man of pleasure, to compare himself to Julius Caesar, who performed great actions by day and wrote them down at night, and valued himself that he only wanted Caesar's out-setting to make a figure among his contemporaries. He spoke of this, indeed, she says, with an air of pleasantry, for she observed, and so have we, that he is the art of acknowledging his vanity with so much humor that he sets him above the contempt which is due to vanity himself opinion, and at the same time half persuades those who hear him that he really deserves the exaltation he gives himself. But supposing it to be true that all his vacant nightly hours are employed in writing, what can be his subjects? If, like Caesar, his own actions, he must undoubtedly be a very enterprising and very wicked man, since nobody expects him to have a serious turn. And decent as he is in his conversation with us, his writings are not probably, such as would redound either to his own honor or to the benefit of others whether to be read. He must be conscious of this, since Mrs. Forticule says that in the great correspondence by letters which he holds he is as secret and as careful as if it were of a treasonable nature, yet troubles not his head with politics, though nobody knows the interests of princes and courts better than he is said to do. That you and I, my dear, should love to write is no wonder. We have always, from the time each could hold a pen, delighted in epistemally correspondencies. Our employments are domestic and sedentary, and we can scribble upon twenty innocent subjects and take delight in them because they are innocent, though where they to be seen they might not profit or please others. But that such a gay, lively young fellow as this, who rides, hunts, travels, frequents the public entertainments, and has means to pursue his pleasures, should be able to set himself to the ride for hours together, as you and I have heard him say he frequently does. That is a strange thing. Mrs. Fortacue says that he is a complete master of shorthand writing. By the way, what inducements could a swift writer as he have to learn shorthand? She says, and we know it, as well as she, that he is a surprising memory and a very lively imagination. Whatever his other vices are, all the world as well as Mrs. Fortacue says he is a sober man, and among all his bad qualities, gaming, that great waste of time as well as fortune, is not his vice. So that he must have his head as cool, and his reason as clear as the prime of youth, and his natural gaiety will permit, and by his early morning hours a great portion of time upon his hands to employ in writing, or worse. Mrs. Fortacue says he has one gentleman, his more is intimate and correspondent than any the rest. You remember what his dismiss bailiff said of him and his associates? I don't find, but that Mrs. Fortacue confirms this part of it. That all his relations are afraid of him, and that his pride sets him above owning obligations to them. She believes he is clear of the world, and that he will continue so. No doubt from the same motive that makes him avoid being obliged to his relations. A person willing to think favourably of him would hope that a brave, a learned and a diligent man could not be naturally a bad man, but if he'd be better than his enemies say he is, and if worse his bad is indeed, his guilty of inexcusable fault, in being so careless as he is of his reputation. I think a man can be so, but from one of these two reasons. Either that he is conscious he deserves the ill-spoken of him, or that he takes a pride in being thought worse than he is. Both very bad and threatening indications, since the first must show him to be utterly abandoned, and it is but natural to conclude from the other that what a man is not ashamed to have imputed to him he will not screw to be guilty of whenever he has an opportunity. Upon the hall, and upon all, I could gather from Mrs. Fortescue, Mr. Lovelace is a very faulty man. You and I have thought him too gay, too inconsiderate, too rash, too little hypocrite, to be deep. You see, he would never disguise his natural temper, haughty as it certainly is, with respect to your brother's behaviour to him. Where he think a contempt is due, he pays it to the uttermost. Nor has he complacence enough to spare your uncles. But where he deep and ever so deep you would soon penetrate him, if they would leave you to yourself. His vanity would be your clue. Never man had more. Yet, as Mrs. Fortescue observed, never did man carry it off so happily. There is a strange mixture in it of humorous vivacity, since, but for one half of what he says of himself when he is in the vein, any other man would be insufferable. Talk of the devil, as an old saying. The lively wretch has made me a visit, and his butt just gone away. His all impatience and resentment at the treatment you meet with, and full of apprehensions too, that they will carry their point with you. I told him, in my opinion, that you will never be brought to think of such a man as Somes, but that it will probably end in a composition never to have either. No man, he said, whose fortunes and alliances are so considerable, ever had so little favour from a woman for whose sake he had borne so much. I told him my mind as freely as I used to. But whoever was in fault, myself being judge. He complained of spies set upon his conduct, and to prient his life and morals, and this by your brother and uncles. I told him that this was very hard upon him, and the more so, as neither his life nor morals perhaps would stand a fair inquiry. He smiled, and called himself my servant. The occasion was too fair, he said, for Miss Howe, who never spared him to let it pass. But Lord help the shallow souls of the Harlow's. Would I believe it? They were for turning plotters upon him. They had best take care he did not pay them in their own coin. Their hearts were better turned for such works than their heads. I asked him if he valued himself upon having a head better turned than theirs for such works, as he called them. He drew off, and then ran into the highest professions of reverence and affection for you. The object so meritorious who can doubt the reality of his professions? Adieu, my dearest, my noble friend. I love and admire you for the generous conclusion of your last more than I can express, though I began this letter with impertinent railway, knowing that you always loved to indulge my mad vain. Yet never was there a heart that more globed with friendly love than that of your own Anna Howe. LibriVox.org Recording by Ben Dutton Lamperta Wales Letter 13 Miss Clarissa Harlow to Miss Howe Wednesday, March the 1st. I now take up my pen to lay before you the inducements and motive which my friends have to espouse so earnestly the address of this Mr. Soames. In order to set this matter in a clear light, it is necessary to go a little back, and even perhaps to mention some things which you are already know, and so you may look upon what I am going to relate as a kind of supplement to my letters of the fifteenth and twentieth of January last. In those letters, of which I have kept memorandums, I gave you an account of my brothers and sisters antipathy to Mr. Lovelace, and the methods they took, so far as they had come to know my knowledge, to ruin him in the opinion of my other friends, and I told you that after a very cold, yet not directly a front of behaviour to him, they all of a sudden became more violent and proceeded to personal insults, which brought on the last the unhappy encounter between my brother and him. Now you must know that from the last conversation that passed between my aunt and me, it comes out that this sudden vehemence on my brothers and sisters' parts was owing to stronger reasons than to the college begun antipathy on his side, or to the slighted love on hers, to wit, to an apprehension that my uncles intend to follow my grandfather's example in my favour, at least in a higher degree than they wish they should. An apprehension founded, it seems, on a conversation between my two uncles and my brother and sister, which my aunt communicated to me in confidence, as an argument to prevail upon me, to accept of Mr. Somes's noble sentiments, urging that such a seasonable compliance would frustrate my brother's and sister's views, and establish me forever in the love of my fathers and uncles. I will give you the substance of this communicated conversation, after I have made a brief introductory observation or two, which, however I hardly need to make to you, who are so well acquainted with us all, did not the series or thread of the story require it. I have more than once mentioned to you the darling view some of us have had of raising a family, as it is called, a reflection, as I have often thought, upon our own, which is no considerable or upstart one on either side, on my mother's especially. A view too frequently, it seems, entertained my family's which, having great substance, cannot be satisfied without rank or title. My uncles had once extended this view to each of us three children, urging that as they themselves intended not to marry, we each of us might be so portioned and so advantageously matched, as that our posterity, if not ourselves, might make a first figure in our country. While my brother, as the only son, thought the two girls might be very well provided for by ten or fifteen thousand pounds a piece, and that all the real estates in the family, to wit my grandfathers, fathers and two uncles, and the remainder of their respective personal estates, together with what he had an expectation of from his godmother, would make such a noble fortune, and give him such an interest as might entitle him to hope for a peerage. Nothing less would satisfy his ambition. With this view he gave himself heirs very early, that his grandfather and uncles were his stewards, that no man ever had better, that daughters were brought incumbrances and drawbacks upon a family. And this low and familiar expression was often in his mouth, and that it always, with the self-complacence which an imagined happy thought can be supposed to give to the speaker, to wit that a man who has sons brings up chickens for his own table. The once I made his comparison stagger with him by asking him if the sons, to make it hold, were to have their necks wrung off, whereas daughters or chickens bought up for the tables of other men. This accompanied with the equally polite reflection that to induce people to take them off their hands the family stock must be impaired into the bargain. Used to put my sister out of all patience, and although she now seems to think a younger sister only can be an incumbrance, she was then often proposing to me to make a party in our own favor against my brother's rapacious views, as she used to call them. While I was considering the liberties he took of this sort, as the effect of a temporary pleasantry, which any young man, not naturally good human, I was glad to see, or as a foible that deserved railery, but no other notice. But when my grandfather's will, of the purport of which in my particular favor until it was opened, I was as ignorant as they, had lopped off one branch of my brother's expectation, he was extremely dissatisfied with me. Nobody indeed was pleased, for although everyone loved me, yet being the youngest child, father, uncle, brother, sister, all thought themselves postponed, as to matter of right and power, and who loves not power, and my father himself could not bear that I should be made soul, as I may call it, an independent, for such the will as to the estate and the powers it give, and, unaccountably, as they all said, made me. To obviate, therefore, everyone's jealousy, I gave it to my father's management, as you know, not only the estate, but the money bequeathed me, which was a moiety of what my grandfather had by him at his death, the other moiety being bequeathed to my sister, contending myself to take as from his bounty what he was pleased to allow me, without desiring the least addition to my annual stipend. And then I hoped I had laid all envious sleep, but still my brother and sister, jealous, as now is evident, of my two uncle's favour of me, and of the pleasure I had given my father, and then by this act of duty, were every now and then occasionally doing me covert ill offices. Of which, however, I took the less notice, when I was told of them, as I thought I had removed the cause of their envy, and I imputed everything of that sort to the petulance they are both pretty much noted for. My brother's acquisition then took place. This made us all very happy, and he went down to take possession of it, and his absence, on so good an account too, made us happier still. Then followed Lord M's proposal for my sister, and this was an additional felicity for the time. I have told you how exceedingly good-humoured it made my sister. You know how that went off. You know what came on in its place. My brother then returned, and we were all wrong again. And Bella, as I observed in my letters above mentioned, had an opportunity to give herself the credit of having refused Mr. Lovelace on the score of his reputed faulty morals. This united my brother and sister in one cause. They set themselves, on all occasions, to depreciate Mr. Lovelace and his family too, a family which deserves nothing but respect. And this gave rise to the conversation I am leading to, between my uncles and them, of which I now come to give the particulars, after I have observed that it happened before the encounter, and soon after the inquiry made into Mr. Lovelace's affairs, had come out better than my brother and sister hoped it would. They were bitterly envying against him, in their usual way, strengthening their invectives with some new stories in his disfavour, when my uncle Anthony, having given them a patient hearing, declared that he thought the gentleman behaved like a gentleman, his disquery with prudence, and that a more honourable alliance for the family, as he had often told them, could not be wished for, since Mr. Lovelace had a very good paternal estate, and that, by the evidence of an enemy, all clear. Nor did it appear that he was so bad a man, as he had been represented to be. Wild indeed, but it was a gay time of life. He was a man of sense, and he was sure that his niece would not have him, if she had not good reason to think him reformed, or that there was a likelihood that she could not reform him by her example. My uncle then gave one instance, my aunt told me, as a proof of a generosity in Mr. Lovelace's spirit, which convinced him that he was not a bad man in nature, and that he was of a temper, he was pleased to say, like my own, which was that when he, my uncle, had represented to him, that he might, if he pleased, make three or four hundred pounds a year of his paternal estate, more than he did, he answered, that his tenants paid their rent well, that it was a maxim with his family, from which he would by no means depart, never to rack rent old tenants, or their descendants, and that it was a pleasure to him to see all his tenants look fat, sleek and contented. I indeed had once occasionally heard him say something like this, and thought he never looked so well as that at time, except once, and that was in an instance given by him on the following incident. An unhappy tenant of my uncle Anthony came petitioning to my uncle for forbearance in Mr. Lovelace's presence. When he had fruitlessly withdrawn, Mr. Lovelace pleaded his cause so well, that the man was called in again, and had his suit granted. And Mr. Lovelace privately followed him out, and gave him two guineas from present relief, the man having declared that at the time he had not five shillings in the world. On this occasion, he told my uncle, but without any airs of ostentation, that he had once observed an old tenant and his wife in a very mean habit at church. And questioning them about it the next day, as he knew they had no hard bargain in their farm, the man said he had done some very foolish things with a good intention, which had put him behind hand, and he could not have paid his rent and appear better. He asked him how long it would take him to retrieve the foolish step he acknowledged he had made. He said, perhaps two or three years. Well then, said he, I will abate you five pounds a year for seven years, provided you will lay it upon your wife and self, that you may make a Sunday appearance like my tenants. Meantime, take this, putting his hand in his pocket and giving him five guineas, to put yourselves in present plight. And let me see you next Sunday at church, hand in hand, like an honest and loving couple. And let me speak you to dine with me afterwards. Although this pleased me when I heard it, as given an instance of generosity and prudence at the same time, not lessening, as my uncle took notice, the yearly value of the farm, yet, my dear, I had no throbs, no glows upon it. Upon my word I had not. Nevertheless, I own to you, that I could not help saying to myself on the occasion, were it ever to be my lot to have this man, he would not hinder me from pursuing the methods I so much did like to take, with a pity that such a man were not uniformly good. Forgive me this digression. My uncle went on, as my aunt told me, that beside his paternal estate, he was the immediate heir to a very splendid fortunes. That when he was in treaty for his niece Arabella, Lord Am told him, my uncle, what great things he and his two half-sisters intended to do for him, in order to qualify him for the title which would be extinct at his lordship's death, and which they hoped to procure for him, or are still higher, that of those ladies' father, which had been for some time extinct on failure of heir's mail, that it was with this view that his relations were also earnest for his marrying, that as he saw not where Mr. Lovelace could better himself, so truly he thought there was wealth enough in their own family to build up three considerable ones. That therefore he must need say he was the more desirous of this alliance, as there was a great probability, not only from Mr. Lovelace's dissent, but from his fortunes, that his niece Clarissa might one day be a peeress of Great Britain. And upon that prospect, he was the mortifying stroke, he should, for his own part, think it not wrong to make such dispositions as should contribute to the better support of the dignity. My uncle Harlow, it seems, far from disapproving of what his brother has said, declared that there was but one objection to an alliance with Mr. Lovelace, to wit, his faulty morals, especially as so much could be done for Miss Beller, and for my brother too, by my father. And as my brother was actually possessed of a considerable estate by virtue of the deed of gift and will of his godmother Lovelace. Had I known this before, I should the less have wondered at many things I have been unable to account for in my brother's and sister's behaviour to me, and been more on my god than I imagined there was a necessity to be. You may easily guess how much this conversation affected my brother at the time. He could not, you know, but be very uneasy to hear two of his stewards talk at this rate to his face. He had, from early days, by his violent temper, made himself both feared and courted by the whole family. My father himself, as I have lately mentioned, very often, long before my brother's acquisition, had made him still more assuming, gave way to him as to an only son who was there to build up the name, and augment the honour of it. Little inducement, therefore, had my brother to correct a temper which gave him so much consideration with everybody. She, Sister Beller, said he, in an indecent passion before my uncles on this occasion I have mentioned, see how it is. You and I ought to look about us. This little siren is in a fair way to outuncle, as she already has out-grandfathered as both. From this time, as I have found it plain upon recollection, did my brother and Sister behave to me as to one who stood in their way, and to each other as having but one interest, and were resolved, therefore, to bend all their force to hinder an alliance from taking effect, which they believed was likely to oblige them to contract their views. And how was this to be done, after such a declaration from both my uncles? My brother found out the way. My sister, as I have said, went hand in hand with him. Between them the family union was broke, and everyone was made uneasy. Mr. Lovelace was received more and more coldly by all, but not being to be put out of his course by slights only. Personal affronts succeeded. Defiance is next. Then the encounter that, as you have heard, did the business. And now, if I do not oblige them, my grandfather's estate is to be litigated with me. And I, who never designed to take advantage of the independence he bequeathed me, am to be as dependent upon my father's will as a daughter ought to be who knows not what it is good for herself. This is the language of the family now. But if I will suffer myself to be prevailed upon, how happy, as they lay it out, shall we be? Such presence I am to have, such jewels, and I cannot tell what from everyone in the family. Then Mr. Somes' fortunes are so great, and his proposal so very advantageous, no relation whom he values, that there will be abundant room to raise mine upon them, with the high intended favours of my own relations to be quite out of the question. Moreover, it is now, with this view, found out, that I have qualifications which of themselves will be a full equivalent to Mr. Somes for the settlements he is to make, and still leave him under an obligation to me for my compliance. He himself thinks so, I am told. So very poor a creature is he, even in his own eyes, as well as in theirs. These desirable views answered, how rich, how splendid shall we all three be? And I. What obligation shall I lay upon them all? And that only by doing an act of duty so suitable to my character and manner of thinking, if indeed I am the generous as well as dutiful creature I have hitherto made them believe I am. This is the bright side that is turned to my father and uncle, to captivate them. But I am afraid that my brothers and sisters' design is to ruin me with them at any rate. Were it otherwise, would they not, on return from you, have rather sought to court than frighten me into measures which their hearts are so much bent to carry? A method they have followed ever since. Meantime, orders are given to all the servants to show the highest respect to Mr. Somes. The generous Mr. Somes is now his character with some of our family. But are not these orders a tacit confession, that they think his own merit will not procure him respect? He is accordingly, in every visit he makes, not only highly caressed by the principles of our family, but obsequiously attended and cringed to by the menials. And the noble sentiments are echoed from every mouth. Noble is the word used to enforce the offers of a man who is mean enough avowedly to hate and wicked enough to propose to rob of their just expectations his own family, every one of which, at the same time, stands in too much need of his favour in order to settle all he is worth upon me. And if I die without children, and he has none by any other marriage, upon a family which already abounds, such are his proposals. But were there no other motive to induce me to despise the upstart man, is not this unjust one to his family enough? The upstart man, I repeat. For he was not born to the immense riches he is now possessed of, riches left by one niggard to another in injury to the next heir, because that other is a niggard. And should I not be as culpable, do you think, in my acceptance of such unjust settlements, as he is in the offer of them, if I could persuade myself to be a sharer in them? Or suffer a risery expectation of possessing them to influence my choice? Indeed, it concerns me not a little, that my friends could be bought to encourage such offers on such motives, as I think of a person of conscience should not presume to begin the world with. But this, it seems, is the only method that can be taken, this is a point, Mr. Lovelace. And at the same time to answer all my relations have wish for each of us. And surely I will not stand against such an accession to the family as may happen from marrying Mr. Soames, since now a possibility is discovered, which, such a grasping mind as my brothers can easily turn into a probability, that my grandfather's estate will revert to it with a more considerable one of the man's own. Instances of estates falling in, in cases far more unlikely than this, are insisted upon. And my sister says, in the world of an old sore, it is good to be related to an estate. While Soames, smiling no doubt to himself at a hope so remote, by offers only, obtains all their interests, and doubts not to join to his own estate, I am envied for, which, for the conveniency of its situation between two of his, will it seems to be of twice the value to him than it would be of to any other person, and is therefore, I doubt not, a stronger motive with him than the wife. Those, my dear, seem to me to be the principal inducements of my relations to his spouse so vehemently as they do this man's suit. And here, once more, must I deplore the family fault, which gives those inducements such a force as it will be difficult to resist. And thus far, let matters with regard to Mr. Soames and me come out as they will. My brother has succeeded in his views. That is to say, he has, in the first place, got my father to make the cause his own, and to assist upon my compliance as an act of duty. My mother has never thought fit to oppose my father's will, when once he has declared himself determined. My uncles, stiff, unbroken, highly prosperous bachelors, give me leave to say, though very worthy persons in the main, have as a high notions of a child's duty as of a wife's obedience, in the last of which my mother's meekness has confirmed them and given them greater reason to expect the first. My Aunt Harvey, not extremely happy in her own dupturals, and perhaps under some little obligation, is got over, and chooses not to open her lips in my favour against the wills of her father and uncles so determined. This passiveness in my mother and in my aunt, in a point so contrary to their own first judgments, is too strong a proof that my father is absolutely resolved. Their treatment of my worthy Mrs. Norton is a sad confirmation of it, a woman deserving of all consideration for her wisdom and everybody thinking so, but who, not being wealthy enough to have due weight in a point against which she is given her opinion, and which they seem to be bent upon carrying, is restrained from visiting here, and even from corresponding with me, as I am this very day informed. Hatred to lovelace, family and grandisement, and this great motive paternal authority, what a force united must they be supposed to have when singly each consideration is sufficient to carry all before it. This is the formidable appearance which the address of this disagreeable man wears at present. My brother and my sister triumph, they have got me down, as Hannah overheard them exalt, and so they have, yet I never knew that I was so inshulently up. For now my brother will either lay me under an obligation to comply to my own unhappiness, and so make me an instrument of his revenge upon lovelace, or, if I refuse, will throw me into disgrace with my whole family. Who will wonder at the intrigues and plots carried on by undermining courtiers against one another, when a private family, but three of which can possibly have clashing interests, and one of them, as she presumes to think, above such low motives, cannot be free from them? What at present most concerns me is the peace of my mother's mind. How can the husband of such a wife, a good man too, but owe this prerogative of manhood, be so positive, so unpersuadable to one who is bought into the family means, which they know so well the value of, that me thinks they should value her the more for their sake? They do indeed value her. But I am sorry to say she has purchased that value by her compliances, yet has merit for which she ought to be venerated, prudence which ought of itself to be conformed to in every thing. But wither, rose my pen, how dare a perverse girl take these liberties with relations so very respectable, and whom she highly respects? What an unhappy situation is that which obliges her, in her own defences it were, to expose their failings. But you, who know how much I love and reverence my mother, will judge what a difficulty I am under, to be obliged to oppose a scheme which she has engaged in. Yet I must oppose it. To comply is impossible, and must without delay declare my opposition, all my difficulties will increase, since, as I am now just informed, a lawyer has been this very day consulted. Would you have believed it, in relation to settlements? Where are the Roman Catholic family? How much happier for me that they thought a nunnery would answer all their views? How happy had not a certain person slighted somebody? All then would have been probably concluded between them before my brother had arrived to thwart the match. Then had I a sister, which now I have not, and two brothers, both aspiring, possibly both titled, while I should only have valued that in either which is above title, that which is truly noble in both. But by what long-reaching selfishness is my brother governed, by what remote, exceedingly remote views, views which it is in the power of the slightest accident, of a fever, for instance, the seeds of which are always vegetating, as I may say, and ready to burst forth in his own impetuous temper, or of the provoked weapon of an adversary to blow up and destroy. I will break off here. Let me write ever so freely of my friends, I am sure of your kind construction, and I can find in your discretion that you will avoid reading to, or transcribing for others such passages as may have the appearance of treating too freely the parental, or even the fraternal character, or induce others to censure for a supposed failure in duty to the one, or decency to the other. You're truly a affectionate Clarissa Harlow. End of Letter 13. Letter 14 of Clarissa This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ben Dutton, Lampeter, Wales. Letter 14. Miss Clarissa Harlow to Miss Howe. Thursday evening, March the 2nd. On Hannah's depositing of my long letter, begun yesterday, but by reason of several interruptions not finished till within this hour, she found and bought me yours of this day. I thank you, my dear, for this kind expedition. These few lines will perhaps be time enough, deposited, to be taken away by your servant with the other letter. Yet they are only to thank you, and to tell you my increasing apprehensions. I must take, or seek, the occasion to apply to my mother for her meditation. For I am in danger of having a day fixed, and antipathy taken for bashfulness, should not sisters be sisters to each other. Should not they make a common cause of it, as I may say, a cause of sex, on such occasions as the present. Yet, to mine, in support of my brother's selfishness, and no doubt in concert with him, has been urging in full assembly, it seems, and that with an earnestness peculiar to herself when she sets upon a thing, that an absolute day be given me, and if I comply not, to be told, that it shall be to the forfeiture of all my fortunes, and of all their love. She need not be so officious. My brother's interest, without hers, is strong enough. For he has found means to confider it all the family against me. Upon some fresh propagation, or new intelligence concerning Mr. Lovelace, I know not what it is. They have bound themselves, or ought to bind themselves, by a signed paper to one another. The Lord bless me, my dear, what shall I do? To carry their point in favour of Mr. Soames, in support of my father's authority, as it is called, and against Mr. Lovelace, as a libertine, and an enemy to the family. And if so, I am sure, I may say against me. How impotelic of them all, to join two people in one interest, whom they wish forever to keep asunder. What the discharged steward reported of him is surely bad enough. What Mrs. Fortescue said, not only confirms that bad, but gives room to think him still worse. And yet there's something further which my friends have come at, is of so heinous in nature, as Betty Barnes tells Hannah, that it proves him almost to be the worst of men. But hang the man, I had almost said. What is he to me? What would he be, were not this Mr. S— Oh my dear, how I hate the man in the light he has proposed to me. All of them, at the same time, are afraid of Mr. Lovelace, yet not afraid to provoke him. How am I entangled, to be obliged to go on corresponding with him for their sakes? Heaven forbid that their persisted in violence such so drive me, as to make it necessary for my own. But surely they will yield. Indeed, I cannot. I believe the gentlest spirits were provoked, causelessly and cruelly provoked, are the most determined. The reason may be, they're not taking up resolutions lightly, their very deliberation makes them the more immovable. And then when a point is clear and self-evident, how can one with patience think of entering into an argument or contention upon it? An interruption obliges me to conclude myself in some hurry, as well as fright what I must ever be, yours more than my own, Clarissa Harlow. End of Letter 14. Letter 15. Miss Howe to Miss Clarissa Harlow, Friday, March the 3rd. I have both your letters at once. It is very unhappy, my dear, since your friends will have you marry, that a person of your merit should be addressed by succession of worthless creatures who have nothing but their presumption for their excuse. That these presumers appear not in this very unworthly light to some of your friends is because their defects are not so striking to them as to others. And why? Shall I venture to tell you? Because they're nearer to their own standard, modesty after all, perhaps there is a concern in it, for how should they think that a niece or sister of theirs, I will not go higher for fear of incurring your displeasure, should be an angel. But where indeed is the man to be found, who has the least share of due diffidence, that dares look up to Miss Clarissa Harlow with hope or with anything but wishes. Thus the bold and forward, not being sensible of their defects, aspire, while the modesty of the really worthy fills them with too much reverence to put them to explain themselves, hence your sims, your byrons, your mullenges, your wiries, the best of the herd, and your someses, in turn invade you. Wretches, that looking upon the rest of your family, need not despair of succeeding in an alliance with it, but to you, what an inexcusable presumption. Yet I am afraid all opposition will be in vain. You must, you will, I doubt, be sacrificed to this odious man, I know your family. There will be no resisting such bates as he has thrown out. Oh, my dear, my beloved friend, and are such charming qualities, is such exalted merit, to be sunk in such a marriage? You must not, your uncle tells your mother, dispute their authority. Authority? What a full word that is in the mouth of a narrow-minded person who happened to be born thirty years before one, of your uncle's, I speak, for as the paternal authority, that ought to be sacred, but should not parents have reason for what they do? Wondre not, however, at your bell's unsistily behaviour in this affair? I have a particular to add to the inducements your insolent brother is governed by, which will account for all her driving. You have already owned that her outward eye was on the first struck with a figure, and the dress of the man whom she pretends to despise, and who, to a certain, thoroughly despises her. But you have not told me, that still she loves him of all men. Bell has a meanness in her very pride, that meanness rises with her pride, and goes hand in hand with it, and no one is so proud as Bell. She has owned her love, her uneasy days, and sleepless nights, and her revenge grafted upon her love to her favourite betty barns. To lay herself in a power of her servant's tongue, poor creature. But like little souls will find one another out, and mingle, as well as like great ones. This, however, she told the wench in strict confidence, thus by where the female roundabout is loveless, has the sourceness on such another occasion to ridicule our sex, to call it betty, pleased to be thought worthy of a secret, and to have an opportunity of invading against lovelace's perfidity, as she would have it to be. Told it to one of her confidants, that confidant, with like injunctions of secrecy, to Miss Lloyd's Harriet, Harriet to Miss Lloyd, Miss Lloyd to me, I to you. With leave to make of what you please of it. And now you will not wonder to find Miss Bell an implacable rival, rather than an affectionate sister, and will be able to account for the words witchcraft, siren, and such like thrown out against you, and for her driving on for a fixed day for sacrificing you to soams, in short, for her rudeness and violence of every kind. What a sweet revenge will she take as well upon lovelace as upon you, if she can procure her rival sister to be married to the man that that sister hates, and so prevent her having the man who she herself loves, whether she have hope of him or not, and whom she suspects her sister loves. Poisons and poignards have often been set to work by minds inflamed by disappointed love, and actuated by revenge. Will you wonder, then, that the ties of relationship in such a case have no force, and that the sister forgets to be a sister? Now I know this to be her secret motive, the more grating to her, as her pride is concerned to make her disavow it, and can consider it joined with a former envy, and as strengthened by a brother, who has such an ascendant of the whole family, and whose interest, slave to it as he always was, engaged him to ruin you with everyone, both possessed of the ears of all your family, and having it as much in their power as in their will to misrepresent all you say, all you do. Such subject also as the recounter, and lovelace's want of morals to expiation, your whole family likewise avowedly attached the odious man by means of the captivating proposals he has made them. When I consider all these things, I am full of apprehensions for you. Oh, my dear, how will you be able to maintain your ground? I am sure, alas, I am too sure, that they will subdue such a fine spirit as yours unused to opposition, and tell it not engath you must be Mrs. Soames. Meantime it is now easy, as you will observe, to guess from what quarter the report I mentioned to you in one of my former came, that the younger sister has robbed the elder of her lover, for Betty whispered it at the same time she whispered the rest, that neither lovelace nor you had done honourably by their young mistress. How cruel, my dear, in you to rob the poor beller of the only lover she only had! And at the instant, too, that she is priding herself that now, at last, she should have it in her power, not only to gratify her own susceptibilities, but to give an example to the flirts of her sex, my worship self in her eye, how to govern their man with a silken reign, and without a curb bridle. Upon the hall I have now no doubt of their persevering in favour of the despicable Soames, and of their dependence upon the gentleness of your temper, and the regard you have for their favour, and for your own reputation. And now I am more than ever convinced of the propriety of the advice I formally gave you, to keep in your own hands the estate bequeathed to you by your grandfather. Had you done so, it would have procured you at least an outward respect from your brother and sister, which would have made them conceal the envy and ill-will that now are bursting upon you from heart so narrow. I must harp a little more upon this string. Do you not observe how much your brother's influence has overtopped yours, since you have got into fortune so considerable, and since you have given some of them an appetite to continue in themselves the possession of your estate, unless you comply with their terms? I know you're dutiful, your laudable motives, and one would have thought that you might have trusted to a father who so dearly loved you. But had you been actually in possession of that estate, and living up to it and upon it, your youth protected from brighting tongues by the company of your prudent norton as you had proposed, do you think that your brother, grudging it to you at the time as he did, and look upon it as his right as an only son, would have been practicing upon it and aiming at it? I told you some time ago that I thought your trials but proportioned to your prudence. But you will be more than woman if you can extricate yourselves with honour, having such violent spirits and sordid minds in some, and such tyrannical and despotic wills in others to deal with. Indeed, all may be done, and the world be taught further to admire you for your blind duty and will-ness resignation if you can persuade yourself to be Mrs. Soames. I am pleased with the instances you give me of Mr. Lovelace's benevolence to his own tenants, and was little gift to your uncles. Mrs. Fortescue allows him to be the best of landlords. I might have told you that, had I thought it necessary, to put you into some little conceit of him. Here's qualities, in short, that may make him a tolerable creature on the other side of fifty. But God help the poor woman to whose lot he shall fall till then. Women, I should say, perhaps, since he may break half a dozen hearts before that time. But to the point I was upon, shall we not have reason to commend the tenants' grateful honesty, if we are told that with joy the poor man called out your uncle, and on the spot paid him in part of his debt those two guineas. But what shall we say of that landlord, who, though he knew the poor man to be quite destitute, could take it, and, saying nothing, while Mr. Lovelace stayed as soon as he was gone, tell of it in praise of the poor fellow's honesty. Were this so, and were it not that that landlord related to my dearest friend, how should I despise such a wretch? But perhaps the story is aggravated. Covertous peoples have everyone's ill word, and so indeed they ought, because they're only solicitous to keep that which they prefer to everyone's good one. Covertous indeed would they be who deserved neither, yet expected both. I long for your next letter. Continue to be as particular as possible. I can think of no other subject but what relates to you and to your affairs, for I am, and will ever be, most affectionately, your own Anna Howe.