 letter 28 of Clarissa volume 1 this is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Clarissa Harlow or the history of a young lady volume 1 by Samuel Richardson letter 28 miss Clarissa Harlow to miss how Friday March the 10th you will permit me my dear to touch upon a few passages in your last letter that affect me sensibly in the first place you must allow me to say low as I am in spirits that I am very angry with you for your reflections on my relations particularly on my father and mother and on the memory of my grandfather nor my dear does your own mother always escape the keen edge of your vivacity one cannot once self-forbear to write or speak freely of those we love and honor when grief from imagined hard treatment rings the heart but it goes against want to hear anybody else take the same liberties then you have so very strong a manner of expression where you take a distaste that when passion has subdued and I come upon reflection to see by your severity what I have given occasion for I cannot help condemning myself but least of all can I bear that you should reflect upon my mother what my dear if her meekness should not be rewarded is the want of reward or the want even of a grateful acknowledgement a reason for us to dispense with what we think our duty they were my father's lively spirits that first made him an interest in her gentle bosom they were the same spirits turned inward as I have here to fore observed that made him so impatient when the cruel malady seized him he always loved my mother and would not love and pity excusably they laudably make a good wife who was an hourly witness of his pangs when laboring under a paroxysms and his paroxysms becoming more and more frequent as well as more and more severe give up her own will her own likings to oblige a husband thus afflicted whose love for her was unquestionable and if so was it not too natural human nature is not perfect my dear that the husband of us humored by the wife should be unable to bear control from anybody else much less contradiction from his children if you then would avoid my highest displeasure you must spare my mother and surely you will allow me with her to pity as well as to love and honor my father I have no friend but you to whom I can appeal to whom I dare complain unhappily circumstances I am it is but too probable that I shall complain because it is but too probably that I shall have more and more cause given me for complaint but be it your part if I do to soothe my angry passions and to soften my resentments and this the rather as you know what an influence your advice has upon me and as you must also know that the freedoms you take with my friends can have no other tendency but to weaken the sense of my duty to them without answering any good end to myself I cannot help owing however that I am pleased to have you join with me in opinion of the contempt which Mr. Soames deserves from me but yet permit me to say that he is not quite so horrible a creature as you make him as to his person I mean for with regard to his mind by all I have heard you have done him but justice but you have such a talent at an ugly likeness and such a vivacity that they sometimes carry you out of a misitude in short my dear I have known you in more instances than one sit down resolved to write up all that wit rather than strict justice could suggest upon the given occasion perhaps it may be thought that I should say the less on this particular subject because your dislike of him arises from love to me but should it not be our aim to judge of ourselves and of everything that affects us as we may reasonably imagine other people would judge of us and of our actions as to the advice you give to resume my estate I am determined not to litigate with my father let what will be the consequence to myself I may give you at another time a more particular answer to your reasonings on this subject but at present will only observe that it is my opinion that love lace himself would hardly think me worth addressing were he to know this would be my resolution these men my dear with all their flatteries look forward to the permanent indeed it is fit they should for love must be a very foolish thing to look back upon when it has bought persons born to affluence into indignation and laid a generous mind under obligation and dependence you very ingeniously account for the love we bear to one another from the difference in our tempers I own I should not have thought of that there may possibly be something in it but whether there be or not whenever I am cool and give myself time to reflect I will love you the better for the correction you give be as severe as you will upon me spare me not therefore my dear friend whenever you think me in the least faulty I love your agreeable railery you know I always did nor however over serious you think me did I ever think you flippant as you harshly call it one of the first conditions of our mutual friendship was each should say or write to the other whatever was upon her mind without any offense to be taken a condition that is indeed indispensable in friendship I knew your mother would be for implicit obedience in a child I'm sorry my case is so circumstances that I cannot comply it would be my duty to do so if I could you are indeed a very happy that you have nothing but your own agreeable yet whimsical humours to contend with in the choices she invites you to make of Mr. Hickman how happy I should be to be treated with so much lenity I should blush to have my mother say that she begged and prayed me and all in vain to encourage a man so an exceptional as Mr. Hickman indeed my beloved Miss Howe I am ashamed to have your mother say with me in her view what strange effects have prop prepossession and love upon young creatures of our sex this touches me the more sensibly because you yourself my dear are so ready to persuade me into it I should be very blameable to endeavor to hide any the least bias upon my mind from you and I cannot but say that this man this love lace is a man that might be liked well enough if he bore such a character as Mr. Hickman bears and even if there were hopes of reclaiming him and further still I will acknowledge that I believe it is possible that one might be driven by violent measures step-by-step as it were into something that might be called I don't know what to call it a conditional kind of liking or so but as to the word love justifiable and charming as it is in some cases that is to say in all the relative in all the social and what is still beyond both in our superior duties in which it may be probably called divine it has me thinks in the narrow circumscribed selfish peculiar sense in which you apply to me the man too so little to be approved off for his morals if all that report says of him to be true no pretty sound with it treat me as freely as you will in other respects I will love you as I have said the better for your friendly freedom but me thinks I could be glad that you would not let this imputation pass so glibly from your pen or your lips as attributable to one of your own sex whether I be the person or not since the other must have a double triumph when a person of your delicacy armed with such contempt of them all as you would have one think can give up a friend with an exaltation over her weakness as a silly love strict creature I could make some other observations upon the contents of your last two letters but my mind is not free enough at present the occasion for the above stuck with me and I could not help taking the earliest notice of them having written to the end of my second sheet I will close this letter and in my next acquaint you with all that has happened here since my last end of letter 28 recording by Ben Dutton lamp at a Wales letter 29 of Clarissa volume one this is a Libra Fox recording all Libra Fox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Libra Fox dot org Clarissa Harlow or the history of a young lady volume one by Samuel Richardson letter 29 miss Clarissa Harlow to miss how Saturday March the 11th I have had such taunting messages and such repeated avowls of ill offices bought me from my brother and sister if I do not comply with their wills delivered to with provoking sourciness by Betty Barnes that I have thought it proper before I entered upon my intended address to my uncle's in pursuance of the hint given me in my mother's letter to expostulate a little with them but I have done it in such a manner as will give you if you please to take it as you have done some parts of my former letters great advantage over me in short you will have more cause than ever to declare me far gone in love if my reasons for the change of my style in these letters with regard to Mr. Lovelace does not engage your more favorable opinion for I have thought proper to give them their own way and since they will have it that I have a preferable regard for Mr. Lovelace I give them cause rather to confirm their opinion than doubt it these are my reasons in brief for the alteration of my style in the first place they have grounded their principle argument for my compliance with their will upon my acknowledgement that my heart is free and so supposing I give up no preferable person my opposition has the look of downright obstinacy in their eyes and they argue that at worst my aversion to soams is an aversion that may easily be surmounted and ought to be surmounted in duty to my father and for the promotion of family views next although they build upon this argument in order to silence me they seem not to believe me but treat me as disgracefully as if I were in love with one of my father's footmen so that my conditional willingness to give up Mr. Lovelace has procured me no favor in the next place I cannot but think that my brother's antipathy to Mr. Lovelace is far from being well grounded the man's inordinate passion for the sex is the crime that is always rung in my ears and a very great one it is but does my brother recriminate upon him thus in love to me no his whole behavior shows me that this is not his principal motive and that he thinks me rather in his way than otherwise it is then the call of justice as I may say to speak a little in favor of a man who although provoked by my brother did not him do all the mischief he could have done to him and which my brother had endeavored it to do him it might not be a miss therefore I thought to alarm them a little with apprehension that the methods they are taking with me are the very reverse of those they should take to answer the end they designed by them and after all what is the compliment I make Mr. Lovelace if I allow it to be thought that I do really prefer him to such a man as him they terrify me with then my miss how concluded I accuses me of a tameness which subject me to insults from my brother I will keep that dear friend in my eye and for all these considerations try what a little of a spirit will do sit it ever so awkwardly upon me in this way of thinking I wrote to my brother and sister this is my letter to him treated as I am and in great measure if not wholly by your instigations brother you permit me to expostulate with you upon the occasion it is not my intention to displease you in what I am going to write and yet I must deal freely with you the occasion calls for it and permit me in the first place to remind you that I am your sister and not your servant and that therefore the bitter revilings and passionate language bought me from you upon the occasion in which you have no reason to prescribe to me are neither worthy of my character to bear nor of yours to offer put the case that I were to marry the man you dislike and that he were not to make a polite or tender husband is that a reason for you to be an unpolite and disablaging brother why must you sir anticipate my misfortunes were such a case to happen let me tell you plainly that the man who could treat me as a wife worse than you have late have treated me as a sister must be a barbarous man indeed ask yourself I pray you sir if you would thus have treated your sister Bella had she thought fit to receive the addresses of the man so much hated by you if not let me caution you my brother not to take your measures by what you think will be born but rather by what ought to be offered how would you take it if you had a brother who in a like case were to act by you as you do by me you cannot but remember what a laconic answer you gave even to my father who recommended to you miss Nellie doily you did not like her were your words and that was thought sufficient you must needs think that I cannot but know to whom to attribute my disgraces when I recollect my father's indulgence to me permit me to decline several offers and to whom that common causes endeavour to be made in favour of a man whose person and manners are more exceptional than those of any of the gentlemen I have been permitted to refuse I offer not to compare the two men together nor is there indeed the least comparison to be made between them all the difference to the one's advantage if I did is but one point of the greatest importance indeed but to whom of most importance to myself surely where I to encourage his application of the least to you nevertheless if you do not by your strange politics unite that man and me as joint sufferers in one cause you find me as much resolved to renounce him as I am to refuse the other I have made an overture to this purpose I hope you will not give me reason to confirm my apprehensions that it will be owing to you if it be not accepted it is a sad thing to have to say it without being conscious of ever having given you cause of offense that I have in you a brother but not a friend perhaps you will not condescend to enter into the reasons of your late and present conduct with a foolish sister but if politeness if civility be not due to that character and to my sex justice is let me take the liberty further to observe that the principal end of a young man's education at the university is to learn him to reason justly and to subdue the violence of his passions I hope brother that you will not give room for anybody who knows us both to conclude that the toilet has taught the one more of the latter doctrine than the university has taught the other I am truly sorry to have caused to say that I have heard it often remarked that your uncontrolled passions are not a credit to your liberal education I hope sir that you will excuse the freedom I have taken with you you have given me too much reason for it and you have taken much greater with me without reason so if you are offended ought to look at the cause and not at the effect then examine yourself that will cause this will cease and there will not be anywhere a more accomplished gentleman than my brother sisterly affection I do assure you sir unkindly as you have been used me and not the pertness of which of late you have been so apt to impute to me is my motive in this hint let me invoke your returning kindness my only brother and give me cause I beseech you to call you my compassionate ing friend for I am and ever will be your affection at sister Clarissa Harlow this is my brother's answer to miss Clarissa Harlow I know there will be no end of your impertinent scribble if I don't write to you I write therefore but without entering into argument with such a conceited and pert preacher and questioner it is to forbid you to plague me with your quaint nonsense I know not what wit a woman is good for but to make her overvalue herself and despise every other person yours miss pert has set you above your duty and above being taught or prescribed to either by parents or anybody else but go on miss your mortification will be the greater that's all child it shall I assure you if I can make it so so long as you prefer that villainous lovelace who is justly hated by all your family to everybody we see by your letter now what we too justly suspected before most evidently we see the hold he has got of your forward heart but the stronger the hold the greater must be the force and you shall have enough of that to tear such a miscreant from it in me not withstanding your saucy lecturing and your saucy reflections before you are sure of a friend as well of a brother if it be not your own fault but if you will still think of such a wretch as that lovelace never expect either friend or brother in James Harlow I will now give you a copy of my letter to my sister with her answer in what my dear sister have I offended you that instead of endeavoring to soften my father's anger against me as I am sure I should have done for you had my unhappy case been yours you should in so hard-hearted a manner join to aggravate not only his displeasure but my mother's against me make but my own case your own my dear Bella and suppose you were commanded to marry Mr. Lovelace to whom you are believed to have such an antipathy you would not think it a very grievous injunction yet cannot your dislike to Mr. Lovelace be greater than mine is to Mr. Sounds nor a love and hatred voluntary passions my brother may perhaps think it is a proof of a manly spirit to show himself an utter stranger to the gentle passions we have both heard him boast that he is never with loved with distinctions and having predominating passions checked in the first attempt perhaps he never will it is the less wonder then raw from the college so lately himself the tutor that he should set up for himself a tutor a proscriber to a gentler sex whose tastes and manners are differently formed for what according to his count are colleges but classes of tyrants from the upper students over the lower and from them to the tutor the team with such masculine passions should endeavor to control and bear down an unhappy sister in a case where his antipathy and give me leave to say his ambition once you would have allowed the letter to be his fault can be gratified by so doing may not be quite so much to be wondered at but that a sister should give up the cause of a sister and join with him to set her father and mother against her in a case that might have been her own indeed my bella this is not pretty in you there was a time that mr lovelace was thought reclaimable and when it was far from being deemed a censurable view to hope to bring him back to the paths of virtue and honor a man of his sense and understanding i am far from wishing to make the experiment but nevertheless will say that if i have not a regard for him the disgraceful methods taken to compel me to receive the addresses of such a man as mr soames are enough to induce it do you say my dear sister for one moment lay aside all prejudice and compare the two men in their births their educations their persons their understandings their manners their air and their whole deportments and in their fortunes too taking in reversions and then judge of both yet as i have frequently offered i will live single with all my heart if that will do i cannot thus live in displeasure and disgrace i would if i could oblige all my friends but will it be just will it be honest to marry a man i cannot endure if i have not been used to oppose the will of my father but have always delighted to oblige in a bay judge of the strength of my antipathy by the painful opposition i am obliged to make and cannot help it pity then my dearest bella my sister my friend my companion my advisor as you used to be when i was happy and plead for your ever-affectionate clarissa harlow to miss clary harlow let it be pretty or not pretty in your wise opinion i shall speak my mind i will assure you both of your and our conduct in relation to this detested lovelace you are a fond foolish girl with all your wisdom your letter shows that enough in 20 places and as to your can't of living single nobody will believe you this is one of your fetches to avoid complying with your duty and the will of the most indulgent parents in the world as yours have been to you i am sure though now they see themselves finally required for it we all indeed once thought your temper soft and amiable but why was it you were never contradicted before you had always your own way but no sooner do you meet with opposition in your wishes to throw yourself away upon a vile rake but you show what you are you cannot love mr. somes that's the pretense but sister sister let me tell you that is because lovelace has got into your fond heart a wretch hated justly hated by us all and who has dipped his hands in the blood of your brothers yet him you would make our relation with you i have no patience with you but for putting the case of my liking such a vile wretch as him as to the encouragement you pretend he received formally from all our family it was before we knew him to be so vile and the proofs that had such force upon us ought to have had some upon you and would had you not been a foolish forward girl as on this occasion everybody sees you are oh how you run out of favor of the wretch his birth his education his person his understanding his manners his air his fortune reversions to taking in augment the surfacing catalog what a fond string of lovesick praises is here and yet you would live single yes i warrant when so many imaginary perfections dance before your dazzled eyes but no more i only desire that you will not while you seem to have such an opinion of your wit think everyone else a fool and that you cannot pleasure by your whining flourishes make us dance after your lead right as often as you will this shall be the last answer on notice you shall have upon this subject from arabella harlow i had in readiness a letter for each of my uncles and meeting in the garden a servant of my uncle harlow i gave him to deliver according to their respective directions if i am to form a judgment by the answers i have received from my brother and sister as above i must not i doubt expect any good from those letters but when i have tried every expedient i shall have the less to blame myself for if anything unhappy should fall out i will send you copies of both when i see what notices they will be thought worthy of if of any end of letter 29 recording by ben dutton lampeter wales letter 30 of clarissa volume one this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org clarissa harlow or the history of a young lady volume one by samuel richardson letter 30 miss clarissa harlow to miss how sunday night march the 12th this man this love lace gives me great uneasiness he is extremely bold and rash he was this afternoon at our church in hopes to see me i suppose and yet if he had such hopes his usual intelligence must have failed him shory was at church and a principal part of her observation was upon his haughty and proud behavior when he turned around in the pew where he sat to our family pew my father and both my uncles were there so were my mother and sister my brother happily was not they all came home in disorder nor did the congregation mind anybody but him it being his first appearance there since the unhappy ring counter what did the man come for if he intended to look challenge and defiance as shory says he did and as others it seems thought he did as well as she did he come for my sake and by behaving in such a manner to those present of my family imagine he was doing me either service or pleasure he knows how they hate him nor will he take pains would pains do to obviate of their hatred you and i my dear have often taken notice of his pride and you have rallied upon him for it and instead of exculpating himself he has owned it and by owning it he has thought he has done enough for my own part i thought pride in his case an improper subject for railery people of birth and fortune to be proud is so needless so mean of ice if they deserve respect they will have it without requiring it in other words for persons to endeavor to gain respect by a haughty behavior is to give a proof that they mistrust their own merit to make confession they know that their actions will not attract it distinction or quality may be prided in by those to whom distinction or quality is a new thing and then the reflection and contempt which such bring upon themselves by it is a counterbalance such added advantages to as this man has in person and me and learned also as he says he is such a man to be haughty to be imperious the lines of his own face at the same time condemning him how holy and excusable proud of what not of doing well the only justifiable pride proud of exterior advantages must not one be led by such a stop short pride as i may call it in him or her who has it to mistrust the interior some people may indeed be afraid that if they did not assume they would be trampled upon a very narrow fear however since they trample upon themselves who can fear this but this man must be secure that humility would be an ornament to him he has talents indeed but those talents and his personal advantages have been snares to him it is plain they have and this shows that weighed in an equal balance he would be found greatly wanting had my friends confided as they did at first in that discretion which they do not accuse me of being defective in i dare say i should have found him out and then should have been as resolute to dismiss him as i was to dismiss others and as i am never to have mr soames oh that they did but know my heart it shall sooner burst and voluntarily uncompelled undriven dictate a measure that shall cast a slur either upon them or ricex excuse me my dear friend for these graves of the liquees as i may call them how have i run from reflection to reflection but the occasion is recent they are all in commotion below upon it shory says that mr lovelace watched my mother's eye and bowed to her and she returned the compliment he always admired my mother she would not i believe have hated him had she not been bid to hate him and had it not been for the ran counter between him and her only son dr luan was at church and observing as everyone else did the disorder into which mr lovelace's appearance had put all our family was so good as to engage him in conversation when the service was over till they were all gone to their coaches my uncles had my letters this morning they as well as my father are more and more incensed against me it seems their answers if they vows chafe to answer me will demonstrate i doubt not the unseasonalness of this rashman's presence at our church they are angry also as i understand with my mother for returning his compliment what an enemy is hated 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 rashman 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 was occasioned my apprehensions six lines would have contained all that is in it to the purpose of my story Clarissa Harlow end of letter 30 recording by ben dutton lampeter wales letter 31 of Clarissa or the history of a young lady 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 Bob Gillum Betis Bledra's lampeter wales Clarissa Harlow by Samuel Richardson letter 31 Mr Lovelace to John Belford Esquire Monday March the 13th editors note 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 in the passages were written in that style in vain does thou and thy compiers press me to go to town while i am in such an uncertainty as i am 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 right then thou bidst 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 harlow's soul did i say there is not a soul among them but my charmers 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 it 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 it is not scorned is not pride is not the insolence of an adored beauty but it is to virtue it seems that my difficulties are o'in and i pay for not being a sly sinner and hypocrite and for being regardless of my reputation for permitting slander to open its mouth against me but is it necessary for such a one as i who has been used to carry all before me upon my own terms i who never inspired a fear that had not a discernably predominant mixture of love in it to be hypocrite well says the poet he who seems virtuous does but act apart and shows not his own nature but his art well but it seems i must practice for this art if it would succeed with this truly admirable creature but why practice for it cannot i indeed reform i have but one vice have i jack thou knowest my heart if any man living does and as far as i know it thyself thou knowest it but is a cursed deceiver for it is 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 be which though not virtuous itself admires not virtue in another my visit to arabela owing to mistake of the sister into which as thou has heard me i was led by the blundering uncle who was to introduce me but lately come from aboard 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 goddess 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 sexes shall come into my power i believe in different climbs i have already sacrificed and heck a tomb 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 thou asked me since the disappointment had such effects upon me when i found myself jilted that was hardly kept in my senses why how grant thee what as near as i can remember for it was a great while ago it was a gag jack i can hardly tell what it was but a vehement aspiration after novelty i think those confounded poets were their terenely celestial descriptions did as much with me as the lady they fired my imagination and set me upon a desire to become a goddess maker i must need to try my new fledged pinions in a sonnet elegy and magical i must have a synthia a stellar a saccharissa as well as the best of them darts and flames and the devil knows what i must give to my cupid i must create time i have been a loss for a subject when my new created goddess has been kinder though is proper for my plaintive sonnet that she should be then i found i had a vanity of another sort in my passion i found myself pretty well received among the women in general and i thought it a pretty ladylike tyranny i was then very young and very vain to single out some one of the sex to make half a score jealous and i can tell that it had its effect for many an eye have made to sparkle with rival indigation many a cheek glow and even many a fan have i caused to be snapped at a sister beauty accompanied with a reflection perhaps have been 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 route about losing that noble valetess 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 sex they saw that the dancing the singing the musical ladies were all fond of my company for who i am in a humor 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 everyone sees and acknowledges such praise be getting hypocrisy such effectively disclaimed attributes such contemptible praise traps but yet shall my vanity extend only to personals such as the gracefulness of dress my debonair and my assurance self-taught self-acquire these for my part i value not myself upon them that will say i have no cause perhaps not but if i had anything valuable as to intellectuals those are not my own and he proud of what a man is answerable for the busof and has no merit to the right use of is to strut like the jay in borrowed plumage but to return to my fair gilt 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 she prefer a coronet to me and when the bird was flown i set more value upon it than when i had it safe in my cage and could visit it when i pleased but now am i indeed in love i can think of nothing of nobody but the divine Clarissa Harlow Harlow how that hated word sticks in my throat but i shall give her for it the name of love Clarissa oh there's music in the name that's softening me to infant tenderness makes my heart spring like the first leaps of life but could still have believed that i who think it possible for me to favor as much as i can be favored that i who for this charming creature think of for going the life of honor for the life of shackles could adapt these over tender lines of otway i check myself and leaving the first three lines to the following of dryden to the family of winers find the workings of the passion in my stormy soul better expressed by the three last love various minds does variously inspire he stirs in gentle's nature gentle fires like that of incense on the altar laid but raging flames temptastious souls invade a fire which every windy passion blows with pride it mounts and with revenge it glows and with revenge it shall glow for thus 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 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 passions 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 who springs i am continually oiling i play them all off the busy old tarpaulin uncle i make but an ambassador to queen arabella howe to engage her for example sake to a princessly daughter to join in their cause and to assert an authority they are resolved right or wrong or i could do nothing to maintain but what my motive does that 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 flexible hearts 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 loving 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 footstep 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 terms health so florid youth so blooming air so animated to have a 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 gradate him 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 fortless 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 she owes to them some of them reverence to others respect let them treat her ever so cruelly sordid ties mere cradle prejudices for had they not imposed upon her by nature when she was in a perverse humor or could she have chosen her relations would any of these been among them how my heart rises at her preference of them to me when she's convinced of their injustice to me convinced that the alliance would do honor to them all herself accepted whom everyone owes honor 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 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 harlot by this incoherent ramble thou wilt gather that i am not likely to come up in haste since i must endeavor first to obtain some assurance from the beloved of my soul that i shall not be sacrificed so to such a wretched soams woe be to the fair one if ever she be driven into my power for i despair of a voluntary impulse in my favor and i find a difficulty in obtaining this security that her indifference to me is not owing to superior liking she has for any other is what rivets my chains but take care fair one take care although most exalted of female minds and loveliest of persons how did i debase this myself by encouraging such a competition as i sorted 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 an implacable family else could i creep about not her proud father's house but his paddock and garden malls 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 straw through unfrequenty paths and over briary 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 induce me to bear insults which unmanned 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 swestphalian journey it is well the necessity of all this arise not from scorn and tyranny but is first opposed upon herself but was ever hero in romance fighting with giants and dragons expected accepted called upon to harder trials fortune and family and reversionary grandeur upon my side such a wretched fellow my competitor must i not be deplorably in love that can go through these difficulties encountered these contempts by my soul i'm half ashamed of myself i who am purged to 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 lover who everyone who sees her either loves or a veers or both dryden says the cause of love can never be assigned it is in no face but in the lover's mind and cowley thus addresses beauty as a mere imaginary beauty though wild fantastic ape who dust in every country change thy shape hear black their brown here tawny and their white thou flatterer who compliesce with every sight who has no certain what nor where but both these had they been her contemporaries and known her would have confessed themselves mistaken and taking together person mind and behavior would have acknowledged the justice of the universal voice in her favor full many a lady i vied with best regard and many a time the harmony of their tongues half into bondage brought my two diligent here for several virtues of a light several women never any with so full a soul but some defect in her the quarrel with a noblest grace she owed but put it to the foil but she oh see she so perfect and so peerless is created of every creature's best shakespeare though i'm curious to know if i have not started a new game if it be possible for so universal lover to be confined so long to one object thou knowest nothing of this charming creature that thou can put such questions to me or think is thou knowest me better than thou dust all that's excellent in her sex is this lady until matrimonial or equal intimacies i have found a less than angel it is impossible to think of any other then there are so many stimulatives that such a spirit is mine in this affair besides love such a field of stratium and contrivance which thou knowest to be the delight of my heart then the rewarding end of all to carry off such a girl as this in spite of all her watchful and impeccable friends and in spite of a prudence reserve have never met with in any of the sex what a triumph what a triumph of the whole sex and then such a revenge to gratify which is only at present politically reigned in eventually to break forth with greater fury is it possible think is thou that there can be room for a thought that is not of her and devoted to her by the devices i have this moment received i have reason to think that i shall have occasion for the here hold thyself in readiness to come down upon the first summons let belton mobri and tourville likewise prepare themselves i have a great mind to contrive a method to send james harlow to travel for improvement never was there a booby squire that more wanted it contrive it did i say i have already contrived it could i but put it in execution without being suspected to have a hand in it i am resolved upon it if i have not his sister i will have him but be this as it may there is a present likeness of room for glorious mischief a confederacy had been for some time formed against me but the uncle and the nephew are now to be double-servanted single-servanted they were before and those servants are to be double-armed when they attend their masters abroad this indicates their resolute enmity to me and has resolute favor to soams the reinforced orders for this hostile apparatus are owing it seems to a visitor i made yesterday to their church a good place i thought to begin reconciliation in supposing the heads of the family to be christians and they met something by their prayers my hopes were to have an invitation or at least a gainer pretends to accompany home the gloomy squire and to get an opportunity to see my goddess for i believed they durst not but be civil to me at least but they were filled with terror it seems at my entrance a terror they could not get over i saw it indeed in their countenances and that they all expected something extraordinary to follow and so it should have done had i been more sure than i am of their daughter's favor yet not a hair on their stupid's heads do i intend to hurt you shall have all your directions in writing if there be occasion but after all i dare say there'll be no need but to show your faces in my company such faces never could foremen show mobries so fierce and so fighting beltans so pert and so pimply tourvilles so fair and so foppish thine so rough and so resolute and i your leader what hearts although meditating hostility must those be which we shall not appall each man occasionally attended by a servant or two long ago chosen for qualities resembling those of his master thus jack as thou desirous have i written written upon something upon nothing upon revenge which i love upon love which i heartily hate because it is my master upon the devil knows what besides for looking back i am amazed at the length of it though mayst read it i would not for a king's ransom but so as i do but right thou sayest i will be pleased be pleased then i command thee to be pleased if not for the writers or the written sake for thy words sake and so in the royal style for am i not likely to be thy king and thy emperor in the great affair before us i bid thee very heartily farewell end of letter 31 letter 32 of Clarissa volume one 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 Philippa Clarissa Harlow or the history of a young lady volume one by Samuel Richardson letter 32 miss Clarissa Harlow to miss Howe Tuesday March the 14th i now send you copies of my letters to my uncles with their answers be pleased to return the letter by the first deposit i leave them for you to make remarks upon i shall make none to John Harlow Esquire Saturday March the 11th allow me my honoured second papa as in my happy days you taught me to call you to implore your interest with my papa to engage him to dispense with a command which if insisted upon will deprive me of my free will and make me miserable for my whole life for my whole life let me repeat is that a small point my dear uncle to give up i'm not i to live with the man is anybody else shall i not therefore be allowed to judge for myself whether i can or cannot live happily with him should it be ever so unhappily will it be prudence to complain or appeal and if it were to whom could i appeal with effect against a husband and would not the invincible and avowed dislike i have for him at setting out seem to justify any ill usage from him in that state were i to be ever so observant of him and if i were to be at all observant of him it must be from fear not love once more let me repeat that this is not a small point to give up and that it is for life why i pray you good sir should i be made miserable for life why should i be deprived of all comfort but that which the hope that it would be a very short one would afford me marriage is a very solemn engagement enough to make a young creature's heart ache with the best prospects when she thinks seriously of it to be given up to a strange man to be engrafted into a strange family to give up her very name as a mark of her becoming his absolute and dependent property to be obliged to prefer this strange man to father mother to everybody and his humours to all her own or to contend perhaps in breach of avowed duty for every innocent instance of free will to go nowhere to make acquaintance to give up acquaintance to renounce even the strictest friendships perhaps all at his pleasure whether she thinks it reasonable to do so or not surely sir a young creature ought not to be obliged to make all these sacrifices but for such a man as she can love if she be how sad must be the case how miserable the life if it can be called life i wish i could obey you all what pleasure it would be to me if i could marry first and love will come after was said by one of my dearest friends but this is a shocking assertion a thousand things may happen to make that state but barely tolerable where it is entered into with mutual affections what must it then be where the husband can have no confidence in the love of his wife but has reason rather to question it from the preference he himself believes she would have given to somebody else had she had her own option what doubts what jealousies what want of tenderness what unfavorable prepossessions will there be in a matrimony thus circumstanced how will every look every action even the most innocent be liable to misconstruction while on the other hand an indifference a carelessness to oblige may take place and fear only can constrain even an appearance of what ought to be the effect of undisguised love think seriously of these things dear good sir and represent them to my father in that strong light which the subject will bear but in which my sex and my tender years and an experience will not permit me to paint it and use your powerful interest that your poor niece may not be consigned to a misery so durable i offered to engage not to marry at all if that condition may be accepted what a disgrace it is to me to be thus sequestered from company thus banished my papa's and mama's presence thus slighted and deserted by you sir and my other kind uncle and to be hindered from attending at that public worship which were i out of the way of my duty would be most likely to reduce me into the right path again is this the way sir can this be thought the way to be taken with a free and open spirit may not this strange method rather harden and convince i cannot bear to live in disgrace thus the very servants so lately permitted to be under my own direction hardly daring to speak to me my own servant discarded with high marks of undeserved suspicion and displeasure and my sister's maid set over me the matter may be too far pushed indeed it may and then perhaps everyone will be sorry for their parts in it may i be permitted to mention an expedient if i am to be wretched banished and confined suppose sir it were to be at your house then the neighbouring gentry will the less wonder that the person of whom they used to think so favourably appear not at church here and that she received not their visits i hope there can be no objection to this you used to love to have me with you sir when all went happily with me and will you not now permit me in my troubles the favour of your house till all this displeasure is overblown upon my word sir i will not stir out of doors if you require the contrary of me nor will i see anybody but whom you will allow me to see provided mr soams be not brought to persecute me there procure then this favour for me if you cannot procure the still greater that of a happy reconciliation which nevertheless i presume to hope for if you will be so good as to plead for me and you will then add to those favours and to that indulgence which have bound me and will forever bind me to be your dutiful and obliged niece Clarissa Harlow the answer Sunday night my dear niece it grieves me to be forced to deny you anything you ask yet it must be so for unless you can bring your mind to oblige us in this one point in which our promises and honor were engaged before we believed there could be so sturdy in opposition you must never expect to be what you have been to us all in short niece we are in an embattled phalanx your reading makes you a stranger to nothing but what you should be most acquainted with so you will see by that expression that we are not to be pierced by your persuasions and invincible persistence we have agreed all to be moved or none and not to comply without one another so you know your destiny and have nothing to do but to yield to it let me tell you the virtue of obedience lies not in obliging when you can be obliged again but give up an inclination and there is some merit in that as to your expedient you shall not come to my house miss clary though this is a prayer I little thought I ever should have denied you for were you to keep your word as to seeing nobody between we please yet can you write to somebody else and receive letters from him this we too well know you can and have done more is the shame and the pity you offer to live single miss we wish you married but because you may not have the man your heart is set upon why truly you will have nobody we shall recommend and as we know that somehow or other you correspond with him or at least did as long as you could and as he defies us all and would not dare to do so if he were not sure of you in spite of us all which is not a little vexatious to us you must think we are resolved to frustrate him and triumph over him rather than that he should triumph over us that's one word for all so expect not any advocate ship from me I will not plead for you and that's enough from your displeased uncle John Harlow PS for the rest I refer to my brother Anthony to Anthony Harlow Esquire Saturday March the 11th honoured sir as you have thought fit to favour Mr. Psalms with your particular recommendation and was very earnest in his behalf ranking him as you told me upon introducing him to me among your select friends and expecting my regards to him accordingly I beg your patience while I offer a few things out of many that I could offer to your serious consideration on occasion of his address to me if I am to use that word I'm charged with prepossession in another person's favour you will be pleased sir to remember that till my brother returned from Scotland that other person was not absolutely discouraged nor was I forbid to receive his visits I believe it will not be pretended that in birth education or personal endowments a comparison can be made between the two and only let me ask you sir if the one would have been thought of for me had he not made such offers as upon my word I think I ought not injustice to accept of nor he to propose offers which if he had not made I dare say my papa would not have required them of him but the one it seems has many faults is the other faultless the principal thing objected to Mr. Lovelace and a very inexcusable one is that he is immoral in his loves is not the other in his hatreds nay as I may say in his loves too the object only differing if the love of money be the root of all evil but sir if I am prepossessed what has Mr. Psalms to hope for why should he persevere what must I think of the man who would wish me to be his wife against my inclination and is it not a very harsh thing for my friends to desire to see me married to one I cannot love when they will not be persuaded but that there is one whom I do love treated as I am now is the time for me to speak out or never let me review what it is Mr. Psalms depends upon on this occasion does he believe that the disgrace which I suffer on his account will give him a merit with me does he think to win my esteem through my uncle's sternness to me by my brother's contemptuous usage by my sister's unkindness by being denied to visit or be visited and to correspond with my chosen friend although a person of unexceptionable honor and prudence and of my own sex my servant to be torn from me and another servant said over me to be confined like a prisoner to narrow and disgraceful limits in order avowedly to mortify me and to break my spirit to be turned out of that family management which I loved and had the greater pleasure in it because it was an ease as I thought to my mama and what my sister chose not and yet though time hangs heavy upon my hands to be put so out of my course that I have as little inclination as liberty to pursue any of my choice delights are these steps necessary to reduce me to a level so low as to make me a fit wife for this man yet these are all he can have to trust you and if his reliance is on these measures I would have him to know that he mistakes meekness and gentleness of disposition for servility and baseness of heart I beseech you sir to let the natural turn and bent of his mind and my mind be considered what are his qualities by which he would hope to win my esteem dear dear sir if I am to be compelled let it be in favour of a man that can read and write that can teach me something for what a husband must that man make who can do nothing but command and needs himself the instruction he should be qualified to give I may be conceited sir I may be vain of my little reading of my writing as of late I have more than once been told I am but sir the more unequal the proposed match if so the better opinion I have of myself the worse I must have of him and the more unfit are we for each other indeed sir I must say I thought my friends had put a higher value upon me my brother pretended once that it was owing to such value that Mr. Lovelace's address was prohibited can this be and such a man as Mr. Solms be intended for me as to his proposed settlements I hope I shall not incur your great displeasure if I say what all who know me have reason to think and some have upgraded me for that I despise those motives dear dear sir what are settlements to one who has as much of her own as she wishes for who has more in her own power as a single person than it is probable she would be permitted to have at her disposal as a wife whose expenses and ambition are moderate and who if she had superfluities would rather dispense them to the necessitous than lay them by her useless if then such narrow motives have so little weight with me for my own benefit shall the remote and uncertain view of family or grandisements and that in the person of my brother and his descendants the thought sufficient to influence me has the behavior of that brother to me of late or his consideration for the family which had so little weight with him that he could choose to hazard a life so justly precious as an only son's rather than not ratify passions which he is above attempting to subdue and give me leave to say has been too much indulged in either with regard to his own good or the peace of anybody related to him has his behavior I say deserved of me in particular that I should make a sacrifice of my temporal and who knows of my eternal happiness to promote a plan formed upon chimerical at least upon unlikely contingencies as I will undertake to demonstrate if I may be permitted to examine it I'm afraid you will condemn my warmth but does not the occasion require it to the want of a greater degree of earnestness in my opposition it seems it is owing that such advances have been made as have been made then dear sir allow something I beseech you for a spirit raised and embittered by disgraces which knowing my own heart I am confident to say are unmerited but why have I said so much in answer to the supposed charge of prepossession when I have declared to my mama as now sir I do to you that if it be not insisted upon that I shall marry any other person particularly this Mr. Psalms I will enter into any engagements never to have the other nor any man else without their consents that is to say without the consents of my father and my mother and of you my uncle and my elder uncle and my cousin Morden as he is one of the trustees for my grandfather's bounty to me as to my brother indeed I cannot say that his treatment of me has been of late so brotherly as to entitle him to more than civility from me and for this give me leave to add he would be very much my debtor if I have not been explicit enough in declaring my dislike to Mr. Psalms that the prepossession which is charged upon me may not be supposed to influence me against him I do absolutely declare that were there no such man as Mr. Lovelace in the world I would not have Mr. Psalms it is necessary in some one of my letters to my dear friends that I should write so clearly as to put this matter out of all doubt and to whom can I better address myself with an explicitness that can admit of no mistake than to that uncle who professes the highest regard for plain dealing and sincerity let me for these reasons be still more particular in some of my exceptions to him Mr. Psalms appears to me to all the world indeed to have a very narrow mind and no great capacity he is coarse and indelicate as rough in his manners as in his person he is not only narrow but covetous being possessed of great wealth he enjoys it not nor has the spirit to communicate to a distress of any kind does not his sister live unhappily for want of a little of his superfluities and suffers not he his aged uncle the brother of his own mother to owe to the generosity of strangers the poor subsistence he picks up from half a dozen families you know sir my open free communicative temper how unhappy must I be circumscribed in his narrow selfish circle out of which being withheld by this diabolical parsimony he day no more stirred in a conjurer out of his nor would let me such a man as this love yes perhaps he may my grandfather's estate which he has told several persons and could not resist hinting the same thing to me with that sort of pleasure which a low mind takes when it intimates its own interest as a sufficient motive for it to expect another's favor lies so extremely convenient for him that it would double the value of a considerable part of his own that estate and an alliance which would do credit to his obscurity and narrowness they make him think he can love and induce him to believe he does but at most it is but a second place love riches were are and always will be his predominant passion his were left him by a miser on this very account and I must be obliged to forgo all the choice delights of my life and be as mean as he or else be quite unhappy pardon sir this severity of expression one is apt to say more than one would of a person one dislikes when more is said in his favor than he can possibly deserve and when he is urged to my acceptance with so much vehemence that there is no choice left me whether these things be perfectly so or not while I think they are it is impossible I should ever look upon Mr. Psalms in the light he has offered to me nay were he to be proved ten times better than I have represented him and sincerely think him yet would he be still ten times more disagreeable to me than any other man I know in the world therefore let me beseech you sir to become an advocate for your niece that she may not be made a victim to a man so highly disgustful to her you and my other uncle can do a great deal for me if you please with my papa be persuaded sir that I am not governed by obstinacy in this case but by aversion and aversion I cannot overcome for if I have but endeavoured to reason with myself out of regard to the duty I owe to my father's will my heart has recoiled and I have been averse to myself for offering but to argue with myself in behalf of a man who in the light he appears to me has no one merit and who knowing this aversion could not persevere as he does if he had the spirit of a man if sir you can think the contents of this letter reasonable I beseech you to support them with your interest if not I shall be most unhappy nevertheless it is but just in me so to write as that mr. Psalms may know what he has to trust to forgive dear sir this tedious letter and suffer it to have weight with you and you will forever oblige your dutiful and affectionate niece Clarissa Harlow Mr. Anthony Harlow to miss Clarissa Harlow niece clary you would better not write to us or to any of us to me particularly you had better never to have set pen to paper on the subject we're on you have written he's at his first in his own cause set the wisest man seemeth just but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him and so in this respect I will be your neighbour for I will search your heart to the bottom that is to say if your letter be written from your heart yet do I know what a task I've undertaken because of the knack you are noted for at writing but in defense of a father's authority in behalf of the good and honor and prosperity of the family one comes of what a hard thing it would be if one could not beat down all the arguments a rebel child how loath I am to write down that word of miss clary harlow can bring in behalf of her obstinacy in the first place don't you declare and that contrary to your declarations to your mother remember that girl that you prefer the man we all hate and who hates us as bad then what a character have you given of a worthy man I wonder you dare write so freely of one we all respect but possibly it may be for that very reason how you begin your letter because I value mr. Somes as my friend you treat him the worse that's the plain dastable of the matrimus I'm not such a fool but I can see that and so a noted whoremonger is to be chosen before a man who is a money lover let me tell you niece this little becomes so nicer one as you have been always reckoned who think you does more injustice a prodigal man or a saving man the one saves his own money the other spends other people's but your favorite is a sinner ingrain and upon record the devil's in your sex god forgive me for saying so the nicest of them will prefer a vile rake and who I suppose I'd better not repeat the word the word will offend when the vicious denominated by that word will be chosen I had not been a bachelor to this time if I've not seen such a mass of contradictions in you all such nat strainer than camel swallowers as venerable holy writ has it what names will perverseness call things by a prudent man who intends to be just to everybody is a covetous man while a vile profligate rake is christened with the appellation of a gallant man and a polite man I'll warrant you it is my firm opinion lovelace would not have so much regard for you as he professes but for two reasons and what are these why out of spite to all of us one of them the other because of your independent fortune I wish your good grandfather had not left what he did so much in your own power as I may say but little did he imagine his beloved granddaughter would have turned upon all her friends as she has done what has mr. Soames to hope for if you are pre-possessed hey days this you cousin clary has he then nothing to hope for from your fathers and mothers and our recommendations no nothing at all it seems oh brave I should think that this with a dutiful child as we took you to be was enough depending on this your duty we preceded and now there is no help for it for we will not be balked neither shall our friend mr. Soames I can tell you that if your estate is convenient for him what then does that put cousin make it out that he does not love you he had need to expect some good with you that has so little good to hope from you mind that but pray is not this estate our estate as we may say have we not an interest in it and a prior right if right were to have taken place and was it not more than a good old man's dotage God rest his soul that gave it you before us all well then ought we not to have a choice who shall have it in marriage with you and would you have the conscience to wish us to let a vile fellow who hates us all run away with it you bid me way what you write do you weigh this girl and it will appear we have more to say for ourselves than you was aware of as to your hard treatment as you call it thank yourself for that it may be over when you will so I reckon nothing upon that you was not banished and confined till all entreaty and fair speeches were tried with you mind that and mr. Soames can't help your obstinacy let that be observed too as to being visited and visiting you never was fond of either so that's a grievance put into the scale to make weight as to disgrace that's as bad to us as to you so fine a young creature so much as we used to brag of you too and besides this is all in your power as the rest but your heart recoils when you would persuade yourself to obey your parent finally described is it not too truly described I own as you go on I know that you may love him if you will I had a good mind to bid you hate him then perhaps you would like him the better for I've always found a most horrid romantic perverseness in your sex to do and to love what you should not is meat drink and vesture to you all I am absolutely of your brother's mind that reading and writing though not too much for the wits of you young girls are too much for your judgments you say you may be conceited cousin you may be vain and so you are to despise this gentleman as you do he can read and write as well as most gentlemen I can tell you that who told you mr. Soames cannot read and write but you must have a husband who can learn you something I wish you knew but your duty as well as you do your talents that needs you have of late days to learn and mr. Soames will therefore find something to instruct you in I will not show him this letter of yours though you seem to desire it lest it should provoke him to be too severe a schoolmaster when you're a hison but now I think of it suppose you are the readier at your pen than he you'll make the more useful wife to him won't you for who's so good an economist as you and you may keep all of his accounts and save yourselves a steward and let me tell you this is a fine advantage in a family for those stewards are often sad dogs and creep into a man's estate before he knows where he is and not sell them as he forced to pay them interest for his own money I know not why a good wife should be above these things it is better than lying a bed half the day and junketing and cards playing all the night and making yourselves wholly useless to every good purpose in your own families as is now the fashion among you the juice take you all that do so say I only that thank my stars I'm a bachelor then this is a province you are admirably versed in you grieve that it is taken from you here you know so here miss with mr. Soames you will have something to keep account of for the sake of you and your children with the other perhaps you will have an account to keep too but an account of what will go over the left shoulder only of what he squanders what he borrows and what he owes and never will pay come come cousin you know nothing of the world a man's a man and you may have many partners in a handsome man and costly ones too who may lavish away all you save mr. Soames therefore for my money and I hope for yours but mr. Soames is a coarse man he is not delicate enough for your niceness because I suppose he dresses not like a fop and a coxcomb and because he lays not himself out in complimental nonsense the poison of female minds he is a man of sense that I can tell you no man talks more to the purpose to us but you fly him so that he has no opportunity given him to express it to you and a man who loves if he have ever so much sense looks a fool especially when he is despised and treated as you treated him the last time he was in your company as to his sister she threw herself away as you want to do against his full warning for he told her what she had to trust to if she married what he did marry and he was as good as his word and so an honest man ought offenses against warning ought to be smarted for take care this be not your case mind that his uncle deserves no favour from him for he would have circumvented mr. Soames and got sir Oliver to leave to himself the estate he had always designed for him his nephew and brought him up in the hope of it too ready forgiveness does but encourage offenses that's your good father's maxim and there would not be so many headstrong daughters as there are if this maxim were kept in mind punishments are of service to offenders rewards should be only to the meriting and I think the former ought to be dealt out rigorously in willful cases as to his love he shows it but too much for your deserving so they have been of late let me tell you that and this is his misfortune and may in time perhaps be yours as to his parsimony which you wickedly called diabolical a very free word in your mouth let me tell you little reason have you of all people for this on whom he proposes of his own accord to settle all he has in the world a proof let him love riches as he will that he loves you better but that you may be without excuse on this score we will tie him up to your own terms and oblige him by the marriage articles to allow you a very handsome quarterly sum to do what you please with and this has been told you before and I have said it to mrs. Howe that good and worthy lady before her proud daughter that you might hear of it again to contradict the charge of pre-possession to lovelace you offer never to have him without our consents and what is this saying but that you will hope on for our consents and to weedle and tire us out then he will always be in expectation while you are single and we are to live on at this rate are we vexed by you and continually watchful about you and as continually exposed to his insolence and threats remember last Sunday girl what might have happened at your brother and he met moreover you cannot do with such a spirit as his as you can with worthy mr. Psalms the one you make tremble the other will make you quake mind that and you will not be able to help yourself and remember that if there should be any misunderstanding between one of them and you we should all interpose and with effect no doubt but with the other it would be self-do self-have and who would either care or dare to put in a word for you nor let the supposition of matrimonial differences frighten you honey moon last not nowadays above a fortnight and dunmo flitch as I've been informed was never claimed though some say once it was marriage is a queer state child whether paired by the parties or by their friends out of three brothers of us you know there was but one had courage to marry and why was it do you think we were wise by other people's experience don't despise money so much you may come to know the value of it that is a piece of instruction that you are to learn and which according to your own notions mr. Psalms will be able to teach you I do indeed condemn your warmth I will not allow for disgraces you bring upon yourself if I thought them unmerited I would be your advocate but it was always my notion that children should not dispute their parents authority when your grandfather left his estate to you though his three sons and a grandson and your elder sister were in being we all acquiesced and why because it was our father's doing do you imitate that example if you will not those who set it you have the more reason to hold you inexcusable mind that cousin you mentioned your brother too scornfully and in your letter to him are very disrespectful and so indeed you are to your sister in the letter you wrote to her your brother madam is your brother and third older than yourself and a man and pray be so good as not to forget what is due to a brother who next to us three brothers is the head of the family and on whom the name depends as upon your dutiful compliance laid down for the honor of the family you are come of and pray now let me ask you if the honor of that will not be an honor to you if you don't think so the more unworthy you you shall see the plan if you promise not to be prejudiced against it right or wrong if you are not besotted to that man I'm sure you will like it if you are well mr. Somes an angel it will signify nothing the devil is love and love is the devil when it gets into any of your heads many examples of icing of that if there were no such man as lovelace in the world you would not have mr. Somes you would not miss very pretty truly we see how your spirit is embittered indeed wonder not since it has come to your will nots that those who have authority over you say you shall have the other and I am one mind that and if it behoves you to speak out miss it behoves us not to speak in what source for the goose is source for the gander take that in your thought too I humbly apprehend that mr. Somes has the spirit of a man and a gentleman I would have monitor you therefore not to provoke it he pities you as much as he loves you he says he will convince you of his love by deeds since he is not permitted by you to express it by words and all his dependence is upon your generosity hereafter we hope he may depend upon that we encourage him to think he may and this heartens him up so that you may lay his constancy at your parents and your uncle's doors and this will be another mark of your duty you know you must be sensible that you reflect upon your parents and all of us when you tell me that you cannot injustice except of the settlements proposed to you this reflection we should have wondered at from you once but now we don't there are many other very sensible passages in this free letter of yours but we must place them to the account of your embittered spirit I'm glad you mentioned that word because we should have been at a loss what have called it I should much rather nevertheless have had reason to give it a better name I love you dearly still miss I think you though my niece one of the finest young gentle woman I ever saw but upon my conscience I think you ought to obey your parents and oblige me and my brother John for you know very well that we have nothing but your good at heart consistently indeed with the good and honor of all of us what must we think of any one of it who would not promote the good of the whole and who would set one part of it against another which God forbid say I you see I am for the good of all what shall I get by at least things go as they will do I want anything of anybody for my own sake does my brother John well then cousin clary what would you be at as I may say oh but you can't love mr. Sones but I say you know not what you can do you encourage yourself in your dislike you permit your heart little did I think it was such a forward one to recoil take it to task niece drive it on as fast as it recoils we do so in all our sea fights and landfights too by our sailors and soldiers or we should not conquer and we are all sure you will overcome it and why because you ought so we think whatever you think and whose thoughts are to be preferred you may be wittier than we but if you were wiser we have lived some of us let me tell you to very little purpose thirty or forty years longer than you I've written as long a letter as yours I may not write in so lively or so polite a style as many's but I think I have all the argument on my side and you will vastly oblige me if you will show me by your compliance with all our desires that you think so too if you do not you must not expect an advocate or even a friend in me dearly as I love you for then I shall be sorry to be called your uncle Anthony Harlow Tuesday two in the morning post script you must send me no more letters but a compliable one you may send but I need not have forbid you for I am sure this by fair argument is unanswerable I know it is I've written day and night I may say ever since Sunday morning only church time or the like of that but this is the last I can tell you from ant age end of letter 32 letter 33 of Clarissa volume one this is a LibriFox recording all LibriFox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriFox.org recording by Shalee from Oliham Clarissa Harlow or the history of a young lady volume one by Samuel Richardson letter 33 Miss Clarissa Harlow to Miss Ho Thursday March 16th having met with such bad success in my application to my relations I have taken a step that will surprise you it is no other than writing a letter to Miss Assombs himself I sent it and have his answer he had certainly helped in it for I have seen a letter of his and indifferently worded as poorly spelled yet the superscription is of his dictating I daresay for he is a formal wretch with ease I shall enclose one from my brother to me on occasion of mine to miss Assombs I did think that it was possible to discourage the man from proceeding and if I could have done that it would have answered all my wishes it was worth the trial but you'll see nothing will do my brother has taken his measures too securely to Roger Assombs' choir Wednesday March 15th sir you will wonder to receive a letter from me and more still at the uncommon subject of it but the necessity of the case will justify me at least in my own apprehension and I shall therefore make no other apology for it when you first came acquainted with our family you found the right of this one of the happiest creatures in the world beloved by the best and most indulgent of parents and rejoicing in the kind favor of two affectionate uncles and in the esteem of everyone but how has this scene now changed you was pleased to cause a favorable eye upon me you addressed yourself to my friends your proposals were approved of by them approved of without consulting me as if my choice and happiness were of the least signification those who had arrived at all reasonable obedience from me insisted upon it was out reserve I had not the felicity to think as they did almost the first time my sentiments differed from theirs I besought them to indulge me in a point so important to my future happiness but alas in vain and then for I thought it was but honest I told you my mind and even that my affections were engaged but to my modification surprise you persisted and still persist the consequence of all is too grievous for me to repeat you who have such free access to the rest of the family know it too well too well you know it either for the credit of your own generosity or for my reputation I am used on your account as I never before was used and never before was the thought to deserve to be used and this was a hard the impossible condition of their returning favor the time must prefer a man to all others that of all others I cannot prefer thus distressed and made unhappy and all to your sake and through your cruel perseverance I write sir to demand of you the peace of mind you have robbed me of to demand of you the love of so many dear friends of which you have deprived me and if you have the generosity that should distinguish a man and a gentleman to adjure you not to continue an address that has been attended with such cruel effect to the creature you profess to esteem if you really value me as my friends would make me believe and as you have declared you do must it not be a mean and selfish value a value that can have no merit with the unhappy object of it because it is attended with effect so grievous to her it must be for your own sake only not for mine and even in this point you must be mistaken for which a prudent man wished to marry one who has not a heart to give who cannot esteem him who therefore must prove a bad wife and how cruel would it be to make a poor creature a bad wife his pride it would be to make a good one if I am capable of judging our tempers and inclinations are vastly different any other of my sex will make you happier than I can the treatment I meet with and the obstinacy as it is called with which I support myself under it or to convince you of this we are not able to give so good a reason for this my supposed beverseness as I cannot consent to marry a man whom I cannot value but if sir you have not so much generosity in your value for me as to desist for my own sake let me conjure you by the regard due to yourself and to your own future happiness to discontinue your suit and place your affections on a worthy object for why should you make me miserable and yourself not happy by this means you will do all that is now in your power to restore me to the affection of my friends and if that can be it will leave me in as happy a state as you found me in you need only to say that you see there are no hopes and you will perhaps completely call it of succeeding with me and indeed sir there cannot be greater truth but you will therefore no more think of me but turn your thoughts another way your compliance with this request will lay me under the highest obligation to your generosity and make me ever your well-wisher and humble servant Clarissa Harlow to miss Clarissa Harlow these most humbly present dearest miss your letter has had a very contrary effect upon me to what you seem to have expected from it it has doubly convinced me of the excellency of your mind and of the honor of your disposition call it selfish or what you please I must persist in my suit and happy shall I be if by patience and perseverance and a steady and unalterable diva I may at last overcome the difficulty laid in my way as your good parents your uncles and other friends are absolutely determined you shall never have miss a loveless if they can help it and as I presume no other person is in the way I will contentedly wait the issue of this matter and forgive me dearest miss but a person should sooner persuade me to give up to him my estate as an instance of my generosity because he could not be happy without it then I would a much more valuable treasure to promote the felicity of another and to make his way easier to circumvent myself pardon me dear miss but I must persevere though I am sorry you suffer on my account as you are pleased to think but I never before saw the woman I could love and while there is any hope and that you remain undisposed of to some happier man I must and well be your fatal and obsequious admirer Roger Psalms March 16th Mr. James Harlow to Miss Clarissa Harlow March 16th what a fine whim you took into your head to write a letter to Mr. Psalms to persuade him to give up his pretensions to you of all the pretty romantic flights you have delighted in this was certainly one of the most extraordinary but to say nothing of what fires us all with indignation against you you're owning your prepossession in a villain's favor and your impertinent to me and your sister and your uncles one of which has given it you home child how can you lay at Mrs. Psalms's door the usage you so bitterly complain of you know less a fool as you are that it is your fondness for loveless that has brought upon you all these things are which would have happened whether Mrs. Psalms had honored you with his addresses or not as you must need to know this to be true consider pretty witty miss if your fond love sick heart can let you consider what a fine figure all your expostulations with us and charges upon Mrs. Psalms make with what propriety do you demand of him to restore to you your former happiness as you call it and merely call it for if you thought out of favor so you would restore it to yourself since it is yet in your own power to do so therefore misspert none of your pathetic except in the right place depend upon it whether you have Mrs. Psalms or not you shall never have your hearts delight the vile rake loveless if our parents if our uncles if I can hinder it no you fallen angel you shall not give your father and mother such a son nor me such a brother in giving yourself that profligate wretch for a husband and so set your heart at rest and lay aside all thought of him if ever you expect forgiveness reconciliation or a kind opinion from any of your family but especially from him who at present styles himself your brother James Harlow PS I know your knack at letter writing if you sent me an answer for this I will return it unopened for I will not argue with your perverseness in so plain a case only once for all I was willing to put you right as to Mrs. Psalms you might think to blame to jobless had about you and of letter 33