 For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ben Dutton, Lampartor, Wales Clarissa Harlow or The History of a Young Lady Volume 1 by Samuel Richardson Letter 20. Miss Clarissa Harlow to Miss Howe Saturday afternoon. The expected conference is over, but my difficulties are increased. Miss, as my mother was pleased to tell me, being the last persuasory effort that is to be attempted, I will be particular in the account of it as my head and my heart will allow it to be. I have made, said she, as she entered my room, as short as well as an early dinner, on purpose to confer with you, and I do assure you that it will be the last conference I shall either be permitted or inclined to hold with you on the subject. If you should prove as refractory as it is imagined, you will prove by some, who are of opinion, that I have not the weight with you which my indulgence deserves. But I hope you will convince that as well, them as me, of the contrary. Your father both thines and supps at your uncles, on purpose to give us this opportunity. And according to the report I shall make on his return, which I have promised shall be a very faithful one, he will take his measures with you. I was offering to speak. Here, Clarissa, what I have to tell you, said she, before you speak, unless what you have to say will signify to me your compliance. Say, will it? If it will, you may speak. I was silent. She looked with concern and anger upon me. No compliance I find. Such a dutiful young creature hitherto. Will you not, can you not speak, as I would have you speak? Then, rejecting me, as it were with her hand, continue silent. I no more than your father will bear your avowed contradiction. She paused, with a look of expectation, as if she waited for my consenting answer. I was still silent, looking down the tears in my eyes. O thou determined girl! But say, speak out! Are you resolved to stand in opposition to us all, in a point our hearts are set upon? May I, my dam, be permitted to expostulate? To what purpose expostulate with me, Clarissa? Your father is determined. Have I not told you there is no receding, that the honour as well as the interest of the family is concerned? Be ingenuous, you used to be so, even occasionally against yourself. Who at the long run must submit, all of us to you, or you to all of us? If you intend to yield at last, if you find you cannot conquer, yield now, and with the grace, for yield you must, or be none of our child. I wept. I knew not what to say, or rather how to express what I had to say. Take notice, that there are flaws in your grandfather's will. Not a shilling of that estate will be yours, if you do not yield. Your grandfather left it to you, as a reward of your duty to him, and to us. You will justly forfeit it, if—permit me, good madame, to say that, if it were unjustly bequeathed me, I ought not to wish to have it. But I hope Mr. Soames will be apprised of these flaws. This is very pertly said, Clarissa. But reflect, that the forfeiture of that estate, through your opposition, will be attended with the total loss of your father's favour, and then how destitute must you be, how unable to support yourself, and how many benevolent designs and good actions must you give up. I must accommodate myself, madame, in the latter case, to my circumstance. Much only is required where much is given. It becomes me to be thankful for what I have had. I have reason to bless you, madame, and my good Mrs. Norton, for bringing me up to be satisfied with little. With much less I will venture to say that my father's indulgence annually confers upon me. And then I thought of the old Roman and his lentils. "'What perverseness,' said my mother, "'but if you depend upon the favour of either or both of your uncles, vain will be that dependence. They will give you up. I do assure you, if your father does, an absolutely renounce you. I am sorry, madame, that I have had so little merit as to have made no deeper impressions of favour for me in their hearts. But I will love and honour them as long as I live.' All this, Clarissa, makes your pre-possession in a certain man's favour the more evident. Indeed your brother and sister cannot go anywhere, but they hear of these pre-possessions. It is a great grief to me, madame, to be made the subject of the public talk. But I hope you'll have the goodness to excuse me for observing that the authors of my disgrace within doors, the talkers of my pre-possession without, and the reporters of it from abroad, are originally the same persons. She severely chid me for this. I received her abukes in silence. "'You are sullen, Clarissa. I see you are sullen,' and she walked about the room in anger, then turning to me. You can bear the imputation of sulleness, I see. You have no concern to clear yourself of it. I was afraid of telling you all I was enjoyed to tell you, in case you were to be unpersuadable. But I find that I had greater opinion of your delicacy, of your gentleness, than I needed to have. It cannot discompose so steadily, so inflexibly, young creature, to be told, as I now tell you, that the settlements are actually drawn, and that you will be called down in a very few days to hear them read, and to sign them. For it is impossible, if your heart be free, that you can make the least objection to them, except it will be an objection with you, that they are so much in your favour, and in the favour of all our family. I was speechless, absolutely speechless. Although my heart was ready to burst, yet could I neither weep nor speak. "'I am sorry,' said she, for your averseness to this match. Match,' she was pleased to call it. But there is no help. The honour and interest of the family, as your aunt has told you, and as I have told you, are concerned, and you must comply. I was still speechless. She folded the warm statue, as she was pleased to call me, in her arms, and entreated me, for heaven's sake, to comply. Speech and tears were lent to me at this time. You have given me life, madame,' said I, clasping my uplifted hands together, and falling on one knee. A happy one, till now, has your goodness of my papars made it. Oh, do not, do not, make all the remainder of it miserable.' "'Your father,' replied she, is resolved not to see you, till he sees you as obedient a child as you used to be. You have never been put to a test till now, that deserve to be called a test. This is, this must be, my last effort with you. Give me hope, my dear child, my peace is concerned. I will compound with you but for hope, and yet your father will not be satisfied without an implicit and even a cheerful obedience. Give me but hope, child.' To give you hope, my dearest, my most indulgent mar, is to give you everything. Can I be honest, if I give a hope that I cannot confirm?' She was very angry. She again called me perverse. She up-embraded me with regarding only my prepossessions, and respecting not either her peace of mind or my own duty. "'It is a great thing,' said she, for the parents of a child who delighted in her in all the time of a helpless infancy, and throughout every stage of her childhood, and in every part of her education to womanhood, because of the promises she gave of proving the most grateful and dutiful of children. To find, just when the time arrived which should crown their wishes, that child stand in the way of her own happiness, and her parents' comfort, and refusing an excellent offer and noble settlements, give suspicions to her anxious friends that she would become the property of a vile rake and libertine, who, be the occasion what it will, defies her family, and has actually imbrued his hands in her brother's blood. "'I have had a very hard time of it,' said she, between your father and you. "'For seeing your dislike, I have more than once pleaded with you, but to all to no purpose.' "'I am only treated as a two-fond mother, who, from motives of ablamable indulgence, encourage a child to stand in opposition to a father's will. "'I am charged with dividing the family into two parts, I and my youngest daughter standing against my husband, his two brothers, my son, my eldest daughter, and my sister Harvey. "'I have been told that I must be convinced of the fitness as well as advantage to the whole,' your brother and Mr. Lovelace, out of the question, of carrying the contract with Mr. Soames, on which so many contracts depend, into execution. Your father's heart, I tell you once more, is in it. He has declared that he had rather have no daughter in you than one he cannot dispose of for your own good. "'Especially if you have owned that your heart is free, and as the general good of his whole family is to be promoted by your obedience.' "'He has pleaded, poor man, that his frequent gouty paroxysms, every fit more threatening than the former, give him no extraordinary prospects, either of worldly happiness or of long days. "'And he hopes that you, who have been supposed to have contributed to the lengthening of your grandfather's life, will not, by your own disobedience, shorten your father's. This was a most affecting plea, my dear. I wept in silence upon it. I could not speak to it. And my mother proceeded. What, therefore, can be his motives, Clary Harlow, in the earnest desire he has to see his treaty perfected, but the welfare and a grandisement of his family, which already having fortunes to become the highest condition, cannot aspire to greater distinctions. However slight such views as these may appear to you, Clary, you know that they are not slight ones to any other of the family, and your father will be his own judge of what is and what is not likely to promote the good of his children. "'Your abstractness, my child, affection of abstractness, some call it, savers, let me tell you, of greater particularity than we aim to carry. Modesty and humility, therefore, will oblige you rather to mistrust yourself of peculiarity than censure views which all the world pursues as opportunity offers.' I was still silent, and she proceeded, "'It is owing to the good opinion, Clary, which your father has of you and of your prudence, duty, and gratitude that he engaged from your compliance in your absence, before you return from this how, and that he built and finished contracts upon it which cannot be made void or cancelled. "'But why, then, thought I, did they receive me on my return from this how, with so much intimidating soliminity? To be sure, my dear, this argument, as well as the rest, was obtruded upon by my mother.' "'She went on. Your father has declared that your unexpected opposition, unexpected, she was pleased to call it, and Mr. Lovelace's continued menaces and insults, more and more convinced him, but a short day is necessary in order to put an end to all that man's hopes, and to his own apprehensions resulting from the disobedience of a child so favoured. He has therefore actually ordered patterns of the richest silks to be sent for from London.' I started. I was out of breath. I gasped, at this frightful precipitance. I was going to open with warmth against it. I knew who's the happy expedient must be. Female minds, I once heard my brother say, that could be bought to balance on the charge of their state, might easily be determined by the glare and splendour of the nuptial preparations and the pride of becoming the mistress of a family. But she was pleased to hurry on, that I might not have time to express my disgusts at such a communication. To this effect, your father, therefore, my clary, cannot, either for your sake or his own, labour under a suspense so affecting to his repose. He has even thought fit to acquaint me on my pleading for you, that it becomes me, as I value my own peace, how harsh to such a wife, and, as I wish, that he does not suspect that I secretly favour the address of a vile rake, a character which all the sex, he is pleased to say, virtuous and vicious, are but too fond of. To exert my authority over you, and that this I may the less scruplessly do, as you have owned, the little string, that your heart is free, unworthy reflection in my mother's case, surely, this of our sex is valuing a limiting, since she made choice of my father in preference to several suitors of equal fortune, because they were of inferior reputation for morals. Your father, added she, at his going out, told me what he expected from me, in case I found out that I had not the requisite influence upon you. It was this, that I should directly separate myself from you, and leave you singly to take the consequence of your double disobedience. I therefore entreat you, my dear Clarissa, concluded she, and that in the most earnest and condescending manner, to signify to your father, on his return, your ready obedience, and this, as well for my sake, as your own, affected by my mother's goodness to me, and by that part of her argument which related to her own peace, and to the suspicions they had of her secretly incliney to prefer the man so hated by them, to the man so much my aversion, I could not but wish it were possible for me to obey. I therefore paused, hesitated, considered, and was silent for some time. I could see that my mother hoped that the result of this hesitation would be favourable to her arguments. But then recollecting that all was owing to the instigations of a brother and a sister, wholly actuated by selfish and envious views, that I had not deserved the treatment I had of late met with, that my disgrace was already becoming the public talk, that the man was Mr. Somes, and that my aversion to him was too generally known to make my compliance either creditable to myself or to them, that it would give my brother and sister a triumph over me and over Mr. Lovelace, which they would not fail to glory in, and which, although it concerned me but little to regard on his account, yet might be attended with fatal mischiefs, and then Mr. Somes' disagreeable person, his still more disagreeable manners, his low understanding, understanding the glory of a man so little to be dispensed within the head and director of a family, in order to preserve to him that respects which good wife, and that for the justification of her own choice, should pay him herself, and wish everybody to pay him. And as Mr. Somes' inferiority in this respectable faculty of the human mind, I must be allowed to say this to you, and no great self-assumption neither, would proclaim to all future, as well as to all present observers, what must have been my mean inducement. All these reflections crowding upon my remembrance, I would, madame, said I, folding my hands, with an earnestness in which my whole heart was engaged, bear the cruelest tortures, bear loss of limb, and even of life to give you peace. But this man, every moment I would, at you command, think of him with favour, is the more a version. You cannot, indeed you cannot, think how my whole soul resists him, and to talk of contracts concluded upon, of patterns of a short day. Save me, save me, oh my dearest mama, save your child from this heavy, from this unsupportable evil. Never was there a countenance that expressed so significantly, as my mother's did, an anguish which she struggled to hide, under an anger she was compelled to assume. To the latter overcoming the former, she turned from me with an uplifted eye and stamping. Strange perverseness, were the only words I heard of a sentence that she angrily pronounced, and was going. I then, half frantically I believe, laid hold of her gown. Have patience with me, dearest madame," said I. Do not renounce me totally. If you must separate yourself from your child, let it not be with absolute reprobation on your own part. My uncles may be hard-hearted, my father may be immovable. I may suffer from my brother's ambition, and from my sister's envy. But let me not lose my mama's love. At least her pity. She turned to me with benign arrays. You have my love. You have my pity. But oh, my dearest girl, I have not yours. Indeed, indeed, madame, you have, and all my reverence, all my gratitude you have. But in this one point, cannot I be, this once obliged, will no expedient be accepted? Have I not made a very fair proposal to Mr Lovelace? I wish, for both our sakes, my dear unpersuadable girl, that the decision of this point lay with me. But why, when you know it does not, why should you thus perplex and urge me? To renounce Mr Lovelace is now but half what is aimed at. Nor will anybody else believe you in earnest in the offer, if I would. While you remain single, Mr Lovelace will have hopes, and you, in the opinion of others, inclinations. Permit me, dearest madame, to say that your goodness to me, your patience, your peace, weigh more with me than all the rest put together. For although I am to be treated by my brother, and through his instigations by my father, as a slave in this point, and not as a daughter, yet my mind is not that of a slave. You have not bought me up to be mean. So, Clary, you are already at defiance with your father. I have had too much cause before to apprehend as much. What will this come to? I, and then, my dear Mamar, sighed. I am forced to put up with many humours. That you are, my ever-honoured Mamar, is my grief. And can it be thought that this very consideration, and the apprehension of what may result from a much worse tempered man, a man who has not half the sense of my father, has not made an impression upon me to the disadvantage of the married life? Yet it is something of an alleviation, if one must bear undue control to bear it from a man of sense. My father, I have heard you say, madame, was for years a very good human gentleman, unobjectionable in person and manners, but the man proposed to me, for bear reflecting upon your father. Deny, my dear, in what I have repeated, and I think they are the very words, reflect upon my father. It is not possible, I must say again and again, we're all men equally indifferent to you, that you should be thus sturdy in your will. I am tired out with your obstinacy, the most unpersuadable girl. You forget that I must separate myself from you if you will not comply. You do not remember that your father will take you up where I leave you. Once more, however, I will put it to you. Are you determined to brave your father's displeasure? Are you determined to defy your uncles? Do you choose to break with us all, rather than encourage Mr. Soames? Rather than give me hope? Dreadful alternative. But is not my sincerity? Is not the integrity of my heart concerned in the answer? May not my everlasting happiness be the sacrifice? Will not the least shadow of the hope you just now demanded from me be driven into absolute and sudden certainty? Is it not sought to ensnare, to entangle me in my own desire of obeying, if I could give answers that might be construed into hope? Forgive me, madame, bear with your child's boldness in such a cause as this. Settlements drawn, patterns sent for, an early day. Dear, dear madame, how can I give hope and not intend to be this man's? Ah, girl, never say your heart is free. You deceive yourself if you think it is. Thus to be driven, and I wrung my hands through impatience, by the instigations of a designing and ambitious brother and by a sister that. How often, Clary, must I forbid you unsisterly reflections? Does not your father, do not your uncles, does not everybody patronize Mr. Soames? And let me tell you, ungrateful girl, and unmovable as ungrateful, let me repeatedly tell you that it is evident to me that nothing but a love unworthy of your prudence can make you a creature late so dutiful, now so sturdy. You may guess what your father's first question on his return will be. He must know that I can do nothing with you. I have done my part. Seek me, if your mind change before he comes back. You have yet a little more time as he stays supper. I will no more seek you, nor to you, and away she flung. What could I do but weep? I am extremely affected on my mother's account. More I must need say than on my own. And indeed all things considered, and especially that the measure she has engaged in, is, as I dare say it is, against her own judgment. She deserves more compassion than myself. Excellent woman! What pity that meekness and condensation shall not be attended with the due rewards of those charming graces. Yet had she not let violent spirits, as I have elsewhere observed with no small regret, find their power over hers, it could not have been thus. But here, run away with my pen, I suffer my mother to be angry with me on her own account. She hinted to me, indeed, that I must seek her, if my mind changed, which is a condition that amounts to a prohibition of attending her. But, as she left me in displeasure, will it not have a very obstinate appearance, and look like a kind of renunciation of her mediation and my favour, if I go not down before my father returns to supplicate her pity and her kind report to him? I will attend her. I had rather all the world should be angry with me than my mama. Meantime, to clear my hands from papers of such a nature, Hannah shall deposit this. If two or three letters reach you together, they will but express from one period to another, the anxieties and difficulties which the mind of your unhappy but ever affectionate friend labours under. Clarissa Harlow, End of Letter 20. Letter 21 of Clarissa, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All 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 21. Miss Clarissa Harlow to Miss Howe, Saturday Night. I have been down. I am to be unlucky in all I do, I think, be my intentions ever so good. I have made matters worse instead of better, as I shall now tell you. I found my mother and sister together in my sister's parlour. My mother, I fear, by the glow of her fine face, and as the browner, sullener glow in her sister's confirmed, had been expressing herself with warmth against her unhappier child, perhaps giving such an account of what had passed as she'd clear herself and convince Bella, and through her, my brothers and uncles, of the sincere pain she had taken with me. I entered like a dejected criminal, and besought the favour of a private audience. My mother's return, both looks and words, gave but too much reason for my above surmise. You have, said she, looking at me with a sternness that never sits well on her sweet features, rather a requesting than a conceding countenance, Clarissa Harlow. If I am mistaken, tell me so, and I will withdraw with you wherever you will. Yet whether so or not, you may say what you have to say before your sister. My mother, I thought, might have withdrawn with me, as she knows that I have not a friend in my sister. I come down, madame, said I, to beg of you to forgive me for anything you have made taken amiss in what past above respecting your honoured self, and that you will be pleased to use your endeavours to soften my papa's displeasure against me on his return. Such aggravating looks, such lifting up of hands and eyes, such a furrowed forehead in my sister. My mother was angry enough without all that, and asks me to what purpose I came down, if I was still so intractable. She had hardly spoken the words when Shuri came in to tell her that Mr. Soames was in the hall and desired admittance. Ugly creature! What at the close of day, quite dark, bought him hither. But on second thoughts, I believe it was contrived that he should be here at supper to know the result of the conference between my mother and me, and that my father, on his return, might find us together. I was hurrying away, but my mother commanded me, since I had come down only, as she said, to mock her, not to stir, and at the same time see if I could behave so to Mr. Soames, as might encourage her to make the favourable report to my father, which I had besought her to make. My sister triumphed. I was vexed to be so caught, and to have such an angry and cutting rebuke given me, with an aspect much more like the taunting sister than the indulgent mother, if I may presume to say so, for she herself seemed to enjoy the surprise upon me. The man stalked in. His usual walk is by pauses, as if, from the same vacuity of thought which made Dryden's clown whistle, he was telling me his steps, and first paid his clumsy respects to my mother, then to my sister, next to me, as if I was already his wife, and therefore to be last in his notice, and sitting down by me, told us in general what weather it was. Very cold he made it, but I was warm enough, then addressing himself to me. And how do you find it, miss? was his question, and would have taken my hand. I withdrew it, I believe, with disdain enough. My mother frowned. My sister bit her lip. I could not contain myself. I was never so bold in my life, for I went on with my plea, as if Mr. Soames had not been there. My mother culled, and looked at him, at my sister, and at me. My sister's eyes were opener and bigger than I ever saw them before. The man understood me. He hemmed, and removed from one chair to another. I went on, supplicating for my mother's favourable report. Nothing but invincible dislike, said I. What would the girl be at? interrupted my mother. Why, Clary, is this a subject? Is this a time? And again she looked upon Mr. Soames. I am sorry, on reflection, that I put my mama into so much confusion. To be sure it was very saucy in me. I beg pardon, madame, said I, but my papa will return soon. And since I am not permitted to withdraw, it is not necessary, I humbly presume, that Mr. Soames' presence should deprive me of this opportunity to employ your favourable report, and at the same time, if he still visit on my account, looking at him, to convince him that it cannot possibly be to any purpose. Is the girl mad? said my mother, interrupting me. My sister, with the affection of a whisper to my mother. This is spite, madame. Very spitefully she spoke the word, because you commanded her to stay. I only looked at her, and turning to my mother, permit me, madame, said I, to repeat my request. I have no brother, no sister. If I ever lose my mama's favour, I am lost forever. Mr. Soames removed to his first seat, and fell to gnawing the head of his hazel. A carved head, almost as ugly as his own. I did not think the man was so sensible. My sister rose, with a face all over scarlet, and stepping to the table, where lay a fan, she took it up, and although Mr. Soames had observed that the weather was cold, found herself very violently. My mother came to me, and angrily taking my hand, led me out of that parlour into my own, which, you know, is next to it. Is not this behaviour very bold, very provoking, think you, Clary? I beg your pardon, madame, if it has the appearance to you. But indeed, my dear mama, there seem to be snares laying in wait for me. Too well, I know my brother's drift. With a good word he shall have my consent, for all he wishes to worm out of me. Neither he nor my sister shall need to take half this pains. My mother was about to leave me in high displeasure. I besought her to stay. One favour, but one favour, dearest madame, said I, give me leave to beg of you. What would the girl? I see how everything is working about. I never, never can think of Mr. Soames. My papa will be in tummels when he is told that I cannot. They will judge of the tenderness of your heart to a poor child who seems devoted by everyone else from the willingness you have already shown to harken to my prayers. There will be endeavours used to confine me, and keep me out of your presence, and out of the presence of everyone who used to love me. This, my dear Miss Howe, is threatened. If this be effected, if it be put out of my power to plead my own cause, and to appeal to you, and to my uncle Harlow, of whom I only have hope, then will every ear be opened against me, and every tail encouraged. It is therefore my humble request that, added to the disgraceful prohibitions I now suffer under, you will not, if you can help it, give way to my being denied your ear. Your listening, Hannah, has given you this intelligence, as she does many others. My Hannah, madame, listens not. My Hannah, no more in Hannah's behalf. Hannah is known to make mischief. Hannah is known, but no more of that bold intermeddler. Tis true your father threatened to confine you to your chamber, if you complied not, in order the most assuredly to deprive you of the opportunity of corresponding with those who hardened your heart against his will. He bid me tell you so, when he went out, if I found you refractory. But I was loath to deliver so harsh a declaration, being still in hope that you would come down to us in a compliant temper. Hannah has overheard this, I suppose, and has told you of it, as also that he declared he would break your heart rather than you break his. And I now assure you that you will be confined and prohibited making teasing appeals to any of us, and we shall see who is to submit you to us, or everybody to you. Again I offered to clear Hannah, and to lay the latter part of the intelligence to my sister's echo, Betty Barnes, who had boasted of it to another servant. But I was again bid to be silent on that head. I should soon find, my mother was pleased to say, that others could be as determined as I was obstinate, and once for all would add, that since she saw that I built upon her indulgence, and was indifferent about involving her in contentions with my father, she would now assure me that she was as much determined against Mr. Lovelace, and for Mr. Soames and the family's schemes, as anybody, and would not refuse her consent to any measures that should be thought necessary to reduce a stubborn child to her duty. I was ready to sink. She was so good as to lend me her arm to support me. And this, said I, is all I have to hope for from my mama. It is. But, Clary, this one further opportunity I give you, go in against Mr. Soames, and behave discreetly to him, and let your father find you together, upon civil terms at least. My feet moved, of themselves, I think, farther from the parlour where he was, and towards the stairs, and there I stopped and paused. If, proceeded she, you were determined to stand in defiance of us all, then indeed you may go up to your chamber, as you are ready to do, and God help you. God help me indeed, for I cannot give hope of what I cannot intend, but let me have your prayers, my dear mama. Those shall have mine, who have brought me into all this distress. I was moving to go up. And will you go up, Clary? I turned my face to her. My officious tears would need plead for me. I could not just then speak, and stood still. Good girl, distress me not thus. Dear good girl, do not thus distress me, holding out her hand, but standing still likewise. What can I do, madame? What can I do? Go in again, my child. Go in again, my dear child, repeated she, and let your father find you together. What, madame? To give him hope? To give hope to Mr. Soames? Obsonant, perverse, undutiful Clarissa, with a rejecting hand, an angry aspect. Then take your own way, and go up. But stir not down again, I charge you, without leave, or till your father's pleasure be known concerning you. She flung away from me with high indignation, and I went up with her very heavy heart, and feet as slow as my heart was heavy. My father has come home, and my brother with him. Later, as it is, they are all shut up together, not a door opens, not a soul stirs. Hannah, as she moves up and down, is shunned as a person infected. The angry assembly is broken up. My two uncles and my aunt Harvey are sent for, it seems, to be here in the morning to breakfast. I shall then, I suppose, know my doom. It is past eleven, and I am ordered not to go to bed. Twelve o'clock. This moment the keys of everything are taken from me. It was proposed to send for me down, but my father said he could not bear to look upon me. Strange alteration in a few weeks. Sure, he was the messenger. The tears stood in her eyes when she delivered her message. You, my dear, are happy. May you always be so, and then I can never be wholly miserable. Adieu, my beloved friend. Clarissa Harlow. End of letter twenty-one. Recording by Ben Dutton, Blampeter, Wales. Letter twenty-two of Clarissa, volume one. This is a LibraVox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibraVox.org. Clarissa Harlow, or the History of a Young Lady, volume one, by Samuel Richardson. Letter twenty-two. Miss Clarissa Harlow to Miss Howe. Sunday morning, March the fifth. Hannah has just bought me from the private place in the garden wall a letter from Mr. Lovelace, deposited last night, signed also by Lord M. He tells me in it that Mr. Soames makes it his boast that he is to be married in a few days to one of the shyest women in England. That my brother explains his meaning. This shy creature, he says, is me. And he assures everyone that his young sister is very soon to be Mr. Soames's wife. He tells me of the patterns bespoken which my mother mentioned to me. Not one thing escapes him that is done or said in this house. My sister, he says, reports the same things. And that with such particular aggravations of insult upon him, that he cannot but be extremely peaked, as well at the manner, as from the occasion, and expresses himself with great violence upon it. He knows not, he says, what my relation's inducements can be to prefer such a man as Soames to him. If advantageous settlements be the motive, Soames shall not offer what he will refuse to comply with. As to his estate and family, the first cannot be expected against, and for the second he won't disgrace himself by a comparison so odious. He appeals to Lord M for the regularity of his life and manners ever since he has made his addresses to me, or had hope of my favour. I suppose he would have his lordships signing to this letter to be taken as a voucher for him. He desires my leave, in company with my lord, in a pacific manner, to attend my father and uncles, in order to make proposals that must be accepted, if they will see them, and hear what they are, and tells me that he will submit to any measures that I shall prescribe in order to bring about a reconciliation. He presumes to be very earnest with me, to give him a private meeting some night in my father's garden, attended by whom I please. Really, my dear, were you to see his letter, you would think I had given him great encouragement, and that I am in direct treaty with him, or that he is sure that my friends will drive me into a foreign protection, for he has the boldness to offer, in my lord's name, an asylum to me, should I be tyrannically treated in Soames's behalf. I suppose it is the way of this sex to endeavour to entangle the thoughtless of ours by bold supposals and offers, in hopes that we shall be too complacent or bashful to quarrel with them, and if not checked, to reckon upon our silence as a sense voluntarily given, or concessions made in their favour. There are other particulars in this letter, which I thought ought to mention to you, but I will take an opportunity to send you the letter itself, or a copy of it. For my own part, I am very uneasy to think how I have been drawn on one hand, and driven on the other, into a clandestine, in short, into a mere lover-like correspondence, which my heart condemns. It is easy to see, if I do not break it off, that Mr. Lovelace's advantages, by reason of my unhappy situation, will every day increase, and I shall be more and more entangled. Yet, if I do put an end to it, without making it a condition of being freed from Mr. Somes' address, may I, my dear, is it best to continue it a little longer, in order to extricate myself out of the other difficulty, by giving up all thoughts of Mr. Lovelace? Whose advice can I ask now, but yours? All my relations are met. They are at breakfast together. They are at breakfast together. Mr. Somes is expected. I am excessively uneasy. I must lay down my pen. They are all going to church together. Grievously disordered, they appear to be, as Hannah tells me. She believes something is resolved upon. Sunday noon. What a cruel thing is suspense! I will ask Leav to go to church this afternoon. I expect to be denied. But if I do not ask, they may allege that my not-going is owing to myself. I desire to speak with Shorry. Shorry came. I directed her to carry to my mother my request for permission to go to church this afternoon. What think you was the return? Tell her that she must direct herself to her brother for any favour she has to ask. So, my dear, I am to be delivered up to my brother. I was resolved, however, to ask of him this favour. Accordingly, when they sent me up to my solitary dinner, I gave the messenger a billet, in which I made it my humble request through him to my father to be permitted to go to church this afternoon. This was the contemptuous answer. Tell her that her request will be taken into consideration tomorrow. Patience will be the fittest return I can make to such an insult. But this method will not do with me. Indeed, it will not. And yet it is but the beginning, I suppose, of what I am to expect from my brother, now I am delivered up to him. On recollection, I thought it best to renew my request. I did. The following is a copy of what I wrote, and what follows that of the answer sent me. Sir, I know not what to make of the answer, but to my request of being permitted to go to church this afternoon. If you design to show your pleasantry by it, I hope that will continue, and then my request will be granted. You know that I never absented myself, when well, at home, till the last two Sundays, when I was advised not to go. My present situation is such that I never more wanted the benefit of the public prayers. I will solemnly engage, only to go tither, and back again. I hope it cannot be thought that I would do otherwise. My dejection of spirits will give a too-just excuse on the score of indispution for avoiding visits. No will I, but by distant civilities, return the compliments of any of my acquaintances. My disgraces, if they are to have an end, need not be proclaimed to the whole world. I ask this favour, therefore, for my reputation's sake, that I may be able to hold up my head in the neighbourhood, if I live to see an end of the unremitted severities which seem to be designed for. Your unhappy sister, Clarissa Harlow, he responds, To miss Clarissa Harlow, for a girl to lay so much stress upon going to church, and yet resolve to defy her parents, in an article of the greatest consequence to them, and to the whole family, is an absurdity. You are recommended, miss, to the practice of your private devotions. May they be spacious upon the mind of one of the most pervasive young creatures that was ever heard of. The intention is, I tell you, plainly, to mortify you into a sense of your duty. The neighbours you are so solicitous to appear well with already know that you defy that. So, miss, if you have a real value for your reputation, show it as you ought. It is yet in your own power to establish or impair it. J. A. Harlow. Thus, my dear, miss Howe, has my brother got me into his snares, and I, like a poor silly bird, the more I struggle, am the more entangled. End of LETTER XXII Recording by Ben Dutton, Blampeter, Wales Letter XXIII of Clarissa, Volume I This is a LibriVox recording. All 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 I, by Samuel Richardson LETTER XXIII Miss Clarissa Harlow to Miss Howe, Monday morning, March the 6th They are resolved to break my heart. My poor Hannah is discharged, disgracefully discharged. Thus it was. Within half an hour, after I had sensed the poor girl down for my breakfast, that bald creature Betty Barnes, my sister's confidant and servant, if a favourite maid and confidant can be deemed a servant, came up. What, miss? Will you please have for breakfast? I was surprised. What will I have for breakfast, Betty? How? What? How comes it? Then I named Hannah. I could not tell what to say. Don't be surprised, miss. But you'll see Hannah no more in this house. God forbid. Is any harm come to Hannah? What? What is the matter with Hannah? Why, miss? The shorter the longer it is this. Your papa and mama think Hannah has stayed long enough in the house to do mischief. And so she has ordered to troop, that was the confidant creature's word, and I am directed to wait upon you in her stead. I burst into tears. I have no service for you, Betty Barnes, none at all. But where is Hannah? Cannot I speak with the poor girl? I owe a half a year's wages. May I not see the honest creature and pay her her wages? I may never see her again, perhaps, for they are resolved to break my heart. And they think you are resolved to break theirs. So tit for tat, miss. Impurtenant I called her, and asked her if it were upon such confidant terms that her service was to begin. I was so very earnest to see the poor maid, that, to oblige me, as she has said, she went down with my request. The worthy creature was as earnest to see me, and the favour was granted in presence of Shory and Betty. I thanked her when she came up for her past service to me. Her heart was ready to break, and she began to vindicate her fidelity and love and disclaimed any mischief she had ever made. I told her that those who occasioned her being turned out of my service made no question of her integrity, that her dismission was intended for an indignity to me, that I was very sorry to be obliged to part with her, and hoped she would meet with as good a service. Never, never, ringing her hands, should she meet with a mistress she loved so well. And the poor creature ran on in my praises and in professions of love to me. We are all lapped, you know, my dear, to praise our benefactors, because they are our benefactors, as if everybody did right or wrong, as they obliged or disobliged us. But this good creature deserved to be kindly treated, so I could have no merit in favouring one whom it would have been ungrateful not to distinguish. I gave her a little in in some laces and other odd things, and instead of four pounds which were due to her, ten guineas, and said, if I were ever again allowed to be my own mistress, I would think of her in the first place. Betty enviously whispered shory upon it. Hannah told me, before their faces, having no other opportunity, that she had been examined about letters to me and from me, and that she had given her pocket to Miss Harlow, who looked into them and put her fingers in her stays to satisfy herself that she had not any. She gave me an account of the number of my pheasants and bantams, and I said, they should be my own care twice or thrice a day. We wept over each other at parting. The girl prayed for all the family. To have so good a servant so disgracefully dismissed is very cruel, and I could not help saying that those methods might break my heart, but not any other way answer the end of the authors of my disgraces. Betty, with a very saucy fleer, said shory, there would be a trial of skill about that she fancied. But I took no notice of it. If this wench thinks that I have robbed a young mistress of a lover, as you say she has given out, she may believe that it is some degree of merit in herself to be impertinent to me. Thus I have been forced apart with my faithful Hannah. If you can command me the good creature to a place worthy of her, pray, do for my sake. End of LETTER XXIII Recording by Ben Dutton, Blampeter, Wales Letter XXIV of Clarissa, Volume I This is a LibriVox recording. 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 I by Samuel Richardson Letter XXIV Miss Clarissa Harlow to Miss Howe Monday, near twelve o'clock The enclosed letter was just now delivered to me. My brother has carried all his points. I send you also the copy of my answer. No more at this time can I write. Monday VI Miss Clarissa By command of your father and mother, I write expressly to forbid you to come into their presence or into the garden when they are there, nor when they are not there, but with Betty Barnes to attend you, except by particular license or command. On their blessings, you are forbidden likewise to correspond with the vile lovelace, as it is well known you did by means of your sly Hannah, whence her sudden discharge, as was fit. Neither are you to correspond with Miss Howe, who was given herself high heirs of late, and might possibly help on your correspondence with that detested Libertine. Nor, in short, with anybody without leave. You are not to enter into the presence of either of your uncles, without their leave first obtained. It is a mercy to you, after such a behaviour to your mother, that your father refuses to see you. You are not to be seen in any apartment of the house you so lately governed as you pleased, unless you are commanded down. In short, you are strictly to confine yourself to your chamber, except now and then, in Betty Barnes' sight, as aforesaid, you take a morning or evening turn in the garden, and then you are to go directly, and without stopping at any apartment in the way, up or down the back stairs, that the sight of so perverse a young creature may not add to the pain you have already given everybody. The hourly threatenings of your fine fellow, as well as your own unheard of obstinacy, will account to you for all this. What a hand has the best and most indulgent of mothers had with you, who so long pleaded for you and undertook for you, even when others, from the manner of your setting out, disbared of moving you. What must your perverseness have been, that such a mother can give you up? She thinks it is right so to do, nor will take you to favour, unless you make the first steps by a compliance with your duty. As for myself, whom perhaps you think hardly of, in very good company, if you do, that is my sole consolation, I have advised that you may be permitted to pursue your own inclinations. Some people need no greater punishment than such a permission, and not to have the house encumbered by one who must give them the more pain for the necessity she has laid them under of avoiding the sight of her, although in it. If anything I have written appear severe or harsh, it is still in your power, but perhaps will not always be so to remedy it, and that by a single word. Betty Barnes has orders to obey you in all points consistent with her duty to those whom you owe it, as well as she. James Harlow To James Harlow, Jr., Esquire, Sir, I will only say that you may congratulate yourself on having so far succeeded in all your views, that you may report what you please of me, and I can no more defend myself than if I were dead. Yet one favour nevertheless I will beg of you. It is this, that you will not occasion more severities, more disgraces, that are necessary for carrying into execution your further designs, whatever they be, against your unhappy sister, Clarissa Harlow. End of Letter 24 Recording by Ben Dutton, Lampeter, Wales Letter 25 of Clarissa, Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All 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 25 Miss Clarissa Harlow, to Miss Howe, Tuesday, March the 7th By my last deposit, you will see how I am driven, and what a poor prisoner I am. No regard had to my reputation. The whole matter is now before you. Can such measures be supposed to soften? But surely they can only mean to try and frighten me into my brother's views. All my hope is to be able to weather this point till my cousin Morden comes from Florence, and he is soon expected. Yet, if they are determined upon a short day, I doubt he will not be here in time enough to save me. It is plain by my brother's letter that my mother has not spared me, in the report she was pleased to make of the conference between herself and me. Yet she was pleased to hint to me that my brother had views which she would have had me try to disappoint. But indeed she had engaged to give such a faithful account of what was to pass between herself and me. And it was, doubtless, much more eligible to give up a daughter than to discipline your husband and every other person of the family. They think they have done everything by turning away my poor Hannah. But as long as the liberty of the garden and my poultry visits are allowed me, they will be mistaken. I asked Miss Betty if she had any orders to watch or attend me, or whether I was to ask her leave whenever I should be disposed to walk in the garden, or to go feed my bandams. Lord bless her. What could I mean by such a question? Yet she owned that she had heard that I was not to go into the garden when my father, mother or uncles were there. However, as it behoved me to be assured on this head, I went down directly and stayed an hour without question or impediment. And yet a good part of the time I walked under and in sight, as I may say, of my brother's study window, where both he and my sister happened to be. And I am sure they saw me, by the loud mirth they affected, by way of insult, as I suppose. So this part of my restraint was doubtless a stretch of the authority given him. The enforcing of that may perhaps come next, but I hope not. Tuesday night. Since I wrote to the above, I ventured to send a letter by Shory to my mother. I desired her to give it into her own hand when nobody was by. I shall enclose a copy of it. You will see that I would have had thought that now Hannah is gone, I have no way to correspond out of the house. I am far from thinking all I do is right. I am afraid this is a little piece of art, that is not so. But this is an afterthought. The letter went first. Honoured Madame. Having acknowledged to you that I had received letters from Mr Lovelace full of resentment, and that I answered them purely to prevent further mischief, and having shown you copies of my answers, which you did not disapprove of, although you thought fit after you had read them, to forbid me any further correspondence with him, I think it is my duty to acquaint you that another letter from him has since come to my hand, in which he is very earnest with me to permit him to wait on my papar, or you, or my two uncles, in a pacific way, accompanied by Lord M, on which I beg your commands. I own to you, Madame, that had not the prohibition been renewed, and had not Hannah been so suddenly dismissed from my service, I should have made the less scruple to have written an answer, and to have commanded her to convey it to him, with all speed, in order to dissuade him from these visits, lest anything should happen on the occasion that my heart aches but to think of. And here I cannot but express my grief, that I should have all the punishment and all the blame, who, as I have reason to think, have prevented great mischief, and have not been the occasion of any. For, Madame, could I be supposed to govern the passions of either of the gentlemen? Over the one indeed, I have had some little influence, without giving him hitherto any reason to think he has fastened an obligation upon me for it. Over the other, who, Madame, has any, I am grieved at heart, to be obliged to lay so great a blame at my brother's door, although my reputation and my liberty are both to be sacrificed to his resentment and ambition. May not, however, so deep a sufferer be permitted to speak out. This communication, being as voluntarily made, as dutifully intended, I humbly presume to hope that I shall not be required to produce the letter itself. I cannot either in honour or prudence do that because of the vehemence of his style. For having heard, not I assure you by end my means or through hanners, of some part of the harsh treatment I have met with, he thinks himself entitled to place it to his own account, by reason of speeches thrown out by some of my relations, equally vehement. If I do not answer him, he will be made desperate and think himself justified, thought I shall not think of him so, in resenting the treatment he complains of. If I do, and if, in compliment to me, he forebears to resent what he thinks himself entitled to resent, be pleased, Madame, to consider the obligation he will suppose he lays me under. If I were as strongly pre-possessed in his favour as is supposed, I should not have wished this to be considered by you, and permit me, as a still further proof that I am not pre-possessed, to beg of you to consider whether, upon the whole, the proposal I made of declaring for the single life, which I will religiously adhere to, is not the best way to get rid of the pretensions with honour. To renounce him, and not be allowed to aver, that I will never be the other man's, will make him conclude, driven as I am driven, that I am determined in that other man's favour. If this is not its due weight, my brother's strange schemes must be tried, and I will resign myself to my destiny with all the acquiescence that shall be granted to my prayers. And so, leaving the whole to your own wisdom, and whether you choose to consult my papa and uncles under this humble application or not, or whether I shall be allowed to write an answer to Mr. Lovelace or not, and if allowed to do so, I beg your direction by whom to send it, I remain your honoured Madame, your unhappy but ever dutiful daughter, Clarissa Harlow, Wednesday morning. I have just received an answer to the endorsed letter. My mother, you will observe, has ordered me to burn it, but as you will have it in your safekeeping, and nobody else will see it, her end will be equally answered, as if it were burnt. It has neither date, nor superscription. Clarissa, say not all the blame, and all the punishment is yours. I am as much blamed and as much punished as you are, yet am more innocent. When your obstancy is equal to any other person's passion, blame not your brother. We judged right, that Hannah carried on your correspondences. Now she is gone, and you cannot write. We think you cannot, to miss how, nor she to you, without our knowledge, one cause of an easiness and jealousy is over. I have no dislike of Hannah. I did not tell her so, because somebody was within hearing when she desired to pay her duty to me at going. I gave her a caution in a raised voice, to take care, wherever she went to live next, if there were any young ladies, how she made parties, and assisted in clandestine correspondences. But I slid two guineas into her hand. Nor was I angry to hear that she was still more bountiful to her. So much for Hannah. I don't know what to write about you answering that man of violence. What can you think of it, that such a family as ours should have such a rod held over it? For my part, I have not owned that I know you have corresponded. By your last boldness to me, an astonishing one it was, to pursue before Mr. Soames the subject I was forced to break from above stairs. You may, as far as I know, plead that you had my countenance for your correspondence with him, and so add to the uneasiness between your father and me. You were once my comfort, Clarissa. You made all my hardships tolerable, but now, however nothing it is plain, can move you. And I will say no more on that head. For you are under your father's discipline now, and he will neither be prescribed to, nor entreated. I should have been glad to see the letter you tell me of, as I saw the rest. You say both honour and prudence forbid you to show it to me. O Clarissa, what think you of receiving letters that honour and prudence forbid you to show to a mother? But it is not for me to see it, if you would choose to show it to me. I will not be in your secret. I will not know that you did correspond. And, as to an answer, take your own methods. But let him know it will be the last you will write. And, if you do write, I won't see it. So seal it up, if you do, and give it to Shory, and she. Yet do not think I give you licence to write. We will be upon no conditions with him, nor will you be allowed to upon any. Your father and uncles would have no patience were he to come. What have you to do to oblige him with your refusal of Mr. Soames? Will not that refusal be to him to give hope? And while he has any, can we be easy or free from his insults? Where even your brother in fault, as that fault cannot be conquered, is a sister to carry on a correspondence that shall endanger her brother. But your father has given his sanction to your brother's dislikes, your uncles and everybody's, no matter to whom owing. As to the rest, you have, by your obstinacy, put it out of my power to do anything for you. Your father takes it upon himself to be answerable for all consequences. You must not, therefore, apply to me for any favour. I shall endeavour to be only an observer. Happy, if I could be an unconcerned one, while I had the power, you would not let me use it as I would have used it. Your aunt has been forced to engage, not to interfere, but by your father's direction. You'll have severe trials. If you have any favour to hope for, it must be from the meditation of your uncles. And yet I believe they are equally determined, for they make it a principle, alas, they never had children, for that child, who in marriage is not governed by her parents, is to be given up as a lost creature. I charge you, let not this letter be found. Burn it. There is too much of the mother in it, to a daughter so unaccountably obstinate. Right, not another letter to me. I could do nothing for you. But you could do everything for yourself. Now, my dear, to proceed with my melancholy narrative. After this letter, you will believe that I could have very little hopes, that an application directly to my father would stand me in any stead. But I thought it became me to write, worried but to acquit myself to myself, that I have left nothing unattempted, that he has the least likelihood to restore me to his favour. Accordingly, I wrote to the following effect. I presume not, I say, to argue with my papa. I only beg his mercy and indulgence in this one point, on which depends my present and perhaps my future happiness. And beseech him not to reprobate his child for any aversion, which it is not in her power to conquer. I beg that I may not be sacrificed to projects and remote contingencies. I complain of the disgraces I suffer in this banishment from his presence and in being confined to my chamber. In everything but this one point, I promise implicit duty and resignation to his will. I repeat my offers of a single life, and appeal to him whether I have ever given him cause to doubt my word. I beg to be admitted to his and to my mama's presence, and that my conduct may be under their own eye. And this with the more earnestness as I have too much reason to believe that snares are laid for me. And tauntings and revilings used on purpose to make a handle of my words against me, when I am not permitted to speak in my own defence. I conclude with hoping that my brother's instigations may not rob an unhappy child of her father. This is the answer sent without superscription, and unsealed, although by Betty Barnes, who delivered it with an air as if she knew the contents. Wednesday I write perverse girl, but with all the indignation that your disobedience deserves. To desire to be forgiven a fault you own, and yet to resolve to persevere in, is a boldness no more to be equal than past over. It is my authority you define. Your reflections upon a brother, that is an honour to us all, deserve my utmost resentment. I see how light all relationship sits upon you. The cause I guess at too. I cannot bear the reflections that naturally arise from this consideration. Your behaviour to your too indulgent and too fond mother. But I have no patience. Continue banished from my presence and dutiful as you are, till you know how to conform to my will. In grateful creature, your letter but abrade me for my past indulgence. Write no more to me, till you can distinguish better, and till you are convinced of your duty to a justly incensed father. This angry letter was accompanied by one from my mother, unsealed and unsuperscribed also. Those who take so much pains to confederate everyone against me, I make no doubt obliged her to bear her testimony against the poor girl. My mother's letter being a repetition of some of the severe things that pass between herself and me, of which I have already informed you, I shall not need to give you the contents, only thus far that she also praises my brother and blames me for my freedoms with him. End of letter twenty-five. Recording by Ben Dutton, Blamper to Wales. Letter twenty-six of Clarissa, volume one. This is a LibraVox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibraVox.org. Clarissa Harlow, or the History of a Young Lady, volume one, by Samuel Richardson. Letter twenty-six. Miss Clarissa Harlow to Miss Howe. Thursday morning, March the ninth. I have another letter from Mr. Lovelace, although I had not answered his former. This man, somehow or other, knows everything that passes in our family. My confinement, Hannah's dismission, and more of the resentments and resolutions of my father, uncles, and brother, than I can possibly know, and almost as soon as the things happen, which he tells me of. He cannot come at these intelligences fairly. He is excessively uneasy upon what he hears, and his expressions, both of love to me and resentment to them, are very fervent. He solicits me to engage my honour to him, never to have Mr. Soames. I think I may fairly promise him that I will not. He begs that I will not think he is endeavouring to make himself a merit at any man's expense, since he hopes to obtain my favour on the foot of his own, nor that he seeks to intimidate me into a consideration for him, but declares that the treatment he meets with from my family is of such a nature that he is perpetually reproached for not resenting it. And that as well by Lord M. and Lady Sarah, and Lady Betty, as by all his other friends. And if he must have no hope from me, he cannot answer for what his despair will make him do. Indeed, he says, his relations, the ladies particularly, advise him to have recourse to a legal remedy. But how, he asks, can a man of honour go to law for verbal abuses given by people entitled to wear swords? You see, my dear, that my mother seems as apprehensive of mischief as myself, and as I indirectly offered to let Shory carry my answer to the letter he sent me before. He is full of the favours of the ladies of his family to me, to whom nevertheless I am personally a stranger, except that I once saw Ms. Patty Montague at Miss Nolly's. It is natural, I believe, for a person to be the more desirous of making new friends in proportion as she loses the favour of old ones. Yet had I rather appear amiable in the eyes of my own relations and in your eyes than in those of the world besides. But these four ladies of his family have such excellent characters that one cannot but wish to be thought well of by them. Cannot there be a way to find out, by Mrs. Fortescue's means, or by Mr. Hickman, who has some knowledge of Lord M, covertly, however, what their opinions are of the present situation of things in our family, and of the little likelihood there is that ever the alliance once approved of by them can take effect? I cannot, for my own part, think so well of myself as to imagine that they can wish their kinsmen to persevere in his views with regard to me, though such contempt and discouragements. Not that it would concern me, should they advise him to the contrary. By my Lord's signing Mr. Lovelace's former letter, by Mr. Lovelace's assurances of the continued favour of all his relations, and by the report of others, I seem still to stand high in their favour. But me thinks I should be glad to have this confirmed to me, as from themselves, by the lips of an indifferent person, and the rather, because of their fortunes and family, and take it amiss, as they have reason, to be included by ours in the contempt thrown upon their kinsmen. Curiosity at present is all my motive. Nor will they ever, I hope, be a stronger, notwithstanding your questionable throbs, even where the merits of Mr. Lovelace much greater than they are. I have answered his letters. If he takes me at my word, I shall need to be less solicitous for the opinions of his relations in my favour, and yet one would be glad to be well thought of by the worthy. This is the substance of my letter. I express my surprise at his knowing, and so early, all that passes here. I assure him that there were not such a man in the world as himself, I would not have Mr. Soames. I tell him that to return, as I understand he does, defiances for defiances to my relations is far from being approved with me, either of his politeness or of the consideration he pretends to have for me. At the moment I hear he visits any of my friends without their consent, I will make a resolution never to see him more if I can help it. I apprise him. That I am convived in ascending this letter, although no one has seen the contents, provided it shall be the last I will ever write to him. That I had more than once told him that the single life was my choice, and this before Mr. Soames was introduced as a visitor in our family. That Mr. Wiley and other gentlemen knew it to be my choice, before himself was acquainted with any of us. That I had never been induced to receive a line from him on the subject, but that I thought he had not acted ungenerously by my brother, and yet had not been so handsomely retreated by my friends as he might have expected. But that had he even my friends on his side I should have very great objections to him. Were I to get over my choice of a single life, so really preferable to me as it is, and that I should have declared as much to him, had I not regarded him as more than a common visitor. On all these accounts I desire that the one more letter, which I will allow him to deposit in the usual place, may be the very last, and that only to acquaint me with his acquiescence that it shall be so, at least till happier times. This last I put in that he may not be quite desperate, but if he takes me into my word I shall be rid of one of my tormentors. I have promised to lay before you all his letters and my answers. I repeat that promise, and am the less solicitous for that reason to amplify upon the contents of either. But I cannot too often express my vexation to be driven to such straits and difficulties here at home as obliged me to answer letters. From a man I had not absolutely intended to encourage, and to whom I had really great objections, filled as his art with such warm protestations, and written to me with a spirit of expectation. For my dear, you never knew so bold a supposer, as commentators find beauties in an author, to which the author perhaps was a stranger, so he sometimes compliments me in high strains of gratitude for favours, and for a consideration which I have never designed with him. In so much that I am frequently under a necessity of explaining away the attributed goodness to him, which, if I showed, I should have the less opinion of myself. In short, my dear, like a re-stiff horse, as I have heard described by sportsmen, he pains one's hands, and half-ditch joints one's arms to rein him in. And when you see his letters, you must form no judgment upon them, till you have read my answers. If you do, you will indeed think you have caused a tribute's self-deceit, and throbs and glows to your friend. And yet, at other times, the contradictory nature complains that I show him his little favour, and my friends as much inveteracy as if the recontour betwixt my brother and him, he had been the aggressor, and as if the catastrophe had been as fatal as it might have been. If he has a design by this conduct, sometimes complaining of my shyness at others exalting in my imaginary favours, to induce me at one time to acquiesce with his compliments, at another to be more complacent for his complaints, and if the contradiction be not the effect of his inattention and giddiness, I shall think him as deep and as artful, to probably as practice, a creature as has ever lived, and where I to be sure of it, should hate him, if possible, worse than I do soams. But enough for the present of a creature so very various. End of letter 26 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 Bledrus, Lampeder, Wales. Clarissa Harlow, by Samuel Richardson. Letter 27 I have not patience with any of the people you are with. I know not what to advise you to do. How do you know that you are not punishable for being the cause, though to your own loss, that the will of your grandfather is not complied with? Wills are sacred things, child. You see that they even they think so, who imagine they suffer by a will, through the distinction paid to you in it. I allow of all your noble reasonings for what you did at the time. But since such a charming, such filial duty is to go thus unrewarded, why should you not resume? Your grandfather knew failing. He knew what a noble spirit you had to do good. He himself, perhaps, excuse me, my dear, had done too little in his lifetime, and therefore he put it in your power to make up for the defects of the whole family. Wear it to me, I would you resume it, indeed I would. You will say you cannot do it while you are with them. I don't know that. Do you think they can use you worse than they do? And is it not your right? And do they not make use of your own generosity to oppress you? Your uncle Harlow is one trustee, your cousin Morden is the other. Insist upon your right to your uncle and right to your cousin Morden about it. This, I dare say, will make them alter their behaviour to you. Your insolent brother, what has he to do to control you? Wear it me, I wish it were for one month and no more. I'd show him the difference. I would be in my own mansion, pursuing my charming schemes, and making all around me happy. I would set up my own chariot, I would visit them when they deserved it. But when my brother and sister gave themselves airs, I would let them know that I was their sister, and not their servant. And if that did not do, I would shut my gates against them, and bid them go and be company for each other. It must be confessed, however, that this brother and sister of yours, judging as such narrow spirits will ever judge, have some reason for treating you as they do. It must long have been a mortification to them, said disappointed love on a side and avarice on his out of the question, to be so much eclipsed by a younger sister. Such a son in a family, where there none but faint twinklers, how could they bear it? Why, my dear, they must look upon you as a prodigy among them, and prodigies you know, though they obtain our admiration, never attract our love. The distance between you and them is immense. Their eyes ache to look up at you. What shades does your full day of merit cast upon them? Can you wonder, then, that they should embrace the first opportunity they offered to endeavor to bring you down to their level? Depend upon it, my dear, you will have more of it, and more still as you bear it. As to this odious sums, I wonder not at your aversion to him. It is needless to say anything to you, who have so sincere an antipathy to him to strengthen your dislike. Yet, who can resist her own talents? One of mine, as I have here to foresaid, is to give an ugly likeness. Shall I indulge it? I will. And the rather, as in doing so, you will have my opinion in justification of your aversion to him, and in approbation of a steadiness that ever I ever admired, and must forever approve of in your temper. I was twice in this wretched company, at one of the times your lovelace was there. I need not mention to you of such a pretty curiosity, though at present only a curiosity, you know, the unspeakable difference. Lovelace entertained the company in his lively gay way, and made everybody laugh at one of his stories. It was before this creature was ever thought of for you. Somes laughed too. It was, however, his laugh. For his thirst, three years at least, I imagine, must have been one continual fit of crying, and his muscles have never yet been able to recover a riceable tone. His very smile, you never saw him smile, I believe, never at least gave him cause to smile, is so little natural to his features that it appears to him as hideous as the grin of a man in malice. I took great notice of him, as I do all the noble lords of the creation in their peculiarities, and was disgusted, nay, shocked at him even then. I was glad I remember on that particular occasion to see his strange features recovering their natural gloominess, though they did this but slowly, as if the muscles which contributed to his distortions had turned upon rusty springs. What a dreadful thing must even the love of such a husband be. For my part, were I his wife, put what have I done to myself to make such a supposition, I should never have comfort but in his absence, or when I was quarrelling with him. A splenetic woman, who must have some deed to find fault with, might indeed to be brought to endure such a wretch, the sight of him would always furnish out the occasion, and all her servants for that reason, and for that only would have caused to blame their master. But how grievous and apprehensive a thing it must be for his wife, had she the least degree of delicacy to catch herself in having done something to oblige him. So much for his person. As to the other half of him, he is said to be an insinuating creeping mortal, to any one he hopes to be a gainer by, an insolent overbearing one where he has no such views, and is not this the genuine spirit of meanness. He is reported to be spiteful and malicious, even to the whole family of any single person who has once disobliged him, and to his own relations most of all. I am told that they are none of them such wretches as himself. This may be one reason why he is for disheriting them. My kitty, from one of his domestics, tells me that his tenants hate him, and that he never had a servant who spoke well of him, vilely suspicious of them wronging him, probably from the badness of his own heart, is always changing. His pockets, they say, are continually crammed with keys, so that when he would treat a guest, a friend he is not out of your family, he is as half-long puzzling which is which, as his niggardly treat may be concluded in, and if it be wine he always fetches it himself. Nor has he much trouble in doing so, for he is very few visitors, only those whom business or necessity brings, for a gentleman who can help it would rather be benighted than put up at his house. Yet this is the man, for considerations as sordid as those he is governed by, for husband, that is to say, for a lord and master to miss Clarissa Harlow. But perhaps he may not be quite so miserable as he is represented, characters extremely good or extremely bad are seldom justly given, favor for a person will exalt the one as disfavor will sink the other, but your uncle Antony has told my mother who objected to his covetousness, that it was intended to tie him up, as he called it, to his own terms, which would be with a hempen rather than with a matrimonial cord, I dare say. But is this not a plain indication, that even his own recommenders think him a mean creature, and there must be articleed with perhaps for necessaries. But enough, and too much of such a wretch as this, you must not have in my dear, that I am clearing, though not so clear, how you be able to avoid it, except you assert the independence to which your estate gives you a title. Here my mother broke in upon me, she wanted to see what I had written, I was silly enough to read Somes' character to her, she owned that the man was not the most desirable of men, and that he had not the happiest appearance, but what, said she, is a person in a man. And I was chidden for setting you against complying with your father's will, then followed a lecture upon the preference to be given in favor of a man who took care to discharge all his obligations to the world and to keep all together, in opposition to a spendthrift or profligate, a fruitful subject you know, whether any particular person be meant by it or not. Why will these wise parents, by saying too much against the persons they dislike, put one upon defending them? Lovelace is not a spendthrift, owes not obligations to the world, though I doubt not profligate enough. Then putting one upon doing such but common justice, we must need be possessed truly, and so perhaps we are put upon curiosity's first, that is to say how such your one or his friends may think of one, and then, but too probably, comes in a distinguishing preference, or something that it looks exceedingly like it. My mother charged me at last to write that side over again. But excuse me, my good mama, I would not have the character lost upon any consideration, since my vein ran freely into it, and I never wrote to please myself, but I pleased you. A very good reason why we have but one mind between us, only that sometimes your little too grave me thinks, and I, no doubt, a little too flippant in your opinion. This difference in our tempers, however, is probably the reason that we love one another so well, that in the words of Norris no third love can come betwixt. Since each in the other's eye having something amiss, and each loving the other well enough to bear being told of it, and perhaps, the rather, as neither wishes to mend it, this takes off a good deal from that rivalry which might encourage a little, if not a great deal, of that latent spleen which in time might rise into envy, and that into ill will. So, my dear, if this be the case, let each keep a fault, and much good may do her with it, and what an hero must she or he be who can conquer a constitutional fault? Let it be Averis, as in some I dare not name, let it be Gravity, as in my best friend, or let it be Flippancy, as in I need not say whom. It is proper to acquaint you that I was obliged to comply with my mother's curiosity. My mother has a share, her full share of curiosity, my dear, and to let us see here and there some passages in your letters. I am broken in upon, and I will tell you by and by what pass between my mother and me upon this occasion, and the rather, as she had a girl, a fervent Hickman, and your lovelace all at once in her eye, in her per part of the conversation. Thus it was. I cannot but think Nancy said she, after all, that there is a little hardship in Miss Harlow's case, and yet, as her mother says, it is a great thing to have a child who has always noted for a duty in smaller points to stand in opposition to a parent's will in the greater, yay in the greatest of all, and now, to middle the matter between both, it is a pity that the man they favour has not that sort of merit, which a person of mine so delicate as that of Miss Harlow might reasonably expect in a husband, but then this man is surely preferable to a Libertine, to a Libertine who has had a duel with her own brother. Fathers and mothers must think so, were it not for that circumstance, and it is strange if they do not know best. And so they must thought I from their experience, if no little dirty views give them also that pre-possession in one man's favour, which they are so apt to censure their daughters for having in another's, and if, as I may add in your case, they have no creeping old, musty uncle Antony's to strengthen their pre-possessions, as he does my mother's. Poor creeping positive soul! What has such an old bachelor's he to do, to pray about the duties of children to parents, unless he had a notion that parents owe some to their children? But your mother, by her indolent meekness, let me call it, has spoilt all the three brothers. But you see, child, preceding my mother, what a different behaviour mine is to you. I recommend to you some of the soberest, yet politest men in England. I think little of my mother's politest, my dear. She judges of honest Hickman for her daughter, as she would have done, I suppose, twenty years ago for herself. Of a good family, continued my mother, a fine, clear and improving estate, a prime consideration with my mother, as well as with some other folks of whom you know. And I beg, I pray you to encourage him, at least not to use him the worse, for him being so obsequious to you. Yes indeed, to use him kindly, that he may treat me familiarly, but distance to these men wretches is best, I say. Yet it will all hardly prevail upon you, to do as I have you. What would you say were I to treat you as Miss Harlow's father and mother treat her? What would I say, madam? That's easily answered, I would say nothing. Can you think such usage, and to such a young lady as to be born? Come, come, Nancy, be not so hasty. You've heard but one side, and that there is more to be said is plain, but you're reading to me but parts of the letters. They are her parents. They must know best. Miss Harlow, as fine a child as she is, must have done something, must have said something, you know how they loved her, to make them treat her thus. But if she be blameless, madam, how does your own supposition condemn them? Then came up Somes' great estate, his good management of it. A little too near, indeed was the word. Oh, how money-lovers thought I will palitate. Yet my mother is a princess in spirit to this Somes. What strange effects, added she, have pre-possession and love upon young ladies. I do not know how it is, my dear, but people take high delight but finding out folks in love. Curiosity begets curiosity. I believe that's the thing. She proceeded to praise Mr. Lovelace's person and his qualifications natural and acquired, but then she would judge as mother's will judge, and as daughters are very loath to judge, but could say nothing in answer to your offering of living single and breaking with him, if, if, three or four ifs she made of one good one, that could be depended on. But still, obedience without reserve, reason what I will, is the burden of my mother's song, and this for my sake, as well as for yours. I must need say that I think duty to parents is a very meritorious excellence, but I bless God I have not your trials. We can all be good when we have no temptation or provocation to the contrary, but few young persons who can help themselves to as you can would bear what you bear. I will now mention all that is upon my mind in relation to the behaviour of your father and uncles and the rest of them, because I would not offend you, but I have now a higher opinion of my own sagacity than ever I had, in that I could never cordially love any one of your family but yourself. I am not born to like them, but is my duty to be sincere to my friend, and this will excuse her Anna Howe to miss Clarissa Harlow. I ought indeed to have expected your mother, a lady to be referenced and now to be pitied, what must have been her treatment to be thus subjugated, as I may call it. Little did the old Viscount think when he married his darling, his only daughter, to so well appearing a gentleman, and to her own liking too, that she would have been so much kept down. Another would call your father a tyrant, if I must not. All the world that know him do call him so, and if you love your mother, you should not be very angry at the world for taking that liberty. Yet, after all, I cannot help thinking that she is the less to be pitied, as she may be said, be the gout or what you will the occasion of his moroseness, to have long behaved unworthy of her birth and fine qualities in yielding so much as she yields to encroaching spirits. You may confine the reflection to your brother, if he will pay you to extend it, and this is for the sake of preserving a temporary peace to herself, which was the less worth endeavouring to preserve, as it always produced a strengthening the will of others which subjected her to an arbitrariness that of course grew and became established upon her patience, and now, to give up the most deserving of her children against a judgment, as sacrificed the ambition and selfishness of the least deserving. But I fly from this subject, having fear, I said, too much to be forgiven, and yet much less as in my heart to say upon the over meek subject. Mr. Hickman is expected from London this evening. I have desired him to inquire after Mr. Lovelace's life and conversation in town. If he has not inquired, I shall be very angry with him. Don't expect a very good account of either. He is certainly an intriguing wretch in full of inventions. Upon my word I most heartily despise at sex. I wish they would let our fathers and mothers alone, teasing them to tease us with their golden promises and protestations and settlements, and the rest of their ostentatious nonsense. How charmingly might you and I live together and despise them all. But to be cajoled, wire-drawn and ensnared like silly birds into a state of bondage or vile subordination, to be courted as princesses for a few weeks in order to be treated as slaves for the rest of our lives. Indeed, my dear, as you say of Psalms, I cannot endure them, but for your relations, friends will know more I call them, unworthy are they even of the other name, to take such a wretched price as that, and to the cutting-off of all reservations from his own family, how must a mind but commonly just resist such a measure. Mr. Hickman shall sound Lord M upon the subject you recommend, but beforehand I can tell you what he and his sisters will say when they are sounded. Who could not be proud of such a relation as Miss Clarissa Harlow? Mrs. Fortescue told me that they are all your very great admirers. If I have not been clear enough in my advice about what you shall do, let me say that I can give it all in one word. It is by only by re-erging you to resume. If you do, all the rest will follow. We are told here that Mrs. Norton, as well as your Aunt Harvey, has given her opinion on the implicit side of the question, if she can think that the part she has had in your education, and your own admiral talents and requirements are to be thrown away upon such a worthless creature as Somes I could heartily quarrel with her. You may think I say this to lessen your regard for the good woman, and perhaps not wholly without cause, if you do. For, to own the truth, me thinks I don't love her so well as I should do. Did you love her so apparently less, that I could be out of doubt that you love me better? Your mother tells you that you have great trials, that you are under your father's discipline. The word is enough for me to despise them who give occasion for its use, that is out of her power to help you, and again, that if you have any favoured hope for, it must be that mediation of your uncles. I suppose you will write to the oddities since you are forbid to see them, but can it be that such a lady, such a sister, such a wife, such a mother, has no influence with her own family? Who indeed, as you say, if this be so, would marry, that can live single? My collar is again beginning to rise. Resume, my dear, and that is all I will give myself time to say further, lest I offend you when I cannot serve you, only this, that I am your truly affectionate friend and servant, Anna Howe. End of letter twenty-seven