LETTER 20: [Commentary]
MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
Saturday P.M.
The expected conference is over: but my difficulties are increased. This, as my
mother was pleased to tell me, being the last persuasory effort that will be attempted, I will be
particular in the account of it as my
head and my heart will allow me to be.
I have made, said she, as she entered my room, a short as well as 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 some , whom I hope you’ll
disappoint, imagine you will; and
thereby demonstrate that I have not the weight with you that my indulgence to
you deserves.
Your papa both dines and sups at your uncle's, on purpose to give us this
opportunity; and as I shall
make my report, (which I have promised to do very faithfully) on his return, he
will take his measures with you.
I was offering to speak--Hear, 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], then,
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, Madam, 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 benefit of the family is concerned? Be
ingenuous: you used to be so, even
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 a 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 Madam, to say, that, if it were unjustly bequeathed me, I ought
not to wish to have it.
But I hope Mr. Solmes will be apprised of these flaws.
This is very pertly said, she was pleased to tell me; but bid me reflect, that
the forfeiture of that estate,
through my opposition, will be attended with the total loss of papa's favour:
and then how destitute I must be;
how unable to support myself; and how many benevolent designs and good actions
must I give up!
I must accommodate myself, Madam, in the latter case, to my circumstances. Much
only was required where
much was given. It became me to be thankful for what I had had; and I had reason
to bless her and my good Mrs. Norton,
for bringing me up to be satisfied with little; with much less, I will venture
to say, than my papa's indulgence annually
conferred upon me.--And then I thought of the old Roman and his lentils.
What perverseness! said my mamma.--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
papa does, and absolutely renounce you.
I told her, I was sorry that I had had so little merit as to have made no deeper
impressions of favour
or me in their hearts: but I will love and honour them as long as I live.
All this, she was pleased to say, made my prepossession in a certain man's
favour the more evident.
Indeed, my brother and sister cannot go anywhither, but they heard of these
prepossessions.
It is a great grief to me, Madam, to be made the subject of the public talk: but
I hoped she would have the goodness
to excuse me for observing, that the authors of my disgrace within doors, the
talkers of my prepossession without,
and the reporters of it from abroad, are originally the same persons.
She severely chid me for this.
I received her rebukes 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 , I see! --You have no concern to clear yourself of
it. I was afraid of telling you all
I was enjoined to tell you, in case you were to be unpersuadable: but I find
that I had a greater opinion of your
delicacy and gentleness, than I needed to have--it cannot discompose so steady,
so inflexible a young creature,
to be told 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
all our favour be one.
I was speechless, absolutely speechless. Although my heart was ready
to burst, yet could I neither weep nor speak.
She was sorry, she said , for my averseness to this match: [match she was
pleased to call it!] but there was no help.
The honour and interest of the family, as my aunt has told me, and as she has
told you, is concerned; and I 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 God's sake, and for her sake, to comply.
Speech and tears were lent me at the same time.--You have given me life, Madam,
said I, clasping my uplifted hands together, and falling
on one knee; a happy one, till now, has your goodness, and my papa's, made it! O
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 deserved 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, my child!
To give you hope, my dearest, my most indulgent Mamma, is to give you every
thing. Can I be honest,
if I give a hope that I cannot confirm?
She was very angry. She again called me perverse: she upbraided me with
regarding only my own prepossessions,
and respecting not either her peace of mind or my own duty:--'It is a grating
thing, said she, for the parents of a child,
who delighted in her in all the time of her 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, she should 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 would) defied her family, and had actually embrued
his hands in her brother's blood.
She added, 'That she had a very hard time of it between my father and me; that
seeing my dislike,
I have more than once pleaded for me: but all to no purpose. She was only
treated as a too fond mother,
who, from motives of a blamable indulgence, would encourage a child to stand in
opposition to a father's will.
She was charged, she said, with dividing the family into two parts; she and her
youngest daughter standing
against her husband, his two brothers, her son, her eldest daughter, and her
sister Hervey.
She had been told, that she must be convinced of the fitness as well as
advantage to the whole
(my brother and Mr. Lovelace out of the question) of carrying the contract with
Mr. Solmes, on which
so many contracts depend, into execution.
She repeated 'That my father's heart was in it: that he had declared, that he
had rather have no
daughter in me, than one he cannot dispose of for her own good: especially as I
had owned, that my heart was
free; and as the general good of his whole family is to be promoted by my
obedience: that
he had 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 hoped, that I,
who have been supposed to have contributed to the lengthening of his father's
life, will not, by my
disobedience, shorten your his.'
This was a most affecting plea, my dear. I wept in silence upon it. I could not
speak to it.
And my mamma proceeded: 'What therefore can be his motives, she asked, in the
earnest desire
he had to see this treaty perfected, but the welfare and aggrandizement of his
family; which
already having fortunes to become the highest condition, cannot but aspire to
greater distinctions:
that, however slight such views as these might appear to me, I knew, that they
were not slight ones
to any other of the family: and my father would be his own judge of what was and
what was not
likely to promote the good of his children: that my abstractedness, (affectation
of abstractedness, some call it,)
savoured of greater particularity, than they aimed to carry: that modesty and
humility would
therefore oblige me rather to mistrust myself of peculiarity, than censure
views, which all the
world pursued as opportunity offered.'
I was still silent; and she proceeded--'That it is owing to the good opinion,
which my papa has of me,
and of my prudence, duty, and gratitude, that he had engaged for my compliance,
in my absence
(before I returned from Miss Howe); and that he had 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 Miss Howe, with
so much
intimidating solemnity?--To be sure, this argument, as well as the rest, was
obtruded upon my mamma.
She went on, 'That my papa had declared, that my unexpected opposition,
[unexpected she was pleased to call it,]
and Mr. Lovelace's continued menaces and insults, more and more convinced him,
that 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: that he had 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 whose the happy expedient must be: female minds, I once heard
my brother say,
that could but be brought to balance on the change 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:'That neither for my sake, nor his own, could my father labour
under a suspense so affecting to
his repose. That he had even thought fit to acquaint her, on her pleading for
me, that it becomes her, as she
valued her own peace, [how harsh to such a wife!] and as she wished, that he
should not suspect that you
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 her authority over me: and
that this she
may the less scrupulously do, as you have owned [the old string!] that my heart
was free.'
Unworthy reflection this of our sex's valuing a libertine; in my mamma’s case,
surely! Who made choice
of my papa in preference to several suitors of equal fortunes because they were
of inferior reputation for morals!
She added, 'That my papa had left her at going out, with this command, that if
she found that
she had no proper influence over me, she should directly separate herself from
me and leave me,
singly, to take the consequence of my double
disobedience’
Affected by my mamma'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
inclining 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 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 become
the public talk; that my aversion to the man was too generally known, to
make my compliance either creditable to myself or to them, as it would
demonstrate less of a duty than of a slavish, andeven of a sordid mind,
seeking to preserve worldly fortunes by the sacrifice of its future happieness;
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. Solmes's disagreeable person; his still more disagreeable manners;
his low understanding--Understanding! the glory of a man, so little to be
dispensed with in the head and director of a family, in order to preserve to
him that respect which a good wife (and that for the justification of her own
choice)
should pay him herself, and wish every body to pay him.--And as Mr. Solmes's
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, Madam, 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 my
aversion. 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, O my dearest Mamma, save your child,
from this heavy, from this insupportable evil!--
Never was there a countenance that expressed so significantly, as my
mamma’s did, an anguish, which she struggled to hide, under an anger
she was compelled to assume--till 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 Madam! said I--Do not you 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 Mamma's love; at
least, her pity.
She turned to me with benigner rays--You have my love! You have my
pity! But, O my dearest girl--I have not yours.
Indeed, indeed, Madam, 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 as 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 any body 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 Madam, 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 brought 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 mamma sighed--I, am forced to put up with many
humours--
That you are, my ever-honoured Mamma, 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 'tis something of an
alleviation, if one must bear undue controul, to bear it from a man of
sense. My father, I have heard you say, Madam, was for years a very
good-humoured gentleman--unobjectionable in person and manners--but
the man proposed to me--
Forbear reflecting upon your father: [Did I, 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, were 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 you 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. Solmes?--Rather than give me hope?
Cruel 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,
Madam: bear with your child's boldness in such a cause as this!--Settlements drawn!--Patterns sent for!--An early day!--Dear, dear
Madam, 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, an ambitious brother, and by a sister,
that--
How often, Clary, must I forbid your unsisterly reflections?--Does not
your father, do not your uncles, does not every body, patronize Mr.
Solmes? 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 needs
say, than on my own. And indeed, all things considered, and
especially, that the measure she is 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 condescension
should 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--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 in my favour, if I go not down
to supplicate her pity
and kind report, before my papa comes back?--
I will attend her. I had rather all the world should be angry with me
than my mamma!
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.
CL. H.