LETTER 5: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE [Commentary]
JAN. 20
I have been hindered from prosecuting my intention. Neither nights nor mornings have been my own. My mamma has been very ill and would have no other nurse but me. I have not stirred from her bedside, for she kept her bed, and two nights I had the houour of sharing it with her.
Her disorder was a very violent colic. The contentions of these fierce, these masculine spirits, and the apprehension of mischiefs that may arise from the increasing animosity which all here have against Mr Lovelace, and his too-well-known resentful and intrepid character, she cannot bear. Then the foundations laid, as she dreads, for jealousy and heart-burnings in her own family, late so happy and so united, afflict exceedingly a gentle and sensible mind, which has from the beginning on all occasions sacrificed its own inward satisfaction to outward peace. My brother and sister, who used very often to jar, are now so much one and are so much together (caballing was the word that dropped from her, as if at unawares) that she is full of fears of consequences that may follow—to my prejudice, perhaps, is her kind concern, since she sees that they behave to me every hour with more and more shyness and reserve; yet would she but exert that authority which the superiority of her fine talents gives her, all these family-feuds might perhaps be crushed in their but yet beginnings; especially as she may be assured that all fitting concessions shall be made by me, not only as they are my elders, but for the sake of so excellent and so indulgent a mother.
For, if I may say to you my dear, what I would not to any other person living, it is my opinion that had she been of a temper that would have borne less, she would have had ten times less to bear than she has had. No commendation, you’ll say, of the generosity of those spirits which can turn to its own disquiet so much condescending goodness.
Upon my word, I am sometimes tempted to think that we may make the world allow for and respect us as we please, if we can but be sturdy in our wills, and set out accordingly. It is but being the less beloved for it, that’s all; and if we have power to oblige those we have to do with, it will not appear to us that we are. Our flatterers will tell us anything sooner than our faults.
Were there not truth in this observation, is it possible that my brother and sister could make their very failings, their vehemences, of such importance to all the family? ‘How will my son, how will my nephew, take this or that measure? What will he say to it? Let us consult him about it,’ are references always previous to every resolution taken by his superiors, whose will out to be his. Well may he expect to be treated with deference by every other person, when my papa himself, generally so absolute, constantly pays it to him, and the more since his godmother’s bounty has given independence to a spirit that was before under too little restraint. But whither may these reflections lead me? I know you do not love any of us, but my mamma and me; and, being above all disguises, make me sensible that you do not, oftener than I wish you did. Ought I then to add force to your dislikes of those whom I wish you more to like?—my father, especially; for he, poor gentleman! Has some excuse for his impatience of contradiction. He is not naturally an ill-tempered man; and in his person and air and in his conversation too, when not under the tourture of a gouty paroxysm, everybody distinguishes the gentleman born and educated.
Our sex perhaps must expect to bear a little uncourtliness shall I call it?—from the husband whom, as the lover, they let know the preference their hearts gave him to all other men—Say what they will of generosity being a manly virtue; but, upon my word, my dear, I have ever yet observed that it is not to be met with in that sex one time in ten that it is to be found in ours. But my father was soured by the cruel distemper I have named, which seized him all at once in the very prime of life, in so violent a manner as to take from the most active of minds as his was all power of activity, and that, in all appearance, for life. It imprisoned, as I may say, his lively spirits in himself and turned the edge of them against his own peace, his extraordinary prosperity adding but to his impatiency; for those, I believe, who want the fewest earthly blessings most regret that they want any.
But my brother! What excuse can be made for his haughty and morose temper? He is really, my dear, I am sorry to have occasion to say it, an ill-tempered young man, and treats my mamma sometimes—indeed he is not dutiful. But possessing everything, he has the vice of age mingled with the ambition of youth, and enjoys nothing—but his own haughtiness and ill-temper, I was going to say. Yet again am I adding force to your dislikes of some of us. Once, my dear, it was perhaps in your power to have moulded him as you pleased—could you have been my sister!—Then had I had a friend in a sister—but no wonder that he don’t love you now; who could nip in the bud, and that with a disdain, let me say, too much of kin to his haughtiness, a passion that would not have wanted a fervour worthy of the object, and which possibly would have made him so—
But no more of this. I will prosecute my former intention in my next, which I will sit down to as soon as breakfast is over, dispatching this by the messenger whom you have so kindly sent to inquire after us, on my silence. Meantime, I am,
Your most affectionate and obliged
friend and servant,
CL. HARLOWE.