menu_book Chapter 19

Letter 19 of Clarissa Harlow, Volume 4. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Nicole Lee.

Clarissa Harlow, Volume 4, by Samuel Richardson. Letter 19. Miss Clarissa Harlow to Miss Howe. I thank you and Mr. Hickman for his letter, sent me with such kind expedition, and proceed to obey my dear menacing tyranness.

She then gives the particulars of what passed between herself and Mr. Loveless on Tuesday morning, in relation to his four friends, and to Miss Partington, pretty much to the same effect as in Mr. Loveless's letter, number 13, and then proceeds. He is constantly accusing me of over-scrupulousness. He says I am always out of humour with him,

that I could not have behaved more reservedly to Mr. Soames, and that it is contrary to all his hopes and notions, that he should not in so long a time find himself able to inspire the person whom he hoped so soon to have the honour to call his, with the least distinguishing tenderness for him beforehand. Silly and partial encroacher!

Not to know to what to attribute the reserve I am forced to treat him with, but his pride has eaten up his prudence. It is indeed a dirty low pride that has swallowed up the true pride which should have set him above the vanity that has overrun him. Yet he pretends that he has no pride but in obliging me,

and is always talking of his reverence and humility and such sort of stuff but of this I am sure that he has as I observed the first time I saw him too much regard to his own person

greatly to value that of his wife marry he whom he will and I must be blind if I did not see that he is exceedingly vain of his external advantages and of that address

which if it has any merit in it to an outward eye is perhaps owing more to his confidence than to anything else Have you not beheld the man, when I was your happy guest, as he walked to his chariot, looking about him, as if to observe what eyes his specious person and heir had attracted?

But indeed we had some homely coxcombs as proud as if they had persons to be proud of, at the same time that it was apparent that the pains they took about themselves but the more exposed their defects. The man who is fond of being thought more or better than he is, as I have often observed, but provokes a scrutiny into his pretensions, and that generally produces contempt. For pride, as I believe I have heretofore said, is an infallible sign of weakness, of something wrong in the head, or in both.

He that exalts himself insults his neighbour, who is provoked to question in him even that merit which, were he modest, would perhaps be allowed to be his due. You will say that I am very grave, and so I am. Mr. Loveless is extremely sunk in my opinion since Monday night, nor see I before me anything that can afford me a pleasing hope,

for what, with a mind so unequal as his, can be my best hope? I think I mentioned to you in my former that my clothes were brought me. You fluttered me so that I am not sure I did, but I know I designed to mention that they were. They were brought me on Thursday, but neither my few guineas with them,

nor any of my books, except a Drexelius on eternity, the good old practice of piety, and Francis Spira. My brother's wit, I suppose. He thinks he does well to point out death and despair to me. I wish for the one, and every now and then am on the brink of the other.

You will the less wonder at my being so very solemn when, added to the above and to my uncertain situation, I tell you, that they have sent me with these books a letter from my cousin Morden. It has set my heart against Mr. Loveless. Against myself, too.

I send it enclosed. If you please, my dear, you may read it here. Colonel Morden to Miss Clarissa Harlow. Florence, April 13th. I am extremely concerned to hear of a difference

betwixt the rest of a family so near and dear to me, and you still dearer to you than any of the rest. My cousin James has acquainted me with the offers you have had and with your refusals. I wonder not at either.

Such charming promises at so early an age as when I left England, and those promises, as I have often heard, so greatly exceeded, as well in your person as mine. How much must you be admired? How few must there be worthy of you?

your parents the most indulgent in the world to a child the most deserving have given way it seems to your refusal of several gentlemen they have contented themselves at last to name one with earnestness to you because of the address of another whom they cannot approve

they had not reason it seems from your behaviour to think you greatly averse so they proceeded perhaps too hastily for a delicacy like yours but when all was fixed on their part and most extraordinary terms concluded in your favour

terms which abundantly show the gentleman's just value for you. You flew off with a warmth and vehemence little suited to that sweetness which gave grace to all your actions. I know very little of either of the gentleman, but of Mr. Lovelace I know more than of Mr. Soames.

I wish I could say more to his advantage than I can. As to every qualification but one your brother owns, there's no comparison, but that one outweighs all the rest together. It cannot be thought that Miss Clarissa Harlow will dispense with morals in a husband. What, my dearest cousin,

shall I plead first to you on this occasion. Your duty, your interest, your temporal and your eternal welfare, do, and may all, depend upon this single point, the morality of a husband. A woman who hath a wicked husband may find it difficult to be good, and out of her power to do good, and is therefore in a worse situation than the man can be in who hath a bad wife. You preserve all your religious regards, I understand. I wonder

not that you do. I should have wondered, had you not. But what can you promise yourself as to perseverance in them, with an immoral husband. If your parents and you differ in sentiment on this important occasion, let me ask you, my dear cousin, who ought to give way. I own to you that I should have thought there could not anywhere

have been a more suitable match for you than Mr. Loveless, had he been a moral man. I should have very little to say against a man, of whose actions I am not to set up myself as a judge, did he not address my cousin.

But on this occasion let me tell you, my dear Clarissa, that Mr. Loveless cannot possibly deserve you. He may reform, you'll say, but he may not. Habit is not soon or easily shaken off. Libertines, who are libertines in defiance of talents, of superior lights, of conviction, hardly ever reform but by miracle, or by incapacity. Well do I know mine own sex.

Well am I able to judge of the probability of the reformation, of a licentious young man, who has not been fastened upon by sickness, by affliction, by calamity, who has a prosperous run a fortune before him, his spirits high, his will uncontrollable, the company he keeps, perhaps such as himself, confirming him in all his courses, assisting him in all his enterprises. As to the other gentlemen, suppose, my dear cousin, you do not like him at present. It is far

from being unlikely that you will hereafter, perhaps the more for not liking him now. He can hardly sink lower in your opinion, he may rise. Very seldom is it that high expectations are so much as tolerably answered. How indeed can they, when a fine and extensive imagination carries its expectation infinitely beyond reality, in the highest of our sublunary enjoyments? A woman adorned with such an imagination sees no defect in a favoured object, the less if she be

not conscious of any willful fault in herself, till it is too late to rectify the mistakes occasioned by her generous credulity. But suppose a person of your talents were to marry a man of inferior talents. Who in this case can be so happy in herself as Miss Clarissa Harlow? What delight do you take in doing good? How happily do you devote the several portions of the day to your own improvement, and to the advantage of all that move within your sphere?

And then such is your taste, such are your acquirements in the politer studies, and in the politer amusements, such your excellence in all the different parts of economy fit for a young lady's inspection and practice, that your friends would wish you to be taken off as little as possible, by regards that may be called merely personal. But as to what may be the consequence respecting yourself, respecting a young lady of your talents, from the

preference you are suspected to give to a libertine, I would have you, my dear cousin, consider what that may be, a mind so pure to mingle with a mind impure. And will not such a man as this engross all your solitudes? Will he not perpetually fill you with anxieties for him and for yourself? The divine and civil powers defied, and their sanctions broken through by him, on every not merely accidental but meditated occasion.

To be agreeable to him, and to hope to preserve an interest in his affections, you must probably be obliged to abandon all your own laudable pursuits. You must enter into his pleasures and distastes. You must give up your virtuous companions for his profligate ones, perhaps be forsaken by yours because of the scandal he daily gives.

can you hope cousin with such a man as this to be long so good as you now are if not consider which of your present laudable delights you would choose to give up which of his culpable ones to follow him in how could you brook to go backward instead of forward in those duties which you now so exemplarily perform and how do you know if you once give way where you shall be suffered where you shall be able to stop Your brother acknowledges that Mr. Soames is not near so agreeable in person as Mr. Loveless, but what is person with such a lady as I have the honour to be now writing to? He owns likewise that he has not the address of Mr. Loveless. But what a mere personal advantage is a plausible address, without morals?

A woman had better take a husband whose manners she were to fashion, than to find them really fashioned to her hand, at the price of her morality, a price that is often paid for travelling accomplishments. O my dear cousin, were you but with us here at Florence, or at Rome, or at Paris, where also I resided for many months, to see the gentlemen whose supposed rough English manners at setting out are to be polished, and what their improvement are in their return through the same places, you would infinitely prefer the man in his first stage to the same man in his last. You find the difference on their return,

a fondness for foreign fashions, an attachment to foreign vices, a supercilious contempt of his own country and countrymen, himself more despicable than the most despicable of those he despises. These, with an unblushing effrontery,

are too generally the attainments that concur to finish the travelled gentleman. Mr. Loveless, I know, deserves to have an exception made in his favour, for he really is a man of parts and learning. He was esteemed so both here and at Rome,

and a fine person and a generous turn of mind gave him great advantages, but you need not be told that a libertine man of sense does infinitely more mischief than a libertine of weak parts is able to do. And this I will tell you further, that it was Mr. Lovelace's own fault that he was not still more respected than he was among the literati here. There were, in short, some liberties in which he indulged himself that endangered his person and his liberty, and made the best and most worthy

of those who honoured him with their notice give him up, and his stay both at Florence and at Rome shorter than he designed. This is all I choose to say of Mr. Lovelace. I had much rather have had reason to give him a quite contrary character. But as to rakes are libertines in general, I who know them well must be allowed, because of the mischiefs they have always in their hearts, and too often in their power, to do your sex to add

still a few more words upon this topic. A libertine, my dear cousin, a plotting and intriguing libertine, must be generally remorseless. Unjust he must always be. The noble rule of doing to others what he would have done to himself is the first rule he breaks, and every day he breaks it. The oftener, the greater his triumph. He has great contempt for your sex. He believes no woman chaste, because he is a profligate. Every woman who favours him confirms him in his wicked incredulity.

He is always plotting to extend the mischiefs he delights in. If a woman loves such a man, how can she bear the thought of dividing her interest in his affections with half the town, and that perhaps the dregs of it? Then so sensual! How will a young lady of your delicacy bear with so sensual a man,

a man who makes a jest of his vows, and who perhaps will break your spirit by the most unmanly insults? To be a libertine is to continue to be everything vile and inhuman. Prayers, tears, and the most abject submission are but fuel to his pride, wagering perhaps with lewd companions, and not improbably,

with luder women, upon instances which he boasts of to them, of your patient sufferings and broken spirit, and bringing them home to witness both. I write what I know has been. I mention not fortune squandered, estates mortgaged or sold, and posterity robbed, nor yet a multitude of other evils too gross, too shocking, to be mentioned to a person of your delicacy. All these, my dear cousin, to be shunned, all the evils I have named to be avoided, the power of doing all the good you

have been accustomed to, preserved, nay, increased, by the separate provision that would be made for you, your charming diversions and exemplary employments, all maintained, and every good habit perpetuated, and all by one sacrifice, the fading pleasure of the eye. Who would not, since everything is not to be met with in one man, who would not, to preserve so many essentials, give up to light so unpermanent a pleasure? Weigh all these things, which I might insist upon to

more advantage, did I think it needful to one of your prudence. Weigh them well, my beloved cousin. And if it be not the will of your parents that you should continue single, resolve to oblige them. And let it not be said that the powers of fancy shall, as in many others of your sex,

be too hard for your duty and your prudence. The less agreeable the man, the more obliging the compliance. Remember that he is a sober man, a man who has reputation to lose, and whose reputation, therefore, is a security for his good behaviour to you. You have an opportunity offered you, to give the highest instance that can be given of filial duty.

Embrace it, it is worthy of you, it is expected from you. However, for your inclination's sake, we may be sorry that you are called upon to give it. Let it be said that you have been able to lay an obligation upon your parents, a proud word, my cousin, which you could not do, were it not laid against your inclination, upon parents who have laid a thousand upon you, who are set upon this point,

who will not give it up, who have given up many points to you, even of this very nature, and in their turn, for the sake of their own authority, as well as judgment, expect to be obliged. I hope I shall soon in person congratulate you upon this your meritorious compliance. To settle and give up my trusteeship is one of the principal motives of my leaving these parts. I shall be glad to settle it to every unsatisfaction, to yours particularly. If on my

arrival I find a happy union, as formerly, reign in a family so dear to me, it will be an unspeakable pleasure to me, and I shall perhaps so dispose my affairs as to be near you for ever. I have written a very long letter, and will add no more, than that I am, with the greatest respect, to my dearest cousin, your most affectionate and faithful servant, William Morden. I will suppose, my dear Miss Howe, that you have read my cousin's letter. It is now in vain to wish it had come sooner,

but if it had I might perhaps have been so rash as to give Mr. Lovelace the fatal meeting as I little thought of going away with him. But I should hardly have given him the expectation of so doing, previous to the meeting which made him come prepared, and the revocation of which he so artfully made ineffectual.

Persecuted as I was, and little expecting so much condescension, as my aunt, to my great mortification, has told me, and you confirm, I should have met with. It is, however, hard to say what I should or should not have done as to meeting him, had it come in time, but this effect I verily believe it would have had, to have made me insist with all my might on going over, out of all their ways, to the kind writer of the instructive letter,

and on making a father, a protector as well as a friend of a kinsman, who is one of my trustees. This, circumstanced as I was, would have been a natural, at least an unexceptionable protection, but I was to be unhappy, and how it cuts me to the heart to think that I can already subscribe to my cousin's character of a libertine, so well drawn in the letter which I suppose you now to have read, that a man of a character which ever was my abhorrent should fall to my lot.

But, depending on my own strength, having no reason to apprehend danger from headstrong and disgraceful impulses, I too little perhaps cast up my eyes to the supreme director, in whom, mistrusting myself, I ought to have placed my whole confidence, and the more when I saw myself so perseveringly addressed by a man of this character. Inexperience and presumption, with the help of a brother and sister, who have low ends to answer in my disgrace, have been my ruin.

A hard word, my dear, but I repeat it upon deliberation. Since, let the best happen which now can happen, my reputation is destroyed. A rake is my portion, and what that portion is, my cousin Morden's letter has acquainted you. Pray keep it by you till called for. I saw it not myself, having not the heart to inspect my trunks till this morning. I would not for the world this man should see it, because it might occasion mischief between the most violent spirit and the

most settled and brave one in the world, as my cousin's is said to be. This letter was enclosed, opened, in a blank cover. Scorn and detest me as they will, I wonder that one line was not sent with it, were it but to have more particularly pointed the design of it, in the same generous spirit that sent me the spira. The ceiling of the cover was with black wax. I hope there's no new occasion in the family to give reason for black wax, but if there were, it would to be sure have

been mentioned, and laid at my door, perhaps too justly. I had begun a letter to my cousin, but laid it by, because of the uncertainty of my situation, and expecting every day for several days past to be at a greater certainty. You bid me write to him some time ago, you know. Then it was I began it, for I have great pleasure in obeying you in all I may. So I ought to have, for you are the only friend left me, and moreover you generally honour me with your own observance

of the advice I take the liberty to offer you, for I pretend to say I give better advice than I have taken, and so I had need, for I know not how it comes about, but I am, in my own opinion, a poor lost creature, and yet cannot charge myself with one criminal or faulty inclination. Do you know, my dear, how this can be? Yet I can tell you how, I believe, one devious step at setting out, that must be it, which pursued has led me so far out of my path, that I am in a wilderness of doubt and error,

and never and never shall find my way out of it, for, although but one pace awry at first, it has led me hundreds and hundreds of miles out of my path, and the poor stray has not one kind friend, nor has met with one direct passenger, to help her to recover it. But I, presumptuous creature, must rely so much upon my own knowledge of the right path, little apprehending that an ignis fatuous with its false fires, and yet I had heard enough of such, would arise to mislead me,

and now in the midst of fens and quagmires it plays around me, and around me, throwing me back again whenever I think myself in the right track. But there is one common point in which all shall meet, though widely as they may, in that I shall be laid quietly down at last, and then will all my calamities be at an end. But how I stray again, stray from my intention. I would only have said that I had begun a letter to my cousin Morden some time ago,

but that now I can never end it. You will believe I cannot, for how shall I tell him that all his compliments are misbestowed, that all his advice is thrown away, all his warnings vain, and that even my highest expectation is to be the wife of that free liver

whom he so pathetically warns me to shun? Let me own, however, have your prayers joined with my own, my fate depending as it seems upon the lips of such a man, that whatever shall be my destiny, that dreadful part of my father's malediction,

that I may be punished by the man in whom he supposes I put my confidence, may not take place, that this for Mr. Lovelace's own sake, and for the sake of human nature, may not be, or, if it be necessary, in support of the parental authority,

that I should be punished by him, that it may not be by his premeditated or willful baseness, but that I may be able to acquit his intention, if not his action. Otherwise my fault will appear to be doubled in the eye of the event-judging world, and yet methinks I would be glad that the unkindness of my father and uncles

whose hearts have already been too much wounded by my error may be justified in every article excepting in this heavy curse and that my father would be pleased to withdraw that before it be generally known at least the most dreadful part of it which regards futurity

I must lay down my pen I must brood over these reflections once more before I close my cousin's letter I will peruse it and then I shall have it by heart End of letter 19