Clarissa, Or, the History of a Young Lady by Samuel Richardson
Had the wretch kept his seat, it might have been well enough, but the bent and broad-shouldered creature must needs rise and stalk towards a chair, which was just by that which was set for me.
I removed it at a distance, as if to make way to my own; and down I sat, abruptly I believe; what I had heard all in my head.
But this was not enough to daunt him. The man is a very confident, he is a very bold, staring man!
He took the removed chair and drew it so near mine, squatting in it with his ugly weight, that he pressed upon my hoop. I was so offended (all I had heard, as I said, in my head) that I removed to another chair. I own I had too little command of myself. It gave my brother and sister too much advantage. I dare say they took it—but I did it involuntarily, I think; I could not help it. I knew not what I did.
I saw my papa was excessively displeased. When angry, no man’s countenance ever showed it so much as my papa’s. Clarissa Harlowe! said he with a big voice, and there he stopped. Sir! said I, and curtsied. I trembled and put my chair nearer the wretch, and sat down; my face I could feel all in a glow.
Make tea, child, said my kind mamma. Sit by me, love, and make tea.
I removed with pleasure to the seat the man had quitted, and being thus indulgently put into employment, soon recovered myself; and in the course of the breakfasting officiously asked two or three questions of Mr Solmes, which I would not have done, but to make up with my papa. Proud spirits may be brought to, whispering spoke my sister to me over her shoulder, with an air of triumph and scorn; but I did not mind her.
My mamma was all kindness and condescension. I asked her once if she were pleased with the tea? She said softly, and again called me dear, she was pleased with all I did. I was very proud of this encouraging goodness; and all blew over, as I hoped, between my papa and me, for he also spoke kindly to me two or three times.
Small incidents these, my dear, to trouble you with; only as they lead to greater, as you shall hear.
Before the usual breakfast-time was over my papa withdrew with my mamma, telling her he wanted to speak to her. My sister and my aunt, who was with us, next dropped away.
I saw what all this was for. I curtsied. Your servant, sir. The man cried, Madam, Madam, twice, and looked like a fool. But away I went.
I had but just got into my own apartment and began to think of sending Hannah to beg an audience of my mamma (the more encouraged by her condescending goodness at breakfast), when Shorey, her woman, brought me her commands to attend her in her closet.
My papa, Hannah told me, had just gone out of it with a positive, angry countenance. Then I as much dreaded the audience as I had wished for it before.
I went down, however; but, apprehending the subject, approached her trembling and my heart in visible palpitations.
She saw my concern. Holding out her kind arms as she sat, Come kiss me, my dear, said she with a smile like a sunbeam breaking through the cloud that overshadowed her naturally benign aspect. Why flutters my jewel so?
This preparative sweetness, with her goodness just before, confirmed my apprehensions. My mamma saw the bitter pill wanted gilding.
Oh my mamma! was all I could say, and I clasped my arms round her neck and my face sunk into her bosom.
My child! my child! restrain, said she, your powers of moving! I dare not else trust myself with you.
Lift up your sweet face, my best child, my own Clarissa Harlowe. Why these sobs? Is an apprehended duty so affecting a thing that before I can speak—But I am glad, my love, you can guess at what I have to say to you. I am spared the pains of breaking to you what was a task upon me reluctantly enough undertaken to break to you.
And drawing her chair still nearer to mine, she put her arms round my neck and my glowing cheek, wet with my tears, close to her own. Let me talk to you, my child, since silence is your choice; hearken to me, and be silent.
You know, my dear, what I every day forgo and undergo, for the sake of peace. Your papa is a very good man and means well; but he will not be controlled, nor yet persuaded. You have seemed to pity me sometimes, that I am obliged to give up every point. Poor man! his reputation the less for it; mine the greater; yet would I not have this credit, if I could help it, at so dear a rate to him and to myself. You are a dutiful, a prudent and a wise child, she was pleased to say (in hope, no doubt, to make me so); you would not add, I am sure, to my trouble. You would not wilfully break that peace which costs your mamma so much to preserve. Obedience is better than sacrifice.
You have had your own way six or seven times. We want to secure you against a man so vile [Lovelace]. Tell me; I have a right to know; whether you prefer this man to all others? Yet God forbid that I should know you do! for such a declaration would make us all miserable. Yet, tell me, are your affections engaged to this man?
I knew what the inference would be, if I had said they were not.
You hesitate; you answer me not; you cannot answer me. Never more will I look upon you with an eye of favour.
Oh madam, madam! Kill me not with your displeasure. I would not, I need not, hesitate one moment, did I not dread the inference if I answer you as you wish. Yet be that inference what it will, your threatened displeasure will make me speak. And I declare to you that I know not my own heart if it be not absolutely free.
Well then, Clary (passing over the force of my plea), if your heart be free—
Oh my beloved mamma, let the usual generosity of your dear heart operate in my favour. Urge not upon me the inference that made me hesitate.
Am I to be questioned and argued with? You know this won’t do somewhere else. You know it won’t. What reason then, ungenerous girl, can you have for arguing with me thus, but because you think from my indulgence to you, you may?
Dearest madam, forgive me. It was always my pride and my pleasure to obey you. But look upon that man—see but the disagreeableness of his person.
Condition thus with your papa. Will he bear, do you think, to be thus dialogued with? And will you give up nothing? Have you not refused as many as have been offered to you?
And saying this, she arose and went from me.
I will deposit thus far; and as I know you will not think me too minute in my relation of particulars so very interesting to one you honour with your love, proceed in the same way. As matters stand, I don’t care to have papers so freely written about me.
Pray let Robert call every day, if you can spare him, whether I have anything ready or not.
What a generosity in you to write as frequently from friendship as I am forced to do from misfortune! The letters being taken away will be an assurance that you have them. As I shall write and deposit as I have opportunity, the formality of super- and sub-scription will be excused. For I need not say how much I am,
Your sincere and ever-affectionate,
CL. HARLOWE
Letter 17: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE
Determined and perverse, my dear mamma called me; and after walking twice or thrice in anger about the room, she turned to me. Your heart free! Clarissa! How can you tell me your heart is free? Such extraordinary antipathies to a particular person must be owing to extraordinary prepossessions in another’s favour! Tell me, Clary, and tell me truly—Do you not continue to correspond with Mr Lovelace?
Dearest madam, replied I, you know my motives; to prevent mischief, I answered his letters. The reason for our apprehensions of this sort are not over.
I see not, that the continuance of your correspondence with him either can, or ought to be permitted. I therefore now forbid it to you, as you value my favour.
Be pleased, madam, only to advise me how to break it off with safety to my brother and uncles; and it is all I wish for. But, madam, as my uncles and my brother will keep no measures—as he has heard what the view is; and as I have reason to think that he is only restrained by his regard for me from resenting
The law will protect us, child!
But, madam, may not some dreadful mischief first happen? The law asserts not itself till it is offended.
You have made offers, Clary. Are you really in earnest to break off all correspondence with Mr Lovelace? Let me know this.
Indeed, I am; and I will. You, madam, shall see every letter that has passed between us. You shall see I have given him no encouragement, independent of my duty. And when you have seen them you will be better able to direct me how, on that condition, to break entirely with him.
• • •
I take you at your word, Clarissa. Give me his letters; and the copies of yours.
I am sure, madam, you will keep the knowledge that I write, and what I write—
No conditions with your mamma. Surely my prudence may be trusted to.
I begged her pardon, and besought her to take the key of the private drawer in my escritoire where they lay, that she herself might see that I had no reserves to my mamma.
She did; and took all his letters, and the copies of mine, un-conditioned with; she was pleased to say, they shall be yours again, unseen by anybody else.
I thanked her; and she withdrew to read them, saying she would return them when she had.
• • •
In about an hour my mamma returned. Take your letters, Clary: I have nothing to task your discretion with, as to the wording of yours to him. You have even kept up a proper dignity, as well as decorum; and you have resented, as you ought to resent, his menacing invectives. But can you think from the avowed hatred of one side, and the avowed defiance of the other, that this can be a suitable match? Can you think it becomes you to encourage an address from a man who has fought a duel with your brother, let his fortune and professions be what they will?
By no means it can, madam; you will be pleased to observe that I have said as much to him. But now, madam, the whole correspondence is before you; and I beg your commands what to do in a situation so very disagreeable.
One thing I will tell you, Clary Harlowe: but I charge you, as you would not have me question the generosity of your spirit, to take no advantage of it, either mentally or verbally were the words: that I am so much pleased with the offer of your keys to me, in so cheerful and unreserved a manner, and in the prudence you have shown in your letters, that were it practicable to bring everyone, or your father only, into my opinion, I should readily leave all the rest to your discretion, reserving only to myself the direction or approbation of your future letters; and to see that you broke off the correspondence as soon as possible. But as it is not, and as I know your papa would have no patience with you, should it be acknowledged that you correspond with Mr Lovelace, or that you have corresponded with him since the time he prohibited you so to do, I forbid you continuing such a liberty. Yet, as the case is difficult, let me ask you, what you yourself can propose? Your heart, you say, is free. You own that you cannot think, as matters are circumstanced, that a match with a man so obnoxious as he now is to us all is proper to be thought of. What do you propose to do? What, Clary, are your own thoughts of the matter?
Without hesitation (for I saw I was upon a new trial) thus I answered. What I humbly propose is this: ‘That I will write to Mr Lovelace (for I have not answered his last) that he has nothing to do between my father and me: that I neither ask his advice, nor need it: but that since he thinks he has some pretence for interfering, because of my brother’s avowal of the interest of Mr Solmes in malice to him, I will assure him, without giving him any reason to impute the assurance to be in the least favourable to himself, that I never will be that man’s.’ And if, proceeded I, I may be permitted to give him this assurance; and Mr Solmes, in consequence of it, be discouraged from prosecuting his address; let Mr Lovelace be satisfied or dissatisfied, I will go no farther; nor write another line to him; nor ever see him more, if I can avoid it: and shall have a good excuse for it, without bringing in any of my family.
Ah! my love! But what shall we do about the terms Mr Solmes offers. Your brother, in short, has given in a plan that captivates us all; and a family so rich in all its branches that has its views to honour must be pleased to see a very great probability of being on a footing with the principal in the kingdom.
And for the sake of these views, for the sake of this plan of my brother’s, am I, madam, to be given in marriage to a man I never can endure! Oh my dear mamma, save me, save me, if you can, from this heavy evil! I had rather be buried alive, indeed I had, than have that man!
She chid me for my vehemence, but was so good as to tell me that she would venture to talk with my uncle Harlowe, and, if he encouraged her (or would engage to second her), with my papa; and I should hear further in the morning.
She went down to tea and kindly undertook to excuse my attendance at supper; and I immediately had recourse to my pen, to give you these particulars.
Letter 19: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE
Sat. March 4, 12 o’clock
Hannah has just now brought me from the usual place your favour of yesterday. The contents of it have made me very thoughtful, and you will have an answer in my gravest style.
As to the article of giving up to my papa’s control the estate bequeathed me, my motives at the time, as you acknowledge, were not blameable. Your advice to me on the subject was grounded, as I remember, on your good opinion of me; believing that I should not make a bad use of the power willed me.
It is true, thought I, that I have formed agreeable schemes of making others as happy as myself by the proper discharge of the stewardship entrusted to me (are not all estates stewardships, my dear?). But let me examine myself: is not vanity or secret love of praise a principal motive with me at the bottom? Ought I not to suspect my own heart? If I set up for myself, puffed up with everyone’s good opinion, may I not be left to myself? Everyone’s eyes are upon the conduct, upon the visits, upon the visit-ors of a young creature of our sex made independent. And then, left to myself, should I take a wrong step though with ever so good an intention, how many should I have to triumph over me, how few to pity?—the more of the one, and the fewer of the other, for having aimed at excelling.
These were some of my reflections at the time: and I have no doubt but that in the same situation I should do the very same thing; and that upon the maturest deliberation. Who can command or foresee events? To act up to our best judgements at the time is all we can do. If I have erred, ‘tis to worldly wisdom only that I have erred. If we suffer by an act of duty, or even by an act of generosity, is it not pleasurable on reflection that the fault is in others, rather than in ourselves? I had rather, a vast deal, have reason to think others unkind, than that they should have any to think me undutiful. And so, my dear, I am sure had you.
And now for the most concerning part of your letter.
You think I must of necessity be Mr Solmes’s wife, as matters are circumstanced. I will not be very rash, my dear, in protesting to the contrary. But I think it never, never can, nor ought to be! My temper, I know, is depended upon; but I have heretofore said that I have something in me of my father’s family, as well as of my mother’s. And have I any encouragement to follow too implicitly the example which my mamma sets of meekness and resignedness to the wills of others? Is she not for ever obliged to be, as she was pleased to hint to me, of the forbearing side? In my mamma’s case, your observation is verified, that those who will bear much shall have much to bear. What is it, as she says, that she has not sacrificed to peace? Yet, has she by her sacrifices always found the peace she has deserved to find? Indeed No! I am afraid the very contrary.
I have said that I never can be, that I never ought to be, Mrs Solmes. I repeat, that I ought not; for surely, my dear, I should not give up to my brother’s ambition the happiness of my future life. Surely I ought not to be
So, my dear, were we perfect, which no one can be, we could not be happy in this life, unless those with whom we have to deal (those, more especially, who have any control upon us) were governed by the same principles. What have we then to do but, as I have hinted above, to choose right, and pursue it steadily, and leave the issue to Providence?
• • •
I am stopped. Hannah shall deposit this. She was ordered by my mamma, who asked where I was, to tell me that she would come up and talk with me in my own closet. She is coming! Adieu, my dear.
Letter 20: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE
Sat. p.m.
The expected conference is over; but my difficulties are increased. This, as my mamma was pleased to tell me, being the last persuasory effort that will be attempted, I will be as 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.