[Page 1] THE HISTORY OF Clarissa Harlowe. VOL. I. LETTER I. Miss Anna Howe, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Jan. 10. I am extremely concerned, my dearest Friend, for the disturbances that have happened in your Family. I know how it must hurt you to become the subject of the public talk: And yet upon an occasion so generally known, it is impossible but that whatever relates to a young Lady whose distinguished merits have made her the public care, should engage every-body's attention. I long to have the particulars from yourself; and of the usage I am told you receive upon an accident you could not help; and in which, as far as I can learn, the Sufferer was the Aggressor. Mr. Diggs the Surgeon...
[Page 5] LETTER II. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Harlowe-Place, Jan. 13. HOW you oppress me, my dearest friend, with your politeness! I cannot doubt your sincerity; but you should take care, that you give me not reason from your kind partiality to call in question your judgment. You do not distinguish that I take many admirable hints from you, and have the art to pass them upon you for my own: For in all you do, in all you say, nay, in your very looks (so animated!) you give lessons to one who loves you and observes you as I love and observe you, without knowing that you do---So, pray, my dear, be more sparing of your praise for the future, lest after this confession we should suspect that you secretly intend...
LETTER III. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Jan. 13, 14. And thus, as Mr. Lovelace thought fit to take it, had he his answer from my Sister. It was with very great regret, as he pretended [I doubt the man is an hypocrite, my dear] that he acquiesced in it. 'So much determinedness; such a noble firmness in my Sister; that there was no hope of prevailing upon [Page 12] her to alter sentiments she had adopted on full consideration.' He sighed, as Bella told us, when he took his leave of her: 'Profoundly sighed; grasped her hand, and kissed it with such an ardor---Withdrew with such an air of solemn respect---She had him then before her.---She could almost find in her heart, altho' he had vexed her, to pity him.' A...
LETTER IV. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Jan. 15. Such, my dear, was the situation Mr. Lovelace and I were in when my Brother arrived from Scotland. The moment Mr. Lovelace's visits were mentioned to him, he, without either hesitation or apology, expressed his disapprobation of them. He found great flaws in his character; and took the liberty to say in so many words, That he wondered how it came into the heads of his Uncles to encourage such a man for either of his Sisters: At the same time returning his thanks to my Father for declining his consent till he arrived, in such a manner, I thought, as a Superior would do, when he commended an Inferior for having well performed his duty in his absence. He...
LETTER V. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Jan. 20. I have been hindered from prosecuting my intention. Neither nights nor mornings have been [Page 30] my own. My Mother 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 honour 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 encreasing animosity which all here have against Mr. Lovelace, and his too-well known resenting and intrepid character, she cannot bear. Then the foundations laid, as she dreads, for jealousy and heart-burnings in her...
[Page 33] LETTER VI. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Harlowe-Place, Jan. 20. I will now resume my narrative of proceedings here.---My Brother being in a good way, altho' you may be sure that his resentments are rather heightened than abated by the galling disgrace he has received, my friends (my Father and Uncles, however, if not my Brother and Sister) begin to think that I have been treated unkindly. My Mother has been so good as to tell me this since I sent away my last. Nevertheless I believe they all think that I receive Letters from Mr. Lovelace. But Lord M. being inclined rather to support than to blame his Nephew, they seem to be so much afraid of Mr. Lovelace, that they do not put it to me whether I...
LETTER VII. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. [After her Return from her.] Harlowe-Place, Feb. 20. I beg your excuse for not writing sooner. Alas, my dear, I have sad prospects before me! My Brother and Sister have succeeded in all their views. They have found out another Lover for me; an hideous one!---Yet he is encouraged by every-body. No wonder that I was ordered home so suddenly. At [Page 38] an hour's warning!---No other notice, you know, than what was brought with the chariot that was to carry me back.---It was for fear, as I have been informed [an unworthy fear!] that I should have entered into any concert with Mr. Lovelace had I known their motive for commanding me home; apprehending, 'tis...
LETTER VIII. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Feb. 24. They drive on here at a furious rate. The man lives here, I think. He courts them, and is more and more a favourite. Such Terms, such Settlements! That's the cry. O my dear, that I had not reason to deplore the family-fault, immensely rich as they all are! But this I may the more unreservedly say to you, as we have often joined in the same concern: I, for a Father and Uncles; you, for a Mother; in every other respect faultless. [Page 44] Hitherto, I seem to be delivered over to my Brother, who pretends as great Love to me as ever. You may believe, I have been very sincere with him. But he affects to railly me, and not to believe it possible,...
LETTER IX. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Feb. 26. in the Morning. My Aunt, who staid here last night, made me a visit this morning as soon as it was light. She tells me, that I was left alone with my Father yesterday on purpose that he might talk with me on my expected obedience; but that he owned he was put beside his purpose by reflecting on something my Brother had told him in my disfavour, and by his impatience but to suppose, that such a gentle spirit as mine had hitherto seemed to be, should presume to dispute his will in a point where the advantage of the whole family was to be so greatly promoted by my compliance. I find, by a few words which dropt unawares from my Aunt, that they have all an absolute...
LETTER X. Miss Howe, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Feb. 27. What odd heads some people have!---Miss Clarissa Harlowe to be sacrificed in marriage to Mr. Roger Solmes!---Astonishing! I must not, you say, give my advice in favour of this man!---You now convince me, my dear, that you are nearer of kin than I thought you, to the family that could think of so preposterous a match, or you would never have had the least notion of my advising in his favour. Ask me for his picture. You know I have a good hand at drawing an ugly likeness. But I'll see a little further first: For who knows what may happen, since matters are in such a train; and since you have not the courage to oppose so overwhelming a torrent? You ask me...
LETTER XI. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Wednesday, March 1. You both nettled and alarmed me, my dearest Miss Howe, by the concluding part of your last. At first reading it, I did not think it necessary, said I to myself, to guard against a Critic, when I was writing to so dear a Friend. But then recollecting myself, Is there not more in it, said I, than the result of a vein so naturally lively? Surely I must have been guilty of an inadvertence. Let me enter into the close examination of myself which my beloved friend advises. I did so; and cannot own any of the glow, any of the throbs you mention.---Upon my word I will repeat, I cannot. And yet the passages in my Letter upon which you are so humourously severe...
[Page 66] LETTER XII. Miss Howe, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Thursday Morn. March 2. Indeed you would not be in Love with him for the world!---Your servant, my dear. Nor would I have you. For I think, with all the advantages of person, fortune, and family, he is not by any means worthy of you. And this opinion I give as well from the reasons you mention (which I cannot but confirm) as from what I have heard of him but a few hours ago from Mrs. Fortescue, a favourite of Lady Betty Lawrance, who knows him well---But let me congratulate you, however, on your being the first of our Sex that ever I heard of, who has been able to turn that Lion, Love, at her own pleasure, into a Lap-dog. Well but, if you have not the...
LETTER XIII. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Wedn. March 1. I now take up my pen, to lay before you the inducements and motives which my friends have to espouse so earnestly the address of this Mr. Solmes. In order to set this matter in a clear light, it is necessary to go a little back, and even perhaps to mention some things which you already know: And so you may look upon what I am going to relate, as a kind of Supplement to my Letters of the 15th and 20th of January last (a) [Footnote a: 1Kb] . [Page 72] In those Letters, of which I have kept memorandums, I gave you an account of my Brother's and Sister's antipathy to Mr. Lovelace; and the methods they took (so far as they had then come to my...
[Page 85] LETTER XIV. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Thursday Evening, March 2. On Hannah's depositing my long Letter (begun yesterday, but by reason of several interruptions not finished till within this hour) she found and brought me yours of this day. I thank you, my dear, for this kind expedition. These few lines will perhaps be time enough deposited, to be taken away by your servant with the other Letter: Yet they are only to thank you, and to tell you my increasing apprehensions. I must take or seek the occasion to apply to my Mother for her mediation;---for I am in danger of having a day fixed, and antipathy taken for bashfulness.---Should not Sisters be Sisters to each other? Should they not make a...
LETTER XV. Miss Howe, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Friday, March 3. I have both your Letters at once. It is very unhappy, my dear, since your friends will have you marry, that a person of your merit should be addressed [Page 87] by a succession of worthless creatures, who have nothing but their presumption for their excuse. That these presumers appear not in this very unworthy light to some of your friends, is, because their defects are not so striking to them as to others.---And why? Shall I venture to tell you?---Because they are nearer their own standard.---Modesty, after all, perhaps has a concern in it; for how should they think, that a Niece or a Sister of theirs [I will not go higher, for fear of...
[Page 92] LETTER XVI. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. [Her preceding not at the time received.] Friday, March 3. O my dear friend, I have had a sad conflict! Trial upon trial; Conference upon conference!---But what Law, what Ceremony, can give a man a right to a heart which abhors him more than it does any living creature? I hope my Mother will be able to prevail for me.---But I will recount all, tho' I sit up the whole night to do it; for I have a vast deal to write; and will be as minute as you wish me to be. I concluded my last in a fright. It was occasioned by a conversation that passed between my Mother and my Aunt, part of which Hannah overheard. I need not give you the particulars; since...
LETTER XVII. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. My Mother, on her return, which was as soon as she had dined, was pleased to inform me, that she told my Father, on his questioning her about my chearful compliance (for it seems, the chearful was all that was doubted) that she was willing, on so material a point, to give a child whom she had so much reason to love (as she condescended to acknowlege were her words) liberty to say all that was in her heart to say, that her compliance might be the freer: Letting him know, that when he came up, she was attending to my pleas; for that she found I had rather not marry at all. She told me, that to this my Father angrily said, Let her take care---Let her take care---that she...
LETTER XVIII. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Sat. Mar. 4. Would you not have thought that something might have been obtained in my favour, from an offer so reasonable, from an expedient so proper, as I imagine, to put a tolerable end, as from myself, to a correspondence I hardly know how otherwise, with safety to some of my family, to get rid of?---But my Brother's plan (which my Mother spoke of, and of which I have in vain endeavoured to procure a copy, with a design to take it to pieces, and expose it, as I question not there is room to do) joined with my Father's impatience of contradiction, are irresistible. I have not been in bed all night; nor am I in the least drowsy. Expectation, and hope, and doubt (an...
LETTER XIX. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. [In answer to Letter XV.] 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.---I to have that Mr. Solmes!---No indeed!---I will sooner---But I will write first to those passages in your Letter which are less concerning, that I may touch upon this part with more patience. As to what you mention of my Sister's value for Mr. Lovelace, I am not very much surprised at it. She [Page 124] takes such officious pains, and it is so much her subject, to have it thought that she never did, and never could like him,...
LETTER XX. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Sat. Afternoon. The expected conference is over: But my difficulties are encreased. This, as my Mother was pleased to tell me, being the last persuasory effort that is to 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 it is imagined you will prove by some, who are of opinion, that I have not the weight with you which my indulgence deserves....
LETTER XXI. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Sat. Night. I have been down. I am to be unlucky in all I do, I think, be my intention 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 in her fine face (and as the browner, sullener glow in my Sister's confirmed) had been expressing herself with warmth, against her unhappier child: Perhaps giving such an account of what had passed, as should clear herself, and convince Bella, and thro' her, my Brother and Uncles, of the sincere pains she had taken with me. I entered like a dejected criminal; and besought the favour of a private audience....
[Page 148] LETTER XXII. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Sunday Morning, March 5. Hannah has just brought 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. Solmes 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 every one, that his younger Sister is very soon to be Mr. Solme'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...
LETTER XXIII. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Monday Morning, March 6. They are resolved to break my heart. My poor Hannah is discharged---disgracefully discharged!---Thus it was. Within half an hour after I had sent the poor girl down for my breakfast, that bold creature Betty Barnes, my Sister's confident and servant (if a favourite maid and confident can be deemed a servant) came up. What, Miss, will you please to 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?---...
LETTER XXIV. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Monday, near 12 o' Clock. The inclosed Letter was just now delivered to me. My Brother has carried all his points. [Page 155] I send you also the copy of my Answer. No more at this time can I write!--- Monday, Mar. 6. Miss Clary, By command of your Father and Mother I write, expresly 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 licence 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...
[Page 157] LETTER XXV. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Tuesday, March 7. 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 to 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 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...
LETTER XXVI. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Thursday Morn. March 9. I have another Letter from Mr. Lovelace, altho' I had not answered his former. This man, some how or other, knows every-thing 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 [Page 165] 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. Solmes.' I think I may fairly...
[Page 169] LETTER XXVII. Miss Howe, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Thursday Night, March 9. I have no 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, tho' 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, thro' the distinction paid you in it. I allow of all your noble reasonings for what you did at the time: But since such a charming, such a generous instance of filial duty is to go thus unrewarded, why should you not resume? Your Grandfather knew the family-sailing. He knew what...
LETTER XXVIII. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Friday, March 10. You will permit me, my dear, to touch upon a few passages in your last Letter, that affect me sensibly. In the first place, you must allow me to say, low as I am in spirits, that I am very angry with you for [Page 180] your reflections on my relations, particularly on my Father and Mother, and on the memory of my Grandfather. Nor, my dear, does your own Mother always escape the keen edge of your vivacity. One cannot one's self forbear to write or speak freely of those we love and honour, when grief from imagined hard treatment wrings the heart: But it goes against one to hear any-body else take the same liberties. Then you have so very...
LETTER XXIX. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Saturday, March 11. I have had such taunting messages, and such repeated avowals of ill offices, brought me from my Brother and Sister, if I do not comply with their wills (delivered, too, with provoking sauciness by Betty Barnes) that I have thought it proper, before I entered upon my inrended address to my Uncles, in pursuance of the hint given me in my Mother's Letter, to expostulate a little with them. But I have done it in such a manner, as will give you (if you please to take it as you have done some parts of my former Letters) great advantage over me. In short, you will have more cause than ever, to declare me far gone in Love, if my reasons for the change of my style...
LETTER XXX. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Sunday Night, March 12. This man, this Lovelace, gives me great uneasiness. He is extremely bold and rash. He was this afternoon at our Church---In hopes to see me, I suppose: And yet, if he had such hopes, his usual intelligence must have failed him. Shorey was at church; and a principal part of her observation was upon his haughty and proud behaviour when he turned round in the pew where he sat to our family-pew. My Father and both my Uncles were there; so were my Mother and Sister. My Brother happily was not.---They all came home in [Page 193] disorder. Nor did the congregation mind any-body but him; it being his first appearance there, since the unhappy...
LETTER XXXI. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Monday, March 13. In vain dost thou (a) [Footnote a: 1Kb] and thy compeers press me to go to town, while I am in such an uncertainty as I am in at present with this proud Beauty. All [Page 196] the ground I have hitherto gained with her, is entirely owing to her concern for the safety of people whom I have reason to hate. Write then, thou biddest me, if I will not come. That, indeed, I can do; and as well without a subject, as with one. And what follows shall be a proof of it. The Lady's malevolent Brother has now, as I told thee at M. Hall, introduced another man; the most unpromising in his person and qualities, the most formidable in his offers, that has yet...
LETTER XXXII. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Tuesday, March 14. I now send you copies of my Letters to my Uncles: With their Answers. Be pleased to return the latter by the first deposit. I leave them for you to make remarks upon. I shall make none. To John Harlowe, Esq; Sat. March 11. Allow me, my honoured Second Papa, as in my happy days you taught me to call you, to implore your interest with my Papa, to engage him [Page 207] to dispense with a command, which, if insisted upon, will deprive me of my free-will, and make me miserable for my whole life. For my whole life! let me repeat: Is that a small point, my dear Uncle, to give up? Am not I to live with the man? Is any-body...
LETTER XXXIII. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Thursday, March 16. Having met with such bad success in my application to my Relations, I have taken a step that will surprise you. It is no other than writing a Letter to Mr. Solmes himself. I sent it; and have his Answer. He had certainly help in it. For I have seen a Letter of his; as indifferently worded, as poorly [Page 226] spelt. Yet the superscription is of his dictating, I dare say; for he is a formal wretch. With these, I shall inclose one from my Brother to me, on occasion of mine to Mr. Solmes. I did think that it was possible to discourage this man from proceeding; and if I could have done that, it would have answered all my wishes. It was worth the trial. But...
LETTER XXXIV. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; Friday, March 17. I receive, with great pleasure, the early and chearful assurances of your Loyalty and Love. And let our principal and most trusty friends named in my last know that I do. I would have thee, Jack, come down, as soon as thou canst. I believe I shall not want the others so soon. Yet they may come down to Lord M's. I will be there, if not to receive them, to satisfy my Lord, that there is no new mischief in hand, which will require his second intervention. [Page 231] For thyself, thou must be constantly with me: Not for my Security: The family dare do nothing but bully: They bark only at distance: But for my Entertainment: That thou mayst,...
LETTER XXXV. Mr. Lovelace, To John Belford, Esq; I have found out by my watchful Spy almost as many of my Charmer's motions, as of those of the rest of her Relations. It delights me to think how the rascal is caressed by the Uncles and Nephew; and let into their secrets; yet proceeds all the time by my line of direction. I have charged him, however, on forfeiture of his present weekly stipend, and my future favour, to take care, that neither my Beloved, nor any of the family, suspect him: I have told him, that he may indeed watch her egresses and regresses; but that only to keep off other servants from her paths; yet not to be seen by her himself. The dear creature has tempted him, he told them, with a Bribe [which she never...
LETTER XXXVI. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Sat. Night, March 18. I have been frighted out of my wits---Still am in a manner out of breath---Thus occasioned---I went down, under the usual pretence, in hopes to find something from you. Concerned at my disappointment, I was returning from the Woodhouse, when I heard a rustling as of somebody behind a stack of wood. I was extremely surprised: But still more, to behold a man coming from behind the furthermost stack. O, thought I, at that moment, the sin of a prohibited correspondence! In the same point of time that I saw him, he besought me not to be frighted: And, still nearer approaching me, threw open a horseman's coat: And who should it be but Mr. Lovelace...
LETTER XXXVII. Miss Howe, To Miss Clarissa Harlowe. Sunday, March 19. I beg your pardon, my dearest friend, for having given you occasion to remind me of the date of my last. I was willing to have before me as much of the workings of your wise relations as possible; being verily persuaded, that one side or the other would have yielded by this time: And then I should have had some degree of certainty to found my observations upon. And indeed what can I write that I have not already written? ---You know, that I can do nothing but rave at your stupid persecutors: And That you don't like. I have advised you to resume your own Estate: That you won't do. You cannot bear the thoughts of having their Solmes: And Lovelace [Page 253]...
LETTER XXXVIII. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Monday, March 20. Your last so sensibly affects me, that I must postpone every other consideration, however weighty, to reply to it: And this I will do very distinctly, and with all the openness of heart which our mutual friendship demands. But let me observe, in the first place, gratefully observe, That if I have in fifty passages of my Letters given you such undoubted proofs of my value for Mr. Lovelace, that you have spared me for the sake of my explicitness, it is acting by me with a generosity worthy of yourself. But lives the man, think you, who is so very bad, that he does not give even a doubting mind reason at one time to be better pleased with him...
LETTER XXXIX. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Monday, March 20. This Letter will account to you, my dear, for my abrupt breaking off in the answer I was writing to yours of yesterday; and which, possibly, I shall not be able to finish, and send-you till to-morrow or next day; having a great deal to say to the subjects you put to me in it. What I am now to give you are the particulars of another effort made by my friends, thro' the good Mrs. Norton. It seems they had sent to her yesterday, to be here this day, to take their instructions, and to try what she could do with me. It would, at least, I suppose they thought, have this effect; To render me inexcusable with her; or to let her see, that there was no room for...
LETTER XL. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. [In continuation of the subject in Letter xxxviii]. I will now, tho' midnight (for I have no sleep in my eyes) resume the subject I was forced so abruptly to quit; and will obey yours, Miss Lloyd's, Miss Campion's, and Miss Biddulph's call, with as much temper as my divided thoughts will admit. The dead stilness of this solemn hour will I hope contribute to calm my disturbed mind. In order to acquit myself of so heavy a charge as that of having reserves to so dear a friend, I will acknowlege (and I thought I had over and over) that it is owing to my particular situation, if Mr. Lovelace appears to me in a tolerable light: And I take upon me to say, that had they opposed...
LETTER XLI. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Tuesday, March 21. How willingly would my dear Mother shew kindness to me, were she permitted! None of this persecution should I labour under, I am sure, if that regard were paid to her prudence and fine understanding, which they so well deserve. Whether owing to her, or to my Aunt, or to both, that a new trial was to be made upon me, I cannot tell; but this morning her Shorey delivered into my hand the following condescending Letter. My dear girl, For so I must still call you; since dear you may be to me, in every sense of the word---We have taken into particular consideration, some hints that fell yesterday from your good Norton, as if we had not, at Mr. Solmes'...
LETTER XLII. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. An angry dialogue, a scolding-bout rather, has passed between my Sister and me. Did you think I could scold, my dear? She was sent up to me, upon my refusal to see Mr. Solmes---Let loose upon me, I think!---No intention on their parts, to conciliate! It seems evident that I am given up to my Brother and her, by general consent. I will do justice to every-thing she said against me, which carried any force with it. As I ask for your approbation or disapprobation of my conduct, upon the facts I lay before you, I should think it the sign of a very bad cause, if I endeavoured to mislead my judge. She began with representing to me the danger I had been in, had my Father...
[Page 302] LETTER XLIII. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Tuesday, March 21. ·Would you not have thought, my dear Miss Howe, as well as I, that my proposal must have been accepted: And that my Brother, by the last article of his unbrotherly Letter (where he threatens to go to Scotland if it should be hearkened to) was of opinion that it would. ·For my part, after I had read the unkind Letter over and over, I concluded, upon the whole, that a Reconciliation upon terms so disadvantageous to myself, as hardly any other person in my case, I dare say, would have proposed, must be the result of this morning's conference. And in that belief I had begun to give myself new trouble in thinking (this difficulty over)...
LETTER XLIV. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. Wednesday Morning, 9 o' clock. My Aunt Hervey lay here last night, and is but just gone from me. She came up to me with my Sister. They would not trust my Aunt without this ill-natured witness. When she entered my chamber, I told her, That this visit was a high favour to a poor prisoner, in her hard confinement. I kissed her hand. She, kindly saluting me, said, Why this distance to your Aunt, my dear, who loves you so well? [Page 310] She owned, That she came to expostulate with me, for the peace-sake of the family: For that she could not believe it possible, if I did not conceive myself unkindly treated, that I, who had ever shewn such a sweetness of temper, as...
LETTER XLV. Miss Clarissa Harlowe, To Miss Howe. My heart fluttered with the hope and the fear of seeing my Mother, and with the shame and the grief of having given her so much uneasiness. But it needed not: She was not permitted to come. But my Aunt was so good as to return; yet not without my Sister: And, taking my hand, made me sit down by her. She came, she must own, officiously, she said, this once more; tho' against the opinion of my Father: But knowing and dreading the consequence of my opposition, she could not but come. She then set forth to me my friends expectations from me; Mr. Solmes's riches (three times as rich he came out to be, as any-body had thought him); the settlements proposed; Mr....