Clarissa Harlowe, Samuel Richardson [black authors fiction .txt] 📗

had taken. And what should it be but of the answer the truly admirable creature had intended to give to my written proposals in relation to settlements?

I have but just dipt my pen into this affecting paper. Were I to read it attentively, not a wink should I sleep this night. Tomorrow it shall obtain my serious consideration.

Letter 202 Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq.

Tuesday Morning, May 23

The dear creature desires to be excused seeing me till evening. She is not very well, as Dorcas tells me.

Read here, if thou wilt, the paper transcribed by Dorcas. It is impossible that I should proceed with my projects against this admirable woman, were it not that I am resolved, after a few trials more, if as nobly sustained as those she has passed through, to make her (if she really hate me not) legally mine.

To Mr. Lovelace

When a woman is married, that supreme earthly obligation requires, that in all instances, where her husband’s real honour is concerned, she should yield her own will to his. But, beforehand, I could be glad, conformably to what I have always signified, to have the most explicit assurances, that every possible way should be tried to avoid litigation with my father. Time and patience will subdue all things. My prospects of happiness are extremely contracted. A husband’s right will be always the same. In my lifetime I could wish nothing to be done of this sort. Your circumstances, Sir, will not oblige you to extort violently from him what is in his hands. All that depends upon me, either with regard to my person, to my diversions, or to the economy that no married woman, of whatever rank or quality, should be above inspecting, shall be done, to prevent a necessity for such measures being taken. And if there will be no necessity for them, it is to be hoped that motives less excusable will not have force⁠—motives which must be founded in a littleness of mind, which a woman, who has not that littleness of mind, will be under such temptations, as her duty will hardly be able at all times to check, to despise her husband for having; especially in cases where her own family, so much a part of herself, and which will have obligations upon her (though then but secondary ones) from which she can never be freed, is intimately concerned.

This article, then, I urge to your most serious consideration, as what lies next my heart. I enter not here minutely into the fatal misunderstanding between them and you: the fault may be in both. But, Sir, yours was the foundation-fault: at least, you gave a too-plausible pretence for my brother’s antipathy to work upon. Condescension was no part of your study. You chose to bear the imputations laid to your charge, rather than to make it your endeavour to obviate them.

But this may lead into hateful recrimination.⁠—Let it be remembered, I will only say, in this place, that, in their eye, you have robbed them of a daughter they doted upon; and that their resentments on this occasion rise but in proportion to their love and their disappointment. If they were faulty in some of the measures they took, while they themselves did not think so, who shall judge for them? You, Sir, who will judge everybody as you please, and will let nobody judge you in your own particular, must not be their judge.⁠—It may therefore be expected that they will stand out.

As for myself, Sir, I must leave it (so seems it to be destined) to your justice, to treat me as you shall think I deserve: but, if your future behaviour to them is not governed by that harsh-sounding implacableness, which you charge upon some of their tempers, the splendour of your family, and the excellent character of some of them (of all indeed, unless your own conscience furnishes you with one only exception) will, on better consideration, do everything with them: for they may be overcome; perhaps, however, with the more difficulty, as the greatly prosperous less bear control and disappointment than others: for I will own to you, that I have often in secret lamented, that their great acquirements have been a snare to them; perhaps as great a snare, as some other accidentals have been to you; which being less immediately your own gifts, you have still less reason than they to value yourself upon them.

Let me only, on this subject, further observe, that condescension is not meanness. There is a glory in yielding, that hardly any violent spirit can judge of. My brother, perhaps, is no more sensible of this than you. But as you have talents, which he has not, (who, however, has, as I hope, that regard for morals, the want of which makes one of his objections to you), I could wish it may not be owing to you, that your mutual dislikes to each other do not subside! for it is my earnest hope, that in time you may see each other, without exciting the fears of a wife and a sister for the consequence. Not that I should wish you to yield in points that truly concerned your honour: no, Sir; I would be as delicate in such, as you yourself: more delicate, I will venture to say, because more uniformly so. How vain, how contemptible, is that pride, which shows itself in standing upon diminutive observances; and gives up, and makes a jest of, the most important duties!

This article being considered as I wish, all the rest will be easy. Were I to accept of the handsome separate provision you seem to intend me; added to the considerate sums arisen from my grandfather’s estate since his death (more considerable than perhaps you may suppose from your offer); I should think it my duty to lay up for the family good, and for unforseen events, out of it: for, as