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

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 takes such officious pains, and it is so much her subject, to have it thought that she never did, and never could like him, that she gives but too much room to suspect that she does. She never tells the story of their parting, and of her refusal of him, but her colour rises, she looks with disdain upon me, and mingles anger with the airs she gives herself:⁠—anger as well as airs, demonstrating, that she refused a man whom she thought worth accepting: Where else is the reason either for anger or boast?⁠—Poor Bella! She is to be pitied⁠—she cannot either like or dislike with temper! Would to heaven she had been mistress of all her wishes!⁠—Would to heaven she had!

As to what you say of my giving up to my father’s control the estate devised me, my motives at the time, as you acknowledge, were not blamable. 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. Neither you nor I, my dear, although you now assume the air of a diviner, (pardon me) could have believed that would have happened which has happened, as to my father’s part particularly. You were indeed jealous of my brother’s views against me; or rather of his predominant love of himself; but I did not think so hardly of my brother and sister as you always did. You never loved them; and ill-will has eyes ever open to the faulty side; as goodwill or love is blind even to real imperfections. I will briefly recollect my motives.

I found jealousies and uneasiness rising in every breast, where all before was unity and love. The honoured testator was reflected upon: a second childhood was attributed to him; and I was censured, as having taken advantage of it. All young creatures, thought I, more or less, covet independency; but those who wish most for it, are seldom the fittest to be trusted either with the government of themselves, or with power over others. This is certainly a very high and unusual devise to so young a creature. We should not aim at all we have power to do. To take all that good-nature, or indulgence, or good opinion confers, shows a want of moderation, and a graspingness that is unworthy of that indulgence; and are bad indications of the use that may be made of the power bequeathed. 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 visitors, of a young creature of our sex, made independent: And are not such subjected, more than any others, to the attempts of enterprisers and fortune-seekers?⁠—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 me!⁠—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 judgments 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 much rather 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, as matters are circumstanced, be Solmes’s wife. I will not be very rash, my dear, in protesting to the contrary: but I think it never can, and, what is still more, never ought to be!⁠—My temper, I know, is depended upon. But I have heretofore said,14 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 mother sets of meekness, and resignedness to the wills of others? Is she not forever obliged (as she was pleased to hint to me) to be of the forbearing side? In my mother’s case, your observation I must own is verified, that those who will bear much, shall have much to bear.15 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. And often and often have I had reason (on her account) to reflect, that we poor mortals, by our over-solicitude to preserve undisturbed the qualities we are constitutionally fond of, frequently lose the benefits we propose to ourselves from them: since the designing and encroaching (finding out what we most fear to forfeit) direct their batteries against these our weaker places, and, making an artillery (if I may so phrase it) of our hopes