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

full share, of curiosity, my dear), and to let her see here-and-there some passages in your letters⁠—

I am broken in upon⁠—but I will tell you by-and-by what passed between my mother and me on this occasion⁠—and the rather, as she had her girl, her favourite Hickman, and your Lovelace, all at once in her eye, in her part of the conversation.

Thus it was:

“I cannot but think, Nancy, said she, after all, that there is a little hardship in Miss Harlowe’s case: and yet (as her mother says) it is a grating thing to have a child, who was always noted for her duty in smaller points, to stand in opposition to her parents’ will in the greater; yea, in the greatest of all. And now, to middle the matter between both, it is pity, that the man they favour has not that sort of merit which a person of a mind so delicate as that of Miss Harlowe might reasonably expect in a husband.⁠—But then, this man is surely preferable to a libertine: to a libertine too, who has had a duel with her own brother; fathers and mothers must think so, were it not for that circumstance⁠—and it is strange if they do not know best.”

And so they must, thought I, from their experience, if no little dirty views give them also that prepossession in one man’s favour, which they are so apt to censure their daughters for having in another’s⁠—and if, as I may add in your case, they have no creeping, old, musty uncle Antonys to strengthen their prepossessions, as he does my mother’s. Poor, creeping, positive soul, what has such an old bachelor as he to do, to prate about the duties of children to parents; unless he had a notion that parents owe some to their children? But your mother, by her indolent meekness, let me call it, has spoiled all the three brothers.

“But you see, child, proceeded my mother, what a different behaviour mine is to you. I recommend to you one of the soberest, yet politest, men in England⁠—”

I think little of my mother’s politest, my dear. She judges of honest Hickman for her daughter, as she would have done, I suppose, twenty years ago, for herself.

“Of a good family, continued my mother; a fine, clear, and improving estate (a prime consideration with my mother, as well as with some other folks, whom you know): and I beg and I pray you to encourage him: at least not to use him the worse, for his being so obsequious to you.”

Yes, indeed! To use him kindly, that he may treat me familiarly⁠—but distance to the men-wretches is best⁠—I say.

“Yet all will hardly prevail upon you to do as I would have you. What would you say, were I to treat you as Miss Harlowe’s father and mother treat her?

“What would I say, Madam!⁠—That’s easily answered. I would say nothing. Can you think such usage, and to such a young lady, is to be borne?

“Come, come, Nancy, be not so hasty: you have heard but one side; and that there is more to be said is plain, by your reading to me but parts of her letters. They are her parents. They must know best. Miss Harlowe, as fine a child as she is, must have done something, must have said something, (you know how they loved her), to make them treat her thus.

“But if she should be blameless, Madam, how does your own supposition condemn them?”

Then came up Solmes’s great estate; his good management of it⁠—“A little too near indeed,” was the word!⁠—(O how money-lovers, thought I, will palliate! Yet my mother is a princess in spirit to this Solmes!) “What strange effects, added she, have prepossession and love upon young ladies!”

I don’t know how it is, my dear; but people take high delight in finding out folks in love. Curiosity begets curiosity. I believe that’s the thing.

She proceeded to praise Mr. Lovelace’s person, and his qualifications natural and acquired. But then she would judge as mothers will judge, and as daughters are very loth to judge: but could say nothing in answer to your offer of living single; and breaking with him⁠—if⁠—if⁠—(three or four if’s she made of one good one, if) that could be depended on.

But still obedience without reserve, reason what I will, is the burden of my mother’s song: and this, for my sake, as well as for yours.

I must needs say, that I think duty to parents is a very meritorious excellence. But I bless God I have not your trials. We can all be good when we have no temptation nor provocation to the contrary: but few young persons (who can help themselves too as you can) would bear what you bear.

I will not mention all that is upon my mind, in relation to the behaviour of your father and uncles, and the rest of them, because I would not offend you: but I have now a higher opinion of my own sagacity, than ever I had, in that I could never cordially love anyone of your family but yourself. I am not born to like them. But it is my duty to be sincere to my friend: and this will excuse her Anna Howe to Miss Clarissa Harlowe.

I ought indeed to have excepted your mother; a lady to be reverenced: and now to be pitied. What must have been her treatment, to be thus subjugated, as I may call it? Little did the good old viscount think, when he married his darling, his only daughter, to so well-appearing a gentleman, and to her own liking too, that she would have been so much kept down. Another would call your father a tyrant, if I must not: all the world that know him, do call him so; and if you love your mother, you should not be very angry at the world for taking that liberty.

Yet, after all, I cannot help thinking, that she is the less to be