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

to me. I refused him again and again. He persisted; my mother his advocate. I told him my dislike of all men⁠—of him⁠—of matrimony⁠—still he persisted. I used him with tyranny⁠—led, indeed, partly by my temper, partly by design; hoping thereby to get rid of him; till the poor man (his character unexceptionably uniform) still persisting, made himself a merit with me by his patience. This brought down my pride, (I never, Sir, was accounted very ungenerous, nor quite ungrateful), and gave me, at one time, an inferiority in my own opinion to him; which lasted just long enough for my friends to prevail upon me to promise him encouragement, and to receive his addresses.

Having done so, when the weatherglass of my pride got up again, I found I had gone too far to recede. My mother and my friends both held me to it. Yet I tried him, I vexed him, an hundred ways; and not so much neither with design to vex him, as to make him hate me, and decline his suit.

He bore this, however; and got nothing but my pity; yet still my mother, and my friend, having obtained my promise, (made, however, not to him, but to them), and being well assured that I valued no man more than Mr. Hickman, (who never once disobliged me in word, or deed, or look, except by his foolish perseverance), insisted upon the performance.

While my dear friend was in her unhappy uncertainty, I could not think of marriage; and now, what encouragement have I?⁠—She, my monitress, my guide, my counsel, gone, forever gone! by whose advice and instructions I hoped to acquit myself tolerably in the state to which I could not avoid entering. For, Sir, my mother is so partially Mr. Hickman’s friend, that I am sure, should any difference arise, she would always censure me, and acquit him; even were he ungenerous enough to remember me in his day.

This, Sir, being my situation, consider how difficult it is for me to think of marriage. Whenever we approve, we can find an hundred good reasons to justify our approbation. Whenever we dislike, we can find a thousand to justify our dislike. Everything in the latter case is an impediment; every shadow a bugbear.⁠—Thus can I enumerate and swell, perhaps, only imaginary grievances; “I must go whither he would have me to go; visit whom he would have me to visit: well as I love to write, (though now, alas! my grand inducement to write is over!) it must be to whom he pleases:” and Mrs. Hickman (who, as Miss Howe, cannot do wrong) would hardly ever be able to do right. Thus, the tables turned upon me, I am reminded of my vowed obedience; Madam’d up perhaps to matrimonial perfection, and all the wedded warfare practised comfortably over between us, (for I shall not be passive under insolent treatment), till we become curses to each other, a byword to our neighbours, and the jest of our own servants.

But there must be bear and forbear, methinks some wise body will tell me: But why must I be teased into a state where that must be necessarily the case; when now I can do as I please, and wish only to be let alone to do as best pleases me? And what, in effect, does my mother say? “Anna Howe, you now do everything that pleases you; you now have nobody to control you; you go and you come; you dress and you undress; you rise and you go to rest, just as you think best; but you must be happier still, child!”⁠—

As how, Madam?

“Why, you must marry, my dear, and have none of these options; but, in everything, do as your husband commands you.”

This is very hard, you will own, Sir, for such a one as me to think of. And yet, engaged to enter into that state, as I am, how can I help myself? My mother presses me; my friend, my beloved friend, writing as from the dead, presses me; and you and Mr. Morden, as executors of her will, remind me; the man is not afraid of me, (I am sure, were I the man, I should not have half his courage); and I think I ought to conclude to punish him (the only effectual way I have to do it) for his perverse adherence and persecution, with the grant of his own wishes; a punishment which many others who enjoy theirs very commonly experience.

Let me then assure you, Sir, that when I can find, in the words of my charming friend in her will, writing of her cousin Hervey, that my grief for her is mellowed by time into a remembrance more sweet than painful, that I may not be utterly unworthy of the passion a man of some merit has for me, I will answer the request of my dear friend, so often repeated, and so earnestly pressed; and Mr. Hickman shall find, if he continue to deserve my gratitude, that my endeavours shall not be wanting to make him amends for the patience he has had, and must still a little while longer have with me: and then will it be his own fault (I hope not mine) if our marriage answer not those happy prognostics, which filled her generous presaging mind, upon this view, as she once, for my encouragement, and to induce me to encourage him, told me.

Thus, Sir, have I, in a very free manner, accounted to you, as to the executor of my beloved friend, for all that relates to you, as such, to know; and even for more than I needed to do, against myself; only that you will find as much against me in some of her letters; and so, losing nothing, I gain the character of ingenuousness with you.

And thus much for the double reprimand, on my delaying my part of the performance of my dear friend’s will.

And now, while you are admonishing me on this subject, let me remind