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

contending with such a rebel, as you have been of late. I will hear no pleas, I will receive no letter, nor expostulation. Nor shall you hear from me any more till you have changed your name to my liking. This from

Your incensed Father.

If this resolution be adhered to, then will my father never see me more!⁠—For I will never be the wife of that Solmes⁠—I will die first⁠—!

Tuesday Evening.

He, this Solmes, came hither soon after I had received my father’s letter. He sent up to beg leave to wait upon me⁠—I wonder at his assurance⁠—!

I said to Betty, who brought me this message, let him restore an unhappy creature to her father and mother, and then I may hear what he has to say. But, if my friends will not see me on his account, I will not see him upon his own.

I hope, Miss, said Betty, you will not send me down with this answer. He is with your papa and mamma.

I am driven to despair, said I. I cannot be used worse. I will not see him.

Down she went with my answer. She pretended, it seems, to be loth to repeat it: so was commanded out of her affected reserves, and gave it in its full force.

O how I heard my father storm!

They were altogether, it seems, in his study. My brother was for having me turned out of the house that moment, to Lovelace, and my evil destiny. My mother was pleased to put in a gentle word for me: I know not what it was: but thus she was answered⁠—My dear, this is the most provoking thing in the world in a woman of your good sense!⁠—To love a rebel, as well as if she were dutiful. What encouragement for duty is this?⁠—Have I not loved her as well as ever you did? And why am I changed! Would to the Lord, your sex knew how to distinguish! It is plain, that she relies upon her power over you. The fond mother ever made a hardened child!

She was pleased, however, to blame Betty, as the wench owned, for giving my answer its full force. But my father praised her for it.

The wench says, that he would have come up in his wrath, at my refusing to see Mr. Solmes, had not my brother and sister prevailed upon him to the contrary.

I wish he had!⁠—And, were it not for his own sake, that he had killed me!

Mr. Solmes condescended (I am mightily obliged to him truly!) to plead for me.

They are all in tumults! How it will end, I know not⁠—I am quite weary of life⁠—So happy, till within these few weeks!⁠—So miserable now!

Well, indeed, might my mother say, that I should have severe trials.22

P.S.: The idiot (such a one am I treated like!) is begged, as I may say, by my brother and sister. They have desired, that I may be consigned over entirely to their management. If it be granted, (it is granted, on my father’s part, I understand, but not yet on my mother’s), what cruelty may I not expect from their envy, jealousy, and ill-will!⁠—I shall soon see, by its effects, if I am to be so consigned. This is a written intimation privately dropped in my wood-house walk, by my cousin Dolly Hervey. The dear girl longs to see me, she tells me: but is forbidden till she see me as Mrs. Solmes, or as consenting to be his. I will take example by their perseverance!⁠—Indeed I will⁠—!

Letter 42 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 everything 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 come up, as he would have done had he not been hindered⁠—by Mr. Solmes, among the rest. She reflected upon my Norton, as if she encouraged me in my perverseness. She ridiculed me for my supposed esteem for Mr. Lovelace⁠—was surprised that the witty, the prudent, nay, the dutiful and pi⁠—ous (so she sneeringly pronounced the word) Clarissa Harlowe, should be so strangely fond of a profligate man, that her parents were forced to lock her up, in order to hinder her from running into his arms. “Let me ask you, my dear, said she, how you now keep your account of the disposition of your time? How many hours in the twenty-four do you devote to your needle? How many to your prayers? How many to letter-writing? And how many to love?⁠—I doubt, I doubt, my little dear, was her arch expression, the latter article is like Aaron’s rod, and swallows up the rest!⁠—Tell me; is it not so?”

To these I answered, That it was a double mortification to me to owe my safety from the effects of my father’s indignation to a man I could never thank for anything. I vindicated the good Mrs. Norton with a warmth that was due to her merit. With equal warmth I resented her reflections upon me on Mr. Lovelace’s account. As to the disposition of my time in the twenty-four hours, I told her it would better have become her to pity a sister in distress, than to exult over her⁠—especially, when I could too justly attribute to the disposition of some of her wakeful hours no small part of that distress.

She raved extremely at this last hint: