What a wretch is this!

For the rest, your known virtue would be as great a security to him, as he could wish for.

She will look upon you, said Sir Harry, if she be forced to marry you, as Elizabeth of France did upon Philip II. of Spain, when he received her on his frontiers as her husband, who was to have been but her father-in-law; that is, with fear and terror, rather than with complaisance and love; and you will perhaps be as surly to her, as that old monarch was to his young bride. Fear and terror, the wretch, the horrid wretch! said, looked pretty in a bride as well as in a wife; and, laughing, (yes, my dear, the hideous fellow laughed immoderately, as Sir Harry told us, when he said it,) it should be his care to perpetuate the occasion for that fear, if he could not think he had the love. And, truly, he was of opinion, that if LOVE and FEAR must be separated in matrimony, the man who made himself feared, fared best.

If my eyes would carry with them the execution which the eyes of the basilisk are said to do, I would make it my first business to see this

creature.

My mother, however, says, it would be a prodigious merit in you, if you could get over your aversion to him. Where, asks she, (as you have been asked before,) is the praise-worthiness of obedience, if it be only paid in instances where we give up nothing?

What a fatality, that you have no better an option-either a Scylla or a Charybdis!

Were it not you, I should know how (barbarously used as you are used) to advise you in a moment. But such a noble character to suffer from a (supposed) rashness and indiscretion of such a nature, would, as I have heretofore observed, be a wound to the sex.

While I was in hope, that the asserting of your own independence would have helped you, I was pleased, that you had one resource, as I thought. But now, that you have so well proved, that such a step would not avail you, I am entirely at a loss what to say.

I will lay down my pen, and think.

I HAVE Considered, and considered again; but I protest I know no more what to say now than before. Only this: that I am young, like yourself; and have a much weaker judgment, and stronger passions, than you have.

I have heretofore said, that you have offered as much as you ought, in offering to live single. If you were never to marry, the estate they are so loath should go out of their name, would, in time, I suppose, revert to your brother; and he or his would have it, perhaps, much more certainly this way, than by the precarious reversions which Solmes makes them hope for. Have you put this into their odd heads, my dear? The tyrant word AUTHORITY, as they use it, can be the only objection against this offer.

VOL. VI.

One thing you must consider, that, if you leave your parents, your duty and love will not suffer you to justify yourself by an appeal against them; and so you'll have the world against you. And should Lovelace continue his wild life, and behave ungratefully to you, will not his baseness seem to justify their cruel treatment of you, as well as their dislike of him?

May heaven direct you for the best! I can only say, that, for my own part, I would do any thing, go any where, rather than be compelled to marry the man I hate; and (were he such a man as Solmes) must always hate. Nor could I have borne what you have borne, if from father and uncles, not from brother and sister.

My mother will have it, that after they have tried their utmost efforts to bring you into their measures, and find them ineffectual, they will recede. But I cannot say I am of her mind. She does not own, she has any other authority for this, but her own conjecture. I should otherwise have hoped, that your uncle Antony and she had been in one secret, and that favourable to you. Woe be to one of them at least, (to your uncle to be sure I mean,) if they should be in any other!

You must, if possible, avoid being carried to that uncle's. The man, the parson, your brother and sister present! They'll certainly there marry you to the wretch. Nor will your newlyraised spirit support you in your resistance on such an occasion. Your meekness will return; and you will have nothing for it but tears (tears despised by them all) and ineffectual appeals and lamentations; and these tears, when the ceremony is profaned, you must suddenly dry up; and endeavour to dispose yourself to such an humble frame of mind, as may induce your newmade lord to forgive all your past declarations of aversion.

In short, my dear, you must then blandish him over with a confession, that all your past behaviour was maidenly reserve only; and it will be your part to convince him of the truth of his impudent sarcasm, that the coyest maids make the fondest wives. Thus will you enter the state with a high sense of obligation to his forgiving goodness! and if you will not be kept to it by that fear, by which he proposes to govern, I am much mistaken.

Yet, after all, I must leave the point undetermined, and only to be determined, as you find they recede from their avowed purpose, or resolve to remove you to your uncle Antony's. But I must repeat my wishes, that something may fall out, that neither of these men may call you his! And may you live single, my dearest friend, till some man shall offer, that may be as worthy of you, as man can be!

But yet, methinks, I would not, that you, who are so admirably qualified to adorn the married state, should be always single. You know I am incapable of flattery; and that I always

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speak and write the sincerest dictates of my heart. Nor can you, from what you must know of your own merit, (taken only in a comparative light with others,) doubt my sincerity. For why should a person who delights to find out and admire every thing that is praise-worthy in another, be supposed ignorant of like perfections in herself, when she could not so much admire them in another, if she had them not herself? And why may not I give her those praises, which she would give to any other, who had but half of her excellencies? Especially when she is incapable of pride and vain-glory; and neither despises others for the want of her fine qualities, nor overvalues herself upon them? Over-values, did I say? How can that be?

Forgive me, my beloved friend. My admiration of you (increased, as it is, by every letter you write) will not always be held down in silence; although, in order to avoid offending you, generally endeavour to keep it from flowing to my pen, when I write to you, or to my lips, whenever I have the happiness to be in your

Sunday Morning, March 26. How soothing a thing is praise from those we love!-Whether conscious or not of deserving it, it cannot but give us great delight, to see ourselves stand high in the opinion of those whose favour we are ambitious to cultivate. An ingenuous mind will make this farther use of it, that if it be sensible that it does not already deserve the charming attributes, it will hasten (before its friend finds herself mistaken) to obtain the graces it is complimented for; and this it will do, as well in honour to itself, as to preserve its friend's opinion, and justify her judgment. May this be always my aim !-And then you will not only give the praise, but the merit; and I shall be more worthy of that friendship, which is the only pleasure I have to boast of.

Most heartily I thank you for the kind dis

patch of your last favour. How much am I indebted to you, and even to your honest servant! Under what obligations does my unhappy situation lay me!

But let me answer the kind contents of it as well as I may.

As to getting over my disgusts to Mr Solmes, it is impossible to be done; while he wants generosity, frankness of heart, benevolence, manners, and every qualification that distinguishes the worthy man. O my dear! what a degree of patience, what a greatness of soul, is required in the wife, not to despise a husband who is more ignorant, more illiterate, more low-minded than herself! The wretch, vested with prerogatives, who will claim rule in virtue of them (and not to permit whose claim, will be as disgraceful to the prescribing wife as to the governed husband); how shall such a husband as this be borne, were he, for reasons of convenience and interest, even to be our CHOICE? But, to be compelled to have such a one, and that compulsion to arise from motives as unworthy of the prescribers as of the prescribed, who can think of getting over an aversion so justly founded? How much easier to bear the temporary persecutions I labour under, because temporary, than to resolve to be such a man's for life? Were I to comply, must I not leave my relations, and go to him? A month will decide the one, perhaps: but what a duration of woe will the other be! Every day, it is likely, rising to witness to some new breach of an altar-vowed duty!

Then, my dear, the man seems already to be meditating vengeance against me for an aversion I cannot help; for yesterday my saucy gaoleress assured me, that all my oppositions would not signify that pinch of snuff, holding out her genteel finger and thumb: that I must have Mr Solmes: that therefore I had not best carry my jest too far; for that Mr Solmes was a man of spirit, and had told her, that as I should surely be his, I acted very unpolitely; since, if he had not more mercy [that was her word, I know not if it were his than I had, I might have cause to repent the usage I gave him to the last day of my life. But enough of this man, who, by what you repeat from Sir Harry Downeton, has all the insolence of his sex, without any one quality to make that insolence tolerable.

I have received two letters from Mr Lovelace, since his visit to you; which make three that I have not answered. I doubt not his being very uneasy; but in his last he complains in high terms of my silence; not in the still small voice, or rather style of an humble lover, but in a style like that which would probably be used by a slighted protector. And his pride is again touched, that like a thief, or eaves-dropper, he is forced to dodge about in hopes of a letter, and return five miles (and then to an inconvenient lodging) without any.

His letters and the copy of mine to him, shall

soon attend you. Till when, I will give you the substance of what I wrote him yesterday.

I take him severely to task for his freedom in threatening me, through you, with a visit to Mr Solmes, or to my brother. I say, "That, surely, I must be thought to be a creature fit to bear any thing; that violence and menaces from some of my own family are not enough for me to bear, in order to make me avoid him; but that I must have them from him too, if I oblige those whom it is both my inclination and duty to oblige in every thing that is reasonable, and in my power.

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Very extraordinary, I tell him, that a violent spirit shall threaten to do a rash and unjustifiable thing, which concerns me but a little, and himself a great deal, if I do not something as rash, my character and sex considered, to divert him from it.

"I even hint, that, however it would affect me, were any mischief to happen on my account, yet there are persons, as far as I know, who in my case would not think there would be reason for much regret, were such a committed rashness as he threatens Mr Solmes with, to rid her of two persons whom had she never known, she had never been unhappy."

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This is plain dealing, my dear; and I suppose he will put it into still plainer English for me. I take his pride to task, on his disdaining to watch for my letters; and for his eaves-dropping language, and say, That, surely, he has the less reason to think so hardly of his situation; since his faulty morals are the cause of all; and since faulty morals deservedly level all distinction, and bring down rank and birth to the canaille, and to the necessity which he so much regrets, of appearing (if I must descend to his language) as an eaves-dropper and a thief. And then I forbid him ever to expect another letter from me that is to subject him to such disgraceful hardships.

"As to the solemn vows and protestations he is so ready, upon all occasions, to make, they have the less weight with me, I tell him, as they give a kind of demonstration, that he himself, from his own character, thinks there is reason to make them. Deeds are to me the only evidence of intentions. And I am more and more convinced of the necessity of breaking off a correspondence with a person, whose addresses I see it is impossible either to expect my friends to encourage, or him to appear to wish that they should think him worthy of encouragement.

"What therefore I repeatedly desire is, that since his birth, alliances, and expectations, are such as will at any time, if his immoral character be not an objection, procure him at least equal advantages in a woman whose taste and inclinations moreover might be better adapted to his own; I insist upon it, as well as advise it, that he give up all thought of me: and the rather, as he has all along (by his threatening

and unpolite behaviour to my friends, and whenever he speaks of them) given me reason to conclude, that there is more malice to them, than regard to me, in his perseverance."

This is the substance of the letter I have written to him.

The man, to be sure, must have the penetration to observe, that my correspondence with him hitherto is owing more to the severity I meet with, than to a very high value for him. And so I would have him think. What a worse than Moloch deity is that, which expects an offering of reason, duty, and discretion, to be made to its shrine!

Your mother is of opinion, you say, that at last my friends will relent. Heaven grant that they may! But my brother and sister have such an influence over every body, and are so determined; so pique themselves upon subduing me, and carrying their point; that I despair that they will. And yet, if they do not, Î frankly own, I would not scruple to throw myself upon any not disreputable protection, by which I might avoid my present persecutions on one hand, and not give Mr Lovelace advantage over me on the other-that is to say, were there manifestly no other way left me; for, if there were, I should think the leaving my father's house, without his consent, one of the most inexcusable actions I could be guilty of, were the protection to be ever so unexceptionable; and this, notwithstanding the independent fortune willed me by my grandfather. And indeed I have often reflected with a degree of indignation and disdain, upon the thoughts of what a low, selfish creature that child must be, who is to be reined in only by the hopes of what a parent can or will do for her.

But notwithstanding all this, I owe it to the sincerity of friendship to confess, that I know not what I should have done, had your advice been conclusive any way. Had you, my dear, been witness to my different emotions, as I read your letter, when, in one place, you advise me of my danger, if I am carried to my uncle's; in another, when you own you could not bear what I bear, and would do any thing rather than marry the man you hate; yet, in another, represent to me my reputation suffering in the world's eye; and the necessity I should be under to justify my conduct, at the expense of my friends, were I to take a rash step; in another, insinuate the dishonest figure I should be forced to make, in so compelled a matrimony; endeavouring to cajole, fawn upon, and play the hypocrite with a man to whom I have an aversion; who would have reason to believe me an hypocrite, as well from my former avowals, as from the sense he must have (if common sense he has) of his own demerits; the necessity you think there would be for me, the more averse I really was, to seem the fonder of him; a fondness (were I capable of so much dissimulation) that would be impu

table to disgraceful motives; as it would be too visible, that love, either of person or mind, could be neither of them: then his undoubted, his even constitutional narrowness: his too probable jealousy, and unforgiveness, bearing in my mind my declared aversion, and the unfeigned despites I took all opportunities to do him, in order to discourage his address: a preference avowed against him from the same motive; with the pride he professes to take in curbing and sinking the spirits of a woman he had acquired a right to tyrannize over : had you, I say, been witness of my different emotions as I read; now leaning this way, now that; now perplexed; now apprehensive; now angry at one, then at another; now resolving; now doubting-you would have seen the power you have over me; and would have had reason to believe, that, had you given your advice in any determined or positive manner, I had been ready to have been concluded by it. So, my dear, you will find, from these acknowledgments, that you must justify me to those laws of friendship, which require undisguised frankness of heart: although your justification of me in that particular, will perhaps be at the expense of my prudence.

But, upon the whole, this I do repeat-That nothing but the last extremity shall make me abandon my father's house, if they will permit me to stay; and if I can, by any means, by any honest pretences, but keep off my evil destiny in it till my cousin Morden arrives. As one of my trustees, his is a protection, into which I may without discredit throw myself, if my other friends should remain determined. And this (although they seem too well aware of it) is all my hope: for, as to Lovelace, were I to be sure of his tenderness, and even of his reformation, must not the thoughts of embracing the offered protection of his family, be the same thing, in the world's eye, as accepting of his own? Could I avoid receiving his visits at his own relations'? Must I not be his, whatever (on seeing him in a nearer light) I should find him out to be? For you know, it has always been my observation, that very few people in courtship see each other as they are. Oh, my dear! how wise have I endeavoured to be! How anxious to choose, and to avoid everything, precautiously, as I may say, that might make me happy, or unhappy; yet all my wisdom now, by a strange fatality, is likely to become foolishness!

Then you tell me, in your usual kindly-partial manner, what is expected of me, more than would be of some others. This should be a lesson to me. Whatever my motives were, the world would not know them. To complain of a brother's unkindness, that, indeed, I might do. Differences between brothers and sisters, where interests clash, but too commonly arise: but,

where the severe father cannot be separated from the faulty brother, who could bear to lighten herself, by loading a father? Then, in this particular case, must not the hatred Mr Lovelace expresses to every one of my family (although in return for their hatred of him) shock one extremely? Must it not shew, that there is something implacable, as well as highly unpolite, in his temper? And what creature can think of marrying so as to be out of all hopes ever to be well with her own nearest and tenderest relations?

But here, having tired myself, and I dare say you, I will lay down my pen.

Mr Solmes is almost continually here: so is my aunt Hervey: so are my two uncles. Something is working against me, I doubt. What an uneasy state is suspense! When a naked sword, too, seems hanging over one's head!

I hear nothing but what this confident creature Betty throws out in the wantonness of office. Now, it is, Why, miss, don't you look up your things? You'll be called upon, depend upon it, before you are aware. Another time she intimates darkly, and in broken sentences, (as if on purpose to tease me,) what one says, what another; with their inquiries how I dispose of my time? and my brother's insolent question comes frequently in, Whether I am not writing a history of my sufferings?

But I am now used to her pertness; and as it is only through that that I can hear of any thing intended against me, before it is to be put in execution; and as, when she is most impertinent, she pleads a commission for it; I bear with her yet, now and then, not without a little of the heart-burn.

I will deposit thus far. Adieu, my dear.
CLARISSA HARLOWE.

of the merit you would have, if you could oblige your friends against your own inclination. Our conference upon this subject was introduced by the conversation we had had with Sir Harry Downeton; and my mother thinks it of so much importance, that she enjoins me to give you the particulars of it. I the rather comply, as I was unable in my last to tell what to advise you to; and as you will in this recital have my mother's opinion at least, and, perhaps, in hers, what the world's would be, were it only to know what she knows, and not so much as I know.

My mother argues upon this case in a most discouraging manner for all such of our sex as look forward for happiness in marriage with the man of their choice.

Only, that I know, she has a side-view of her daughter; who, at the same time that she now prefers no one to another, values not the man her mother most regards, one farthing; or I should lay it more to heart.

What is there in it, says she, that all this bustle is about? Is it such a mighty matter for a young woman to give up her inclinations to oblige her friends?

Very well, my mamma, thought I! Now, may you ask this-at FORTY, you may-But what would you have said at EIGHTEEN, is the question.

Either, said she, the lady must be thought to have very violent inclinations [And what nice young creature would have that supposed? which she could not give up; or a very stubborn will, which she would not; or, thirdly, have parents she was indifferent about obliging.

You know my mother now and then argues very notably; always very warmly at least. I happen often to differ from her; and we both think so well of our own arguments, that we very seldom are so happy as to convince one another. A pretty common case, I believe, in all vehement debatings. She says I am too witty; Anglicé, too pert: I, That she is too wise; that is to say, being likewise put into English, not so young as she has been; in short, is grown so much into mother, that she has forgotten she ever was a daughter. So, generally, we call another cause by consent-yet fall into the old one half a dozen times over, without consent-quitting and resuming, with half-angry faces, forced into a smile, that there might be some room to piece together again: but go to bed, if bed-time, a little sullen nevertheless; or, if we speak, her silence is broken with an Ah, Nancy you are ! so lively! so quick! I wish you were less like your papa, child.

I pay it off with thinking, that my mother has no reason to disclaim her share in her Nancy: and if the matter go off with greater severity on her side than I wish for, then her favourite Hickman fares the worse for it next day.

I know I am a saucy creature. I know, if I do not say so, you will think so. So no more of

this just now. What I mention it for, is to tell you, that on this serious occasion I will omit, if I can, all that passed between us, that had an air of flippancy on my part, or quickness on my mother's, to let you into the cool and cogent of the conversation.

"Look through the families, said she, which we both know, where the man and the woman have been said to marry for love; which (at the time it is so called) is perhaps no more than a passion begun in folly or thoughtlessness, and carried on from a spirit of perverseness and opposition [here we had a parenthetical debate, which I omit]; and see, if they appear to be happier than those whose principal inducement to marry has been convenience, or to oblige their friends; or even whether they are generally so happy; for convenience and duty, where observed, will afford a permanent and even an increasing satisfaction (as well at the time, as upon the reflection,) which seldom fail to reward themselves; while love, if love be the motive, is an idle passion," [idle in ONE SENSE my mother cannot say; for love is as busy as a monkey, and as mischievous as a school-boy] "it is a fervour, that, like all other fervours, lasts but a little while after marriage; a bow overstrained, that soon returns to its natural bent.

"As it is founded generally upon mere notional excellencies, which were unknown to the persons themselves till attributed to either by the other; one, two, or three months, usually sets all right on both sides; and then with opened eyes they think of each other-just as every body else thought of them before.

"The lovers' imaginaries [her own notable word! are by that time gone off; nature and old habits (painfully dispensed with or concealed) return: disguises thrown aside, all the moles, freckles, and defects in the minds of each discover themselves; and 'tis well if each do not sink in the opinion of the other, as much below the common standard, as the blinded imagination of both had set them above it. And now, said she, the fond pair, who knew no felicity out of each other's company, are so far from finding the never-ending variety each had proposed in an unrestrained conversation with the other (when they seldom were together; and always parted with something to say; or on recollection, when parted, wishing they had said); that they are continually on the wing in pursuit of amusements out of themselves; and those, concluded my sage mamma, [Did you think her wisdom so very modern? will perhaps be the livelier to each, in which the other has no share.'

"

I told my mother, that if you were to take any rash step, it would be owing to the indiscreet violence of your friends. I was afraid, I said, that these reflections upon the conduct of people in the married state, who might set out with better hopes, were but too well grounded: