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<h2> LETTER XLIII </h2>
<h3> MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE SAT. AFTERNOON. </h3>
<p>By your last date of ten o'clock in your letter of this day, you could not
long have deposited it before Robin took it. He rode hard, and brought it
to be just as I had risen from table.</p>
<p>You may justly blame me for sending my messenger empty-handed, your
situation considered; and yet that very situation (so critical!) is partly
the reason for it: for indeed I knew not what to write, fit to send you.</p>
<p>I have been inquiring privately, how to procure you a conveyance from
Harlowe-place, and yet not appear in it; knowing, that to oblige in the
fact, and to disoblige in the manner, is but obliging by halves: my mother
being moreover very suspicious, and very uneasy; made more so by daily
visits from your uncle Antony; who tells her, that every thing is now upon
the point of being determined; and hopes, that her daughter will not so
interfere, as to discourage your compliance with their wills. This I came
at by a way that I cannot take notice of, or both should hear of it in a
manner neither would like: and, without that, my mother and I have had
almost hourly bickerings.</p>
<p>I found more difficulty than I expected (as the time was confined, and
secrecy required, and as you so earnestly forbid me to accompany you in
your enterprise) in procuring you a vehicle. Had you not obliged me to
keep measures with my mother, I could have managed it with ease. I could
even have taken our own chariot, on one pretence or other, and put two
horses extraordinary to it, if I had thought fit; and I could, when we had
got to London, have sent it back, and nobody the wiser as to the lodgings
we might have taken.</p>
<p>I wish to the Lord you had permitted this. Indeed I think you are too
punctilious a great deal for you situation. Would you expect to enjoy
yourself with your usual placidness, and not to be ruffled, in an
hurricane which every moment threatens to blow your house down?</p>
<p>Had your distress sprung from yourself, that would have been another
thing. But when all the world knows where to lay the fault, this alters
the case.</p>
<p>How can you say I am happy, when my mother, to her power, is as much an
abettor of their wickedness to my dearest friend, as your aunt, or any
body else?—and this through the instigation of that odd-headed and
foolish uncle of yours, who [sorry creature that he is!] keeps her up to
resolutions which are unworthy of her, for an example to me, if it please
you. Is not this cause enough for me to ground a resentment upon,
sufficient to justify me for accompanying you; the friendship between us
so well known?</p>
<p>Indeed, my dear, the importance of the case considered, I must repeat,
that you are too nice. Don't they already think that your non-compliance
with their odious measures is owing a good deal to my advice? Have they
not prohibited our correspondence upon that very surmise? And have I, but
on your account, reason to value what they think?</p>
<p>Besides, What discredit have I to fear by such a step? What detriment?
Would Hickman, do you believe, refuse me upon it?—If he did, should
I be sorry for that?—Who is it, that has a soul, who would not be
affected by such an instance of female friendship?</p>
<p>But I should vex and disorder my mother!—Well, that is something:
but not more than she vexes and disorders me, on her being made an
implement by such a sorry creature, who ambles hither every day in spite
to my dearest friend—Woe be to both, if it be for a double end!—Chide
me, if you will: I don't care.</p>
<p>I say, and I insist upon it, such a step would ennoble your friend: and if
still you will permit it, I will take the office out of Lovelace's hands;
and, to-morrow evening, or on Monday before his time of appointment takes
place, will come in a chariot, or chaise: and then, my dear, if we get off
as I wish, will we make terms (and what terms we please) with them all. My
mother will be glad to receive her daughter again, I warrant: and Hickman
will cry for joy on my return; or he shall for sorrow.</p>
<p>But you are so very earnestly angry with me for proposing such a step, and
have always so much to say for your side of any question, that I am afraid
to urge it farther.—Only be so good (let me add) as to encourage me
to resume it, if, upon farther consideration, and upon weighing matters
well, (and in this light, whether best to go off with me, or with
Lovelace,) you can get over your punctilious regard for my reputation. A
woman going away with a woman is not so discreditable a thing, surely! and
with no view, but to avoid the fellows!—I say, only to be so good,
as to consider this point; and if you can get over your scruples on my
account, do. And so I will have done with this argument for the present;
and apply myself to some of the passages in yours.</p>
<p>A time, I hope, will come, that I shall be able to read your affecting
narratives without the impatient bitterness which now boils over in my
heart, and would flow to my pen, were I to enter into the particulars of
what you write. And indeed I am afraid of giving you my advice at all, or
telling you what I should do in your case (supposing you will still refuse
my offer; finding too what you have been brought or rather driven to
without it); lest any evil should follow it: in which case, I should never
forgive myself. And this consideration has added to my difficulties in
writing to you now you are upon such a crisis, and yet refuse the only
method—but I said, I would not for the present touch any more that
string. Yet, one word more, chide me if you please: If any harm betide
you, I shall for ever blame my mother—indeed I shall—and
perhaps yourself, if you do not accept my offer.</p>
<p>But one thing, in your present situation and prospects, let me advise: It
is this, that if you do go off with Mr. Lovelace, you take the first
opportunity to marry. Why should you not, when every body will know by
whose assistance, and in whose company, you leave your father's house, go
whithersoever you will?—You may indeed keep him at a distance, until
settlements are drawn, and such like matters are adjusted to your mind:
but even these are matters of less consideration in your particular case,
than they would be in that of most others: and first, because, be his
other faults what they will, nobody thinks him an ungenerous man: next,
because the possession of your estate must be given up to you as soon as
your cousin Morden comes; who, as your trustee, will see it done; and done
upon proper terms: 3dly, because there is no want of fortune on his side:
4thly, because all his family value you, and are extremely desirous that
you should be their relation: 5thly, because he makes no scruple of
accepting you without conditions. You see how he has always defied your
relations: [I, for my own part, can forgive him for the fault: nor know I,
if it be not a noble one:] and I dare say, he had rather call you his,
without a shilling, than be under obligation to those whom he has full as
little reason to love, as they have to love him. You have heard, that his
own relations cannot make his proud spirit submit to owe any favour to
them.</p>
<p>For all these reasons, I think, you may the less stand upon previous
settlements. It is therefore my absolute opinion, that, if you do withdraw
with him, (and in that case you must let him be judge when he can leave
you with safety, you'll observe that,) you should not postpone the
ceremony.</p>
<p>Give this matter your most serious consideration. Punctilio is out of
doors the moment you are out of your father's house. I know how justly
severe you have been upon those inexcusable creatures, whose giddiness and
even want of decency have made them, in the same hour as I may say, leap
from a parent's window to a husband's bed—but considering Lovelace's
character, I repeat my opinion, that your reputation in the eye of the
world requires no delay be made in this point, when once you are in his
power.</p>
<p>I need not, I am sure, make a stronger plea to you.</p>
<p>You say, in excuse for my mother, (what my fervent love for my friend very
ill brooks,) that we ought not to blame any one for not doing what she has
an opinion to do, or to let alone. This, in cases of friendship, would
admit of very strict discussion. If the thing requested be of greater
consequence, or even of equal, to the person sought to, and it were, as
the old phrase has it, to take a thorn out of one's friend's foot to put
in into one's own, something might be said.—Nay, it would be, I will
venture to say, a selfish thing in us to ask a favour of a friend which
would subject that friend to the same or equal inconvenience as that from
which we wanted to be relieved, The requested would, in this case, teach
his friend, by his own selfish example, with much better reason, to deny
him, and despise a friendship so merely nominal. But if, by a less
inconvenience to ourselves, we could relieve our friend from a greater,
the refusal of such a favour makes the refuser unworthy of the name of
friend: nor would I admit such a one, not even into the outermost fold of
my heart.</p>
<p>I am well aware that this is your opinion of friendship, as well as mine:
for I owe the distinction to you, upon a certain occasion; and it saved me
from a very great inconvenience, as you must needs remember. But you were
always for making excuses for other people, in cases wherein you would not
have allowed of one for yourself.</p>
<p>I must own, that were these excuses for a friend's indifference, or
denial, made by any body but you, in a case of such vast importance to
herself, and of so comparative a small one to those for whose protection
she would be thought to wish; I, who am for ever, as you have often
remarked, endeavouring to trace effects to their causes, should be ready
to suspect that there was a latent, unowned inclination, which balancing,
or preponderating rather, made the issue of the alternative (however
important) sit more lightly upon the excuser's mind than she cared to own.</p>
<p>You will understand me, my dear. But if you do not, it may be well for me;
for I am afraid I shall have it from you for but starting such a notion,
or giving a hint, which perhaps, as you did once in another case, you will
reprimandingly call, 'Not being able to forego the ostentation of
sagacity, though at the expense of that tenderness which is due to
friendship and charity.'</p>
<p>What signifies owning a fault without mending it, you'll say?—Very
true, my dear. But you know I ever was a saucy creature—ever stood
in need of great allowances.—And I remember, likewise, that I ever
had them from my dear Clarissa. Nor do I doubt them now: for you know how
much I love you—if it be possible, more than myself I love you!
Believe me, my dear: and, in consequence of that belief, you will be able
to judge how much I am affected by your present distressful and critical
situation; which will not suffer me to pass by without a censure even that
philosophy of temper in your own cause, which you have not in another's,
and which all that know you ever admired you for.</p>
<p>From this critical and distressful situation, it shall be my hourly
prayers that you may be delivered without blemish to that fair fame which
has hitherto, like your heart, been unspotted.</p>
<p>With this prayer, twenty times repeated, concludes Your ever affectionate,
ANNA HOWE.</p>
<p>I hurried myself in writing this; and I hurry Robin away with it, that, in
a situation so very critical, you may have all the time possible to
consider what I have written, upon two points so very important. I will
repeat them in a very few words:</p>
<p>'Whether you choose not rather to go off with one of your own sex; with
your ANNA HOWE—than with one of the other; with Mr. LOVELACE?'</p>
<p>And if not,</p>
<p>'Whether you should not marry him as soon as possible?'</p>
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