Clarissa

it from, and never trouble myself more about him. Adieu, my dearest friend.

Cl. Harlowe.

Letter 72

Miss Howe, to Miss Clarissa Harlowe

Friday Noon, March 31

Justice obliges me to forward this after my last on the wings of the wind, as I may say. I really believe the man is innocent. Of this one accusation, I think he must be acquitted; and I am sorry I was so forward in dispatching away my intelligence by halves.

I have seen the girl. She is really a very pretty, a very neat, and, what is still a greater beauty, a very innocent young creature. He who could have ruined such an undersigned home-bred, must have been indeed infernally wicked. Her father is an honest simple man; entirely satisfied with his child, and with her new acquaintance.

I am almost afraid for your heart, when I tell you, that I find, now I have got to the bottom of this inquiry, something noble come out in this Lovelace’s favour.

The girl is to be married next week; and this promoted and brought about by him. He is resolved, her father says, to make one couple happy, and wishes he could make more so (There’s for you, my dear!) And she professes to love, he has given her an hundred pounds: the grandmother actually has it in her hands, to answer to the like sum given to the youth by one of his own relation: while Mr. Lovelace’s companion, attracted by the example, has given twenty-five guineas to the father, who is poor, towards clothes to equip the pretty rustic.

Mr. Lovelace and his friend, the poor man says, when they first came to his house, affected to appear as persons of low degree; but now he knows the one (but mentioned it in confidence) to be Colonel Barrow, the other Captain Sloane. The colonel he owns was at first very sweet upon his girl: but her grandmother’s begging of him to spare her innocence, he vowed, that he never would offer anything but good counsel to her. He kept his word; and the pretty fool acknowledged, that she never could have been better instructed by the minister himself from the bible-book!⁠—The girl pleased me so well, that I made her visit to me worth her while.

But what, my dear, will become of us now?⁠—Lovelace not only reformed, but turned preacher!⁠—What will become of us now?⁠—Why, my sweet friend, your generosity is now engaged in his favour!⁠—Fie upon this generosity! I think in my heart, that it does as much mischief to the noble-minded, as love to the ignobler.⁠—What before was only a conditional liking, I am now afraid will turn to liking unconditional.

I could not endure to change my invective into panegyric all at once, and so soon. We, or such as I at least, love to keep ourselves in countenance for a rash judgment, even when we know it to be rash. Everybody has not your generosity in confessing a mistake. It requires a greatness of soul frankly to do it. So I made still further inquiry after his life and manner, and behaviour there, in hopes to find something bad: but all uniform!

Upon the whole, Mr. Lovelace comes out with so much advantage from this inquiry, that were there the least room for it, I should suspect the whole to be a plot set on foot to wash a blackamoor white. Adieu, my dear.

Anna Howe.

Letter 73

Miss Clarissa Harlowe, to Miss Howe

Saturday, April 1

Hasty censures do indeed subject themselves to the charge of variableness and inconsistency in judgment: and so they ought; for, if you, even you, my dear, were so loth to own a mistake, as in the instance before us you pretend you were, I believe I should not have loved you so well as I really do love you. Nor could you, in that case, have so frankly thrown the reflection I hint at upon yourself, have not your mind been one of the most ingenuous that ever woman boasted.

Mr. Lovelace has faults enough to deserve very severe censure, although he be not guilty of this. If I were upon such terms with him as he could wish me to be, I should give him such a hint, that this treacherous Joseph Leman cannot be so much attached to him, as perhaps he thinks him to be. If it were, he would not have been so ready to report to his disadvantage (and to Betty Barnes too) this slight affair of the pretty rustic. Joseph has engaged Betty to secrecy; promising to let her, and her young master, to know more, when he knows the whole of the matter: and this hinders her from mentioning it, as she is nevertheless agog to do, to my sister or brother. And then she does not choose to disoblige Joseph; for although she pretends to look above him, she listens, I believe, to some love-stories he tells her.

Women having it not in their power to begin a courtship, some of them very frequently, I believe, lend an ear where their hearts incline not.

But to say no more of these low people, neither of whom I think tolerably of; I must needs own, that as I should forever have despised this man, had he been capable of such a vile intrigue in his way to Harlowe-place, and as I believe he was capable of it, it has indeed (I own it has) proportionably engaged my generosity, as you call it, in his favour: perhaps more than I may have reason to wish it had. And, rally me as you will, pray tell me fairly, my dear, would it not have had such an effect upon you?

Then the real generosity of the act.⁠—I protest, my beloved friend, if he would be good for the rest of his life from this time, I would forgive him a great many