Long did I stand out against all the offers made me, and against all the persuasions of my mother; and, to tell you the truth, the longer, and with the more obstinacy, as the person my choice would have first fallen upon was neither approved by my mother, nor by my dear friend. This riveted me to my pride, and to my opposition; for although I was convinced, after a while, that my choice would neither have been prudent nor happy; and that the specious wretch was not what he had made me believe he was; yet could I not easily think of any other man; and indeed, from the detection of him, took a settled aversion to the whole sex.
At last Mr. Hickman offered himself; a man worthy of a better choice. He had the good fortune (he thinks it so) to be agreeable (and to make his proposals agreeable) to my mother.
As to myself; I own, that were I to have chosen a brother, Mr. Hickman should have been the man; virtuous, sober, sincere, friendly, as he is. But I wish not to marry; nor knew I the man in the world whom I could think deserving of my beloved friend. But neither of our parents would let us live single.
The accursed Lovelace was proposed warmly to her at one time; and, while she was yet but indifferent to him, they, by ungenerous usage of him, (for then, Sir, he was not known to be Beelzebub himself), and by endeavouring to force her inclinations in favour first of one worthless man, then of another, in antipathy to him, through her foolish brother’s caprice, turned that indifference (from the natural generosity of her soul) into a regard which she never otherwise would have had for a man of his character.
Mr. Hickman was proposed 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
