LETTER XLIII MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWESAT. SUNDAY, MAY 20, 21.
Now, my dear, for the promised subject. You must not ask me how I came by the originals [such they really are] that I am going to present you with: for my mother would not read to me those parts of your uncle's letter which bore hard upon myself, and which leave him without any title to mercy from me: nor would she let me hear but what she pleased of her's in answer; for she has condescended to answer him--with a denial, however; but such a denial as no one but an old bachelor would take from a widow.
Any body, except myself, who could have been acquainted with such a fal-lal courtship as this must have been had it proceeded, would have been glad it had gone on: and I dare say, but for the saucy daughter, it had. My good mamma, in that case, would have been ten years the younger for it, perhaps: and, could I but have approved of it, I should have been considered by her as if ten years older than I am: since, very likely, it would have been: 'We widows, my dear, know not how to keep men at a distance--so as to give them pain, in order to try their love.--You must advise me, child: you must teach me to be cruel--yet not too cruel neither--so as to make a man heartless, who has no time, God wot, to throw away.'--Then would my behaviour to Mr. Hickman have been better liked; and my mother would have bridled like her daughter.
O my dear, how might we have been diverted by the practisings for the recovery of the long forgottens! could I have been sure that it would have been in my power to have put them asunder, in the Irish style, before they had come together. But there's no trusting to the widow whose goods and chattels are in her own hands, addressed by an old bachelor who has fine things, and offers to leave her ten thousand pounds better than he found her, and sole mistress, besides, of all her notables! for these, as you will see by-and-by, are his proposals.
The old Triton's address carries the writer's marks upon the very subscription--To the equally amiable and worthy admired [there's for you!] Mrs. ANABELLA HOWE, widow, the last word added, I suppose as Esquire to a man, as a word of honour; or for fear the bella to Anna, should not enough distinguish the person meant from the spinster: [vain hussy you'll call me, I know:] And then follows;--These humbly present. --Put down as a memorandum, I presume, to make a leg, and behave handsomely at presenting it, he intending, very probably, to deliver it himself.
And now stand by--to see
ENTER OLD NEPTUNE.
His head adorned with sea-weed, and a crown of cockle-shells; as we see him decked out in Mrs. Robinson's grotto.
MONDAY, MAY 15.
MADAM,
I did make a sort of resolution ten years ago never to marry. I saw in other families, where they lived best, you will be pleased to mark that, queernesses I could not away with. Then liked well enough to live single for the sake of my brother's family; and for one child in it more than the rest. But that girl has turned us all off the hinges: and why should I deny myself any comforts for them, as will not thank me for so doing, I don't know.
So much for my motives as from self and family: but the dear Mrs. Howe makes me go farther.
I have a very great fortune, I bless God for it, all of my own getting, or most of it; you will be pleased to mark that; for I was the youngest brother of three. You have also, God be thanked, a great estate, which you have improved by your own frugality and wise management. Frugality, let me stop to say, is one of the greatest virtues in this mortal life, because it enables us to do justice to all, and puts it in our power to benefit some by it, as we see they deserve.