TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE GOOD GOD!
What is now to become of me!—How shall I support this disappointment!—No new cause!—On one knee, kneeling with the other, I write!—My feet benumbed with midnight wanderings through the heaviest dews that ever fell: my wig and my linen dripping with the hoar frost dissolving on them!—Day but just breaking—Sun not risen to exhale—May it never rise again!—Unless it bring healing and comfort to a benighted soul! In proportion to the joy you had inspired (ever lovely promiser!) in such proportion is my anguish!
O my beloved creature!—But are not your very excuses confessions of excuses inexcusable? I know not what I write!—That servant in your way!* By the great God of Heaven, that servant was not, dared not, could not, be in your way!—Curse upon the cool caution that is pleased to deprive me of an expectation so transporting!
And are things drawing towards a crisis between your friends and you?—Is not this a reason for me to expect, the rather to expect, the promised interview?
CAN I write all that is in my mind, say you?—Impossible!—Not the hundredth part of what is in my mind, and in my apprehension, can I write!
Oh! the wavering, the changeable sex!—But can Miss Clarissa Harlowe—
Forgive me, Madam!—I know not what I write!
Yet, I must, I do, insist upon your promise—or that you will condescend to find better excuses for the failure—or convince me, that stronger reasons are imposed upon you, than those you offer.—A promise once given (upon deliberation given,) the promised only can dispense with; except in cases of a very apparent necessity imposed upon the promiser, which leaves no power to perform it.
The first promise you ever made me! Life and death perhaps depending upon it—my heart desponding from the barbarous methods resolved to be taken with you in malice to me!
You would sooner choose death than Solmes. (How my soul spurns the competition!) O my beloved creature, what are these but words?—Whose words?—Sweet and ever adorable—What?—Promise breaker—must I call you?—How shall I believe the asseveration, (your supposed duty in the question! Persecution so flaming!—Hatred to me so strongly avowed!) after this instance of you so lightly dispensing with your promise?
If, my dearest life! you would prevent my distraction, or, at least, distracted consequences, renew the promised hope!—My fate is indeed upon its crisis.
There's a lot of anxiety about language here. It's pretty ironic that this is Lovelace pointing out that promises are "but words," but I think for our purposes, this indication the gap between "all that is in my mind" and the language I use to express raises important questions about how narrative can work to form identity.
I agree, Steve. I thought it was particularly interesting that Lovelace pointed out the transience of words and how they do not substitute for action. I really think Lovelace, of all the characters we have heard from so far, is the one who most understands the power of words. Clarissa speaks from her heart and is very persuasive, but Lovelace knows how to appeal to his audience and shape words in such a way that benefits himself. Even in declaring that words are nothing compared to deeds, Lovelace is not taking away from his own romantic language and persuasive abilities; he is instead working toward actions that he hopes Clarissa will take so that they can be together. I’m sure that Lovelace is not lying when he says he wants Clarissa away from the bad situation at her parents’ house, but more than that, he wants her to leave so that he can fulfill his own desires for her.
I agree that it is clear that Lovelace knows how to use language to achieve his desired purpose; however, I think the context surrounding this letter is important too when considering the success (or lack thereof) of this letter. This letter is enclosed with Clarissa’s letter to Miss Howe, and in her introduction to this letter, she notes, “This man has vexed me heartily. I see his gentleness was **art**: fierceness, and a temper like what I have been too much used to at home, are Nature in him. Nothing, I think, shall ever make me forgive him” (emphasis mine). Clarissa sees through Lovelace’s performances here it seems, and while we cannot be entirely sure that she does not have any feelings for him at this point in the story (as her words here may not be genuinely what’s on her mind), she does claim that because of this letter she will never be able to forgive him. If she is able to see through Lovelace’s guise, are his words really that successful here after all? The emotion in this letter as indicated by the rather erratic punctuation here strikes me as important, as well, because it demonstrates the urgency with which Lovelace was writing. It is noted before the letter that Lovelace had deposited this letter shortly after Clarissa left her (at dawn the next morning) and that this letter was “written in the coppice.” As we’ve noted in previous class discussions, Lovelace is able to use language and rhetoric very successfully even with short notice; however, given Clarissa’s obvious disgust with Lovelace here, I ask again – was his letter really all that successful after all? On a related note, it is interesting here that we see both characters questioning what words are actually capable of containing, as Steve pointed to in his question. I think it is really interesting to see the two most capable writers in the novel here grappling over the same issue. Both the language itself and the characters’ interrogation of the actual power of language help us see how the characters are negotiating meaning and thus negotiating their identities.
More agreement, of course, with what you've all said so far; it's a very strong trio of letters on the nature of language–and even language as action (since when language embodies a promise, that language is both expression and action).One of Clarissa's less dramatic observations in her letter to Anna strikes me as revealing: "since there can be no good reason for his impatience on an expectation given with reserve, and absolutely revocable." It's fascinating how, despite her helplessness, she appropriates so much real power to herself, her "reserve" making her promise easily "revocable." She even claims here the power to decide Lovelace's emotions for him (he can be allowed no reason for his feeling of impatience).I'm also struck by how, in her new situation with Lovelace, she expresses herself as extremely as she had to her family–as she vowed "never" to marry Solmes, she tells us now that she can "never" forgive Lovelace (and, of course, described her promise as "absolutely" revocable). It will be interesting to see how her emotional extremism (legitimate, of course) will play out during the demanding time after she has escaped Solmes and her family.
"Yet, I must, I do, insist upon your promise.""O my beloved creature, what are these but words?—"I think this is one of the central paradoxes of the novel. Do words have power (consequence) in the world outside the letters or are words simply a way of making another world that are the letters? There is at least one occasion up to this point, where words have real power: Clarissa has to say "yes" in order to marry Solmes. (Or if her family somehow gets around that, she still has to sign her name to the license). If this weren't the case, the family would have had her married a long time ago. So a promise (made in words) does have real-world consequences. (This isn't to say whether Lovelace is right or wrong about his holding Clarissa to her promise, but it is to say that a promise is different from another form of speech). The rape, on the other hand (not to give too much away) will be an instance where actions have no need for words.
This seems to be a regular state that Lovelace is in – frantic, desiring, begging. I wonder how much this corresponds with what Stephen and others have said about Lovelace's view of writing here. In letters to Clarissa he often writes desperately, urgently. He wants Clarissa to be persuaded, sure, but I also wonder if his franticness is related just as much to his anxiety about writing “all that is in [his] mind.” He suggests that if he were able to communicate it all, it would persuade Clarissa. Here writing is an insufficient means, which is surprising because Lovelace is prolific (perhaps all attempts to have his mind reflected on the page?) and has incredible ability with language.