And is it worthy of your generosity [I ask you, my dear, is it?] to think of taking so undutiful a step, because you believe your mother would be glad to receive you again?
I do assure you, that were I to take this step myself, I would run all risks rather than you should accompany me in it. Have I, do you think, a desire to double and treble my own fault in the eye of the world? in the eye of that world which, cruelly as I am used, (not knowing all,) would not acquit me?
But, my dearest, kindest friend, let me tell you, that we will neither of us take such a step. The manner of putting your questions abundantly convinces me, that I ought not, in your opinion, to attempt it. You no doubt intend that I shall so take it; and I thank you for the equally polite and forcible conviction.
It is some satisfaction to me (taking the matter in this light) that I had begun to waver before I received your last. And now I tell you, that it has absolutely determined me not to go off; at least not to-morrow.
If you, my dear, think the issue of the alternative (to use your own words) sits so lightly upon my mind, in short, that my inclination is faulty; the world would treat me much less scrupulously. When therefore you represent, that all punctilio must be at an end the moment I am out of my father's house; and hint, that I must submit it to Mr. Lovelace to judge when he can leave me with safety; that is to say, give him the option whether he will leave me, or not; who can bear these reflections, who can resolve to incur these inconveniencies, that has the question still in her own power to decide upon?
While I thought only of an escape from this house as an escape from Mr. Solmes; that already my reputation suffered by my confinement; and that it would be in my own option either to marry Mr. Lovelace, or wholly to renounce him; bold as the step was, I thought, treated as I am treated, something was to be said in excuse of it—if not to the world, to myself: and to be self-acquitted, is a blessing to be preferred to the option of all the world. But, after I have censured most severely, as I have ever done, those giddy girls, who have in the same hour, as I may say, that they have fled from their chamber, presented themselves at the altar that is witness to their undutiful rashness; after I have stipulated with Mr. Lovelace for time, and for an ultimate option whether to accept or refuse him; and for his leaving me, as soon as I am in a place of safety (which, as you observe, he must be the judge of); and after he has signified to me his compliance with these terms; so that I cannot, if I would, recall them, and suddenly marry;—you see, my dear, that I have nothing left me but to resolve not to go away with him!
But, how, on this revocation of my appointment, shall I be able to pacify him?
How!—Why assert the privilege of my sex!—Surely, on this side of the solemnity he has no right to be displeased. Besides, did I not reserve a power of receding, as I saw fit? To what purpose, as I asked in the case between your mother and you, has any body an option, if the making use of it shall give the refused a right to be disgusted?
Far, very far, would those, who, according to the old law, have a right of absolving or confirming a child's promise, be from ratifying mine, had it been ever so solemn a one.* But this was rather an appointment than a promise: and suppose it had been the latter; and that I had not reserved to myself a liberty of revoking it; was it to preclude better or maturer consideration?—If so, how unfit to be given!—how ungenerous to be insisted upon!—And how unfitter still to be kept!—Is there a man living who ought to be angry that a woman whom he hopes one day to call his, shall refuse to keep a rash promise, when, on the maturest deliberation, she is convinced that it was a rash one?
* See Numb. XXX. Where it is declared, whose vows shall be
binding, and whose not. The vows of a man, or of a widow,
are there pronounced to be indispensable; because they are
sole, and subject to no other domestic authority. But the
vows of a single woman, or of a wife, if the father of the
one, or the husband of the other, disallow of them as soon
as they know them, are to be of no force.
A matter highly necessary to be known; by all young ladies
especially, whose designing addressers too often endeavour
to engage them by vows; and then plead conscience and honour
to them to hold them down to the performance.
It cannot be amiss to recite the very words.
Ver. 3 If a woman vow a vow unto the Lord, and bind herself
by a bond, being in her father's house in her youth;
4. And her father hear her vow, and her bond wherewith she
hath bound her soul, and her father shall hold his peace at
her; then all her vows shall stand, and every bond wherewith
she hath bound her soul shall stand.
5. But if her father disallow her in the day that he
heareth; not any of her vows or of her bonds wherewith she
hath bound her soul shall stand: and the Lord shall forgive
her, because her father disallowed her.
The same in the case of a wife, as said above. See ver. 6,
7, 8, &c.—All is thus solemnly closed:
Ver. 16. These are the statutes which the Lord commanded
Moses between a man and his wife, between the father and his
daughter, being yet in her youth in her father's house.