m?

'So much for his person. As to the other half of him, he is said to be
an insinuating, creeping mortal to any body he hopes to be a gainer by:
an insolent, overbearing one, where he has no such views: And is not
this the genuine spirit of meanness? He is reported to be spiteful and
malicious, even to the whole family of any single person who has once
disobliged him; and to his own relations most of all. I am told, that
they are none of them such wretches as himself. This may be one reason
why he is for disinheriting them.

'My Kitty, from one of his domestics, tells me, that his tenants hate
him: and that he never had a servant who spoke well of him. Vilely
suspicious of their wronging him (probably from the badness of his own
heart) he is always changing.

'His pockets, they say, are continually crammed with keys: so that, when
he would treat a guest, (a friend he has not out of your family), he is
half as long puzzling which is which, as his niggardly treat might be
concluded in. And if it be wine, he always fetches it himself. Nor has
he much trouble in doing so; for he has very few visiters--only those,
whom business or necessity brings: for a gentleman who can help it,
would rather be benighted, than put up at his house.'

Yet this is the man they have found out (for considerations as sordid as
those he is governed by) for a husband, that is to say, for a lord and
master, for Miss Clarissa Harlowe!

But, perhaps, he may not be quite so miserable as he is represented.
Characters extremely good, or extremely bad, are seldom justly given.
Favour for a person will exalt the one, as disfavour will sink the
other. But your uncle Antony has told my mother, who objected to his
covetousness, that it was intended to tie him up, as he called it, to
your own terms; which would be with a hempen, rather than a matrimonial,
cord, I dare say. But, is not this a plain indication, that even his
own recommenders think him a mean creature; and that he must be articled
with--perhaps for necessaries? But enough, and too much, of such a
wretch as this!--You must not have him, my dear,--that I am clear
in--though not so clear, how you will be able to avoid it, except you
assert the independence to which your estate gives you a title.

***

Here my mother broke in upon me. She wanted to see what I had written. I
was silly enough to read Solmes's character to her.

She owned, that the man was not the most desirable of men;