hall
see what notice they will be thought worthy of, if of any.

LETTER XXX

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE SUNDAY NIGHT, MARCH 12.

This man, this Lovelace, gives me great uneasiness. He is extremely bold
and rash. He was this afternoon at our church--in hopes to see me, I
suppose: and yet, if he had such hopes, his usual intelligence must have
failed him.

Shorey was at church; and a principal part of her observation was upon
his haughty and proud behaviour when he turned round in the pew where he
sat to our family-pew. My father and both my uncles were there; so were
my mother and sister. My brother happily was not.--They all came home in
disorder. Nor did the congregation mind any body but him; it being his
first appearance there since the unhappy rencounter.

What did the man come for, if he intended to look challenge and
defiance, as Shorey says he did, and as others, it seems, thought he
did, as well as she? Did he come for my sake; and, by behaving in such
a manner to those present of my family, imagine he was doing me either
service or pleasure?--He knows how they hate him: nor will he take
pains, would pains do, to obviate their hatred.

You and I, my dear, have often taken notice of his pride; and you have
rallied him upon it; and instead of exculpating himself, he has owned
it: and by owning it he has thought he has done enough.

For my own part, I thought pride in his case an improper subject for
raillery.--People of birth and fortune to be proud, is so needless,
so mean a vice!--If they deserve respect, they will have it, without
requiring it. In other words, for persons to endeavour to gain respect
by a haughty behaviour, is to give a proof that they mistrust their own
merit: To make confession that they know that their actions will not
attract it.--Distinction or quality may be prided in by those to whom
distinction or quality is a new thing. And then the reflection and
contempt which such bring upon themselves by it, is a counter-balance.

Such added advantages, too, as this man has in his person and mien:
learned also, as they say he is: Such a man to be haughty, to be
imperious!--The lines of his own face at the same time condemning
him--how wholly inexcusable!--Proud of what? Not of doing well: the only
justifiable pride.--Proud of exterior advantages!--Must not one be led
by such a stop-short pride, as I may call it, in him or her who has it,
to mistrust the interior? Some peop