LETTER XVI.

I will send you a copy of it soon: Miss Cl. Harlowe to Mrs. Judith Norton, as also of mine, to which it is an

Saturday, July 29,

answer.

I have reason to be very thankI CONGRATULATE you, my dear ful, that my father has withdrawn Mrs. Norton, with all my heart, on that heavy malediction, which afyour son's recovery; which I pray fected me so much a parent's to God, with your own health, to curse, my dear Mrs. Norton! What perfect. child could die in peace under a I write in some hurry, being ap- parent's curse! so literally fulprehensive of the consequence of filled too as this has been in what the hints you give of some method relates to this life. you purpose to try in my favour [with my relations, I presume you mean]: but you will not tell me what, you say, if it prove unsuccessful.

My heart is too full to touch letter. I can make but one atoneupon the particulars of my sister's ment for my fault. May that be Now I must beg of accepted! And may it soon be will not take any step in my favour, that there was such an unhappy forgotten, by every dear relation, with which you do not first acquaint me.

you, that you

daughter, sister, or niece, as Clarissa Harlowe.

I have but one request to make to them, besides what is contained My cousin Morden was one of in my letter to my sister; and I those, who was so earnest in would not, methinks, for the sake prayers for my recovery, at nine of their own future peace of mind, and eleven years of age, as you that they should be teazed so, by mention. My sister thinks he will your well-meant kindness, and be one of those, who will wish I that of Miss Howe, as to be put never had had a being. But pray, upon denying me that. And why when he does come, let me hear of should more be asked for me than it with the first. I can partake of? more than is absolutely necessary for my own peace?

You think, that were it not for that unhappy notion of my moving talent, my mother would relent. You suppose I should have my What would I give to see her once sister's answer to my letter, by the more, and, although unknown to time yours reached my hand. I her, to kiss but the hem of her have it: and a severe one, a very garment.

severe one, it is. Yet, considering Could I have thought, that the my fault, in their eyes, and the last time I saw her would have been provocations I am to suppose they the last, with what difficulty should so newly had from my dear Miss I have been torn from her embraHowe, I am to look upon it as a ced feet! And when, screened favour that it was answered at all, behind the yew-hedge, on the 5th 4

Clarissa. IV.

of April last*, I saw my father, and my uncle Antony, and my brother and sister, how little did I think, that that would be the last time I should ever see them; and, in so short a space, that so many dreadful evils would befal

me!

But it signifies nothing to reproach you. I weep over you. My poor mother! -Your rashness and folly have made her more miserable than you can be. she has besought my father to grant your request.

Yet

My uncles joined with her; for But I can write nothing but they thought there was a little what must give you trouble. I more modesty in your letter than will therefore, after repeating my in the letters of your pert addesire that you will not intercede vocate: and my father is pleased for me but with my previous con- to give me leave to write; but sent, conclude with the assurance, that I am, and ever will be,

only these words for him, and no more: That he withdraws the curse he laid upon you, at the first hearing of your wicked flight, so far as it is in his power to do it, and hopes that your present punishment may be all that you will meet with. For the rest, he will never own you, nor forgive you; and grieves he has such a daughter in the world.'

All this, and more, you have deserved from him, and from all of us: but what have you done to this abandoned libertine, to deserve what you have met with at his hands? I fear, I fear, sister!

But no more! A blessed four months' work have you made

of it!

My brother is now at Edinburgh, sent thither by my father [though he knows not this to be the motive] that he may not meet your triumphant deluder.

We are told he would be glad to marry you: but why, then, did he abandon you? He had kept you till he was tired of you, no question; and it is not likely he would wish to have you, but upon the

terms you have already, without all doubt, been his.

LETTER XVIII.

Miss Clarissa Harlowe to Miss Howe.

Sunday, July 30.

You ought to advise your friend Miss Howe to concern herself less in your matters than she does, ex- You have given me great pleacept she could do it with more de- sure, my dearest friend, by your cency. She has written three let- approbation of my reasonings, ters to me: very insolent ones. and of my resolution founded upon Your favourer, poor Mrs. Norton, them, never to have Mr. Lovelace. thinks you know nothing of the This approbation is so right a pert creature's writing. I hope thing, give me leave to say, from you don't. But then the more the nature of the case, and from impertinent the writer. But be- the strict honour and true dignity lieving the ford woman, I sat of mind, which I always admired down the more readily to answer in my Anna Howe, that I could your letter; and I write with less hardly tell to what, but to my evil severity, I can tell you, than other- destiny, which of late would not wise I should have done, if I had let me please any body, to attribute answered it at all. the advice you gave me to the

Monday last was your birth- contrary. day. Think, poor ungrateful But let not the ill state of my wretch, as you are! how we all health, and what that may naused to keep it; and you will not turally tend to, sadden you. I wonder to be told, that we ran have told you, that I will not run away from one another that day. away from life, nor avoid the But God give you true penitence, means that may continue it, if if you have it not already! And God see fit: and if he do not, who it will be true, if it be equal to the shall repine at his will? shame and the sorrow you have given us all.

Your afflicted sister,

ARABELLA HARLOWE.

If it shall be found, that I have not acted unworthy of your love, and of my own character, in my greater trials, that will be a happiness to both on reflection.

Your cousin Morden is every day The shock that you so earnestly expected in England. He, as advise me to try to get above, was well as others of the family, a shock, the greatest that I could when he comes to hear what a receive. But, my dear, as it was blessed piece of work you have not occasioned by my fault, I hope made of it, will wish you never I am already got above it. I hope had had a being.

I am.

I am more grieved (at times, however) for others, than for myself. And so I ought. For as to myself, I cannot but reflect, that I

Nor

have had an escape, rather than a broken (happy as I was before I loss, in missing Mr. Lovelace for a knew Mr. Lovelace) by such a husband even had he not com- grievous change in my circummitted the vilest of all outrages. stances? Indeed it was. Let any one, who knows my perhaps was the wicked violence story, collect his character from wanting to have cut short, though his behaviour to me, before that possibly not so very short, a life outrage; and then judge, whether that he has sported with. it was in the least probable that Had I been his but a month, such a man should make me happy. must have possessed the estate on But to collect his character from which my relations had set their his principles with regard to the hearts; the more to their regret, sex in general, and from his enter-as they hated him as much as he prises upon many of them, and to hated them.

he

consider the cruelty of his nature, Have I not reason, these things and the sportiveness of his invention, considered, to think myself haptogether with the high opinion he pier without Mr. Lovelace than I has of himself, it will not be doubt- could have been with him? My ed that a wife of his must have will too unviolated; and very little, been miserable; and more miser- nay, not any thing as to him, to able if she loved him, than she reproach myself with? could have been were she to be indifferent to him.

But with my relations it is otherwise. They indeed deserve to be pitied. They are, and no doubt will long be, unhappy.

A twelvemonth might very probably have put a period to my life; situated as I was with my friends; To judge of their resentments persecuted and harassed as I had and of their conduct, we must put been by my brother and sister; ourselves in their situation:- and and my very heart torn in pieces while they think me more in fault by the wilful, and (as it is now ap- than themselves (whether my parent) premeditated suspenses of favourers are of their opinion, or the man, whose gratitude I wished not) and have a right to judge for to engage, and whose protection I themselves, they ought to have was the more entitled to expect, great allowances made for them; as he had robbed me of every my parents especially. They other, and reduced me to an ab- stand at least self-acquitted, (that solute dependence upon himself. cannot I;) and the rather, as they Indeed I once thought that it was can recollect, to their pain, their all his view to bring me to this (as past indulgences to me, and their he hated my family;) and uncom- unquestionable love. fortable enough for me, if it had

been all.

Can it be thought, my dear, that my heart was not more than half

Your partiality for the friend you so much value, will not easily let you come into this way of thinking. But only, my dear, be pleased

to consider the matter in the fol- in those retirements where sorrow lowing light: was before a stranger: hanging "Here was my MOTHER, one of down her pensive head: smiles no. the most prudent persons of her more beaming over her benign sex, married into a family, not per- aspect: her virtue made to suffer haps so happily tempered as her- for faults she could not be guilty self; but every one of which she of: her patience continually tried had the address, for a great while, (because she has more of it than absolutely to govern as she pleased any other) with repetitions of by her directing wisdom, at the faults she is as much wounded by, same time that they knew not but as those can be from whom she so her prescriptions were the dictates often hears of them: taking to of their own hearts; such a sweet herself, as the fountain-head, a art had she of conquering by seem- taint which only had infected one ing to yield. Think, my dear, of the under currents: afraid to what must be the pride and the open her lips (were she willing) in pleasure of such a mother, that my favour, lest it should be in my brother she could give a son thought she has any bias in her to the family she distinguished own mind to failings that never with her love, not unworthy of could have been suspected in her: their wishes; a daughter, in my robbed of that pleasing merit, sister, of whom she had no reason which the mother of well nurtured to be ashamed; and in me a second and hopeful children may glory daughter, whom every body com- in: every one who visits her, or is plimented (such was their partial visited by her, by dumb show, and favour to me) as being the still looks that mean more than words more immediate likeness of her can express, condoling where they self? How, self-pleased, could she used to congratulate: the affected smile round upon a family she had silence wounding: the compasso blessed! What compliments sionating look reminding: the were paid her upon the example half suppressed sigh in them, callshe had given us, which was fol-ing up deeper sighs from her; and lowed with such hopeful effects! their averted eyes, while they With what a noble confidence endeavour to restrain the rising could she look upon her dear Mr. tear, provoking tears from her, Harlowe, as a person made happy that will not be restrained. by her; and be delighted to think, "When I consider these things, that nothing but purity streamed and, added to these, the pangs from a fountain so pure! that tear in pieces the stronger

Now, my dear, reverse, as I heart of my FATHER, because it daily do, this charming prospect. cannot relieve itself by those tears See my dear mother sorrowing in which carry the torturing grief to her closet; endeavouring to sup- the eyes of softer spirits: the press her sorrow at her table, and overboiling tumults of my impa