After all, as far as I have gone, I know not but I may still recede: and, if I do, a mortal quarrel I suppose will ensue.—And what if it does?—Could there be any way to escape this Solmes, a breach with Lovelace might make way for the single life to take place, which I so much prefer: and then I would defy the sex. For I see nothing but trouble and vexation that they bring upon ours: and when once entered, one is obliged to go on with them, treading, with tender feet, upon thorns, and sharper thorns, to the end of a painful journey.
What to do I know not. The more I think, the more I am embarrassed!—And the stronger will be my doubts as the appointed time draws near.
But I will go down, and take a little turn in the garden; and deposit this, and his letters all but the two last, which I will enclose in my next, if I have opportunity to write another.
Mean time, my dear friend——But what can I desire you to pray for?—Adieu, then!—Let me only say—Adieu—!
LETTER XLV
MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE. [IN ANSWER TO LETTER XLIII.] SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 9.
Do not think, my beloved friend, although you have given me in yours of yesterday a severer instance of what, nevertheless, I must call your impartial love, than ever yet I received from you, that I would be displeased with you for it. That would be to put myself into the inconvenient situation of royalty: that is to say, out of the way of ever being told of my faults; of ever mending them: and in the way of making the sincerest and warmest friendship useless to me.
And then how brightly, how nobly glows in your bosom the sacred flame of friendship; since it can make you ready to impute to the unhappy sufferer a less degree of warmth in her own cause, than you have for her, because of the endeavours to divest herself of self so far as to leave others to the option which they have a right to make!—Ought I, my dear, to blame, ought I not rather to admire you for this ardor?