This compliance, I hope, will produce greater, and then the peace of the family will be restored: which is what is heartily wished by
Your loving uncle, JOHN HARLOWE.
Unless it be to the purpose our hearts are set upon, you need not write again.
This man have more terror at seeing me, than I can have at seeing him!—How can that be? If he had half as much, he would not wish to see me!—His motive love!—Yes, indeed! Love of himself! He knows no other; for love, that deserves the name, seeks the satisfaction of the beloved object more than its own. Weighed in this scale, what a profanation is this man guilty of!
Not to take up my resolution beforehand!—That advice comes too late.
But I must make a discreet use of my pen. That, I doubt, as they have managed it, in the sense they mean it, is as much out of my power, as the other.
But write to one man, when I am designed for another!—What a shocking expression is that!
Repenting of my appointment with Mr. Lovelace before I had this favour granted me, you may believe I hesitated not a moment to revoke it now that I had gained such a respite. Accordingly, I wrote, 'That I found it inconvenient to meet him, as I had intended: that the risque I should run of a discovery, and the mischiefs that might flow from it, could not be justified by any end that such a meeting could answer: that I found one certain servant more in my way, when I took my morning and evening airings, than any other: that the person who might reveal the secrets of a family to him, might, if opportunity were given him, betray me, or him, to those whom it was his duty to serve: that I had not been used to a conduct so faulty, as to lay myself at the mercy of servants: and was sorry he had measures to pursue, that made steps necessary in his own opinion, which, in mine, were very culpable, and which no end could justify: that things drawing towards a crisis between my friends and me, an interview could avail nothing; especially as the method by which this correspondence was carried on was not suspected, and he could write all that was in his mind to write: that I expected to be at liberty to judge of what was proper and fit upon this occasion: especially as he might be assured, that I would sooner choose death, than Mr. Solmes.'
TUESDAY NIGHT.