MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MRS. NORTON MONDAY NIGHT, JULY 24.
MY DEAR MRS. NORTON,
Had I not fallen into fresh troubles, which disabled me for several days from holding a pen, I should not have forborne inquiring after your health, and that of your son; for I should have been but too ready to impute your silence to the cause to which, to my very great concern, I find it was owing. I pray to Heaven, my dear good friend, to give you comfort in the way most desirable to yourself.
I am exceedingly concerned at Miss Howe's writing about me to my friends. I do assure you, that I was as ignorant of her intention so to do as of the contents of her letter. Nor has she yet let me know (discouraged, I suppose, by her ill success) that she did write. It is impossible to share the delight which such charming spirits give, without the inconvenience that will attend their volatility.—So mixed are our best enjoyments!
It was but yesterday that I wrote to chide the dear creature for freedoms of that nature, which her unseasonably-expressed love for me had made her take, as you wrote me word in your former. I was afraid that all such freedoms would be attributed to me. And I am sure that nothing but my own application to my friends, and a full conviction of my contrition, will procure me favour. Least of all can I expect that either your mediation or her's (both of whose fond and partial love of me is so well known) will avail me.
[She then gives a brief account of the arrest: of her dejection under it:
of her apprehensions of being carried to her former lodgings: of
Mr. Lovelace's avowed innocence as to that insult: of her release
by Mr. Belford: of Mr. Lovelace's promise not to molest her: of her
clothes being sent her: of the earnest desire of all his friends,
and of himself, to marry her: of Miss Howe's advice to comply with
their requests: and of her declared resolution rather to die than
be his, sent to Miss Howe, to be given to his relations, but as the
day before. After which she thus proceeds:]
Now, my dear Mrs. Norton, you will be surprised, perhaps, that I should have returned such an answer: but when you have every thing before you, you, who know me so well, will not think me wrong. And, besides, I am upon a better preparation than for an earthly husband.
Nor let it be imagined, my dear and ever venerable friend, that my present turn of mind proceeds from gloominess or melancholy; for although it was brought on by disappointment, (the world showing me early, even at my first rushing into it, its true and ugly face,) yet I hope that it has obtained a better root, and will every day more and more, by its fruits, demonstrate to me, and to all my friends, that it has.
I have written to my sister. Last Friday I wrote. So the die is thrown. I hope for a gentle answer. But, perhaps, they will not vouchsafe me any. It is my first direct application, you know. I wish Miss Howe had left me to my own workings in this tender point.
It will be a great satisfaction to me to hear of your perfect recovery; and that my foster-brother is out of danger. But why, said I, out of danger?—When can this be justly said of creatures, who hold by so uncertain a tenure? This is one of those forms of common speech, that proves the frailty and the presumption of poor mortals at the same time.