LETTER IV
MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO ANTONY HARLOWE, ESQ.SUNDAY, AUG. 13.
HONOURED SIR,
I am very sorry for my pert letter to my uncle Harlowe. Yet I did notintend it to be pert. People new to misfortune may be too easily movedto impatience.
The fall of a regular person, no doubt, is dreadful and inexcusable.is like the sin of apostacy. Would to Heaven, however, that I had hadthe circumstances of mine inquired into!
If, Sir, I make myself worse than I am in my health, and better than I amin my penitence, it is fit I should be punished for my doubledissimulation: and you have the pleasure of being one of my punishers.My sincerity in both respects will, however, be best justified by theevent. To that I refer.--May Heaven give you always as much comfort inreflecting upon the reprobation I have met with, as you seem to havepleasure in mortifying a young creature, extremely mortified; and thatfrom a right sense, as she presumes to hope, of her own fault!
What you heard of me I cannot tell. When the nearest and dearestrelations give up an unhappy wretch, it is not to be wondered at thatthose who are not related to her are ready to take up and propagateslanders against her. Yet I think I may defy calumny itself, and(excepting the fatal, though involuntary step of April 10) wrap myself inmy own innocence, and be easy. I thank you, Sir, nevertheless, for yourcaution, mean it what it will.
As to the question required of me to answer, and which is allowed to betoo shocking either for a mother to put to a daughter, or a sister to asister; and which, however, you say I must answer;--O Sir!--And must Ianswer?--This then be my answer:--'A little time, a much less time thanis imagined, will afford a more satisfactory answer to my whole family,and even to my brother and sister, than I can give in words.'
Nevertheless, be pleased to let it be remembered, that I did not petitionfor a restoration to favour. I could not hope for that. Nor yet to beput in possession of any part of my own estate. Nor even for means ofnecessary subsistence from the produce of that estate--but only for ablessing; for a last blessing!
And this I will farther add, because it is true, that I have no wilfulcrime to charge against myself: no free living at bed and at board, asyou phrase it!
Why, why, Sir, were not other inquiries made of me, as well as thisshocking one?--inquiries that modesty would have permitted a mother orsister to make; and which, if I may be excused to say so, would have beenstill less improper, and more charitable, to have been made by uncles,(were the mother forbidden, or the sister not inclined, to make them,)than those they have made.
Although my humble application has brought upon me so much severereproach, I repent not that I have written to my mother, (although Icannot but wish that I had not written to my sister;) because I havesatisfied a dutiful consciousness by it, however unanswered by thewished-for success. Nevertheless, I cannot help saying, that mine isindeed a hard fate, that I cannot beg pardon for my capital errorswithout doing it in such terms as shall be an aggravation of the offence.
But I had best leave off, lest, as my full mind, I find, is rising to mypen, I have other pardons to beg as I multiply lines, where none at allwill be given.
God Almighty bless, preserve, and comfort my dear sorrowing andgrievously offended father and mother!--and continue in honour, favour,and merit, my happy sister!--May God forgive my brother, and protect himfrom the violence of his own temper, as well as from the destroyer of hissister's honour!--And may you, my dear uncle, and your no less now thanever dear brother, my second papa, as he used to bid me call him, beblessed and happy in them, and in each other!--And, in order to this, mayyou all speedily banish from your remembrance, for ever,
The unhappyCLARISSA HARLOWE!