MISS HOWE, TO MISS ARABELLA HARLOWE
SAT. JULY 22.
It may be the misfortune of some people to engage every body's notice:
others may be the happier, though they may be the more envious, for
nobody's thinking them worthy of any. But one would be glad people had
the sense to be thankful for that want of consequence, which subject them
not to hazards they would heartily have been able to manage under.
I own to you, that had it not been for the prudent advice of that
admirable somebody (whose principal fault is the superiority of her
talents, and whose misfortune to be brother'd and sister'd by a couple of
creatures, who are not able to comprehend her excellencies) I might at
one time have been plunged into difficulties. But pert as the
superlatively pert may think me, I thought not myself wiser, because I
was older; nor for that poor reason qualified to prescribe to, much less
to maltreat, a genius so superior.
I repeat it with gratitude, that the dear creature's advice was of very
great service to me--and this before my mother's watchfulness became
necessary. But how it would have fared with me, I cannot say, had I had
a brother or sister, who had deemed it their interest, as well as a
gratification of their sordid envy, to misrepresent me.
Your admirable sister, in effect, saved you, Miss, as well as me--with
this difference--you, against your will--me with mine: and but for your
own brother, and his own sister, would not have been lost herself.
Would to Heaven both sisters had been obliged with their own wills!--the
most admirable of her sex would never then have been out of her father's
house!--you, Miss--I don't know what had become of you.--But, let what
would have happened, you would have met with the humanity you have not
shown, whether you had deserved it or not:--nor, at the worst, lost
either a kind sister, or a pitying friend, in the most excellent of
sisters.
But why run I into length to such a poor thing? why push I so weak an
adversary? whose first letter is all low malice, and whose next is made
up of falsehood and inconsistence, as well as spite and ill-manners! yet
I was willing to give you a part of my mind. Call for more of it; it
shall be at your service: from one, who, though she thanks God she is not
your sister, is not your enemy: but that she is not the latter, is
withheld but by two considerations; one that you bear, though unworthily,
a relation to a sister so excellent; the other, that you are not of
consequence enough to engage any thing but the pity and contempt of