I am infinitely obliged to you for your kind and condescending letter. A
letter, however, which heightens my regrets, as it gives me a new
instance of what a happy creature I might have been in an alliance so
much approved of by such worthy ladies; and which, on their accounts, and
on that of Lord M. would have been so reputable to myself, and was once
so desirable.
But indeed, indeed, Madam, my heart sincerely repulses the man who,
descended from such a family, could be guilty, first, of such
premeditated violence as he has been guilty of; and, as he knows, farther
intended me, on the night previous to the day he set out for Berkshire;
and, next, pretending to spirit, could be so mean as to wish to lift into
that family a person he was capable of abasing into a companionship with
the most abandoned of her sex.
Allow me then, dear Madam, to declare with favour, that I think I never
could be ranked with the ladies of a family so splendid and so noble, if,
by vowing love and honour at the altar to such a violator, I could
sanctify, as I may say, his unprecedented and elaborate wickedness.
Permit me, however, to make one request to my good Lord M., and to Lady
Betty, and Lady Sarah, and to your kind self, and your sister.--It is,
that you will all be pleased to join your authority and interests to
prevail upon Mr. Lovelace not to molest me farther.
Be pleased to tell him, that, if I am designed for life, it will be very
cruel in him to attempt to hunt me out of it; for I am determined never
to see him more, if I can help it. The more cruel, because he knows that
I have nobody to defend me from him: nor do I wish to engage any body to
his hurt, or to their own.
If I am, on the other hand, destined for death, it will be no less cruel,
if he will not permit me to die in peace--since a peaceable and happy end
I wish him; indeed I do.
Every worldly good attend you, dear Madam, and every branch of the
honourable family, is the wish of one, whose misfortune it is that she is
obliged to disclaim any other title than that of,
Dear Madam,
Your and their obliged and faithful servant,
CLARISSA HARLOWE.