Just now Dorcas tells me, that what she writes she tears, and throws
the paper in fragments under the table, either as not knowing what she
does, or disliking it: then gets up, wrings her hands, weeps, and
shifts her seat all round the room: then returns to her table, sits
down, and writes again.
One odd letter, as I may call it, Dorcas has this moment given me from
her—Carry this, said she, to the vilest of men. Dorcas, a toad, brought
it, without any further direction to me. I sat down, intending (though
’tis pretty long) to give thee a copy of it: but, for my life, I
cannot; ’tis so extravagant. And the original is too much an original
to let it go out of my hands.
But some of the scraps and fragments, as either torn through, or flung
aside, I will copy, for the novelty of the thing, and to show thee how
her mind works now she is in the whimsical way. Yet I know I am still
furnishing thee with new weapons against myself. But spare thy
comments. My own reflections render them needless. Dorcas thinks her
lady will ask for them: so wishes to have them to lay again under the
table.
By the first thou’lt guess that I have told her that Miss Howe is very
ill, and can’t write; that she may account the better for not having
received the letter designed for her.