Your letter, my dearest young lady, cuts me to the heart! Why will you
not let me know all your distresses?—Yet you have said enough!
My son is very good to me. A few hours ago he was taken with a feverish
disorder. But I hope it will go off happily, if his ardour for business
will give him the recess from it which his good master is willing to
allow him. He presents his duty to you, and shed tears at hearing your
sad letter read.
You have been misinformed as to your family’s being at your uncle
Harlowe’s. They did not intend to be there. Nor was the day kept at
all. Indeed, they have not stirred out, but to church (and that but
three times) ever since the day you went away.—Unhappy day for them,
and for all who know you!—To me, I am sure, most particularly so!—My
heart now bleeds more and more for you.
I have not heard a syllable of such a journey as you mentioned of your
brother, Captain Singleton, and Mr. Solmes. There has been some talk
indeed of your brother’s setting out for his northern estates: but I
have not heard of it lately.
I am afraid no letter will be received from you. It grieves me to tell
you so, my dearest young lady. No evil can have happened to you, which
they do not expect to hear of; so great is their antipathy to the
wicked man, and so bad is his character.
I cannot but think hardly of their unforgiveness: but there is no
judging for others by one’s self. Nevertheless I will add, that, if you
had had as gentle spirits as mine, these evils had never happened
either to them or to you. I knew your virtue, and your love of virtue,
from your very cradle; and I doubted not but that, with God’s grace,
would always be your guard. But you could never be driven; nor was
there occasion to drive you—so generous, so noble, so discreet.—But how
does my love of your amiable qualities increase my affliction; as these
recollections must do your’s!
You are escaped, my dearest Miss—happily, I hope—that is to say, with
your honour—else, how great must be your distress!—Yet, from your
letter, I dread the worst.
I am very seldom at Harlowe-place. The house is not the house it used
to be, since you went from it. Then they are so relentless! And, as I
cannot say harsh things of the beloved child of my heart, as well as
bosom, they do not take it amiss that I stay away.
Your Hannah left her place ill some time ago! and, as she is still at
her mother’s at St. Alban’s, I am afraid she continues ill. If so, as
you are among strangers, and I cannot encourage you at present to come
into these parts, I shall think it my duty to attend you (let it be
taken as it will) as soon as my Tommy’s indisposition will permit;
which I hope will be soon.
I have a little money by me. You say you are poor yourself.—How
grievous are those words from one entitled and accustomed to
affluence!—Will you be so good to command it, my beloved young lady?—It
is most of it your own bounty to me. And I should take a pride to
restore it to its original owner.
Your Poor bless you, and pray for you continually. I have so managed
your last benevolence, and they have been so healthy, and have had such
constant employ, that it has held out; and will hold out till the
happier times return, which I continually pray for.
Let me beg of you, my dearest young lady, to take to yourself all those
aids which good persons, like you, draw from RELIGION, in support of
their calamities. Let your sufferings be what they will, I am sure you
have been innocent in your intention. So do not despond. None are made
to suffer above what they can, and therefore ought to bear.
We know not the methods of Providence, nor what wise ends it may have
to serve in its seemingly-severe dispensations to its poor creatures.
Few persons have greater reason to say this than myself. And since we
are apt in calamities to draw more comfort from example than precept,
you will permit me to remind you of my own lot: For who has had a
greater share of afflictions than myself?
To say nothing of the loss of an excellent mother, at a time of life
when motherly care is most wanted; the death of a dear father, who was
an ornament to his cloth, (and who had qualified me to be his scribe
and amanuensis,) just as he came within view of a preferment which
would have made his family easy, threw me friendless into the wide
world; threw me upon a very careless, and, which was much worse, a very
unkind husband. Poor man!—but he was spared long enough, thank God, in
a tedious illness, to repent of his neglected opportunities, and his
light principles; which I have always thought of with pleasure,
although I was left the more destitute for his chargeable illness, and
ready to be brought to bed, when he died, of my Tommy.
But this very circumstance, which I thought the unhappiest that I could
have been left in, (so short-sighted is human prudence!) became the
happy means of recommending me to your mother, who, in regard to my
character, and in compassion to my very destitute circumstances,
permitted me, as I made a conscience of not parting with my poor boy,
to nurse both you and him, born within a few days of each other. And I
have never since wanted any of the humble blessings which God has made
me contented with.
Nor have I known what a very great grief was, from the day of my poor
husband’s death till the day that your parents told me how much they
were determined that you should have Mr. Solmes; when I was apprized
not only of your aversion to him, but how unworthy he was of you: for
then I began to dread the consequences of forcing so generous a spirit;
and, till then, I never feared Mr. Lovelace, attracting as was his
person, and specious his manners and address. For I was sure you would
never have him, if he gave you not good reason to be convinced of his
reformation: nor till your friends were as well satisfied in it as
yourself. But that unhappy misunderstanding between your brother and
Mr. Lovelace, and their joining so violently to force you upon Mr.
Solmes, did all that mischief, which has cost you and them so dear, and
poor me all my peace! Oh! what has not this ungrateful, this
double-guilty man to answer for!
Nevertheless, you know not what God has in store for you yet!—But if
you are to be punished all your days here, for example sake, in a case
of such importance, for your one false step, be pleased to consider,
that this life is but a state of probation; and if you have your
purification in it, you will be the more happy. Nor doubt I, that you
will have the higher reward hereafter for submitting to the will of
Providence here with patience and resignation.
You see, my dearest Miss Clary, that I make no scruple to call the step
you took a false one. In you it was less excusable than it would have
been in any other young lady; not only because of your superior
talents, but because of the opposition between your character and his:
so that, if you had been provoked to quit your father’s house, it need
not to have been with him. Nor needed I, indeed, but as an instance of
my impartial love, to have written this to you.*
* Mrs. Norton, having only the family representation and invectives to
form her judgment upon, knew not that Clarissa had determined against
going off with Mr. Lovelace; nor how solicitous she had been to procure
for herself any other protection than his, when she apprehended that,
if she staid, she had no way to avoid being married to Mr. Solmes.
After this, it will have an unkind, and perhaps at this time an
unseasonable appearance, to express my concern that you have not before
favoured me with a line. Yet if you can account to yourself for your
silence, I dare say I ought to be satisfied; for I am sure you love me:
as I both love and honour you, and ever will, and the more for your
misfortunes.
One consolation, methinks, I have, even when I am sorrowing for your
calamities; and that is, that I know not any young person so qualified
to shine the brighter for the trials she may be exercised with: and yet
it is a consolation that ends in adding to my regrets for your
afflictions, because you are blessed with a mind so well able to bear
prosperity, and to make every body round you the better for it!—But I
will forbear till I know more.
Ruminating on every thing your melancholy letter suggests, and
apprehending, from the gentleness of your mind, the amiableness of your
person, and your youth, the farther misfortunes and inconveniencies to
which you may possibly be subjected, I cannot conclude without asking
for your leave to attend you, and that in a very earnest manner—and I
beg of you not to deny me, on any consideration relating to myself, or
even to the indisposition of my other beloved child, if I can be either
of use or of comfort to you. Were it, my dearest young lady, but for
two or three days, permit me to attend you, although my son’s illness
should increase, and compel me to come down again at the end of those
two or three days.—I repeat my request, likewise, that you will command
from me the little sum remaining in the hands of your bounty to your
Poor, as well as that dispensed to
Your ever-affectionate and faithful servant, JUDITH NORTON.