I ought not, especially at this time, to add to your afflictions—but
yet I cannot help communicating to you (who now are my only soothing
friend) a new trouble that has befallen me.
I had but one friend in the world, beside you; and she is utterly
displeased with me.* It is grievous, but for one moment, to lie under a
beloved person’s censure; and this through imputations that affect
one’s honour and prudence. There are points so delicate, you know, my
dear Mrs. Norton, that it is a degree of dishonour to have a
vindication of one’s self from them appear to be necessary. In the
present case, my misfortune is, that I know not how to account, but by
guess (so subtle have been the workings of the dark spirit I have been
unhappily entangled by) for some of the facts that I am called upon to
explain.
Miss Howe, in short, supposes she has found a flaw in my character. I
have just now received her severe letter—but I shall answer it,
perhaps, in better temper, if I first consider your’s: for indeed my
patience is almost at an end. And yet I ought to consider, that
faithful are the wounds of a friend. But so many things at once! O my
dear Mrs. Norton, how shall so young a scholar in the school of
affliction be able to bear such heavy and such various evils!
But to leave this subject for a while, and turn to your letter.
I am very sorry Miss Howe is so lively in her resentments on my
account. I have always blamed her very freely for her liberties of this
sort with my friends. I once had a good deal of influence over her kind
heart, and she made all I said a law to her. But people in calamity
have little weight in any thing, or with any body. Prosperity and
independence are charming things on this account, that they give force
to the counsels of a friendly heart; while it is thought insolence in
the miserable to advise, or so much as to remonstrate.
Yet is Miss Howe an invaluable person: And is it to be expected that
she should preserve the same regard for my judgment that she had before
I forfeited all title to discretion? With what face can I take upon me
to reproach a want of prudence in her? But if I can be so happy as to
re-establish myself in her ever-valued opinion, I shall endeavour to
enforce upon her your just observation on this head.
You need not, you say, exhort me to despise such a man as him, by whom
I have suffered—indeed you need not: for I would choose the cruellest
death rather than to be his. And yet, my dear Mrs. Norton, I will own
to you, that once I could have loved him.—Ungrateful man!—had he
permitted me to love him, I once could have loved him. Yet he never
deserved love. And was not this a fault?—But now, if I can but keep out
of his hands, and obtain a last forgiveness, and that as well for the
sake of my dear friends’ future reflections, as for my own present
comfort, it is all I wish for.
Reconciliation with my friends I do not expect; nor pardon from them;
at least, till in extremity, and as a _viaticum_.
O my beloved Mrs. Norton, you cannot imagine what I have suffered!—But
indeed my heart is broken!—I am sure I shall not live to take
possession of that independence, which you think would enable me to
atone, in some measure, for my past conduct.
While this is my opinion, you may believe I shall not be easy till I
can obtain a last forgiveness.
I wish to be left to take my own course in endeavouring to procure this
grace. Yet know I not, at present, what that course shall be.
I will write. But to whom is my doubt. Calamity has not yet given me
the assurance to address myself to my FATHER. My UNCLES (well as they
once loved me) are hard hearted. They never had their masculine
passions humanized by the tender name of FATHER. Of my BROTHER I have
no hope. I have then but my MOTHER, and my SISTER, to whom I can
apply.—‘And may I not, my dearest Mamma, be permitted to lift up my
trembling eye to your all-cheering, and your once more than indulgent,
your fond eye, in hopes of seasonable mercy to the poor sick heart that
yet beats with life drawn from your own dearer heart?—Especially when
pardon only, and not restoration, is implored?’
Yet were I able to engage my mother’s pity, would it not be a mean to
make her still more unhappy than I have already made her, by the
opposition she would meet with, were she to try to give force to that
pity?
To my SISTER, then, I think, I will apply—Yet how hard-hearted has my
sister been!—But I will not ask for protection; and yet I am in hourly
dread that I shall want protection.—All I will ask for at present
(preparative to the last forgiveness I will implore) shall be only to
be freed from the heavy curse that seems to have operated as far is it
can operate as to this life—and, surely, it was passion, and not
intention, that carried it so far as to the other!
But why do I thus add to your distresses?—It is not, my dear Mrs.
Norton, that I have so much feeling for my own calamity that I have
none for your’s: since your’s is indeed an addition to my own. But you
have one consolation (a very great one) which I have not:—That your
afflictions, whether respecting your more or your less deserving child,
rise not from any fault of your own.
But what can I do for you more than pray?—Assure yourself, that in
every supplication I put up for myself, I will with equal fervour
remember both you and your son. For I am and ever will be
Your truly sympathising and dutiful CLARISSA HARLOWE.