MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
FRIDAY, AUG. 11.
I will send you a large packet, as you desire and expect; since I can do
it by so safe a conveyance: but not all that is come to my hand--for I
must own that my friends are very severe; too severe for any body, who
loves them not, to see their letters. You, my dear, would not call them
my friends, you said, long ago; but my relations: indeed I cannot call
them my relations, I think!----But I am ill; and therefore perhaps more
peevish than I should be. It is difficult to go out of ourselves to give
a judgment against ourselves; and yet, oftentimes, to pass a just
judgment, we ought.
I thought I should alarm you in the choice of my executor. But the sad
necessity I am reduced to must excuse me.
I shall not repeat any thing I have said before on that subject: but if
your objections will not be answered to your satisfaction by the papers
and letters I shall enclose, marked 1, 2, 3, 4, to 9, I must think myself
in another instance unhappy; since I am engaged too far (and with my own
judgment too) to recede.
As Mr. Belford has transcribed for me, in confidence, from his friend's
letters, the passages which accompany this, I must insist that you suffer
no soul but yourself to peruse them; and that you return them by the very
first opportunity; that so no use may be made of them that may do hurt
either to the original writer or to the communicator. You'll observe I
am bound by promise to this care. If through my means any mischief
should arise, between this humane and that inhuman libertine, I should
think myself utterly inexcusable.
I subjoin a list of the papers or letters I shall enclose. You must
return them all when perused.*
* 1. A letter from Miss Montague, dated . . . . Aug. 1.
2. A copy of my answer . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 3.
3. Mr. Belford's Letter to me, which will show
you what my request was to him, and his
compliance with it; and the desired ex-
tracts from his friend's letters . . . . Aug. 3, 4.
4. A copy of my answer, with thanks; and re-
questing him to undertake the executor-
ship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 4.
5. Mr. Belford's acceptance of the trust . . Aug. 4.
6. Miss Montague's letter, with a generous
offer from Lord M. and the Ladies of that
family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 7.
7. Mr. Lovelace's to me . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 7.
8. Copy of mine to Miss Montague, in answer
to her's of the day before . . . . . . . Aug. 8.
9. Copy of my answer to Mr. Lovelace . . . . Aug. 11.
You will see by these several Letters, written and received in so little
a space of time (to say nothing of what I have received and written which
I cannot show you,) how little opportunity or leisure I can have for
writing my own story.
I am very much tired and fatigued--with--I don't know what--with writing,
I think--but most with myself, and with a situation I cannot help
aspiring to get out of, and above!
O my dear, the world we live in is a sad, a very sad world!----While
under our parents' protecting wings, we know nothing at all of it.
Book-learned and a scribbler, and looking at people as I saw them as
visiters or visiting, I thought I knew a great deal of it. Pitiable
ignorance!--Alas! I knew nothing at all!
With zealous wishes for your happiness, and the happiness of every one
dear to you, I am, and will ever be,
Your gratefully-affectionate
CL. HARLOWE.