I am very sorry for my pert letter to my uncle Harlowe. Yet I did not
intend it to be pert. People new to misfortune may be too easily moved
to impatience.
The fall of a regular person, no doubt, is dreadful and inexcusable. It is like the sin of apostacy. Would to Heaven, however, that I had had
the circumstances of mine inquired into!
If, Sir, I make myself worse than I am in my health, and better than I am
in my penitence, it is fit I should be punished for my double
dissimulation: and you have the pleasure of being one of my punishers.
My sincerity in both respects will, however, be best justified by the
event. To that I refer.--May Heaven give you always as much comfort in
reflecting upon the reprobation I have met with, as you seem to have
pleasure in mortifying a young creature, extremely mortified; and that
from a right sense, as she presumes to hope, of her own fault!
What you heard of me I cannot tell. When the nearest and dearest
relations give up an unhappy wretch, it is not to be wondered at that
those who are not related to her are ready to take up and propagate
slanders against her. Yet I think I may defy calumny itself, and
(excepting the fatal, though involuntary step of April 10) wrap myself in
my own innocence, and be easy. I thank you, Sir, nevertheless, for your
caution, mean it what it will.
As to the question required of me to answer, and which is allowed to be
too shocking either for a mother to put to a daughter, or a sister to a
sister; and which, however, you say I must answer;--O Sir!--And must I
answer?--This then be my answer:--'A little time, a much less time than
is imagined, will afford a more satisfactory answer to my whole family,
and even to my brother and sister, than I can give in words.'
Nevertheless, be pleased to let it be remembered, that I did not petition
for a restoration to favour. I could not hope for that. Nor yet to be
put in possession of any part of my own estate. Nor even for means of
necessary subsistence from the produce of that estate--but only for a
blessing; for a last blessing!
And this I will farther add, because it is true, that I have no wilful
crime to charge against myself: no free living at bed and at board, as
you phrase it!
Why, why, Sir, were not other inquiries made of me, as well as this
shocking one?--inquiries that modesty would have permitted a mother or
sister to make; and which, if I may be excused to say so, would have been
still less improper, and more charitable, to have been made by uncles,
(were the mother forbidden, or the sister not inclined, to make them,)
than those they have made.
Although my humble application has brought upon me so much severe
reproach, I repent not that I have written to my mother, (although I
cannot but wish that I had not written to my sister;) because I have
satisfied a dutiful consciousness by it, however unanswered by the
wished-for success. Nevertheless, I cannot help saying, that mine is
indeed a hard fate, that I cannot beg pardon for my capital errors
without doing it in such terms as shall be an aggravation of the offence.
But I had best leave off, lest, as my full mind, I find, is rising to my
pen, I have other pardons to beg as I multiply lines, where none at all
will be given.
God Almighty bless, preserve, and comfort my dear sorrowing and
grievously offended father and mother!--and continue in honour, favour,
and merit, my happy sister!--May God forgive my brother, and protect him
from the violence of his own temper, as well as from the destroyer of his
sister's honour!--And may you, my dear uncle, and your no less now than
ever dear brother, my second papa, as he used to bid me call him, be
blessed and happy in them, and in each other!--And, in order to this, may
you all speedily banish from your remembrance, for ever,
The unhappy
CLARISSA HARLOWE!