I thought, till I received your affectionate and welcome letter, that I
had neither father, uncle, brother left; nor hardly a friend among my
former favourers of your sex. Yet, knowing you so well, and having no
reason to upbraid myself with a faulty will, I was to blame, (even
although I had doubted the continuance of your good opinion,) to decline
the trial whether I had forfeited it or not; and if I had, whether I
could not honourably reinstate myself in it.
But, Sir, it was owing to different causes that I did not; partly to
shame, to think how high, in my happier days, I stood in your esteem, and
how much I must be sunk in it, since those so much nearer in relation to
me gave me up; partly to deep distress, which makes the humbled heart
diffident; and made mine afraid to claim the kindred mind in your's,
which would have supplied to me in some measure all the dear and lost
relations I have named.
Then, so loth, as I sometimes was, to be thought to want to make a party
against those whom both duty and inclination bid me reverence: so long
trailed on between hope and doubt: so little my own mistress at one time;
so fearful of making or causing mischief at another; and not being
encouraged to hope, by your kind notice, that my application to you would
be acceptable:--apprehending that my relations had engaged your silence
at least*--THESE--But why these unavailing retrospections now?--I was to
be unhappy--in order to be happy; that is my hope!--Resigning therefore
to that hope, I will, without any further preamble, write a few lines,
(if writing to you, I can write but a few,) in answer to the subject of
your kind letter.
* The stiff visit this good divine was prevailed upon to make her, as
mentioned in Vol. II. Letter XXXI. (of which, however, she was too
generous to remind him) might warrant the lady to think that he had
rather inclined to their party, as to the parental side, than to her's.
Permit me, then, to say, That I believe your arguments would have been
unanswerable in almost every other case of this nature, but in that of
the unhappy Clarissa Harlowe.
It is certain that creatures who cannot stand the shock of public shame,
should be doubly careful how they expose themselves to the danger of
incurring private guilt, which may possibly bring them to it. But as to
myself, suppose there were no objections from the declining way I am in
as to my health; and supposing I could have prevailed upon myself to
appear against this man; were there not room to apprehend that the end so
much wished for by my friends, (to wit, his condign punishment,) would
not have been obtained, when it came to be seen that I had consented to
give him a clandestine meeting; and, in consequence of that, had been
weakly tricked out of living under one roof with him for several weeks;
which I did, (not only without complaint, but) without cause of
complaint?
Little advantage in a court, (perhaps, bandied about, and jested
profligately with,) would some of those pleas in my favour have been,
which out of court, and to a private and serious audience, would have
carried the greatest weight against him--Such, particularly, as the
infamous methods to which he had recourse--
It would, no doubt, have been a ready retort from every mouth, that I
ought not to have thrown myself into the power of such a man, and that I
ought to take for my pains what had befallen me.
But had the prosecution been carried on to effect, and had he even been
sentenced to death, can it be supposed that his family would not have had
interest enough to obtain his pardon, for a crime thought too lightly of,
though one of the greatest that can be committed against a creature
valuing her honour above her life?--While I had been censured as pursuing
with sanguinary views a man who offered me early all the reparation in
his power to make?
And had he been pardoned, would he not then have been at liberty to do as
much mischief as ever?
I dare say, Sir, such is the assurance of the man upon whom my unhappy
destiny threw me; and such his inveteracy to my family, (which would then
have appeared to be justified by their known inveteracy to him, and by
their earnest endeavours to take away his life;) that he would not have
been sorry to have had an opportunity to confront me, and my father,
uncles, and brother, at the bar of a court of justice, on such an
occasion. In which case, would not (on his acquittal, or pardon)
resentments have been reciprocally heightened? And then would my
brother, or my cousin Morden, have been more secure than now?
How do these conditions aggravate my fault! My motives, at first, were
not indeed blamable: but I had forgotten the excellent caution, which yet
I was not ignorant of, That we ought not to do evil that good may come of
it.
In full conviction of the purity of my heart, and of the firmness of my
principles, [Why may I not, thus called upon, say what I am conscious of,
and yet without the imputation of faulty pride; since all is but a duty,
and I should be utterly inexcusable, could I not justly say what I do?--
In this full conviction,] he has offered me marriage. He has avowed his
penitence: a sincere penitence I have reason to think it, though perhaps
not a christian one. And his noble relations, (kinder to the poor
sufferer than her own,) on the same conviction, and his own not
ungenerous acknowledgements, have joined to intercede with me to forgive
and accept of him. Although I cannot comply with the latter part of
their intercession, have not you, Sir, from the best rules, and from the
divinest example, taught me to forgive injuries?
The injury I have received from him is indeed of the highest nature, and
it was attended with circumstances of unmanly baseness and premeditation;
yet, I bless God, it has not tainted my mind; it has not hurt my morals.
No thanks indeed to the wicked man that it has not. No vile courses have
followed it. My will is unviolated. The evil, (respecting myself, and
not my friends,) is merely personal. No credulity, no weakness, no want
of vigilance, have I to reproach myself with. I have, through grace,
triumphed over the deepest machinations. I have escaped from him. I
have renounced him. The man whom once I could have loved, I have been
enabled to despise: And shall not charity complete my triumph? and shall
I not enjoy it?--And where would be my triumph if he deserved my
forgiveness?--Poor man! he has had a loss in losing me! I have the pride
to think so, because I think I know my own heart. I have had none in
losing him.
But I have another plea to make, which alone would have been enough (as I
presume) to answer the contents of your very kind and friendly letter.
I know, my dear and reverend friend, the spiritual guide and director of
my happier days! I know, that you will allow of my endeavour to bring
myself to this charitable disposition, when I tell you how near I think
myself to that great and awful moment, in which, and even in the ardent
preparation to which, every sense of indignity or injury that concerns
not the immortal soul, ought to be absorbed in higher and more important
contemplations.
Thus much for myself.
And for the satisfaction of my friends and favourers, Miss Howe is
solicitous to have all those letters and materials preserved, which will
set my whole story in a true light. The good Dr. Lewen is one of the
principal of those friends and favourers.
The warning that may be given from those papers to all such young
creatures as may have known or heard of me, may be of more efficacy to
the end wished for, as I humbly presume to think, than my appearance
could have been in a court of justice, pursuing a doubtful event, under
the disadvantages I have mentioned. And if, my dear and good Sir, you
are now, on considering every thing, of this opinion, and I could know
it, I should consider it as a particular felicity; being as solicitous
as ever to be justified in what I may in your eyes.
I am sorry, Sir, that your indisposition has reduced you to the necessity
of writing upon your pillow. But how much am I obliged to that kind and
generous concern for me, which has impelled you, as I may say, to write a
letter, containing so many paternal lines, with such inconvenience to
yourself!
May the Almighty bless you, dear and reverend Sir, for all your goodness
to me of long time past, as well as for that which engaged my present
gratitude! Continue to esteem me to the last, as I do and will venerate
you! And let me bespeak your prayers, the continuance, I should say, of
your prayers; for I doubt not, that I have always had them: and to them,
perhaps, has in part been owing (as well as to your pious precepts
instilled through my earlier youth) that I have been able to make the
stand I have made; although every thing that you prayed for has not been
granted to me by that Divine Wisdom, which knows what is best for its
poor creatures.
My prayers for you are, that it will please God to restore you to your
affectionate flock; and after as many years of life as shall be for his
service, and to your own comfort, give us a happy meeting in those
regions of blessedness, which you have taught me, as well by example, as
by precept, to aspire to!